Atheists to get their own TV channel. This is a GREAT idea, said no religious person ever.

Courtesy of The Telegraph:

 ....next week sees the launch of America's first dedicated TV channel for non-believers. Atheist TV launches in New York and will broadcast 24 hours a day via Roku, the internet streaming service that allows people to watch internet-based channels on their TVs. Roku only has seven million subscribers, but anyone can watch it streamed online at www.atheists.tv 

Free-thinkers, as atheists style themselves, remain almost bizarrely under-represented in American public life and discourse. There is not a single openly declared atheist among the 535 members of Congress, and it is conventional electoral wisdom that the President of the United States has to be a believer. 

The profile of atheism is very slowly starting to change, with an increasingly vocal atheist community, including high-profile adherents like Brad Pitt and Mark Zuckerberg. Even so, non-belief, is still a very long way from acceptance.

The channel is backed by American Atheists, the civil rights organisation founded in 1963 that takes a pretty confrontational approach to defending separation of church and state, including fighting a legal battle against the "9/11 miracle cross" being placed in the museum commemorating the September 11 attacks 

The organisers tell me the channel will broadcast 24 hours, mostly with licenses and pre-recorded content, such as documentaries by the Richard Dawkins Foundation as well as a talk show titled "Atheist Viewpoint" and a call-in show, "Atheist Experience". 

I don't know what I'm going to enjoy more watching more, interesting thought provoking programming featuring the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and other freethinkers, or simply watching all of the conservatives and fundamentalist heads exploding.

I think they should dedicate an entire day to an "Inherit the Wind" marathon.

Another day could be dedicated to airing clips of religious apologists getting hitchslapped.

And perhaps yet another to  George Carlin comedy routines.

I'd watch that.

This may seem a trivial thing, and perhaps it is. But it is yet another sign for Atheists that it is starting to be okay for us to come out of the closet and proudly proclaim our emancipation from the chains of religious intolerance.