The Atheist Experience - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I am a former evangelical Christian turned agnostic. This show has been instrumental in breaking down the things I have faith in and whether or not I have good reason for believing those things. It gracefully handles ignorance, false info & unsupported “facts” & “arguments”. I’ve been delighted to hear several callers bring up arguments I once held to be “evidence” for my beliefs. The hosts have carefully & intelligently made mincemeat of them all. I want to shout out Jenna Belk. I recently listened to an older episode that she cohosted. A gentleman called in with some absolutely revolting things to say about LGBTQ+ people being dangerous to society & that they were taking away the rights of Christians. Jenna handled this call with class, grace & love. She didn’t yell, she didn’t insult the caller or become angry. Instead she asked more questions & asked the caller to question his problematic views & whether they comported with reality. I applaud her. I’m LGBTQ+ and I don’t know that I would have been able to hold my cool. If your approach to this show is to stick to your guns no matter what evidence is presented, this show will make you angry. If you approach this show with a willingness to be wrong, to say “I don’t know” & to be challenged this show could change your life for the better as it did mine. Thank you to everyone for your diligence, hard work, patience to keep having these conversations & continued fight to bring logic & critical thinking skills to the world.

Virtually every host of this brilliant show brings something to the table. I’ve been an atheist for over 55 years now and greatly appreciate how the Atheist Experience uses such amazing logic and reason to expose all religions and their holy books for the nonsense and harm they foist upon the world. I’ve added this podcast to my list of game changers a year ago and can’t get enough.

I’ve listened to at least 300 episodes of this show throughout the years and I’ve experienced a decline in the quality of hosts and the quality of topics of conversation. Half of the show has become algorithm-focused engagement bait and poorly-timed advertisements. The hosts often resort to gish galloping and arrogance—not letting callers get a word in edgewise and/or pre-judging what their point is without giving them a chance to make it. What happened to actual conversation that tries to get to the truth? There are some good hosts and the occasional good episode, but it’s way too hit or miss to waste your time on.

I love sitting and listening to the Cross Examiner, amazing name by the way, just the breakdown and how he talks with each person. The fact that he’s not talking at them but engaging in a conversation and always wants to remind them to break it down to a level that anyone can also follow is just 👌 I feel like all of the hosts overall do a really good job and have amazing knowledge and different experiences to bring to the table that really helped with talking and understanding other people. I do get frustrated with Armin sometimes though, I feel like a lot of it is anger and yelling at the person and cutting them off as they’re trying to talk so I tend to fast-forward those sometimes or just skip over them completely if it really feels like that’s how the entire episode is going to be. But I love getting to hear his knowledge and take on Islam

Used to love this podcast when it was about religion, spirituality, and dogma. Many former hosts are no longer on the podcast and the quality has suffered in my opinion. Lately it seems to be a mix of discussing religion and spirituality with a lot of talk about sex and gender. I thought there was another ACA show dedicated specifically to the topics of sex and gender. However it seems to come up a lot on this podcast and when a caller doesn’t agree with the hosts it seems that the hosts get defensive, cut the caller off, and often times end the call. The hosts seem to push their own ideas on the subjects of sex and gender as though their opinion is the only acceptable opinion. Those that hold a different opinion are met with hostility. The hosts often chastise believers and label them as “closed minded” but on the matter of gender and sexuality the hosts often respond in ways that seem very close minded. I still listen but not nearly as often.

I’ve listened to Axp since MD days. I enjoyed his bombastic nature but I also enjoy the more caring and friendly turn the podcast took when he left. I used to listen while going to sleep at night but lately with ads disrupting the flow every few minutes it is not enjoyable to listen to whether awake or going to sleep.