The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new line of supplication supplements from Dei-Pfizer.  Their new line of Holy Gesticulation Hormones and other Piety Enhancing Drugs is guaranteed to increase the effectiveness of your prayer by at least 600%.

Dei-Pfizer, because there’s no mathematical law against multiplying by zero.

And now, the Scathing Atheist:

Intro:

It’s Thursday, it’s August 1st, there’s a new royal baby and he looks delicious…

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

In this week’s episode,

• North Carolina preemptively declares their independence from Saudi Arabia,

• We’ll get almost all the way through the headlines segment without making a rape joke,

• And we’ll learn that Alfredo Borodowski is one wascally wabbi.

But first the Diatribe:

Diatribe:

Tom and Cecil over at Cognitive Dissonance invited me on their show last week.  We had a blast hanging out and you can hear most of that blast on episode 109 of their show, which you’ll find linked on the shownotes for the episode.

http://dissonancepod.com/?cat=700

But shameless self promotion is only part of the reason I bring it up.  See, when I first started doing this podcast, I thought of all the other atheist podcasts as “the competition”.  I’d listen to Reasonable Doubts and I’d say “Damn it, those guys are way smarter than us,” or I’d listen to Atheist Experience and say “Damn it, those guys are way more persuasive than us,” and I’d listen to Cognitive Dissonance and get pissed if they said something funnier about the thing I talked about than the thing I said was.

But then I heard something on Cognitive Dissonance that I could hardly find fault with.  They said, “Hey, we just heard this podcast called the Scathing Atheist, it’s really funny, you should really check it out.”  And that kind of changed my perspective.

I came to realize that these guys aren’t the competition.  They’re the community.  I realized I should be doing everything I could to help everyone spread this message.  It probably would have occurred to me sooner, but like a lot of atheists, I’ve never been part of a community that accepted me.  I had no idea what that would even feel like.

In my neopagan, hippy… shrooms and peyote, quasi-religious days I’d been welcomed by plenty of communities that were happy to have me as long as I was willing to play along with their bullshit.  When my highschool sweetheart said I couldn’t bang her unless I got saved I experienced a similar thing.  But I’ve never been part of a community that would welcome me if I said the shit I actually thought.

I can admit that I envy religious people for that.  A religious family moves into a new town and there’s a community waiting to take them in.  They’ll give their kids a chance to make new friends, they’ll give mom and dad a chance to meet people their age and all they ask in return is ten per cent of their income and that you keep a straight face when they praise the Jesus ghost.

Which brings me to a topic that’s been big in the atheist blogosphere of late; so-called “atheist” churches.  Here we have some much maligned attempts to bring exactly this to the atheist community.  You’ve got Jerry DeWitt down in the atheist haven of Louisiana, you’ve got Doug Stanhope’s Sunday Assembly on an international tour and you’ve got dozens of smaller congregations hanging out their shingles all over the world.  They’re humanist chapels or secular missions or atheist churches or whatever.

And a lot of atheists hate them.  I see where they’re coming from, of course.  They argue that these things are a step toward turning atheism into a religion.  They’ve seen this whole “yeah, but just sit down in pews and let’s chat about morals” thing before and they didn’t like where it led.  They fear that even the non-tenets of non-belief can be perverted if you wrap a church around them.

I know a lot of really smart people disagree with me on this so I’ll grant that there may be objections I’m not aware of, but from what I’ve seen I think the pros far outweigh the cons.  What’s more, I can see why a lot of atheists wouldn’t recognize the pros at all.  After all, seven months ago I had no idea what it was like to be part of a community.

But we’re not talking about some vague, heartstring and platitude kind of benefits.  There are scientifically proven advantages to belonging to a community.  Benefits like not dying and not being a miserable old fuck while not dying.  In fact, a lot of the research that Christians love to toss around that shows how religious people are happier and live longer can be entirely explained away when you separate out church-goers and non-church attending believers.  It turns out those benefits aren’t coming from the pastor, they’re coming from the pews.

Secularists have made plenty of attempts to fill the void.  We do our conventions and our skeptics in the pub outings and stuff and nobody has an issue with it.  But as soon as you replace the lectern with a pulpit the radars start going off.

I say we’re making a big mistake if we voluntarily give religion a monopoly on getting together to talk about morality and forgiveness and community and family and love.  I think we’re buying into their bullshit sanctity if we say that atheists can’t get together on Sunday mornings and sing songs and talk about ethics and get fired up about charity work and the beauty of the world.

Some people reject these things because when they instinctively refuse to believe that there’s anything good about a church, but that belies the data.  Others simply think it’ll be easy to abuse.  But if the message is one of critical thought and a love for science and wonder, I think we owe it to the world to embrace these places wholeheartedly.  Still others reject them under the pedantic argument that atheism is simply a lack of a belief in god, god damn it.

But I also think there are plenty that eschew the idea because they’ve never tasted a welcoming community before and they simply don’t know that it’s awesome.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is fellow subtly sarcastic satirist Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to be less grossly offensive than our words indicate?

I am ready, and with that in mind, let’s take a moment to discuss God’s latest mysterious way: The George Zimmerman verdict.  

By all means.

So Florida is part of God’s jurisdiction, right?  

If you’re in godly Florida, and you get murdered, it’s your own fault, as long as the gunman established his position before you accidentally walked through his hallowed standing grounds.    

They talk about it like Zimmerman took a charge in basketball.  But even in the NBA, an offensive foul doesn’t award you two shots . . . and definitely not two shots to the chest.

Great job weeding out the easily offended, now on to the news.

In our lead story tonight, North Carolina is set to become the 7th state to piss away taxpayer funded time to pass a law against doing away with the American judicial system in favor of Islamic theocracy.

New York is working on a similar law that would also prohibit Islamic murder, Islamic grand theft auto, and Islamic loitering south of Houston in lower Manhattan.  Muslims in north Jersey can walk around and stuff, but they’ll continue to be monitored at all times by the NYPD.  

And with them now making up significantly more than a quarter of a percent of North Carolina’s population, North Carolina legislators are fighting back against the inevitable demise of American values by introducing a bill that makes renaming a post-office seem constructive.

Much like invading a Muslim nation, this is pre-emptive anti-Muslim legislation.  

• “They was fixin to legislate against us!!!”

This move has prompted criticism from both of North Carolina’s Muslims as well as national watchdog groups that point out that it’s as pointless as enacting a law against basing our justice system on the Code of Hammurabi or Robocop’s directives because no-fucking-body is trying to do that.

And as is often the case with southern lawmakers, we shouldn’t have to explain this, but . . .  

Infinite Hamlet monkeys couldn’t create an exhaustive list of all your desired bigoted policies.

Proponents of the bill point out that there are only so many ways that one can legislate one’s bigotry against Muslims and the Burqa bans aren’t working out so well for the Frenchies.

In fairness, it’s not just the burqa . . . they’re banning any clothing that can conceal dynamite vests and pre-martyrdom facial ticks.  Muslim rights advocates would probably like to point out that this is de facto segregation, but that would be admitting that Muslims are de facto terrorists.  

I want to be part of a religion that requires everyone to wear the power loader robot suit from Aliens.    

North Carolina set to become 7th state to pass “Anti-Shariah” bill: http://www.religionnews.com/2013/07/26/nc-muslims-hope-gov-pat-mccrory-vetoes-anti-shariah-bill/

And in this week’s “If God Loved you he wouldn’t have put you in Alabama” report, we have the story of a Baptist minister who was invited to open a meeting of the Alabama Public Service Commission with a prayer.  As if opening a meeting about utility company rates with an invocation to a Jewish deity wasn’t bad enough, Minister John Jordan offered up this doozy:

(Soundclip: “We have murdered your children, God, and said it’s okay to have same sex marriage… we have sinned against you and we ask for your forgiveness)

Clearly it takes an Alabaman to see the connection between dollars per kilowatt hour and abortion, but I’m sure if you give Rush Limbaugh 5 minutes and a Vicodin he could explain it.

I save my aborted fetuses . . . to use in my Matrix-style power farm that puts electricity back into the grid.  And I use them for cooking, obviously.  I use the whole bloody undifferentiated mass.  I’m like a Native American when it comes to environmentally sound birth control.  

They also make great sea monkeys.

But the reason this is newsworthy shouldn’t be the extreme nature of the prayer.  If he opened up the meeting by praying for more butterflies and happiness it would still be a violation of the First Amendment.

And a stupid way to go about getting more butterflies and happiness.

But Commission President and part time My Little Pony aristocrat Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh has responded to media criticisms of the prayer by explaining that it is her divine right as an Alabaman to be an idiot.  In response to a HuffPo article, Cavanaugh sent an email explaining that (quote) “without a doubt, our nation needs more prayer, not less.”  She then failed to add “So fuck the constitution.”

In Alabama . . . divine right and genetic destiny end up getting muddled.  The gene pool down there’s just barely wide enough for a single, cousin-laden white stripe.  Ideal for breeding gap-toothed theists named Twinkle.  She sounds like part My Little Pony, part stripper.  So like a live show in Tijuana called My Little Pony.

Alabama agency prays for forgiveness for abortion and gay marriage: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/alabama-prayer-gay-marriage_n_3651756.html

And in other “Seriously, Alabama is just stupid” news, the FFRF is hard at work trying to forestall the efforts of a misguided Alabama schoolboard to create an “Alabama School Prayer Caravan”.

Like a bunch of Muslim students on camels?  

School district officials in Cullman County are planning to travel to all the district schools in August and have a 10-15 minute prayer stop with students at each one.  And because the prayer sessions are described as optional, the dim-witted nincompoops behind this move think it’s legal.

Requiring students to do something stupid, is wrong.  

Giving students the option to do something stupid, is also wrong.  

• “Only door number 3 has a pit of fire.”  . . .  Not a good excuse.  

And eating a baby at your atheist initiation is optional too, but does the group ever really accept you?  No.

Superintendent and person who should probably always wear a helmet Billy Coleman explained the legality of this thing in a way so droolingly stupid I almost felt sorry for him.  He said that it was legal because it wasn’t voted on by the school-board, which, in his mind, means that the school system isn’t sponsoring it.

No that means he should get fucked two ways.  The school board should fire him for conducting illegal activities without their approval, and taxpayers should sue him for wasting real, secular money on those activities.  Even after you factor in the ZERO effect of prayer, he’s in the wrong.    

Right: The elected head of the school-board declares by fiat that kids will be excused from schools to pray with him, announces it on the school district’s website and then says it’s not a school sponsored event.  So what the hell is it then?

Yeah, it’s like he’s saying, “It’s okay because I’m not doing this as the superintendent.”  Does he wear a mustache and glasses for all the religious stuff?  Is it okay for some random person show up at a school and start screaming about Jesus as long as they’re not affiliated with the school?

That’s certainly how it sounds.

FFRF tries to stop Alabama school prayer caravan: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/07/26/alabama-public-school-district-plans-prayer-caravan-to-bless-schools-for-the-upcoming-year/

And in other news, it’s not okay for some random person to show up at a school and start screaming about Jesus.  And while this seems self-evident to people not elected to public office in Alabama, it somehow also eluded a New Hampshire mother who took it upon herself to show up at the school steps each morning to vocally pray for the safety of the children.

I’m sure she pleasantly shared the space with the Ramadan ceremonies and Quran readings being performed by a local Muslim parent.  

Then a Jewish mom started handing out pamphlets and now the rural New Hampshire school entrance looks like Times Square subway station.  

And of course there’s all the atheist truth ceremonies called classes going on inside the building.  So it all balances out.  Nothing grossly untenable about the situation.     

Concerned mother and part time Edgar Rice Burroughs antagonist Lizarda Urena started her vigil when she heard reports that two bullets had been found in a school toilet.  Seeing this as a sign of either forthcoming violence or a really fucked up lunch menu, she took the action that any probably-clinically-disturbed person would and started her public morning prayer regime.

Lizarda Urena . . .

Sounds like one of the Russian chicks James Bond fucks after the chase scene, before the opening credits . . . who is also plotting the murder of Harry Potter.  

Does she not understand that the kids bringing weapons to school aren’t all secretly hiding a heart of gold like Judd Nelson in Breakfast Club?!

…he was fucking’ harsh.

So did anyone hand over their concealed weapons and doobage, in response to those non-consensual 7am bible readings that high school kids and New York City commuters love so much?  

Recognizing that this was illegal, insane and really embarassing for her poor kids, superintendent Christine Rath banned her from school property.  The move was applauded by the FFRF, the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, the president of the schoolboard and most of the right-minded people aware of the situation.

But that can’t be the end of it . . . Whenever right-minded people make a decision, some asshole zealot lobbyists manage to seek and destroy whatever societal progress may have occurred.  

Indeed because Urena’s insanity has some religion in it, some wingnut conservative group had to come out on the side of the crazy lady yelling about Jesus to schoolkids.  The “Alliance Defending Freedom” argues that silencing the ranting lunatic trying to evangelize to children entering a school is a violation of her freedom of speech.  Of course, the fact that she now simply prays loudly from the gas station across the street kind of diffuses that argument…

Yes she gets freedom of speech.  No she doesn’t get a pulpit for that speech, paid for by taxes.  And I’m pretty sure there’s a building in every town since the beginning of towns, where it’s appropriate to discuss the Tooth Fairy’s horribly-compiled biography, or other equally useful books.

New Hampshire Mother banned from screaming about Jesus on school steps: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/lizarda-urena-prayer_n_3660904.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And from the “Rapid ranting Rabbi Racket” file tonight, we bring you the story of Alfredo Borodowski, a Rabbi who was recently arrested for several accounts of allegedly pretending to be a police officer so that he could yell at people for driving slowly in front of him.

Really?!?!  A rabbi yelling about bad drivers and their black kettles?  I’m pretty sure every Rabbi in New York co-owns the same 1992 minivan that doesn’t go over 25 miles an hour.        

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a convertible with pais blowing in the breeze…

Borodowski’s attorney explains that he has bipolar disorder, and while I readily admit to my ignorance regarding the specifics of bipolar disorder, I’m reasonably confident in saying that waving a plastic badge at people and telling them you’re going to arrest them for not using a turn signal isn’t a typical symptom.

Well I’ve only read 5 chapters of the Old Testament, and I’m already feeling a little Norman Bates coming on.  And I’m aware I should read it as fiction.  This guy based his life on that fucked up book.  Can’t be healthy.  

In light of his arrest he was released from his position at the prestigious Temple Emanu-El, but continues to act as the head of the Congregation Sulam Yaakov in Larchmont.  The congregation released a statement saying that they stand by their spiritual leader while he recovers from the illness that made him repeatedly impersonate a police officer.

Yeah how will the down-trodden masses of ghetto Jews in Larchmont, New York ever survive, without continuity in their spiritual advisor on where to charitably donate their 2012 Range Rover?  

If nothing else, one has to appreciate that in a single news item, Borodowski manages to reinforce the stereotypes of men by driving like an asshole, reinforce the stereotype about people named Alfredo by being a criminal, reinforce the stereotypes of Jews by using the cheapest, plastic, piece-of-shit badge he could find and reinforce the stereotypes of New Yorkers by using his crime spree to cuss at people for cutting him off.

A rabbi posing as a pig can’t be kosher.

Rabbi arrested for multiple counts of impersonating a police officer: http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york-news/larchmont-temple-stands-rabbi-despite-arrest

And finally tonight, a Hawaiian pastor and founder of the Hawaii Cannabis THC Ministry is hoping that the First Amendment will be extended to bong hits for Jesus.  Currently enjoying non-consensual anal-sex at one of Hawaii’s lovely federal detention centers, sixty-four year old Roger Christie was indicted in 2010 on charges that include conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana.

This is a weird one . . . because I thought turning 60 implied consent.  Above a certain age is statutory consent, right?  

No big deal . . . There’s an old slogan on the island, “I’d rather be raped in Hawaii, than loved on the mainland.”  

You lived in Hawaii for a while . . . I’m guessing you found that slogan to be true.

Like you said, I lived there for a while.

Christie argues that the THC Ministry is (quote) “a universal religious organization that uses cannabis to exalt consciousness, facilitate harmony and become close to God and nature and each other,” which is certainly no more or less a load of shit than the claims of other religions.

At least weed has an active ingredient that actually exists, and actually improves certain ailments.  Religions just have sucrose and faith.  I’d rather have the THC Ministry Shaman in the chemotherapy wing, than a medically useless Chaplain.  Somehow I doubt Mr. Christie started his organization so he could do not-for-profit work in cancer wards, but he could have.    

The church’s holiest day is April 20th and their Sunday service involves a volcano vaporizer, an extra large inhalation bag and some… I forget the other shit, but basically it comes back to the inherent problem with exempting religious people from laws.  If I say jerking off on your cat is part of my religion, who are you to say it isn’t?

“And who the fuck are you to infringe upon my religious freedom by installing that jizz fence around your cat’s backyard play area?!  How am I supposed to jizz on my neighbor’s cat and get to heaven like it says in this old book?!  I know it sounds weird, but before you ask, yes, the book itself is irrefutable, according to itself.”

We’ll keep a close eye on this story, of course, as if Christie is successful, Heath and I will be starting an equally reasonable religion of our own.

Like, perhaps, The First Assembly of Statutory Rape

Our Lady of Mercy Killing

Maybe the Cuniling-regationalists?

Tax Evasion Orthodox

Lot of branches of that denomination already.  How about the Whole Damn-Week Adventists?

Crystal Methodist

Hawaiian pot-pastor seeks 1st Amendment protection for getting shit-faced: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/us/marijuana-infused-faith-challenges-the-definition-of-religion.html?ref=religionandbelief&_r=0

Oh shit, that reminds me, I need to be elsewhere for 90 seconds, so that does it for headlines tonight, Heath, thanks for joining me.

Pleasure as always.

And when we come back, we’ll have been worth the wait.

Discussion:

From time to time on this show, we like to set aside a few minutes to discuss some of the common apologetics used in defense of theism.  Heath, what sad distortion of logic do you have for us today?

Today we’ll be discussing the moral argument.

I see.  Is this the one where theists say that if there was no god, it would be okay to eat babies and fuck puppies and stuff?

There are actually a number of different iterations of this argument and the canine-penetration conundrum is only one of them.  While it maintains popularity with laymen, a lack of documented baby eating and puppy-fucking has forced the more savvy apologists to refine the tactic.

I see.  And how is it stated in its current form?

The syllogism goes like this:

1. Premise one: Without god, morality cannot exist.

2. Premise two: Morality exists.

3. Conclusion: God exists

So I guess to dig into this argument, we’ll have to start by defining morality.  How do apologists typically define morality for the purposes of this tactic?

They don’t.  

Well it seems like it’s pretty important to the foundation of the argument.

Which is exactly why they don’t define it.

I don’t follow.

Look, if you define morality either you have to invoke god in your definition, in which case this is a circular argument, or you have to define it without invoking god, in which case you’ve just defeated your own argument.

Well then this one is pretty easy to refute.  I mean, how is that any different than saying, “Without god, trees can’t exist; trees exist, therefore god exists”?

It isn’t, and that’s actually one of the strengths of the argument.

How so?

If anyone ever definitively disproves the argument from absolute morals, they can quickly shift gears to the argument from absolute trees.  And if that one is defeated they can switch to the argument from absolute snails, and so on.

Okay, but my point is that the logical construction of the argument is flawed.  It’s just a case of begging the question.  Premise one is the conclusion.

Yeah, the flaw in this argument is that anyone smart enough to know what a syllogism is would also be smart enough to refute it.  But this isn’t the only form of the moral argument.  The second form is far more common and far more persuasive.

And what form is that?

It’s called the “What about Stalin?” defense.

I see.  And how is this one formally stated?

1. Premise One: Stalin was an atheist

2. Premise Two: Stalin was immoral

3. Conclusion: Atheists are immoral.

Well that’s just shit logic on the face of it.

That’s why this one isn’t usually formally stated.  It’s more for people who don’t get the syllogism thing to begin with.  The more common form of it is:

“If there ain’t no Jesus, how come you don’t just rape women and sheep all the time?”

Well it’s just as absurd when you state it that way.

Let me put this to you another way.  When you first became an atheist, how many kittens did set on fire?

None!

(Sarcastically) Oh… yeah… me neither.  But seriously, how many?

I’ve never set a kitten on fire!

Oh, Mr. High and Mighty over here.  Well, regardless, I think we can both agree that there’s nothing in the atheist bible against setting kittens on fire.

There’s no such thing as the “atheist bible”.

So you admit that there’s no source for morality in atheism at all.

No, there’s no morality inherent in atheism, but there’s no morality inherent in Chinese food either.  But that doesn’t mean that people who eat Chinese food are immoral.  There are plenty of sources for morality other than Holy Books.  What about democratic legal codes, societal imperatives, basic altruism, the minimization of harm?  These are all examples of sources of morality that don’t rely on divine revelation.

Yes, but what about Stalin?

What about Stalin?

Stalin was an atheist.  He was immoral.

Yeah, but what the hell does that have to do with anything?

And Kim Jong Il.  He was an immoral atheist.  And House.  That dude’s a total prick.

But citing examples of immoral atheists doesn’t do anything to prop up the argument.  I can list really moral atheists too.  Or immoral theists.  Or I could just cite the statistics on ethical national barometers in religious versus non-religious nations.

Yes, but Hitler.

What?

Hitler.  Guy that killed all of the Jews?

Yeah, I know who he was, but what does he have to do with anything?

He was immoral too.

Hitler wasn’t even an atheist.  He was a Catholic.  But that’s beside the point…

C’mon, do you really think a Catholic would kill all those Jews?

A Catholic did kill all those Jews… with tacit approval from the Vatican.  And inspiration from Martin Luther for fuck’s sake.

So he must have been an atheist.

He wasn’t, but it wouldn’t matter if he was.  Hitler was also Austrian and he was also a painter.  So does Hitler being evil make Austrians and painters evil as well?

Of course not.  God makes Austrians and painters evil.

No, immoral acts make them evil… if they’re evil, I mean.

Right, but Pol Pot.

Right, Pol Pot was immoral and he was an atheist.  But is still doesn’t bolster the shaky premise of this argument.

So you’re saying you agree with Stalin and Pol Pot?

You know what, sure.  About the non-existence of god, I agree with Stalin and Pol Pot.  I also probably agree with them that… you know, the sun rises in the east and having a penis is awesome.

Interesting point… but Mussolini.

Alright, I guess this could go on forever so how do we counter the moral argument?

Fucked if I know.  As far as I can tell we’re screwed until somebody finds a more consistent and inerrant guide to morality than the bible.

Outro:

Before we tie things off for the night, I wanted to finally getting around to answering an email we got a few weeks ago after doing a story about Christian evangelists that target strip clubs, brothels and porn conventions.

Ann wrote to us to express a very polite concern she had with many of the porn and prostitution jokes we often do on our show.  And before you label her a prude, I should express that her concern wasn’t the frequency of such jokes, but the nature of some of them.  Heath and I obviously joke about some things far more objectionable than prostitution and porn, but when we do, we’re careful to ensure that the butt of the joke is never the victim.  We make more rape jokes than are psychologically healthy, but the rapist is always the target of our humor.

And while I think a reasonable argument can be made that prostitution and pornography don’t necessarily victimize the men and women involved, I don’t think you can make a reasonable argument that the current form of prostitution and pornography don’t often victimize the participants.

Anyway, I wanted to apologize for the oversight and I wanted to thank Ann for reminding us that as our audience grows so too do our obligations to that audience.  And while we’ll still be making plenty of porn and hooker jokes in the future, we will be working hard to tell only the best porn and hooker jokes.

And of course, we also need to take a minute to gaze in awe upon the blinding benevolence of this weeks best people, Steven, Zachary, Jeffrey and, if you can believe this, April again.  Steven, whose deadly agility against swarms of ninjas is matched only by his seductive agility on the dance floor; Zachary, whose lightning reflexes and chiseled features are the envy of professional athletes, professional models and amateur podcasters everywhere; Jeffrey, whose wit and wisdom are so unrivaled that the IRS has deemed them taxable assets and April, who has donated to the show, like, 83 times now or something and is thus deserving of more words of praise than I have in my vocabulary and my thesaurus combined.

These four noble souls have renewed my faith in humanity, boldly redefined honor and embodied the most exalted form of dignity by giving us money.  If you think you have what it takes to give us money, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.  Remember, all donations to this show are tax deductible unless you live inside or outside the contiguous US… or right on the border

And, of course, if you want to help but you need to hold on to your cash for eventual ransom, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a 5 star review on iTunes.  You’ll be helping us spread the word and giving me something to smile about when I hop on to iTunes at 2am.

I need to thank Heath for all his help as always.  I also need to thank Lucinda for stepping up and providing this week’s Farnsworth quote at the last minute.  I also want to mention to anyone out there who has a blog, a podcast, a Facebook page or any other medium of interest to secularists, I’d be happy to throw you a plug in exchange for an audio clip of you quoting everyone’s favorite mad-scientist from the 31st century.

Oh, and as I was running crazy late with it last week as well and already had the outro recorded by the time I got the sound file, I also didn’t have a chance to thank last week’s Farnsworth quoter, Allie from the Crafty Heathens Facebook page.  If you’re into crafting and/or being a heathen, I recommend you give her page a day in court.  You’ll find a link on the shownotes for this episode.

https://www.facebook.com/CraftyHeathens

That’s all the blasphemy we have for you this week, but if you want more, there’s more.  Be sure to check out my guest appearance on Cognitive Dissonance’s most recent episode and check out our erratically published blog, follow us on the Twitter and like us on the Facebook and subscribe to us on the YouTube.

And seriously, if you haven’t checked Stitcher yet, do that.  It’s the most convenient way to listen to all your favorite podcasts and if you listen to us there, you help out our Stitcher rank, which is still kind of crappy compared to our iTunes rank.

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.