Ramadan at 30,000 Feet… They Called the Cops
Thank God I'm Atheist
TGIA Media
4.7 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A man quietly says a prayer on a flight, and it ends with police, a diversion, and a wave of panic. What should have been an ordinary moment of religious observance during Ramadan was treated like a security threat, exposing how quickly fear and bias can escalate at 30,000 feet. In this episode, we break down what actually happened, why it spiraled, and what it reveals about the double standard around public expressions of faith.
Also this week: Trump leans into "bad genetics" rhetoric that sounds a lot like eugenics, Texas rolls out a "religious freedom" voucher program that somehow excludes Muslim schools, and a new legal challenge turns abortion bans into a religious freedom issue. We also look at a bizarre Bible-reading marathon featuring conservative heavyweights, and a papal critique of war that raises big questions about moral accountability. Then in the final segment, we dig into whether a progressive Christian like James Talarico might be part of the answer to Christian nationalism, or just a different version of the same problem.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody. |
| 0:18.8 | Hi, friends. |
| 0:19.9 | Well, from way too beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah. |
| 0:23.6 | It's thank God I'm atheist. |
| 0:24.9 | Where we, a couple of silly atheists, just try to hold on to our hats as this world keeps on a spinning. |
| 0:35.8 | I'm Frank Feldman. |
| 0:46.1 | And I'm Dan Beecher. yeah sorry that was after after your little pep talk before the show Dan you guys you have to understand we just recorded the Frank and Dan diary for this week and it is ble. And I think you should probably sign up to be a patron |
| 0:58.1 | just to hear how dark. It doesn't, this is abnormal. I must declare. It is not normal for our |
| 1:06.0 | Franken Dan diary. It's usually an upbeat fun time. Yeah. And it just, it got a like genuinely |
| 1:12.7 | apocalyptic. It was bleak. So, but anyway, so you try like, be careful, Dan. You |
| 1:20.7 | don't want to slip back into that mode. No, we're going to be, we're going to have fun. We're |
| 1:25.3 | going to have a joyful happy time. Anyway, coming up on the show today, we're going to be, we're going to have fun. We're going to have a joyful happy time. |
| 1:27.7 | Anyway, coming up on the show today, we're going to be talking about, uh, the phenomenon, the phenom. |
| 1:34.8 | James Telerico. |
| 1:36.2 | Can I call him Telerico? |
| 1:38.5 | I just want to. |
| 1:39.5 | I've never called him that, but I, uh, it just sounds fun. |
| 1:43.6 | It's a, it's a great pronunciation yeah this is the uh very |
| 1:48.1 | christian um senatorial but also very candidate democrat very democrat uh candidate for senate in Texas. |
| 2:03.7 | Somebody who we think for the first time, |
| 2:06.3 | there might be a chance, in a very long time, |
| 2:08.9 | there might be a chance of actually electing a Democrat to the U.S. Senate from Texas. |
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