Episode 56 Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons
Warning: This podcast contains all the words you can’t say on television except cocksucker.
Sponsor:
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And now, the Scathing Atheist.
Intro:
It’s Thursday,
It’s March 13th
And we’re on the cusp of hot coffee and iced coffee season. Can’t decide!!!
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright, and from spontaneously explosive New York, New York,
And extraneously erosive Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.
On this week’s episode,
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A Kenyan Pastor will half ass the nudist church thing,
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We’ll step right up, step right up and learn all about the most unbelievable, inconceivable, incredible, inedible, stupendous and tremendous tonic this side of the Mississippi.
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And Mark Nebo – from BeSecular – will show us the difference between a beard ride and a mustache ride.
But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe
“The lord works in mysterious ways.” It’s the first apologetic most of us ever heard. It’s the one they needed when you were seven years old and critically examining Noah’s Ark or Adam and Eve’s brood of sibling fuckers. It was the one they trotted out when you asked what kind of dick god would kill your turtle or your grandma. God has a plan and it’s mysterious and we petty humans with our mortal intellects can never begin to comprehend it.
It was also probably the first apologetic you ever debunked. If you were anything like me, you did so as soon as it occurred to you that that sentence could be used to justify and/or excuse exactly everything. There is no logical inconsistency too great, no direct contradiction too big, no genocide too horrible to refute with it: While we live on his planet, we live by his rules. And we don’t know what they are. Because he’s mysterious.
It may also have occurred to you that it makes god’s followers sound an awful lot like a battered spouse. Yes, sometimes he does things that are mean and sometimes they hurt but I know that deep down he really does love me. And he knows what’s best for me so I’m sure I had that typhoon coming.
But there’s way more wrong with the statement than it’s circular nature. For the longest time I just wrote it off as a meaningless, useless turn of phrase; a rhetorical tinfoil hat that represented the closest a believer was allowed to get to conceding in a religious discussion. But it came up again the other day and I started giving it another look. And it turns out that it was even stupider than I thought it was.
Okay, so you normally hear this when something horrible has happened, right? A bus full of kindergarteners explodes or an earthquake hits one of those flies-on-your-face countries and a bunch of people die. And the religious folks have this sudden pang of cognition and they say, “Hey wait a minute… a loving god wouldn’t do this! Either there’s no god or there is and he’s an asshole!”
And then they remember that the lord works in mysterious ways and they’re too feeble to understand them. It allows them to shut off that part of the brain that does the thinking and it works so fast that their brains shut down before they realize that no amount of intelligence makes an act stop being evil.
Hannibal Lecter was a fucking genius. I don’t have to ‘understand his ways’ to know that eating census takers with fava beans is evil. I don’t have to know why Hitler killed jews to know it’s evil. Sure, Hitler works in mysterious ways. But that doesn’t excuse anything he fucking did!.
When people excuse god’s ruthless savagery by appealing to his mysteriousness, I want to ask them exactly how much smarter than them I’d have to be before it would be moral for me to give them cancer… to invent cancer and then give it to them. Think about it. They’re saying that there’s a certain line of superior intelligence where suddenly every horrible atrocity ever committed in the history of humankind becomes okay. God let it happen and who am I to question his great wisdom? So logically speaking, there has to be a cut off.
And yet still there’s more wrong with this absurd excuse. Because when it comes down to it, god doesn’t work in mysterious ways. Reprehensible? Sure. Merciless? Certainly. But mysterious? If god worked in mysterious ways, I might believe he existed. If sometimes when I opened my back door it led to the Himalayas, I’d say, “well shit, there goes god again, working in his mysterious ways.” But it always leads to the backyard. Scientists and statisticians don’t have to work in a variable to account for the “mysteriousness” factor.
As it turns out, god behaves in an absolutely predictable manner. He works in the way that is precisely consistent with not existing. And there’s nothing mysterious about that at all.
Headlines
Joining me for headlines tonight is still misunderstood Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to re-clear the air?
I don’t know how many times I’ve gotta explain this sarcasm thing.
In the defense of your detractors, I think they know that you’re being sarcastic and still somehow think you’re sexist and/or racist..
I don’t get it … Plus, some of my closest N-words are female N-words.
Yeah, that should clear up the inbox.
With an ‘A’ … N-words with an ‘A’ !!!
Anyway, in our lead story tonight, Oklahoma doctor (slash) Ohio felon John Michael Lonergan has developed a magical Jesus-based lifelong cure for all ailments and would be happy to squirt some into your body for three hundred bucks. Known alternately as Dr. Lonergan, “Dr. Mike” and that felonious snakeoil salesman in Edmond, this quack claims to have co-created this magic potion while serving as a special forces doctor and calls it (I shit you not) “Jesus Juice”.
According to the data, this ‘Jesus Juice’ stuff is just as effective as the Catholic Mass hangover cure. So let’s not be too skeptical. Priests charge about 300 dollars for a backwashed public goblet of Jesus blood, right? Same deal.
Prayer, Jesus Juice, homeopathy… Now I think it’s worth noting that Lonergan had his medical license revoked by the state of Ohio in 2005 after he was convicted of, among other things, health care fraud. But it would seem that one of the things Oklahoma is OK with is allowing convicted felons straight out of prison to provide fraudulent medical treatments to its citizenry.
Whenever I hear Oklahoma, I can’t help but picture entire towns breaking out into choreographed redneck musical numbers. Oklahoma is to legitimate medical license … as Phoenix Degree is to PHD.
Doctor/Felon in OK injecting miracle “Jesus” shot for $300 per: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/05/oklahomas-dr-mike-allowed-to-continue-injecting-miraculous-jesus-shot-for-300-a-pop/#.Uxk0-maM0DU.facebook
And in “Just 15% of the bill, just for a second, just to see how it feels” news, Tennessee pastor Chad Roberts has launched a website called “SundaysAreTheWorst.com”, where he aims to help address the problem of Christians being bad tippers. The site gives angry waitstaff a place to vent about awful patrons, and Pastor Roberts hopes to have parishioners make apologies for each complaint. However, rather than also send an appropriate tip, they plan to reimburse with food stamps, because restaurant workers are all drug addicts.
Then why not reimburse them with rock?
Somehow it’s politically incorrect to point out the following self-evident truth … But that’s what I’m here for, so here it is … Unless every demographic group is equally pleasant and generous at restaurants, then certain groups are worse. Ask every single restaurant employee ever, and you can find out which groups. And their derogatory euphemism code names. Christians (aka Cross Trainers) will not fare well on this test. And the pamphlet-tips just make it worse.
Yeah. Because you can’t trade Chick Tracts for rock. Believe me, I’ve tried. “C’mon man, I’ve got four ‘The Only Hopes’ and a ‘Satan Comes to Salem’ for a crumb… alright then let me lick your pockets for a ‘Holy Joe’.”
A Cornell study from 2010 tried to claim that a false perception exists, but then quickly contradicted itself: (quote) “While it is statistically false to say that Christians are bad tippers, it is true that Christians are more likely to stiff their servers than people of other religious (or non-religious) bents.” Being more likely to stiff your server means bad tipper!!!
And they try to explain that away by saying “Christians aren’t abnormally bad tippers, it’s just that Jews and atheists are abnormally good tippers. I swear, that’s actually what they say in the published version of the study.
Public Food-Service Announcement: Restaurants are legally allowed to pay waiters and waitresses less than minimum wage, based on the assumption that they receive 15-20% tips on sales. These servers also have to pay out a percentage of their sales to busboys, food runners, etc, based on this same 15-20% assumption. If you tip less than that, your presence at the table can COST the server money … Not to mention the tips lost had there NOT been six cheap bastards in their real estate for two hours.
I’m Lucinda Lugeons and I approved this message.
Pastor starts website to make amends for bad-tipping Chrisitians: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/09/on-sundays-are-the-worst-website-a-pastor-tries-to-make-amends-for-poor-tipping-by-christians
And from the “turning off the bigot spigot” file tonight, the Kentucky Baptist Convention has cut off funds to a group called “Sunrise Children’s Services” after the group’s controversial pseudo-embrace of tolerance and human equality. Sunrise Children’s Services is the largest private child care agency in Kentucky and stands to lose over seven and a half million dollars annually because of god’s seething hatred for the gays.
So they’re diverting funds from a child care service that isn’t anti-gay enough … Based on reading several headlines a week over the last year on the subject, the church’s child care policies don’t seem to be anti-gay at all. In fact, the diverted funds will likely help pay for lawsuits confirming my suspicions.
Sunrise, formerly known as “Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children” is one of the many groups that are legally exempted from basic human decency because of their religious affiliation. Despite their divinely dictated and government protected right to discriminate against people they don’t like, they considered not summarily dismissing qualified employees on the grounds of who they fuck.
“We set this up on a silver platter for you. We all read the Bible. We all sincerely hate gays. You’re legally allowed to do that now, and we’ll pay you 7.5 million dollars to just keep doing that.” That happened, and the homophobic ploy didn’t work. When multi-million dollar bribes can’t keep your shitty platform going, it’s time to stop having a platform.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that the group didn’t start hiring gays. They just considered it. Briefly. And then rejected it. And then forced the guy who brought it up to resign in disgrace. And the Kentucky Baptist Convention is still withholding those funds.
Kentucky children’s group loses donations from Baptists because they hire the gays: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/08/sunrise-childrens-service-baptist-donations_n_4919227.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
And in “Meet Joe Blackface” news, Kentucky pastor Joe Pickens performed what would have been a terrible impression of Mr. T as Clubber Lang from “Rocky 3” … if it weren’t for the blackface … as a crowd of minor league zealots at the National Young Fundamentalist Conference laughed and applauded.
How the hell can anyone not know that blackface is offensive? Are you kidding me? That’s like not knowing that dinosaurs preceded mankind or that trees can’t be older… than the… planet they’re on… nevermind.
Apparently they decided to dress up as professional athletes for crowd appeal, but when someone suggested the New York basketball team, nobody made sure Pastor Pickens knew that it’s pronounced ‘Knicker’, and they’re not boxers. “I said we should all dress up as Knickerbockers! Knicker-bockers!!!”
And if I’m not mistaken, blackface is double racist if you wear it while you’re not fucking Whoopi Goldberg.
Ted Danson at the roast joke – nicely done! “No blackface” is a social NORM!!! So I’m thinking maybe we can give them some classier racist skit ideas for next year …
30 seconds on the clock for “Bigoted Sports Teams and Athletes” – GO!!!
Washington Redskins
Good start – It’s definitely a good thing that it’s not the Cleveland Brownskins …
But I mean like Pittsburgh Ass Pirates, Montreal Canadiens
Um… the Towel Head-menton Oilers
Phoenix Sons of the Confederacy … Really, anything in Arizona works.
Yeah, I was gonna go with the Diamond Wetbacks.
Anaheim Mighty Duck Dynasty
Los Klan-geles Angels… of Ku Klux Klaneheim
Dwayne Wades, but can’t swim???
Does he still play for the Miami Hebes?
Or the Miami Sheet … with eye-holes cut out.
What about … Kevin DurAnt Jemima
Do gays count as an oppressed minority? I mean… even if it’s based on a sincerely held religious belief? Cause if so I’ll go with the Brown Bay Packers.
Tar Babe Ruth …
“Jungle Fever Pitch: Curse of the Tar Babe”
Manchester Confederated
White people in blackface … AKA “Going Richie Incognito”
The U! …genics.
Hanging Chad Ocho Cinco- Move on quickly!!! Segue!!! Segue!!!
Kentucky pastor performs “comedy” bit in blackface: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/08/at-baptist-fundamentalist-conference-in-kentucky-a-white-pastor-just-performed-in-blackface/
And finally tonight, in “Heath definitely wasn’t suggesting hanging a black guy” news…
And just to clarify one more time, I was talking about the appalling disenfranchisement of black voters in the American South.
Of course you were. So in “changing the subject” news, Kenyan pastor Reverend Njohi explains that Jesus is yet another of the many things that can’t come until you take off your panties. After a recent meeting of the church’s elders, the good pervert passed an edict banning women from attending services at the church if they were wearing a bra or panties.
As for the Kenyan churgoing commandos, the fact that it’s only the women is suspicious. Something smells Jesus fishy. If they’re hangin’ Pinky, I’m hangin’ Brain.
Njohi defended his decision by explaining that people attending church need to be free in body and spirit to receive Christ. When it was pointed out to him that those are just a series of words that lack any meaning or explanatory power, he added that Jesus loves the pussy. No word yet on how panties effect intravenous injections of Jesus.
You think the women are allowed to wear gags and muzzles?
African Pastor: Women can’t receive the lord if they’re wearing panties: http://jezebel.com/pastor-bans-women-from-wearing-any-underwear-in-church-1535717901
I guess we should close out headlines before the inevitable strapon questions arise.
Too late.
Right. Well, Heath, thanks as always for joining me.
And when we come back, Mark Nebo will join us for a little secular innuendo.
Poems:
The Book of Ezra in Rhyme:
Yet another book of the bible devoted
To making it hard for a biblical poet.
They’ve built this damned temple three times before,
Complete with altars and censers and golden decor.
Then they stripped it and shipped it to Babylonian rulers,
Where the bankers and smithies and merchants and jewelers
Bought it all so the kingdom was able to get
More soldiers to take even more of their shit.
Their temple was ruined and a few were desirous,
To rebuild it so they went to see the noble king Cyrus.
He granted them audience and to their amazement,
When provoked he revoked their terms of enslavement.
So with a word from the sovereign, the exile was finished,
Their wealth and their health and their passion diminished,
But they went back to Judah with singers and priests,
And anointed the temple with bloodthirsty feasts.
Then they gathered up mortar and lumber and bricks,
But unfortunately Judah is surrounded by dicks.
For example, Rehum, looked on Jews with disdain,
So he started a vicious letter writing campaign.
He spread rumors and lies and showed them no mercy;
He slowed down so many Jews you’d think he governed New Jersey.
And just when their situation seemed most precarious,
They got a reprieve from another king, Darius.
So the temple was finished, rebuilt to its glory,
And if this wasn’t the bible, that’d be the end of the story.
Ezra’d reclaimed the most holy of places,
But you can’t be a biblical hero if you’re not also a racist.
So when he heard that some exiles took foreigner wives,
He laments and repents and threatens their lives.
And since god’s such a bigot, they do what’s humane,
And sent their wives and their children away in the rain.
Nehemiah in Rhyme:
And for the book of Nehemiah, I offer something a little more of the “short and sweet” variety:
Nehemiah sat on a wall,
After Jerusalem had a great fall.
All the king’s horses, and all the kings men,
Helped him put it together again.
Outro
Before we let the dogs out tonight, I wanted to remind everybody that we should have the first fifty diatribes available as an ebook by this time next week. So be on the look out for “Diatribes Volume One: 50 Essays from a Godless Misanthrope” coming soon to an Amazon store near you. We’ll obviously have more on that on next week’s episode.
We’ve also had a few listeners get in touch with us asking us to set up a Patreon account. If you’re not familiar with Patreon, it’s a new service that allows our fans another way to financially support the show. I’ll be setting that up this week as well. If you want more details be sure to keep up with our erratically published blog or just wait until next week’s show and I’ll fill you in on all the finer points of Patreon patronage.
And we can’t close it out without giving a big thanks to Heath for existing and having the decency to do so on this show. I need to thank Lucinda for opening the show and regularly having sex with me. I need to thank Dr. Professor Atheist for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote and for rerecording it for me in a different file type at the last possible second. Thanks for that.
I also want to thank Mark Nebo, and his incessant interview companions Leo and Vex one more time for joining me tonight, also wanted to encourage you to check them out at Be Secular (dot) com one more time. You can also find them on Facebook or on Twitter, (at) BeSecular. You can also follow Mark (at) Mark Nebo, you can also follow his wife Shannon, who is the president of Be Secular and, as I understand it, the more skilled arm wrestler (at) Secular Sunshine.
@BeSecular @MarkNebo @SecularSunshine
But of course, most of all we need to thank this week’s most stellar derivatives of stardust; Robert, Steven, Mark, Jason, Graye, Robin, Braxton, Laura, Charles, Robives.com, Dee, James and Thomas. Robert and Steven, whose erections darken the skies; Mark and Jason, who are so brilliant the exponents on their IQs have exponents; Graye and Robin, who are so awesome superheroes read comics about them; Braxton and Laura, who are so attractive Insane Clown Posse can’t figure out how they work; Robives (dot) com which has some really cool videos if you ever have a few extra minutes; Charles and Dee, whose brilliance can only be measured because they were smart enough to figure out a way to measure it; and James and Thomas, who are so sexy Vladimir Putin was willing to invade Crimea just to get that much closer to them.
These thirteen noble humans and websites have banded together to ensure that god would get his requisite amount of shit this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money that it takes to give us money, but if you have money, we’ll happily take it. You can give it to us by visiting the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com and looking for the donate button on the right side of the page. Because remember, if we starve to death, we can’t do the show anymore.
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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.
The Scathing Atheist 