The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

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Note: Transcript contains some elements that were removed from the episode due to time constraints.

Warning:

This show will now contain twice as many fucks, on average.

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Meta-Vax: The Vaccinations Against Vaccinations

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And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s June 19th,

And it turns out that playing a real sport – but only with your feet – is actually still pretty exciting.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright.  And from “Empire City” New York, New York,

And “Rebel Outpost” Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week’s episode,

• Spain celebrates it’s annual SIDS festival,
• The Supreme Court will actually get one right,
• And yes, they have a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome festival. Also, Dan Fincke will help us be atheist better.

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

As I’m walking into the gas station the other day, a couple little flyers taped to the window caught my eye.  On the top of both they read, “It’s time for VBS”.  I took a closer look, because I figured this meant I should swing by the clinic, but upon inspection, the “Where” at the bottom of each was a church… which seems like an odd place to pre-treat venereal infections, so I was sure my first instinct was wrong.  But neither of the flyers offered much of a clue what “VBS” meant.

Of course, if you’re from the Bible Belt or a former Baptist, you already know, but I’m neither so I had to ask.  I got to the cashier and I nodded over to the two little ads and I said, “What’s ‘VBS?’”  And I could tell immediately that I’d revealed myself to be a soulless, hellbound, Jesus-hating devil wur’shipper.  Because apparently VBS stands for “Vacation Bible School”, except without any els in it, because she said, “It means Vacation Bibuh Schoow.”

So I stood there for a second reflecting on that phrase because it’s not often you encounter a triple-oxymoron, so she adds an incredulous follow up, she goes; “You ain’t never heard of Vacation Bibuh Schoow?”

And I’m still standing there thinking “Vacation/School, Bible/Vacation, School/Bible”… there is no non-contradictory permutation of those words.  And it sounds so horrible.  It immediately conjured an image of a bunch of sweaty eight year olds sitting on pre-war folding chairs in an insufficiently air-conditioned church basement somewhere, carefully filling in the oval that corresponds to Jesus with a number two pencil.

But then another thought occurred to me.  So I asked her, “Why don’t they have crosses or anything on them?”

She looked puzzled by the question, but in her defense I think ‘puzzled’ is her face’s default setting.  So she gave me half of the word, “What?”, and I elaborated.

“Well, it just seems like if it’s a religious thing, you’d have a picture of Jesus on it… or a bible or a cross or something.  But there’s nothing on the little flyers that say, you know, ‘religion.’”

She protested at first, insisting that they did actually have crosses on them, but I pointed out that no, one had a picture of two apatosauruses on a beach towel and the other had an alligator dressed as an astronaut.  Neither of which, to my knowledge, belong to the traditional canon of Christian symbology.

And she agreed, but she still didn’t seem to get my point.

So I carried on, I told her it just seemed like false advertising.  You know, I’m a seven year old and I walk by these flyers and I think “sunbathing dinosaurs?  Count me in,” so all of a sudden I’m telling my mom I want to go to VBS.  But when I get there, there’s no sunbathing dinosaurs, no space-gators… it’s just, you know, it’s just Jesus stuff you get on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.

But, of course, I was talking to a VBS graduate so she didn’t see why that was a problem.  I’m sure she knows the same as I do that a six year old doesn’t recognize the difference between her teacher telling the class about science, and some Christian wackaloon telling them that the fairy tales with Jewish origins are true.  A kid that age just knows an adult is telling them something so it’s right.  And make no mistake, they’re specifically targeting the kids too young to know the difference.  That fucking alligator was on a spaceship, not a skateboard.

Of course, this doesn’t seem insidious at all if you think the Jewish fairy tales are true, but it should.  Regardless of your belief, simply recognizing that other people have different beliefs should make this strike you as horribly dishonest.

And that sickening bullshit would be completely unacceptable in any condition but religion.  Can you even imagine a political ideology deciding to use that strategy?  “What we’ll do is we’ll invite a bunch of eight year olds to a pizza party, and once they’re in our clutches, we’ll take a few minutes to explain just how right Ayn Rand had it.  Oh, and we should also tell them that the monsters under their bed will rip their skin off if their parents get food stamps.”

If these people really thought their ideas had merit, they’d be focusing their efforts on college kids or at least high-schoolers; you know, people who would have some way of understanding the worldview they’re presenting.  But they’re not interested in convincing, they’re interested in programming.  And if they have to lure kids in with pizza or video games or crocodilian cosmonauts that’s exactly what they’re going to do.

This is not an unconscious thing.  They talk about it freely in their evangelical literature.  They know good and damn well that the religious shit doesn’t stick if the kids are old enough to critically examine their claims, so they target the young and the younger the better.  Their only real hope for success is to internalize the hell myth before they reach the age of reason.

I personally can’t fathom a greater admission of guilt; a more blatant declaration that your ideas are devoid of merit.  If the only way to propagate your worldview is to psychologically abuse children, it’s a despicable worldview.  And if you’re willing to propagate it anyway, you’ve allowed that worldview to make you despicable.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is unburdened white man, Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to explain democracy?

When say … 99% of people want something … in a democracy, they’re supposed to get it.  So rich people complaining about their increasingly destructive, enormous slice of pie … can go ahead and blow me like a Nintendo cartridge.

Willing to bet they won’t.  In our lead story tonight, in a rare case of being un-wrong, the US Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of Elmbrook School District v. the notoriously litigious “Doe” family.  The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals already heard this one and got it right; ruling that the Elmbrook School District couldn’t hold high school graduations in a megachurch littered with religious pamphlets and symbolism.  The court dubbed the practice (quote) “offensive [and] coercive”.

I’d like to think this makes the message pretty clear.  “We’ve considered it, and we’ve decided it was a waste of our time to even be saying this sentence.  No, you absolutely cannot have a public school graduation in a mosque, and yes, that’s the same thing.”

The SCOTUS largely agreed, though Scalia exercised his right to still be a misguided dick by releasing a seven page dissent that compared the act of forcing graduating high school students to be surrounded by evangelical paraphernalia to him being forced to listen to rock music.  He argued that this court’s earlier “Greece v. Galloway” decision was supposed to get rid of that whole first amendment nonsense, adding (quote) “and get the hell off my lawn!” (end quote).

“…And don’t touch the cross … It’s still hot.”

David Cortman of the “Alliance Defending Freedom” was disappointed by the dismissal saying (quote) “Church buildings should not be treated like toxic warehouses simply because they normally house religious activities” (end quote), failing to add all the more pressing reasons to treat church buildings like toxic warehouses.  He also inadvertently coined my new favorite descriptor of religion (quote) “Asbestos in the ceiling tiles of society”.

SCOTUS declines case of school graduation in mega-church: http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/16/supreme-court-says-public-school-graduations-church/

And in “Colacho Libre hopes to avoid trampling babies” news … Thousands of spectators have descended upon the Spanish village of Castrillo de Murcia, to watch the annual religious tradition called Colacho, in which a masked gimp wearing a leather mariachi demon suit, hurdles clusters of infants with terrible parents.    

My mother taught me not to play with my food.  And also not to leap over defenseless babies.

According to an article from Religion News Service: (quote) “The highlight remains when the eponymous Colacho — a man wearing a yellow mask, yellow jacket, tight black pants and carrying a whip in one hand and oversized castanets in the other — runs around the village jumping over an obstacle course of babies aged 1 or younger.” (end quote) …

My favorite quote in the article was from, Angel Manso, the event organizer, who actually lamented that (quote) “Modernism is breaking down the way of life that leads to traditions like El Colacho” (end quote), which, in my mind, is the only justification for modernism one should ever need: “Modernity: It’s never inspired people in gimp costumes to run around Evel Knieveling babies.”

Spain obviously has some sort of “Who can create the dumbest ritual?” contest going on between its towns.  Bunol has a tomato-throwing contest.  Pamplona – of course – is famous for it’s “Adults Trampled by Bulls” thing.  And then Castrillo de Murcia – for their assinine holiday idea – against all odds, actually found a crazier trampling scenario.  

They’ve also got some celebration coming up where they wrastle wild horses to the ground and give them silly haircuts.  That’s actually real.  Makes you think an all baby olympics can’t be far off.

Former Colacho Jose Duenas described hurdling babies as “even easier than hurdling midgets, and half the price”, but admits he practiced before the event by jumping over mattresses strewn with local small children, and possibly also puppies.  For those looking to attend next year, I believe that Spain is a small country within Mexico, where Dutch soccer fans go to put their penis.  So google something like that.

Spanish people are fucking nuts: http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/13/meet-colachos-men-jump-babies-feast-corpus-christi

And in “What do you call an atheist-ist?” news tonight, a new Pew survey reveals the incredible extent to which Americans hate us godless commie bastards.  It turns out that in addition to being less trusted than rapists and less electable than gays, we’re also the most unwanted in-laws.  And they said there’d be no Triple Crown this year.

Yeah, you’d think we’d be more electable, and more desirable in-laws.  But I’ve gotta admit that rapists are relatively honest, at least compared to the normal routine of tricking girls into consensual.  And if you’d mind, go ahead and start talking, while I walk back from this giant “honesty of rapists” limb I climbed out onto.

The survey asked 10,013 people about who they would and would not want their relatives marrying.  Leading the way, of course, were people who refuse to accept the divinity of an undead mythical Jewish warlock cabinetmaker.  Leading the demographic pack of anti-atheist bigotry were self described “conservatives”, 73% of whom would be unhappy if their daughter married an atheist, 16% of whom would admittedly be upset if she married outside the family at all.

They are attached to those extra fingers and toes.  

And fins come in handy for fishin’.  Perhaps even more disturbing than the fact that fully 49% of Americans expressed this bias against non-believers is the fact that only 9% of Americans would be unhappy if their relatives married a “born again” Christian; which suggests that either 91% of us have failed to notice how irritating those motherfuckers are, or an equal percent are still pissed at their relatives for stealing their VHS copy of Ghostbusters Two and feel they deserve being married to an asshole.

Half of Americans wouldn’t want atheist in-laws: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/15/atheist-in-laws-survey_n_5492864.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And from the “Maple Leaf Drag” file … Canadian photographer, queer Muslim, and contradiction in terms Samra Habib is proud to present her new photography exhibition – entitled “Just Me and Allah” – which opened yesterday at the Toronto Public Library.

I don’t usually see eye to eye with the fundamentalist Muslims, but I was offended by this whole exhibit.  For fuck’s sake, it “Just Allah and Me”.

Broken Canadian English aside, Ms. Habib has managed to combine the ideas of Canada, Islam, and gay photography, all into one headline.  So the rule says we segue straight from ridiculous attempt at reconciling Islam and homosexuality … directly to putting 30 seconds on the clock … “Gay Canadian Muslim Porn” … GO!!!

Wow… wouldn’t wanna make it too easy on me.  How about… Mec-Canadian Bacon… no, shit, they can’t have bacon.  How about… Calgary Flamers… that are Muslims?

“Bitch and Butch Cassidy and the Sunni Dance Kid”…tchner, Ontario- Damn this is hard!!!

“All Aboot the Boot: Qu’ranal Adventures.”

“Snatch-to-Snatch Me If Yukon” … with Muslims- FUCK!!!

“Strap-Ontario: Camel Toe to Camel Toe”

Or Camel Toe to Moose Knuckle … Canada has meece, right?

“Camel Toe to Moose Knuckle” with 2-headed “Rama-Dongs” by Peter Great White North

“Fatwa-nnipeg: Man on Manitoba”

“There’s Something A Boot Fairies” … starring Quran Jeremy

“Imamma’s Boy 4: Hell a fucks in Halifax”

“Iraq, Paper, Scissoring Night at the KlonDike Bar” … I’m picturing crotchless burqas.

How about a gay Canadian Muslim hookup site called “Allah Me”?  And the tagline could be “Fuck the Quran, Blow; a dude in Toronto.”

Careful.  Without condoms, SasCatchYouAn STD … Seriously, who’s fucking with the teleprompter?!?

Gay Muslim photo exhibit in Toronto: http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/13/gay-muslims-come-toronto-photo-exhibit

And from the “Okla-homophobic” file tonight, Oklahoma State House hopeful Scott Esk is fielding a remarkably muted speckling of local controversy after a Facebook post came to light that would have left Hitler whispering, “Ot-nay in Ublic-Pay…”  When asked by one of us smart-assed atheists if he would support executing homosexuals by stoning, Esk astonishingly found a worse answer than “Yes.”

He really did!!!  It was more like: “Yes, and I’m so glad you asked, because I’ve really thought this out, and have a nuanced view on the subject.  The whole murdering gays question actually gets right at the heart of my platform.”

So here’s his actual response, (quote) “I think <<And right there, already a bad start.>> … Yeah anything but “No.” … (quote) “I think we would be totally in the right to do it.  That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.”  (end quote)  So the only think Esk could think of that might make fatal xenophobic vigilante bludgeonings objectionable is that it might cost him some of the Tea-Party vote.

What if a gay wants to kill a gay?!?  Are we gonna deny him that right by killing him?!?

Esk gained local notoriety a few years ago when he was arrested for threatening to put a local priest (quote) “In a body bag” (end quote), though there is no word on whether the priest proceeded to shut him down with the Crane Technique.

Republican jack off supports the stoning of gays http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/oklahoma-goper-defends-stoning-gay-people-death

And in “Museum of Super-Natural History” news, the surging demand in Boise, Idaho for a “brick-and-mortar” version of a pseudo-science website, finally led to the grand opening last Saturday of the Northwest “Science” Museum Vision Center, or NSMVC … which kind of sounds like a real thing.  So government-subsidized inefficient potato farmers finally have a place where they can find information about creationism besides CompuServe.  

Further cementing their reputation as the cultural mecca of the I-84 corridor east of the Cascade Mountains.  That’s right, Heyburn, I said it.

Basically, the place is a life-size subway pamphlet …but with dinosaur bones to seem extra science-ish-ey.  And just to clear up any confusion related to how they hijacked the word science: NSMVC’s website has a five minute trailer about their cause, with a bunch of “I’m real generic scientist, Bob Loblaw, and I definitely didn’t get fired from exactly 7 science departments for beginning every hypothesis with ‘Jesus, therefore …’ “

Best quote from the video in my opinion is when the narrator comes on and actually says, (quote) “The Northwest Science Museum will be unique among creation-based museums because it will be designed as a true science museum.” (end quote)  So full credit to them for at least recognizing what was wrong with those other creationist museums.

I know what you’re thinking … You’re saying to yourself, “I’m on board with these bible guys so far.  Unless they say something stupid and horrible about science causing genocide, or something …”  Well, they might have slipped up.  

And with a tip of the hat to Godwin’s law…

One spokesman nonchalantly calls evolution ‘absurd’, and then goes on to explain how Charles Darwin personally built Auschwitz: … (quote) “Hitler and his Nazi regime could never have done what they did without the foundation of Darwinian evolution.”  So Hitler was doing pros and cons with all the Arians: “Of course we do love all these Jews.  That’s a fact.  However … Have you guys seen the shape of these tortoise shells in the Galapagos islands? … So … Yeah, I guess we better do the Holocaust.  It’s just a matter of the shells.”

Brand new Idaho creationist museum claims “Darwin enabled the Nazis”: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/13/a-new-museum-devoted-to-creationism-will-open-tomorrow-in-idaho

And finally tonight, in “I, too, watched the Soccer-ball game” news, Jewish groups have finally exposed Nike for the secret vehicle of international Nazi propaganda that it’s always been.  Having successfully disguised themselves for decades as a prosperous manufacturer and retailer of barbarically overpriced athletic apparel, the veneer of corporate greed that’s successfully cloaked the company’s anti-semitic underpinnings was dis-unmistakably exposed in a five minute animation that has absolutely nothing to do with Judaism.

Yeah the bad guy robot coach looks like South African George Steinbrenner, with the evil suit, turtleneck combo.  So like you said, Jews aren’t even involved, and even if they were, I refuse to believe there’s a stereotype that says: “The real problem with Israel is how annoying they are to play soccer with.”  

The animation in question, titled “The Last Game” features a team of genetically engineered super-human footballers that suck all the life out of the game by playing sound fundamentals and failing to Shatner the fuck out of every brush with human contact.  And if you look at them just racist enough, they look Jewish.  What’s more, the obviously-a-soccer-ball logo worn by the evil soccer-clones kind of looks like a Star of David, but only if you really, really want it to.

As we’ve seen, the Jew card is pretty powerful.  But it doesn’t cover “Getting offended by shapes that vaguely contain six lines.”  You can’t use the Jew Card to ban hexagons!!!  No.

And as dismissive as I am about the complaints of these whiny bastards, I don’t want to let Nike off the hook entirely, as the video is certainly deserving of criticism.  In addition to lacking character development and structural depth, it was filled with unrealistic plot vehicles like a healthy Cristiano Ronaldo and athletic Jews.

And apparently LeBron’s contract says his image has to appear in every Nike ad, so out of nowhere, he dunks a basketball at the very end.  And you could tell it was CGI, because three guys didn’t have to carry him up to the basket, and then carry him back off the court.

Nike’s evil Jewish soccer-clones: http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/12/nikes-evil-soccer-robots-supposed-jewish/

Well in his defense, it’s warm.  So I guess we’ll close on a long overdue LeBron dig.  Heath, thanks as always.

Big Bang Shakalaka!!!

And when we come back, Dan Fincke will be here to show us that having the right conclusion isn’t the same as having the right argument.

Babble – Ecclesiastes:

A couple of weeks ago Valerie Tarico published an article on AlterNet in which she asked a number of prominent atheists to share a passage from the bible that they actually found inspiring.  Hemant Mehta, Greta Christina, John Loftus, Dale McGowan and a number of others answered the call with more than a third of the chosen passages coming from the book of Ecclesiastes.

But like every movie with a good preview, that left me with impossible high expectations for this book.  So sure, it didn’t live up to the hype, but it was, by far, the best book thus far in the bible.

Yeah, didn’t expect the Bible to have an Atheism section.  That was a nice surprise.

But as not as bad as it was, it was still pretty bad.  So joining us for this partial reprieve from the horrors we’ve come to expect from this thing is my lovely wife Lucinda.  Lucinda, welcome back.

Happy to be here.

Only because that means you’re off the hook from another book of the bible for three weeks.  So let’s dive into Ecclesiastes, shall we?

1. The opening chapter is poetic and there’s a refreshing bit of nihilism to it, <<must be exhausting>> but the author also says, “The sun revolves around the earth, fifth century BCE technology will never be surpassed and I’m really, really wise.”

• And according to King James, much like the Dude: “The Earth abideth.”
• Is it a good thing when one of your first chapter headings is called: “Wisdom is Meaningless”??? … And here’s what that part says: (quote) “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” (end quote) … Instead, it’s faith in the Bible, that leads to happiness.  So just to recap … Ignorance is bliss … And faith is bliss.  Who remembers how this works?  One more thing, then QED, right?

1. And early and often we get this “all things are vanity” motif, which sounds good except that the person telling you (ostensibly Solomon but definitely not actually Solomon) is the most vain person on earth.  He says, “At first it was all about hoarding wealth and fucking hot chicks and owning the shit out of some other human beings and then I realized, hey, that’s kind of vain.”

• “And I didn’t just buy slaves.  I also started breeding them indoors like pot … But in the end, even my awesome slave-spawning operation was meaningless, when I really thought about it.”

1. Right, and then he says, “I devoted myself to wisdom and got way smarter than anybody else who ever lived in all of history and then I realized ‘hey, this is vain, too.’”  I’m betting everybody else realized you were vain before you did.
2. And then there’s this stab at profundity that says, “And how unfair is it that people like me die just like stupid people who don’t have a bunch of gold and concubines?”

• “Just throw the ‘Ancient Chinese Secret’ stuff in the atheist book.  We’re probably not even gonna use it.”

1. And then the bible blatantly rips of the Byrds, “Turn, Turn, Turn”.
   1. It was so fucked up because as I’m reading that I’m singing it to myself, but the cadence doesn’t work, so I’m singing “A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted…”
   2. And also, some of that stuff?  There’s no time for.  There’s no correct time to “throw stones.”
   3. Oh, and here’s a nice bible passage to have in your pocket for all those anti-evolution nut-wrinkles who claims that there’s some special divinity for humans that negates the observable facts.  Ecclesiastes 3:18 and 19 “I said in my heart with regard to human beings that they are but animals.  For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other.  They all have the same breath and humans have no advantage over the animals.”  So… fuck off.  (that last bit is my own editorial addition)
2. Chapter four drops a few pearls of wisdom on us.  For example: It’s better to pee downwind, than to have urine in your face … while God shits in your mouth.  And that’s the thing.  That guy was gonna shit in your mouth no matter what, so it’s all meaningless.
   1. But there’s other good wisdom there.  For example, did you guys know that it’s better to have somebody to fuck than to not have somebody to fuck?
   2. Well, I, too, read Ecclesiastes 4:8-12, but I’m pretty sure I already knew that.
   3. Did you also know that working all day under the sun sucks?
   4. Yep.  Mm-hm.
   5. Did you know that it’s better to be young and wise than old and stupid?
   6. Yep.  Yep.
   7. Okay, then no, there weren’t any pearls of wisdom in Chapter four.  Moving on.
3. Chapter five kept, like, dancing around wisdom.  Like, it starts with this big thing about watching what you say and not running off at the mouth, but just to make sure it has a hint of uselessness, it frames the whole thing around talking to god.
   1. And then there’s some good stuff about not being obsessed with wealth.  And I agree with pretty much all of that, but it’s still tainted since this was a book designed for rich people to read to poor people.
   2. Yeah, it did have an air of “No, trust me, all this wealth and gold and shit is a huge pain in the ass.  You guys wouldn’t want it anyway.”

• You do not want to take up the white man’s burden.  This shit sucks.  Yeah everyone can’t be rich, tall, and atheist.  We can’t do that, dude.  That fucks up our plan …

1. But compared to the rest of the bible, this shit is awesome.  I mean, there’s actually something to chew on here and there.  But it’s depressing as all hell though, since the primary message is “What does any of it matter, dead man walking?”
   1. The secondary message is “The person writing this book has a nebulous definition of ‘vanity.’”
   2. And the tertiary message is “The rest of the bible is full of shit.”

• It also very specifically mentions that if you have a hundred kids and enjoy a long, prosperous life, and then you don’t get a proper burial … You’d be better off as a stillborn fetus.  Am I cherry picking the perfect word of God?  Yes.  Should that matter?  No.  Still CRAZY!!!  

1. One thing I’ll give this book, though; it’s a great source for atheist quote mining.  I’m sure I’ll get some mileage out of chapter 7 verse 10: “Do not say ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”  Kind of directly contradicts the entire conservative Christian political platform…

• They also say that dying is better than being born, because death is everyone’s destiny … But so is birth, so they’re not even trying at certain points.

1. Yeah, there was a lot of decent shit in that little poem at the beginning of chapter seven, but then they have to fuck it all up with the sexist close.
2. Couldn’t get through this thing without a dig on how awful and stupid women are…
1. Well, and chapter eight opens with a justification of the Nuremberg defense, so it’s not all wine and roses, but it’s at least a lot better.
   1. I also love how at the end of chapter eight it basically says, “It’s a darn shame that science will never exist, because how awesome would that be?”

• Yeah it ends with King Solomon saying that if a guy claims to have a bunch of wisdom about the universe, you probably shouldn’t believe him.

1. And I’m gonna nominate chapter nine as the single best chapter in the bible so far, and I don’t even think it’s close.  It does have a bit of a “You’re broken and only our religion can fix you” feel to it, but even with that it’s chocked full of good shit.
   1. But what makes it good is the fact that it sets aside the notion of an afterlife.  It actually says, in no uncertain terms, that there is no afterlife.  Verse 10: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”  It’s a surprisingly Humanist chapter.

• Must … mock … chapter!- Fuck, I’ve got nothing.  It’s actually a reasonable section.  Nothing to make a redneck picket sign about.  Not sure how this made the final cut.
• Worth mentioning that it very nearly didn’t.  Apparently even the Jews were still debating whether this belonged in the canon in the third century CE.

1. But just so that we don’t start expecting insight from this book, chapter 10 starts by reminding us not to put dead flies in our perfume.

• Solomon has an ‘8-year-old telling a joke’ style mastery of Confucius proverbs.  It can’t just be two obvious statements with a semicolon in between.  That’s nothing.

1. I think it also provides biblical justification for driving on the right side of the road, former British colonies.
2. I love how there’s so much emphasis on how nobody knows what the future holds.  And it says this several times, even though we’re only one book away from the “Prophetic Books”.
1. Then there’s some good Mitt Romney advice here … “Borrow a few thousand shekels from your parents and export grain to a corrupt foreign government.”  Just in general, be rich.
   1. Then it reminds you to be frugal and work hard and not be a bitter asshole in your old age.  That’s all good advice.
2. And it closes by reminding you to fear god and keep his commandments, which is all bad advice.

I think it’s worth noting that the two main features of Ecclesiastes are the facts that it (a) is an oasis of actual wisdom and (b) directly contradicts the entire book up to this point.  So up until Ecclesiastes, the bible is precisely the opposite of wisdom.

But best of all, it was short.

Well, the good news… other than we have a couple of weeks before we have to read more bible… is that I’m pretty sure the next bit has some dicks flopping around and stuff, so the jokes should be a bit easier.

So next book is the wordsmith from this book singing a fucking song?!?  That he wrote, but hasn’t learned all the guitar parts yet.  Can’t wait.  Messiahnara bitches!!!

Alright, so thanks again for joining us, Lucinda.

Feedback:

It’s time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback.  This is the portion of the show where we look at the outline and notice that we’re a couple minutes shy of a full program, so we dig into the mail bag and let some of our wonderful listeners do the heavy lifting.

That’s right.  Our first email comes to us from an unnamed listener in an undisclosed location that writes to us to say:

“I always get a kick out of listening to your show in a country where I could theoretically get hanged for it.”

Yeah, we actually got two messages from two separate listeners whose jobs occasionally take them to the hand-chopping-off parts of the world saying the same thing.

Right.  So as much as we appreciate your willingness to die for a good dick joke, you should quit your job and move.  Or get Ben Affleck to exfiltrate you, if needed.

Our next email comes from Rick who loves the show but wonders if we’ve ever noticed that our “thirty seconds on the clock” bit is considerably longer than 30 seconds.

Yeah, but only the first 30 seconds are ‘on the clock’.  It’s just that we’re willing to give you cunt puns off the clock.

We also got a Tweet from a listener who was upset about our word choice on episode 66.  Noah was talking about beating off to a video of an underage girl pissing on a midget and apparently the offensive part of that bit was the word “midget”.

Yeah, this one’s been stuck in my craw for a minute.  If you think we should stop using that word, that’s fine and you’re free to present your case, but don’t just say “midget is now offensive. You’re supposed to say ‘little people’.  Didn’t you get the memo?”  First of all, “Jerking off to a video of a seventeen year old pissing on a little person” just isn’t funny.

No???  But I agree that “little people” is a ridiculous request.  That’s like blacks asking to be called “chocolatey people” from now on.

But most importantly, for a term to be offensive, shouldn’t the person using the term have to mean to offend someone?  I mean, in this scenario, the midget is getting pissed on in a good way.

Can a 17-year-old girl piss on a midget in a bad way?!?  Speaking of midget porn, when a midget porn star has partial chub, do they call it “Quarter Mast”?

The listener in question compared it to using ‘nigger’ or ‘kyke’; which is beyond hyperbole to me, and quite frankly, it’s disrespectful to everyone who’s ever been called a nigger or a kyke.  I mean, when you look up “midget” in a dictionary, it says, “person of unusually small stature”.  When you look up nigger and kyke it doesn’t say “black people and jews.”

But if you look up ‘niggardly’, it says “tipping like black people and jews”.

Way to guarantee we have some offended listeners to respond to again next week.  <<Ok sorry let me walk that back, Jews are pretty good tippers.>> Anyway, the very idea that you can retroactively apply offense to a word is silly to me, and it misses the point.  “Oh, a bunch of us got together the other day and decided that you can’t say ‘midget’ any more.  It’s now a slur.”  No… intent makes a word a slur.  Midget is a god damn adjective!  If I described a small submarine as a “midget submarine”, nobody would be offended.  If I described a black submarine as a “nigger submarine”, I’d be a racist asshole.

“We all live-“

I know you have undiagnosed Tourrette Syndrome, but we’re not doing it.

“We all live in a-“

Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  No no no no no.  Moving on!!!  And lastly, tonight, a note on pronunciation.  We had a listener send me a helpful video in response to my egregious pronunciation of the word “omniscient”.  The random YouTube video he sent set me straight: [Soundclip]

But, not being one to trust a single source, I listened to a second random YouTube video and it said: [Soundclip]

So I figured maybe random YouTube videos were an inadequate source, so I checked the MacMillan Dictionary, Dictionary (dot) com, the Merriam Webster and the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and luckily, they cleared it up: [Soundclip]

Hm… almost like there’s legitimate disagreement on the correct pronunciation there.  Look, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I’ll fix it, but until I get a definitive source on this, I’m gonna pronounce it how it’s spelled.

So, just a quick reminder for any would-be phonological nazis out there; being a pedant is already annoying when you’re right.

As Noah just demonstrated … So that’s all the feedback you get.  If you want more, send us more emails, tweets and corrections.

Outro:

Before we lock the gates tonight, I want to throw a shout out to a new power-hitter in the atheist podcasting world.  Friend of the show, friend of the community and Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta recently debuted a new podcast to compliment the great work he and his team do over at the “Friendly Atheist” blog.  He’s only got one episode out at the time of this recording and I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but if it’s anything like the work he’s done on his blog and his YouTube video series, it’s gonna be phenomenal.  So congrats, Hemant, and I’ll show you the secret atheist podcaster handshake whenever you’ve got a free minute to Skype.

If you’re interested, of course, I’ll also have a link to his new show on the shownotes for this week’s episode.

Of course, I can’t wrap up without thanking Heath for doing twice as much work to make the show happen this week.  I need to thank Lucinda for lending us the lovely lilt of her voice once again.  Obviously I want to thank Dan Fincke one more time for both the great conversation you heard and the twenty minute introspective discussion on superhero movies we had after I stopped recording.  Definitely recommend his blog, which, again, will be linked on the shownotes for this episode.

I also need to thank him for providing this week’s Farnsworth Quote, which reminds me that I’m starting to run low on my backlog of Farnsworth Quotes once again, so if you’ve got a blog, a podcast, a Facebook page or anything that might be of interest to our audience, feel free to send me a clip.  And if you’ve already sent a clip and I haven’t used it, let me know.  It’s entirely possible it’s buried somewhere among a bunch of clips I’ve already used and I’ve overlooked it.

Oh, and I should mention that there’s been a serious slowdown on our iTunes reviews, so if you haven’t given us a review there, please take a couple of minutes to help us out.  A steady stream of reviews keeps us on the front page of our section and helps us find new listeners, which really helps the whole thing keep going.

And if you can’t, won’t or already did leave us an iTunes review, you can cut out the middleman and just tell a bunch of people to listen to our show.  And tell them if they don’t listen they’ll burn for eternity in the underworld.  Believe it or not, I’ve seen that work before.

But of course, most of all, I need to thank this week’s most bestest people; Robbie, Jeff, David, Jonathan, Pekka, Marcel, T, Kifri, Reverend, Kenny, Alexander and Stephen.  Robbie, Jeff and David, whose erections necessitate the asterisk after the Burj Khalifa; Jonathan, Pekka and Marcel, whose legendary kung fu leaves them entirely indifferent as to whether or not the Hulk is angry; T, Kifri and Reverend, who are so sexy Mirror, Mirror on the Wall issued an official retraction; and Kenny, Alexander and Stephen, whose testicles make sperm whales wonder if they really deserve the title.

These twelve noble warriors of reason, in addition to perpetuating a damned eerie run of us receiving donations in weekly multiples of twelve, have earned beer-volcano front property in atheist heaven this week by giving us money.  If you’d like to snatch up some of this valuable afterlife property before it’s too late, you too can earn your way into my heart, my outro and my postmortem highrise by making a per episode donation at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist, which you’ll find links for on our website.

You can also make a one time donation by clicking the “donate” button on the right side of our homepage, or you can support our efforts by picking up a copy of our first book, “Diatribes, Volume One: 50 Essays From a Godless Misanthrope” at the Kindle Store or other fine online retailers.

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.