The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons

(Note: Transcript contains portions that were edited out due to time constraints)

Warning:

Warning, this podcast contains explicit language.  And we’re talking really explicit.  In fact, I’m gonna use the F word at the end of this sentence and if you don’t like it, go tell someone who gives a fuck.

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Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Ivory Tower Atheist Soap

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And now, the Scathing Atheist

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s October 17th,

And Oprah’s a fat whore, even for a white woman.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright,

And from perpetually parading New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.

In this week’s episode:

• We’ll praise Lesus, our Jord and savior,

• A homeopath will commit suicide by cutting off his pinky toe,

• And what’s-his-name from Thomas and the Bible will join us to talk scripture.

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe

It seems like atheists can point out how silly Christians are all day and we just get called assholes.  But as soon as you call out Muslims, you’re an “Islamaphobic”.  It’s not that you think a murderous, child raping, illiterate warlord isn’t worth adulation.  It’s not that you think stories about flying horses should be reserved for kids and bronies.  It’s not that you think people worshipping a meteorite is insane.  Hell, if you read the Guardian you could be forgiven for thinking “Islamaphobic” was Richard Dawkins’ official title.

So let’s examine that word.  As my spellcheck will readily tell you, it’s not a really a word, but even if it was, it would have no practical application.  Because the suffix “phobia” refers to an irrational fear.  If you’re swimming through shark infested waters and there’s a fin and an ominous two-note theme song following behind you, you’re not selachophobic, you’re rational… and edible.

And before anybody goes accusing me of equating Muslims with terrorists, I should point out that you don’t have to be a de facto terrorist for your Muslimness to scare the fuck out of me.  Is the Saudi judge that sentenced the rape victim to 200 lashes for getting raped a “terrorist”?  Is the Yemeni guy who raped his 8 year old bride to death on their wedding night a “terrorist”?  Is every member of the government in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malaysia, the UAE and Mauritania a terrorist?  Because they all terrify the fuck out of me.

Now I’ll readily admit that Islam isn’t the only major world religion that calls for the ultimate extermination of everybody who worships a different god.  It’s a common theme so it’s not fair to single Muslims out for that one.  It’s okay to point out that it’s batshit crazy, but it’s not batshit crazy for a religion.  That being said, I think it’s fair to point out that they have the best infidel massacring infrastructure.  And if you doubt that, draw a few cartoons of Jesus sucking off Moses while Buddha takes him in the ass and then watch nobody kill you.

So what’s irrational about being scared?  Keep in mind that I live in New York City.  If you average it out over the last fifteen years, New Yorkers are statistically more likely to be killed by Muslim terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers than car accidents or firearms.  So how the hell is Islamaphobia a phobia?

The only thing irrational about it is restricting your fear to Muslims.  Right now Scientologists are just a bunch of goofy alien worshipping nut-tards, but I’m willing to bet if Scientologists took over a nation’s government, they’d suddenly become damn scary.

See, it’s not Muslims that scare me, it’s religious people with armies.  And Christians aren’t immune to this crazy shit, they’re just generally confined to countries that won’t put them in charge of the nuclear arsenal.

But consider the blathering schizophrenic homeless subway dweller tirade Michele Bachmann went on last week where she stammered about leaves on fig trees and the end being nigh and then capped off the incoherent blubbering by talking about how awesome it was that the world was about to end because it means her magical hippy-Jew can’t be far behind.

This isn’t some crazy guy waving a posterboard sign scrawled with his own feces on 146th street.  This is a member of congress.  This is a person who, at one point, led the goddamn polls for the Republican nomination for president AFTER a debate!  This is a person who gets to vote on whether or not we go to war.  A sane person wouldn’t trust this woman to keep the cat out of their macaroni while they took a shit, but religious people are okay with her writing their laws!  Our laws!

Look,  I’m no more terrified by a country controlled by a crazy ayatollah than I am by a country controlled by a crazy evangelical.  And their are plenty of crazy American evangelicals pushing for a theocracy… many from inside the elected government.

There is no greater threat to liberty, peace and progress than theocracy.  And right now the Muslims just happen to leading the leading the race when it comes to dismantling rational governments and replacing them with genocidal scripture.  There’s nothing at all irrational about fearing that.

Headlines

Joining me for headlines tonight is a guy who is at least slightly less hateful than he often sounds, Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to moderately exaggerate your distaste for humanity?

Well considering the subject of the first story, I won’t be exaggerating.  

Ooh… nice tease.

In our lead story tonight, Supreme Court justice – and Stephen Colbert whipping boy – Antonin Scalia revealed in a recent interview that he believes Beelzebub the Prince of Darkness is a real person.

It’s Alito, isn’t it?

When asked about the complete lack of evidence to justify this assinine-itude, he responded, (quote) “Well if you’re gonna go by evidence…”  He then went on to point out that the whole thing with being the devil, is appearing NOT to exist.  The same logic applies to asserting the existence of everything that doesn’t exist, but Catholics like Scalia don’t let being blatantly wrong, stand in their way of being right.

A quality that also comes in handy when you’re a conservative Supreme Court justice.

Basically, this guy’s opinion  comes from Usual Suspects movie character, Keyser Soze, who was actually quoting a character in a poem by Charles Baudelaire.  Granted, basing one’s worldview on 19th century French poetry is much more reasonable and up-to-date than using the bible . . . But it’s still not quite as realistic as we’d hope from one of the nine most powerful legal decision-makers in the country.  

Let’s take a quick look at the line of logic here . . .

Premise 1: A fictional character from a fictional movie universe, quoted a fictional character from a fictional poetry universe, who said: “You guys don’t see that imperceptible demon guy?”

Premise 2: Satan is real.  

So working backwards, Satan is real, and it occurs to me we don’t even need premise one.

And perhaps most frightening of all is the fact that he apparently had no idea that this was an insane thing to say.  When the flabbergasted reporter says something to the tune of “fucking what?” Justice the Hutt gets all incredulous and asks her “What ivory tower do you live in where you can’t comprehend a grown, educated human being believing in a bedtime story meant to dissuade kids from stroking their junk.

What he was saying would have been ridiculous, if he didn’t at least throw us that compliment when he pointed out that we atheists probably aren’t Satan’s minions.  So that was nice.  I can finally check off “Justice Scalia’s approval” from my bucket list.

Yeah, it’s nice to probably not be Satan’s minion.  Thanks for throwing us a bone.  You’re probably not Satan’s minion either, your honor.

But then he ruins the tender moment by going on to say that disbelief in God (quote) “certainly favors the devil’s desires.”  So you can see why I pity drafted this guy in my celebrity death pool.  There’s nobody else I’d rather see die before January 20, 2017, but I know he’s gonna fucking live.  It was like drafting Aaron Hernandez for fantasy football, just cause you’re a big Patriots fan.  

Scalia says atheism “favors the devil’s desires”: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/07/scalia-says-satan-is-a-real-person/

And in the “Everybody was Kung Jew Fighting” file tonight, we turn to a story that wouldn’t be funny at all if the people involved didn’t have curly sideburns and goofy little hatlets.  Two ass-kicking rabbis face charges of kidnapping and assault after allegedly starting a business kidnapping and assaulting.

I’m sure it was kosher assault . . . But seriously, the Jewish people won’t be able to continue being loved the world over, if they keep this shit up.  America is no place for absurd religious beliefs that lead to insane criminal acts, unless you have a note from Jesus.  Did these rabbis, by any chance, have a note from the savior their tribe murdered?  No?

No, but give them two days and I’m sure they can beat one out of him.  But up to this point, they’ve been restricting their attacks to Orthodox men who refused to give their wives a “get”, which is basically a human bill of sale that grants a woman a divorce.  And despite the fact that divorcing an orthodox Jewish woman should be its own reward, some Jewish men are sexist, vindictive assholes.  Which is where Shlomo and the Chhhhammer come in.

So the rabbi could declare the divorce and stop having the congregation shame the whore-wife…  Or he could torture the husband into giving the “get”?  And he goes with the torture?!?  

So the “get rule” is set in stone, but rules about whether it’s bad to kidnap and torture . . . Those are gray areas with lots of midrash?!?  (Which sounds like a diagnosis by a geriatric gynecologist.)

According to the FBI, the two would cover the victim’s heads in a plastic bag and torture them with a cattle prod and karate until they would agree to grant the get.  And as fucked up as that is, I find myself siding with the cattleprod wielding ninja jews.  Because, first of all, it’s a hilarious mental image; but more importantly, the stupid, fucked up, prehistoric morality these asswipes cling to makes it all but impossible for a divorced woman to lead a normal life in the community until her ex-husband says so.

Rabbis planned to kidnap husbands and force divorces: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/10/rabbis-plotted-to-kidnap-husbands-force-divorces-fbi-says/

In “justified filicide” news, a Hindu man murdered his infant son by striking him twice on the neck with an axe.  Which just goes to show you, Hindu men are not very coordinated.  His defense lawyer plans to argue that conviction would be a violation of the free exercise of murderous religious beliefs clause.  

Yeah, just in case you thought making jokes about torturing jews with cattleprods was the lowest we were going tonight, here’s a story about a man murdering an 8 month old with an axe.  I wonder if we can somehow parlay this into an abortion joke…

Nobody pivots to abortion better than Noah Lugeons . . .

Speaking of which, while crafting a response to this horrific event, one atheist podcaster wrote, “Fuck – At least we’re just killing fetuses . . . I’m not comparing the Hindu goddess Kali’s stance on murdering children, to my atheist stance on murdering bundles of undifferentiated cells that nobody loves . . . But Hinduism is clearly worse here.  My abortions can beat up your infant sacrifices.”

Hindu man sacrifices 8 month old to god: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/10/12/hindu-man-brutally-murders-8-month-old-son-as-a-sacrifice-to-goddess-kali/

And in “The Father, the Son and That Other Fella” news tonight, the Vatican has recalled more than 6000 medals that were issued to commemorate the pontificate of Pope Fransylvania six-five thousand.

As if selling indulgences isn’t enough, now the Vatican’s literally minting their own money?!?  Why not just give the gold straight to the rape victims, right away … on the nightstand like a proper gospel John.

The medal contained an image of the new muppet-pope on the front and an image of St. Matthew talking to some dude named Lesus.  Or at least, that’s how he’s identified on the misspelled inscription that prompted the recall.

“Does the name of our lord and savior look right to you?  Will you have the intern go check on JexisNexis if it’s Jesus, or Lesus.  Tell him not to fuck it up this time, or we’ll keep treating him exactly how you’d imagine a Vatican intern gets treated.”  

“Yo soy- Ego sum Lay-Zeus!  All other gods must bow before, Lay-Zeus!  For those of you who don’t Joquar Jatine, Lay-Zeus is Jatin for . . . The Zeus.”  

While I can think of no more appropriate way to commemorate the current pontificate than issuing something that has to immediately be retracted, the Vatican is acting like they got caught with their hand in a kid with his hand in the cookie jar.

Vatican misspells Jesus: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/10/vatican-jesus-medal_n_4080403.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

Moving on to “pork-free telecom” news . . . Israel has sanctioned a kosher-certifed cell phone service.  The new product is obviously called the Adonai-Phone, and will be sold at Adam’s Apple Stores Jewish-nationwide. However, one of what must be many, conservative theocratic governing bodies in Israel, the Rabbinical Committee for Communications, mandated that subscribers be blocked from using the normal pre-installed rape and mental crisis hotlines.   

Before we move on, allow me to restate exactly what you just said in my “you’ve-gotta-be-fucking-kidding-me” voice: “They mandated that subscribers be blocked from using pre-installed rape and mental crisis hotlines!”

When you block stuff that helps with rape and insanity, it’s really hard not to jump straight to the allegation that Judaism is fully aware of being an unsolicited mind fuck . . . with some real rape built in somewhere too.  When asked for a response to this accusation, Judaism texted me back, saying: “Well we wouldn’t use those exact words, but we certainly can’t have those numbers on speed dial.  We’re trying to run a business here!”    

“Do you have a phone that will also tell my wife she’s a useless bitch and nobody loves her?  How about one that smacks her if she tries to think?”

So I read this story several times over, and I’m still trying to figure out the kosher stance here  . . . Maybe some obscure torah verse that technically makes Microsoft bloatware and other built-ins against the rules?  But even then, it’s just the rape and mental illness lines they targeted.  What good intentions could be behind blocking those two things only?

Yeah, equally disturbing is the guy in some boardroom who said, “So you’ll buy the phones as long as we disable the rape hotline?  Both the male and female rape hotlines?  Sounds reasonable to me, sure.”

“What’s that you’re buying? Candy, KY jelly, and a van? . . . And some bullets? . . . Isn’t Walmart great?!?  I’m sure there’s a perfectly good, unrapey reason for those purchases.”

“You know, I’m just curious, of course, not that I’m gonna do it or anything, but does this Pez Dispenser work with roofies?”

Kosher phones block emergency numbers for sexual assault victims: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4431017,00.html

That’ll do it for headlines tonight, Heath, thanks as always.

Catchphrase, exclamation mark.

And when we come back, Thomas from Thomas and the Bible will join us to explain how he managed to get top billing over the inerrant word of god.

Outro

Before we put it in park for the night I want to take a second to congratulate our friends Frank and Dan over at the “Thank God I’m Atheist” podcast for reaching the 100 episode milestone.  I’m only now starting to comprehend exactly how much work goes into hitting that mark so a very well-deserved shout out to two guys fighting the good fight in the belly of the beast.

And just so that none of the math-geeks email us to tell me that the number 100 is ultimately meaningless, I’m also gonna congratulate our friend George Hrab from the Geologic podcast on his 334th episode as well.

Oh… and we’ve got the finalized logo, the correct file sizes and the whole nine at this point so if I don’t have some merch available for you by Saturday night I’ve got nobody to blame for it but myself.  We’re really, really close to having T-shirts and other as-yet-undetermined shwag so look for that in the coming days.  We’ll be shouting ceaselessly about it on the Facebook page, the Twitter feed and, of course, the blog at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.  But don’t worry, there will still be plenty of time to get grandma a Scathing Atheist T-Shirt for Christmas.

I gotta toss out one more quick thanks to Thomas for hanging out tonight.  I wasn’t kidding about his podcast kicking ass but if you don’t believe me, you’ll find proof in the form of a link to his website on the shownotes for this episode.

http://www.thomasandthebible.com/

I also need to thank Heath, of course, for somehow continuing to be that damn funny every week, I need to thank Lucinda for lending us a snippet of her lovely voice, I need to thank Cameron from the Cam’s world (dot) de podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote.   His is a newer podcast that promotes scientific skepticism in the world of sports, so definitely a mission I can get behind 100% and don’t let the (dot) DE fool you, it’s in English.  You’ll find it linked on the shownotes as well.

http://camsworldde.libsyn.com/

But most of all, of course, we need to thank this week’s most essential anthropoids; William, David, Richard and Crouchy.  William, whose intellectual strength is too great to measure in anything but raw horsepower; David, whose ninja reflexes are the envy of photons everywhere; Richard, whose illustriousness will almost certainly lead to his first name being the only one to ever be officially retired and Crouchy, whose behemoth genitals have to be factored into meteorological equations.

These four exemplary individuals have proved themselves to probably not be the minions of Satan this week by giving us money.  Only the most heroic, high-minded, Herculean and harmonious heathens have the heart to give us money, but if you think you share William, David, Richard and Crouchy’s commitment to complimentary adjectives that start with H, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you’d like to help us out but you spent all your money on the finer hookers in life, you can always help us out a ton by leaving us a glowing 5-star review on iTunes and/or telling somebody about the show and nagging them until they listen to it.

That’s all the blasphemy we’ve got for you next week, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with more.  If you can’t wait that long, be sure to pop over to the website, look for the “extras” tab on the top of the page and get your required dose of bonus scatheism.  And of course, check us out on all those social media sites and stuff and listen to us on Stitcher just in case.

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.