The Scathing Atheist

by Heath Enwright and Noah & Lucinda Lugeons

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(Note: Transcript contains elements that were removed due to time constraints.  An unedited version is available to our Patreon.com patrons)

Warning: This podcast may contain explicit references to things that Jesus might have put in his butt.

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And now, the Scathing Atheist.

 

Intro:

It’s Thursday,

It’s March 27th,

And everyone should know how to rip duct tape at this point – It’s not that difficult!!!

I’m Noah Lugeons,

I’m Heath Enwright, and from “Yankee Pot Roasting” New York, New York

And “Rebel Plot Boasting” Podunk, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist

In this week’s episode,

• Hobby Lobby’s medical plan now covers opium tonic, leeches, and hysterectomies,

• We’ll give you this chocolate bar if you’ll get in the van,

• And we’ll learn why lesbian Latinas that like to get stoned are exactly my type.

But first, the diatribe…

Diatribe:

As atheists, we don’t get to imagine the post-mortem last laugh the way the religious people do.  Unfortunately, Fred Phelps never gets to realize how wrong he was because he’s dead.  But it would be kind of nice to think of him waking up in a paradoxical non-afterlife and realizing that, nope, it wasn’t god, he was just a bigoted sperm flake the whole time.

But I don’t bring up his death to celebrate or rejoice or to beat off on his grave.  Yes, the world is better off without that hate-monger and yes, I was happy to learn he died.  But I’m not heartless.  I feel sorry for his family like I would any family that lost someone.  And I feel sorry for all the media outlets who have to find some new mentally deranged fringe nutcase to raise to an undeserved national notoriety.  But most of all, I feel sorry for all the people who email me and try to demonize our show because they have to find a new person to pretend we obsess over and compare all religious people to.

It’s probably the single most common sentence in our critical feedback: “All Christians aren’t Fred Phelps.”  It’s a rallying cry for moderate Christians who insist that Jesus was down with the gays way before it was cool.  And anybody who points out the social ills that Christianity spawns is faulted for judging all of Christianity based on people like Fred Phelps.  I got an email a couple months ago that challenged me to go a whole episode without mentioning him.

Truth is, of course, we’ve done that 51 times in our first 57 episodes.  We’ve never actually reported on anything the asshole did; in fact.  He came up in the headlines three times; once when somebody turned the house across from his church into a gay pride flag; once when the head of the Satanic Temple turned his dead mom gay with sperm and lesbians and once when a bassist fingered herself on his front lawn.

Neither Heath nor I have ever said anything on this show that could be reasonably construed as a suggestion that Fred Phelps was a “typical” Christian.  He was a xenophobic attention whore that wanted to be seen as the nemesis of the secular world and got his wish.  He wasn’t worth all the attention the mainstream media gave him; he wasn’t worth all the rancor the secular movement invested in him… the only thing Fred Phelps was worth was 16 points in my celebrity death pool.

But he was a Christian, and whether they like it or not, Christianity is stuck with him.  It’s not like this dude made up his own wacky religion or anything; he used the same wacky religion all the other Christians are using.  And while his tactics were almost universally rejected; homophobia is hardly a fringe Christian belief.  According to a 2012 Lifeway survey, 73% of Evangelical Christians think homosexuality is a sin.  Nearly three quarters of them agree that god does, indeed, hate fags.

And I think that’s important to keep in mind when you see all the reluctant eulogies of the Westboro patriarch.  The op-eds are working overtime to try to distance Phelps’ church from the rest of the Jesusy folks.  Almost every article I saw pointed out that the Westboro Baptist Church wasn’t a member of the Southern Baptist Convention or any other “official” Baptist group; but I haven’t seen a single one that put that in context by mentioning that most Baptist churches aren’t affiliated with the SBC or any other “official” Baptist Group.

They also make sure to point out how small the church was.  Only 40 active members.  100 at it’s height.  And again, they don’t point out that the average Baptist church has about 125 members and that’s with the mega-churches skewing the shit out of the numbers.  Phelps’ congregation was probably smack dab on the median.

So why is everybody going to such great lengths to divorce him from the rest of his faith?  I understand why Christians are in such a hurry to call a Mulligan on him, but why is the media so complicit?  Hell, a piece on MSNBC went so far as to dub Phelps “pseudo-religious”.  There aren’t many bad things you could say about the dude that I would take issue with, but for whatever it’s worth, he was definitely devout.

Sorry, Christianity, but if you aren’t willing to take the bad, you aren’t allowed to take the good either.  If Fred Phelps doesn’t count then you don’t get the Martin Luther Kings or… shit, do they have anybody else that wasn’t an asshole?

Doesn’t matter.  The fact is that any reasonable definition of Christianity has to include that mummified turd juggler.  And unless they can convince themselves that he wasn’t a true Scotsman, they have to ask themselves which is true: Are Christian morals really that horrible or are one’s morals independent of one’s religion?  And if they’re honest with themselves, they’ll have to answer “both”.

Headlines:

Joining me for headlines tonight is anxious baseball fan Heath Enwright.  Heath, are you ready to play ball?

Sure, but I’m still enjoying the last four days the Mets get to be at or above .500

Fair enough.  In our lead story tonight, the Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday in the case of “Human Decency v. Hobby Lobby”.  The case revolves around the bafflingly controversial “contraceptive mandate” in the Affordable Care Act.  Hobby Lobby is one of many corporations suing for a legal exemption from this mandate because they believe that contraceptives like IUDs and morning after pills cause abortions.  The fact that their wrong about that somehow didn’t end the bickering so the Supreme Court got involved.

And the Bible doesn’t ban contraceptives.  First of all, that would be impossible, because unless the author was omnipotent or something, he couldn’t know about condoms thousands of years before they were invented.  Second, the passage in Genesis that everyone harps on, is talking about a dude who’s supposed to bang his dead brother’s widow, but he pulls out so he won’t have to add another kid to his will.  That’s it!!!  Nothing even remotely related to modern contraception … And the whole point of the story is that he finishes on her face for a selfish motive.  The sin isn’t the money shot – in and of itself.

One of the big issues in the case is whether or not a for-profit company has a religion and thus the right to freely exercise said religion.  Justice Sotomayor, who is pretty awesome for a Catholic, started things off by pointing out that this exemption could open the door to corporations refusing to pay for vaccines or blood transfusions on similar religious grounds.  And it took them a long time to get there, but eventually Justice Kennedy pointed out that employees also have rights.

Good point … People are corporations too.  

The overwhelming view of the people who say they know way more about this than me is that the contraceptive mandate will be overturned, mostly because the majority of the Supreme Court justices have testicles.

Hobby Lobby case before Supreme Court: http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/mar/24/hobby-lobby-sureme-court-obamacare-contraception

And in “Under-the-Counter Apologetics” news, the Vatican is doing its best to explain why German customs seized 340 grams of cocaine, packed into 14 condoms, on its way from South America, bound for the Vatican Post Office, via Liepzig, Germany.  

If Hobby Lobby gets its way the packaging might be as valuable as the contents.

Outraged at swirling accusations, an un-named papal source may have made the following statement: (quote) “We swear we would never have used those condoms.” (end quote) …

And they wouldn’t have.  But given the church’s history, these guys should be wearing government-monitored perma-condoms at all times, like a GPS Cranklet.    

This is such a confusing story.  The whole point of transporting cocaine in condoms is so you can swallow it and shit it out once you get past customs…

So – Germany, Vatican City, South America … Anything with that path is automatically suspicious.  It’s like their own little triangular trade.  And against all odds, it might be more offensive.  Instead of rum, sugar, and slaves, it looks like these guys are moving fugitive Nazis, condoms, and blow … So say what you will about contraception – and the tenets of national socialism – the cocaine is pretty damning.

German customs seizes cocaine addressed to Vatican: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/report-germans-seize-cocaine-addressed-to-vatican/2014/03/23/fb48d5bc-b287-11e3-bab2-b9602293021d_story.html

And in “Creepy People luring kids into their windowless vans for Jesus” news tonight, parents near the Gospel of God Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina were assured by police that the wave of creepy men trying to lure neighborhood kids into their cars were only trying to rape the children’s brains.

At least they chose cars.  Classy move.  Way less rapey than vans.  As long as they weren’t Volkswagens.

After several reports of men in suits coaxing children toward their cars, local police determined that the degenerate perverts in question were actually perverts for Jesus and were just trying to convince stranger’s children that they would burn in hell eternally if they didn’t get dunked in water by a shaman.  Which, in some ways, is better than trying to fuck them.

Well as long as they were mini-abductions, and they weren’t overtly sexual … Did they have good candy, at least?  Fun size is bullshit.  If I’m a kid, and I’m risking an unmarked van situation, it better be the full-size fucking two-piece Twix Bar!!!  

Reverend Keith Shelton doesn’t believe the church did anything wrong, but promises to review the policies and (quote) “be real aware of how we approach kids that aren’t in the presence of their parents” (end quote), apparently believing that there’s a correct way to do that.

Creepy people lure kids into their windowless vans for Jesus: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/24/these-strangers-were-trying-to-lure-children-into-their-cars-for-jesus/

And in “Homicidal Neckware” news, Sarah Palin spoke out publicly against the pro-choice cause, and their latest campaign, which involves wearing miniature coat-hanger necklaces.  Perhaps unaware she often wears a T-shaped murder re-enactment necklace – or perhaps just plain special – Palin blasted anyone that would (quote) “wear this symbol of death around their neck.” (end quote)  

I’ve got just such a necklace for you, Mrs. Palin… it’s called a garrote.

Considering the stem cells from her terminated vice presidential run were used to create Paul Ryan in a lab – and of course her chromosomally-endowed family – it seems like she would be at least a bit more receptive to pre-natal selection.

Her family looks like it came from the dumpster behind Gattaca.

Quick story time … When I was a kid, I would bend the coat hangers into a diamond shape, and then if you do everything smoothly, you can balance a nickel on the end of the hook, and spin it around on one finger without dropping the coin.  If you’re good, you can even stop spinning, and the nickel’s still balanced.

I’d like to point out that (a) you have a readily available coat-hanger abortion anecdote and (b) none of our listeners are remotely surprised by that.  Anyway, you were saying…

So I was reliving that only-childhood memory at college, and a girl saw me holding the hanger, and said: “Whoa – That’s not funny.”  I said: “Yeah it’s not so much funny.  Just a cool trick.”  She got angrier, and said: “It’s not a cool trick either!”  Confused by her negative reaction, and trying to explain, I said: “Ok, maybe the wrong words.  It’s just a fun little skill to have as an only-child.  Give me a nickel, and I’ll show you.”  There was a nickel on the floor, so basically, she heard: “Bend over and I’ll show you.”   When she was just about to mace me and make a vigilante arrest, another onlooker realized what was happening and explained the confusion.  

Palin blasts symbol of death necklaces: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/21/sarah-palin-doesnt-see-the-humor-in-her-complaint-about-women-who-wear-a-symbol-of-death-around-their-necks/

And in “How long can it possibly take to say ‘God Did It’?” news tonight, creationists are demanding equal time to counteract all the scientific facts Neil DeGrasse Tyson keeps yammering on about in Cosmos.  They argue that the engaging and accessible nature of the show is making it increasingly difficult for people not to laugh at how stupidly incorrect they are.

(laughing) Science deniers are wrong in a really stupid way!

In a wholly unnecessary demonstration of how much cerebral ass he kicks, Tyson responded by pointing out that, if anything, the media is far too accommodating when it comes to giving equal air time to the side that’s wrong; explaining (quote) “you don’t talk about the spherical earth with NASA and then say ‘let’s give equal time to the flat-earthers.’”

What about the “Shitty Design Theory”? … The “Small Boom Theory”? … There are an infinite number of ways to be wrong, so it’s literally impossible to give equal air time to all of them.

Alright, so we’ve got this really nice clock here, and I have these thirty seconds I need to put somewhere, so thirty seconds on the clock… Titles for Creationist Documentaries.  Go!

Let There Be Spinal Tap!

Compost: A Space-Time Absurdity

When We Were 2 Kings

MythTrusters

Global Forming: A Convenient Lie

Ken Ham’s “Drivel War”

Yeah Ken Ham’s also behind “Arks and Re-Creation”

The Bronze Age: The Midpoint of Geology

Old Testament grafitti artist West Banksy in “Exit Through God’s Gift Shop”

The X-tra Chromosome Files

Enrolling For Columbine Catholic Prep

Commuting With Dinosaurs

The Addams and Eve Family: The Thin Jew Line … InCest In Show

Creationists Demand Equal Time for Cosmos: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/22/creationists-airtime-cosmos-neil-degrasse-tyson_n_5009234.html

And finally tonight, in “Plugging the Dike With a Rock” news, proud and hilarious New York City lesbian Jennifer Louise Lopez – or Jello – completely baffled the bigots at ATLAH Worldwide Missionary Church in Harlem, when she showed up to turn herself in for voluntary stoning, the proper biblical punishment for the horrible, beautiful lesbian sin she was born with.  

And judging by the guy’s reaction, the only thing that saved her life that day is that Manhattan is the only place on earth that doesn’t have rocks.

At one point recently, the marquee outside the ATLAH Worldwide Missionary Church in Harlem, read (quote) “Obama has released the homo demons on the black man. Look out black woman. A white homo may take your man.” (end quote) … Don’t think that requires any further lampooning, but if you’d like to take a stab at the reasoning behind that one, I’d love to hear …

Well, clearly the homo demons didn’t come to this dimension for caucasian sized dick.

The sign was later replaced by “Jesus would stone homos. Stoning is still the law.”  So the intrepid Jello just showed up at the front door requesting her punishment, and the guy on duty got flustered because he didn’t know where they kept the stoning kit, so he told her to come back the next day.  It’s like a twisted version of a Monty Python sketch.  The lesbian witch shows up on fire, asking to be tied to a stake, and the dark aged morons don’t know what to do … “Pour water on her!!!” … “Put her in a straight jacket – She’ll stop being gay!!! Churches!!!”… “Hit her with very small rocks! … But tomorrow.” …   

There’s video of the incident and it’s pretty fucking funny if you haven’t seen it.  It wasn’t what I was looking for when I googled “Lesbian Punishment”, but it was funny.

Stoning volunteer confuses bigoted Harlem church: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/20/lesbian-stoning-anti-gay-church_n_5000239.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

And on that we’re gonna put a fork in the headlines.  Heath, thanks as always for joining me.

Put a spork in me – I’m done with my Famous Bowl.

And when we come back, Lucinda will be back by popular request.

Pitch:

Does this ever happen to you?

(Sound FX montage)

Well we can’t help you with that.  But what we can help you do is become an official Scathing Atheist patron at Patreon (dot) com.

Patreon (dot) com is a fantastic service that allows you to give us money easier than ever before.  Signing up for as little as one dollar an episode, you can sleep comfortably, knowing that Noah won’t have to give quite so many handjobs for our bandwidth upgrade.  

I’ll still give just as many, but not because I have too.

Quality, not quantity, right?

Exactly.  But that’s not all!  Scathing Atheist patrons get a bevy of beneficial bonuses.  You see, every week we record between three and ten minutes of extra material that ends up on the cutting room floor.

These never-before-released minutes include expletives, puns, and a littany of verbosely-worded dick and fart jokes.

But these emission omissions can be yours when you become a Patreon Patron.  That’s ten to thirty percent more Scathing Atheist every week.  How much would you pay?

A million dollars!

But don’t answer yet…

Sorry, that seemed like a logical time to answer.

But there’s even more.  You’ll also get the show as soon as it’s edited, rather than anxiously counting down the minutes until 8am eastern daylight time.

That sounds too good to be true!

But it isn’t!  For just one dollar per episode you get the unedited, director’s cut of every new episode and you get those episodes early.  Plus you get an outlandishly over the top compliment on the next episode.

But that’s not all!

Actually, that is all.

For one dollar per episode, sure.  But you can give us more than that.

That’s right Heath.  And the more you give, the more you get.

That’s right Noah.  If you give two dollars per episode you also get a free digital copy of our new ebook; “Diatribes, Volume One: 50 Essays From a Godless Misanthrope”, plus an autographed drawing from the first ever Illustrated “Lucinda’s Bible Stories for Kids”.

But do I still get the over the top compliment, the longer episodes and the early releases?

You do.  But that’s still not all!

That’s right because you can also give us even more money.  If you donate at least five dollars per episode, we’ll also toss in a signed paperback copy of the new book.  Plus you’ll get advance copies of all the new Scathing Atheist presents books before they’re available to the public.

That’s sounds too good to be true.

I know!

Seriously… I don’t believe you.  That’s just too good a deal.

I know!

So how can we be certain that you’re not full of shit?

I guess you’ll have to check out our Patreon page and see for yourself.  That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist.

It’s easy to set up a recurring micropayment.  Macropayments are equally easy.  Enter your information once and Patreon will bill your credit card or Paypal account once per month.  You can even set up a limit in case you’re afraid we’ll release 106 episodes one month just to fuck you out of a lot of money.

And remember, if you were a Patreon Patron, this segment would end with Heath saying “Turtle Fucker” three times in a funny voice.  But if you’re not, it just ends with me saying this sentence.

Turtle fucker, turtle fucker, turtle fucker.

Babble – Esther:

Esther is the final of the “Historical” books and really doesn’t belong in the Old Testament at all.  Perhaps the most controversial inclusion in the canon, it was not generally accepted as an officially licensed jew-book until after much of the New Testament was written.  It makes no mention of god, the main character is a woman and it does absolutely nothing to advance the larger story arc of the book.

But it does fulfill the most basic requirement for a book of the bible; a lot of people get unnecessarily murdered for not being jews.

So joining us to discuss this tale of debauchery and blood-thirsty vengeance is my lovely wife Lucinda.  Lucinda, welcome back.

Glad to be here.

So what did you think of Esther?

It was weird.  It’s like the biblical version of those free ebooks on SmashWords. It was a story,  but who gives a shit?

Yeah, from a literary perspective it was a little better than we’ve come to expect, but that’s like being the least inflamed measle.  So why don’t you start us off?

1. Sure.  The book starts with King Ahasuerus the Debaucherous who decides to have a six month drunken banquet.  At the end of the banquet he orders his wife, Queen Vashti, to come in and show his guests how smoking hot she is.

   1. She refuses and that causes a huge scandal.  Eventually he banishes her and vows to replace her with a new wife… a better wife.

• Yeah Ahasue- I’m gonna call him Xerxes.  So he gets together a panel of the wisest men in the land, and they all decide that allowing women to have the consent option on everyday commands is a really slippery slope.  That uppity bitch has got to go!!!

2. So he puts together a “sexy virgin squad” to go find him all the best available pussy.

   1. And they have a twelve month beauty regimen they all have to go through before the king will fuck them so whoever wrote this thing was clearly waiting for his wife to get ready while he did.

   2. The king tries out all the virgins, but Esther is apparently a phenomenal fuck so he makes her queen.

• And when deciding what sex toys to bring with her to please the king, she famously seeks the advice of the Neutered Gay Sex Slave that oversees the whore squad.  Smart move.

3. But, and this is important, she doesn’t tell anybody she’s Jewish.

3. Then Esther’s cousin (slash) adoptive father Mordecai refuses to bow to the king so his chief ass kicker, Haman decides to kill all the jews.

   1. Yeah, but they publicly schedule their holocaust.  The king’s says, “We’re gonna kill all the jews… on the 13th of next month.  After the playoffs.”

• Yeah, ethnic cleansing is best done by surprise.  There wasn’t anyone who anticipated that Inquisition by the Spaniards.

4. So Mordecai goes to his cousin (slash) adopted daughter (slash) queen and says, “little help?”

• “The dude you’re banging just approved a Reich.  Could you please?  Maybe … with the ‘saving our chosen race’ ???  Whenever you get a minute.  Not a huge deal.”

5. She goes to the king and he says, “Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you, even if it’s half my kingdom.”  So instead of saying, “I was hoping you could not murder all the jews,” she concocts this weird plan that starts with inviting the King and Haman to a banquet before she’ll tell him what she wants. .

   1. Yeah, because banquets in Esther are like buffets on a cruise ship.  Every fucking time you turn around…

   2. So Haman is all excited to get the exclusive invite but he’s so pissed about jews not trembling before him that he can’t enjoy it.  So he orders Mordecai hanged… or impaled?

   3. Impaled in NIV, hanged in mine and Heath’s

• Yeah the dude’s got the perfect gig as the king’s number two, he’s got land, bitches, a bunch of sons, but he’s still pissed about that un-bowing Jew, so his friends have to comfort him: “You want a soda? No? You want to impale Mordecai on this fifty cubit pole, and the have a banquet? Ok – Let’s impale Mordecai on this fifty cubit pole and have a banquet.”

6. Chapter six was actually pretty clever.

   1. Yeah, two good chapters in this book already…

   2. Yeah, so the King realizes that Mordecai helped him forestall an assassination attempt and wants to honor him.  So he calls Haman into his room and says, “If I really wanted to honor the shit out of somebody, what should I do?”  And Haman, thinking the king is planning to honor him goes off on this long list of awesome shit that includes some of the king’s wardrobe and a horse and a parade and the whole nine.  Then the king says, “Great idea!  Do that for the jew that you hate.”

7. So they have their banquet and the king says to Esther, “So me and Haman are here like you asked, now what did you want me to do again?”  

• “If you were just selling us all as sex slaves, I would never have bothered you about this, but you’re talking full holocaust, so …”

• Yeah she actually qualifies her request just like that, and then she says, “kill Haman instead of all the jews.” And he says, “Yeah I can do that.”

1. So they hang Haman on the gallows he’d set up for Mordecai in a rare biblical use of literary competence.

1. But they don’t exactly rescind the “kill the jews” order.  Instead, they issue a “kill all the people who are killing the jews” order, because why have no violence when you could have a lot of violence.

• And the Jews can plunder now.  That was in the fine print of chapter 8.  They officially get to plunder their enemies from now on.  Good lawyering to get this shenanigans book approved for the OT.

• Don’t call it that.

9. Then the king says, “So I killed Haman and let the jews kill all the Babylonian nazis… anything else?”  And she says, “You mind hanging all of Haman’s kids, too?”  And the king says, “Anything for you Lolita… I mean Esther.”

• Yeah Esther became queen at 14.  Why aren’t more biblical literalists banging 14-year-old virgin harem recruits?  Seems to be a mitvah.  Oh, because times change, and living by the literal words of that book today would be cruel and tragic?

1. And then they decide that they should celebrate this murderous rampage every year and call it Purim.

2. Puts the pussy-cookie in context, I guess.

1. And the book ends with Mordecai being declared the head-Jew.

• And as usual, they indignantly point out that this is all in the brochure of the annals of the kings of …

This book is a real challenge to the whole notion that the bible is inerrant, but it also splooges all over the notion that it has historical or literary value as well.  There was no king Ahasuerus, there was no Queen Vashti, no Queen Esther and nothing remotely like anything described in this book ever happened.

As opposed to the other books that contain shit that did happen?

Well no, but at least some of the kings existed.  Anyway, that’s it for the Babble for three weeks.  We’re nearing the halfway point guys…

Just nearing?

Anyway, thanks as always.

 

Outro:

Before we fade to music tonight I want to thank everybody who picked up a digital copy of our first book; The Scathing Atheist Presents “Diatribes, Volume One: 50 Essays From a Godless Misanthrope”, which is available on the Kindle Store or Smashwords (dot) com and should be available at e-book retailers across the interwebs by this time next week.  Paperback copies are also on the way and we’re hoping to have them available by May 2nd.

Why May 2nd?  Well, in case you forgot, Heath, Lucinda and I will be attending ReasonCon just outside beautiful Asheville, North Carolina that weekend.  The keynote speaker is Dr. Richard Carrier, they’re also welcoming a host of other great speakers, it’s free and you still have time to adjust your plans accordingly.  You’ll find links on the shownotes for this episode at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

Of course I need to thank John for this week’s Farnsworth Quote (slash) Yo Mama joke.  I need to thank Lucinda for opening the show, joining us for the Babble and helping a ton with the editing and formatting of the book.  Obviously I need to thank Heath for doing way more than he really gets credit for.

I also need to thank Wesley and Dustin from Atheist Nomads, Bill and Suzy from Bar Room Atheists, Adam Reakes from the Herd Mentality Podcast, Tom and Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance, Cash and Love from Atheists on Air and Mr. Q from Quranify Me; all of whom were kind enough to play an ad for our new book and deserve grandiose laudations for their altruism.

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week’s most magnificent multicellular organisms; John, Torsten, Wayne, Stephanie, Andrew, Steve, Russ, Neal and Jeff.  John, whose intellect is so vast it makes the Library at Alexandria look like an airport bookstore; Torsten, who cracked me the fuck up with the note on his donation; Wayne, whose massive testicles are known to intergalactic races thanks to gravitational lensing; Stephanie, who now adds “Scathing Atheist’s First Patreon Donor” to her Herculean list of accomplishments; Andrew, whose voice is so sexy it’s been rated by the MPAA; Steve, whose penis is measured in parsecs; Russ, who could fuck Godzilla up worse than Roland Emmerich; Neal, who never would have let Darth Vader get away with talking like that about his mama; and Jeff, who can break stones with his fists and break fists with his stones.

These nine noble nonbelievers achieved archived immortality this week by giving us money, many of them by utilizing our convenient new Patreon Page.  If you’d like to join their coveted ranks, you can donate to us at Patreon (dot) com (slash) Scathing Atheist and make a per episode donation that gets you all kinds of goodies; or you can make a one time donation by clicking the donate button on the right side of our homepage at Scathing Atheist (dot) com.

That’s all the blasphemy we’ve got for you this week, but we’ll be back in 168 hours with more, including the Esther poem we didn’t have room for this week.  Between now and then, check us out on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and YouTube.  If you love us as much as we love you, leave us a five star review on iTunes or wherever you like to leave podcast reviews.

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.