antitheist podcast | The Scathing Atheist

So for all you recently deconverted theists still struggling to overcome the sexual taboos imbedded in your mind by decades of slut-shaming, hell-mongering and bedroom advice from celibate pedophiles, try our extra strength suppositories and we promise they won’t be the last thing you stick in your ass.

“Whore-Ox Bleach,” safe for both whites and coloreds… even at the same time… and that’s okay now.

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s August 7th,

And evolution’s so easy, a caveman can do it.

I’m Noah Lugeons

I’m Heath Enwright, and from pluralistic New York, New York,

And “as monochromatic as legally enforceable” Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

In this week’s episode,

We learn that God never learned to drive stick,
A Louisiana archdiocese will play “Three Pedophile Monte,”
And the gays ruin Christian orphan hoarding for everyone.

But first, the Diatribe…

Diatribe:

Of all the arrows in the apologist’s quiver, you’ve gotta figure the whole, “Where do atheists get their morals?” bit has to be the last one they want to shoot. Because what they’re saying at that point is essentially, “I know we’re wrong, but if we admit it was all a lie, we’d all be raping each other’s ear-holes by September.”

It’s such a baffling question to me because it rests on the assumption that morality comes from god… but doesn’t everything come from god if you’re a theist? How is this any different than asking, “Without god, where do atheists get their orgasms?” Why are morals always singled out?

Now, obviously there’s a more nuanced form of this than the ear-hole rape version. They say that morals need an absolute, right? Otherwise you descend into moral relativism, in which case you have to admit that a culture can dictate what’s moral. They like to say that without an absolute moral authority to appeal to, there can only be moral change, not moral advancement.

Obviously there’s too much wrong with this argument to cram it all in one diatribe. I mean… there’s no divine authority on health or technology and those things can advance. I don’t need a man in the sky to tell me that my phone is superior to a loom. I know it because I have an objective standard… you know, like the ones we have for morality… harm, freedom, equality… that kind of shit.

And despite the spurious series of assumptions this nonsense apologetic relies on, there are plenty of theists that actually think it is some sort of checkmate. They say, “Morals must come from god, so if there’s no god, there’s no morals.” But they just… changed the definition of morals, right? I mean, the dictionary calls morals, “a person’s standard of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.” No mention of god there.

It’s like saying that from now on the definition of the word “egg” includes, “perfectly cubed,” and then lamenting the fact that there are no true eggs anymore. Matt Dillahunty has a great video, and I’ll link to it on the shownotes for this episode, where he argues that not only is a secular morality superior to a religious morality but, in fact, secular morality is the only kind that exists.

Now, a lot of atheists will demonstrate this fact by pointing to something we can all agree is immoral, but isn’t touched on in the bible. You ask them, “So, do you think slavery is immoral?” and they say, “Yes,” because they’re afraid a black person might hear them and you say, “So why do you think that’s immoral? Never says that in your bible. God never says slavery is immoral. You just know it is because your secular morals tell you it is.”

This might be effective sometimes, but it sort of misses their point. Because these people think the Holy Ghost lives in their head and gives them instructions, like the little alien that drives Oprah Winfrey. So when you say “it isn’t in the bible,” they say, “well god just whispered it into my brain,” and somehow they don’t recognize how batshit insane that sounds. And among the advantages of this line of, let’s call it “thinking,” is that it also immunizes them in case you point out that atheists are, by reasonable measures, as moral as religious people. Well of course we are, because god is whispering right from wrong into our brains, too; we just don’t realize it.

Of course, they’re only that sophisticated with their stupid when they have to be. I’ve spoken with a number of theists that were genuinely curious what kept me from raping immigrants. They like to paint this hellish picture of what the world would look like without the threat of sky-daddy’s brimstone-timeouts. And if you counter by pointing out that the least religious nations are the most lawful and the most religious nations are the most violent, they’ll retreat to prehistory and talk about how bad civilization would have been without the advantage of the “Divine Ass Rape of Damocles.”

But in truth, the last thing they should want to bring up is morality. It’s the weakest link in their chain and it’s my favorite way of pointing out what’s so damn dangerous about religion. When theists ask me where I get my morals, I prefer to tell them where I don’t get them. I don’t get them from absolute authorities. I don’t get them from ancient texts. I don’t get them from voices in my head. I don’t get them from somebody whose moral authority rests solely on his mastery of mythology. I don’t get them from a book that so readily offered moral justifications for slavery, institutionalized sexism, child abuse, genocide and torture.

So where do morals come from? I don’t know. Where do fantasies come from? Where do ideas come from? Where do fears and fallacies come from? Tell you what, theists, I’ll make you a deal. We rationalists will keep looking into that and when we have a definitive answer, we’ll get back to you. All we ask in return is that between now and then you refrain from nuking the fucking planet over that extremely moral institutions you keep talking about.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is adverbally adjective-ish, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to verb?

I’d like to verb my noun on S.E. Cupp’s face … Will we get a chance to look into that???

I’d commission a mural of it on my ceiling.

Two pearls one Cupp … In our lead story tonight, from the “Foxy Moron” file, conservative atheist political pundette S.E. Cupp – after her daily shift behind the glass as prize specimen at the Exotic Republican Zoo – proclaimed during a video for CNN’s Crossfire, that conservative atheists are better at godlessness that liberal atheists. Then she got back inside the glass walls and ceiling for the evening shift …

I hear they used to have soundproof glass but they learned that as long as people could hear her, they didn’t need the jizz mopper.

On the outside wall, anyway. And women don’t usually have enough power to reach the glass ceiling … So I thought she might talk about how liberalism more closely aligns with the teachings of Jesus than conservativism … That wouldn’t have helped her case … <Not really> but it would have been better than her actual argument … which went something like this: “Atheist Republicans – who are beholden to a constituency full of evangelicals – are forced to feign imaginary sympathy more than atheist Democrats … And that makes conservative atheists better … Because intellectual honesty is … bad– sputter sputter sputter hissssssss.”

I saw an interesting counter-argument by somebody named ‘The Exact Same Bitch Making a Contradictory Point,’ who said (quote) “In fact, I’d go so far as to say conservatism is far more intellectually honest and respectful of atheism than liberalism has been.” (end quote) So… sorry to interrupt, Southeast, you were saying something about ‘Intellectual honesty?’

Her remarks start to make a little more sense when you consider Cupp’s description of her personal brand of monotheistic atheism (quote) “I don’t believe in God, but I’m not mad at him either.” (end quote) … So unlike Bill Maher – who she castigates for being radically zero-godded – Cupp subscribes to a more accommodating, moderate sect of atheism called Christianity … She believes in half a god as a compromise, but rounds it up to one if she’s on FOX.

That’s odd… because usually Christian gods come in thirds.

Right … zero thirds.

CNN’s S.E. Cupp: “Conservative atheists are better.”: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/s-e-cupp-im-a-better-atheist-than-bill-maher

And in “It’s not like they didn’t pay for their own lube” news tonight, Minneapolis archbishop John C. Nienstedt is refusing to relinquish his post an awful lot these days. Nienstedt is facing calls for his resignation from prominent Catholics, local politicians, state newspapers, the kid’s whose asses he allowed to be raped and all other people who are familiar with this situation on even a cellular level; but Nienstedt vows to continue fighting for the rights of priests to molest children with impunity but pretends it’s because he really loves running the soup kitchen.

Here’s the problem though … You can’t just conjure up new clergy on command. It’s not so easy to find someone who can read, ladle, and not abuse kids.

While he freely admits that he mishandled abuse allegations in the past, he did vociferously deny that he was actively engaged in homosexual relationships, which prompted reporters to point out that nobody was saying he was, to which he responded, (quote) “Good, because I’m not,” (end quote).

“You want me to go have penis-vagina sex right now?!? … With an adult … I’ll do it!!!”

The actual defense he’s using here is the claim that while he was shown memos about problem priests, he didn’t fully grasp the scope of the troubles until last fall. Last Fall!? As in since we’ve been doing this show. So the guy who runs the diocese was less informed on the catholic child-fucking thing than Heath and me until ten months ago, when his chancellor of canonical affairs resigned her position in disgust and went public with the information. So yes, his story is that the person who quit her job because of his refusal to adequately address these allegations never told him about the allegations.

Sounds like this guy’s had his head up his ass … or someone else’s … for decades.

Critics of Nienstedt, also known as “humans” note that this guy is egregious even compared to other Catholic molestor-enablers. Minnesota Lawyer Jeff Anderson describes the abuse under Nienstedt’s supervision (quote) “among the most grave we’re ever encountered” (end quote). And as if to demonstrate the astounding extent to which he doesn’t get it, when describing his renewed commitment to protecting children from sexual abuse, the words he chose were promising to (I shit you not this is what he said) “take a more hands on approach” (end quote).

Minnesota Priest Refuses to resign; defends handling of sex abuse scandal: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/us/archbishop-under-fire-over-abuse-apologizes-but-says-he-wont-resign.html?_r=0

And in “Psychics prophesize failure to predict things, thus failing” news … Exactly zero of the thousands of self-proclaimed magical people in the world, have managed to cash in on the long-standing enormous money offer from famous skeptic James Randi. So assuming magic clearly exists … It seems every single prophet, astrologer, warlock, and faith healer … has an ethical dilemma about taking a million dollars from an atheist and donating it to charity.

Most interesting, from an ethical perspective, is the fact that it’s only the real wizards that refuse to take the test. Because the fake ones are just lining up…

As many of you may know, the James Randi Educational Foundation has offered a one million dollar prize to anyone that can demonstrate a supernatural ability under legitimate experimental conditions. This has existed since 1996, and was also offered in smaller sums going back to 1964. So again, given magic clearly exists, that’s half a century of assholes that can do magic, but won’t share it with the world unless they’re standing next to a dumbwaiter.

But it’s worth noting that the Million Dollar Challenge isn’t limited to warlocks and astrologers. It covers all kinds of bullshit esoteric claims like being able to audibly differentiate between Monster Cables and a cable that costs 90% less.

Since the prize was first offered, over a thousand wizards have been tested, and none of them have even passed the preliminary test, designed by the wizard, and agreed upon in advance by both parties as a pre-requisite proof of concept. This fact is cited by critics, suggesting Randi is using anti-magic and confundus charms to hinder applicants. This same fact is cited by Randi as evidence that magic doesn’t exist.

That’s the funniest part of this thing to me. They make sure that every claimant agrees that the testing protocol is fair beforehand. So 100% of the claimants will tell you before the test that the metrics are fair; and almost the same percentage will tell you afterwards that they aren’t.

The most recent attempt at the million – by Dragon Ball Z character, Mr. Fei Wang – was the final event at TAM 2014 in Las Vegas last month. If you don’t know already … Show of hands … Who thinks he won the million? … You guys are a smart audience … So despite Wang’s best efforts, during his preliminary test, he was unable to shoot invisible energy balls through cardboard, any better than placebo Goku, Jamy Ian Swiss. In fact, Liu Kang was clearly worse. The data from that experiment show Mr. Swiss is actually batting a thousand at shooting invisible energy balls. Next year at TAM, he may fight Raiden.

Qi-gonger loses MDC: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2382-the-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-2014-james-randi-educational-foundations-million-dollar-challenge.html

And in “Mike and Mike in the Morning Mass” news tonight, Congressional Republicans Mike Enzi and Mike Kelly have proposed legislation that would protect the rights of religious adoption agencies to violate the rights of other people. The bill uses vague language to avoid actually saying “fudge-packers” in the bill, instead carrying on with references to “sincerely held religious beliefs” and the “moral convictions of the provider.” This is obviously a political ploy to allow southern representatives to later argue that they thought the bill was to keep white kids from being adopted by the negroes.

It’s adoptions or abortions … Can’t have it both ways.

Now, I think it’s worth noting exactly what they’re trying to protect here. Even in the states that fully recognize gay marriage, there’s no law that says that adoption agencies have to give kids to gay couples. It’s just that some of them say that state-funded adoption agencies have to. So it’s okay to use needy children as a political weapon in your futile effort to maintain pre-renaissance morality, you just can’t do it on the taxpayer’s dime. Which means that the proposed bill wouldn’t so much insulate the adoption agencies from anti-discrimination laws, since they’re already exempted from them. It would protect the bigots rights to have their bigotry financed by the government.

Basic freedoms … Now I’m aware that people hate to hear about boring shit like relevant data, but they’re gonna today. Numerous recent studies show that children raised by same-sex couples are – if anything – given better parenting on average.

Well sure, obviously, because all gay parents and intentionally parents. You can’t accidentally become a gay parent.

Right, they weren’t born gay parents. It’s a choice. But for all practical purposes, potential adopters should really only need to outperform orphanages. Gay parents beating straight parents was gravy.

And the gays do like their gravy. Catholic adoption agencies have grown particularly adept at the weaponization of orphans over the past decade. In several instances they’ve famously shut down adoption services statewide rather than abide by the principles of equality. They’ve literally stopped helping children altogether because they’ve prioritized their malignant xenophobia over the welfare of parentless children. And think about what a sacrifice it is for a bunch of Catholic priests to just walk away from a bunch of helpless, rape-ripe orphans. So they’re serious about this shit.

Yeah … “Weaponized Orphans” … That actually happened. Church-run shelters in Colorado and Illinois basically threatened to throw an orphan out of the airplane every ten minutes, until they got their bigotry subsidy check from the government.

New law would shield religious adoption agencies from discrimination laws: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/07/31/3466152/adoption-license-to-discriminate/

And from the “Awkward but Well-funded Reunion” file, this year marks the tenth anniversary of the legal settlement in which the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette – in Louisiana – paid out twenty-six million dollars to 123 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of their clergy, dating back to the 1950’s. Given such a large sum of money, the church feels it’s tacky to ask about minutiae like: “Who are the pedophiles?”

Right… because what were they buying for their twenty-six large if not the retroactive consent of the victims?

In response to justified suspicion that some of the guilty priests are still at large (and even still practicing), The Daily Adviser emailed the diocese, asking which ones – specifically – are the known rapists. Their response was basically: “Why? … No! … You are!” … According to a response email from the in-house publicist they require, the bishop in charge of the place, Michael Jarrell, (quote) “sees no purpose in such action.” (end quote) … No purpose!!!

I believe they then added (quote) “Do you know how hard it is to fuck kids these days when you’re a Catholic Priest? Even the four and five year olds have heard about us by now. If we told you their names they wouldn’t stand a chance.” (end fake quote)

“So we’ll just need those names, so we can get the anklets installed.” …

“I believe our insurance company paid their debt to society. Haven’t these pedophiles been punished enough?!?” … No. No they have not …

And by the way, I bet the Tea Party would get on board, if you could get settlements like this from your ObamaCare plan. Jesus is a lot like a pre-existing condition for these kids. It’s not their fault.

Society: “Which ones are known rapists?” … Church: “Why do you ask?” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/08/03/diocese-of-lafayette-louisiana-says-theres-no-purpose-in-releasing-names-of-priests-who-molested-children

And in “Answers in Carcino-Genesis” news tonight, Christianity has discovered the cure for cancer. And it turns out, and you probably saw this coming, it’s a cross that rises a twenty-third of a mile into the air. The giant cancer-killing cross is the Kidney-child of couple of Alabama businessmen who are sick and damn tired of the largest cross in the country being in that there state what Lincoln come from. They hope to raise the estimated $750,000 needed to construct the monstrosity through a crowdfunding site that says, in no uncertain terms, that building giant crosses can cure cancer. And divorce.

And cancer and divorce keep existing … so “BIGGER!!! … MORE PERPENDICULAR!!!” …

“You idiots!!! God’s looking from above. Now he’s gonna think we’re Satanists. Print ‘THIS SIDE UP’ on the top.”

The miraculous claims come under the “How can I help?” section of the website and somewhere amidst the time-cube level logic (and website presentation), the project’s leaders assert that the giant torture-device-replica could, through the simple merit of being seen by a passing heathen motorist, turn them back to Jesus. And, as almost goes without saying, thereby heal their devil-cancer and save their marriage.

So the cross won’t even help Christians … It’s a reminder for heathen drifters … Lance Armstrong riding around … “Between divorce and testicle cancer, I’ve literally lost half my shit … I’m so depressed–Oooohhh!!! What’s that plus sign-y thing?”

The website also shares the miraculous vision that prompted then 32 year old Jon Butler to dedicate himself to spending double a soup kitchen’s decadal budget building a giant lower-case “t.” I won’t spoil the ending for you, but let’s just say that before the holy spirit filled him with this vision, the tapedeck on his Chevy Astrovan used to eat cassette tapes. Afterwards? Well, like I said, I’m not gonna spoil it.

Giant Alabama cross could heal cancer, promises people trying to build said giant cross: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/31/website-for-proposed-230-foot-tall-cross-in-alabama-says-donations-could-lead-to-someone-being-healed-from-cancer/

And in “Jesus Swallows … turns the other cheek, and swallows again” news, Oak Ridge Alliance Church – of Oak Ridge, Tennessee – decided to teach the virtue of forgiveness, with a blow job metaphor on their marquee. The following message adorned the large sign on their front lawn … at least until one single person who’s heard of mouth sex saw it … (quote) “Forgiveness is to swallow when you want to spit.” (end quote) …

It’s a shame more pastors don’t read “The Friendly Atheist” blog because Hemant’s been trying to tell them. Before you go live with the marquee, just run it by one honest fourteen year old.

So I guess … (awful swallowing noise) … Jesus forgives you. And he clearly fellated some dudes against his will, for our sins … So let’s all be grateful … Okay, we did shitting last week … So speaking of blumpkins … Everyone google “blumpkin”, by the way … I’ll wait …

Because the key to a blumpkin is patience. You don’t want to finish before you finish.

Blumpkin Donuts: Breakfast of Champions … Moving on quickly–I’m thinkin’ we give the advertising department over at Oak Ridge Alliance Church, some new ideas for the marquee. We’ll need 30 seconds on the clock … “Religious Euphemisms for Oral Sex” … GO!!!

“Being a Mohel”

“Happy Meals at Chick Fil-A-tio”

“Joshua’s Rusty Trumpet”

“Kneeling Before the Salter”

“The Hobby Lobby Knobby Slobby”… cause I’ve got a belief right here you can “firmly hold”

“Cradling the Holy Sack-rament” … or for the heathens: “Cupping the Baals”

“Tempting the Serpent Right Back”

“Head of the Class in Seminary Fluid Dynamics”

“The Slurpin’ on the Mount”

“Praying to the Foreskin Flute”

“Finding the Little Man in the Ark”

“Ridding Congressional Members of their Boehner” … “Oh what a lovely Tea Party”

“Chrome Your Dome of the Rocks”… “and the rocks”

“Rendering the Tossed Salad Unto Caesar” … AKA “rim Job”

“Kissing the Pope’s other ring”

“Easter Egg McMuff Diving” … No fur burgers until after 11am.

Yeah, because before that she has ‘morning gash’. Anyway… how about “Spreading the word of oh my god?”

“Box Lunch at the Convent: Licking the Habit”

“Gargling in Tongues”

“Playing the Fallopian Tuba Below the Rod and Staff” … Polishing up on scales is the worst … Nobody enjoys …

If you break your Ramadan fast by licking jelly out of an asshole it’s called, “Eid al Shitter”

“Humming Along with the Pipe Organ”

Addition to the list of things I’ve now had to say to my wife because of this show: “It doesn’t have to be blowjobs, though. It can be cunlingus or ass-tonguing as well… or teabagging.”

One of the better church marquees: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/28/this-church-may-want-to-rethink-its-definition-of-forgiveness

And finally tonight, from the “Stand Your Fudge Round” file, the First Baptist Church of Royal Palm Beach has discovered a new way of helping put roofs over the heads of the homeless; you can have them arrested. The inspiration came when a cleaning lady employed by the church caught a homeless man stealing cookies that were meant for the homeless, at which time she called 911 to report the aggravated wafer-mastication. This might sound like an overreaction to some, but keep in mind, we’re talking about Florida, a state where it’s legal to kill somebody for carrying Skittles, so it’s not like normal earth.

“And he had a hoodie … And a shitty drink nobody likes … Arizona?!? Really?!? SNAPPLE PEACH ICED TEA!!! All about the Snapple peach iced tea!!! … What an asshole!!!”

Despite the facts that the church regularly feeds the homeless and the estimated value of “2014’s Great Snickerdoodle Heist” was around two dollars and twenty-five cents, the church elected to press charges, explaining that it was for the vagrant’s own good. They argued on their Facebook page that he wasn’t just eating cookies. He was also drunk or high or something probably. Because he’s homeless. And homeless people take drugs.

“This is a church … You can’t just show up and expect us to hand out tax-break subsidized Jesus cookies every week. That would be crazy.”

Luckily the Palm Beach “Sesame Street Crime Unit” was on hand and acted quickly before any more Oreos could be forcibly bifurcated. There are mixed reports that the perpetrator was on probation at the time for taking extra sips at the 7-11 soda machine, though reports that he could be the infamous Palm Beach “Pie cooling on a windowsill” bandit remain unconfirmed.

Florida church has homeless man arrested for aggravated cookie eating: http://aattp.org/church-insists-on-pressing-charges-after-homeless-man-eats-2-25-worth-of-cookies/

And with the reassurance that this malefactor is behind bars where he belongs, we’ll kind of close the headlines segment for the night. Heath, thanks as always for joining me.

And when we come back, we’re gonna still be doing headlines.

This Week in Misogyny:

I’d like to dedicate this week’s segment to one of my all time favorite jews, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who could probably kick Jesus’s ass even at her advanced age.

The wily old Supreme Court Justice is continuing to not shut up about the court’s recent (and horribly misguided) decision in the Hobby Lobby case. Speaking to an audience of law students last week, she pointed out that’s it nifty that some of the guys on the Supreme Court are getting behind the idea of equal rights for the three percent of the population that’s gay; but it would also be nice if they could extend that to the fifty-one percent that aren’t men.

When asked about her charge of hypocrisy from the Roberts court, Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that she was probably just PMSing or menopausing or whatever.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Hobby Lobby case: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/us/as-gays-prevail-in-supreme-court-women-see-setbacks.html?_r=0

But as dismissive as the court is of women’s rights, it turns out that one group of voters is paying attention… women. A new poll by “Hart Research Associates” suggests that the majority of female American voters would not vote for a candidate that supports the Supreme Court’s decision to prioritize the wishes of imaginary men over those of real women. Crazy.

Majority of female voters won’t vote for a candidate that supports Hobby Lobby ruling: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/25/3464343/female-voters-hobby-lobby-candidates/

But the New York based “Satanic Temple” is seeking to use the errant ruling for the powers of good. Citing their own “religious” belief that science is right and superstition is wrong, they claim that the “informed consent” laws that require women seeking abortions to listen to a religiously-inspired, factually dubious screed about how evil baby-murder is a violation of their religion. Specifically their sincerely held belief that superstition and invasive medical procedures don’t mix.

When reporters asked legal experts about the case, they were doubtful that anything would come of it; to which the Satanic Temple replied, “Reporters asked you about it, didn’t they? Then something came of it.” In other words, of course they’re going to lose this fight. And in so doing they’re going to expose the fact that in today’s legal landscape, corporations are people in ways that people could only dream of, and I’d say that’s a victory.

Satanists try to use Hobby Lobby ruling for the powers of good: http://www.religionnews.com/2014/07/31/satanists-challenge-hobby-lobby-ruling-may-face-legal-hurdles/

And finally tonight, we have something that starts out looking like a glimmer of hope in the middle east, but isn’t. A female anchor on the Saudi news channel Al Ekhbariya appeared on screen boldly showing the top of her head and side-cheek.

But no, this isn’t a step forward… it’s an accident that the network apologized for almost immediately with the explanation that she was broadcasting out of the Infidel city of London, but they’d have been sure to throw some acid on her if she tried that shit back home. And they also promised that it would never happen again.

That being said, if you want one bad enough, I suppose you can find a glimmer of hope in Saudi Arabia. For instance, over the last few years, women have been permitted to work as cashiers at supermarkets and lingerie shops, so who knows, maybe we’ll see bicycling without a chaperone in our lifetimes.

Female Anchor on Saudi TV doesn’t wear headscarf. Paternalistic assholes outraged: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/05/female-anchor-saudi-tv-no-headscarf_n_5651850.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

That’s not all the misogyny I’ve got for the week, but it is all the time I’ve got, so I’ll hand things over to Noah and Heath so they can undermine the point of this segment with a few rape jokes.

News Briefs:

Rejoining me for an abbreviated additional headlines segment tonight is noun. Noun, preposition pronoun adjective?

Exclamation.

Alright then. From the “I Bet it’s not Really Gourmet” file tonight, Mary’s Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem, North Carolina got an impromptu social-media ad campaign this week when their policy of offering a 15% discount to people who pray before they eat. While the people getting the discount seem thrilled, others have pointed out that it’s thinly veiled bigotry. The diner’s management dismiss those charges by pointing out that it’s not that they’re charging atheists more, they’re just charging Christians less. So it’s not discrimination, it’s just… regular scrimination.

Maybe Christians can use that money for good somehow … Hmmm??? What can you do with 15 percent of the bill at the end of a meal … Buy thousands of tiny pamphlets, and give them to restaurant workers??? … They’ll come up with something.

15% off for talking to yourself: http://www.hlntv.com/article/2014/07/31/restaurant-praying-discount-marys-gourmet-diner?hpt=hp_t4

And in “Geico Offers Atheist Discount” news, <Geico joke fresh off the 15% off joke… he’s on fire!> Indiana motorists Prionda Hill and Anthony Oliveri were almost murdered by God in Fort Wayne last month, when the deity hijacked Hill’s Pontiac Grand Prix … then either merged badly or briefly stopped existing … and finally proceeded to drive it over Oliveri’s motorcycle and adjacent sprawling human body. Does collision cover acts of god?

If Jesus loved you, you wouldn’t be driving a Pontiac, living in Indiana or named “Prionda.”

God’s worse at driving than women: http://www.inquisitr.com/1365065/woman-lets-god-drive-car-anthony-oliveri

And in “Now Why Will Congressman Check into Sleazy Motels?” news, assistant House Whip Steven Palazzo went all Gideon last week and sent bibles to all 535 members of Congress, including the token Muslim. The bibles came with a letter encouraging all legislators to let god’s word preempt petty mortal things like statistics and expert recommendations when it comes to making life and death decisions for their constituents.

That’s nice and everything, but it’s a little too late for Gabrielle Giffords to wear a Bible attached to her face. She’s not even in Congress anymore. Late – awkward.

…quitter. Speaking on behalf of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Barry Lynn suggested perhaps Palazzo consult a slightly more modern guide to governance that his fellow Tea-Party members ejaculate about almost as often as the bible. You know, that founding document that protects your right to bring your elephant gun to Target? That’s the one.

Republican whip sends bibles to every member of congress: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/08/05/republican-whip-sends-bible-to-every-member-of-congress-to-help-them-with-decision-making/

And in “Poophole Loophole 2.0” news … It’s been over a year and a half since Washington State cleverly legalized gay marriage and marijuana on the same day, thus allowing men to lie together and get stoned, like Leviticus teaches. Colorado already has the weed taken care of, but thanks to a recent homophobic ruling by the state supreme court, they won’t yet have the gay marriage part. So for now, it’s just a bunch of dudes standing around getting stoned. Couch? Love seat?

I was picturing “giant champagne glass-shaped hot tub filled with vaseline,” but I usually am.

Colorado attempts to complete 2nd leg of Washington’s trick from below: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/29/colorado-gay-marriages-halted/13331771 <<AND>> Washington State’s 2012 Leviticus Trick: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pot-possession-same-sex-marriage-officially-legal-in-washington-state

And in “Learning to Count with Herpes Simplexes” news tonight, a quick update to last week’s herpetic jewish pedophile story. You’ll recall us talking last week about two babies contracting genital herpes from having their recently mutilated cocks orally massaged by grown men with festering mouth sores. Well, it turns out that the Orthodox Jewish community has taken action and banned these two particular disease-ridden rabbis from sucking baby cock. They’ll have other, less viral people suck the baby cock like civilized human beings, so glad to see that they learned their lesson.

Great … They’re gonna take this on a case by case basis … “If a baby gets syphilis, we’ll ban syphilis. Very simple.”

Herpetic Mohels banned: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/05/jewish-mohels-banned_n_5650672.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And with that we’re gonna actually close headlines for the night. Heath, thanks again.

I’ll be honest, I was surprised you were ready to go again so soon. Not bad for a guy your age. You can make up for a lot with good girth and good reboot time.

And when we come back we almost certainly won’t still be doing headlines.

Skit:

Last name, first name, middle initial?

Christ, Jesus H.

Are you the Jesus H. Christ?

Well actually…

…from Twitter?

…no. That’s some other guy.

Okay. Here’s your number. If you’d like to take a look at some of these pamphlets while you’re waiting.

Do you have them in Aramaic?

Is that what the terrorist language?

Nevermind…

(Seat creaks, papers rattle)

Psst… hey buddy, you here for the defensive driving course?

Yeah.

So… what did you do?

Took the wheel for some crazy bitch in Indiana and creamed a motorcyclist.

Heh… nice.

“Christ, Jesus H.”

That’s me…

Good luck, buddy.

My name is Edward McKinnon, I’ll be your driving instructor today. Are you ready for your exam?

Yeah, I guess. I just don’t understand why everybody’s making such a big deal about this. I’ve been driving since there were cars for my sake.

Look buddy, the only reason you’re not sitting in a jail cell right now is because your dad has connections. At the time of the accident your blood alcohol level was “wine”.

It started as water…

Follow me, please.

(Door opens, outdoor noises)

Which car is yours, Mr. Christ?

The one over there with the me-fish…

Is that tint legal?

Through a glass darkly, baby.

(doors open and close) (throat clear) (car starts)

Seatbelts…

Um… I resurrect so I don’t know if that’s exactly necessary.

It’s the law.

Even if you’re immortal?

It’s the law.

(Seatbelt noise)

Has this vehicle passed emissions testing?

Trust me, that’s not gonna matter. Where we goin?

Now, I want you to pull out of this parking lot and make a left at the stop sign.

And away we go…

(Turn signal noise)

You can disengage the turn signal now.

Easy for a guy with no holes in his hand to say. One second. (Squishy sound)

Now maintain this lane until you reach the…

(Window rolls down)

…There’s no need to… hey, you can’t stick your head out the window while you’re driving!

(honking) “I love me, baby!”

Get back in here!

Sorry… the bumper sticker, right? How could I not?

Could you please roll the window back up?

Okay, but first check this out. I stick my hand out the window and…

(whistling)

Very amusing, Mr. Christ. Now please roll up the window.

(Window rolls up)

You’ll want to slow down. The speed limit in this area is 45.

Chill out.

Slow down, Mr. Christ. There’s water on the road up there.

I invented hydroplaning, dude.

Look out!

(Squealing tires, Car crashes)

(moaning)

So… did I pass?

Are you fucking kidding me!? You broke every driving law we have… you’re clearly inebriated and I’ve got a crossing guard’s sign sticking through my intestines! Of course you didn’t pass!

Are you sure about that? Because that wound looks pretty severe…

What are you trying to say?

It would just be a shame if I suddenly unforgave you.

You heartless bastard!

Dad! Eddie McKinnon called me a…

Alright! Damn it, you pass.

Apology accepted. Tell uncle Pete I said “hi.”

(Slide whistle)

WTFI

What the fuck is… Wicca?

Wicca began in the 1950s as an attempt by horny men to see more naked women, and has since morphed into a means by which horny spiritualists of both genders can ogle one anothers genitals.

While most Wiccans will tell you the faith dates back tens of thousands of years, the truth is that they’re full of shit. The faith began in the early fifties and was first referenced in works by Gerald Gardner beginning in 1954. Additional authors with increasingly absurd pen names have continued to develop the faith over the past six decades to create an impossibly garbled web of nonsense and deepities.

Because of this lack of centralization, the definition and beliefs of Wiccans vary greatly from region to region, coven to coven and individual to individual. These differences are largely overlooked within the neo-pagan community because they’re all too stoned to give a shit and most of them are going to give up on this silly Wicca thing by the time they’re twenty-six anyway.

There are a few core beliefs that can be found in almost all iterations of Wicca. One is the duotheistic nature of their theology and an emphasis on both male and female aspects of god. Many if not most Wiccans tend to focus the majority of their worship on the goddess figure because she’s the one with the boobs.

Another common tenet of the faith is an open and progressive attitude toward sex. Nudity, sex and masturbation play an integral part in many Wiccan rituals, and while their attitude is a welcome contrast to the prudery of most religious traditions, in practice sex-positive is often utterly indistinguishable with sex-coercive.

At its core, Wicca is a nature religion, worshipping trees, flowers, insects and other things that look trippy when you’re on acid. This is often expressed in a dangerously stupid belief in herbal therapies, nonsense-based medical treatments; and gross misapplications of the word “energy.”

But the most visible aspect of Wicca is their belief in ritual magic. Just in case nobody was going to make fun of them, Wiccans have a series of what they call “elemental weapons” which include a magic wand, a magic knife, a handful of polyhedral dice and a character sheet. They use these weapons to call upon spirits such as the “Undines of the East,” the “Sylphs of the North,” the “Salamanders of the South,” and I’m serious.

Wicca draws upon both misinterpretations of ancient pagan rituals and misinterpretations of modern hermetic rituals in an attempt to multiply bullshit by horseshit. This leads to a convoluted ritual structure that is impossible to take seriously even by those performing it. In fact, the simple ability to utter phrases like “I banish you, Salamanders of the South,” with a straight face is the single qualification for the title of “Wiccan High Priest.”

Of course, you can’t have a serious discussion of the Wiccan faith without bringing up the strong lunar influence in their beliefs, so I won’t.

Bible Story:

“Run grab yer young ‘uns, folks! It’s time for Lucinda Lugeons’ Bible stories for Kids!”

Gather round, boys and girls. Today we’re gonna open our bibles to the book of Judges and learn about one of the Old Testament’s most admirable mass murderers, Samson. And like all good biblical heroes, Samson tortures animals, massacres the innocent, vandalizes property, cons his friends, treats his wife like shit and racks up a huge body count.

But before any of that happened… in fact, even before he was born, an angel came to his mother. Or at least, that’s what his mother told his father when his impotent father came home and found his wife pregnant. But Samson’s father doubted his wife’s tale, which is the last time in this entire story that somebody will act in accordance with logic.

The angel told his mother that Samson would be a “Nazirite,” which meant that he had special magical Jew-powers as long as he never cut his hair. So Samson grew up to be a super-strength scraggly hippy and eventually his balls dropped and he set off to find some sweet Philistine ass. He saw a woman named Timnah in town and decided she looked young and moist, so he headed to her house to ask for her hand in marriage.

But along the way, Samson was attacked by a lion because sometimes the bible follows the Michael Bay rule of random action beats. So Samson kicked the lion’s ass and tore it into pieces because dismembering animals is very heroic. Then he went to Timnah’s house and she agreed to marry him. But on the way home to tell his parents the good news, he came back across the shredded corpse of the lion he’d fought and while he was gone, some silly bees had built a nest in it’s rancid intestines!

Well, like anybody would if they came across a bee’s nest in a rotting carcass, he decided to eat a handful of honey out of it and files the moment away in case he ever needed to stump thirty Philistines with a riddle.

So a few days later, Samson was at a party and needed to stump thirty Philistines with a riddle, so he said, “I bet you can’t guess what I ate some honey out of,” and while the Philistines explained that that wasn’t exactly a riddle, Samson went on to promise them all nice new clothes if they could figure out the answer.

But Samson made the mistake of trusting a woman. He told his fiancee the answer and she told it to the thirty Philistines. So they came back and demanded all the nice new clothes Samson had promised them. But Samson was as clever as he was homicidal so instead of buying new clothes, he just killed thirty random people, stripped them naked and gave the Philistines their clothes.

He also decided he didn’t want his wife anymore so he gave her to a friend. But then he changed his mind and decided he wanted her after all. But it was too late because his friend was already dicking her.

Samson was very angry so he set a couple of foxes on fire and sent them running through her family’s farms, burning all the food they would need to stay alive over the winter. Needless to say, they were very upset and went to Samson’s family and demanded he be turned over for justice.

Well, they turned him over alright. They tied him up and gave him to an army of innocent people who were just doing their job to keep the peace. But Samson broke through his binds, grabbed the discarded jawbone of a donkey and murdered all of them with it. And it must have been pretty gruesome because if you think about it, the only way to logically kill somebody with a jawbones is to gouge their eyes out, stick it in their ear or cram it up their ass. So it probably got pretty messy.

But just when all the homicide was going so well for Samson, along came a woman named Delilah. And like pretty much all the women who come along in bible stories, she was bad news. But Samson didn’t care because she had a vagina. But even better, she was into kinky bondage and discipline stuff, like when a mommy crams a ball gag into a daddy’s mouth and whips his scrotum with a riding crop.

But little did he know, her kink was actually a clever ploy to capture him and make him dance like a monkey. So after a couple of really obvious failed attempts to discover his kryptonite, Samson eventually tells her that he would be completely powerless if he cut his hair. So she cut his hair. Because women in the bible are pretty much always evil. Or raped. Or killed. Or all three.

So once he was sporting the Patrick Stewart look, Delilah helped the Philistines capture him and poke out his eyes. And then they chained him up so people could come and throw shit at him. But they kept him chained up so long that eventually his hair grew back and he pulled the building down from within, killing himself, Delilah and all the evil people who had captured him. And nobody lived happily ever after because they were all crushed to death.

The end.

Feedback:

It’s time for the part of the show that comes next, Listener Feedback. This is the part of the show where we answer questions, correct errors, feign apologies and offer superfluous explanations of what “listener feedback” means.

Our first message comes in the form of a correction. We already spent a big chunk of a feedback segment clarifying our story about Liberty University’s new medical program, but Danny writes us to point a mistake we missed. I got the city right (Lynchburg) but I got the state wrong. As Danny points out, (quote)

“It’s not Lynchburg, Tennessee, (home of pretty good bourbon), but rather Lynchburg, Virginia, (home of not much).

And I’d also like to preemptively correct Danny’s correction by pointing out that Jack Daniels is a long way from “pretty good bourbon.”

Yes, so one more time, because this is important. It’s the place named after murdering black people in Virginia, not the place named after murdering black people in Tennessee.

Our next email comes from Mr. “A Color” from “A Place” emails to ask why I’m so much more of a podcast whore than Heath. He writes;

“I hear you a lot of the time on other podcasts such as Cognitive Dissonance, and The Imaginary Friend Show, but usually Heath doesn’t appear. Just curious as to why that is.”

Would you invite me to say words on your show?!? Noah edits out about 95 percent of the things I say. You guys only hear the clean stuff … That being said, I am capable of lifting my hand from the third rail if needed, so if invited, I’d be happy to appear on other shows more often in the future, when I can more easily afford to devote the extra time. And generous patreons can help make that happen.

So for the record, Heath and I split all the money that doesn’t go to new equipment or hosting down the middle. Patreon, PayPal, the book… 50/50. That being said, since he’s in New York and I’m in Podunk, Georgia, I can pay my rent, my utilities, my insurance, my cable, my phone bill, my Guatemalan masseuse, buy a months worth of groceries and an eight ball for the same amount Heath pays to share an apartment with two other dudes.

So all I can afford beyond the rent, is the masseuses and the eight balls. New Yorkers learn to make sacrifices.

Anyway, end result is that I’m able to do this full time, Heath still has a real job, so I’m a lot easier to schedule for other appearances. That and everybody’s afraid Heath will make AIDS jokes… in a bad way.

And finally, we had a Facebook message from one of earth’s top eleven people, April, asking for advice on dealing with the cookie-baking Christians Noah talked about in his diatribe a couple of weeks ago. Specifically, she wondered how to respond when a sweet old lady at work says, “It’s okay, honey, god loves you.”

So I guess this has top ten written all over it, huh?

For April? Anything. So top ten answers to a sweet old lady telling you god loves you.

10 – “I know, but sometimes I feel like it’s only for my dick.”
9 – “If he really loved me, he’d bring me some milk… and the Crown Royal bag in my glove compartment … Thanks old lady!!!”
8 – “Sure didn’t seem like it when he burned my tongue with that communion wafer.”
7 – “God loves me?!? … Uhhh … And I really love … hanging out with God.”
6 – “Yeah, but that slut loves everybody.”
5 – “Write me a check for seven dollars, and I might love him back.”
4 – “I’m sorry, did you say ‘Gollum’s a Jew?’”
3 – “But he sure doesn’t love the coloreds … Am I right, old lady?!? … She knows.”
2 – “Then why does he always want to fuck me from behind?”
1 – “Allah akbar. Go away.”

And that’s all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep sending those Tweets, emails, Facebook messages, and blog comments.

Outro:

Before we get to the prestige tonight, I wanted to encourage you one more time to check out Adam’s site and give if you can. It’s a great opportunity to help an atheist that needs your help. Again, you can find links to donate on our homepage, along with links to episodes of his show where you find more details about Iman’s story. Oh, and incidentally, if the Ray Comfort sketch tested your bladder, that’s Adam’s fault so be sure to direct your anger (and stream) toward him on that one.

That’s all we’ve got for you tonight, but if you want more, there’s more. Like I mentioned in the Feedback segment, I’m a bit of a podcast whore so when Thomas from Atheistically Speaking invited me on to talk about the situation in Gaza I didn’t let my downright embarrassing lack of expertise slow me down. You can find our conversation on episodes 55 and 56 of his show, both of which you’ll find linked on the shownotes and transcript for this episode.

I also need to thank Lucinda for knocking another Bible Story out of the park as well as all the other contributions she makes to the show every week. Of course I need to thank Heath for bringing his endearing breed of faux-bigotry and shit jokes to this enterprise; definitely couldn’t make this show happen every week without him.

Of course, I also need to thank Adam for joining us tonight and I need to thank Chuck, Willie and “little monkey Chuck” from “Chuck and Willie’s Book of Mormon Stories” podcast. If you just can’t get enough “Damn are Mormons wacky” in your life, you’ll find a link to their podcast on the shownotes as well.

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s best people; Stephen, Roger, Thomas, Jeremiah, Johanna, Gerard, Tony, Daniel, Matt and David. Stephen, Roger and Thomas, who are so virile they have to put a condom on when they sext; Jeremiah, Johanna and Gerard, who are so clever they just convinced Muhammad that mountains are overrated; and Tony, Daniel, Matt and David, whose mighty fists are measured in Sharknados per meter squared.

Together these ten august, benevolent, charitable, distinguished, extraordinary, fucktastic, gracious, honorable individuals aided our quest to decimate the decalogue this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the alphabetical list of positive attributes required to give us money, but if you think you’re up for the challenge, you can make a per episode donation at Patreon (dot) com; which will earn you bonus stuff; or you can make a one time donation by clicking the “Donate” button on the right side of our homepage.

Also, there’s one donor who I forgot to thank a couple weeks ago. They got in touch with me and I filed it away in my head to compliment the shit out of them tonight, but then I couldn’t remember if they got in touch through email or Twitter or Facebook or Patreon or the Blog or what and I couldn’t find the message when I was putting together this week’s outro. So a thousand apologies. Please send me one last email and I will let the world now how incredibly above average your genitals are.

And, of course, you can also help us a ton for free by leaving us a glowing review on iTunes or checking us out on Stitcher. And apparently leaving a review on Stitcher is a huge pain in the ass so don’t worry so much about that, but if you like to listen on the go, definitely check us out on Stitcher and help push our rank up there.

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.

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: antitheism podcast, antitheist podcast, atheism podcast, atheist comedy, atheist humor, atheist podcast, samson and delilah

Episode 76 – Partial Transcript

July 31, 2014 Noah Lugeons Leave a comment

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

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

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Warning: When it comes to profanity, we don’t fuck around.

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Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Brain-O, the new home-chemical lobotomy system for Christians who are too smart for their own good?

Did some damn atheist point out one of the numerous logical contradictions in your doctrine? Did you suddenly realize that many of the traditional attributes of god are mutually exclusive? Did you make the mistake of actually reading the bible and now you can’t get the horror of it all out of your head? Well then try clearing your neuronal pathways with Brain-O.

Brain-O: Just like logical refutations of faith, it goes in one ear and out the other.

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s July 31st,

And FOX channel’s famous doctor is named after a wizard imposter.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright, and from a city so fast-paced it has it’s own minute, New York, New York,

And one so slow-paced it has it’s own century, Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week’s episode,

Two more brisses go viral on the Jew tubes,
The FFRF will use its one initial advantage to defeat the IRS,
And Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin are never in the same room, are they? …

But first, the Diatribe…

Diatribe

I’m still kind of pissed at the world for not giving me super powers. Can’t fly… can’t summon fireballs, no telepathy, no invisibility. I mean, what the hell? I’d mostly use them for the forces of good. I’d fight crime… like especially parking violations and failure to yield. But no. No super powers.

Reality sucks. I want magic.

But not enough to pretend it exists when I know it doesn’t. And that’s the real difference between us and them, isn’t it? We all want eternal life in paradise and the ability to summon magical forces to come to our aid in times of distress. None of us actually have that shit, but we all want it. And some of us want it so bad that we’re willing to do anything to protect the illusion that it’s really there.

I’ve seen this up close and personal. When I was a younger man I was into all the spiritual witchcrafty tarot card nonsense and it amazed me how far people were willing to go to pretend they’d just witnessed something magical. I went to these gatherings, right? Couple dozen Wiccans all joining together in a rite to summon some thing or something. And invariably nothing would happen. And just as invariably, everybody would spend the rest of the night talking about what happened.

Now, we all knew nothing happened. We all just witnessed nothing happening. But for some reason, we would say stuff like, “I could really feel its presence,” or “I don’t know about you guys, but I really saw those pentagrams vividly.” Now, you can tell by the way it’s phrased that the dude saying it didn’t see shit. Right? Because if you actually saw something, you’d just say, “Remember when those magical pentagrams materialized in the air? That was pretty sweet.” You wouldn’t preempt it by saying, “I understand entirely if I was the only one who witnessed the thing that happened, since, you know, when everyone is looking at something sometimes only one person sees the thing, right? That makes sense, right? But I saw the thing that I’m not surprised if you didn’t see.”

Same thing with Tarot readings. I would make some vague predictions and some high-probability guesses. I would utter a few deepities and say stuff that everybody wants to believe about themselves and the whole time I knew I was just making shit up, and I figured it was pretty damn transparent. But people were always willing to bend over backwards to pretend they’d just witnessed something divine; something unexplainable; something that offers some vestige of hope that they themselves can still one day have super powers.

If you waste a piece of your life reading any of the neopagan books on magic and spiritualism, you’ll see the cognitive gymnastics right away. They’ll start by redefining magic down to the point where scratching your taint is an act of wizardry and then they’ll teach you how to scratch your taint. It’s amazing the kind of metrics these books offer. For some strange reason, every possible way to measure the success of your “magick” (and I spelled that with a K so it’s less bullshity now) are internal. They’re all things that you can’t measure objectively. “You’ll feel calmer,” or “You may feel a strange presence or the feeling that you’re being watched.” And it gets worse. “You’ll have greater luck,” or “You’ll avoid a calamity the next day,” or, and I swear this is real, “The world will be more peaceful.”

But just in case even these fluffy excuses for measurement are too specific, they also like to spend a lot of time pre-excusing your failures. You might have done it in the wrong phase of the moon. Perhaps there were some negative spiritual energies you hadn’t exorcised properly. Perhaps your personal chi flow was interrupted or your chakras were misaligned. So your unmeasurable success is also dependent on unmeasurable variables. That’s convenient.

Funny how this shit doesn’t happen with science. Funny how you never bring your phone in and the dude asks if your chakras were aligned last time you used it. The thing with the baking soda and the vinegar works in any lunar phase, negative spiritual entities be damned. Because science is real. And it’s actually happening.

Now, at the beginning of this whole thing, I lamented that I couldn’t fly or summon fireballs or communicate telepathically or turn invisible, but in truth science has already knocked out the first two, smart phones have alleviated the need for the third, and believe me, they’re working on that last one. And when you get in an airplane or turn on your cellphone, you don’t have to “truly believe” that it’ll work. You don’t have to utter a quick banishment or cast a circle of salt around it. Because it’s real and it really works.

And you don’t have to be brilliant to see that the things that are real are fundamentally different than the things that aren’t. I think we all more or less recognize the difference between magic and reality, it’s just that some of us don’t seem to care. Some of us think it’s perfectly okay to believe things that are absurdly wrong if we feel like it’s a good thing to believe. That’s the axiomatic difference between atheists and believers. Between rationalists and spiritualists.

I recently had a believer sum it up like this. She said, “If I thought I had a fatal disease and it prompted me to set things right in my life and cross a bunch of stuff off my bucket list, and then it turns out that I didn’t have that disease, ultimately I would have benefited from believing something was wrong.”

Seems like a strange example to use, in my mind. I mean, sure, you forgive and kiss your mom and go to Paris and go skydiving; that’s exactly what would happen in a novel with two white people almost kissing each other on the cover, but I’m not sure it would really play out like that. I mean, all the joys of mistakenly thinking you’re going to die may have been exaggerated.

But even if she’d chosen a better example, it wouldn’t change the fact that you’re always better off in the long run knowing the truth. Sure, it might be comforting for a while not to know your dog’s dead, but eventually you’re gonna start thinking about what a couple of dicks your parents are for sending your favorite dog to live on some farm without asking you first. And what the hell, can’t we at least go visit him? We go upstate sometimes.

But some people would rather lie to each other, lie to their children, and lie to themselves to protect this useless illusion that somehow we can bypass all the aerodynamics and stuff and just go all Superman. And they don’t seem to recognize that if everyone actually believed that we’d never have bothered to build an airplane. In other words, if you pretend your problems are solved, you’ve got no motivation to solve them.

And quite frankly, none of us should have to defend the proposition that believing true stuff matters.

Headlines

Joining me for headlines tonight is your sherpa up mount improbable, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to sherp?

Sure. All the upscale podcasts have personal sherping.

In our lead story tonight, American Atheist launched the Virgo Supercluster’s first ever all-atheism TV network on Tuesday, offering countless hours of archived programming including the Richard Dawkins Foundation’s entire video library as well as the more than fifty years of historical atheist videos in American Atheist’s vault.

Not sure if America is ready for reality shows with reality, but I’m glad they’re trying.

The network is available through Roku, a digital streaming service that’s kind of like cable except it generally works and the contract you enter into with them doesn’t give them the right to face rape your first born child. The channel offers the choice of on-demand or scheduled programming, including atheist speeches, stand-up comedy, documentaries, and science programming.

If they included the Patton Oswalt “Sky Cake” bit, I’d call the channel a success … Now normally my googling suggestions are much … pussy-er … more fluids … but this one is worthy nonetheless. Everyone google “Patton Oswalt Sky Cake” and watch the video. Hilarious!!! Or just get Roku and hopefully you can watch him on secular TV!!!

If you don’t have Roku, you can still check out the live-stream online. You’ll find the link to that site on the shownotes for this episode. And incidentally, if anybody from American Atheists is listening and they’re looking for somebody to anchor their eleven o’clock risque atheist news-satire comedy program, I know just the guy.

Stanhope?

Actually, now that you mention it, yeah.

American Atheist launches “Atheist TV” http://atheists.org/atheisttv

And from the “If they’re gonna keep blowing infants and giving them herpes, then we’re gonna keep mentioning it” file … mohels keep blowing infants and giving them herpes. Last week, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene – no doubt working closely with the SVU team – discovered two new cases of newborns getting herpes from the normally trustworthy dude, who goes around town mutilating baby dick for money.

You know, I’m sick and tired of a couple of bad baby-cocksuckers ruining the otherwise sterling reputation of the industry. What do people want? If you’re gonna mutilate a baby’s dick the least you could give him is a happy ending.

In case you’ve missed our coverage of this exact same problem happening before … And yes, that means babies getting herpes in the past, did not lead to any behavior changes … Here’s a little context for you. It’s standard practice in certain Jewish communities to welcome newborn boys into the world by cutting off a piece of their penis with a knife, at which point the mutilation specialist briefly fellates the baby – just the tip – sucking blood from the open wound.

But they aren’t pervs about it… they spit.

Doesn’t this seem like the type of situation where a baby’s right to his entire penis, and his right to choose a less slutty dude to blow him … Or no dudes at all??? … Don’t those basic human rights seem to outweigh the free exercise rights of herpes-enabling parents??? Somehow the answer in ‘No’. Unfortunately for babies dying of brain damage, Ultra-orthodox Jewish people have been corporations since long before Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.

And I think it’s important to stress that the “dying of brain damage” thing isn’t just an offensive joke about the mental faculties of Orthodox Jews; that’s actually a common result of this. There have been 16 reported cases of Rabbis giving babies herpes by sucking their bloody cocks in the last 14 years. Two of them resulted in death and two more in severe brain damage. And in case you’re curious, no, nobody believes for a second that the 16 reported cases represent even a majority of the actual incidents.

Can’t help but picture a mohel’s wife getting pissed at him … She finds a mysterious wad of cash in his laundry … “You bastard!!! Where’s all this from?!? … How many BABY DICKS did have to suck to get all this cash?!?” … Throws a handful of shekels in his face.

“I’m 37!?”

But not in a row …

Two more brisses go viral: https://www.vocativ.com/culture/health-culture/herpes-bris-new-york

And from the “If they didn’t have their dicks in your ass, they’d be the External Revenue Service” file tonight, the IRS has reached an agreement with the FFRF by which the FFRF will drop their pending lawsuit and the IRS will maybe start doing it’s job but not definitely. We hope this agreement puts a capstone on a story we’ve been covering since episode 17 of this show, known as Pulpit Freedom Sunday, in which pastors and preachers knowingly and blatantly break the law, videotape themselves doing it, send those videos to the IRS and dare them to do something about it.

Yeah, and as much as you’d think this means they get served with an audit, I guess there’s nothing the IRS can do but dance back, and send them the response video.

The law, of course, forbids a tax-free institution from publicly endorsing political candidates and telling their members how to vote. Religious leaders have ignored this provision for decades, and the IRS was happy to oblige their ignorance until the FFRF reminded them that the non-religious people were looking. After a failed attempt to get the lawsuit thrown out and an equally failed attempt to convince themselves they could win it, they eventually settled the suit by agreeing to do the job they exist to do.

But they’re not even doing that!!! They’re agreeing to maybe in the future finally abide by a 2009 ruling (based on a 1954 ruling) that said the IRS needs to have someone on staff to monitor illegal political actions by tax-exempt charities. But why the fuck is this person even necessary?!? Just use your regular staff, and TAX THEM!!! No more laws being broken, and preachers can keep endorsing whatever Tea-Bagging theocrat they want.

It’s worth noting that the agreement can’t be acted upon immediately because there’s a federal moratorium on IRS audits of 501(3)c organizations at the moment due to the ongoing Republican attempt to prove that Obama is a gay, Kenyan, Muslim, revolutionary, communist felon. This means that we won’t actually know if the IRS is going to abide by the agreement for some time, but we’ll be keeping an eye on the story and hopefully the next chapter will include a bunch of audited churches and uniformed rants about the first amendment.

IRS agrees to maybe do it’s job: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18793-irs-agrees-to-atheist-group-s-demands-to-monitor-sermons

And in “Why do all these shiny gay kettles look like me?” news, Congressional Republican Michele Bachmann – during a recent appearance on conservative Christian radio show, Faith and Liberty – warned that homosexuals are pursuing legislation to legalize pedophilia and polygamy. Obviously, expanding this exemption to gays would pose a serious threat to the near-monopolies currently held by Catholics and Mormons respectively … And that’s a big problem for Bachmann and her constituency.

Yeah, this push for the right to enter into a legally recognized monogamous relationship is such a transparent ploy to have ever more sexual partners. It’s a good thing Michele is there to see through the bullshit for us.

So like a pitcher noticing a perfect game in the 3rd inning – except the exact opposite – Bachmann did her best to keep the precisely wrong streak rolling … by expressing fear of another legislative lobbying move by the gays … This time, to break into the “protected hate speech” and “tyranny” markets. Once again, Christian monopoly territory … toes … stepping.

“Afore you know it, them fudge-packing fagots will be insulting us!”

Then she addressed the marriage issue … (quote) “For all of the thousands of years of recorded human history, about 5,000 years, there is no instance of any culture, nation or tribe ever having as the established standard for marriage anything other than between man and woman. It may have been multiple women and a man, it may have been something like that, but it was always between men and women.” (end quote) … I can’t- … even … You wanna take this one???

If she was serious about this traditionalism she should have died during childbirth. “Throughout the whole 6000 year history of our universe, people have died from cholera! How dare you not die from cholera now!”

Ok – ninth inning … Does she have one more? Indeed. She didn’t forget to add that legalized gay marriage is (quote) “denial of equal protection to all Americans” (end quote) … Denial of equal protection … So the repeal of DOMA ruined the word “marriage” for straight couples, similar to the way the 13th Amendment ruined the word “people” for whites.

And in private, I’m sure she’d agree.

Michele Bachmann: Atheist gay liberals to abolish churches and monopolize pedophilia: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/michele-bachmann-gays-want-let-adults-freely-prey-little-children-sexually

And from the “No, Seriously, shit on my bible” file tonight, the scientarians over at “Forever Bible” are claiming that they’ve finally made the bible as hard to destroy as it is to read. They promise a “nearly indestructible” bible and boast that now the bible can resist stains, rips, water and fraying as well as it resists scientific advancement and logical extrapolation.

It’s about fucking time they made a two-ply version. I’m chafing like an idiot over here.

The impossible to distinguish from a parody Kickstarter video associated with the book shows a series of young, active bible readers camping, hiking and literally surfing while reading their bibles. This precedes my favorite shot, which is a bible being horribly desecrated with mud, ice cream, sprinkles and an enigmatic seashell before being lovingly hosed off. And while I’ll admit the easy clean pages probably help in Song of Solomon, I’m not sure how important they are the rest of the time.

At the very least, it lightens up the loads for the guy who cleans the confessionals. Quick, easy mop up.

Despite the fact that the Kickstarter campaign has yet to reach its goal for R&D, the finished product they hope to eventually invent is miraculously already for sale on their website. Equally miraculous is the claim that the bible is at once completely non-degradable and environmentally friendly. Because sure. future generations will be finding our plastics until the sun goes out, but at least when they examine the plastic it won’t endorse slavery.

Kickstarter campaign for “indestructible bible” actually making money: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/23/kickstarter-backed-indestructible-bible-uses-space-age-nanotechnology/

And in “Mathematics has an atheist bias” news, a recent article on conservative site Campus Reform reported angrily that a core class at Ohio State University teaches that Christians are dumber than atheists … which is only really true if you say it more tactfully. And, nobody at OSU even said that anyway.

Well, not as part of a class, anyway. I’m sure it’s been uttered by many a biology professor over the years.

But if someone did want to say “Christians are dumber than atheists” … here’s how they would support that claim with evidence … Recent studies (and common sense) show a positive correlation between lack of religiosity and higher IQ. So less god, more IQ. Statistical fact …

But if hearing that bothers you as a Christian, that’s totally understandable … Because you’re likely less intelligent, and therefore confused by numerical principles.

Right. What do you expect when you have a group of people who can’t quite pin down the concepts of “three” and “one?”

So the non-controversy centers specifically, around the following badly-written homework question from a psychology class: (quote) “Theo has an IQ of 100 and Aine has an IQ of 125. Which of the following statements [would] you expect to be true?”

A) Aine is an atheist, while Theo is a Christian.

B) Aine earns less money than Theo.

C) Theo is more liberal than Aine.

D) Theo is an atheist, while Aine is a Christian.

Can I answer (E) Theo misspells shit and uses the improper form of “your” when he bitches at people on Facebook? Or is that just a restatement of A?

So given existing data mentioned earlier, choice A) is the only reasonable assumption based on the very small amount of information you have about the two people. So yes, the question is a terribly constructed way to engage an extremely simple statistical concept. But regardless, a reasonable gambler would always bet on A). And that was the point of the question.

C’mon, they gave the Christian three digits and that’s already pretty generous.

According to an anonymous student in the class … let’s call her Alice … According to Alice: (quote) “I understand that colleges have a liberal spin on things so it didn’t surprise me to see the question […] But how can you really measure which religion has a higher IQ?” … (Probably IQ tests) … So based on what Alice just said, and the studies mentioned earlier … Is she more likely to be: A) a highly intelligent atheist … or B) a slow-witted creationist??? Or even simpler … same question, based on nothing but the choices.

Atheists are smarter than religious people, but it’s not a nice thing to say: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/24/no-an-ohio-state-class-did-not-teach-that-christians-are-dumber-than-atheists

And in “Pin Your Flatulence on the Demon” news tonight, founder of the Holy Fire Ministries and prolific consumer of Vaseline Bert Farias has finally cracked the age-old scientific question of what the demons that possess gay people to make them want to fuck the wrong gender smell like. And it turns out, it’s (quote) “bad” (end quote) In fact, gayness demons smell so bad that (and I swear this is a quote) “other demons don’t even like to hang around them.”

Well this is news! Most gay people think they’re possessed by potpourri and lilac demons … So this should turn some heads … “Demons are like mustaches … You can tell the gay ones by the smell.”

So how does Farias know what sodomy demons smell like? Well, as if his claimed source of a (quote) “genuine prophet of god” (end quote) wasn’t enough, he also offered additional evidence in the form of an unrelated excerpt from a third hand account of an Iron Age jewish fable. Particularly, the part in Mark where Jesus casts 2000 demons out of some dude and sends them into a bunch of pigs. And apparently the pigs didn’t want the demons in them so they drown themselves in the sea. And from this, Farias has made the logical extrapolation that, considering how much pigs hate smelly things like garbage, feces and themselves, it must have been the rancid stench of the demons that drove the pigs to mass suicide.

Pastor: Gay people are possessed by fart-demons: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gays-are-possessed-putrid-smelling-demons-even-pigs-wont-tolerate

And finally tonight, from the “Top of the Republican Agenda” file, GOP candidate for the Colorado House Gordon Klingenschmitt announced on his televangelism show last week that post-op trannies should still have to use their pre-op public restroom … And if elected as a representative for District 15, he promises to fix this broken system.

When all I need to do to turn your name into the definition of a dingleberry is take away the M, avoid giving me shit-related headlines. Easy rule to live by. It’s probably in Leviticus somewhere.

So his logic goes something like this … In Deuteronomy 23, it says that men with severed penes cannot enter the assembly of the lord. Or if it’s crushed … like by a boulder … still there, but all flat … That’s also a no-go. Therefore, if I misinterpret “assembly of the lord” to mean “all churches and public restrooms ever”, I can make myself feel better about being a bigoted asshole by telling myself that God approves.

So… is he saying that transexuals should have to shit outside in little holes? I mean… what’s he proposing here?

As ridiculous as the GOP platform – and Bible – might be, this sounds a little too specific to be just towing the party line for Jesus. I’m guessing Klingenschmitt really had to go one day, and got stuck at one of those awkward “1-3-5” public urinal scenarios. So he breaks the rules, and takes urinal 2, but it’s next to a chick with a bigger dick, and he freaks out, and gets stage fright midstream. Been burning ever since …

He does have sort of a “I haven’t pissed without screaming since 1996” look to him.

Regardless of his asinine reasoning, let’s give him some Christian-friendly slogans to post on the door, so as to distinguish his godly shitter from the separate but equal ones he’s gonna build for gays, blacks, and mimes … So we’ll need about 30 seconds on the clock … “Religious Euphemisms for Taking a Shit” … GO!!!

I guess “Morning Mass” is the obvious one, huh?

“Spraying to the porcelain gods”

“The Second Going”

“Passages from Numbers 2″

“Emptying the Tomb”

“The Turdin’ of Job”

I know this one is for pissing, but “Paving a Walkway for Jesus”

Follow the yellow slick road … What about: “Showing the brown kids the way to the glory bowl” … “Doing some squish-ionary work” … “Assuming the squish-ionary position”

“Banishing the Golgothan”

“Chopping Cords for the Idealogue Cabin”

Based on our previous reports about fecal matter in baptismals, how about “Preparing the Holy Water?”

“Sacrificing the Black Bishop”

“Recycling the body of Christ”… That’s a Scatholic joke.

“Exports from Pope Bran-delay Industries” … “Bowly Trinity” … “Splatican City” …

Alright. The Catholic ones are just plopping right out… “Poop John Sprawl the Turd?”

“Delivering the Lord’s Prayer-rie Dog”

“Birthing More Creationists”

“Feeling the Pain of Jesus’s Corny Crown”

Nothing worse that a thorny brown. “Baptizing a Snake”

Feel like the Jews are getting left out … Maybe a Kosher Pareve restroom? … “How is this shite different from all other shites?” … “This too shall Passover”

And let’s not forget those Muslims. They have great senses of humor about their religion, so… “Shi’ite from where the Sunni don’t shine?”

“Christmas Mass on Jesus’s Bidet”

Jesus would so shit in the bidet. But if it was Jesus it would be “Burning the other cheek.”

Nicely done! … And this one works for Muslims or Jews … “The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game with No Pork”

Klingenschmitt says if you don’t go to church, you can’t use public restrooms: http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/23/gordon-klingenschmitt-church-public-restroom.html

“There are well-heeled shitters everywhere___”

Alright. Probably the first and last time we ever close headlines on a “Guys and Dolls” reference, but everything has to happen eventually. Heath, thanks as always.

Pot luck eat a baby tonight!!!

And when we come back, god will get over all this Bruce Banner shit and get angry again.

This Week in Misogyny

Okay, so I’m in a bit of a quandary because I want to talk about international affairs this week, but I’m not sure if I’m smart enough to comment on those men problems. According to North Carolina congresswoman Renee Ellmers, women can’t understand complicated stuff like pie-charts and numbers with more than six zeroes, so I’m not sure if I can dumb this down enough for myself to understand.

Speaking at an RNC Women’s Conference (and you can just imagine the throngs of people lining up for that), Ellmers explained the secret to making women voters understand complicated stuff like economies and debtses and stuff saying (quote) “We need our male colleagues to understand that if you can bring it down to a woman’s level… that’s the way to go.” (end quote)

Politicians must “talk down to a woman’s level” to be understood: http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/_gop_congresswoman_men_must_talk_down_to_a_woman_s_level_if_they_want_to_be_understood

So we’re gonna talk briefly about how women are faring under the insane, bloodthirsty theocrats in Iraq, but afterwards, I’ll use dumbed-down woman words so that representative Ellmers can follow along.

We’ll start with their treatment of manufactured women. Store owners in the Iraqi city of Mosul were surprised last week when their new militant Islamic overlords demanded that they put face veils on their mannequins in an effort to keep the notoriously perverse Muslim men from having impure thoughts about inanimate objects.

Reports also indicate that tobacco and alcohol retailers are being intimidated out of business or outright killed. ISIS is also enforcing proper gender specific retail by forcing men who own women’s clothing stores to turn over their businesses to the appropriate gender.

Now, let me give you that same story again, but dumbed down to woman-level:

Those poor plastic girls who stand still at the mall all day have pantyhose on their heads!

ISIS forcing stores to put veils on mannequins: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101860481?__source=pd%7Coutbrain%7Ctopnews&par=pd

Of course, the treatment of Iraq’s artificial women is pretty damn lenient compared to their treatment of actual women. Reports of rapes, robberies and executions are rampant throughout ISIS controlled territory. A recent UN report warned that women trapped in Mosul will be forced to undergo female genital mutilation, but don’t worry ladies, it seems that report may be incorrect so your clit is way more likely to remain attached to your body than your head.

And again, same story, but dumbed down to woman-level, “Run for your fucking lives!”

Reports of ISIS call for female mutilation are probably false: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/24/isis-female-mutilation_n_5617833.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

And finally tonight, we’ll make like any sane woman in Iraq who is able to and move north into Turkey, where Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc warned that proper Muslim women should be too modest to laugh in public.

Suggesting that the most important quality in a woman is chastity, Arinc said (quote) “She will not laugh in public. She will not be inviting in her attitudes and protect her chasteness” (end quote). Now, in Arinc’s defense, I’m sure that, for the sake of his ego, he has had to tell himself, “She must just be too chaste to have an inviting attitude and laugh at my jokes” at many a Turkish night club.

Turkish official: Women shouldn’t laugh: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2014/07/turkish-leader-tells-women-not-to-laugh-out-loud-in-public/

That’s all the time I’ve got for you this week, but don’t worry, if you want more misogyny, we’re only a couple of minutes away from breaking down another book of the bible.

Calendar

It’s time for the atheist calendar portion of the show, the monthly couple of minutes we set aside to keep you up to speed on all the great atheist, skeptical and secular conferences going on around the country and around the world.

We did all out August stuff last month, but I did want to throw a shout out for the Piedmont Humanists, who are holding their annual picnic on Saturday afternoon. If you’re in the Greenville, South Carolina area and you want to meet some local atheists there can’t possibly be a better opportunity this weekend.

http://www.piedmonthumanists.org/calendar/

Now we’ll slide into September, but we don’t worry, we won’t just ram our way into it quickly, as our first event starts on August 31st and runs through September 2nd and that event would be DragonCon. Admittedly, this certainly isn’t an atheist convention but draws a hell of a crowd of skeptics and if definitely an awesome place to spend a weekend.

http://www.dragoncon.org/

But far more to the point is ZetetiCon (and if you wanted me to pronounce it correctly, you should have named it something normaler) which kicks off on September 12th in Fargo, North Dakota of all places. Matt Dillahunty, Richard Carrier, PZ Myers, Aron Ra, David Silverman and more. And if that’s not enough, you’ll also have hundreds of people doing the ridiculous psuedo-Canadian accent from the otherwise flawless Coen Brothers film.

http://zeteticon.org/2014/

September 19th through the 21st we’ve got Apostocon in Omaha, Nebraska. Lawrence Krauss is their keynote this year; joined by Matt Dillahunty, friend of the show Dan Fincke, JT Eberhard, Margaret Downey, other friend of the show Darrel Ray, the ubiquitous David Silverman and more. So skip all the exciting Omaha nightlife for one weekend and try to make it out for that.

http://www.apostacon.org/

The Carolinas Secular Conference is taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina from the 26th to the 28th of September. They’re bringing in secular blogger and author Greta Christina, President of Black Nonbelievers, Inc. Mandisa Thomas, secular rapper Greydon Square, et cetera. Should be a lot of fun.

http://www.carolinassecularassociation.org/conference/

And of course, if you’d like more information on any of the events discussed, be sure to check the Transcript or Shownotes for this episode at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. And if you’re involved with an event you think our audience would like to know about, I’m happy to toss you a free plug. You’ll find all the contact info on our Contact Page.

WTFI

What the Fuck is… Eid al Fitr?

Eid al Fitr is an Islamic attempt to take that feeling you get when you finally come across a rest area and unload the forty-four ounces of piss you’ve been damming up for the last eighty miles and turn it into a profound, spiritual experience.

This feast marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan and the start of the inferiority complex ridden month of Shawwal. After a month of intermittently starving themselves, Muslims the world over celebrate by no longer intermittently starving themselves. After twenty nine or thirty days of abstaining from food, water, sex and incidentally, happiness, from sunup until sundown, Muslims prepare the three hundred and thirty five to three hundred and thirty seven day effort to convince themselves not to go with a less fast-based religion.

Eid al Fitr is a three day event that moves around the Gregorian calendar. This is a byproduct of the lunar calendar that Muslims are too stubborn to give up in favor of the vastly superior “thing that actually makes years happen” based calendar. This year Muslims were subjected to a summer fast, meaning far longer periods of misery for those living significantly north of the equator. Muslims are no doubt tempering their celebration this year with a solemn remembrance of all the Muslims that used to live north of the sixty sixth parallel before starving to death in this annual tradition.

The traditional Arabic greeting on Eid al Fitr is “Eid Mubarak,” which literally translates to “what the fuck were we thinking?” In addition to giving up the 19th century prison diet, Muslims also celebrate by reciting special magic spells and reminding their all knowing deity how awesome he is in case he forgot since they reminded him less than seven hours earlier.

The day is also marked with entertainment and merriment. In the Quran, Mohammad famously chastised a friend when he tried to make his daughters stop singing because on Eid al Fitr, everyone is allowed to sing. To Muslims this signifies a level of leniency on this important day and to everyone else it signifies the fact that on other days these assholes would make young girls stop singing just to be dicks.

In addition to these common practices, there are also regional variations of the holiday. In Saudi Arabia, they decorate their homes with lights. In Egypt, they celebrate by sexually assaulting women in startlingly large numbers. And in Iraq this year, Muslims celebrated Eid al Fitr by decapitating infidels and lining their dismembered heads along the streets in a macabre attempt to finally put that “religion of peace” nonsense to rest once and for all.

Of course, Eid al Fitr is also a time of charity, giving, hospitality, forgiveness and joy, which, let’s face it, all religions say about all of their holidays. But still, it’s worth noting once in a while that they’re not just about violent theocracy and forced cliterectomies. Sometimes they also cook food.

So to all our Muslim listeners, I wish you a belated Eid Mubarak and, while I’m at it, I’d like to wish our equally numerous dinosaur listeners and leprechaun listeners a cosmic orgasm.

Babble – Isaiah

Well, it’s happened. We’ve passed out of the “Wisdom” portion book altogether and reached the “verbose compared to Nostradamus” section known as the “Prophetic” books. And, like all prophets, these books have to be insanely long to fling enough shit against the wall to occasionally be kind-of right.

Does the fact that I prophesied that this book would suck before I read it give me the right to order around jews?

Apparently not, because your prophecy ended up being correct. Unacceptable condition for a Jewish prophet. So joining us to discuss the post-masturbatory portions of the Bible is my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome back.

Great to be here.

Alright, so enough with all this “Gettin’ to know us” shit, let’s get prophesying.

Right away you know this one’s gonna be a chore. It’s the fifth longest book in the Bible and right away you get Isaiah going off like an apocalyptic street preacher.
1. Yeah, Isaiah goes off like your rebound girlfriend’s racist stepdad. Bunch of “These kids these days with their fringe-cloth saddles and goat-hair cruppers and them filthy Akkadians takin’ our jobs, what don’t even speak Hebrew!”
And then it gets scary and violent. Isaiah explains how god wants the Jews to take over the world and steal all their neighbor’s silver and gold and horses.
It’s nice to have psychotic, vengeful god back. Haven’t seen him since Job, but he’s back in full force!!! In chapter three he explains what horrible shit he has in store for all the Jews that piss him off, in case you missed the entire Old Testament leading up to this book.
1. Yeah, among the torments listed is that the daughters of the unrighteous will have their heads covered in scabs and paraded naked through the streets.
– ???
And he’ll smash them and burn them and their corpses will litter the street like ashes because they’ve been drinking the wine and galavanting with the strange women.
Then we get this weird scene where Isaiah chats with god and he’s got these six-winged Seraphs all around him and, if I’m not mistaken, god tells him to make sure the people of Israel remain as stupid as possible.

But first, God had one of the magical pixies burn Isaiah’s tongue out with a piece of live coal, to get him ready to tell everyone about the future badly. So don’t worry, there’s no hole in the plot there. Don’t even check.

And then we get our first glimpse of pre-Jesus.

A little spotting before the first coming. The pre-coming of Jesus.

I think it’s worth noting that the KJV still has the mistranslated “virgin” in that verse. But they get Jesus’s name wrong.

And here’s how you know God’s not a particularly clever dude. Regardless of what name he chooses for the savior of humanity, if he’s got any sense of humor at all, it’s something difficult and awkward to yell during orgasms … “Almost there!!! Wait for it!!! … Nnnnnnebuchadnezzar!!!” … “Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz!!!”

Right. The messiah is supposed to be “Immanuel,” but worse than that, it’s really clear that the young woman Isaiah is talking about was somebody alive at that time. This book was written in the 8th century bce… not to mention his coming was supposed to coincide with a worldwide thorn epidemic. So yeah, all kinds of problems with basing your religion on this passage.

And I wouldn’t recommend any of the other passages we’ve seen yet either.

What’s more, his birth is supposed to usher in a full blown apocalypse. And I’m pretty sure that if the world ended in the 8th century bce, we’d know about it.
And then god’s going to raise an army of cannibals to kill all the wicked evildoers, including the orphans and babies who are evil by association.
“So you know the human trafficking, heathen mercenaries that I hired to enslave you guys most recently? … Yeah? Well I changed my mind about them, and now I don’t like them. So I might be back on board with you Jews again. But not right away. It’s gonna suck for a bunch longer. But then maybe better. Who’s comin’ with me?”
And honestly, Christianity would be way cooler if they stuck to this messiah Isaiah is talking about because this dude ejaculates fire demons and kills people with his lips, both of which would have made a much better image for the Sistine Chapel.
1. And also, this Jesus does a way better job because by the time he’s done with it bears start grazing and lions are friendly and you can safely get cunilingus from a poisonous asp.
2. He was also supposed to split the red sea into seven rivers with a land bridge.

And what about the land bridge connecting Brazil and Senegal in Risk?

–
It’s hard to stress what a truly fucked up book this is, though. Because what it’s saying is that god wants to kill basically everybody, but instead of doing it himself, he needs an army of true believers to give him a hand. Basically he says, “Wanted: Righteous believers to smash babies and ravish wives.”

Sounds like my profile on MormonMingle.com …

So let’s be perfectly clear about this. The very first prophecy in the prophetic books is that Jewish enslavement in Assyria would end when Emmanuel rose up with an army, the world turned to thorns, the sun became black and the Assyrians were all enslaved by the jews. And in case you’re not particularly a history buff, I should point out that that didn’t happen.

Not during observational history. Could have been during historical history, but no way to check.

And even the cities he correctly predicts the destruction of, he gets wrong. Like Moab. He says that Moab will be destroyed and I can’t find it on Google Maps, so there you go; but he also says the way it’ll go is that all the people will turn bald and the crops will dry up and that’s probably not how it happened at all.
Also, god will harp-fart. Isaiah 16:11 “Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp.”
Then we get to the one that has all the modern day reality-impaired lunatics up in arms, the prophecy about the destruction of Damascus.
1. Keeping in mind, of course that until now he’s clearly talking about a Jewish uprising that will destroy their oppressors in the near term. Like… within a generation… of 740 bce.
2. Yeah, this is the one you’ve gotta read if you want to get your bearings when Michelle Bachmann starts bringing up olive trees.

“Well Israel doesn’t seem to be having any trouble defending it’s current borders. And given all their ally neighbors, they should be able to take over Syria pretty soon. The demand for Judaism in the region just isn’t being met. Market solution.”

–
And it’s hilarious to actually read this shit in context. Because the “end is nigh” nutjobs point to this part of the bible and they say, “See, it predicts bad shit happening in Syria and in Egypt and if you look right now, what do you see?” But it’s not like it predicts just general, “Bad shit,” it predicts very precise droughts and floods and not a living human remaining and how the pharaohs of Egypt will respond. In other words, if he was talking about now, he really fucked it up.
1. Well and those are also sandwiched in between prophecies about Moab and Tyre, so seems like we’re being damn lenient on the chronology, too.
Right, and part of the specific Egyptian troubles is god marching them all out of Egypt in a single file line buck-naked. When that happens, call me.
1. One of my top 5 chapters right there. Chapter 20 … Isaiah spends three years with his dick out so that god will make a naked Egyptian parade. Priceless.
–
So essentially we’re reading Jewish revenge porn. It’s just one city after another that Jew god is gonna smite for fucking with the jews… complete with gory details of how it’s gonna go down.
1. My favorite, even though it isn’t all that gory, is the post-spinach popeye treatment Isaiah describes in Chapter 22, verses 17 and 18: “The lord is about to hurl you away violently, my fellow. He will seize firm hold of you, whirl you round and round and throw you like a ball into a wide land.”
And chapter 23 seems to be an homage to the slutty city of Tyre. Prostitutes will exist forever, all over the world, but they have to donate their trick money to churches. So whore and pastor pimp are indeed two of the oldest professions.
Then they get bored with individual cities and just prophecy the whole world coming down. And I can’t help but think, we’re 24 chapters into a 66 chapter book and the world is already destroyed? Is Isaiah gonna catch a ride with Zaphod and Trillian or something?
In chapter 25 we get Moabites swimming around in giant dung-pits.
And in 26 it warns you to lock your doors because god’s judgment is coming and apparently god’s judgment is as lame as the aliens in “Signs.”

And the casting. Rory Culkin?!? Really?!? They couldn’t spring for Macaulay.

And right when we’re in danger of dozing off, Leviathan shows back up and god starts killing sea-dragons.
1. And while we’re on the subject, what kind of pansy god stops in the middle of a dragon fight to sing a song about vineyards?
And whoever wrote this is so fucking racist. It’s all “Egyptians are stupid and Ephraimites are drunkards and those squinty-eyed Dedanites can’t park for shit.”
–
We’re also reminded to always listen to the voices in our head. They mean us no harm.
And perhaps seeing the weakness in using human armies all the time, he does promise to lop the Assyrians’ heads off with a magic sword at least.
In chapter 32 there’s a part where Isaiah commands all the women to strip naked and pummel their tits for the sake of a good harvest. Not sure how that works.

I’d do shit like that all the time if I was a prophet. If God tells you when it’s gonna finally start raining in the desert … “Ok ladies, this drought isn’t going away by itself. We’re gonna need a topless rain dance … while one of you blows me … (Thunder Crack!!!) … Don’t doubt me, bitches!!! What did you learn?!?”

But obviously, if you’re a monotheist who believes god is just, you need shit like Isaiah. Because you need to know that god is just biding his time letting all these other tribes fuck with the jews while he plots his vengeance
And then we continue with the “You just wait ‘til god gets home” theme by describing in gory detail the bloody vengeance god has in store for anybody who burns Isaiah’s toast.
And it’s not enough to tell all these gentiles how brutally murdered their children will be or how raped their wives will be; he also has to rub it in by talking about the awesome paradise god’s going to establish on earth once they’re dead.
And just when you’re thinking to yourself, “I sure miss Second Kings chapters 18 through 20,” we rehash them for no reason at all.
Which, in case you forgot, is the story of god defending Hezekiah, then condemning him to die, then deciding to let him live another fifteen years, then punishing him by destroying Judah and enslaving the jews after he dies.
And what the hell is up with that? Centuries of empire the Jews had and they only managed 9 different historical stories to repeat over and over again?

Yeah so far, God’s plan seems more and more like a Bond villain trying to slowly kill the Jews with a Rube Goldberg device. These assinine, overly-elaborate, century-long lessons … And then you’re all slaves … and then I free you, but kill 90% … and then MOUSE TRAP!!!”

And believe it or not, there’s even more of this damn book. So we’ll answer that question and many more after this important announcement.

Pitch

Since we started doing this show in January of last year, Heath, Lucinda and I have written over a third of a million words worth of blasphemous dick jokes.

That’s more words than the entire bible.

Actually it’s not quite half that.

…more words than War and Peace.

No, that’s more like half a million.

It’s like a Moby Dick, two Great Gatsbys and an Ethan Frome.

Yeah, that’s about right. A lot people have asked us how we manage to stay so prolific week after week. Is it passion? Divine inspiration? Adderall?

But the truth is far simpler than that. Our Adderall guy got busted, so we hired a group of Dickensian street-orphans in East London who were willing to write for nothing but a spot of porridge and a leaky roof.

In fact, let’s pop over to Hackney and see how they’re doing!

(Whoosh)

Listen up! The sixty minute format has been a big success and it’s going to be permanent.

(groans)

Get back to work, or I’ll give you something to moan about! You there, why aren’t you writing dick jokes?

My hands, hurt, sir.

Your hands hurt!? Do you think those dick jokes are just gonna write themselves?

No sir.

And you there! How many Pope Francis nicknames have you come up with today?

Um… I came up with Pope Fran-colostomy bag, sir.

That’s terrible! No good. And you, there, what have you got?

Pope Frant-Farm?

Pope What!?

Pope Frant-Farm, sir… like an ant farm, but with an F and an R.

Utter shit! Back to work the lot of you. And you there, what have you got.

Pope Frabble-Rouser, sir?

Alright, that’s actually not too bad. I need four more like that today.

(groans)

We’ve been working since sun up, sir. Can we break for some porridge?

You’ll get some porridge when the listeners pony up at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist and not a moment before.

(Whoosh)

So if you’d like to help our orphans get some more porridge… or maybe get Noah a dialect coach, please make a donation today.

And remember, if we can reach our next milestone, Heath can quit his job and we can fire those orphans altogether and let them go back to work giving handjobs to bishops and sixpence a squirt.

That’s probably not the right way to go.

Yeah, probably not.

The best thing to do is make them seasonal so we don’t have to give them benefits.

Or… independent contractors.

Now you’re thinking…

Previously on the Holy Babble… (insert) … and now for the unexceptional conclusion of Isaiah.

When we left off, I believe we were being reminded at length how awesome god is and how feeble we are in comparison.
1. Something of a running theme in this book.
–
And you can tell that historical circumstances really fucked up the narrative here, because for the first half of the book Isaiah’s talking about how god’s gonna lay waste to all the other cities and establish a worldwide Jewish totalitarian state and while Isaiah’s explaining this, the Babylonians show up, level their city and enslave them.
1. Right and then Isaiah has to say, “Yeah, guys, this is all part of the plan.”

“Part of the trick … And still … where did the lighter fluid come from?!?”

It must suck being god’s biographer… “Put in another couple chapters about how awesome I am.”

“And remember those Babylonians that I’m having enslave you right now??? Well I think I know how to get you out of this. Gotta be smooth about this, or everyone’s gonna know I’m Jewish. Just shut up about it, and I’ll fucking choose you guys.”

And I want to photocopy chapter 44 of Isaiah and send it to everybody who ever found Jesus on a fucking pancake. The bible basically says, “Jesus ain’t on no motherfuckin’ pancake.”
But I think what betrays this book most as being useless crap is the amount of it they devote to god reminding us that he’s god. It would be like me stopping every five minutes of the show and saying, “And I am Noah and there is no other host of the Scathing Atheist before me; I am he who edits the show and uploadeth it; for no other compresses the sound-files and embeds the musical interludes.”
–
There’s such an odd mix of divine threat in here, too. Like, once you’ve said “Hey, I’m gonna smash your babies to death, burn your cities, rape your wives and feed your flesh to your brother,” there’s really no impact in later saying, “You’ll be chilly and settle for foods you don’t much care for.”

“And the towels will be a little scratchy!!! And you might need a long-sleeve tee!!!

–
Right. Two chapters after condemning the oppressors to be uncomfortably cold, he says, (quote) “I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine.”
In chapter 50 we learn that Isaiah beat Jesus to the whole “turn the other cheek” thing by at least seven centuries.
–
And apparently Jesus was supposed to get burned to a crisp and come back all Freddy Krueger looking, according to chapter 52.
–
Then we get another prophecy about the Jews taking over the world.
1. Followed by an assurance that there will definitely never be a holocaust, so Isaiah’s sub-Padrean batting average continues.

Yeah, when the prophet of god is below the Mendoza line … it really show you how hard it is to go one for five against major league pitching.

But that’s just the thing. The fact that none of these prophecies have been fulfilled in the 27 centuries since he uttered them is just proof that this post-apocalyptic Jewish theocracy is yet to come.

Right … Just like 45-year-old pale, friendless virgins are just about due to get laid any minute. That’s like ten black numbers in a row on the roulette wheel. The next one pretty much has to be pink.

Then in 56 god suddenly gets nice for a minute, reminds us not to be ungood and offers to regrow the balls of eunuchs if they pray hard enough.

“Can’t promise anything about using public restrooms in Colorado … But I can get you those balls back.”

–
It’s such a weird contrast, too. Suddenly he starts talking about feeding the poor and clothing the naked… it’s like “We’re gonna boil their flesh and eat it, but don’t forget to brush and floss afterwards.”
But the hiatus doesn’t last long. Three chapters later, god’s putting on his “vengeance armor” and his “fury mantle” and setting out to kill people again.
And I’m sorry, but the prophecies that Isaiah is laying down are way more than just wrong. In chapter 60 he goes on and on about how there will be no more violence in Israel.

Well the maps are tricky … Maybe he meant a different part of the region, like Palestine.

–
–
Then in 63 God makes some people wine. Really weird chapter where the guy says, “Hey god, what’s all that crimson on your outfit… you been making wine?” And god answers back, “Na, just been crushing people to death beneath my mighty wrath and I guess I got a little on me.”
The last couple chapters have a sort of “any minute now” feel to them.
Yeah, a bit of Isaian ass-covering here where they’re basically saying, “Well sure, god’s gonna come and avenge all of our enemies, but how’s he supposed to do that if you assholes are still burning incense on bricks and slaughtering the wrong number of bulls?”

“And you definitely rubbed the lamp three times??? … And you reset the router? … That’s just fucking weird … Maybe you weren’t being Jewish hard enough.”

And then all the jews lived happily ever after.
1. And the non-jews had their flesh eaten by immortal worms. The end.

So we all know that Psalms was the longest book and we already got through that one. Anybody care to venture a guess what the second longest is?

Please let it be apocryphal.

Jeremiah. Next one on our list. And Ezekiel’s number three. But if it’s any comfort, all ten of the shortest books are ones we haven’t read yet…

It’s not.

Alright, so that does it for the Babble. Three weeks to go and another even worse one after that. Sorry. Not my fault. I didn’t write this crap.

When I read the “harp-farting” part I started to wonder.

Heath, Lucinda, thanks again.

Feedback

It’s time for the part of the show that comes next, Listener Feedback. This is the few minutes that come next and contain feedback from listeners.

Our first message comes in the form of a comment on the blog. Donovan rights us regarding our Wisdom books wrap up last week regarding Eli’s choice for the best passage in the section, Psalms 47:2

You bastards actually made me go look up to see if it actually said ‘the lord most high is terrible.’ I so fell for that shit, as ‘awesome’ as it was.

Yeah, so Donovan went to his bible, double checked the passage and read, “The Lord most High is Awesome,” and assumed we were just fucking with him. We weren’t. Now, I don’t think we’ve actually mentioned this since episode 10 when we launched the Holy Babble, but Heath, Lucinda and I are all reading different translations. Heath’s reading the King James, Lucinda has the NIV and I’m reading the New Revised Standard Edition. And they don’t always say the same shit.

Yeah and my copy of King James is by Dan Brown, and it’s got a lot of parts that are different.

So in this instance, most of the newer translations say, “The Lord most high is awesome,” but in the KJV and the many bibles based on that one, it reads, “The Lord most high is terrible.”

“Awesome” … “Terrible” … Are we splitting hairs?!?

We’ve also got an email correcting an actual mistake I made in that same segment. We were talking about “Song of Solomon” and I said it was the only book of the Old Testament that got cut from the Mormon Bible and apparently I was in error.

Sort of … technically … but it’s a moot point, because according to the Old Testament, everyone that’s not Jewish is about to be fucked any minute. You definitely can’t be changing stuff. If Old Testament God shows up, Mormons might as well be ass-raping angels … and that dude’s daughter … with a Baal figurine … on a high place.

But as is often the case, the more I looked into the error, the cooler it got. Joseph Smith had his out (scare quote) “Translation” of the bible, or at least, was working on one when he was killed. And in that version, he does omit Song of Solomon and claim that it is (quote) “not inspired writing” (end quote)

However, the LDS doesn’t actually use the Joseph Smith Translation (which they call the “Inspired Version”) as their official bible. While they’ve canonized parts of it, they still officially use the KJV. So there is no specific “Mormon Bible,” but if there was, it wouldn’t have Song of Solomon in it. Which is off, because I thought Joseph Smith was all about the pussy.

So Joey ‘Splatter Day Saints’ started his polygamist cult just for the tax breaks … Get your facts straight.

Our next email comes from Michael, who would like a little help with his bumper stickers. He prints these up himself in 100 point type and puts a new one on his car every week or two and was hoping we could come up with some slogans for him.

Right… he’s looking for slogans that (a) probably won’t get his car keyed, (b) promote atheism rather than demonize religion, and (c) might actually open someone’s mind.

Yeah, he offered some examples of stuff he’s used in the past. Stuff like “WWUD: Think for yourself”, “You pray for me; I’ll think for you”, “In Reason we Trust”, etc.

Yeah, he even went so far as to say he’d donate $10 to the show for each one we came up with that he decided to use. So… top ten?

Okay, so we’re looking for the top ten… non-derogatory, non-vandalism inspiring atheist slogans Michael can put on his car?

Not sure it’s exactly on our wheelhouse, but we’ll give it a try…

10 – Umm… I guess “fuck jesus in the wrist holes” would fall under “derogatory,” huh?
9 – “Atheism: If you can read this, you’re statistically more likely to agree with me.”
8 – Maybe… “Yo Savior’s Momma’s so fat…” no…
7 – “My atheist kid got your honor student pregnant … But only for about a week.”

Alright, obviously not our cup of tea here. But what we could do is crowdsource this shit. So if you have an idea for Michael’s bumper sticker and want to help us make ten bucks with it, tweet it (at) Noah (underscore) Lugeons, we’ll collect together the best ones and present them on next week’s feedback.

Yeah, but don’t tell Michael because we want him to think we made them up. And we’re obviously not very good at this … so make it believable.

Right. Good call.

And that’s all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep those Tweets, Facebook messages and emails coming. You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

Outro

Before we go quietly into the night tonight, I wanted to remind all of our listeners that Peter Boghossian is looking for volunteer artists to help with the app he’s developing to go with his book, “A Manual for Creating Atheists.” I happen to know we’ve got at least a couple of damn talented artists listening to this show, and as much as I understand the ridiculous rate at which artists get asked to work for free, this time it’s for a pretty beneficial product. It you’re interested, check the website for an email address or contact me and I’ll let you know who to get in touch with.

That’s all the blasphemy we’ve got for you this week, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with more. Between now and then you can find some bonus bits of Scatheism on our Facebook page, our Twitter Feed and our YouTube channel. And a big thanks to all the fine folks who have recently taken it upon themselves to share some of the diatribe videos.

And since I’ve already got a little gratitude momentum building up, I also need to thank Heath once more for the incredible amount of effort he puts into this show every week. I need to thank Lucinda for her willingness to take on an ever more demanding role as the show grows. I also need to thank Tucker from the “Atheist in the Trailer Park” podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth Quote. If his trailer park is anything like the ones down here, he had to hide in an interior room of his doublewide with all the doors locked and the windows shaded when he recorded that, so for that I thank him. If you’d like to check out his show, you’ll find it linked on the shownotes for this episode.

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s most laudable listeners; Patrick, Monica, Warwick, Weston, Glen, Alex, Max, Wayne and Fred. Patrick, Monica and Warwick, who think so fast they could beat Professor X at Rock Paper Scissors; Weston, Glen and Alex, who turned down a Dos Equis ad campaign about their lives; and Max, Wayne and Fred, whose ejaculate is recommended by five out of five dentists. These nine inestimably estimable individuals have earned a small measure of immortality this week by giving us money; their praiseworthiness is now eternally archived that future generations will know of their great deeds.

If you, too, would like to earn the perpetual gratitude of future civilizations and the lifelong gratitude of Heath, Lucinda and me, you can make a per episode donation to the show at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist, where you can also earn some bonus material and books and stuff. Or you can make a one time donation by clicking the “donate” button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you’d like to help but you’re allergic to donating, you can also help us a bunch by leaving us a five star review on iTunes, Stitcher or any other place that affords you an opportunity to tell everyone how many stars we’re worth.

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.

Categories: Show Transcripts, Uncategorized Tags: antitheist podcast, atheism podcast, atheist podcast, Heath Enwright, Lucinda Lugeons, Noah Lugeons

Episode 75 – Partial Transcript

July 24, 2014 Noah Lugeons 9 comments

by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons

If you’re an artist and you’d like to volunteer some time to Peter Boghossian’s upcoming app (as discussed on this week’s episode) please email: brian@bwalsh.com

LINK TO BUY “A MANUAL FOR CREATING ATHEISTS”

LINK TO SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON

LINK TO BUY OUR BOOK

LINK TO EPISODE

LINK TO THE DOGMA DEBATE PODCAST

Note: Transcript contains elements removed due to time constraints.

Warning: This podcast contains obscene amounts of obscenities.

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Fatwatter: The new social media platform for female Muslim Islamophobes.

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And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s July 24th,

And I broke 2 ribs playing softball last Sunday … So why didn’t Adam build a harem?!?

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright, and from “Gotham City”, AKA New York, New York,

And “Noah’s Arkham Asylum” Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week’s episode,

Ken Ham suggests defunding NASA to pay for building the thing from Cocoon and getting that water.
Peter Boghossian will join us to make more atheists in the non-sexual way.
And Eli Bosnick joins us to pan for wisdom in the Old Testament.

Yes, biblical wisdom is the pyrite of wisdom. But first, the Diatribe…

Diatribe

My wife and I had a chance to catch up with an old friend the other day; a guy we hadn’t seen in more than a decade. Since the last time we spoke he divorced the vindictive lunatic he was married to and found a new wife with more stable dopamine levels. She’s friendly, funny and twenty years younger than him. Which, in his mind, more than outweighs the fact that she’s religious.

He’s an atheist and not just by a little. He comes from an extremely religious family and lived most of his life in one of the most religious enclaves in this country so he’s developed a pretty sharp axe to grind with the minions of faith. And I don’t think he actually knows any other atheists so as soon as the subject of what I did for a living came up, ten years of pent up rage and anger came boiling to the surface and we spent a good half hour bitching about Jesus.

Clearly, I’m right in my element, and just as clearly, his wife isn’t. She’s known for a while that they didn’t see eye to eye on the religion thing, but the look on her face made it clear that this was the first glimpse she got of the full extent of his ire. And I’m guessing this southern girl raised in a strict Baptist household, had never been the only Christian in a room full of atheists.

So after about half an hour of uninterrupted vitriol, she felt the need to step in on behalf of her faith by politely objecting to our methodology. We’d talked about priests raping kids, Mullahs promoting honor killings and acid attacks, evangelicals demonizing gays and standing in the way of science, Rabbis promoting sexism and disparaging education; and while she freely admitted that all those things existed, she claimed they weren’t representative. None of the religious people she knew were like that. And aren’t there sexists and bigots and child-molesters in every group of people? Afterall, she’s not dangerous… and she’s more representative of faith than the people we’re talking about.

And my buddy made a concession that far too many atheists make and agreed with her. Some of that might have been an effort to keep Jesus from interfering with his love life, but it’s still bullshit.

Now, she’s a nice person and she’s a guest in my home, so I’m not gonna go full diatribe on her, but I’m also not going to let such a patently false claim go unchallenged.

First I dismissed the idea that her breed of Christianity was “typical” of religion. Nearly half of American Christians reject Darwinian evolution. The majority of the world’s Muslims favor a sharia-based judicial system. The opposition to gay rights is almost entirely a religious phenomena. Almost all of America’s religious institutions have a legally exempted glass-ceiling that would be unacceptable for any other entity.

So no, the liberally religious, judge-not lest-ye-be-judged, “turn the other cheek” Christian is not representative of the average believer. But that wasn’t even the most egregious thing about her argument. Far more misguided was the premise that those same liberally religious, judge-not lest-ye-be-judged, “turn the other cheek” Christians aren’t dangerous.

I would argue, and I know a lot of people disagree with me here, so hear me out, but I would argue that those are the most dangerous type of believers. Because if it weren’t for them, we as a society could stop giving religion a seat at the table altogether.

Think about it. If every religious person you knew was a “God Hates Fags”, anti-evolution, anti-contraception rape apologist, it would be damn easy to dismiss them. But if you can temper those assholes with a far greater number of regular people freely attributing the wisdom and morality they’ve developed over a lifetime of being humans to a mythical character, it gets a lot harder to reject.

In other words, it’s the charitable, congenial, selfless, cookie-baking old ladies that are fucking this up for the rest of us. Because to keep the extremist voices relevant, you need five of them for every spittle-spewing homophobe. You need a base to hold the capstone up.

There’s no example of a religion without a fundamentalist wing. There’s no example in history of a religion gaining supremacy in a state and then not being used to marginalize other people. There’s no example of a religion that wasn’t taken advantage of by the unscrupulous and the hateful. And in every instance, the fuel for their unscrupulous hate was the sweet, congenial, cookie baking old lady wing of their religion.

I bring this up because it seems like a lot of atheists are possessed of the notion that if we could just steer the faithful toward the less destructive iterations of their faith, we could solve the problem. But the problem is faith; faith in all its forms. It reminds me of that idiot who says there shouldn’t be laws against drunk driving because he “ain’t killed nobody yet”. The fact that you can personally use faith without fucking the world up doesn’t excuse faith every time somebody else uses it to blow up a school.

I’ll say it again and again; there is no harmless version of faith. Faith is an attempt to replace reason with… something other than reason. And where reasonable minds are concerned, that should be all the damnation it needs.

Headlines

Joining me for headlines tonight is guy whose name comes up in autocomplete before you type in the Y-S-I-S in atheist analysis, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to give us some deep, impactful canal-ysis?

You must be talking about the alimentary canal. Which goes mouth to ass, so it’s all good. Just don’t forget, you are what you eat.

And thanks to astute listener Joe for pointing that out to us and sharing a screen capture on our Facebook page in case you doubt our sincerity.

In our lead story tonight, from the “You are! … You’re the one … who doesn’t exist! You don’t!” file … Despite findings irrelevant to the issue, it seems the naively faithful have latched on to recent scientific studies that suggest the human brain may be hard-wired from birth to believe in magical stuff like divine creation. They’ve taken this to mean that atheists semantically don’t exist, therefore God clearly does … Because if newborn babies don’t disbelieve in leprechauns … all rainbows end at a gold pot.

We’re also born fascinated by our own shit, but I guess that’s just a different way of phrasing the same thing, isn’t it?

One particular article by Nury Vittachi, on the “Science 2.0” site, tries to loosely gather ideas from several such studies, and shoe-horn them into somehow explaining how I don’t exist … <Yes, “I think therefore I’m not”> Let’s begin with the title of the article: (quote) “Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke.” (end quote) … So keeping in mind that this science-y stuff we’re about to hear is definitely not a joke … Remember? From the title? “With that in mind, let’s look at some one-sentence summaries of entire experiments, and combine them into a perfectly valid master theory.

Perhaps the most ridiculous bit of scat he left on the wall was the notion that because stories have elements of divine justice, atheists don’t exist. So yes, the fact that even atheist authors write books where bad stuff happens to the bad guy is offered as evidence against the existence of atheists.

My favorite one … He cited a 2012 survey by Pew Forum: (quote) “38% of people who identified themselves as atheist or agnostic went on to claim to believe in God or a Higher Power.” (end quote) … So atheists don’t exist … because approximately 38% of atheists might not exist … QED!!!

Science: “Atheists don’t exist” http://www.science20.com/writer_on_the_edge/blog/scientists_discover_that_atheists_might_not_exist_and_thats_not_a_joke-139982

And in “Are You Smarter Than a Zeroth Grader?” news tonight, a new survey of kindergarten students shows that even five year olds can largely distinguish biblical stories from reality, provided they haven’t been brainwashed in favor of Jew-magic beforehand.

Well that’s odd … Seems to conflict somewhat, with the assertion from the last story that Kabbalah is a priori knowledge … Weird. So how did they ever manage to demonstrate that being forced to believe wrong things leads to believing more wrong things?!?

The survey presented children with a series of stories. Some were realistic, some included magic and some of the ones that included magic were biblical. And to nobody’s real surprise, the children who regularly attended church were significantly less able to decide whether or not the presence of a magic wand in a story means it’s bullshit.

It’s partially unfair though, because kids that don’t regularly attend church are much more likely to have parents with intelligent DNA.

So yes, in light of our lead story resting on our innate belief in magical fairy-folk, data like these are damn important. Maybe it doesn’t refute the absurd claim, but it shows that kids can outgrow that mental defect in about the time it takes to keep their sheets piss-free if you don’t actively steer them away from reason.

Kids exposed to religion shown to have harder time distinguishing fact from fiction: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/18/new-study-shows-that-children-exposed-to-religion-have-a-hard-time-distinguishing-fact-from-fiction/

And from the “Can’t we just tell them their fetus lives on a farm upstate?” file, anti-choice nurse Sara Hallwege unsuccessfully applied for a job at Tampa Family Health Centers, and is now suing them for discriminating against ‘people who refuse to perform the job’. The health center in question is a “Title X” clinic … or a “Plan C” facility … Which means: Hallwege applied for a job she believes to be ‘baby assassin’, and now she’s mad at the people that wouldn’t give her that opportunity. Like a fucked-up game of chicken … “I’ll kill those babies … We’ll hire you to kill those babies … “

“I brought my favorite abortion sword and everything…”

“Do you have prior experience killing unwanted fetuses? … No? … That’s fine … You’ll get the coat hang of it … And this part’s just a formality … Seems ridiculous that I should even need to ask, but … I see you’ve brought a picket sign with you to your own job interview … So I gotta ask … Are you willing to … do this job?” … Her answer was: “No, and I’ll see you in court.”

But it’s even worse than that because the job didn’t include real abortions, just sincerely held religious abortions. They needed somebody who could prescribe birth control and this quarrelsome bitch actually listed on her resume that she was a member of a right-wing, anti-abortion society… I don’t believe I have to mention the name… and told the interviewer that empiricism be damned, she believes that birth control is murder and wouldn’t prescribe it. Even if that was her job. So they… didn’t let that be her job…

Defense lawyers are likely to mention Hellwege’s pre-interview on the phone, during which she was clearly warned about the pro-choice nature of the position: (quote) “You’re gonna see lots of graphic, close-up choices. Bitches gonna be choosing all over the floor sometimes.” (end quote)

I was gonna say this is like a quadriplegic suing the rodeo for not hiring him as a bull rider, but the quadriplegic didn’t choose to be immobile… so this is more like the intentionally inert suing the same rodeo. Wow… this story is so stupid it’s analogistically challenging.

Well if the lawsuit doesn’t work out, maybe she can make some money refusing to serve drinks at gay bar in Boystown, Chicago.

Pro-life nurse sues for hiring discrimination job: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/19/pro-life-nurse-sues-family-planning-clinic-for-not-hiring-her-to-do-the-job-she-refused-to-do

And from the “City of Bloodthirsty Love” file tonight, two of those notoriously peace-loving Muslims have been charged with trying to chop the hand off of a suspected thief. In Philadelphia. Which isn’t exactly “first world”, but it isn’t exactly Pakistan hill country, either.

It’s a good thing the Hobby Lobby ruling happened, or else the hand-choppers would be in pretty big trouble.

The attempted behanding in Quran took place after the mosque’s amir Merv Mitchell and an as yet unidentified imam suspected a forty-six year old attendant of stealing. Police say the two dragged the man to the back of the mosque, where, of course, they keep their giant fucking machete, and proceeded to try to whack the dude’s hand off. And it’s not like they missed or he escaped or anything… they just didn’t chop hard enough. The victim was hospitalized and will likely need reconstructive surgery to repair the wound.

Also, as far as I know, there’s not too many rainforest thicket areas in Philadelphia … So that’s a dedicated amputation machete …

And when you’ve got a dedicated amputation machete, every problem looks like a hand…

But here’s the problem … Now we’ve got a suspected thief with two hands. What do you think “Jew-God 3.0” does do about this??? Somebody’s gotta get their fucking hand chopped off!!!

And that’s the point… you’ve got all these conservative politicians proposing legislation that bans Sharia law in the US. Well this is Sharia law. And even considering how far up its ass the Roberts Court’s head is, I don’t think we need to worry about them forgiving the chopping off of limbs under the auspices of a “sincerely held religious belief.”

Clergy at Philly Mosque accused of trying to cut off a dude’s hand: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/19/clergy-at-mosque-in-city-of-brotherly-love-are-accused-of-trying-to-cut-off-alleged-thiefs-hand/

And in “Priests distract rock star from drug metaphor lyrics by sexually abusing children” news, Tom Petty was somehow the first famous musician since Sinead O’Connor to find out about the breaking news regarding decades of clergy sex scandals … In response, he included a bonus track on his most recent album, which suggested artistically, that kid rapists should probably get in really big trouble and stuff. More typical rockstar ‘fringe thinking’.

But to be fair, for all we know that’s what he’s been talking about the whole time and we just couldn’t understand him through his Bob Dylan with down syndrome voice.

Like French Canadian Bruce Springstein with lockjaw … Somehow when it’s Irish Catholics committing the human rights violations, Bono gets strangely quiet. But if U2 won’t help, and multi-platinum recording artist Tom Petty can’t change public thinking on this … hopefully anyone else would suffice … And – more importantly – we seem to have stumbled into this well of dick jokes … So let’s go ahead and put 30 seconds on the clock … “Songs About Pedophile Clergy” … GO!!!

“Pole Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room”

“Smells Like Tween Spirit”

“Another One Bites the Pillow”

“Bare Way to Heaven”

“Why Does My Fart Feel So Bad?”

Probably has something to do with that “Scrotal Eclipse” … And if ever Pete Townshend belonged on a list, I guess it’s now … “Let Guy Love Open the Door to Your Shart” … Townshend being such a notorious shart topper.

“The Priest You Can Do”

Phil Collins!!! Good work!!! But i could swear I could feel it coming in the prayer tonight …

“25? … or 6 to 4 year olds?”

Or “Working 5 to 9… year olds”

Different kind of sweat shop …

What about a little Unmarked Van Morrison? … “Brown-Eyed Boy”

“How Deep is Your Glove?”

I had a glove??? … What about: “Sitting on the Cock of the- … Nah, well you get it … Too easy … “I Heard it Through the <Still too obvious.> … Fair enough … But I could have said “Gape” … What about: “Sunday, Bloody Sunday School” ???

“Let Your Son Go Down on Me”

“Unfortunate Son … of a Preacher Man” … Didn’t figure this well had incest jokes … but there you go. Gravy.

Yeah, but we did know that it had gravy. How about “Cruelly, Gladly, Deeply?”

Bunch of Ravaged Gardens in this town … And by the way everyone, you can get lot’s of these tracks for free, at Ass Pirates Bay … It’s a pedo-phile-sharing network … like SlimeWire …

“Pope Paul Along the Crotch Tower” … Done.

New Tom Petty song about Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/tom-petty-catholic-church_n_5605881.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And finally tonight, in “Ham Nine From Outer Space” news, creationist taint mold and perpetual Scathing Atheist punching bag Ken Ham is back in the news condemning martians to eternal torment while calling for an end to America’s space program.

At the very least, he wants Ridley Scott fired from his director spot.

Well at least there’s something Ham and I can agree on. Anyway, Ham explains that it’s pointless for America to keep wasting money searching for life on other planets (which he apparently thinks is what NASA does) since in the extremely unlikely event that god isn’t using the “10 to the forty eighth times as big as it needs to be to house human life” universe as a backdrop for the vanishingly small portion of it he cares about, those aliens are obviously not worth knowing, as Jesus didn’t bother to die for their sins.

Those were not embellished remarks!!! Ham actually said (quote): “You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but because they are not Adam’s descendants, they can’t have salvation.” … So shut down NASA before they get up there, and find out they wasted all that money, and come home with zero alien souls … and egg on their face.

And Pope Fralfmadorian had already offered to baptize them so they’d be heathens squared. Ham is seriously proposing this as a reason to defund NASA. Now, it would be nice if I could say that the babbling incoherent verbal ejaculate from this pencil-dicked, shit-for-brains, science abhorring, bloviating simpleton could be ignored, but he’s convinced people to act on stupider breaches of scientific literacy than “Jesus didn’t die for no Klingons” before, so we’ll keep an eye on it.

Ken Ham: Aliens are going to hell: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/21/creationist-ken-ham-calls-to-end-space-program-because-aliens-are-going-to-hell-anyway/#.U81UYawpgsY.facebook

And after that uncomfortable trip own Ken Ham’s well lubed Rabbit Hole, we’ll close the headlines for the night. Heath, thanks as always for joining me.

And when we come back, Lucinda and Eli will be here to help us wrap up the Wisdom books, but first, Peter Boghossian joins us to talk about an atheist creating book that isn’t the bible.

Interview Links:

Article on Using the Socratic Method with Children (mentioned by PB during interview)

(PDF) American Philosophical Association’s 1990 Delphi Report (mentioned by PB during interview)

Panel Notes: Wisdom Books

Unlike the Pentateuch and the Historical books, the Wisdom books actually seem somewhat biblical. While the story of Job is overrated and many of the Psalms and Proverbs are downright terrifying, the Wisdom books at least seem like the kind of stuff a god would put in his book.

Except Song of Solomon, which strikes me as ancient jerk-material … like the stuff in Bin Laden’s no-longer-secret lair. Who has a lair?!? If you live in a lair … you gotta assume someone might murder you. That’s his fault, for renting a lair.

Now, we didn’t do a recap when we finished the Historical books because, let’s face it, the Historical books basically just recap themselves over and over again, but before we move on to the final stage of the Old Testament, we thought we’d get the team together to retire this last section. So joining us for the Wisdom book recap is my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome back.

Glad to be here.

No misogyny this week?

I figured we’d be dealing with plenty in the Wisdom Book recap, no need for more this week. My head may explode as is.

Fair enough. And rejoining us as well is everyone’s favorite glutton for punishment, Eli Bosnick. Eli, great to have you back.

Psalms was the worst thing that happened to me this year…and my dad died this year.

Okay, so the problem with recapping the Wisdom books is that nothing really “happens” in them per se. Other than Job there aren’t really any stories or characters of anything like that to talk about, so I figured we could just highlight a few of the Bests and Worsts of this section. We’ll start with

The best piece of moral advice in the Wisdom Books?

Well, I’m tempted to say Proverbs 5:18, which basically tells me I should spend more time lying with the wife of my youth and playing with her boobs, but I’m going with Proverbs 4:14, which says, “don’t be evil” I like simple and to the point and lets face it we don’t get nearly enough of that in this book.
Ecclesiastes 10:19 “Money answeresth all things” Finally. someone says this. These are books of wisdom right? That or a don’t date a stupid girl with a nose ring because even though she’ll do weird stuff she’ll also throw stuff when you break up with her.
1. See, if it just came out and said that, I would be a Christian… or a Jew.
Ecclesiastes 5:3 “A fool’s voice is known by a multitude of words,” which could be summed up as “dumb people are verbose” if the author wasn’t a fool.
I enjoyed a related suggestion for dumb people … Often ignored … Proverbs 17:28: “Dumb and silent is easily mistaken for smart and pensive. So don’t say things unless you’re smart … Are you smart? … If you have to ask … probably Shhhhhh.”

The worst piece of moral advice?

The path to true happiness being smashing babies against rocks (Psalms 137:9) Worst idea ever.
damn you stole my baby smashing! You are hungry because god is mad at your or all of the advice that job’s friends give him.
I would say the bits about not fucking loose women.

Or tight men. No high-hanging fruit either.

The Book of Job … Or maybe Ecclesiastes 8:17, which says “Science is impossible, so stop trying to know things. Everything in books is stupid … Except for this …. And that … And that.”

Best WTF Moment?

The bukkake sequence in Song of Solomon took me by surprise.

You should have seen the look on your face.

Job 41 where god is drunk stepdad and just starts describing the leviathen for no reason

“I made a big fish!!! … Bill Braskey!!!”
A lot of unexpected monsters in the Wisdom books. Look guys, if there are dragons and shit in the book, you need to toss that out early. You can’t surprise us with sea monsters and unicorns half way through.

Proverbs 16:33 … “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” … So dice only seem to be random. Worst gambling tip ever: “Psst – buddy. God’s actually cheating the whole time. The way he cheats is by choosing each number exactly one sixth of the time. We never had this conversation.” … So thanks, that was useful.
The ravens god sends to gobble out your eyeballs if you disobey your parents (Proverbs 30:17 He probably pisses in your eyeholes when their done too, because… why the hell not.
1. And it’s so oddly specific. You’d think they would know they were tipping their hands on this one. Fifth or sixth time you disobey your parents and don’t get your eyes pecked out…

Worst Excuse for Wisdom?

Did anyone mention the hedonistic baby smashing? … Yeah? … Okay what about … Proverbs 13:24 … “Don’t be a hater … Beat your children with a rod … The less you know”
Building a door out of your boobless little sister, as discussed in Song of Solomon 8:8
Proverbs 11:22 which says a woman without discretion is like a pig’s nose-ring. What the fuck does that even mean? Why the fuck does your pig have a nose ring to begin with? And what the fuck does that have to do with a gossip mongering Stupid Proverbs.
ugh fucking song of solomon. Song of solomon is like that girl who you wanna hook up with and she always dirty texts you but then your like “can i come over? and she’s like” what would you do if you came over…. and you just wanna fuck a person.

“What would I do? Is this necessary? … Uhhh … I’d fuck you in your damp, well-shorn goat teeth. Okay? We’ll start with mouth stuff! Can I come over now?”

Best Passage?

And I’ll get the obvious one out of the way for you. Ecclesiastes 3:20, which basically says, “There is no god”
Song of Solomon 2:3 “I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” That just sounds naughty.
The lord most high is terrible was actually my choice because it comes out of nowhere and it made me laugh for like ten minutes. or baby smashing…god i love baby smashing

I keep picturing Gallagher, but with the watermelons switched out.

I’m going with Proverbs 26:11 … “As a dog returneth to his vomit; so a fool returneth to his folly” … Like a heroin addict swimming around a toilet bowl for an unfinished opium suppository.

Worst Passage?

Song of Solomon 1:13 “He will lie between my breasts all night,” because how can that possibly be comfortable for anyone involved? Spoon or something, damn.
Well Lucinda already stole the baby-smashing Psalm so I guess I’ll settle for Psalm 38:7 where King David informs us that he has (quote) “a loathsome sickness in my loins”

Crabs are not kosher.

Proverbs 21:31 … “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the LORD.” … So you absolutely cannot affect the outcome … of anything … your entire life … “It’s stupid for us to even use the word ‘outcome’. But fruitlessly try hard anyway! … So I can watch and laugh.”
psalm 53:1 The fool hath aid in his heart there is not god” I hate how many times a pius garbage human being has said this to me….also baby smashing. Also I don’t know if or where there is a place to talk about this but all of job is like a friend who’s drunk and wants to call his ex and you spend all night fighting him away from his cell phone and he wants to call her and he wants to call her so finally you let him and all he does is call her a bitch and hang up.

So on that odd but succinct summary, we’ll bid a not-so-fond farewell to the Wisdom books and move tantalizingly close to the end of the Old Testament.

So that … was the “wise” part??? … Doesn’t bode well for anyone, if they just climaxed on their wisdom. What are they gonna do now? … Start predicting stuff?!?

Yeah, for a climax that took so long you’d have expected something bigger and more viscous. Anyway, Eli, Lucinda, Heath, thanks again for fighting through the boredom and insanity.

Feedback

It’s time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. We don’t have a lot of time for this tonight so I won’t bother expounding on what the term “listener feedback” means, and instead I’ll trust you to puzzle it out for yourselves.

We got several emails, tweets, Facebook messages, et cetera regarding our characterization of a DO as opposed to an MD. I believe Noah referred to Osteophathic Manipulative Medicine as “Magic bullshit doctors” and I called a DO the “Go-Bot, Mr. Pibb GED” of the medical world. And apparently many of our listeners believe we were in error. Matthew sums it up, writing (quote)

“In your last episode, you […] were remarking on, and mocking a new creationist medical school. I have no problem with that. An, as of yet, unaccredited medical school founded on the principles of anti-science deserves not just your mockery, but everyone’s outright contempt.

However, your implication that the degrees they are awarding, DOs, rather than MDs implies a lesser degree of medical education is flat out wrong. While I have no faith (pun intended) in Liberty university’s ability to teach medicine in a legitimate, therapeutic, manner; that has little or nothing to do with the fact they are offering DO degrees. The fact is, Allopathic (MD) vs. Osteopathic (DO), are putatively equivalent in the medical community, and facultatively identical in terms of medical residency, specialization, and medical licensing requirements; at least in the USA.

Okay, so maybe the GED bit was a bit harsh, but other than that I don’t know that we actually got it wrong.

Right… DOs are real doctors… Just not Doctor Peppers … But nobody’s saying Mr. Pibb isn’t a real soda. I’m just saying the med schools at Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Yale, and Columbia … all serve Dr. Pepper in the cafeteria. Blind taste test, maybe they tie, but people ask for the Doctor.

Exactly. Go-Bots really do transform into little cars.

It’s true, they really do … But regardless … We are fully aware that the “DO” is a perfectly valid doctor degree in standard western medical practice.

Now, as to my comment about Osteopathic medicine being “magic bullshit,” I stand by that. Sure, a DO is a real doctor and has sufficient training in allopathic medicine, but he or she is a real doctor precisely to the extent that they don’t use osteopathic medicine.

Right, if my dentist is also an exorcist carpenter … I guess I’m okay with that, but it’s at least slightly different … And just to be clear allopathic means “medical practices based on science and evidence” … So regardless of what the other thing means …

All that being said, if I left the impression that the medical advice or expertise of a DO didn’t carry the weight of the same shit coming from an MD, I apologize for that. So for the record, DOs learn all the same stuff MDs do and they learn magic bullshit doctoring. But they mostly don’t use the latter.

Maybe the medical community can stop naming important degrees after antiquated, non-evidence based witch-doctory … But I’ll do my best in the future not to exacerbate the problem by making it even more confusing.

And that’s all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep those Tweets, Facebook messages and emails coming. You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

Outro

Before we seal the envelope tonight I wanted to let you guys know what a fucking champ Heath is. Broke two ribs on a diving play from second base on Sunday, still got the out and was back to work making dick jokes about Jesus the next day like it was nothing. If you’ve ever broken a rib or two, you know how hard it is to laugh with broken ribs, but he was willing to do that for you. A fucking champ.

I also wanted to let you know that “This Week in Misogyny” will be back next week… we just didn’t have room to squeeze it in tonight with the interview and the Wisdom book wrap up. But if you were thinking maybe we’d defeated sexism as a world culture since our last episode, I’m sorry to say that no, it still thrives.

Of course I need to throw another big thanks to Peter Boghossian for giving us some of his time this week. He’s an incredibly nice guy who is in this movement for all the right reasons. We chatted off the air for a bit and the dude’s passion for reason is just palpable. Again, his book is an easy read that is chocked full of the kind of data-driven, empirically tested methodology that we want and need to effectively devangelize. If you haven’t read it yet, be sure to check our website for a link to buy it or just search “A Manual for Creating Atheists” on Amazon.

Also wanted to throw a big thanks to David Smalley for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. Hell of a guy who, as four of you know, hosts the excellent “Dogma Debate” podcast. Very knowledgeable dude and if you don’t believe me, I can prove it. You’ll find his show linked on this week’s shownotes as well.

Of course I have to thank Eli for helping us out again this week. I know that it must seem like I’m trying to run him off by constantly asking him to watch shitty movies and read shitty books, but for some reason he keeps coming back and we’re damn glad that he does.

Obviously I need to thank the lovely Lucinda Lugeons for all that she does to make this show happen, which, incidentally, is a hell of a lot more than just the warning, the Babble, This Week in Misogyny and the Bible Stories. Couldn’t make this show go without her.

But, of course, most of all I need to thank this week’s most stellar derivatives of stardust; Julie, Braunz, Paul, Jon, Adam, Samson, Larry, Mark and Joseph. Julie, Braunz and Paul, whose wisdom is so legendary the number forty-two goes to them for answers; Jon, Adam and Samson, who god thanks when he wins awards; and Larry, Mark and Joseph, who could win a game of Monopoly with nothing but Water Works, Electric Company and a copy of Atlas Shrugged.

These nine fine doubters of the divine put a plus sign on our bottom line this week by giving us money. Not everyone has the words ending in I-N-E it takes to give us money, but if you’re benign and inclined, you’ll can make a per episode donation at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist, which you’ll find linked on our homepage… directly to the left of the donate button you can click if you’d like to make a one time donation.

And if you’d like to help us out but fuck all that donatin’ shit, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five star review on iTunes. We’re getting really close to four hundred and twenty reviews on American iTunes and if you don’t know the significance of that amount, I’m not gonna tell you. Oh, and check us out on Stitcher because we’re fucking killing it on Stitcher and a few more people listening to us there could push us all the way to the number one Atheist podcast on that platform. Cause look out, Dillahunty, here we eventually possibly come.

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: antitheist podcast, atheism podcast, atheist podcast, Eli Bosnick, Manual for Creating Atheists, peter boghossian, Wisdom Books

Episode 73 – Partial Transcript

July 10, 2014 Noah Lugeons Leave a comment

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

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

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And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s July 10th

And yes, if I’m way more intelligent than you … I’m probably right, and you’re probably wrong.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright, and from foreign terrorists’ favorite target, New York, New York,

And the domestic terrorists shopping at Target, Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

In this week’s episode,

An Alabama church’s inbreeder reactor reaches critical mass,
We’ll get to the part of the bible your grandma masturbates to,
And we’ll discuss how gay shoes affected this year’s World Cup,

But first, the diatribe.

Diatribe:

Two weeks ago, I had all these unhatched chickens. I was gonna blanche ‘em, season ‘em, fry ‘em… slather a little buffalo sauce on their wings… it was gonna be awesome.

And now I’m moping over some improvised scrambled eggs. And I’ll tell you why; like a lot of people, I’ve been looking at the numbers. Year after year I watch the polls roll in and year after year they look ever more promising. So I’m extrapolating. I’m reading the trend lines. And when you do that, you look ahead fifty years or so, and it seems like we could damn near win this fight in my lifetime.

I see articles about how religion could disappear entirely from places like New Zealand and Ireland in that time. I hear my fellow podcasters speculating on the idea that an atheist podcast might be unnecessary in another couple decades… and not just because we’ll have brain-downloadable halo-casts by then. But because there’ll be nobody left to fight. We’ll be like Alexander crying like a bitch over the lack of massacrable mermen in the Indian Ocean.

And their logic is sound, right? If you look at the demographic trends and you do some basic math, it looks like we’re kicking ass. Sure, we’re still outnumbered fifty to one worldwide and about forty to one in the US, but we’re winning. All the evidence is on our side, academia is on our side, religion’s collective PR team has a gatling gun trained on it’s own foot and the numbers are swinging our way at a pretty outstanding clip.

Those are some damn healthy looking eggs. But they’re not chickens.

The Hobby Lobby decision was a huge wake up call for me personally and I think it’s fair to extrapolate that out to the whole atheist community. We’re fools if we think religion is gonna tuck its tail between its legs, abdicate the social throne and go quietly into the night. They’re gonna fight tooth and nail, every step of the way and the closer our chickens come to hatching, the heavier their hammer is gonna get.

The hammer of choice right now is the term “Religious Freedom”, which is starting to scare the hell out of me. There was a time when “Religious Freedom” meant that the government couldn’t pass a law against being Catholic, or make a law saying everyone had to be Baptist. And back when we were using that definition, I was all about it.

But now when they talk about Religious Freedom, what they’re really talking about is “Religious Exemption”; the right to live by a different set of standards than non-religious people. That’s the exact opposite of actual religious freedom. As soon as you set up a law that says, “It’s okay to deny contraceptive care, but only if you’re an evangelical fundamentalist,” or “It’s okay to have a beard around this equipment, but only if you’re a Sikh,” or “It’s okay to suck mutilated baby dicks, but only if you’re a jew,” you can’t have religious freedom.

The entire point of religious freedom is that everyone gets treated equally, regardless of their faith. Do I really need to point out that having a different set of laws for every religion isn’t equality? Does that really need to be articulated?

And I’m sure the supporter of this bullshit worldview would argue that each religion’s beliefs are being given “equal” respect… that’s the point… that’s where the “equality” is; but that’s nonsensical. First of all, it’s just not true. There’s no official government registry of religious beliefs. The only thing that makes a belief a belief in the eyes of the law are how many people espouse it. Obviously if eight people say, “Hey, this is our religion and it allows us to smoke weed and jack off in public,” the courts aren’t gonna protect that “religious belief”. The courts are going to have to decide on a case by case basis what people do and don’t “really believe.”

But secondly, and more importantly, even if it was true, that wouldn’t be a good thing. The religious beliefs we already make exemptions for allow for child abuse, cruelty to animals, misogyny, the medical neglect of children… do we really want to expand that list? And if we do, do we really want to expand it indefinitely?

There’s nothing in the bible about abortion… except that weird magical abortion formula in Numbers. There’s nothing in the bible about contraception. And there’s certainly nothing in the bible about mandatory healthcare minimums. This isn’t a universal Christian value or anything. It’s just what some guy said he believed.

One of the many things that makes this particular case so egregious is that it’s a transparently political belief that is unsubstantiated by the religion in question. And fundamentalist Christianity in America is increasingly a political party. So what we’re doing here is creating a protected political class of people who don’t have to abide by the laws the rest of us agree to if Jesus doesn’t want them to. And again, it’s not like Christ the Savior filed an amicus brief here.

Now, strangely enough, I’m gonna close tonight on a quote from Antonin “The Devil is hiding in my Raisin Bran” Scalia in a decision from 1990 when he completely shot down a religious exemption case that didn’t happen to involve his own religion:

(quote) “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.” (end quote)

Apparently in 1990 he still thought that was a bad thing.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is stereotypical New Yorker, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to parallel park while eating an everything bagel and bitching about the rest of earth’s inferior pizza?

Fuck you.

Stereotypical enough, I guess.

That shit’s not pizza!!! In our lead story tonight, from the “Triple-Ex-Con-gregation” file, Pastor Ricky Martin – of a nameless area near Clanton, Alabama – decided in 2010 to create a trailer park behind his Triumph Church, that has since housed approximately 50 convicted sex offenders … all together … with plenty of like-minded accomplices …

You know you’re doing something fucked up when people have to refer to you as the “bad” Ricky Martin.

In a surprise twist, the state of Alabama had to be the voice of reason, when their inspection of his property revealed that he was either operating a really weird theme park … or he was running an un-licensed training facility for ex-con rapist gypsy bare-knuckle boxers. <I fucking ‘ate pikeys> Either way, they shut it down. And if we’re splitting hairs, the convicted sex offenders might not have been gypsy bare-knuckle boxers, but they were certainly nomadic rednecks, which is close.

Judging by what I’ve seen of Alabama, bare-knuckled sumo wrestlers is probably closer to the mark.

Seems like Alabama will now be facing the extremely awkward task of evenly distributing the convicted rapist horde throughout the state. So some guy … is in charge of – I guess – flipping coins and rolling D20’s to determine which ‘presumably cured’ rapist goes where. Figuring out which towns have the ugliest kids … Weird job.

Yeah, hopefully they can find an enclave in Alabama filled with obesity and inbreeding.

When asked for comment, Pastor Martin may have said (quote): “At first, it was just the homeless other guys from Menudo, but it ballooned into this big thing.” (end quote) … The pastor also pointed out that his tenants haven’t committed any crimes, and that he deserves credit for having not yet injured anyone with his enormous powder keg.

And he’s just assuming there’s no kid fucking going on, right? What are they, on the buddy system? And you know what they say, when you assume, you make an ass rape out of the frisbee going over the wooden fence.

Deleted scenes from “Sandlot”…

Couldn’t have been good when some mom went on one of those pedophile map websites, and saw a ridiculous cluster of 50 red dots on a single church … Any more than the size of the staff, and it’s obviously suspicious.

Alabama shuts down church’s “Sex offender camp”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/02/triumph-church-sex-offender_n_5551226.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And in “Of Fucking Course They Did” news tonight, the day after the Hobby Lobby decision was announced, fourteen religious employers sent a request to the Obama Administration asking that they be exempted from hiring the gays. The coalition includes bigots from a wide swath of white, predominantly male, conservative, Christian institutions; and points out that a pending executive order would make them hire them thar fudge packers and lesbos.

Yes exactly. It would be a very useful bigotry tax. So homophobic, libertarian, Christian assholes can still pollute the world with hate all they want, but they have to buy carbon credits from all the gay corporations that aren’t using them.

In the letter, they pointed out that issuing an anti-discriminatory policy without a religious exemption would mean that people who hate fags because Jesus hated fags would get lumped in with the people that hate fags just because they’re assholes, saying (quote) “We must find a way to respect diversity of opinion on this issue in a way that respects the dignity of all parties…” (end quote). In other words, “You have to find a way to respect my lack of respect to the dignity of others with dignity”

“Where are we supposed to get dignity, if not by stealing it from gays by denying them basic human rights?!? … Don’t tread on me!!! … Go oppress your own dignity from the marginalized!!!”

This is only one flake in an avalanche of religious bigots trying to jerk every drop of sperm they can out of the the conservative court’s latest splooge of stupidity. A jackass restaurateur in South Carolina is suing for his right to refuse service to blacks, citing a religious belief.

Do they mention the 15% thing in the Bible?

So can Muslim-owned corporations now refuse to provide health coverage altogether, because insurance is a form of gambling?!? This whole issue is fucking asinine!!! How does a panel of the nation’s most respected legal scholars not see that this ruling is manifestly untenable?!? Utterly embarrassing!!!

Kind of makes you feel like Ruth Bader Ginsburg had to hurry to the presses with her dissent just so she could have it on the record before it was proven right.

So the ones that were proven to be blatantly wrong … They’re fired right??? For being wrong, when their entire job is to be right??? Kind of a big deal in that position.

Surprise, Surprise, Religious Assholes trying to use Hobby Lobby decision to not hire gays: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/religious-groups-lgbt-hiring-hobby-lobby

And in “Why Would the Voices in my Head Lie?” news tonight, Pope Frankenstein’s Monster sent a powerful reminder that you can have the sixteenth century when you pry it from his cold dead hand last week when he officially endorsed the “International Association of Exorcists,” a coalition of more than two hundred and fifty demon-wrastlers that spans over 30 countries and contains almost as many IQ points. The organization was started in 1991 by Gabriele Amorth, a priest who thinks the devil can sneak into your brain if you read Harry Potter books or do yoga, says so in public, and is still allowed to use a fork like a grown up.

But I imagine he uses a bottom-weighted sippy cup to drink the blood of Christ … What does this even mean though? The Pope “endorsed” the exorcist association??? Does he get official sponsorship at their events?!? Vatican Water product placement???

Critics have pointed out that this can only lead to fewer people seeking proper psychiatric care, but Pope Fran-Sisiutl argues that there are really demons living in people’s heads that make them evil. The pope wranglers have downplayed this because it proves that one of the world’s most powerful institutions is led by a shit-squeezing level psychopath.

Yeah good thing those wranglers are around to make sure the Pope doesn’t sound crazy … Dodged another bullet … But just to be clear on your terminology … Do you mean the Pope would be inclined to squeeze really hard if he had a handful of shit?!?

And would seek out a handful of shit for that purpose, yes. Now, it’s worth noting once more that Amorth’s understanding of neurology is on par with his understanding of math, as he continues to claim that he’s performed 15,000 exorcisms in the last 30 years, which is about 14 per day. And since he says some of them take months of “investigation”, that means upwards of 50 quickies on some days.

Vatican recognizes International Exorcist Association: http://rt.com/news/170316-exorcism-demonology-pope-francis/

And from the “Glory hooooooooooooooole!” file, according to Russian Orthodox Priest Alexander Shumsky, his fellow countrymen on the Russian national soccer team were distracted by the homosexual footwear at the World Cup, which led to their embarrassing winless elimination … And I can’t help but wonder what role gay shoes played in the outcome of the Cold War, and the Lake Placid Olympics hockey tournament.

I’m dying to know what gay shoes tongue. Alright, so lay it on me; how the fuck can a shoe be gay?

The very confused homophobic priest is likely reacting to a popular pair of cleats by Puma that has a blue left shoe, and a pink right shoe … And yes, if you wore those on any soccer team I’ve played for, we would have beat you up in the locker room. But not for being gay … For being a faggot.

So you’re telling me the man who spends all his time around other men in dresses and is making a public statement about some other guy’s gaudy footwear is anti-homosexuality?

Shumksy is glad the team took their balls and went home while they still had the chance: (quote) “The liberal ideology of globalism clearly wants to oppose Christianity with football. I’m sure of it. Therefore I am glad that the Russian players have failed and, by the grace of God, no longer participate in this homosexual abomination.” (end quote) … And it’s not just Russia. Reports from around the world indicate that soccer is now (quote) “stupid and gay” in every country except Germany and Argentina.

Shumsky also said that the players might as well be wearing (quote) “ a woman’s bra and panties” (end quote), which means that (a) he thinks there’s such thing as a man’s bra and panties and felt the need to clarify and (b) that he’s been thinking about soccer players in women’s underwear.

He also criticized the players for their (quote) “unthinkable” hairstyles. And if you can’t see the picture I’m holding up, the priest looks like he was conceived when ZZ Top gang-banged Moe from The Three Stooges. And someone had a uterus.

Priest says World Cup is an Abomination because players wear gay shoes: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/07/1312315/-Priest-World-Cup-Is-A-Homosexual-Abomination-Because-Players-Wear-Gay-Shoes#.U7yOpnHny1s.facebook

And in “Shit Just Got Koreal” news tonight, North Korean officials have taken time off from fashioning exploding blunts for Seth Rogen to try two Americans accused of aggravated bible leaving. This story begins with the unlikely combination of words “American tourists in North Korea” and ends with the predictable words “On trial for sedition.”

Did they figure out that Dennis Rodman is CIA? … And by the way, why aren’t we handling North Korea like North Vietnam. We have a script for this.

The tourists in question were, of course, Christian missionaries who were almost certainly seeking to undermine the state with their treasonous Jesus propaganda and as much as I love the thought of Gideons in North Korean prisons, I’m still gonna call this one an overreaction on the part of Pete Rose Jong-Un, here. Trust me, your people could use more bibles. You let enough of them in and they wouldn’t have to burn their children in the rusted oil barrels that dot the landscape of your post-apocalyptic looking country.

North Korea charges two Americans with leaving a bible in a hotel room: http://www.christianpost.com/news/north-korea-to-put-on-trial-two-american-tourists-one-for-leaving-bible-in-hotel-room-122516/

And from the “Other Penta-Grammy Awards” file, Christian hip-hop artists Flame and Lacrae – as well as two others that don’t have such a clever name yet – are suing Katy Perry for being an ideal defendant who has more money, and less Jesus.

Suing for insufficient Jesus worked for Hobby Lobby.

While they do mention musical theft, the crux of the complaint is not that Perry stole a useless 8-note riff from their song-with-stolen-name “Joyful Noise” … Although there is a suspicious 8-note riff with different notes in her song “Dark Horse” … They’re really suing her for irreperably damaging their reputation, by associating them with: (quote) “anti-Christian witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery..” (end quote)

I’m not conceding that these guys had a reputation to irreparably damage here; but if they did, there’s no quicker way to destroy it than taking credit for Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.” And plus, it’s four notes. Seriously… they’re suing over a god damn B flat minor add 9. Plus, fuck them for making me listen to that piece of shit long enough to know that.

So I decided to check for secret Free Mason Ralien DaVinci codes in Perry’s song, and based on my research, amidst the interminable dross that is her lyrics, the song contains the name “Aphrodite” … Which does – in fact – make her a demonic polytheist, just like half the Greek diners in the world.

The video also has eyes in it, so that’s Illuminati all over your tits and a little on the bedspread right there.

So the pagan goddess reference, along with some badly-interpreted arbitrary geometry in her video, and the fact that she still shares a stock and STD portfolio with Russell Brand … I guess all that makes her bad for Jesus. And of course, that ruined the otherwise-stadium-packing Christian rapper careers of four idiots, who think their idea for 8-bar musical segments is unique.

I got just see them having their eureka moment… “So what I did, and this is the clever bit, is after I roll our way down the B flat minor add 9… except I don’t know what it’s called because I’m not remotely a musician… but anyway, after I push those four piano buttons in order, I do the exact same thing over and over again until you stop singing words.” For fuck sake, they didn’t even do the bendy thing!

Well somebody’s gonna need to make a list of evil band names that would bother the Bible-heads … And I can’t imagine anyone else but us taking the job seriously … So 30 seconds on the clock … “Blasphemous Bands for the Christian Music Bonfire” … GO!!!

See, this is gonna be hard for me because all the bands I listened to growing up were already Satanic, but I’ll try. How about Mark of the Beastie Boys?

Blue Oyster Occult

Blasphe-Meat Loaf

Purga-Tori Amos

She’d be great in a duet with Celine Diablo.

Lack Sabbath

Wow… you just came up with the blasphemous version of “Black Sabbath”… well done sir. How about “Faith no Morgies of Violence”?

Lord of the Fliza Minnelli

Damn it… I had “Father of Lies-a Minnelli”… now I have to go with something crappy. How about “The Mephisto-Police: Featuring… Sting of the Underworld”

The Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Darkness

Think Floyd

ApoState Radio

Penta-Gram Funk Railroad?

Maybe a collaboration album: Stone Temple Pontius Pilates … featuring Nine Inch Nails

Twisted Exor-Sister

Gay Might Be Science … “Nobody’s business but the church!”

Beelze-Buddy Holly?

Infidella Fitzgerald … rare twist for me … That was a clean scat reference … Now I feel like the listeners would be disappointed without a shit-demon reference …

“The Brown-Eyed Pees” … featuring Lucifergie

Nice. I was sure you were gonna get David Grohl-agothan in there on drums.

Christian Rappers sue Katy Perry for linking their music to Paganism and Witchcraft: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/03/christian-rappers-sue-katy-perry-for-linking-their-music-to-witchcraft-paganism-and-the-illuminati/

And finally tonight, in “Stupid Compared to the Other Georgians” news, Atlanta Biology teacher and forlorn antebellum love-interest from a Twain novel, Anquinette Jones is in hot water after offering her freshman biology students a powerpoint presentation that linked the theory of evolution to Satan, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, divorce, pornography and racism.

Well if evolution can cause things … you might consider believing it exists. Or was she trying to claim that people are choosing to kill babies, shoot porn, hate blacks, and be gay because they mistakenly believe that better animals fuck more???

Good luck figuring out what the fuck she was talking about. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in addition to disturbingly preposterous factual errors, the presentation also included bizarre grammatical errors, odd illustrations, cartoons from Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis and a picture of Octomom. In an understatement seemingly calculated for comical effect, school officials told the paper (quote) “the science lesson plan was not properly vetted.”

I’m still wondering how it was improperly vetted. Exactly what vetting occurred?!? What did that look like? … “Excuse me, Ms. Jones? … Ms. Blanche DuBois? … Found your handouts from Darwin’s book on the copy machine. Looks like the Genesis chapter is finished.”

When asked if she was offended by the presentation, a local parent said, and I’m loosely paraphrasing here, “Offended? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m terrified. That babbling lunatic probably archives her urine in little jars and this fucking school had her teaching science to children. Offended doesn’t even come close.”

Atlanta Biology Teacher: Evolution is from Satan: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/05/atlanta-biology-teacher-evolution-from-satan-and-the-cause-of-racism-divorce-gay-people/

And quick before my right arm goes numb, we’ll close the headlines. Heath, thanks as always for joining me.

And when we come back, Lucinda will be here for the sexiest book in the bible so far.

This Week in Misogyny:

Sometimes you read a news story and the chauvinism damn near makes the pages stick together, but other times the questions of gender equality can be a little more subtle. For example, should women have the right to be forced to cover their faces in public by men? Well, according to the European Court of Human Rights, no.

This is the latest (and hopefully final) chapter in the ongoing controversy surrounding France’s 2010 law, banning full face veils in public. The complainant in this case was a muslim women who insisted that it wasn’t some man forcing her to cover her face; it was an invisible man with superpowers.

For some human rights activists, this is a sticky situation. For women raised in a culture that tells them not to show their faces, it can be as stressful for them as being forced to show your breasts would be for a woman raised in our culture. The fact that there’s more than a little bigotry fueling some of the support for it also doesn’t help.

All that being said, I’d say one generation of uncomfortable women is a small price to pay for future generations not being ashamed of their own faces… or their tits for that matter.

French full-face veil ban upheld: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/01/france-face-veil-ban_n_5547283.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

Of course, for some people, the issues of women’s rights are pretty black and white. Take Louisiana Congressional hopeful Bill Cassidy. For him, it’s as simple as handing your girly bits to the nearest man and asking him what you are and aren’t allowed to do with them. This staunch supporter of abstinence only-education, staunch opponent of contraception and fucking lunatic on abortion has a new grandchild on the way… via his seventeen year old daughter.

When he announced the pregnancy in a local paper he said (quote) “Our daughter now faces a more challenging future than her peers,” (end quote) which means he knows he’s making the lives of young women harder than they need to be when he comes out against the problem, the solution and the back up plan all at the same time.

Abstinence only advocate learns that shit doesn’t work: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2014/07/gop-candidate-who-supports-abstinence-only-learns-it-doesnt-work-the-hard-way/

And from Louisiana we’ll shift to America’s flaccid penis, Florida, where an argument about women’s rights ended with a subhuman jackass punching his girlfriend’s bunny. Now, I have to admit that when I first read he punched her bunny, it sounded like fun to me, but then I realized that this bubbling rectal ejecta actually punched a little cute scrunchy nosed, fuzzy faced, floppy eared little adorable little bunny.

And we’re not talking about the rabbit that Tim the Enchanter warned us about here, it’s a goddamn little helpless rabbit. So here’s a quick piece of advice in case this real life Elmer Fudd is listening: Nobody has ever improved their position in an argument by punching a bunny unless the argument was “I bet you won’t punch that bunny.”

Florida man punches bunny over women’s rights argument: http://jezebel.com/florida-man-punches-girlfriends-bunny-after-fight-over-1599569298

Sorry about leaving you with such a depressing image, but I’ll be back next week and hopefully no animals will be harmed in the making of next week’s segment.

Skit:

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the case of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood vs. Common Sense, you may be left with a lot of questions. How will this affect my insurance coverage? What ridiculous concession will the Supreme Court allow for next, child sacrifice? And, most importantly, what religion should my closely held corporation be?

When deciding on your corporation’s religion, it’s important to consider all your options. You’re probably tempted to go with evangelical Christianity after seeing all the money Hobby Lobby will save by not covering contraceptive care, but the good news is that all the world’s major religions hate women, so whichever choice you make, you’ll be able to compensate them like a secondary class of menstruating harem girls.

In fact, if your primary concern is health coverage, perhaps you should consider Orthodox Judaism. The money you’ll save not covering bacon related coronaries is more than you think. Even better, think of all the money you’ll save on training manuals and internal memos now that the women that work for you aren’t allowed to read. And sure, the Sabbath day restrictions are a pain, but Jew god has proven notoriously easy to fool.

Of course, Islam has a lot to offer American corporations as well. Think about all the money you’re wasting this month by giving your employees lunch breaks during Ramadan. Sure, the constant bowing to Mecca might slow you down, but it doesn’t take too many workplace stonings to keep your employees on task the rest of the time. Plus, on-the-clock honor killings will cut your maternity leave costs by more than sixty percent!

But let’s not limit ourselves to the Abrahamic faiths. Buddhism will absolve you from covering alcohol and drug related medical costs, but perhaps just as importantly, their restrictions against killing any living thing can save you a ton of money on sanitizing costs if you own a restaurant.

The same is true of Jainism, which will allow you to pay well below minimum wage, and if you go with the Digambar sect, the mandatory nudity you can impose will eliminate uniform costs altogether. And the tenets of Hinduism are so ill-defined that you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want.

Of course, there are also a few religions you’ll want to avoid. You might be tempted to go with Scientology to avoid all those troublesome psychiatric costs, but trust me, you’d be better off getting those Scientologists to shrinks. Neopaganism offers you the opportunity to substitute an herb garden for a health insurance plan, but the group orgies and mutual masturbation sessions make for a lot of downtime. You’ll also want to avoid Mormonism because it’s just fucking wacky.

But why limit yourself to religions that actually exist? After all, the only functional difference between a cult and a religion is size so why not start your own religion? The new faith of “Incorporatism” believes that CEOs and majority shareholders are appointed by god as his earthly representatives and should be showered with elaborate compensation packages and oral sex at all waking moments. Considering the current makeup of the Supreme Court, we expect this to be the third largest religion in the United States by the Wednesday after next.

Just remember, the most important thing is to choose the religion that makes you the most money and allows you the greatest opportunity to interfere with the lives of your employees. Because fuck those peons, you’re in charge.

Pascal’s Wager:

From time to time on this show, we like to set aside a few minutes to discuss some of the common apologetics used in defense of theism. Heath, what incorrectly induced insult to intellect are we gonna tackle today?

Today we’ll be talking about “Pascal’s Wager.”

Hard to believe we haven’t done that one yet. Alright, so if you don’t mind, set this up for us. What is “Pascal’s Wager”?

Pascal’s Wager looks at religious belief like a bet. Formally, it consists of five premises.

We can’t determine the odds that god does or doesn’t exist.
If we believe in god and we’re right, we get good stuff times infinity
If we believe in god and we’re wrong, nothing happens when we die.
If we don’t believe in god and we’re right, nothing still happens when we die.
And, if we don’t believe in god and we’re wrong, we get bad stuff times infinity.

Based on those five premises, Pascal determines that the best bet to make, regardless of the odds, is that God exists.

Okay, so this one is pretty easy to refute. All five of those premises are wrong.

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily. The first one ignores the existence of less and more likely esoteric claims, the second and fifth ignore the existence of other religions altogether and the third and fourth ignore all the real world costs of believing in bullshit.

Well, according to your view, sure.

But my view, in this case, is the sound application of logic.

Yes, butthe gulf between this and proper logic is wider than the space between the dick and the walls of your mom’s vagina.

Hey!

Calm down, that was less a joke about the size of your mom’s cunt and more a self-deprecating joke about the size of my dick.

Oh… but wait a second…

Perhaps this will be easier if we strip away all the formal logic stuff and look at the argument in its more common four-word form: “What if you’re wrong?”

But again that’s not sound logic by any stretch of the imagination. The consequences of being wrong don’t factor into the assessment of a truth claim. I don’t think I’m gonna get hit in the head by a meteor when I go outside and if I’m wrong my brain gets crushed. That’s not a valid reason to wear a helmet everywhere I go.

Are you saying people who invoke Pascal’s Wager shouldn’t be required to wear helmets everywhere they go?

Well, I don’t think I’d go that far, but my point is the potential negatives of being wrong have nothing to do with whether or not the claim is true.

No, but it could have an effect on whether you pretend it’s true.

And see, that’s yet another fatal flaw in the argument. According to pretty much all the religions, it’s not enough to just pretend you think it’s true. A person can’t decide to believe something in the same way they can decide to bet on red or black.

But this isn’t a way of deciding a belief; it’s a way of justifying one. People don’t believe in god because of Pascal’s Wager; they believe it because they were indoctrinated into it or because they suck at logic. Pascal’s Wager is just there to make it seem less stupid internally.

Well then why do they always use it externally?

Because the “la-la-la I can’t hear you” approach is a little too transparent. The point is that no amount of logical analysis is going to convince somebody dumb enough to use Pascal’s Wager. You’d basically have to go back to the multiplication tables and start over from there.

Well if you can’t use logic, how could you possibly win the argument?

You can’t. That’s my point.

Well, this is the “counter-apologetics” segment. The whole point of this segment is to, you know, offer logical refutations to common religious claims.

Hold on just a second… I never said you couldn’t win the encounter, I just said you couldn’t win the argument.

Okay, now you’ve got my attention. So what are you proposing?

Well, you might not like it, because it ends with all the Christians that use Pascal’s Wager dying in agony.

Okay, so you’re endorsing… genocide?

Well, it’s best not to think of it as “genocide”… think about it more as a voluntary exodus from the gene pool based on epistemological fuck-wittery.

I still don’t think that’s good.

Yeah, but it’s less bad. Let me give you an example. If there was an invisible, undetectable race of aliens from another dimension trying to infect you with space rickets by poisoning your food, you’d never be able to prove that, right?

Probably not, I guess.

And for all you know, space rickets is the worst disease in the galaxy: It simultaneously grants you immortality and ensures that you’ll spend it with a really nasty rash on your balls and an incessant migraine and turds with nails in them. For eternity.

For the purposes of this example, sure.

So all we have to do is put this idea in the heads of these Pascal’s Wager types. Obviously, starving to death is better than space rickets, right? So you’re better off not eating. Sure, you might not believe the aliens are trying to poison you, but what if you’re wrong?

Okay, I see where you’re going here, but I don’t know that I’m ready to endorse that idea just yet.

You’re probably right. It would take way too long for them to die that way…

Well, that wasn’t the crux of my objection, exactly…

How about this? We tell them that the government is poisoning them with clouds of neurotoxins hidden in airplane exhaust and that would give them the space rickets. And then they would have to stop breathing.

Well first of all, I think somebody’s already telling them that, and second, I still don’t think we should be looking for ways to necessarily kill anyone…

Right… of course. Because it would be way more advantageous to keep them alive to do our bidding. We could just tell them that their likelihood of getting space rickets is directly proportional to how much money they give us.

I don’t like that idea either…

…Right, because then we’d be starting a religion. And that would make us no better than Jesus.

What the Fuck is… RFRA?

The lesser known third of Bill Clinton’s trilogy of horrible acronym legislation that gets pronounced like a real word; RFRA has been outshadowed by the economy-crippling NAFTA and the equality-crippling DOMA. The law was passed by a unanimous Congress and 3 votes shy of a unanimous senate back in 1993. Four years later it was declared mostly unconstitutional, and two weeks ago it was invoked to allow fundamentalist Christians to make medical decisions for their employees.

But what is it?

The heart of the legislation is contained in the following phrase: “The government shall not pass a law that substantially burdens a person’s free exercise of religion.” A law can only be exempted if it meets the following two criteria; One, the law must be necessary for the furtherance of a compelling government interest and two, it must be the least restrictive way to further said interest.

So basically the law says the government can’t do anything whatsoever until every individual religious person signs off on it. So how did such legislative bullshit become law? Easy; Americans are stupid. But how did it pass with such universal support?

Well, it was originally proposed in response to two cases. In one, the federal government was building roads across land considered sacred to some Native American tribes. The second involved Native Americans getting fired after testing positive for mescaline. And back when this was a politically correct effort to alleviate white guilt, it garnered support from the ACLU, along with every religious group in the country.

Part of the act was struck down by the court in ‘97 when a Catholic diocese wanted to expand their church but couldn’t because of a land ordinance. The Supreme Court ruled in Boerne v. Flores that RFRA couldn’t be applied to the states, but it could still be applied to federal law. In response, the congress clambered to religion’s dick tongue over lips to pass the even less pronouncably acronymed “RLUIPA”, or “Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act” in 2000.

In addition, once this weakness in the law was exposed, many states enacted their own versions of the same act, making the Supreme Court’s initial ruling increasingly irrelevant.

So what started as a well-intentioned but ultimately stupid effort to protect magic trees, magic cactuses and keep Native American tribes from drinking water that might contain “ghost sickness” is now being used to allow for-profit companies to limit their employees access to basic health care. And as we discussed in the headlines, it’s not likely to end there.

Luckily, there is a well organized effort from one of America’s most proactive atheist organizations to get this law the hell off the books. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has been pivotal in a number of our communities recent legislative victories and now they’re training their sights on RFRA.

This is a fight we all need to get involved in. I’ll be including links in the shownotes for this episode to more information on the FFRF’s efforts as well as more information about what you can do to help. Because “sacred groves?” “Ghost Sickness?” Gimme a fuckin’ break.

Babble:

A few weeks ago I posted something on our Facebook page about the bible being almost impossible to masturbate to. And at the time I meant it as a joke, but after reading Song of Solomon I’m just redacting the statement altogether. Basically, this book is a love poem that has nothing to do with anything we’ve read up to this point. In fact, I would imagine it only got included in the canon when the night scribe accidentally left his porn scroll wedged into the bible when he went home.

Even though the scrolls are only one page, it’s still easy to get them stuck together, if you’re not careful.

So to help us decipher who’s talking when in this book is my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome back.

Happy to join you for “The Holy Babble… After Dark.”

Yeah, we should totally have some Barry White playing in the background for this one, but I’ll be damned if we’re securing those rights… or even the rights to a generic 70s porn soundtrack, so instead we’ll just dive right in.

And just to give everyone some context, along with the very heterosexual couple, there’s also a chorus-full of friends watching the whole time, singing about their voyeur party, doing their best to double as a 70’s porn soundtrack.

And clearly both of them would rather be fucking farm animals, but they’re settling for each other.
1. It got bestial quick, didn’t it?
2. Yeah, the woman says, “fuck me like I was one of your sheep” and the dude says, “You remind me of one of the horses that pulls the Pharaoh’s chariot… but in a good way.”

I’d let her take a pull on my chariot of fire.

And she’s giving him the whole bullshit modesty thing. She’s saying, “Oh, you wouldn’t want to see my naked body… I’m so tan and fit from working in the vineyards all day… so sweaty and thin and bronzed…”

“Yeah sorry I’m not translucent like those real Jewish women in Brooklyn.”
And then the chorus teaches the girl how to be a stalker … “Dude’s a shepherd, right? … Follow the trail of sheep shit, and you’ll find his tent. Just don’t forget to bring your goats, because he’s into that.”

This book is a great break from what we’ve been doing though. Because we used to have to look for innuendo and maybe stretch for a pussy joke here and there. But this book just tees them up. Final line of chapter one, guys says to his fit, sun-bathed hottie, “Our beams are cedar; our rafters are pine.”

Right, and she goes out of her way to mention that the “bed is verdant” … And if there’s grass on the field, you play. Everyone feels more comfortable when there’s pubes.

Then she says, “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. A lily among brambles,” which I took as an apology for her ungainly muff.

Yeah, sounds like 70’s porn bush to go along with the 70’s porn soundtrack.

Then she compliments him by saying he’s like an apple tree. Which is a probably a compliment to both the cock and the balls.
And in case you think we’re exaggerating, Chapter two, verse 3 says “With great delight I sat in his shadow; and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
Yeah, so by chapter two we’ve already gotten oral and horsie-style. <And she just tea-bagged his low-dangling fruit … Check.> And then in verse six we get a little finger-fucking.
Then he chastises her for getting him hard before he has to go to work.
And when he gets home we get this weird stalker moment where he’s staring at her through the lattice after leaping over mountains and coming on boulders.
And apparently he’s eating her out so long she gets worried and tells him to come up for air: “Oh, my dove in the clefts of the rock, let me see your face…”

“At least wipe off your beard on my inner thighs, or something.”

Chapter three starts out with some chick masturbating while she thinks about her lover. Then she gets bored with her zucchini and went out to find some dick.

Yeah she goes down to start working the street corner, and the cops won’t even buy a blowjob.

So she asks the sentinels where the fuck-worthy dudes were, and eventually she finds somebody and drags him into her mom’s bedroom.

Because there’s no place I’d rather have sex than my parent’s bedroom.

But I think she started trying to suck him off before he was hard again because he reminds her not to awaken love until it’s ready.
So, unsatisfied with that cock, she sees the whole royal entourage coming and starts telling herself, “I think I can, I think I can…”

Then the guy takes over the narrative and Cyrano De Bergerac he isn’t.
1. It’s so bad. They have lines in their like “Your teeth are like soaking wet, recently shaved sheep,” “Your breasts are like baby deers eating flowers” and the very hard to take as a compliment “You smell like Lebanon.”
2. He also says, “Your neck is like the tower of David, on it hangs a thousand bucklers”… so I think he was complimenting the zits on her throat at that point.
3. And at one point, he compliments her “channel”… he says it’s like an orchard with sweet fruit.
  1. I think it’s fucking hilarious that in my copy there’s a footnote on that line that reads, “Meaning of Hebrew is uncertain”…

Starting to sound more and more like Zeppelin … At some point he’ll be squeezing her lemon until the juice runs down her leg. Gotta happen. Further evidence that God might be John Bonham.

Then the creepy gets cranked up to eleven in chapter four when he starts calling her, “My sister, my bride…”
But it works, because by the end of chapter four she’s unlocking her garden and telling him to eat from its ripe fruits.

And according to the girl’s own account, her orchard has “nards” … So this just keeps getting weirder.

And I’ll admit readily that a lot of the allegory here makes no sense to me. I’m pretty sure that at the beginning of chapter five when he’s talking about being asleep when his heart’s awake it’s a wet-dream reference, but later on the chick is talking about the sentinels finding her and whipping her so I’m not sure precisely what kind of kinky shit they were doing.
1. I’m with you. At first I’m thinking to myself, “Who the fuck drinks milk with their wine,” and then I realized that’s probably about sucking tits.

And then we get this creepy intruder role playing scenario. Dude bangs on the door: “Open up! My head is drenched with dew, and I’m here to have my way with you.” But it turns out she was just hoping to get fake-raped by an intruder, because she was hallucinating, and what actually happened was she got gang-banged by the group of cops from earlier. HOW IS THIS IN THE BIBLE?!?

And then she tries the “your eyes are like this and your cheeks are like that” thing, but she’s no better at it than he was.
1. …Your eyes are like doves and your cheeks are like spices and your similes are like a reluctant bowel movement.
And why are everyone’s eyes like doves? What dove-qualities can an eye have that would make it attractive? That’s just weird.

And I’m pretty sure at a certain point the dude is counting on her just not paying attention. In chapter six he basically says all the stuff he just said a couple chapters ago and sneaks stuff in like “You’re as terrible as an army with banners.” That can’t be a compliment, can it?

Yeah apparently the line about having teeth that resemble a slightly hairy wet goat landed so well the first time, he couldn’t help but go back to that wordsmith well.

And could either of you ever get a handle on who was where in this thing? One moment they’re fucking, then she’s wandering the streets looking for him, then he’s fingering her, then he’s in the pasture with his sheep, then she’s gathering pomegranates and getting beaten by somebody…

And is it just me, or is this book really materialistic? Because basically, every comparison is to some precious metal or a gem or something. It would be like telling your lover “Your lips are like fat stacks of hundreds; your cheeks are like red BMWs and your eyes are like the new iPhone that hasn’t come out yet…”
1. And how the fuck am I supposed to not make a racist Jew joke in chapter seven when he says to his beloved, “You nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus”?

Yeah, telling a girl that Syrians use her nose as a sun dial … not a good line …

And how clumsy is this shit… Chapter seven, verses 7&8: “You are as stately as a palm tree and your breasts are like it’s clusters. I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches.” You’re not even trying at this point. “Your eye’s are like… pretty things that are round… and your pussy is like a wet thing that I want to fuck…”
And how are her breasts like coconuts? Are they hairy? Rough to the touch? Hard to crack open without a hammer?

Don’t worry … they corrected that in my version. Breasts are like clusters of grapes in King James. Regardless, it sounds like this woman needs a mammogram.

But just when you think this one’s got nothing new to offer, chapter eight ramps up the kink. Opening line here, “Oh that you were like a brother to me, who nursed at my mother’s breast.” So incestual cougar threeway? Check.
1. And in the second verse, he says… or she says… at this point who knows who’s talking any more, but somebody says, essentially, “If I just met you in the street, I’d drag you into my mom’s bedroom and get you shit faced until you fucked me.” So this isn’t quite as romantic as some would suggest.
2. And starting in verse eight it takes a turn so weird the rest of the book seemed normal. It’s the chick talking now and she’s talking about how small her little sister’s tits are. And if she’s a wall they’d build battlements on her and if she was a door they’d cover her in cedar. Not sure what the hell that was all about.

Yeah the only thing left missing was a Lolita reference …

And the whole thing ends with what I think is them having a public quickie in somebody’s garden while a bunch of old women watch.

Yeah, so the obvious question as we close this one off is what the fuck was that all about? There’s nothing in this book about god or religion or morals or… anything.

It’s like a Hollywood director got a hold of this thing and said, “Needs more sex… some non-rape sex, this time.”

Yeah, so clearly it was a Hollywood director and not a exec at HBO.

So just like that, we bid a bizarre adieu to the “Wisdom Books”. Hopefully we’ll have some time in the coming weeks to give them a proper send off, but the next time we meet for the Holy Babble we’ll have moved into the final section of the Old Testament, “The Prophetic Books.”

Something of a program note; if you’re reading ahead, you’ll have noticed that the last twelve books of the Old Testament are all a couple pages long, so rather than spending eight and a half months of Holy Babble with shit like Malachi and Zephaniah, we’re gonna lump all of those together when we get there, knock this out and get straight to fucking with Jesus.

Nobody fucks with the Jesus.

Feedback:

It’s time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the program where we read the critiques from our listeners and offer thoughtful, articulate responses like “fuck off.”

Speaking of which, our first email comes from a first time listener who kind of liked the show and all, but took issue with the 30-seconds on the clock bit. Shawn said, (quote)

“If you’re gonna rip off @Midnight, at least you could be a little less obvious about it.”

And we’ll answer that with a quick trip to the timeline here. Comedy Central’s soon to be short-lived late night vehicle “@Midnight” premiered on October 21st of 2013. The first 30 seconds on the clock bit on this show debuted on episode 20 of this show and it was an extension of something we’d been doing as early as episode 12. That was May 9th, five and a half months before they jumped on the bandwagon.

It became a weekly staple starting in episode 32, so even if you start the clock there we have them beat by a full month. But we’re totally okay with them using our bit.

So only the guy from Singled Out can put specific amounts of seconds on a clock??? And only Tyler Perry is allowed to even consider what Jesus might do in a given situation?!? Really?!?

Our next message comes from Kayla who asks which part of the show is hardest to put together each week.

She also promised to shit herself if we answered the question on air, so… you know … push. Get that prairie dog going.

Yeah, for me, it’s the compliments to the donors at the end of each episode. I feel like I can never let anybody down on that one and I don’t want one person to think their compliment wasn’t as good as the other person’s, so I stress on that one.

I guess it says a lot about me that when it comes to insults I don’t even slow down, but when it comes to complimenting people I have to pace for half an hour.

For me, it’s trying to match Noah’s level of tact and diplomacy when dealing with religion. He’s always so classy about it, and I have to work very hard to keep up.

Good answer. And finally we have an email from an unnamed listener in an undisclosed location who could be hanged or have his nuts chopped off if the wrong person knew he listened to this show, which still really fucks me up inside.

Anyway, he sent us a great email about what it’s like to live in a country where everyone’s doing the Ramadan thing. He sent newspaper links about all these people that are rushed to hospitals every evening because they’ve tried to stuff whole chickens into their mouths the instant the sun winks out in the Western sky.

Yeah, and apparently starving zealots hurrying home for their 8:30pm breakfast have the driving skills of Asian women from New Jersey.

He also pointed out the amazing amount of food that’s wasted because of this holiday. I guess all the restaurants have buffets when they’re allowed to eat again because they can’t wait long enough to order shit at that point. I’m not sure if it’s accurate, but the number he cited was 1850 tons of food wasted over Ramadan just in Dubai last year.

Yeah so thanks for the email, unnamed listener, we really got a kick out of looking into it and we appreciate your continued willingness to be the first Scathing Atheist martyr.

And, of course, your email also got us to thinking of a potential top ten for this week. So here are the top ten worst things about celebrating Ramadan … Take it away Paul Schaffer!!!

10- You’re really fucking hungry.
9 – But all the good vomitoriums have a three hour waiting list at dusk.
8 – Even when you break the fast, there’s no bacon.
7 – You don’t wanna be a Somali pirate.
6 – The fast against sex and eating end at the same time, and that gets messy.
5 – Tired of hearing the phrase: “But it’s a dry heave.”
4 – The daily fourteen hour jerking off hiatus.
3 – The rash you always get from condensing your jerk schedule down to eight hours.
2 – Sometimes it’s hard to tell if your stomach’s rumbling or the vest is detonating prematurely.
1 – When the month is over, you’re still a Muslim.

And that’s it for feedback, if you want more, keep the tweets, messages and emails coming.

Outro:

Before we drop the mic tonight, I want to remind everybody to check the shownotes this week for some important links about the FFRF’s efforts against RFRA, which was really hard to say. Anyway, go to Scathing Atheist (dot) com and check the links at the top of the page. This is a fight we really need to win.

And I guess that makes this a good time to remind everyone that with the exception of interviews, our full episodes are transcribed on the website each week. The Transcript is always up within twenty-four hours of the show’s release, so if you ever want a copy of a diatribe or a poem or a 30 seconds on the clock bit or whatever, it’s there going all the way back to episode one.

Anyway, that’s all the blasphemy we have for you tonight, but if you want more, there’s more. I’m scheduled to record with Jake Farr-Wharton this weekend so I believe I’ll be on the upcoming episode of the Imaginary Friends Show. As soon as that’s up we’ll have links to it on our Facebook page and our Twitter feed.

Of course you’ll always find bonus nuggets of Scatheism on both of those feeds as well as on the erratically published blog. And sorry about the false alarm on having some guest posts on the blog. I just buried under work this week, but I’ve got a post ready to drop Monday and many more to come. So be sure to check that out as well.

I need to thank Heath for never running out of shit to wince at; of course I want to thank Lucinda for still being so damn sexy after all these years… and other stuff related to the show, too; I want to thank Professor Stephen for this week’s Farnsworth Quote. You can hear him every week live with Cash on Atheists on Air. He’s a really well informed skeptic and a funny mother fucker and if you don’t believe me, my evidence will appear as a link to their podcast on the shownotes for this episode.

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s best people, Scott, Fred, Chris, Other Scott, Nasser, Lana, Sean, Gerard, Victoria, Cody, Glen, Matthew and Frank. Scott, Fred and Chris, whose ejaculations have both started and ended wars; Other Scott, Nasser, Lana and Sean, who are so intelligent they can refute the 10% brain myth with 90% of their brain tied behind their back; Gerard, Victoria, and Cody, who are so sexy they could turn even my laptop on in under a minute; and Glen, Matthew and Frank, whose dicks are so big they thought the Large Hadron Collider was a glory hole.

These thirteen ravenously rational rabble-rousers roused some rabble this week by giving us money. Not everybody gives us money or we’d be fucking loaded. But some people do so we’re able to scrape out a living making dick jokes about Jesus and for that we are truly and eternally grateful. If you’d like to support the show, you can make a per episode donation at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist, or you can make a one time donation by clicking the “Donate” button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you’d like support our efforts but you’re still waiting for the ransom payment to come in, you can help us out in the meantime by leaving us a five star review on iTunes or any other place that allows you to gives stars to podcasts.

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: agnostic podcast, antitheist podcast, atheist podcast

Episode 72 – Partial Transcript

July 3, 2014 Noah Lugeons 3 comments

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

Note: Transcript contains elements that were removed due to time constraints.

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(For a complete list of links, please check out the shownotes under the “Shownotes” tab)

Warning: You can blame the Supreme Court for most of the profanity in this episode.

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Apostate Farm Spiritual Insurance.

Are your teenagers starting to show signs of doubt? Have they taken to sinful vices like asking questions and reading? Well act now to lock in their absolution before somebody introduces them to the Euthyphro dilemma and the problem of evil.

Apostate Farm; because indulgences are making a comeback.

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s July 3rd,

And Ken Ham’s Ark still doesn’t have the engine power to jump a shark like he wants.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright, and from “Plaza Hotel” New York, New York,

And “Grits Carlton” Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week’s episode,

Murder suspects in Nigeria can now avoid jail by pleading ‘atheism’,
The SCOTUS will let Volkswagen send their Jewish employees to the special camps outlined by their sincerely held religious belief,
And if you see a suspicious package, you’re probably at a glory hole.

But first, the diatribe.

Diatribe:

December will mark the five year anniversary of the last time I was in a church. I’d been an atheist for quite some time by then, but my wife and I were visiting my parents for the holidays and after much cajoling, my dad talked me into attending the Christmas service. He’d found this great church, see? And I’d get a chance to hear him play in the band and he was doing a little one-man play during the service and it would mean so much to my mom and if I just said yes, he’d shut up about it.

So I put on my Sunday best, loaded up a couple extra episodes of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe and sat near the back. But it became clear pretty quick that the church was too small and too crowded for me to get away with listening to podcasts the whole time, so instead I listened to all twenty six hours of the service.

It started off fine; a little story about Jesus showing up to wish himself a happy birthday with some destitute family. And then there was bad music and bad acting (sorry, dad). And then there was the main sermon (slash) screed in which the guy who pretends god exists for a living and pays no taxes on his home because of it stammered on all spittle-chunking, veiny faced about how persecuted Christians are in ‘Murica nowadays.

Now, when you and I hear “persecution” we think of the systematic mistreatment of one group by another, since that’s what that word means. But Christians apparently understand “persecution” about as well as they understand “evolution”.

Exhibit A is the fact that the persecutory slight that elicited the ire of my dad’s preacher was some waitress wishing him “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. That’s right. Failing to acknowledge the cultural supremacy of their savior’s birthday is persecution.

It’s their “go to” accusation at this point. They’re being “persecuted”. Anytime they lose a privilege that they never should have had in the first place, they cry persecution. In fact, if you go to “persecution dot com”, you’ll find a CHRISTIAN WEBSITE there.

Being forced to stop leading public school students in prayer is “persecution”. Being forced to serve gay people despite their brazen butt-fuckery? That’s persecution too. In fact, when Mississippi passed that bullshit law that allowed businesses to discriminate against gays, a bunch of businesses put stickers in their windows letting everyone know that gays were welcome in that particular business and the Christians called that persecution. We’re talking about a sticker that basically said, “We promise not to persecute anyone” and “The American Family Association” called that persecution.

And look, if it was just a bunch of silly hate-groups like the American Family Association pissing, whining and redefining, it would hardly be worth getting worked up over. But apparently this mutant definition of persecution has worked it’s way up to the god damned Supreme Court.

Now think about this for a second; if you strip away all the legalese, the real issue at stake in this Hobby Lobby case was the fact that the Christian owners of this business think that recreational orgasms are evil. And apparently it doesn’t matter that they’re wrong because they’re religious and according to our courts, being religious is the same as being right. Hell, their chief claim here is that certain contraceptives cause abortion. That’s not an esoteric god claim… it’s a demonstrably false claim. It’s been disproven by science and beyond that, it was already ruled to be demonstrably false in a previous Supreme Court case. So the Supreme court agrees that they’re wrong… they just don’t give a fuck.

Writing for the slim majority, Samuel Alito said, (quote) “…according to their religious beliefs, the… contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients.” (end quote) According to their religious beliefs. Not according to fact. In direct contradiction to fact. Doesn’t matter. Because it’s a religious claim.

But of course, this isn’t really a case about religious freedom, it’s a case about Christian privilege. The court didn’t rule in favor of Hobby Lobby because they thought that the ACA violated their religious rights, they ruled the way they did because they, too, think recreational orgasms are evil. They ruled that way because they’ve accepted the bullshit definition of persecution that the Christians have been peddling for so long.

So they hide behind religious protection even if they have to pretend corporations have religions to get there. Can we prove that the morning after pill doesn’t cause abortions? Of course we can. Can we prove that orgasms aren’t evil? Of course we can. Can we prove that universal access to contraception is a good thing? Of course we can. Can they provide evidence of any kind to bolster their claim? Of fucking course they can’t. But none of that matters, because it’s religion. And it’s the right religion, too, because you can bet your ass that the Supreme Court that thinks corporations can have religions will feel way different if those corporations start bowing to Mecca.

Hell, they basically said that in their decision. They said this ruling doesn’t count for wacky shit like Jehovahs Witnesses not covering blood transfusions or religions that don’t believe in vaccines. Just this other exactly as wacky shit that happens to line up with the religious beliefs of five-ninths of the Supreme Court. The very fact that they made a distinction between this case and other similar religious beliefs is proof that this isn’t about religious freedom; it’s about Christian Privilege. It’s about weaponizing the bible as a tool of discrimination. It’s about cloaking your political beliefs in religion and protecting your undeserved social dominance.

The majority of the Supreme Court believes that it’s okay to let people make compensatory decisions based on an understanding of human development that’s been outdated since the first time the Wright Brothers got high, as long as their ignorance is sincerely held. Just that much more evidence that the Supreme Court needs less religion and more vaginas.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is still reeling American soccer fan, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to vent?

How does that happen?!? Belgium’s tiny!!! I get it … they’re right there next to France, Holland, and Germany. Basically France with some good Arian genes … But there are enough soccer fields in this country to completely cover Belgium. We just lost to Mini-France … in a sport!!! This would be like Puerto Rico beating Team Europe.

In our lead story tonight, we have the extraordinarily fucked up case of 29 year old Nigerian chemical engineer Mubarak Bala who made the mistake of telling his family he was an atheist. Shocked by this admission, his family then launched into a series of logical, evidence based arguments in favor of their position… Which is a Nigerian euphemism for beating him, drugging him and locking him in a mental asylum.

And according to Sharia Lawyer Bello Shehu, Bala’s father had the family date-rape and abduct his son … to protect his safety … because (quote) “Once people got [a] glimpse that he is denouncing the existence of God … he could be lynched and the house set on fire.” (end quote) … So instead of anti-lynching measures, northern Nigeria pre-jails atheist lynch victims instead…

Now, I’m no psychiatrist so I don’t want to diagnose him from here, but if your dad holds the Orwellian title of “State Directorate of Societal Reorientation”, (That’s really his title!) maybe you do have to be nuts to tell him that Allah is a fairy tale. So I’m not saying the dude isn’t crazy, but one way or the other, you’ve got a dude imprisoned for atheism and that’s pretty damn wrong.

Shouldn’t the CIA be inciting a civil war there by now?!? The bottom half is Christian, and they have oil.

I’m sure they’re working on it. Mubarak alerted the world to his plight via Twitter using a stolen phone and immediately atheism’s online community leapt to inaction by signing a series of online petitions, or, as I like to call them, atheist prayers. Of course, I don’t want to downplay the social media campaign entirely, as it was no doubt the “Free Mubarak” hashtag that brought this case to international attention, which led to the London-based International Humanist and Ethical Union to take on his case… by starting another online petition.

Nigerian atheist put in mental ward for atheism: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/mubarak-bala-atheist_n_5529640.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

And in “Up with false hope, down with dope” news, New Zealand had to remind the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God that they have a shitty name with two of’s … and that while they are permitted to blatantly lie in holy books and sermons, the world of advertising won’t tolerate quite that level of dishonesty.

Take that religion! You’re immoral by the standards of an industry that pays young women to fuck cheeseburgers on camera.

So this particular church put out an ad that basically claimed: “If you’re suffering from – among other things – deteriorating health and/or incurable diseases, then you’ll probably need to sign up for our Impossible Healing Class. There’s no charge, but most people donate 10% of their income … or estate.”

The fucking ad read like they had thirty seconds on the clock for “irresponsible things to claim prayer does”. Here’s the actual list of things the ad says they can pray away: Incurable disease, undiagnosed illnesses, injuries, weight problems, pill dependency and sick children. Yes, pray away your insulin dependency and your kid’s leukemia. By all means.

“Call in the next 10 minutes, and we’ll throw in a free homeopathic elixir bottle … Just add water.” Mark Hanna – co-founder of the Society for Science-Based Health Care (which shouldn’t have to exist) – noticed the ad, and given his extensive medical expertise, was uniquely qualified to dispute their claim about the prognosis for “incurable diseases”. He lodged a complaint with an advertising watchdog agency, and since falsehoods are banned, churches pretty much can’t say things in ads anymore. Good job New Zealand, for treating religion like cigarettes.

Well, unfortunately all the watchdog agency can do is tell them to fuck off, but they’re under no legal obligation to actually fuck off. I loved the church’s excuse, too; “we’re not curing the problems, we’re helping you convince god to cure your problems.” It’s basically like paying a hooker to introduce you to her slutty friend.

NZ government orders church to stop making claims that prayers do stuff: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/27/new-zealand-church-told-to-stop-saying-prayers-have-healing-powers-because-its-not-factual/

And in “Corruption Junction” news tonight, the Egyptian government has announced a new public education program designed to steer the nation’s youth away from the dangers of atheism. In what is being hailed as a commendable effort to insure that the high point of Egyptian civilization stays right where it was, the effort is intended to (quote) “confront all issues that negatively affect [youth] and hinder steps of development toward the future” (end quote). Such hindrances, apparently, include a post Viking-age worldview.

So they’re going for futurism via Islamic fundamentalism?!? … Apparently, after Arab Spring, comes Nuclear Winter???

Included in the effort to combat rationality are the Ministry of Civic Education, the Endowment Ministry’s “Mosque Management Service” and a team of psychologists, all working together to find the best possible way of inoculating Egyptian kids against knowledge. While children’s programs like “Credulous George” and “Where in the Underworld will Carmen Sandiego burn for her impious curiosity?” have been rejected, they are reportedly considering a public service campaigned entitled “The Less You Know”.

“I’m Barrack Hussein Obama – the world’s most famous Muslim – and I’m here to tell you, that women are a fire hazard during menstruation. Be safe.” … The Less You Know … (Sound effect)

The minister in charge of the program compared it to a previous effort to combat religious extremism, pointing out that much of the violence in Egypt stems from religious extremists and the people those extremists keep killing. He explained that (quote) “the ongoing conflict will lead youth to either be religious extremists or push them more toward profanity and atheism.” (end quote) So either we’ll be stuck with a bunch of well-armed, irrational, violent fanatics or we’ll be stuck with atheists that say “fuck” a lot and both of those are pretty bad…

Egyptian government to save it’s populace from atheism: http://richarddawkins.net/2014/06/govt-announces-campaign-to-save-youth-from-atheism/

And in “Throwing the Book of Mormon” news, attorneys for the Utah-based orgy club filed suit against disgruntled former head of their Canadian branch, Winston Blackmore, claiming his new British Columbia splinter sect stole their name by registering in Canada as the “Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints”, without approval from Vatican Salt Lake City. They also claim he clearly stole their idea of tricking the local government – and a bunch of women – into letting them get away with polygamy.

And while he was at it, he also stole his name from the evil industrialist in an episode of Captain Planet. Winston Blackmore? Really? It just screams sinister monocle and red button that says “do not press”. And if you think about it, how awful a person do you have to be before you think, “You know what would help my credibility is if people thought I was the Mormons.”

Said Winston Gargamel Blackmore to the Smurfs … Reports suggest a spokesman for Mormonism threw up a little bit of irony in his mouth when he made the following statement: “When weird polygamist spinoffs of Christianity use our name, it makes us look bad.” … And just in case you were curious, I’m told he did swallow back down the irony vomit, but had some trouble, and made a little bit of this noise: (NOISE!!!)

“And while we’re at it, we’d also like to sue Mitt Romney for the ‘Binders full of women’ thing, which made us look like assholes… and we’d also like to sue Clark Kent for stealing our magic underwear idea.”

So the Mormons are sitting around trying to figure out why book sales are down – and why people keep calling them for “tickets” – and they decided someone’s clearly messing with their trademarks, so it’s time for a lawsuit … “You guys think it might be the Tony Award winning Broadway musical that brutally mocks our entire existence? … Eight times a week in the middle of Manhattan? … Nahhhhhh!!! It’s gotta be that hugely influential cult leader in western Canada.”

Mormons™ sue polygamist for using their trademarked name: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/26/mormon-church-canadian-polygami_n_5521621.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And in “Sometimes they fuck grown ups” news tonight, Catholic Reverend Sergio Librizzi was arrested in Sicily last Tuesday under allegations that he’d used his position as the head of a Catholic charity for immigrants to procure sexual favors in return for assistance in visa applications. This “Blowjobs for Amnesty” program has apparently going on for at least five years and, in true Catholic style, was by no means restricted to adults.

Another one of those fun mental images here … Catholic priest out there on the docks in Sicily … peddling his wares to fugitive stow-aways stepping off the boat … “Cocks for Docs here!!! Cocks for Docs!!! Ass ports for Passports!!!”

Librizzi was suspended by the church following his arrest. Bishop Pietro Maria Fragnelli released a statement condemning the abuse (quote) “Not only because it may be a crime, but because it… seriously damages the dignity of the priestly service” (end quote). Really, Bishop Fraggle Rock? You really think you guys still have dignity to lose? Because the only surprising thing about this is that he also fucked adults. And plus, I’ve seen your hat. Nobody with dignity ever wore an upside down pointed cranial scrotum to work.

Yeah maybe they’re hiding the dignity in the scrotum hat … Here’s how desensitized we are to priest sex scandals … The article about this from Religion News Service says: (quote) “The priest’s arrest is particularly embarrassing for the church given Pope Francis’ strong stand in support of the immigrants flooding the area.” (end quote) … So yeah, it’s the immigration issue … That’s the particularly embarrassing part.

Catholic “Blow Jobs for asylum” program called into question: http://www.religionnews.com/2014/06/25/italian-priest-charged-soliciting-sexual-favors-desperate-refugees/

“And spit … and wipe your chin … and Benvenuto in Italia!!!” … Moving on … In “I believe that we will sin!!!” news, Muslim theocracy nations had extra trouble this year competing at the World Cup, beyond the normal difficulty related to less talented players, and never getting a scrimmage due to international sanctions. In a perfect storm of lunar cycles, asinine rules, and FIFA governing, the tournament coincides with “The Ramadan” for the first time in 28 years.

And Ramadan is kind of like a holiday designed by people who want you to think suicide bombing is a good option.

Right, so “The Ramadan” is the month-long, big deal, pain-in-the-ass, Muslim holiday, during which time believers must spend dawn to dusk completely fasting from food, water, sex, and involuntary emotions. This means Muslim players think God wants them to spend 90 minutes running after a ball in the rainforests of Brazil, without a sip of water, or any food that day. It also means idiot busboys at my restaurant have their fucking bare feet in the sinks with raw chicken all the time. Because Allah wants you to bathe in salmonella.

You know, there was a point to Ramadan back when the villages needed to cycle through old people as fast as they could, but I think it’s outlived its usefulness by now.

There’s so much competition in this category, but the dumbest part of this, might be the fact that Muslims can’t even all agree on when Ramadan starts and ends. Seriously, if you google “Ramadan” it tells you a start and end date, and then says “Dates may vary.” That’s for real. It’s supposed to begin and end based on sighting of a crescent moon, but nobody is clear on who has to see the moon. So if these guys just don’t look at the sky for a few weeks, or if Brazil is overcast, they should be fine.

Muslim soccer players starve themselves mid-world cup because religion is stupid: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/28/world-cup-muslim-fasting_n_5538226.html?&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000055

And from the “Just Say Pope” file, Pope Frank Zappa recently weighed in on the international debate on marijuana legalization with a resounding “no.” The expert in pretending mythology is real that believes in demons and zombies lent both his legal and scientific expertise to the issue, saying at a recent Drug Enforcement conference in Rome (fake quote) “we should at least give the mafia time to find new money launderers before we start fucking with their income.” (end fake quote)

Pope Frankinsensimilla continued: (fake quote) “Messi … Di Maria … Gooooooooaaaaaal!!!!!” (end continued fake quote)

Pope Framphetamine’s statements made it clear that he probably thinks that people who inject the pots see spiders crawling on them while they axe murder their families, but some experts speculate that this is part of a disinformation campaign to lead investigators away from the true source of that papal chimney smoke. And when I say “experts” I mean me. And when I say “speculate” I mean pull shit out of my ass. Because I’m no more of an “expert” on the pope’s bong that he is on marijuana policy and thus have nothing substantive to add to the issue.

Pope says no to legalized weed: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/06/20/pope-recreational-drugs/11035025/

And finally tonight, from the “Boobs, Tubes, and Lubes” file, Pastor John Piper – of the “Ask Pastor John” webcast – insists that watching a TV show that contains nudity, is equivalent to watching porn, which is equivalent to personally stabbing Jesus …

Which says to me that Pastor John is really bad at jacking off. “Every time I do it I end up with a spear wound in my gut and a crown of pearls… and those aren’t the stigmata most conducive to masturbation.”

Well the gut wound could be useful, but … doesn’t matter. So in response to a question on a recent show, which suggested drawing what Piper sees as an arbitrary line between Game of Thrones and ‘snuff films’, the pastor said: (quote) “If we choose to […] enjoy or pursue impurity, we take a spear and ram it into Jesus.” … So a kitten dies, and a savior gets impaled? … Well I stabbed Jesus twice since we started the headlines … And I’m not left-handed, so it was harder … More difficult.

And therein lies the key to the distinction. It’s no great mystery how to tell porn from a show with tits in it: Are people naked long enough for me to from limp back to limp? If not, it isn’t porn. You don’t beat off to Game of Thrones… you beat off after Game of Thrones. To porn.

I do both, but there’s still an obvious difference between porn and nudity … That’s why we have seperate entire words for them. But if this guy’s gonna try to include HBO and DVDA in the same boycott, it’s like getting falsely accused of cheating on your wife … All the hassle, no new pussy … So let’s come up with some actual porn versions … 30 seconds on the clock … “Pornified TV Shows to Spite the Savior” … GO!!!

Dr. Who’s Your Daddy?

If we’re talking HBO Series, it begins and ends with “Cream On” … Well, ends …

I’m was sure you were going with “So-pornos”. How about… Charles Enlarge?

“Spunky Brewster”

“The Big Wang Theory”

“Splooge McDuck Tales” … “Fuck Tales with Splooge McDuck”???

And just because I’m sick of people saying it can’t be done: “Whore Minge is the New Black”

“Happy Sprays” … And with a black light, you’ve got “Glowing Stains”

We Love Lucy… from both ends. Like a pair of Chinese finger cuffs.

Can’t believe we haven’t mentioned any “Inter-racial Little Midget People Handjob” stuff yet … Wouldn’t want to accused of being remiss … or racist … What about “Different Strokes”???

“Honey Boo-Bukkake”… and just try not to let that one conjure any mental image at all, by the way.

Everyone must absolutely google “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” and also “Bukkake” … That’s B-U-K-K-A-K-E … Bukkake.

And when you do, remember, some photoshops can probably get you thrown in jail.

Ok so, inter-racial midget handjobs: check. Bukkake: check. As long as we’ve got the Yahtzee sheet right here … We don’t have any “Urine” category stuff yet, so … “Golden Shower Girls”??? … Pee Arthur ???

Yeah, but at their age the golden shower is rarely intentional. Which reminds me, how about “Breaking Bladder?”

Maybe a gay version: “Piddle Douse on the Faerie” … #1 new show on the Nitrogen Network

…and you better hope it doesn’t drop to number two.

Slippery slope … Shit like “21 Dump Street” … “2 Broke Girls, 1 Cup” … “Thunder Scats”

Christian Math: Looking at naked people = recrucifying Jesus http://www.charismanews.com/culture/44403-john-piper-watching-nudity-on-shows-like-game-of-thrones-is-recrucifying-christ

Well any headlines segment that ends with shit jokes is a good headlines segment, as I always say, so we’ll wrap it up there. Heath, thanks as always for joining me.

“Pee Wee’s Spray House”?

And when we come back, Jake Farr Wharton will be here to give the show an air of international allure.

“My Snow-Balled Wife” … “Girth: Va-Ginal Conflict”

Calendar:

It’s time for the atheist calendar portion of the show, this is the monthly couple of minutes we set aside to get you caught up on all the great atheist, secular and skeptical meetups going on around the country and around the world.

We did all the July stuff last week, but there’s a ton going on in August as well. We’ll start off this week in San Antonio, where the Freethinkers Association of Central Texas is welcoming David Smalley of Dogma Debate Radio for a showing of the film “My Week in Atheism”, complete with a Q&A. Doors open a bit after noon and the show starts at one.

https://www.facebook.com/events/595986790522319/

The Atheist Alliance of America will be holding their annual convention in Seattle this year, that starts on the 7th of August and runs through the 10th. Sean Faircloth, Dr. Steven Pinker, Dr. Richard Carrier and more. And from what I hear, these guys put together one of the best conferences in the country, so if you’re anywhere near Seattle, make that happen.

http://www.aaaseattle2014.com/

On the same weekend we have the Oklahoma Freethought Convention starting on August 9th. That’ll be in Tulsa and will welcome the Secular Coalition for America’s Executive Director Edwina Rogers along with Jamila Bey, CJ Werleman, Nathan Phelps and the author of the Skeptics’ Annotated Bible, Steve Wells. It’s a two day conference in the part of the country that needs it most.

http://freeok.org/

We’ve also got the 3rd annual Colorado Secular Conference coming up on the weekend of August 15th. Starts Friday, runs through Sunday and welcomes such notable luminaries as Jamila Bey, Mikey Weinstein, Greta Christina, Matt Dillahunty, Seth Andrews, Hemant Mehta and more, including some comedians, some music… great line up and weed is legal there from what I understand so all kinds of reasons to make it out for this one.

http://www.cosecularconference.org/

At the end of the month the Pennsylvania State Atheist/Humanist Conference is taking place in Pittsburgh. Really solid line up there including Jerry Coyne, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Jerry DeWitt, Vickie Garrison, friend of the show Dan Fincke, John Loftus and a lot more.

http://atheistpa.org/speakers-2014/

And finally, no matter where in the world you happen to be, you can join Freethought Blogs 3rd annual online conference. They’ve done some really cool stuff with it before and though the schedule isn’t set for this year yet, I’ll provide links where you can get the most up to date information as it becomes available.

http://ftbcon.org/

You’ll find those on the shownotes for this episode along with links for all the events we’ve discussed today. And if you’re involved with a conference that our audience might want to attend, let me know and I’d be happy to throw you a free plug. You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

This Week in Misogyny:

I know that sometimes it can seem hard to pick your way through all of life’s choices, but have no fear ladies; the powers of paternalism are working hard to save us all that trouble. So first, let’s get rid of that pesky question of what you should major in.

And it turns out the answer to that question is… nothing. That’s the advice of Rabbi Shalom Cohen, the spiritual leader of the Shas Political party in Israel, who reminds women in college that they’re taking up valuable seat space that could have a scrotum in it. In a strongly worded letter to the ultra-orthodox community, he warned about the dangers of women seeking higher education.

In the letter, he said (quote) “Our rabbis, the sages of Israel, unconditionally opposed academic study,” adding, (quote) “In addition, the material in the colleges is based on research and scientific methods that contravene the Torah!” (exclamation point, end quote). So yeah, not only are these evil women learning stuff, but they might be in danger of learning true stuff.

Israel Rabbi – Women shouldn’t go to college http://www.timesofisrael.com/shas-spiritual-leader-women-shouldnt-go-to-college/

But now that you’re armed with your lack of education, what kind of job should you be looking for? Well, according to Georgia congressional hopeful Barry “Exploding Tits”… no… I’m sorry, Barry Loudermilk, you might want to consider a career in politics. Just make sure it’s okay with your husband first. And once you’re in office, be sure to ask him what you should do.

Loudermilk dropped these pearls of wisdom in the middle of a bigoted tirade about how the first amendment really only applies to Christians. So yes, the thing about female politicians wasn’t even the dumbest thing he said during that statement.

Georgia Politician says it’s okay for women to hold office if their husbands let them: http://www.alternet.org/southern-goper-says-only-christians-should-be-protected-constitution

Of course, now that employers no longer have to cover “women medicine”, you might be considering celibacy. But if a career in the Catholic church appeals to you, you’ll still have a stained-glass ceiling to contend with.

In the first interview of his papacy with a female reporter, Pope Francis essentially spent the entire time dodging questions and visibly restraining from telling the reporter to go make him a sandwich. When asked directly if he thought there was an underlying misogyny in the Catholic Church, the pope said, “The fact is, woman was taken from a rib.” And then he laughed. And told her it was a joke. Twice. Because apparently the uppity bitch wasn’t laughing.

Pope jokes “Woman are just from ribs” http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/29/pope-francis-jokes-woman-was-from-a-rib-as-he-avoids-question-about-catholic-churchs-misogyny/

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, but I’d like to close tonight with a special “go fuck a cheese grater” to John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and the fat Catholic one that thinks the devil is real.

Poem – Ecclesiastes

A Christian kid goes to his church and says, “Hey Holy Father,

I’m trying to read the bible and I hate to be a bother,

But I think someone removed the parts that act as moral guides,

And replaced them with some boring, sexist, racist genocide.

“I’m combing through and seeking all the good stuff you allude to,

But instead I’m stuck with cryptic, Jewish, sacrificial voodoo.

The forgiving, loving, merciful, wise Lord I hoped to find,

Is absent. In his stead’s there’s one who’s lost his fucking mind.”

And the priest said “Son, within this book’s the wisdom of the ages.

The secrets of the lord’s desires are dripping from it’s pages.

The way the universe was wrought, the point to our existence,

But if you want to read it right, I’ll offer my assistance.

“You see you can’t just read it Genesis through Revelations,

As some eternal laws have reached statutes of limitation.

There’s a certain way of reading through these bronze aged Jewish epics,

That ensures you miss the bad stuff and find the precious bits of ethics.

“In Genesis, the benefits are done by chapter two.

You know the stories after that, so it’s better to thumb through.

With Exodus, the rest of us, have studied that one for you.

The Heston flick is better but even that one’s sure to bore you.

“Leviticus? A bit of this is pertinent today.

But none of it applies to you, unless, of course you’re gay.

And Numbers? What a slumber reading that one would induce.

Trust me, half the book is just spent counting all the jews.

“Deuteronomy has gotta be the hardest book to read.

There’s nothing there you need to know, that much I’ll concede.

With Joshua, my gosh, you want to skip past that as well.

And ignore the folks that tell you that one’s violent as hell.

“And Judges? No one trudges through that long and pointless text.

Samson’s pretty cool but all in all it leaves you vexed.

To tell the truth the book of Ruth is really short and ungermane.

You can read it if you want to, but it’s better to abstain.

“Samuel through Chronicles will leave you catatonic, full

Of history that’s blisteringly dull and histrionical.

Ezra’s just an extra little post-exilic tale,

No need to bore yourself with it’s superfluous detail.

“Nehemiah’s just some guy, ya know, he doesn’t do that much,

And Esther’s just yer average Jewish princess with a grudge.

Your frontal lobe will reel at Job, as the moral’s pretty brutal.

It basically says being good and loving god is futile.

“Stay calm when you see Psalms, cause it’s a million pages deep,

And sure, some of them are decent, but it’ll put your ass to sleep.

And don’t bother with the Proverbs, despite their wise, profound appearance.

If you read the bits on beating kids you’ll be frightened of your parents.

“But when you reach Ecclesiastes, settle in and take your time.

The Old Testament will never get any closer to sublime.

So read each chapter there and savor every fucking word,

Because the eighteen books that follow are increasingly absurd.

“Then just skip ahead to Jesus, the Lord’s sole begotten son.

Read a little bit of Matthew, John Three Sixteen and then you’re done.”

But the kid responded, “Father, there must be some better way.”

So the priest said, “Sure, just skip the book and trust everything I say.”

Bible Story – Noah’s Ark

Gather ‘round boys and girls. Today we’re gonna open our bibles up to Genesis and learn about the biggest temper tantrum that god ever threw. And there’s animals so it’s a good story for kids your age, even though almost all of them die.

Now, once upon a time there was a man named Noah who had a wife and three sons. And there were also rock monsters, wolves with scales and Anthony Hopkins, apparently.

Back in Noah’s time, all the people were evil. But Noah was less bad than the other people, so God decided to speak to him. And he told Noah that he was really, really angry because all the people kept being so evil. So god decided that he should drown every single one of them along with their kids and their babies and their animals and the wild animals and most of the plants. Because otherwise, people would suffer.

But luckily for Noah and his family, God decided to let them live, along with two of each of the animals. Because if god didn’t love incest so much, he probably wouldn’t have fucked his own mother.

So Noah built a giant ark just like god asked, even though he was six hundred years old and it was impossible. And once he was finished, all the animals of the world showed up to file into the boat. And each of them carried a backpack full of 365 lunches so they wouldn’t get hungry along the way.

And then it started to rain. And Noah and his family got into the boat, listening mercilessly to the echoing screams of humanity, desperately clinging to driftwood and tree tops as the inevitability of their expiration became clearer. The few who were lucky enough to survive the first day or two were treated to a horizon full of bloated corpses as the wildlife began to float to the surface. And as the incessant rains brought them closer and closer to oblivion, they comforted themselves with the fact that their demise would at least bring an end to the horrid stench of death.

But inside the boat, Noah and his family were safe. So after a whole year spent shoveling shit and eating ever moldier bread on a boat full of urine stained floors and unwashed animals, the waters finally started to go back down. Noah parked his boat on top of a giant mountain and proceeded to get completely shit faced. After all, if your dad was stuck in a boat with you for a year, he’d want to get drunk too.

And it must have been a really good binge because he passed out completely naked. But while he was unconscious in a puddle of dried vomit, his son Ham saw his penis and did a shameful act. The bible doesn’t tell us what that shameful act was, but after the story, we’ll break out the crayons and you can draw a picture of what you think it was.

Now, because of the thing Ham did, his son was cursed for all eternity. And even the people who weren’t cursed had to have sex with their own family and stumble over the necrotic carcases of god’s innocent victims for the rest of their lives.

The end.

Feedback:

It’s time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show where we piss off the people who wrote in to tell us how pissed off they already were. But we also answer questions and stuff.

Our first message comes from Atheous who told us on our Patreon page that he likes the longer episodes more than the girthier ones, but wonders if we can rib the episodes for his pleasure.

Not sure where you have those headphones, bro, but if you’ like I can add some rhythmic bass here and there.

Ears, nose, throat … We’ll find the clit eventually.

We also got an email from Mark who asked why we spend so much time covering gay rights issues. He makes it really clear that he’s not faulting us for it, but wonders why our show and so many of the voices in the atheist community are so outspoken about gay rights.

We’re actually outspoken about human rights … We just have a much more reasonable definition of ‘human’ than churches, or Citizens United.

Yeah, the way I see it, the religious folks are picking on the people that they see as “on the margins of society”. And not only do we have a moral obligation to help them, but atheists are probably the next minority in line to lose their rights if Christians get their way in this country. So it’s like a really altruistic self-interest.

John was pretty pissed off about the close of last week’s headlines segment. Noah made a joke about the barbaric history of British colonialism, I followed it up with a joke about Nazi appeasement (which I’m fully aware was what the US did) and we finished with a joke about how England would have been useless in World War Two without the aid of their former colonies. And John took exception, without hearing the tacit satire sound effect that goes along with most of the things I say on the show. But I think there was also an editing thing with a joke about France.

Yeah, so first of all, apologies to the audience and to Heath. A little of that got cut in editing so it kind of sounded like Heath said England was occupied by Nazi Germany. He didn’t. That was my bad. As for the bellicose, nationalistic dick-waving that made up the rest of John’s comment, the gist of it was that British people are superheroes and Americans are cowards and he might be right on that, I’m not sure. I’m willing to admit that America has historically been guilty of failing to rush to war fast enough, but I think it’s obvious that we’re working on that.

Yeah now we’ll war on your face before the condom’s unwrapped. Don’t worry though, we’ve already got Halliburton ready to clean you up.

Yeah, so for the record, I’m sorry three throw away lines at the end of a bit failed to fully encapsulate the nuances of the most complex global conflict in human history.

Right… we don’t actually think the Brits were really polite to the Nazis and threatened to tell America that they weren’t being nice to the Jews. And while we’re on the subject, we also don’t really think that the average Nigerian spends their day jogging with herds of gazelles. It’s all a stupid patriot act. In all seriousness though, I’m fully aware that American foreign policy over the last century has been largely awful and destructive, whereas the UK has been relatively reasonable over that same time. And fuck France! Am I right, or am I right?!? This guy knows!

But I did want to make one correction John pointed out. I said during that bit that England “until recently” had Charles Darwin on their money. I read last year he was getting bumped for Jane Austen, but I didn’t realize that didn’t wasn’t happening until 2017, so my bad on that.

And finally we have an email from Gregg whose job recently landed him in the secular, progressive haven of Tennessee. He’s new to the bible belt and wrote to us hoping Noah could offer some advice on how to handle the transition.

Yeah, and Gregg mentioned in his email that he’s not looking for confrontation so my first eleven pieces of advice are out the window.

How about “Don’t live in Tennessee.” … or “Learn to be confrontational.” ???

Honestly, that’s part of it. Because you can avoid it most of the time, sure, but eventually you’ll find yourself in that position, so it’s good to be ready for it. But I was thinking this would lend itself to a quick top ten list. So here’s our top ten ways to politely turn down an invitation to church.

10 “Can I bring my lesbian friend? She could use a good stoning.”
9 “I don’t know, when I go to church my stigmata always flares up.”
8 “I’d love to, but I’m part of a secret society… I don’t think I need to mention the name… and we meet on Sundays”
7 “Something about the music really gets to my tourettes”
6 “He’s lying. I’m the one- FUCK!!! ASS!!! … I’m the one with Tourette’s. But Noah, you should go. You’ll enjoy- CUNT!!! You’ll enjoy it.”
5 “Awesome! I’ll bring my athame and my goat’s skull.”
4 “So it’s kind of like an open-mic night?”
3 “Is Christianity the one with the Autobots and Decepticons?”
2 “Sorry, I do football on Sunday. No time for another fantasy league.”
1 “I’d love to, but churches are evil institutions designed to fleece the masses whilst cloaking the unscrupulous acts of those that lead them and I’d probably get pissed off enough to shit on the pulpit.”

And that’s all the feedback you get. If you want more, send us more emails. You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

Outro:

Before we tuck you in tonight, I want to thank Carl from the Post Rapture Looting Podcast for inviting Heath and me on to help him celebrate his 100th episode. That episode is available now and you’ll find it linked on the shownotes for the episode. Star studded cast, a lot of rather brutal humor at Carl’s expense… great time.

Also, a quick request to anybody who’s going to TAM, lot of really big names there and if a couple of our listeners made an effort to talk a few of the speakers into perhaps recording a Farnsworth Quote on their phones, I’d greatly appreciate it. The first person that snags one from Bill Nye, Dan Dennett or Steven Novella and sends it to me gets a free autographed copy of our book.

Anyway, that’s all the blasphemy we have for you today, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with more. Of course I can’t cue the music until I’ve thanked Heath for his quintessential Heath-ness. I need to thank Lucinda for not one but two awesome contributions this week. Also need to thank Oliver from the brand-spanking new “All Too Common Law” podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth Quote. His show is just getting started but it strikes me as damn informed. If you want to check it out, you’ll find a link on the shownotes to this week’s episode.

Of course I need to thank Jake one more time for joining us. Incredibly nice guy, funny as hell and one of the voices our movement is lucky to have. His podcast, The Imaginary Friends Show is definitely one of the shows that inspired this one so if you haven’t checked it out yet, you’ll want to make that happen. You’ll find a link to his website on the shownotes as well.

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s most distinguished disbelievers; Danna, Chris, Rondi, Woof, Scott, Shane, Nancy, Jonathan, George, Lee, Jeff, other George, other Chris, other Jonathan, Craig and Michael. Danna, Chris, Rondi and Woof, who are so clever they put iocane powder in both cups; Scott, Shane, Nancy and Jonathan, who mosquitos know better than to fuck with; George, Lee, Jeff and other George, whose neuronal pathways needed an HOV lane; and other Chris, Other Jonathan, Craig and Michael, who are so sexy they can masturbate to themselves masturbating.

These sixteen candles in the dim stretches of ignorance have helped insure that future generations inherit a world with less religion, less irrationality and more archived dick jokes by giving us money. Not everyone has the money it takes to give us money, but if you have money that you don’t need for important stuff, you can give it to us.

You can do so by making a per episode donation at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist, which you’ll find linked on our website, or you can make a one time donation by clicking the “donate” button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. I’ll compliment your sex organs either way.

And if you want to help but giving money to atheists is against your religion, you can also help us out a ton by leaving a review on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever. Especially if the review is good.

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: antitheism podcast, antitheist podcast, atheism podcast, atheist podcast

Episode 71 – Partial Transcript

June 26, 2014 Noah Lugeons 1 comment

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

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

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

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

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

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s June 26th,

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

I’m Noah Lugeons,

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

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

On this week’s episode,

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

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Headlines:

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

How about the dumb?

It’s a start.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muslims just need to pick a less ubiquitous kryptonite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“77 Nun-set Strip”

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

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

…or “Kick the Habit”

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

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

“The Booby Trap at Single Mother Superior’s”

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

“Sisterhood of the Traveling Implants”

Basilicone Implants, to be exact.

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

“The Titty Twister Sister Fister.”

“The Tits n Asherah Pole”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fire up the Bung Bong!!!

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

This Week in Misogyny:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Song: Numbers

1 is the number of gods and he gives

2 shits about who gets killed and who lives.

3 times Balaam and his donkey have spats

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

5 chapter in things get scary for chicks,

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

And 7’s for resting unless you need stones,

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

8 too much Manna? Should you voice your critiques?

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

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

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

11 Tribes conscribe all their fighting age men,

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

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

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

30 Days mourning when god kills Aaron on high,

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

50 percent of this book we spend bored

Counting jews and the booty they offer the lord.

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

Enumerated offerings are in detail described,

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

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

WTFI – Baha’i

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feedback:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why don’t women like rape jokes?

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

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

Outro:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: antitheism, antitheist, antitheist podcast, atheism podcast, atheist podcast

Episode 70 – Partial Transcript

June 19, 2014 Noah Lugeons 3 comments

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

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

Warning:

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

Sponsor:

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

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And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s June 19th,

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

I’m Noah Lugeons,

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

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

On this week’s episode,

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

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Headlines:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They are attached to those extra fingers and toes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Strap-Ontario: Camel Toe to Camel Toe”

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

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

“Fatwa-nnipeg: Man on Manitoba”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big Bang Shakalaka!!!

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

Babble – Ecclesiastes:

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

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

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

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

Happy to be here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, there was a lot of decent shit in that little poem at the beginning of chapter seven, but then they have to fuck it all up with the sexist close.
Couldn’t get through this thing without a dig on how awful and stupid women are…

Well, and chapter eight opens with a justification of the Nuremberg defense, so it’s not all wine and roses, but it’s at least a lot better.
1. I also love how at the end of chapter eight it basically says, “It’s a darn shame that science will never exist, because how awesome would that be?”

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

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

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

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

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

I think it also provides biblical justification for driving on the right side of the road, former British colonies.
I love how there’s so much emphasis on how nobody knows what the future holds. And it says this several times, even though we’re only one book away from the “Prophetic Books”.

Then there’s some good Mitt Romney advice here … “Borrow a few thousand shekels from your parents and export grain to a corrupt foreign government.” Just in general, be rich.
1. Then it reminds you to be frugal and work hard and not be a bitter asshole in your old age. That’s all good advice.
And it closes by reminding you to fear god and keep his commandments, which is all bad advice.

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

But best of all, it was short.

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

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

Alright, so thanks again for joining us, Lucinda.

Feedback:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We all live-“

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

“We all live in a-“

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outro:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: antitheist podcast, atheism podcast, atheist podcast, Camels with Hammers, Dan Fincke, Scott Esk

Episode 66 – Partial Transcript

May 22, 2014 Noah Lugeons Leave a comment

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

(Note: Transcript contains elements that were removed due to time constraints)

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Warning: These guys use the F word like motherfuckers.

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new walk-in circumcision service, Adjust the Tip.

Are you planning to celebrate the birth of your infant son by mutilating his genitals, but you don’t want to get blood and herpes all over your living room? Wouldn’t you be more comfortable bringing your child to a Rabbi’s house, that has a dungeon for that specific purpose? Then come on down to Adjust the Tip: Adjust for a second … Adjust to see how it feels.

And now, the Scathing Atheist.

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s May 22nd,

And according to our sources: Tucan Sam leaps on the back of the wind.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright, and from the unofficial capital of the world, New York, New York…

And home of the world’s second largest kumquat, Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week’s episode,

Sudan decides to murder a hostage in response to “Draw Mohammed Day”;
We’ll learn the dil-dos and dildon’ts of life in rural Georgia;
And an autistic kid is back on the subway posters. Could this be the work of the Rain Man Maker?

But first, the diatribe.

Diatribe:

So it’s Sunday afternoon and it’s gorgeous outside and I hadn’t settled on what to do this week’s diatribe about yet, so when I wandered out of the store and saw the little church group set up in the parking lot, I said, “what the hell?” and I mosied over. Three women and an old man, all wearing matching teal shirts with something about Jesus on the breast of them. And they had a little sign that said, “Do you have questions? Let us help you find the answer in Christ,” so technically, they were asking for it.

Cause I do have questions. I wasn’t going over there to fuck with them… or, more accurately, I wasn’t just going over there to fuck with them. I really do have questions. I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious household so there’s fundamental shit about the Christian doctrine that makes no sense to me at all.

So I smiled and said hi. And I told them in advance that I was an atheist. I even warned them that I wasn’t looking for a religion or anything, but I did have a lot of questions about the tenets of Christianity. And three of them smiled and the other lady went to get a Coke. And bifocal lady was really nice at first and she said, “We’ll answer you if we can.”

So I lead off with what I considered a softball. I asked them, “What does it mean that Jesus died for my sins?”

She launches into the whole original sin thing and tells me about how we’re all born with sin and we all fall short, but lucky for us god made the ultimate sacrifice and sent his only begotten son to die for us so that we could be redeemed.

And I agreed that yes, those were all words and all, but they didn’t really answer my question. And while we’re on the subject, how, exactly, is god making a sacrifice here? He lives in Heaven. When Jesus died, he ascended to god’s house. So… where’s the sacrifice? It’s like Jesus was active duty.

But she wasn’t quite tangled in her theological web yet so she kept weaving. See, Jesus was god and all the suffering he went through on the cross was actually god suffering. So not only did he have to let his kid go to camp for a really long time, but he also had to be brutally murdered. Ergo, ultimate suffering.

So I reminded her that murder doesn’t really count if you get to come back to life three days later so at best, he was brutally tortured. But even if we call it murder, it’s not like Jesus’s crucifixion makes the top billion of the worst suffering of all time, does it? If you gave me the choice between being crucified or dying of pancreatic cancer I’d bring my own nails. And I that’s even if I don’t get to rise again at the head of a zombie army after three days. So what’s so ultimate about Jesus’s suffering? Fuck, Caligula used to have people executed by having them cut a thousand times over several days. Nero used to crucify people and set them on fire. So Jesus’s suffering wasn’t even all that bad compared to what Romans were doing around that time.

And really, when you consider that he didn’t actually die, his suffering is basically on par with an elbow tattoo. I’d argue that Jesus suffered significantly less than, say, that dude in Iowa that had the hiccups for sixty years. And nobody goes around saying “Charles Osborne hiccuped for your sins” or anything.

And how does one guy suffering abdicate another guy from responsibilities for his sins? And just who set up all this “humanity redeeming” red tape that god had to navigate? And if the sins are preloaded software, what’s god so pissed about? Didn’t he write the software? Does this even make any sense to the people selling it?

But, of course, I never made it that far into my questions. At a certain point the old guy cut bifocal lady off and explained at a certain point you have to set your questions aside and just have faith. At which point I reminded them that their sign specifically asked for questions. And then he politely asked me to leave. And then he impolitely asked me to leave. And then he told me I was going to burn in hell if I didn’t change my evil ways.

So asked for one parting question, and he granted it. I said, “If you’re not allowed to ask these questions, how do you know you have the right religion.” He didn’t answer. But that’s okay… it was rhetorical anyway.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is atheism’s most eligible bachelor, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to woo the lovely ladies out there?

I’m just looking for a girl who appreciates both abortion jokes, and abortion (pause) the procedure … Not her, though. I mean, like … poor people, in general.

In our lead story tonight everyone who keeps saying there’s nothing wrong with Islam needs to shut the fuck up already. This story comes to us from a nation that’s been in a steady decline since the Canaanites were running the show, Sudan; where a recent court ruling sentenced a pregnant woman to death for the charge of switching allegiance to the wrong hypothetical celestial dictator.

What kind of sentence did the fetus get? … Besides “Lifetime Semi-Orphan”? While the court decides this stuff, we’ve got this cool “Schroedinger’s Pussy Cat” thing going on in her box.

Wow… a quantum abortion joke with multiple vaginal puns. That’s, like, eighteen points. Well played, sir. Anyway, Meriem Ibrahim was convicted of marrying a Christian man despite being preordained a Muslim at birth, but as a show of civility, they’re going to let her have the baby before they hang her… and in a show of barbarism, they’re also gonna flog her 100 times for fucking her husband first.

Ok good – I was wondering if they were going to address that. But if you believe she’s going to hell, you don’t give her floggings before a death sentence … That’s a reward, idiots!!!

When you see articles on this story a lot of them get hung up on whether she should really be considered a Muslim at all since she was raised by her single Christian mother, despite the state’s patriarchal system of religious affiliation. But I don’t want to discuss any of that because it detracts from the only thing that should matter about this story, which is that somebody’s going to die because Allah is as fragile as a fourteen year old when it comes to getting dumped.

Pregnant Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/sudan-woman-apostasy_n_5331117.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

And in “Montana has 2 Senators that are Democrats?” news … Yes it does, and unfortunately the state will continue having 2 such extremely powerful seats, despite Republican Steve Daines, and his sudden ascendance to landslide favorite status against incumbent John Walsh, after said challenger talked six people into voting for him at the Walmart. And if it was just the Republican thing, that would be fine … I’m a de facto racist too … But this guy is on record preaching for creationism in public schools.

And that’s the problem with letting Montana have senators. No offense, Montana, but the fucking Bronx doesn’t have two senators and they’ve got more humans than you.

Here’s what Daines had to say during a 2012 interview on Montana Public Radio: (quote) “I think we should […] teach students that there are evolutionary theories, there’s intelligent-design theories, and allow the students to make up their minds.” (end quote) … Evolution and Genesis aren’t two sides of an argument. One is a proven narrative of biology on Earth. The other is a very specific baseless claim about metaphysical origins of existence. It’s like comparing apples and oranges … to decide which one is better food for unicorns.

But it’s actually worse than that. It’s like deciding whether you should feed your kids apples or oranges… or unicorns.

Daines added, (quote) “Personally I’d like to teach my kids both sides of the equation there and let them come up to their own conclusion on it.” (end quote) … Now I’m not sure if he subscribes to “Math Theory”, but he just put two completely different things on either side of an equals sign, and wants kids to impossibly choose the better side, using historical calculus or something.

“And I’d also like to teach them about proper genital hygiene and teach them to bleach their dicks every night and let ‘em figure out for themselves…”

As I understand it, some of them eventually learn to clean up after they jerk off.

Montana still allowed to have Senators: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/05/18/rep-steve-daines-possibly-the-next-senator-from-montana-supports-teaching-creationism-in-public-schools

And in “What about the eight commandments I didn’t break?” news tonight, a recent survey adds an exponent to Christian hypocrisy by demonstrating that, to a large extent, Christians are even full of shit about being full of shit. The study, cleverly titled “I Know What You Did Last Sunday” asked two groups of Americans about their church attendance; one through an online survey and the other over the phone. And as it turns out, the easier you make it to lie, the higher their self-reporting of church attendance rose.

So they’re also clearly lying about really believing in God. Or they do believe in God, but they’re so fucking stupid that a temperamental, omnipotent hell-banisher doesn’t scare them enough to tell the truth about stuff.

Of course, we’ve long known that religious people tend to exaggerate their piety on surveys, but these researchers found a clever way to demonstrate this fact. People are much better at lying when they don’t have to do it to a person. And the results are unmistakable: the online group reported regular church attendance almost 50% more than the phone survey.

This is just some anonymous survey … They don’t even have anything to gain by lying. They’re not even good at being bad Christians!!! If you’re gonna sin and let Jesus retroactively die for it, at least get some bang for your buck.

The survey broke the numbers down by denomination and it turned out that Catholics were slightly more full of shit than protestants, though to their credit, Catholic services are both more boring and more likely to end in anal rape, so who can blame them?

Study shows Americans lie about church attendance: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/05/16/new-study-shows-that-americans-lie-about-how-often-they-really-go-to-church/

And in “Bring out your dead!” news, the Amish – and their refusal to follow basic personal and public health procedures – are behind a measles and mumps revival in Ohio. Considering the group appears to live in 14th-century Europe, plague isn’t far behind. Unvaccinated missionaries contracted the diseases while passing out “books to read while dying” in places like the Phillipines, which aren’t lucky enough to have entirely cured those yet, like we have here …

I know this is off subject and all… but how the fuck did Amish people they get to the Philippines? Did they caulk the wagons? Wire together half a port-o-potty, some sticks and an anthropomorphized volley ball? Anyway, you were saying… fully preventable outbreak of potentially fatal disease caused by intentionally antiquated doctrine?

Let’s put this particular instance of mass stupidity in perspective … According to the Center for Disease Control: (quote) “Before the measles vaccine became available in 1963, the virus infected about 500,000 Americans a year, causing 500 deaths and 48,000 hospitalizations.” (end quote) … Now that ‘half a million’ number is down to well under 300 cases per year. But it only works if people take the fucking panacea!!! Why is that hard to sell?

It’s like a genie asking if you’re sure you don’t want to go for more wishes. “No, I’m happy with thisy-here eight slice toaster and the new spark plugs for my ridin’ mower.”

I’m curious about one particular facet of this story … What do Amish missionaries do? What hermetically isolated aboriginal tribe is begging to learn the miracles of their fancy linkin’ log technology? … They’d show up, and have African kids teaching them how to use soap, and dial-up. Mormons should be visiting the Amish … teaching them to build modern reclusive inbred compounds.

Ohio measles outbreak blamed on Amish missionaries: http://www.religionnews.com/2014/05/14/ohio-measles-outbreak-tied-amish-missionaries/

And in “But who will feed the chupacabras?” news tonight, it appears the Vatican has already solved all its real problems and can now move on to addressing imaginary ones. Sources that have websites that look for real and shit report a sharp increase in the training and certification of Catholic exorcists. The Vatican explains that this is in response to an equivalent rise in demonic possessions. So despite the nonexistent nature of demonic possession and the ubiquitous knowledge of mental diseases, they’ve elected to stick to the throwing water and chanting school of human psychology.

And the Vatican also noted that “Impostor Exorcists” were becoming a big problem … “Bunch of charlatans who never completed the Vatican’s rigorous exorcism safety course. We’re trying to sell Sky Cake over here, and these assholes start popping up out of nowhere with unlicensed Sky Baklava!!! This is bullshit!!!”

The Vatican blames this rise in nonexistent things on another rise in nonexistent things called “the dark arts” that include a mixture of things that do and don’t exist, including black magic, Satanic sacrifices and Ouija boards. So, yes, according to one of the wealthiest and most influential institutions on earth, Milton Bradley is casting demons.

Good, this exorcist army should work out just fine. We’ll get a bunch of priests running around the woods at night, tackling groups of 10-year-olds, just about to spell a word with vector addition. What could go wrong?

Earlier in the year a Catholic exorcist explained the desperate need for more water throwing medicine-chanters by stating that he’d personally assisted in at least 160,000 exorcisms in his career, which basically means one every hour and twenty-eight minutes of his waking life. So apparently they get their understanding of math and neurology from the same century.

Vatican to churn out more exorcists due to rise in demonic possession: http://www.examiner.com/article/catholic-church-increases-exorcism-training-due-to-a-rise-of-demonic-possession

And from the “Secular Healing” file, Melissa Davenport – of Sandy Springs, Georgia – filed suit against the city for enforcing a church-state entanglement law that prohibits the purchase of sex toys without a medical prescription. In my script it says “(insert dildo … joke here)”, so I’ll let you handle that, while I go ahead and get the clock warmed up …

That would be easier if you hadn’t paused so long between dildo and joke. Hold on a second…

Davenport suffers from MS, and sex toys allow her to enjoy naked time despite nerve damage. Despite this obviously counting as an exception to their stupid rule, many Georgian lawmakers – still clinging to the very creepy “Vaginal Paternalism” doctrine – figure she probably just has Pre-MS … Their reasoning goes something like this: “Whether or not God decided to kill her axons and dendrites, and whether or not the clit’s real, he made her a woman, so he clearly didn’t intend for her to cum.”

Dude walks into a store going, “I need a ball gag… I brought a note from my dentist…” Cops breaking down doors… “Do you have a license for that showerhead, ma’am?” This fucking state… Where’s William Tecumseh Sherman when you need him?

I’m confused though … Do you need a doctor’s note to buy a banana, or several large grapes and a string??? … “I’m sorry ma’am, your insurance covers these gerkins, but the cucumbers are considered elective. I think you need to check your dill-dosage again.” … OK no segue needed … 30 seconds on the clock … “Ideas for the Medicinal Sex Shop” … GO!!!

Alright.., quick visit to the RXXX shop… I guess “Prickorette Phallic Cessation Device” is too easy, huh?

The oral fixation is the hardest part – cigarettes or pole, I assume … Ok, what about …

The Strap-Oncology Ward: “Our Ream-O-Therapy leads to Spray-diation, or your money back.”

How about some kind of blood pressure cuff (slash) penis pump… Engorged with blood-pressure cuff, I guess?

That’s what those things at Duane Reade are for. Makes a lot more sense. We’re getting off track. This is serious! Medical Dildo Store! Focus! … H2O-Face: Colon Hyrdrotherapy Kits

Pepcid AC/DC. It would be… I don’t know, like a lubicidal antacid or something.

The Happy Rear-Ending Personal Massager

How about something for ejaculatory incontinence? A French Trickler of some sort.

“Semi-Colon Tool Softener” … For that gay erection that lasts more than 4 hours.

Did you just say, “gay erection”? They have different erections? Those lucky bastards. Anyway, how about “Per-vert Devil Anal Hamster-Vacs”?

6 Million Dollar Manhood: Prosthetic Third Legs … Better, Longer, Slower

Golden shower curtains? They probably have a whole aisle for anti-piss-tamines.

The new analgesic anti-inflammatory suppository: “Benadryled in the Aspirin”

Yeah, but at KY Mart all the suppositories are ribbed. Um… Bausch and Come spermicidal eye drops.

“The Phallus Chalice Buyers Club” … And yes, that breaks the ice on AIDS jokes, in case you were being a gentleman.

Let’s face it, if I was gentleman I wouldn’t know about the spermicidal eye drops. How about Spermometer brand vibrating rectal thermometers?

The DVDAids Cocktail: By Magic Johnson & Johnson & Johnson & Johnson

Woman sues Georgia town over “Dildo by prescription only” law: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/16/georgia-woman-sues-town-for-banning-sale-of-sex-toys-without-a-doctors-prescription/

And finally tonight, in “Patriarching Ropes of Jism” news, a seventeen year old attendee at a homeschool prom in Richmond, Virginia was kicked out of the dance last week because she was wearing a prom dress. The alleged immoderate temptress was told that her dress, while meeting the prom’s guidelines for length, was none the less giving some of the boys (quote) “impure thoughts”. The organizers said they’d explored some other methods of keeping the boys at the prom from having impure thoughts, including anesthetics and murdering them, but ultimately landed on kicking the hot chicks out.

Yeah it’s the dress that’s the problem … “That dress may go down to her ankles, but I’d still put my needle in her fabric.” … 17-year-old home-schooled boys could see a girl in sweatpants and t-shirt – covered in vomit – and they’ll be glad they aren’t in sweatpants too.

In a guest post on her sister’s blog titled “Fuck the Patriarchy”, Clare pointed out that if she’s being ogled by a bunch of grown men because her legs are showing, it should really be the responsibility of the grown men to get the fuck out. Fucking perverts. Look, I saw the pictures on her website. She’s underage. Two and a half months from now it would be perfectly okay to beat off of a video of her pissing on a midget, but until then, it’s perverse.

But if the person masturbating is under 17, and the midget is under 17 (do they live much longer than that anyway?), it should be all good … As important as it is for “audience building” to discuss the gray area related to the Legal Lolita Line … interrupt me whenever you- …

17 year old girl kicked out of home school prom for wearing a prom dress: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/13/3437464/teen-girl-prom-impure-thoughts/

And that’ll bring the headlines to a screeching halt for this week. Heath, thanks as always.

Jew-manji!

And when we come back, Lucinda will be here to make jokes about assplay.

Pitch:

In 2014 alone, god will murder 24,000 people with fully preventable bolts of lightning.

He’ll kill another 10,000 by causing the earth to tremble with his rage.

In the time it takes you to listen to this episode, he’ll have starved four hundred and thirty eight children to death.

…unless you listen to us on “fast”, in which case he save-killed only, like three fifty, but still …

In fact, this year alone, god will kill 350 Americans by drowning them in their own toilets.

…but most of them are toddlers, so it’s not actually that funny.

In fact, God is the number one, two, three and four killer in the world right now. And nobody’s fighting back.

…Until now.

We at the Scathing Atheist are committed to bringing this sadistic war criminal to justice.

We’ll stop at nothing to hold god accountable or, failing that, we’ll make jokes about how small his penis is.

…and it must be pretty small if he’s that worried about us praising him all the time.

God and his earthly minions have billions of dollars and billions of adherents on their side. And all we’ve got is a bit of Laphroaig-inspired scatology.

And you can help!

That’s right. By going to Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist, you can make a per episode donation that helps us take the fight to Jesus.

That’s right. For one dollar an episode you’ll get longer episodes, you’ll get them before everyone else and we’ll promise to kick god in the nuts in your name if we ever happen across him.

“That’s from Jerry in Astoria, bitch!!!” But for two dollars an episode you’ll get all that stuff, plus a free digital copy of our new book, Diatribes: Volume One, 50 Essays From a Godless Misanthrope

…and we’ll hammer another nail into Jesus if he ever returns to earth.

That’s also right. But for five dollars an episode, you’ll get all that stuff, plus an autographed paperback copy of that very same book, which you’ll also have a digital copy of.

That continues to be right. And for just ten dollars an episode we’ll pretty much do anything you want except butt stuff.

That’s not exactly right, but we’ll roll with it anyway.

So “yes” on the butt stuff? We’ll pitch. Tell your wealthy atheist catcher friends.

So remember, Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist. Because god is a dick.

Poem – Psalms

At first I was at a loss for what to do for the Psalms poem. I mean, there’s no story or anything to work with, so how was I gonna write a poem about a bunch of crappy poems? So I decided to go with sort of a meta-Psalm. I shot for one poem that would hit on all the major topics of the various Psalms, distilling the essence of 150 shitty poems into one that actually rhymes. So without further ado; Psalms… in rhyme.

Oh god, my god, dear god, you’re god; and a god to be adored

Your ways, Yahweh, I’d say that they; betray a gracious lord.

Just look at all the gifts you gift upon your loving flock;

You’re strong and wise and clever, and you’ve got a massive cock.

Your brilliance can’t be measured, by we mere mortal men;

So when you do stuff that seems dumb to us, we must not comprehend.

Your mercy is unmeasurable, except when you get pissed,

And woe to those who anger you, as you’ll fill their assholes with your fist.

Oh god, my god, dear god, you’re god; and a god to be revered.

You’re filled with clemency and love, and thus you should be feared.

So thank you god, for though you could, you haven’t struck me down.

You haven’t boiled or sauteed me, or let my children drown.

You could have ripped my eyeballs out, and filled my skull with bees.

You could have filled my face with boils, ‘til it looked like cottage cheese.

You could have lopped my testes off, with a rusty bastard sword,

You could have filled my throat with glass, but you didn’t. Thank you, lord!

Oh god, my god, dear god, you’re god, and a mighty god indeed,

So when my foes rise up against me, please make those fuckers bleed.

Please burn their homes to ashes, and rape their kids and wives,

And strike them with big anal warts, that itch throughout their lives.

Give them blistering urethras, then turn their piss to viscous slime;

And when the burning vesicles explode, please add a twist of lime.

Please smite them and their children, with some cancerous disease.

After all you’re so forgiving, so you’ll forgive yourself with ease.

Oh god, my god, dear god, you’re god, and god dammit, you’re the shit.

I don’t mean to be a fanboy, here; but you wrote the holy writ.

And in the book you wrote we learn, that you’re the best thing that exists.

And I think I see a tiny spot; of your ass that’s not been kissed.

So let me tell you once again about how impressed we are down here.

And we forgive you for the debacle of a world you’ve engineered.

Your great and good and wonderful, and to you, I tip my hat.

For though you are omniscient, you need me to tell you that.

Bible Story

“Run gather up the young ‘uns folks! It’s time for Lucinda Lugeons Bible Stories for Kids.”

Gather round boys and girls. Today we’re going to open up our bibles to Esther and learn about one of the bible’s lesser known sadistic bitches. Now, Esther was born into a Jewish family at a time when it wasn’t very fun to be a Jew… which is most of the time, historically speaking.

She was raised by her cousin, Mordecai, and looked forward to a life of dejected servitude until one day she got her big break. The king of the whole land of Persia decided that he wanted to have sex with her. So he took her for his harem.

Now, a harem is a big group of women that only the king was allowed to fuck. And every night the women would take turns riding the royal cock, sometimes two or three of them at a time. So Esther patiently waited her turn to wow the king with her sexual acrobatics. You see, boys and girls, all the harem girls knew how to work the shaft and some of them knew how to work the balls, but only Esther knew how to get the prostate involved.

So one night the king called for her, and she fucked him every way but sideways. And he was so impressed he made her the queen. He still kept all the harem girls and boned them on the side, but of all the women he was having sex with, she was his favorite.

And she was happy with this arrangement because it sucked less than being a slave, and she didn’t want to risk her new sugar daddy by telling him she was a Jew, so she didn’t.

But while she was teaching the king about joys of having his salad tossed, some other people were plotting against him. But luckily, Esther’s cousin Mordecai heard about the plot and warned the king, who then had all the people who were going to overthrow him brutally executed before throngs of jubilant masses.

(Hooray!)

And everybody was happy except for one brutish anti-semite named Haman. He was a very successful soldier and had a lot of money and a nice house, but he couldn’t enjoy any of it because he really, really hated Jews. So one day he hatched a plan to kill all the Jews and asked the king if it would be okay.

The king approved the Pogrom but asked if he could do it later. After all, if you’re going to massacre a populace, you should at least give them some warning. And when the Jews found out, they were really scared, so they got weapons and waited for Haman to attack.

But when Esther found out, she decided to do something about it, so she asked the king and Haman to have a banquet with her and they agreed. And while they were eating, Esther said to her husband, “You know how Haman wants to kill all the Jews?”

And he said, “Mm-hmm.”

And she said, “Well I’m a Jew, so that means he wants to kill me!”

And he said, “That’s funny… you don’t look Jewish.”

And she said, “That’s not the point. Either you have Haman killed or you can lick the syrup out of your own asshole.”

So the king had Haman killed and instead of recalling all the soldiers, he just let the Jews kill them. And a relatively high percentage of the people in the story lived happily ever after. The end.

Outro:

Before we snub out the roach tonight, I wanted to recognize a few of the people who make are job easier every week. A lot of our listeners help out in the research department by sending us news items, suggesting diatribe subjects and tossing out ideas for skits and stuff. We always appreciate that and we thank everybody who does it, but there are three people who really go above and beyond, one of whom doesn’t like hearing her name on the podcast and the other two of whom are Paul and (at) WorkMX on Twitter, so to these three valiant and astute listeners, I sincerely thanks you for making my life that much easier.

Also, once more, a huge thanks goes out to all the people who continue to wish Lucinda a speedy recovery… and we also really appreciate the sudden influx of donations while she’s out of work. She’ll be back to work on June 2nd, so if you wanted to keep that influx of donations coming, we sure wouldn’t mind.

That’s all the blasphemy we’ve got for you tonight, but we’ll be back in 168 hours to do Proverbs, which can’t possibly be as bad as Psalms but no doubt still sucks. If you can’t wait that along, be sure to check out some bonus Scatheism on our Facebook page, our Twitter account and our YouTube channel… and yes, I’ll be posting an assload of backlogged stuff on YouTube in the next couple of weeks.

Of course I need to thank Heath for continuing to be an offensive bastard in an endearing way. I need to thank Lucinda for powering through the pain to make dick jokes with us tonight. And, of course, big thanks to Steve for this week’s Farnsworth Quote (slash) exploration of atheist podcast taglines. And believe it or not, he actually had more than that when he sent it, I just had to trim it down to fit into the intro. Anyway, thanks for that, and glad to be in the company of so many fine podcasters… as well as Carl from the Post Rapture Looting Podcast.

But most of all, I need to thank this week’s most valuable hominids, Peter, Ted, Ullrich, Dave, Danny, Donovan, Jonathan, Matt, Cat, David, Michael and Kenny. Peter, Ted and Ullrich, whose intellects make smartphones self-conscious; Dave, Danny and Donovan, who attract pussy faster than a pen-laser; Jonathan, Matt and Cat, whose cocks outrank Donald Sterling on the “World’s Biggest Dick” list; and David, Michael and Kenny, who are so sexy even their own pheromones want to fuck them.

These twelve exceptional examples of excellence have expedited our expletives this week by giving us money. And since we just did a whole two minute bit about donating to us on Patreon (dot) com (slash) ScathingAtheist, that’s all I’ll say about that. Except thanks.

And if you want to help out but you spent all your money on something frivolous like insulin or ransom, you can help us out for free by leaving us a glowing review on iTunes or Stitcher and telling your friends about the show.

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: agnostic podcast, antitheist podcast, atheism, atheist, atheist podcast, Childrens Bible Stories, Christianity, faith, religion, science, skeptic, the Book of Esther

Episode 44 – Partial Transcript

December 19, 2013 Noah Lugeons Leave a comment

by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons

Warning: I took an Advil PM an hour ago so I can’t remember what I’m supposed to say, but Heath and Noah are gonna say fuck.

Sponsor:

Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new Jesus-themed Chinese Restaurant chain “Wok on Water”; from the team that brought you the delicious Jewish/Asian Fusion Cuisine Cho-Zen. Come in and try this week’s special, Peking of Kings Duck with Easter Egg Drop Soup.

Wok on Water: The masters of cruci-fried rice.

And now, the Scathing Atheist…

Intro:

It’s Thursday

It’s December 19th

And Kickers and Defense shouldn’t count in fantasy football.

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright,

And from bitterly frigid New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist

In this week’s episode,

We learn humans came on Earth via arcing ropes of panspermia.
We find out that reindeer games are more hockey than basketball,
And Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta will join us to rescue a shred of dignity, after the Paul Walker necrophilia jokes.

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

This past weekend Heath and I were playing each other in the semi-finals of the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists; a fantasy league we play in with a bunch of other secular podcasters and bloggers. And I don’t just bring this up so that I have an excuse to mention that I trounced him and will face off against Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance in the Championship Game this weekend. There’s also a minor detail that clumsily segues into the point of this week’s diatribe.

So I’m watching Eddie Lacy lead an amazing comeback victory amid a burgeoning 24.3 point fantasy performance that would ultimately best Heath and end his fantasy season in crushing defeat and I’m doing so with a couple of friends. One of them is a nice enough guy, but he’s one of those athletic precog-wannabes that constantly says shit like, “Watch, this next one’s gonna be a touchdown”, or “I bet he throws an interception here”. He’s wrong as often as odds would suggest he would be but on the rare occasion that he gets one right, he starts planning his future as a psychic crime fighter.

And as I’m listening to Nostra-dumb-ass rattle off his predictions, I can’t help but think of all the easy parallels between that and religion. This tendency to take credit for shit you obviously had nothing to with even if it means willfully ignoring how often you’re wrong.

We talked about one of the micro-manifestation of this two weeks ago when I bitched for four minutes about athletes thanking god when they win and not sacrificing the appropriate number of bulls when they lose. Thanks for the win, Jesus, and sorry the desolate one got the best of you in the three consecutive losses that led to it. Thanks for the parking space, Jesus, and I’m sure you had a good reason for intentionally making me drive around SoHo for 20 minutes before you provided it.

And as much as it pisses me off to adopt the “good thing happened therefore god did it” attitude, it’s nothing compared to the equally common “good thing happened therefore Christians did it” attitude.

Consider it on the historical scale. There are plenty of Christians that will tell you the church led the charge to end slavery around the world. But they’ll conveniently leave out the fact that the church also led the opposition to the charge to end slavery around the world. They try to take credit for civil rights, for women’s suffrage for fuck’s sake. In fifty years they’ll be telling us how religion paved the way toward equality for gays.

But now dial it back a bit and consider it on the cultural scale. And I won’t have to reach too far to find my example. Consider all the “reason for the season” bullshit that pissed you off on Facebook this week. Consider the desperate attempts to claim authorship for all the various pagan celebrations that have survived and coalesced through societal evolution over the years and how jealously they guard their dominion over them.

I know the point’s been made plenty of times before, but none of the good parts of Christmas are Christian. The gifts, the lights, the tree, the mistletoe, the joy, the charity, the tinsel, the feasts, the family, the elvish reverse-burglar, the emotionally manipulative TV commercials, the caroling, the stars, the remote control helicopters… all of these things have non-Christian origins. And I’m willing to bet that if you keep all that shit and take out the Baby Jesus stuff and the guilt-induced church attendance, people wouldn’t stop celebrating Christmas. And if you took out the Pagan stuff it would be as popular as Epiphany or Ash Wednesday.

And as vociferously as they protest anytime somebody makes the claim that Christmas is a secular holiday, they don’t own it. They don’t have any claim to it. They don’t have a copyright on presents or Santa Claus or decorated trees. And while we’re at it, they don’t have exclusive claim to joy, forgiveness, happiness or goodwill. Hell, they don’t even have a monopoly on fictional guys with beards and magic powers that judge you morally and bestow gifts accordingly.

They started the war on Christmas when they stole in the first place. There’s nothing at all wrong with fighting back.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is first runner-up in the semi-final round of the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to watch jealously as I compete for the title next week?

Fuck Justin Tucker.

In our lead story tonight, Judge Brian M. Cogan of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn has granted the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York a judicial prophylactic against the provision of the Affordable Care Act that would require they provide contraceptive care to the employees of their non-profit affiliates. Judge Cogan found that giving the church no right to dictate the lawful sexual behavior of people they tangentially employed would be a violation of the first amendment.

Will the insurance cover paper towels to clean up after you pull out?

No, I think that still counts. Keep in mind that nobody’s asking these bishops to buy condoms and distribute them to their employees. And nobody’s requiring that anybody buy or use contraceptives of any kind. They’re just requiring that employers provide healthcare that covers contraceptives without a co-pay; and not just because Satan loves rubbers. It’s also at least subtly influenced by the fact that contraceptives are way cheaper than pregnancies and all the good kinds of abortion.

Are you sure about the good abortions? How much could it possibly cost to get all these women one coat hanger each?!? The ones that work in the same office could even share.

Court sides with Archdiocese in contraception controversy: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/nyregion/new-york-archdiocese-wins-ruling-on-contraception.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&rref=nyregion&hpw=&adxnnlx=1387310059-n3uEUr09A3o8ZSYIdyqc4A

And in “Panspermia” news . . . No I am not talking about the new stir-fry dish at “Wok on Water”. Nor am I speaking of the penalty for being a shitty customer at Pizza Hut. I’m talking about the the book by alleged ecologist Doctor Ellis Silver, entitled “Humans Are Not From Earth: A Scientific Evaluation of the Evidence”.

Oh, well if it says “scientific” right there in the title…

First reaction: Real scientists shouldn’t need to expressly announce in the title, that their studies are (quote) “scientific evaluations of evidence”. Those are the fucking rules already.

Yeah, it does have an “I swear I’m not lying” ring to it…

That being said, let’s take a look at some of Dr. Silver’s super-sciencey stuff . . . which he chose not to publish in scientific journals, because he wants to engender non-expert debate on the subject.

Of course…

So he had a bunch of theories, including “Humans just don’t feel at home on Earth”. But my favorite one is (quote) “The size of babies’ heads present a problem for women when giving birth” (end quote). So he’s saying, if women aren’t aliens, why don’t they have giant vaginas?!? … If anything, the problem isn’t small vaginas . . . It’s our huge penises. Can’t speak for everyone, but Irish Brothas be performin’ C-Sections. So apparently aliens from Alpha Centauri are smart enough to travel multiple lightyears between solar systems, but can’t manage to find a planet that matches their snatch size?!?

Interesting story selection, by the way. It sounds less like a story we would normally cover on the Scathing Atheist and more like a story Andy would have given you for the InKredulous podcast we recently guested on before switching you out to a different story at the last minute leaving you with a fully written story you didn’t need. Weird.

Panspermians looking to debunk Darwin: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2507377/Humans-NOT-come-Earth–sunburn-bad-backs-pain-labour-prove-expert-claims.html

And from the “I’m Dreaming of a White Christian” file, Fox News anchor and shrieking bobblehead Megyn Kelly offended people who are and are not white last week when she insisted that despite the perplexing historical and genealogical implications, Jesus was white. And as if trying to camouflage the stupidity of that claim amid the larger stupidity of another, she couched it as an example to bolster the claim that Santa Claus is also white.

Well he’s giving gifts to a whole bunch of different kids, in different houses on Christmas, so he sounds more like a black guy to me. Although he is a job creator, so it’s hard to say.

This tangent into xenophobic insanity came as a response to calls for some racial inclusivity in the Santa legend. After all [spoiler alert] Santa doesn’t actually exist, so why can’t we warm our children’s hearts with stories about black men breaking into their homes once a year?

How about a compromise? Santa can still be white, but the elves that work for him without compensation can be black. And instead of reindeer he can have Mexicans. Hold on, that makes no sense. The sweat-shop elves should be Mexican, and the reindeer should be black.

On Shizzle, on Nizzle, on T-Bone and Pookie…

But it’s a white dude naming the black sleigh slaves . . .

So like “On Toby, on Rupert, on Django … on Pookie.”

Jesus can say say cracker: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-brad-hirschfield/santa-is-white-really_b_4433624.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003 <<and>> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/13/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-being-megyn-kelly-jon-stewart-skewers-fox-news-caucasian-persuasion/ <<and>> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/12/tabula-reza-foxs-megyn-kelly-insists-jesus-was-a-white-guy-reza-aslan-responds/

And from the “So Many Holes, So Little Crime” file, Judge Clark Waddoups of the US District Court in Utah, ruled in favor of the polygamous family from the reality show “Sister Wives”, declaring a law against their plural marriages unconstitutional.

And the anti-gay-marriage lobby’s collective echo of “Told ya so!” could be heard throughout the country. “Next it’s gonna be them fellers what fuck sheep an’ stuff!”

The show documents the life of Kody Brown and his family of four wives and seventeen children. Clearly wanting to set me up for a “Big Love” joke, Brown is about 6’4″ – 250, and appears to like his women the same way, with matching feathered, blond, David Spade haircuts.

Yeah, if we’re just going by weight, marrying any one of these gals is polygamy.

So now that we’re on the subject of the vagina-heavy sexual exploits of these genius bigamist bastards,

I see where you’re going. 30 seconds on the clock … Mormon Porn Stars and Titles: GO!

Does it have to be shit porn, like last week?- Nevermind doesn’t matter: “8 Wives, 1 Cup”

No it doesn’t have to be shit porn, but if it did, I would lead off with Glenn Pecker starring in “Nobody Swallows Shit Like Mormons”

“Dry County Golden Showers”

Clit Romney in “Nymphos and Nephites”… a follow up to her 2009 hit “Laying the Lamanites”

Brigham Hung in “The Great Salty Lake”

Damn it. I was gonna go with the “Great Salt Lick” but now I have to change it. Um… How about “Polygamy, myself and Irene… and Cassandra and Judith and Sharon and Anne”?

Ted Bundy’s Magical Undies … That’s right: Serial killer extraordinaire Ted Bundy was a Mormon.

I’m surprised the momos don’t advertise that more… it would make them seem less like pansies. Okay, how about Tony “Big Bologna” Moroni in “Brides and Prejudice”?

“Missionary Position: Finger on the Front Buzzer” . . . And of course: “Missionary Position Number 2: Getting Pushy at the Rear Entrance”

Described by critics as a Polyga-must see. And of course, the homo-momo-erotic classic; Trey Park-it and Matt Blown present “The Book of More-Men”

Utah judge strikes down anti-polygamy law: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/14/21903224-federal-judge-strikes-down-key-parts-of-utahs-polygamy-law-in-sister-wives-ruling

So I guess we’ll close it quick before Heath realizes that recently deceased crappy actor Paul Walker was a Mormon and starts suggesting Mormon necrophilia porn titles…

The Recently Passed and the Curious?

Well, they do practice posthumous baptism so they do have experience moistening dead people.

And on that lovely image, we’ll close headlines for tonight. Heath, thanks as always.

And when we come back Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta will sit down with me for a much tamer conversation about the problems that young atheists face when openly declaring their disbelief.

Interview: Hemant Mehta

Link to Hemant’s Blog: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/

Link to Hemant’s Book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Young-Atheists-Survival-Guide/dp/1939221072

Link to Secular Student Alliance: http://www.secularstudents.org/

Link to Freedom From Religion Foundation: http://ffrf.org/

Link to Reddit/Atheism: http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/

Outro:

Before we set up camp for the night, I wanted to remind everyone that if you hear this before the 21st, you still have time to nominate us for a Stitcher Award at Stitcher (dot) promoTW (dot) com. You can nominate up to once per day and you can nominate us in multiple categories so we strongly suggest that you do that.

I also wanted to thank Cat and Mouse for giving Heath and I our first opportunity to actually meet a couple of our listeners. Probably a way bigger deal for us than it was for them so thanks for that and sorry for constantly looking over your shoulders to see how Le’Veon Bell was doing but hey, it’s the fantasy playoffs, you know?

I also need to thank Heath for being funny enough to get away with saying the shit he says. I need to thank Lucinda for lending us her lovely voice to open the show, I need to thank Hemant Mehta one more time and remind you that as good as the first half of that interview was, the second half is even better. And you have a week to read his book before you hear that, so if you want to do the homework, you’ll find a link to it and to his blog on the shownotes for this episode

And of course, I’ve got to thank Andy Wilson of the Merseyside Skeptics and the InKredulous Podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth Quote and for inviting Heath and me to join him on his incredibly hilarious show. Look for that episode coming in the very near future and look for a link on our Twitter feed and Facebook page as soon as said link is available.

http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/category/podcast/inkredulous-podcast/

But most of all tonight I need to thank this week’s most tremendous terrestrials, Jacqueline, Ward, Bill, Tim, Katja, Jeffrey, Wolfgang and Benjamin. Jacqueline, whose sexual magnetism carries a court-ordered pacemaker warning; Ward, whose statuesque physique would be a frustratingly persuasive argument in favor of intelligent design; Bill, whose voice is so sexy it makes automated operator’s come; Tim, who chops through flaming, steel girders with his dick; Katja, whose genetic perfection is so absolute they’re renaming a nucleotide after her; Jeffrey, whose legendary swordsmanship and nautical notoriety are the reason so many pirates are missing an eye; Wolfgang, whose name would kick anybody else’s name’s ass in a fight except possibly Magnus and Benjamin, whose inevitable greatness is so palpable that statues have already been commissioned in advance of his world-altering accomplishments.

These eight elegant, admirable and accommodating altruists proved themselves in the only non-Jenga related way that matters this week by giving us money. Only the atheists that believe in god the least have the incredulity required to give us money, but if you think you share the superlative skepticism of Jacqueline, Ward, Bill, Tim, Katja, Jeffrey, Wolfgang and Benjamin, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you’d like to help us out but you have kids and it’s December, you can help us a ton for free by leaving us a five star review on iTunes and telling a friend about the show. If you need more Scathe in your life you can find us on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and we have a blog and occasionally, there’s shit on that too.

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.

Categories: Show Transcripts Tags: antitheism, antitheist podcast, atheism, atheist, atheist podcast, belief, Christianity, faith, friendly atheist, Heath Enwright, Hemant Mehta, Noah Lugeons, religion, spirituality

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