The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Lucinda & Noah Lugeons

(Note: Transcript contains some material that was edited out of the final episode due to time constraints)

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And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday, it’s October 3rd, and Congressional Republicans just threw the Risk board off the table in a tantrum, took their ball, and went home.

I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from NFL-level football teamless New York, New York this is the Scathing Atheist

In this week’s episode…

• We’ll learn that Muslim culture, as portrayed in 90’s action movies, is entirely accurate.

• A Kansas teacher will be accused of mandatory atheist prayer, after assigning students to write a letter to the President.

• Russia finally gets Coke, Betamax and de facto anti-Muslim legislation.

• And CWebb from CWebb’s Sunday School will join us to give the Scathing Atheist a little hip-hop cred.

But first, the diatribe.

Diatribe

You know, I might have been the only person walking out of the Eugene O’Neil theater on Saturday night saying, “Don’t get me wrong, Book of Mormon was hilarious, but I wish it had been a little less pro-religion.”

Lucinda and I finally got around to seeing it this past weekend and yes, it’s every bit as good as everybody says it is.  The dialogue was hilarious, the songs were phenomenal, the dance numbers were spectacular, the story was solid and they spent essentially the entire two hours mercilessly lampooning one of the most ridiculous cults America has yet to produce.

And still, I’m gonna bitch at that show for being too damn nice to religion.

I’m not gonna fault Matt and Trey.  They had a message they wanted to send and they expressed it brilliantly.  I just profoundly disagree with the message.  See, like most pop-refutations of religiosity, they toss religion a huge bone at the end of this thing.  After we spend ninety minutes learning how insane a person would have to be to take Mormon dogma seriously, we learn that it’s okay to believe patently absurd things, as long as they inspire us to do good and work together.

Ultimately, that’s the moral of the story.

It reminds me of another one of my favorite comedic excoriations of religion, Kevin Smith’s 99 dick and fart joke classic Dogma.  We spend the whole movie lambasting Catholic mythology, but Chris Rock’s character encapsulates this same ridiculous cop out about halfway through the film when he says, “It’s not important what you have faith in, just that you have faith.”

Now, when you break it down like that, it’s pretty clearly that we’re dealing with batshit lunacy.  That statement could be used to justify any psychotic delusion you could imagine and yet it’s presented within the movie as the soft-pedaling endorsement of religion.  In Book of Mormon the main character overcomes his crisis of faith by realizing that it doesn’t matter if the stories are bullshit as long as they help people to live a better life.

I don’t know if Trey Parker, Matt Stone or Kevin Smith actually believe that.  I suppose it’s possible that they’re just trying to make their story a bit more palatable to a majority religious audience.  It might be that a hard atheist message is tantamount to killing the dog in American entertainment.  After all, you can’t have 80% of your audience walking out knowing that they were the ones you’d been making fun of the whole time.

But ultimately it’s a profoundly stupid concept.  It’s like saying “I’d love the forest if it weren’t for all the damn trees”.  It’s like saying the gun had nothing to do with the bullet.

Sure, the specific tenets of any religion are stupid.  I think even religious people admit that at this point.  But they cling to that misguided notion that it doesn’t matter because the results are positive.  Sure, they’re not universally positive… but their religion is positive right now in their lives.  How can that be a bad thing?

Of course, our cream-of-the-crop atheist listeners already know the answer to this question, but I’m gonna spell it out anyway:

Thinking is important.

Thinking isn’t as easy as some people seem to think it is.  The very fact that we use the term “common sense” as anything but an example of an oxymoron is plenty of proof of that.  Critically examining a question isn’t something that comes to us innately.  You have to learn how to do it.

And of course, a religious worldview stand in the way of all of that.  It’s not enough to have the right answer if you got there the wrong way.  If you think the only reason it isn’t okay to murder people and take their shit is because god said so, you’re a dangerous motherfucker.  To use an example from Book of Mormon, if you think the only reason not to fuck a baby is because Joseph Smith might turn you into a lesbian, that’s not enough.

The problem isn’t this silly belief or that one.  It’s the method they use to get there.  You can believe any insane, detrimental shit you want, but if you used reason to get there, I can reason you back out.  I can show you where you fucked up your chain of logic.  But there’s no way to faith you back from the ledge.

Religion forces you to relinquish critical thought.  It can’t be arrived at through empirical means and it can’t stand up to logical evaluation so it has to.  That’s a prerequisite to faith.  Hell, that’s the definition of faith.  It’s a damn shame this doesn’t go without saying, but anything that forces us to stop using our brains is a bad thing but especially when the thing that’s asking us not to use our brains is trying to tell us right from wrong.

Headlines

Joining me for headlines tonight is equal opportunity scather, Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to offend a new demographic right here in the opening of the segment?

How the fuck are the Mayans keeping their appointments organized, these last nine months?  My friend from Belize is always confused.  Talking about, “the thing, with the guy, in the place, on the day”

Okay, mildly offensive…

Don’t worry, it gets worse.

In our lead story tonight, a Kansas anti-evolution group is suing the state board of education on the grounds that teaching evolution promotes a religious belief.  Yes, they’re suing because evolution is too religious.

So the church . . . is trying to tell the state . . . that they aren’t maintaining a proper separation of church and state?!?  There’s a solid headline in there somewhere . . .

“Church not in Kansas anymore, after accidentally invoking First Amendment and getting separated from state.”

The lobbyists in question go by the bullshit flavored moniker “Citizens for Objective Public Education” and they’re suing to block the board from implementing a uniform science curriculum called “Next Generation Science”, but this group would be pissed if it was “Eight generations ago science”, as we’ve had this evolution thing for a while now.

Do they want a state-by-state thing?  

“Evolution is real, and cigarettes cause cancer, but so far only in California.”

What if we compromise, and split it right down the middle?  Science gets to determine the science curriculum in this life, and the church can decide on the curriculum for the afterlife.  

Sounds fair to me.  They get way more time that way, right?  But according to John Calvert, the attorney defending perpetual stupidity, (quote) “The state’s job is simply to say to students, ‘How life arises continues to be a scientific mystery and there are competing ideas about it’ (end quote and theoretical in-quote quote).

That’s why all gynecologists are trained in human birth, but also stork wrangling . . .

Just in case the stork thing doesn’t continue never happening.

Yeah… who the hell are teachers to teach students stuff about things?

Also, evolution isn’t a wild stab by Darwin at how life arises.  It’s a proven explanation of how living things that existed, reproduced other new living things that existed.  It has nothing to do with cosmic life origins.  If everyone would please turn to page zero, also known as the cover, we can all see that it’s not called Origin of Life, it’s called Origin of Species.

Au contraire, according to the lawsuit learning about evolution (quote) “…cause[s] students to embrace a non-theistic worldview”  Now, this is something of an undercurrent to everything we say on this show, but I think from time to time we have to just stop and bask in the stupidity of the war they’re fighting.  When Christians realize that learning about reality makes you stop believing in Christianity, their solution is to stop people from learning about reality.

Kansas Christian group sues to remove evolution from curriculum on the grounds that it is a religious belief: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/kansas-evolution-lawsuit_n_4005717.html

Moving on to inter-national thought crime news, Sudan’s Top 10 Most Wanted list has a new number one.  The dangerous fugitive is implicated in a crime spree during which she turned in her library card, got a new license, and stopped being Muslim.  Nahla Mamoud – a Sudanese woman and naturally also a Muslim apostate – had her life threatened by UK politician and big Islam fan, Salah al Bandar.  

I think the most fucked up thing about this story was the response from the Metropolitan Police Department, which basically said, “oh, death threats never hurt anyone” and even suggested that investigating Al Bandar might anger him further and lead to more passionate fatwa activity.  So apparently they’re willing to overlook an occasional death threat from an Islamist because you know Muslims and their silly fatwas…

Crazy old scalawags … hair tussle, shoulder punch …

Being Muslim and therefore having no choice in the matter, Bandar led something known as a ‘takfir’ campaign against Mahmoud.  Takfir is an Arabic word that means something similar to “excommunication” plus “we-have-to-kill-you-now”.  

Oh.  So then what does Allah Akbar mean then?

Well I was watching Air Force One, and it seemed like “Allah Akbar” means “I’m a Muslim evil henchman, and my bosses are hijacking this plane.”  

… Oh I get it… people watching Air Force One… that’s good.  How many more times the Muslims are gonna make it this easy on us?  “What?  She said Muslims were intolerant of the opinions of women!?  Kill that bitch!”

The “bitch they wish to kill” has been advised by police that her best legal recourse would be to stop existing, because it angers Muslims, and would help avoid a murder, including a bunch of annoying paperwork.  

Well, she does have a vagina…

Obviously Muslims aren’t all terrorists, but . . . traditional sharia law really does call for execution of apostates.  Sure, the sloppier progressive Muslim theocracies have eased that back to mere amputation.  But they don’t specify amputation of what, so I imagine they have a spinning wheel like The Price is Right.  The Slice is Right.   

• “BEEP, BOP, BOOP–Clitoris.”  

New article on Sudanese Apostate cut from last week: http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2013/09/28/statement-on-the-takfir-campaign-against-activist-nahla-mahmoud/

And in the “Goddamn Blasphemy Laws” file tonight, a Russian judge has ruled that a popular translation of the Koran should be banned for violation of the nation’s law against extremist materials.  Muslim leaders are predictably outraged by the notion that a book that calls for the murder of 76.8% of the world’s population and endorses child rape is extreme and vow to brutally murder anybody who says it is.

These outraged religious leaders of which you speak . . . I can’t picture it . . .

They’re usually all  about “gray areas” and “reasonable compromise” . . . Weird . . .

But these angry outliers are saying extremist literature is okay, because of some sort of free exercise, “Belief in Santa” clause.

Well, I guess that’s what they get for having the one holy book that endorses horrible shit.

Their argument is that extremist messages are only safe in the hands of brainwashed masses of fanatically faithful idiots?  It’s the disorganized secular jihobbyists that can’t be trusted with understanding allegory?  Really?!?

Now I think it’s important to note that basically every Russian official except this one redneck judge is backing away from the ruling and there’s no way that it’ll stick, but Russia’s bigot-class was quick to embrace the ruling.  Guy-with-unpronounceable-Russian-name, who was speaking on behalf of political-party-with-equally-unpronounceable-name applauded the decision and even extended the entirely non-racist offer to pay for the deportation of Muslims who didn’t like it.

And the Muslims who did like it, get a paid vacation.  So it’s not bigoted at all . . .  All the Muslims are being treated equally different.  

Obviously, we here at the Scathing Atheist would never support the banning of any book, but we’d especially oppose the banning of a book as insane as the Koran.  If the Holy Babble segment has taught us anything it’s this: the most powerful weapon against a religion is its own holy book.

Russian court bans the Koran for being extremist: http://freethinker.co.uk/2013/09/27/russian-court-rules-that-a-translation-of-the-koran-is-extremist-and-orders-its-destruction/

In “South Asian Buddhist Redneck Islander” news, a Sri Lankan exorcist almost survived a botched evil spirit removal at a house outside Colombo.  It should be noted that the only way to botch the removal of a spirit that doesn’t exist, is to die during the process, in which case you can’t proclaim success at the end . . . So that’s what this guy did.    

I’m dying to hear how a person goes up against a figment of imagination and fails to a fatal degree.  And by the way, full disclosure and all, it’s written on the script in front of me and I know exactly how it happened and I’m still dying to hear it out loud.

This particular magical spell called for, among other things, the exorcist to bury himself alive and then trust the onlookers to dig him out when he signalled them by thrusting a sword through the dirt.

Hard to imagine how this could go wrong…

Apparently he misread the recipe … it said sacrifice a whore, and he sacrificed a cat.  And of course, when he buried himself alive, the dead cat didn’t prevent his suffocation the way the dead whore would have.  After three hours, during which he was dying, and therefore unable to stab his sword up through the ground like he planned, the audience dug up his dead body.  Classic blunder.  Atheists get in trouble with dead whore scenarios all the time too, and let me tell you, it isn’t . . . something I know anything about.    

So what you have here are a bunch of villagers watching this lump of sand saying “You know, don’t get me wrong, this is a solid trick, but it’s kind of boring.  He could… you know, maybe stick his hands out of the dirt and juggle or something.”  And after three fucking hours somebody says, “You know, not breathing for those first two hours and fifty nine minutes was impressive and all, but he can’t possibly hold it for three hours.”

I heard they attempted to bring him to the hospital, but the exorcist and the cat were pronounced dead by Schroedinger before they even started the ritual.   

Sri Lankan exorcist kills cat, self: http://www.nst.com.my/latest/sri-lankan-man-dies-in-failed-exorcism-ritual-1.350008

And in “Stop in the Name of the Lord!” news tonight a police department in Montgomery, Alabama thinks they might have pinpointed the reason their murder rate is so high: Too few Alabamans know about that Jesus guy.

“Montgomery just aint been the same since that godless MLK guy started a-causin’ trouble.”

Because a high tech security system prevents him from physically rubbing his nut sack all over the Constitution, Corporal David Hicks of the Montgomery PD had to settle for the next best thing.

Lots of other Hicks would love to rub out their Hand-cock on the First Amendment too . . .  

What was “next best” to that?

Under his direction, the department has instituted an official constabulary proselytization program that gives ministers express access to crime scenes so that they can evangelize to victims and perpetrators and people who are in otherwise vulnerable states of mind.  And the best part is, it doesn’t cost a dime unless you’re an Alabama taxpayer.

I’ve said this before . . . They should really have their own schools.  I know that phrase doesn’t go over well in Alabama, but religions really need to have their own schools, so that creationist kids can get a separate, but inferior education, like god intended.  

In their defense, everyone in Alabama gets an inferior education.

Anyway, the program in question is modeled after similar programs in Ohio and perpetual Scathing Atheist whipping state Texas and is so insanely illegal that the Supreme Court should get to piss on the people who started it at some point.  Not only is it clearly a state endorsement of a particular religion (and religion in general), but the costs of training and certifying the ministers is actually paid for out of the public coffers.

Alabama town fights crime with Jesus: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/09/using-christianity-to-fight-crime/280038/

Our government may be getting too entangled with misogynistic major religions, but at least our legal system still guarantees something vaguely resembling gender equality.  Our women can boast proudly that the United States is one of the world’s best places to be raped.  Sadly, the same cannot be said for Saudi Arabia . . . It’s a bad place to get raped.  

Like… the back seat of a Volkswagen?

Except for the mustache rides . . .

Seriously though, just a single count of ‘rape victim-ing’ can get you in big trouble, beyond just the evil spawn gestating inside of you.  Sharia law seems to understand rape in the Hegelian dialectic sense, and therefore the victims are philosophically aiding and abetting the consent-impaired.  

I know that I both should and shouldn’t make a transitional joke here or something…

One particular Saudi woman – a “convicted rape victim” – had her sentence of 90 lashings increased to 200 lashings plus six months in jail, because her lawyer told the world media that he was representing something called a “convicted rape victim”.  Saudi Arabia points out . . .  “Listen – we also convicted the seven rapists, and added to their sentence too.  It’s not like we only punished the victim.”

Fuck… What do you say to another one of those preemptive wars we Americans seem to like so much?  Fucking seriously.  I feel like any group of human beings who can enforce a law that would punish a nineteen year old girl for being gang raped has rescinded their right to sovereignty.  These backward-ass, prehistoric, sociopathic, misogynistic bastards aren’t qualified to judge an episode of Cupcake Wars.

Saudi Arabia is not a good place to get raped: http://freethinker.co.uk/2013/09/27/rape-victims-lashes-increased-because-her-lawyer-publicised-her-barbaric-sentence/

And from the “Sikh of Being Ignored” department, the American Sikh community was…

Wait, fuck that, I’ve gotta go back to that goddamn Saudi Arabian story…   Seriously, if you asked me to just make up the worst, most horrible example of injustice I possibly could, I’d have fallen short of this shit.  I mean, it’s plenty fucked up that they would whip a woman for willingly having sex outside of wedlock but for getting fucking raped!?

It just teaches the wrong lesson . . . Be slutty . . . Enjoy the gang rape.  You don’t want women enjoying this horrific ordeal.  What kind of message does that send?

Exactly.  Because as fucked up as a law against being raped is, this is even worse in practice because what it amounts to is a law against reporting rape.  It’s a disincentive for women to exercise even the insignificant fraction of rights they have in these anencephalous theocracies.  Seriously.  And think about how few rapes get reported even here where it’s legal.  I mean, what rationale can they possibly use?  Is the judge really walking away going, “Well that slut’ll think twice about getting brutally assaulted next time”?

One more unsolicited joke?

No.

And that means “NO” . . . not “yes, and bring six friends”.

Seriously, just hold off on the rape jokes for a second.  I need two paragraphs to get this shit off my chest.

So you’re gonna say “get the shit off my chest” and I’m supposed to not make a Cleveland Steamer joke?

Yeah.  Look, I know you have the whole complete lack of a moral compass thing to your sense of humor and I love it as much as the next guy, but I just need you to pump the brakes on it for a minute.  Because this story is so demonically fucked up it’s important that we actually stop and reflect what exactly we’re talking about here.

I don’t want to pile on the gang rapejokes, but I really only get the occasional opportunity to-

Whoa!  Think about it, we’re talking about a barely adult girl is brutally raped and then gets whipped bloody.  As a punishment.  200 lashes?  What the fuck!?  Are we in the goddamn middle ages or something?

The funny thing about gang raping a girl with six buddies is that-

Shh…. save me the edit dude, there’s nothing funny about that.

Well if I never get to the punchline there’s no way to know how funny…

Sharia law my ass… it’s not fucking law.  And this is not… it’s important to say, this is not a Muslim thing.  This is a theocracy thing.  Go watch the fucking fundie Christian preachers on YouTube and tell me these misogynistic asstards wouldn’t be sentencing rape victims to lashes if they could.  “Well she wers wearing pants so she was askin’ for god to make her get raped.”

Okay, now can I tell one last rape joke?

Yeah, I’m done…

Would you rather be raped once by six buddies, or six times by one guy?

Ok that’s it, I’m ending the segment-

Six one, half dozen the other.

Sikhs demand (and get) removal of offensive Bin Laden Halloween costume: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/osama-bin-laden-halloween-costume_n_4005862.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

Alright, well now that I’m too pissed to be funny I guess that does it for the headlines.  Now where’s my fucking bong?  Fucking neanderthals… Anyway, Heath, thanks for joining me.

And when we come back we’ll do a bit that we recorded before I got so pissed off.

Pitch

Each year, nearly one hundred million children are inflicted with religion.

That’s more than three hundred thousand a day,

Fifteen thousand an hour,

Two hundred and fifty a minute,

Four a second,

Pi every 0.785 seconds.

This horrible mental disorder affects a child’s ability to reason, to interact socially… to experience guilt free orgasms.

In it’s early stages, religion can cause sweating, confusion, night terrors, cognitive dissonance, social anxiety and anal leakage.

And if left untreated, it can even lead to complete loss of cognitive function and sphincter function.

You won’t believe the shit that will come out of your ass, and your mouth.  

Many victims end up needing an entire crock to store all the shit.  But there is a way you can help alleviate this epidemic of oral defecation.

For the cost of just one bottle of single malt scotch a day, you can donate about fifty dollars a day.  Or you could just donate the bottle each day.    

And every dollar you donate to the Scathing Atheist goes directly toward fighting this horrible disease.  Except the part that goes toward pizza.

…and single malt scotch.

The Scathing Atheist is one of the world’s oldest and most trusted New York based, anti-theistic, thirty minute, weekly, amateur, explicit, english language podcasts.

For almost years, we’ve been fighting against this dreadful affliction but we can’t do it without your financial support.

…well, I don’t know if “can’t” is the right word…

We’d rather not do it without your financial support.

And donating to the Scathing Atheist doesn’t just help us, it also helps you.  Because if you don’t give the money to us, you’ll probably spend it on crack.  Or maybe not, but you never know.

If they’ve got a crack guy, that’s where the money’s going.

So go to Scathing Atheist dot com, look for the donate button on the right side of the page and give until it hurts.  Because I’m using my sad voice.

Outro

Huge thanks to C-Webb for letting us use the song there.  The dude is as intelligent as he is talented and in addition to arranging biblical poems for rap, he also does a really well presented, well reasoned counter-apologetics podcast.  If you want to check it out, and you almost certainly do, you’ll find a link to his homepage on the shownotes for this episode.

http://cwebbssundayschool.com/

And speaking of awesome podcasters whose podcasts you would almost certainly enjoy, I also need to thank Thomas from Thomas and the Bible for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote.  He’s been doing a really funny podcast for years now where he’s breaking the bible down verse by verse from an atheist perspective so if you like our Holy Babble segment but want a little more detail, you’ll find a link to his show on the shownotes as well.  Can’t recommend it enough.

http://www.thomasandthebible.com/

I also want to thank everybody who responded to my call last week for more Farnsworth quotes.  I have quite a stockpile now so if you sent me a soundclip, thank you.  I will definitely use it, but it might take a minute to get through the backlog now.

I also wanted to toss out a quick plug for an atheist meet and mingle going on in Vegas on the weekend of October 18th.  We don’t have enough time to spell out the details, but if you’re going to be in or around Vegas that weekend and it looks like a debaucherously good time.  We’ll have a link to their Facebook page on the shownotes as well.

https://www.facebook.com/events/157814217717033/

One additional and important note; nominations for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards are going on right now and I’ve gotten several messages from people who wanted to let us know that they nominated us.  We are, of course, absolutely flattered, but we’re actually not eligible for a Podcast Award this year.  For whatever reason their rules stipulate that a podcast has to have started on or before January first of this year to be eligible so as much as we appreciate it, use your nomination wisely.

And before we power down tonight, I also need to thank Heath for being a really funny bastard and doing it on this show.  I also need to thank Lucinda for helping us out with the little donation pitch this week, for putting up with all the time I spend on this podcast and for regularly having sex with me.

But most of all, we need to thank this week’s most important accumulations of molecules, Forrest, Ward, Shane, Tom, Ryan, Daniel and Marcel.  Forrest, mighty slayer of dragons; Ward, tamer of beasts and women; Shane, friend to all the woodland critters; Tom, masked nunchaku master; Ryan, bain of the villainous; Daniel, grand and legendary conqueror; and Marcel, assassin of the gods.

Together these seven valiant warriors have earned their way into legend, myth and our archives by giving us money.  And of course, if you’d like to join their illustrious ranks, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you’re looking for a way to help but you work for the Federal Government and thus have no income at present, you can also help us out by leaving us a five star review on iTunes or wherever you found us.  And if you need a little more Scatheism in your life, you can check us out on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and our erratically published blog.

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 except the awesome Joshua rap that was used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.  And I also had CWebb’s permission to use his awesome Joshua rap.