Archive
Episode 23 – Partial Transcript
by Heath Enwright, Lucinda Lugeons and Noah Lugeons
(Transcript may contain material edited out of the final version)
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Fox’s new reality talent show, American False Idol. Watch as cult-leader contestants from around the country compete against each other and against god in feats of talent and existence.
The last prophet standing wins their own religion and a lifelong tax exemption. American False Idol, because even when Fox puts the name of the sin in the title, Christians still watch it.
And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday, it’s July 25th and it’s not too late to wave some popcorn under a Muslim’s nose tomorrow afternoon.
I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from statistically more rational New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.
In this week’s episode;
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Former celebrity Kirk Cameron is told by Facebook to cease and desist the fuck up,
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A new law in Louisiana won’t not make it not not legal to obey the law.
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And we’ll make fun of Fred Phelps’ dead mother,
But first, the diatribe.
Diatribe:
Boy, this new pope sure is awesome. He’s a reformer. He’s a radical. He’s a beacon of light illuminating the dimmest hour of Catholic decline. He’s beloved by all, Catholic and otherwise. He’s approachable, off-the-cuff and lovable. He’s the antithesis to Pope Palpatine the second. He’s a game-changer.
Except for all the places that matter.
The major-media outlets are suffering from a bit or “Protestant Guilt” after spending two decades covering stories about Catholics butt-raping children so I guess I understand why they’ve been so quick to cram into the papal-fellatio waiting room, but in their eagerness to finally have something good to say about the Vatican, I think they’ve forgotten that balanced doesn’t equal honest.
So let me make something clear about Pope Franks-but-no-Franks: He hasn’t done a fucking thing.
Despite the publicity juggernaut to the contrary, carrying your own bags and posing for a photo-op in a jalopy doesn’t count as reform. Living in a palatial guest house instead of a palatial palace doesn’t count as reform. Washing feet and ad libbing shit about atheists going to heaven doesn’t count as reform. To reform something, you have to actually do something.
Let’s face it, during the reign of Pope Bene-dickhead we had some pretty legitimate complaints about the papacy. And none of them were, “That old fucker won’t even carry his own luggage!”
So where does Pope Frankly-my-dear-I-don’t-give-a-damn stand on the big issues?
He’s against condoms. He fully endorses the genocidal opposition to contraception that exacerbates the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It would take nothing but waving his magic pope wand to halt these detrimental policies, and yet he’s done nothing.
He’s against ordaining women. Not only has he made no moves on that, but he also left a long line of politically motivated misogyny behind him on the way to the Vatican… not to mention a few allegations of war crimes.
He’s staunchly homophobic. He’s actually described the move in Argentina to legalize gay marriage as “a war against god” and shows no signs whatsoever that he’ll be moving the Vatican into the twenty-first century with regard to gays.
He staunchly supports celibacy for priests despite the fact that it isn’t biblical (and actually directly contradicts the biblical prescription for priests and their sex lives) and could give a damn less if it’s harmful psychologically.
Come meet the new pope, same as the old pope. In all the ways that matter, he hasn’t done a fucking thing. And yet everyday I hop onto a religious news site and read about all these great “symbolic” reforms he’s making. Symbolic actions are great unless they’re coming from somebody who has the authority to make real change.
But the media is so desperate to paint him as a reformer that I’ve seen him extolled for coming out “strongly against the financial misdealings of the Vatican bank.” Like there was some other pope who was all about publicly endorsing money laundering for the mafia?
Look, maybe the media is right and I’m wrong. Maybe Pope Franky-Doodle-Dandy really is planning on reforming the Vatican from the ground up. But he hasn’t started yet. And when you take over as the head of the most corrupt institution on the planet you don’t get any extra credit for dressing less flamboyantly than the last guy.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is my fellow expositor Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to exposit?
I’m all about exposition. Whenever I need extra cash, I make an exposit at the sperm bank. That’s what that means, right?
In the interest of getting the sperm jokes started early, we’ll say yes.
Sperm gags are all about coming early.
The Spanish Inquisition of sexual events.
In our lead story tonight the state of California is considering a bill that would help child abuse victims receive compensation if they were otherwise unable to file suit because of time or age restrictions. Obviously, this bill enjoys wide, bipartisan support because who on earth would actually oppose allowing victims of child sexual abuse to pursue long overdue justice?
Catholics.
That’s right. The Los Angeles archdiocese made the mistake of taking the high road on justice for sex abuse victims back in 2002 and the bill California passed back then almost wiped them out. So this time they’re fighting against justice for abused children with everything they’ve got.
So a whole bunch of those tax-deductible donations to churches, are going to pay for pedophile advocacy experts. There’s a positive social externality in there somewhere.
Yeah, one has to imagine the lobbyists are all hoping not to get the “maintain strict statutes of limitations on child rape” assignment.
They’re trying to argue that “A certain day needs to exist, on which these people wake up, and they’re no longer a rape victim.”
Usually it’s the other way around in Christianity … Fall asleep a virgin, and wake up a rape victim. That’s how it went for Jesus’s mom, and lots of slutty altar boys, I imagine.
The archdiocese recognizes the public relations tightrope one must walk when vociferously siding with pedophilic rapists, so they’re hard at work trying to sell this bill as a prejudicial witch-hunt against Catholics.
If the tightrope represents the right way to side with pedophilic rapists, then I wouldn’t say the church is walking it. I don’t think they can see the tightrope from where they’re standing. I’m not impressed by “The lord rapes kids in mysterious ways.”
Well, they point out that the bill would not allow victims to sue public schools for abuse that had passed the statute of limitations, so clearly they’re just going after Catholic child rapists. After all, allowing victims to sue for tax dollars is directly analogous to allowing them to sue a private institution that is still largely governed by people who were and are actively involved in covering up the details of child rape and torture, isn’t it?
I don’t think the public school system could have pulled the same moves to cover for pedophile teachers . . .
“What?!? We sent the rapiest ones to teach Nazi grandchildren in Argentina.”
Catholic Church fighting child abuse bill in California: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/17/catholic-church-private-schools-lobby-against-california-childhood-sex-abuse/
On now to the ever-burning question “Could we have freed the slaves but not kept the South?”, we turn to Louisiana where Democratic state senator Mary Landrieu has introduced a piece of legislation called the “Freedom to Pray” bill, which would, in her words, “protect American’s right to pray.”
Was that part of the larger, “Right to Being and Nothingness Bill”?
This might mean the end of the atheist psychic nanobot thought police.
And as we long ago learned, making legal shit legal is a favored strategy for sneaking bullshit religious laws through the legislature and this one is no different. If you dig even a little, you’ll find that the intent of the bill is clearly to allow state and federal funds to go to programs that are explicitly religious in nature.
Does the legislation explain exactly how The Bill of Rights no longer applies in Louisiana? And if the church needs more money, they should just pray for it, hold their breath, and die.
Amen. Anyway, this all comes as a response to a recent hullabaloo about a quasi-military religious indoctrination camp being run by a Louisiana Sheriff’s department. The program was denied $15,000 in federal funding due to the ubiquity of prayer within the program along with pledges to “attend the church of my faith” and to “Love god”.
Bible Camp for redneck cops makes me nervous. Like ‘venerated obsoivances and rituals’, ‘Waco, Texas’ nervous.
Well hopefully you’ll be reassured by the evangelists running the program, who insist that the prayers are voluntary and a whole room full of people praying around you isn’t coercive at all. And that’s enough for senator Landrieu, who would clearly have no problem with a state run, federally funded program encouraging her children to bow to Mecca, as long as it was voluntary.
In theory, this would create an awkward, alienating situation for any Jewish or Muslim officers. But Jews and Muslims certainly don’t get hired by police departments – or sold property – in Louisiana, so in practice, it’s a moot point.
Louisiana Senator proposes bill to protect religious groups that receive federal funding: https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/prayer-posturing-la-officials-seek-taxpayer-support-for-religious-program
And in satanic lesbian news tonight, Fred Phelps’ dead mother is now gay thanks to the efforts of the New York based Satanic Temple. Person whose name left him no career options except arch-villain or spokesman for the Satanic Temple Lucien Greaves explained that the action was meant to convey (quote) “a message of love in the face of hate”.
Like a money shot all over hate’s face. Chicken fried hate smothered in white country gravy. Phelps needs a Chia Pet, so people everywhere can put sticky seed all over his face.
6 sperm jokes already. He’s going for the record!
Anyway, the ceremony, which the Satanic Temple refers to as a “Pink Mass” was performed by Greaves and two same-sex couples and took place at the Mississippi grave of Phelps’ mother. The goal of the ritual was to turn the mother of the notoriously sodomy-obsessed preacher’s spirit into a posthumous lesbian.
This strategy makes sense, given the way shit works in the bible. This can even get her expelled from heaven. Jesus stops having pre-emptively died for your sins if you posthumously witness gay sex near your gravesite. Plus, that bitch natured and nurtured her bile duct of a son.
The ceremony was, of course, tongue in cheek, as in some dude’s tongue in some other dude’s cheek.
Jelly? Syrup? Rusty Trombone? What does a party like that cost? I guess if I have to ask, I probably can’t afford it.
Apparently the ritual called for two prolonged homosexual makeout session over the headstone along with some divine cock-stroking. Phelps’ mother, who died as the result of god’s retribution over our butt-sex loving culture, could not be reached for comment.
Satanic church holds same-sex ceremony at Fred Phelps’ mom’s grave: http://www.thegauntlet.com/article/28311/The-Satanic-Temple-Performs-Same-Sex-Ceremony-At-Westboro-Baptist-Church-Leaders-Family-Gravesite
And in “Apparently there’s a snooze button on your 15 minutes of fame” news tonight, Kirk Cameron, who you’ll remember from trying to remember where you remember him from, is in a tizzy because people can tell the difference between him being earnest and spam.
Who could forget about Mike Seaver and his best friend Boner? Classic member of the shitty 80’s sitcom canon. And let’s not ignore Cameron’s illustrious film career, including “The Growing Pains Movie” in 2000, and of course the Godfather 2 of sitcom movie sequels, “Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers” in 2004.
Cameron, who has used his post-C-list celebrity decline to promote creationism, has a new movie coming out and he’s been having a bit of trouble promoting it on social media. It began when Facebook blocked promos for his movie and called them “abusive”, “unsafe” and “spammy”.
It’s good to hear that Facebook is using algorithms that can sniff out abusive, unsafe, spammy shit like religion. Software that can process content, and then quantify its level of malignant wrongness – love it. Or maybe they just noticed Kirk Cameron’s name on it.
Facebook later apologized when almost dozens of Cameron’s fans made a fuss but just as Facebook unblocked him, YouTube gave him the boot calling promos for his film, “spam”, “scam” and “deceptive”. This block was later lifted as well, though promos for his film are still “spam”, “scam” and “deceptive”.
Spoiler alert: God did it. He was the rapist in the end.
Which end?
I was impressed by Cameron’s unflinching optimism when he boldly used the plural form of theater in describing the film’s upcoming release.
Further proof that you were never really a celebrity if people could say of your solitary known vehicle, “The star of that show was really Alan Thicke”
Kirk Cameron’s movie blocked on Facebook: http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/facebook-blocks-kirk-camerons-new-movie.html & http://www.examiner.com/article/facebook-apologizes-to-kirk-cameron-for-blocking-new-movie
And in this week’s papal back-walking report, the Vatican is offering time off from purgatory for his Twitter followers, unless you ask Catholic pundits, in which case they definitely aren’t, because that would be stupid.
And if you retweet a papal bull in the next 10 minutes, the Pope will personally murder you, and send you directly to the good part of heaven with the comfy chairs for all the rape victims.
The latest in an illustrious Catholic tradition of trading imaginary favors for real ones, this story reminds us all that Catholics still kind of endorse the antiquated notion that you can earn perdition vouchers for climbing certain stairs and attending certain parties in Rio.
Also, if you duck for 3 seconds while standing on a white platform, you can fall into a 3rd dimension, and get a whistle that takes you to a warp zone that bypasses purgatory altogether.
The story begins when the Apostolic Penitentiary issued a document offering a plenary indulgence for those who attend the upcoming World Youth Day in Brazil. And because the Apostolic Penitentiary is known for being cutting edge and hip, they extended the indulgence to those who follow the event on Twitter.
For those who don’t want to be kidnapped by a dance-fighting cocaine cartel, they decided to allow the Twitter exception to participate without actually entering Brazil. . . I’m okay with that. But why not just go all the way, and put up some indulgence buy-it-nows on eBay?
That sentence may very well have contained earth’s first capoeira joke. Well done.
Recognizing that everyone loves a good “Damn is Catholic theology stupid” story, headlines like “Follow Pope online and reach heaven sooner” started popping up all over the place. Because, you know, that’s exactly what they said. But the accuracy of these mocking headlines didn’t stop Catholics from getting pissed off about them.
When your group is regularly offended by things that are true, it’s your group’s fault, not truth’s.
Try explaining that to Reverend James Martin who wrote a lengthy blog for CNN where he explained that you can’t get time off from purgatory for following Tweets, as that would be silly. It doesn’t count unless you follow those Tweets contritely.
Pope offers indulgences for following him on Twitter: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/17/sorry-you-cant-get-out-of-hell-by-retweeting-the-pope/
And finally tonight, in lubricated jew dick news, we bring you the story of Trigg laboratories where a congregation of rabbis from the Rabbinical Council of California have recently declared their “Wet” brand of personal lubricants to be Kosher, making it the first sex lube that is approved for orthodox jews.
Unless you count the fact that “Moses parting the Red Sea” was code for using menstrual blood as a lubricant.
Check out the mid-rash on that one . . . is what they would say about an unkosher vagina.
It’s important to note the implications of this move. Kosher laws are dietary laws. There is no requirement that suppositories, cosmetics or vaginal cleansers be approved by rabbis unless somebody plans on eating them. So this sex lube hasn’t been cleared for use as a sex lube, it’s been cleared for use as a condiment.
Yeah I could see marinating a chicken in that . . . and then shoving it up a Jewish girl’s ass, if she was into that sort of thing. I mean I wouldn’t suggest it, but if she asked, I’d step up.
And this is great for the Jews . . . They can finally go ass to mouth without worrying about the dietary repercussions.
You never go ass to mouth!
Ass to mouth notwithstanding, this does open up a wide range of new orifice/object permutations for Jews.
Yeah, just what are the rules about sucking orthodox cocks?
In other words, is it okay for women to kneel before the wailing balls?
Can Hassi chicks suck Hassi dicks?
This new lube opens the door to some easier Schindler’s fisting.
Maybe now they can finally put a glory hole in the wailing wall.
Gives new meaning to “Torah new one”
I guess it’s just the latest in the ongoing rabbinical debate on whether or not it’s okay to suck a dick that isn’t eight days old and recently mutilated.
To be fair, when CAN YOU suck an eight day old dick, if not right after you mutilate it?
Also to be fair, whose recently mutilated dick CAN YOU suck, if not that an eight day old boy?
Kosher lube opens orthodox jews to oral sex? http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2013/jul/17/kosher-lube-oral-sex-jews-lubricant
That does it for headlines tonight, Heath, thanks as always for joining me.
You’re not gonna trim the end of those circumcision jokes off in post are you?
And unlike Jesus, we’ll be back soon.
Calendar:
It’s time for the atheist calendar portion of the show. This is the time we set aside once a month to talk up some of the great atheist, secular and skeptical events going on around the country and around the world.
We’ll start in Toledo, Ohio on the weekend of August 18th where the Great Lakes Atheist Convention is welcoming JT Eberhard, Zack Kopplin, Jerry DeWitt and many more, including the Mayor of Toledo, which I find encouraging. And let’s face it, if a speaker lineup can get me thinking “I wish I was in Toledo”, it’s gotta be pretty damn impressive.
http://lanyrd.com/2013/great-lakes-atheist-convention/
Moving 7 days ahead and 7 thousand kilometers away, we’ve got the 15th European Skeptics’ Congress in Stockholm, Sweden on the weekend of the 23rd. Even though parts of the website are in Swedish, the conference itself will be in English
The speakers list includes DJ Grothe, Max Maven and a bunch of Europeans I’ve never heard of that have really interesting topic lines for their talks.
We talked up the Atheist Alliance of America’s upcoming National Convention in Boston last week, but it seems like every time I look at their website they’ve added more awesome speakers. Aron-Ra, Ed Buckner, Seth Andrews, Steven Pinker, Greg Epstein, Sean Faircloth and the list keeps going.
That one’s taking place in Boston over Labor Day weekend.
Lastly, of course, over that same weekend in Atlanta you’ve got DragonCon, which isn’t an atheist or humanist convention, but it’s awesome and it has a hell of a skeptical track so definitely worth checking out if you’re going to be anywhere near Atlanta. Michael Shermer, David Silverman, Rebecca Watson, Mythbusters Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage.
If you want to know more you’ll find links to the homepages for all these events on the shownotes for this episode. And, of course, if you’re involved with or aware of an atheist or secular event that needs a plug, you’ll find all the contact info at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
Top Ten:
Ah, Ramadan, the only holiday that could also be considered a war-crime. It’s that desultory time of year when Muslims gather together in misery so that they can be reminded that sometimes being a Muslim really sucks. Considered to be one of the five pillars of Islam, Muslims work hard to ensure that Ramadan will never be commercialized like Christmas by making it as miserable as possible.
But knowing that our listenership might not be as familiar with the Muslim customs as they are with the Christian ones, we decided to dedicate a few minutes to answering the top ten most often-asked questions about Ramadan.
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Number ten: How do you celebrate Ramadan?
You don’t. This isn’t the kind of holiday you celebrate exactly. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite of celebrating. During Ramadan, all post-pubescent Muslims are required to observe a month long daylight fast. From sunrise to sunset, they aren’t allowed to eat, drink or smoke and are also expected to refrain from sex and foul language throughout. This is in addition, of course, to the lifelong Islamic prohibitions against alcohol, pork and critical thinking.
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Number nine: Does everyone have to fast during Ramadan?
Not everyone. Pregnant women, people who are ill, women who are breast feeding and people who are travelling are allowed to forego the fast as long as they make up the days later in divine detention.
…writing “I will not comprehend” on the chalkboard.
And while Muslims are quick to point out that little kids aren’t required to fast, because in most of the world that would be considered child-abuse, they are certainly encouraged to as practice for later in life.
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Number eight: Why?
Because the month of Ramadan is believed to be the month that Allah first revealed himself to Mohammed so Muslims mark the occasion by hating life.
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Number seven: When is Ramadan?
Easier asked than answered. Because Muslims use a lunar calendar, Ramadan moves around in the year. Each year it begins 11 days earlier than the year before, so sometimes they fast in the short days of the winter when you need food the most, and sometimes it falls in the summer when not drinking water is borderline suicidal in most of the Muslim world.
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Number six: What does the word “Ramadan” mean?
Yeah, even the word itself foretells of the general shittiness of this custom. It comes from the Arabic word ‘Ramida’ or ‘ar-radam’, and while there is no direct English translation, the gist of the word is “Heat and scorching dryness”.
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Number five: Why the hell would anyone do this?
Because religion makes people do dumb shit. Muslims justify it by pointing out that it helps them focus on the spirit rather than worldly things, as though ignoring reality in favor of imagination was a virtue. They also claim that it helps them master self-control without recognizing the irony that by doing it they’ve explicitly surrendered control of themselves to a fictitious autocrat.
But most of all, they say it helps them empathize with the less fortunate
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Number four: Well what about the sex part? Are they also trying to empathize with ugly fuckers?
Yeah, they never really address the fact that even people who are starving and thirsty are still allowed to jerk off.
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Number three: Is fasting like that unhealthy?
No… how could foregoing all the life giving sustenance for absurd amounts of time possibly harm you? And what’s more, how could believing that failing in this Herculean task would offend god himself damage a 14 year old psychologically?
Of fucking course it’s unhealthy.
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Which leads us to the Number two most often asked question about Ramadan: Seriously?
You bet your ass seriously. And we’re talking about Mulsim seriously. They’ve got levels of seriously we can scarcely comprehend. In fact, it’s even encoded in the laws of many Muslim countries.
The ones that have laws, that is.
Right, like Kuwait, where publicly eating, drinking or smoking during the day carries a heavy fine during Ramadan. Or the UAE, where it’s punishable by hundreds of hours of community service and in Algeria daylight mastication during Ramadan can land you in jail for years.
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And finally, the number one question asked about Ramadan…
How the hell do they get away with calling this a holiday?
It’s only a holiday in the technical sense of being an annual observance. In all other ways, it’s a punishment for being religious. The only real “holiday” part comes at the end of the month with a celebration called Eid al-Fitr, which means “festivity of breaking the fast”. It’s a day when Muslims reflect on the fact that if you hit your testicles with a hammer over and over again for long enough, the act of not hitting yourself in the testicles with a hammer seems like a reward.
Bible Story:
Gather ‘round boys and girls. Today we’re going to open our Bibles to Exodus and read about Moses’ wife, Zipporah.
Now Zipporah was a very important person in the bible. She was so important that we know her name, even though she was a woman.
She grew up in a desert with her six sisters and spent all day doing whatever her father told her to do or getting beaten because that’s what women do in the bible. One day her and her sisters took their sheep to a well so that they could drink, but a bunch of mean men told them to go away so that they could water their sheep first.
Zipporah was sad and angry, but there was nothing she could do because she didn’t have a penis. But luckily, there was somebody around who did: Moses.
Moses was sitting by the well wondering if the corpse of the man he’d recently murdered was starting to stink yet when the bad shepherds shooed Zipporah and her sisters away. Moses decided to step in and help Zipporah water her sheep.
“How can I ever repay you?” she asked.
“A hand job?” Moses suggested.
So she invited him back to her tent so she could tug on his cock for a while, but when they got there her dad was home so she married him instead.
(Hooray!)
Moses loved Zipporah so much that he didn’t marry any other women even though he could have because that was okay back then. He took a job tending her father’s flocks, but one day he came home and told her that God had spoken to him and ordered him to free all the Jews in Egypt.
His eyes were red and he wreaked of burning bush, but Zipporah was a woman so she had no choice but to do what her husband said. So she grabbed their newborn son and left for decades of aimless wandering and random smitings.
But one night, on the way to Egypt, god decided to come to earth in human form and wrestle Moses to death at an inn. God was winning because he was god, so Zipporah decided she would have to help her husband out. But she couldn’t out-wrestle god, so what could she do?
Luckily, there was a baby weiner nearby, so she chopped a little piece of it off and touched it to Moses’ foot so that he could wrestle better. Then Moses suplexed god and everyone lived happily ever after. The end.
Outro:
Before we call it quits for the night, I have a very important apology to make to one of the most adept, admirable, altruistic, adroit, awesome, amazing, accommodating, astonishing, astounding, awe-inspiring anthropoids in the animal kingdom, April. April, I am so sorry that I neglected to thank you last week for your generous donation. Because of the extreme level of your magnificence, I had originally thanked you separately from the rest of last week’s best people, and then in a hasty, late night edit I cut it out without realizing it.
And to those of you who aren’t April, I should note that April told me she and her husband were competing to see who could get more mentions on the podcast through their extraordinary generosity and because of my mistake, April spent a week unjustly occupying the lower portion of the leaderboard in that noble competition. So to make up for that, I’d like to point out to April’s husband that I’ve now mentioned her 6 times in the last 33 seconds.
And in keeping with the “A” themed opening to this outro, I’d also like to thank two more prime examples of human DNA in action whose names also begin with A. Andrew, whose transcontinental philanthropy serves as a shining example of godless morality and another person who would rather remain anonymous but is also a biological exemplification of wit, wisdom and selfless magnanimity.
And while we’re on the topic of apologies to people whose names start with A, I’d also like to apologize to Ann who sent us a very eloquent and well-reasoned email a few weeks ago that deserves an on-air answer. And unfortunately I don’t have time to give it the response it deserves so for the time being I’ll simply say sorry about not making more pimp jokes. We’ll work on that.
That’s all the blasphemy we have for you tonight, but if you want more, there’s more. Tom and Cecil over at Cognitive Dissonance invited me on to chat with them and while it’s not available yet because it hasn’t actually even happened yet, I have reason to believe that you’ll find our conversation on episode 109 of their program, which I have reason to believe will be out on Monday.
And if you can’t make it until Monday, you can find occasional nuggets of Scatheism on our erratically published blog, our Twitter feed @Noah (underscore) Lugeons or our Facebook page at (slash) Scathing Atheist. And people who leave us 5 star reviews on iTunes are better than people that don’t. I also have it on good authority that the Flying Spaghetti Monster will give them mansions closer to the beer volcanos in the afterlife so Pascal’s Wager guys, might as well leave us a 5 star review.
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.
A Non-Trivial Problem
by Noah Lugeons
I’ve been trapped in an endless and ultimately pointless debate on this blog for over a week now. It all began when a pseudo-theistic pseudo-apologist commented on one of my “Live Blogging the Bible” posts with something that amounted to
“Tee-hee, yeah, this is a pretty silly part of the bible. I agree. But still, man is that book incredible and divine.”
Of course, I haven’t read the whole book and have barely crested the “preface” stage, but I still have to take issue with this assertion. The book cannot be more than the sum of its parts. If there are any genuinely meritorious parts of the book, one would still have to weigh them against the unscrupulous horrors in other parts of the book. And honestly, the rest of the book would have to pretty damn good to make up for the misguided anti-morality of the first three books.
The crux of the apologists argument was that my cursory reading of the bible was worthless as I wasn’t taking the time to understand it in context. I was also focused only on the bible and not the rich theology that has evolved through the ages. Christianity, he argued, is not the bible. The bible is just a starting point and the theology of the faith had advanced so much since the days of Moses’ foreskin aided wrestling match.
I pointed out that it’s not really possible to say that theology “advanced”, as one can no more say that theology of today is in accordance with the divine than the theology of yesteryear. It’s like talking about a breakthrough in homeopathy or phrenology. If the endeavor has no measurable value, it can’t be said to advance. Advance suggests a destination.
Instead of answering that charge, my esteemed opponent instead accused me of “religious intolerance” as though I did not boast of it. He suggested that I’d simply divided the world into the good people who are against religion and the bad people who are in favor of it. It was a thinly veiled charge of anti-theistic bigotry that rested on my continued insistence that without a goal one can draw no nearer to the goal. How dare I be so intolerant of people making bold and demonstrably false truth claims while insisting that they’re point of view should be respected and accepted without the burden of evidence?
This is a common tack from the “liberal” theist (and by liberal I refer here to their theology, not their politics). Atheists are bullies that are every bit as dogmatic as the believers. We’re intolerant of religious people (which is true) which means we’re just like the Muslims who are intolerant of the Jews (which is bullshit). They, on the other hand, are agnostics with a property-less god and the only honest position: self-imposed ignorance. We should just live and let live and who cares if fundamentalists stand in the way of science or oppress gays or mistreat women? That’s not religion’s fault.
It is an intellectually dishonest position and what’s more, anyone smart enough to take this position is also smart enough to see why it’s bullshit. Religious extremism is (as the name would suggest) simply a point on the spectrum of religiosity. Some people have benign tumors but that doesn’t mean tumors aren’t a problem. Fundamentalism is a problem that (a) all religions share and (b) cannot be found outside of a religious context. This would suggest that fundamentalism is a necessary byproduct of religion. And it really doesn’t matter what a bunch of Muslim scholars say about peace and love if the true believers are hacking people to death in the streets.
This is not a “live and let live” situation. This is a situation that demands intolerance. Religion is a non-trivial problem.
No rational person would wish for the destruction of the world. Such a proposition is as irrational as any you might propose. What’s more, no person irrational enough to wish for the destruction of the world could possibly acquire the means and assistance he or she would need to make it happen. While technology does give us the means to global catastrophe, it is hard to imagine that anyone with the stated goal of world destruction could find anyone willing to lend a hand. Sure, a clever statesmen could use nationalism and deceit to trick enough people into helping him, but the very nature of logic forbids any large scale attempt to bring about the end of one’s own species.
But, of course, if logic can be removed, there is no such safeguard. If one can be convinced without evidence that a whole different universe exists after you die that is way better and way more important than this petty world, you could overcome your natural survival instinct and happily march the planet toward the apocalypse that your god has promised you.
No doubt the liberal defender of theism would roll their eyes at this nightmare scenario. They would pretend it is ridiculous. They would pretend that there aren’t large, organized, multi-national groups with exactly this goal. They would pretend that somehow reason can prevail amid a group that has outlawed reason.
And of course they would. They have to. They can’t accept that the same thing that gives them their own personal love-Jesus might also have a dark side. And they certainly can’t accept that the dark side eclipses the bright side.
Religious extremism is just religion without constraint. No religion has ever voluntarily tempered itself. No religion has ever neutered its own power. It is the job of the secularist, the job of the scientist and the job of the atheist to castrate religion every time it thrusts its scrotum into the rest of the world. As fond as religion is of mutilating it’s own genitals, they still leave that job to us.
Episode 16 – Partial Transcript
by Noah Lugeons, Heath Enwright and Lucinda Lugeons
(Note: Transcript may contain material edited from the final episode for time purposes)
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new brand of perforated Catholic Condoms, Kingdom Cum. These confusingly labeled condoms are no more contraceptive than cheesecloth, but we’re willing to wager we’ll catch a few drunken fornicators with this ruse.
What, you think that’s immoral? You should see what Catholics do when they take over a hospital.
And now, the Scathing Atheist:
Intro:
It’s Thursday, it’s June 6th and I know Jake Farr-Wharton has already opened up the show once, but the dude sent the quote to me in six different voices and I’m not letting good shit go to waste.
I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from abbreviated NY, NY, this is the Scathing Atheist.
On this week’s show,
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We’ll add contractual obligation to the list of reasons not to get addicted to meth,
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I’ll try desperately to come up with another nickname for Pope Francis,
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And Heath and Lucinda will join me in discovering that Leviticus is every bit as fucked up as you think it is.
But first, the Diatribe.
Diatribe:
I’m sick and goddamned tired of hearing about where people fall on the “Dawkins Scale”.
Before I go any further, I should note that I’m a big fan of Dawkins and I admire his non-sexist parts… he’s like the Benny Hill of atheism in that way. And what’s more, I completely understand the rhetorical utility of his sliding scale of theistic probability. In the hands of a skilled debater like Dawkins, it’s a valuable asset. But in the hands of a lay-atheist, it’s often a hell of a lot less than that.
For those who aren’t familiar with the term, the “Dawkins Scale” refers to a seven point scale Dawkins proposed in The God Delusion. A one on this scale represents absolute certainty that god exists, a seven is absolute certainty that god doesn’t exist. The point he’s making is that atheists generally fall on the “6”, not the “7”. It’s a useful explanation of the fact that atheism is the product of doubt, not certainty.
But certainty appeals to a lot of people, so when Dawkins talks about this publicly there’s often a backlash. People in the media stammer about how Dawkins is uncertain and concedes that there might be a god afterall. They don’t seem to understand that he’s not actually conceding that in any way. They just see two guys in a debate where one is saying he’s absolutely sure and the other’s saying he holds a tentative position that’s in accordance with the observable evidence. Somehow they don’t see this as an idiot vs. a responsible thinker, but rather they see it as confident guy vs. indecisive guy.
In the context of the book and in the context of some debates, employing this scale makes perfect sense. But before we lean too heavily on it, we should probably point out that this scale can also be applied to any other belief. Does gravity exist? Well, I’m pretty damn sure it does, but as a responsible thinker, I’ve got to go with a 6 on the scale, because if convincing evidence arose to the contrary, I would change my mind. I am not an immutable “7”. We could be part of a computer simulation titled “what if there was gravity?”, so as a proper logician I have to carve out a little, tiny, itsy-bitsy “margin of error” on the gravity thing.
Same thing for evolution, right? I mean, just because all the available data suggests and confirms it, that doesn’t mean that I’m absolutely certain beyond the shadow of a doubt, irrespective of future data. I’d have to hold the responsible position of “6” on the scale. But why hamstring oneself in debate by pointing this out only with respect to the thing you’re arguing about?
I feel the same way every time I hear Dillahunty, or anyone else for that matter, talk about Agnostic Atheism vs. Gnostic Atheism. Before we start making this distinction, somebody show me one of these gnostic atheists. Show me somebody who says that no matter what level of convincing evidence could be offered to the contrary, they would never believe in god. Show me somebody who says he would still be an atheist if god appeared in the sky before the whole world at once and said, “I am god, sorry about all the mysteriousness and shit and to prove my godness you’ll note that all the people who had cancer are now cured.” Show me that guy and then let’s start carving atheism up into gnostic and agnostic.
This isn’t just a semantic thing. And it’s not just a “trip-you-up-in-an-argument” thing either. The use of these devices is actually fucking this movement up internally. I can’t tell you often I see atheists offering up false-equivalency compromises with this nonsense. Search “Dawkins Scale” on Twitter and it won’t take long to find an atheist saying something like, “I’ll admit that being a 7 on the Dawkins scale is as ridiculous as being a 1”
What? No the fuck it isn’t! That’s a complete misreading of the point of the rhetorical device. Keep in mind that on this scale, 7 actually represents the thing that is right. 1 represents the thing that is wrong. The point of the Dawkins Scale is to point out the flaw in “Absolute Certainty”. But if you’re going to be absolutely certain of something, it’s still way better to be certain about the thing that conforms to all the known evidence.
Substitute anything else for the god assumption and it becomes painfully obvious. Somebody who is absolutely certain that the earth is round should, for the proper employment of scientific thinking, concede that overwhelming evidence could sway him… from a pedantic, vulcan, it’s-an-oblate-spheroid-bitch point of view. But that doesn’t mean that he’s exactly as wrong as somebody who is absolutely convinced that the earth is flat.
There’s a cat on my lap right now. If I was pressed, I’d admit that it could be a hallucination, it could be a robot, it could be a phantasm from another dimension taking the form of my cat. But if I say, “No, damn it, this is definitely my cat”, it may be technically wrong, but it’s certainly not as wrong as “No, damn it, this is definitely a phantasm from another dimension.”
The problem is with 7 point scales and binary choices like gnostic and agnostic is that there’s no way to truly express the 6.999999-ness of one’s atheism. If god appeared before me right now and we had a twenty minute conversation, I’d assume I’d lost my fucking mind before I’d assume that it actually happened. It would take a hell of alot more than than personal experience to overturn my conviction. I’d need tangible evidence that could be verified by multiple sources and, in addition, I’d need volumes of refutations for the hundreds of logical contradictions his existence entails. I’d need a world-overturning amount of evidence. I’d need an amount of evidence that one can reasonably assume will never exist.
So as to where I fall on the Dawkins Scale, it ultimately comes down to the question of how many 9s you can put after the decimal place before you run out of 9s.
Headlines:
Joining me for headlines tonight is my fellow skeptic, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to sharpen Occam’s Razor?
Is another old book club making outrageous claims?
I’m starting to think god is worse than Oprah.
In our lead story tonight, Oxford University researcher and author Kathleen Taylor made waves this week when she suggested that religious fundamentalism may one day be a curable mental illness. Now, when you and I hear this statement, the only new information is the word “Curable”, but when the religious folks hear it they’re once again forced to confront the fact that believing in magic people in the clouds is, technically, fucking nuts.
I hope the cure for religion comes out in some sort of weaponized form. I’m picturing a reality dart, and you can heal the radically ignorant right in the side of the neck with a blowgun.
This is only the latest in a long line of academics accidentally forgetting that we’re supposed to publicly ignore the fact that extreme religiosity and mental illness spend a lot of venn diagrams spooning.
Definitely got a shared region in the extra-wide vagina shape. That’s more like scissoring than spooning, I guess.
The media reports it like it’s a scandal and then they dig up a bunch of peacemaker psychologists who dutifully point out that technically it’s not a mental illness until it interferes with your day to day life and at the same time they’ll dutifully not point out that by the same argument believing that you’re Napoleon and your left testicle reminds you to water the house-plants is also not de-facto crazy.
And the Napoleon left testicle belief system is VASTLY more likely to be true than those of any major religion.
Worst thing that happens if insane people become radically orthodox about science is they make an atheist podcast. Nobody’s ever protested a theist funeral, or bombed a fetus rescue clinic, in the name of Darwin or Dawkins.
But don’t worry, it’s not like we’re going to now have a rational conversation about this topic, as the major media outlets have reported that, in fact, the pachyderm droppings on the loveseat were likely man-made and placed there intentionally.
Pay no attention to the Republican mascot behind the curtain, taking a shit on society’s couch.
Could religious fundamentalism be treated as a mental illness? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/kathleen-taylor-religious-fundamentalism-mental-illness_n_3365896.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
And speaking of fundamentalism and mental illness, our next story brings us to Kentucky and Ken Ham’s ailing “Ark Park” where Ham is inadvertently demonstrating the absurdity of the Noah story by showing how hard it is to get an ark of that size built when you’ve got modern shipping channels and $25 million dollars at your disposal.
Well Noah had the old-man strength going. You know how the best softball players are 45-year-olds? Noah did all the ark stuff between the ages of 480 and 600, so unfair advantage.
Plus, Ken Ham probably has far fewer Jewish slaves at his disposal for the project.
In addition to not having enough money to build the ark that will fail to serve as the centerpiece for this not-likely-to-exist theme park, Ham’s team is also not building other Old Testament attractions, including not breaking ground on a Tower of Babel observations deck and not moving ahead on a planned “Ten Plagues” themed ride.
I think they need to reread Genesis 11. They’re constructing a replica of the tower whose construction got god to smite everyone. That’s like re-airing the seizure-inducing anime clip.
Many atheists will remember hearing a lot about this park a couple of years ago when the state of Kentucky agreed to award it huge tax incentives to build it’s testament to credulous stupidity. It would seem now that the “Ark Encounter” has found a clever way to circumvent that controversy by failing to raise the requisite funds for construction until the proposed tax incentives expire in May of next year.
So Kentucky said, “Yeah, you guys can have these huge tax breaks, as long as you can build an impossible boat and an entire infinite tower to heaven before next May.”
Ark Park having trouble: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/noahs-ark-theme-park_n_3367579.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
And in “Are-They-Still-On-About-That-Shit?” News, a number of prominent Baptist leaders have called for a mass withdrawal of support for the Boy Scouts of America after they slight and decades overdue backpedaling of institutionalized of bigotry. Arguing that we can’t allow gay people to learn how to tie such good knots, homophobic pastors across the nation are urging their flocks to cut their ties with the Boy Scouts.
“I know this seems like it’s about the gay thing, in the standard cause and effect sense. But we’re just uncomfortable – in general – of a dozen 10-year-old boys and a weird adult in a tent, wearing matching short shorts and ascots. Whether or not there are any actual homosexuals present, it’s just too faggoty.”
Pastor Tim Reed of Arkansas forestalled that argument when he told a CNN reporter that (quote) “It’s not a hate thing here”, adding a bunch of other thinly veiled lies and bullshit that he has to tell himself to continue to believe that he’s not a bigoted anal-wart that cherry picked through one of the most egregiously horrific parts of the entire bible, bypassed laws against tattoos, fabric mixing and crustacean eating and selectively chose to enforce the one line he found that reinforced his hateful bigotry.
“It’s not that they’re gay, it’s that they’re evil BECAUSE they’re gay. It’s all in the book, you can check. Our hands are tied.”
“We’d also be this pissed if they endorsed uncovering your wife’s daughter’s nakedness!”
Sorry Pastor, but it’s still racist when you say hockey players are better than basketball players at water polo.
Baptists plan exodus from Boy Scouts: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/31/southern-baptists-to-urge-churches-and-members-to-cut-boy-scout-ties/
And in quasi-constitutional legislative acrobatics this week, we’ve got the state of Ohio hoping to pass a bill that would award high school credits to kids for going to church and learning about how evil gay people are and stuff.
I’d be willing to give PE credit to altar boys, especially if, you know . . . they swallowed.
Proponents of the bill argue that (quote) “It’s an attempt to reinstall some of the same things that made this country great”, which, in the mind of Democratic representative Bill Patmon, include religious indoctrination and rewarding people for knowing things that are wrong. Patmon went on to complain that we’ve taken prayer out of the schools, we’ve separated religious demonstration from learning areas, we’ve taken religious displays out of schools, I mean, it’s getting to where there’s hardly any way at all to exploit the public schools to evangelize.
“Some of these kids are going 7 . . . 8 hours in a row at school, in the middle of December, without seeing a single piece of visual Jesus propaganda. Do the math. You just can’t brain rape kids under these conditions. I thought this was America.”
Opponents of the law point out that giving educational credit for things that aren’t actually “education” kind of defeats the purpose and then they just kind of stare at the proponents and wonder why this isn’t enough to persuade them.
I got my health credits in high school by interning with a psychic chiropractor who cured headaches with leeches. And now look at me. I run a lucrative wishing well business.
Shifty payouts for religion by state of Ohio: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130601/NEWS/306010059/Ohio-may-OK-public-school-religion-credits?gcheck=1
And from the “Who-Will-They-Molest-Now?” file, Las Vegas’ oldest Catholic School will be shutting its doors permanently at the end of the academic year. The St. Joseph Catholic School has been instrumental in Vegas’ international reputation as a paragon of chastity and virtue since 1948, but a steep drop off in people gullible enough to entrust their children to Catholics has led to the school’s inevitable demise.
I think it’s telling, that the oldest Catholic school in Las Vegas, is named after Jesus’ stepdad, the patron saint of some other dude fucking your wife…the patron saint of “cuckolded by god’s dick”
Over the past decade about a quarter of all Catholic schools have been shuttered nationwide leading many to believe that god has abandoned us and no longer cares about the travails of mankind, instead focusing his divine attention on beating Contra without using the cheat code.
It’s all about the spreader gun. Maybe the laser near the end. The flamethrower didn’t get the good blast radius effect until Contra 2.
Beating Contra without the cheat code is like god… I’ll believe it when I see it.
Oldest Vegas Catholic school to close permanently: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/may/30/citys-oldest-catholic-school-falls-victim-low-enro/#axzz2UqCW1wru
And in this week’s forecast on international demon activity we find that despite papal intervention, the guy who thought that he was filled with devil spawn is still fucking crazy. Despite the Pope Frankenberry’s exorcism that wasn’t, a wheelchair bound man identified in the press as Angel V. insists that he is still possessed by demons.
Looks like he has a malpractice case, at the very least. They seem to have botched a fairly routine procedure. But I’ve seen a lot of spinals, dude, and it sounds like this Angel guy is a fake.
The fucking goldbricker claims to have undergone more than 30 exorcisms and somehow no matter how much holy water they throw at him while intoning latin platitudes, his clearly malfunctioning brain refuses to be miraculously cured.
What’s the problem, he’s hearing demonic voices, telling him to kill babies and eat them? Everyone get those sometimes, right? We don’t all have to act on them every time.
Instead of responsibly suggesting he seek psychiatric help, prominent Catholics affirm his harmful delusions by saying things like (quote) “the demons that live in him do not want to leave,” and (quote) “God exists”.
Man exorcised by Pope still possessed by demons: http://www.newsmax.com/edwardpentin/pope-excorcism-possessed-angel/2013/05/29/id/506975
And finally tonight, a story that comes to us from Friendly Atheist, prolific author and inaugural Farnsworth quoter Hemant Mehta and his Friendly Atheist blog. It would seem that a couple of parents in Utah have finally found the secret to instilling the importance of good moral judgement on their children: Cold hard cash.
Mother Katie Hughes had her daughters sign a contract that promises a reward of $1000 at the age of 20 if the now pre-pubescent girls can refrain from the use of drugs, alcohol and premarital sex between now and then.
“We’re willing to pay as much as 34 cents a day for you to have a shitty, sheltered childhood.”
Seems like a non-binding legal contract might not be the best way to tackle the subject. Are kids gonna need to start bringing legal counsel to have “the talk” ?
So yeah, setting aside the obvious fact that in another eight years these girls could earn that much in a night by breaking the pledge, one also has to doubt that the paltry sum of a thousand 2026 dollars will remain a sufficient carrot to forestall teen angst.
So, nine days of future minimum wage later . . . or drunken orgasms and cocaine now…
Mother offers daughter $1000 to stay a virgin: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/06/05/christian-mother-to-daughter-if-you-remain-abstinent-until-youre-20-ill-give-you-1000/
And since there’s nothing better to close on than drunken orgasms and cocaine, that’ll do it for headlines tonight, Heath, thanks as always for joining me.
And when we come back, Lucinda will join us to bust open our bibles and dig into the dirty parts.
Song:
After writing poems for Genesis and Exodus, I felt obligated to the Herculean task of capturing the mind-raping insanity of Leviticus in two rhyming minutes. To complicate matters, I used a weird rhyme scheme and upon recitation it had this really awful “middle aged white guy rapping” feel to it.
In an effort to counterbalance that I put a little music behind it, but I want to apologize to any musicians who might be listening. I was really under the gun on this thing so it’s basically A minor and E the whole way.
So without further ado, I present the book of Leviticus in rhyme:
Leviticus in Rhyme:
Let me tell you how to sacrifice a goat, bitch; First you cut it’s throat which,
seems a little mean and maybe more than a little gross, it’s
Nothing when compared to; What the Levites bear through,
Details of the entrails should be plenty enough to scare you.
The fat goes on a pyre; Set that shit on fire,
The smell’s a rancid hell but it’s the odor god desires.
How to kill a bird now; Case you hadn’t heard how,
Twist it’s little heard until it’s dead and when it’s burned, bow.
This is for atonement; Offer no postponement,
Couple jugs of blood is a critical component.
Now a proclamation; Regarding ordination,
light the candles right or you might risk assassination …From the Lord.
Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie,
Thou shalt not do it guy on guy,
Thus unto Moses spoke the Lord.
Let me tell you what to eat bitch; Tell you who to sleep with
Tell you how to burn the heretics about that bewitch.
Tell you ‘bout your penis; And all it’s uncleanness,
For someone all-knowing I’m not much of a hygienist.
Oh, and if it pleases; Quickly on diseases,
Sacrifice a turtle dove if anybody sneezes.
Menstrual blood and semen; Need a lot of cleanin’
Best I never catch you whorin’ with all those goat demons,
Tell you ‘how to shave, man; Who you can enslave, man,
Tell you how to stone the motherfucks who misbhave and,
If you disobey me; I will not just slay thee,
Many generations I’ll be all up in your game, see …I’m the Lord.
Thou shalt be pure, thou shalt be true,
Thou shalt not get a damned tattoo,
Thus unto Moses spoke the Lord.
Thou shalt speak up, Thou shalt not cheat,
Thou shalt not dine on rancid meat
Or stick your dick in things that bleat.
Thou shalt not mix thy rye and wheat.
Thou shalt be just, thou shalt be kind,
Thou shalt not trick the deaf and blind,
Or touch cadavers left behind.
Or let two fabrics be combined.
Thou shalt fear god, thou shalt be straight,
Thou shalt not look to kin with hate,
Thou shalt not ever masturbate,
Thou shant put weasel on your plate.
Thou shalt not rob, thou shalt be bold
Thou shalt rise up before the old,
Don’t get your daughter’s pussy sold,
Thou shalt give all my priests your gold,
…Thou shalt be easily controlled.
Thus spoke the Lord.
Outro:
That brings us to a quick recognition of this week’s most astonishing vertebrates, Steven, Lindsay, Ward and other Lindsay. These four vampire hunting, ninja decimating, time bomb deactivating, bus jumping heroes have distinguished themselves above all other carbon based lifeforms this week by giving us money. Drawing on stupendous reserves of tenacity, intelligence and spare cash lying around, these four fine folks have provided an example that all tenacious, intelligent people with spare cash lying around should aspire to.
If you’d like to join these noble few in the pantheon of Scatheist glory, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com. Oh, and Lindsay, if you’re listening, I was talking about the other Lindsay when I said, “other Lindsay”, not you.
That does it for tonight’s show, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with some hastily put together shit that’ll keep me up until 2 in the morning at least twice this week. But if you can’t wait that long without risking a stress induced seizure, be sure to check out our erratically published blog and our erratically Tweeted Twitter feed.
Oh, and please help us spread the word about the show. If you know any atheists that have auditory canals, please give us a plug when you can. I put every diatribe up on YouTube and I’ll be putting the Leviticus song up this week as well, so if you wouldn’t be risking will-altering alienation from your family, I’d humbly ask that you give one of our videos a share on Facebook or whatever.
A quick thanks to Heath and Lucinda for joining me tonight and to a bunch of dead Israelites for making the jokes so easy on the Holy Babble segment. And a quick thanks to you, dear listener, for giving us half an hour of your life. We’ll be working really hard to earn another thirty minutes next week.
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.
Religion, Atheism and False Equivalency
by Noah Lugeons
I’m so tired of hearing it that I’m tired of saying that I’m tired of hearing it.
Christians and their cohorts are desperate to seize the middle in the culture wars and that’s damn hard to do when you’re still dragging your heels on subjects like birth control, gender equality and premarital sex. The tenets of religion are so far behind the mainstream that the only hope they have of appealing to the masses is taking the focus off how medieval and fucked up their beliefs are.
You can see this in their constant attempts to publicly back-pedal everything their religion stands for. They’ve already distanced themselves from God, from all the crappy stuff Jesus said, from the entire history of their religion’s expression and practice, from the current hierarchy that controls it, from almost every passage in the bible and from almost every major precept of their faith. They try to water it down so much that god just means love and there’s no way to disagree with them.
And that public face is, of course, contradicted by almost everything that the majority of the faithful do and say, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a PR campaign and if you’re trying to sell a product that everyone knows breaks immediately, the first words you’re going to attach to it our “long lasting”. Think about how often you hear about Islam being a “religion of peace”, Judaism being “modern” or Christianity being a “religion of tolerance”. The hope is that if you can put your slogan on the complete opposite side from the truth, people’s opinions will land somewhere in the middle.
Which brings us to the false equivalency. Because the Christians have no good answer for “your religion is insane, unverifiable and it’s a tool to justify bigotry, sexism, child abuse and ignorance”, they have to deflect. They can’t reasonably stand there and try to pretend that their religion isn’t insane, unverifiable, bigoted, sexist, abusive and ignorant, so instead they opt for the “Oh, yeah?” tactic and say, “Well, atheists are even worse!”
Think about how often you hear a Christian imply (or directly say) that atheism:
- Takes just as much faith as religion
- Is just as militant as religion
- Is just as unverifiable as religion
- Can be used to distort morality just like religion
- Is just as “bad” as religion
This seems to be the Argument Du Jour with online apologists right now. They say that “Dawkins is just as bad as…” and then they’ll insert the name of somebody who just said something about how gay people should be beaten to death or that women should learn to shut up and listen to their men… in the name of the son, the father and the holy ghost, amen.
And as Dawkins recently responded via Twitter;
Yes, I’m just as bad as the fundamentalists. Now excuse me while I throw acid in a woman’s face and then behead someone with a machete for disagreeing with me.
Shall I bother to refute it further? Should I bother to point out that nobody has ever been killed in the name of atheism? (And remember apologists, being killed by an atheist isn’t the same thing) Should I bother to point out that there is no doctrine or authority that can alter morality within atheism? Should I bother to point out that the most “militant” atheist you can find has never called for the killing of anyone anywhere? Should I bother to point out that even the really sexist atheists never talk about covering women from head to toe and then stoning them to death?
The answer to all of these questions is, of course, no. The very act of refuting this type of argument gives it more credit than it deserves. I’m an atheist blogger, podcaster and from what I hear, I’m one of the most vicious atheists out there. And the worst thing I’ve ever done to a Christian is made him cry because I used potty words and talked about Jesus’ naughty parts. I’m an “atheist extremist” and the only weapon I own is a thesaurus.
Episode 14 – Partial Transcript
by Noah Lugeons and Heath Enwright
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Zoroastra-Zeneca’s new brand of prescription painkiller designed to get you through the headaches brought on by reading your holy texts and trying to apply them to the real world.
So next time you’re banging your head against the Bible, the Talmud, the Koran or whatever antiquated revelation you prefer, take some Orthodoxy-contin and turn off the parts of the brain that asks questions.
And now, the Scathing Atheist.
Intro:
It’s Thursday, It’s May 23rd and normally I put a joke here.
I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from prohibitively expensive New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.
On this week’s episode,
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Texas lawmakers refuse to declassify the penis manual,
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We’ll figure out what’s making those Hassidic kids look so cool,
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And Heath will offend Christians, Jews, Women, Muslims, Blacks, People from Singapore and John Lennon fans.
But first, the Diatribe.
Diatribe:
I have nothing against raisins. They’re compact, nutritious, vitamin rich and tasty. I eat them when I hike and they actually make bran appetizing. I really like raisins… when they’re in a box of raisins.
When I don’t like them is when I’m eating a danish or a cinnamon roll or something and for three or four bites it’s been raisin-free and then, all of a sudden and without clearly distinguishing itself from a dead insect, I’m chewing on some little rubbery, wrinkled morsel of undeniably bug-like dimensions.
Similarly, I’ve got nothing against Christians when they come in a box clearly marked “Christian”. I can’t imagine an atheist walking into a church and saying, “Hey, what’s all this talk about Jesus, guys? Can’t you see you have guests?”
Like every single atheist I’ve ever met or interacted with, I support the right of all people to believe and worship whatever they want as long as they’re willing to shut up about it during grown-up time. As long as it doesn’t get all mixed up in decision making that affects others, you can spend your Sunday mornings being loved by whatever fictional character raises your pup-tent.
But if people constantly showed up at my door to ask what brand of raisins I preferred and whether I was prepared to accept their brand as the only true raisin, I’d hate the fuck out of those people. I’d probably start a podcast about what a bunch of assholes raisin-evangelists are and I’d probably start a You-Tube Channel, Twitter Feed, Facebook Group and Blog about it too, like I did for this show, hint-hint, wink-wink-nudge-nudge, say-no-more.
My problem with both raisins and Christians is that they’re subversive. They sneak into places where they aren’t welcome, they intrude on otherwise secular pastries and they seem to think that they have a right to be there and be all raisiny whenever the hell they feel like it.
I remember the families that would give out pamphlet ads for Jesus on Halloween despite the fact that it’s a secular holiday by any reasonable standard. I remember finding a bible passage on some toy my unsuspecting atheist uncle gave me. I remember finding Jesus ads on school handouts and I remember finding whole fucking sermons in the middle of Snoopy cartoons.
Christians would look at that list and see nothing subversive about it at all. What’s wrong with giving out information about Jesus? What’s wrong with putting our worldview out there? What’s wrong with a message about Jesus in the middle of a cartoon about a Christian holiday?
It wouldn’t even occur to them to flip the question on it’s head and imagine Linus taking a couple of minutes to refute Pascal’s Wager during a Thanksgiving cartoon. But it’s a secular holiday! Why shouldn’t it have a secular message? They would go apeshit if I started handing out little pamphlets of Dawkins quotes with my halloween snickers bars. Fox News would probably be at my door by November second asking me why I hated America. They would be apoplectic if some toy manufacture snuck a few sentences of David Silverman’s talking points on the package of their carpet-skates but yet they seem incapable of understanding why that pisses me off.
Instead, they just talk about the “Angry Atheist” and the Jesus-less depression that must fuel our animosity. All the while they sneak their stupid little pamphlets into phone booths and subway stations and restroom stalls and airports and all manner of places we wish we didn’t have to be. And they see nothing wrong with it at all.
And of course they don’t! They’ve been programmed to believe that we’re all going to hell so if they’ve got to corrupt a parents autonomy to raise their child how they want to, it’s a small trespass if the result it saving a soul. It’s despicable to annoy secular people on their deathbeds with last minute attempts to wash their dirty brains but they see it as virtuous. A soul lies in the balance! How could they stand silent when he was so close to the end and wanted nothing more than to not be harassed by used-afterlife-salesmen so he could enjoy the remainder of his life.
Sadly, there’s very little secular equivalent to this. We’re not even allowed to put up billboards verifying our existence if the nearby community really, really needs it. Our very existence challenges the most pervasive, and some would say, most important fiction at the heart of the religious virus; the notion that we “need” god. If we set out to devangelize we might not need pamphlets or slogans. We might make some headway just by knocking on doors and saying, “Hi, just wanted to let you know that at some point I’m going to die and I’m okay with that. I fully recognize that there’s no post-mortem, magical Six-Flags waiting for me and yet I live an inspired and contented life.”
And until we can make them understand that, I’m gonna stay vocal. I think reason is worth standing up for, and to be perfectly honest, I think that it says a lot about my worldview when it can grow and thrive despite having no computer generated anthropomorphic talking vegetables to sell it.
Headlines:
Joining me tonight for headlines is my fellow stickler about the use of reason, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to stickle the unreasonable?
I majored in stickling the unreasonable.
So you have a liberal arts degree, and now you bartend?
I provide free psychiatric advice and often prescribe beverages that I serve on premises, all whilst constantly wiping down the flat surfaces in front of me with a rag.
So it’s like being a priest except the people are adults and they know in advance that there’s alcohol in their drinks.
Anyway, in our lead story tonight, we once again have to talk about how stupid Texas lawmakers are. In response to unambiguous evidence of the whole and overwhelming failure of their eighteen year campaign to keep kids safe from the dangers of sex by pretending it doesn’t exist, Texas lawmakers have doubled down on their “Jesus Flavored” approach to sex ed.
Ahh, yes . . . the data-phobic ostrich approach.
In defense of ostriches I should point out that that’s an urban legend. Unlike Texas legislators, ostriches don’t actually stick their heads in their own asses.
If you read the fine print on the Texas state charter, you’ll find it clearly stated that ignorance is an inalienable right, guaranteed by a separation of truth and state.
Clearly. And for our first example we’ll travel back to a more innocent age when we thought the lowest the Die Hard franchise would stoop would be the one with Samuel L. Jackson in it, an antiquated time when we still thought that Mel Gibson was pretty cool, a bygone era when people still rewound shit, and a time when Texas high school students were still being taught a sensible curriculum with regards to sex ed.
They should have given us more practice with opening the condom wrapper . . .
And if you’re looking for more reasonable, progressive policies . . .
And you’re using Texas . . . from 2 decades ago . . . as your model . . .
Not a good sign.
Yeah, but as bad as things were then, they can always be made worse by putting George W. Bush in charge of your state. And in his first year as Texas’ governor, lawmakers passed groundbreaking legislation that replaced the “See Dick Dick Jane’s Spot” curriculum with more of a “I’d love to fuck you, Barbie, but I have no genitals” approach. The law actually gave the individual school districts the rights to forego sex-ed altogether and opt for a “La-La-La, I can’t hear you” based syllabus.
If a sperm fertilizes an egg, but there’s nobody there to understand it, who pays for the abortion? These are the philosophical questions that need to be asked before we even consider teaching about things like penes and vaginae in a school.
And now, 17 years after the new laws went into effect, the results are in and the results are pregnant because they didn’t know how a fucking condom worked. Texas went from bad to worse over that period and now ranks among the 5 worst states in every relevant teen-pregnancy statistic. And guess how Texas lawmakers have decided to tackle this disturbing problem?
More Jesus?
More Jesus! They’ve decided that despite the fact that abstinence-only education has been shown to be significantly less effective than comprehensive sex ed (which, by the way, still mentions that not having sex is a good way to not get AIDS), the real problem here is that their approach to human sexuality isn’t Bronze Age enough. SB 521 looks to further restrict student’s access to sex ed with requirements that parents fill out forms to approve teaching their kids that people have genitals. It also seeks to ban any material or speakers from Planned Parenthood, which all but guarantees it’ll become a law.
They’ve still got some Jim Crowe v. Wade Laws down there, don’t they?
Texas doubles down on Jesus-flavored sex ed: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20130314-editorial-texas-lawmakers-push-social-agenda-as-teen-pregnancy-problem-grows.ece & ftp://ftp.legis.state.tx.us/bills/83R/billtext/html/senate_bills/SB00300_SB00399/SB00310I.htm
And in other bullshit Bible-Belt bulletins, the state of Georgia has also recently doubled down on stupidity. This story starts with our intrepid hero, former president of American Atheists Ed Buckner, checking into a state owned cabin in the Amicalola Falls State Park and finding a bible there.
This is worse than when Al Sharpton found that subway ad for cotton white hooded sweatshirts.
As it is a state owned park, he politely informed the Park service that state-owned cabins shouldn’t endorse a particular religion and they said, “Holy shit, you’re right, our bad,” and took the bibles out.
That sounds impossibly reasonable. There’s no way the state of Jaww-Jah left it at that.
Of course not. As so often happens in these stories, along came a spider in the person of Governor Nathan Deal who ordered the bibles returned to the cabins, arguing that they didn’t put the bibles there because they were bibles, but rather because they were free, and dog-gone-it, we’d have let anybody put any books at all in them there cabins if they’d ‘a givin’ some to us.
Even non-fiction books that contain dangerous, factual material?
Doesn’t the south have book-burning firemen to prevent stuff like that?
Right when you’re thinking it’s about time for the second rape joke, I go curve ball, and give you a Fahrenheit 451 reference.
So yes, this fucktard actually told the former president of American Atheists that they would happily accept any freely donated literature for use in the state-owned cabins. And it just so happened that David Silverman had some Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Ibn Warraq, Hitchins and Dawkins lying around, so I’m sure that the Governor will be happy to stack all that shit next to the bibles and tell his constituents that it’s okay because the copies of “The God Delusion” were free.
Dispute about bibles in state-owned cabins in Georgia: http://news.yahoo.com/georgia-governor-engaged-bible-dispute-125757816.html & http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/05/18/atheist-literature-is-about-to-be-distributed-in-georgia-state-parks/
And in “at least you don’t live in Saudi Arabia” news, that nation’s senior religious leader has recently added “Twitter” to the long list of possible perils for your eternal soul. Last Wednesday, top Saudi cleric, head of the Saudi religious police and guy with way too-damn-many names Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh declared that Saudis who use Twitter forfeit their rights to Muslim heaven for doing so. He warns that because what the hell ever he says goes and he says Twitter equals hell, you shouldn’t use Twitter.
Hold on there’s a shitty pun here… Lots of hash, no more tags.
I would think it’s okay as long as you Tweet @Mecca.
They can’t be happy about him having accounts on Instagram and Pinterest.
In the Mullah’s defense, with line-breaks you can ASCii-art mohammed now.
Twitter’s probably getting bumped because Halliburton’s new social media site, Cloud E-Arabia, has an exclusive contract.
Isn’t it remarkable how often god happens to be pissed off about whatever most immediately threatens the unencumbered rule of the theocratic government? This is apparently only the latest in god’s repeated condemnation of Saudi Tweets.
Tweeters gonna tweet. I guess this is just one of those times when god is powerless. Weird.
Saudi Arabia’s Top Cleric declares Twitter may cause damnation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/18/twitter-saudi-arabia-damn_n_3294209.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion
And in a sarcastically rare case of money collected for god being misused, we travel all the hell way to Singapore where mega-church founder Kong Hee is on trial for embezzling $40 million dollars of god’s money to support the failing career of his wife, Z-list pop singer Sun Ho.
The pop tart will not face charges, and is using the excuse that the enormous expenses went toward creating music that glorified Christianity.
Singapore’s Yoko Ono refused to comment, as she was too busy plotting to have her husband murdered outside the Dakota building on Central Park West to fund the next godly album.
And before you send emails, it officially stopped being “too soon” to make John Lennon jokes at 3 pm Eastern Standard Time on February 11th of last year.
Sun-Ho, known sporadically as the semi-hot asian chick in that one Wyclef Jean video and back home as Singapore’s official “Least Admired Personality” of 2012 is apparently now directly in charge of the church’s finances since all the people who were embezzling money for her are under indictment.
I can’t help but wonder why you need to be a pop star if you can convince Christians to give you $40 million in the first place.
Evangelical Malaysian Church embezzles $40 million to fund unpopular pop artist: http://freethinker.co.uk/2013/05/19/evangelical-church-leaders-accused-of-embezzling-millions-to-boost-unpopular-pop-personalitys-career/
And from the “I-was-just-thinking-those-Hassidic-Jews-looked-hip” file, a Brooklyn Yeshiva recently sent a letter to parents warning of the dangers of modernity represented by the self-indulgent evil of thick framed eyeglasses.
The letter read, in part, “We are asking that everyone buy simple glasses. The yeshiva will not tolerate thick plastic eyeglasses. Thick frames… give the child a very fat look.”
Yeah, it’s probably the hipster glasses that are the root of the physical appearance situation in Hasidic communities.
Because if you’re about to say it’s the generations of inbred recessive DNA, you are an accurate racist (which tends to be received as the worst kind of racist).
Is it still antisemitic if you exclude the reform Jews though?
You’re right, it’s not. Hasids are the N-words of the Jewish community. Every time a Jewish person wants to have a good time . . .
And if you’re not familiar with that particular Chris Rock routine, fuck it, Heath is just that racist.
Orthodox Jewish school bans “hipster glasses”: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/brooklyn-orthodox-jewish-school-bans-hip-glasses
And in legal news, the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case of Town of Greece, NY v. Galloway. The suit challenges the Town Board’s predilection for opening their meetings with what they call “inclusive” prayers.
I’ve never been to church . . . What exactly is an inclusive prayer? . . . Is that like a circle jerk?
No, because in this case only some people are getting fucked. Now, I’m no legal expert, or anything expert for that matter, but I find it strange that the suit doesn’t follow the “who gives a shit how ‘inclusive’ they are?” line of argument and instead opts for the “inclusive my ass” defense. And apparently both are valid. The plaintiffs allege that the board basically opened every meeting with a Christian prayer and then when they bitched loudly enough in the press they would invite two Wiccans and a Jew and then go back to the old-boy’s club.
Two Wiccans and Jew walk into a bar . . . Bartender says get that Jew the fuck out of here. Can’t even leave foreskin for the tip . . .
Hold on, I feel bad for singling out the Jews as bad tippers. That’s mean.
Christians, Muslims, Blacks, Latinos, Europeans, and women are all great examples of groups that are shitty tippers as well.
The 2nd Circuit appeals court unanimously got it right on this one, but that incited a legal “stercore procellarum” that included legal briefs backing the city’s mythological incantations from as many as 49 members of congress and 18 state attorneys general, spanning the political spectrum from the conservative wing of the Republican party to the really conservative wing of the Republican party.
As long as the party remains hijacked by Christianity, they won’t even allow themselves to be reasonable-adjacent. The moment they sense moderate Republicans nudging up against logic, they have Rick “frothy-mixture-of-lube-and-fecal-matter” Santorum publicly express an opinion.
Speaking of which, was that Latin for “shit storm”? Nice.
Supreme Court to hear case of “non-denominational” prayers at town board meeting: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/20/high-court-to-review-church-state-dispute-over-public-prayers/
And finally tonight, from the “give-me-modesty-or-give-me-death” department we get a story so horribly stupid that it should be able to single-handedly end the debate about whether religion should ever be allowed to influence any decision about anything anywhere ever.
This story comes to us from the Friendly Atheist via Pensacola Christian College via a morbidly misguided hierarchy of priorities. According to a former student and some representative of the college that was willing to admit this shit to Hemant Mehta via email, the school’s stated policy in case of an emergency is for female students to dress appropriately for evacuation. They are asked to burn to death modestly before trotting out of a burning building showing a bit of thigh.
In defense of the college, this is a proven method for outing witches. Although any women attending a college are already suspect.
What, they don’t have scales and ducks in Florida?
When friend of the show Hemant Mehta pressed the school’s rep on this they actually pointed out that the dorm rooms were arranged so that the closets were on their way to the emergency exits anyway so it shouldn’t be much of a problem to change while feeling your terrified way through a smoke filled chamber of death.
Aren’t these women required to be clothed at all times anyway? It’s like they’ve never heard of a shower burka.
Christian college requires girls to dress appropriately before exiting in case of fire: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/05/17/this-school-has-the-worst-fire-safety-policy-youve-ever-seen/
And on the shower-burka visual image, we’ll close out the headlines. When we return, Heath and I will discuss the apex of all alliterative apologetics.
Skit:
Hello?
Hi, Joey.
(sigh)… that’s not my name, Mary.
Okay, fine. Jehovah. (playfully)
You… you should really call me God… or “Father Almighty” or something…
Fine. Hi, God.
So… to what do I owe the pleasure Mary? (exasperated in advance)
Whatcha doin?
Mary, I’m, you know, governing the universe, ignoring African prayers… these gay-marriage proponents aren’t just gonna smite themselves, so unless you called about something in particular…
Well yeah, actually. I wanted to let you know that I talked to our son the other day and he says he has another list of pedophiles for you to forgive.
Yeah, I know. I saw his post about it on Facebook.
You know I’m a little worried about him. He’s putting on a lot of weight lately.
Well, it’s Heaven, so, it doesn’t really matter. He’s not gonna have a heart attack or anything.
I know but I worry. He still hasn’t found a girl to settle down with and he’ll be turning 2014 soon…
Mary, I’m really busy here.
You’re always really busy when I call.
Yeah, Mary. I’m God. There’s a lot on my plate.
Why don’t we just talk anymore?
Mary, I’m just not gonna have this conversation with you again.
You told me you loved me, Joey.
(sigh) Mary, I’m all-loving. I told you I was all-loving. I love everyone. It’s in the freakin contract.
So you admit that there’s somebody else!
Jesus, Mary, there’s everybody else. I’m God.
Don’t you take our son’s name in vain with me. I will not tolerate blasphemy.
It’s… not… blasphemy when I do it. Look, I’ve really gotta go.
So when should I call you back?
You shouldn’t call me back, Mary. We’ve been over this.
That’s it, I’m coming over.
Don’t come over.
I’m already putting on my shoes.
Mary, I’ll phenomenize a moat or a dragon or something. Do not come over here again. It’s over between us. I still love you because I’m all loving and I have no free will by the dictate of the logical impossibility of my existence, but that thing was just a thing. You’ve got to just move on.
You used me, God.
I created you. I’m totally allowed to use you. It was part of my divine plan.
You know what, fuck you and your divine plan. You’re such an asshole.
No, actually, I’m perfect in all ways, but that’s beside the point…
(CLICK)
Yo, Adam!
“Here I am”
You want that rib back?
Calendar:
It’s time for the atheist calendar portion of the show, a time we set aside to annoy the shit out of the listeners that live way too far away to go to any of the great atheist, skeptical and secular events that we’ll be highlighting, so we’ll keep it brief.
We’ll start on June 15th with the SkeptiCal Con, which is really hard to google because it’s so damn clever that it’s actually just spelled “skeptical”, but that being said, it promises to be a great time if you’re gonna be anywhere near Berkley. Dr. Eugenie Scott will be there along with DJ Groethe, Dr. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute and there’ll even be a remote appearance from one James Randi, though I think they’re doing Skype rather than projecting him as a “Hell me Obi-Wan Kenobi” type hologram.
On the weekend of the 21st of June we’ve got the SSA West, one half of the Secular Student Alliance’s bi-coastal conference bonanza. This one will be taking place in Sin City and there’s way too much good shit going on there to squeeze into this segment so I’ll just direct you to their homepage.
https://www.secularstudents.org/2013con/vegas
Over the same weekend we’ve got the Oklahoma Freethought Festival featuring Lawrence Krauss, Dale McGowan, Oklahoma’s own Seth Andrews and more. And all I’m gonna say is with all the prayer-mongers descending on them, by June 22nd the state is going to be in dire need of an injection of secularism.
That does it for June but don’t forget the big one July 11th through the 14th. TAM is right around the corner so if you haven’t reserved your tickets get that done quick. We’ll be talking about it a bit more next time we do the calendar segment but if you need to know more now, now, now, you’ll find a link to their homepage along with links to all the events discussed on this segment on the shownotes for this episode.
Counter-Apologetics:
From time to time one this show, we like to set aside a few minute to tackle some of the more common apologetics used in defense of Christianity. Tonight, Heath has rejoined me to tackle one such topic. Heath, what poorly formed insult to proper logic have you chosen for us today?
We’ll be talking about the Lunatic, Liar or Lord concept.
Okay. And so for those who aren’t familiar with it, this is an argument by reduction of sorts, right?
Exactly. The apologists argues that if Jesus existed and our record of him is correct, the only possible explanations are
1. He was insane
2. He was deliberately misleading his followers, or
3. He was the son of god, martyred to redeem humanity.
He must be a lunatic, a liar or the lord. Then they try to work backwards with evidence that he wasn’t insane and that he wasn’t lying.
So the idea is that if they can prove that full of bullshit or full of batshit, the only explanation left is that he is the messiah.
Exactly.But you said that this argument rests on the premises that Jesus actually existed and that our record of him is accurate. So it should actually be the Lunatic, Liar, Lord, Legend or Literary License argument, right?
Not so fast. Within the confines of the mythology that Christianity is based on one could also explain the appearance of Jesus by saying that he was actually the devil sent to confuse our love of god with all the trinity crap.
So Lunatic, Liar, Lord, Legend, Literary License or Lucifer.
Or leprechaun.
Wait, what?
Jesus also might have been a leprechaun. The theory goes that a person catches a leprechaun and wishes for a resurrected Jewish messiah. That explains the story, but in that case, Jesus isn’t really the son of god, but more of a mystical, leprechaun apparition.
Now wait a second, we shouldn’t have to consider that. I mean… leprechauns don’t exist.
It’s not that they don’t exist, it’s that there’s no evidence for their existence.
What’s the difference?
Look, there’s no evidence that god exists and no evidence that he could have a human son and no evidence that such a son would be divine and no evidence that if he was divine his martyrdom would somehow redeem humanity. So to truly employ this apologetic you don’t just have to rule out the things that exist. You also have to rule out anything that is within five degrees of not existing.
So what other kinds of things must the apologist disprove?
Well, Jesus could’ve been a were-Jew whose powers were unlocked by the full moon thus giving him the appearance of divinity. Or perhaps he was somebody who’d suffered some type of brain damage leaving the part of the brain that knows it isn’t the son of god destroyed but the rest of his brain intact. Or… or maybe he was one of David Icke’s shape shifting illuminati.
So we have to add lycanthrope, lobotomy patient and… lizard person?
Right. And it’s also possible that he was a time travelling assassin that teamed up with a younger version of himself and went back to biblical times to escape from a price on his head and then pulled a switcheroo when they crucified the older him.
I don’t even know what you’re going for there.
Looper.
That Bruce Willis movie?
Yeah, or maybe he was a teleporter that, while containing some magic powers, wasn’t actually the son of god. Or maybe the he had some weird necrotic disease that made him temporarily appear dead. In fact, it’s even possible that he bizarre early form of cloning.
I’m guessing that’s not all.
Well, I suppose he could be an actor hired by the Romans to fake a messiah. Or perhaps he was really a woman who loved Mary Magdalene and perpetrated this whole hoax just for some girl on girl action. Or maybe he was just a hippy who thought people would listen if he pretended to be the son of god.
And I suppose he could be a liquid metal robot like the one in Terminator 2…
Ooh… good one.
And I suppose that if they filled his post-crucified body with helium he would be “lighter than air” and that would explain the whole thing where he rose to heaven.
Now you’re getting it.
Or maybe he’s just impossible as described by Christianity.
And don’t forget Luigi from Mario brothers.
Really?
Yeah, after accidentally taking a really fucked up “Warp Zone”.
I suppose he does have extra lives… Okay, so that means that what we’re really dealing with is the Lunatic, Liar, Lord, Legend, Literary License, Lycanthrope, Lobotomite, Lizard Person, Looper, Leaper, Leper, Lab Accident, Lead, Lesbian, Liberal, Liquid Metal, Lighter than Air, Logical Fallacy, Luigi argument.
Exactly.
And that’s all of them?
Yeah.
So to…
…that start with the letter “L”.
What?
Yeah, I always felt like if an apologist ever got past all that shit they would have a lot more trouble with the Myth, Mirage, Magician, Moron, Misrepresentation, Machine, Misleader, Menace, Manticore, Meth-Head, Marshmallow Man, Martian, Mario, Mushroom Trip, Messiah argument but maybe that’s just me.
Outro:
Before we lock things down for the night, I did want to offer a quick apology. I was up late last week editing the show and apparently I fucked the whole thing up, which I didn’t realize until the following day when it was brought to my attention that episode 13 was only 29 minutes and 59 seconds long.
We strive for consistency here at The Scathing Atheist and our listeners deserve better than such lackadaisical oversight. To make up for this error, I’ve added one second to this week’s episode and beyond that I simply throw myself at the mercy of the court.
That’s all that’s left but to thank all the people who made this episode go. I want to thank C-Webb from the C-Webb Sunday School Podcast for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote. Very interesting cast he has going on there and definitely worth a listen. You’ll find a link to it on the shownotes for this episode.
http://cwebbssundayschool.com/
I also need to thank Lucinda for giving me her best creepy stalker chick, Heath, of course, for being the second, third and fourth wheel on this vehicle and, most of all, I need to thank Doug and April, this week’s most exceptional hominids. Thanks to their unwavering bravery and enviable cunninOg, we have more money.
Not everybody has what it takes to donate to this show, but if you feel that you share Doug and April’s superhero-like capacity for compassion and justice, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage.
And if you want to help us out but you’re saving all your money for a vintage replica Indiana Jones fedora, you can also throw us a bone by heading over to iTunes and leaving us a good review there. Remember, it takes 5 loyal listeners to counteract one Christian fart-vapor who sees the word atheist and gives us a one star ranking.
That does it for tonight’s show but we’ll be back in 168 hours with more. If you can’t wait that long, be sure to check out our erratically published blog and follow us on Twitter because when I see that we have new followers I feel imperial.
We also put clips of the show up on You-Tube so if you want to share a segment with somebody who doesn’t do the whole podcast thing, be sure to check us out there. And if there’s a segment that you’d like as a YouTube clip that we don’t have up there, let me know and I’ll get right on it.
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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 13: Partial Transcript
by Noah Lugeons and Heath Enwright
Sponsor:
Today’s episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the Hebrew delivery service, “Jew P S”. When you’ve got Hebrews that absolutely must be delivered out of bondage tonight, turn to Jew P S. Remember, not hail nor boils nor falling frogs shall stay our couriers from their appointed rounds”
Jew P S, all package, no foreskin.
And now, the Scathing Atheist…
Intro:
It’s Thursday, It’s May 16th and either this show is moving to Comedy Central next week or Sylvia Brown is full of shit.
I’m your host Noah Lugeons and from pollen-plagued New York, New York, this is the Scathing Atheist.
On this week’s episode,
-
We’ll meet a liberal Muslim fighting for women’s rights to be publicly beaten
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Jesus backs a loser in Miami
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And Lucinda will join Heath and me to discuss the only book of the bible named after a Bob Marley album
But first, the Diatribe.
Diatribe:
There was a time in human history when religion served a purpose. It was a doctrine of culture, a subset of knowledge, an honest attempt to know what was, at the time, unknowable. The earliest assertions of religion were based on empirical evidence and we can hardly fault early humans for not quite figuring out shit like lightning and earthquakes.
So they pointed to the nearest place they couldn’t reach and said god was there, tossing down thunderbolts and shaking the ground. He was just up on that mountain there, you know, the one we can’t reach the top of? Yeah, that one. He’s up there making all this shit happen so now we understand it and we can control it. If the earth shakes, we offer some goat’s bladders or something and it’ll stop shaking.
And as misguided as it was, it wasn’t malicious. It was a synthesis of the best available information. The problem, of course, is that there wasn’t really any god up there so we had to rely on people to tell us what god was so pissed off about. And once you become the conduit of god, it’s gotta be damn tempting to decide god’s pissed off about how many virgins you’re not boning, or how many feasts you’re not eating. At the very least god probably wants you to spend the day in quiet contemplation while all the other saps plow the fields.
So at some point between the question and the answer, religion became something else entirely. It abandoned its desire to find truth in favor of a new desire to dictate truth. After all, the idea that god wants you to have more money and nicer clothes might not stand up to objective scrutiny so fuck objective scrutiny.
So when we got to the top of the mountain religion just pushed god further back. Turns out he was on the clouds, see… the really, really high up ones. But don’t worry, we might have been wrong about where god was but we were definitely right about him wanting us to bone more virgins and eat more food. What’s that you say? You build an airplane and checked on the clouds and he wasn’t there? Did I say clouds? I meant… what’s that stuff above clouds? Space! That’s what I meant. God was in space this whole time. What? Checked there too, did you? Well, when I say space, of course, what I mean is “alternate dimension that you can never get to no matter where you look” so quit asking so many questions and trust me on the nicer clothes and more food stuff.
Because when your power comes from your ability to dictate the truth, the real, actual, “doesn’t-give-a-shit-what-you-say” truth necessarily becomes your enemy. You have to be an impediment to discovery, a nemesis of knowledge. You have to literally set yourself in opposition to reality. To reality!
So sure, it’s fine to map the heavens as long as you didn’t notice a major hole in church doctrine while you were doing it. It’s fine to examine all god’s creatures as long as you didn’t figure out how they got there. It was fine to study every word of the bible as long as you didn’t notice the ones that contradicted each other.
There is a large swath of history where I’m perfectly willing to forgive religion for existing. Hell, even the first few centuries of the scientific revolution could have left an educated person in doubt. But nobody who is alive today was alive when anybody was alive who was alive when religion could justify its own existence. Today it’s degenerated into nothing but a disease; a cancer that exists only to perpetuate itself. A tumor that doesn’t know when to die.
And to turn a blind-eye to it and say, “well that’s just what those people believe and that’s perfectly alright” is to intellectually subsidize the equivalent of the DoDo preservation society. They’ve had enough time to find a reason to exist. We’ve given religion at least eight centuries to find something useful to do, but they haven’t. Instead, they’ve become a stumbling block on the path toward knowledge. In a lot of ways they didn’t have a choice, but that doesn’t make the sin any more forgivable. Faith is the exact opposite of science and they peddle it as a virtue.
Religion has nothing to offer the world but more religion. Give it another thousand years or another thousand centuries and it’ll still have nothing more to offer. But imagine what science could do with that time… especially if there was no religion there to stand in the way.
Headlines:
Joining me tonight for headlines it my color commentator, Heath Enwright. Heath, are you ready to comment on colors?
I don’t care for whites. It’s getting embarrassing for us.
Well done, sir. And now on to the news. Our lead story tonight takes us to a state known for comedically sized hats, giant hunks of dead cow and long stretches of highway with nowhere to take a shit, Texas, where a state judge recently declared the establishment clause optional.
Yeah they like to conveniently forget about the 1st Amendment, but the entire state can recite the 2nd one word for word. I picture an entire state populated by the bad guys from “A Time To Kill”.
Fairly accurate from my experiences with the state. Tonight’s story begins about 250 miles east of the part of Texas that doesn’t suck in a small town called Kountze where the high school cheerleaders are fond of holding up banners with wholesome messages like “But thanks be to God, which gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” and, “Fuck atheists, people of non-Christian faiths and proper grammar”.
“And fuck you for already having come up with several Cunts jokes.”
Cunts is a small enclave, laying between Woodville and Lumberton, on Highway 69!!!.
I’m not even slightly fucking with you. All those things are actually true.
It’s also adjacent to the “Big Thicket National Preserve” and it’s due south of “Beaver’s Bend National Park”. Nice when geography just writes the jokes for you isn’t it?
The shape of the town on google maps even vaguely resembles a vagina with an oversized clit pointing up Highway 69 toward Woodville.
Priceless.
And with a tip of the cap to Kevin Smith, I’ll mention that an oversized clit is a lot like a small dick, and we can check off dick joke and vagina joke on story 1.
And a Kevin Smith reference so you’ve damn near hit for the cycle in the first inning. So anyway, back to the story here, the Freedom From Religion Foundation politely pointed out that their football team isn’t allowed to directly endorse a particular religion, but a state judge disagreed, citing his eventual need to get re-elected. The FFRF convincingly argues that this is tantamount to declaring an official school-religion. Obviously we’ll have more on this as it develops.
Kountze needs to be told what to do.
I’m sure they would agree.
Texas Cheerleaders allowed to raise Biblical banner: http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/17683-official-school-religion-ok%E2%80%99d-by-texas-court
Our next story takes us to the number one state in: agricultural non-point source nutrient reduction, per capita tornado deaths and prescription drug abuse, Oklahoma, a state which, despite having Seth Andrews in it most of the time, sucks.
If you take your state name, and add an exclamation, and you get the title of an old-timey musical, it doesn’t bode well for progressive politics in the region.
As evidence of that assertion, I offer one Muldrow high school, where a freethinking student recently complained about ten commandment plaques that hung in every fucking classroom. The school was told to take them down and in a show of just how vapid the Christian comprehension of the whole minority consideration concept is, the students started a petition to revoke separation of church and state.
Can’t we just compromise and have a wall with plaques from all different religions . . .
So that atheist kids can vandalize the wall, and everyone can get all symbolically incredulous.
Yeah, well this just proves once again that Christianity can’t stand on it’s own in a free market of ideas. Christians have responded with threats against the complaining student and his family, some online bullying and a jackass pastor offering students free “ten commandments” T-shirts to remind kids that plaques or no, non-Christians are still a hated minority round these a’ here parts..
Isn’t there something about thou shalt not steal tax revenue for fictional purposes?
Student faces backlash after alerting FFRF to 10 Commandments displays in classrooms: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/12/oklahoma-high-school-student-seeks-removal-of-ten-commandment-displays/
And from the “Bet-You-Can’t-Collect-Em-All” file, Pope Frankie-Panky canonized over 800 saints all at once last weekend. It’s not clear if this is related to poor dashboard-sales projections for the 2nd quarter, but I like his focus on productivity.
In a move that can have no outcome at all but to piss off Muslims, the Pope went ahead with Ex-Benedict’s plan to Canonize the 813 “Martyrs of Otranto” who were beheaded by Ottoman soldiers for refusing to convert to Islam.
This would be 813 good candidates for the Darwin Awards. Choosing to die in the name of Catholic god – instead of pretending you like Allah – is borderline window-licker. Why does an omnipotent god need people to die for him? Either Catholic god is real and the martyrs don’t matter, or Allah is real and the martyrs don’t matter, or neither is real and the martyrs REALLY don’t matter.
And you know what else doesn’t matter? Being a saint. Sure, back in the 15th century it was a pretty exclusive club, but now they’re letting everybody in. Aren’t you supposed to have 2 miracles before you can be a saint? Even if we accept that getting a Pope who’s trying to patch things up with the Muslims to canonize you when all you ever really did was say “Fuck Muslims” back in the 1400s counts as one miracle, what’s the other one?
People caring 600 years later.
Pope names 800 new saints: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-francis-names-800-saints-one-235904106.html
And in “Fuck-The-Children” news, two elementary schools in Lake City, Arkansas cancelled sixth grade graduation ceremonies because a bunch of atheists wouldn’t let them include prayers. Rather than adjusting the ceremony to Constitutional standards, the school district elected to rob their student body of the coming-of-age milestone that is a 6th grade graduation.
“Sorry kids, the uppity negro that runs the federal government stopped letting our backwards town embezzle tax revenue for the tooth fairy, so you’ll all have to get your meaningless ceremony fix at church on Sunday like usual.”
Yeah, because for the record, I’d be fine with this if they’d just cancelled it because a 6th grade graduation is stupid.
School in Arkansas cancels graduation because atheists won’t let them pray: http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/05/09/arkansas-school-prayer-wrecked-graduation
In other news tonight, we hear from the all-too-often silent progressive wing of Islam. Controversial cleric Shaikh Isam Talimah says that stoning women for adultery is a practice that Muslims should abandon… in favor of whipping them.
I think it’s a personal preference thing. The stoning is more murdery, whereas the whipping is more rapey. So you’ve gotta decide what kind of Muslim husband you want to be.
That’s right, Talimah isn’t arguing with the idea of physically abusing women publicly for consensual sex, he’s arguing with the method of physically abusing women publicly for consensual sex.
This is going to hurt the image of Islam as a peaceful religion, as it so clearly states in their subway literature.
Controversial Cleric claims that women should not be stoned… should be lashed: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/stoning-is-not-shariah-says-qatar-scholar-1.1178703
And finally tonight, from the “Tell-Me-This-Is-Real,-Tell-Me-This-Is-Real,-Holy-Shit-It’s-Real” department, North Miami Mayoral candidate Anna L. Pierre recently put out a campaign flyer claiming an endorsement from none other than Jesus Christ.
And I can’t emphasize enough that this is a real thing that actually happened, despite the fact that this woman’s name is “Anal Peer”, which is exactly the kind of name we’d have given her if we were making this shit up.
How much clergy dick do you suppose she sucked to get JC Bump in an election?
And I should point out that that joke isn’t sexist. Heath would have made the same joke if she were a dude.
In unrelated news, from now on, the Marlins and the Dolphins, will both be known as the Jesus Fish.
Well, not so fast because of the 8 candidates on the ballot, Pierre somehow managed to finish 8th despite the fact that in addition to Christ, the Savior, she also boasted endorsements from the “Bladder Health and Reconstructive Urology Institute” and “Sunset Ranches” over on Palmetto Expressway just past Popeye’s. Some, including herself, blame her poor election day results on evil voodoo spells being used against her. And again, this is all actually happening in the real universe that you and I live in.
Next week on Awful TV Show, God’s savior son and a dick doctor team up in support of a former Haitian pop star overcoming voodoo spells to contend in her mayoral race.
Sounds better than the “Teeny-Bopper Vampire” crap my wife watches…
North Miami Mayoral Candidate claims endorsement from Jesus: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/05/13/north-miami-mayoral-candidate-says-she-is-endorsed-by-jesus-christ/
Well, that does it for headlines tonight. When we return, my aforementioned wife will join us to discuss a book that sucked even more than Twilight.
Poem:
Exodus in Two Minutes
by Noah Lugeons
The lord said unto Moses, “An Egyptian’s what you pose as,
But just look at all their noses, and you’ll see that you’re a Jew.”
Unto the Lord then replied Moses, “So what do you suppose is,
gonna happen when they know this? Just what am I to do?”
So he wandered as he pondered, of the Hebrews he grew fonder
So when he saw one get dishonored he attacked the perpetrator.
The dude was dead so Moses fled but in his head what Yahweh said
Still gave him dread as off he sped, telling Egypt “See you later.”
So when he finished with his fleein’ he wound up in Midian,
And he found a priest agreein’ to give up his daughter’s hand.
But the crazy shit he started seein’ left him guaranteein’
That his purpose would be freein’ all the Hebrews in the land.
See, he was tending Jethro’s flocks, when on some holy ground he walks,
He finds a burning bush that talks, and it tells him of his fate.
He asks god to choose another, since when he speaks he gets all buggered
God says, “Sure I guess you stutter, but your brother would be great.”
So upon this holy edict, they headed back to Egypt
And needed Gershom’s wee-dick when Moses wrestled god,
The Hebrews didn’t dare go, so Moses talked to Pharoah
With his eyes enraged and narrow and both his hands on Aaron’s rod;
He said, “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” But the Pharaoh just said “No”,
And fearing that might be so, tossed down the staff that god empowered,
It became a snake but those Egyptians, also had magicians,
Both of their staffs started hissin’, but quickly got devoured.
Still the pharaoh, unimpressed, left this grievance unredressed,
And as you might have guessed, the plagues are here unveiled.
The bloody waters soon arise, frogs start falling from the skies,
He sends a bunch of gnats and flies; epidemics, boils and hail
Still, the Hebrews were unpardoned, when God’s locusts ate their gardens,
Since the pharaoh’s heart was hardened, Moses needed one last card to play.
Now with the firstborns lying dead, the pharaoh finally said,
“Take your unleavened bread, and go the fuck away!”
They rejoiced with sounds like thunder, when the pharaoh knuckled under,
They grabbed a bunch of plunder and followed smoke that god provided;
But soon doubts about the route came out, unto Moses the devout would shout,
“I guess god’s no fucking eagle scout, just look where we’ve been guided!”
You see, pharaoh sent his men of war, in hopes of settling the score,
And here the Jews are on the shore, trapped and ripe for slaughter;
So Moses, feeling like a schmuck, says, “God I think you got us stuck”
It looks like they’re completely fucked, until God divides the water.
Forty years of eating manna later, Moses talks to his creator,
So he could act as God’s translator and carve commandments into stone,
And on the impatient Jews behalf, Aaron makes a golden calf,
Which they then pray to, bringing wrath, for which no mercy would be shown.
Then starting in chapter twenty four, we mostly just discuss decor,
Despite their being plenty more, important things to tackle,
Important shit just gets ignored, as we spend the last sixteen chapters bored,
Learning exactly how the Lord, wants his tabernacle.
Outro:
Before we close out the show tonight, I want to remind everyone that Heath and I are pretty good at this speaking shit so if you’re involved with an atheist or secular group in the vaguely New-Englandish area and you’d like us to address your group with our off-color wit and topical critiques, you’ll find all the contact info on the Contact page of our website.
And before we cue the music, we have to spend a minute recognizing the generosity, ethical fortitude and enormous penises of this week’s best people; Matthew, Richard and Mr. Blue who proved their bravery this week by giving us money. Only the most intelligent and righteous people give us money and I hope that Matthew, Richard and Reservoir Dogs Deleted Character Mr. Blue fully appreciate that even if they should together cure cancer one day, their support for this program will still probably rank as the most benevolent action of their lives.
If you, too, would like to guarantee yourself a front row seat in atheist heaven, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.
That’s does it for tonight’s show but if you want more, there’s more. You’ll find occasional nuggets of Scatheism on our blog, our YouTube Channel, our Facebook page and our Twitter Feed. You’ll also find more than 11 and a half episodes in our archives, which you should really listen to on Stitcher because we’re on Stitcher and Stitcher likes it when I tell you to listen on Stitcher.
And if you enjoy the show, please help us out by leaving us a good review on iTunes and be sure to tell everyone at church about us. And before we run out of time, a big thanks to Heath and Lucinda for joining me tonight, Justin Schieber for providing tonight’s Farnsworth quote and, of course, Matthew, Richard and especially Mr. Blue, who is addition to donating this week, also sent along some headlines for us and the great chemo bit I used after the diatribe.
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 Moral Lessons of Exodus
by Noah Lugeons
Exodus is a good guide for morality only if you compare it to Genesis. I’ll give the book of Exodus the credit that it did seem that on some level the authors were aware that this book would one day be used as a moral guide. In Genesis we basically got a bunch of morally dubious just-so stories but in Exodus at least we get a haphazard, antiquated, random list of dictates.
Granted, that only comprises a small portion of the book. The majority of Exodus is consumed with god’s sick revenge fantasy against all things Egyptian and some really detailed instructions on how he wants his tabernacle (which are repeated no fewer than four times in the fucking book). So it seemed that the authors figured all moral enigmas could be taken care of in about four chapters but we need at least a dozen chapters to hammer down how many cubits of tanned rams’ skins and goat hair each curtain around the tent around the altar get.
So despite the fact that god spends the first half of Exodus breaking many of the commandments he’s going to lay down later, the book does manage to squeeze in a few good moral nuggets. It’ll make for a kind of long list, but I’m going to break all of the “commandments” down here and we’ll rate them all on a moral scale with the following grades:
- (M, +2) for truly moral,
- (A, +-0) for ambiguous and/or meaningless,
- (AM, +1) for ambiguous but leaning moral,
- (AI, -1) for ambiguous but leaning immoral,
- (I, -2) for immoral and
- (H, -4) for horribly immoral on several levels.
We’ll start with the eight and a half commandments:
- (AI, -1) You shall not make an idol or worship any god before me (fuck Jewish tradition, that’s one commandment).
- (AI, -1) You shall not take the lord’s name in vain (fuck Catholic tradition, this is a different commandment).
- (AM, +1) Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
- (AM, +1) Honor your mother and father.
- (M, +2) You shall not kill. (Hey, they finally got one that really is moral!)
- (AM, +1) You shall not commit adultery.
- (M, +2) You shall not steal.
- (M, +2) You shall not bear false witness.
- (A, +-0) You shall not covet your neighbors shit (fuck Protestant tradition, this is one commandment).
So far we’ve got 3 genuine moral ones, three that lean that way and two that lean against. That gives Exodus a +7 on the moral scale, so that’s not too bad. But then we get into all the sub-commandments and it gets pretty wonky.
- (I, -2) You shall make me an altar and kill sheep and ox for the fuck of it.
- (A) If you make me an altar of stone, don’t carve on it.
- (A) And don’t make steps that lead up to it or people will see your junk.
- (H, -4) When you buy a male Hebrew slave… (does it really matter what it says after that?)
- (H, -4) When a man sells his daughter as a slave... (and again, unless the next words are “he should get ass raped by porcupines, it’s not moral)
- (AI, -1) Whoever strikes a person mortally should be put to death. (Not having the capital punishment debate, but I’m only counting it as somewhat immoral to placate everyone)
- (H, -4) Whoever strikes mother of father should be put to death. (Regardless of your stance on capital punishment, that’s fucking harsh)
- (AI, -1) Whoever kidnaps a person should be put to death. (Can’t we just say, “thou shall not kidnap”? I’d give him a +2 for that)
- (H, -4) Whoever curses mother and father should be put to death. (So by god’s standards, you might as well hit them, too)
- (M, +2) Don’t hit people with stones when you argue (paraphrased)
- (I, -2) When a person beats his slave to death, he should be punished. (I hold back on the -4 because at least the asshole gets punished in this one, but…)
- (H, -4) If you beat him to death but he lingers on for a few days before dying, you’re all good.
- (I, -2) If you injure a pregnant woman so that she miscarriages, you owe her husband money. (I don’t know what to do with this shit, but I know it isn’t moral)
- (I, -2) If you take out your slaves eye you have to free him or her. (Well isn’t that nice of you…)
- (AM, +1) If your ox gores somebody it’s not your fault unless you knew the ox liked to gore people. (Okay, so that’s kind of moralish but holy shit, compared to the bad stuff it’s pretty light)
- (M, +2) If you leave your pit uncovered and somebody’s goat falls in, you owe them a goat.
- (M, +2) If your ox kills my ox, we sell the living ox and split the profits.
- (M, +2) Don’t steal other people’s livestock (but since we already covered this one, it should hardly count)
- (A) If you beat a thief to death who broke into your house, you don’t get in trouble. I’d count that as moral, except that it stipulates that he has to be breaking in at night, so if he breaks in during the day you have to use colorful language or something.
- (M, +2) Don’t let your ox eat my vineyard.
- (M, +2) Don’t catch my vineyard on fire.
- (AI, -1) If you steal something from somebody’s house that they were holding for somebody else, you’re in more trouble than if had been their thing. (No indication as to why, but no positive points since I’ve already awarded 4 points for the self evident notion of not stealing other people’s stuff)
- (AI, -1) If we’re arguing over who owns something, we should let god decide.
- (AI, -1) If I sell you a donkey and it’s sick, I’m in no trouble as long as I swear before god that I had no idea.
- (AI, -1) If your donkey dies while I’m borrowing it, I owe you a donkey.
- (H, -4) If you seduce a virgin you have to give her dad money and marry her. (and she, of course, has not choice in the matter and doesn’t even get a cut of the money)
- (H, -4) Kill witches. (This should really be at least a -8 if you consider the actual result of this passage)
- (H, -4) Kill people with other religions.
- (M, +2) Don’t oppress immigrants (Shame those conservative right-wingers don’t read the bible or they’d know this one)
- (AI, -1) Don’t charge interest to Jews. (The implication is that it’s okay to charge interest to others, but one way or the other I think it’s a dubious position to stake out as a “moral” one)
- (AI, -1) Don’t revile god or curse a leader of your people. (To which I say fuck god and the leaders of my people)
- (AI, -1) Don’t hesitate to give god good shit.
- (I, -2) Give your firstborn everythings (ox, sheep, children, etc.) to god.
- (A) Don’t eat meat that was mangled in the field.
- (M, +2) Don’t spread rumors.
- (M, +2) Don’t act as a malicious witness or follow a majority in wrong doing.
- (M, +2) Don’t steal donkeys even if you really hate the person who owns the donkey.
- (M, +2) Seriously, don’t steal the motherfucking donkey.
- (M, +-0) Remember that thing I just said about not oppressing resident aliens? yeah, exactly that again in the exact same words. Again. (No points for making the same moral point twice within eight paragraphs)
- (AM, +1) Leave your land unplanted one year out of seven.
- (AM, +-0) Again, repeating the Sabbath bit. (Again, no points for repeating the same shit over and over)
- (AM, +1) Hold three feasts for god each year. (I give them partial credit because celebrating with the community is a good idea… not exactly a moral imperative, but a good idea)
- (AI, -1) Don’t appear before god empty-handed. (To be fair, you’re not gonna appear before god anyway)
- (A) You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened. (WTF?)
- (AI, -1) Give the priests the best fruits.
- (AM, +1) Don’t boil a kid in it’s mother’s milk. (Sure, cause that seems pretty fucked up)
And that’s pretty much all god offers in Exodus in the way of moral instructions. If you add up the 47 sub-commandments, you get a whopping negative 28 (negative 21 if you factor in the 8 and a half commandments). Even if you quibble with a couple of my scores, you have to admit that we’re dealing with a pretty crappy source for ethics.
It also bears mention that of the 15 things that I rated moral, 11 of them are meaningless if you don’t have any goats, oxen or vineyards, so even a negative twenty eight is probably too high a score. I mean, there’s no way I know of to quantify the relative morality of an act, but if there was, I’m willing to bet beating a slave to death would be way more than twice as immoral as spreading rumors.
Live Blogging the Bible: Exodus 25-31
by Noah Lugeons
Well, I just finished the “interior decorating” portion of Exodus. For those who haven’t read the book (and how I increasingly envy them), this is the part where Moses goes up on Mt. Sinai to receive the word of god. He’s up there for forty days and forty nights and honestly, it seems like god ran out of shit to talk about after day three.
The chapters immediately before 25 detail the closest thing to morality that the book has to offer yet. This part includes the nine commandments and the numerous supplementary commandments like “Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” and “Thou shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened” and as haphazard as this list is, many of the particulars deal with real world situations (mostly ox related).
But then God, supremely inefficient time manager that he is, decides that he’s pretty much taken care of all of human interaction with a few ox rules and a dictate to kill witches. So he spends the rest of his time on “Project Runway: Tabernacle Edition” and we spend 7 FUCKING CHAPTERS getting the low-down on exactly how he wants his tabernacle built… and his ark built… and his curtains… and his altar… and his separate little “incense altar”… and the clothes for his priests… and, I shit you not, the wash basin that the priests will use that will sit outside the tent.
For seven full chapters, we’re treated to details like (ex 27:16 & 27:17):
For the gate of the court there shall be a screen twenty cubits long, of blue, purple and crimson yarns, and of fine twisted linen, embroidered with needlework; it shall have four pillars and with them four bases. All the pillars around the court shall be banded with silver, their hooks shall be of silver, and their bases of bronze”
So apparently when Christians call the bible a “book of answers”, they assume one of your questions was “yes, but if I’m making an ark for god tablets, what kind of wood should I use for the poles to carry it?”
The Scathing Atheist 
Live Blogging the Bible: Deuteronomy 12:31
by Noah Lugeons
God loves a good genocide.
I can’t help but feel like they’re going out of their way to make this god character an asshole so that it’ll be more cathartic when he’s redeemed, but I’ve gotta be honest, even with 61 books to do it, I’m not sure if there’s any way they can make me like this guy.
So in chapter 12 god reminds us why we can’t realistically entertain the “moral guide” notion of the bible by spelling out all the good reasons to thoroughly destroy every member and memory of the cities they’re all about to ravage. This is late in the chapter after a thrilling and detailed reminiscence about proper meat-eating etiquette.
God’s explaining why you shouldn’t worship any other gods or even know about how other people worship, which he reminds us of no fewer than infinity times in the book of Deuteronomy. And in an apparent effort to soften the blow of killing women and children, livestock and slaves, then burning homes, buildings, temples, possessions, clothes and any remnant of a civilization to the ground, Moses takes a minute to remind us just how horrible these societies are:
My first thought was of Abraham taking ol’ Isaac for a midnight stroll so the actual depth of the irony of this passage took me a second to process. God’s in the middle of telling them to kill all of these heathens, even the children. Their god is telling them that they have to burn their enemy’s children because their enemies would burn their children for their god.
But it’s totally still divinely inspired, though…