Episode #462
Skeptics with a K
Skeptic Media Limited
4.8 • 924 Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Marsh looks at research from last year which claims that young people are flocking to churches in search of meaning. Meanwhile, Alice has been out driving and Marsh's life turns into an 1970s sitcom.
You can find all the details on the European Skeptics Congress at escliverpool.org. Tickets for the event will go on sale on May 6th at 10 AM UK Time, priced at the early bird rate of £140, or £120 for members of ECSO-affiliated organisations.
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Mixed and edited by Morgan Clarke.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It is Thursday the 30th of April, 2026, and you are listening to Skeptics with a K, |
| 0:12.8 | the podcast for science, reason, and critical thinking. |
| 0:16.1 | Skeptics with a K is produced by Skeptic Media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic Society, |
| 0:21.4 | a non-profit organization for the promotion of scientific skepticism on Merseyside around the UK and |
| 0:26.1 | internationally. I'm your host, Mike Hall. With me today is Marsh. Hello. And Alice. |
| 0:31.4 | Hello. When it comes to religion, the UK is a bit of an unusual place, I always think. |
| 0:37.0 | Because we're a country that has an official religion. |
| 0:40.7 | We have a state religion. |
| 0:42.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:42.7 | We are a country whose monarch is literally the official head of that religion |
| 0:46.6 | as appointed by God via the medium of Henry VIII, essentially. |
| 0:51.7 | Yet we're a country that is overwhelmingly secular. |
| 0:54.9 | We're a highly secular country. |
| 0:57.0 | Even though you can turn on the BBC on a Sunday morning, |
| 0:59.6 | and you will see an extended show singing songs of praise to the God |
| 1:05.1 | that as a country we officially believe in, but most of us don't. |
| 1:10.0 | Yes. |
| 1:10.8 | It's a very odd kind of thing. |
| 1:12.9 | The church is explicitly by law, unseperated from the state. |
| 1:17.5 | And yet we're a country where politicians who profess their religious beliefs are viewed as a bit weird. |
| 1:22.7 | Like Jacob Rees-Mogg goes on about being a Catholic, you're like, ah, bit weird, mate. |
| 1:26.7 | Theresa May, she talked about how some of her leadership and her political, like, philosophy was influenced by the fact that she grew up as a vicar's daughter. Mm-hmm. That didn't cause people to warm to her at all. Tony Blair famously hid his religious beliefs until he'd left office and never really said anything about what they were because he didn't want to be seen as... |
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