The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons

Link to Episode

Link to Hemant’s Blog

Link to Foundation Beyond Belief

Warning: This podcast breaks between 50 and 70 per cent of the commandments, depending on who you ask.

 

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Fox’s new “holistic programming” channel: Placebo FX; featuring an all-star line up of pseudo-scientific programming including hits like “Grey’s Astrology”, Chiropractor Who and Sons of Anthropometry.

Placebo FX: Because TV execs stopped trying when they realized people would watch American Idol.

And now, the Scathing Atheist…

 

Intro:

It’s Thursday

It’s December 26th

And we can finally listen to elevator music in public places again.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright,

And from city waiting for it’s balls to drop, New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist

In this week’s episode,

• Belgium puts the youth back in euthanasia,

• Optimus Prime will die for your sins,

• And Hemant Mehta rejoins us to spackle some cracks in the wall of separation.

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

Last week I was doing a little Insufficiently-Executed-Jew-Mas shopping at one of New York’s fine Fifth Avenue retail establishments when I happened upon 5 white haired little old ladies in matching smocks.  And on these smocks they’d written, in glue and glitter, the words, “Granny Peace Brigade”.  And unlike me, they weren’t giving in to seasonally induced mindless-consumerism.  No, quite the opposite in fact.  They were there to protest.  And of all the evils that face our world, they’d chosen to invest their efforts of protestation on fucking video games.

And I stood there and regarded them with anthropological curiosity.  Because clearly they’d put some time into this.  They’d spent the money on matching yellow smocks and they didn’t half ass the glitter.  They’d clearly each made their own, but each one had the team name written in block letters of approximately the same height.  And they’d all met up for crafts and maybe some lunch or something and then headed out to show those evil retailers how they felt about them filthy computer whats-its with the blood and guts in ‘em.

So it’s not the they weren’t willing to put in the time to research it.  They just didn’t do it.  Do violent video games correlate with violence?  There’s mountains of good data out there and much of it is available for free on the internet.  The consensus seems to be almost certainly no and while there’s some indication that violent people tend toward violent video games, there’s no compelling evidence to suggest that violent video games lead to increases in violent behavior.

But these ladies didn’t bother to check.  They’d already invested time and passion and glitter in this shit.  You think they were gonna do some independent research that might have proved them wrong?  Hell no!  Obviously research wasn’t on the menu or they would have picked a store that sold video games.

Research, shmesearch.  They looked at video games, saw violence, looked at the news, saw violence and they put two and two together.  Sure, they got thirteen, but the important thing is that they had an excuse to get together with the bridge club and make a trip to Ben Franklins.

And when I see these misguided geriatric “blood”ites and their fruitless campaign to impact violence through good intentions and stupidity, I can’t help but think back to four mandatory years in high school of English lit with no classes on critical thinking.  No pre-requisites about psychology or epistemology or formal logic.  And nothing against English Lit, but so far in my adult life the ability to spot bullshit has been far handier than even the best of quatrains.

But thanks to religious fundies, critical thinking isn’t on the school menu.  Because think of all the shit teachers get when they teach redneck kids about evolution.  Imagine if the kids were coming home asking where Noah got his Patagonian pumas.  Or how Moses wrote the parts about his own funeral.  Or why we should thank god for sacrificing himself to himself in the first place.

I’m not going to say that religion is the reason people are stupid, but it helps.  It fosters a stupid, overly-accommodating culture that says there are multiple ways to arrive at truth and the ones with evidence and data aren’t any better than the ones without.  We have different ways of evaluating the truth and sure, yours uses your brain, but mine uses my heart.  Or my pancreas, since that’s just as logical a place to say my thoughts come from as my heart.  And my pancreas thoughts are as good as your brain thoughts because science can’t tell us everything and nobody knows for sure.

And meanwhile, if we could just set all that shit aside and agree on a consistent and logical way of evaluating claims (we could call it science) then we could figure out what matters and what doesn’t and put our time toward something more productive than protesting video games, but we’d rather not do that because we don’t like being wrong… and we’ve already made the smocks.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is reigning Champion of the InKredulous Podcast, Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to throw down some of that award winning incredulity?

Why are we even talking about this?!?  This entire podcast should go without saying!!!  

If god existed, I wouldn’t win at anything!!!

Well done; now how about some of that award-eligible headline delivering?

In our lead story tonight, A&E suspended ‘Duck Dynasty’ star Phil Robertson, after the release of a GQ interview, in which he made several unoriginal homophobic remarks, including a hackneyed comparison of gay sex to bestiality.  As a result, God-fearing, Christian, heterosexual sheep fuckers everywhere, are up in arms.  And that means Westboro Baptist Church is up in arms.

Yeah, when the Westboro Baptist Church is coming to your defense, it’s a good sign your career is over.

So the heir to the “synthetic quacking fortune” released a statement…

Did it just say, “I’m a 67 year old Christian redneck from Louisiana that kills small animals for a living; of course I hate queers you idiots.”

No, it actually explained how he’s super tolerant of gays: (quote) “We just give ’em the good news about Jesus – whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later.” (end quote) …

So that’s nice.  He doesn’t put arbitrary labels on people, like gay … alcoholic … suicide bomber.  

And as for that ‘good news’ … those groups are all equally going to hell fairly.  So good news gay drunks who’ve been dying to get into terrorism: Nothing holding you back now!!!  And good news lesbian Al Queda soldiers: Drink up!!!  And good news bi-curious alcoholic suicide bombers: Might as well suck a dick while you’ve got the chance!!!

“Might as well suck a dick while you’ve got the chance”… okay, so when we get them to take “In God We Trust” off the money, we’ve got a ready replacement.

Along with the WBC, several other professional bigoted assholes have voiced support for Robertson’s traditionally acceptable hate speech, including the Family Research Council, and Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones.  They argue that A&E “not H-eight-ing fags”, denies Robertson’s First Amendment Right to exercise Christianity in a world where all corporations H-eight fags.

The Duck Dynasty Guy getting from the Westboro Baptist Church: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/westboro-baptist-duck-dynasty_n_4479995.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And from the “Now Where Will We Crucify Voltron?” file tonight, a San Diego federal judge has decided that a 43 foot tall concrete cross on public property could be interpreted as a government endorsement of Christianity.

Or at least government persecution of Jews, Muslims, and Transformers.

Don’t say that around Michael Bay or I swear Optimus’ll be hanging from this thing in part seven.  Now I think it’s worth noting that this is only the latest in a long series of judges ruling the Mount Soledad cross unconstitutional.  Legal wrangling over the status of the controversial eyesore has been ongoing since 1989 and it was already found to be unconstitutional once in the nineties and again in 2011.  Because it’s a giant, gaudy cross sitting on top of a mountain on public property and it doesn’t take a seasoned magistrate to see what’s wrong with that.

I’d say the best way to get rid of the cross would be burning it.  Shouldn’t be too hard to find some Christians to get on board with that.

Proponents of the cross have tried everything from making the surrounding space a memorial to selling the land to transferring it to federal jurisdiction to avoid complying with the constitution, and despite the fact that a church a few hundred feet from the present location has offered to keep it on their property, proponents fight on because what’s the point of having a 29 foot tall cross on a 14 foot base if it isn’t on the summit of a mountain?

Judge orders that Mount Soledad cross be removed: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/12/13/why-the-mt-soledad-cross-and-its-like-are-unconstitutional/

And in “Salvation Arms Race” news, the War on Christmas rages on, as bell-ringer Kristina Vindiola was punched really hard in the arm, while collecting donations outside an Arizona Wal-Mart.  Reports indicate she provoked the violence when she started shouting anti-Christian epithets like “Happy Holidays”.

This may be the stupidest example of Christian dominionism.  Set aside that before they started getting all uppity about it most people thought of “Happy holidays” as a way of getting Merry Christmas and Happy New Year out in 5 syllables; even if it means what they think it means, they’re getting pissed off at people for publicly acknowledging the fact that some people have a different religion than them.  How dare some?

So an un-named “Merry Christmas Fundamentalist” heard Vindiola use slurs like the “H-words” several times, as well as other inflammatory synonymous phrases like, “BLANK-cember 25th”.  The Christian shopper obviously became incensed, and shouted back something like: “Don’t you believe in God? It’s Merry Christmas, you godless cunt!” – and then assaulted Vindiola for being a terrible Christian.

Salvation Army volunteer punched for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/kristina-vindiola-punched-happy-holidays_n_4460525.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

And in equal opportunity genital joke news tonight, the Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot was released from a Russian prison last week when it was deemed that the national threat that their metronomic cadence and scaled down barred chords presented had sufficiently expired.

And the feminist movement takes another blow … which they hate.  The most famous all-female band in history still has “Pussy” in their name.  Pussy Riot surpassed the illustrious Pussycat Dolls on their climb to the top of the … tiny area below the glass floor.

The members of the all-girl band were originally imprisoned after recording a music video that criticized the Russian church’s support of Putin and in a theoretically abnormal abuse of anti-blasphemy laws, Putin incarcerated the group after painstakingly revealing the details of his evil plan.

And I suppose now that we’re this deep into the Pussy story, it’s inevitable that we put 30 seconds on the clock…

I can usually go twice that long.

Names for Vaginal Tribute bands.  Go!

Bled Zeppelin

Johnny Gash and Tennessee Twat

Cooze Traveler

Cleft Leppard

Blue Oyster Cunt

Queef Latifah

Molly Hatchet Wound

And for the ladies who like in the Jazz; Cunt Basie and the Kansas Titty 5

Phish … Tacos

Queen Crimson, maybe?  More like a gay joke than a pussy joke, I guess…

Grand Master Gash  

Labio-Head?

Meat Loaf Wallet

Fleetwood Crack

Pink Void: featuring Roger Twatters

Hoo-Hah and the Blowfish

Snatch Box Twenty

I have a few more, but I think that’s enough feminism for the time being.

Amazing that in 17 vagina puns we never used “clit”

I looked for one but I couldn’t find it.

Pussy-Riot members released from prison: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/20/pussy-riot-rockers-convicted-of-religious-hatred-are-released-from-russian-prison/

And just a few quick items before we close the headlines . . .

Item One: 61 years after UK courts convicted math and computer genius Alan Turing of being too gay while cracking Nazi cryptography, and 59 years after his related suicide, the living Queen pardoned the dead queen, and apologized that he was offered chemical castration via female hormone sex-change injections in lieu of jail.

So soon?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/world/europe/alan-turing-enigma-code-breaker-and-computer-pioneer-wins-royal-pardon.html

Item Two is a quick update on the would be Satanic monument on the Oklahoma Statehouse steps that we talked about a couple of episodes ago.  After receiving additional requests from Hindus and animal right activists, the state has declared a moratorium on new monuments, that will, of course, not affect the ten commandments monument that got this ball of shit rolling.

Oklahoma declares “moratorium” on displays at Statehouse: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/19/okla-wont-allow-new-requests-for-capitol-monuments-after-satanists-others/

Item Three: Human veal supply will spike after euthanasia was approved for youth in Belgium.  And it’s about time . . . When you eat Chinese children, you just want to adopt another kid thirty minutes later.  

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/12/19/belgium-debates-allowing-gravely-ill-children-right-die/

And quick, before it gets worse, we’ll close out the headlines.  Heath, thanks as always.

And when we come back, I’ll be rejoined by Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta to talk about what students can do to keep god out of their high schools.

Outro:

Before we apologize awkwardly and claim it’s never happened to us before tonight, I wanted to direct you to a hilarious episode of the InKredulous Podcast featuring Jay Novella of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, our very own Heath Enwright and our very own me.  You can Google InKredulous (with a “K”) or you can look for a handy link on the shownotes for this episode.  Huge thanks to Andy for the invite.

http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/category/podcast/inkredulous-podcast/

I also need to thank Lucinda for opening the show for us, I need to thank Heath for his humorous lack of a moral compass, I need to thank Hemant Mehta once again for a really productive and interesting conversation and I want to remind you that you can find links to his website and the Foundation Beyond Belief on our homepage and on the shownotes for this episode.

Of course, I’ve also gotta thank Dustin from the Atheist Nomads podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote.  His partner did one before but Dustin made more of the rock star entrance.  If you haven’t checked out their podcast yet you have noone to blame for it but yourself.  Again, links can be found on the shownotes.

http://www.atheistnomads.com/

I need to congratulate Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance for Grinching all the joy out of Christmas for me this year by defeating me by less than four points last week in the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists, thus earning the first ever championship title in said league.

But of course, most of all we need to thank this week’s most exceptional vertebrates; Steve-O, Chester, David, Ryan, James and Magnus the Great Dane.  Steve-O, who’s so cool they measure him in Kelvin; Chester, who’s fortified with 13 essential vitamins and minerals; David, whose athletic prowess is so great he hold records in sports he’s never played; Ryan, who is second only to the Hokey-Pokey in being what it’s all about; James, who shall one day inherit a kingdom and make a killing with it on ebay and Magnus the Great Dane, who is, by default more correct on the god question than more than three-quarters of the world’s human population because even a species that eats it’s own poop knows better than to believe in god.

These six notable and noble humanitarians and caninatarians have justified the proterozoic leap into multi-cellular life this week by giving us money.  Not everybody has the compassion, composure and competence to compensate us, but if you think you share Steve-O, Chester, David, Ryan, James and Magnus the Great Dane complementable competence, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you got duped by that old “better to give than to receive” line again this year and blew all your cash, no worries.  You can also help us a ton by leaving us a review on iTunes and checking us out on all the various social media places you frequent.  Oh, and check us out on Stitcher because I forgot to mention that the last couple weeks and our Stitcher ranking dropped so do that.

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.