The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Lucinda & Noah Lugeons

Note: Transcript contains elements that were removed from the show due to time consraints

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Warning: Shit happens and then you die.

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And now, the Scathing Atheist.

 

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s February 13th,

And Arab in the new Black

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright and from “six to twelve white inches for a change” New York, New York

And “from six to twelve whites per trailer” Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist

On this week’s episode

• Tel Aviv archaeologists date camels,

• We’ll piss off Chinese midgets,

• And Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a better sequel than 2 Chronicles

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

I haven’t changed my mind.  Bill Nye shouldn’t have used his celebrity to raise money for the Creationism Museum.  Yes, it was fun to watch Ken Ham get his ass kicked like a Bronco, but Ham is more than willing to publicly humiliate himself and his religion for money; as his entire career demonstrates; so he doesn’t care that he lost.  He got to stand across the stage from a respected member of the scientific community and make-believe creationism was rational.  And he made money.

Some people have argued that it was worth the fleeting financial gain to Ham’s enterprise if it gave Nye a chance to drop some science on those idiots.  And I suppose I’d agree that even if he swayed a couple of people to look into the facts, that goes along ways towards offsetting the promotional end of it.  But it’s also pretty easy to argue that he could have dropped all the science on them and it still wouldn’t have mattered.

As exhibit A, I’ll offer the ubiquitous meme of the 22 post-debate creationists with their crayon-scrawled “questions for evolutionists”.  Some dude caught a bunch of drooling nincompoops on the way out of the debate and gave them a pen and paper to write out the questions they had for “evolutionists” after hearing Nye’s position.  So this is after Nye dropped the science.

And their inquiries are so stupid the question mark looks embarrassed to be there.  I’m talking “Why are there still monkeys?” stupid.  I’m talking “It’s just a theory” stupid.  One of the people actually asked “If there’s no god, how do you explain a sunset?”

I challenge you to construct a dumber question.  Where the fuck else would the sun go?  Without god we’re tidally locked all of a sudden?  Does she know about the Google?  Is this some subset of the “tides come in, tides go out” paradox?  What the fuck is the difference between “Without god, how do you explain a sunset?” and just “How do you explain a sunset?”  And, by implication, does she think the correct answer to that question is “Magic space wizard”?

Now, to be fair, not all of the questions were that stupid.  Well, they were all that stupid, but some of them were a totally different kind of stupid.  Some of them didn’t demonstrate a lack of knowledge; but rather they reflected an abundance of wrong knowledge.  Clearly some of these people were reading books and learning facts, but the books were by creationists and the facts were bullshit.  And their questions demonstrated the kind of idiocy you have to earn; something I like to call “Motivated Stupidity”.

The lady who was wondering how sunsets could be pretty if there was no baby Jesus is just regular stupid and that means enough Bill Nye debates might be able to cure her.  But the people who were claiming that the second law of thermodynamics disproves evolution had clearly done just enough research to reinforce their stupidity.  The idea that a bunch of creationist hick from Kentucky are gonna lecture the “evolutionists” on the laws of thermodynamics is priceless.  But if you pointed out that the law of entropy applies to a closed system and there’s a sun, it’s not like they would change their minds.  They’d just go to the Answers in Genesis website for some new stupid, some better stupid.

It’s these frustrating fuck fluids that lead so many of us to give up on believers.  They’ve got their conclusion and they’re sticking with ‘em, damn it.  And if you can arm them with a sentence with a few hyperpolysyllabic words they don’t understand in it and tell them it proves god, they’ll cling to it like a louse on Ken Ham’s beard.

Think about the level of commitment this kind of stupidity takes.  Oh, the laws of thermodynamics don’t support the bible?  Well then I don’t believe in the laws of thermodynamics then.  What?  Carbon dating disproves creationism?  Well then I don’t believe in the constant decay rate of Carbon-14 atoms.  What?  Rocks disprove creationism?  Well then I don’t believe in rocks, either.  What?  The bible itself disproves a literal interpretation of the bible?  Well then “la-la-la I can’t hear you!”

You know, there was a time when I could forgive this shit.  If you had religious parents and religious teachers and the churches controlled what was available at the library and the bookstore and the movie theater and the local TV stations, creationism might actually seem tenable.  And I’m not talking about the middle ages here; I’m talking about growing up in a small southern town in the nineties.  But there’s an internet out there now.  All the information is there for anybody who wants it.  In today’s world, in every country where you could possibly download this podcast, ignorance is a choice.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is guy who insults blacks and Jews a lot, Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to do something about this racism issue?

Ok, in the spirit of fairness … I know I said last week that Asian jokes can be a slippery slope … however … I was watching “The Wizard of Oz” … and I would absolutely LOVE to watch a Chinese midget struggle to sing “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” …  Blacks?  Jews?  You guys back on board with me now?

Excellent.  That should stop the emails… because Chinese midgets can’t reach the keyboard.  In our lead story tonight, archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have proved that fucking camels isn’t as old a profession as the popular adage would imply.  They did some more of that science that Jesus hates so much and demonstrated definitively that camels weren’t domesticated until around 900 bce.  According to certain sacred texts that serve as the foundation of three of the world’s largest religions (that shall remain nameless), Abraham was using camels as pack animals a millennium before that.

This could be the first of many dominoes.  Maybe we’ll eventually find other things in the Bible that are also scientifically wrong.  Who knows?  

Yeah, surprise, surprise, Ken Ham was wrong.  Not exactly headline news, but what makes this one interesting is that it also shows that the people writing the stuff about Moses and Abraham and David were doing so centuries after it happened.  So long after it happened that contemporary camel-tech was just assumed.

I can see the mistake they made.  Those weren’t camels that Abraham had.  They were small, hairy, humped velociraptors.

Radiocarbon dating of camel bones proves bible to be bullshit: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/02/06/camel-bones-suggest-error-in-bible/

And from the “You Keep Spelling Moron Wrong” file, a British Magistrate has issued a summons ordering the President of the Church of Latter Day Saints to appear in a British Court and prove that Mormonism isn’t a load of shit.

If he needs an expert to argue on his behalf, I hear Ken Ham is looking for work.

The plaintiff in the case is former Mormon Bishop Tom Phillips, who alleges that he can prove in court that at least seven of the core teachings of the church are false, that the president of the church knows that they’re false, and that he continues to teach them in order to keep people tithing.  If you take the word “religion” out of it, this is a clear cut case of fraud, but since we can’t take that word out, people… even people in the atheist movement… are acting like this is outlandish.  Because they’re a religion.  They’re supposed to defraud.

Religion is definitely the world’s most successful sleazy salesman.  “I’ll pay you Tuesday at your funeral, for a hamburger today.” … Seems like starting with Mormonism is a little arbitrary, but it’ll be nice to see all the other churches get their summons soon.  

The key to this case is the fact that the Mormon church teaches that you can only go to the good heaven if you’re in the inner circle and you can only be in the inner circle if you tithe ten percent of your income.  So basically they hold your soul hostage for cash and that differentiates them from most major religions.

Oh okay good.  Starting with Mormon’s isn’t arbitrary.  But all the other religions are still next, right?  Holding your soul hostage with vaguely defined donation levels for indulgences is just about equally “giant global fraud”, isn’t it?!?

Well we probably won’t find out because obviously the dude isn’t gonna show up at this hearing, but if he does, and the magistrate has him crucified, and he rises again three days later… I could see myself wearing magical underwear.

British Court orders Mormon rep to “prove it” http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/05/mormon-church-uk_n_4729050.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

And in “Eternal Soul Food” news, a private Christian high school in California decided to celebrate Black History Month by having the cafeteria serve fried chicken, cornbread, and watermelons.  It isn’t clear whether this was just normal white ignorance, or if it was an homage to professional golfer and infamous racist Fuzzy Zoeller, who suggested Tiger Woods would celebrate winning The Masters the same way, but also with collard greens.

Yeah, a public outcry forced them to abandon the Paula Deen menu after the first day, which sucks for the students because Tuesday was gonna be grape soda and crack.

Obviously racism can happen, with or without religion.  But religion certainly doesn’t fucking help.  ‘God said so’ is just about the only way to trick huge groups into extreme overzealous bigotry.  Nobody would be waging centuries of war, if it was a science museum on the Temple Mount.    The larger issue here is that homogenous brainwashed communities of ignorant sheep, who are force-fed lessons about social justice from books full of slavery and tribal ethnic cleansing … Believe or not, that’s bad for society.

And it’s hard to imagine something like this happening in a public school because public schools don’t have white lunch ladies.

So I’m wondering what the ‘accidental racists at best’ found too offensive.  What did they brainstorm, that didn’t quite make the final cut for the menu?  And I guess that means we should segue straight to 30 seconds on the clock for “Food Items for the Racist Cafeteria” … GO!!!

Master Race-in Bran

Isn’t that what those communion wafers are made of?  Sounds like one of those eugenically modified cereals … Like “Special KKK”

Or Thousand Year Reich Krispies.

What else do racists eat for breakfast? … Eggs Florentine Pregnancy?   Mango Unchained?  White Power Bars?

Pox in a Blanket?  I don’t know… I’ve got nothing else for breakfast.  Can we switch to the lynch menu?

If it’s lynch time, we can start drinking … Certain racist bartenders refer to a pina colada made with Hennessy as “Nig Nog”.

Hey, don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are racist bartenders, but that’s over the line.

How about Chicken Swas-Tikka?

Or maybe Chicken Sa-Tay Sachs?

With a side of Garlic Nazis

Concheddarate Fondu: A melting pot of white cheese only …

Spicy version known as Salsa Con K-K-Queso

How about the… wait, would the placebos they used in the Tuskegee Experiment count?

Separate But Equal  brown sugar pill substitute: The stuff you swallow that doesn’t give syphilis to blacks.

Christian school apologizes for “Black History Month” lunch menu: Fried Chicken, cornbread and watermelons: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2014/02/christian-school-principal-nancy-libby-apologizes-for-racist-lunch-menu/

And finally tonight, in “Pot Calling the Kettle a Pot” news, Pat “The Fags Are Out to Kill You With Their AIDS” Robertson has asked Ken Ham to stop making Christianity look stupid.

You know what else is making Christianity look stupid? … There’s this book … I forget thit title, but Ken Ham mentioned it several times during the debate.  And it’s pretty stupid, whether or not you add up the years in the book correctly, and whether or not Amish Wolverine, leader of the X-Mennonites stops embarrassing himself.

In response to Ham’s recent drubbing at the hands of an old, skinny dude in a bowtie, Robertson concluded that young earth creationism was, in Robertson’s own words, “nonsense” and implored Ham to (quote) “come off of that stuff and say this isn’t possible” (end quote) preferring that he stick to “possible” stuff like sweaters being haunted by demons and pact-with-the-devil seismology.

Get your fictions straight, Ken Ham!!!  The Old Testament is historical fiction.  The New Testament is observational fiction.  So you can’t just add the years up using math.

Pat Robertson implores Ken Ham not to make Christianity look foolish: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/05/pat-robertson-implores-creationist-ken-ham-to-shut-up-lets-not-make-a-joke-of-ourselves/#.UvLFIur6LtE.twitter

And on that sage-like advice, we’ll close the headlines.  Heath, thanks as always for joining me.

Messiah-nara, bitches.

And when we come back Lucinda will help us try to find funny shit to say about this boring assed bible.

A Love Song for the Scientifically Literate

 

When I look into your eyes my heart don’t… skip a beat.

And if it did, I’d be concerned, that I had heart disease,

Maybe premature ventricular contractions, also known as PVCs.

And I’d probably have to see a cardiologist;

Might need some kind of timer in my chest.

 

When I look into your eyes the earth don’t… cease to spin.  (It’s…)

Good cause it it did, we’d be all fly east at sixteen miles a minute,

And a day would last a year, And both the poles would flood as a supercontinent

Around the now-spherical earth’s equator would arise;

So I wouldn’t be allowed to look you in the eyes.

 

Let’s just set aside those things that we can’t prove;

I’ll tell you I love you using scientific truth,

Forget about those cliche romantic lies,

And I’ll just say I love to look into your eyes.

 

When I look into your eyes the room don’t… spin around

And if did, every time I saw you, I’d need a second to lie down.

Think of all the things we’d want to do that this condition would confound,

Plus chronic vertigo could also be a sign,

My vestibular system’s in decline.

 

When I Iook into your eyes, serotonin is released within my brain;

A monoamine neurotransmitter derived from tryptophan,

5-HT receptors trigger an intracellular second messenger cascade;

And then a host of other hormones get involved,

It’s how attachment in our species has evolved.

 

It doesn’t have to be some esoteric thing;

Love is love and that’s enough to make me sing.

So set aside all those cliche romantic lies,

I simply love to look into your eyes.

I simply love to look into your eyes.

Babble (2 Chronicles):

Ah, Second Chronicles; a book that fails to be the most boring thing I’ve ever read only because it immediately follows First Chronicles.  If the earlier historical books are like watching paint dry, Chronicles is like watching dry paint.  It continues the monotonous task of retelling the retelling of the pre-exilic kingdom of Israel.

They really scramble to shove some God into all the gaps in the story, don’t they? …   

“Second Chronicles: Rewriting history – this time with 50% more God.” …   

The precursor to FOX News, right here in this book!!!

You’ve hit upon my dad’s only two sources of information.  And joining us for the Holy Babble tonight is my lovely wife Lucinda, Lucinda, what did you think of this one?

Ugh… I feel like I flunked Samuel and Kings and had to take them again.

You’re always so negative about this.  Start us off positive… ease us into the suck.

1. What I like about 2 Chronicles is it really fills in the blanks on the last four books.  Let me give you an example.  In chapter one you learn that Solomon became king and asked god for wisdom.  And we already learned that in Kings, but in Kings you’re just left wondering how many chariots the dude had.  In 2 Chronicles it finally fills that in for us.

   1. Hell, it even tells you where he imported his chariots from and how much they cost so I guess the Christians were right.  All the answers are in here somewhere.

2. And then we go straight to the temple building again.  And you’ve gotta wonder how bitchy Solomon was with his labor orders.  “I said 80,000 stone cutters!  Not 80,009!”

   1. Also, I found this interesting.  2 Chronicles, chapter two, verse five.  Solomon is talking about his temple, he want King Huram to give him wood and he says, “The house that I am about to build will be great, for our god is greater than other gods.”  So they sucked at monotheism back then.

• And what were they even trying to mean?!?  Other gods are semi-potent? They can do everything except beat Jew God with a light sabre?  

3. –

4. Yeah, the temple was solid gold, the fixtures were solid gold, the shit-trowels were solid gold and they had a pretty sweet hot tub out front.

• Oh right the golden baths for bronze showers … Public wash basins full of hot, stagnant, unchlorinated water for dirty desert people to freely exchange fecal matter.  Basically steaming piles of shit,  but with a larger water ratio.

5. Then they dedicate the temple with a bunch of singers, one hundred and twenty priests and a bucket full of blunts or something.

   1. 2 Chronicles 5:14 “So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the lord filled the house of god.”  I’m surprised they didn’t go into detail about the solid gold bongs.

• My translation was a little more porno.  I think it said something like: “God came inside their lungs.”  So he pulled an “Angry Dragon” on the priests.  And I’d suggest that the uninitiated pause, and take a moment to google “Angry Dragon” so you can get the visual.

• And make sure you have safe search off.

6. Then we get this bullshit revisionist dedication of the temple by Solomon.  He’s saying “If there’s a drought hear our prayers; and if there’s a pestilence remember us; and if we have sinned against you forgive us; and if we piss you off so much that you allow a Babylonian king to exile us for generations forgive us eventually and let us come back.”

7. And it takes god a week and a half to get back to him, but when he does he tells Solomon that he’ll answer all his prayers just so long as everybody loves the shit out of him constantly forever.

• “You too can get chosen, for only five easy payments of $99.95.  And if you convert to Judaism in the next ten minutes, we’ll throw in a Slap Chop.”       

8. Then Solomon heroically enslaves every non-Jew he can find.

• Historically speaking … You think this stuff might lead to negative consequences for the Jews down the line???  Might come back and bite them in the asherah pole.  

9. Then he fucks the queen of Egypt for some spices, Huram brings him some apes and some peacocks and then he dies.

• And I’m not trying to be mean, but this book is stupid.  Here’s the very last line of the chapter: “Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from all other countries.”  Just say “He didn’t import horses from nowhere.”

10. Rehoboam’s gets the kingdom and within a few days, he breaks it.

    1. Interesting that even the bible seems to be anti-Israel at a certain point.

11. –

12. I kept expecting it to say “and are not the acts of all these dudes written in the book you just read?”

13. They keep upping god’s body count, too.  In chapter thirteen he kills half a million Israelites because the Judeans are less goat-demony.  If the death tolls keeps increasing at this rate, he’s gonna have to kill, like, 6 million Jews in the 1940s…

• Or at least find a way to fake it, and get Israel back.

14. Well hold on, because in chapter 14 he ups his record by killing a million Ethiopians.

    1. Well wait a second, though, because at best Ethiopians are worth half as much as Israelites…

    2. Three fifths.

• But it’s three fifths of a white Christian person, so let’s compromise, and call it four fifths of an Israelite.

15. And after that things are pretty okay for a few decades until…

16. Asa is king but then he get a disease (quote) “in his feet” and then dies because he had the audacity to turn to a physician instead of a priest.

    1. Yeah, 2 Chronicles 16:12 is something no responsible adult would leave in their bible.

• Right – Why go to a doctor, when you could go straight to the asshole who created diabetes?!?  

17. Then we get Jehoshaphat, who got rid of the high places by apparently leveling the whole nation to precisely sea level.

• And he killed all the tall people.

18. Then in chapter 18 of 2 Chronicles we get chapter 22 of 1 Kings.

    1. Verbatim.

    2. Damn near verbatim.  The same goddamned chapter just hiding later in the book.  They were just fucking around on the word count at this point.

19. Chapter 19 is actually just a secret code from God for investing in the stock market.  If you use the code, and pray the right way, you’ll make millions.  And if it doesn’t work, and you lose millions, other people will make millions.  It’s a win-win.

20. Then we get the wrap up of the reign of King Jehoshaphat the pretty good.

21. Then Jehoram takes over, kills his brothers, makes high places and kills some Edomites, for which Elijah shows up and curses him with perpetual diarrhea.

• That’s right – Important morality lesson here: “Don’t make things that exist in the height dimension, or a Jewish prophet will make you shit out your own colon.”    

22. Then Ahaziah takes over and gets killed within a year.

    1. His mom goes all psycho and starts killing everyone she can get her hands on, so her daughter stashes Joash in a nursery where her murderous mother can’t find him.

23. She reigns for a few years then they kill her with much pomp and circumstance.

24. …and is replaced by a seven year old.

• Who they make the new king by pulling a Pussy Riot maneuver, and putting on an unsanctioned coronation concert in the temple.  

25. -Then you get (Amaziah the Adequate)

26. -(Uzziah the Proud)

27. -(Jotham the Forgettable)

28. -(Ahaz the Really Awful)

29. -and (Hezekiah the Too-Little, Too-Late)

30. The kingdom’s gone to shit by the time Hezekiah shows up on the scene so we get this chapter where he’s running around Judah like a teenager trying to clean up all the party stuff before mom and dad get home.

• The key is to shred the cigarette butts and joint roaches with the lawn mower.

31. –

32. Then some Assyrians show up and start talking shit about Jew god so he chops all their heads off with a sword and has the king’s sons assassinate him.

33. And then Manasseh, then Amon, then Josiah… Honestly, as I’m reading this thing I kept hoping the cats would puke on the carpet or something so I’d have to get up and clean it.  This thing is a fucking chore.  We all deserve a hug or something for this.

• Will somebody … please … sacrifice their virgin daughter to a rapist mob or something, so we can make a fucking joke?!?  Anything?  No?  Just another last-minute divine miracle-slaughter of another seemingly unbeatable rival tribe?  

34. –

35. Josiah is a good king, in the sense that he doesn’t fall prey to the unforgivable sin of religious tolerance, but eventually he fucks with the wrong Egyptian and gets killed in battle.

• These battles are a bunch of ancient tribal nerds that believed in magical spells.     It must have looked like Live Action Role Playing, with people who truly thought they were divine priests, casting protection auras that do nothing, right before getting beheaded by a laughing Pre-Muslim.  

36. And then in the last chapter they toss in the exile in Babylon like it’s an afterthought.  And then they toss in King Cyrus freeing them in a two verse postscript.

• How does Yahweh convince a king that doesn’t believe in him, to let all his slaves go back to Judah, without revealing the big secret that Jew God is the real one?!?

I was really disappointed by the end.  Bill from Bar Room Atheists assured me that it ended with a car chase where a housewife in a dominatrix suit chases down her escaped teenage slave girl and then makes out with her to death.  And it doesn’t.  So hopefully he was thinking of Ezra.

And speaking of Bar Room Atheists, if Suzy is listening, we hope you’re feeling better sweetie. Huggles!

Oh, good call.  You’re in our thoughts, which is what we atheists have instead of prayers.

So we’ll close on that and take a well earned couple of episodes off from biblical duties.  Guy and gal, thanks for somehow continuing to push through.

Outro:

Before we pull the ripcord tonight I wanted to let everybody know that if they liked the song this week and would perhaps like to share it with their Valentine, I’ll have it on YouTube complete with lyrics a little later on today so feel free to share the love.

And in case you forgot, I was on the new podcast “Atheistically Speaking” the other day and apparently they split the interview into pieces.  The first chunk of it came out this past Monday and I think the rest is slated for release the same day this episode airs so if you want more, there’s more.  You’ll find links on the shownotes for this episode at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

I also wanted to remind people that if we don’t get enough iTunes reviews every week I’m contractually obligated to kick a puppy and I don’t want that any more than you do, so be sure to swing over to iTunes and give us a five star review

I need to thank Heath for being a funny bastard, I need to thank Lucinda for suffering through yet another book of the bible while simultaneously acting as my perpetual muse.  I also need to thank Zach from Iowa for providing this week’s Farnsworth quote.  Zach had nothing to plug so I’ll just use this time to remind everybody that Iowa isn’t as bad as you think it is.

But of course, most of all we need to thank this week’s most stunning examples of humanity, Brian, David, Dave, Andrew, Steven Hawking’s Wheelchair, DJ, Stephen, Robin, other Andrew and Laura.  Brian, whose gargantuan penis has local gravity; David who makes Samson look like a pussy for needing that donkey jaw; Dave, who has taken over as our most generous donor of all time and deserves a gold medal and a hug; Andrew, who’s so bright he’s a leading cause for sudden retinal failure; Stephen Hawking’s Wheelchair, which, let’s face it, deserves way more of the credit for the ground-breaking physics than it gets; DJ, whose very name has become a prefix for “cool person that gets a lot of ass”; Stephen, whose cock is longer than a Peter Jackson flick; Robin, who’s so far above average they named a bird after her; other Andrew, whose compliment is separate, but equal to the first Andrew; and Laura, who’s so hot she can light a bong over Skype.

These ten exceptional exemplifications of excellence have provided joy to boys and girls all over the world by giving us money.  Remember, according to noted junkie-photographer Chris Arnade, atheism is a luxury for the wealthy so if you don’t keep those donations rolling in, my broke ass will have to be religious at a certain point.  So if you’d like to forestall that inevitable condition, you’ll find the donate button on the right side of the homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

And if you wanted to wish Lucinda a happy anniversary tomorrow, you’ll find her on Facebook and Twitter, that’s LUCINDA LUGEONS.

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.