The Scathing Atheist - 243: Mormon Mayo Edition

Episode Date: October 12, 2017

In this week’s episode, Joseph Smith crawls under the bar of Alma, the phrase "Christian chicken rehab slavery" will be a perfectly reasonable thing to say, and we’ll see when Santa’s sleeping for a change. To learn more about PastaCon, click here: http://atheistpa.org/ To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click there: http://www.amazon.com/Diatribes-Godless-Misanthrope-Scathing-Presents-ebook/dp/B00J53FZFI/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid=1396141562&sr=8-1 To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out out half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ Headlines: Sessions issues government-wide directive that Christianity is a perfectly acceptable reason for LGBT discrimination: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/06/sessions-calls-for-broad-religious-freedom-protections-243536 also, he had the help of a Christian hate group: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/10/07/jeff-sessions-got-advice-from-christian-hate-group-before-issuing-anti-gay-memo/ Peter LaBarbera on gay couple in new Star Wars: “Where are the ex-gay characters?” http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/peter-labarbera-is-outraged-at-gay-couple-on-star-trek-wonders-where-the-ex-gay-characters-are/ Satanic temple proposes satanic cakes to troll anti-gay bakeries: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/satanic-temple-wedding-cakesus59cd3203e4b0ef069427151f?section=us_religion Santa Claus’s tomb may have been discovered in Turkey: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/04/santa-claus-tomb-may-have-been-uncovered-beneath-turkish-church-saint-nicholas Christian rehab group using patients as slaves: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/10/06/slavery-is-alive-and-well-in-americas-christian-rehab-chicken-plants/ This Week in Misogyny: Harvey Weinstein is a piece of shit: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories Trump administration rescinds birth control mandate: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/10/06/trump-admin-lets-more-employers-use-religion-to-deny-workers-birth-control/ Pro-life congressman resigns over abortion mistress scandal: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/10/05/pro-life-gop-congressman-will-resign-in-wake-of-mistress-abortion-scandal/

Tire Discounter Group, we deliver. Until May 31st, receive up to $100 back by mail-in rebate when you buy four new eligible Michelin tires. Conditions apply. See dealer or michelin.ca for details. Find a Michelin Tire dealer by visiting Tire Discounter Group's Tread Experts Dealer Locator at tirediscountergroup.ca slash locations. Tire Discounter Group, tirediscountergroup.ca slash locations. Warning, this week's episode contains foul language. And by that, I mean chicken jokes and also profanity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, Zip Recruiter, and by Hearthstone, the online collectible card game.

They're not paying us yet, but it's super fun. Eli taught me how to play last week, and now I can beat him every time. Seems like he would have been better. Whatever. No big deal. And now, the Scathing Atheist. Hi, I'm April, longtime listener from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and despite what some of my neighbors over in Kentucky may think, we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men.

It's Thursday. It's October 12th. And I am the way, the truth, and the far right. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. I'm from New York, New York. Secret Lair, Pennsylvania. This is The Skating Atheist.

On this week's episode, Joseph crawls under the bar of Alma. Ray's Christian chicken rehab slavery will be a perfectly reasonable thing to say. And we'll see where Santa's sleeping for a change. First, the diatribe. If we could build a God, would we want to? That question occurred to me late last night because despite 41 years of practice, I suck at falling asleep.

So here's the thought experiment. Let's jump a couple hundred years in the future, imagine a few big advances in AI along the way, and suppose that humanity has reached a point where they could theoretically build a god bot. Now, this system would be far smarter and wiser than any human could ever be. It would be plugged into every social media profile, every bank account, every security camera.

And as such, it would know you better than your closest friends. Hell, because of its ability to process shit with a lack of ingrained biases, it might know you better than you know yourself.

And at the same time, it would know where everyone was, what everybody was doing at virtually every moment. And through all its massive predictive powers, it would be able to routinely predict the future in a like Laplace's demon type way with remarkable precision. What's more, it could also control all the other computer systems like our traffic system, our judicial system, our power grid, our search algorithms, our legislators, legislators our economies even the systems our future selves have built up to prevent natural disasters and most importantly god bought would be autonomous no human would be qualified to question its decisions so it would decide on its own how to use this power you know it would set up its own set of moral codes based on logic that we could never hope to fully comprehend and it

would tell us the best way to live our lives we We could pray to it, and if it deemed us to be deserving, based on a Santa Clausian algorithm of our overall goodness, it could cure our cancer. It could give us a sunny day for the picnic, or it could find us a parking space. We could ask it for advice, and it would be able to tell us the best decision. And if a group of us was becoming too sinful and threatening to the peace of the rest of the world, it could fail to prevent that devastating earthquake that would wipe those people out. Because logically speaking, sometimes the best decision from the purely rational perspective would be to kill somebody, right? I mean, after all, Godbot would be so advanced that based on your present situation, it could make damn precise forecasts of what you

would be like and what you would think in the future. If it ran the numbers and figured out you had a 99.2% chance of becoming the next Hitler, it'd make a lot of sense to kill you off in a traffic accident, wouldn't it? And if it somehow missed that and you did become the next Hitler, wiping your whole country out before it could start a world war would be the optimal outcome, even if it meant a lot of civilian casualties, right? The calculus might show that a couple of thousand dead innocents now could prevent hundreds of thousands over the next couple of decades. And so future Germany gets the brimstone. And let's suppose that we've somehow worked out the kinks, right? We know and we can say with perfect confidence that God will never malfunction. We know that it'll always love us and care for us and do what's best for us. It'll never grow apathetic to us. It'll never turn

against us. It'll never decide we're the enemy and build a time machine to kill the leader of the resistance in utero. And knowing all of that and knowing that the system is built and ready to go, you are handed the key. All you have to do is insert the key, turn it to the right, and Godbot takes over the world never to relinquish that power. Would you turn that key? Now, I've said many times on the show that i'm ready to accept my robot overlords as soon as they're ready to demand fealty so you might think you already know my answer but let's consider the range of decisions godbot might make i mean what if godbot looks at the current situation says yeah you know this group of oppressed people could be educated

and after a few generations they could be as learned and as productive as everybody else but it would be quicker and better for the largest number of people if i just wiped them out now right it might decide that you shouldn't marry that person that you're pretty sure you're in love with it might decide that equal rights was a silly idea in the first place it might decide that the best of course of action would be a hard reboot where it flooded the world and saved only one family and two of each animal. Now, if you're hyperlogical, you might be okay with all that. I mean, as callous and inhumane as it sounds, you have to remember the precept. Godbot can only do what's best for us. It can only make the optimal decision.

So if it decided any of those things, it would, by the parameters of this thought experiment, ultimately prove to be the best decision. The temporary tragedy would be outweighed by the future gains in every single circumstance. So maybe you're okay with that. And maybe you're appalled by the idea that anyone could be. I honestly don't know what I'd do. I thought about this for a long time.

So I apologize if you were expecting me to have an answer at the end of this. But the point isn't really in the answer. I believe this thought experiment in many ways captures the heart of humanism. If we could turn our decisions over to a superior intellect and abide by those decisions, no matter how cruel they seem to us, would we do it? Or would we rather allow humans to keep fucking it up in new and creative ways and trust the inherent goodness of humankind to move us ever closer to the best possible world?

But just because I can't provide the right answer doesn't mean we can't take some conclusions away from the exercise, right? The key here is that everything in our scenario is theoretical, but in reality, there is no perfect intelligence. There is no way to prevent natural disaster. There is no running tally of your overall goodness as a human being. In reality, there's a man behind the curtain. And even if it's a wise man or a hundred generations of wise men meticulously revising and reinterpreting their dictums and pronouncements they're still men and if you'd be at all hesitant to entrust that kind of power to an all-knowing being how could any of us even consider entrusting it to a human they're talking about you jesus interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin joining me for headlines tonight are the rocky and cold to to my tum-tum, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnett.

Fellas, you ready to kick some ass? Love Three Ninjas, are you kidding me? Yes! Yes! Rocky loves Emily. Emily. Rocky loves Emily. Emily.

Emily. At the end with the jelly beans and the grandpa's mouth. We're on the same page. We're finally on the same page. Love it. Now I feel bad admitting that I've never seen that movie and I just Googled famous trios in a hurry when I wrote that. Okay, we're in a fight.

Rather than admitting that, we're going to take a quick break for a word from this week's first sponsor, Stamps.com. He quits the show. Hi, welcome to POS. Can I help you? Yeah, I'm looking to ship a few things, some personal stuff and some stuff for my small business. Oh, you should sign up for Stamps.com.

God damn it. Really? Stamps.com brings all the services of the U.S. Postal Service right to your fingertips. Buy and print official U.S. postage for any letter, any package, any class of mail using your own computer and printer. Okay, but what about here? Aren't you guys supposed to be like super good? You can do that here? Uh, you'd think, right? No, we're more like drug dealers shipping with mean people. We are super expensive, though, if you wanted to spend extra money. Right, right.

Great. Well, I was kind of looking to save some money. Well, then you're going to love Stamps.com. They'll send you a digital scale which automatically calculates exact postage. Stamps.com even helps you decide the best glass of mail based on your needs. No need to lease an expensive postage meter or any of that stuff. Okay. And you guys?

We put mostly untrained people in government-looking uniforms and trucks. You guys don't have special... Nope. Just dudes in trucks. We decided are important, so we painted them a color. But that's nothing governmental. That's just us. Great.

Fun. We actually use stamps.com for all the merch for Scathing Atheist. Let's just take care of Patreon fulfillment, and it's super inexpensive, like you said, but I just thought, like, because I'm here now. You use a stone teenager in a mini mall instead? Oh, yeah. All right. Well, I guess not. Okay.

How do I give it a try how do i try stamps.com okay well right now you can enjoy stamps.com service with a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus postage and a digital scale without long-term commitments you just go to stamps.com click on the microphone at the top of the home page and type in scathing that's stamps.com enter scathing stamps.com never go to the post office again or a dark room filled with cardboard next to a staples like this one yeah or that great and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight attorney general and number one seed in the whitest name ever tournament,

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. Is it the number one seed? Nope, nope, none of that, none of that. I am the two seed, not the point. We're talking about Jay Sesh, who continues to serve his post in the Trump administration, much like a mentally disabled rat on the Titanic. But his physical appearance isn't really the issue.

It's more about the fact that he's a giant bigot who's in charge of the entire Justice Department and yet doesn't get how laws work. And just in case that wasn't already clear, Jay Sash put out a 25-page memo last week that basically says, laws from the earthly realm don't count if you prefer those from the spirit realm from now on.

Right. So Jay Sizzle has the same excuse of everyone who's ever gotten caught balls deep in someone they aren't married to at Burning Man. Okay, I got it. Yeah, but I feel like that analogy breaks down if the person he's fucking gave him permission. But yes.

True, yes. Yeah, so we're not sure why he needed 25 pages for laws are optional now, but there it is. The Justice Department wants laws to be optional. At least if you believe in magical silliness like the Bible or Patton Oswalt's invisible sky cake. For example,

if there's any sort of conflict between basic human rights for like the LGBT community versus Christians who don't like touching sodomite money, the new rule would say, stop being gay, then you can buy all the penis cake you want. It's a weird rule. Okay, what if you stop and then go back to being gay after you've eaten the cake?

Do you get a refund? Do you have to pump your stomach? That's a good question. We'll have to get Andrew on for that one because, damn it, if you're going to pay a lawyer, you better ask him once in a while about penis cakes. And let's make no mistake here because we are talking about a Justice Department memo that says, all right, Christians, you can discriminate against everybody but the blacks. I mean, even the memo itself basically admits as much. Yeah. Never good when your memo

has to caveat, except for the blacks. We know that's in the book, too, but come on, guys. Yeah, so basically Sky Cake trumps penis cake, assuming it's sincerely held Sky Cake. Of of course that's the new

guidance from uh the justice department and just for the record sessions didn't come up with these new guidelines all by himself um wanting to be responsible he consulted with the experts first and yes in this case that means he met with a hate group yep to make sure we'd be hating right. He actually held a series of meetings with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a hate group, and asked them for, quote, suggestions regarding the areas of federal protection for religious liberty most in need of clarification or guidance, end quote. Or translated back out of political nonsense language uh pick three groups and you're allowed to lynch them that's basically what he was what he was

saying he also might have added please help me until donald trump gives me a sock i'm stuck being the official white house elf i don't like it here yeah i'd love to help you jay dog but i have a feeling i'm gonna need you to drink a potion for me in a few years by a lake. Now, make me some more than fudge stripes, bitch. And in these aren't the boys you're looking for news tonight. President of Americans for Truth about homosexuality and man who is convinced the spiral of cinnamon cotton candy he glued to his forehead is fooling everybody. Peter LaBarbera is feeling fairly wrath of conful

this week. You're going to get that in a second. Wait for it. Because the newest iteration of Star Trek backwards. If you listen to my jokes and then you listen again they are mediocre.

Just turn the record the other way. Star Trek. Anyways, he's mad because the newest iteration of Star Trek contains gay characters, but no ex-gay characters. And neither do most Hollywood productions. No, they do not. Yeah yeah no because you've run into klingons in the wild more often i also want to point out the new star trek has no former lamanites that have become white and delightsome it's a bunch of fucking bigots anti-religious bigots okay but it verifies to the hollywood bigots like if tom hanks is already cured of

aids when philadelphia starts doesn't really go anywhere there's no character arc at that point about a gay dude yeah i think i'll go for a walk outside okay so appearing on the program crosstalk this week he educated host jim schneider on just how biased liberal hollywood's portrayal of homosexuality actually is saying quote we have yet to see an ex-gay a former homosexual prominently portrayed in hollywood end quote which means either he's not watching or he's not counting tom cruise and john travolta i'm not sure which just looking at travolta's chin that's technically sodomy. That's what Jesus said, yes. That's true.

So LaBarbera added, quote, homosexual activists are never satisfied. They always want more, more, more, end quote. Leading homosexual activists to respond with a statement, tell me about it, honey. Yes. Yeah, first it was exist legally, and now it's continue to exist legally where will they stop exactly so what's a poor christian hate group leader to do well of course boycott and then retroactively claim victory and insight he said the following quote i guess all we can do is not watch star trek end quote as though he was going to start watching all of a sudden. He said, adding to that, quote, this sort of propaganda and political correctness

is why Trump won in the first place, end quote, which, if we're being honest, we need to admit is true. According to the statistics, only Peter and myself have access to 90 of third party voters missed and 85 of non-voters stayed home because they were distracted by all the butt fucking and sci-fi that's just the fact oh and we need to take that to heart no all right. Nailed it. Cliff Clavin style. Little known fact. And in speaking of penis cake news tonight, we were talking about penis cake earlier. That was off the air.

And now there's a whole story about it. Now it's on the air. Penis cake. Speaking of penis cake, here we are in a new story. Or, well, penis cake, that's at least what the Christian bigots think this story story is about it's actually about a series of business owners refusing to provide their goods and services to gay people claiming the religious freedom of discrimination yep and for some reason it ends up being bakeries a lot of the time refusing to sell wedding cakes to gay couples

well the supreme court is going to be ruling on the subject this fall because apparently we need the highest court in the country to figure out if gay people are allowed to buy stuff right yes destined to be known as the who would you do for a klondike bar case question if this goes the wrong way are there still laws like at all are there any not if you're christian okay i'm a christian mormon counts we we're good no it doesn't it definitely doesn't yes so the uh the case in question is an anti-discrimination lawsuit in which a gay couple is suing the owner of a colorado bakery for turning them away we We've covered this before. And thanks to the Supreme Court being recently stocked with a hate crime in a robe via a giant combination of scams, including a nuclear option in the Senate and also a real life

Bond villain from Russia choosing our president. Thanks to all that stuff. There's actually a chance the court is going to rule in favor of bakeries having a sign that says uh gay people need not a pie that's a possibility it's a small one it's a possibility excellent again making all the laws not real anymore right if you're a christian like don't get me wrong i'm excited to purge i just don't want to get my machete out for nothing. We'll have to get Andrew on. There's no laws if the laws don't matter. If you're fake means the laws.

Right? It's just me. Again, I think Mormon... No one says Mormon doesn't count. I don't know. This is the world we live in now. On the one hand, all those Jill Stein votes really sent a message. So that was great.

That was great. But on the other hand, the entire LGBT community and also any other minority group that Christians might decide is gross. That includes us. That includes us. Apparently, all those people are relying on an 81 year old justice who wants to quit his job who was nominated by ronald reagan to do the progressive thing yeah granted he's actually done that before most notably in the obergefell case but uh but still how is this even a question what the fuck i mean yeah let's let's just subject this one to the lemon test and by that i mean let's shove a lemon up this baker's ass preferably one

that has three prongs. It's a better lemon. I'm not sure how that would work, but that's why we have legal counsel. How do we get more prongs out of this lemon, Andrew? Ooh. Yeah, so we'll have to wait and see what happens with the Colorado bakery case. But until then, Lucian Graves of the Satanic Temple, one of my favorite people, he has a great idea. So the problem right now is that sexual orientation

still isn't a legally protected class, but religion is a legally protected class. And unfortunately for religion, Satanism is a religion. And that's why Mr. Graves is suggesting that we all start ordering Satan-themed cakes to fuck with Christian bakeries, which will either point out the hypocrisy or actually terrify these bigots

into breaking an existing law. So, win-win. Plus, you get cake like half the time. I'm actually thinking about making an order right now, and I wonder what that would be like. What that would be like. What that would be like. Welcome to Christian Baker's.

How can I help y'all today? Yeah, we're planning a wedding. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, we're pretty excited, aren't we, bitsy pookums? We sure are, snuggly whips. Oh, you two are too much. When's the wedding?

Halloween. Oh, fun. Yeah, well, you know, we obviously want to please our great father. Oh, your dad a big Halloween fan, is he? You could say that. Thank you. Oh, okay. So for the cake.

I was thinking black and red. Oh, honey pumpkin. Do we want to put red on the cake i feel like it's gonna get red on it anyway well maybe if a certain boogie woogie wasn't such a sloppy slicer i am i am it's true sloppy slicer you know what i have some pictures in the car. I'll be right back. Okay, don't forget the Manson ones. That Charles Manson, that is. She gets so excited. Sure. Not bad. You guys going to have a chocolate fountain?

Oh, there's going to be a fountain. Anyway. Yeah. And before Eli can say what that fountain would be i'm gonna hand things over to my lovely wife lucinda it would become i'm still gonna hand things over to lucinda a man wrote the bible a horse which one if it's a legitimate rate cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man. This week in Massage. I got a weird email from a listener on Tuesday, giving me shit for being, in his words, conspicuously slow to condemn Harvey Weinstein.

So, to that listener and any others who felt the same way, I want to sincerely apologize for not springing into action the second the story broke. Solving both the technological and logical problems with time travel, going back to last Wednesday, and re-recording my bit with a preemptive condemnation of Harvey Weinstein. So, for the record, this is the first time I've been on the air since the story broke. And the only reason I haven't mentioned what a disgusting, sloppy, fat piece of sexist shit Harvey Weinstein is already is because I was busy responding to that email and the only reason I bothered to do that is to make it super clear that the bullshit accusation underneath the email is this notion that I'm only out to get people on one side of

the political spectrum which is fucking silly I mean when one side takes money from a guy who later turns out to be a serial sexual assaulter and the other side elects a guy to the highest office when they already know, odds are I'm going to talk more about the latter than the former. But I absolutely and unequivocally condemn misogyny wherever it comes from. So, yes, absolutely. Harvey Weinstein can go fuck himself with a railroad tie. Absolutely, Harvey Weinstein can go fuck himself with a railroad tie, as can the seeming legion of people that empowered him, covered up for him, looked the other way, and profited off his predatory depravity. And while I'm inviting people to go fuck themselves, I'd like to add all the news outlets that failed to report on this for the decades that it's been an open secret in Hollywood. Just like they failed to do with Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly,

etc., etc. And as much as I love Gwyneth Paltrow's line about this kind of behavior stopping now, I think it's probably about as realistic as her medical claims on vagina lasers. There's an ingrained culture of misogyny in this country, and despite a ceaseless army of Twitter accounts trying to mischaracterize and minimize the threats women face in America, the real takeaway from the Weinstein story should be that we're a long fucking ways from done with the whole feminism thing. But there's a silver lining around this story, and it's not just Harvey's ball hair. See, the thing all of these guys have in common is that they're old as fuck. Harvey Weinstein, 65 years old. O'Reilly, 68. Cosby, 80. Roger Ailes is all the way to dead. And maybe that's just a sign that men can get away with

this shit for a really long time. But if you're inclined to be optimistic, you could say that it represents a generational change because there is real outrage about this practice. And it's not like Harvey Weinstein is the first producer to swing his dick at a young hopeful actress. I don't say this to excuse his behavior or anything but the producer as the sexual predator is a fucking cliche and maybe what we're seeing now is a new generation taking control that won't put up with this shit anymore. Now don't get me wrong I'm not trying to put you in a good mood here since Since the last time we spoke, the fucking pussy grabber in chief resented the birth control mandate and an anti-abortion congressman announced he was resigning after it came to light that he tried to talk his mistress into getting an abortion. So it's not like this is one of those weeks that screams progress. But that doesn't mean we give up hope.

Hell, if Saudi Arabia can move forward, maybe we can too. And on that cheerful note i'll hand things back over to noah heath and eli thank you lucinda and then i thought we hadn't opened up the north pole drilling yet news tonight turkish archaeologists believe they may have discovered the final resting place of saint nicholas and much to megan kelly's chagrin it wasn't a white guy i feel like after what was almost certainly Bill O'Reilly's penis, nothing can give Megyn Kelly chagrin. Like, there's no...

All right, well, speaking as an Irish person who's been in many locker rooms full of other Irish people, I'm sure whatever O'Reilly did was terrible, but there's no way the penis itself was the scary part. There's not an intimidating situation, no. For those at home who are wondering what sport is an all-Irish locker room, the answer is lacrosse. Lacrosse.

I think it was more O'Reilly's chagrin in that situation. So researchers located an intact burial ground below St. Nicholas Church in the province of Antilia, where Santa Claus is believed to have been born. And though they haven't found an actual body yet, they're pretty sure publicizing the fuck out of this will make them a lot of money. The Oaks Island guys just start

digging next to him. Good luck! Hope you don't find a water demon! That's from our other show that you should listen to, but you don't. don't now would it kill you as it turns out it's a lot of fun there's actually some controversy about who has santa's mortal remains apparently one version of the story suggests that sailors smuggled his bones to the city of bari italy uh that's where the saint nicholas basilica now

stands um a competing narrative has those sailors getting duped into taking the wrong bones while the actual bones stayed behind in turkey after the nation fell the muslim invaders out around the first crusader so uh still another suggests that they're still stuck in the chimney of that girl from gremlin's house get in there now i just really want to sneak into the burial ground and plant like an empty casket with a note that just says, suck it, the Grinch. Give him the finger. And finally tonight,

it looks like we finally found the headline we've been looking for. We've spent years trying to find a story about religion causing problems for society. We have. We're constantly having to exaggerate stuff to make our point. Scientific progress is important. Bigotry is bad.

You shouldn't rape kids, blah, blah, blah. We all know those examples weren't great. Today, however, is different because today we learned that judges in flyover states have been teaming up with a Christian substance abuse program to provide the chicken packing industry with literal slave labor. Fuck. That's happening. Judges just like, I hear you like quack cocaine. That doesn't really work in this instance, Your Honor.

Yeah, well, you're a slave now. Yeah, so that's all real. According to a recent expose by Reveal News, judges in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas have been offering convicts with addiction problems two options. Option one, prison, or option two, live and work in a chicken plant for no pay while attending mandatory bible study and christian counseling and the majority of the counselors aren't certified by the way and some of the victims haven't even stood trial yet and the bible is revolting uh for example it endorses stuff like slavery this is slavery did i mention the slavery part i feel like honestly i'd be cool

until they brought up the bible study i'd be like only because you've never been inside a chicken house i just want to say it's a good thing this happened before that 25 page memo came out because i believe sincerely held belief in slavery is okay now it's true okay so uh if you're keeping score at home the christian people behind this scheme managed to violate two different parts of the constitution this time as usual they violated the establishment clause in the first amendment but that's pretty standard we have a secretary of education doing that every day but what's not standard is a violation of the 13th amendment that's the one that says no slavery just to be clear and it's nowhere near

as popular by the way as the second amendment we have a weird racist country bad yeah one other fun detail the name of the rehab program is christian alcoholics and addicts in recovery or c-a-a-i-r which is the perfect redneck acronym for care kair as in we kair about bibles and big chicken and of course we here at the scathing atheist kair about terrible acronyms and that's why we're going to go ahead and put 30 seconds on the clock acronym ideas for the poultry themed slavery rehab program that's the same thing that makes sense to say right now go oh acronyms along three different themes thanks for picking an easy one this week heath i appreciate that that's good um freedom from opiate wellness life or foul how about chickens overcoming opioid obsession plantation or coop

it's still better um how about i got a good one helping others to wellness in general subjugation or hot wings oh the in yeah the end it would be little i n would be little yeah uh the uh ketamine felon center kfc about getting over opiates stimulates southern slave economy or goose bird um no this one you can use in a lot of different instances Christians love ourselves a captive audience Or cloaca That's a good one Helping environment for narcotics

Slavery Hens I had no good No you had two good ones Your foot just kind of fell off the pedal there towards the end of the song. About slave quarter clucker wins against abusing booze. That would be squab. Oh, I see.

Squab. Squab is a... Let me bring this home. Let me bring this home. me bring this home how about the holistic independent society for integrated serfdom and wellness education and world attention to help inmates recalcitrants and trouble youth succeed in expediting chickens over never-ending devotional study or this is a weird 30 seconds i had this in my head Where's he going with this?

See, I'm getting a long one. All right. Well, after a 25-word acronym, I need a minute to let my logophile meter recharge, so we're going to close off headlines there. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Throw noodles inside, babe, at PastaCon. Don't do that. And when we come back, Joseph Smith can go fuck

himself. But dress up as noodles. Dress up as noodles. We'll see you there! In a world where finding good employees can feel impossible. Hey, no, it's Jennifer. I can't come to work today because I'm sick. Again. See you at Angela's party tonight. We't come to work today because I'm sick. Again. See you at Angela's party tonight.

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And right now, our listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free. That's right, free. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing that's ziprecruiter.com slash scathing zip recruiter the smartest way to hire nothing in the rulebook says a dog can't be a janitor or engineer hey guys uh you ready to go what the hell are you wearing? Oh, just getting ready for PastaCon Get my back

Well, hold still This is hard to Tickles You're covering Heath in manicotti For PastaCon Yeah I mean, we don't want to be left out, do we? I'm getting spaghetti myself

Like a nice traditional I'm telling you, everyone's going go with spaghetti. You're going to look stupid. You're going to look stupid! I am going to look stupid. Right here, guys. PastaCon is just, it's a play on Pennsylvania atheists. Humans get it?

You mean it's not a noodle convention? No, no. It's a secular convention and it's going to be awesome. David Silverman's going to be there, Hemet Mehta, Callie Wright, Cybabe. Wait, the Cybabe covered in noodles? It's just like my dream. See, I told you that journal would work.

No, no, no. She's given a talk on fake news. She's not going to be covered in noodles. There's going to be a panel on NDEs, a stand-up comedy show, and there's even a service project on Sunday. Okay, is Hemet going to be covered in noodles or not? I'm trying to find out on Sunday. Okay, is Hemet going to be covered in noodles or not? I'm trying to find out, Heath. Relax. Guys, guys, this looks like an amazing convention with some incredible speakers,

and if I was anywhere near able to go, I'd go to atheistpa.org, that's atheistpa.org, and check it out right now, but nobody's going to be going there covered in noodles. Except for us. Right. Okay, except for you. Manicotti. Reaching the end of the Book of Alma is kind of like getting to the end of Texas on a road trip.

You've been in Texas forever. You've been counting down the miles to the state line. And when you finally get there, that feeling of accomplishment evaporates as soon as you realize you just celebrated getting to Arkansas. And it's with that sense of exasperated futility that we enter into the Arkansas of Mormonism, the Book of Helaman. You know what I like about this book? The brevity. The soul of the way, isn't brevity his soul of way and it never repeats itself real page turner anyone else put themselves to sleep by mumbling and it came to pass now just me okay and of course joining us in this ceaseless endeavor is my lovely wife lucinda lucinda welcome back are we still doing this i not until you get us started i guess

don't tempt me so we open up this one in the 40th year of the reign of the judges when pahoran dies and everybody's arguing over who should replace him right and and the finalists it would seem were three of pahoran's sons pahoran jr paeanchi and and pacumeni but ultimately peyhoran wins he gets to be the judge yeah they decided based on most confusing name yeah right right but paeanchi is a sore loser apparently so he tries to stir the people up to rebel against peyhoran but before he can manage that his brother has him tried and executed for being about to do that no half measures mandatory minimum death so as revenge the pro peyanchi people send an assassin named kish kuman who kills peyhoran and then escapes

to a life of aimless wandering like jules winfield at the end of pulp fiction i love the quote here it's it's quote but behold so speedy was the flight of kish kuman that no man could overtake him end quote okay are you thinking what i'm thinking uh wiley Wiley E. Coyote remade with Kish Kuman as a runner. Yes! What? We are synced up. So they put Pacumeni in charge now and the next year a Lamanite army attacks them and apparently they learned their lesson about the dick slap so this time they wore

the shit out of some dick armor. They come in just dick armor this time get stabbed in the face. Damn it! Alright! And that army, by the way, is led by Coriantumr. Not Coriantumr, son of Omer,

mind you, and not Coriantumr, the last of the Jaredite kings, but since Coriantumr is such an awesome name, I guess Joey uses it for the third time for this new character. This book has three Coriantumers. It's like he doesn't have enough syllables in his face. He has a lot of trouble.

And because the Nephites were so busy arguing about assassinated judges, they couldn't be bothered to defend themselves. So Coriantum takes Zarahemla and kills Pacumene. By banging him against a wall until he dies apparently that's exactly what happens here's the quote and it came to pass that coriantumur did smite him against the wall in so much that he died and thus ended the days of pacumeni who spellcheck thinks is named payment is what the thought pacumani was that settles it though we need vincent d'onofrio for the next mormon peace theater either that or the dude from the raid yeah exactly and then morana ha ha sends an army to fight him it wins crantmore dies and the Nephites get Zarahelma back. So everyone we met in this chapter is dead

and none of it mattered. I don't get it. Da da da da da da I would like all the money please. Instead you're just going to get angry tweets. And now we meet the titular helaman son of helaman who takes over as chief judge now that peyote peyote whatever is dead and this is where

we meet gaddy anton now right right i was so excited now if you listen to gam you know how this guy turns out but so far all we know from the book is that he's buddies with kish kuman the guy who murdered payhoran jr and he's really good at bad guy stuff like robbery and murder yeah he's like moriarty and so gaddienton and his band of merry murderers head out to kill helaman because, you know, he's the good guy. Right. The bad guys kill the good guys. That's how it works. But just then,

an unnamed servant of Helaman finds out their secret plan, stabs Kishkumen to death, and then rushes off to snitch. And he finds this out through disguise. Kurosawa shows up to kill Helaman, and this guy just throws on a fake mustache, and he's like, me too

and then we get, this might have been my favorite moment in the entire book so far this is the most comically inept foreshadowing you can imagine, I'm just going to read it in its entirety, this is two verses and behold in the end of this book ye shall see that Gadianton did prove the overthrow, yea almost

the entire destruction of the people of nephi followed by this addendum actual quote that i'm not exaggerating behold i do not mean the end of the book of helleman but i mean the end of the book of nephi from which i have taken all the accounts which i have written oh god not this book the book inside this book not that one no this one next book never mind the meta book the overbook jesus so several years pass here and the nephites get uppity again and many of them move north to inherit the land which is a particularly disturbing turn of phrase when you're reading it on Columbus Day, by the way. Yeah.

This chapter is basically, so if you think about it, Columbus was just getting revenge. And this is when the Native Americans really got to working with cement. Which was invented in 1824, like Joey was around when they invented cement. That was six years before this book was published, and he's got the Nephites building houses and cities out of it in 39 BCE. And he's just really making sure nobody who ever looks into this becomes Mormon here when he says, quote, And it came to pass, as timber was exceedingly scarce in the land northward, they did send forth much by the way of shipping, end quote. So again, just to be clear, not just a civilization, not just a civilization made of concrete with steel, but an entire export business that nobody in the world ever kept records of. Yeah, exactly. Or left any kind of sign in the archaeological

record. Yeah. So the Nephites all fucked the Lamanites until they become Lamanites because, you know, W plus O equals O. Right, exactly. Blood traitors. Meanwhile, Halaman is judging the shit out of the land despite all of the contentions and

stiff necks out there. Right. Also, he has two sons named Nephi and Lehi. Further proof that Joey just got to the end of his name ideal list and started again at the top. And I cannot emphasize enough how much this chapter feels like five-year-old is done writing a book he just started. The Holy Book. Yeah.

And then? Yeah. And then without having done anything noteworthy at all, the titular character dies and his son Nephi takes over as chief judge. And because Nephites have all the civility of a Twitter fight in the next chapter, they start killing each other and drive a contentious group out of their land to join the Lamanites. Yeah. They started Nephite plus. Yeah. Never advised.

nights. Yeah. They started Nephite plus. Yeah. Never advised them. But eventually the Nephites repented and God gave them back half of all their shit because he still wasn't all the way over it yet. Yeah. Just like God you said you weren't mad. I'm not mad. I'm just being

careful. What does that mean? You should know what that means. If you don't know I'm not going to tell you what that means. So Nephi gives up gives i love you nephi gives up the judgment seat and takes a to preaching about inequity and whatnot in chapter five also i'm pretty sure there's mention of satanic dick tornadoes in this chapter all right nephi's recalling an endless deathbed speech his dad gave him and at one point his dad says quote the devil shall send forth his mighty winds yay his shafts in the whirlwind

so nephi and lehi go out a preaching and convert a bunch of lamanites and eventually they get thrown into lamanite jail luckily they use their flaming donut of righteousness to protect them while they're in prison though they're safe right the lamanites try to burn them but nephi and lehi like notice they're they're not burning which which seems odd no no no it's cool it's cool we're not burning did you shit your pants I shat my pants you yeah no I'm me too so everyone at the prison becomes a Mormon and Nephi and Nephi head out on other adventures no doubt with the sad Hulk music playing in the background so after a couple thousand years of war, the Lamanites and the Nephites kiss and make up. And for a while, everybody's righteous,

and they, quote, did have free intercourse with one another, end quote, which is nice. Pixar didn't happen. No, they had cameras back then, Joey's pretty sure. Yeah, of course they did.

And just when everybody's getting rich and all, Caesarum,arum cesarum that's the judge that took over for nephi he gets assassinated and and so does his son who takes over so to be fair the piece lasted a literal sentence in this and this is where the Gadianton robbers and murderers really come into their own and start stirring up trouble. So the important thing to remember about the Gadiantons is that they're a secret society of murderous, dishonest people

with secret words, signs, and handshakes that produce nothing of their own and rob the innocent for their sustenance. So like the Mormon church, except it's called the Gadianton Rob. Different names, but yeah.

I'm sorry, Lucinda, did they have a beautiful city where I could get mind-blowing avocado toast and perfectly made coffee? So, Nephi, after many years of preaching in fire force fields, eventually returned to Zarahelma to find it all evil and Gadianton-y. Yeah, you know what they say.

You can't go homo again. Yeah, that's what Peter LaBarbera says. So Nephi is whining to himself about how to make Zarahelma great again. And all the people are like, man, that's some really good whining to himself. Let's go listen. really good wine into himself let's go listen and so then we're treated to a speech from nephi about how pissed off god is adam for hanging out with the gadientans that lasts for most of the rest of this book and they set this speech up as this like big moment and it literally says and it came to pass that he opened his mouth and he said to them it just says you guys are assholes yeah right for like nine chapters yep and the whole goddamn speech could be summed up as guys it's like 22 bce jesus is right around

the corner we're gonna look like idiots when he gets here and at the end he throws out a quick magic trick where he's like and if you don't believe that i know all this stuff go check your judgment seat i believe you'll find a chief judge murdered, and he'll be holding the six of clubs. Sure, when he does a murder-themed magic trick, it makes it into a holy book. But I kill one hobo, and Noah takes away my fire cage. That's fine.

This is why I'm Mormon now, so you know. On air. So, the crowd runs off to check and see if the judge is really dead, and their conclusion here is well if he is dead obviously nephi is a prophet not obviously nephi is an assassin and since this is the book of mormon and everyone's a fainting goat when they find the body they all pass out yeah me too so they drag nephi before the court he's like guys i didn't murder chief judge

cesoram uh this is a different cesoram by the way spelled differently um it must have been scientum the gadianton and i can prove it he says go ask scientum if i killed cesoram and he'll say no and then ask him if he killed cesar m and he'll say still no but that time he'll be lying it'll be obvious they all sound like they have side effects all the names sound like they have so then god shows up and decides nephi is ready to level up so he gives him the power to seal and the power to loose and there's this amazing moment where God introduces himself and Nephi. He's just like, you're Nephi and I'm God. Just to be clear, who is who right now?

And if you're wondering, by the way, what the power to seal and loose is, apparently that's omnipotence. Because when God starts giving examples, he's like, well, if you want to split a temple in two or level a mountain or murder a random person with God powers, I am on that shit for you. Which are really weird examples.

I giveth thou omnipotence with which thou can eat unlimited amounts of meatballs or give your dog an extra vagina. Awesome. Do what, what god or other stuff but despite his unlimited powers nephi can't convince anybody that he speaks for god so everybody goes to war with each other just kind of randomly i guess everybody against everybody, I think. Yeah, but no odd jobs and no golden guns. No zips. And finally, Nephi's like, God, this war sucks.

Can we just kill people with famine instead? And God's like, what part of omnipotence did you not get, you fucking dumbass? Yes, fine, now we're doing famine. You have the power to seal it loose. Which is a really fucked up decision. I mean, there aren't many things worse than bleeding out on a battlefield from a prehistoric scimitar wound but watching your children starve to death is definitely on the list yeah so nephi's solution here is well war is great and all but can we make

it crueler right but but apparently that worked everybody stopped warring when they got hungry enough i guess and after a couple of years of starvation they repented so nephi turned off the famine seems like three years was a longer demonstration than he needed though right i mean i know it's the book of mormon so maybe he did it for six months and everyone went right back to killing you think that was kind of overkill yeah And then the narrative abruptly ends and the book starts telling us that it's learned something today. It's like a slightly less racist South Park. You know what I'm saying?

And the big message that it takes away apparently is humans suck at being religious enough. Be sure to drink your Ovaltine of scriptural parables. Yeah, if radios were made of Ovaltine. Yeah, be sure to listen to the radio. I do want to point out one way the Book of Mormon is superior to the other holy books, though. It makes it super clear that the earth is revolving around the sun. Eat your heart out, the Quran. Yeah.

Please do not eat our hearts out. That would not be good. Gotta specify. Also, as he's listing all of God's awesome powers, he tosses in that God has the ability to curse buried treasure chests if he wants to. I have no idea why that made the list along with like stopping the earth's rotation and having mountains fall on top of cities. Just long tail marketing for pirates.

I guess. But it's also very helpful if say you were ever going to bury golden plates and then decide they'd never be found again. No, but they were pulled back up to heaven at the end, I think. And then we spend three

chapters hearing from a new character named samuel who was a lamanite prophet come to tell the nephites how bad they were fucking it all up yeah and sammy's message like all the other prophets in this book is smart and upper god will kill you the only thing that makes this one different is that god starts a ticking clock this time and he's like okay all right you guys have 400 years to repent or out and there's also a little bit at the end here where samuel says their wealth will become slippery and i'm pretty sure he meant it as a metaphor but i like to imagine that eli is just going to get get into their treasure chest it's going to be sticky and slippery. Coming in your treasure chest, the Eli Bosnick story.

Now available on Amazon. No, it's not. I could get it up there. Yes, you could. Anything that you want. Give him ideas. And then Samuel verbosely predicts the sign of Jesus' death, which are, of course, an earthquake, an eclipse, a thunderstorm, and continental divide.

which are, of course, an earthquake, an eclipse, a thunderstorm, and continental divide. It's nice Joe has doubled down on the stuff we know didn't happen. Gives it that authentic, holy book bullshit flavor, you know? Yeah. I love Samuel's descriptions of the calamities to come if they don't repent. In chapter 15, verse 2, he says, quote, Your women shall have great cause to mourn in the day that they shall give suck. End quote.

It's like a Harvey Weinstein thing. I'm pretty sure that means God's going to shrink down their dicks. That also sounds like Harvey Weinstein. Check, check. Right. And then he wraps the verse by pointing out it'll really suck for pregnant women because they'll be too fat to run away when the destruction gets going. He actually says that. Yeah.

Okay. It's in there, people. Let's be clear. If you can't get a laugh out of the image of a pregnant woman fleeing a volcano, then you're dead inside, all right? A little imagination, people. Just waddling. Yeah, no, it'd be great. So Samuel wraps up and a bunch of Nephites run off to get baptized, but the rest of them

decide to kill Samuel. Unfortunately for them, God made him arrow-proof, so they couldn't. Feels like that's awkward for the people getting baptized, though. Like, hey, I'm arrow-proof right now, too, right? Maybe. Maybe we hurry this up and dunk you. So, Samuel runs off,

and the Nephites go about being all stiff-necked and iniquitous. And then one day angels show up and said, hey, guys, straighten the fuck up. Yeah, but even angels weren't enough at this point. And most of the Nephites were like, what the fuck does that cherub know? And they just carried on in their sinful ways. Yeah, I got to admit, the only carrying theme of this book is that everyone in the book of mormon has a very very short memory yeah like green party voter who was alive in the year 2000 the fuck and then the book ends with the people going yeah this jesus thing is probably bullshit

sure hope that doesn't come back to bite us on the ass bite us on the ass and unfortunately for the listeners but fortunately for us we have to keep you in suspense on that one because that's where the book of helleman leaves us and i'll be fucked if we're gonna read any more until the next installment of the book of mora Before we fly the coop tonight, I want to remind you that there is no God. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday,

and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'd have to make amends in the old way if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for so often being the calm voice of reason around a short-tempered, screaming misanthrope and a disturbingly optimistic manic-depressive with no moral compass. I need to thank Eli Bosnick

for usually trusting us on which way is morally north. I need to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for not resenting me for having a dick at this point. Tough set of headlines to comb through every day. Also want to thank the incomparable Andrew Torres of the Opening Arguments podcast just for being an awesome guy. Happy belated, Andrew. Also want to thank one of my favorite people

for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. We love all of our listeners here at Puzzle in a Thunderstorm, but we love April the best. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most humorful humanists, Rich Denny, Trans Rich Ships, Thomas Smith and Heath Enright, Jasmine, Louise, Melissa, Lars and John. Rich Denny and Trans Rich Ships, whose full IQs may finally be tweetable without using scientific notation. Jasmine, Louise and Melissa, who are so sexy their mamas had to warn them about themselves.

And Lars and John, whose dicks are so big there wasn't room for a third name in this compliment. Together, these eight amiable and atypically able-bodied atheist aces aided our aim to alienate the Abrahamic anuses and their amoral amens this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the copious genitals it takes to give us money, but if you think your junk is up to the challenge,

you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an ad-free extended edition of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com.

And if you'd like to help, but you've invested all your spare capital in potassium iodine pills, I get it. Between now and Armageddon, you can help us out a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, liking us on Facebook, or just blaring the show at churches through a boombox a la John Cusack and Say Anything. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission.

If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com. Thought you were going to yell at me or something. That's fine.

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