The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons

(Note: Transcript may contain parts that were edited from the final episode due to time constraints)

Sponsor

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new brand of religious headwear for the believer on the go, Holy Bowlers.  Do you frequently switch religions?  Are you caught amid sectarian strife?

Check out Holy Bowlers’ new line of affordable religious lids for every occasion.  From Arabic headdress to Zucchettos, you’ll find it all.  And next time you’re hanging out in a disputed territory of land, promised to Jews, Christians, and Muslims by three different gods that don’t exist, try our new Swiss Army Hat: It’s a turban, a yarmulke and a skufia all in one!!!

Holy Bowlers, because god gives a shit what’s on your head.

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro

It’s Thursday, It’s September 5th and do you think Ben Tate is worth a flex start?  I’ve got Lacy but he’s a rookie… going against the niners… Hsss….

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

In this week’s episode:

• We’ll find Jesus and it’ll turn out he was at the South African Sexpo just like we thought,

• We’ll correct all the stuff we fucked up last week,

• And the New England Patriots will cancel the next season of wounded duck dynasty.

But first, the diatribe.

Diatribe

I may not be telling you anything you don’t already know, but I’m an asshole.

This isn’t just an act I do for the show or anything, I’m a genuine asshole in real life as well.  And I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty damn good at it.

Sometimes I do freelance asshole work.  If I’m at a restaurant and somebody’s giving their server shit, I’ll be an asshole on that server’s behalf.  Same goes for people in front of me in line that give the cashier shit over prices that he has nothing to do with.  Or twenty year olds that won’t get up for an old woman on the subway.  Sometimes I use my asshole for the powers of good.

And other times I just can’t help it.

I’ll give you an example.  Last week I was celebrating a certain co-host’s most recent complete solar circumnavigation with a group of friends.  There’s a dozen of us crammed into a small room, herbally supplementing our recreation.  As often happens in these situations you end up with three or four little conversations going on in everyone’s earshot.

Heath and I are discussing draft strategy for an upcoming fantasy football league but across the room I hear a mutual friend of ours discussing the cleanse he’s on.  He’s detoxifying, you see.  He’s clearing his body of environmental poisons.  With juice.  And vitamins.

And I tell myself that it’s not a good time to unleash the asshole.  The asshole should remain dormant.  Because even though he’s over there telling some poor girl that he’s eating acai berries because the antioxidants clear his bloodstream of industrial toxins, we’re all friends here.

So here I am, consciously not being an asshole.  Consciously not saying a word.  And this is nothing new.  At least a dozen times a day I’m in an elevator or a restaurant or a line or at a friend’s house or at work and I’m listening to somebody expound on the virtues of an herbal supplement.  Or their acupuncturist.  Or their astrologer.  Or their priest.  And I reign in the asshole and I bite my tongue til it bleeds and I bitch to my poor wife or I write a diatribe.

Heath and I continue to talk PPR strategy and I try to filter out the pseudo-scientific bullshit wafting across the room at me.  I pretend that I didn’t notice that he just said that the next phase of his cleanse will clear the toxins from his fucking spine.

I know this guy and we’ve been friends for a long time.  Hell, he’s the guy that introduced me to Heath.  So I gave him a lot more leeway than I would normally give.  I’ve tried to reason with him in the past when I saw him buying Airborne before a business trip.  But it never matters what I tell him.  He takes Airborne when he’s not sick and he continues to not be sick, so damn it, it works no matter what science says.

So I was going to let it go.  And then he said something about sickness being 80% mental.  And then the poor girl he was babbling at said, “Really?”  And I couldn’t help myself.

“No,” I interjected, “Not really.”  Because at a certain point my brain ignores the social instinct and says that when people are spreading demonstrably false medical information correcting that is more important than being polite.  So I was an asshole.  And I was just enough of an asshole to make my point without permanently alienating our friendship, because like I said, I’m good at the asshole thing.

And that’s the bit that far too few people realize.  It’s okay to be an asshole, as long as you’re good at it.  It would be damn easy for an amateur asshole to fuck that situation all up.  If you end up with nothing more than a nice guy saying X and an asshole saying Y you’re probably doing more harm than good.  You’ve got to be a convincing asshole and part of that is making sure you know more about what you’re talking about than the person you’re being an asshole to.

Like everything in life, if you want to do it well, you need to put in the work.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen an atheist or a skeptic blow his lid and call somebody out on a bullshit claim only to lose an argument and come off looking not just like an asshole, but a stupid asshole.  And a stupid asshole that made the idiot spouting the bullshit look right.

When you put yourself out there, you’re painting a target on your own back so if you’re not ready to deal with what comes, you’re better off holding your tongue.  If you’re not thick skinned enough to dismiss all the nasty shit people might say about your mom, don’t bother.  And if you’re not ready to rationally defend the challenges that are coming, you’re not ready to be the asshole.

And that’s fine.  Some people are good at it and some people aren’t and we’re damn fortunate that all the atheists in the movement haven’t achieved my level of comfort with it.  I’d never suggest to anyone that they be an asshole.  Sometimes you’re better off leaving it to the professionals.  But I would suggest that when you see a good asshole in action, back off and let them do their thing.  Much of the time they’re being an asshole so you don’t have to.

There’s an interesting postscript to the story, by the way.  Later in the evening I was chatting privately with the victim of my friend’s medical lecture and she thanked me for interjecting.  She said she’d been looking for a way out of the conversation and she didn’t want to be rude.  So I saved her some social embarrassment, I saved my friend from being berated by a second rate asshole and I saved the assembled crowd from GNC medical advice.  The masked asshole strikes again.

Headlines

Joining me for headlines tonight is a nearly-translucent white person just returning from California, Heath Enwright.  Heath, how’s that melanoma you’ve been working on?

We don’t like the term white . . . We prefer pig-mentally challenged.  And for the record, I’m part white, part whatever group I’m mocking.  If I wasn’t part everything, lots of these things I say would be offensive.    

And we can’t have that.  Before we get started with headlines tonight, I owe our listeners an apology and a retraction.  Our lead story last week was a mish-mash of incomplete research and complete nonsense.  We got duped by a bullshit story on a bullshit site that doesn’t seem to recognize that satire doesn’t really count as satire if it’s not funny and just twists actual facts to create a realistic sounding bullshit story that makes a couple of innocent podcasters look like dumbasses.

…or at least the one who vets the stories.

I’d like to defend us by pointing out that there were dozens of way more reputable sources than us that made the same mistake, but that doesn’t forgive us our due diligence as kind of news reporters.  So for the record, it is not illegal to report sex abuse in Vatican city.  It’s just illegal to disclose existing reports of sexual abuse.

And in our lead story tonight, it’s illegal to disclose existing reports of child sexual abuse in Vatican City.  Because let’s face it, even if our story last week was wrong, this is still really fucked up.

So if you got your raping in before the big deadline, you’re fine.  But any new raping could be reported.  Basically, rape was grandfathered in.  They’re not gonna hold “existing rapists” accountable, because – well – rape was like cigarettes and racism a few decades ago.  Nobody knew it was bad, and it seemed like a victimless crime.      

So here’s the actual story:

This all stems from some judicial tinkering Pope Francin’ With the Stars did in early July.  It slightly increased the punishments for sex abuse and added a law against child pornography, which was apparently legal in Vatican City up until this past Monday.

To be clear: Former allegations of sex abuse do count as “official documents” and thus the Pope did make it illegal to disseminate allegations of sex abuse, so despite the bullshit source we fucked up and used last week, the story was frighteningly close to true.

“Why should a priest get into trouble for something that already happened?  The Vatican is a forward-thinking institution.  We don’t dwell on the past.  How can we protect the as-yet-unraped, if we keep worrying about the already-raped?  We want to meet you half way on this.  So our proposed compromise, is that we punish half the rapists.  The second half.  All the future rapists.”

Pope “updates” the law: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10174076/Pope-Francis-toughens-up-Vatican-laws-on-child-sex-abuse.html

And in lighter news tonight we turn to Syria, where incredibly horrible shit is happening in a frighteningly plausible prelude to World War Three.  And damn are the Christians excited.

“Can’t wait to try out all our new RC airplanes!!!  . . .  It’s like Christmas morning.”

Their ebullience goes beyond their affinity for the Air Hogs of war, though.  There are also a few biblical references to the destruction of Damascus as a precursor to the end times, most notably Isaiah 17:1 “Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins.”

Now to be fair, the majority of American Christian groups are voicing opposition to military intervention in Syria citing their conscientious objection to agreeing with Obama, but there are also plenty of Left Behind-ophiles salivating about the possibility of all of us infidels being tormented in hell on earth.

I’ll agree to eternal damnation if the Damascus bombing does indeed bring about the second coming of Jesus.  But it’s gotta be an actual bet.  They have to have a downside.  So when we bomb it, and nothing good happens, except 2 million dead Syrians, then the entire bible gets retracted, and I don’t hear another word about debunked prophecy books ever again.    

I don’t know.  I mean, back when they predicted that at some unspecified point in the future, Damascus would cease to be a city, what are the odds that it would come true given a theoretically infinite timeline?

Yeah it’s 2013.  Bible heads are just now noticing the possibility that this city in the Middle East might experience some physical damage?!?  This particular conflict is their first whiff of unrest in the otherwise peaceful co-occupation of the triple-claimed holy land by historically harmonious tribes like the Jews, Christians, and Muslims?!?

Christians try to tie Syrian conflict to biblical prophecy: http://www.religionnews.com/2013/08/27/commentary-keep-doomsday-religion-out-of-the-syrian-conflict/

And in other “Holy Shit are there more important things to spend money on right now” news, Orthodox Jews in Israel are demanding beard friendly gas masks in preparation for the end times.

“Yeah, and could we also get ones that are just always running in case the Syrians gas us on a Saturday?”

Complaining that existing gas masks are ineffective on people with divinely dictated scraggly facial pubes, the Orthodox Shas party is demanding that Netanyahu order mass production of hooded gas masks that can accommodate the traditional facial hair of the group of people that refuse to do any military service in Israel.

If Israel finds your community … “a little too Jewy” … it might be time to find a new homeland.  And I absolutely don’t mean Brooklyn, New York.  

Failing to realize that if god wanted them to not die of weaponized poison he would have let them shave their beards, Orthodox Jew Meir Green noted that if the masks are needed, (quote) “there won’t be time to shave”.

And in a moment of panic like that, how do you decide between torturous death from sarin gas and willfully ignoring the twenty-seventh part of Leviticus?

Orthodox Jews demand beard-friendly gasmasks: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/beard-friendly-bardas-gas_n_3831273.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And in other “Bursting with Stupid” news tonight, a frothing idiot warns that with DOMA out of the way, there’s nothing to stop lesbian couples from tricking gay men into siring their children and becoming a subservient underclass of lesbian slave-gimps.

So they’re saying that back in the good old days when DOMA applied, we were able to guarantee that it was only heterosexual couples using gays as slave-gimps?!?

In one of the most impressive cases of “not getting it” ever confirmed by science, David Usher of the Center for Marriage Policy published a recent op-ed lamenting the fate of gay men under the new DOMA-less legal landscape.

Who’s gonna look after the well-being of gays, if not Christian political lobbyists?

Usher claims that somehow gay men will be tricked into having sex with lesbians through what he calls “reproductive entrapment” and then get stuck paying child support as un-consenting fathers, economically enslaved to lesbian couples.  Because first of all, this guy thinks lesbian couples won’t be able to find heterosexual men that would fuck them, and secondly, he thinks lesbian couples would be able to find homosexual men that would fuck them.

He goes on to explain that lesbians will drain the public coffers by suckling on the big government teat, cause you know how lesbians are about suckling on teats.

This needs to be stopped.  Tax revenues aren’t enough as over-population gets worse, and clearly the gays and lesbians are the problem.  

…and the abortions and condoms.

Frothing idiot warns that lesbians will trick gay men into being subservient underclass: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/center-marriage-policy-worries-lesbians-will-trick-gay-men-fathering-their-children-and-beco

And turning now to a state that’s progressive policies will never make up for the fact that the Patriots suck lemur nuts, a Massachusetts court has agreed to hear a challenge to the inclusion of the words “under god” in the pledge of allegiance.

In fairness, I’m sure that pledge prevents a lot of horrific treasonous activity.  I mean just the other day, I was going to fire a shoulder-mounted stinger missile at some infidel aircraft, but then I said to myself, hold on . . . I know rationally that this jihad makes sense . . . but I’m feeling this almost subconscious allegiance . . .

This is the latest in a long string of legal attempts to eradicate those words from an otherwise still kind of creepy statement of mandatory nationalism.

Yeah if you take the “under god” part out, it’s still creepy to make every kid stand up and do the whole “Heil Hegemony!” thing.  

I always felt like I was in the Cobra Kai Dojo … “No fear!  No mercy!  Pre-emptive strikes! Beat up the vaguely ethnic tannish kid!”

The American Humanist Association seems confident that this suit can succeed where so many have failed before.  Suing on behalf of an anonymous atheist couple, the lawsuit takes a slightly different tack than previous challenges.  Rather than arguing that the references to the almighty in the pledge are a violation of church, state separation, the AHA is arguing that the daily recitations are a violation of their guarantee of equal protection.

Not that we should have to attack this issue at some tricky angle, but ‘things that are stupid’ will tend to violate several different laws, including the one that ended slavery.  

Massachusetts court to hear challenge against pledge of allegiance: http://www.religionnews.com/2013/08/30/mass-supreme-court-to-hear-challenge-to-pledge-of-allegiance/

And in “Stupidity was already legal” news tonight, we turn to the mecca of fatuity, the nerve center of nincompoopery, the haven of half-witted, Alabama, where State Speaker Mike Hubbard is pushing a petition that would legalize prayer.  And breathing.

Hard to believe bad legislation is an issue, in the birthplace of the Confederate States.  

We’re talking about a state with an average IQ that’s in the top 90%.  

For the Alabaman listener, who probably didn’t get that, you’re 45th out of 50 . . .

Comfortably removed from dead last.  

You’ll recall us discussing the failed attempt by Cullman County Superintendent Billy Coleman to start a state endorsed “Prayer Caravan” for Alabama schools back in episode 24.  The FFRF objected and the school board quickly divorced itself from the Superintendent’s plans and pretended that the fact that it was listed on the School Board’s website wasn’t an official endorsement.

And just because the FFRF is made up of godless Jew lawyers, doesn’t mean they’re wrong.  

I’d point out the logical fallacy at play here, but Alabamans seem to think “ad hominem attack” means lynching another gay.

There is, of course, ample evidence for those who accuse the House Speaker of completely missing the fucking point.  In his defense, Hubbard is rumored to be working on a second petition that would protect his right to completely miss the fucking point.

So basically, the FFRF said, “Stop shitting in the middle of the sidewalk.  And also stop using public resources to organize a bunch of kids shitting in the middle of the sidewalk.”  And Alabama responded with a petition to prevent radical liberals from stealing their toilets.

Spot on analogy.

Alabama republicans file for preemptive strike in the “war on prayer”: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/08/29/alabama-house-republicans-launch-completely-unnecessary-petition-against-fictional-war-on-prayer/

And finally tonight, from the “Who Would Jesus Do?” file, we turn to one one of the many nations that boasts an accent that Leonardo DiCaprio has proven himself incapable of convincingly mimicking, South Africa, where an upcoming sex expo is set to feature pole dancing, stripshows, porn stars and proselytizing Christians from the Salvation Army.

The bell ringers are gonna have some competition.  People can only stick their money in so many slots.

Spokeswoman Carin Holmes said, (quote) “If Jesus Christ was on earth today, he would be standing beside us at Sexpo,” failing to address how he would manage to obscure his awkward robe stiffy.

After coming again that recently, he’d be okay for 15 minutes or so.

Holmes explained that the group was not there to condemn anyone or to lecture anyone.  In a choice of words that betrays at least a subconscious desire to get a mention on this show, she said they were there to (quote) “be available”.

How is “being available” at a porn convention in Johannesburg helping the poor?  

“Lethal Weapon 2” villains with satyriasis, should not be at the top of the humanitarian aid list.     

Yeah, I gotta be honest, when I realized I was giving you a headline that had this much apartheid Christian dick joke potential, I started getting pretty excited.

Half stock?

At least.

Speaking of which … can black dildos and white dildos be sold in the same sex shop in South Africa?

Under apartheid, were black porn stars required to use the “rear entrance” on the set?

And for the record, I don’t picture lots of racists in S&M gear exclaiming, “I’m sure glad these church people made themselves available!” … unless it was to test the less consensual gear.   

Nice… finally found a use for Christian missionaries.

Christians at South African Sex Expo “If Jesus was alive, he’d be here too” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/salvation-army-sexpo_n_3829911.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

And on that note we’ll close out the headlines for the night.  Heath, thanks as always for joining me.

Glad to be here.

And when we come back the music bed will fade out and we’ll do a different bit.

Apologetics

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 ridiculous stretch of the imagination are we gonna tackle today?

Tonight we’ll be talking about one of the most common apologetics in the theistic quiver, the argument from design.

Alright, so what’s the crux of this argument?

It’s simple.  We live in a world that appears to be designed and thus it must have a designer.

Well that falls apart as soon as you start to define your terms.  How do we know what a “designed world” looks like?

We live in one.

But that would make it a circular argument.  Unless we can compare designed and undesigned worlds, there’s no way to determine whether this world has the characteristics of design.

Not so fast.  We may not know what designed worlds look like, but we know what designed watches look like.

Sure, but what does that have to do with anything?

Watches don’t just spring into existence.  They need watchmakers.  And if you think about it, watches are pretty much just little universes.

They are not.

Think about all the things they have in common.  They both have moving parts, they both use… geometry, they both have… time… they’re both designed by intelligent creators…

But watches have a clearly discernable purpose.  They have no superfluous parts.  From everything we can tell they’re nothing like universes.

I can see why you’re not getting it.  We’re being too macro.  Maybe it would help to think of something a little easier to wrap your head around.  Consider the kangaroo.

Okay.

I think we can both agree that kangaroos clearly have a designer.

No we can’t.  I don’t agree with that at all.

Well, like watches, they have a clear purpose and no superfluous parts.

Kangaroos have a clear purpose?

Obviously.

And that is?

Hopping.

I don’t… how do you… how do you know that’s a kangaroo’s purpose?

It hops.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s purpose is hopping.

Have you ever seen a watch hop?

Of course not.

I rest my case.

I don’t think you do, though.

Alright.  I’m probably still being a little too macro for you.  Let’s consider something small enough to hold in your hand.  Consider the banana.

Okay.

Now you may disagree with me on universes and kangaroos, but obviously we can both agree that bananas have a clear purpose and no superfluous parts.

And what’s the banana’s purpose, exactly?

Well now you’re just being obtuse.  It’s clearly designed to be eaten by humans on the go.

And I suppose we know that because humans don’t eat kangaroos on the go?

Or universes.  But there’s more.  If you study a well made banana you’ll notice that on the far side there’s three ridges and on the near side there are two ridges, making it a perfect fit for the human hand.  It also has a non-slip surface, it has a pull tab at the top, it’s easy to digest, it even curves towards your face… when you turn it toward your face.  The rest of the time, of course, it curves away from your face.  This all works a little too perfectly, doesn’t it?  That’s at least as much as watches have going for them.

Look, watches don’t reproduce.  They don’t have a genetic code.  They don’t mutate.  Bananas are derived from a fruit that was nothing like the modern day banana until humans started selectively breeding them.  If anything, ancient farmers designed the modern banana.

Clearly I’m still being too macro.  Consider peanut butter.

No.

Okay, how about the human eye?  There’s something that’s clearly too complex to have come into existence without an intelligent designer.

Human eyes are upside down and backwards.  They have a blind spot right in the middle of them, they only see in a narrow spectrum, our night vision sucks and nearly two thirds of all humans need glasses.  How the hell is that intelligently designed?

(pause) Why can’t we do peanut butter?  I had a Christian canned answer, or canswer, about peanut butter ready to go.

It doesn’t matter what you use.  Until we can satisfactorily define what it means to “look designed” you can’t convincingly argue that anything looks designed.

But consider the math.  The odds that human beings would evolve in their present form are exactly the same as the odds of a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and putting together a Boeing 747 with all the parts.

That’s not true, is it?

No.

Yeah, because… tornados can’t weld.

Or tighten bolts, right.  But just because it isn’t true doesn’t mean I can’t assert it.

Well… sure, you can assert anything.

Exactly.  And that’s the strength of the argument from design.  I can say whatever the fuck I want and it doesn’t have to be true for the words to come out.

So if apologists don’t care if what they say is true… or even makes any logical sense, how should an atheist deal with the argument from design?

Well, when you’re dealing with somebody who’s willing to invoke the tornadic aeronautic engineer analogy, the “you’re too stupid to refute” defense is always viable, as is the lesser used “fuck off and die defense”.

Right, but those don’t really count as refutations per se, do they?

No.  If you really want to stop the argument from design in its tracks, you can always appeal to the most potent counter-apologetic known to humankind.

Which is?

The “Gay Dragon” defense.

Never heard of it.

Few have, despite its unrivalled ability to diffuse 90% of all apologetic tactics.

Alright, you’ve got my attention.

It goes like this:

Premise one: If the argument you’re offering for the existence of god, can also be used to prove the existence of gay dragons, it’s worthless.

Premise two: It can.

Conclusion: Fuck off.

Okay, I think I see where you’re going here, but perhaps it would help if we saw the gay dragon defense in action.

Sure.  Consider a common subset of the Argument from Design called the “Fine Tuning argument”.  In this apologetic, the theist asserts that the universe is fine tuned to allow life to exist.  Therefore there must be a fine tuner.  Therefore there must be a gay dragon.

How so?

Every time a gay dragon has been observed in nature, it has been observed fine tuning a universe.

So… that’s zero observations I’m guessing?

Exactly equal to the number of observations of gods fine tuning universes.

Got it.  So how does the gay dragon approach apply to some of these other forms of the design argument?

Let’s return to that banana.

By all means.

Consider how useful a banana would be to a gay dragon who was pleasuring itself.  It’s the perfect shape for some dragon assplay, it’s soft enough to fit but firm enough to feel, and it even has a wrapper so that the dragon can have a nice snack afterwards without risking diphtheria.

Wow…

Oh, there’s more.  Think about all the cocksucking practice a gay dragon could get with a banana.

Okay.

And that’s saying nothing about how good a banana feels when you smash it up and smear it between your…

Alright, alright, I get it.

Are you sure?  Because I wasn’t gonna say ass cheeks.

It doesn’t matter.  I think we can all see how this argument would quickly shut down an apologist.

Can we talk about the peanut butter now?

I’d rather not.  But thanks for the lesson.

My pleasure.

Outro

Before we wrangle out the door tonight, I needed to make a few more corrections.  I swear, last week’s episode was so full of errors one could be forgiven for thinking we wrote the bulk of it shitfaced after celebrating a birthday until 3 in the morning.

So the first apology goes out to MIKE Dunlap at MIKE Dunlap photography (dot) com.  He was kind enough to provide last week’s Farnsworth quote only for me to fuck shit all up, elongate his first name and misidentify his website as “Michael Dunlap Photography” when it is most definitely “Mike Dunlap Photography (dot) com” because he’s Mike.

http://mikedunlapphotography.com/

And from accidentally elongating a name to accidentally shortening one, I’d like to apologize to Steven as well, who I misidentified as “Steve” when I was thanking last week’s most exceptional humans.  I also misidentified “Steve” as “Other Steve” so this error clearly snowballed out of control and nearly derailed the entire episode.  I hope that Steven, Steve, Mike and all the listeners confused by this apology can all forgive me.

I also wanted to warn you that we’re gonna be changing our logo this week so don’t be surprised if next week the cover art looks way cooler and way less like I spent 6 minutes fucking around on MS paint.  We should also have some merch available next week as well.  Keep up with us on the blog and Facebook for word on that if you’d like a chance to be the first human being to own a Scathing Atheist T-Shirt.

That’s all the blasphemy we have for you tonight, but if you want more, there’s more.  If you haven’t checked it out already, be sure to check out episode 54 of the “A Matter of Doubt” podcast.  Steve invited me on to share a few personal stories about my path towards atheist activism.  It was a really fun conversation and, of course, I’ll have the link on the show notes for this episode.

http://www.amatterofdoubt.com/?p=628

And if that’s not enough, you can also catch me on CWebb’s Sunday School this week. He’ll be livestreaming the taping at 5pm Eastern Time this Saturday and you’ll find that link on our Facebook page, our Twitter feed and our blog.  If you miss the livestream, I’ll also link to the archive as soon as it’s available.  We’ll be discussing the situation in Syria and all the crazy little bible prophecies that Christians are trying to shoehorn into it so that should be a lot of fun.

I also need to throw some thanks to some very deserving folks.  Need to thank Heath as always for bringing so much to the table each week.  I also need to thank Mark Nebo over at Be Secular (dot) org.  It’s a great website that reinforces the secular community and tries to widen the umbrella of secular values.  He’s doing great work and his effort are definitely worth your support.  Be sure to check him out at Be Secular (dot) org and if that’s too much to remember at the moment, check the shownotes and you’ll find him there as well.

http://besecular.com/

Also need to thank everyone who sends us encouraging emails and messages, especially the folks who help us out by sending in news items and stuff for the calendar segment.  It’s a huge help and we really appreciate it.

But most of all we need to thank this week’s most admirable members of the animal kingdom, Kenneth, Max, Steven, Duncan, April and John.  The ferocity of your generosity against the monstrosity of religiosity and it’s atrocities gives velocity to my animosity and leaves me at a paucity of words so I’ll simply say thank you Kenneth, Max, Steven, Duncan, April and John.

And if you, too, would like to be the subject of lavish and possibly poetic praise while simultaneously helping Heath and I purchase the finer things in life like food and shelter, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you want to help us out but you’ve taken a vow of unemployment, you can also help us for free my liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter or leaving us a glowing review on iTunes.  Oh, and some Christian rectal wart has nothing better to do with his time than go through our YouTube channel and give all the videos a thumbs down, so if you’d like to counteract him a bit, we’d sure appreciate it.

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.