The Scathing Atheist - 260: Ritually Abused Edition

Episode Date: February 8, 2018

In this week’s episode, we’ll discuss the international, secret child rape cabal from the nineties that didn’t exist, Virginia considers a tax on porn despite the very visible hands that guide the market, and, speaking of strokes, we’ll talk about Pat Robertson. 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/ Guest Links: To check out the Habeas Humor podcast, click here: https://habhumor.libsyn.com/ Headlines: P-Robes survives stroke: https://religionnews.com/2018/02/04/pat-robertson-is-recovering-after-suffering-a-stroke/ Prof claims Moody bible college fired her for advocating gender equality: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/04/professor-claims-moody-bible-institute-fired-her-for-advocating-gender-equality/ Superbowl Scientology ad: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/04/super-bowl-scientology-ad-urges-viewers-to-research-the-church-online/ Christian blogger: Yoga designed to create satanic trance: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/christian-blogger-yoga-demonsus5a741a5de4b01ce33eb1794b?section=us_religion Anti-gay marriage pastor ex minister could be costa rica’s president https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/anti-gay-marriage-pastor-ex-minister-run-off-costa-rica-president/ Follow-up: The Pope DEFINITELY knew about Juan Barros covering for pedophiles: https://religionnews.com/2018/02/05/pope-francis-received-sex-abuse-victims-letter-contradicting-denial/ Ann coulter thinks the Eagles won because their QB is christian https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/ann-coulter-congratulates-super-bowl-qb-religion/ Steven Anderson banned from Jamaica for being too homophobic: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/01/30/christian-hate-pastor-banned-from-jamaica-for-being-too-anti-gay/ Christians push bill that would force charge people for watching porn online: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/01/31/youd-have-to-pay-20-to-watch-porn-under-these-bills-by-christian-conservatives/ This Week in Misogyny: Lady Doritos: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/02/05/why-are-lady-doritos-such-a-big-deal/

Warning, we were going to do a profanity-free episode this week, but then we were like, ah, fuck it. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, Blue Apron, and by Joe's Pizza on Carmine Street, the best slice in Manhattan. Eli thinks it's Papa John's, but that's because he's a savage and he lives in poverty, so he doesn't know any better. Joe's Pizza's the best, and Eli's poor. And now, the scathing atheist. This is Sharon from the Habeas Humor podcast. Do you have cats like I do? Then you know,

most of what they do all day is lick their own fur, swallow it, and then vomit everything back up on your floors and your furniture. Do you have a dog? If the answer is yes, you probably know that dogs eat poop. What I have just done here is completely disprove intelligent design, therefore confirming that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's February 8th.

What the fuck happened to Heath? I got a little sick. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright with The Plague. And from New York, New York, Secret Lair, Pennsylvania, this is Gating Atheist. On this week's episode, we sacrifice satanic ritual abuse to the gods of bullshit. Virginia considers attacks on porn, despite the very visible ritual abuse to the gods of bullshit. Virginia considers attacks on porn despite the

very visible hands that guide the market. And speaking of strokes, we'll talk about Pat Robertson. But first, the diatribe. Okay. Now, I know a lot of you don't give the slightest flake of a shit about football. Your response is, whenever I bring it up on the show, make it way more clear than there's really any socially acceptable reason for you to make that so i promise that this works its way around to atheist stuff pretty quickly but it starts at the super bowl and what a fucking super bowl it was underdog team backup quarterback repeated fourth

down calls that made you wonder if doug peterson's balls were gonna have to leave the stadium through the freight exit and somehow they managed to pull out a win could not have been more impressed with the eagles head coach until he turned the post game celebration into a fucking tent revival the game comes to a close feels covered in green and white confetti all the pomp and circumstance they they walk the lombardi trophy through this big crowd of people. All of them are kissing it despite the particularly virulent flu this year. And then they finally reached a little podium where they're going to honor the new champions. Team's owner comes up first. He offers up this rambling bullshit sentence that reminds everybody why he doesn't say words for a living. And then they turn to

the coach so he can offer up his thoughts on the win now keep in mind he is representing a team of 53 players some 150 coaches and executives thousands of ancillary employees and hundreds of thousands of fans that have waited 56 fucking years for their team to finally win the big one so who gets the first thanks from the head coach why his lord and savior jesus christ of course you know him he's the omnipotent guy that kills babies with cancer for not getting enough facebook likes and it wasn't just fucking peterson after that they interviewed philly's quarterback give him the mvp award jesus also gets top billing in his things they interviewed some other asshole drones on about god giving him the opportunity and that's when i fucked off and got back to work. And look, I get that the whole idea here is to promote humility, right? I mean, that's their

thought anyway. You don't have the coach coming out and going like, hey, how about me? Am I right? But if you think about it, even for the briefest of seconds, you realize how about the omnipotent ghost that chose to favor me over everybody else? Am I right? Scores way worse on the fucking humility scale. Plus, starting off by thanking your players, coaches, front office staff, and fans, that's also a great way to express humility. And they have the added advantage of existing and being right the fuck there. But there's a lot more wrong with it than just that, right? It's not that they're doing humility wrong. In a certain sense, it's that they're doing it at all. Holy shit. Everyone who ever took the time to learn to throw or catch a fucking football dream to win in a super bowl if ever there was a

time to pat yourself on the back this would be it you know that doesn't mean he's got to go out there and talk about how awesome a coach he is for a couple of minutes but maybe a message about the merits of hard work and determination right maybe a reminder that even if you fail at something 55 years in a row you can still achieve it to be honest i'm having trouble thinking of a message you could send that wouldn't be better than the magical king of the universe decided he liked me the best this time. But if you want to appreciate the really sinister end of this tendency,

it's worth asking why humility is so damn important to religions in the first place. Take Christians, for example. God sure as hell isn't humble yeah every time in the bible somebody's like hey god maybe this would be a better idea god has to go off for 15 minutes about how they can't make it rain or open the doors of leviathan's face he refers to himself as the alpha and the omega he burns people in hell for failing to appreciate the grand scale of his awesomeness so obviously they're not saying that humility is a prerequisite for goodness. So what message are they sending?

Well, let's see. If the product you're selling is a magical being that can solve all your problems, what possible advantage could you gain by promoting the idea that one is incapable of solving those problems by their self? What better way to reinforce the need for their product than drilling it into your head that you never get to take credit for your own accomplishments? I mean, let's be honest about what's going on here, right? Because it ceases to be humility as soon as it's required. And if the guy telling you you've got to be humble is also the one who

gets all the credit or the brand of religion he's selling gets it. Well, in that case, I guess it's even more self-serving than stepping out on the podium and saying, let's hear it for me. Look, the whole reason religion is able to exist in an educated society comes back to this same bullshit concept, right? Life is hard and you almost never get it right. And if on the few occasions when you do get it right, it's been drilled into your head to give all the credit to Jesus. It's pretty easy to conclude that you've never managed to accomplish a fucking thing, no matter how accomplished you are. And for the sake of the example, imagine the world these people think we live in, right? Their God is a hopeless fuck up. He can't put in eyeballs

without getting them upside down and backwards. Couldn't come up with a single design for a universe that didn't include brain-eating bacteria. And he's constantly being cast aside in favor of gods that don't even exist. In his own book. I mean, think about that for a second. Imagine, like, an employee shows up for work every day, somehow only rarely convinces a small fraction

of their coworkers that they're better at their job than an inanimate fucking statue. That's the fuck-up that they worship. And in order for their whole humility thing to make any fucking sense they have to believe that they're even more imperfect than him they're talking about you jesus joining me for headlines tonight are my co-conspirators, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to co-conspire? Witch Hunt. Release the memo. Wait.

Not that one. Don't release that memo. I personally never met Heath. He was a very minor role in my podcast. I can't recall meeting him. Can't recall. Yeah. No, right.

Obviously, we need a minute to get our story straight, so we're going to pause for a quick word from this week's first sponsor, Stamps.com. Dear No Illusions, how are you? It's me, Ben Carson. Still stuck in this elevator. Thanks for sending me those ramen noodles and sour patch kits. They have been a great comfort. I called Donald and asked him to send someone, but he kept asking which one I was, and I don't think he actually sent anyone.

I would love to send you these figurines I've whittled out of elevator buttons, but I'm afraid my funds are all tied up in Bitcoin. Love, Ben Carson. Dear Ben, Glad to hear you're doing well. Still not sure how you got my address or why I seem to be the only person

you've communicated with about this. Have you tried stamps.com? Cordially, no illusions. My dearest Noah, it breaks my heart to sign a letter of love and see your cordial response. Do you not care for me as I do you? Also, what's stamps.com? Ever yours, Ben Carson. Ben, 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.

And then the mail carrier picks it up. No more trips to the post office. I use stamps.com for all the Patreon fulfillment, including the 40 copies of diatribes volume two that went out to our high level patrons last week. Cordially, Noah. Noah, my love, I see you ignore my request for reciprocal affection, and while I'm not surprised by the blade, the cut is just as deep.

Perhaps, like an ocean to a stone, my love will wash over you and sweep you away bit by bit until, like all true love, you become a part of me. The very core of me. The sand to my sea. Ever yours, Ben Carson. Ben, you're kind of freaking me out. And right now, you too can enjoy the Stamps.com service with a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus postage and a digital scale. Go to St stamps.com

click on the microphone at the top of the home page and type in scathing that stamps.com enters scathing good luck with the elevator thing cordially noah and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight host of the 700 club and tweed draped liver spot pat patty melts rots Robertson managed to push the snooze button on his eulogy yet again after tragically surviving an embolic stroke on Friday. This news led to the shocking revelation that up until Friday, blood actually was getting to his brain. Apparently, had been the whole time. But despite his advanced age and overall worthlessness as a human, even when he was still young enough to lift stuff and whatnot medical resources were invested in him so he's expected to make a full recovery yeah i'm guessing it wasn't too expensive though feels like you could just like soak a paper towel in blood and press it up to his liquid face yeah right that's where it needs to go guys guys he has a family i'm just kidding no no it's nice to know for a second that oxygen did as good a job of getting into his brain as

thoughts though right yeah right so doctors released a statement over the weekend saying that pat robertson was alert and cogent proving that all combinations of words will eventually be spoken. You guys picturing infinite Pat Robertsons reciting Hamlet in like heavy Ephesian? Well, now I am. That's what I'm picturing right now. Whole cast, all Pat Robertson. Of course, the Christian Broadcasting Network

was quick to leapfrog over all the doctors, medical technicians, and researchers that actually made minor strokes something other than a contradiction in terms instead they gave all the credit to jesus who was still basking in that super bowl victory when asked why a loving god would make blood clots that can slip into our brains and kill us in the first place a representative from the cbn responded quote oh come on like making embolic strokes is objectively worse than making Pat Robertson. End quote. Okay. But again, he is a liquid.

You could have Pat Robertson inside your arteries and be fine. He would just kind of cycle around like honey. It's called AIDS heat, and it is not to be joked about. Okay. Is that how that shit works? All right. So Robertson is expected to be released from the hospital on monday and should make a full recovery which is the kind of thing you imagine a doctor's putting in air quotes when he's talking about a 87 year old dude who thinks that gays are trying

to kill him with secret aids decoder handshakes or pat robertson handshakes as i call it yeah exactly um it remains to be seen which oppressed minority robertson will blame for his mortality but vegas odds makers favor the gays, satanic liberals and trans people in that order. If you're making bets. And in free species news tonight, in what will no doubt make the Internet explode in think pieces, YouTube takedown videos and a lucrative Patreon career for her. Professor Janae Garrick was fired from her job at a university this week for her views on marriage. Wait, sorry, this just in, she was fired from a conservative institution so all the people who pretend to care about this stuff when

a liberal college does it just disappeared into a neoconservative shaped cloud of Axe body spray. Now, you're probably thinking, Eli, are you bringing this up just to point out the hypocrisy of the so-called right-wing free speech advocates? By Jove, he's got it. And the answer is no. No, I'm not just doing that. Oh, I see. She was fired

from a religious college, so this is what we call in sports a twofer. Uh, no. What sport do you think twofer is part of tennis nailed it yeah got it okay so here's the story on paper like this is the reason that moody bible college gave for firing her janae was fired for saying quote as an egalitarian i believe in biblical equality that god created women as the equals of men or more aptly that God created women as the equals of men, or more aptly, that God created men as the equals of women. I believe that women should not be excluded from any role, function, or office within any sphere, work, church, home, end quote.

So that's why they say they fired her for thinking women are people. Yeah. That's their story. This feels like a Catholic church type of story. Like, the sugar-coated version is, thousands of kids got raped, but we mostly didn't know about it. It's not a great starting point. Right.

Janae, on the other hand, thinks it has a lot more to do with the Title IX discrimination complaint she helped a student file in 2016 that forced the college to drop its gender restriction on its previously male-only pastoral ministry major okay so that's a that's a different reason aren't those the same reason though really one is a thought and one is an action but it's the same thing so in her lawsuit filed this week garrick says that moody knew she thought women were people

when they hired her and that she never did anything to hide it but again the university which just for clarity has received 24 million dollars of public funding oh for fuck's sake their position is we didn't think she was so uppity so we fired her. Yeah. That's their excuse. Alright. Next up we have a story about whose house? Elrond's house. So we learned last weekend

that Scientology continues to have the enormous budget that's required to buy Super Bowl ads and I'm getting a little verklempt. So talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. Scientology is neither science nor ology. Discuss.

I mean, I don't know that we could take away its ology. Also, based on the amount of money they're making, we need to start selling e-meters. Can we sell e-meters? Is that a... I'm pretty sure we can. So this is the sixth year in a row that the Church of Scientology ran an ad during the

super bowl which means for five years in a row their science-y sounding nonsense was successfully generating more money than the multi-million dollar price tag for the commercial but what's even crazier is the angle they took with the ad this year instead of their normal vague bullshit they came out and directly told everyone to google what is scientology which is insane because their entire belief system is literally a bad sci-fi novel well like actually literally exactly that yeah but but by the time they actually get around to admitting that to you, you've funded the next Super Bowl ad. So it works out. They're basically based on a multi-million dollar recruitment campaign on by the time you figure it out, it's too late because our SEO is better than Wikipedia's.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like the way they advertise Star Wars movies now. Okay. So here's what people might learn if they actually google what is scientology now the first few pages that i got were actually church-owned websites and they definitely made sure that before running the ad but still the wikipedia page was result number four and that's where you could very quickly learn that the church of scientology is actually just a cult

created by a terrible sci-fi author named l ron hubbard who lost the rights to his book when his company went bankrupt in 1952 and he just took that story and turned it into a religion instead of that novel well at first he tried to turn it into a a psychiatric practice but then he found out that they had rules and that's when he decided to call it a religion. Because it was too crazy for 1950s psychiatry. I say, Ronnie, my boy, I'm all for electrocuting the occasional hysteric,

but you've gone too far. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, and here's a few quick highlights of the Scientology worldview that they suggested we look for according to elrond the history of humankind on earth began about 75 million years ago when xenu the tyrant of the galactic confederacy i have questions had billions of people flown to Earth on spaceships. The spaceships looked just like airplanes that were being made when this was written. What are the odds?

Yeah. And Xenu stacked up all those people and their airplanes next to volcanoes and then detonated a bunch of hydrogen bombs inside the volcanoes. Which makes either the hydrogen bomb or the volcano superfluous. And the bombs were just like the bombs that were being made when this was written. What are the odds?

And since the volcanoes were obviously filled with magical demons that had fallen from grace into the volcanoes, which were located right below the grace, the volcanoes right under that. They fell into those. And then the bombs caused those demons to cluster together and stick to the bodies of the people,

the living people who survived the series of nuclear explosions and volcanic eruptions that happened right next to them. And that's why the pages are sticky now uh naturally those demons became our everlasting souls and this began a cycle of demonic reincarnation that can only be stopped for 99 easy payments of a big chunk of your salary 99 every year but don't answer yet because you're in the silence room for the next three days seriously you know okay you guys make fun but i think my idea for this year's Scientology ad that was just, at least we're not Islam, was still a good one. I mean, it was second place.

They didn't choose that. It was. I'm surprised that they didn't. It's definitely better than asking people to Google Scientology. That's a good ad for a lot of stuff. At least we're not Islam. Heinz ketchup. Yeah.

Okay. So. Lady Dorita. My Tinder profile. So, you know how Rick Santorum can't really use the internet anymore for campaigning? Because Santorum is now a word that means the anal discharge after butt sex, thanks to Dan Savage. Well, I'm thinking we need something similar for Scientology. And maybe something for the name of their leader,

which is David Miscavige. Although he's already almost there with the mix of cum, lube, blood, and feces. But any ideas are welcome. It's already so close to miscarriage, too. Yeah, right. It's a miscarriage that's induced by a punch. Out of a cavernous vagina.

I think that's called abortion. I'm just... Oh, Jesus Christ. She disagrees. And yet the courts called it murder. What the fuck? Thank you. And in Namaste the Fuck Back news tonight,

Christian blogger and large hamster with a safety razor matt walsh has renewed his relentless attacks against the evils of yoga this week by warning christians that it might be even more dangerous than playing with a ouija board no well no he's right he's right because you could pull a muscle doing yoga yeah Plus that plow position shit that's terrible for your neck. But Walsh did us the favor of leapfrogging over all of those legitimate concerns and going straight for the dangers of unintended satanic trances. Oh. I mean, you put me in a room surrounded by sweaty women in yoga pants,

and I do think some evil fucking thoughts. He's got a point. That is true. But honestly, a room full of dry, not sweaty women in baggy sweatpants does the same thing. That's true. Pretty much just having a penis. That's a demonic trance. Unintentional or intentional.

I don't understand why that matters either. This comes to us via a blog post on The Daily Wire, where Wall starts off by wishing people on Twitter would be nicer to him. After all, all he did was innocently tweet out some suggestions for workout programs that, quote, do not involve participating in Hindu worship, end quote. And this somehow resulted in the entire Internet knowing he was an idiot, thinking he was an idiot. So in an effort to get the Internet to make fun of him less he posted a blog that contains these actual words in this actual order quote you may perform the moves without consciously

seeking the demonic trance they were designed to help you attain but it would seem you are quite literally playing with fire uh no not literal no that's not what that word means. You are quite figuratively playing with fire. Not even that, really. I would do more yoga if there was a literal ball of fire involved.

It needs a little more sport to it. I need someone to lose the yoga. Stuff isn't fun without losers. There needs to be a loser of the yoga. Stuff isn't fun without losers. There needs to be a loser of the yoga. If you don't think there are losers in yoga, you have never seen me do yoga.

I have not. Really? You're in child's pose again. We're doing child's pose, Eli. How did you go to child's pose from child's pose? We said all shitting meant you lost. Even solitaire sometimes has a loser. So, all right.

Now, later in the piece, Walsh strikes what he seems to think is a reasonable tone and does concede that yoga won't necessarily land you in hell. Heck, he even admits that he doesn't, quote, think you'll automatically be possessed if you do yoga, end quote, which is nice. Centrist. But he likens yoga to the latent spiritual dangers

one might find in a Ouija board or a horoscope. So, you know, we'll update you on Twitter's sincere apology and newfound appreciation for Walsh next week. However, that pretty obviously opens up the field for Heath and I's brand new business. Yes. God damn it, guys. Atheist yoga.

Hit it, Morgan. Hello. I'm Eli Bosnick. And I'm Ethan Roth. Or at least we used to be. Now that I'm a yoga teacher, you can call me Starfire Starfire. And I'm Whistling Whistle and we're here to tell you

about Atheist Yoga that's right with Atheist Yoga you get all the health benefits of stretching with none of the demonic trances just listen to this section from our latest DVD and breathe

into your lungs because that's literally the only thing you And breathe into your lungs because that's literally the only thing you can breathe into. We'll teach you things like stretching. Stretching. And stretching. And Pilates ab work

that we pretend is yoga. Atheist yoga. There is no God. And in ironic shithole news tonight, the people of Costa Rica have cast their votes in the first round of elections for president this week and sent a message of solidarity, a message of unity,

a message that they fucking hate gay people. Right, yeah. No, because at a certain level of national shitholiness, there are no immigrants to demonize just like all right they took our jobs wait what no we don't have sorry stupid stupid they took our um our dicks to get people take dicks okay they're cool they don't like the dick, dick, dick. Exactly, yes. In a political move that has people sadly crossing Costa Rica off their runaway to blank boards this week, Fabricio Alvarado, a 43-year-old lawmaker with the National Restoration Party,

who is also a strongly anti-gay marriage pastor, took 25% of the ballots in the first round of the election, sending him to the runoff against Carlos Alvarado.ado no relation they just only have four last names down there a 38 year old former labor minister from the ruling citizens action party who scored 22 percent of the vote the other the other three last names by the way if you're curious are diaz rodriguez and uh schmidt well i mean this this whole thing it sucks for gay people in Costa Rica, obviously. But I'm pretty happy with the market solution here. If it means that a whole bunch of homophobic Americans go to Costa Rica with their like

shitty, sticky kids that everybody should hate and a bunch of successful gay people with expendable income move to the U.S. That would be great. That would be fantastic. Well, that is a positive part of it. See, the scary thing for me about this story is that everything I'm reading about this election sounds like Trump 2.0. Like everyone thought he was a joke candidate until he started going super hardcore right wing and rallied support from rural and poor areas. His liberal opposition was divided by third parties.

And most importantly, lots and lots of people think he has no fucking chance of winning i think we should back up for a second and consider how far we've fallen when we're worried that the democracy of costa rica right the mexico of nicaragua won't be at least a little better than ours yeah i mean when i think election integrity i think central america said no one ever jesus yeah so costa rica if you're listening and i know you are don't blow this your election is on april 1st please make sure the joke's not on you and in pope perry smells like teen spirit news we have a follow-up on a story from two weeks ago about the Pope's latest trip to South America,

during which he hung out with Bishop Juan Barros of Chile. And you might remember how this meeting drew lots of criticism, considering all the allegations about Barros covering up for pedophile priests, obviously, and considering how Francis didn't stab the shit out of Barros with his extremely sharp hat, which is the only reasonable thing to do at that point. Well, you know how these stories about kid raping,

they often end up being just a big misunderstanding? Uh-huh. Jean Benet. Nope. Well, that never happens. No. And still never. We learned this week that Barros definitely witnessed sexual abuse and covered it up.

And we learned that Pope Francis absolutely knew about it and lied about it. Right, right. He's just there. Oh, did I say zero tolerance? No, I meant what's the next one up after zero? The next tolerance. Hey, hey, one step. The Pope is inconvenient pronoun level tolerant of pedophilia, my friend.

Okay. Zero is a giant pedophile apologist. So during the trip from last month, Francis was asked about the allegations against Barros and he responded, quote, there is not one shred of proof against him. End quote. Well, it turns out the Pope's a very literal man because there is not one shred of proof there's a fucking bunch of shreds and that includes an eight-page letter sent directly from a victim to the vatican describing the sex crimes that barros personally witnessed wow other shreds

include statements from multiple members of the pope's commission for the protection of minors about how they hand delivered that letter to cardinal sean o'malley who hand delivered it to the pope in 2015 there's even a literal photograph of the hand delivery process why have they not learned their lesson yet about keeping the rape cover-up so well documented right i mean it's great for us but you think at a certain point they'd be like you guys want to just talk about this kind of shit on snapchat from now on yeah that means at some point someone was like i'm sorry before i give you this letter full of evidence of child rape um cheese what the fuck okay weird face weird face Sorry one more Let's do a wacky one

Charlie's Angels Charlie's Angels Literal Angels We've been told we're literal angels I don't want to get into it Alright so Just a couple quick notes Before we wrap up the story.

First of all, stop being Catholic. Right. Just everybody do that. Or, you know, at least stop giving money. But really just stop being Catholic. These are the guys who get that money. We're talking about the guys who get off money for you know just about any organization that

needs to have something called the commission for the protection of minors that's not a good sign especially if there's an omnipotent

deity at the top it's a good chance something might be a miss yeah they have to have that right

okay then well we encourage you to continue to donate to us on patreon and think up a new name for them belts we used to tie down eli when the moon is full. I guess we're going to hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda.

A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. If it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in Masada. Just when you thought you'd never find the cheese dust flavored corn chip for you.

Am I right, ladies? Equal pay, shmeekle shmay. You know, you've really made it as a demographic when you have your own Dorito. Now, look, I know that normally I try to talk about shit that has a religious angle to it on this segment. That is what the show is about, after all. But when they throw shit at me like lady Doritos, what the hell do they expect? So, yeah, PepsiCo's chief executive, Indra Nooyi, showed up on Freakonomics the other day to lay out the groundwork for the company's then upcoming line of feminine snack chips. What makes a snack chip feminine, you ask?

A pink handle? pH balance? More absorbent? Well, no, it's actually a quieter chip because women shouldn't crunch unless they're crunched to. And look, despite of a lot of the criticism I've seen of this online, my issue isn't so much that it's based on gender stereotypes, it's that it promotes gender stereotypes. Because despite what a lot of people seem to think, I'm sure this wasn't the byproduct of a bunch of dudes in a room scratching their balls and pausing between fantasy baseball talk to say, hey, I bet dames would like shut the fuck up Doritos. What probably happened is that they did a shit ton of marketing research and spent a ton of money to find out that a lot of women actually did choose not to eat some snacks in public because they're too loud. Now, that fact is probably based in the sexism all by itself, what with society always reinforcing the notion that a proper lady doesn't make too much

noise or take up too much space. So in a roundabout way, sure, this is a result based on sexism. But up to this point, it's also a company recognizing that figuring out what women want is also part of their job. Up until now, this is actually a story of the good guys doing a good thing, even if it is a trivial one. But that all falls apart as soon as Indra Nooyi starts saying they're for women. That's some cart before the horse bullshit. What they're releasing is a chip for people who prefer to be less noisy when they eat. And if that happens to appeal to women more than men, great. But selling it as a lady version is about as stupid an own goal as you can make in

this game. So yeah, the internet had a lot of fun with this one over the last few days. But don't worry. I'm sure once it gets over this blatant and undeniable reminder that our culture is still inherently sexist, it'll get back to bitching about how feminism is bullshit. And until it does, I'll take my leave of you and hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in, it will be a Coulter Day in Hell news tonight. Conservative pundit and scarecrow impersonator ann coulter knows exactly why the philadelphia eagles won their first super bowl in franchise history last sunday night gentlemen any guesses oh oh i know this one uh it's because bilicek and brady want all the super bowl records and the only ones they don't have at this point belong to Marv Levy and Jim Kelly. I was going to guess it's because God knew I

needed a good laugh and watching idiots from Philadelphia try to climb up street light poles that were pre-lubed by the police was the perfect thing. And that is a true story. They Crisco'd and gear oiled and Pornhub offered to send them like 135 gallons

of lube. They knew the city so dumb they were going to riot. What's funny is that I knew about that before the Super Bowl and the people in Philadelphia climbing the fucking poles didn't. It was the greatest. They were just flying all over the place. I was just laughing my ass off

walking through Philadelphia. It was fantastic. Fantastic. No, it's none of those, sadly. It's because their quarterback is Christian. Oh, are they the team with the Christian quarterback? Yes, that's right. See, rejected anorexia-themed Barbie took a break this week from retweeting James Woods and people with the word Nazi in their profile. Wait, James Woods doesn't have Nazi in his profile?

Not yet. He does not. Okay, all right. So she took a break from that to congratulate the Eagles saying, quote, Congratulations, Eagles! 10 exclamation points.

QB Nick Foles, Christian! End quote. And all I can say is that the Patriots quarterback, Mushy Goldman, did his very best. I think they all tried their best, and this is a really mean way to rub it in. That's all I'm saying.

Right. Yeah, I guess Carson Wentz's ACL's Jewish, too. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so here's the thing. We all know that Tim Tebow is the most Christian athlete ever, and he did so well as a quarterback that he's on the Mets now. So, Ann Coulter, if you're listening,

I'm happy to take your bet on the Mets winning the World Series. Yeah, there you go. Whatever odds you need to trust in God, I'll give them to you. Just call me. I'll take that bet. Anyway, so as of this recording, Ms. Coulter accidentally rubbed her arms together and burst into flame so we'll probably have to wait until the next full moon when she regenerates

to see what she tweets next if it's a red moon though yeah red moon and in jamaica stand news tonight jamaica decreased its overall shit holiness this week by at least never having stephen anderson in it anderson who you'll remember from his giddy celebration of the Pulse nightclub massacre, blaming human trafficking on the Jews, calling for gay genocide to get rid of all the AIDS, and saying cooking can be fun in the Twim intro for the last 180 episodes or so,

recently canceled a planned trip to Jamaica when the country told him they'd rather shoot the fucking plane down on its approach than let him step foot on their soil. This makes the total list of countries that have gone to the trouble of banning him by name five long. Jamaica now joins Canada, the UK, Botswana, and, and, too racist for, South Africa. All right, well, he's fucking up our song. It's hats off to Botswana Canada

the UK South Africa Jamaica not on the list yet alright well I mean it's going to have to be hats on pretty soon maybe we just do hats on hats on in the United States we don't really have anything more about

well it's bad here maybe just tell the liberals the wall is to keep steven anderson in and they'll be fine with it exactly we should emphasize here that too homophobic for jamaica is every bit as impressive as the two races for south africa was jamaica is a legitimate contender for the most homophobic country in the world it It consistently scores an F on LGBT rights. Gay sex is punishable by life in prison if you're a guy. It's not illegal if you're a woman anyway.

But despite that, Anderson, whose name shows up on 58 different files when I search our past episodes, has been formally banned by the nation's chief immigration officer. Amazing. Next week, he's going to get a letter from a farm co-op in argentina just like dear steve you're no longer welcome in the fourth reich you're gross love nazis he got a steve we need you to stop meaning it love countries that only pretend to mean it slightly less than you letter now anderson was shocked by the decision responding in part quote i've seen a lot of stuff online that said jamaica is the most homophobic country in the world so it's pretty weird that i would be banned from jamaica because of my views on homosexuality and quote he then went on to blame

the illuminati and the u.s government because of how anti-homophobia the trump administration is and how excited jamaica is to follow orders from the trump administration sounds all correct yeah now after canceling the trip or having it canceled for him anderson announced that he'd be taking his ball and going to some other caribbean country uh but he didn't specify which one so nobody would know to ban him from it yet just steve walking up to people on the beach at sandals resort orlando you know gay sex by definition is violent gotta tear the lining and finally tonight lawmakers in virginia proposed a new bill last week that would block access to all internet

pornography unless residents pay a 20 fee to get it back per device what so if you like to run a nice collage of material using your laptop and your tablet and your desktop and your phone and your old phone and your older phone like some people enjoy doing you'd have to pay like 120 to get all that porn back or you could just leave virginia for any number of great reasons including this one it still goes through you know i want to take a second here to brag to all the other decades right that that like that being asked to pay twenty dollars once for access to unlimited porn instantly in all locations would be an unbearable burden to us suck it the other decades and i want to take a second to point out just how low they bowled themselves they could have

revitalized the second mortgage industry in the state. Yeah, so Virginia House Bill 1592, also known as the Human Trafficking Prevention Act, is aimed at stopping the practice of sex slavery by attacking the root of the problem. Sorry, the exact opposite of the root of the problem.

By attacking a tiny piece at the end of the stem of the problem. This is like trying to end shitting with a tax on apples. Actually, it's dumber than that. It's like trying to get equal pay for women with a tax on glass. Ooh, ooh, maybe we can offer up a compromise where we just build a glass ceiling over Mexico. Ooh, and then we video a bunch of men shitting on that ceiling film it

and charge people in virginia to watch the video it's perfect it pays for that yeah right right excellent excellent all right we solved the shutdown no need for a shutdown guys we got it yeah so the original idea for the bill comes from a christian bigot that we've covered before named chris sevier i don't know if you remember him oh yeah he's the guy who filed a lawsuit that would allow him to marry his computer because that's just like gay marriage he was trying to make a point about that and uh that was actually one of his more reasonable lawsuits among many others he's sued apple computers planned parenthood barack obama and the entire u.s government as a whole,

all for complete nonsense. And the list is way bigger than that. Also, he claims that he rescued sex slaves in Southeast Asia while working with an organization called Orphan Secure. But, according to the president of Orphan Secure,

absolutely not. He's like, watched a David A.Rr white movie and got confused or whatever anyway one other fun detail according to a hashtag that's been going around sevier's dick is shaped like a cd and he once sexually assaulted a computer eli do i have that right i'm pretty sure you started that hashtag you do you do he other sources have it that chris is a little chicken bitch who wouldn't dare sue us because I would come to court dressed like a sexy computer. That's just what other people

are saying. Not me, obviously, but that's what my sources tell me. Bring it, Chris. Honey pot him with a CD ROM slot. Fantastic. That's what government officials in virginia are spending

their time on the uh income tax isn't enough they also want an outcome tax but fortunately people thank you fortunately for people who enjoy orgasms and happiness virginia is full of first amendment enthusiasts so if the bill looks like it might actually pass i'm sure we'll have plenty of dudes with tiki torches chanting whose information super highway our information super highway and uh marching around either way they're going to continue coming all over confederate statues that much that much we know for sure all right well then now that we've managed a happy ending i suppose we can close up the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Eli predicted the stock market crash, but somehow he's still poor.

And when we come back, we'll talk about dismembering children for fun and profit. Has this ever happened to you? I'm sorry, Mr. Bosnick, but your debit card has been declined because you're poor and shaped like a squash. Oh, no. How will I pay for my vegan dirt pile? I'm afraid you're going to have to wash some dishes. But I'm allergic to water. Then why not try Blue Apron? Wait, what's Blue Apron?

Blue Apron is the leading meal kit delivery service in the U.S. They deliver fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and step-by-step recipes right to your door. They can be cooked in under 45 minutes. 45 minutes? That's how long it takes me to poop while everyone's waiting to go somewhere or do something. It sure is. I use Blue Apron because I like to eat delicious, fresh cooked meals and I have the human decency not to go out to eat when I can't afford it.

Does Blue Apron accept incorrectly spelled IOUs? No, they do not. But right now, Blue Apron is treating our listeners to $30 off the first order if you visit blueapron.com slash scathing. So check out this week's menu and get your $30 off at Blue Apron dot com slash scathing. Oh, good. I'm going to buy a brand new iPhone just to sign up. Hope my card doesn't get declined. Hey, guys. What are you doing in here? Nothing. We're not doing anything.

Nothing at all. Nope. Oh, I thought I heard you recording. Nope. Nope. No recording. Not recording. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Blue Apron. better way to cook i knew it here at puzzle in a thunderstorm we pride ourselves on having equal opportunity outrage and while we can all agree that religion is the largest and most menacing purveyor of bullshit, it hardly has a monopoly, which is why we take a few minutes now and again

to glance over the landscape of dubious claims and ask ourselves, How bullshit is it? So tell us, Heath, what fragment of farcical fecality will we be talking about today? Today, we'll be talking about satanic ritual abuse. Jean Benet. Nope. Nope. None of that. So tell us, Heath, what is satanic

ritual abuse? Well, Noah, back in the 80s, before we had Obama, there were no federally protected pizza parlor basements where we could rape and mutilate children like our Dark Lord demands in sacrifice, so we kind of had to improvise. And once in a while satanists would pick a spot that wasn't quite secure enough and news of our infanticidal rituals would leak to the public luckily for us though the cover-up was so thorough that no credible evidence of any of it was ever found by anyone, anywhere, ever. Okay. Except not, right? Well, it was either that or a huge percentage of the population

lost their fucking minds for a couple decades and went on modern-day witch hunts that used stories of monsters under the bed to convict innocent people of imaginary crimes and rob them of decades' worth of their freedom. Okay. It's not if that happened that I'm worried about. It's which time that happened, I'm

wondering. Yeah, right. All right, so we've long since learned that when it comes down to Americans being either evil or stupid, the latter is usually the right answer. So how did this all get started? Well, moral panics that target helpless people stretch back as far as recorded history, but this one has its origins in a book called Michelle Remembers, a woman named michelle smith and her husband lawrence pasder it was published in 1980 and discredited soon after and it relied on the fictitious concept

of recovered memories as evidence that michelle had been the victim of horrific abuse at the hands of satanic cults and that seems to be the first place that a claim like this shows up right and to be clear by discredited soon after we mean this book made a claim that a five-year-old outwitted a multi-generational satanic cult that nobody ever heard of or noticed even when they kept her out of school for 81 days and cut pieces off of her body which they absolutely did not. Alright, alright. Step one seems to be make up a problem. Check. And step two?

Profit. There were no intermediaries. Nothing sells better in America than fear, especially if the opposite of what you're afraid of is Christian. So the book was wildly popular and Pazder developed quite the media profile. Soon, he was giving lectures about satanic ritual abuse to law enforcement organizations. Jesus. And his

book was being used by prosecutors when they were preparing cases against alleged Satanists. By September of 1990, Pazder had acted as a consultant on more than a thousand sra cases which means that the number of people accused of a crime nobody ever actually committed was at least a thousand salem which steps out of a time machine into the 1980s she's just like still fuck yeah right back in and keep in mind that many of the people who were accused of sra actually were abusing their kids so they knew they were guilty of something then along comes a prosecutor offering a better deal if they just admit that they're part of a satanic cult right then and there and the end result is that a lot of people are actually pleading guilty to a crime that absolutely does not exist gotcha i mean but

at least they are going after child abusers right right? Yeah. And if they only convicted child abusers, then maybe the worst thing about this would be the resources they had to waste chasing down imaginary conspirators and international networks. But they also occasionally go after innocent people. I feel a for example coming on. John Bonet. A different for example, actually. Yeah. For a different example look at the mcmartin preschool trial as you can imagine the group's most vulnerable to false accusations tended to be preschools and daycare centers obviously if you want to recruit kids for

your mutilation cabal that would be the next best cover after ping pong themed pizza parlor so a lot of the accusations centered around preschools and this culminated in a media frenzy of a trial against a california preschool and preschool all of this because of the shit that this pastor dude was able to stir up with his book uh not really he started a lot of it and he was still fanning the flames here but this was in 1983 and by then the story had picked up a few more villains for example key mcfarland she was a social worker for the children's institute international and she's also the person who invented the show me on the doll where he touched you doll that was her fun fact they don't let you keep those they don't matter where they touch those they don't

let you keep those now i hesitate to call her a villain because it seems like she actually did think she was rescuing children from mutilation and sex abuse but at the same time her methods were so bad that you know what she's definitely a villain maybe a stupid villain to be fair but she's a villain all right So what kind of methods was she using? Come dowsing. That's dowsing. And no, it turns out she used leading and coercive questions during lengthy interviews with four and five year old kids. And apparently she rewarded discussions of abuse and punished denials. It also should have been a red flag that every single kid ever that she interviewed turned

out to have been a victim of satanic ritual abuse oh really yeah okay but according to that rule colombo's a bad cop so what are you saying you're saying colombo's a bad cop no all right so so what happens to the staycare well they got dragged through court for a couple years and had their public reputations destroyed thanks especially to some brutal media coverage against the defendants, which were Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckley. But ultimately, the state dropped all the charges that related to conspiracy or Satanism anyway, and just charged them with child abuse, which they were acquitted of. OK, so did the acquittal slow things down at all? Not in the slightest farlin went on the following year to take her concerns directly to congress according to wikipedia she warned a

congressional committee about quote scatological behavior and animals being slaughtered in bizarre rituals that children were forced to watch end quote now i'm not sure where the scatological behavior factors into this but it screams vamping for a picture that wasn't supposed to wind up in your power she would later export this hysteria to australia and also the uk okay weird random infatuation with scat and she stole our live show schedule coincidence you decide no those are large countries heat decide yeah well there's no problem so big that geraldo rivera can't make it bigger that's important to remember even worse like even the iraq war he nope yeah correct so in 1987 geraldo rivera produced an hour-long television special about satanic cults where

he claimed, quote, There are over one million Satanists in the United States and they are linked in a highly organized secretive network. End quote. Yeah. You know what they say? Two can keep a secret if there are nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety. All right. So up till now,

we've been referring to these allegations by pretty general terms, but what kind of shit were the intellectual elites like Geraldo suggesting was actually happening? Basically, every truly fucked up thing you can think of. Wow. Okay, so you get a strong horse. It needs to be strong.

No, thank you. Not everything you can think of, Eli, just the stuff I you can think of show me on the horse where no so uh accusations included every manner of torture including forced necrophilia forced ingestion of feces and blood cannibalism infanticide and the eating of fetuses and the fact that evangelicals listed the last one separate from cannibalism kind of tips their hands on the whole abortion question. Yeah. But to be fair, it also shows off some knowledge of food at the same time. So, balance is there. All right.

So, this sounds fucking crazy. Did people actually believe this outrageous shit? They were Americans, so of fucking course they did. Yeah, right. But in a lot of ways, it was the level of outrageousness that made the stuff stick. Later studies would show that the stories of SRA basically propagated through law enforcement agencies and psychiatric conferences as urban legends.

So naturally, the more grotesque the accusation, the more likely it is to permeate those groups and become fuel for the panic. Guys at a meeting are just like, hey, chief, why are you holding a flashlight under your chin for this briefing shut up man shut up you're wrecking it the mood all right so is this the kind of thing that just shrinks down to where you don't notice it or is there like a point where it actually ends well there are still accusations of satanic ritual

abuse today but it's no longer taken seriously by like therapists or law enforcement or social workers. Most people will peg the end of the panic somewhere between 1992 and 1995. And for that, you can give a ton of credit to HBO. Actually, they released a documentary in 1995 about the McMartin trial that highlighted the kind of overzealous prosecution and flimsy evidence that was being offered up and by then psychologists were starting to realize that the whole concept of recovered memories was complete nonsense so right plus hbo also gave us hookers at the point series around then so we were all titillated out with like yeah mean all right so everybody lives happily ever after well some of

the people that were convicted during the panic are just now getting out of jail so maybe eventually ever after um but this panic definitely caused a whole bunch of terrible problems that didn't go away just because people eventually wisened up for example during this whole period there actually was an international religious-based child rape cabal operating throughout the country with thousands of conspirators right and despite the unprecedented amounts of money being spent by the government nobody got any closer to that group in fact that group is still around today and is still getting tax breaks all right yeah wow unicef irony sucks so i guess the only question left to ask is how bullshit is it uh it's cardinal pell being too colicky to attend a hearing about kids getting raped levels of bullshit all right

there you go well thank you heath and thanks to all the fellow illuminati who made sure that history remembers this is just some kind of unfounded moral panic. And with that, we can step out of this pile for the time being until our duty duties demand our return to How Bullshit Is It? Before we sign off for the night, I wanted to let everybody in the Pennsylvania area know that they can come out and see me on Sunday, March 4th. I'm going to be giving a talk to the Lehigh Valley humanists called How to Survive a Theocracy in Eight Easy Steps. And I'd love a chance to meet you while I'm there. I'm going to have more details by this time next week. So stay tuned and keep an eye on our Facebook page for updates.

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 Godolphin Movies debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister show Citation Needed at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this show would only count for half credit if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for battling through the Black Plague to be with us tonight. I need to thank Eli for battling through his hypochondriac anxiety to be with us every week. And I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for battling through the patriarchy to be with us at all. And of course, also want to thank friend of the show, Sharon from Habeas Humor Podcast for providing this week's

Farnsworth quote. If you're not listening to her show yet, you can correct that oversight with a handy dandy link on the show notes for this episode. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most amazing anthropoids, Albin, Dr. H, JB, Benjamin, Dumb All Over, Melissa, Marshall, Mark, I forget about it, Trixie, Skipadrong, Skip the Flute Ring, Brandon,

Koa, and John. Albin, Dr. H, JB, Benjamin, and DumbAllOver who are so sexually magnetic their genitals have auroras. Melissa, Marshall, Mark, A, ForgetAboutIt, and Trixie whose number Marching Saints sing about hopefully being in. And Skipadrung, SkipTheFluedRing, Brandon, Koa, and John who are so hot that if he'd had

them, Zeno wouldn't have needed those volcanoes. Together these 15 people initial stupidity locations, memory deficit people, initials, stupidity, locations, memory, deficit requests, and nonsense phrases aided our efforts to eradicate ignorance this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash

scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version 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 your retirement savings just became more volatile than bitcoin you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on itunes sharing the show on social media or naming your next kid patreon.com scathing atheist 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 scathingatheist.com Has this ever happened to you? Okay. Sorry. You got anything else you want to get out before we start? A little professionalism.

Great. Okay. You might have cancer. I very might have cancer. You look like you have cancer. I feel like I'm in line for the cancer. If anyone is in line for cancer here. No, irony will have it that I have cancer. The guy who works out seven days a week and eats vegan,

he's the one who gets the cancer. No, you're right. You're right. If stress is the silent killer, I've been dead for 30 years. I'm that urban legend. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.