Archive
Now With 25% More Jesus
by Noah Lugeons
It’s been almost a decade since I lived in the deep south. It hasn’t changed but I’m discovering quickly that I have. I suppose the pro-Jesus stickers on the shop windows and the biblical passages on the newspaper and the Christ-praise on the menu board and the “Christian Owned” notes on the print ads were there the whole time. And I’m sure I noticed them before. But I don’t recall them pissing me off quite so much.
I’m seeing them everywhere now. Every fourth business I walk into makes it damn clear that they’re Christian. It’s a selling point for them: “Get your taxes done here because we love Jesus more than H&R Block!” And it must be effective or so many businesses wouldn’t be doing it. Sure, they lose my business when I see a big “Jesus Loves You” sticker next to the one that tells me that they accept Discover Card, but obviously I’m outweighed by the people who see the sign and say, “I’d rather support a Jesus-loving dry cleaner than a heathen one.”
But perhaps that view is hyper-capitalist. The bakers who sue for the right to refuse the money of gay customers might get some residual business from fellow bigots, but I doubt that’s the motivating factor. They’re doing it because they hate gay people and their bigotry trumps their desire to make money. If I told a business owner that I was going to take my business elsewhere because of the Jesus sign on the door, he or she would probably be happy to hear it. They would probably rather not cater to a godless spawn of the devil anyhow.
The exclusionary nature of faith somehow remains invisible to a vast swath of the faithful. They actually argue that religion (or more specifically their religion) encourages universal fraternity, fellowship, community, inclusivity… and then they build a wall between themselves and non-believers, members of different faiths, gays, women and the scientifically literate.
So far I’ve kept my mouth shut when I see these “Christian owned business” signs, but eventually I’m not going to be able to. I’ll go up to the proprietor and demand proof that he’s more Christian than the other barber. I’ll ask if he would sacrifice his son as a burnt offering to the lord if so commanded. I’ll ask if he would massacre babies in an armed conquest upon the lord’s decree. I’ll ask if he thinks women should be allowed to speak in public. And if he answers in the truly Christian way, I’ll point out that he’s a sociopathic fuck who shouldn’t be allowed to work with scissors.
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.
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Episode 31 Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright, Lucinda Lugeons and Noah Lugeons
(Note: Transcript may include portions that were edited out due to time constraints)
Sponsor
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program. So if you’re tired of the J Dubs loitering on your porch and you find that candles and birthday cake doesn’t scare them off the way they used to, turn to the experts in cruel and elaborate front porch security systems.
Act now and get three free alligators when you upgrade to the new moat and drawbridge package. Jehovah’s Witness Protection, because there are worse things to have on your porch than a flaming bag of shit.
And now the Scathing Atheist
Intro
It’s Thursday, it’s September 19th and this sentence is a palindrome…
mordnilap a si ecnetnes siht.
I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from “Rapture City” New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.
On this week’s episode,
-
Lucinda will join us in the Holy Babble segment to take the edge off the concubine gang rape jokes,
-
Christians will drink poop,
-
And we’ll learn that every time a pastor beats you off, a fairy gets its wings.
But first, the diatribe.
Diatribe
I’ve got a friend who has one of those jobs where occasionally you have to take phone calls from people who bitch at you for things you have nothing to do with. Oh, and for our younger listeners, phone calls are like real time, voice activated audio-texts.
Anyway, so the other day I ran into him and he was dying to tell me about one such conversation. Some dude had called to complain about some company policy that was set by somebody in another country. So while he’s bitching, my buddy explains that he doesn’t actually set the company’s policies and has no control over them.
To which his animated caller goes all prematurely Godwin and tells him that he’s no different than the guards at them there concentration camps.
Exhibiting a nearly Herculean amount of patience, my friend calmly asks the guy to dial back his rhetoric a bit and then the jerk tosses out a response so indefensibly stupid I had to write a diatribe about it.
He said: “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a pastor. I’m used to fighting for the weak.”
I don’t want to bog this down with boring details of the policy the guy was complaining about, so I’ll just say that him bitching about it had about as little to do with “fighting for the weak” as being a pastor does, so I can only imagine the befuddled silence and stifled laughter that the assertion actually provoked.
My first thought upon hearing the story was “fight for the weak, eh? So you guys are paying taxes now? Because every time I earn a dollar a chunk of it goes to the weak. Every time I pay my property taxes they go to the weak. How about you? Who pays your tax-free salary again? The weak? Got it.”
But that’s far from being the most ludicrous delusion in that sentence. This person is actually invoking a career in taking advantage of people, deluding people, indoctrinating children, fighting against reality, opposing social progress and believing in fairy tales, and for this he thinks he’s entitled to some level of respect.
I’m not just stupid, I majored in stupid. I have an advanced degree in stupid. I’ve devoted my life to stupid.
Well somehow I’m still not impressed. I’d be more impressed if you had a masters degree in My Little Ponies because… My Little Ponies are actually pretty awesome and bronie or no, I guarantee you’ll find more morality in those cartoons than you’ll find in the bible.
“I’m a pastor…” And for that you deserve some kind of deference? You know, given the fact that we’re gonna be leading off headlines this week with a story about a pastor raping children for the third week in a row I don’t know how the fuck you try to attach that profession with morality. If he said, “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a pastor, I’m used to sexually abusing the weak”, I’d have simply applauded him for his honesty.
And you know what, maybe this dude does “fight for the weak”. Maybe he’s out there right now with his metaphorical boxing gloves on kicking the shit out of hunger and homelessness at this very moment. But if he is, it ain’t cause he’s a fucking pastor. It’s because he’s a moral person. The CEO for Panera Bread fights for the weak too but I bet he wouldn’t excuse his assholery on the phone by saying, “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a CEO, I’m used to fighting for the weak.”
The very fact that such a thing as a degree in theology exists is an insult to education. Think about it. We’d be pretty fucked if we woke up tomorrow and all the world’s surgeons were gone. Or all the world’s physicists. Or all the world’s firefighters or teachers or plumbers or carpenters or jizz moppers or truck drivers or pharmacists. And we’d at least be horribly inconvenienced if we woke up tomorrow and there were no podcasters, jugglers, musicians or masked vigilantes.
But what would happen if we lost all the theologists? Where would we get our nothing? If all the world’s pastors were abducted by aliens tomorrow, who would molest our children? Who would fleece our uneducated? Who would terrify our nieces and nephews? Who would hate our fags?
Yeah. You’re a pastor. You wanna impress me? Try getting a real job. Like one where you have to take phone calls from assholes like you.
Headlines
Joining me…
Joining me for headlines tonight is Noah Lugeons because if I talk first then you’re joining me. I mean, we were both already here.
What the hell? Next thing I know you’re gonna try to beat me to the lead story.
In our lead story tonight, a pastor in Iowa claims allegations of sexual abuse against him are just another big misunderstanding. Ex-Pastor Brent Girouex pioneered a procedure he calls a Semen Exorcism, in which he jerks off kids until they stop being gay.
Alright, so the movie version would be called “Redeemin’ the Semen Demon” obviously, but I can’t decide if Michael Bay or Steven Soderbergh would direct. One way or the other, Sharon Stone plays pastor Girouex.
He credits his success to such awful handjob technique, that even women do it better. In particular, poor sense of cock, and also bad calluses – or the “lumber-jacking effect”. Used in a sentence: “I got lumber-jacked by Pastor Brent, and now I prefer vagina.”
I don’t know… I’m finding his excuse a little hard to splatter on my tits.
One self-proclaimed rape victim – or exorcise partner – argued (quote) “But you can see how someone might think they were the victim of a gay pedophile, right?” (end quote) . . .
Isn’t it sad that pastor-rapes-child stories have to have an angle now to be newsworthy? I mean, if it wasn’t for this dingleberry convincing himself that he could clear things up with the “Hey, it isn’t rape if we were praying defense,” this would be a non-story. What? Pastor raped 60 kids over a period of decades? And how’s that news?
Somehow convinced he could smooth things over, the allegedly disgraced gay sexorcist allegedly spoke to detectives, and had words to say. Here are those words. Keep in mind, this an adult, talking to police about his activities with kids, trying NOT to get arrested . . .
(quote) “When they would ejaculate-” Now right there. Already a bad start . . .
(quote)“When they would ejaculate, they would be getting rid of the evil thoughts in their mind,” (end quote) . . .
And the science backs him up on this. Thinking about ejaculating, ejaculating. Those are the only two settings for the teenage male brain.
And in case you’re wondering if his punishment will be as stiff as his altar boys, 60 counts of sexual exploitation will land him in jail for as many as 24 hours. He might leave after lunch, if he doesn’t manually service anyone inappropriately that morning.
Yeah, he was originally sentenced to 17 years, but it was later reduced to probation and treatment when it was pointed out that the kids he molested were cured of their gayness.
New Rationale for Pedophilia: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/gay-issues/ex-pastor-brent-girouex-allegedly-had-sex-boys-help-them-homosexual-urges#
And in convenient…
And in convenient archaeology news, an Israeli team has uncovered a new cache of Jew gold, and some other really old unfabricated stuff, proving conclusively that Judaism actually existed long before 1948. Along with 36 gold coins, and a medallion with a menorah drawing, they found a tablet etching that read “Jewish Jesus was here first”.
Well if nothing else, I suppose this finally settles the “who owns the temple mount” question. Which is a shame because I was still holding out hope that it would ultimately be adjudicated by a winner take all wet-burka contest.
Just when Israel was about to cave, and peacefully concede a bunch of land to Palestine, they find perfectly preserved title deeds, corresponding precisely to all the dibs in the Old Testament, including Holy Water Works and all four railroads.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could talk it out like a Monopoly trade?
“Tell you what, I’ll give you Marvin Gardens and Hotels for Gaza, you give me the Temple Mount and that other green one.”
This all sounds like rock solid proof of cosmic historical ownership. I’m sure they would reconsider if they ever found an Islamic artifact buried in Jerusalem, which they clearly have not. All of a sudden, you might see the stubborn side of Netanyahu, as opposed to his normal, silky smooth, placating diplomacy with neighboring “so-called” countries. Let’s all hope this doesn’t lead to instability in the region.
Ok sarcastically mocking the Jews . . . Check. Are the Christians up to any stupid shit?
Jews find more jew gold: http://www.religionnews.com/2013/09/10/ancient-treasure-trove-uncovered-near-temple-mount/
And in “The… (pause) And in… you gonna…?
No, go ahead.
And in “the Holy Shit joke would be too easy” news tonight, a recent study has discovered that the majority of the world’s holy water contains dangerous amounts of fecal matter. Because when we said the church was feeding you shit, we only thought it was metaphorical.
I love it!!! Christians are honest-to-god shit sippers!!!
The only way this gets worse for them, is getting that awkward email from Jesus, saying he has AIDS, and everyone who’s had contact with his blood should get tested.
Austrian researchers sampled water from 39 different holy springs and church fonts and discovered that the water was so blessed with vitality it was home to some 62 million bacteria per milliliter, including E coli, enterococci and campylobacter, a combination that comes in handy for anyone who needs to projectile defecate through a coffee filter and then die.
Christianity: Drink shit and die . . .
You’d hope the church will finally have to break down and apologize for LITERALLY feeding their shit to the public, then the public shitting it out, wiping it on their hand, dipping it in the church basin, and then ingesting more shit, and then lethally projectile shitting out diarrhea, which is made up of the holy shit they drank.
Dr Alexander Kirschner, a microbiologist from the Medical University of Vienna, recommend that priests act responsibly and put up signs warning people that the holy water has as much shit as the sermon. But loyal Christian sewage garglers point out that their only drinking blessed remnants of fecal matter.
“Holy water number two number two cause of Christians being full of shit.”
Majority of world’s holy water found to contain fecal matter: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/09/14/most-holy-water-found-to-contain-not-so-holy-shit/
According to a pastor in Houston, all contracts are void if either party has their delicate religious sensibilities offended. Apostle Michael Canty of the Truth Ministries Holiness Church – which sounds like a government building in “1984” – refused to marry a couple because the bride’s dress was too revealing.
According to the article on Friendly Atheist (dot) com, the family assumed the pastor was wearing out a crappy joke when he repeatedly asked where the rest of the dress was. Upon discovering that no, this wasn’t the pre-dress or anything, the pastor demanded that the bride-to-be cover up her breast area and lengthen the dress. In thirty minutes. Or he was taking his balls and going home.
Granted, the so-called wedding dress looks more like a tear-away stripper warm-up uniform . . .
But demanding a last minute, iron-on burqa attachment is asinine.
Yeah… nothing says slutty like “I now take this man to be my lawfully wedded husband.”
All things considered, you probably don’t want to be married by a guy with a visible erection anyway . . . But it is refreshing to see a pastor aroused by an adult female.
“Anyone who objects to this bridal gown should forever hold his piece… or at least turn it to one side and tuck it under his belt so the bulge isn’t as noticeable.”
Priest Can’t Perform Wedding With Visible Erection: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/09/10/pastor-refuses-to-marry-couple-an-hour-before-ceremony-because-brides-dress-is-too-sexy/
And in “The-Strong-Forearm-of-the-Law” news tonight, it turns out that an Indonesian lawmaker whose career has been defined by a single-minded obsession with pornography is obsessed with pornography
Fifty year old conservative MP Arifinto championed a law that called for prison terms for everything from public kissing to displaying lewd artwork and then managed to get caught surreptitiously watching pornography during a parliamentary debate.
In fairness, it’s important to point out that Arifinto’s not usually known as a master debater at these events, but wanting to display prominent member status on the parliament floor, he must have decided to get his feet wet that day.
Images of the newly-disgraced, newly-unemployed hypocrite drooling over PornHub were captured by a photojournalist and quickly found their way into newspapers throughout the nation. Indonesia, which boasts the world’s largest population of Muslims could not be reached, as the porn-starved nation was busy rubbing one out to the blurred images of whatever Arifinto was looking at.
Anti Porn MP resigns after getting caught watching porn: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-20052796.html
Well that’s gonna to it for headlines tonight, Heath thanks for joining me tonight.
Well that’s gonna to it for headlines tonight, Noah thanks for joining me tonight.
And when we come back, Lucinda will join us to take some of the sting out of how bad the bible sucks..
Poem
Okay, so I think we can all agree that eventually this whole poem shtick is gonna wear thin if I don’t change it up here and there, so I’d like to now present the book of Judges, in Limericks.
There were a series of jews tasked with judging,
Through god’s incessant fits and begrudging,
So quick, alert CNN
As we learn once again,
That god’s a testy, forgetful curmudgeon
The first judge, Ehum, was left-handed.
The jews angered god so they got reprimanded
By an oppressive, fat lord,
So Ehum took his sword,
And shoved it so deep in the king’s gut it got stranded.
Deborah, the next judge, saw visions,
Upon which the jews made decisions.
Sisera’s armies attack,
So she goes with Barak,
And they use a stake as their chief ammunition.
Then there’s Gideon, whose kind of a dick,
He kills Midianites with a trumpet based trick,
With 300 men he achieves,
Something as hard to believe
As that god-awful Zack Snyder flick.
There’s Abimelech from just south of Ephraim,
Who figured all the jews should obey him,
So he tried to kill all his brothers,
But the youngest recovered,
And then suggested his subjects should slay him.
Then Jephthah who was the son of a whore
Took an oath; to the almighty he swore
That if his campaign didn’t fail
And god let them prevail,
He’d kill the first person that walked out his door.
There once was a fella named Samson,
He was strong, he could fight, he was handsome,
He set fire to some crops,
So they called the Ammonites cops,
And on his head they placed a king’s ransom.
So they demanded he succumb to the law,
But it turned out their plan had a flaw
Despite all their hopes,
He broke through their ropes.
And killed a thousand men with a animal jaw.
Then along came this chick named Delilah,
Who Samson had the urge to defile,
So as long as it took,
There’s good advice in this book:
Don’t your girlfriend be your hair-styler.
Babble
Ah, Judges, the disjointed and chronologically perplexing series of pointless short stories that really make you appreciate the parts of your life you spend not reading them. So joining me to dig through this morass of spasmodic drivel is my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome to the show.
Glad to be here.
And of course, to my left is my right hand man, Heath Enwright. Heath, thanks for not stepping on my intro here.
Once is enough
Clearly Judges ranks high in terms of overall irrelevance, but let’s dive right in anyway, shall we?
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So basically Joshua is dead and god didn’t think to have the divine Rico chart figured out in advance like he did with Moses. So they kill everyone because damn it, that’s what Old Testament Jews do.
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This chapter is all over the place but it has all the staples we’ve come to expect out of the bible. There’s slavery, xenophobia, incest, betrayal but most of all, genocide.
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You know there’s a lot of genocide in a book when by the end they just start listing the tribes that weren’t completely massacred.
-
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And just when you thought it was a little cruel to cut off the opposing general’s thumbs and big toes, the guy laughs it off, in confirmation of the Jews’ legendary comedic timing . . .
-
“You guys are gonna laugh too when I explain . . . I actually did this exact same ‘thumbs and big toes’ thing to seventy kings once, and made them eat my table scraps like dogs . . . So well-played Israelites. I clearly deserve this. You guys are a stitch.”
-
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And of course, if you aren’t genociding correctly, you’re gonna piss god off so in chapter two he sends an angel to bitch out the Jews for not murdering thoroughly enough.
-
Yeah, a half-ass genocide’s never a good move. That’s just normal mass murder. That’s like swimming ninety percent across a river, seeing a few non-Jews onshore, and turning back without murdering them.
-
Chapter 3 contains the weirdest assassination we’ve encountered yet. Ehud the left-handed, kills Eglon the fat. He pretends he has a secret message from god, gets the king by himself then kills him with a sword he’d been hiding in his taint. Then he locks the door so everybody will think the king is taking a massive shit while he makes his escape.
-
Then there’s the only slightly less odd assassination of Sisera in chapter 4. Here we meet Deborah, who is judging Israel at the moment. She defeats an army with 900 chariots of iron.
-
But during the ensuing battle, Sisera escapes on foot and he finds some chick in a tent and he’s all like “Hide me” and she says “sure, no problem” and then as soon as he falls asleep she drives a fucking tent pole through his head.
-
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Right, Jael: Gentile Vampire Slayer. How do you hammer a post through someone’s temple while they’re sleeping? Did she tap it in really softly to get it started. Just isn’t believable … Women hammer nails about as well as they merge in traffic and earn equal pay.
-
And then they relive the head-staking in song.
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I think Deborah is the first woman we meet in the bible that doesn’t get raped, murdered, sold, turned into a leper or forced to mutilate a penis.
-
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Yeah starting with Judges, it looks like the Bible might start getting a little preachy with all the feminism. I just hope their progressive stance doesn’t take away from the rapey narrative that’s been working nicely so far.
-
If it aint broke . . .
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So god gets bored of fucking with them he appears to Gideon and tells him to kill all the Midianites.
-
And Gideon is skeptical of course, so he says, “If you’re really god, make this rug wet when I wake up in the morning.” Seems like an odd test of divinity… “Hey god, bet you can’t piss on this rug!” but apparently god passed.
-
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So Gideon gathers his army to attack the Midianites and god tells him “Any god could kick ass with that big an army. Send all but 300 of them home, otherwise people will think I’m a pussy.”
-
So Gideon sends home all the soldiers that don’t lap river water up with their tongue and they kick all the Midianites’ asses with trumpets and irrational fear.
-
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And then these weird-ass canine-tongued soldiers lift their legs and pee on the fallen enemies. A few of them start licking the blood from open wounds, and it’s a little gross, but still somehow cute and endearing.
-
Then in chapter 8 Gideon kills the kings and anyone else that fucks with him, then he takes enough wives to have seventy sons and dies.
-
And something of a pattern is emerging here, because as soon as Gideon dies the Jews go right back to worshipping Baal again.
-
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Seems like the only time the Jews STOP worshipping Baal is when some crazy fucking zealot announces the next genocide mission he heard from real god. So the lesson we’re supposed to learn here is . . . You can spot a false god when they don’t sponsor regular tribal murder sprees.
-
Next we get the brief reign of Abimelech the Easily Provoked. He wakes up one day and says, “Mom, wouldn’t it be awesome if I was king?” and then he kills his dad and all his brothers except the youngest one, takes over the promised land, spends a few years killing anybody who insinuates he has a small dick and gets killed by a chick with a millstone.
-
And because the only thing worse than death is a vagina, Abimelech is stammering around with his head half crushed trying to find a man who can stab him to death so that people won’t think a woman killed him.
-
“Will a man please murder me?”
-
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And since fuck originality, the Israelites piss off god again and he lets the Philistines make slaves out of them.
-
So after a couple decades of slavery the Jews are going, “Okay, sorry about the worshipping Baal, again. We’re sorry… again. So you can go ahead and deliver us… again.” And god’s like “Nope. Fuck off this time.”
-
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And then you get this very weird story about Jephthah where he has to offer up his daughter because she’s the first person to come out of his house when he gets home. Which apparently means… she has to spend two months on a mountain, never gets to fuck and has to be burned to death for god when she gets home..
-
He was clearly expecting his wife to come out first. Or his whore mother.
-
Then the men of Ephraim get pissed cause Jephthah killed the Ammonites without them so they tell him they’re gonna burn down his house. So he kills them and anyone with an Ephraim accent. And then Jephthah dies because nobody survives through more than three or four chapters in Judges.
-
And then we meet Samson, who was apparently immaculately conceived a la Jesus.
-
This is a tough sell to your husband . . . “So you know how I’m barren and you’re impotent . . . Well I talked to this angel, and he said if I can handle his angel cock, he’ll give us a kid who’s a main character in the book.”
-
So Samson grows up, finds a Philistine chick he wants to bone so he tells his parents to go get her, because that’s how it worked back then.
-
And then Samson gives his friends a riddle, which is bullshit because you needed to know that if you murder a lion bare-handed, you can later eat honey from its rotting, bee-infested carcass. How is that an acceptable prerequisite for a riddle?!? That’s what six-year-olds do when they try to tell their own shitty riddle.
-
Yeah, and then he gives his wife to his best man because he doesn’t like her. Or his best man apparently.
-
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Then he changes his mind,decides he want to bone his wife after all, but when he goes back to get her, her dad says, “too late, dude, she’s shacked up with the best man.”
-
So in a rage he ties torches to a bunch of foxes, lights them on fire and sends them running through their fields.
-
So they demand Samson, and the jews tie oblige. And then Samson goes all Samson on them, melts the ropes with his anger and then kills a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey. And don’t forget… this book is infallible.
-
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So Samson took his bone from the mouth of the ass?
-
You never go ass to mouth.
-
Just sounds unkosher.
-
In chapter 16 we meet the foul temptress we knew was coming. Samson falls for Delilah and she likes it kinky because basically the first words out of her mouth is “how can you be tied up?” And I guess he likes it kinky too, because he keeps telling her new bullshit ways to tie him up.
-
And he’s a bright one, too, right? She says, “How can you be captured by your enemy?” and this isn’t a red flag to him. After the fifth time he says some weird random “here’s how to capture me” lie then wakes up to find her trying it, he eventually tells her the truth, which is apparently that Barbasol is his kryptonite.
-
So then the Philistines promptly shave him, capture him, gouge out his eyes and make him dance like a monkey. But he dances like a monkey so long that his hair grows back so he brings down the temple. And if he can kill a thousand people with an ass-bone, you can imagine how much ass he can kick with a whole temple.
-
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Yeah he prays to god for the strength to kill himself and a thousand other people in a building collapse. Turns out the first suicide bomber was Jewish. Who knew? It wasn’t the Buddhists like you were thinking, you racist.
-
So when Muslim terrorists pull this shit now, it’s so hackneyed. Samson did it!!!
-
17 and 18 suck. Micah, Danites, Shrine, Murder, whatever…
-
–
-
And then shit gets real. We meet some unnamed coward from the hill country. He’s travelling from Bethlehem with his concubine, some old dude invites him to crash at his place. So far, so good, until all the townfolk show up at the old man’s door demanding that he send his guests out so they can ass-rape him.
-
To be fair, in King James, they didn’t specify ass-rape. For all we know, they just wanted to work with the ear, nose, and throat.
-
But we already know what to do in this situation. Just offer the crowd your concubine… and maybe your virgin daughter. So they shove the women out of the house so the crowd can rape them to death.
-
Right, nothing calms down a mob of gay rapists like some vagina? Maybe they figured she’s a virgin, so it’s pretty tight . . . That’s almost like two assholes on one person. More bang for your shekel … and your schmekel.
-
So in the morning this asshole wakes up, opens the door and there’s his concubine lying dead from being gang raped and he says, “get up! We’re leaving.”
-
And when he finally realizes she’s dead, he brings her home, chops her into pieces and mails the pieces to different people with a note saying, “Israel really sucks these days. It’s gotten to where you can’t offer your concubine to a bunch of salivating rapists without her getting fucked to death.”
-
And it’s gotten to the point where you get disembodied abused-corpse pieces with your mail, too.
-
Can a man not block a rape with his whore-shield in this town anymore?!? And speaking of which, can a guy get a decent whore-shield in this town anymore?!? Maybe one that doesn’t DIE on her FIRST biblical rape mob. It’s like having your starting QB take an injury in week 1.
-
I thought this was the promised land! Are we not in the promised land?!? Do I really need to dismember my dead sex slave, to teach Israelites how to rally around a good cause again?!?
-
So in hopes of putting an end to all the violence, the Israelites gather an army and attack Gibeah. It takes a few tries, but eventually they kill the whole army, murder all the women and children, slaughter all the livestock and burn the city to the ground. So that nobody else would get hurt.
-
“There’s lots of crazy tribes going around killing entire towns. We’d be crazy not to start murdering some towns full of these tribes. Hey Gibeah’s a town.”
-
And then you get the most high-stakes game of not-it ever. The Jews say “We can’t marry our daughters of to these Benjamite scum, so let’s kill all the non-virgins in Jabesh-Gilead. That should be enough virgins for all these Benjamites.”
-
But it’s not, so then they decide to just kidnap a bunch of dancers to round things off.
-
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I feel bad withholding all the Jew pussy from the Benjamites. We should at least throw them a virgins and sluts party. Half prude, half crude, lots of oil. A righty tighty lefty loosy party. Admittedly stretching the orifice jokes now.
-
We forgive you.
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But can I cram one more in there last minute?
I don’t think we have room. That’s gonna have to wrap up the Holy Babble this week. Heath, Lucinda, thanks for not bailing on this insanely boring project yet.
Our next book is Ruth which is short for a pamphlet so we get a bit of a reprieve. We’ll be breaking that one down in Episode 34 so until then fuck this stupid book.
Outro
Before we seal the envelope tonight I need to make a quick correction to next week’s episode. I’m going to misidentify Charles S. Durnam as Charles S. Dunnum, and I just wanted to apologize in advance for that.
I wanted to remind everybody that I took part in a two part panel discussion with Jake Farr-Wharton over at the Imaginary Friends Show along with Martin S Pribble and Twitter’s very own Gamma Atheist. Both episodes are available over at Imaginary Friends Show (dot) com, we had a blast recording and I’d highly recommend them. You also find a link on this week’s shownotes.
I also have a few quick thanks to toss out. Thanks of course to the lovely and talented Lucinda Lugeons for joining us this week. Thanks to the talented but decidedly less lovely Heath Enwright for kicking ass, taking names and then kicking those names’ asses.
I also need to thank Phil from The Week in Doubt podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. He’s a very intelligent guy and it really comes across in his podcast. It’s well researched, well presented and if you want to check it out, you’ll find a link to his website on the shownotes for this episode.
http://palbertelli.podbean.com/
But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s most structurally sound arrangements of organic molecules; Henk, Bruce, Josh, Ryan, Else and Magnus the Great Dane, who is either a dog or an exemplary person from Denmark, but either way, makes my short list of people I’d most like to have at my side when fending off the impending alien apocalypse.
These superior examples of humanity and/or caninity have proved their worth to the species, the planet and the galaxy this week by giving us money. Secure in the knowledge that giving us money is the universal currency of decency, Henk, Bruce, Josh, Ryan, Else and Magnus the Great Dane can maintain their claim to moral supremacy even if they should later take to a life of drugs, crime and aardvark prostitution, which they won’t.
If you think you have the superior wit, wisdom and worth required to give us money, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
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If you have questions, comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact info on the Contact Page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
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Episode 4 is Up
by Noah Lugeons
We just polished off episode 4. It’s recorded, edited, processed, published and awaiting your approval. You can get it through iTunes (which I recommend if for no other reason than it ups our showing and gets the show in front of more people), but if you can’t wait for all that synching bullshit, you can also listen to it now by clicking here. And in case you haven’t picked up on this yet, this show is certainly NOT SAFE FOR WORK unless you work in a really cool place.
Enjoy.
Were You There?
by Noah Lugeons
It’s one of the most filthy, underhanded tactics that the creationists employ. What child wouldn’t rather believe in a history where humans and dinosaurs coexisted? What child wouldn’t rather live in a world where all these silly bible stories could really happen? So of course these soulless bastards target those kids with their bullshit museums, bullshit sleepover camps, bullshit “educational” material and bullshit multi-million dollar theme park (coming soon!).
And one of the most horrible examples of this is notorious fucktard Ken Ham. (Note to bloggers: wherever possible, link Ken Ham’s wikipedia page with the word “Fucktard“)
He likes to encourage kids to employ this intellectually vacuous defense when they’re confronted with actual facts from actual experts:
“Were you there?”
He encourages children to use this defense whenever anyone talks about something being millions or billions of years old. Whenever anyone talks about the age of the earth, the origins of the cosmos or (god-forbid) evolution.
Now, the master PZ Myers already refuted this nonsense better than I could ever hope to so I’m not going to beat a dead horse here. The only reason that I bring it up is that it occurs to me that this is a pretty dangerous tactic to take for Ken Ham and his acolytes. After all, won’t most children eventually think to turn this question on Ken Ham and their complicit mentally-abusive parents? What if the children asked the same question when they were told that people can live in whale stomachs or that Jesus died for our sins? How do we know if we weren’t there?
The real problem here is that in this instance, the scientists have an answer and the fundies don’t. Scientists can explain to even the developing intellect of a young child how they know what they know. They can’t explain it to the stunted intellect of Ken Ham, but that’s another matter altogether.
Do I Pick On Catholics Too Much?
by Noah Lugeons
First, I’ll answer the title question in short form:
No. Catholics are really weird and fucked up and if one were to devote an eternal and restless existence to nothing but picking on Catholics, one would still fall far short of picking on them too much.
So with that out of the way, let me turn to the long-form answer. For that, we’ll have to turn to the long form question.
I received an email from listener named Sai in Brisbane that started with a bunch of flattering praise for the podcast. As much as I enjoy flattering praise, that hardly made the email worth blogging about. But the final line did seem like something I should address:
I noticed that in your show you spend a lot of time talking about the Catholic Church specifically and just wanted to remind you that there are plenty of other religions to keep an eye on as well.
I looked back over it and I must admit that Sai is correct. In the first two episodes I’ve covered 19 news items and 7 of them were about those Rascally Romans. Now, in my defense, I should point out that in the 4 weeks I’ve been working on this podcast, the Catholic Church has:
- Fired the lead investigator into their internal investigation of child sex abuse,
- Released damning evidence that even the highest officials in one archdiocese was directly involved in covering up child sex abuse,
- Exhausted every possible legal maneuver to delay releasing the aforementioned damning evidence,
- Had a former priest arrested for (allegedly) selling $9000 a month worth of Meth and then laundering it through a sex-toy emporium,
- Ramped up efforts to limit the availability of contraception in AIDS ravaged and overpopulated parts of the world,
- Had an archdiocese file for bankruptcy protection because of millions of dollars in hush money and damages paid to victims of child sexual abuse, and
- Started tweeting in Latin.
Now, if you’re writing a comedic atheist news podcast, I think it’s clear that the Catholics are comedy gold. They are the gift that keeps on giving. If I have two minutes to fill in the program, it’s a good bet that they did something 2 minutes worth of stupid (or evil) that I can slip in. If I need an extra story that viscerally demonstrates the real-world horror that ensues when you allow a class of sexually-inhibited, logically-ambivalent, power-drunk perverts to speak for god, you can bet that the Catholic Church has just such an example.
That being said, I must agree with Sai that perhaps I’m guilty of going for the low hanging fruit a bit too often. In fact, I cut a skit I’d considered using in the last episode about the pope’s new Twitter account because I was starting to feel like the show was a little too Catholic.
Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think I’m going too hard on the Catholics. I just think I’m going too easy on all the other religions when I talk about Catholics instead of them. Two episodes in and I haven’t even mentioned Scientology, Mormonism or those Islamic Barbarians (unity with Dawkins!).
Sorry about that…
Episode 2 of the Podcast is Now Available
by Noah Lugeons
Just wanted to throw everyone a quick update. The “Big Game Edition” of the Scathing Atheist Podcast is now available. I’ll have the show-notes and transcript up by the time you read this as well. You can subscribe to us in iTunes (best method) or you can listen here:
The Scathing Atheist 