This is Free Thought Radio on Air America with co-host Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor,

Irreverent Views, News, music, and interview. 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.

A warm hello to all you hellbound infidels.

I'm Annie Laurie Gaylor.

We're broadcasting and streaming live from Air America.

And I'm Dan Barker, your friendly neighborhood atheist.

And we survived another April Fool's Day. We atheists made it through

another one of those, and now we're headlong into spring. Free Thought Radio is brought to you by the

Freedom from Religion Foundation, the nation's largest group, a fast-growing group of atheists and agnostics,

working to keep state and church separate and to show the world that we non-believers are here too,

and we have reasons for why we believe and why we don't believe.

Later in the show, we're going to talk about something very tragic,

the consequences of faith healing.

But it reminds me of a joke about faith healing.

Oral Roberts, you know who he is, the faith healer, Orr Roberts. or Roberts. Okay. He died, went to heaven, and there's this long line, but St. Peter came out and said, Oral, come up to the front of the line. They cut all the red tape. They brought him right in, and he says, oh, this is first class treatment, you know. They opened the gates. He just walks right in and they said, forget all that. We're going to take you right to the throne room of God. So he goes right in. He goes up the big steps right to the throne. And there's God at the throne. And God says, Oral Roberts, I am so glad that you are here. I have this pain in my lower back. Okay. And speaking of a moment of levity, later in the show, we'll celebrate the April birthday

of irreverent songwriter Tom Lair

by listening to a performance

where he sings his own classic song, Vatican Rag.

The subject of our interview today

...