The Scathing Atheist - 261: Dontcha Come Back No Mormon Edition

Episode Date: February 15, 2018

On this week’s episode: Alex Jones wants to know Optimus Prime's preferred pronouns ... North Carolina makes a special gay marriage lane that's separate but equal ... And Canada decides not to proactively get dumber. 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 hear more from Bryce Blankenagel, check out the Naked Mormonism podcast by clicking here: http://www.nakedmormonismpodcast.com/index.html Headlines: Sessions installs “religious freedom monitors” at US attorneys’ offices: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/07/sessions-has-installed-religious-freedom-monitors-at-u-s-attorneys-offices/ Christian ministry tweets that you can avoid mental illness by believing in god: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/08/christian-ministry-mental-illness-can-be-avoided-if-you-have-faith-in-god/ Kevins Swanson blames Nassar scandal on “immodest gymnasts”: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/09/christian-pastor-the-larry-nassar-scandal-is-the-fault-of-immodest-gymnasts/ Man who photoshopped face on jesus gets fined $600 for hurting religious feelings: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/10/man-photoshops-face-on-jesus-gets-fined-600-for-harming-religious-feelings/ Canadian college cancels homeopathy degree amid backlash: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/10/canadian-college-cancels-degree-program-in-homeopathy-after-public-backlash/ Alex Jones: Trans rights are really about cyborgs: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-transgender-rights-activism-is-really-about-cyborgs/ North Carolina has its very own Kim Davis: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/11/magistrate-who-refused-to-perform-gay-marriages-wins-325000-settlement/ This Week in Misogyny: https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/abusive-priest-said-women-smelled-one-looked-like-dead-rat-suit-alleges/ 

Warning, the following podcast contains adult material like jokes about poop. That's adult, isn't it? This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by ZipRecruiter and by Dogs Who Can Breathe. If you're looking for a dog, but you realize that buying one who's been genetically engineered to have violent COPD from birth is extremely unethical, come on down to our shelter. Because really, you know, buying any dog from a breeder instead of rescuing from a shelter is a horrible, horrible thing to do.

Dogs who can breathe. Pugs are delightful, but we're not monsters. And now, the scathing atheist. Uh, hello? Hello? This is, uh, Barack. Uh, Hussein Barack Hussein Obama, and I'm here to tell you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy, slow-speaking, monkey men and women. It's Thursday. It's February 15th. And none of you got me flowers yesterday.

I have no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from New York, New York, Secret Lair, Pennsylvania, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Alex Jones wants to know Optimus Prime's preferred pronouns. North Carolina makes a special gay marriage lane that's separate but equal. And Canada decides not to proactively get dumber. But first, the diatribe. All right, so you've got to forgive a little mushiness from me this week,

but I'm recording this on Valentine's Day, which just so happens to be Lucinda's and my 21st anniversary. And since I was just shy of 21 years old when we got married, we get to celebrate the fact that we've been married for more than half my life this time around. And I've got to say say that tends to really piss christians off i mean i don't think they're just like directly begrudging my happiness but it really fucks up their whole system when they see two avowed atheists enjoying two decades plus of matrimony when the pastor's on his third wife after all it's supposed to be the couples that

pray together that stay together right now i should emphasize that it's not like either of us think that divorce is immoral or anything i mean i'm all for people who are in unhappy marriages to have a way out the only reason i don't divorce my wife is that it means that i wouldn't get to be married to her anymore but to them it's a moral imperative right according to the metrics that they've been handed not only are my wife and I inexplicably moral even without Jesus, but more often than not, we're even more moral than the Christians. Of course, we're not actually more moral than them. Well, I mean, I guess we are because we'd never tell children that they might go to hell, but we're not moral for the reasons they seem to think. But Christianity isn't really about morality so much as it's about morality by proxy.

Right? It's not about doing good things it's about being seen to do things that are tangentially associated with goodness and that's hardly unique to christianity it shows up in all the religions even the nondescript hippie ones i experienced a similar thing when i first got into yoga through no fault of my own i'm a pretty flexible dude or at least i used to be kind of doubt that i've still got those Van Damme splits like I did in my late 20s, but when I used to juggle on the streets for a living, I had a whole bit where I juggled with both my legs behind my head. Now, flexibility is not a thing I set out to achieve any more than I set out to be a brunette. It just so happened that I was born crazy flexible, so obviously,

I was really good at yoga right away. Now, that creates a serious problem for all the yogis, though, that have allowed flexibility to become a proxy for enlightenment. I mean, that makes sense most of the time if you're selling what they're selling. If I practice stretching myself into pretzels every day, I'm probably going to be better at it than you. And if I want to keep you coming back to my yoga class, I've got a transparent self-interest in selling you the fiction that flexibility and yoga acumen equates with enlightenment. Not only does it mean that you can achieve enlightenment just by sticking your ass up in the air and breathing right, but it also means that I, your instructor, am pretty fucking enlightened, so you should probably listen to what I have to say. Of course, that backfires like hell when some randomly rubbery dude like me shows up and starts doing your toughest poses on the first day. Suddenly, I'm the most enlightened guy in the room, and I openly laugh when you say stuff like resonate with the universe. Now, with the new age hippies and shit, there's only so much damage this can do. Enlightenment, at least in the sense that they're using it, is not a real thing.

Misidentifying who is and who isn't enlightened might fuck somebody up in the sense that it'll encourage him to take bad advice from an ill-equipped person. But I think we can all agree that it's nowhere near as dangerous as misidentifying who is and isn't moral. And if you think about it, morality by proxy might actually be religion's primary purpose in this country. For most people, churchgoing is shorthand for moral. Having a cross in your business is a better metric for your morality than, say, how you treat your employees. And as long as you have John 316 on your bumper and a Bible on the dashboard, the Christian community seems more than willing to overlook that shiner under your wife's eye. I mean, I get that we do need heuristics, and none of us knows everything about anyone, so anytime you're called upon to make a determination about someone's overall morality,

you're going to have to use some imperfect metrics. All of our analyses are done with limited information. But when you start factoring in unrelated shit like length of marriage and church attendance into the equation, you're clearly handicapping your algorithm, especially when you tell the people you're assessing what those factors are beforehand. If you say, well, a person that goes to church and quotes the Bible must be good. You've given permission to everybody to be as bad as they want and a convenient place to hide their badness. But it gets worse than that, too, because these bullshit heuristics are so ingrained at this point that they're no longer taken as markers for morality, but rather for morality itself. Which means that even when you have clear evidence that someone's immoral, right, Like you saw it, they admitted it, whatever. You can still fuck up the assessment by balancing that out with how long they've been married and how often they quote the Bible.

That's why you see church attendees proudly cheering for child molesters and standing by the people who are robbing them blind. Robbery and child rape have become less telling markers of moral character to these people than devotion to their religion. Look, morality doesn't come with shortcuts and it shouldn't any attempt to build them in by itself would be immoral they're talking about your jesus joining me for headlines tonight are the atheists your pastor was warning you about heathen right and eli bosnick fellas are you ready to debauch? Bitch, I was never

botched in the first place. Okay, puns aren't funny, Eli. Puns aren't funny. Shit tits, Eli. Shit tits. Alright, well, sorry for the tease, but we need to put the hedonism on hold long enough for a quick word from this week's sponsor, Zip Recruiter. Tyler, Tyler, get in here.

Yes, Mr. President. What are those razor blades for? Um, I was, Tyler, get in here. Yes, Mr. President. What are those razor blades for? I was shaving. Sounds good. It's good to keep looking smart. Sure, sure. You wanted me for something, sir? Yeah, me and Sarah are trying to figure out how to replace all the people we lost last week

because of the, you know, I've way at a ring bay. So we were hoping you could help us out, you know, maybe come up with some ideas. I still don't see the problem. Only a man who defeats me in hand-to-hand combat is fit to be my mate. You know that. I know, right?

That's exactly what I said. Okay, well, Mr. President, why don't you try ZipRecruiter.com? What's ZipRecruiter.com? I know that guy, the bounty hunter from Geon four right awesome dude zipper right down the center of his torso no no not let's get it not not that guy it's um it's it's the smartest way to hire i thought your friends and people who gave you money was the

smartest way to hire i know you do sir but no actually zip recruiter learns what you're looking for identifies people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job. In fact, 80% of employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. The right candidates are out there, and ZipRecruiter is how to find them. Okay, I just want to point out, my bounty hunter is the exact same way. He once tracked a maclar from D-spot to the drop zone in Hyperion 4. No problem. Did he donate to the campaign? He, uh, he did not.

Okay, well then, no good. Alright, Tyler, how do I give this ZipRecruiter.com a try? Right now, Scathing Atheist listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free, actually. For free? That's right, for free. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing? ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing?

ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. Sorry, I felt compelled to invoke him. Hey guys, how are you? Oh my god, Sarah! I haven't seen you since the fighting pits of Corleone. I know, I know. How are you? ZipRecruiter.

The smartest way to hire. Look at your carapace. You look great. You've been working out or get out of here. You get out of here. And now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight. The racist uncle of Hyrule Castle, who's also Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions, very quietly last week, implemented a new facet of his ongoing plan to install a Christian

Ministry of Truth where once stood a constitutional Department of Justice. So, yeah, after ranting for two hours at dinner about the filthy Anukis and Magmas and the false gods and their illegal voting and Gandorf Hussein Dragmeier, Sessions decided it was time to install dedicated rifrinarchs in every U.S. attorney's office. So that's the new official policy. Just a guy in every interrogation making sure nobody murdered someone out of sincerely held belief.

Just like, but did you mean it? Did you mean it? And by the way, to did you mean it and by the way to square this with past actions by the doj you have to not only believe that christians are like the most persecuted group of people in modern day america but that said persecution is the worst persecution anyone in this country has ever faced because we've never had a group like this for anyone else yeah so uh if you're a fan of the first amendment like me and noah and nobody else on this call you've probably been pretty disturbed over the last year while you

watched jeff sessions and the rest of the trump administration promoting the church state together united all one word thing and you probably aren't surprised to hear about more theocracy nonsense but nobody expects the american inquisition and that's what we got not only will there be an inquisitor in every federal attorney's office checking on cases about religion the new policy also requires doj officials to get permission from trump appointed theocrats before pursuing any civil rights suits that involve issues of religious liberty or translated back out of newspeak no cake for gay people but we're going to say that just some guy in his office hmm you

know they could have dragged that matthew kid behind a truck for any number of reasons do not jesus so uh in response to this super obvious constitutional violation, American atheists released a statement that basically said, hey, everyone, I'm not sure how this didn't get announced, but this really big illegal thing is happening in the Trump administration. Not that one or that one. No, it's a brand new one, but we still have to keep swatting their nose and saying no in a stern voice no matter what they do. Yeah, right. But, of course, they'll get away with this shit because they're going to say it's for all religions right i mean we'll know that's horseshit if the first thing the newly appointed

inquisitor say isn't hey this muslim ban's illegal as fuck yeah so uh using the word inquisition might sound like i'm exaggerating but let's think about it for a second the gop's chief weapons are surprise nate silver fear of brown people ruthless efficiency citizens united and an almost fanatical devotion to the president and russian spies also uh amongst their chief weapons are lots of the same things it's very similar the inquisition honestly at this point if trump launched a literal inquisition i'd just be surprised he knew the word. I'd be like, yeah, that's fun. Knows that.

And in Take Your Holy Meditation news tonight, Christian organization and unofficial bigot mill Desiring God, which, despite its name, is not a very specific category of erotica, took to Twitter this week to let me and thousands of other people dealing with mental illness know we've been wasting our time with those pills and treatments because what we need is some uh dick some dick it sounds like they're about to offer some dick oh good guess but no they were looking for choosing happiness uh still no okay still no it was jesus we need some jesus oh well it was some dick it was just figurative yeah poetic exactly yeah that's right goodness knows i wouldn't have spent all that time and money it's taken to manage my chemical imbalance if i'd known that according to desiring god's twitter at least quote we will find mental health when we stop staring in the mirror and fix our

eyes on the strength and beauty of god end quote yeah no mental illness is like skidding you steer into the delusion and i mean to be fair i am looking at the man in the mirror i'm asking him to change his ways you sound like a pedophile when you say sound like a pedophile for a lot of reasons because i'm white well that's what that song was about i'm pretty sure becoming more white it was about being white yeah it's michael jackson around 1987 it was about getting more white anyway uh i actually think uh this this might be some good advice hidden in there anyway because i am never more insane than when i'm looking at myself in a mirror if

i'm being honest like start doing weird faces and songs i try to make the other guy flinch and i i gnash my teeth for no it gets pretty crazy yeah yeah now as you can imagine both christians and non-christians were outraged by the indication that having a staring contest with Jesus is really all the Prozac you need. But don't worry. Desiring God clarified, tweeting, quote, Thank you to those expressing kind concerns. We apologize for leaving off the link that gives the context, quoting Clyde Kilby from more than 40 years ago when mental health health in quotes, didn't have the same technical connotations as today. I love that. I love that they put in there.

Thank you for those expressing kind concerns as though to leave out Eli specifically. Thank you. Everyone except Eli that told us this was bad. To be fair, the pictures that I photoshopped were a little not. That's on me. I accept responsibility. So yeah, yeah you see they weren't saying

jesus would cure your mental illness they were referencing a guy 40 years ago who didn't know what the fuck mental illness was and therefore prescribed jesus for all the nothing people had totally different well yeah but meanwhile in order to go with this excuse, they have to buy into the whole Eli's old Noah joke chronology. 40 years ago was 1978. This is not the olden days of yore. We'd given up exercising our demon into swine by then. The term mental health has meant the same damn thing since the 1940s, guys. So their excuse is actually, no, we were quoting a dangerously wrong person, not coining that.

actually no we were quoting a dangerously wrong person not coining that and then we need to talk about kevin news tonight professional bigot and somalian olive oil in a suit kevin swanson moved up in the rankings of worst things ever said last week when he decided to express a bit of sympathy for disgraced serial pedophile larry nasser by pointing out how hoary those underage gymnasts dress that's right in swanson's mind the real villain here is immodesty while you're at the doctor excuse me i'll take my temperature thank you very much i'm a lady right yeah okay so here's the quote quote some sports encourage immodesty revealing large portions of the body and this happens in some sports, end quote. And just in case he wasn't being clear enough about siding with one of the most prolific pederasts in American history, he added, quote, Do you really want your daughters involved in a sport that involves a fair amount of immodesty in which red blooded American male coaches are interacting with these girls?

End quote. Yeah. By red blooded American american males of course he means child rapists yeah weirdest country song ever and just like i got my truck and my dog and the weather is mild and when i watch the olympics i wanna fuck okay all right all right yeah no we get it we get it we get it toby. Also, how does he think it works? Like a good Christian girl walks into the pedophile's office and pedophile's like, oh, I see. Pleaded dockers under a long skirt.

Well played, Christian girl. Put my dick away. Half time. Jesus won. Larry zero. Really? Right. Right.

All right. So now if you're new to the show, you might think that that's where the offensiveness ends. Right, right. All right, so now if you're new to the show, you might think that that's where the offensiveness ends, but our veteran listeners know Kevin Swanson well enough to still be waiting for the homophobic shoe to drop. Well, no worries, because immediately after suggesting that raping children is an unavoidable consequence

of American hemoglobin, he added, quote, or worse, that is, worse than having your immodest daughter raped by a red-blooded male coach, or worse. The infatuation of the body could eventually affect lesbian coaches. And quote, just running into the emergency room. I'm sorry. My daughter was raped.

I hear she was raped. Oh, it was by a guy. Oh, thank God. Okay. Yeah. Right. All right, honey. Let's go home. Come on.

Rub some tussin in it yeah and in hail mary full of face news tonight hero gentleman and tremendous penis haver daniel serrano has been ordered by a spanish court to pay six hundred dollars this week for an attack on religious feelings after photoshopping his face onto a statue of Jesus on Instagram. You know, if you were completely new to the scale of religious stupidity, you might be hard-pressed to guess how this becomes newsworthy after that opening paragraph. But if you've ever met a Christian, you already know. You see where we're going.

Yeah, they got the sense of humor of a mom with an allergy kid. Right. It's not fun. They never like my jokes circus peanut it's circus it's a candy it's a packing peanut come on take it i mean i still put them in the box has anyone told you your kid is like a pug oh no now we don't want to have the conversation okay okay well all of a sudden life is precious okay so corner of the article the statue in question was the get ready for my sexy spanish cristo de la armaguara or christ or christ of bitterness i love how you just threw in an extra r so you could roll another one there.

And it belongs to the Hermanidad de la Armagora, or the Church Brotherhood of Bitterness, who asked him to take the picture of his face on the statue's body down from Instagram multiple times. And then they took him to court. My God. Well, to be fair, they have a bitterness reputation to live up to though obviously yeah church brotherhood of bitterness right like what other names were they considering for that church like the church of latter-day our lady of perpetual view now the good news here is that's horrible but the good news is that the leftist political party of spain has already started raising money to pay his fine but this story is lacking and gentlemen i think you'll agree with me is some good old-fashioned petty vengeance so i'd like

to announce drum roll priest market the first ever scathing atheist photoshop competition that's right we're gonna show the brothers of bitterness a thing or two about their namesake so here's the rules first take your favorite picture of Christ of bitterness and photoshop its face anywhere you like that doesn't break Twitter's rules and regulations get creative and or sexy exactly, but if everyone does crucified with dicks instead of nails, it's going to lose the clutch. Because that's obviously what we're all

thinking, so don't everybody do that. Right, don't everybody do it. But at least one. Most people should do that. Then tweet it to us, but most importantly, tweet it to the church's Twitter account that's at A-M-A-R-G-U-R-A

underscore J-A-E-N that's at A-M-A R-G-U-R-A underscore J-A-E-N or check the show notes where there will be links to that with the hashtag scathing of bitterness and next week not only will we announce the winner on our show we're going to put your

photo on the Facebook page and we're going to send you a free T-shirt. Offer not valid in Spain, probably. Some restrictions may apply. Yeah, if you live in Pakistan, don't fuck around. Enjoy this show coded as whatever Muslim thing you're pretending this is. Don't get crazy. But for everyone else who lives in America, get creative, get dirty, get scathing. Yeah, also Australia's out.

Sorry, guys. That t-shirt's really expensive. Don't do it if it's going to get you in trouble. Or if I'm not going to be able to mail you a t-shirt and afford it. That's the other one. And while you mull that homework assignment over, we're going to take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the bible a horse which if it's a legitimate rate cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man this week in massage

i guess the bright side of the justice department bending over backwards to carve huge christianity exceptions into employment law is job security for me, right? I mean, if there's one thing Christianity sincerely holds, it's misogyny. I mean, even under liberal presidents, nobody would dare to suggest that they should have to follow all the rules. After all, how are you supposed to make the magic cracker turn into Jesus' flesh if you don't have a penis? But of course, like everything in the present political climate, it's getting worse. They're making it easier and easier for religious employers to hide behind the amorphous catch-all of religious freedom.

And given their general attitudes towards females, you can bet your ass that the right for them to swing their fist will not end where your vagina begins. Because look, there are a few institutions in America where sexism is as entrenched as it is in the religious ones. Even with all the special exemptions to gender equality measures, they're still constantly getting called out for breaking what few laws still apply to them. Take, for example, Reverend Gerard Lynch of the Church of St. Anne, who's being sued right now by four women

employees who accuse him of harassment, demeaning behavior, and creating a hostile work environment. Now, just having all of those Bibles sitting around should settle the case. Pretty hostile thing to women to have just lying around. But according to the lawsuit, Lynch went above and beyond. According to the suit, he was in the habit of saying things like, quote, I hope she doesn't smell. I hope she douched, end quote, when talking about his female subordinates. He compared another female's employee's hair to a dead rat, spread rumors about the fictitious

affairs his subordinates were having, made derogatory remarks about their weight, and even threatened them with violence. I should note that before turning to the courts, these women tried to use the internal systems that the church had in place, but surprise, surprise, the diocese of Trenton couldn't be bothered to follow up on it because this is a religion that still hasn't redacted the Book of Timothy even after they learned it was a forgery. Now, normally I'd offer up some closing thoughts to try to tie the whole point together, but I've got the fucking flu,

and just getting this many words out without puking is all I can hope for. So with that, I will hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in homeopathological news tonight, we've got a win to chalk up for the skeptics this week, or at least a non-loss, I guess. So yeah, our Sisyphean effort to maintain the status quo of belligerent stupidity resulted in a brief moment of equipoise this weekend

when a community college in Canada reneged on its promise to offer a degree in homeopathy. Yeah. I'm guessing it shouldn't be a problem, though. It's one of those few things you can actually learn by osmosis. No, it's true. Literally learn by osmosis. I just want to see how the grades work, right? Yeah, right, right. Point zero, zero, zero, zero, one. Yeah, the Georgian College, a community college in Ontario

that does receive public funding, announced the three-year program in homeopathy earlier this month with plans of starting it in the fall semester this year. According to their press release, the program would, quote, provide students with the theoretical,

practical, No. Yeah, right, and clinical skills. No. That's two no's for clinical and skills. Yeah. Necessary to graduate with the competencies required to successfully meet the entry to practice requirements of the regulatory body. End quote. Nonsense.

Yeah. So I'm guessing the final exam is like the trolley problem and you pass by not giving a fuck who the train hits. I'm guessing as long as you drown the fat guy, you get the diploma. It's always the fat guy. You always drown him. Or maybe you give the fat guy one 100 billionth of train and he's fine. Yeah, that's it.

That's it. You run a model train into him and make him immune before the trolley gets there. That's it. Now, luckily, though, skeptical backlash was harsh and quick uh within days of the announcement the college announced that under mounting pressure from rational people they would cancel the upcoming classes of course if you think about it there is nothing more homeopathic than a three-year program that exists for a couple of days so it's possible that this was their plan all along yeah it's like a million years worth of school. Yeah, right.

And in Transformers news tonight, conspiracy theorist, fake vitamin pusher pusher, and sentient pot of boiling bright red fat, Alex Jones took to the airwaves once again this week, and I couldn't be happier.

He was going to finally explain, once and for all, what this whole trans thing is about. Oh, good. Lovely. All right, here we go. I was wondering. He starts off the segment by explaining that Facebook won't let him say tranny. And claiming that he's...

Right. And then he claims that executives at Twitter and Facebook have called him to ask him not to say that word. Like, personally. On the phone. Absolutely not. Hi, Alex. It's Twitter again. We're just, we're having trouble believing that you're rebuilding that many

transmissions, dude. So, uh. Honestly, I would pay a lot to watch that delusion movie that's happening inside his fucking weird lumpy face at all moments just hello billionaire mark zuckerberg yes let's talk about info wars it's an important show by the way that song is about me that's right it is about me right exactly jones goes on to explain though it's not actually about trans people or as he calls them quote women that want to be men and men that want to be women.

No, it's not about that. It's about paving the way for the coming cyborgs without gender. Fucking what? That will be the most elite in future society. Jesus. That segues up. Really? Yep.

Here's the actual fucking quote. Alright, let me do my Alex Jones. Bubbly. The most protected class are going to be the augmented humans. Cyborgs, you name it. And they're going to have humanoids, which again isn't a man and a woman with the

chromosomes splicing together. What? Not human. It's something different. When you've got three parents, they're creating new life forms, and they're just chromosomes splicing together what's not human it's something different when you got these when you've got three parents they're creating new life forms and they're just creating a stampede where you don't criticize that i love how confused he gets by himself talking he's trying to talk about censorship and it's like speaking of pc culture run amok when two people fuck you get a person but but if you smash together two cums and one egg you get a robot stampede

and that's why you can't say tranny that yeah who wants to fuck a toaster let's go fuck a toast it's like he's only allowed to remember the last five words and has to infer what he was talking about from that jesus all i want for christmas is glenn beck trying to diagram that sentence on a chalkboard right and then like a two-year-old he gets distracted during his own sentence by how long the LGBTQ letter thing is getting. Which, to be fair, he's right. Hey, gaymos, you're all just gaymos. Cut it out. You know what I'm saying?

Yuck. And he talks about that until he somehow makes his way back around to people wanting to fuck his car again. It's always where it lands. Which he has done so many times at this point. The only conclusion is that Alex Jones really wants to fuck his car. Yeah. The only conclusion. Alex Jones making a point and Alex Jones telling you about a dreamy ad on opium is indistinguishable.

Two identical things. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, in summary, trans rights are actually for the coming cyborgs, and Alex Jones has a sensual, sensual motherfucking job. The cyborgs.

And finally tonight, we have a story about the Kim Davis of North Carolina. They got one, too. And that would be Gail Myrick, a former Union County magistrate who was awarded a court settlement of $325,000 last week at a minimum because the state didn't help her hate gay people enough. And I'm not, like, editorializing. That's literally what happened. She quit her job to avoid marrying gay people. Her boss let her quit. And now the taxpayers of North Carolina owe her money because that happened.

Jesus, money for quitting. Okay, how much money do we owe Heath at this point? Don't think about that. Think instead about how bad it is when North Carolina didn't help you hate gay people enough. Okay, so as you might have already guessed, Myrick quit her job in 2014 when she found out that she'd have to marry same-sex couples because of a new federal ruling on that. And North Carolina was like, okay, bye. We'll go find someone who's physically capable of reciting a sentence and signing their name on a piece of paper.

I guess thanks for alerting us that your skill set doesn't include that stuff. This is good. But, you know, seems like a win-win to me, but apparently not. I mean, yeah, if they didn't push a button and empty her chair into a piranha tank, I call it a half measure. I agree. I agree. All right.

So the reason Ms. Weirich won this money is because North Carolina thinks they found the solution to this whole issue. They recently made a law that says any religious judge can opt out of doing their fucking job as long as some other judge steps right in

and doesn't delay the marriage. Which North Carolina believes to be the perfect compromise to be clear the perfect compromise between the right to be a bigot with no consequences and the right to be a human yes right north carolina proudly found the middle ground between those two ideas yeah a compromise by the way that conveniently only applies to Christians, by the way. It's not like they're letting Jewish judges beg off ham related offenses or anything. Yeah, but thanks to that law, which went into effect after Myrick's resignation, she's now getting paid for doing nothing this whole time because her boss didn't stop her from quitting.

time because her boss didn't stop her from quitting her lawyers actually went to court and successfully argued that there's a legal requirement for the state to be like no don't come back you know don't your friends are interesting we'll go yeah that's a law now right well somebody get andrew on the line and find out how much we owe her for not being on this podcast right okay well i personally am off to get a job as a devoutly jane anything in north carolina have fun with the podcast i'm gonna well shit i guess now that eli's devoutly religious we're gonna have to close off the headlines for the night heath eli thanks as always if you cry at cvs today they'll let you just have all the leftover candy they have to let you have it if you cry.

And when we come back, we'll bask in the glory of not reading the Book of Mormon anymore. You know, I understand that life still has a lot of shit to throw at me. Terrible injuries and illnesses, the death of loved ones, the continuation of the DC cinematic universe. But no matter what fate places before me, from this point forward, I'm going to face it with the calm confidence of a person who knows that at least he's not reading the Book of Fucking Mormon. Okay, to be fair, DC movies and the book of mormon are equally well written at this point that is true and you're never sure if it's more anti-semitic to like them or to dislike them which is it for each one is it is it anti i think superman's a jew all right and of course to give this book the profane send-off it deserves, we're going to need the help of the lovely Lucinda Lusions. Lucinda, welcome back.

That seems so much more sincere when you didn't just make me read another chunk of the holy book. Yeah, right? Alright, so as a bit of a capstone to the whole Book of Mormon experience, I figure maybe we could take a step back today, look back over the whole book and milk a little more content out of that year-plus of misery we suffered

through. So, to start, I would like everyone's nomination for your favorite character in the Book of Mormon. Ooh. All right. I'm going to go with Alma, not just because of Heath's masterful portrayal, although that's a part of it, but because there's nothing like God-shock therapy to make you religious. Am I right? You had a great origin story.

I appreciate a motherfucker that doesn't give up and I'm into sexy boat dancing so I'm going to go with layman. We met the hero early. When was the sexy boat dancing? It was on the way over. They got in trouble for sexy boat dancing. Oh yeah, that's right. That was a big no-no. Boat dancing.

That's where they had to tie Nephi up. So it was sexy boat dancing and bondage. And ropes. Good time. Fet life. I am going to go with Gaddy Anton. I mean, we didn't hear a hell of a lot from him, but consider what a badass robbery

must have been for people to just name a kind of robber after him. Right? If people are later called the Lucinda robbers, it's probably because I kicked a bit of ass. Nice. I'm going with Zizrom. Joe Smith literally had

an evil Jewish lawyer built into his story. An ancient American evil Jewish lawyer. I love the guy's story. He actually tricks everyone with the weird combo of the Holy Trinity problem and the Cretan Liars problem kind of at the same time. This holy trinity problem and the cretin liars problem kind of at the same time and this includes joe smith who wrote the book he got confused yeah right

yes that would make god a liar wait no um jew evil jew he's an evil and then he died and then he died and then he died right all right so z's realm actually could be a qualifier for this next category as well. What was the dumbest proper noun that Joey came up with? I think I'm going to have to go with antipuss. I feel like that was a Freudian slip of some sort. Yeah, right. I'm going to go with amnigada. Amnigada?

Amnigada DeVito, baby. The father of Coriantum, I believe. Yeah. He was a lifelong slave who clearly got named by Joe Smith starting to say the N-word and singing his way out. It was like M. Nagada. M. Nagada is what I said. See, I was going to go with T-Income, and I was afraid we'd all have

the same answer, so I'm just glad you guys had different shit. See, I got to give it up to the Anti-Nephi-Lehi. Great scrabble word, though, right? No, it's a proper noun. Alright, so what would... Now, this is a huge question to ask,

so I can understand if you can't exactly narrow it down to one. I'm not like going to – you're not going to have to stick with this answer later. But what would you say is the worst part of this book? I'm saying definitely the repeat chorus part in the book of Ether near the end. Oh, Jesus. It looks like, hey, remember when – turn back to page 42 and read the next 80 pages, right? Remember? Remember that? Okay, key change. when, turn back to page 42 and read the next 80 pages, right? Remember? Remember that?

Okay, key change. Yeah, one more, Cora. I'm the one who won. I'm going to go with Jacob, chapter 5. And not just because that's the longest chapter in the fucking book. That's the one, if you recall, where he does the olive tree analogy. But he keeps fucking it up. And by the end, you're supposed to be keeping track of 16 different olive tree graphs not only was this the worst part of the

book but i think it's the worst part of books period yeah right like if we if we could go back in time and lose written language it would almost be worth it just to get rid of that fucking chapter yeah i'm gonna agree with heath and say the end i mean because most of this book is fun bullshit stories but man did the ending drag for that word count yeah it's pretty rough all right so i've got i've got kind of a curious answer because this isn't the worst part this actually might be the best part of the book but it's definitely the laziest um i was thinking of the part in second nephi where joey just copies down 13 chapters of Isaiah as though we weren't going to notice. And he's like, Nephi also loved to read Isaiah,

particularly this part. Block quote. Yeah, right. All right. So obviously another large part of the Book of Mormon here were the anachronisms. So does anybody have a favorite anachronism? Well, I know it's not the dumbest,

but I'm going to have to go with adieu. right yeah yeah call me old-fashioned but i'm gonna go with native americans getting turned dark for sinfulness okay which which time period do you think that's supposed to be from what do you do okay to be fair i may not know what anarcho-capitalism means or whatever Noah said. Alright. Anachronism. My favorite anachronism. I'm going to go with well obviously the transatlantic

cold fusion submarine. With the hole in the bottom. That's just ridiculous. Dishes were nowhere near that tight back in ancient Israel times. Tited dish, nowhere near tight enough for a submarine well see i'm kind of tempted to go with my last answer again since the book of isaiah wouldn't have been written by the time nephi went to the americas so that's also an anachronism but instead i'm going to add to heaths because when they made the submarines you'll recall that they specifically said they weren't going to put

in glass windows not because those wouldn't be invented for thousands of years but because they might break with all that ocean pressure you see jesus all right now this is actually kind of the whole point of reading in this this in the first place was to arm ourselves against those little fucking bikers on the white shirts so what part of the book after having read it would you most like to hear a morm Mormon missionary have to explain on your porch? Oh, good question. I mean, it depends on the time of year, but if it's as cold

out there then as it is now, I'd like to make them walk me through the olive tree analogy. What does the seventh olive tree mean? I don't get the other ones I get. Explain this to me. I'd like to hear him explain genetics. Ooh. The definition of armadilloism.

Anachronism. How do you hear wrong? A second later, he just said it. Okay. It retracted. Retracted. How about the three immortal disciples? I'd like to hear where they think those guys are.

All right. Ready? Anachronism. Say it. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Hockey puck to the side of the head.

Okay, well, for me, I'm going back to the submarine. I want to hear a missionary describe that construction to me. I think my go-to question would be like, okay, would you please rate these dishes I have here from loosest to tightest? hear a missionary describe that construction to me i think my go-to question would be like okay would you please rate these dishes i have here from loosest to tightest and explain why what does tight as a dish mean to you all right now this is almost a repeat question but i feel like it's different i asked earlier what was the worst part of the book and now i want to know what was

the worst moment in the book like i said i know that seems like the same thing but having read the book of mormon i feel like you're all gonna be like oh good i'm glad you asked that okay i know other people are gonna have like worse things but the made-up curlums the fake animals of burden yes it was just the most i've ever been able to fuck myself when reading a book uh okay worst moment i'm going with uh when the dark-skinned people repented and god turned them white yeah i was like hey you evil black people are actually being super cool right now don't normally do this but you're white now and you are welcome that was so anachronistic um yeah i feel like if there's a right answer, that is the right answer.

But so as not to be repetitive, I'm going to go for the part where the white people were evil, so God turned them black in the first place. I'm going to go with the three witnesses because at that point, we still had like 500 pages to go. Oh, okay. Yeah. Never. Fair. Fair. They should have had the right answer.

Yeah. All right. Now, in addition to having read the book of mormon of course we've also read the abrahamic trilogy at this point and i've got a lot of questions from people who want us to sort of compare the holy books um so i've got a couple of those here where would you say the book of mormon ranks compared to the old testament the new testament and the quran in terms of boringness okay uh most okay. Most boring to least boring. Koran, Old Testament, Book of Mormon, New Testament.

I'd like to agree with that, but I'd swap out the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. The New Testament tells the same story four times, then sends us a bunch of bitchy letters. I mean, sure, the last chapter is awesome, but that's not enough. Yeah, the letters were the worst. That's not enough. The epistles were really brutal. I'm saying Book of Mormon, hands down, least boring.

If I ever got bored, I'd just start thinking of Eli's Ben Carson voice. Read everything in that, made it all better. I'm going to go with second least boring as well. We've got two votes for second least and two votes for least. I give the Old Testament honors on least boring.

I feel like if we had read that one in the first place we'd have appreciated it a hell of a lot more maybe right because when we read that we were comparing it to books not holy books all right and now this is a one that comes up an awful lot so where does it rank in terms of violence okay well quran's obviously at the top uh then i'd put book of morm the Old Testament in a tie, I think, for second. I mean it kind of depends on how you rank the races, I guess. Exactly. Do you like Mexicans or Arabs better or worse? If it's Arabs, Old Testament.

Do you have an attractiveness bias? I get it. All right. So there's definitely a pretty – like I said, this is a very common question. But it's a flawed question as well, right? Because if we're asking which book has the most violence in it, the New Testament ends with every fucking body dying. But in terms of advocating violence, which I think is the important one, it goes Quran, Old Testament, Book of Mormon, New Testament, I think. I'm going to say it wins here, but only because I'm measuring by how much violence it actually inspired. Oh, okay.

Don't get me wrong. It inspired a lot compared to just books. But compared to holy book violence, the Mountain Meadow Massacre is a stubbed toe. Yeah, right, right. It's certainly no the fucking Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades. Yeah, I was going to give it third place above the New Testament. All right. How about where it ranks in terms of argumentation?

And I'm going to give it, I want to say, I'm going to give it first place, but only because I feel like you could use the olive tree analogy for anything. Right? Like no matter what a person is, you start him with that shit and before you're done, they're going to be like, you know what? You're right. I give up. Tap, tap. Yeah. I'm going with last place based on the words in the book

but first place based on Salt Lake City money where your mouth is the buttery leather couches everywhere was enough just to get me Mormon and they've got a space for a profit open it's awesome second to last place above the Quran just because it manages

not to repeat the same story 8 million times. I'm going to say tied for Xeroth. I think Lucinda's winning. Alright, and where does it rank in terms of wacky names? First motherfucking place.

Omni-ha-ha-ha. Oh-hoo! Obviously first. Yeah. Oh, obviously first. Yeah. Clear, clear first place. Like they had the Ron Burgundy of scribes taking the shit down. They like didn't matter what noise Joe Smith made.

It was getting written down verbatim. Yeah. No, I just wanted to make sure it swept at least one category for it before we were done. But now it has. And that means we can say goodbye. Or as they said in 6th century

BC, America and reformed Egyptian, adieu to this whole fucking thing. Guys, gals, thanks for not giving up on it. Woo! Pearl of great price. now that we've made our way through the entire book of mormon and learned to pronounce some 40 of the made-up bullshit names i think we're safe in assuming ourselves to be among the world's foremost experts on the work after all what are the odds that other human beings would

have made it all the way through this goddamn thing that being said we're skeptics here at the scathing atheist and we're not about to declare our expertise without putting it to the test so joining us now is our good friend bryce blankenagle bryce is an ex-mormon and when he's not surreptitiously drugging performers he hosts the naked mormonism podcast bry, welcome back to the show. Allegedly. My lawyer was present. I just want to note, it took me seven and a half hours to get through the Book of Mormon, and we're doing this in a whole 20 minutes. Yeah, we're all experts

here. Yeah, no, there you go. Now, I asked you here because I consider you to be something of an expert on Mormon history and mythology, and I was hoping we could measure our expertise against yours. You up for that? Alleged expert. Your words, not yeah there you go there you go my emphasis on alleged all right so we're going to start off with a couple of character questions here eli the first question is yours who was the people of Zenith called?

The Zenithites. Correction. Zenith. Zenithites. That falls into 60%. Never mind. Never mind. Yep.

That's right. That's right. We're not. Everyone can pronounce it. This is how they pronounce it in southern Zarahemla. All right. It's a regional difference. All right.

I'm giving you the full 10 points. And Bryce, which Lamanite preached to the people of Zarahemla in chapter 13 of the Book of Helaman? Oh, that was definitely Samuel. And a quick side note, the name itself of Samuel, by the way, is yet another Smithsonian anachronism since he used the Americanized version of the word Samuel. Okay. smithonian anachronism since he used the americanized version of the word samuel okay well that that's right but you only get half credit because you just kind of went on for a while that last part was boring wait what so what what not the fact just kind of the way that you said it all right question number two i got 60 on mine yeah well done all right i got some fill in the blank questions for you guys uh he, you're up first on this one. All right.

This is from Second Nephi, chapter 28, verse 14. They wear stiff blanks and high heads. Yay. And because of the pride and wickedness and abominations and whoredoms, they have all gone astray. I'm going to go with necks. No, a necks. Stiff necks. That's correct. Heath's on fire with 20 points. No, a necks. Stiff necks. That's correct. Heath's on fire

with 20 points. Alright, Eli, to remain tied with Heath and ahead of Bryce, Book of Omni, chapter The Only One, verse 19. And it came to blank that the people of Zarahemla and of Mosiah did unite together. Uh, pass.

That's correct. Right, yes. I was not asking you to move on to the next question. I didn't think you I got it right. You were. I need some final fill in the blank for you from Ether chapter one beginning in verse 18. And Lib was the son of Kish and Kish was

the son of Coram and Coram was the son of Levi and Levi was the son of blank. That was it. Lib. and Coram was the son of Levi and Levi was the son of blank. That was it Lib? Sorry. No, no. First one to get a question wrong. The answer was

Kim. I feel like these questions of mine are a little bit harder than everyone else's. Is this kind of conspiracy? I mean, what's going on here? You're certainly making them seem harder. Okay. That wasn't necessary. All right. Well, I'll tell you're certainly making them seem harder. Okay. That wasn't necessary. All right.

Well, I'll tell you what. We'll switch it up, Bryce. You get to go first on this one. All right. We're going to do multiple choice this time. So, Bryce, which of the following four is not an actual name Joseph Smith settled on while writing the Book of Mormon? A. Limha. B. Limhan. C. Limher. Or D. Limhai. B. Limhan. C. Limher. Or D.

Limhai. Wow. Is it Limhan? That's correct! Bryce finally got one! Wow! I was not expecting that. Really? Really? Once again, not necessary. I got the first

one right, guys. That was the first one right, guys. That was the first one I got right. I'm happy about it. Only half right. I got that one right, too. The other thing I said was right as well. Yeah, it was right, but it wasn't well right. All right. Bryce, I feel like you've been holding the spotlight

for quite a while there. It's time for somebody else to get a turn. Eli, which of the following is not one of the eight witnesses is it a hyrum page b peter whitmer c hyrum smith or d rihanna okay is it hyrum smith god damn it uh is that your final answer yes are you sure no then what is your final answer? Yes. Are you sure? No. Then what is your final answer? Rihanna.

Objection, Your Honor. Leading the witness. Judges? Nope. Sorry, Bryce. No luck with the judges, but you do lose five points for making me look for the Andrew Nope sound. Come on. That was just a stock clip. I that recorded too all right heath which of the following

is not a city that existed in prehistoric america a zarah hemla b jacob goth c kish kuman d all of Kuman. D. All of the above. What is D? All of the above. Wow! Everyone but Bryce is on fire. More points. Really good. Thank you. Smelling myself. No soup. No smoke. I don't think this is very fair. Just want to throw that out there. Now it's time for a section I call By the Numbers.

Eli, how many sentences did Joseph Smith make it into this book before he told a lie? I'm going to go with one. That is correct. Ten more points. And Heath, after the battle at the end of Book of Ether, how many people are left alive on the entire American continent? One.

Excellent. Still maintaining that perfect score. And Bryce, I got a numerical question for you, too. What is the value of 850 Antions in Shiblooms accounting for inflation? Oh, come on. Eli and Heath's questions are way easier than mine. This is bullshit. Okay.

All right. You know what? Fine. Would you rather I give you Eli's question for the next one? Yes, that would be nice. All right. Okay. Fine.

This is Eli's question for the next one? Yes, that would be nice. Alright, okay, fine. This is Eli's question. What was Messiah's favorite microwavable snack? That's an absurd question. Are you saying you don't know? No, they just didn't have microwaves back then.

They didn't have scimitars either. What's your point? Why didn't they just go down to McDonald's instead? Oh, I'm sorry. That was not the correct answer. Eli, would you like to steal? I would like to steal, Noah. Thank you. Alright, Eli, for the win, what was Mosiah's favorite microwavable snack? That would be

pizza bagels. That's right. Congratulations, Eli. You know way more about the Book of mormon than bryce okay i'm pulling a heath i'm quitting i'm hanging up right now fuck this okay you need me to take over your show you know where to find me i'll tell your listener insert the andrew nope again nope Insert the Andrew nope again.

Nope. Before we get to the happy ending tonight, I wanted to thank Bryce for hanging out with us tonight and for having such a great sense of humor. If you want to learn more about Mormon history, especially the parts that the Mormons would rather you not know, be sure to check out Naked Mormonism. We'll have a link on the show notes. And despite what you may have heard, he really does know his shit, and it's a fascinating story. 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, The Skeptocrat,

debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern time on Monday. Our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting 24 hours after that, and a yet still newer episode of our half-sister show Citation Needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Now, normally I spend a couple minutes here thanking everybody and stuff, but I'm really fucking sick, and I had to kind of crawl over the finish line on my elbows this week, so I hope you don't mind if I save all that praise

for next week. 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 ScalingAdias.com. Eli, congratulations on not setting off any Indiana Jones traps during that room noise. And I'll let you know, Morgan, I am not farting every four to five seconds. It's a dog snoring in the background.

Just letting you know. Sounds like one of them things that you just like, you know, that's like an I'm not a racist kind of a thing. Morgan, I am farting every four or five seconds, man, just so you know. And they're SPDs. Covered up with really loud coughs. Well, no, they're silent. Ow! Ow! Ow! Lots of my friends are dog farts.

All right. Quick 10 count here you know it never occurred to me before but the one person who we actually surprised with our movie selection is morgan right because like everybody else sees the name of the episode beforehand and everything so morgan morgan is the one person who like when heath reveals what we're going to be doing like he's learning it for the first time so he sent me a message back yesterday after he finished the bonus episode he was like as soon as Heath said what you guys were going to

be breaking down I literally said aloud oh fuck you alright he's not a fan of Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson apparently not fuck you Morgan alright All right. He's not a fan of Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson? Apparently not. Fuck you, Morgan. All right.

How dare you? I'm going to try to keep that to a minimum, Morgan. I wish you would. A little professional. A little professional. Hey, is the Ides of February the 14th or the 15th? Should be today. Yeah.

Well, I don't know, because the Ides of March are the 15th, but the middle is the 16th. I'm so sorry. Are you serious? Did you throw a baby downstairs? What the fuck are you doing over there? Why would you have a baby? Are you okay? I had a bag full of playing cards on my desk,

and I thought to myself, don't touch it. If you touch it, something's going to happen. They're going to fall all over the place. It's going to be comedic. And I literally, I was doing this monologue as my hand reached out to push it ever gently back. And it just all exploded at me. It was just playing cards everywhere. And then the bag fell behind the thing, which knocked over my sound guard.

Yeah, because there were like three falls there. There were like three levels of falling. Yeah, it was Rube Goldberg. No more Rube Goldberg. Somehow Eli's on a bathroom floor between stalls. I don't know how, but that happened. All right. I guess that eight seconds will be plenty.

How much candy did you get, Eli? Well, tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll get a lot. I like to stand there in the aisle and I go, I don't know, she's been gone for a year now, but I always come in to get her something. And they just hand you, they'll just fill you up a basket and let you walk out.

It's their fault. Did I ever tell you about my idea for a prank show? No. Where we pretend to be a gay couple down south and then when the person says no, we just beat the shit out of them on camera. I'm done now. We can go back to the... We can skip the first part and just do the shit out of them on camera? I'm done now. We can go back to the...

We can skip the first part and just do the second part. We don't have to pretend anything. You gotta give them a chance. Gotta let them say no. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle & Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.