This is Free Thought Radio with co-host Stan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Irreverent Views, News, Music, and Interviews.

Imagine there's no heaven.

It's easy if you try.

No hell below us, Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today.

Hi, I'm Annie Laurie Gaylor, and happy February and Black History Month.

And remember, nothing fails like prayer.

That's the immortal advice of my mother, Anne Gaylor, the principal founder of the Freedom from Religion Foundation,

and we'll talk a little bit more about why I'm bringing up prayer in a moment.

My co-host, Dan Barker's winging his way to Texas as I speak to do a debate on the existence of the God of the Bible at a church for a Christian apologetics conference. I told him he'll literally be Daniel in the Lion's Den. He enjoys that

as a former evangelist who saw the light and became an atheist. Dan and I are co-presidents of the Freedom from Religion

Foundation, and this is the February 5th, 2026 episode of Free Thought Radio. We're recording from the

Stephen Ull-friendly atheist studio in Freethought Hall, our national headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin.

If you're not a regular listener, you might like to know that Freethought Radio is the weekly production of the Freedom from Religion Foundation,

and the shows entering our 21st year of broadcasting and podcasting, that 20th anniversary is later this spring.

But FFRF does so much more than this show and podcast

where the nation's largest association of free thinkers, e.g., atheists, agnostic, skeptics,

secularists, whatever you like to call yourself, with more than almost 42,000 members,

and we're working diligently to keep religion out of government and social policy

just like our Constitution intended. Sign up today at ffherf.org slash donate. Also, while Dan is out,

I should announce for FFRFers who regularly attended conventions or paid attention to

chapter activism or social media,

that we have very sad news. Darrow Barker, Dan's brother, a state church and prethought

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