This is Free Thought Radio on Air America with your hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor.

Imagine there's no heaven.

It's easy if you try.

No hell below us.

Above us only sky. Greetings of the people Up us Greetings of the winter solstice season and greetings to teddy bear lovers everywhere, even those whose teddy bears might be named Muhammad.

I'm Annie Laurie Galore. Welcome to Freethought Radio. Free Thought Radio is broadcasting and streaming live from Air America.

And I'm Dan Barker, your co-host, your friendly neighborhood atheist, a preacher who saw the light.

Free Thought Radio is brought to you by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the nation's largest

association of atheists and agnostics.

This radio program is radio for none of the above.

Get it? The above? None of the above.

And we're delighted to announce that we'll be talking with Philip Pullman this week.

In a few minutes, the distinguished children's author from the United Kingdom, the man whose book, The Golden Compass, has been

turned into the children's movie of the season. It's an extravaganza, $180 million in huge

special effects, impressive actors, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig. We'll talk more about the

movie in a second, but Dan, for a quick change pace, and this has nothing to do with free thought,

you had an interesting experience this week here in Madison, Wisconsin, where we're

broadcasting from. Well, in my other job, I play professional piano, and I have been doing that

for years and years. In fact,

when I was a Christian, I had played for a lot of Christian personalities, like Pat Boone, which I guess

I'm not so proud of now. I played for Jimmy Roberts of the Lawrence Welk Show and a lot of other people.

I actually got to work with Thorough Ravenscroft. You know who that is? The voice of Tony the Tiger,

...