The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

Note: Transcript contains elements that were edited out of the episode due to time constraints.

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Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Pastor Oil: The New Christian Emetic Laxative

Did a spiteful atheist waiter trick you into eating something that’s banned in the Bible?  Can’t decide between emergency diarrhea and emergency vomit?  We’ll give you both … Right away … Violently!!!  We’re the ‘Plan B’ of religious culinary law.

Pastor Oil: “For the last time, it’s not a lube.”

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s June 26th,

And if the USA and Germany tie … they both win … Interesting …

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright.  And from “Spacious Waterfront Studio” New York, New York,

And “Van Down by the River” Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week’s episode,

• We’ll ask: “What the fuck is Baha’i?”,
• We’ll learn yet another reason to never visit Kenya,
• And David from My Book of Mormon joins us to assure you that the 2nd M isn’t a typo.

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

Dan Fincke came on last week and reminded me not to call religious people stupid.  And I needed to be reminded of that.  Now, on a side note, there’s a ton of shit Dan had to say that some of our listeners took objection to and hopefully we can get him back on sometime to air a few of those grievances, but that’s too big a subject for a diatribe, so I’m just gonna stick with the stupid thing for now.

Because Dan’s right; we shouldn’t call religious people stupid.  Now let me defend that.  Ultimately, I’m not convinced by the assertion that “stupid” is a bully word because I don’t give a shit.  If something’s stupid, I’m gonna call it stupid.  I was bullied out of the Santa Claus myth the same way and so far, it stuck.  I’m also not convinced by the assertion that it makes communication less effective.  Pissing people off sometimes makes your message stick a little deeper and even an effort to prove you wrong is a win in this fight.  Plus, if I was obsessed with effective means of communications, I probably wouldn’t make jokes about eating aborted fetuses.

The point he made that convinced me is the fact that it’s simply false.  Religious people aren’t stupid.  Religion is stupid.  All the little fables in the bible are stupid.  The claim that Jesus cleared you a parking space is stupid.  The claim that the earth is six thousand years old is stupid.  And I’ll call them stupid.  But the people who hold many of these beliefs don’t have to be stupid to do so.  Like Dan said, trusting your parents and the community around you is more often going to lead you to wisdom than stupidity.  You can’t blame an indoctrinated person for their indoctrination anymore than you can blame a rape victim for their rape.

So perhaps we shouldn’t call the religious people stupid.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna need to be reminded a time or two before I break the habit and start showing those stupid motherfuckers the respect they deserve, but it’s something I should probably work on.

And if anybody out there is saying, “Don’t do it Noah!  Don’t turn the Scathing Atheist into some politically correct, can’t we all just get along, Kumbaya and puppy dog tails accomodationist bullshit”, don’t worry… I’m not motivated by being nice.  And I’m not even necessarily motivated by being accurate.  My motivation here is tactical.  When we call our opponents stupid, we run the risk of believing that they’re stupid.  And if we do that, we run the risk of underestimating them.

If we label them stupid, we’re playing right into their hands.  Clearly, they seem to want us to think they’re stupid.  Pretending to be stupid might be the most common debate tactic they employ.  Think about it.  Have you ever been arguing with a Christian and the reliability of “faith” comes up?  And they’ll almost always counter with something like, “Well, you have ‘faith’ in your wife, don’t you?”

Now, you’d have to be a Boo Radley level idiot not to see the difference between those two things.  My wife is a tangible, measurable phenomena whose existence I can prove to any reasonable standard.  What’s more, I don’t have ‘faith’ in my wife, I have ‘trust’ in my wife based on observable behavior.  But if she started working a lot of late shifts that required her to bring a riding crop and a ball gag, I’d start to lose my ‘faith’ damn quick.  Clearly we’re talking about different meanings of the word ‘faith’.  And obviously they know that.

If you want to see a master at the “pretending to be stupid” strategy, you need look no further than Ray Comfort.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying he’s not stupid.  He very well may be, but he’s not as stupid as he pretends to be.  Watch any debate he’s ever done.  His whole schtick is pretending to not understand things no matter how simply they’re explained.  You can watch his opponent break down speciation to a level a brain damaged parakeet would comprehend and he’ll just say “pudding is my favoritest!”

And even when he’s cornered into admitting that yes, he understands why evolution doesn’t lead to croco-ducks, it doesn’t stop him from using the same stupid argument in his next debate.  If he was as stupid as he lets on he would have wiping instructions tattooed backwards across his forehead.  But it’s a damn good debate strategy; refusing to understand what your opponent is saying allows you to also refuse to understand when you’ve lost.

Hell, it’s even their legal defense.  Sometimes they’re just too stupid to know that raping kids is against the law.  We can’t afford to grant them that concession.

We’re never gonna win this fight if we don’t admit what we’re up against.  And if it was the army of drooling fuck-wits we often portray them to be, we’d already have won.  If we want to truly sway this world away from religion, we need to fully understand how smart people fall victim to their cognitive biases.  We need to explore the true root of the stupid beliefs buried in these intelligent people.  And we need to admit to the true power and nature of motivated stupidity.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is a man only three miracles from sainthood, Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to cure the blind?

How about the dumb?

It’s a start.

In our lead story tonight, in “Turning the other cheek toward a rapist” news – aka “mouth to ass” news … A recent investigation spoke to several former Bob Jones University students, and revealed that the school policy on counseling sexual assault victims goes something like this: “God sent you a rapist for a reason.  So you’re not getting into heaven unless you call the guy, and apologize for your role in this mess, and whatever you did wrong.  You must have done something.  Check Leviticus.  It’s almost always Leviticus.”

“…I’m also required to inform you that there’s a few shekels in it for you if you marry him.  So it’s not too late to salvage this thing.”

The abuse counseling procedures at BJU have been called into question by – among others – Katie Landry, who described reporting a rape to the dean of students, at which point he responded, (quote) “Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin […] We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.” (end quote) … At that point, Landry realized she was alone in an office with a man that just took the rapist’s side, so she correctly ran away in terror.

“Tell me all about it… in detail… and I’ll just have my hands under the desk here in case I have to send a text or something…”

Very understandably, after being asked “Did you consider just consenting?”, and then being told to repent for being an enabler, Landry appears to have abandoned the clearly-broken Christianity platform.  She now lives in New Orleans, where she started a business that provides tours of historic madams and brothels … where you pay for sex as part of a mutually-beneficial transaction, like civilized people.

“Bob Jones University: Making prostitution look good by comparison since 1927”

Whorehouse 1, Bible 0 … But who’s keeping score?!?

Bob Jones University to Rape Victims: Repent! http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/6/18/bob-jones-universitysexualabuse.html

Speaking of which, from the “Biblical Penetration” file, it turns out that Rickey Wagoner is such a pathetic bastard that he even gets his ass kicked in his delusions of grandeur.  You might recall a brief flurry of feel good news back in February about a Dayton, Ohio bus driver who was allegedly attacked by three scary black men whose attempts to shoot him dead were thwarted by the bible he had in his chest pocket.  And it turns out that much like the book that supposedly saved him, the event was a bunch of poorly fabricated bullshit that doesn’t stand up to even a cursory investigation.

So what actually happened? … The Bible and the gun were in his sweatpants, and he shot himself like Plaxico???

Way worse if you can believe that.  So let’s examine the holes in Wagoner’s story before we examine the holes in his body.  First of all, bible or no, there’s no way this guys moobs are penetrable to a .22 caliber bullet.  In addition, the 320 pound man wasn’t at all winded in the 911 call he made immediately after the alleged attack.  In addition, the stab wounds on his arms and legs suggested to experts that they were self-inflicted, as did the one bullet that got passed his bible.

So he’s a cutter … and a shooter?!?  Will someone please pay attention to Rickey Wagoner already!!!  This guy literally brought a gun to a knife fight, and lost … to himself … because he also brought a knife to a gun fight.  Somebody just say hi, or ask him a question about large vehicles, or obesity … anything.

But the silver lining of this story is that it provides possibly my all time favorite mental image.  After stabbing and shooting himself, this lumbering land-walrus set his bible on the street, shot it twice, bent over to pick it up, put it back in his pocket and called the cops.  Which, to his credit, is exactly what I wanted to do during Proverbs.

Ohio bus driver lies about bible stopping bullet: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ohio-bus-driver-lied-bible-stopping-bullets-race-fueled-gang-attack-police-article-1.1835291

And in a follow up to a story from last year … from the “Swine and Cheese” file … You may remember when we reported on an Edinburgh mosque that had to call in the HazMat Team after Scottish racist assholes Chelsea Lambie and Douglas Cruickshank – who I’ve been assured are definitely not funny – attacked the house of worship with salted pig strips.  Well their sentences were justed handed down … Lambie will go to prison for a year, and Cruickshank – who didn’t laugh at the hearing when the judge said “breakfast meat” – will only get nine months.  

I’m so torn on this one.  Because on the one hand it’s undeniably motivated by racism, but on the other hand, people were just put in jail for malicious use of bacon.  It just kind of seems like getting in trouble for groping somebody’s aura.

So they should definitely be punished, especially since it- Are we sure on that? … Kind of, yeah …  Okay, it wasn’t quite funny enough… But I’m wondering how the law will work in the future with this … If it was turkey bacon, would they have just gotten a vandalism ticket???  Can you get in trouble for brandishing a side order??? … What about bluffing?!? … “Stand back unless you want to find out what kind of fried rice this is!!!  Do I look like a shrimp guy?!?  Do you feel lucky?!?  Well, do ya, punk?!?”

Muslims just need to pick a less ubiquitous kryptonite.

Couple jailed for mosque baconing: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-27941589

And in “Okay, but You Guys are still stuck with Pope Innocent the Fourth” news, Christian musician and ineffective wife killer Tim Lambesis recently admitted that he was secretly an atheist the whole time.  Having apparently recognized the inadequacies of both his faith and his musical talent simultaneously, he simply continued to head the Christian band “As I Lay Dying” whose most widely heard recording was the one where he asked an undercover FBI agent to murder his wife during a sting operation in April of last year.

Here’s the part that confuses me … How does that sting operation work? … Did they get a tip there was a lot of apostate bandleaders hiring assassins at a particular bar??? … “Psst … Buddy … Killyourwife? … Killyourwife? … No?  You?  No- I though you started to lean in- …”

Now, far be it from me not to take a convicted felon who apparently dedicated his life to deceiving people for financial gain at his word, but after admitting to a career in telling Christians whatever they want to hear, I think he went on to tell Christians whatever they want to hear.  They couldn’t get behind a story of a prominent Christian trying to hire an assassin to kill his wife, but they can gobble up the story of a Christian turning to the dark side and immediately setting about exacting murderous vengeance.  The rededication of his life to Jesus and the subsequent book deal are scheduled for release by Christmas of 2015.

Ineffective wife assassinating Christian musician admits he was “secretly an atheist” http://www.mediaite.com/online/christian-metal-star-convicted-of-attempted-murder-admits-he-was-secretly-atheist/

And in “Ebonic Plague” news: Bitches be trippin’ if day fin ta brinday nassy smawl pox keeds inta skoo … (clear throat) … New York City public schools recently faced a legal challenge to their very logical public health policy that says something along the lines of: “During a disease outbreak, unvaccinated children – and rhesus monkeys with ebola – are not allowed to come in and help spread mass sickness on those days … They can however, come in the next day, if they take their autism shot.”

This is such insane horseshit.  So the parents are refusing inexpensive and potentially life-saving medicine on behalf of their children and not only does the state allow it, but they even have the foresight to protect these kids from their parents stupidity by keeping them home when people have the diseases that they’re not vaccinated against.  And the parents are suing the state!?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Shouldn’t they at least have to burn themselves with some McDonald’s coffee first?

So yeah, three anti-vax families – without the requisite crotch burns – decided to contest this policy, for violating their religious right to freely exercise socially destructive stupidity.  The case was decided last week at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where Judge William F. Kuntz II (the second) – despite being a douche for the Roman numerals – ruled in favor of “LESS kids with diseases”, upholding the right of schools to act rationally.  

Not only that, but he cited a 109 year old Supreme Court precedent.  So not only did he tell them no, but he also pointed out that we settled this shit in 1905.

Right – when we decided you’re not allowed to spread smallpox!!! … So the free exercise violation claim is clearly nonsense.  New York City public school attendance certainly isn’t required by any holy books.  But more practically: Don’t these kids have rickets and shit, anyway?  Are they gonna be able to get to school, even if we let them?!?  Nobody wants the rickets kid in class.  Awkward for everyone.

NYC Quran-Teenage Wasteland: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/nyregion/judge-upholds-policy-barring-unvaccinated-students-during-illnesses.html?_r=0

And in “Kenya believe it?” news tonight, a group of Islamic militants in Kenya gave new meaning to the term ‘Final Exam’ last week when 27 people were murdered for failing a door to door pop quiz about Islam.  Apparently several of them missed the very first question, which was ‘Are you a Muslim?’  Others were killed for lacking detailed knowledge of the Quran, and still others simply didn’t have the number two pencil.

“Excuse me, sir?  Sir?  Yes you, the only person for miles.  I see that you’re clearly busy jogging with this herd of nomadic gazelles, but if I could just have a moment of your time.  Me and these guys with AK-47s are big fans of Allah.  What about you?” … And 27 morons said they prefer Gozer the Gozerian?!?  When terrorists ask you if you like the one true god, you say yes!!!

Now, I know this kind of emphasis on book learnin’ might seem disingenuous coming from a group of people who haven’t passed a test since their moms pissed on that little stick, but one can’t help but applaud the renewed emphasis on education.  A loaded rifle in your face kicks the shit out of a gold star any day.

So the Tea Party and the homicidal militant Kenyan Muslims are on the same page: Teachers need way more guns.  

And on the other side of the aisle, liberal apologists are already hard at work explaining how Western imperialism is the true culprit here, for which the international cabal of militant muslim theocrats are genuinely appreciative.

Muslims kill dozens of Kenyans for failing a pop quiz on Islam. http://nypost.com/2014/06/16/27-killed-in-militant-attack-on-kenya-town-police/

And in “Makin’ it Rain Sulfur” news, the nuns of St. Charles Borromeo (in Stone Park, Illinois) have filed suit against Club Allure – a strip club that operates next door to their convent.  They argue the club ruins their ability to collect dollars, will likely incur God’s wrath, and also violates a state law against adult entertainment within 1000 feet of a church or school.

It’s like these nuns heard we needed a 30 seconds on the clock segment.  But seriously, how about “one who has an issue with the other’s existence has to move” rules?  Isn’t that fair?  It’s the difference between burning a cross and just moving closer to the golf course.

In response to the allegations, a spokesman for the club may have said (quote) “But we pay taxes … And aren’t you considered a lesbian brothel by state law? … Well regardless, you ladies are more than welcome to take a song on stage with the collection plate.” (end quote)

Whole new meaning to “selling indulgences” there… and less immoral than the old one, too.

So the sisters listed a handful of problems with Club Allure, but here’s the best one … They want the place shut down because it leads to women walking around (quote) “alone or in groups, with or without accompanying males.” (end quote) … So they’re complaining about women being in public, but only if they’re in groups of one, or many … And only if they have or don’t have male chaperones.

They also took issue with them getting beer deliveries in heavy trucks.  But it was worth reading the entire complaint just for the visual image of one of the nuns having to go out each morning to clean the used condoms off the sidewalk.

It must have been a fun scene when the nuns walked over to the strip club to lodge their complaints.  Everyone so sure they were about to get on stage.  Enormous tease!!!  But a great business idea.  So we’re suggesting the two parties bury the hatchet wound, and get together on a combo enterprise … And to help them out, let’s put 30 seconds on the clock …  “Ideas for the Strip Club Convent” … GO!!!

St. Doll’s Cunt-thedral, home of the Padre’s Cadre

“77 Nun-set Strip”

Obviously we need a ruler-based S&M club… um… “The Schoolmarm harm farm.”

“Jack-offs of All Trades, Masturbaters of Nun: Support the Habit”

…or “Kick the Habit”

Much better!!!  What about: “Hooters, Pooters, and Sunday School Tutors” ???

“Our Lady of the Hosiery?”… or if it’s a low budget place, it could be “The Yeast of Our Lady of the Hosiery.”  And that’s appropriate too, because if you think about it, a yeast infection is pretty much reverse transubstantiation.

“The Booby Trap at Single Mother Superior’s”

“Episco-pole Dancing”, where the Holy See goes to See the Holy.

“Sisterhood of the Traveling Implants”

Basilicone Implants, to be exact.

“A Sleazy Ass Tease” … Who wouldn’t wanna see a donkey (slash) nun show?!?

“The Titty Twister Sister Fister.”

“The Tits n Asherah Pole”

Nuns suing strip club: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/19/nuns-file-lawsuit-against-strip-club-outside-chicago-claiming-its-too-close-to-their-convent

And we’ll end on some good news for a change tonight, from the “One Dar, Two Wins” file, the UK has officially banned the teaching of creationism as science in any school that receives public funds.  Of course, for a country that until recently had Chuck D on their money, this might seem a little late in coming, but “better late than never”, as the British national motto clearly states.

They eventually disliked the Nazis.  But for the first few weeks, they were just polite hosts.  Finally, something had to be said …

The change comes as part of a newly reworded funding agreement between the British Government and schools receiving tax revenue.  And the sections about creationism are so good I wished I’d written them for a diatribe.  In a few paragraphs they completely dismantle all the major claims of creationism, label it pseudoscience and point out that even most religious people agree that it’s bullshit.

British churches should be happy.  This clear defeat is actually an honor.  Think of all the absurd accommodations they must get for this to be necessary.  We shouldn’t need a rule, that says: “Don’t blow tobacco smoke up a drowning victim’s ass with an enormous anal bellows.  Instead go straight to rescue resuscitation.”

UK bans the teaching of creationism in schools. Ken Ham loses his shit: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/20/ken-hams-ignorance-is-exposed-again-in-a-rant-against-uk-schools-banning-the-teaching-of-creationism-as-science/

Well, if I could have ended the headlines on the image of a giant anal bellows and didn’t, I’d never forgive myself, so Heath, thanks as always.

Fire up the Bung Bong!!!

David from the My Book of Mormon podcast will be here in a bit to compare shitty holy books, but before we get to that, I want to hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda Lugeons, for a new segment that the headlines have been begging us to add for quite a while…

This Week in Misogyny:

Bad news, ladies.  It turns out that our secret is out.  The guys are now well aware how much we love getting raped.

Now, clearly we should have seen this rape-whistle blower coming, because who knows more about the desires of college aged women than a geriatric conservative who’s been impotent since the Nagano Olympics?  That’s right, conservative columnist George Will spilled the beans on our beans in a column that claimed that being a sexual assault victim was (quote) “a coveted status on today’s college campuses”.

So if you are a victim of sexual assault, be sure to email George about where to collect your consolation prizes and your fifty shekels.  I think it’s also safe to say that George is coveting rape victimhood… and I only mention it in case the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is listening.

But one way or the other, the pussy’s out of the bag now.  Our secret love of sexual victimhood is a matter of public record.  And you can read all about it in George Will’s column… if you can find one of the few papers that didn’t stop running his columns after this outrageous shit.

George Will: Rape is coveted status http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

Now, I’m sure there are some women out there that will say, “No, George, we don’t covet sexual assault,” but I think we all know what women really mean when they say “no.”

But if you’re one of those women, I ask you, if you didn’t like being sexually assaulted so much, why don’t you show a little modesty and dress like an Antarctic beekeeper?  That’s the advice of Indian Minister Babubal Gaur, who explained that rape is “sometimes right and sometimes wrong.”

This came shortly after two girls, age 12 and 14 were raped and hanged in his district, but in his defense, I’m sure that those were “wrong” rapes.  Clearly, officials throughout the nation are working hard to keep India the brutal rape capital of the world

Indian Minister “Rape is sometimes acceptable”: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/24070-india-state-minister-on-rape-sometimes-its-right-sometimes-its-wrong

But if you still insist that you’re not a fan of being raped, at least we know who to blame for it now.  And it turns out, it’s not the rapist, it’s Charles Darwin.

That’s right, as Creationist douchebag Darek Isaacs explained on “Creation Today” last week if evolution is true, it’s all just about men propagating their genes.  He ends with what he thinks is a rhetorical question.  (quote) “If evolution is true… is rape wrong?”

And the rhetorical answer is “yes, you misogynistic fuck wart.”

Creationist: If evolution is true, is rape wrong? http://www.salon.com/2014/06/11/creationist_author_asks_if_evolution_is_true_is_rape_wrong/

And finally, proving that you don’t need a penis to be a sexist, we bring you the story of mommy blogger Laura something-or-another at the “Apples and Band-Aids blog”.  She reminds all of us ladies to be ashamed of our bodies this beach season in a post called, “My Husband Doesn’t Need to See Your Boobs.”

In the article, she explains that apparently her husband is some kind of undomesticated raging pervert that dives erection first into anything with visible cleavage.

So I’d like to close by pointing out to Laura that I don’t need to see your husband’s asshole, either, so please take your picture off of your blog.

Mommy blogger is a prudish bitch: http://www.donotlink.com/framed?45074

That’s all the misogyny I have for you this week, but I’m sure there’s more to come.  And remember guys, we outnumber you.

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Song: Numbers

1 is the number of gods and he gives

2 shits about who gets killed and who lives.

3 times Balaam and his donkey have spats

be-4 god starts talking out of that Midianite’s ass.

5 chapter in things get scary for chicks,

6-tuff’s prescribed if they’re getting side-dick.

And 7’s for resting unless you need stones,

To break some stick gathering heathen’s skull and his bones.

8 too much Manna? Should you voice your critiques?

God will plague you and kill you, but he’ll send quail for weeks.

And that asi-9 bastard may invoke some damned clause,

To show you what a 10-uous promise that promised land was.

11 Tribes conscribe all their fighting age men,

but the 12th tribe (the Levites) just carry the tent.

20 is war-age, but like most things, you’ll notice,

The tribe that’s exempt is the one that has Moses.

30 Days mourning when god kills Aaron on high,

Then 40 years waiting for all the bad jews to die.

50 percent of this book we spend bored

Counting jews and the booty they offer the lord.

We get a couple of censuses from all of the tribes,

Enumerated offerings are in detail described,

As the name would suggest, the book’s obsessed with amounts,

But no number gets higher than god’s body count:

WTFI – Baha’i

The cold-sore to Islam’s genital herpes, Baha’i is a diacritically perplexing faith that began in the mid nineteenth century when Iranian slacker Siyyid Ali-Muhammad realized that claiming to speak for god was a pretty good racket.  He took the name “The Bab”, which means “The Gate” and declared himself the 12th Imam of Shi’a Islam in 1844.  That worked out well for him until his public execution in 1850.

Before his death, the Bab had amassed thousands of followers, who have the impossible to take seriously monicker of “Babis”.  A brief schism between the remaining adherents ended with one Mirza Husayn-Ali Nuri in charge, who thus chose the humble title of “Glory of God”, or “Baha’u’llah”.

Since then, by most measures, Baha’i has been the fastest growing religion in the world, quickly spreading to over 200 nations (take that, Mormons).  Baha’i was considered a very progressive faith for the mid nineteenth century and even now, it is a very progressive faith for the mid nineteenth century.

The belief is founded on three main principles, all of which are unwavering, eternal, and cast aside in a heartbeat if it conveniences the propagation of the faith.

The first is the unity of god; Baha’i is a monotheistic religion that employs the familiar cop-out that all religions are worshipping the same god in different and often directly contradictory ways.  This leads to the second founding principle, the unity of religion, which is essentially the same thing, but you can’t just have two founding principles or you’ll look like an asshole.

Like the Muslims and the Christians before them, they accept the divine status of the other Abrahamic prophets and, again like the Muslims and Christians, they believe their prophet was both the best and the last.  The gist of the teaching is that all religions are true, but Baha’i is the most true.

The final principle is the unity of humanity; a firm and founding belief that all humans are created equal, regardless of faith, race and culture.  Unless they’re gay.

The history of Baha’i is one of persecution and persistence.  Despite the execution of their first prophet and the exile of his successor, the religion has grown steadily.  The first several successors were appointed by god through his holy representative and by an amazing cosmic coincidence, god chose the children of those holy representatives for three generations.  After that, god could no longer be bothered to appoint leaders and they turned to democracy.

There is a strong focus in Baha’i on gender equality, which is shown clearly by how many of their holy buildings look like nipples or vaginas.  They focus a large amount of their charitable work toward the empowerment of women through early education.  This mission is no doubt paramount to the council of nine that runs the religion.  In fact, they’re so dedicated to gender equality that they might eventually consider allowing women to serve on that council, but for now a scrotum remains a prerequisite.

Baha’i also pays lip service to the compatibility between faith and science, though their failure to voluntarily disband and stop praying shows this to be as hollow as the gender equality thing.

Baha’i is usually represented by a nine pointed star, as all the good numbers of points on a star had been taken by 1844.  It’s the thirteenth largest religion in the world, resting between Judaism and Jainism, but if it continues to grow at the pace it’s been growing over the last century, it could supplant Korean Dictator worship as the 10th largest religion as early as the year 2268.

Because of it’s focus on equality and relatively progressive stance on gender roles, the faith’s adherents like to present themselves as the “atheist-friendly” alternative to other world religions.  And hopefully, armed with the knowledge that their all-male “Universal House of Justice” still condemns both premarital sex and homosexuality, you have all the facts necessary to call them on their bullshit.

Feedback:

It’s time for the part of the show that comes next, Listener Feedback.  This is the few minutes we set aside with increasing frequency now that the show is an hour long to answer some of the emails and tweets we get each week.  We’ll start with a little international flair this week, as our first email comes from Espana.

Miguel the angry Spaniard writes to say, “In episode 70 of your podcast, you made fun of the ancient Spanish custom of trampling infants.  Is that the best you can come up with?  Really?”  He then goes on to list a series of far more bizarre Spanish Easter traditions including,

• The Spanish festival of KKK members in backless robes doing street BDSM,
• The Spanish festival of shaking the fuck out of a poorly ballasted shrine en masse,
• And the Spanish festival of forcing terrified children to climb human pyramids on top of mountains.

So yeah, Miguel, sorry we so grossly underestimated the bat-shit insanity of the Spanish national character.

I have to admit, I never expected an inquisition from there…

Our next email comes from Elena and it’s a bit more on the serious side.  She wrote to tell us about a tragic accident that took the lives of two of her atheist friends and nearly took the lives of their two daughters.  Next comes the chorus of “god’s plan” and “I’ll pray for you” half-measures, but of course, when the financial reality for these two girls sets in, the people who are so ready to pray for them are saying, “shame they didn’t belong to a church that could help them out.”

Anyway, Elena has set up a fundraiser on “Go Fund Me” and has reached out to the secular community for help.  And I happen to know we have a damn generous audience that’s way better than a church in times like this, so I thought I’d share the link to the fundraiser and some more information on the website and the show notes for this episode.

As usual, I’m not allowed to add commentary to segments like this, so just go ahead and cut me off-…

And if you listen to our friends over at Cognitive Dissonance, you might notice that they, too, have a listener named Elena that recently lost two friends in a similar accident and started a similar go-fund-me campaign for similar reasons.  I strongly urge you to give to our Elena, not there’s.

And finally, we have an email from Hannah who is a big fan of the show that wonders if we’ve ever noticed that in 70 episodes, we’ve never interviewed a female guest.  She closes the email by urging us to (quote) “get on that shit” (end quote).

Okay, so first of all, yes, we’ve noticed.  And yes, that’s really bad.  And yes, we should get on that shit.  All that being said, there’s two mitigating factors that I want to point out that slightly soften that apparent sexism.  The first is that it’s not like we’ve interviewed 70 people or anything.  We’ve only had guests on a little over a quarter of our episodes, so it’s only out of 18 interviews… which is bad, but not as bad.

I interviewed a girl last summer at camp, but she lives a few towns over.  Don’t bother checking.

Also, and this is the story of my life, I’ve been turned down by a lot of women.  I’m not gonna name any names because that just wouldn’t be classy, but we’ve been turned down by more than a few prominent female atheists.  If every potential guest I’ve ever contacted came on the show, we’d have interviewed way more than zero women.

Why don’t women like rape jokes?

Well that joke should help our cause, thanks, Heath…

And that does it for feedback.  If you you want more, send us more emails, Tweets, Facebook messages and for fuck’s sake, somebody issue a fatwa against us already.

Outro:

Before we rinse and spit tonight, I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to give us some feedback on the new format.  So far it’s been all positive, but by all means, keep the comments coming.  Obviously we tried out some new stuff this week, so let us know what you think and help us make the most out of the hour of your life you’re giving us.  And I should mention that we read every email that comes in, though we don’t have time to respond to all of them.  Just know that when you don’t get a reply, it’s not like prayer… somebody is listening.

Anyway, that’s all the blasphemy we have for you this week, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with more.  Between now and then, you can get your fix of Scatheism on our Facebook Page, our blog or you can follow us on Twitter, that’s at Noah (underscore) Lugeons (L-U-G-E-O-N-S) and if you follow at Heath Enwright, (E-N-W-R-I-G-H-T) you get to see a picture of Heath’s gaping starfish.

Also, we’ll be posting some guest blogs at Scathing Atheist (dot) com starting this week, so be sure to check for that and if you’d like to submit an article for consideration, by all means, do that.  And if you know an atheist blogger that could use a little more publicity, let us know or let them know and we’ll see if we can’t work something out.

Of course, I need to thank Heath for kicking double the ass again tonight.  I need to thank the lovely Lucinda for going above and beyond the call of duty.  Obviously I need to thank David from My Book of Mormon for giving us some of his time this week.  Again, he’s got a really well done podcast which you can check out by heading over to Scathing Atheist (dot) com and clicking on the link you’ll find there.

I also need to thank Bobby and Ashley from the “No Religion Required” podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote, and while we’re on the subject, I want to thank Ashley for lending her voice to the atheist movement by joining Bobby as his co-host.  Glad to have you in the atheist podcasting club.  Of course, you’ll find their show linked on the shownotes as well.

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s most seductive simians; Andrew, Stephen, Brian, Amanda, Dan, Michael, Jeff, Ginny, Robert, Duff, James, Alexey, Elvin and Rob.  Andrew, Stephen and Brian, whose erections could be used to resupply the ISS; Amanda, Dan, Michael and Jeff, whose combination of speed and swordsmanship would fuck the Transformers up even worse that Michael Bay; Ginny, Robert, and Duff, who are so sexy I could masturbate to their footprints and James, Alexey, Elvin and Rob, who are so rational their farts come with citations and complete bibliographical reference.

These fourteen formidably forthright fornicators have fortified our fortunes this fortnight by forking over some money.  Not everyone has the courage, pride and superior sexual organs it takes to give us money, but if you want to test your mettle, you can make a per episode donation at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist, which you’ll find linked at Scathing Atheist (dot) com, or you can make a one time donation by clicking the “donate” button on the right side of the homepage.

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.