Archive
Episode 49 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons
Note: Transcript contains elements that were removed from the episode due to time constraints
Warning: This podcast contains explicit language in three… two… fuck.
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Pro-Scripture Strength Biblenol. Perfect for those biblically inspired headaches. It’s stronger than Prayer-Bayer and longer lasting than Bibliuprofen.
Biblenol; because somehow the Historical Books are even worse than the Pentateuch.
And now, the Scathing Atheist.
Intro:
It’s Thursday,
It’s January 23rd,
And the extra week before the Superbowl is worse for the NFL than Junior Seau.
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright and from pro-federate enclave New York, New York,
And forcibly de-federate, Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist
On this week’s episode,
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We revel in the joy of getting piss drinking and nun fucking in the same news cycle.
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We’ll learn how to rape like a Muslim,
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And Lucinda will join us to put on our Monocles to read One Chronicles
Beating me to the poem, I see. But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe:
My inbox is full of idiots.
As you may know, the other day I went on the most excellent Cognitive Dissonance podcast and gave Tom and Cecil a Tarot card reading. And since then I’m getting a vodka-piss stream of woo-merchants and dipshits emailing me to tell me just how wrong I’ve got it.
To their credit, these aren’t people who are actively out there scamming people and telling them “you’re grandma is gonna get cancer if you don’t donate a hot tub to the next person they lay eyes on… hey, hey, I’m over here” or anything. They almost certainly aren’t charging for their services, and they’re not consciously deceiving anyone. These are just people who have gotten really good at deceiving themselves.
The way they justify their pseudo-scientific hobby is by pointing out that Tarot isn’t about fortune-telling, it’s about divination; it’s about helping people through their problems with universal symbolism. It’s a way to reinforce positive messages and give people hope. It’s just a structured way for someone to try to see their problems from a new angle. What’s the harm in that?
Well, as I pointed out last Monday when I did the reading for Tom and Cecil which you can hear on episode number one hundred and thirty-four of their fine program, there’s plenty of harm. If your goal is to help people through their problems and aid them in seeing things from a new angle, don’t you think you should have some kind of qualification to do that beyond a spare fourteen bucks when you were at Spencer’s Gifts?
It’s belittling to psychologists and psychiatrists to think that any jackass who memorized the Zodiacal influences of some pretty pictures can step in and do their job with no chance of fucking it up. It’s the human psyche, for fuck’s sake; the most complicated thing that we know about. And you’re just gonna dive in there with nothing but the Idiot’s Guide to Vague Verbosity and ask me what’s the harm?
Now that should be all the answer I have to give, but it isn’t all the answer that I can give. Whatever spiritual caveats you might offer, as soon as you start shuffling your deck, you’re putting yourself in a position of authority that you didn’t have to do anything to earn. And it’s gonna be damned easy to take advantage of the person across the table. Even if you don’t succumb to that temptation, you’re just priming the pump for the less principled person that comes after you. And for what? So that you can spend half an hour giving them what DJ Groethe calls your “Aw shucks advice”?
You may think you’re giving them a positive message, but how the fuck do you know? You tell somebody to focus on what makes them happy, but you don’t know how much they love torturing rats with hacksaws. You tell them to never give up on love but you don’t know about the restraining order. You tell them to follow their dream but you don’t know if they dream about disemboweling postal workers.
People who are looking for help shouldn’t be pissing away time checking with sorcerers first. That goes for Tarot card readers, psychics, necromancers, astrologers, palm readers and crystal gazers and pastors, priests, bishops, reverends, rabbis, mullahs and monks. They should instead go to somebody who is qualified to help them through science-based means and they shouldn’t have to navigate a complicated menu to find them.
And yes, I group all of the above in the same category. I’ll freely admit that religious leaders are almost universally better trained to help people with personal crises, but at the same time they’re deferred a lot more authority because of it. For every person who would discount their doctor’s advice on the word of their cartomancer, there are a million who would do so on the advice of their priest. They’re given even more authority and even more opportunity to abuse it. And just like I’d say of the Tarot reader, the honest ones are just priming the adolescent buttocks for the dishonest ones.
Consider the strict licensing and regulation on psychiatrists and psychologists. If it came to light that a psychologist was sleeping with one of their patients, it would probably be a career ending scandal. But as Dr. Darrel Ray points out in both The God Virus and Sex and God, anybody who stays in a church long enough will hear about some pastor sleeping with some congregant. Sometimes the pastor is quietly moved to another church. Sometimes they’re not. But no horny pastor has ever lost his license to past over it.
And I don’t think I need to tell you that nobody ever lost their license to read tarot cards over any abuse of any kind ever.
There is no “harmless bullshit”. And I don’t really care how many paragraphs you can cram into an email, you’re never going to convince me that your faith is quantitatively better that the other faiths just because yours has playing cards.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is hyperborean Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to migrate?
It is fucking freezing here. But I’m like an African swallow. The bird, not the ebony porn title. Non-migratory.
Don’t worry, I’m sure if the Weather Channel had an eleven day forecast there would be a high above freezing on it.
In our lead story tonight, from the “Sister Cum Mother” file, a nun working in Italy failed to plan her parenthood very well and recently gave birth, opting instead for termination of her job, for breaking the vow of chastity. According to her account, God secretly fucked her while she was masturbating on an airplane, but despite the well-known Joseph v. Mary precedent, her immaculate conception alibi was ignored.
Because it couldn’t just be that some nun fucked a dude multiple times. Because how the hell could that be international news, right? Nun fucks wouldn’t make ink on four continents, would it? So clearly there was some divine vine involved.
The ‘Last Scion’ released the following statement: (quote) “It was God’s dick … and I was married to God at the time. Just wait … My half-brother Jesus is gonna be right back, and he’ll tell you.” (end quote)
And apparently putting her money where her mouth is on the issues of contraception and abortion didn’t earn her any favor in the eyes of the Holy See.
As a tribute to the Scathing Atheist, and our mocking nicknames for Pope Francesco Rinaldi, the new mom named her son Francesco. Despite this revelation bringing down the average severity of their scandals considerably, the church feels like this has been a public embarrassment. And once again, Catholic leaders have a tail between their legs because of a child.
Well, I’m not just gonna come out and say that the Pope’s her baby-daddy, but he has shown a recent interest in tits.
Nun gives birth after seemingly immaculate conception: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10581481/Nun-gives-birth-to-baby-named-after-Pope.html
And moving on to the “Ringing Endorsement From the Voices in my Head” file we bring you an update to a story we covered back in episode 38. You’ll recall Pennsylvania State Representative Rick Saccone from Heath making jokes about how his last name kind of sounds like a reference to testicular amputation.
And we all learned a valuable lesson: Buy your anal beads from the store.
And remember he said buy… not rent. In addition to Saccone’s lopsided nuts, we also discussed his braindead brainchild HB 1728, a proposal that calls for the words “In God we Trust” to be prominently displayed in every Pennsylvania classroom. While trying to justify this crevasse-wiping use of the constitution on a local television show last Sunday, Saccone claimed that the bill had the backing of the atheist community. He cited the off-the-record support of the unnamed head of “Pennsylvania Atheists”, a group that neither speaks for all atheists, nor exists.
Saccone’s running a board meeting: “We’re losing numbers. Gotta do something. Now keeping in mind I already printed a bunch of these … You guys think it’s all the hating women and fags, or you think it’s not enough propaganda posters?”
Of course, we’re all used to religious people taking advice from people who don’t exist so that came as no surprise. What really caught my eye on this story was his claim that “god” isn’t a divisive term since atheists can make it (quote) “whatever god they worship in the form of maybe […] materialism”. So yeah, we atheists can just pray to materialism so what are we so pissed about?
PA state rep makes up some atheists, pretends they support his proposal: http://www.examiner.com/article/atheists-demand-state-representative-apologize
And in “The Other Santorum” news, the Maldives has added ‘tape’ to the list of sticky red stuff that goes with rape. Abdulla Yameen, president of the Islamic theocracy, has vetoed a proposed law that would make it illegal to rape your wife while she fills out divorce paperwork. He called the rape ban (quote) “un-Islamic”.
Well good for it. What higher ethical standard can a law aspire to than “un-Islamic”?
This means two things … 1: Islam has justified rape! … and 2: The Islamic idea of justified rape specifically includes those awkward months before the woman gets tried for divorce. So just to be clear … You’re a woman, and you find out the hard way that you married a righteous rapist, and now you want a divorce. Getting your consent back, is harder than getting a gun. There’s a trial and a lengthy waiting period. Fortunately for women, the divorce settlement process itself, does not take very long, because women don’t own property.
In some cases, though, I think the husband can get visitation rights to the vagina on weekends.
According to the Religion News Service: (quote) “The bill says a husband cannot force his wife to have sex if the couple have filed for divorce, dissolution or mutual separation, and if the intent is to transmit a sexual disease.” (end quote) … So the bill didn’t even target rapists with AIDS, unless they were actively intending to infect their victim. Am I crazy, or did someone just use religion to defend the rights of AIDS-spreading rapists?!? Do we really need to keep making this podcast?!?
Maldivian President declared law against marital rape “un-islamic” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/marital-rape-bill-maldives_n_4611006.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
And from the “Golden Calf Showers” file, a Hindu cult in northern India is touting the medicinal benefits of drinking pre-dawn virgin cow urine. So they’re not complete idiots … At least they don’t go out there in the middle of the fucking day, and drink piss from slutty octo-mom cows, like a crazy person. Slutty cow piss burns when you drink it from the herpes. Either way, they’re giving a new meaning to the term India Pale Ale (or IPA).
Of course, it’s worth noting that this story comes to us from the paragon of journalistic integrity that is the Daily Mail, so we’ll take it with a grain of creatinine, but we’re reporting on it anyway because they had pictures. And honestly, if the real story here is “unscrupulous Daily Mail photographer coaxes Hindu man into catching cow urine with a drinking glass” it would still be newsworthy enough to make piss puns about.
According to the cult – and the studies they didn’t perform – the hot champagne helps fight cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis, stomach problems, and baldness. So even if drinking cow piss upsets your stomach, these guys have the cure for that … which is literally made up of the piss they made you drink.
See, that’s what I was wondering. Like, if you drink the cow piss and then drink your cow piss piss and then drink your cow piss piss piss, and so on, is that like Hindu homeopathy?
Jairam Singhal, a decade-long urinalcoholic, said the following about the undeniable success of the placebovine excrement remedy: (quote) “I had diabetes, but ever since I have started drinking cow urine, my diabetes levels have been under control” (end quote).
Basically: “I got a bunch of Diabetes about 10 years ago, and I immediately started drinking urine every morning. Thanks to the magic pee, I’ve completely avoided getting more Diabetes since. My levels haven’t gone up by a single Diabetus.”
I so want to see Wilfred Brimley doing a cow piss commercial now. And I’d point out that he is still alive to do it, but we record on Wednesday and release on Thursday so I don’t want to take any chances.
Large numbers of people dumb enough to buy urine, are lining up at local cow shelters. To keep up with surging demand, a successful “Milk, Milk, Lemonade Stand” has popped up in the city of Agra. Obviously, thanks to these honest-to-god piss-sippers, we’ll need 30 seconds on the clock … ‘Slogans for the Medicinal Urine Restaurant’ … GO!!!
“Not on the rug, man…”
“Eat shit and die. Drink piss and live.”
“Would you like to take a piss, or will that be for here?”
“The mens room and the dessert menu have Urinal Cakes!!!”
“Got cancer? Well urine luck!”
“Milk, Milk, Lemonade: Number One in your mouth, Number One in your heart.”
“Milk, Milk, Lemonade: Never avoid a void.”
“Home of Mixology’s first ever cure-all beverage: the Nitro-Gin and Tonic.”
“Why settle for McDonalds’ special sauce when you can have McTurated special sauce?”
“Milk, Milk, Lemonade: Drinking straight from the Bed Panacea.”
“Urinary Tract Perfection”
“Our famous Urine Sampler combo appetizer features assorted cheese whiz, golden drench fries, and potato leak soup.”
“The best leak since Snowden”
“We cross streams like Peter Venkman.”
“Bladder ingredients; Bladder Pizza”
Mop a Johns … What about: “The New Drinkable Cure For Cancer: Pittle. Yellow. Different. Better.”
Hindu cult thinks drinking cow piss cures cancer: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2538520/Urine-drinking-Hindu-cult-believes-warm-cup-sunrise-straight-virgin-cow-heals-cancer-followers-queuing-try-it.html
And finally tonight, in “Stimulate your clit for Jesus” news; wayward youth, dildo dealer and c-list porn star Farrah Abraham has announced a forthcoming book on Christian parenting; set to publish after the completion of her trilogy of erotic fiction. Or, as she actually said, (quote) “My next trilogy – so three books – is an erotic sex novel.” (end quote) Because, you know, she’s, like… a wordsmith and stuff.
And based on my extensive C-List research, she’s one of those dealers who’s also a user. She must go through dildos like a wood chipper.
You might remember Farrah from the MTV exploitation of soul-crushing adolescent mistakes and tragedies, “Teen Mom” but I’m kind of hoping you don’t. If you remember her at all I’d hope it was from the sex tape that she accidentally sold to a porn distributor for over a million dollars. Or perhaps you remember her from that awkward toe in the trigger guard of the shotgun moment you had when you realized that a teen mother cum porn actress cum sex toy seller wrote a book and it was a fucking NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
They say write what you know. And she knows getting knocked up at 15, the father dies in a redneck accident, “Lord of the Cock Rings” Trilogy, and finally Christian parenting. That’s a story people can relate to. Lots of dudes are thinking: “You just described my wife.”
And as sad as this story is for every piece of literature ever penned, I should note that it is a powerful reminder that someone can rise up out of poverty, teen pregnancy and untimely widowhood as long as they’re white and have great tits.
Good to know I’ve got potential.
Teen mom and B-list porn star to author Christian parenting book: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/17/teen-mom-who-leaked-her-sex-tape-announces-shes-writing-a-christian-parenting-book/
And on that reference to Heath’s moobs, we’ll close out the headlines tonight. Heath, thanks as always for joining me.
I’m holding a rocks glass of scotch in my cleavage.
And when we come back, Lucinda will join us to learn that books of the Bible apparently have reruns.
Poem:
1 Chronicles in Rhyme
Have I told you the story about the crappy king Saul?
The ass-hunting bastard who squandered it all?
The Philistine fighter who lost many men?
Oh, I have? Well fuck you, I’m gonna tell it again.
Have I told you the story about the other king David?
Who defeated the Moabites and left them enslaved?
Whom god loved in battle and whom won every war?
I have? Oh well, fuck you, I’m gonna tell it some more.
How about Solomon? Did I tell you his tale?
The palace he built at incredible scale?
Oh, I told you he’s wise, super-fertile and rich?
Well I’ll tell you again, cause I’m First Chronicles, bitch.
That’s right, I’ve got nothing unspoken to say;
God said “read this book” and you have to obey.
So consider the previous four books as primers,
And consider this one to be god with Alzheimers.
You don’t care who begat Hezron, or who Hezron begat?
Or maybe you do, but you’ve got it down pat.
After all, we’ve discussed it, and I’ll even admit
This isn’t even the first time we’ve repeated that shit.
We’re just assuming our readers have piss-poor retention,
And clearly the editors aren’t paying attention,
So we’ll just repeat repetition and duplicate verse,
We’ll restate and rehash and reprise and rehearse.
And rework, and remind and reform and redo,
And resay, and revert and recast and renew,
Reconstruct, recrudesce, reproduce and rewrite
Refashion, reiterate, relive and recite.
Cause fuck it, it’s biblical and that all that counts.
So here’s nine chapters of names that no one can pronounce.
And maybe a chapter with a god praising song;
That’s a rip-off of Psalms and is two pages long.
I find describing how dull this book is rather challenging,
But in hopes that I can, here’s my nearest analogy;
Your at grandma’s and there’s this adorable clip that she found,
On YouTube of dogs chasing lasers around.
It’s twelve minutes long and it sucks and what’s more,
She’s shown you this same fucking montage before.
So you sit through it all and she says “Here’s another thing!”
Well First Chronicles is like the parts where the next one is buffering.
So sure, this books useless, and just makes the thing thicker,
And inspires those reading it to put bleach in their liquor,
But they need to remind you that like it or not,
The bible suck’s monkey nuts, in case you forgot.
Babble:
If, like me, you make it through the first twelve books of the bible and say, “well that was crap”, don’t feel alone. It turns out the people writing this shit felt the same way, as One Chronicles is basically an alternate account that retells the entire fucking story to this point with a few minor tweaks and additions.
Yeah, apparently biblical reboots come faster than Spiderman reboots. Somebody read this thing and said, “It needs more exactly the same stuff again”.
So joining us to reiterate and rephrase is my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, thanks for coming back for more.
Well, I tried the old “not tonight, honey, I have a headache” thing, but you weren’t having any of that shit so here I am with fucking bells on.
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Apparently the people charged with summing up the first dozen books read them and said to themselves, “You know what parts suck? The ones that aren’t soul-crushing genealogies,” because they elected to start the book out with nine straight chapters of begats. So not much to summarize there, basically Adam was born and everyone who existed from then to the postexilic period is named there somewhere. What’s say we start in chapter ten?
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Yeah, in case anybody forgot what a horrible fuck up Saul was, we rehash how the Israelites got their asses kicked under his command. Again.
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And with Saul’s last words, he asked his gay slave to kill him, (quote) “lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me.” So the gimp refuses, and Saul falls on his own sword, to avoid capture and the inevitable lifetime of … apparently some sort of legendary Phillistine foreskin slap torture.
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But then at the end it reminds you that it was because Saul consulted a medium instead of the Lord; so calling miss Cleo justifies the massacre and displacement of god’s chosen people. Got it.
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Chapter eleven is a brief list of ancient Jewish badasses, and a few vainglorious accounts of the ass they kicked.
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Yeah, at a certain point it just starts reading like a really long, rambling acceptance speech at the Oscars. You know, somebody who just won best costume design in a foreign language documentary is holding up the show thanking everyone they’ve ever met: “And I’d like to thank all the Benjamites and the Judahites that came to the stronghold of David; and I want to thank Ahiezer, Joash, Jeziel and Pelet for bringing David bread when he was unable to move about freely, and where all my Manassites at? Adnah, Jozabad, Jedial, Mikey, my main man Elihu…”
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Yeah, so to summarize what Noah just said there, this book is boring compared to the Oscars. That should tell you all you need to know.
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Then there’s the groovy remix of “Uzzah gets killed for touching the ark”
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It’s like the book itself is admitting that it’s too boring to read. It’s saying “Yeah, this dude Uzzah exploded when he touched the ark but we can’t imagine you weren’t skimming when we talked about it before”
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This book is sounding more and more like the Chris Farley show: Remember…Remember when “Seven And they carried the ark of God on a new cart, from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart. Eight And David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.” … That was awesome … Stupid- I’m such an idiot!!!
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And so that you know we’re not overstating the boring here, consider this; we’re not just reading unpronounceable lists of bronze age Jewish royalty; we’re re-reading unpronounceable lists of bronze age Jewish royalty.
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Well, re-skimming…
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And in case you somehow managed to miss the entire central theme of the last four books we just fucking read, One Chronicles reminds us that David is awesome and kicks much ass.
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I can’t help but think of the profound disappointment that people must have felt when Luther translated this thing. You know, it’s supposed to be this magical book of intrigue and answers that all the priests refer to, so you finally get a vulgar masses, Reader’s Digest translation, you leaf to a random page and land in One Chronicles. And it’s a list of the members of some ancient choir that sang at the “Ark Relocation” party.
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Chapter seventeen reminds us that god liked David the bestest of everybody. Ever.
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Yeah God is pleased with David for carrying his exploding death-box around, and also for fucking anything with three holes, so he gives him a really nice house for his harem of 3000 women and their shitty red-headed step-children. Bottom line: God’s happy and David’s getting more ass than Muhammad Ali aiming for pussy.
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I get the feeling like this whole book was inspired by somebody reading the last four books and saying, “I can’t imagine a more boring way to present the history of Israel” and another guy saying, “I can”
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It’s like listening to a kid tell a joke they don’t get over and over again.
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Yeah reading One Chronicles is like listening to your shitty five-year-old nephew tell a joke on the phone. First you get 30 seconds of what sounds like … a litter of puppies fighting to lick bacon grease off the receiver … while the stupid kid gets the phone in his hand. And then they put italics and question marks in there for no reason … “Yeah and then Abishai? the son of Zeruiah? Killed 18,000 Edomites in the (breathe) Valley of Salt-okay-bye.”
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In nineteen we revisit the whole Ammonite servant-shaving war… because… I don’t even know. Ancient Israel must have just been that boring.
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Right? A few emissaries get wedgied by Hanun and they’re gossiping about it for four god damn centuries? Seriously?
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Here’s a quote: “So Hanun took David’s servants and shaved them and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away.” I think we made an ass-less chaps joke when they told this exact same story the first time. Which was hilarious … Ass-less chaps on dessert-dwelling Jewish midgets is just about 24-carat comic gold … But we didn’t mention the genius wardrobe suggestion for a Koran-friendly compromise on Muslim porn. The women can trade in their eye slit, for a tit slit, or a slit slot.
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And you can tell there’s an inferiority complex driving this whole thing. It all reads like some subjugated motherfuckers sitting around going, “remember when Jews kicked ass?”
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There’s a reason “Knocked Up” wasn’t two hours of Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen getting drunk and talking about the movie “Munich”.
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And then we’re reminded of the evils of census taking. Which is weird, because Moses did it twice in Numbers and nobody had to be plagued to death over it. But yeah, the trip down memory cul-de-sac continues.
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Yep. We relive all the excitement of counting the cedar trees used to build the temple as we transition from David to Solomon in chapter twenty-two.
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Yes, and lest we forget, Levites don’t have to do work.
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Probably the single most oft repeated edict in this book so far; Levites are special and don’t have to do shit that’s sweaty.
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And chapter twenty-four is probably the current leader for the most boring individual chapter in the bible. It’s a detailed genealogy of Moses and Aaron, which we already read once in the Pentateuch, once at the beginning of this same book and again in the directly antecedent chapter!
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And it holds that title until chapter twenty five, where we get a detailed twenty-four part genealogy of the lyre, harp and cymbal players. Fuckeringfuckatash.
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I don’t get it. Jews are a musical people. But a possessed frontman having spasms and speaking in tongues … accompanied by lyre, harp, and cymbals … would be the worst band ever!!! First of all, lyre and harp are almost the same thing, so how is that two thirds of the instrumentation?!? And then add people smashing metal discs together. That’s not a reasonable composition.
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And then they follow up the biblical “This one time at band camp” story with an even more detailed genealogy of all the bouncers that worked the temple door.
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…And then one for all the civil servants.
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I feel like an ass even covering this book. It’s just Samuel again. It’s the whole two fucking books retold. We honestly could have done this book as a “greatest hits” mash up of our last four Babble segments. In twenty eight we’re reminded of just how fucking gilded this temple Solomon was building was.
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The temple of our housewife of Beverly Hills
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And then David dies again, Solomon is anointed again, they kill a bunch of bulls again and holy shit this reading the bible shit was a horrible idea.
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I’m so excited there’s another Chronicles coming up after this one … Like Hayden Christensen excited. Annakin was the bomb in Phantom Menace, so…
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Word, bitch, Phantom Menace like a motherfucker!!!
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I feel like a rape victim at half-time. It’s confusing … poignant moment.
I don’t know, I feel like we should apologize to our listeners for how boring the Bible is. An encyclopedia would be more fucking entertaining. I can’t imagine how we’re gonna keep from putting them to sleep when we do Second Chronicles.
Well, look on the bright side; at least you don’t have to write a fucking poem about it.
Alright, so after all that this is hard for me to say, but the Holy Babble will be back in episode 52 with Second Chronicles, but don’t worry, I’m sure that one will be awesome.
Outro:
Before we close the hood tonight I wanted to thank everyone for their ideas for mash-ups and flashbacks for our fiftieth episode next week. We’re still taking suggestions so if you have a favorite skit, moment, interview or vulgarity from our first forty-nine shows, let us know. You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page of our website.
And if you just can’t get enough me, you can find me all over the podcasting world this week. Tom and Cecil were kind enough to invite me back on Cognitive Dissonance to give them a Tarot reading; Cash and Love from Atheists on Air invited me on their show last Monday to talk about sex and circumcision and John and JD at Rational Talk invited me on to chat about this program and all the behind-the-scenes stuff it takes to pull it off every week. You’ll find links to all these shows on the shownotes for this episode at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
Cognitive Dissonance; Episode 134: http://dissonancepod.com/?p=702
Rational Talk; Homepage: http://www.therationaltalk.com/
Atheists On Air; Episode 29: http://mythunderstoodalliance.com/029-sexpisode-iv-scathing-atheist-steve-wells-sab/
Of course I need to thank Heath for all his wit and wisdom. I need to thank Lucinda for suffering through probably the most boring book of the bible so far with us. I also really, really need to thank McKenzie and McKenzie’s mom for providing the hand’s-down cutest Farnsworth Quote to date. Lucinda and I listened to it four times in a row when we got it. Thanks, it was awesome.
But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s most stellar exemplifications of sentient stardust, Shelby, Vinnie, John, Geoff (Jeff), Magnus, Thomas, Ramesh and Ben. Shelby, who’s so kick ass they named a Mustang after her back when Mustangs looked cool; Vinnie, whose mighty member is worshipped by island peoples throughout the Pacific; John, whose legendary sexual prowess echoes on the lips of carnal professionals the world over; Geoff (Jeff), whose IQ has exponents; Magnus, the supreme chancellor of the intergalactic defense federation; Thomas, whose humility forced Time Magazine to settle for the Pope last year; Ramesh, whose so classy he gets his whoop-ass from a bottle; and Ben, whose ejaculations are measured on the enhanced Fujita scale.
This octuple of brave, soulless individuals have tested their mettle against the unforgiving crucible that is our donation page and returned stronger, smarter and more appealing to members of the opposite sex. If you think that you, too, have the psychological acuity required to become a sponsor of our show, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. And remember, Lucinda and I need to buy a new timing belt and all the other requisite auto-parts that constitute a full vehicle, preferably all pre-assembled and fully functional, so every dollar helps.
And of course, if you want to help but you’re afraid we’ll just use the money to buy booze, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a glowing review on iTunes and telling your friends about the show, especially the ones who might listen to it. You can also find us on all the finest social media sites and Facebook and don’t forget to listen to us on Stitcher if you’re into that kind of thing.
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.
Join Noah Live on Atheists on Air Tonight!
by Noah Lugeons
In the year and 3 days that we’ve been doing this, I’ve done a number of guest spots on other podcasts. I’ve been interviewed solo, I’ve been interviewed with Heath, I’ve been a panelist, I’ve been a contestant, but tonight I’ll be trying something I haven’t done before; I’ll be appearing on a live call-in show.
First, the show. It’s called Atheists on Air and I first became aware of it when Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance tossed out a plug for the show a few episodes back. He’s got pretty discriminating taste in podcasts so I dutifully checked it out and I was impressed. It’s well thought out, the hosts are engaging, witty and stellar examples of secularism in action. The show is well edited (and not over-edited) and takes your time seriously. They do mammoth shows once a week and smaller shows daily so they’re certainly not slacking on the grunt work.
I got a request to appear on the show a few days back and it was one of the funniest and most clever pieces of email I’ve ever received. Even if I hadn’t heard the show, I think I’d have agreed to the appearance based solely on the strength of the invitation.
The episode will be available in archive soon, but if you’d like to get it fresh off the presses (or if you’d like to call in with a question or comment), you’ll find all the requisite information here. Tonight’s topic is circumcision, which I’ve found to be a surprisingly polemical issue within the secular community, so it should make for a great conversation.
We’re starting at 7 but if you miss the start, don’t hesitate to make a rockstar entrance and join us later. I believe we’ll be recording until 10 so we should have plenty of time to get to everyone’s questions.
Italian Nun Fucks Man
by Noah Lugeons
Why the hell is this news? I saw it on HuffPo this evening and by 9 o’clock I was seeing it on half a dozen social media sites and forums. A nun in Italy had a baby. She was quoted as saying, “I had no idea I was pregnant” and I, for one, believe her. She’d have had an abortion if she knew.
It’s a ridiculous concession to religion to pretend that this is newsworthy. A nun has a baby on the other side of the Atlantic and it’s headline news in America? As though this is some unheard of circumstance that defies explanation? She’s a 31 year old woman who fucked a dude. Probably more than one. And almost certainly more than once. In fact, she lives in Italy and she named the baby after the Pope. I’m not saying he’s her baby’s daddy, or anything, but he has expressed a recent interest in tits.
So yeah, she had a kid. I don’t need to tell you how that works.
One Year and Counting
by Noah Lugeons
I guess there are a few candidates for the anniversary date of the Scathing Atheist podcast. While today marks one full year since the debut of episode one, in a sense I’ve already passed my one year anniversary, since I was already hard at work putting together the first episode weeks before it came out.
So for over a year, Heath, Lucinda and I have been living the podcasting dream; making fart jokes, recording and editing those fart jokes and sending them out into the world to act as an enduring testament to our time on this planet.
It’s been one of the most rewarding endeavors of my life. The steady stream of emotional, intellectual and financial support has acted as an almost daily reminder that what we’re doing has value to someone out there and that we’re making the modest difference we set out to make (ensuring the Friday commute would suck less).
This year ended rough for me in a lot of ways. As 2013 drew to a close I found myself quite unexpectedly unemployed and homeless. And while the transition was tough, my wife and I are fortunate enough to have friends and family that helped us get back on our feet and by and large we’ve made it through the transition without too much stress or heartache. And honestly, had it not been for this show, I don’t know how I’d have done it.
The other day we got a very generous donation from a listener in the Netherlands that sent along the following note:
I found that going through such upheaval in your personal life but that you still managed to entertain us quite amazing and very touching. I hope this helps you out.
We’ve received a number of similar messages through email, Facebook, Twitter and the like and every one of them has eased the burden of my midlife crisis. I chose this one specifically because it illustrated the irony of all of these messages.
I suppose that our listeners would have largely forgiven us if we’d taken a couple weeks off from producing new episodes while we were moving, but the thought of doing so never occurred to me. Why would I want to do that? Producing the show every week was sometimes the only thing keeping me sane.
The hardest thing for me to cope with when I found out I was being let go was the psychological sting of realizing that I was expendable. After a decade of telling myself “this company couldn’t survive without me” I was told in no uncertain terms that it could. And it planned to. It’s an emotional punch I haven’t dealt with since the last time I was dumped.
But when I felt my least valuable, our listeners were my solace. Knowing that somewhere out there a perfect stranger was looking forward to the next episode; appreciating the fruits of our labor; that offered the solid bridge I needed to make it through.
So as much as I appreciate all the thanks, it really should be me thanking you. So to everyone who supported the show over the past year, whether by donating, rating, promoting or just listening; thank you. Sincerely and from the deepest corner of my godless heart, thank you for letting us be a part of your life.
Dusting Off my Old Tarot Cards
by Noah Lugeons
As many of you know, I spent a number of years drowning in spiritual woo before finally admitting to myself that it was all bullshit. And when I look back on those years it occurs to me that my conversion to reason probably would have happened a lot sooner if it wasn’t for those damned Tarot Cards.
I got my first set at the ripe and impressionable age of 14 from a friend. He’d bought them a year or two earlier along with a little book on how to read them. He never used them and I was fascinated so he told me to keep them.
It’s important to note that I never read a book about cold reading. I never read a book along the lines of “How to Trick People into Thinking You’re Psychic” or “How to Bullshit Your Way Through a Tarot Reading”. I read books that claimed that Tarot cards were magical incarnations of universal symbology that would act as a window to the spirit world. By and large the books would just give you horoscope-style platitudes you could associate with each card and left it to the reader to figure out cold-reading on their own.
And as it turns out, that’s not hard to do. In fact, it’s so easy that one can reasonably learn cold-reading without ever realizing that they were doing it. This is certainly facilitated by the fact that virtually everyone I ever had the occasion to read Tarot for really, really wanted them to be magical. They were always quite accommodating in my unconscious desire to trick them. And even when I walked away from a reading saying “well, I guess the magic just wasn’t there this time”, my querent was quick to dissuade me by telling me how amazing the experience was. And instead of responding with an incredulous “really?” I’d smile and nod and tell myself that I must have been wrong.
Of course, the subject of the reading wasn’t the only one desperate to be fooled. I wanted to wield magical powers at least as much as the people I was reading them for so I was willing to seize on just about any shred of dubious evidence that confirmed that. It was a mutual feedback loop of horseshit and it kept me satisfied for a decade.
To be perfectly honest, I kept reading the cards long after I’d admitted to myself that they were nonsense and I did so with the paper-thin justification that I was still giving good advice. Somehow I decided that misleading people about the very nature of the universe was okay as long as it came with a generically positive message.
I can’t pinpoint when that stopped being enough for me, but it was at least a decade ago. And while I haven’t had occasion to use them in ten years the memories and the beautiful artwork of my favorite deck has made them impossible to part with.
So fast-forward to about a month ago. I was listening to Cognitive Dissonance and Cecil was talking about having never been to a psychic. He said he’d love to have the experience to draw on, but he’d be damned if he was ever going to financially support those charlatans. So I sent along a message letting him know that I’d be happy to give him a Tarot reading over Skype sometime if he was serious about it.
Well, after a bit of back and forth, he invited me on his show to give a simultaneous reading to both him and his co-host. We’ll be recording it this Thursday, so over the last few days I’ve knocked the dust off of my old cards, brushed up on a few of the zodiacal associations and did a few practice readings. And much like rewatching a film I loved as a child, I was overwhelmed the entire time by just how mind-numbingly stupid the whole practice is. How could I ever have enjoyed this? How could I ever have bought into this? And how could I have ever fooled anyone else in to buying it?
I suppose that it’s possible I’m just not as sharp with them as I once was. Maybe I’ve just lost the magic. And, far more likely, maybe I was embarrassingly stupid ten years ago. Whichever is the case, I have to admit that I’m happy about it. After all, the worst thing I could be when doing a Tarot reading on a skeptical show is convincing.
No word yet on when the episode will be available, but as soon as I’ve got a link in hand I’ll be posting it here, Facebook and Twitter.
Episode 47 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons
Warning: Noah’s been in the bible belt for over a week now so he’s probably gonna cuss even more than usual.
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new Hate-Loss program for Christian bigots; Tolerate-Watchers.
Are you tired of being singled out for public hate-speech? Have recent legislative changes made your rampant xenophobia hard to ignore? Have you recently been suspended from your hit TV show for being a bile-spewing redneck? Then Tolerate-Watchers is right for you.
Tolerate-Watchers; because god has nothing to do with you hating fags; you’re just an asshole.
And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday
It’s January 9th
And masturbation is just a Dutch Rudder with God: “He’s workin’ it. You’re lovin’ it.”
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright, and from Fuck-Bumming New York, New York,
And Bum-Fucking, Bum-Fuck Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist
In this week’s episode,
- A New York city councilwomen takes cock as a slap in the face,
- We’ll make a lot of dick jokes,
- And Evan Bernstein will join us to make ghost hunters look stupider than they already do
But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe:
Much to my surprise, the vast majority of the feedback we’ve gotten since we started this show has been supportive. I honestly went into this thing expecting to spend an hour a day sifting through misspelled condemnations and bizzarely capitalized death threats in my in-box; but even the criticism has largely been complimentary. Sure, early on we had a few people who thought they could talk Heath and I out of poop jokes, but once it became clear that was a lost cause 99% of our email has been some iteration of “Keep up the Good work”.
But when people do offer criticism, it’s usually of the “broad brush” variety; either they accuse us of defining a faith by only the most extreme examples (something along the lines of “yeah, but most Christians never blow up the family dog with an improvised explosive device because it’s possessed by the devil), or they accuse us of defining faith itself by only the most unflattering examples (usually something like “sure, Christians, Mulsims and Jews all floss with donkey pubes, but what about (insert whatever religion this emailer identifies with here)?”).
I dismiss the first variety pretty quickly. I don’t think Heath and I have ever seriously suggested that the characters that make it into our weekly headlines segment are representative of the religious culture as a whole. Sometimes we specifically choose them because they are at the extremes. Sometimes we choose them because they’re such potent ammunition against the “what’s the harm” question. And sometimes we choose them because they provide solid introductions to lists of vulgar puns about transexual brands of dogfood. And let’s face it, if it was representative of the whole, by definition it isn’t newsworthy. Man annoys the shit out of random neighbors with pamphlets just doesn’t rise to the level of lead story.
But the second variety is a little trickier to explain. Because a lot of people, even a lot of atheists, are quick to exempt minority religions from reproach. They offer a “get out of criticism free card” to Wiccans or Sikhs or, most often, Buddhists. And what’s more, they often wear this as a badge of tolerance that they think separates them from extremists like me. They claim that they’re evaluating religions objectively and people like me are hamstringing the atheist movement by ignoring the nuances and succumbing to stereotyping.
The problem here is that almost all of our audience lives in predominantly Christian areas so they see the problems with Christianity every day. And Muslims seem hellbent on making sure everyone on the planet knows about the horrible shit they do in the name of their faith, but Buddhism has that “new-faith” smell and it tricks a lot of atheists into the “Devil you don’t know” fallacy. But if you grew up in a predominantly Buddhist nation, you’d be every bit as familiar with all the problems and abuses of Buddhism.
All the things you hate about Christianity can just as easily rise out of Buddhism and I don’t need to retreat to the hypothetical to justify that. Buddhism is, as I speak, being used to justify sectarian violence, to promote sexism, to rape children. In fact, wherever it is the majority faith, it is abused and bastardized every bit as much as Christianity. A lot of our critics seem almost intentionally unaware of this stuff and instead start quoting the Buddha. Well shit, if all I start quoting Jesus I can make Christianity sound really good, but it’s not about what the religion “says”, it’s about what it does.
This swings both ways of course. If you grew up in Vietnam you’d constantly hear about Buddhist monks raping children or misappropriating funds or espousing bigotry or encouraging violence. But all the Christians you interacted with would be missionaries. They’d be doing volunteer work, unobstrusively offering help and espousing peace and forgiveness. You could be forgiven for thinking, well sure, Buddhism is horrible but Christianity is okay. After all, how could you use the teachings of a peace-loving, communist hippy to justify crusades, homophobia and trickle-down economics?
I submit that the problem isn’t this religion or that religion. It’s religion.
As soon as you allow somebody to speak with an authority that can’t be measured against reality, it will be abused. And sure, the nature of the abuse might differ from one religion to the other, but anything that encourages people to divorce themselves from the observable world is bad. And I really shouldn’t have to say that.
And for all the Buddha apologists out there I think it’s pertinent to bring up an abuse that’s unique to Buddhism. The doctrine of reincarnation sounds good on the surface. In theory, the idea that your moral choices in this life will determine your fortune in a future life should encourage people to do good things… just like the Heaven and Hell concept should ensure that Christians never sin. But the real flaw in the reincarnation concept becomes damn apparent when you stop looking forward and start looking back. After all, if a person is born crippled or blind in a culture that truly believes in reincarnation, they were born that way because they deserved it. And again, this is not a theoretical issue. If you spend enough time researching the treatment of disabled children in majority Buddhist nations you’ll start thinking Irish altar boys have it made.
To my knowledge, there is no example of a religion becoming the dominant faith in a society and not being corrupted. If the majority of Americans converted to Wicca tomorrow within a few years you’d see headlines about covens molesting kids and the Great Horned One hating fags. And to anybody who honestly thinks otherwise, I should remind you how popular the backup quarterback always is until he actually starts playing.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines is ball-breaker Heath Enwright. Heath, were you ready to make a testicular omelette?
I successfully eye-contact-shamed a Jewish man on the subway when I caught him trying to sneak his yarmulke back on from his pocket. He felt the chiding wrath of my disapproving head shake. Breaking Baals!!!
I was thinking billiards, but that’s pretty cool, too.
In our lead story tonight, from the “Penta-Grammy Awards” file (by the way, we should host those), the Becket Foundation for Religious Freedom gave its annual Ebenezer Award … for ‘the most ridiculous affront to Christmas or Hanukkah celebration’ of 2013. This year’s winner is: the state of Wisconsin, for allowing a poster of “Not-Jesus” in the capitol building.
Damn it! I had the guy who wrote “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” in the office pool. 34th year in a row that Randy Brooks got the snub. Fucking racists.
Christians are complaining, but the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” display in question, could have been placed by genuine believers. The level of irony isn’t clear, so there’s no real way to be sure it’s even atheist at all. Flying Spaghetti Monster exists in all the same ways that God exists, and several ways God doesn’t … And you can’t disprove lack of irony – Eat it! How’s that one taste going back down?!? Bitter? Good amount of bile flavor?
It should. It is, after all, made up of the bitter irony that we made them eat.
In a statement from the Becket Foundation, they argue that the postal service can honor Martin Luther King with a stamp, without also making a KKK stamp, therefore it follows that public tax dollars can go to useless holiday displays, but only if they’re Christian. Let’s take a look at the analogy they were dealing with … God is to Flying Spaghetti as Martin Luther King is to (blank) ?
Um… Heath Enwright?
Because of the atheism and the occasional wildly racist comment? … Ok that’s fair. But they went with “The KKK”!!! Which was clearly offensive to Jews and blacks … and me!!! To clarify their reasoning, they added (quote) “And if you cross multiply, we can see that God is to KKK, as Flying Spaghetti is to MLK. Which means the score is still Q to 12, and Martin Luther is the king of Calvin Ball.” (end quote)
Christians think atheists are Nazis:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/31/religious-liberty-group-compares-flying-spaghetti-monster-display-in-wisconsin-state-capitol-to-honoring-the-kkk/
And in “Apparently we’re okay as long as he isn’t fucking children on pay-per-view” news tonight, the Pope continues to enjoy international commendation despite being a bigoted, archaic tit. Pope Fran-syphilis expressed shock and outrage over a proposed law in Malta that would allow the gays to adopt children.
Is it the state’s responsibility to breed and collect unwanted children for these sterile couples? Maybe a compromise … Gay couples can rent an orphan for up to one week at a time. It’s only fair, when you consider the opportunity cost. You know how many I-Phones an orphan can assemble in a week?!?
Arguing that if god had intended those orphans to have loving parents he wouldn’t have made them orphans, Pope Fractually Challenged pointed out that denying them a loving family doesn’t even make the top ten of the most egregious ways the Vatican fucks kids.
It’s not even a top ten way they figuratively fuck kids. And for those keeping score at home, “denying orphans a loving family” is the number 13 most egregious way the Vatican figuratively fucks kids.
Proving once again that the pope is being graded on a pretty lenient curve, he continues to enjoy astronomical approval ratings despite holding views on gays, women and contraception that are damn near primordial.
Pope shocked by the notion of gay people being allowed to raise kids: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/29/pope-francis-gay-adoption_n_4516304.html
And in “Asshole and the Dyke” news, Peter LaBarbera – head of the SHAFT (Subconsciously Homosexual Americans For Truth) – was contractually obligated to issue an awful homophobic statement following the revelation that Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts is a lesbian.
Yeah, in the midst of his bigoted tirade he said that gayness is “evil” because it (quote) “Corrupts the minds and souls of young children and good Christians only corrupt their assholes.”
OK so here’s the statement from LaBarbera as best I can remember it: (quote) “She’s like a medium-rare steak. Dark on the outside, with a warm, pink center. It’s a tragedy. She already black … and now’s she’s a lesbian too?!? Double minorities are confusing to me. Do they get 2 different government checks? How does it all work? Also, is anyone surprised?!? Why else – besides lesbian stuff – would God put cancer in her breasts and bone marrow?!?” (end quote)
Not to disparage your joke or anything, but why bother making up crazy shit the dude said when he actually said (quote) “Transgender advocacy are people who believe that their biological sex, male or female, doesn’t match what they feel. I’ll tell you what, Satan really works through feelings, doesn’t he?”
Now, I’m not gonna say Satan isn’t directly responsible for the transgendered and the homos and stuff, but consider how far he’s fallen. There was a time when this dude was engineering the fall of man, and now he’s been reduced to inspiring penis envy and Lady Gaga’s career.
There is a silver lining to the story … Robin Roberts would count for 1 alliteration bonus point in Lesbian Scattergories … I happen to have a game of Twatter-gories with me right here, in the box. And as you may have already guessed, it’s a game where you put 30 seconds on the clock and try to name … Let’s look at our card … “Lesbian Food Items” – GO!!!
Pussy!
Seafood Abyss-que
Scissor Salad
Well played … 2 points for the Scissor Salad …
Lady Fingers already exist … Wrist Deep Dish Pizza
Chicks-In Marsala
Blueberry Muff-to-Muffins
Bananas Jodie Foster
Dill Dough … Bread and Butter Pickles
(Which – I’d like to point out – has a set of double B’s and a set of double D’s)
Um… Diddle Debbie Snatch Cakes
Pussy Juicy Fruit Gum
Don’t forget the whore-e-o Coochies.
Sour Snatch Kids (And you rarely get a bonus point for sour snatch. This is one of those rare occasions.)
While we’re on candy, how ‘bout some Dyke & Ikes?
And of course Twat Tamales … Would those fit in a Lez Dispenser?
I don’t really need to change the name of “Lick-A-Maid” do I?
And from the Lesbian Denny’s Menu … Soft-Balled Eggs, and also Poons Over My-Hami
LaBarbera laments tragic Robin Roberts closet incident: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/labarbera-robin-roberts-coming-out-tragedy
And from the black magic cock file… that we apparently have:
Hey, don’t judge.
After losing her race for New York City Council, Gwen Goodwin filed a 7 figure lawsuit against the winner, Melissa Mark-hyphen-Viverito for her role in the painting of a large rooster mural on the side of Goodwin’s building and for being an awful bitch with a hyphen in her last names.
Well, with apologies to Jake Farr-Wharton I’m with her on the hyphenated name thing, but the rooster mural probably has an innocent explanation. Maybe some dyslexic poultry out there was telling people “Do Doodle a Cock” or something. You never know.
Goodwin believes that big voodoo cocks swing more than just votes. Here’s a statement she issued about the assinine case she just filed (quote) “According to neighbors of Puerto Rican and other backgrounds <<so according to anyone>> in the Caribbean culture, [the rooster image] constituted a curse and a death threat, as a swastika or a noose would symbolize typically to many Jews or African Americans” (end quote). Let me repeat that last bit: “A swastika or a noose would symbolize typically to many Jews or African Americans.”
Wow. Obviously this statement is offensive to Jews, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Caribbean islanders, chickens and practicioners of Voodoo, but I’d argue that it’s ALSO offensive to racists. The correct answer to “Jew is to Swastika as African-American is to (BLANK)” is clearly “burning cross”, NOT noose, so she didn’t even do her research.
So besides the wildly offensive word choice, this is a white woman playing the holocaust/slavery card on a Puerto Rican woman, for distracting her with cock. And that’s unacceptable, because as I understand it from my Jewish, black and other neighbors, only Jews and blacks get holocaust/slavery cards, and most of them expire in 2016, along with Obama’s presidency and Israel’s lease.
(Link Missing)
And finally tonight, from the penis leanness file, a litigious couple of rapacious parents in Pittsburgh are suing some poor Rabbi just because he chopped off their neonatal son’s dick. The de-cocking was part of a botched bris and led to eight hours of microsurgery while the penis was reattached. In a statement released after the surgery, the boy’s father thanked the doctors and asked them, for his son’s sake, to stop calling it “micro”-surgery.
The accidental baby castrater in question, Rabbi and semi-professional child-molester Mordechai Rosenberg argues that the real victim here are his balls, which will be uncomfortably swollen with unused ejaculate until he finds more fresh infant penis blood to imbibe.
Defenders of the mohel point out that even pediatric urologists spend 20 per cent of their time repairing botched circumcisions; a point that they apparently think is somehow exculpatory. They also point out that if a licensed medical professional aesthetically alters your penis, god doesn’t count it.
Rabbi accidentally cuts off more than the foreskin: http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/12/27/rabbi-sued-after-baby-injured-during-
Poem:
The thing about 2 Kings is that the title’s so misleading.
I thought when two kings bought it, my ass would be done reading.
But a score of kings would follow in this god forsaken list,
A tease that’s quite displeasing and one that left me rather pissed.
What’s more to bore you thoroughly the format stays the same;
A king ascends, and then offends his god and all jews take the blame.
They make poles or sin with pillars or what’s worse, they make high places;
Until Yahweh gets enraged and then he smites their ugly faces.
In both Israel and Judah, this pattern gets repeated,
Until the jews that pissed him off again are thoroughly defeated.
He breaks their necks and then annexes little pieces of their nations
And hands them over to some people that he calls abominations.
What’s worse each curse is worthless since he never makes it clear,
Exactly what he’s pissed about in a way that they can hear.
So this king follows that king and does all the same bad stuff,
And walks on pins and needles until the lord has had enough.
But suggesting that there’s nothing to this book except the kings,
Would be unfair because there’s clearly some more entertaining things.
I’m not ignoring that the warring’s boring, but it almost gets a pass;
Because as innane as this book is, at least the prophets kick some ass.
You hear a lot about these prophets often curing folk’s diseases;
But Elisha might surprise ya, ’cause he’s way better than Jesus.
What, some wine made out of water? A couple loaves of bread?
But can he summon up two she-bears when some kids insult his head?
We see them both cure leprosy and bring dead people back,
But can Jesus flood a pasture when you’re too thirsty to attack?
And sure Jesus walks on water. Big deal? Just get a boat.
I don’t recall the savior making any wayward axe-heads float.
And yes, he cured some blind folks, but a whole army? I think not.
He’s probably in heaven now asking Christ, “That’s all you got?”
But as bad ass as Elisha is, when the chips are down he’s all but useless,
When the king of Babylon decides to render Judah Jewless.
So twelve books in not much has happened, all the promises god made
Are rescinded quite vindictively because they fucked up when they prayed.
And though god attempts to save them with some enigmatic clues;
We end where this thing started, with a bunch of exiled Jews.
Outro:
Before we wring out the towel tonight, I wanted to thank everyone for the bearing with us the last couple of weeks. It’s been a real challenge to put together these last couple of episodes during the move and Heath and I are still working out the kinks of recording from a thousand miles apart. Add to that the sub-optimal internet quality in rural south Georgia and I’m sure there are some noticable knicks and dings on the last few shows. Looks like we’ve essentially got everything ironed out now and things should be back to normal on the next episode.
I also wanted to apologize for the delays in getting the show transcript and shownotes up for last week’s episode. That problem will persist for a few more days but we should have everything up on the website for episodes 46 and 47 by Tuesday of next week. Sorry for any inconvenience or hairloss that this has incurred.
I also wanted to thank everyone for the outpouring of sympathy and support that came from last week’s diatribe. I tried to reply to everyone, but again, rural south Georgia internet access, so I’m sure I wasn’t able to, so to everyone who took the time to wish us well on our move and new careers, thank you sincerely. It really meant a lot and it’s helped both my wife and I through a pretty hectic part of our lives.
I also need to thank Heath even more than usual. He’s really been working overtime the last few weeks to get everything done around my amorphous schedule and without his commendable contributions there’s no way in hell we’d have been able to keep the episodes coming without interuption. I need to thank Lucinda for all of her contributions to the show. I want to thank Jason from the Center for Reason Facebook page, which I’m sure is awesome even though my internet woes have left me unable to verify that before we recorded, for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote.
https://www.facebook.com/center4reason
And, of course, a huge thanks to Evan Bernstein for taking the time out to join us this week. His show is the gold-standard in podcast panel discussions and I can’t recommend it enough; so if you’re not already a fan of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe be sure to check the shownotes for this episode for a link… next week. Or better yet, just search it on iTunes or whatever because you’ve already gone too long without becoming a fan of that show.
But most of all, of course, I need to thank the world’s most momentous mortals, Shelby, Vinnie, Adam, Steven with a V, Geoff, Beth, Stephen with a P, Damian, Richard, Shujin and Tiny Tribble, April, Andre, Sagar, Chester, Dennis, Terry, Ullrich, Carmen, Russell, Steve and ID44.
Shelby, Vinnie and Adam; who are so brilliant that their intellects have albidos; Steven, Geoff and Beth; who are often mistaken for birds and/or planes; Stephen, Damian and Richard, whose intergalactically renowned ninja skills have forced the Hitchhiker’s Guide folks to rethink the “mostly harmless” tag; Shujin and Tiny Tribble, whose multi-generational perfection has inspired evolution to take a few generations off; April, Andre and Sagar, whose selfless charity make Cindy Lou-Who look like a greedy bitch; Chester, Dennis and Terry, who are so awesome that mockingbirds have a taboo about killing them; Ullrich, Carmen, and Russell, who are so hot they have coronal mass ejections; and Steve and ID44, who are so cool they can only be navigated via Taun-Taun.
These twenty-two pre-legendary individuals have proved their valiance, their vigor and their verisimilitude this week by giving us money. Only the best of the best have what it takes to give us money, but if you think you belong in this pantheon of perfection, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. And if you’re still recovering from the rampant-consumerism-season but you still want to help us out, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five star review on iTunes or telling all your rational friends about the show. And just to be safe, you should probably like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to us on YouTube. Also, be sure to check us out on Stitcher because that’s what all the cool kids are doing these days.
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.
Episode 46 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by… Catholi-Size Matters: Jesus-themed porn production company. We’re the guys that brought you: Glory Holy Bible Camp, The Hi-Res Erection, Keaster Sunday, and of course Keaster Sunday Deuce: The Second Coming Via Prostate . . .
Catholi-Size Matters: We put a (painful) new twist on “Veggie Tails”
And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday
It’s 2014 of all things
And now I’m hung over from the drugs I took for my hangover.
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright,
And from deep in the bowels of New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist
In this week’s episode,
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Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin die in a tragic running with scissors accident,
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We’ll make shit up,
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And Noah’s wife will join us two take Two Kings at the same time.
But first, the diatribe…
Headlines
Joining me for headlines last week is temporally vexing Heath Enwright. Heath, were you ready to toss off your chronological yoke?
No, but I will be by the time we recorded this.
Alright, and of course, as this episode is prerecorded, we don’t actually know now what happened in headlines this week, but in the almost full year we’ve been doing this, I think it’s safe to say we can accurately predict what will have happened by the time this episode airs.
So what follows are the stories that we’re pretty sure will happen between now and then.
So with that in mind, in our lead story tonight, the Pope made worldwide headlines this week when he found a baby bird that had fallen out of its mother’s nest and attempted to nurse it back to health. Dozens of major media outlets obligingly ignored the fact that he runs a worldwide institution that has actively obstructed international legal attempts to investigate their role in systematic child torture as recently as this month and reported on the baby bird story instead.
Yeah he was in Africa right? Helping glue live flies and fake cleft-palettes on the faces of starving children for the UNICEF commercial?
You’re partially right. He was in Africa. But Pope Framnesia actually found the bird while jerking off homeless amputees in the slums of Nigeria and despite the warm bed of cotton and the painstakingly julienned worms he provided, the bird died the following morning. The pope blessed it and they had a little funeral in the Vatican’s backyard.
———–
And in “Archaeology of Covenant” news, diggers unearthed the real god box, and found a previously unpublished prologue to the Bible. The 1-page introduction simply read: (quote) “This whole book in an allegory, so don’t take anything literally, and don’t get carried away. I’m just a dude writing a book.” (end quote)
Yeah it also had the controversial dedication page “To my bitches” along with a long list of acknowledgments to Egyptian mythology and the dude who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh.
While this marks the end of Judaism, Christians and Muslims are insisting the prologue was written before their God existed, and therefore doesn’t apply to them. Strangely enough, despite this revelation, Satan hasn’t taken over, and people seem to be raping and pillaging at the normal Old Testament clip.
To be fair, we’re way more certain about the Ark being found than the Satan not taking over part of this hypothetical news item.
———–
And in “Check chapter one of his dental record” news tonight, popular American mega-pastor Joel O’Steen was found dead in Florida last week in what authorities are calling “anal auto-erotic stimulation gone tragically wrong”.
I heard he got one of his humongous incisors lodged in his colon, and died of internal bleeding. That’s why you never go ass to mouth solo. I vote that if O’Steen actually dies between now and then, we still run this skit. Even if “anal auto-erotic tragedy” somehow isn’t the cause of death.
According to an article that we expect will by now be on the Huffington Post, off-the-record sources report that a gold or brass plated automated butt-plug might have been involved in the accident, though nobody yet knows how many horsepower it had or who has the butt plug now.
———–
And in PERFECT news, over the course of 48 hours, a half Christian, half Muslim, chiropractor, exorcist, pedophile, mohel with AIDS, gave a shitty massage, virus-raped several babies, drowned a puppy in a cauldron, and accidentally killed himself with an explosive anvil that he got from the Acme store.
And you can tell he was all the way in it, because it would have been a hell of a lot easier to use a tub or something, but that motherfucker found a cauldron in which to drown his puppy. See, that’s the problem with religion. It forces you to drown your puppies in archaic receptacles.
Not only was this the greatest Darwin Award string of events that ever occurred, but before this guy spent two days in a fucked-up Ed Norton commercial, he was a porn star in gay parodies of 90’s comedy movies. And, his last words before he died were: “Put 30 seconds on the clock.” … Love this guy!!! Team player . . .
I’ll start it off with “Dropping the Soapdish”
Shitty Slickers?
Glazed and Confused
Forrest’s Rump
“The Pud Sucker Proxy” … Which is the worst job on a gay porn set. You’re basically the stunt fluffer. If you do well, you could be promoted to fluffer.
I’m torn between Plop Fiction and Pulp Friction…
———–
And in the “There’s actually a Senator named Crapo” file tonight, Idaho Senator Mike Crapo proposed a piece of sweeping legislation officially titled the “Muslims and Butt Sex Scare Me Act of 2013”.
Critics are claiming the legislation is full of pork, but it’s not clear whether they’re making a pun about Muslims fearing swine, or making the more obvious reference to the butt sex.
The law would allow Christian employers to force secular employees to pray, accept Jesus as their lord and savior and remain celibate until marriage; it would make it illegal to own property that didn’t have a baby Jesus on it during Christmas; and it calls for the deportation of Muslims and gays.
So we’re gonna set up a new nation for deported gay Muslims? Call it Guy-beria? MenPal-estine? Bowel-estine? Maybe Israel has some disputed territories we could annex back.
Not exactly. They’ll be deported to San Francisco. Conservative commentator and heart attack being staved off with liberally MacGyvered wiring Rush Limbaugh praised Crapo’s proposal until he realized that Crapo intended to use the parts of the bay area that are above sea level.
What does current sea level matter to Limbaugh, when there’s about to be a giant flood due to all the gays and public dancing?!?
The “Muslims and Butt Sex Scare Me Act of 2013” or, as is referred to in the mainstream media, the “Towels and Bowels Act” has been attacked from both sides of the political aisle.
The alternative media is calling it the “Rags and Fags Act”.
Liberals call the law gratuitous, draconian and theocratic, while conservatives denounced the law for in no way interfering with women’s reproductive autonomy.
Anyway, that’s gonna do it for pre-headlines tonight, Heath, thanks for having joined me.
Glad to be here.
And when we come back, Lucinda will join us to polish off Kings.
Babble (Two Kings)
Two Kings is the final in what was originally a four part history of Israel spanning the period from the first kings to the Babylonian exile under Nebuchadnezzar. The divisions aren’t arbitrary; when the book was first penned it was written in scrolls and there was a limit to how long a scroll could be before it became too cumbersome to transport.
And this is worth noting because as you read it, it seems like even an incompetent editor could have knocked this down to one scroll without losing anything that wasn’t begging to be lost.
No kidding. So joining us to delve ever deeper into the rectum of scripture is my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome back.
Glad to be hear. And gross.
Alright, so we’ve kept everyone in suspense for three weeks, so let’s not make them wait any longer.
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Yeah, Two Kings gets right to the action. King Ahazia got hurt so he sends his men to go ask some foreign god to help out. Real god gets pissed so he sends Elijah to tell the king’s messengers that for asking the wrong god, real god is gonna kill him out of spite.
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So the king says: “What kind of dude was this alleged prophet from real god?”
And his messengers say: “Well he looked pretty authentic. He had the hair shirt … and the leather belt … and completely nude, otherwise. Seemed credible.”
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The kings pissed so he sends for Elijah, but every time they send fifty men to bring him down from his mountain he goes all “Tim the Enchanter” on them and calls down fire from heaven to incinerate them.
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Until the third captain and his fifty men come up and remember to say please.
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Then Elijah dies, becoming yet another flaming chariot statistic, but he passes along his super god-powers to Elisha before he does.
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Yeah Elisha says to Elijah: (quote) “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” . . . I’ll just balance that “cum joke” on this golf tee, and y’all can-
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A double portion of spirit on him? That’s either body shots, or money shots. A little weird either way.
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I know Elijah’s a man of god and all, but it seems like even he would need a few minutes between portions.
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I figured the spirit would come inside him, not on him. That’s right, we do our “cum jokes” in proper threes like gentlemen.
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Filthy monkey gentlemen.
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And filthy monkey gentlewomen.
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And then we get his Bruce Almighty moment where he has to try out all the new shit. He parts a river, blesses a well …
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Right, he put salt in the well to prevent dead babies. Elisha’s Famous Saline Miscarriage Solution.
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Then he summons divine she-bears to maul the kids that made fun of him for being bald… Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to that moment since we started reading this fucking thing. And sure enough, there it is. Two Kings 2:23-25. Some kids call him bald, which he is, so he curses them and two she-bears…
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(very important that we know the gender, apparently)
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…Yeah, they were chick-bears. And they kill forty two children! Did all forty two call him bald? Were they chanting it? Did they all stand in a long line? Anyway, yeah, call Elisha bald and get mauled by bears. Check.
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Then in chapter three, and try to keep up here, the kings of Edom, Israel and Judah set off for war with Moab and they forgot to bring water. So they get Elisha and he’s a dick about it, but he helps them by summoning a flood and getting god on their side against Moab… until the king burns his son alive in god’s name, at which time god calls them off because, hey, god has a thing for incinerated children.
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Makes perfect sense.
-
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Chapter 4 kicks off with Elisha fracking supernatural gas for some degenerate widow-gambler. The whole story seems to be an endorsement of United States foreign policy. If you owe creditors, you can pay off your debts by ruining the environment, and taking oil from religious Middle Eastern men.
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Right so besides the oil thing, Elisha also multiplies some corn, makes a barren woman pregnant, brings the kid back to life when he dies and unpoisons some stew.
-
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Yeah, and I didn’t think they’d go straight back to this particular magical power, but Elijah definitely taught his protege how a dude can dry hump a dead baby back to life … But it’s not as bad as it sounds … This time, the kid sneezes seven times … Which is only three short of an orgasm … So that like 70% consentual already.
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And then Elisha cures a dude of leprosy… before giving the leprosy to his servant for being an asshole.
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And the leper he cured was a big army commander. I can’t help but picture the Black Knight with no arms and no legs … still yelling at Arthur-
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“What are you gonna do, bleed on me?!?”
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“I’m invincible!!!”
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“You’re a looney.”
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“I’ll bite your legs off!”
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And since it wasn’t made explicitly clear in the first five chapters, Elisha isn’t some kind of fake prophet … who can’t magneto a metal axe-head out of the ocean. He did – in fact – do exactly that. And like 3 or 4 un-named ancient desert lumberjacks saw it.
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He also strikes an entire army blind, marches them to a different city, gives them back their sight and makes them dinner I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here, but Elisha is making Jesus look like a pussy.
-
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And this is where God’s divine biographer insists that we know about the state of the barter economy. So for the record, two and a half liters of bird shit, were equal in value, to legally purchasing a rape victim from her father … Although the author doesn’t make it clear whether this is too much – or too little – bird shit.
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So that’s a real thing in the Bible!!! And we’re the assholes?!? The nominee for divine book of creation, effectively contains a bird shit to daughter-rape conversion chart, and we’re the assholes?!?
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And as if we hadn’t spent enough time on what a bad ass Elisha is, there’s a siege against Samaria.
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And you know it’s bad when people start pulling the old “we’ll eat your son today and mine tomorrow” trick.
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But the king asks for Elisha’s help so he has god trick all the besiegers into running off, which apparently he could have done before they started eating their children.
-
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And then we get some fucking literature for a change. Took me 544 pages of this shit before I actually stopped and said, “Oh, that was good”, but when we get the story of Elisha and Hazael, it actually gave me goosebumps. That was some solid shit.
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Phenomenal introduction of a villain.
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And yeah, I’m not gonna spoil it. It’s that good. I suggest you read those 9 sentences. And if you haven’t been listening along, by the way, those are the first 9 sentences of this book that I’d recommend to anyone.
-
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So everybody’s still warring with everybody and Elisha’s sick of it so he sends one of his acolytes to declare a new king via drive-by anointing.
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So Jehu becomes king over all of Israel, but nobody told the current king so Jehu gathers up an army to go tell him himself. And the kings of both Judah and Israel do exactly what it says to do in the Monarch Manual when a new claimant to the throne shows up at your gates. They wander out and ask what he wants. So he shoots them both to death with arrows.
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And he finally makes good on god’s promise to have dogs eat Jezebel by getting a couple of eunuchs to toss her out the window.
-
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“Any castrated slaves up there, who aren’t completely satisfied with their employment situation? Defenestrate that bitch!!!”
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And then Jehu goes on a fucking rampage. He demands the heads of all 70 of Ahab’s sons and he uses them to decorate the city gates. Then he kills all Ahab’s priests, loyalists, patrons, childhood friends, fluffer, substitute teachers…
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And then he rounds up all the worshippers of Baal, kills them, burns down their temple and pisses on it.
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And now the public restrooms at Disney Holy Land stand on that spot. I imagine slaves dressed as golden calves run around in a pit, and Israeli kids piss on them to earn prize tickets.
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Then we meet the evil queen Athaliah who’s such a cunt that the people overthrow her to install a seven year old as their king.
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And there were Batman Lego sets for all
-
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And chapter twelve seems like it was retrofitted when a lot of people started asking where the money was going.
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Yeah, an odd diversion for a dozen paragraphs while it promises us that all the money is going to temple repairs, we swear.
-
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And those were NOT child slaves, those were union contractors. We Jews choose our laborers the same way as our women: Slow and expensive, but talented with tools.
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And try as they might, the Israelites can’t please the lord. They burn the worshippers of Baal, but they leave the sacred pillars. They destroy the sacred pillars, they leave the high places. They just can’t get it together so god keeps punishing them by letting other nations annex bits of their country.
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I’m just curious . . . How the FUCK do you end the existence of a “high place”?!? Build something taller, so the original spot is no longer a high place? You can’t ban ‘height relativism’.
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And if that’s not enough, the stupid king doesn’t strike his magic arrows into the ground enough times when Elisha dies so they can’t obliterate Aram.
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And if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear these guys didn’t read the book of the annals of the kings of Israel, because they never remember to turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit, which was made up of the unkosher shit they ate.
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Then in fourteen we get the reign of ancient Judean king and Vegas strip-tease magician “Amaziah”.
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–
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And the next two chapters just repeat the dull “kings list” pattern; so and so, son of so and so, reigned for so many years in Israel and he did evil in the sight of the lord, and he slept with his ancestors and they buried him in the city of David. Next!
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Plus you’re trying to keep up with two kingdoms at once which makes it a migraine.
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And in between doing evil in the sight of the lord and dying, there’s always one trivial fact about him. He went to war with so and so, he massacred Edomites, he paid off the king of Assyria… Who picks the one thing that they say about the dude? I can’t imagine the most significant thing that King Ahaz did was temple decor.
-
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And then the Assyrians finally show up and get the exile started, ostensibly because the Israelites worshipped gods other than proper jew god.
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And here’s what I don’t get about god… he’s pissed at the jews because some of them didn’t worship him exclusively, so he gives their land to a group where none of them worship him exclusively.
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Yeah, it’s almost like it was a post-hoc rationalization by besieged monotheists.
-
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It’s nice the way god’s existence takes the meaning away from the failure/success concept … and also everything we ever do as humans.
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But, of course, the newcomers don’t know how to keep jew god happy so they suffer a number of lion attacks as they adjust.
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Yes, and apparently at present the jews are being held captive in Assyria to this very day. Because it says so in the bible. And the bible is literal according to people who either haven’t read or haven’t comprehended it.
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They just pay one Jewish dude to dress up as the mascot, and stand in a cage with a placard of 2 Kings 17. “Look I’m an authentic Israelite exiled forever to this shitty street corner in Northern Iraq. Don’t let this happen to you.” Religion’s like the Truman Show, but with 6 billion Trumans all getting fooled at once, somehow.
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And then we meet king Hezekiah of Judah, who tells the Assyrian King to fuck off.
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The king is pissed but god is pissed-er and when the Assyrian army marches on them, God kills them in the night, leading everyone who ever served in one of god’s armies to say, “Wait… if you can just kill them yourself, what the fuck do you need me for?”
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“We’ve been marching around a desert for decades, wearing 150 pounds of bronze, swinging swords, and you have drones with smart bombs?!? I’m chafing like a leper over here. My crotch looks like a half-eaten pastrami on rye.”
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Hezekiah gets sick, and in a chronologically perplexing twist Isaiah shows up to tell him he’s gonna die. He asks god really nicely and god agrees to add 15 years to his life and turn the sun back a few minutes to show that he means it.
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And if you want to know more about Hezekiah, is it not written in the Annals of the Kings of Judah?
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And can I just say that the Annals of the Kings of Judah must have been a fucking dull read. I can’t help but think of it as the outtakes of the shittiest parts of the Old Testament.
-
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Then we get a couple particularly ungodly kings. You know, build their sacred poles in really high places and what-not.
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And then we get Josiah, who I’m starting to think commissioned this thing. Anyway, his cleaning lady finds a book entitled “How to not make god destroy Judah” and when the king starts reading it, of course, they’re doing all the shit it says not to do.
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So they tear their clothes. Disheartened jews and angry wrestlers…
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This is also where Josiah embezzles some wishing well gold. He says to the high priest: “Take all our cash, and give it to my friend who’s in charge of the carpenter’s union. He’s super honest, so don’t even worry about getting a receipt. And then go back and rewrite chapter 12 to have several details that conveniently correspond to what I’m telling you is happening right now. Probably a good idea to put something about this in the book of the annals of the kings too.
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And he busts his ass to de-heathen the whole place, but god’s unimpressed so he decides to wipe Judah out as well.
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Then in twenty-four Nebuchadnezzar shows up and it’s so welcome. And he takes Judah and breaks Solomon’s toys.
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But the puppet king Nebuchadnezzar left in charge doesn’t know what’s good for him so he rebels, so Ol’ Nebby takes the city, captures the king, kills his sons, pokes his eyes out and takes him captive.
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And then they try to put a positive spin on it at the end by pointing out that the next king was really nice to the blind, deposed prisoner that used to lead the Jews.
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He even got an allowance … which was ample.
And thus ends a migraine of a four-book history of Israel that began back in One Samuel. I don’t know about you guys, but I learned nothing.
The good news, though, is that as I understand it Chronicles is basically an alternate ending to that whole story so we’re not out of the woods yet. But we’ve got three weeks to rub our temples before taking that one on. Heath, Lucinda, thanks as always.
An Atheist Behind Enemy Lines
by Noah Lugeons
It’s a long story, but my wife and I bid a fond farewell to NYC this week and moved south. Our destination? The duodenum of the bible belt; south Georgia.
I can hear the incredulous echo of “Why!?” already, so I should note that Lucinda’s family lives there, I grew up there, we both have a number of friends there and it costs about as much to rent a house there as it costs to park a car for a month in the Big Apple. So when I got laid off and the most expensive city in the US was no longer a viable option, Georgia was the first option we considered. And as much as there is to hate about this part of the country, I was wearing shorts and short-sleeves this afternoon.
But I’m also a firm believer that if we want to make progress as a movement, we’re going to need vocal atheists in every part of the nation. The disturbing national trend of voluntary relocation for the purposes of political hegemony is certainly a factor in our gridlocked government. And while I would never recommend that anybody move to or even visit South Georgia for any reason whatsoever, I also wouldn’t recommend that anyone shy away from a place they’d like to be just because the religiots got there first.
And sure, there’ll be issues. My new landlord let us know that if there was an emergency we could call him on Sundays, but otherwise it’s the lord’s day. I’ve already been asked three times if my wife and I had chosen a church yet (we’ve been here almost two days). The guy who came to hook up our cable was really friendly until he saw Lucinda’s Bible (and the Atheist sticker on it). Not to mention the witless church signs packed so densely they could be knocked over like dominoes. And the bumper stickers. And the confederate flags…
But I don’t see any of this as a negative. After 46 diatribes in a row, I was starting to worry that I’d run out of shit to be pissed about. Now I’m fairly certain that I’ll be good through episode 348 at least.
Episode 45 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons
Link to Episode
Link to Foundation Beyond Belief
Warning: This podcast breaks between 50 and 70 per cent of the commandments, depending on who you ask.
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Fox’s new “holistic programming” channel: Placebo FX; featuring an all-star line up of pseudo-scientific programming including hits like “Grey’s Astrology”, Chiropractor Who and Sons of Anthropometry.
Placebo FX: Because TV execs stopped trying when they realized people would watch American Idol.
And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday
It’s December 26th
And we can finally listen to elevator music in public places again.
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright,
And from city waiting for it’s balls to drop, New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist
In this week’s episode,
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Belgium puts the youth back in euthanasia,
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Optimus Prime will die for your sins,
-
And Hemant Mehta rejoins us to spackle some cracks in the wall of separation.
But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe:
Last week I was doing a little Insufficiently-Executed-Jew-Mas shopping at one of New York’s fine Fifth Avenue retail establishments when I happened upon 5 white haired little old ladies in matching smocks. And on these smocks they’d written, in glue and glitter, the words, “Granny Peace Brigade”. And unlike me, they weren’t giving in to seasonally induced mindless-consumerism. No, quite the opposite in fact. They were there to protest. And of all the evils that face our world, they’d chosen to invest their efforts of protestation on fucking video games.
And I stood there and regarded them with anthropological curiosity. Because clearly they’d put some time into this. They’d spent the money on matching yellow smocks and they didn’t half ass the glitter. They’d clearly each made their own, but each one had the team name written in block letters of approximately the same height. And they’d all met up for crafts and maybe some lunch or something and then headed out to show those evil retailers how they felt about them filthy computer whats-its with the blood and guts in ‘em.
So it’s not the they weren’t willing to put in the time to research it. They just didn’t do it. Do violent video games correlate with violence? There’s mountains of good data out there and much of it is available for free on the internet. The consensus seems to be almost certainly no and while there’s some indication that violent people tend toward violent video games, there’s no compelling evidence to suggest that violent video games lead to increases in violent behavior.
But these ladies didn’t bother to check. They’d already invested time and passion and glitter in this shit. You think they were gonna do some independent research that might have proved them wrong? Hell no! Obviously research wasn’t on the menu or they would have picked a store that sold video games.
Research, shmesearch. They looked at video games, saw violence, looked at the news, saw violence and they put two and two together. Sure, they got thirteen, but the important thing is that they had an excuse to get together with the bridge club and make a trip to Ben Franklins.
And when I see these misguided geriatric “blood”ites and their fruitless campaign to impact violence through good intentions and stupidity, I can’t help but think back to four mandatory years in high school of English lit with no classes on critical thinking. No pre-requisites about psychology or epistemology or formal logic. And nothing against English Lit, but so far in my adult life the ability to spot bullshit has been far handier than even the best of quatrains.
But thanks to religious fundies, critical thinking isn’t on the school menu. Because think of all the shit teachers get when they teach redneck kids about evolution. Imagine if the kids were coming home asking where Noah got his Patagonian pumas. Or how Moses wrote the parts about his own funeral. Or why we should thank god for sacrificing himself to himself in the first place.
I’m not going to say that religion is the reason people are stupid, but it helps. It fosters a stupid, overly-accommodating culture that says there are multiple ways to arrive at truth and the ones with evidence and data aren’t any better than the ones without. We have different ways of evaluating the truth and sure, yours uses your brain, but mine uses my heart. Or my pancreas, since that’s just as logical a place to say my thoughts come from as my heart. And my pancreas thoughts are as good as your brain thoughts because science can’t tell us everything and nobody knows for sure.
And meanwhile, if we could just set all that shit aside and agree on a consistent and logical way of evaluating claims (we could call it science) then we could figure out what matters and what doesn’t and put our time toward something more productive than protesting video games, but we’d rather not do that because we don’t like being wrong… and we’ve already made the smocks.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is reigning Champion of the InKredulous Podcast, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to throw down some of that award winning incredulity?
Why are we even talking about this?!? This entire podcast should go without saying!!!
If god existed, I wouldn’t win at anything!!!
Well done; now how about some of that award-eligible headline delivering?
In our lead story tonight, A&E suspended ‘Duck Dynasty’ star Phil Robertson, after the release of a GQ interview, in which he made several unoriginal homophobic remarks, including a hackneyed comparison of gay sex to bestiality. As a result, God-fearing, Christian, heterosexual sheep fuckers everywhere, are up in arms. And that means Westboro Baptist Church is up in arms.
Yeah, when the Westboro Baptist Church is coming to your defense, it’s a good sign your career is over.
So the heir to the “synthetic quacking fortune” released a statement…
Did it just say, “I’m a 67 year old Christian redneck from Louisiana that kills small animals for a living; of course I hate queers you idiots.”
No, it actually explained how he’s super tolerant of gays: (quote) “We just give ’em the good news about Jesus – whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later.” (end quote) …
So that’s nice. He doesn’t put arbitrary labels on people, like gay … alcoholic … suicide bomber.
And as for that ‘good news’ … those groups are all equally going to hell fairly. So good news gay drunks who’ve been dying to get into terrorism: Nothing holding you back now!!! And good news lesbian Al Queda soldiers: Drink up!!! And good news bi-curious alcoholic suicide bombers: Might as well suck a dick while you’ve got the chance!!!
“Might as well suck a dick while you’ve got the chance”… okay, so when we get them to take “In God We Trust” off the money, we’ve got a ready replacement.
Along with the WBC, several other professional bigoted assholes have voiced support for Robertson’s traditionally acceptable hate speech, including the Family Research Council, and Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones. They argue that A&E “not H-eight-ing fags”, denies Robertson’s First Amendment Right to exercise Christianity in a world where all corporations H-eight fags.
The Duck Dynasty Guy getting from the Westboro Baptist Church: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/westboro-baptist-duck-dynasty_n_4479995.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
And from the “Now Where Will We Crucify Voltron?” file tonight, a San Diego federal judge has decided that a 43 foot tall concrete cross on public property could be interpreted as a government endorsement of Christianity.
Or at least government persecution of Jews, Muslims, and Transformers.
Don’t say that around Michael Bay or I swear Optimus’ll be hanging from this thing in part seven. Now I think it’s worth noting that this is only the latest in a long series of judges ruling the Mount Soledad cross unconstitutional. Legal wrangling over the status of the controversial eyesore has been ongoing since 1989 and it was already found to be unconstitutional once in the nineties and again in 2011. Because it’s a giant, gaudy cross sitting on top of a mountain on public property and it doesn’t take a seasoned magistrate to see what’s wrong with that.
I’d say the best way to get rid of the cross would be burning it. Shouldn’t be too hard to find some Christians to get on board with that.
Proponents of the cross have tried everything from making the surrounding space a memorial to selling the land to transferring it to federal jurisdiction to avoid complying with the constitution, and despite the fact that a church a few hundred feet from the present location has offered to keep it on their property, proponents fight on because what’s the point of having a 29 foot tall cross on a 14 foot base if it isn’t on the summit of a mountain?
Judge orders that Mount Soledad cross be removed: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/12/13/why-the-mt-soledad-cross-and-its-like-are-unconstitutional/
And in “Salvation Arms Race” news, the War on Christmas rages on, as bell-ringer Kristina Vindiola was punched really hard in the arm, while collecting donations outside an Arizona Wal-Mart. Reports indicate she provoked the violence when she started shouting anti-Christian epithets like “Happy Holidays”.
This may be the stupidest example of Christian dominionism. Set aside that before they started getting all uppity about it most people thought of “Happy holidays” as a way of getting Merry Christmas and Happy New Year out in 5 syllables; even if it means what they think it means, they’re getting pissed off at people for publicly acknowledging the fact that some people have a different religion than them. How dare some?
So an un-named “Merry Christmas Fundamentalist” heard Vindiola use slurs like the “H-words” several times, as well as other inflammatory synonymous phrases like, “BLANK-cember 25th”. The Christian shopper obviously became incensed, and shouted back something like: “Don’t you believe in God? It’s Merry Christmas, you godless cunt!” – and then assaulted Vindiola for being a terrible Christian.
Salvation Army volunteer punched for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/kristina-vindiola-punched-happy-holidays_n_4460525.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
And in equal opportunity genital joke news tonight, the Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot was released from a Russian prison last week when it was deemed that the national threat that their metronomic cadence and scaled down barred chords presented had sufficiently expired.
And the feminist movement takes another blow … which they hate. The most famous all-female band in history still has “Pussy” in their name. Pussy Riot surpassed the illustrious Pussycat Dolls on their climb to the top of the … tiny area below the glass floor.
The members of the all-girl band were originally imprisoned after recording a music video that criticized the Russian church’s support of Putin and in a theoretically abnormal abuse of anti-blasphemy laws, Putin incarcerated the group after painstakingly revealing the details of his evil plan.
And I suppose now that we’re this deep into the Pussy story, it’s inevitable that we put 30 seconds on the clock…
I can usually go twice that long.
Names for Vaginal Tribute bands. Go!
Bled Zeppelin
Johnny Gash and Tennessee Twat
Cooze Traveler
Cleft Leppard
Blue Oyster Cunt
Queef Latifah
Molly Hatchet Wound
And for the ladies who like in the Jazz; Cunt Basie and the Kansas Titty 5
Phish … Tacos
Queen Crimson, maybe? More like a gay joke than a pussy joke, I guess…
Grand Master Gash
Labio-Head?
Meat Loaf Wallet
Fleetwood Crack
Pink Void: featuring Roger Twatters
Hoo-Hah and the Blowfish
Snatch Box Twenty
I have a few more, but I think that’s enough feminism for the time being.
Amazing that in 17 vagina puns we never used “clit”
I looked for one but I couldn’t find it.
Pussy-Riot members released from prison: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/20/pussy-riot-rockers-convicted-of-religious-hatred-are-released-from-russian-prison/
And just a few quick items before we close the headlines . . .
Item One: 61 years after UK courts convicted math and computer genius Alan Turing of being too gay while cracking Nazi cryptography, and 59 years after his related suicide, the living Queen pardoned the dead queen, and apologized that he was offered chemical castration via female hormone sex-change injections in lieu of jail.
So soon?
Item Two is a quick update on the would be Satanic monument on the Oklahoma Statehouse steps that we talked about a couple of episodes ago. After receiving additional requests from Hindus and animal right activists, the state has declared a moratorium on new monuments, that will, of course, not affect the ten commandments monument that got this ball of shit rolling.
Oklahoma declares “moratorium” on displays at Statehouse: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/19/okla-wont-allow-new-requests-for-capitol-monuments-after-satanists-others/
Item Three: Human veal supply will spike after euthanasia was approved for youth in Belgium. And it’s about time . . . When you eat Chinese children, you just want to adopt another kid thirty minutes later.
http://www.religionnews.com/2013/12/19/belgium-debates-allowing-gravely-ill-children-right-die/
And quick, before it gets worse, we’ll close out the headlines. Heath, thanks as always.
And when we come back, I’ll be rejoined by Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta to talk about what students can do to keep god out of their high schools.
Outro:
Before we apologize awkwardly and claim it’s never happened to us before tonight, I wanted to direct you to a hilarious episode of the InKredulous Podcast featuring Jay Novella of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, our very own Heath Enwright and our very own me. You can Google InKredulous (with a “K”) or you can look for a handy link on the shownotes for this episode. Huge thanks to Andy for the invite.
http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/category/podcast/inkredulous-podcast/
I also need to thank Lucinda for opening the show for us, I need to thank Heath for his humorous lack of a moral compass, I need to thank Hemant Mehta once again for a really productive and interesting conversation and I want to remind you that you can find links to his website and the Foundation Beyond Belief on our homepage and on the shownotes for this episode.
Of course, I’ve also gotta thank Dustin from the Atheist Nomads podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. His partner did one before but Dustin made more of the rock star entrance. If you haven’t checked out their podcast yet you have noone to blame for it but yourself. Again, links can be found on the shownotes.
I need to congratulate Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance for Grinching all the joy out of Christmas for me this year by defeating me by less than four points last week in the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists, thus earning the first ever championship title in said league.
But of course, most of all we need to thank this week’s most exceptional vertebrates; Steve-O, Chester, David, Ryan, James and Magnus the Great Dane. Steve-O, who’s so cool they measure him in Kelvin; Chester, who’s fortified with 13 essential vitamins and minerals; David, whose athletic prowess is so great he hold records in sports he’s never played; Ryan, who is second only to the Hokey-Pokey in being what it’s all about; James, who shall one day inherit a kingdom and make a killing with it on ebay and Magnus the Great Dane, who is, by default more correct on the god question than more than three-quarters of the world’s human population because even a species that eats it’s own poop knows better than to believe in god.
These six notable and noble humanitarians and caninatarians have justified the proterozoic leap into multi-cellular life this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the compassion, composure and competence to compensate us, but if you think you share Steve-O, Chester, David, Ryan, James and Magnus the Great Dane complementable competence, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
And if you got duped by that old “better to give than to receive” line again this year and blew all your cash, no worries. You can also help us a ton by leaving us a review on iTunes and checking us out on all the various social media places you frequent. Oh, and check us out on Stitcher because I forgot to mention that the last couple weeks and our Stitcher ranking dropped so do that.
If you have questions comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
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