The Scathing Atheist

by Noah Lugeons

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new line of Christian feminine hygiene products, Penta-Douche.  Remember, when you have that not-so-fresh feeling, it’s because you’re unclean in the eyes of God.  So when you’re being shunned for seven days, as is proscribed in all of the Abrahamic faiths, be sure to use our new Adam & Summer’s Eve brand.

Penta-douche; because women are cursed and responsible for the fall of man.

And now, the Scathing Atheist

Intro:

It’s Thursday, It’s April 18^th and due to an increase in promiscuity, Allah has cut it back to 54 virgins per Jihadee.

I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from scandalous New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week’s episode,

• Pope Frankie names a group of 8 mini-bosses you’ll have to defeat before entering his lair,
• Carl from Post Rapture Looting joins me for some atheist Easter Egg hunting where we look for eggs we know aren’t there,
• And Representative Joe Barton moves to tackle global warming by first gathering two of every unclean species and seven of every clean one

But first, the Diatribe.

Diatribe:

A lot of theists have trouble accepting that we really don’t believe in god.  They like to think that deep down we’re just suppressing our faith but when we find ourselves in a really tough situation, we’ll revert to our programming, we’ll drop to our knees and we’ll start praying.  After all, when they look at the world, they see god.  So how could we look at the same world and not see him at all?

Similarly, a lot of atheists have trouble accepting that theists really believe in god.  We like to think that deep down they know good and damn well that it’s all a myth propagated by power-hungry shamans and that when the shit hits the fan, they’ll abandon their superstitions and turn to a secular solution.  After all, when we look at the world, we don’t see a god.  How could they look at the same world and see one?

Clearly part of this is just a lack of intellectual empathy.  They think we’ve got a ‘god shaped hole’ in our hearts and we think they’ve got a ‘reason shaped hole’ in their heads.  It’s a defense mechanism like the one where we demonize the opposite side of the political spectrum.   It’s harder to Accept that they’ve looked at the evidence and come to a contrary conclusion than it is to create a caricature of their opinions and pretend that they’re all heartless or stupid.

And I suppose a lot of people would tell me to leave it there.  I said something bad about one side and then I said something bad about the other and now can’t we all just get along?

But I think it’s too neat and tidy to write it all off as a self-delusion.  After all, when I listen to somebody tell me that they believe that god’s in heaven and Jesus loves them and grandma and Sparky are at the pearly gates waiting for them, I don’t wonder how they believe it.  I wonder why they’re not in a bigger hurry to die.

If I ask them, they’ll tell me that god has a plan for them on earth and that they’d miss their kids or their grandkids or their friends or whatever, but if you balance the time we spend on earth with the eternity they expect to spend in heaven, it’s an insignificant blink of the eye.  Ten billion years from now your grandkids won’t even remember that you weren’t there while they were learning to poop.

And why aren’t they more eager for their loved ones to die?  It seems to me that once mom has arthritis or even a persistent headache she’d be better off in heaven where she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.  How selfish is it for me to hope she lingers on in minor pain for decades just so that I can have her around to babysit the kids?  Hell, it seems like as soon as your folks start hitting financial troubles you’d be hoping they’d die so they could move into that mansion god has for them in heaven.

I’ve watched friends grieve the loss of a loved one; both theist and atheist.  And I can tell you from a statistically insignificant, unblinded anecdote that one didn’t seem to have any easier a time with it than the other.  Somehow the person who professed to believe that their beloved was living in a mansion with a golden driveway in paradise was every bit as bereaved as the person who professed to believe that their loved one no longer existed at all.  How could that possibly be?

When I say that I don’t think theists believe their own bullshit, it’s not something I’m basing on my own psychology, it’s something I’m basing on their behavior.  If you honestly believed, all the way to your core, that you were going to meet the people you lose in a perfect world in the clouds, how could you possibly mourn their passing?  How could a funeral be anything but a joyous occasion?

The religious dingbats of the world like to express their disbelief in atheists with one of the most pervasive and insulting clichés ever coined to smear rationalists; “There are no atheists in a foxhole.”

The idea is that even we heathens will turn to god if things get bad enough.  Included, of course, is the unspoken assumption that when we experience this instantaneous conversion, it’ll be their god we’ll start praying to.  It never seems to occur to them that if that’s how it worked, all the Christians in the foxhole would start praying to Allah, Shiva and Odin just to be on the safe side.

But I’d like to submit the opposite.  When you’re in the proverbial foxhole, myths and superstitions are cold comfort.  When the bombs are raining down, nobody’s saying “Shit, I sure hope that one hits us!” and if they were, we’d rightly assume that they’d lost their fucking minds.  I submit that when we’re facing the uncertainty of our own deaths, we are all atheists by default.

Contrary to the adage, when it comes down to it, there are no theists in a foxhole.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is my kemosabe Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to Lone Range?

In our lead story tonight, California legislators are subtly suggesting that perhaps the Boy Scouts of America should stop being bigots.  A proposed law would strip the Boy Scouts of their tax exempt status along with any other nonprofit that excludes members based on sexual orientation, gender identity or religious affiliation.

There’s been a real outcry surrounding this proposal and strangely enough it’s not because this wasn’t done decades ago.  How common sense is this proposal?

• I’d like to read a quote from christiannewswire.com: “Should SB 323 become law it would break new ground in using the tax system to punish those who are disliked by LGBT activists.”  Those who are disliked by LGBT activists are called bigots.  So the the tax system punishes bigots.  Is that unreasonable?
• I’d like a tax system that punishes all sorts of shitty people.  That’s actually the whole point of certain taxes.  To discourage things with negative externalities, like the actions and opinions of the ignorant.

Yeah, hard to imagine why religious groups would be threatened by a law that strips tax exemptions from groups that institutionalize discrimination, huh?

While most of the major media coverage has focused on the gay stuff, this law would also force the Boy Scouts, and any other group seeking tax exemption, to allow the dreaded atheists to walk amongst them.

• Much like a black person disrupts the front of a bus, an atheist clearly disrupts a lesson in the tying of a bowline knot.

• What’s their problem?

The bill is saying, you can still be an asshole, and you can still have your asshole club.

The government just happens to offer extra credit on the test for clubs that are not assholes . . . So you assholes don’t get those particular bonus points.

• We’re bending over backwards to be tolerant of assholes.  We’re just taking away the asshole subsidy they’ve been getting.  And we’ll give it right back if they stop being assholes.

California pushes bill to end State tax exemptions for Boy Scouts because of anti-gay, anti-atheist policies:

–          From a real news source: http://news.yahoo.com/calif-tax-bill-seeks-punish-scouts-gay-ban-193252719.html

–          From Xian Newswire: http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/2250071876.html

From the “Should we call it the Reform Council or the Council on Reform” Department, the Pope has assigned 8 cardinals to advise him on thinking about talking about thinking about reform.  While major media headlines like “Pope Makes First Big Decision Naming Advisory Board” and “Pope Makes Tough Decisions as Reforms Loom” would suggest that he’d actually done something, the actual meat of this story is downright vegan.

So Pope Frankfurter has commissioned an advisory panel to look into overhauling the Vatican Bureaucracy.  Vatican officials point out that it’s been a quarter century since the bureaucracy was updated, somehow missing the irony that it’s been two millennia since any-damn-thing else about their church was updated.

• Yeah their literature could use a few retractions.  Maybe a new edition, in light of all this new shit.
• I heard the advisory panel has a small delegation scouring the woods to confirm or disconfirm the presence of bear shit.
• Maybe the panel can also look into whether there will ever be some way to create individual cross-sections that divide up an entire loaf of bread into convenient pieces.

But the collective media cock-guzzle around Pope Frank-n’-Beans continues and everything he does from washing a foot to wiping lefty is dutifully reported as proof that he’s a real reformer and things are gonna be different under his watch.  He’s not like that old creepy pedophile-protecting Palpatine lookalike.  He’s an old creepy, pedophile-protecting Droopy Dog lookalike.

• He reminds me of Elmer Fudd, but with a sillier hat . . . doing the “Kill the Wabbit” song to Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”.
• Sidenote: I’m thoroughly impressed by the lefty wiping.  I tried to jerk it lefty one time, and I suffered an elbow injury and an eye injury.

Pope names 8 advisors to think about talking about thinking about reform: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-taps-cardinals-advise-governing-reform-124612388.html

And in earth-shattering international news, women are wearing man-clothes at the Western Wall.  This news comes to us from the 1300s via modern day Jerusalem.  Several female activists were arrested at the holy site last Thursday for wearing man-shawls and praying out loud.

• The man-shawls don’t help the sexual roles platform, and they definitely muddle the homophobia stance a little.

And as much as my liberal heart wants to stand behind the women involved in this protest, my rational mind says, “you’re trying to pray to an imaginary being whose very existence was largely manufactured to oppress your gender”, so it’s hard for me to rally behind them too much.  If you want to advance women in these silly cultures, leave all the talking-to-walls to the men and maybe try reading or something.  Just a suggestion.

• Yeah, why the hell do they want to go there or do that in the first place?  They must have got Tom Sawyered.
• “Don’t even think about wearing that man-shawl and whitewashing this prayer wall with me.”

Clash with religious authorities at the Western Wall because women are wearing the “man shawls” http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/12/battle-of-the-sexes-at-western-wall/

And in “No-when-to-fold-em” news, a NY nun has admitted stealing more than an eighth of a million dollars to cover her gambling expenses.  She now faces six months in prison, which, for the record, I would do in a heartbeat for $128,000.  I mean seriously?  Six months?

But before you go thinking the sentencing was light because she was a 68 year-old nun, I should mention that her attorney says she’s really, really sorry.  And if we were more like Jesus we wouldn’t be so worried about the past.

• I guess you gotta support the habit somehow.

Vinnie “Knuckles” Malone, a source close to the case was quoted as saying, “That bitch just lucky she still has all her fingers.  Nun or not, I’ll fuck that whore up.”

• The Knuckles brand of justice sounds surprisingly well-informed on the 1st Amendment.

NY nun admits to stealing $130,000 from churches to pay for her gambling addiction: http://news.yahoo.com/gambling-nun-pleads-guilty-theft-york-churches-224339427.html

And earning the honor of the stupidest politician in the national spotlight this week is Texas Republican… and I’d just like to point out that those two words very often precede the naming of the stupidest politician in the national spotlight on any given week…

• Texas Republicans making political decisions, are like the youngest brother in a big family getting to choose what everyone has for dinner on their birthday.  You end up having to appease them once in awhile, so you try to take them seriously that one day,  and they’re like “Deep Fried Chocolate Baloney Hot Pockets!!!”

Anyway, Texas Republican Joe Barton was trying to justify a bill to force Obama’s hand on the Keystone pipeline.  And atheists, I’m sure, have differing opinions on the issue of this controversial energy project.  But I think we can all agree that it takes a class A jackass to use the issue to write off climate change on the grounds of God’s predilection for flooding the whole world.

• The gradual melting of polar ice caps would be the lamest Great Flood ever.  Not exactly an awe-inspiring demonstration of omnipotence.
• “Does the water look a couple inches higher to you?  That’s it . . . I’m devoting my life to Jesus.”
• Decent amount of slavery in the bible, so that must not have been a man-made phenomenon either.  Just pious plantation owners fulfilling their destiny.  Somebody’s gotta get enslaved.

Now, if I quoted him directly, I’d probably get accused of making it sound stupider than it actually sounded, so here it is, in all it’s glorious fucktardary: [SOUNDCLIP]

Rep. Joe Barton cites the great flood as evidence that global warming is not man made: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/10/rep-joe-barton-biblical-great-flood-shows-climate-change-isnt-man-made/ (grab soundclip on this one, too!)

And finally tonight, the intrepid radio host and fundamentalist activist Bryan Fischer has uncovered our secret, homofascist plot to make Christians wear Christian badges like ghetto Jews in Nazi Germany.

• We ended up going ahead with that plot?  I was thinking thorny crowns though.  The sleeve patches are a little too subtle.
• Didn’t Fischer seem strangely preoccupied with the design of the Christian ghetto patch?

Our nefarious strategy had managed to stay so well-hidden over the years that not even the key players instrumental in its implementation knew about it, but despite this nearly preternatural level of secrecy, Fischer’s mind was able to twist through the various corridors of our labyrinth and figure out our plans even before we did.  And he did so amidst the following random assemblage of gibberish: [SOUNDCLIP]

• Of course, you never want to hear about a holocaust.  Of course.  But if another one HAD TO HAPPEN, I’d say Christians are the logical victims.  Hold on, what am I talking about?  Muslims, obviously.  What, it’s a fucking roast!

• I’d say that the most surprising thing I learned when I was researching this story is that spellcheck has no issues at all with the word “homofascist”.

Bryan Fischer discovers our homofascist plot to make Christians wear badges like ghetto Jews: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/12/bryan-fischer-homofascists-will-treat-christians-like-jews-in-the-holocaust/ (grab soundclip!!)

That does it for headlines, when we come back, Carl from the Post Rapture Looting Podcast will join us to discuss all the fun he had over Easter Weekend.

Skit:

Normally I save emails for the end of the show but I got one from a celebrity the other day and it got me really excited.  I’m not sure if I he would want me to mention his name, but you know what?  Fuck it, I’m pretty stoked, I’m gonna go ahead and tell you.  It was from God.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  It’s an email and anybody could say there were God, but the way I figure it, I’ve got exactly as much evidence that this email was written by god as Christians have that the bible was, so I’m rolling with it.

Anyway, it’s pretty cool, so I thought I’d share it with you:

Dear Noah,

This email is intended as official notice that you have been damned.

This action was taken against you by me, the Lord Almighty on April 13th in the year of our me 2013 for trespasses including, but not limited to:

• Taking my name in vain while suggesting that I, Father of Abraham, Granter of Life, Alpha and Omega, am physically comprised of fecal-pornography,
• Making it sound on your show like Jesus is bad at finding keys when, if fact, he is damn good at it, and
• Making a blasphemous exclamation while masturbating on the Sabbath to impure thoughts about your neighbor’s wife in mixed garments.

As a consequence of your damning, the standing invitation of your immortal soul to return to heaven upon its earthly passing has been revoked.  Alternate accommodations will be provided.  In addition, your prayers will be ignored separately from those of believers, you will not be permitted to use a crucifix to ward off vampires and Jesus says from now on you can find your own fucking keys.

If you feel that you have been damned in error, please reply within 30 days with an explanation of any extenuating or mitigating circumstances along with heaps of sanctimonious praise and obsequious adulation.  Failure to remit in the time frame outlined above will result in your damnation being converted to eternal status.

Praise and adulation will be judged at the discretion of the damning party and may or may not be deemed sufficient for salvation.

May God have mercy on your soul… Oh wait, too late for that Bitch.

Jehovah.

Calendar:

It’s time for the atheist calendar portion of the show.  Normally we try to keep things light hearted and funny on this show, but sometimes there’s nothing funny about what we’re doing.  And once in a while we need to step back and recognize that.

That’s why I’m dedicating this week’s calendar to the atheist bloggers and activists in Bangladesh that are risking their lives to do exactly what I’m doing.  Freedom of speech is something I blithely accept as my birthright as an American, but not everyone is as fortunate.

I can’t possibly cover all the details of this story in such a short format, but I strongly encourage you to learn more about it.  We’ll have links all over the shownotes and if you follow us on Twitter we’ll keep you abreast of the story.  Suffice to say that a well-organized group of Islamic militants are trying to use their bully pulpit to divert attention away from their wrong-doing and a group of atheist bloggers have become their unwitting scapegoat.

Two bloggers have already been killed and Islamic leaders are calling for the execution of 84 more named atheist activists.

In response, atheist and humanist organizations all over the world have declared April 25^th a day of action to stand with our fellow non-believers.  And you can make a difference here.  Write a blog, send a letter, join one of the many protests being organized across the country, or, if nothing else, take to social media and let people know what is happening.

Regardless of our beliefs, we can all agree that nobody should die for theirs.  I urge you to check out the links at Scathing Atheist (dot) com and learn more.

And now, back to the fart jokes and stuff.

April 25^th, stand with the atheist bloggers in Myanmar: http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2013/04/11/on-25-april-2013-we-stand-with-bangladeshi-bloggers-and-activists/

Outro:

There was one email I wanted to respond to before we closed things out for the night, but first a quick correction.  You’ll recall that last week Heath and I discussed a nincompoop that wrote an article about how Steven Hawking proved the bible correct by referring to dust.  Anyway, I identified the numb-skull as Paul Hitchins, his name is actually Paul Hutchins.  So I wanted to apologize, not to the Christian dingle-berry, but rather to the name “Hitchins”.  So sorry about that, I owe you more respect.

Okay, so first email comes to us from Renee in Clemsdale and I’m not sure what state or country Clemsdale is in.  Renee was very polite in his or her full condemnation of everything we’ve done on the show and, in a round-about way, everything I’ve ever done in my life.  But I just wanted to tell Renee that I did love the email, especially the contradictory notion of condemning me to hell in one paragraph, but then hoping I have a lovely day in the next.

Sorry to end on such a somber note, but that does it for our show this week.  We’ll be back in 168 hours, when we’ll crack open our bibles and tackle Genesis in the “Holy Babble”.  If you can’t get enough of us, be sure to check out our erratically published blog and follow us on Twitter.

I want to throw a big thanks to Carl for joining me early on a Sunday morning for that interview.  He had to miss church and everything, so I want to thank him for making the sacrifice.  If you haven’t checked out his show, be sure to do that.  Once again, it’s the Post Rapture Looting Podcast and we’ll have links to it on the shownotes for this episode. (http://postrapturelooting.net/PRL/)

I want to thank the person who gave us our first donation.  Haven’t figured out how to find out who you are so I can thank you by name, but thanks.  Really means a lot to us.  If you’d like to join this exclusive group of one person, you can donate to the show as well.  You’ll find the link on the right side of the page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

If you want to help us out but don’t want to part with any of your hard earned cash, you can always swing by iTunes and give us an awesome review.  We really appreciate everyone who does that and we love them more than the other audience members… except the ones who give cash, who we love the most.

Of course, a huge thanks to Heath for everything he does to make the wheels of this podcast turn and a big thanks to everyone who decided to give us thirty minutes of their lives.  We’ll be hard at work earning thirty minutes next time.  Until then, check out the backlog and do it on Stitcher because seriously, our Stitcher rank sucks balls.

If you have questions, comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.  All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.