The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

Warning: This podcast contains explicit language, so if you don’t like words like first, second, third or fourteenth, or if you don’t like hearing grown men talk about pushing pencils into asteroids while jamming cockroaches with toast all over their scrolls, this isn’t the podcast for you.

Sponsor:

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And now, the Scathing Atheist…

Intro:

It’s Thursday

It’s January 16th

And this is the “One Year Anniversary Show”.  Godless lap of the sun complete.  

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright, and from eugenically challenged New York, New York,

And just everything-else challenged Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist

In this week’s episode,

• A columnist in Tennessee says women should be more rape-friendly,

• A female math teacher in Alabama agrees,

• And we’ll breast milk one more gag out of the headlines.

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

I got a scathing comment on the blog the other day that’s almost too stupid to respond to.  The commenter in question was all over the map with their critique and so much of it was contradictory that I almost wrote it off as a troll.  He said I was too vulgar and shouldn’t insult people and said that I did so because I was a (quote) “fucking idiot”.  He faulted me for hiding behind a microphone with no way for people to criticize what I say… on the forum that I maintain for people to criticize what I say.  He said that I was coward because I was unwilling to pretend that I was a Christian to get along with people.

And that’s all too stupid to respond to.  But hidden in this morass of internal-inconsistency and self-congratulatory blathering was one point that deserves a response.  And not because this asshole took time off from ejaculating into Fruity Pebbles to pound it into his keyboard, but rather because I’ve heard it from a lot of rational people as well.  In fact, it might be the most common critique levelled against the atheist movement by other atheists.

The argument basically says that if atheists were ever successful in eradicating religion it would just be replaced by some other religion or some equally irrational quasi-religious substitute.  I’m sure you hear this one a lot.  Hell, it was the crux of the South Park episode about atheism where all the future people were running around saying “Science damn it” and fighting wars based on scientific schisms.

And I’d love to say that this point is also too stupid to refute and it should be, but it’s just too common to brush aside.

Now, there are a lot of reasons why a fully functioning brain should disregard this.  The first is that it’s just an assumption offered without evidence.  The fact that religion has always been a part of the world is irrelevant when you consider the vast difference in communication and education that differentiates the modern world from every previous iteration of human culture.  Sure, religion has always been a part of human society.  Two hundred years ago it could be said about slavery or the political disenfranchisement of women.  Hell, not only could it been said about those things, it was said.  It was offered as a critique against people fighting to eliminate those practices.

So problem number one; there’s no compelling evidence to support the point.  Problem number two, of course, is that there’s plenty of evidence against it.  If the assertion that religion was an inevitable consequence of breathing were true, it would be mathematically impossible to see a rise in atheism.  How the hell could atheism be on the rise if lack of religion caused religion?  So sure, the supporter of this defeatist attitude can claim there’s some magical limit to the percentage of a populace that can be rational when it comes to religion, but then it becomes a god of the gaps argument where that percentage is perpetually retreating.

So there’s the “cause I said so” problem and the “horse will never replace the car” problem, but even if you can argue your way out of all that, it still doesn’t matter.  Even if the chicken-littles are actually Cassandras and they’re 100% correct, it still wouldn’t matter.  It still wouldn’t be a reason to give up.

All the best fights are unwinnable.  I seriously doubt we’ll ever rid the world of hunger, disease, sexism, racism, poverty or “that’s what she said” jokes, but that doesn’t make fighting against them pointless.  Should we give up trying to cure AIDS?  After all, if you do people will just die of something else.  Should we give up fighting for civil rights because there will always be racists?

I can’t speak for the atheist movement as a whole, of course, but my personal goals have nothing to do with “eradicating” religion even though I think that probably is an attainable goal.  My goal is to marginalize it.  To leave its societal influence on par with bigfoot hunters and chemtrail nuts.  And even if that’s unattainable, it’s worth the fight because every step in that direction has its own benefits.  You don’t have to go all the way to justify the journey.  I’m pretty sure that’s why it’s called a movement.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight, is that guy Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to be that guy?

OK yes … Right before we started I did say something that could have sounded like support for George Zimmerman.  But that doesn’t mean I think that black people shouldn’t be allowed to kill Latinos too.  Somebody has to say these things.  

I’m not sure that somebody does… Anyway, in our lead story tonight, former 7th day adventist pastor Ryan Bell made ripples two weeks ago when he announced that he would be re-examining his faith by living for a year as an atheist, sort of.  Atheists initially responded by pointing out that was well intentioned, but stupid, since the only prerequisite and, in fact, the only feature of atheism is not believing in god and since he wasn’t doing that, it was largely an exercise in celibate masturbation.

And the headline reads: “Unholy Sacra-Mental Masturbation: Christian Pastor converts to atheism, finds out he gives better hand jobs than kids, with their sticky little fingers, all over my five- (trailing off after interruption) thousand dollar robes…”

In defense of those kids, their fingers were gonna end sticky one way or the other.

But trying out atheism?  A test drive? … Not sure if that’s how it works.  That’s like a white person trying out being black for a year, by dancing better.

Exactly.  But as inconsequential as his pledge to forego church and read some Dawkins seemed to atheists, it sure as hell seemed consequential to the people who had the power to power to make it so; his employer.  Four days after embarking on this minimalist attempt to look at the god question from multiple perspectives, he was fired from his position as an adjunct professor at Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary.  Because the last thing you want is professors with broadened points of view.

Well if you want a job at a real university, “Fired from Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary” is a good bullet point for the resume.  So is “Recovering Christian – Four Days Sober”.

After initially criticizing his methodology, friend of the show Hemant Mehta took action by setting up a fund to help the recently unemployed mythologist, raising over $16,000 in 24 hours to help him transition to secular employment.  A fact that, of course, I’d loved to have last month, when I still could have mentioned to Hemant that I, too, am unemployed and living as an atheist this year.

Pastor vows to “try atheism for a year”.  Congregants vow to fire his ass: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/07/ryan-bell-donations-atheist_n_4551225.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

And in “Jesus Saved by the Bell” news, recently-fired Alabama math teacher and statutory rapist Alicia Gray, ended up being less guilty, after finding Jesus just in time for sentencing, and will receive a punishment of five years probation.  Unfortunately for the so-called rape victim, God kept his son Jesus inexplicably well-hidden during the weeks right before the raping incident.

Biblical law gets all fucked up when it’s a woman raping a man.  I think the kid’s dad owes himself 50 shekels.

Here’s a statement from the former teacher: (quote) “I’m thankful because without [God] picking me up and making me realize that I was in a very dark place, I don’t know what could’ve happened.”  

…oh, well in that case…

So God was up there watching this all unfold, and saw her about to play AmTrak with the JV Lacrosse Team, at which point he stepped in and derailed the train.  But he still let her fuck the backup goalie as a consolation, to illustrate the important point, that the Bible defines rape as something between ONE man and ONE woman.  

I bet we could sell a few “Support Traditional Rape” bumper stickers.

The real issue here – that nobody seems to be talking about – is whether or not Ms. ‘Shades of Gray’ is physically attractive.  And she clearly IS attractive.  So case dismissed.  I’m sorry, but the 14-year-old with the hot math teacher, who literally experienced his wet dream from the night before, is clearly not the “victim” of anything.  Bottom line: It’s nearly impossible to rape a 14-year-old boy – which is something the church already learned the hard way.  

Alabama teacher rapist repents: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/14/teacher-who-raped-one-of-her-students-before-heading-to-jail-says-that-jesus-has-saved-her/

And in “Empirical v. Satirical” news tonight, popular science personality and guy who normally makes better decisions than this Bill Nye has agreed to a debate with Australian national embarrassment Ken Ham on the topic of whether or not the universe was prestidigitated into being by an invisible, omnipotent clairvoyant sorcerer.

Yeah I saw the grudge match poster.  Ken Ham looks like the missing link to Amish Wolverine.  He looks like the filthy primate precursor that evolved into Amish Wolverine … Doesn’t help his case for Genesis.

With Ken Ham representing Intelligent Design and Bill Nye representing intelligence, the debate promises to be both meaningless and stupid; as the opposition and audience are entirely made up of people dumb enough to occasionally wipe the wrong orifice after a shit.  The debate will take place at the Kentucky Creationism Museum assuming the museum can stave off bankruptcy for another three weeks.

And if you have trouble choosing a wipe spot, I’m sure sometimes they must wipe the right orifice, and then the wrong orifice.  Which is the worst way to mess that up, I’ve heard.  Don’t second guess yourself, and go ass to mouth …

That would be a great “The More You Know” commercial.   

This is rumored to be the first in a series of Bill Nye debates, including a debate with Jenny McCarthy about how many hydrogen atoms are in a water molecule and a debate with Boo Radley on the proposition “Ungh….”

Bill Nye to debate Ken Ham at Creationist Museum: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/02/creation-museum-says-science-guy-bill-nye-will-visit-in-february-to-debate/

And in “Single-Breasted Soup” news, Catholicism’s highest ranked creepy old man-virgin attempted to see his third live booby, by announcing to 32 new moms at a Sistine Chapel baptism, that breast feeding is acceptable in public, including church.    

Reports indicate that nobody whipped out their tits at that point, but if a few of the moms did, I wonder where the monologue would have gone from there.  I can see Pope Franatomically Correct freeballing some revisions to public masturbation laws, maybe rescinding the rule against anal intercourse with vegetables…

There’s a Veggie Tails joke in there somewhere … Thinking quickly to avoid a repeat gaff, the Pope made sure to specify he was referring to nipple and milk, after suggesting that Catholic children should suck on erectile tissue and swallow the white liquid that comes out.  The upshot: Italian atheist kidnappers are sure to appreciate the new emphasis on “milk-fed human veal”.    

And I’m as sick of saying it as our audience is of hearing it, I’m sure, but how the fuck isn’t the headline on this one “While continuing to not actually do anything to change his crooked, money-laundering, child-raping, poverty-insuring cabal, Pope expresses sentiment that would have been progressive 150 years ago”?  Next thing you know he’ll be supporting the germ theory of disease and heliocentrism.

This seems like a new theme for Pope Frammogram, who made a statement last month to an Italian newspaper, in which he made a connection between breastfeeding and global hunger.  So ladies: If you see a homeless dude on the street, eating a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch … DRY, have some compassion.  Whip out a nip, and let the guy latch on for a minute.

Pope Okays Boobs in Church: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/13/pope-tells-moms-its-ok-to-breastfeed-in-church/

And in “Time Magazine’s child-rape harborer of the year” news tonight, the Vatican offered a subtle reminder that in addition to hugging lepers, extolling humane economic policies and admitting publicly that tits aren’t evil, the media-darling pontiff also continues to actively impede efforts to bring serial pedophiles to justice.

That must be exhausting.  He’s like the street magician with the ball and cups trick, and you can never manage to follow the red rapist ball.  Where he stops, nobody knows.  Actually, I guess it’s more like Three Card Monty, and you can’t seem to follow the queen.      

You might recall Archbishop Josef Wesolowski from episode 30 of this program, or, if you were an underage Catholic that lived in Poland, Costa Rica, Japan, Switzerland, India, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Denmark or the Dominican Republic in the last four decades, you might recall him from forcing you to lick his balls while he was beating off to pictures of unconscious sheep.  Several months ago the villainous bastard was abruptly removed from his diplomatic post in the DR when rumors of a sexual abuse investigations started swirling.

Unfortunately for the slutty archbishop and his victims, they had to learn the hard way that diplomatic immunity doesn’t prevent AIDS.  

AIDS and the fiery vengeance of Sergeant Murtaugh, useless against both.  Anyway, under pressure from the Polish government to extradite the Carmen Sandiego of child fuckers, the Vatican response could only have been more evil if they’d written with the blood of crippled kittens.  When asked about Wesolowski’s legal status as part of an ongoing investigation in that country, Vatican spokesman Frederico Lombardi said that the Vatican does not, under any circumstances, extradite its citizens; that as a Vatican ambassador he had diplomatic immunity and what’s more, fucking children wasn’t illegal under Vatican law until last year, so any kids he fucked in other countries while a citizen of Vatican City would have been legal anyway.

After all these years, Carmen Sandiego of Child Fuckers is still one of Vatican City’s top rated shows?  Weird.  Didn’t think it would play well as a reality show.  

Which, of course, begs for 30 seconds on the clock… “Educational Programming on Vatican Public Broadcasting”.  Go!

BJ and the Bear is pretty gay already … Bear in Stained Bears?  Bear in Stained Twinks?

Undress-a-me Street?

How do you get there again?  Take the Hershey Highway? Altar Boy Meets World?

The Big Comfy Crouch

Bleeding Rainbow?

Where in Carmen Sandiego is Archbishop Josef Wesolowski?  It’s a recent debut.

What about Rick Santorum’s favorite show: The Magic Stool Pus

School House Cocks

3-2-1 Inappropriate Contact

Doc McStuff-It-Ins

Vatican refuses to extradite serial pedophile: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/vatican-polish-prosecutor-we-dont-extradite

And in “Women’s Suffrage should be more like it sounds” news, paternalistic Christian asshole Mark Atkins followed up his 2013 op/ed piece about the ‘homosexual disorder’, with a message for the festering masses of radically liberal feminists in the Tri-Cities region of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia that read the Kingsport Times News … The basic gist of his message: If women are allowed to make choices about sex, it really complicates things for men.

Yeah, in 15 short paragraphs, this crusty fuck-flake defends slut-shaming, gay-bashing, male dominionism and virginity tests; while also managing to equate gay marriage with both pedophilia and naziism.  This guy is like the Wal-Mart of bigotry… which is impressive because before that Wal-Mart was the Wal-Mart of bigotry.

Atkins writes (quote) “If  liberals and feminists] did indeed care about women, they would preach the Christian virtues of feminine modesty, chastity, and fidelity, and not sexual liberation” (end quote) . . . Let me try to wade through the bullshit, and focus on his underlying thesis.  Basically he’s saying: “Listen up you liberated bitches!  On behalf of Christian misogynists everywhere: If you don’t act like obedient uterus housing – like it says right here in the manual – we’re not gonna want to marry, own, and rape you … as much.”

The arrogance here is probably award-worthy.  The core argument this sphincter-scarring turd kernel is presenting is literally, “If you aren’t careful, I won’t want to fuck you.”  That’s it.

He goes on to add that when women start making sexual decisions, it produces (quote) “Self-loathing, STD’s, abortion, broken homes, and men’s contempt.  Freedom of a sort but hardly fulfilling” (end quote) . . . So yeah the consensual thing is nice.  I guess that’s technically a freedom, but are you really fulfilled at the end of the day?  Especially knowing how much contempt Christian men have … for consensual sex.  

Or just consent in general.

Feminism causes AIDS: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/14/tennessee-newspaper-op-ed-piece-says-sexual-liberation-leads-to-abortion-broken-homes-and-mens-contempt/

And finally tonight, from the “But it still tastes better than the bullshit he usually feeds us” file, South African Pastor Lesego Daniel has added “Turning the faithful into ruminants” to the already impressively long list of things Jesus can’t do.  Under the guise of demonstrating the powers of the Holy Spirit, Daniel encouraged his congregants to eat grass… because he apparently didn’t think atheists had enough ammunition for the sheep jokes.

He must not have heard about the Polish archbishop getting rim jobs from little kids, whilst jerking off to catatonic sheep photos.  Or maybe he just didn’t see the humor potential.  So he also went on to use the bloating caused by eating grass, to perform a bullshit demon-baby exorcism abortion, that ends in a fart joke.  This guy knows how to craft a Scathing Atheist headline.   

That he does.  According to a report in “African Spotlight”, while his congregants were lying in the church lawn grazing, he stepped on them and explained that the experience was bringing them closer to god.  One faithful lawn-licking turf-muncher was quoted as saying “Sure, it’s less healthy than divine Jesus crackers, but honestly, is it any less insane?”

The grass is always greener, on the other side of apartheid?  At least I didn’t say: “Above Mandela’s grave.”

South African pastor tells his congregation to eat grass: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/11/south-african-pastor-orders-his-congregation-to-eat-grass-terminates-demonic-pregnancy/

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

Messiah-nara Bitches!

And when we return Lucinda will join us to talk about mythological hookers.

Calendar:

It’s time for the long overdue atheist calendar portion of the show.  This is the monthly few minutes we set aside to discuss all the great atheist, skeptical and secular events coming up around the country and around the world.

This being our first calendar segment of the year, I figured we’d highlight a couple of the biggest annual conventions coming up.  And if you forgot to make a News Years Resolution or you’ve already broken it, I suggest that you resolve to make it to at least one atheist event this year.  If you’ve never been to one before you really owe it to yourself.

NECSS kicks off the season in NYC on April 11th and it’s a packed slate already.  Lawrence Krauss will be the keynote speaker and that’s probably worth the admission right there, but you’ve also got the SGU team on hand for a live recording, plus the usual suspects and a lot of big names yet to come.

http://necss.org/

Same weekend, other side of the pond, friend of the show Andy Wilson will be getting together with the rest of the Merseyside Skeptics for QED in Manchester.  Sanal Edamaruku will be speaking there and damn what a story he has to tell.  Richard Wiseman will also be there with a host of other great speakers.

https://qedcon.org/

But if I can only make it to one this year, it’ll be on the following weekend in Salt Lake-a City, Utah.  That’s right, the American Atheist Annual Convention is right around the corner on April 17th to the 20th.  Greta Christina, Matt Dillahunty, PZ Myers, JT Eberhard, and former Vikings punter and current atheist sensation Chris Kluwe is also gonna be there which should be pretty cool.  We’ll talk more about this one as it gets closer.

http://www.atheists.org/convention2014

For our Canadian listeners, May 16th to the 18th sees the fourth annual “Imagine No Religion” conference in Kamloops, BC.  Eugenie Scott, Seth Andrews, Dan Barker, Jerry Coyne, Jerry DeWitt, Hemant Mehta, Darrel Ray… yeah, if anything could compete with the speaker list at the American Atheist conference, that’s it, right?

http://imaginenoreligion.ca/

And finally The Amazing Meeting is scheduled for the 11th to the 14th of July in Sin City.  Susan Jacoby’s gonna be there; George Hrab is gonna be there; along with Peter Boghossian, the aforementioned Jerry Coyne, the also aforementioned Sanal Edamaruku, the unaforementioned Michael Shermer and a bunch more.  Should be amazing because there’s no way skeptics would let them get away with the name “The Amazing Meeting” if it wasn’t.

http://www.amazingmeeting.com/

There are a few other events that probably belong in the list, but in my opinion those are the big five and you’ll find links to all of their homepages on the shownotes for this episode.  There are a ton of other events going on this year and we’ll be doing our best to keep you up to speed on them.  If you’re involved with an event that could use a free plug, let me know.  You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

Bible Story:

(Run grab the young ‘uns folks!  It’s time for Lucinda Lugeons’ Bible Stories for kids!)

Today we’re going to open up our bibles to the book of Joshua and meet one of the bible’s most famous prostitutes, Rahab.

Rahab lived in the walled city of Jericho and made her living ejaculating weary travelers.  Mostly vaginal, but occasional hand-jobs and oral.  No butt stuff, though, because Rahab was classy.

And sometimes, when people were done having sex with her for money, they would talk to her and tell her stories about their travels.  And it was through these stories that she started to hear about a powerful army of Jews that was marching through nearby lands.

Rahab was scared because people were saying that the army would attack Jericho and she’d also heard that when this army of Jews had attacked other towns, they killed all the men, all the women, all the children, all the babies, all the farm animals, all the puppies and all the kittens.

So one day some Jews showed up wanting somewhere moist to put their dicks.  And Rahab said, “Hey, are you part of that army that’s coming to massacre all my friends and family?” and they said, “Yeah, but don’t tell anyone.”

Rahab thought about it.  She would still have plenty of time to warn all the inhabitants of the city so that they could prepare for the attack, or at least grab whatever belongings they could carry and escape with their lives, but she decided it would be better to just worry about her and her family.  So she agreed not to tell anyone as long as they would promise not to kill her.  So the Jewish spies agreed not to kill anyone in her house and she agreed to hide them and probably fuck them, too.

Many days later the army showed up so Rahab got a few of her close friends and family and hid in her house while the Jews attacked them with spears, swords and magical trumpets.  And while she hid safe in her home, they killed all the men and once they were taken care of they raped and murdered all the women.  And then they killed all the children.  And then they killed all the babies.  And then they killed all the animals.  And then they burned the city to the ground.  And everyone except Rahab and the people in her house were left bleeding on the streets as their corpses were consumed by the fires of sectarian vengeance.

So the moral of the story is that hiding in your home and trading the lives of thousands to save yourself and a soccer team’s worth of your closest friends while innocent people are mercilessly exterminated is heroic.  And that when you meet some spies that are coming to kill you, you can survive, but just to be safe, you should probably swallow.

Outro:

Before we cue the fat lady tonight I wanted to let everyone know that we’ve got an hour long special episode coming up in a couple of weeks.  We’re putting together a bit of a retrospective to celebrate 50 episodes so if you have a favorite skit, a favorite headline, a favorite guest or just a favorite moment from our first 48 episodes, email us and let us know.  Heath and I are already hard at work putting together a few montages and mash-ups, but we’d love your help selecting the highlights.

I also wanted to remind everyone that if we don’t get enough 5 star reviews on iTunes every week, Tinker Bell dies so keep those reviews coming.

Of course, I need to thank Heath for 364 days of hard work and hilarity.  I need to thank Lucinda for knocking the bible story out of the park once again.  I also need to toss out a big thanks to admirable atheist and legendary Twitter rationalist Mr. Oz Atheist for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote.  He’s one of the 4 must follow atheist Twitter accounts and if you prefer your atheism longform you can find his blog at Mr Oz Atheist (dot) Blogspot (dot) com.  You’ll find links to both his Twitter account and his blog on the shownotes for this episode and I highly recommend following both.

http://mrozatheist.blogspot.com/

 https://twitter.com/MrOzAtheist

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s quintessential examples of humanity; Kerry, Mathew with one T, Duncan, Max, Andrew, Kenny, Laura, Colin, Matthew with two Ts, Ryan, Wayne, Thomas, Tim, Karen and Lucia.  Kerry, Mathew and Duncan, whose brilliance is overshadowed only by large objects moving between them and the primary light source; Max Andrew and Kenny, the only three high-school graduates ever voted “most likely to avert a natural disaster with their mammoth genitals”; Laura, Colin and Matthew, who are so genetically perfect their genomes are written in iambic pentameter; Ryan, Wayne and Thomas, who are able to spot bullshit cinematic abuses of scientific terms in under 12 parsecs; and Tim, Karen and Lucia, whose intellects collectively inspired the term “neuronal Olympian”.

These 15 paragons of plenary perfection have proved their perspicuity, prudence, pulchritude and prosperity this week by giving us money.  Not everyone has the alliterative collection of plosive qualities necessary to donate to this show, but if you enjoy the show, have money and like being complimented, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

That’s all the blasphemy we’ve got for you this week, but if you want more, there’s more.  I’ll be appearing on upcoming episodes of Cognitive Dissonance, the Imaginary Friends Show and the burgeoning podcast “Atheists On Air”.  We’ll have links to those shows on all our social media sites as soon as they’re available.  Between now and then, make sure you like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to us on YouTube, check us out on Stitcher, tell three friends about the show and leave us a glowing review on iTunes.

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.