Geeks Without God

Hello friends! It is a new year and what better time to recap some of our favorite things from the year gone by? We could have focused on the negative but we totally didn’t! We talked about the cool geeky stuff that made us happy when we weren’t thinking about things that made us unhappy. Things we aren’t going to talk about in this intro text or in the podcast itself!

This week we are joined by Star Wars superfan Greg Parks to discuss the latest Disney Plus Star Wars installment – “Andor!” The show revolves around Cassian Andor, whom you might remember from “Rogue One.” If you don’t remember him from “Rogue One,” stop reading this and go watch “Rogue One.” Now, if you haven’t seen “Andor,” we are going to spoil the shit out of it so you should go watch that because it is fantastic and may be some of the best Star Wars ever. Yes, you heard us.

This week, we discuss the Netflix Original film “The Wonder” starring Florence Pugh. The film is about a young girl in Ireland who may be a miracle and the woman who is sent to help determine if that is the case. Aside from a really weird framing structure that begins and ends the film, it is a good movie but more importantly, it provides some fertile ground for discussion of how fanaticism can poison people to the point of doing real harm. We do spoil the movie so you may want to watch it first but if you are just interested in atheists talking about religious themes, that’s what we are talking about for the most part!

It may be a couple days after Christmas but we are atheists so who cares about such things? Windy Bowlsby, a HUGE Christmas movie fan, joins us to talk about the newest crop of Holiday movies and specials. We spent a lot of time discussing the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday special (with KEVIN BACOON), Spirited (A new take on “A Christmas Carol”) and Violent Night (which is AMAZEBALLS). We also touch on a new holiday rom-com called Hollywood Christmas and the Santa Claus themed slasher “Christmas Bloody Christmas.” Happy whatever you celebrate!

This week, we talk about the newest Knives Out Mystery: Glass Onion! Rian Johnson’s newest installment featuring Daniel Craig as Beniot Blanc, the world’s greatest detective, is pretty amazing but it is also super easy to spoil. So don’t listen until you’ve watched the movie. Trust us. You’ll be happy to you watched it.

This week, we have returning guest Duck Washington join us to talk about Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a movie that seems to be made to help the viewers themselves process the grief they feel over the loss of Chadwick Boseman/T’Challa. We spend a lot of time talking about the antagonist of the film and beware – there are many spoilers to be had isn the podcast! There’s also a weird gap in the middle where we had internet issues so be listening for that!

This week we are joined by our friend and Editor of Tor.com, Lee Harris! Lee is from England and talking to us from England because we live in the future! Lee is also raising his kids in a secular household so Lee and Tim talk about the challenges and rewards of trying to teach their kids about a world without god while living in a world where god is everywhere.

This week, we are recording at Omegacon Fall 2022. As is our custom, we spend the weekend in Siren, Wisconsin playing games and we get together at the end of the weekend to discuss the games we played and enjoyed. We played a few games together, enjoyed some new Kickstarter finds, and Tim really enjoyed Phantom Ink, which is sort of Mysterious crossed with Codenames. Listen to the episode and maybe get some ideas about games you’d like to try!

This week, we discuss “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” a brand new biopic about the comedy icon that is available for free on Roku. Daniel Radcliffe stars as Al Yankovic and Rainn Wilson is Dr. Demento in this film that has almost nothing to do with the real Weird Al Yankovic. We’d spoil it for you but if you know anything about Al’s actual life, you will be completely unprepared for this film. Don’t dare to be stupid and miss this film!

This week, we are joined by our friend Schramm to discuss Kusoge. For those not in the know, Kusoge literally translates as “shitty games” and Schramm is a huge fan of the…um…genre? Of course the classic example is the E.T. video game, which gets brought up for the second time in as many months but we learn about other equally bad games and the people, like Shramm, who play tournaments dedicated to them.

This week, we take a spoiler filled look at She-Hulk on Disney Plus! The newest Marvel series takes aim at toxic masculinity, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and fandom in general. It’s the first Marvel series that feels more like a sitcom than an “event.” We all loved the show. We also read the FINAL FIVE ANSWERS we currently have! Who will answer our questions next?

This week, we are joined by guest Nels Lennes, who is a founding member of HUGE improv theater in Minneapolis. Nels joins us to talk about infinity. Specifically, we are talking about the concept of infinity and how finite beings such as ourselves make assumptions about how we can understand it. Obviously, as non believers, we have some thoughts about those who may suggest they do understand the infinite. Nels also gets to answer our five questions!

This week, we have Nathan Gerber as our guest to discuss Overwatch and Overwatch League. There has been some drama surrounding Overwatch and Blizzard entertainment and Nate will guide us through at least some of it. We also discuss the large amount of Overwatch Porn you can find on the internet! But no Overwatch II porn. Except…well…maybe not.

This week we are returning to a topic we discussed almost ten years ago – atheist comic book characters. In one of our first episodes, we asked whether Batman was an atheist. Now we look at several characters who are canonically atheists and ask how they can be atheists in a universe where magic and even hell are real things? And if we were in a comic book universe, would we still be atheists?

It is October and that means our thoughts turn to the best holiday of the year – Halloween! We are going to talk about our favorite Halloween movies and by that we mean movies that are set during Halloween or maybe just make us think of Halloween. We talk about some classic favorites as well as some newer scary and not so scary movies that we think about during this ghoulish holiday season!

This week, we are once again joined by our friend Tony Miller! Tony works at Renaissance Festivals around the country as Shamus the Insulter but at the end of each day, he becomes Question Man! He will answer any question asked truthfully and he is talking to us about what he does when faced with questions from evangelicals, anti abortionists, and outright racists. It’s a great exploration of how to get people to think when all they are really looking for is a fight. He also gets a crack at our newest set of five questions!

This week, we are joined by frequent guest Byron Miller, one of the proprietors of Broomhilde at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. He has us talking about racism and representation in geekdom and more specifically, outage over black elves and mermaids. Why are fans such assholes? Is it because people are assholes or are fans just worse? Byron also gets to tackle our new five questions. Special cameo by Ronn Bauman.

This week, we are rejoined by our most regular guest, Ronn Bauman! Back in Minnesota for a short while, he joins us to talk about a number of topics that he has on his mind at the moment. This includes dogs being assholes and the death of the only English monarch any of us have ever known. Ronn also gets the opportunity to answer our new five questions. Special cameo appearance by Byron Miller!

This week is a new set of Geeky Boners in 3D! Nick has a new 3D printer and he has been having a great time with it. Molly is learning another language and may or may not have spoken something Spanish speakers would understand (because Nick and Tim didn’t). Tim has been watching a British comedy series on YouTube and now wants to try to do it in America with more success than the first time it was made in America!

This week, we are joined by our friend Mike Deneen, who is a Twitch streamer. We all feel like we are maybe just a little bit too old to be into streaming but we talk to Mike about it and get some insight into what “Retro” games are. Fortunately, some of the games Mike identifies as “Retro” are games Tim actually remembers playing when he was a kid. Mike will actually be doing a bunch of streaming during September including possibly ET the Video game! Check out his Twitch stream here!