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Now With 25% More Jesus
by Noah Lugeons
It’s been almost a decade since I lived in the deep south. It hasn’t changed but I’m discovering quickly that I have. I suppose the pro-Jesus stickers on the shop windows and the biblical passages on the newspaper and the Christ-praise on the menu board and the “Christian Owned” notes on the print ads were there the whole time. And I’m sure I noticed them before. But I don’t recall them pissing me off quite so much.
I’m seeing them everywhere now. Every fourth business I walk into makes it damn clear that they’re Christian. It’s a selling point for them: “Get your taxes done here because we love Jesus more than H&R Block!” And it must be effective or so many businesses wouldn’t be doing it. Sure, they lose my business when I see a big “Jesus Loves You” sticker next to the one that tells me that they accept Discover Card, but obviously I’m outweighed by the people who see the sign and say, “I’d rather support a Jesus-loving dry cleaner than a heathen one.”
But perhaps that view is hyper-capitalist. The bakers who sue for the right to refuse the money of gay customers might get some residual business from fellow bigots, but I doubt that’s the motivating factor. They’re doing it because they hate gay people and their bigotry trumps their desire to make money. If I told a business owner that I was going to take my business elsewhere because of the Jesus sign on the door, he or she would probably be happy to hear it. They would probably rather not cater to a godless spawn of the devil anyhow.
The exclusionary nature of faith somehow remains invisible to a vast swath of the faithful. They actually argue that religion (or more specifically their religion) encourages universal fraternity, fellowship, community, inclusivity… and then they build a wall between themselves and non-believers, members of different faiths, gays, women and the scientifically literate.
So far I’ve kept my mouth shut when I see these “Christian owned business” signs, but eventually I’m not going to be able to. I’ll go up to the proprietor and demand proof that he’s more Christian than the other barber. I’ll ask if he would sacrifice his son as a burnt offering to the lord if so commanded. I’ll ask if he would massacre babies in an armed conquest upon the lord’s decree. I’ll ask if he thinks women should be allowed to speak in public. And if he answers in the truly Christian way, I’ll point out that he’s a sociopathic fuck who shouldn’t be allowed to work with scissors.
Episode 49 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons
Note: Transcript contains elements that were removed from the episode due to time constraints
Warning: This podcast contains explicit language in three… two… fuck.
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Pro-Scripture Strength Biblenol. Perfect for those biblically inspired headaches. It’s stronger than Prayer-Bayer and longer lasting than Bibliuprofen.
Biblenol; because somehow the Historical Books are even worse than the Pentateuch.
And now, the Scathing Atheist.
Intro:
It’s Thursday,
It’s January 23rd,
And the extra week before the Superbowl is worse for the NFL than Junior Seau.
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright and from pro-federate enclave New York, New York,
And forcibly de-federate, Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist
On this week’s episode,
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We revel in the joy of getting piss drinking and nun fucking in the same news cycle.
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We’ll learn how to rape like a Muslim,
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And Lucinda will join us to put on our Monocles to read One Chronicles
Beating me to the poem, I see. But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe:
My inbox is full of idiots.
As you may know, the other day I went on the most excellent Cognitive Dissonance podcast and gave Tom and Cecil a Tarot card reading. And since then I’m getting a vodka-piss stream of woo-merchants and dipshits emailing me to tell me just how wrong I’ve got it.
To their credit, these aren’t people who are actively out there scamming people and telling them “you’re grandma is gonna get cancer if you don’t donate a hot tub to the next person they lay eyes on… hey, hey, I’m over here” or anything. They almost certainly aren’t charging for their services, and they’re not consciously deceiving anyone. These are just people who have gotten really good at deceiving themselves.
The way they justify their pseudo-scientific hobby is by pointing out that Tarot isn’t about fortune-telling, it’s about divination; it’s about helping people through their problems with universal symbolism. It’s a way to reinforce positive messages and give people hope. It’s just a structured way for someone to try to see their problems from a new angle. What’s the harm in that?
Well, as I pointed out last Monday when I did the reading for Tom and Cecil which you can hear on episode number one hundred and thirty-four of their fine program, there’s plenty of harm. If your goal is to help people through their problems and aid them in seeing things from a new angle, don’t you think you should have some kind of qualification to do that beyond a spare fourteen bucks when you were at Spencer’s Gifts?
It’s belittling to psychologists and psychiatrists to think that any jackass who memorized the Zodiacal influences of some pretty pictures can step in and do their job with no chance of fucking it up. It’s the human psyche, for fuck’s sake; the most complicated thing that we know about. And you’re just gonna dive in there with nothing but the Idiot’s Guide to Vague Verbosity and ask me what’s the harm?
Now that should be all the answer I have to give, but it isn’t all the answer that I can give. Whatever spiritual caveats you might offer, as soon as you start shuffling your deck, you’re putting yourself in a position of authority that you didn’t have to do anything to earn. And it’s gonna be damned easy to take advantage of the person across the table. Even if you don’t succumb to that temptation, you’re just priming the pump for the less principled person that comes after you. And for what? So that you can spend half an hour giving them what DJ Groethe calls your “Aw shucks advice”?
You may think you’re giving them a positive message, but how the fuck do you know? You tell somebody to focus on what makes them happy, but you don’t know how much they love torturing rats with hacksaws. You tell them to never give up on love but you don’t know about the restraining order. You tell them to follow their dream but you don’t know if they dream about disemboweling postal workers.
People who are looking for help shouldn’t be pissing away time checking with sorcerers first. That goes for Tarot card readers, psychics, necromancers, astrologers, palm readers and crystal gazers and pastors, priests, bishops, reverends, rabbis, mullahs and monks. They should instead go to somebody who is qualified to help them through science-based means and they shouldn’t have to navigate a complicated menu to find them.
And yes, I group all of the above in the same category. I’ll freely admit that religious leaders are almost universally better trained to help people with personal crises, but at the same time they’re deferred a lot more authority because of it. For every person who would discount their doctor’s advice on the word of their cartomancer, there are a million who would do so on the advice of their priest. They’re given even more authority and even more opportunity to abuse it. And just like I’d say of the Tarot reader, the honest ones are just priming the adolescent buttocks for the dishonest ones.
Consider the strict licensing and regulation on psychiatrists and psychologists. If it came to light that a psychologist was sleeping with one of their patients, it would probably be a career ending scandal. But as Dr. Darrel Ray points out in both The God Virus and Sex and God, anybody who stays in a church long enough will hear about some pastor sleeping with some congregant. Sometimes the pastor is quietly moved to another church. Sometimes they’re not. But no horny pastor has ever lost his license to past over it.
And I don’t think I need to tell you that nobody ever lost their license to read tarot cards over any abuse of any kind ever.
There is no “harmless bullshit”. And I don’t really care how many paragraphs you can cram into an email, you’re never going to convince me that your faith is quantitatively better that the other faiths just because yours has playing cards.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is hyperborean Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to migrate?
It is fucking freezing here. But I’m like an African swallow. The bird, not the ebony porn title. Non-migratory.
Don’t worry, I’m sure if the Weather Channel had an eleven day forecast there would be a high above freezing on it.
In our lead story tonight, from the “Sister Cum Mother” file, a nun working in Italy failed to plan her parenthood very well and recently gave birth, opting instead for termination of her job, for breaking the vow of chastity. According to her account, God secretly fucked her while she was masturbating on an airplane, but despite the well-known Joseph v. Mary precedent, her immaculate conception alibi was ignored.
Because it couldn’t just be that some nun fucked a dude multiple times. Because how the hell could that be international news, right? Nun fucks wouldn’t make ink on four continents, would it? So clearly there was some divine vine involved.
The ‘Last Scion’ released the following statement: (quote) “It was God’s dick … and I was married to God at the time. Just wait … My half-brother Jesus is gonna be right back, and he’ll tell you.” (end quote)
And apparently putting her money where her mouth is on the issues of contraception and abortion didn’t earn her any favor in the eyes of the Holy See.
As a tribute to the Scathing Atheist, and our mocking nicknames for Pope Francesco Rinaldi, the new mom named her son Francesco. Despite this revelation bringing down the average severity of their scandals considerably, the church feels like this has been a public embarrassment. And once again, Catholic leaders have a tail between their legs because of a child.
Well, I’m not just gonna come out and say that the Pope’s her baby-daddy, but he has shown a recent interest in tits.
Nun gives birth after seemingly immaculate conception: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10581481/Nun-gives-birth-to-baby-named-after-Pope.html
And moving on to the “Ringing Endorsement From the Voices in my Head” file we bring you an update to a story we covered back in episode 38. You’ll recall Pennsylvania State Representative Rick Saccone from Heath making jokes about how his last name kind of sounds like a reference to testicular amputation.
And we all learned a valuable lesson: Buy your anal beads from the store.
And remember he said buy… not rent. In addition to Saccone’s lopsided nuts, we also discussed his braindead brainchild HB 1728, a proposal that calls for the words “In God we Trust” to be prominently displayed in every Pennsylvania classroom. While trying to justify this crevasse-wiping use of the constitution on a local television show last Sunday, Saccone claimed that the bill had the backing of the atheist community. He cited the off-the-record support of the unnamed head of “Pennsylvania Atheists”, a group that neither speaks for all atheists, nor exists.
Saccone’s running a board meeting: “We’re losing numbers. Gotta do something. Now keeping in mind I already printed a bunch of these … You guys think it’s all the hating women and fags, or you think it’s not enough propaganda posters?”
Of course, we’re all used to religious people taking advice from people who don’t exist so that came as no surprise. What really caught my eye on this story was his claim that “god” isn’t a divisive term since atheists can make it (quote) “whatever god they worship in the form of maybe […] materialism”. So yeah, we atheists can just pray to materialism so what are we so pissed about?
PA state rep makes up some atheists, pretends they support his proposal: http://www.examiner.com/article/atheists-demand-state-representative-apologize
And in “The Other Santorum” news, the Maldives has added ‘tape’ to the list of sticky red stuff that goes with rape. Abdulla Yameen, president of the Islamic theocracy, has vetoed a proposed law that would make it illegal to rape your wife while she fills out divorce paperwork. He called the rape ban (quote) “un-Islamic”.
Well good for it. What higher ethical standard can a law aspire to than “un-Islamic”?
This means two things … 1: Islam has justified rape! … and 2: The Islamic idea of justified rape specifically includes those awkward months before the woman gets tried for divorce. So just to be clear … You’re a woman, and you find out the hard way that you married a righteous rapist, and now you want a divorce. Getting your consent back, is harder than getting a gun. There’s a trial and a lengthy waiting period. Fortunately for women, the divorce settlement process itself, does not take very long, because women don’t own property.
In some cases, though, I think the husband can get visitation rights to the vagina on weekends.
According to the Religion News Service: (quote) “The bill says a husband cannot force his wife to have sex if the couple have filed for divorce, dissolution or mutual separation, and if the intent is to transmit a sexual disease.” (end quote) … So the bill didn’t even target rapists with AIDS, unless they were actively intending to infect their victim. Am I crazy, or did someone just use religion to defend the rights of AIDS-spreading rapists?!? Do we really need to keep making this podcast?!?
Maldivian President declared law against marital rape “un-islamic” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/marital-rape-bill-maldives_n_4611006.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
And from the “Golden Calf Showers” file, a Hindu cult in northern India is touting the medicinal benefits of drinking pre-dawn virgin cow urine. So they’re not complete idiots … At least they don’t go out there in the middle of the fucking day, and drink piss from slutty octo-mom cows, like a crazy person. Slutty cow piss burns when you drink it from the herpes. Either way, they’re giving a new meaning to the term India Pale Ale (or IPA).
Of course, it’s worth noting that this story comes to us from the paragon of journalistic integrity that is the Daily Mail, so we’ll take it with a grain of creatinine, but we’re reporting on it anyway because they had pictures. And honestly, if the real story here is “unscrupulous Daily Mail photographer coaxes Hindu man into catching cow urine with a drinking glass” it would still be newsworthy enough to make piss puns about.
According to the cult – and the studies they didn’t perform – the hot champagne helps fight cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis, stomach problems, and baldness. So even if drinking cow piss upsets your stomach, these guys have the cure for that … which is literally made up of the piss they made you drink.
See, that’s what I was wondering. Like, if you drink the cow piss and then drink your cow piss piss and then drink your cow piss piss piss, and so on, is that like Hindu homeopathy?
Jairam Singhal, a decade-long urinalcoholic, said the following about the undeniable success of the placebovine excrement remedy: (quote) “I had diabetes, but ever since I have started drinking cow urine, my diabetes levels have been under control” (end quote).
Basically: “I got a bunch of Diabetes about 10 years ago, and I immediately started drinking urine every morning. Thanks to the magic pee, I’ve completely avoided getting more Diabetes since. My levels haven’t gone up by a single Diabetus.”
I so want to see Wilfred Brimley doing a cow piss commercial now. And I’d point out that he is still alive to do it, but we record on Wednesday and release on Thursday so I don’t want to take any chances.
Large numbers of people dumb enough to buy urine, are lining up at local cow shelters. To keep up with surging demand, a successful “Milk, Milk, Lemonade Stand” has popped up in the city of Agra. Obviously, thanks to these honest-to-god piss-sippers, we’ll need 30 seconds on the clock … ‘Slogans for the Medicinal Urine Restaurant’ … GO!!!
“Not on the rug, man…”
“Eat shit and die. Drink piss and live.”
“Would you like to take a piss, or will that be for here?”
“The mens room and the dessert menu have Urinal Cakes!!!”
“Got cancer? Well urine luck!”
“Milk, Milk, Lemonade: Number One in your mouth, Number One in your heart.”
“Milk, Milk, Lemonade: Never avoid a void.”
“Home of Mixology’s first ever cure-all beverage: the Nitro-Gin and Tonic.”
“Why settle for McDonalds’ special sauce when you can have McTurated special sauce?”
“Milk, Milk, Lemonade: Drinking straight from the Bed Panacea.”
“Urinary Tract Perfection”
“Our famous Urine Sampler combo appetizer features assorted cheese whiz, golden drench fries, and potato leak soup.”
“The best leak since Snowden”
“We cross streams like Peter Venkman.”
“Bladder ingredients; Bladder Pizza”
Mop a Johns … What about: “The New Drinkable Cure For Cancer: Pittle. Yellow. Different. Better.”
Hindu cult thinks drinking cow piss cures cancer: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2538520/Urine-drinking-Hindu-cult-believes-warm-cup-sunrise-straight-virgin-cow-heals-cancer-followers-queuing-try-it.html
And finally tonight, in “Stimulate your clit for Jesus” news; wayward youth, dildo dealer and c-list porn star Farrah Abraham has announced a forthcoming book on Christian parenting; set to publish after the completion of her trilogy of erotic fiction. Or, as she actually said, (quote) “My next trilogy – so three books – is an erotic sex novel.” (end quote) Because, you know, she’s, like… a wordsmith and stuff.
And based on my extensive C-List research, she’s one of those dealers who’s also a user. She must go through dildos like a wood chipper.
You might remember Farrah from the MTV exploitation of soul-crushing adolescent mistakes and tragedies, “Teen Mom” but I’m kind of hoping you don’t. If you remember her at all I’d hope it was from the sex tape that she accidentally sold to a porn distributor for over a million dollars. Or perhaps you remember her from that awkward toe in the trigger guard of the shotgun moment you had when you realized that a teen mother cum porn actress cum sex toy seller wrote a book and it was a fucking NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
They say write what you know. And she knows getting knocked up at 15, the father dies in a redneck accident, “Lord of the Cock Rings” Trilogy, and finally Christian parenting. That’s a story people can relate to. Lots of dudes are thinking: “You just described my wife.”
And as sad as this story is for every piece of literature ever penned, I should note that it is a powerful reminder that someone can rise up out of poverty, teen pregnancy and untimely widowhood as long as they’re white and have great tits.
Good to know I’ve got potential.
Teen mom and B-list porn star to author Christian parenting book: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/17/teen-mom-who-leaked-her-sex-tape-announces-shes-writing-a-christian-parenting-book/
And on that reference to Heath’s moobs, we’ll close out the headlines tonight. Heath, thanks as always for joining me.
I’m holding a rocks glass of scotch in my cleavage.
And when we come back, Lucinda will join us to learn that books of the Bible apparently have reruns.
Poem:
1 Chronicles in Rhyme
Have I told you the story about the crappy king Saul?
The ass-hunting bastard who squandered it all?
The Philistine fighter who lost many men?
Oh, I have? Well fuck you, I’m gonna tell it again.
Have I told you the story about the other king David?
Who defeated the Moabites and left them enslaved?
Whom god loved in battle and whom won every war?
I have? Oh well, fuck you, I’m gonna tell it some more.
How about Solomon? Did I tell you his tale?
The palace he built at incredible scale?
Oh, I told you he’s wise, super-fertile and rich?
Well I’ll tell you again, cause I’m First Chronicles, bitch.
That’s right, I’ve got nothing unspoken to say;
God said “read this book” and you have to obey.
So consider the previous four books as primers,
And consider this one to be god with Alzheimers.
You don’t care who begat Hezron, or who Hezron begat?
Or maybe you do, but you’ve got it down pat.
After all, we’ve discussed it, and I’ll even admit
This isn’t even the first time we’ve repeated that shit.
We’re just assuming our readers have piss-poor retention,
And clearly the editors aren’t paying attention,
So we’ll just repeat repetition and duplicate verse,
We’ll restate and rehash and reprise and rehearse.
And rework, and remind and reform and redo,
And resay, and revert and recast and renew,
Reconstruct, recrudesce, reproduce and rewrite
Refashion, reiterate, relive and recite.
Cause fuck it, it’s biblical and that all that counts.
So here’s nine chapters of names that no one can pronounce.
And maybe a chapter with a god praising song;
That’s a rip-off of Psalms and is two pages long.
I find describing how dull this book is rather challenging,
But in hopes that I can, here’s my nearest analogy;
Your at grandma’s and there’s this adorable clip that she found,
On YouTube of dogs chasing lasers around.
It’s twelve minutes long and it sucks and what’s more,
She’s shown you this same fucking montage before.
So you sit through it all and she says “Here’s another thing!”
Well First Chronicles is like the parts where the next one is buffering.
So sure, this books useless, and just makes the thing thicker,
And inspires those reading it to put bleach in their liquor,
But they need to remind you that like it or not,
The bible suck’s monkey nuts, in case you forgot.
Babble:
If, like me, you make it through the first twelve books of the bible and say, “well that was crap”, don’t feel alone. It turns out the people writing this shit felt the same way, as One Chronicles is basically an alternate account that retells the entire fucking story to this point with a few minor tweaks and additions.
Yeah, apparently biblical reboots come faster than Spiderman reboots. Somebody read this thing and said, “It needs more exactly the same stuff again”.
So joining us to reiterate and rephrase is my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, thanks for coming back for more.
Well, I tried the old “not tonight, honey, I have a headache” thing, but you weren’t having any of that shit so here I am with fucking bells on.
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Apparently the people charged with summing up the first dozen books read them and said to themselves, “You know what parts suck? The ones that aren’t soul-crushing genealogies,” because they elected to start the book out with nine straight chapters of begats. So not much to summarize there, basically Adam was born and everyone who existed from then to the postexilic period is named there somewhere. What’s say we start in chapter ten?
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Yeah, in case anybody forgot what a horrible fuck up Saul was, we rehash how the Israelites got their asses kicked under his command. Again.
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And with Saul’s last words, he asked his gay slave to kill him, (quote) “lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me.” So the gimp refuses, and Saul falls on his own sword, to avoid capture and the inevitable lifetime of … apparently some sort of legendary Phillistine foreskin slap torture.
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But then at the end it reminds you that it was because Saul consulted a medium instead of the Lord; so calling miss Cleo justifies the massacre and displacement of god’s chosen people. Got it.
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Chapter eleven is a brief list of ancient Jewish badasses, and a few vainglorious accounts of the ass they kicked.
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Yeah, at a certain point it just starts reading like a really long, rambling acceptance speech at the Oscars. You know, somebody who just won best costume design in a foreign language documentary is holding up the show thanking everyone they’ve ever met: “And I’d like to thank all the Benjamites and the Judahites that came to the stronghold of David; and I want to thank Ahiezer, Joash, Jeziel and Pelet for bringing David bread when he was unable to move about freely, and where all my Manassites at? Adnah, Jozabad, Jedial, Mikey, my main man Elihu…”
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Yeah, so to summarize what Noah just said there, this book is boring compared to the Oscars. That should tell you all you need to know.
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Then there’s the groovy remix of “Uzzah gets killed for touching the ark”
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It’s like the book itself is admitting that it’s too boring to read. It’s saying “Yeah, this dude Uzzah exploded when he touched the ark but we can’t imagine you weren’t skimming when we talked about it before”
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This book is sounding more and more like the Chris Farley show: Remember…Remember when “Seven And they carried the ark of God on a new cart, from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart. Eight And David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.” … That was awesome … Stupid- I’m such an idiot!!!
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And so that you know we’re not overstating the boring here, consider this; we’re not just reading unpronounceable lists of bronze age Jewish royalty; we’re re-reading unpronounceable lists of bronze age Jewish royalty.
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Well, re-skimming…
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And in case you somehow managed to miss the entire central theme of the last four books we just fucking read, One Chronicles reminds us that David is awesome and kicks much ass.
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I can’t help but think of the profound disappointment that people must have felt when Luther translated this thing. You know, it’s supposed to be this magical book of intrigue and answers that all the priests refer to, so you finally get a vulgar masses, Reader’s Digest translation, you leaf to a random page and land in One Chronicles. And it’s a list of the members of some ancient choir that sang at the “Ark Relocation” party.
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Chapter seventeen reminds us that god liked David the bestest of everybody. Ever.
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Yeah God is pleased with David for carrying his exploding death-box around, and also for fucking anything with three holes, so he gives him a really nice house for his harem of 3000 women and their shitty red-headed step-children. Bottom line: God’s happy and David’s getting more ass than Muhammad Ali aiming for pussy.
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I get the feeling like this whole book was inspired by somebody reading the last four books and saying, “I can’t imagine a more boring way to present the history of Israel” and another guy saying, “I can”
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It’s like listening to a kid tell a joke they don’t get over and over again.
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Yeah reading One Chronicles is like listening to your shitty five-year-old nephew tell a joke on the phone. First you get 30 seconds of what sounds like … a litter of puppies fighting to lick bacon grease off the receiver … while the stupid kid gets the phone in his hand. And then they put italics and question marks in there for no reason … “Yeah and then Abishai? the son of Zeruiah? Killed 18,000 Edomites in the (breathe) Valley of Salt-okay-bye.”
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In nineteen we revisit the whole Ammonite servant-shaving war… because… I don’t even know. Ancient Israel must have just been that boring.
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Right? A few emissaries get wedgied by Hanun and they’re gossiping about it for four god damn centuries? Seriously?
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Here’s a quote: “So Hanun took David’s servants and shaved them and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away.” I think we made an ass-less chaps joke when they told this exact same story the first time. Which was hilarious … Ass-less chaps on dessert-dwelling Jewish midgets is just about 24-carat comic gold … But we didn’t mention the genius wardrobe suggestion for a Koran-friendly compromise on Muslim porn. The women can trade in their eye slit, for a tit slit, or a slit slot.
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And you can tell there’s an inferiority complex driving this whole thing. It all reads like some subjugated motherfuckers sitting around going, “remember when Jews kicked ass?”
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There’s a reason “Knocked Up” wasn’t two hours of Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen getting drunk and talking about the movie “Munich”.
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And then we’re reminded of the evils of census taking. Which is weird, because Moses did it twice in Numbers and nobody had to be plagued to death over it. But yeah, the trip down memory cul-de-sac continues.
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Yep. We relive all the excitement of counting the cedar trees used to build the temple as we transition from David to Solomon in chapter twenty-two.
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Yes, and lest we forget, Levites don’t have to do work.
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Probably the single most oft repeated edict in this book so far; Levites are special and don’t have to do shit that’s sweaty.
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And chapter twenty-four is probably the current leader for the most boring individual chapter in the bible. It’s a detailed genealogy of Moses and Aaron, which we already read once in the Pentateuch, once at the beginning of this same book and again in the directly antecedent chapter!
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And it holds that title until chapter twenty five, where we get a detailed twenty-four part genealogy of the lyre, harp and cymbal players. Fuckeringfuckatash.
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I don’t get it. Jews are a musical people. But a possessed frontman having spasms and speaking in tongues … accompanied by lyre, harp, and cymbals … would be the worst band ever!!! First of all, lyre and harp are almost the same thing, so how is that two thirds of the instrumentation?!? And then add people smashing metal discs together. That’s not a reasonable composition.
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And then they follow up the biblical “This one time at band camp” story with an even more detailed genealogy of all the bouncers that worked the temple door.
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…And then one for all the civil servants.
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I feel like an ass even covering this book. It’s just Samuel again. It’s the whole two fucking books retold. We honestly could have done this book as a “greatest hits” mash up of our last four Babble segments. In twenty eight we’re reminded of just how fucking gilded this temple Solomon was building was.
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The temple of our housewife of Beverly Hills
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And then David dies again, Solomon is anointed again, they kill a bunch of bulls again and holy shit this reading the bible shit was a horrible idea.
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I’m so excited there’s another Chronicles coming up after this one … Like Hayden Christensen excited. Annakin was the bomb in Phantom Menace, so…
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Word, bitch, Phantom Menace like a motherfucker!!!
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I feel like a rape victim at half-time. It’s confusing … poignant moment.
I don’t know, I feel like we should apologize to our listeners for how boring the Bible is. An encyclopedia would be more fucking entertaining. I can’t imagine how we’re gonna keep from putting them to sleep when we do Second Chronicles.
Well, look on the bright side; at least you don’t have to write a fucking poem about it.
Alright, so after all that this is hard for me to say, but the Holy Babble will be back in episode 52 with Second Chronicles, but don’t worry, I’m sure that one will be awesome.
Outro:
Before we close the hood tonight I wanted to thank everyone for their ideas for mash-ups and flashbacks for our fiftieth episode next week. We’re still taking suggestions so if you have a favorite skit, moment, interview or vulgarity from our first forty-nine shows, let us know. You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page of our website.
And if you just can’t get enough me, you can find me all over the podcasting world this week. Tom and Cecil were kind enough to invite me back on Cognitive Dissonance to give them a Tarot reading; Cash and Love from Atheists on Air invited me on their show last Monday to talk about sex and circumcision and John and JD at Rational Talk invited me on to chat about this program and all the behind-the-scenes stuff it takes to pull it off every week. You’ll find links to all these shows on the shownotes for this episode at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
Cognitive Dissonance; Episode 134: http://dissonancepod.com/?p=702
Rational Talk; Homepage: http://www.therationaltalk.com/
Atheists On Air; Episode 29: http://mythunderstoodalliance.com/029-sexpisode-iv-scathing-atheist-steve-wells-sab/
Of course I need to thank Heath for all his wit and wisdom. I need to thank Lucinda for suffering through probably the most boring book of the bible so far with us. I also really, really need to thank McKenzie and McKenzie’s mom for providing the hand’s-down cutest Farnsworth Quote to date. Lucinda and I listened to it four times in a row when we got it. Thanks, it was awesome.
But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s most stellar exemplifications of sentient stardust, Shelby, Vinnie, John, Geoff (Jeff), Magnus, Thomas, Ramesh and Ben. Shelby, who’s so kick ass they named a Mustang after her back when Mustangs looked cool; Vinnie, whose mighty member is worshipped by island peoples throughout the Pacific; John, whose legendary sexual prowess echoes on the lips of carnal professionals the world over; Geoff (Jeff), whose IQ has exponents; Magnus, the supreme chancellor of the intergalactic defense federation; Thomas, whose humility forced Time Magazine to settle for the Pope last year; Ramesh, whose so classy he gets his whoop-ass from a bottle; and Ben, whose ejaculations are measured on the enhanced Fujita scale.
This octuple of brave, soulless individuals have tested their mettle against the unforgiving crucible that is our donation page and returned stronger, smarter and more appealing to members of the opposite sex. If you think that you, too, have the psychological acuity required to become a sponsor of our show, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. And remember, Lucinda and I need to buy a new timing belt and all the other requisite auto-parts that constitute a full vehicle, preferably all pre-assembled and fully functional, so every dollar helps.
And of course, if you want to help but you’re afraid we’ll just use the money to buy booze, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a glowing review on iTunes and telling your friends about the show, especially the ones who might listen to it. You can also find us on all the finest social media sites and Facebook and don’t forget to listen to us on Stitcher if you’re into that kind of thing.
If you have questions, comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
Episode 45 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons
Link to Episode
Link to Foundation Beyond Belief
Warning: This podcast breaks between 50 and 70 per cent of the commandments, depending on who you ask.
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Fox’s new “holistic programming” channel: Placebo FX; featuring an all-star line up of pseudo-scientific programming including hits like “Grey’s Astrology”, Chiropractor Who and Sons of Anthropometry.
Placebo FX: Because TV execs stopped trying when they realized people would watch American Idol.
And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday
It’s December 26th
And we can finally listen to elevator music in public places again.
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright,
And from city waiting for it’s balls to drop, New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist
In this week’s episode,
-
Belgium puts the youth back in euthanasia,
-
Optimus Prime will die for your sins,
-
And Hemant Mehta rejoins us to spackle some cracks in the wall of separation.
But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe:
Last week I was doing a little Insufficiently-Executed-Jew-Mas shopping at one of New York’s fine Fifth Avenue retail establishments when I happened upon 5 white haired little old ladies in matching smocks. And on these smocks they’d written, in glue and glitter, the words, “Granny Peace Brigade”. And unlike me, they weren’t giving in to seasonally induced mindless-consumerism. No, quite the opposite in fact. They were there to protest. And of all the evils that face our world, they’d chosen to invest their efforts of protestation on fucking video games.
And I stood there and regarded them with anthropological curiosity. Because clearly they’d put some time into this. They’d spent the money on matching yellow smocks and they didn’t half ass the glitter. They’d clearly each made their own, but each one had the team name written in block letters of approximately the same height. And they’d all met up for crafts and maybe some lunch or something and then headed out to show those evil retailers how they felt about them filthy computer whats-its with the blood and guts in ‘em.
So it’s not the they weren’t willing to put in the time to research it. They just didn’t do it. Do violent video games correlate with violence? There’s mountains of good data out there and much of it is available for free on the internet. The consensus seems to be almost certainly no and while there’s some indication that violent people tend toward violent video games, there’s no compelling evidence to suggest that violent video games lead to increases in violent behavior.
But these ladies didn’t bother to check. They’d already invested time and passion and glitter in this shit. You think they were gonna do some independent research that might have proved them wrong? Hell no! Obviously research wasn’t on the menu or they would have picked a store that sold video games.
Research, shmesearch. They looked at video games, saw violence, looked at the news, saw violence and they put two and two together. Sure, they got thirteen, but the important thing is that they had an excuse to get together with the bridge club and make a trip to Ben Franklins.
And when I see these misguided geriatric “blood”ites and their fruitless campaign to impact violence through good intentions and stupidity, I can’t help but think back to four mandatory years in high school of English lit with no classes on critical thinking. No pre-requisites about psychology or epistemology or formal logic. And nothing against English Lit, but so far in my adult life the ability to spot bullshit has been far handier than even the best of quatrains.
But thanks to religious fundies, critical thinking isn’t on the school menu. Because think of all the shit teachers get when they teach redneck kids about evolution. Imagine if the kids were coming home asking where Noah got his Patagonian pumas. Or how Moses wrote the parts about his own funeral. Or why we should thank god for sacrificing himself to himself in the first place.
I’m not going to say that religion is the reason people are stupid, but it helps. It fosters a stupid, overly-accommodating culture that says there are multiple ways to arrive at truth and the ones with evidence and data aren’t any better than the ones without. We have different ways of evaluating the truth and sure, yours uses your brain, but mine uses my heart. Or my pancreas, since that’s just as logical a place to say my thoughts come from as my heart. And my pancreas thoughts are as good as your brain thoughts because science can’t tell us everything and nobody knows for sure.
And meanwhile, if we could just set all that shit aside and agree on a consistent and logical way of evaluating claims (we could call it science) then we could figure out what matters and what doesn’t and put our time toward something more productive than protesting video games, but we’d rather not do that because we don’t like being wrong… and we’ve already made the smocks.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is reigning Champion of the InKredulous Podcast, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to throw down some of that award winning incredulity?
Why are we even talking about this?!? This entire podcast should go without saying!!!
If god existed, I wouldn’t win at anything!!!
Well done; now how about some of that award-eligible headline delivering?
In our lead story tonight, A&E suspended ‘Duck Dynasty’ star Phil Robertson, after the release of a GQ interview, in which he made several unoriginal homophobic remarks, including a hackneyed comparison of gay sex to bestiality. As a result, God-fearing, Christian, heterosexual sheep fuckers everywhere, are up in arms. And that means Westboro Baptist Church is up in arms.
Yeah, when the Westboro Baptist Church is coming to your defense, it’s a good sign your career is over.
So the heir to the “synthetic quacking fortune” released a statement…
Did it just say, “I’m a 67 year old Christian redneck from Louisiana that kills small animals for a living; of course I hate queers you idiots.”
No, it actually explained how he’s super tolerant of gays: (quote) “We just give ’em the good news about Jesus – whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later.” (end quote) …
So that’s nice. He doesn’t put arbitrary labels on people, like gay … alcoholic … suicide bomber.
And as for that ‘good news’ … those groups are all equally going to hell fairly. So good news gay drunks who’ve been dying to get into terrorism: Nothing holding you back now!!! And good news lesbian Al Queda soldiers: Drink up!!! And good news bi-curious alcoholic suicide bombers: Might as well suck a dick while you’ve got the chance!!!
“Might as well suck a dick while you’ve got the chance”… okay, so when we get them to take “In God We Trust” off the money, we’ve got a ready replacement.
Along with the WBC, several other professional bigoted assholes have voiced support for Robertson’s traditionally acceptable hate speech, including the Family Research Council, and Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones. They argue that A&E “not H-eight-ing fags”, denies Robertson’s First Amendment Right to exercise Christianity in a world where all corporations H-eight fags.
The Duck Dynasty Guy getting from the Westboro Baptist Church: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/westboro-baptist-duck-dynasty_n_4479995.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
And from the “Now Where Will We Crucify Voltron?” file tonight, a San Diego federal judge has decided that a 43 foot tall concrete cross on public property could be interpreted as a government endorsement of Christianity.
Or at least government persecution of Jews, Muslims, and Transformers.
Don’t say that around Michael Bay or I swear Optimus’ll be hanging from this thing in part seven. Now I think it’s worth noting that this is only the latest in a long series of judges ruling the Mount Soledad cross unconstitutional. Legal wrangling over the status of the controversial eyesore has been ongoing since 1989 and it was already found to be unconstitutional once in the nineties and again in 2011. Because it’s a giant, gaudy cross sitting on top of a mountain on public property and it doesn’t take a seasoned magistrate to see what’s wrong with that.
I’d say the best way to get rid of the cross would be burning it. Shouldn’t be too hard to find some Christians to get on board with that.
Proponents of the cross have tried everything from making the surrounding space a memorial to selling the land to transferring it to federal jurisdiction to avoid complying with the constitution, and despite the fact that a church a few hundred feet from the present location has offered to keep it on their property, proponents fight on because what’s the point of having a 29 foot tall cross on a 14 foot base if it isn’t on the summit of a mountain?
Judge orders that Mount Soledad cross be removed: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/12/13/why-the-mt-soledad-cross-and-its-like-are-unconstitutional/
And in “Salvation Arms Race” news, the War on Christmas rages on, as bell-ringer Kristina Vindiola was punched really hard in the arm, while collecting donations outside an Arizona Wal-Mart. Reports indicate she provoked the violence when she started shouting anti-Christian epithets like “Happy Holidays”.
This may be the stupidest example of Christian dominionism. Set aside that before they started getting all uppity about it most people thought of “Happy holidays” as a way of getting Merry Christmas and Happy New Year out in 5 syllables; even if it means what they think it means, they’re getting pissed off at people for publicly acknowledging the fact that some people have a different religion than them. How dare some?
So an un-named “Merry Christmas Fundamentalist” heard Vindiola use slurs like the “H-words” several times, as well as other inflammatory synonymous phrases like, “BLANK-cember 25th”. The Christian shopper obviously became incensed, and shouted back something like: “Don’t you believe in God? It’s Merry Christmas, you godless cunt!” – and then assaulted Vindiola for being a terrible Christian.
Salvation Army volunteer punched for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/kristina-vindiola-punched-happy-holidays_n_4460525.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
And in equal opportunity genital joke news tonight, the Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot was released from a Russian prison last week when it was deemed that the national threat that their metronomic cadence and scaled down barred chords presented had sufficiently expired.
And the feminist movement takes another blow … which they hate. The most famous all-female band in history still has “Pussy” in their name. Pussy Riot surpassed the illustrious Pussycat Dolls on their climb to the top of the … tiny area below the glass floor.
The members of the all-girl band were originally imprisoned after recording a music video that criticized the Russian church’s support of Putin and in a theoretically abnormal abuse of anti-blasphemy laws, Putin incarcerated the group after painstakingly revealing the details of his evil plan.
And I suppose now that we’re this deep into the Pussy story, it’s inevitable that we put 30 seconds on the clock…
I can usually go twice that long.
Names for Vaginal Tribute bands. Go!
Bled Zeppelin
Johnny Gash and Tennessee Twat
Cooze Traveler
Cleft Leppard
Blue Oyster Cunt
Queef Latifah
Molly Hatchet Wound
And for the ladies who like in the Jazz; Cunt Basie and the Kansas Titty 5
Phish … Tacos
Queen Crimson, maybe? More like a gay joke than a pussy joke, I guess…
Grand Master Gash
Labio-Head?
Meat Loaf Wallet
Fleetwood Crack
Pink Void: featuring Roger Twatters
Hoo-Hah and the Blowfish
Snatch Box Twenty
I have a few more, but I think that’s enough feminism for the time being.
Amazing that in 17 vagina puns we never used “clit”
I looked for one but I couldn’t find it.
Pussy-Riot members released from prison: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/20/pussy-riot-rockers-convicted-of-religious-hatred-are-released-from-russian-prison/
And just a few quick items before we close the headlines . . .
Item One: 61 years after UK courts convicted math and computer genius Alan Turing of being too gay while cracking Nazi cryptography, and 59 years after his related suicide, the living Queen pardoned the dead queen, and apologized that he was offered chemical castration via female hormone sex-change injections in lieu of jail.
So soon?
Item Two is a quick update on the would be Satanic monument on the Oklahoma Statehouse steps that we talked about a couple of episodes ago. After receiving additional requests from Hindus and animal right activists, the state has declared a moratorium on new monuments, that will, of course, not affect the ten commandments monument that got this ball of shit rolling.
Oklahoma declares “moratorium” on displays at Statehouse: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/19/okla-wont-allow-new-requests-for-capitol-monuments-after-satanists-others/
Item Three: Human veal supply will spike after euthanasia was approved for youth in Belgium. And it’s about time . . . When you eat Chinese children, you just want to adopt another kid thirty minutes later.
http://www.religionnews.com/2013/12/19/belgium-debates-allowing-gravely-ill-children-right-die/
And quick, before it gets worse, we’ll close out the headlines. Heath, thanks as always.
And when we come back, I’ll be rejoined by Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta to talk about what students can do to keep god out of their high schools.
Outro:
Before we apologize awkwardly and claim it’s never happened to us before tonight, I wanted to direct you to a hilarious episode of the InKredulous Podcast featuring Jay Novella of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, our very own Heath Enwright and our very own me. You can Google InKredulous (with a “K”) or you can look for a handy link on the shownotes for this episode. Huge thanks to Andy for the invite.
http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/category/podcast/inkredulous-podcast/
I also need to thank Lucinda for opening the show for us, I need to thank Heath for his humorous lack of a moral compass, I need to thank Hemant Mehta once again for a really productive and interesting conversation and I want to remind you that you can find links to his website and the Foundation Beyond Belief on our homepage and on the shownotes for this episode.
Of course, I’ve also gotta thank Dustin from the Atheist Nomads podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. His partner did one before but Dustin made more of the rock star entrance. If you haven’t checked out their podcast yet you have noone to blame for it but yourself. Again, links can be found on the shownotes.
I need to congratulate Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance for Grinching all the joy out of Christmas for me this year by defeating me by less than four points last week in the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists, thus earning the first ever championship title in said league.
But of course, most of all we need to thank this week’s most exceptional vertebrates; Steve-O, Chester, David, Ryan, James and Magnus the Great Dane. Steve-O, who’s so cool they measure him in Kelvin; Chester, who’s fortified with 13 essential vitamins and minerals; David, whose athletic prowess is so great he hold records in sports he’s never played; Ryan, who is second only to the Hokey-Pokey in being what it’s all about; James, who shall one day inherit a kingdom and make a killing with it on ebay and Magnus the Great Dane, who is, by default more correct on the god question than more than three-quarters of the world’s human population because even a species that eats it’s own poop knows better than to believe in god.
These six notable and noble humanitarians and caninatarians have justified the proterozoic leap into multi-cellular life this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the compassion, composure and competence to compensate us, but if you think you share Steve-O, Chester, David, Ryan, James and Magnus the Great Dane complementable competence, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
And if you got duped by that old “better to give than to receive” line again this year and blew all your cash, no worries. You can also help us a ton by leaving us a review on iTunes and checking us out on all the various social media places you frequent. Oh, and check us out on Stitcher because I forgot to mention that the last couple weeks and our Stitcher ranking dropped so do that.
If you have questions comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
Episode 44 – Partial Transcript
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.
Episode 43 – Partial Transcript
Oh, were you stopping by for the Stitcher Award Nomination Link? CLICK HERE… (and thanks)
by Heath Enwright and Lucinda&Noah Lugeons
(Note: Transcript contains elements that were edited from the episode due to time constraints)
Warning: This podcast contains adult language including two shits, a fuck, a piss, another fuck, dick, jizz, another fuck, motherfucker, bitch, two more shits, cunt, cock, fucktard, fuck-nozzle, several assholes, more fucks…
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new chain of pre-apocalyptic rapture supply outlets; Genesis 7-11. Because now that they’re letting the queers get married, you know god’s judgment can’t be far off. Mention this ad and get a free set of swimmies with any purchase over twenty dollars.
Genesis 7-11: Thank you Jesus, come again.
And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday
It’s December 12th
And my ass is less of a J-Lo, and more of a Cee Lo
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright,
And from coniferous New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist
In this week’s episode,
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We’ll learn that it’s hard to roll R’s with a dick in your mouth.
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We’ll find out that everyone has an equal right to discriminate against gays.
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And the perfect, plump roundness of Rush Limbaugh’s face is related to pi.
But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe:
If Tennessee is the buckle of the bible belt, South Georgia is the taint. Which works out well because clearly the Florida panhandle is the scrotum. So unless you consider the Mississippi delta to be the asshole, in which case coastal Alabama is the taint, South Georgia is the de facto Bible taint.
And boy what a taint it is. I should know. I spent a big chunk of my childhood there. I spent six formative years of my life living in a place where the two accepted religious affiliations were Baptist and Devil-Worshipper. Where you had to drive to a theater two towns away to see blasphemous films like, I shit you not, Wayne’s World. Where church groups organized dozens of people to protest a comic book shop because they were promoting, I continue to shit you not, Dungeons and Dragons.
My first job was washing dishes at a local pizzeria where I was dismissed as “the guy who thinks we came from monkeys”. The principle at my high school led the students in prayer during the morning announcements and before each football game. My 10th grade English teacher once spent an entire hour telling us about the dangers of Satanism and my 9th grade science teacher once told the class that gays were an abomination against god and should be dragged into the street and shot.
Religion was everywhere. It was in the school, it was at the mall, it was protesting in front of the movie theater, it was showing up uninvited at my house, it was scolding me from every church sign, it was staring at me from the bumper of every pickup, it was blessing me from every cash register, it was blockading my girlfriend’s vagina. It was inescapable, in charge and insane.
And the stories they believed weren’t just crazy, they were fucking silly. I couldn’t comprehend how anyone took them seriously. I remember walking past church services and wondering if it was all an elaborate hoax that everyone was in on but me. It felt like I was the only sane person on the planet.
I wanted to grab people as they came out of church and say, “can’t we at least agree that this is exactly what religion would look like if it was just made up out of whole cloth to oppress people? Can’t we at least agree that if a ten year old was lying about his invisible pet alien he would use the exact same debate tactics that you guys use? Can’t we at least agree that taking this book about dragons and talking donkeys and resurrected Jews seriously without asking for a shred of tangible evidence is functionally indistinguishable from clinical nincompoopery?”
I couldn’t understand it. Many of these people were reasonable and far more intelligent than me when we weren’t talking about resurrected Jewish messiahs, but as soon as that subject came up an otherwise rational human being would start spouting proofs that they’d never accept in any non-religious circumstance. All of a sudden basic moral precepts like “burning people for eternity is wrong” and “babies aren’t evil sinners” fly out the fucking window.
And for years I just wrote those folks off as stupid. And it’s damned tempting. It’s damn tempting to laugh off the Chicken Little campaigns against Harry Potter books and World of Warcraft and say that they’re the products of misguided, uniformed, paranoid minds. But if you leave it there, you’re underestimating them and you’re underestimating the consequences of growing up in a town that was willing to rise up as one to keep the scourge of Wayne’s World from the local youth.
Religion can only survive on ignorance. Information is the achilles heel of faith and unless they control everything a person watches or plays or reads or learns, nobody’s ever gonna buy into their bullshit. They won’t be able to shut the critical parts of their brain down in those critical moments. They have to fight against everything because it takes a lot of work to make people continue to believe in demonic snakes and octa-centurion ark builders.
But there was no internet back then. There was no way to fact-check them when they controlled the bookstores and the library and the schools. A kid could feel like he or she was the only person in the world with a fully functional brain. There was no internet and there were no forums or wikis or podcasts or blogs.
And maybe when you strip away all the post-hoc justifications, that’s the real reason I do this show. Just to know that when religion dies, I’ll have been a small contributor to the murder weapon.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is fellow brain in a jar Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to dismiss hard solipsism due to it’s lack of functional consequence?
Dismiss what?
Well there you go then.
In our lead story tonight, Al Azhar – a prestigious Islamic university in Cairo – released a study last month examining the fatwas issued by Islamic theocrats in Egypt during the one-year reign of Mohamed Morsi that ended in July of this year. And if you’re anything like me, and you worry about your 10-year-old wife’s tiny vagina being torn to shreds by something other than your adult male penis, the rules all make perfect sense.
So we’re just shredding 10 year old vaginas right up front, huh? Just gonna show up for the blind date with dick in hand. No, that’s fine…
For example, common sense stuff like: “Avoid creating a comfortable rape environment by turning off the air conditioner when you expect your heat-sensitive rapist neighbor might stop by.”
And as much as I wish you made that up, no, that’s a real fatwa. Better your wife spend her days in an un-air-conditioned house in a country with an average high temperature over 90 degrees.
There was another decree that prohibited women from handling bananas, cucumbers, and other phallic flora … that they might shove inside themselves in rabid seizures of uncontrollable female desire. Lesbians were also banned from buying almonds, curtains, and modern art … and from existing in the country.
There was also a fatwa against having sex naked, though, so you never have to know exactly which gender you’re fucking.
My favorite fatwa was issued in response to a clever group of Muslim adulteresses, who were cheating on their husbands with salt water. Turns out the word for “ocean” is a masculine noun, and if the wrong arbitrary linguistic gender assignment touches your wife’s vagina, it’s adultery. But for some reason, it’s perfectly normal for men to swim in a sea of dicks.
Just don’t swallow. It’s salty as fuck.
The Muslim Brotherhood showcased a surprisingly good string of puns when they released the following headline in conjunction with the Adultery Swim Fatwa . . . (quote) “Buoys on the Tide: Sticky situation in the Perversion Gulf as married women swim in gland shark infested waters seeking salt water staffy and motion in the brocean.” (end quote)
I’m adding the Adultery Swim channel’s existence to Jet Pack and the Darth Vader butt plug in case Santa is listening.
But here’s the problem . . . The Arabic word for “nothing” is also masculine, which means she’s gotta put something in there, but only about half the things are eligible, so it gets tricky. Book, but not page. Finger, but not knuckle. Shaft, but not tip. And again, no veggies, so what’s a girl to do?!?
Fatwa: Women who swim in the ocean are committing adultery: http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2013/12/1/-fatwa-women-who-swim-in-the-sea-commit-adultery-should-be-punished <<also>> http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/fatwa-al-azhar-university-cairo-women-swimming-in-sea-adultresses/1/326883.html
And in “Satan debatin’” news tonight; devil’s advocate, posthumous lesbianator and head of the New York based Satanic Temple Lucien Greaves has made it back into the news this week by filing a request to place a Satanic monument on the steps of the Oklahoma Statehouse… right next to the one with the ten commandments on it. Greaves argues that if that space is reserved for religious displays, his religion has as much right to it as any other and unfortunately for Oklahoma theocrats, the stupid laws they recently enacted accidentally agree with him.
This is the great playground moment. That asshole kid makes up a shitty new rule about the endzone boundary, and the very next play he’s past the hydrant, so it’s out of bounds.
When asked about the possibility of a Satanic monument, representative Bobby Cleveland dismissed the idea and the Satanists behind it as falling under (quote) “the nut category”. And not because believing in a giant red monster with a pitchfork that tempts humanity and runs the HR department in Hades is nutty.
So the notion that Lex Luthor exists is ridiculous … but Superman’s obviously real!!!
The Temple says they’re considering a number of designs none of which, unfortunately, involve Jesus and sodomy. And I’d put 30 seconds on the clock here for Jesus Butt-Rape porn titles, but something tells me we’re gonna need that 30 seconds later.
But if anybody wants to chime in with a few, it’s been way too long since (hashtag) Butt Raping Jesus was trending on Twitter . . . I’ll get things rolling . . . Ass-Holy Communion: Receiving the Body of Christ . . .
Satanist seek to put up monument in Oklahoma courthouse: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/08/satanists-seek-spot-next-to-ten-commandments-monument-on-steps-oklahoma/
And from the “Popes Parting Velvet Ropes” file, Catholicism’s Rico Chart-Topper told Italian churchgoers that he gained valuable experience as a bouncer at a nightclub in Argentina, where it was also very important to correctly identify the age of a minor, no matter what kind of tip they offered. His only regret was jumping right into the priesthood, before he got more experience working the rear entrance.
I wonder how the Union of Argentinian Bouncers is taking this news. On the one hand they might be thinking of using it in their advertising; you know, bounce today, pontificate tomorrow; but on the other hand it’s gotta knock your badass image down three or four spots when people know your job could be done by the elderly hybridization of Woody Allen and Droopy Dog.
To bolster his reputation as the “people’s” supreme pontiff, Pope Frangioplasty made sure to mention that before he was even known as Reverend Whore-Gay Beer Goggles, he was just a normal blue-collar guy, checking fugitive Nazi ID’s, sweeping floors, and figuring out how to become humanity’s conduit to the implied omnipotent watch-maker of the universe.
Pope admits he used to work as a bouncer: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/03/pope-i-was-once-a-bar-bouncer/
And in the “Who Would Jesus Shitcan?” file tonight, we have the story of Michael Griffin, a former teacher at the Holy Ghost Preparatory school in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, who was a current teacher at the Holy Ghost Preparatory school in Bensalem, Pennsylvania until administrators recently found evidence that he was trying to marry a dude.
It’s weird that they find the ‘attempt to marry’ more offensive than the pre-marital butt sex.
And because US law somehow protects the rights of Catholic institutions to write in “no sucking off dudes” clauses into employment contracts, this bullshit is legal. When asked how being gay-married could possibly affect the performance of Spanish and French teacher, an imaginary representative of the school explained that (quote) “being a homosexual probably helps you with French but he has to teach Spanish, too.”
Gay Catholic School teacher fired for applying for marriage lisence: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/08/us-catholic-school-fires-gay-teacher-marriage
And in “Rush versus The Holy Triumverate” news, Rush Limbaugh is furious at Pope Franno Domini for endangering the Republican Party’s delicate Christianity hijack mission, by reminding Catholics that Jesus – as well as Kindergarten – both teach that “sharing is nice”. Limbaugh believes the Pope is just bitter over losing to him in a “Jowl Roundness Contest”.
I’m dying to know how that thing was judged: I’m picturing them both holding one of those little Japanese drums from Karate Kid Two under their chins, flopping their heads back and forth. Next up, in the acorn hoarding round…
The Octo-Chinned Conservative Casey Kasem – who labeled the Pope’s sharing remarks as (quote) “pure Marxism” – became an expert economist while failing to graduate from Southeast Missouri State. In fairness, for all we know he could have breezed through at his safety school, which was West Northwest Southeast Missouri A&M.
Go Paddlefish!
Limbaugh released a segment called, “It’s Sad How Wrong Pope Francis Is [parentheses] (Unless It’s a Deliberate Mistranslation By Leftists)” . . . So built into his title – in parentheses! … as if almost tacitly understood! – is the claim that liberal spies have likely infiltrated the English translation department at the Vatican, for the purposes of sneaking references to “Das Kapital” into the Pope’s translated speeches, thus undermining American capitalism.
He’s not the best in the business for nothin’. Glenn Beck would have needed 10 minutes and a chalkboard to connect all that shit and Rush does it 14 words and some brackets.
In honor of shitty Christian commentators, as well as yellow and brown journalists everywhere, let’s put 30 seconds on the clock . . . Christian Assholes as Shit Porn Stars – GO!!!
And I’m adding the 30 seconds I didn’t use earlier because that’s fucking awesome. So now go.
I’ll start it out with a topical Flush Limbaugh … just as a courtesy.
Bowel O’Steen? Wait… that sounded better before I said it… um… Joel O’Stain?
Maybe Bowl Osteen? . . . No- Bowel Sharpton.
Or Bowely Graham, maybe?
Speaking of stretching the bowels: Bran Coulter?
Brick Perry
Dick Santorum’s too easy . . . Wolf Shitzer?
Cardinal Timothy Colon
Deuce Almighty
Fanny Crosby? That’s only funny if you’re a fan of late 17th century hymns, I guess. How about Pope Fran-Cesspool?
L Ron Buggered
No fair using Scientologists. My first thought was Shit Romney, but I didn’t use him, because Mormonism is a cult.
Anal Roberts
T.P. Jakes!
Scat Robertson
Rush v. the Holy Triumverate: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/02/rush-limbaugh-vs-the-pope/
Well, I hate to pinch off the poop puns early, but we’re outta time. Heath, thanks for hanging out.
And when we return, Lucinda will join us to ruin her chances at a future political career.
One Kings in Rhyme
I suppose that if I was a deity, who fashioned the earth and the seas,
Then covered all up in creatures and made some subordinate mes,
And I had a message I wanted to send them, something that I thought was vital,
I’d probably write them a list of instructions, or at least divinely inspire a bible.
It would be hard to decide what to tell them, though, since the book could be only so long,
I’d want them to know there was purpose, and to know the right path from the wrong.
And I’d stress over what I’d include there, and I’d stress over what to omit,
After all there’s a lot more to say than the space of one single book would permit.
See, I’d want to impart on them knowledge, and show them the value of peace,
And I’d probably want to include something in it, about the nature of germs and disease.
Should I remind them not to rape women? Or not to make people work without pay?
Should I tell them they can’t beat their children? Or beat off more than four times a day?
Should I explain that the sun’s in the center? Or the value of washing with soap?
Should I explain in unmistakable terms that there’s always a reason to hope?
Well, according to god the most wise course of action, is to leave out all of those things,
And make sure there’s plenty of space that’s left over, for a long list of Israel’s kings.
But I guess that’s why I don’t write bibles, and am just some anonymous tit,
And he’s the all-knowing creator of all, and the alpha, omega and shit.
If you read my book you’d know to be thoughtful, and to let people love who they choose,
But I’d fuck up and leave out important details, like who led the sixth century BCE jews.
I’d have skipped all the stuff about Solomon, and the temple he built for the Lord,
And instead I’ve had told them how telescopes work and what wonders they might point them toward.
I’d have droned on and on about hygiene, wasted time on nutritional facts,
And forgotten to mention who was leading the Jews when the Philistine army attacks.
I’d have pissed away pages on problems they would face as their populace grows,
And I’d have probably put is some stuff I can’t fathom that only a deity knows.
I’d have wasted a couple of chapters on the equality of genders and races,
And I’d have forgotten to smite them and punish their children for pillar and poles in high places.
I suppose that if I were to write it, you’d have questions at the end of the tome.
Like, “How long did it take for the third king of Israel to finish building his solid gold home?”
So I’ll submit that as I’m just a mortal, I can’t fathom a deity’s ways,
But from my perspective it’s fair to conclude that he sure writes in mysterious phrase.
Babble (One Kings)
One Kings; because god knows that you can never get enough mythologized Jewish history. This book babbles endlessly about a series of Israel’s kings as though it’s daring you to keep reading.
And I think the singular is pronounced “king”.
So joining Heath and me to celebrate being one sixth of the way through this book is my beautiful wife Lucinda, Lucinda, welcome back.
Always happy to be here.
The books are pretty linear at this point, so no need to set anything up; this basically starts right where Two Samuel ends.
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Now King David is old and sick and we have to decide who gets to be the next king.
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But before we get to all that, we have to tell you about the king’s new hooker, who he wasn’t fucking.
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No, she was just keeping him warm.
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“She wasn’t jerking me off! She was trying to start a fire with my cock.”
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Yeah, King David was cold so his doctor prescribed a new virgin. And also Solomon became king and his bro Adonijah was more than a little pissed about it.”
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The talent pool in the desert must have been running dry, considering the most attractive woman in the land is named “Abishag the Shunammite” . . . Sounds more like an orc general from Lord of the Rings.
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Then we get this touching bit where David takes Solomon aside and offers his final words. And it’s basically a list of people he wants Solomon to kill.
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Including Shimei, the dude that David promised not to kill in the previous chapter. He says, “All I said was I wouldn’t kill him. I never said anything about you, or other hired assassins. That wasn’t in the contract.”
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And then Adonijah says, “Hey bro, since you got the whole kingdom and everything, you think I could have dad’s new hooker?” Solomon says “no” and then kills him for asking.
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And then Solomon proves he’s wise by threatening to cut a baby in half.
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This is actually a pretty fucked up story. Two women are accusing each other of killing their baby and swapping him out for a living one, which is fucked up enough before David starts threatening to split the baby down the middle.
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So naturally the real mom says, “No, don’t chop the baby in half you fucking psycho!” but the other lady says, “Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll take half a baby. It’s enough for a stew.”
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And this is Solomon’s tagline moment . . . His “Yippie Ki-Yay Mother Truckers!” His defining biblical event is an episode of Judge Judah, when he settles a maternity dispute between a murderous whore and a regular whore. Also, since when are single mother whores trying to keep their babies?!? I guess the name Johnson had to start somewhere.
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And then chapter 4 is basically a list of Solomon’s cabinet, a list of what he eats and a list of people he was smarter than.
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They make very sure to mention that he spake 3000 proverbs, and wrote one thousand … five … songs … Which is clearly bullshit. Those are the most obviously “made-up numbers” I’ve ever heard. There’s no way he hits EXACTLY 3000 proverbs and EXACTLY 1000 songs, but can’t resist writing 5 extra jingles.
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And then Solomon gets the wheels turning on his new temple. And let me tell ya it’s gonna be one bitchin’ ass temple.
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And in case you were wondering, say, how many cubits wide the nave was or how many sides the door posts have, it’s all spelled out in chapter six.
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Yeah, and god has the same interior design sense as Jay-Z apparently.
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HaShemTV Cribs . . . Sons of Joshua Cribs
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And then we get all the important details about Solomon’s palace, including the latticework, the dishes, candle snuffers and spittoons. Really important shit going on here.
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“I know I’m just a slave laborer helping you build a palace, but do you guys think it’s the best idea to put all the gold, and the god box, all in one place?!? I think we’re overdoing it a little. I’m literally carrying a single basket of golden eggs.”
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And then he has a house party…
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And for all his help building the temple and shit, Solomon gives Hiram 20 cities, but apparently they were his 20 crappiest cities.
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This book of the bible is like a first date with a rich douche. Every few sentences we’re hearing about Solomon’s throne or his golden vessels or his fleets or his platinum butt plug.
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I think we call this a … ‘teachable moment’ … Jews should only put the rarest of metals in their palace, and in their ass. “But hold on – Stop making golden calves. You guys always go straight to that!”
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And in chapter 10 I’m pretty sure it brags about him fucking the Queen of Sheba, too.
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I believe it said he gave her everything she desired, and a taste of the royal bounty on top. So I’m pretty sure they fucked, and it sounds like they even got a milk and honey shot in there.
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And in case you were wondering what kind of mileage he’s getting with that dick of his, Chapter 11 actually starts with the words, “Solomon loved many foreign women” and went on to describe his harem of more than a thousand wives..
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This guy spread more STDs to minorities than the Tuskeegee Experiments.
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And if I’ve learned anything from this book, when vaginas show up, trouble can’t be far behind. So, of course, his wives talk him into turning against god and offering burnt offerings to other gods so real god concoct this convoluted, multi-generational revenge plot.
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So Solomon dies and his son Rehoboam takes over. The people come to their new king saying, “Hey, it would be awesome if you stopped whipping us.” And Rehoboam endeared himself to the people by saying, “You don’t like the whips? No more whips. We’ll use scorpions instead.”
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And then the kingdom was divided because god likes to go over his shoulder to scratch his ass.
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And they open 2 Mooby Burgers.
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So you’ve got Jeroboam who god gives a chunk of the kingdom to and he’s an asshole, too. He starts making non-Levite priests so god sends a prophet to tell Jeroboam that the shit’s about to hit the fan.
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And then god kills the prophet with a fucking lion for eating food and drinking water.
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Falls for the oldest trick in the book. Some guy walks up to him: “Are you a prophet from God? Get the fuck out of here – me too!!! Let’s go eat. Oh you have a note from God that says don’t eat. This is so crazy. I have a note. Also from God. Says that you should disregard your note and go eat with me, after which you will definitely NOT be mauled by a tiger.”
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So basically you’ve got Jeroboam running Israel into the ground and at the same time you’ve got Rehoboam fucking things up in Judah.
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Yeah, apparently they were making high places, pillars and sacred poles. And if that’s not bad enough (and it is), their temple prostitutes were the wrong gender.
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Bunch of savages in this town.
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Man-whores just aren’t cost effective . . . from an orifice perspective. Less bang for your buck . . . despite more “schmekel per shekel”.
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And is it just me or is this book pissed off at you for reading it? It keeps saying stuff like “And are not the acts of Abijam, are they not written in the Annals of the Kings of Judah?”
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Are you telling me the Gideons expect me to just guess what else happened to Abijam?!? I’m sitting here in my hotel room like an idiot … trying to get the whole story on this Judaism stuff.
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And during this unending war between Israel and Judah the Israelis get some practice walling off territories and that’ll come in handy later.
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And then we just start churning through one king after the other. King so and so reigned for so many years and did evil by the lord greater than all the kings before him and then he died, ad infinitum
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And then we finally meet Elijah, who god is pawning around during a drought. And he’s pretty badass. He has birds that feed him and magic jars of food and he even brings kids back from the dead by rubbing his genitals against them.
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Right … three dick rubs resurrects a dead baby. They don’t mention this, but if you do it right, that will also get you to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop. I learned that the hard way.
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So Elijah shows up all Charles Bronsony and decides to prove that god is god by challenging the prophets of Baal to a divine Ox-burning contest, in which he kicks ass.
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And then to emphasize how total his victory is, he kills all the prophets of Baal.
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Then Elijah flees like a pansy and god commands him to anoint a few new kings.
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And in a lost “who’s on first base” opportunity, Elijah meets Elisha
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Then there’s some boring war shit and one king attacks another king… fuck, I don’t even know anymore. All I know is somebody didn’t kill the person god told him to kill so god gets all pissy.
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And we learn this from a bizarre story involving a masochistic prophet and a divine lion attack.
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Then Ahab wants Naboth’s vineyard, but he won’t sell it. So Ahab’s wife arranges to have him stoned to death.
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God hears about this and gets pissed so he sends Elijah to tell Ahab he’s fucked and dogs are gonna eat his wife.
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But Ahab fasts and wears a sack around so god says, “shucks, I guess I don’t have to kill you and have dogs eat your wife. I suppose we can save that punishment for your kids.”
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And then it ends with this long, pointless story about Jehoshaphat and the King of Israel want to go to war with Ramoth-Gilead and all but one of the prophets say they’ll win, but one prophet says the other prophets are full of shit… and they were.
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And the king gets killed in battle and, just as god had decreed, dogs lapped up his blood and, and in an understated twist, prostitutes bathed in it.
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Yeah I’m confused by all the whore talk. Why would there be prostitutes … when they had slaves? Slave is the world’s oldest profession. That’s like buying CDs on Napster.
So I suppose the real mystery of One Kings is how the fuck they managed to finance the sequel. We’ll find that out in three weeks and in the meantime, we’ll be washing our brains out with soap. Heath, Lucinda, thanks for sticking with it.
Outro
Before we ring the final bell tonight, I wanted to make a quick correction. We covered a story last week about public prayer booths in Kansas City and it was almost completely bullshit. Sorry about that. Another fail in our story-vetting process. We’ll try to tighten that up and in the meantime I want to thank all the astute listeners who clued us in on that.
I also wanted to let everyone know that the nomination phase has started for the 2nd annual Stitcher Awards. Heath, Lucinda and I really, really, really want to win one and we need your help. You can nominate us up to once per day in as many categories as you think are appropriate. So if you have a few minutes and you’re feeling generous this holiday season, please head over to Stitcher (dot) promoTW (dot) com and nominate the shit out of us. Daily. I’m not too proud to beg. You’ll also find links to the nomination page on our blog, our Twitter feed and our Facebook page because, like I said, I’m not too proud to beg.
That’s all the blasphemy we have for you this week, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with a visit from the Friendly Atheist himself, Hemant Mehta so get excited about that. But if you can’t wait that long, be sure to check out episode 33 of The Herd Mentality Podcast with Adam Reakes, where you can hear my impression of Joel O’Steen orgasming to death on an 8 horsepower, turbocharged, solid gold butt plug.
http://herdmentalitypodcast.com/
I need to thank Heath for keeping it real, Lucinda for putting up with the two of us, I want to thank everyone who did some Holiday shopping on our Cafe Press site and, of course, a huge thanks to Evan Bernstein from the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. He’s one fifth of my all-time favorite podcast, really cool of him to do it and of course, you’ll find a link to his show on this week’s shownotes, right next to the link to nominate us for a Stitcher Award.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
But most of all I need to thank this week’s most valuable humans, Wayne, Debbie and Vinnie; Wayne, whose ejaculations have seismological designations; and Debbie and Vinnie, whose altruism and advice deserves less of a one liner and more of a very genuine thanks on behalf of both my wife and myself for reminding us that generally speaking, humans are awesome.
And since I already hit you up for a Stitcher nomination half a dozen times, I’m not gonna bother reminding you that if you’d like to support the show financially you’ll find the donation button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
If you have questions, comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact information on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
Episode 42 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons
Warning, this podcast contains explicit language and obscure SAT words.
Sponsor:
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And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday,
It’s December 5th,
And non-sequiturs have NO rules!!!
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright,
And from mostly harmless New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.
On this week’s episode
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New Mexico offers a 90-day return policy if your god is broken,
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We’ll bring a towel,
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And Kansas City finds a way to escape the Matrix and get to Zion.
But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe:
So I was watching football last week, and no, you limey bastards, I don’t mean soccer. Clearly the word “football” belongs to the people who hijacked it for a game where kicking the ball is against the rules in almost every situation, despite the nearly global agreement to the contrary, led by the people who both coined the term and invented the language it was coined in. Because America, damn it. And sometimes Canada, damn it, too.
And speaking of damn it, damn it if the postgame interviews weren’t brought to you by Jesus. And Subway.
Some reporter is interviewing the paragon of intellectualism that stuffed the run on 4th down and ended the game and in response to the question; “Do you have to play the run differently when you’re dealing with a mobile quarterback?” This nincompoop prefaces his answer with “First of all, I want to thank Jesus Christ; it all starts with him.”
Yeah, run-blitzing starts with Jesus. Because how the fuck are you supposed to wrap up a tackle if nobody had died for your sins? And wasn’t it Christ the savior stuffing the A gap and forcing the runner inside? No? That was a real human that exists? Then fuck you and answer the question you blathering neanderthal. Nobody tuned into the broadcast this afternoon saying, “Boy, I hope we get some sage-like theological nuggets from the nose guard once this is over.” Your a linebacker. We don’t even want to hear you talk about football, let alone your lord and savior, baby Jesus.
This stuff pisses me off and not just for the obvious reason that it only goes one way. As Carlin points out, you never hear “The good lord tripped me up behind the line of scrimmage”. Except for Bills Wideout Stevie Johnson who once lamented over a dropped ball that cost his team a game by Tweeting, “I praise you 24/7 and this is how you do me!!!”
And beyond that, there’s the implication that god loves you more than the other team. When future hall of famer and probably murderer Ray Lewis talked to the media after last year’s Superbowl, he actually said, “If god is for you, who can be against you?” Implying that god personally decided that the Ravens would win and, in a roundabout way, that the 49ers are the minions of the devil.
And if that’s not enough, consider the insult to everybody who actually did something. Think about how many people directly impacted the team’s victory more than Jesus. He could have thanked his teammates, his coaches, his trainers, his mom, his fluffer… all of those people deserve the thanks more than some nomadic Jewish felon from the iron age.
But more than all of that; more than the selective application, the egocentrism and the corporeal snubbing, what pisses me off most when I hear these impromptu benedictions is that the Jesus-groupies have no idea that they’re being assholes. And even after that extensive but not exhaustive list of why it pisses me off, plenty of Christians would hear this diatribe and say “He’s just expressing his opinion! Why shouldn’t he be allowed to express his views? Why, Noah, you’re allowed to express your views every week on this podcast. Doesn’t he deserve the same liberty?”
No and fuck you rhetorical voice of opposition. It’s just another special privilege that religion gets and nothing else gets. If he wants to start a Christian podcast or thank Jesus at his church I’m not gonna bitch about it… as much. But we were talking about football and all of a sudden we’re on to the lord almighty.
Can you imagine if people were like that about their political views or… anything else at all? Some sideline reporter says, “How does this win affect your playoff chances?” and somebody says, “First of all, I just want to say that embryos aren’t babies, it all starts with that,” or “Before I answer that, I just want to thank Xena for all the erections,” or “Well, it all starts with the fact that the X-Men would fuck the Avengers up in a fight” I don’t care if I agree with what you’re saying or not, you’re still being an asshole. We’re not talking about politics or comics or warrior princesses or god-damned god, we’re talking about football.
But they don’t see it that way. They think they’re doing a good thing. They think they’re being humble and most of the people who hear it think the same thing. They ignore all the theological implication of a god who answers mid-third quarter prayers from millionaire athletes and ignores the kids with cancer and the people who had money on the other team. Something good happened, so it was Jesus. Thanks Jesus!
But I’m willing to bet they’d recognize the problem damn quick if he’d said, “I just want to thank Allah for being the real god” or even something like “I’d just like to thank Darwinian evolution for the genetic mutations that made me six foot eight, 330 pounds and able to withstand bovine doses of steroids.”
And besides, football has already disproven the existence of god. Just ask Tebow.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is my equally atheistic about ancient Japanese gods co-host, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to blaspheme against Fujin, Shinto god of the wind?
Love these opening segments. I feel like an atheist with Tourette’s. Fuck Fujin, Shinto god of the wind. Fuck him and the Akabeko he rode in on.
Well done. In our lead story tonight the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for the offence of owning hospitals while being a group of callous, misogynistic cock-warts.
Hospitals 101: Doctors should avoid cock-warts, and related calluses.
The lawsuit centers around the medical mistreatment of one Tamesha Means by the Catholic owned “Mercy Health Muskegon Hospital” back in 2010 and the story is almost fucked up enough to be Irish. Means made several trips to the emergency room due to complications in an 18 week pregnancy and, of course, medical procedure and human decency would suggest that the doctors should inform her that unless she terminated the pregnancy she was risking permanent damage, her own survival and, by the way, the baby would almost certainly not survive. But medical procedure and human decency were, in this case, trumped by Catholic doctrine.
Did they at least offer her the option of paying more for a real doctor, with a second opinion about maybe avoiding the double-murder scenario?!?
No and they didn’t have to because until now, no lawsuit has successfully challenged the deplorably insane concept of having men trained in nothing but superstition and bullshit setting medical policy. With 13 percent of American Hospitals already owned by Catholic organizations and more being gobbled up all the time, many have accused the Catholic church of trying to circumvent the laws they don’t like by taking over the medical industry, and in case I’m wrong about that, “Hello! They’re trying to circumvent the laws they don’t like by taking over the medical industry!” There. Now I’m right.
I’d be willing to allow the existence of Catholic hospitals like this, as long as they have a huge surgeon general’s cigarette warning on the building, and also doctors get to rewrite the Bible.
ACLU sues Catholicism for owning hospitals while being heartless pricks: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/aclu-sues-us-bishops-catholic-hospital-ethics-21074634
And in “Holy Craps Free Roll” news, Sagebrush Community Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico is offering a 90-day risk-free trial on their wishing well service. If you wager 10% of your paycheck as tithing, and God fails to answer your prayers during that quarter, you can request your money back, as long as you’re willing to literally take it from the collection plate held by the poor kid that would otherwise get the money.
God: As trustworthy as the slap-chop and the Turbie-Twist. Somehow that still doesn’t quite do it for me.
Here’s how the guy explained it to me, before trying to sell me a timeshare in Vegas: (quote) “That’s right, if you’re willing to pay up front, we’ll let you pray for free!!! If anything good happens like not dying, that was us, and we keep the money. If you die, that was also us, sending you to heaven, and we keep the money. In all other circumstances, we’ll issue a refund.” (end quote) So it’s basically after-life insurance, that pays off if you go to hell.
And there’s probably eternal lifetime limits, or they’ll say you were damned before you started tithing or something.
Albuquerque church offers refunds if the god you buy is broken: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/30/church-offers-a-90-day-money-back-guarantee-to-tithers-if-god-doesnt-reward-them/
And in “It’s Only Okay If I Fart in the Elevator” news tonight, Christians are incensed about a plaque that is now hanging on the walls of the Illinois Capitol Building courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The plaque reads, in its entirety:
At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail.
There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
Wow that’s WAY more tame than the atheist plaque we proposed.
Yeah, apparently they wouldn’t allow one made entirely of human fecal matter either. FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor explained that prosthelytizing atheism in a courthouse wasn’t exactly their goal. (quote) “We don’t think that religion, or irreligion, belong at the seat of the state government. But if religious displays are going up in state capitols, then our display representing the freethought point of view will be there, too.”
And incredulous religious people aren’t even aware that their anger proves our point … If religion thinks they can fart in the elevator, atheists are gonna take it a step further, and give them a dirty sanchez. For the uninitiated, I’m describing a shit mustache.
Which would not be the rudest behavior I’ve ever seen on a New York elevator. While some atheists have complained that the plaque is too strongly worded, though others have complained that it isn’t made out of fecal matter with the words “Fuck Jesus” printed in 666 point type.
FFRF places atheist plaque in Illinois Capitol building: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/01/atheist-sign-goes-up-in-illinois-capitol-building/
And in “Glory Hole-llelujah” news, Kansas City residents are flocking to public phone-prayer booths, complete with a kneeler bar, where they can comfortably and discreetly say prayers, blow God, and get wishes granted.
We’re in for a lot of cocksucking jokes, aren’t we?
Saw that coming?
No, I closed my eyes just in time.
The city originally planned to buy everyone a magic lamp . . . but there was the big genie strike, and it went over-budget. Realizing how ridiculous the lamp thing was, they installed the God Phones as a more realistic alternative.
It’s like the mailbox for Santa letters, only instead of cute, it’s tragic. They even have the little prayer hands on the side of them so you know you’re surrounded by stupid even if nobody’s in the act of immaculate felatio at that moment.
There’s a disclaimer, warning that although not required, (quote) “Religious actions may take place within these prayer booths.” They also mention that (quote) “Improper use will result in a penalty or fine.” So no trickery . . . No praying for more prayers. And secular hope is technically permitted, but highly frowned upon.
Although if you have a note from your Wiccan high priestess, I’m sure you could get away with beating off in one of those things.
One KC resident – and avid Chiefs fan – prayed for a Peyton Manning ankle injury in week 13. Instead, it turned out he was NOT physically injured by her phone call, he put up 403 yards, 5 touchdowns, and led the Broncos to a win. So results may vary … to include complete failure. If she really wanted the Chiefs to win, she probably needed to swallow.
Okay, that’s only five and a half pole-smoking jokes so far. I don’t think we’ve quite drained all the on-your-knees for Jesus, cum-guzzling potential out of this story yet.
No we haven’t. And we strive for every last drop. So according to an ad campaign by the new phone company: “God’s hung like Dr. Manhattan: Big, blue, and everywhere.” And speaking of too much blue tooth, it’s possible the Chiefs fan didn’t read the instructions. That’s right, the blowjob prayer phone . . . has instructions. Instruction Number 1: “No Blue Tooth, and Cradle Ma Bells.” So right there . . . And Instruction Number 2 (no pun intended): “Feel free to put your mouth on both ends of the receiver.”
Kansas town adds “prayer booths” to “call god”: http://topekasnews.com/kansas-town-installs-phone-prayer-booths-residents-can-call-god-whenever-need/
Quota achieved. Well handled. And in Strategic Gay-Bashing news tonight, Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s consolin’ the colon patrolin’ souls in his folds but he scolds them and holds that the souls with their poles in dude’s holes aren’t controlled because his goals were outsold. And if you were lost in the rhythm there, I he said that Catholics were “out-marketed” on the gay marriage issue.
They weren’t OUT-marketed. They were marketed . . . correctly . . . for free. Gays haven’t been left wondering what the Catholics have to say about the cosmic risks of misusing the word “marriage”.
Yeah, I think he’s wrong here, but it’s fair to say that as a whole, they’re getting their vatic-asses handed to them in the marketing department. They’re still reeling from the “institutionally butt raping children for generations” kerfuffle after finally getting over the “Conspiring with the Nazis” faux pas. It’s clear to me that the Catholic Church is, indeed, in need of a new PR department. Hell, when you can’t sell your bigotry in America, you’ve gotta be phoning it in.
Well they could stop raping kids, abetting holocausts, and hating gays. But I suppose a new marketing solution makes the more sense. If only there was something that was worth a thousand homophobic slur words.
And that’s why good bigots need good logos. Swastikas, burning crosses, the word “Fags” with the ghostbusters symbol over it… these have all proven effective in the past. The skinheads need something to tattoo on their faces and Leviticus 18:22 is too long for a prison tat.
Nothing says the N-word, the K-word, the F-word, the D-word, the sword, the T-word, the TR-word, the TH-word, and the Z-word, better than bigoted graphic design.
Cardinal Dolan: Catholics were “Out Marketed” on gay marriage: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/29/catholics-outmarketed-on-gay-marriage-cardinal-dolan-says/
And from the “Young Man-Slaughter” file, after God demonstrated his existence by allowing an infant to sustain traumatic brain injuries during a car crash in St. Petersburg, Russia, the confident theist parents rushed their bleeding baby to an emergency baptism. Unfortunately, the priest – despite being a talented holistic brain surgeon – was unable to revive the child, as the only water available on short notice was normal secular di-hydrogen oxide.
So what, are you saying the homeopathic medicine didn’t work either? And did he even rebuke the demon of brain trauma? Pat Robertson would have rebuked the demon of brain trauma.
After doing some extensive research, Russian authorities confirmed the existence of several medical doctors in the St. Petersburg area, and will prosecute the parents. When asked why they didn’t head straight for a hospital, the infanticidal maniacs explained how they were on the way to get a new brain from a scarecrow, but the Yellow Brick Road was jammed with rush hour traffic.
And in the minds of the parents they did the more important thing. If he might have died either way, at least this way Jew-god-cum-Christian-god wouldn’t burn him in hell forever as he is wont to do with unmoisturized babies. The only silver lining in this story is that the baby didn’t live long enough for the priest to rape him.
That would be a 50 shekel silver lining?
Russian parents jailed after choosing baptism over hospital for post car-crash infant: http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2013/11/29/baby-dies-after-parents-trade-hospital-for-church-after-crash
And in “If it works for Chia-Pet, it work for Jesus” news tonight, a Pennsylvania church is showing off the marketing savvy that Catholicism sorely lacks. In an effort to appeal to their core audience of stupid rednecks that are easily entertained and don’t go in for all that critical thinkin’ shit, they’ve announced an upcoming “Duck Dynasty” themed all-camouflage service.
Not sure how much more redneckitude them can cram into their clown car. This is a Catholic service in northwest Pennsylvania, so I imagine lots of parishioners will continue wearing the same camo tuxedo they had already been wearing every week.
Fictional church representative Jim Bob Leghorn explained (quote) “Well, we figgered what with the folks watchin’ that on the TV and us all havin’ our huntin’ gear and what-not, we might as well go a-huntin’ for some Jesus.”
Sounds like they aren’t aware that camo doesn’t work unless you paint the whole church interior camo too. The atheist swat team snipers are gonna pick them off way too easily.
And if you think about it, it makes sense to have these dress up days at church. You could have “Star Wars Service” or “Dress as yer favert NASCAR Driver Day”… I don’t know, “aborted fetus Wednesdays”? It’s all about filling those pews. And who doesn’t love dress up?
Every NASCAR driver looks the same to me . . . Like Jane Lynch with a mustache. With the track suit … and the mullet.
Pennsylvania church to attract with Duck Dynasty inspired “camo” service: http://www.christianpost.com/news/penn-church-targets-duck-dynasty-fans-hunters-with-camo-sunday-service-109919/
And from the “More embarrassing than Benghazi” file, the United States may have diminished Catholic God from all-powerful to mildly-powerful by relocating it’s Vatican City embassy to atheist Italy. Praying to Jesus was already working not at all, and Catholics everywhere are worried this embassy debacle could make those numbers even worse.
Or, the crazy right wing zealots who fail to recognize that the new embassy is actually gonna be closer to the actual Vatican than the old embassy and instead of maintaining two embassies we’re just consolidating two into one building… it’s not like we actually stopped pretending that this one city is a whole country all by itself because the reincarnation of Jesus lives there.
The other side of the story comes from American Ambassadors to the Holy See, who are relieved to be relieved of their impossibly awkward job. How many ways can you diplomatically ask someone, “Are you guys SURE . . . that you’re not a multi-national pedophilia conglomerate, involved in an elaborate sinister cover-up?!?”
Considering how infrequently we hear about sexual abuse in the church, this is a rare opportunity. Do we have time for some embassy pedophilia slang?
This is the Scathing Atheist! We’ll cut relevant information from another story if we have to. 30 seconds on the clock. Diplomatic child rape euphemisms. GO!!!
Visiting Pope Fran-dusky’s Happy Valley
How have I missed Fran-dusky all this time!? Damn it… wait, um… what’s the one they actually use? “Coming onto the children”… Yeah, that’s too direct. How about Spicing up confession?
Delivering Pee Wee’s Sermon on the Mount
Playing a game of “Kansas Prayer Booth”
Happy Meals in the Rectory
Taking the lord’s name and vein.
Wading Balls Deep in the Shallow End
Oh, I’ve got one… A Catholic Youth Retreat… and then advance… and then retreat.. and then advance…
Bang Cocks with Youth in Asia? Bang Cocks in Asia Minor? … Quaalude Prelude in A Flat Minor
Dipping your body of christ in milk?
Box Seats for Little Orphan Fanny … And I’d like to add that this gay pun’ll come out, tomorrow at 8am?
Bet your bottom dollar… which is my response to you and my last diplomatic child-rape euphemism.
America removes embassy from Vatican city: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/27/vatican-knocks-down-controversy-over-u-s-embassy-move/
But to make the 8 o’clock release happen, we’ll have to close out the headlines there. Heath, thanks as always for your wit and wisdom.
Glory Hole-llelujah!!!
And when we come back, we’ll make more jokes about dicks.
Skit:
It’s time once again to look into the perplexing plethora of pious commemorations from around the world in a segment we call “How the Hell is this a Holiday?”
Tonight, Noah and I will be answering the ten most commonly asked questions about the Jewish festival of diligent lamp oil, Hanukkah.
Question One: What does the word Hanukkah mean?
While it’s often referred to as “The Festival of Lights”, the word actually means “To Dedicate”… sort of. But who the fuck really knows when it comes to Jew words? After reading the first few “historical” books of their bible I’m even doubting what they say about etymology.
Question Two: What does Hanukkah commemorate?
It commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple after the Maccabean revolt in the 2nd century BCE, when a flask that only had enough oil for one day miraculously kept burning for eight days, which was just long enough to make more magical Jew oil.
Question Three: Seriously? That’s it?
That’s Hanukkah in a nutshell.
Question Four: How do Jews celebrate Hanukkah?
They light eight lights and other than that they just pretty much make it up as they go along. They’ll do some family shit, pray a little. You know… have a Hanukkah dinner, buy a gift maybe. Whatever. For eight days.
Question Five: Seriously? That’s it?
Look, you’re lucky they aren’t living in huts and waving palm fronds around. We’re celebrating the longevity of kosher lard. What the hell do you want?
Question Six: Well if the holiday is that lame, why does everybody make such a big deal about it?
It was forced into prominence because of Hanukkah’s proximity to Christmas. Jewish parents couldn’t otherwise buy expensive sneakers for their middle school kids during the month of December. And that would make them falsely appear less athletic.
Question Seven: But… it happened at Thanksgiving. How the hell is that close to Christmas?
Yeah the Jew calendar and the Gregorian calendar don’t line up so Hanukkah can fall anywhere from late November to late December, which spans the latter third of what advertisers call “The Christmas Season”. Interestingly enough, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are done coinciding altogether for another 70,000 years plus.
Using the word “interestingly” a little loosely…
Question Eight: So what’s the deal with the dreidel?
You have to spin the dreidel when Hanukkah starts. If it falls, it means you’re in the real world, but if it keeps spinning it means you’re dreaming about less shitty holidays.
Question Nine: I know this is a big off topic, but why don’t Jews tip?
Great non-Hanukkah question. It turns out that half of them offered a tip once at 8 days old and that didn’t work out so well for them, so they’re hesitant to try again.
Question Ten: How did the Jews manage to make Hanukkah music worse than Christmas music?
Generally, the Jews are a very musical people, but they did that to spite Christian parents at public-school holiday concerts.
So hopefully that clears up any questions you have about Hanukkah, but if not, feel free to send them to us by email or leave a question on the Facebook page because originally we planned on doing a feedback segment this week but we didn’t have enough emails so we had to do this bit instead.
Outro:
Before we cash in our chips tonight I wanted to congratulate Mark Nebo from BeSecular (dot) org, Cecil from the Cognitive Dissonance Podcast and our very own Heath Enwright, all of whom, barring something nearly as unlikely as Jonah surviving for an extended period inside a fish; will be joining me in the postseason of the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists. I’d also like to thank all the other participants who tragically fell short of this chance at supremacy, who I won’t name out of respect. Except Carl from the Post Rapture Looting Podcast, who I will name out of disrespect because, damn does his team suck balls.
I also wanted apologize to our audience for a tragic oversight in last week’s program. Astute listener Jon Ownbey points out that when Heath and I were positing Christian euphemisms for masturbation, we missed the low hanging fruit of “Casting Out the Semens”, and also the ripe potential for low-hanging fruit jokes. Sorry about that, won’t happen again. Oh, and sorry if I’m mispronouncing your name, Jon.
Of course I need to thank Heath for finding something productive to do with his frighteningly twisted sense of humor, I need to thank Lucinda for opening the show up and for other things she’d rather I not spell out in detail and I need to thank Daniel from Atlanta for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. Daniel didn’t have anything in particular to plug, but since he’s a truck driver, I’ll just say on his behalf that if there’s a truck behind you that wants to go faster, just get the fuck out of the way. He or she has shit to do and a family to get home to. Not something he expressed directly, but I’m willing to bet he’s yelled it into an empty cab once or twice.
But of course, above all things, I need to thank this week’s most enviable envoys of enlightenment; Dee, Magnus, Alan, Daniel, Willie, Søren and Torrey. Dee, whose philanthropy has inspired a petition to promote her titular letter 3 spaces up in the alphabet; Magnus, who’s so virile and well-endowed that they named a condom after him; Alan, whose angelic physique is consistently ranked as the number one reason for surreptitious time travel to the twenty-first century; Daniel, whose greatness can only be described through pharthindelical neology; Willie, whose variegated talents will all coalesce in act three, proving that he was the chosen hero all along; Søren, whose name I’m pretty sure I’m pronouncing correctly despite the fact that it has an alchemical symbol in the middle of it and who also slays ice-giants by the phalanx; and Torrey, who wishes to forego any adulation for his enormous intellect and member and would rather I throw a shout out to his little brother in Australia whose name he probably intended to include in the email, and who I would totally still give a shout out to by name in a future podcast upon receiving said moniker.
These seven magnificent magnates have magnified the magnitude of their magnanimity this week by giving us money. It takes bold and decisive clicking and typing of account information to give us money, but if you think you share Dee, Magnus, Alan, Daniel, Willie, Søren and Torrey’s finger dexterity and commitment to obscene podcasting, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
And if you’d love to give us money, but not enough to actually do it, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a stellar review on iTunes, liking our Facebook page, following us on Twitter, checking us out on YouTube, sharing the show with a friend, listening to us on Stitcher, purchasing a beautiful Scathing Atheist t-shirt on our Cafe Press site or just being there for us in our hour of need.
If you have questions, comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
Episode 35 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Noah Lugeons
(Note: Transcript contains portions that were edited out due to time constraints)
Warning:
Warning, this podcast contains explicit language. And we’re talking really explicit. In fact, I’m gonna use the F word at the end of this sentence and if you don’t like it, go tell someone who gives a fuck.
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Ivory Tower Atheist Soap
Splattered with the blood of a savior while performing a routine zealot crucifixion? Roped into church by your significant other, and can’t get rid of that self-righteous asshole smell? Hands covered in sauteed baby grease again?
Well try Ivory Tower Atheist Soap, because bullshit stains on the just and the unjust alike. Now available in an extra strength anti-Bapterial formula.
And now, the Scathing Atheist
Intro:
It’s Thursday,
It’s October 17th,
And Oprah’s a fat whore, even for a white woman.
I’m Noah Lugeons,
I’m Heath Enwright,
And from perpetually parading New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.
In this week’s episode:
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We’ll praise Lesus, our Jord and savior,
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A homeopath will commit suicide by cutting off his pinky toe,
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And what’s-his-name from Thomas and the Bible will join us to talk scripture.
But first, the diatribe…
Diatribe
It seems like atheists can point out how silly Christians are all day and we just get called assholes. But as soon as you call out Muslims, you’re an “Islamaphobic”. It’s not that you think a murderous, child raping, illiterate warlord isn’t worth adulation. It’s not that you think stories about flying horses should be reserved for kids and bronies. It’s not that you think people worshipping a meteorite is insane. Hell, if you read the Guardian you could be forgiven for thinking “Islamaphobic” was Richard Dawkins’ official title.
So let’s examine that word. As my spellcheck will readily tell you, it’s not a really a word, but even if it was, it would have no practical application. Because the suffix “phobia” refers to an irrational fear. If you’re swimming through shark infested waters and there’s a fin and an ominous two-note theme song following behind you, you’re not selachophobic, you’re rational… and edible.
And before anybody goes accusing me of equating Muslims with terrorists, I should point out that you don’t have to be a de facto terrorist for your Muslimness to scare the fuck out of me. Is the Saudi judge that sentenced the rape victim to 200 lashes for getting raped a “terrorist”? Is the Yemeni guy who raped his 8 year old bride to death on their wedding night a “terrorist”? Is every member of the government in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malaysia, the UAE and Mauritania a terrorist? Because they all terrify the fuck out of me.
Now I’ll readily admit that Islam isn’t the only major world religion that calls for the ultimate extermination of everybody who worships a different god. It’s a common theme so it’s not fair to single Muslims out for that one. It’s okay to point out that it’s batshit crazy, but it’s not batshit crazy for a religion. That being said, I think it’s fair to point out that they have the best infidel massacring infrastructure. And if you doubt that, draw a few cartoons of Jesus sucking off Moses while Buddha takes him in the ass and then watch nobody kill you.
So what’s irrational about being scared? Keep in mind that I live in New York City. If you average it out over the last fifteen years, New Yorkers are statistically more likely to be killed by Muslim terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers than car accidents or firearms. So how the hell is Islamaphobia a phobia?
The only thing irrational about it is restricting your fear to Muslims. Right now Scientologists are just a bunch of goofy alien worshipping nut-tards, but I’m willing to bet if Scientologists took over a nation’s government, they’d suddenly become damn scary.
See, it’s not Muslims that scare me, it’s religious people with armies. And Christians aren’t immune to this crazy shit, they’re just generally confined to countries that won’t put them in charge of the nuclear arsenal.
But consider the blathering schizophrenic homeless subway dweller tirade Michele Bachmann went on last week where she stammered about leaves on fig trees and the end being nigh and then capped off the incoherent blubbering by talking about how awesome it was that the world was about to end because it means her magical hippy-Jew can’t be far behind.
This isn’t some crazy guy waving a posterboard sign scrawled with his own feces on 146th street. This is a member of congress. This is a person who, at one point, led the goddamn polls for the Republican nomination for president AFTER a debate! This is a person who gets to vote on whether or not we go to war. A sane person wouldn’t trust this woman to keep the cat out of their macaroni while they took a shit, but religious people are okay with her writing their laws! Our laws!
Look, I’m no more terrified by a country controlled by a crazy ayatollah than I am by a country controlled by a crazy evangelical. And their are plenty of crazy American evangelicals pushing for a theocracy… many from inside the elected government.
There is no greater threat to liberty, peace and progress than theocracy. And right now the Muslims just happen to leading the leading the race when it comes to dismantling rational governments and replacing them with genocidal scripture. There’s nothing at all irrational about fearing that.
Headlines
Joining me for headlines tonight is a guy who is at least slightly less hateful than he often sounds, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to moderately exaggerate your distaste for humanity?
Well considering the subject of the first story, I won’t be exaggerating.
Ooh… nice tease.
In our lead story tonight, Supreme Court justice – and Stephen Colbert whipping boy – Antonin Scalia revealed in a recent interview that he believes Beelzebub the Prince of Darkness is a real person.
It’s Alito, isn’t it?
When asked about the complete lack of evidence to justify this assinine-itude, he responded, (quote) “Well if you’re gonna go by evidence…” He then went on to point out that the whole thing with being the devil, is appearing NOT to exist. The same logic applies to asserting the existence of everything that doesn’t exist, but Catholics like Scalia don’t let being blatantly wrong, stand in their way of being right.
A quality that also comes in handy when you’re a conservative Supreme Court justice.
Basically, this guy’s opinion comes from Usual Suspects movie character, Keyser Soze, who was actually quoting a character in a poem by Charles Baudelaire. Granted, basing one’s worldview on 19th century French poetry is much more reasonable and up-to-date than using the bible . . . But it’s still not quite as realistic as we’d hope from one of the nine most powerful legal decision-makers in the country.
Let’s take a quick look at the line of logic here . . .
Premise 1: A fictional character from a fictional movie universe, quoted a fictional character from a fictional poetry universe, who said: “You guys don’t see that imperceptible demon guy?”
Premise 2: Satan is real.
So working backwards, Satan is real, and it occurs to me we don’t even need premise one.
And perhaps most frightening of all is the fact that he apparently had no idea that this was an insane thing to say. When the flabbergasted reporter says something to the tune of “fucking what?” Justice the Hutt gets all incredulous and asks her “What ivory tower do you live in where you can’t comprehend a grown, educated human being believing in a bedtime story meant to dissuade kids from stroking their junk.
What he was saying would have been ridiculous, if he didn’t at least throw us that compliment when he pointed out that we atheists probably aren’t Satan’s minions. So that was nice. I can finally check off “Justice Scalia’s approval” from my bucket list.
Yeah, it’s nice to probably not be Satan’s minion. Thanks for throwing us a bone. You’re probably not Satan’s minion either, your honor.
But then he ruins the tender moment by going on to say that disbelief in God (quote) “certainly favors the devil’s desires.” So you can see why I pity drafted this guy in my celebrity death pool. There’s nobody else I’d rather see die before January 20, 2017, but I know he’s gonna fucking live. It was like drafting Aaron Hernandez for fantasy football, just cause you’re a big Patriots fan.
Scalia says atheism “favors the devil’s desires”: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/07/scalia-says-satan-is-a-real-person/
And in the “Everybody was Kung Jew Fighting” file tonight, we turn to a story that wouldn’t be funny at all if the people involved didn’t have curly sideburns and goofy little hatlets. Two ass-kicking rabbis face charges of kidnapping and assault after allegedly starting a business kidnapping and assaulting.
I’m sure it was kosher assault . . . But seriously, the Jewish people won’t be able to continue being loved the world over, if they keep this shit up. America is no place for absurd religious beliefs that lead to insane criminal acts, unless you have a note from Jesus. Did these rabbis, by any chance, have a note from the savior their tribe murdered? No?
No, but give them two days and I’m sure they can beat one out of him. But up to this point, they’ve been restricting their attacks to Orthodox men who refused to give their wives a “get”, which is basically a human bill of sale that grants a woman a divorce. And despite the fact that divorcing an orthodox Jewish woman should be its own reward, some Jewish men are sexist, vindictive assholes. Which is where Shlomo and the Chhhhammer come in.
So the rabbi could declare the divorce and stop having the congregation shame the whore-wife… Or he could torture the husband into giving the “get”? And he goes with the torture?!?
So the “get rule” is set in stone, but rules about whether it’s bad to kidnap and torture . . . Those are gray areas with lots of midrash?!? (Which sounds like a diagnosis by a geriatric gynecologist.)
According to the FBI, the two would cover the victim’s heads in a plastic bag and torture them with a cattle prod and karate until they would agree to grant the get. And as fucked up as that is, I find myself siding with the cattleprod wielding ninja jews. Because, first of all, it’s a hilarious mental image; but more importantly, the stupid, fucked up, prehistoric morality these asswipes cling to makes it all but impossible for a divorced woman to lead a normal life in the community until her ex-husband says so.
Rabbis planned to kidnap husbands and force divorces: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/10/rabbis-plotted-to-kidnap-husbands-force-divorces-fbi-says/
In “justified filicide” news, a Hindu man murdered his infant son by striking him twice on the neck with an axe. Which just goes to show you, Hindu men are not very coordinated. His defense lawyer plans to argue that conviction would be a violation of the free exercise of murderous religious beliefs clause.
Yeah, just in case you thought making jokes about torturing jews with cattleprods was the lowest we were going tonight, here’s a story about a man murdering an 8 month old with an axe. I wonder if we can somehow parlay this into an abortion joke…
Nobody pivots to abortion better than Noah Lugeons . . .
Speaking of which, while crafting a response to this horrific event, one atheist podcaster wrote, “Fuck – At least we’re just killing fetuses . . . I’m not comparing the Hindu goddess Kali’s stance on murdering children, to my atheist stance on murdering bundles of undifferentiated cells that nobody loves . . . But Hinduism is clearly worse here. My abortions can beat up your infant sacrifices.”
Hindu man sacrifices 8 month old to god: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/10/12/hindu-man-brutally-murders-8-month-old-son-as-a-sacrifice-to-goddess-kali/
And in “The Father, the Son and That Other Fella” news tonight, the Vatican has recalled more than 6000 medals that were issued to commemorate the pontificate of Pope Fransylvania six-five thousand.
As if selling indulgences isn’t enough, now the Vatican’s literally minting their own money?!? Why not just give the gold straight to the rape victims, right away … on the nightstand like a proper gospel John.
The medal contained an image of the new muppet-pope on the front and an image of St. Matthew talking to some dude named Lesus. Or at least, that’s how he’s identified on the misspelled inscription that prompted the recall.
“Does the name of our lord and savior look right to you? Will you have the intern go check on JexisNexis if it’s Jesus, or Lesus. Tell him not to fuck it up this time, or we’ll keep treating him exactly how you’d imagine a Vatican intern gets treated.”
“Yo soy- Ego sum Lay-Zeus! All other gods must bow before, Lay-Zeus! For those of you who don’t Joquar Jatine, Lay-Zeus is Jatin for . . . The Zeus.”
While I can think of no more appropriate way to commemorate the current pontificate than issuing something that has to immediately be retracted, the Vatican is acting like they got caught with their hand in a kid with his hand in the cookie jar.
Vatican misspells Jesus: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/10/vatican-jesus-medal_n_4080403.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Moving on to “pork-free telecom” news . . . Israel has sanctioned a kosher-certifed cell phone service. The new product is obviously called the Adonai-Phone, and will be sold at Adam’s Apple Stores Jewish-nationwide. However, one of what must be many, conservative theocratic governing bodies in Israel, the Rabbinical Committee for Communications, mandated that subscribers be blocked from using the normal pre-installed rape and mental crisis hotlines.
Before we move on, allow me to restate exactly what you just said in my “you’ve-gotta-be-fucking-kidding-me” voice: “They mandated that subscribers be blocked from using pre-installed rape and mental crisis hotlines!”
When you block stuff that helps with rape and insanity, it’s really hard not to jump straight to the allegation that Judaism is fully aware of being an unsolicited mind fuck . . . with some real rape built in somewhere too. When asked for a response to this accusation, Judaism texted me back, saying: “Well we wouldn’t use those exact words, but we certainly can’t have those numbers on speed dial. We’re trying to run a business here!”
“Do you have a phone that will also tell my wife she’s a useless bitch and nobody loves her? How about one that smacks her if she tries to think?”
So I read this story several times over, and I’m still trying to figure out the kosher stance here . . . Maybe some obscure torah verse that technically makes Microsoft bloatware and other built-ins against the rules? But even then, it’s just the rape and mental illness lines they targeted. What good intentions could be behind blocking those two things only?
Yeah, equally disturbing is the guy in some boardroom who said, “So you’ll buy the phones as long as we disable the rape hotline? Both the male and female rape hotlines? Sounds reasonable to me, sure.”
“What’s that you’re buying? Candy, KY jelly, and a van? . . . And some bullets? . . . Isn’t Walmart great?!? I’m sure there’s a perfectly good, unrapey reason for those purchases.”
“You know, I’m just curious, of course, not that I’m gonna do it or anything, but does this Pez Dispenser work with roofies?”
Kosher phones block emergency numbers for sexual assault victims: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4431017,00.html
That’ll do it for headlines tonight, Heath, thanks as always.
Catchphrase, exclamation mark.
And when we come back, Thomas from Thomas and the Bible will join us to explain how he managed to get top billing over the inerrant word of god.
Outro
Before we put it in park for the night I want to take a second to congratulate our friends Frank and Dan over at the “Thank God I’m Atheist” podcast for reaching the 100 episode milestone. I’m only now starting to comprehend exactly how much work goes into hitting that mark so a very well-deserved shout out to two guys fighting the good fight in the belly of the beast.
And just so that none of the math-geeks email us to tell me that the number 100 is ultimately meaningless, I’m also gonna congratulate our friend George Hrab from the Geologic podcast on his 334th episode as well.
Oh… and we’ve got the finalized logo, the correct file sizes and the whole nine at this point so if I don’t have some merch available for you by Saturday night I’ve got nobody to blame for it but myself. We’re really, really close to having T-shirts and other as-yet-undetermined shwag so look for that in the coming days. We’ll be shouting ceaselessly about it on the Facebook page, the Twitter feed and, of course, the blog at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. But don’t worry, there will still be plenty of time to get grandma a Scathing Atheist T-Shirt for Christmas.
I gotta toss out one more quick thanks to Thomas for hanging out tonight. I wasn’t kidding about his podcast kicking ass but if you don’t believe me, you’ll find proof in the form of a link to his website on the shownotes for this episode.
http://www.thomasandthebible.com/
I also need to thank Heath, of course, for somehow continuing to be that damn funny every week, I need to thank Lucinda for lending us a snippet of her lovely voice, I need to thank Cameron from the Cam’s world (dot) de podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. His is a newer podcast that promotes scientific skepticism in the world of sports, so definitely a mission I can get behind 100% and don’t let the (dot) DE fool you, it’s in English. You’ll find it linked on the shownotes as well.
http://camsworldde.libsyn.com/
But most of all, of course, we need to thank this week’s most essential anthropoids; William, David, Richard and Crouchy. William, whose intellectual strength is too great to measure in anything but raw horsepower; David, whose ninja reflexes are the envy of photons everywhere; Richard, whose illustriousness will almost certainly lead to his first name being the only one to ever be officially retired and Crouchy, whose behemoth genitals have to be factored into meteorological equations.
These four exemplary individuals have proved themselves to probably not be the minions of Satan this week by giving us money. Only the most heroic, high-minded, Herculean and harmonious heathens have the heart to give us money, but if you think you share William, David, Richard and Crouchy’s commitment to complimentary adjectives that start with H, 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 spent all your money on the finer hookers in life, you can always help us out a ton by leaving us a glowing 5-star review on iTunes and/or telling somebody about the show and nagging them until they listen to it.
That’s all the blasphemy we’ve got for you next week, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with more. If you can’t wait that long, be sure to pop over to the website, look for the “extras” tab on the top of the page and get your required dose of bonus scatheism. And of course, check us out on all those social media sites and stuff and listen to us on Stitcher just in case.
If you have questions, comments or death threats you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
Episode 32 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright and Lucinda & Noah Lugeons
Sponsor
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new chain of confessional restaurants, Plenary Hollywood, where there’s truth in every booth and respite in every bite. Come in Tuesdays for half priced Absolution Vodka Martinis because drinking your problems away is every bit as effective as Catholicism.
And now, the Scathing Atheist.
Intro:
It’s Thursday, it’s September 26th and we don’t fuck with Hindus enough.
I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from generally assembled New York, New York this is the Scathing Atheist
In this week’s episode…
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We discover that the Lone Star State was graded on a scale of 5 stars,
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We’ll learn that you can’t say ‘bomb’ on an airplane, ‘fire’ in a theater or ‘atheist’ on a bus.
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And we’ll manage to make abortion jokes and anal sex jokes at the same time.
But first, the diatribe.
Diatribe
It doesn’t surprise me at all that most Christians haven’t read the bible. It’s long, it’s repetitive, it’s boring, it’s pointless and it’s stupid. Why would anyone read that fucking thing? But what does surprise me is how few of them even know what it’s about. You couldn’t bother even reading the cliff’s notes, guys?
You constantly hear Christians attributing shit to the bible that isn’t there. A lot of them will tell you that the bible says, “God helps those who help themselves”. But not only does that never appear anywhere in the bible, it’s completely antipodal to the bible’s core message.
They’ll tell you the bible says to “Love the sinner, hate the sin”, but, surprise, surprise, that doesn’t come from the bible either. It comes from St. Augustine’s desperate attempts to dial the bible back a bit.
How about “spare the rod, spoil the child”? Nope. Not in the bible. Don’t get me wrong, the bible certainly endorses the fuck out of beating your children with rods, but somehow god wasn’t able to come up with the pithy pro-child abuse slogan that stuck.
Hell, the other day I was walking by a conversation and heard a guy saying, “Well the bible says, ‘Know Thyself’…” No, buddy, that was the facade at the temple of Apollo you were thinking of. But what the hell, it’s good advice, right? It should be in the bible, right? So why not attribute it to the bible?
The big problem here is that these jackasses have convinced themselves that the bible is some… book or virtues or something. They actually think it’s some collection of ethical parables that provides moral guidance. And who can blame them right? That’s what everybody told them it was. That’s what the assholes who know better told them. It’s not like they’re ever gonna read it and prove them wrong, right?
So instead they bumble around misquoting their own holy book and talking about living their lives by the bible as though that would be desirable… or even legal.
But seriously, the fucking bible!? It’s the most horrible book on earth. To pretend that thing’s moral you have to pick cherries like a recently martyred Muslim. Go open a bible to a random page. Read a random passage. I’m willing to bet the vast majority of my penis that you didn’t find anything moral there. Hell, you’re lucky if you found something morally ambiguous.
You follow the bible do you? Well how many Amalekites have you killed this month? How many bulls have you sacrificed at the altar? How many armed Jewish land conquests have you participated in this year? Because that’s what this fucking book is about. I’m reading the damn thing. You can’t fool me into thinking this is a book about morals. It’s like if I finally got around to reading the Harry Potter books and found out that there weren’t any wizards in them.
Now, a talented preacher can spin this thing so that it sounds good. Of course they can, that’s their job. And that’s fine if you’re in the studio audience, but what about people who are playing the home game? You’re actually handing people a book that explicitly endorses genocide. It plainly justifies indiscriminately murdering people that are different than you, that worship different gods than you, that ascribe to different sexual mores than you, that live in different countries than you, that have different genetalia than you… and you’re telling them it’s the be-all, end-all of morality handed down from the all-knowing forger of the universe. Hard to imagine how that could go wrong.
It’s like replacing the gum in baseball cards with plutonium and saying, “It’s okay, nobody eats the gum.”
A commenter on our Facebook page recently applauded us for our holistic reading of the bible. He said he felt like it should be required reading for atheists. Well, I don’t know if I agree with that, but I’d love it if it was at least required reading for Christians.
I don’t honestly think that being an atheist means you have to read the bible, but I do think that honestly reading the bible means you have to be an atheist.
Headlines
Joining me for headlines tonight is a man who loves both head and lines, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to make Reuters your crack whore?
Not that I need another crack whore, but sure.
In our lead story tonight, from the “Can you quantify delusional?” file. . . Yes you can. According to a study by LifeWay Research, “[one] third of Americans – and nearly half of evangelical, fundamentalist, or born-again Christians – believe prayer and Bible study alone can overcome serious mental illness.”
Wait a second… they’re deluded into thinking delusions can cure delusions? This is like a Christopher Nolan script that isn’t a horrible cheat rushed to the theater to cap a trilogy.
Granted praying and reading the Bible should quickly turn a person atheist, but there ‘s lots of other ways to cure mental afflictions like Christianity.
I assume you’re referring to crusades.
Here’s some more stupidity by the numbers. The church-funded LifeWay Research group accidentally found and presented the following: More than two thirds of Americans would feel welcome in church . . . if they were mentally ill . . .
Well if they’re gonna write their own punchlines about themselves, then what the fuck are we doing here?!? That’s just selfish.
So two thirds of Americans sit in churches thinking to themselves, “you know what make me fit right in here? Brain damage”.
Right … just as a general strategy point, the church might want to consider NOT sponsoring studies that in any way juxtapose religion and mental institutions. And also probably not advisable to poll your flock of inmates on what pills they should take in the asylum.
One third of Americans believe prayer can cure mental illness: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/21/prayer-heal-mental-illness_n_3963949.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Our next story takes us to the “Lone IQ Point State”, where Texas creationists are asking, “If humans evolved from less intelligent primates, why are there still Texas creationists?”
Give us miscegenated liberals a couple more decades, and we’ll breed them out.
Can’t wait to watch creationism win a Darwin Award.
Yeah, but between now and then we have to suffer through the oxymoron that is the Texas state Board of Education. They’re already synonymous with gerrymandering the cerebellums of America’s youth in an effort to rewrite biology, cosmology, physics, anthropology and American history to conform to their narrow, misguided worldview so it should come as no surprise that they’re at it again.
Every house in Texas already has a creationist textbook, where kids can read all about what science would eventually get wrong. It’s a bestseller. It’s the best seller ever, literally for Christ’s sake!!!
But what’s the point in having bibles if you don’t have any throats to cram them down? So the alarmingly ubiquitary “anti-reality” wing of the Texas electorate is cloaking their efforts to dismantle scientific literacy in the clever but familiar “analyze and evaluate” guise. Unfortunately for them, Governor Rick Perry doesn’t do “clever” and spilled the beans when he boasted that (quote) “In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools” during his abbreviated presidential run, which, incidentally, was abbreviated because he thought teaching creationism was brag-worthy.
As long as old white Christian men are legislating the content of Texan education, why not add the widely-held belief in Texas that slavery is a “complicated issue . . . Way I rememmerit, the coloreds was enslavin’ us sometimes too.”
Well, they pretty much already did that! This is only the latest skirmish in a long war. As many of our listeners are aware, the Texas state Board of Education wields inordinate influence over textbook standards throughout the country. Unlike every other state in the union, Texas adopts a K-12 curriculum on a statewide rather than district by district basis, which means the Texas state Board of Education is the only single textbook purchaser tossing around twenty billion dollars at a time. And apparently a dollar sign, a 2 and ten zeroes invariably trumps whatever commitment to educational excellence inspires one to be a textbook publisher.
Texas School Board trying to get more creationism in the school books: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/texas_science_textbooks_creationists_try_to_remove_evolution_from_classrooms.html
And in “Malcolm X Machina” news, just when you thought the atheist movement would never find its Black Panthers, enter the radical militant godless group known as the Northeastern Pennsylvania Freethought Society.
Or the N.P. Frees, as they’re known on the street.
Normally they spend their time planting righteous irony bombs under the cars of abortion clinic bombers, but this time the NPFS really crossed the line. They recently proposed an advertisement for buses in Lackawanna County, that would show the unadulterated image of the word ‘atheism’, followed . . . by a period.
In addition to the opprobrious noun, the ad also contained a conspicuous blank space where the crucifix and the benediction should have been.
One deeply offended religious person argued, (quote) “The poster might as well show Dawkins, Hitchens, and Nietzsche forcing Jesus to watch them run the train on his dad.” (end quote)
I smell T-shirt…
In an unrelated coincidence, a new policy was immediately approved by the county transit board, pre-emptively banning any future bus ads containing religious beliefs, including but not limited to belief in the existence of the word atheism. In Pennsylvania, the mere subject of atheism is too controversial already, so they certainly won’t allow entire atheist sentences with verbs and stuff. Atheist podcasts are right out.
We should start a betting pool on which bible belt state will be the first to avoid atheist bus ads by doing away with public transit altogether.
Pennsylvania bus company changes ad policy over lowest-key atheist ad in history: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/09/18/least-offensive-atheist-ad-ever-leads-to-new-advertising-policy-in-pennsylvania-county/
And in “Chicken Chuckin’” news tonight, human beings with brains and central nervous systems and stuff think they can transfer their asomatous demerits to farm fowl. I’m talking, of course, about the Jewish ritual of Kapparot, in which people appease Jew god in some kind of centrifugal transmission of sin by swinging live chickens above their heads.
Well the chickens aren’t live for the entire process.
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“Listen Shmuel . . . You can’t learn physics without murdering chickens. It’s all right here in the text book. So like I was saying . . . Centripetal force is what your arm exerts on the chicken. Centifugal force is a “faux force” that causes the sin to slide down to its beak.”
Well they better choke their chickens quick while they still can, as radically reasonable Rabbi Adam Frank wants to put an end to this barbaric practice and yes, not wanting to swing chickens to death in the street apparently can qualify a person as radical.
Nothing new here . . . Jews swinging their cock around, and then chopping its head off. I’m not saying the Kaparot chicken thing and circumcision are equally ridiculous, but they’re certainly sitting in the same enormous ballpark with fifty thousand other stupid antiquated religious rituals.
And by stupid, antiquated religious rituals, you mean… religious rituals.
And let’s not forget … the rationale is the chickens go to feed the poor.
But now picture the scene: an orthodox Jewish man swinging a chicken to death over his head as he approaches a homeless Brooklyn man to hand him the carcass.
Might lead to confusion at times . . . that’s all.
“Vhat, it’s a perfectly good chicken.”
Rabbi Frank warns that in addition to being sadistic, obscene and moronic, it also causes the rest of the world to lose respect for Jewish culture, adding, “look at these fucking hats and tell me we’ve got respect we can afford to lose”.
Do they hide their expendable respect in the overgrown sideburns of their eight translucent sons, who all appear to have leukemia? Is that where they hide it? All the respect?
Jews perform the annual chicken-baton sin-absorption ritual: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/09/17/rabbi-is-embarrassed-by-religious-jews-using-swinging-chickens-as-sin-absorbers/
In ‘assaulted by a salted meat’ news, Wayne Stilwel of Scotland has been sentenced to ten months in jail for stealing my idea about using bacon at airport security and Gitmo, but taking it a little too far.
…or not far enough if you’re me.
The obviously hilarious Edinburgh prankster rendered an entire mosque doubly useless by attaching bacon to the door handles, and throwing bacon into the building. And when I say ‘doubly’ useless, I mean useless in general reality, and also useless to porkophobes that day.
Yeah, they said the sentence was meant to (quote) “…act as a lesson to show people that all religions need to be respected.” I’m sorry, but the fact that these nincompoops are calling out the hazmat team to remove the satanic bacon from their magical house fails to earn them any respect with me… And the fact that UK courts sent a dude to jail for illegal use of pancetta doesn’t make me start respecting Muslims, it just makes me stop respecting the UK courts.
The . . . uh . . . head Muslim guy was not reachable for comment, however this would have been his official statement: (quote) “We routinely feast on American infidels, so we don’t have any interest in the other white meat.”
I’m not saying that what the dude did wasn’t bigoted, but it was hilarious so it doesn’t count. It’s like all the stuff we say on this show.
Yeah if funny doesn’t cancel out racist, we’re out of business.
And in related “eschewing the fat-wa” news, we learn later in the same story that while a bacon attack will get you ten months, death threats against apostates are just fine, because apostates that don’t wear a burqa anymore, are usually asking for it.
Yeah, what the fuck was that? After calling for the death of a Sudanese woman, Liberal Democrat councillor Salah al Bandar was cleared of any wrongdoing, cause you know those Muslims and their fatwas…
Nahla Mahmoud – the fatwa victim – has been advised by police that her best legal recourse would be to stop existing, because it angers Muslims.
Well, she does have a vagina…
Man sentenced to 10 months for vicious bacon attack: http://freethinker.co.uk/2013/09/18/mosque-attacked-with-bacon-scottish-man-receives-a-10-month-jail-sentence-for-offending-muslims/
In left-wing conspiracy news, our teams of gay stoner fetus killers have successfully altered global thermodynamics as planned . . . but Pastor Kevin Swanson of Colorado is onto us.
Drats!
He cites marijuana, abortion, and (quote) “decadent homosexual activity” – I guess dudes are eating dark chocolate mousse while they fuck – Those things are the underlying cause of Colorado’s worst year for fire and floods.
Man… if I’d known there was dark chocolate mousse I might have been gay.
Liberals in his state are indeed conducting a powerful new dark ritual, involving marijuana, gay sex, and fetal sacrifice. Our operatives get high, have extraordinarily decadent butt sex, and then murder the resulting embryo . . . (A butt embryo, no less) And because of a weird loophole in cosmic law (other than butt sex leading to embryos), this magically forces God to flood wealthy conservative enclaves like Colorado Springs and John Galt’s impossible valley.
Yeah… butt sex causes forest fires. I love that this vision of climatology is perfectly acceptable but the idea that CO2 is causing a greenhouse effect is ludicrous .
But despite his stint as a climate change denier, it looks like the ignorant hate theory isn’t so ignorant this time. It’s just a well-informed hate theory. It’s just hate. Which means on this particular day, Swanson will not gain any ground on Jerry Falwell in the prestigious ignorant hate speech standings.
Nobody beats the king… except Pat Robertson.
Denver is the new Sodom: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-blames-colorado-floods-decadent-homosexual-activity-marijuana-and-abortion-rig and also… http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18209-decadent-homosexual-activity-marijuana-and-abortion-caused-colorado-floods-talk-radio-minister-charges-denying-global-warming
And finally tonight, in “Hey, it’s German… You’re lucky nobody’s shitting on anybody” news tonight, a group of German churches have teamed up to offer “erotic” sermons. In an effort to combat the sexually repressive reputation the church was unfairly saddled with after millenia of repressing sex, two Protestant churches in Dresden, Germany have announced a series of sexually charged sermons in the coming months.
And you’re positive nobody’s shitting on anybody? Not even a bronze shower in some shit-laden holy water?
Program organizer Rudolf Renner hopes that the program can help people see that homosexuality isn’t a sin, because it’s in the bible. Because being in the bible makes something okay. So basically they’re conceding that homosexuality is at least as moral as things like slavery, rape, incest, bestiality, genocide, infanticide and animal sacrifice.
Alright, 30 seconds on the clock: Titles for the new Spermin’ German sermons.
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Dong of Solomon
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Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Humps… or no, wait… valley of the wet bones.
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The Burden of Blow Job: Carrying the Load
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Moses Parting the Pink C
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Jonah and the Sperm Whale – What? That’s technically a jizz joke.
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Noah’s Arcing Ropes of Jism
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Okay that’s a better jizz joke . . . I’m coming from behind now . . . Titus: Tying up Loose Ends
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The Cautionary Tale: Moses and his burning bush.
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The Roman Bondage Sermon: Nailing Jesus.
German churches to offer “erotic” sermons: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/20/german-churches-erotic-sermons-sexuality-gay_n_3956958.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Sexualizing the death of their savior. Now that’s what I call ending on a high note. Heath, thanks as always for joining me.
And when we come back we’ll ask what the fuck all those orthodox jews in the corner are doing.
Calendar
It’s time for the atheist calendar portion of the show. This is the time we set aside once a month to bring you up to speed on all the great atheist, secular and skeptical events going on around the country and around the world.
And damn do we have a full slate in October. We’re gonna start in Charlotte, North Carolina when the “Carolina Secular Conference” is going to be welcoming Margaret Downey, author and activist Katherine Stewart, Shelley Segal, and a lot more. That’s going on over the weekend of October 4th, it’s reasonably priced and should be a blast.
http://www.carolinassecularconference.org/
A week and a coast away we’ve got Sacramento’s 12th annual Freethought Day on October 12th. Huge festival featuring Richard Carrier, Greta Christina, Annie Laurie Gaylor, friend of the show Tom Beasley and a ton of others. One day, great lineup, damn I wish I was gonna be there, hopefully you can go in my stead.
But not all great conferences happen is awesome states. Some of them also happen in Ohio. For example, the 2013 “Sexy Secular” Conference in Akron on the 19th of October. This one has practically every awesome speaker I just mentioned with the addition of Aron Ra and the incomparable Dr. Darrel Ray http://sexysecularconference.com/
And three quickies to round things off. On the weekend of October 26th we’ve got the Kentucky Freethought Convention with Annie Laurie Gaylor, Hemant Mehta, Jamila Bey and more. http://www.kyfreethoughtconvention.com/ A little further south we’ve got “Reason in the Rock” in Little Rock, Arkansas with Dan Barker, Matt Dillahunty, Jerry DeWitt, Zack Kopplin and friends. http://reasonintherock.org/
And finally because I know we’ve got at least a couple of listeners in the Netherlands, the 26th of October is also the start of the Skeptic’s Congress in… a city. Sorry, don’t speak Dutch so I couldn’t figure out anything except the country where it’s taking place and the date. But if you’re interested, you’ll find a link to this event and all the others we’ve discussed on the shownotes for this episode at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
10/26 Skeptic’s Congress in the Netherlands: http://www.skepsis.nl/congres2013.html
And of course, if you’re involved with a conference that needs a free plug, you’ll find all the contact info on that very same website.
Top Ten
In a religion renowned for pointless and crappy holidays, Sukkot stands out as possibly the single most baffling celebration on the Jewish calendar. This is a holiday celebrated by sitting in booths, shaking palm fronds at god and being generally miserable.
So to help our listeners and ourselves better understand this ancestral absurdity, Noah and I will be answering the top ten most asked questions about Sukkot in a segment we like to call…
“How the Hell is this a Holiday?”
1) What does Sukkot mean?
Sukkot is the plural form of Sukkah.
2) Okay, smart-ass, so what the hell does Sukkah mean?
It means a shitty little temporary hut. So literally translated, the holiday is called, “Shitty Little Huts”.
3) How do Jews celebrate Sukkot?
The same way toll booth operators celebrate Tuesday. They sit in little booths all day. They erect a little shed and then spend time in that shed. Because god. Or something.
And they wave palm fronds. That part is apparently really important, otherwise passersby might forget to reflect on how stupid their religion is.
4) Why the hell would anyone do that?
When you’re chosen by god, for the sweet-ass life of a Jewish person, you don’t ask questions. Since I clearly wasn’t chosen, I looked it up. Following a labor dispute, Jewish people spent 40 years living in makeshift desert dwellings northeast of Egypt. Not sure what makes anyone think that ever stopped after 40 years though.
5) But desert dwellers didn’t live in booths. They lived in tents. So what the fuck?
Well, like all things described in the bible, Sukkot predates the bible. Not sure why people have so much trouble with the “if the bible describes it, it didn’t inspire it” rule, but they do. Despite later attempts to shoehorn Sukkot into the Exodus narrative, it’s widely believed that it originated with farmers sleeping in booths in their fields during the harvest.
6) Do all Jews live in booths during Sukkot?
No. Sukkot was once considered the holiest of all celebrations, but it lost some of it’s luster when humans invented heat and the humane treatment of animals.
And Judaism in general lost some luster when humans invented scientific explanations for stuff.
These days most jews don’t bother with the booths, though some families eat their meals in their rickety hovels and some hardcore Hebrews still sleep in them overnight.
7) So how did they celebrate back when they lived in booths?
They killed a lot of animals. And that’s a lot of animals for templic Jews. Back in the Jews’ animal slaughtering heyday this was the bloodiest of all Hebrew celebrations and all Hebrew celebrations were pretty damn bloody back then.
8) What’s up with the palm fronds?
Fucked if I know.
9) Why do Jewish holidays always suck?
Pretty much every event in Judaism’s history is bloodier than Edward Scissorhands botching an octo-mom abortion, but you’ve gotta celebrate something, right?
10) Can non-Jews celebrate Sukkot?
Yes, but not according to the Torah you have to wait until after the end of the world. Scripture says that after the apocalypse, even the Goyim will celebrate Sukkot and get their very own booths.
And you thought the apocalypse was gonna suck.
Bible Story
“Run get the young ‘uns folks! It’s time for Lucinda Lugeons Bible Stories for kids”
Today we’re gonna open our bibles up and meet one of the few women in the bible important enough to have names, Miriam. In this story we’re going to learn all about why we should love god and the pitiless vengeance that’s in store for us if we don’t.
Once upon a time there was a Cushite named Miriam and she married a nice Jewish boy named Aaron. They lived a happy simple life until one day Aaron’s brother Moses showed up and told her husband that they had to go to Egypt to rescue all the Hebrews.
Miriam and Aaron were skeptical but they did what Moses said because Moses was an unhinged murderer. And because they were loyal to god.
So they packed up all their stuff and grabbed their kids and left with Moses so that god could mercilessly torture Egyptians after rescinding their free will. So after god got finished turning all their water to blood, covering them with festering sores, filling their towns with bugs and frogs and murdering the oldest kid in every family, he lets the pharaoh let the Jews go so that they could all wander miserably through a desert for decades.
And Miriam and Aaron didn’t like the plan at all because wandering around in the wilderness and eating flavorless crap for years and years wasn’t very fun. But they did what they were told because they didn’t want to die. And because they were loyal to god.
Now, because their sons were related to Moses, god liked them more than he liked everyone else, so he decided to make her sons priests. That meant that they didn’t have to do any work and everyone else had to pay for their food and all they had to do was kill animals, slit open their stomachs, take out all their guts, drain their blood, splash it around and set them on fire.
But one day her sons tried to see what god looked like, so he burned all their skin off their bones and killed them. And Miriam and Aaron were very sad, but they didn’t say anything because they didn’t want their flesh burned away. And because they were loyal to god.
So they spent most of their lives wandering in the wilderness, not having a home or a comfortable bed or pets or any of their favorite foods or the ability to decide for themselves what to do. It was so bad that practically all the Jews wished that they were still Egyptian slaves because at least then they weren’t always starving and thirsty.
And then one day Aaron and Miriam complained and said, “hey, maybe wandering in the wilderness until we all die isn’t a very good idea at all.”
Now, this made god very, very angry. So angry that he gave Miriam a horrible disease called leprosy that caused her skin to rot and fall off so that you could see her guts and bones. And Moses and Aaron begged god to take away the horrible disease but he wouldn’t. And because being in horrible pain and having to watch your own flesh rot away isn’t bad enough, god also made all the other Jews shun her so nobody would talk to her or take care of her or bring her food and water for seven days. Because after blindly devoting her life to Moses’ every whim, she was disloyal for a few minutes once.
And nobody lived happily ever after.
The end.
Outro
Before we drop anchor tonight I wanted to give everybody a quick update on the perpetually postponed merch I keep promising. We’re still making a few minor tweaks to the new logo. Hopefully that’ll all be done this weekend so we’ve got our fingers crossed that by episode 33 we’ll have some shwag available for you.
I also wanted to let everybody know that I’m pretty much constantly looking for Farnsworth quotes at the last minute, so if you’ve got a blog, a Facebook page, a podcast or any other atheist outreach vehicle that you want us to plug, let me know. I’d be happy to give you some on-air love in exchange for a brief audio clip of you quoting everybody’s favorite 31st century scientist.
I also wanted to congratulate Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance for being the first team to best me this year in the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists. I want to congratulate him not so much on the win, which he clearly doesn’t deserve, but rather in finding a way to successfully cheat at Fantasy Football in a league that I commission, as my team is far too awesome to be defeated by normal human means. Well played, Cecil.
As always, I can’t close this thing out without thanking Heath for everything he does, which is a lot; I need to thank the lovely Lucinda for gracing us with her dulcet tones tonight, I need to thank Shane from Calgary for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote and while we’re at it, I want to thank all those filthy monkey men we evolved from. Way to naturally select.
But most of all I need to thank this week’s best people, Beth, Russell and Robert. Beth, whose resourcefulness, brilliance and cunning will be recognized by our would-be alien overlord a little too late; Russell who boasts both the strength to arm-wrestle lions and the compassion to occasionally let them win and Robert who has never demolished a building with his gargantuan and mighty penis, only because he’s never needed to.
These three brave, gracious and genetically superior examples of humanity have distinguished themselves this week by giving us money. Only the most discerning, respectable and attractive people have what it takes to give us money, but if you think you belong in the pantheon, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. And remember, we make a lot of jokes about it, but all kidding aside, giving us money really does cure cancer.
And if you want to help us out but not if it costs money, you can also help us out by leaving us a review on iTunes or telling a friend or 6 about the show. And if 30 minutes a week of blasphemy just isn’t enough, be sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to us on You-Tube and favorite us on Stitcher.
If you have questions, comments or death threats you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
Episode 30 – Partial Transcript
(note: Transcript may contain parts that were edited out of the final episode due to time restraints)
Sponsor
This week’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new chain of creationist-friendly grocery stores “Ray Comfort Foods”, where the vegetables are guaranteed to be divinely created in their present form, the canned goods are 100% abiogenesis free and there’s plenty of Jesus in our cheeses.
So shop at Ray Comfort Foods, because creationists do what they’re told.
And now, the Scathing Atheist
Intro:
It’s Thursday, it’s September 12th and it’s the 12th anniversary of Heath’s first 9-11 joke.
I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from sardonic New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.
On this week’s episode,
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We’ll be compassionate enough to cut the story with all the childrens’ cancer jokes
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We’ll discover that there are levels of evil Pat Robertson can reach that would still surprise you,
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And Christian homophobes create a Christian version of something that was Christian to begin with.
But first, the diatribe.
Diatribe
I was twelve years old and my mom was talking to a couple of friends of hers about where they were when they learned that Kennedy got shot. One of the friends admitted that she couldn’t actually recall where she was and that freaked my mom right the fuck out. How could she not remember that moment?
Now, psychologists will tell you these so-called “flashpoint” memories are just as unreliable as most of our other memories, but I didn’t know that at the time and neither did my mom. It was simply unthinkable in her mind that somebody could have forgotten that moment. And that was simply unthinkable to me. I couldn’t comprehend of an event so potent that you’d be surprised when somebody failed to recall it precisely a quarter of a century later.
And I continued to not comprehend that for another thirteen years.
It’s damn hard to say that there was a silver lining to 9/11. I’ll have enough respect not to rank it on a scale of tragedy, but it was the most horrible example of humanity that I’ve ever had to witness. The emotional reaction that so many of us shared that day can’t be explained rationally. That colossal mix of anger, fear and impotence isn’t something I’d ever like to revisit.
But if there was a phoenix that rose from the ashes that day, it was the new-atheist movement. The four horsemen all cite the 9/11 attacks as the impetus to their vocal opposition to religion. Throughout the 90s we’d all been force fed the immutable dictum of cultural tolerance so faith was off limits. Sure, there were still plenty of atheists and there were still plenty of people bitching about the evils of religion, but after 9/11 those people were suddenly on TV. They were writing best sellers. They were suddenly being listened to. They had been right all along and it took a few airplanes crashing into a few buildings on live television for a lot of people to realize that.
Of course, references to 9/11 have fallen out of favor in the atheist movement. It’s become fashionable to rise above that type of rhetoric. I’ve seen a number of prominent atheists vehemently disavow the popular meme that reminds us that science flies you to the moon while religion flies you into buildings, or the one that shows the twin towers standing stalwart above the words “Imagine no Religion”.
The platitude a la mode would tell us that the number of religious people who have flown airplanes into buildings is sufficiently eclipsed by the number of religious people who haven’t flown airplanes into buildings. It would be too simplistic to say “religion did it”, wouldn’t it? There were far more things contributing to the rationale of the suicide bombers on 9/11 than just the six dozen hotties they were about to deflower. So you can’t blame religion, can you?
And there’s a lot there that I’ll agree with. I’ll agree that the overwhelming majority of believers aren’t suicide bombers. And I’ll agree that it’s more complex than “religion did it”. And I’ll agree that there were other contributing factors. And even granting all that, I’ll still blame the shit out of religion.
Here’s the thing: convincing somebody to blow their self up is trickier than you think. Without divulging any of the details of why I know that, consider the most gullible person you know and ask yourself if you think you could convince them that blowing their self up would earn them a trip to a virgin-laden paradise. Tough, huh? Now imagine you had to do it without using religion.
No one person can do that. It would take indoctrination from birth. It would take total control of what the victim learned, what they read, what they watched. It would take institutions to make somebody believe anything so patently counterintuitive.
And it just so happens that we have institutions that were designed for exactly that purpose. Modern day religious apologists are fond of telling us that the religion of today is nothing like the barbaric faith at it’s roots and that’s true to a certain extent in certain parts of the world at certain times, but that doesn’t change the fact that the vehicle they’re driving was designed to make people do what they were told to do, even, nay especially, when it went against their own best interest.
If you take out the poverty or the nationalism or the charismatic recruiter, you could still get probably round up 19 guys willing to kill in the name of god. But if you take out the god your task becomes damn near impossible.
So call it hyperbolic if you want. I say if there was any lesson we could extract from that tragedy it’s that religious zealotry isn’t something we can afford to tolerate.
Headlines
Joining me for headlines tonight is cleverly introduced Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to participate in pre-headline banter?
Witty response, Noah.
Laughter, fading to witty retort, Heath.
Laughter indeed, Noah. I think I’ll exercise my optional additional witty rebuttal here, at which point you’ll probably add a rejoinde-
Rejoinder ending in half-ass segue.
In our lead story tonight, the Vatican has recalled its ambassador to the Dominican Republic amid allegations of being a naughty, naughty nuncio. Archbishop Josef Wesolowski was yanked off his post for getting his post yanked off and then winding up in the yankee post.
“Pope Franky Cranky About Wesolowski Lanky Crank Yanky Spanky Hanky Panky”
Surprised you didn’t get “skanky” in there. Rumors of the archbishop’s frisky business first arose in the Dominican press a few weeks ago and the ambassador was whisked away before you could say “official investigation”… or at least, before Dominican Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito could say “official investigation”.
We atheist podcasters could be foiled so easily, by clergy just not raping kids. We’d lose a big chunk of material there . . .
So if the intrinsic value of not raping kids isn’t enough, they should consider the strategic value. And as much as it would hurt our stellar ratings, I’d give away all this fame and podcast fortune,
if the church dialed down the rape even just a little.
Sounds fair to me. But instead, in yet another concerted effort to undercut their own “we-really-mean-it-this-time” charade, the Vatican has moved quickly and decisively to protect an Archbishop from prosecution for sex crimes AGAIN. With the ink on his new “get tough on child rapists” legislation still drying, Pope Sweet Frans-vestite winds up in the delicate position of explaining that when he said “get tough” he didn’t mean tough as in “subject to the same minimal legal standards as the rest of the world”.
When a senior official of an institution is caught covering up decades of child rape, there IS a classy way to handle it. And I think Joe Paterno showed us that classy way . . . And in case that was too subtle . . . I’m saying take a cue from Joe Pa and go die quickly.
Wesolowski, who was nomadic even for a child-raping Catholic official, had previously served in Africa, Costa Rica, Japan, Switzerland, India, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Denmark. But I’m sure he only started fucking kids in the DR.
Yeah lots of people don’t develop those kid-rapey instincts until later in life. Much like scotch, cock is an acquired taste. Best to start with ten-year-olds, then maybe move your way up to twelve and fifteen. Twenty-one isn’t worth the extra money.
And I know that officially I’m supposed to call him “alleged child rapist” or whatever, but fuck that and fuck him. The Vatican is going to make damn sure he’s only ever “alleged” child rapist so I’m gonna go ahead and call an unprecedented abrupt removal from a diplomatic post that exactly coincides with the opening of a sex-crimes investigation an admission of guilt and say this dude is a dirty child fucker. And if he doesn’t like it, he can come and get me. He’ll find me in a neutral nation with friendly extradition treaties with the Dominican Republic.
Do you think the court cases against these guys ever get settled by the victims raping them back. Like a “brown eye for a brown eye” type of deal?
Vatican withdraws Dominican ambassador quick before he has to face charges of child sex abuse: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/catholic-church-relieves-its-ambassador-in-dominican-republic-amid-official-investigation/2013/09/04/8dd3e8e0-15c6-11e3-961c-f22d3aaf19ab_story.html
And in “Not all the stories can be as light hearted as that last one” news tonight, a Bangladeshi court has indicted four atheist bloggers on charges of not properly cupping Mohammed’s balls and saying things that hurt Allah’s feelings. Because apparently Allah is a sissy god and can’t smite these dudes on his own.
Are there a lot of Bangladeshi citizens reading atheist blogs and Reddit posts all day, trying to really hash out their true feelings on the origins of the universe? Is that what they do between state-mandated early morning Muslim prayer, and state-mandated later early morning Muslim prayer?
Despite the Vonnegutian nature of arresting people for insulting a fictional character, the (air quote) “assailants” are facing as much as 14 years in prison after at least one of them already faced a brutal assassination attempt.
If you get 14 years for epistemological whistle blowing, what’s the penalty for attempted brutal assassination?
The indictments you were asking for, apparently.
This is like if Edward Snowden found out the CIA was spending millions of tax dollars to track Santa Claus throughout the Arctic . . .
And also chasing Carmen Sandiego from Berlin down to Belize.
I’d like to think we wouldn’t have jail time and water boards on the table in that situation.
Before moving on to any more of the details, I’d just like to say that I make a lot of jokes about how backwards and fucked up the US judicial system is, but all things considered, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of ‘Murica and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under whoever the fuck I’ve gotta say to not spend 14 years in prison, so help us baby-Jesus, Amen.
The accused, whose names I won’t butcher out of respect, have already spent three months in prison and are currently free on bail after pleading not guilty.
Prosecution by the Ministry of Silly Walks would be far less ridiculous.
4 Bangladeshi Bloggers indicted for being atheist bloggers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/bangladesh-court-indicts-4-bloggers-for-allegedly-posting-derogatory-comments-about-islam/2013/09/08/8b05423c-1876-11e3-80ac-96205cacb45a_story.html?
And from the “It turns out there actually were worse things we could’ve done in Rwanda than nothing” file tonight, blathering idiot and perpetual first runner up in the crypt-keeper lookalike competition Pat Robertson is working hard to remind everyone that he’s not just a crazy, ranting, superstitious, senile old bigot; he’s also evil.
First place must have gone to Lisa Robin Kelly from “That 70’s Show”?
Well, …now.
But even slightly pre-mortem. And for those listeners playing in celebrity death pool fantasy leagues, she was 43 years old, so that’s 57 points for the predictably departed meth enthusiast, in standard formats.
And from celebrity death pool back to celebrity death-monger, a documentary titled “Mission Congo” recently premiered at the Toronto film festival and apparently it details how Pat Robertson used the suffering of the Rwandan people to perpetuate a scam almost as reprehensible as the whole Jesus thing.
It’s hard to tell who cured more cholera and dissentary in the refugee camps, because Doctors Without Borders was there at the same time as Pat Robertson’s preachers. That’s lots of doctors and lots of bibles, so . . . who’s to say?
According to filmmakers David Turner and Lara Zizic, it might be fewer bibles than you think. Robertson consistently exaggerated, distorted and misrepresented the extent of his charity’s work in Rwanda and used these lies and deceptions to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, a very small percent of which actually wound up helping anyone but Pat Robertson.
It’s about now I’d normally compare him to a Bond villain, or a Die Hard villain . . .
But Pat Robertson is SO MUCH WORSE, because he’s actually a real person doing this shit in reality. He raised money from gullible rednecks in the American south, to finance bullshit humanitarian aid to Rwandan refugee camps, but actually diverted the planes to service his secret blood diamond company!!! All he’s missing is a disfiguring scar, and conspicuous red doomsday button that says DO NOT PRESS.
If anybody’s out there investing in “rapture button” technology…
And just to fit the bad guy stereotype perfectly, and get a three week timeshare on Secret Bad Guy Island, his covert African diamond mining company is owned through those “offshore accounts” they always use. I never understood those. Is the money hidden in the ocean? Why does offshore mean we can’t find these banks? Yes it’s offshore, but we all still know where Bermuda is.
Robertson denies these allegations and if you can’t trust the guy who said last week that gay people in San Francisco have secret rings with AIDS needles so they can infect straight people when they shake their fucking hands, congratulations, your brain still works.
Obviously a hoax . . . And if Pat Robertson had ever been to San Francisco, he would know that real gay people in San Francisco don’t shake hands . . . they dick bump.
Yeah but to be fair, the ring idea would work for that, too.
Pat Robertson accused of fraud: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/05/mission-congo-pat-robertson-aid-rwanda
And protecting the rights of children to be stupid this week is the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay Area who are fighting for the right of their children to be the most undereducated in the Florida public school system.
Muslims and Christians love to compete … I guess “Dumbest Kids in Florida” is a fitting battle for those two groups. We’re really talking about “Dumbest Adults in Florida” aren’t we? And that’s a competitive category. This is a state that was governed for eight years by a guy named Jeb.
This story revolves around a letter being circulated by said society that twists the shit out of Florida law to make schools think they’re under some obligation to let kids out of school whenever god tells them to. Titled “Religious Observance Early Dismissal Request Form”, the letter misrepresents several laws in an effort to excuse Muslim kids from school at 12:30pm to pray during a special holiday… called Friday.
What are we even talking about? How disruptive could it be for the three Muslim students in all of Florida to leave early on Friday?
And, as the group points out, education obviously isn’t as important as everyone makes it up to be or they couldn’t get away with the grammatically dubious moniker “Islamic Society of Tampa Bay Area”.
This whole thing is suspicious though. Muslim families in Florida?!? There’s no normal Muslim family stubborn enough to settle in Florida. These are obviously deep sleeper cells.
Tampa Islamic group wants kids released early once a week to pray: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/09/06/islamic-society-of-tampa-bay-area-wants-schools-to-let-muslim-students-leave-class-hours-early-every-week/
And from the “Equal Opportunity Inequality” file tonight, pastor Makeda Pennycooke is begging for forgiveness from Jesus and people who really exist this week after sending out a controversial email that encouraged her congregation to try to look less black.
As in more Barack, less Michelle? Colored but not too colored?
No, Barack is still too black for her. The email in question actually said that the church should work to put it’s best foot forward and make sure that the people greeting parishioners on Sunday morning should only be the best people, by which she meant the white people. And don’t let the caucasian sounding name fool you, pastor Makeda Pennycooke is a sista.
I’d like to read a quote I made up, from the email:
“Our white workers will be at the front, and our workers of color will have a separate, but equally important job in the back of the house, much like a restaurant staff.”
Can’t imagine how that stirred up any trouble.
And while there is something of a silver lining in the realization that a black woman can hate the coloreds as well as any white man, I think we can all agree that it’s important that we continue to allow blacks in North Carolina to greet people outside of churches. Otherwise they’ll have nothing at all to do on election day.
Black Pastor apologized for insisting that only white people should greet parishioners: http://www.christianpost.com/news/im-sorry-pastor-begs-diverse-congregations-forgiveness-for-only-white-people-email-on-sunday-104106/
And in “We’ll just start our own universe and it’ll be way better than yours” news tonight the ongoing attempt to create a fully realized parallel reality for Christian children is one step closer to fruition this week with the announcement of the new queer-hatin’ alternative to the Boy Scouts, Trail Life USA.
The Brokeback Mountaineer issue strikes again.
Joining Christian versions of theme parks, museums, music, science, television, wikipedia, schools and Floridian Courthouses, this latest attempt to inculcate children with a Truman Show like inability to recognize that gays don’t have hooves and bifurcated tails is, of course, a response to the Boy Scouts recent partial backpedaling of it’s long standing official policy of demonizing an innocent segment of society.
Nothing says “The Boy Scouts of America no longer officially hates gays enough” . . . than starting your own all-male tent pitching squad.
Scheduled for official launch on precisely the day that the Boy Scouts start letting the homos in, Trail Life USA promises to be (quote) “stronger, safer and more principled in every way” and co-founder and head redneck John Stemberger went out of his way to use hairy testicled phrases like “masculine outdoor program” when describing the program and how totally heterosexual it will be.
I think as a country, we’re pumping out more than enough homophobic outdoorsmen, without any additional youth outreach programs. There’s an entire homophobic outdoorsmen genre on television. We have an entire swath of this country that is clever enough to see the amazing rhyme potential of hatin’ queers and lovin’ steers, but fails to see the irony of preferring livestock anus to human male anus.
New Alternative to Boy Scouts for queer-hatin’ rednecks: http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-values-based-alternative-to-boy-scouts-launched-104009/
And finally tonight, in felonious coconut news, a delinquent drupe was detained by detectives in the Maldives last week under suspicions that the tropical fruit was possessed by an evil wizard who intended to use the dark coconut arts to influence an upcoming election.
I’m not sure how we could possibly mock religion here, but you were saying “evil coconut wizard” . . . go ahead.
The story begins, as magical coconut stories often do, when a concerned citizen noticed the suspicious brown orb outside a local school that was designated as an upcoming polling station.
Can a brown orb that is – in fact – a coconut, be suspicious in a country that has palm trees and coconuts everywhere?
Well, either it was noteworthy or this weird ass is just taken to closely examining the scattered fruits he comes across One way of the other, he noticed that a Koranic verse was etched into it, meaning it could only be the work of a malicious sorcerer.
Or maybe one of the 100% of citizens that are Muslim, have Korans lying around, and have easy access to brown orbs.
He contacted authorities who inexplicably did not tell him to fuck off and instead investigated the coconut and according to the terminology in every news report we could dig up, the coconut was… arrested.
Textbook profiling of an infidel spy. Brown on the outside, white on the inside.
A local wizard was summoned by the police to determine the exact mystical properties of the suspect and to counteract its evil powers. Because apparently Maldivians are idiots. And before we get a bunch of emails about it, yes, Maldivian is the correct demonym.
And yes, “idiots” meaning “stupid people that believe in voodoo coconut election fraud” . . .
And I can’t believe we didn’t mention this yet, but how does election fraud make any fucking difference in a theocracy?!?
Fraudulent by definition.
Curse-carrying coconut arrested in the Maldives: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/09/06/a-coconut-is-messing-up-this-countrys-elections/
That’s gonna do it for headlines tonight, Heath, thanks again for joining me.
And when we come back, we’ll be doing that bit you were really looking forward to.
Song
For the sake of your survival, you should really read the bible,
It’s the only moral guide you’ll ever need;
Think you found a contradiction? You must suffer some affliction,
Cause there ain’t no fucking fiction there to read.
For the sake of your salvation, believe in Biblical creation,
Learn these Jewish incantations, learn them well.
Why go through life just guessin’, when the bible teaches lessons,
Like the fabrics you can dress in; to bypass hell.
Well… God wrote that he wrote it. Inside that’s clearly noted.
Just ask yourself, why would he lie?
God said that he said it. Don’t you ever forget it.
Can’t be refuted so don’t try.
For the sake of your society, you really should try piety,
It cloaks your improprieties, we swear.
We’ll accept your sinful vices, and my only real advice is,
If you put your life in Christ, you’re in the clear.
Don’t forget the basics, like the fact that god’s a racist,
And it’s okay if you’re a rapist, if you pay.
If you’ve committed genocide, it’s possibly justified,
If god hates the folks who died, it’s all okay.
The most immoral bastard, gets forgiven if he ask for,
A quick favor from his master in a jam.
What’s that? You’re no believer? Then gimme that book and leave, sir.
And if I seem a little eager; it’s cause I am.
After all…
God insists he insists it. I’m not sure how you missed it.
Don’t see how that’s difficult to buy.
God revealed he revealed it, so I figured that sealed it.
Can’t be refuted so don’t try.
God claimed that he claimed it. All this time he’s maintained it.
You keep debatin’, but I don’t know why.
God declared he declares it, and he swore that he swears it,
Can’t be refuted so don’t try.
Feedback
Now it’s time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show where we hope other people will write funny shit that we’ll tangentially get credit for and act as though we have some kind of expertise or special knowledge that qualifies us to answer questions.
So our first email comes from Milton in New Jersey City and he asks:
When is it okay to tell Christians to go fuck themselves?
Any time after 3pm and all day Sunday
And to clarify, any time is OKAY. I think he means, “When is it BEST to tell Christians to go fuck themselves?”
Right. And I think it’s worth noting that Heath and I have pretty lax personal “Go fuck yourself” thresholds even for New Yorkers so I’m saying it’s okay any time you’re saying to yourself, “I’m done talking to this Christian and I have no interest in eventually having sex with them.”
Our next comment comes from the blog. Ken loves the show but offered a not-exactly-correction to our story in episode 29 about the Salvation Army attending a South African Porn Convention to (quote) “be available”.
Ken points out that the Salvation Army often goes to these types of events to be available for potential victims of sex trafficking and abuse, which, we didn’t mention because we were busy making apartheid dick jokes.
And it’s probably a good thing that we didn’t know about that angle. We clearly would have made sex slave rape jokes that were way worse than mere apartheid dick jokes.
Also, I don’t recommend using our notoriously dick-joke-laden headlines segment as a single source news program.
Our next email comes to us all the way from wherever Brandon is from. And Brandon writes us to ask what he can do about the Jehovah’s Witnesses that keep showing up at his door.
Hm… great question. My first thought on this one requires a wheelbarrow, a holocaust cloak and Andre the Giant but he’s dead so that won’t work.
“Do I want some literature about Jesus? No. But do you want some weed?”
I find that wearing nothing but a necktie when you come to the door works with varying levels of success depending on what you tie it around.
Sometimes I like to lower a basket down from the second floor window, and yell “It puts the propaganda in the basket!!!” Then they get the hose regardless.
Okay, so here’s my serious answer. I say you invite ‘em in, get ‘em a drink and let them give you the whole spiel for their little cult. But the whole time have this episode playing on the stereo in the background. Make sure it’s loud enough that they can hear it the whole time, but not loud enough to drown them out.
Until you reach this part. And then you turn it up really loud so that they know that you’ve been fucking with them the whole time and delaying them from spreading their filthy virus to anyone else while you made them listen to the Bible song. And if they’re still in the room they can hear me tell them to go fuck themselves while they’re gathering up all their Jesus stuff.
And that’s all the feedback you get. If you want more, send us more questions.
You’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
Outro
Before we lock it up for the night I wanted to make a quick correction to last week’s show. If you were looking for the interview I did on the A Matter of Doubt Podcast and were surprised to discover that I was actually ex-Jehovah’s Witness Kenny Wyland, that’s because I fucked up the episode number. I said episode 54, but it was actually episode 56 that you wanted. Not that episode 54 didn’t kick ass or anything, I just wasn’t on it.
http://www.amatterofdoubt.com/podcasts/ep-56-noah-lugeons-the-scathing-atheist/
And if you were looking for the live broadcast I did on CWebb’s Sunday School, well, sorry about that, too. An hour after I published the episode I learned that the time had been pushed back from 5 to 4:30. Sorry if you missed it live; it was a fun panel discussion on the biblical prophecies surrounding the destruction of Damascus. It’s on CWebb’s archives now if you’d like to catch up. You’ll find a link in the shownotes, of course.
http://cwebbssundayschool.com/bonus-the-end-is-near-or-is-it/
And because I’m apparently a total podcast whore, you’ll also be able to catch me on the extremely funny Imaginary Friend Show with Jake Farr-Wharton in the next few days. I believe the episode will be up this weekend and as soon as I know the date, I’ll be posting it on our Facebook page, our blog and our Twitter feed, all of which you should probably follow just in case.
Can’t close the show without thanking Heath for everything he does to make this show have Heath in it. I also need to thank Adam Reakes from the Herd Mentality podcast for providing this week’s embellished Farnsworth quote. He’s a rising star in the podcast community and if you check his show out you’ll find out why. Can’t recommend it enough if you haven’t heard him already. And if you’re presently kicking yourself for that oversight, calm down, you’ll find a link to his show in the show notes for this episode.
http://www.herdmentalitypodcast.com/
I also need to thank Heath’s roommate for our kick ass new logo. We’ll be setting up a Cafe Press site this week if you’re dying to get a customized Scathing Atheist T-Shirt, coffee mug, iPhone cover, whatever. That stuff should be available no later than Sunday so there’s plenty of time to do all your Jesus-Day shopping right there.
And lastly, of course, I need to thank this week’s most shining examples of humanity, Kevin, Richard, Brian, Andrew and Magnus. Kevin, who once defeated the devil himself in arm-wrestling and scrabble at the same time, with the same hand; Richard, a man whose bravery and intelligence redefines redefinition; Brian, who shall rescue humanity in it’s darkest hour atop his mighty steed, Poof the Fabulous Dragon; Andrew whose army of robot spiders and amazon love warriors are the envy of supervillains everywhere; and Magnus whose name is so fucking cool that I don’t have to add any imaginative descriptors to increase the perception of his awesomeness.
These five noble philanthropists have conquered the final task in their path to glorification by giving us money. Not everyone has the gallantry, luminosity and sexual magnetism required to give us money, but if you think you’ve got what it takes, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
And if you’d like to help but you only love us as a friend, you can also show your appreciation and help us out a ton by swinging over to iTunes and leaving us a glowing review. We really appreciate everybody who takes the time to stroke our ego and help our iTunes ranking. You can also help us out by telling your friends about the show or sharing an episode on Facebook or Twitter or whatever.
Oh, and listen to us on Stitcher if you’re into that kind of thing.
If you have questions, comments or death threats, you’ll find all the contact info on the contact page at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes, I did have my permission.
The Scathing Atheist 