The Scathing Atheist - 262: Thoughts and Prayers Edition

Episode Date: February 22, 2018

In this week’s episode, we’ll see which christian can blame not-god the hardest, a Pennsylvania pastor finally finds that platonic gay bondage relationship he's always been looking for, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses will courageously not do stuff. For more info on Noah’s talk for the Lehigh Valley Humanists, click here: https://www.meetup.com/Lehigh-Valley-Humanists/events/247633530/?_cookie-check=65tZEnFXmlKNkrUZ 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: Check out Consciousness 3D here: https://www.consciousness3d.net/ Headlines: Bryan Fischer blames school shootings on lack of god in schools: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/15/christian-radio-host-god-couldve-stopped-fl-shooting-if-kids-prayed-in-school/ Congressman gives trump bag of prayers after school shooting: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/19/a-gop-congressman-gave-trump-a-literal-bag-of-prayers-after-the-school-shooting/ The God Delusion to be turned into a play: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/14/richard-dawkins-the-god-delusion-is-being-turned-into-a-play/ Samson is a huge flop http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/19/samson-a-high-budget-christian-film-flopped-at-the-box-office-this-weekend/?utm Pastor found with nude, tied up man. Swears there’s a non-gay explanation: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/13/pastor-found-with-nude-tied-up-man-swears-on-a-stack-of-bibles-nothing-happened/ This Week in Misogyny: Sandy Rios on Rob Porter: You can’t trust women saying they’ve been abused: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/sandy-rios-defends-rob-porter-i-dont-think-you-can-trust-women-now-when-they-say-theyre-being-abused/ Ethics complaint against GOP lawmaker who berated pro-birth control students: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/20/gop-lawmaker-yells-abortion-is-murder-at-students-backing-birth-control-bill/

Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Uh-oh, that's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct. Insurance simplified. Warning, the following podcast doesn't care what words you're offended by. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Thoughts and Shares, the new form of Christian slacktivism sweeping the nation.

Because why do something real when you can pass the buck? Thoughts and Shares. And now, The Scathing Atheist. This is Matt from Consciousness3D.net, here to say we, and what we call consciousness, did indeed evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's February 22nd. And we're down one graham cracker. No illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. New York, New York. Secret Lair, Pennsylvania. This is Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll see which Christian can blame not God the hardest. On this week's episode, we'll see which Christian can blame not God the hardest. A Pennsylvania pastor finally finds that platonic gay bondage relationship he's always been looking for. And the Jehovah's Witnesses will courageously not do shit.

But first, the diatribe. Man, nobody does nothing quite as well as Christianity, am I right? I mean, they can't offer up deep understanding, they can't provide a coherent worldview, and they're terrible at keeping their dicks out of children, but when you need profound inaction and you want it done with style christianity has you covered and i'll admit that on some shameful level i'm jealous of that i mean you and i see for example yet another massacre of innocent children laid upon the altar of the second amendment we've got to actually contend with that we've got to actually wrestle with the moral repercussions we've got to educate ourselves on the issue we got to take sides engage in debates push our congressional leaders sign petitions and go on marches and shit or barring any of that at the very least we have to cope with the guilt of not doing any of that stuff and when i'm faced with that kind of choice some

visceral part of my brain wishes it belonged to a dude who could obviate all of that shit with a bromide about thoughts and prayers what the hell does that even mean we've been we've been drowning these fucking thoughts and prayers for a week now so it's probably worth asking what the christians offering them even think they're doing well first of all we i think we can set aside the whole thoughts half of the equation here because what the fuck could it possibly mean to tell somebody that they're in your thoughts if they weren't in your thoughts you'd be neurologically incapable of addressing them for fuck's sake what you're saying here is nothing more than i acknowledge your existence and there's not even a positive connotation in it when i'm cussing at the guy in front of me in traffic he's in my thoughts so that leaves the

prayers i'm praying for you which is a slightly fancier way of saying i'm wishing really hard for you but even if you set aside the inherent uselessness of reactive wish casting, what the fuck are they wishing for? Are you praying that God will stop the next school shooting before it gets started? Are you thanking him for locking this one down after the 17th fatality? Are you praying he's going to let the dead kids into heaven? I mean, I don't have a Christian here to bounce any of these questions off, but my guess is up until now they'd be saying no so what are they praying for but of course as any devoted post-tragedy thinker and prayer would be happy to explain i'm missing the point despite

the prominent position this platitude gives to thoughts there's no thought behind it saying shit like this is a substitute for thought because thinking at times like this if you're trying to cling to the illusion of an omnipotent loving god is dangerous so instead of risking actual mental reflection christianity offers up a banality flow chart that allows you to avoid contemplation altogether and makes you worse than useless to your friends and loved ones when they're going through a personal loss or something but your inability to pass the turing test at a time like that is a small price to pay for the ability to forego all of that empathic bullshit that spurs people into action. All of that lying awake at night wondering what you can do, wondering if anyone can do anything,

all of that subverted in an instant by the promise of intangible brain products. And I know it sounds like I'm disparaging it, but I'm kind of not. Because I've been in that situation where some friend of mine just lost somebody they loved, and I'm disparaging it, but I'm kind of not because I've been in that situation where some friend of mine just lost somebody they loved and I'm with them when they got the news. And my atheist rationalist ass has to sit there crushed by the full knowledge that there is nothing that I can say or do that's going to help in that moment. And I would have loved to be able to stab that icy silence in the heart with some meaningless bullshit about better places and angel shortages. But no, I'm faced with the stark choice of either doing something

or suffering through my impotence. I don't have a middle ground to retreat to or an imaginary being to tag in. I traded that away for a clear-eyed view of the world that admits nobody's coming to save us. And I did that for a reason. This isn't some unforeseen consequence of atheism. It's the whole point in so much as a plain admission of verifiable facts can be said to have a point we're that minority of people who

recognizes that having shortcuts towards inaction is maybe a bad idea even if they feel super useful in the moment we're the group of people who figured out that maybe frustrated impotence serves some kind of social function we shouldn't be trying to subvert i mean look without humanism atheism can get damn depressing and in the wake of mass shootings humanism can be damn hard to do and if those don't make it hard enough the petty squabbles and thinly veiled excuses for inaction from our government leaders is happy to step in and pick up the slack mass murder strains the credibility of religion's founding concept the one about the omnipotent guy who cares about him but at the same time it strains the founding precept of humanism too when shit like this happens so frequently that we have to argue about how many times it happened this year this seven week old year it makes it a lot harder to believe

that we're even capable of saving ourselves but whether we can or whether we can't we're still our only hope. Believe me, nobody wants to pass this responsibility off to the robot overlords more than me, but we're not there yet. I mean, a fucking speaking spell could probably do better with gun laws than the U.S. Congress manages at this point. So it's not a high bar we're asking the robots to clear, but we're still not there yet. We still have to rely on humans to get the job done. And that's why it's so depressing to see people offering up prayers in the wake of avoidable tragedy. When people abdicate their own social responsibility and shirk it off to a non-existent deity, it's left to the rest of us to pick up that slack. So whether they know it or not, when the Christians offer up

prayers after something like this, it's us that they're praying to. They're talking about your Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the bagel and cream cheese of atheism, Heath Henright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to be part of this nutritious breakfast? Hey, I'm just waiting for the Me Too movement to bring down Boo Berry. He's got it coming. Thevey kellogg effect yeah but yeah even if boo berry didn't assault anyone he's always thank you thank you yeah no he is

That's a deep cut across shows That's a lot That's a lot of brilliance John Harvey Kellogg Anyway so My point about Boo Barry though Even though he didn't assault anyone Or maybe he did I don't know

But he's always peacocking with that fedora Like fuck him Reading the game is almost a sex crime by itself anyone or maybe he did i don't know but he's always peacocking with that fedora yeah like fuck him reading the game is almost a sex crime by itself if you're doing the stuff from that book fuck you now before we get going tonight listeners might remember that last week there was homework based on a recent court case in spain that charged him in 400 for photoshopping his face onto jesus we asked you guys to get creative and indeed you did we placed a few of our favorites on our Facebook page for your enjoyment, but the winner is, drumroll please, Morgan, at 27394days, who gave us a modestly bikini-ed Savior along with the caption,

I thought Jesus needed to cover up. So congratulations, and check your DMs. We need to send you a T-shirt. Fantastic job, everybody. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight the lack of an extant god is never quite as clear as this when a dozen and a half innocent kids get mowed down by a psychopath so christians have spent the past week desperately circling wagons of

bullshit around their beleaguered delusion in hopes of obscuring the fact that the two options here are god doesn't exist and he's the bad guy and this has led to yet another spectacular christian freak out what are the guys talking about it's the newest the greatest christian freak out so let's start with occasionally acclaimed spokesperson for the american family association brian b fish fisher who echoed the sentiments of many a maudlin me ma this week when he took to twitter to place the blame for school shootings and the lack of mandatory school prayer on a tweet the day of the shooting fisher said quote here's an idea so coming from b fish that's already suspect i was gonna say yeah but no here's his idea why don't we pray in schools before these shootings happen instead of waiting

until we have dead students end quote uh i don't know brian fisher why don't you yeah i'm an atheist maybe also pray for uh no more raping kids if you're not too busy yeah just whenever you get a chance no rush pray for those things to not happen also is he saying that somehow like post hoc miracles don't work why not brian raise some motherfucking dead your book says you can pussy lots of questions about your magic cure so all right let's break apart all the ways that's wrong starting with factually i know i don't need to point that out to our audience but just to be thorough prayers are fucking allowed in fucking schools. The only thing that aren't allowed are mandatory or teacher-led prayers.

Also, how the fuck do you square the idea that you can pray away future shootings with the multiple mass shootings we had at churches last year? Right? Okay, maybe they were doing too many thoughts and not enough prayers. Oh, okay. I'm guessing there's like a Goldilocks zone for that ratio. Yeah. So maybe pray for that correct number for that ratio and think for it. Well, right.

Because you've got to mix it up apparently. You've got to get that right. I don't know. I still hold firm position that thinking and praying cancel each other out. And that's the problem. Oh, okay. Right. Too much thinking.

This is hero. Yeah. Oh, we'll get to that later in this show. Jesus. But to be fair, factually wrong and Brian Fisher talking are synonymous. So let's move on to morally wrong because I feel like using the tragic death

of 17 people, mostly children, to promote my religion is one of those things where like the too soon clock moves geologically. But even if we can't settle on a specific time unit, I think we can all agree that three hours after the first shots were fired that's a bit early yeah i think you have to wait at least until louis ck jerks off that's like a universal minimum for it never

should have hired him to play boobary he'd make a great boobie anyway he's the wrong color but other than that um but i think the most fascinating aspect of his wrongness here is the theological one because his god's conditional omnipotence and inability to just intuit us not wanting children shot speaks volumes to the moral character of both god and anybody that would worship him i mean if i buy into your worldview what am i supposed to believe? That your God's too stupid to figure out this is a bad outcome without your input? That his powers can be neutered

by a Supreme Court decision? That he's such a petty bitch he's been sitting in the corner since 1962 muttering, oh, I'm good enough to stop your bullets but not good enough for mandatory morning adulation, huh? I'll just be right over here. What the fuck is... like, I don't get, like, how does this worldview work for them?

Just go to church of bad God. Like, it would be so much harder for us to argue with. Alright, well, that's actually pretty solid. He's an asshole God. He's an asshole God. God, don't do this. Come on, buddy. You mad? We should talk about this. What did Dr. Glauber say? Oh, buddy. You mad? We should talk about this. What did Dr. Glauber say?

Oh, God. All right. So also in contention for best Christian freak out this week about the shootings was Illinois GOP Congressman Mike Bost. What are the guys talking about? It's the newest, the greatest so mr bost heard about the parkland shootings and decided the best course of action as a federal lawmaker would be gathering up post-it notes with thoughts and prayers from all over his stupid fucking district and then hand delivering them to donald trump in dc in a ziploc bag to seal in the freshness of the prayers and thoughts.

What the fuck? Yeah, I thought real hard into this coffee can. Don't open it up until you get to Florida, though, or the thoughts will just leak right out. Yeah, so now the President of the United States

has a stupid bag of paper just sitting there in the Oval Office like that piece of shit snow globe your girlfriend gave you that you have to keep on your desk forever. Although, if he doesn't want to keep it right there on his desk, I'm sure the families of Parkland victims have

a good idea where he can put it. And that actually might be good. I've never heard about any churches experimenting with prayer suppositories, but I'm assuming you get that nice, slow, steady release of the prayers and thoughts, maybe it'll work. I've heard some of them use that as a euphemism.

Yeah, just not the Catholic Church. That is very literal. And speaking of things, the president should have shoved up his ass. The worst part. Yeah, right. 30 seconds on the clock. No wrong answers. No on the clock no wrong answers

no wrong answers the one I was thinking of though and I think the worst part of this whole story it might have been the press photo that Trump and Voss took together in which they're both smiling like fucking idiots because they already forgot what they were

talking about moments ago it was kids getting shot Mike and, in case you guys are listening. In case you forgot, that's what you were talking about. The most inappropriate grins you could imagine. Gross. Thumbs up. But the camera guy was like, okay, say NRA donation. And they were like, yay!

They both started beaming like they were about to get handed an ice cream cone by Mickey Mouse they look so fucking stupid assholes personally I think they should have to smoke the whole bag that should be the rule and you know like after they try the suppository thing then smoke the whole bag or while

while would also work and in guys there's like 11 more of these Christians say awful things about mass murder stories. Yeah, there's a lot. So, are you saying you'd like to move on to something a little more tasteful? Oh, no, no, no. I was thinking

we could do something with a little more glitz, you know? A little more what? Hit it, Morgan! Have you been wearing that tux under your clothes this whole time? What are you doing? Baby. All right.

Well, since you apparently brought a red carpet with you and everything, I'm something that doesn't quite reach the threshold of proud to introduce the zeroth annual Tragic Losskers. I'm not great with. That was fantastic. What? Well, thank you. Thank you. Tragic Loss. I'm not great with... That was fantastic. What? Well, thank you. Thank you.

Tragic Loskers? Losker? And now, please welcome my co-host for this magical evening, the only two people with less sexual chemistry than James Franco and Anne Hathaway, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, is it a magical night or what? Well, just like James Franco and Anne Hathaway, one of us is very clearly

stoned, and the other very clearly has an eating disorder. I am telling you the vomiting isn't on purpose. Okay, well, then go to a doctor. No. Thank you, gentlemen. Now, when a school shooting takes place, it can be hard sometimes

to tell who to blame. You mean besides the single most active gun lobby in the world yes yes besides that uh what about a media that fetishizes mass violence besides that or the fact that why don't you just let me intro the fucking thing you can see the script okay fine go to a doctor no whoever's to blame these nominees did their very best to get the answer wrong the nominees this week for ugliest blame are youtube reporter lucian wintrich in his loscar debut for blaming liberals for demonizing christianity what the left has done these days is they have demonized Christianity, the church, Jesus Christ, who if you read his teachings, right, it was we're all brothers.

Look out for one another. And we I think a lot of especially younger people don't have that anymore. And then that is what's driving these shootings. It's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting. There's there. The left is to blame. The left is purely to blame.

Wow. That is some motivated, let's call it, thinking. Yeah. When do you think you'll hit puberty? Probably never. Yeah, based on our gun laws, odds are against it. Our next nominee is the Meryl Streep-a-sayin' horrible shit, Todd Starnes. Because he looks like a purse? How dare you?

Merrill is a treasure. A sexy, sexy treasure. Gentlemen, gentlemen. Anyway, Todd is nominated today for blaming gays, abortion, and Satan. We've raised a generation to believe that truth is relative. That there is no right or wrong. And the devil smiled. They kicked God out of public schools, banned Bibles and prayer. And the devil smiled.

We've destroyed the traditional family, broken homes, raising broken kids. And the devil smiled. What happened in Parkland, Florida is about wickedness, a war with the forces of darkness, good versus evil. Our land is wounded, her people suffering. The politicians and pundits would have you believe this is not about God. It's about politics or mental illness or gun control. And the devil smiled. Like slam poetry at a KKK rally what's that powerful powerful dementia our next nominee is a late runaway performance by dinesh de souza for tweeting a picture of weeping

survivors watching their state vote down an assault weapon ban with the caption adults one kids, zero. Wow. Bowel cancer is a human, Noah. Bowel cancer is a human. Really is. Really, really is. And now our final nominee for the evening. Coach Dave Daubermeier nominated for worst actor for blaming the victims themselves. Can somebody tell me why some boy didn't go tackle him?

When his back was turned, when I'm shooting this direction. Exactly, coach. Why didn't some wrestler or some football player, couple football players, run and tackle him? I'm talking about, do we train the individual kid in school to hate evil or embrace it? And these guys, I'm just saying

I wasn't there. I don't know what it was like. Nobody, none of those guys tackle him. Wow. Wow. Yeah. He should win it just for the inaccurate gun- hand gestures those were amazing he really should ladies and gentlemen the award for best actor goes to

dinesh d'Souza for being a massive piece of shit now uh dinesh couldn't be here obviously because he's not allowed within 400 feet of a bank account. But here to accept the award on his behalf is an actual pile of shit. Thank you, everybody. Really, I'm not nearly as much a piece of shit as Dinesh. He's been putting in the work. Thank you for this, buddy. Biggest piece of shit of all. Biggest piece of shit at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. This concludes the zeroth annual Tragic Lost You guys want to go get some tacos or something? Tacos sound great. Tacos? Yeah.

I was thinking tacos. And in Dammleton news tonight, Richard Dawkins' best-selling book, The God Delusion, is set to premiere as a play this coming May at the Charlton Arts Festival in Manchester, England.

Okay. Well, I mean, that sounds like a great idea, but they were super dismissive about hats off to Botswana. Yeah. We are in a fight, Charlton Arts Festival. That's ridiculous. To be fair, were super dismissive about hats off to botswana like yeah we are in a fight charlton arts festival that's ridiculous to be fair blackface on the cover i get it it was much but i wanted to it was a bold we were making a stage we were like the our town we were like that our town come on but we were white now ridiculous now obviously the question of how a non-fiction sciencey book will translate to the

stage is always tricky after all who can forget the ill-fated runs of the inelegant universe the musical and the beautiful but poorly reviewed operatic premiere of gis commons an introductory textbook on geographic information systems well it couldn't have been a worse idea than doing opera in German and they're still doing that. That is real. And if you've never YouTubed a soprano trying to land on schlacht, you are missing out.

But honestly, that is nothing compared to Richard Dawkins trying to land on, well, any syllable from any language. I cannot wait. It's going to be a lot of unintentional scat. It's a musical and he's in it, right? Oh, that would be amazing. But I got to say, based on the description by the artistic director, Thomas Moore, no relation, not a time traveler.

It sounds like it could be pretty awesome. more no relation not a time traveler it sounds like it could be pretty awesome he describes the show as quote somewhere between an atheist support group and watching a great stand-up comedian end quote which listeners to this show know is a fantastic form of entertainment and deserves your full financial support at patreon.com forward slash thanks all right well i think we've got i think we've all got a little aphasia singing to brush up on for our... I don't. I've been practicing. I don't know about you guys.

I'm off book. Well, Eli and I practiced for our auditions. We're going to take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. Memory. Memory. to my lovely wife, Lucinda. Memories. Memories.

A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate rape. You're a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in Misogyny. Last time we spoke,

the thing that was making me sick was the flu. But that got better, and this week I'm back to being sickened by things more in keeping with my on-show persona. Like, for example, Sandy Rios, the influenza AH1N1 of human beings. This week, American Family Association official and woman who definitely has frequent heated arguments about coupons, Sandy Rios, decided to chime in on the somehow still ongoing Rob Porter scandal. So Rob Porter, as I'm sure you know, is the guy that had a high-level position in the White House until it came out that two ex-wives and an ex-girlfriend had all accused him of serious physical abuse. Well, Rios decided to throw her hat in with the

president and his chief of staff by defending the thrice-accused woman beater. Her excuse? Well, since I can't make it any worse through comic hyperbole, I guess I'll give you the quote. Quote, I just don't think you can trust women now when they say they're being abused. I have total mistrust. We saw this happen with Justice Roy Moore. End quote. Because why just defend a physical abuser when there's a perfectly good pedophile you can exonerate too?

She went on to explain that she does believe that abusive relationships exist, but there's a but. Now, never has there been a sentence less in need of a but than I understand that there are abusive relationships, but there's a but there anyway. She adds, quote, But on a scale of 1 to 10, there's a but there anyway. She adds, quote, but on a scale of one to ten, there's a lot of variance isn't there, end quote. So first of all, yes, Sandy, anytime you plot something on a ten-point scale, there's a lot of variance, especially when you use decimal points, but that's just what happens when you use numbers. But Sandy's not the only asshole earning my ire this week.

I'm also going to toss an honorable mention to Idaho State Senator Dan Foreman, who was the subject of an ethics complaint this week after screaming abortion is murder at a bunch of college students that met with him to discuss a bill about birth control. The student group had apparently scheduled meetings with a number of lawmakers to discuss the bill, which would make birth control easier to obtain for college students. He had roughly canceled the meeting after the students traveled 300 miles to get there. But that wasn't enough, apparently, because he later confronted them in the halls and started yelling at them about abortion being murder

and how what they were doing stinks. What they're doing, of course, being participation in the political process. In damn near presidential form, he then sent out tweets about baby killers and shit until a Democratic colleague filed an ethics complaint, citing the video the fucking kids took of him yelling at them like a crazy person on the subway. And don't get me wrong, I hope he gets censured, but that also strikes me as a par for the course when your job is to represent people from Idaho. And with that geographical grenade lobbed, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in flop in the name of love news tonight, as many of our listeners may already be aware, America's most persecuted group finally saw the long-awaited premiere

of their first representative superhero on the big screen in decades this past weekend. I'm talking, of course, about the new movie Samson by Pureflex. Oh, so the group was Jews. It was Jews. I knew it. I asked Eli about this on the GAM episode. He wouldn't answer.

But you could tell. You could tell he thinks Jewish people have had it worse than black people in history. You could tell. At Eli Bosnick. Oh, I'll talk about it here. You want to get into it here? I got six million witnesses in this cigar box.

All right. This? No. They got like 60 million in there, like bottom of a ship. Yeah, right. Exactly. Nobody was even counting them. Which means it doesn't count.

Oh, now he doesn't care about numbers. Isn't that crazy? It's funny. It only counts when the Jews, we got fucking numbers and sheets and videos. But no, it's fine. It's fine. Hashtag blacks versus Jews. Tell us what you think, guys.

Tell us what you think. That hashtag has been used. Sorry. All right. Holocaust versus slavery. No, probably also. Also used. Very popular on YouTube.

If anybody's squatting, we could use a website. Sorry. Go ahead. No, the group I was thinking of were Christians, even though the movie is about Jews. But it's fine to do Jew face on television and in movies. Look at it. You miss Maisel. Oh, you had a lot of Jewish friends growing up.

Did you? Did you? That's cool. That's cool. They practically killed Scarjo, but you went to lots of bat mitzvahs. So we cool. We cool. Rain it in. Rain it in. Right? Sorry.

Got me started. I'm back. I'm back in now. Anyway, sadly, it looks like whatever weird spider god they have in Wakanda is about $198 million more powerful than jesus yeah is a massive financial failure yes not just as a movie but like money and

money and artistically as well yes yeah yeah and that's why we by the way have been on the chakra kiki bandwagon for quite a while. Yeah, we like gods who aren't dead. Right. Exactly. Saviors that don't get caught. So according to Pure Flix, the film is their most expensive project yet,

putting the budget somewhere between $4 and $5 million. And yet, according to Box Office Mojo, Samson took in just $2.2 million over the long weekend after friday's opening well sounds like david a.r white got his hair a little too close to his wife's extremely sharp face who was his power like samson that makes perfect sense and if you'd like to hear how it failed artistically we were joined this week on god awful movies by mark and dan over at the how-to heretic podcast for review.

So head over there to enjoy all the fox-burning, nameless wife-murdering fun that makes up this spectacular failure. And finally tonight, we'd like to congratulate Pastor George Nelson Gregory of Munhall, Pennsylvania, for his wonderful, wonderful contribution to Atheist Podcasting this week. And he deserves to be praised for several reasons. First of all, he's a 61-year-old man who got caught by police while doing rope stuff with a naked person in his car. And if I make it to 61, I'll be super excited if that's part of my Monday night. And it was part of his Monday night.

I feel like you need a lot more specificity for Eli's sake here. Too late. Drink war initiated. And well, another reason for praise. This is easily the best news we've had in a long time about religious leaders and sex. And that's because the naked person with the pastor was a consenting adult. And for that we are so proud of you george so very very proud it's all about positive reinforcement who fucked the consenting adult you did george yes you did yes you did no tabasco on your dick tonight george

or extra if that's what you want man seriously. Seriously. World's your oyster. Yeah, right. As long as it's a grown-up who said yes, we're in. Let's not restrict anything, Noah. Okay, but best of all, the pastor's denial about the sexual nature of the incident might be the most entertaining series of lies that I've ever heard. And that includes Michael Cohen's story about how he paid off Stormy Daniels as a secret surprise gift to Donald Trump. That was last week.

So here's the official statement from the pastor. Quote, I was counseling a young man with a drug problem. I'm assuming by snorting coke off his dick so he wouldn't have any more drugs. Right. I don't know. 100% effective. Yes. Very hard to cut up those lines though and the tabasco gets

the whole thing anyway continuing the quote it did turn strange but it wasn't my doing okay what is it okay with us if it wasn't his doing he's asking i guess continuing and i was adamant that i'm not participating in that way and so that's when the police pulled up and they assume things but i'm standing by my story it's not true really unclear what he's saying and and this is my favorite part we were just playing we we meet up from time to time to play with each other. End quote. No, that's what we thought was going on.

Is he saying that the naked dude tied himself up? Because I have logistical questions. Or that he was already naked and tied up when he got in the car. Dude's just like hopping along the side of the road with his dick flopping around. This pastor thought, well, that's no way to jug.

Let me offer that young man a ride. Are you on drugs? I could help. So, moral of the story, just be a gay guy who's into ropes. Yeah, right. That's great. That sounds fucking so much. And go watch Samson.

Also, you guys love it. There's oil and honey and rippling pecks and abs everywhere. And best of all, there's more homoerotic tension than any nylon ropes ever going to have in Samson. Just be gay and see that movie, George. And keep fucking adults. We're so proud of you. And after that, pat on the back. But before George asks us to pat a little harder, I suppose we can close off the headlines

for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Fit life is a magical place. And when we come back, we'll remind ourselves that Jehovah's Witnesses are at least as crazy as Mormons. Hey, folks. As many of you know, pastor billy graham passed away yesterday and in light of that we just wanted to take a moment for a very important psa please stop dying on wednesdays stop dying on wednesdays stop dying on wednesdays especially if you're an evangelical piece of shit whose legacy we'd really like to shit on. Yeah, because as many of you know, while we might begin the show, it's

Thursday, it's actually Wednesday. And we need time to write that shit. Want us to write something about that time that you told Nixon the Jews have a stranglehold on the media? Well, then die on a fucking Monday. I have, uh, more like a stranglehold on his respirator.

Stupid. Want quality material about your legacy of homophobia, bigotry, and barely concealed political party disguised as a church? Well, shoot us an email or something. This shit has turnover. More like a lurch. Damn it. I don't.

So we're asking you. No, we're begging you. Stop dying on Wednesday. Stop dying on Wednesdays. Stop dying on Wednesdays. Billy's so silly.

You... Did your best. Ah, the Jehovah's Witnesses. Like a warm bath of crazy we can always sink back into whether it's covering up sexual abuse or toy story ripoffs that encourage you to hate the kid with gay parents they're the gift that keeps on giving and this week is no exception after jw watchdog lloyd evans released six videos planned as part of the 2018 convention all under the theme be courageous and that might as well have been a message to us to make it through these six miniature pieces of shit which means it's time for yet another god awful minis of course joining

me because they never left are heath henright neil i bosnick fellas are you ready to brave this barrage of bullshit okay this show ends in us doing a flip book i just know it yeah out there all right so this is all one video it's sort of split up into six pieces but it's all one video we're going to treat it as such um but it has six different lessons the first one is about not being politically active which apparently is a thing for j-dubs that's just as bad as birthday parties being politically active. So we're going to start off with seven dudes in a meeting. Right.

And at first I couldn't tell if this was a workplace or if everyone was just dressed well for their cult meeting. It's the latter one, by the way. It is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And just a small thing. The leader guy here, he can't pronounce words ending in TH, apparently.

Is there like an anti-lisp? Is that a thing? We get him and then we also get an Irish guy who can't handle words that start with TH. The Irish guy's accent fucked me all up. Oh, I want him to be an actor who was just really going for it.

He like showed up the first day and he was like, I was thinking I would do this. What can you do for me? You don't really make my character stand out if i'm in this meeting all i'm doing is trying to get them to do th words and fuck them up just like trying to bait them into it also if you have a speech impediment like an anti-lisp or whatever maybe remove the mouthful of lemon wedges that would help and those tricky blends might might be a little easier for you yeah so now apparently these guys are sitting around talking about how they each had meetings with different jehovah's witnesses uh about different times they were courageous and each of them is going to share

a story with us actually there's seven people but there's only six stories i don't know who the fuck they left out but um but first we get a the story of mark being pressured to compromise his neutrality i didn't know what that meant at first i was like what are they gonna cut over to like mark as a swiss banker during the holocaust just like listen i'm not getting sucked into this i'm not everyone needs a bank account it's ever i'm being everybody equally you guys are assholes but instead it's a workplace like peer pressure psa about signing a petition yeah now apparently this is a thing for jdubs you're not allowed to get actively involved in politics in any way shape or form is that's a real thing they can't have political opinions yep that okay isn't that a

political opinion like extra medium politics isn't nothing it's a thing that's politics right you're picking stupid well and and the thing is too is that it's so impossible to come up with a situation where this matters that they have to construct this ridiculous scenario where this guy's following him around with this petition at work like you're to get fired if you don't sign this petition. He's going to get fired if he doesn't sign the petition. He might as well be like, all the cute girls sign the sheets, see the hearts over their names. Come on, man.

And again, like, there is no lower stakes than an actor doing, dare I sign the paper? Yeah, right. Yeah, where do they think this kind of pressure is happening like what's that like you know when your boss is like hey blow out these birthday candles and transfuse this blood also the boss and the workers they're not gonna be on the same side about a labor bill that's what yeah no shit right bill are they picturing just like like, HB, everyone gets a pony, except for the vague metal industry that this one, I don't know, it makes no sense.

But now, rather than use the visual part of this medium, after they do the whole setup, we just cut back to that room full of people explaining what happened next. Which was, by the way, that he didn't sign the paper. So I guess, what would you do visually? Just have him stare at it yeah he he prays to god to have the bravery to not do something yeah exactly my favorite part here uh brother luther is the guy telling the story and they're like okay so

did the guy sign the sheet of paper and everyone's anticipation face is amazing like they're like, okay, so did the guy sign the sheet of paper? And everyone's anticipation face is amazing. Like they're all holding back an emergency shit. And they're so excited about it. And he's just like, he goes huge on the dramatic pause. It's like, did he sign the paper? No. And everybody's like, oh, no, he didn't do it. Yeah.

I'm shitting now. So brave. But that's not the only way to be brave of course you can also be brave enough to hate gay people and that's what the second lesson is all about this might be the worst oh yeah no well it's the worst one in terms of message yes but yeah this is easily the worst one so now we're going to learn about sally's experience sally was at the grocery store one day when all of a sudden everyone in the grocery store surrounded her and started making her like lesbians it's so weird it's the silliest

it's like an episode of black mirror they're like what don't you want to wear the rainbow rainbow on bed rainbow on bed yeah she walks in and she the first thing that happens she sees somebody just like very casually has a

a rainbow wristband and she like she violently shudders yes she's just like boom

through my mouth a little bit oh god and I and I ate it okay yeah god

so gross. Somebody comes up to her and they're like, uh, do you want to, uh, donate to our marathon, our gay marathon? And she's like,

no. And then everybody gets all pissed off. Like they're going to drag her in the back and lesbian fucker at the end. Great ending to this. Didn't happen, but great ending to this. Right. And then finally finally so she

she gets offered one of the bands because she buys something at this farmer's market who then she's like no i'm okay and instead of the person being like sure the person in front of her in line turns around and she's like you got a problem with gay people i will fuck the eyes out of your skull and she goes as a well as a bible reader i love that line as a bible reader as though no no like that's a past tense thing as one who has read the bible you fucking idiot and of course the other chick's like well hold on bitch i'm a Bible reader, too. And my church loves lesbians. My church is gayer than Tom Cruise's outfit in Legend, motherfucker. And there's this crazy pause where she's like going to go on a killing spree like the fucking Kingsman. But but instead, she's just like.

There's this swell of dramatic music and she's just like fuck fags that's it that's her braves yeah that's the lesson it's like just be like oh yeah i'm a jehovah's witness and we are bigots you're big Shit. You kind of disarmed me. I was going to say you were big. Ah, well played, J-Dub. Yeah, right. Right. You said bigot first. Yeah, exactly. What else can I call you now?

But yeah, but all the guys in the meeting are super stoked about how well she hated fags. And I love their little wrap up where they're like, well, don't forget about the apocalypse. And everyone's like, yeah, that's a reasonable thing to bring up right now there's also this tiny ending touch here where where he goes oh i remember when she was a child who we indoctrinated into a cult she didn't understand good times you guys remember that kirk cameron movie when antichrist takes over the whole world yeah that's real so uh we we gotta hate fags now or else uh something but i love the little thing about her being a kid was was apparently that was just a clever segue there's you know she's like i

remember when she was a kid just handing out bible tracts and they're like, well, speaking of Bible tracts, this is another story that we would like to tell you. Yep. Oh my gosh. And we get one of my favorite characters in this thing at this point. So I'm going to call him Histamine Michael Douglas. And he's asking, well, first of all, he definitely just fucked anti-histamine

Ben Roethlisberger. Ben Adril Roethlisberger is about to tell the story. The eye contact between them is extraordinarily sexual. Ben Roethlisberger is about to tell the story about when the apocalypse

they predicted it was going to be 10 years ago and it didn't happen and they sent out a newsletter. Yeah. Yeah, right. They don't dwell on that for very long, do they? They literally are talking about 10 years ago when they handed out pieces of paper

for people to throw out and someone had a less than pleasant usual experience yeah so this is the story of uh sister sherry spencer she was going out handing people papers saying that they were worshiping jesus wrong and a guy like they show her flashback to this she's like here's piece of paper i'm leaving now and the guy chases her down saying are you saying my religion's wrong and yours is right because i'll feed you to my fucking dog if you say what you're saying you give me a piece of paper fuck you i don't take no piece of paper from no man i just usually like sing arbor day songs or like whatever holland i just start celebrating a holland there's like a few every day yeah like

today is card reading day oh well there you go celebrating whatever they get scared there you go so now that of course though that experience shook sister spencer to the bone and she's considering leaving the ministry so we have to have the follow-up scene where like the the two priests show up at her house to tell her that she's just got to go out there and occasionally get bit by dogs. Or tough it out and hand people paper again. There's this amazing moment where one of the guys is like, hey, look, sister, at some point all of us go, wait,

is this bullshit? And you just got to move forward and understand that we've created a support structure that'll abandon you if you think that. Yeah, you know and i don't understand she's got like ptsd because a guy made her stop bothering him at his house he was like leave my house please like you have to know you're the most hated door-to-door people in existence right they don't know that you're hated for door-to-door people it goes mormons megan's law j-dubs everybody hates you that's true they don't know that that's true

that's the order also there's this amazing moment where he goes i have suggestions that may help and i wanted him so badly to be like imagine them naked and afraid before god but no his advice is uh pray hope in jehovah which is different than praying not the same uh-huh and act which is just do yeah what we say well right no it's it's don't do anything don't do anything do a thing yeah exactly and she. And she's like, she's like, oh, okay, that sounds, and he's like, pray, hope in Jehovah.

He says it again. She's like, you want me to, you want me to repeat it? Pray, hope in Jehovah. I'll write it down. I love too that it's just,

it's just act. It doesn't, there's no specificity. She goes back to that guy's house, beheads a raccoon. She's like, fuck, I forgot to hope.

Damn it. I goes back to that guy's house, beheads a raccoon. Fuck, I forgot to hope. Damn it. I was supposed to hope. Starts doing sweet yo-yo tricks at his front door. What now? Walking the dog. Eiffel Tower. Around the world. And that's the whole fucking story for Sherry, apparently.

And now it's Peter's turn. He's going to tell us about, okay, this is a weird one for a non-J-Dub. Right? He's going to tell us about the time that his church arbitrarily split families up into different churches? Yeah. I don't understand this one. There was like a north and a south part, and they were just breaking families up in like an area. Yeah, right.

Like apparently there was one congregation. They're like, okay, we're going to split this into two. You go to this one. Your grandkids are going to that one. Right. So what's the message? Like, oh, you know how Joe Arpaio's Gestapo is the best? We're going to do that with you people.

Don't fucking whine about it. Just let it happen. That is it. That is literally the problem that they had. I had to Google this. And so I messaged one of our ex-JW listeners to be like, what the fuck is this? And he was like, oh, yeah, there was a big thing a few years ago where they just split up all the families because all of the families being together made them participate in church less. So they put people with strangers so that the only thing they would have to support them with church and people were whiny about

it so this year they're really driving home not to whine Jesus Christ terrifying yeah yeah no question and and then and then like the bad guy right the antagonist in this little video is the girl going like

well I feel like I'm just gonna go to wherever the fuck I want and they can go fuck themselves and everybody's i'm just gonna go to wherever the fuck i want and they can go fuck themselves and everybody's like you're gonna go to hell listen here if everyone did what they wanted in their lives uh this cult couldn't exist could it right no mary it couldn't you self-centered bitch no it couldn't yeah that's the lesson yeah yeah we see this old woman walk over old old lady walks over old old old lady and she's like oh aren't you going to be separated from your grandkids and your family and she's like i do whatever the fuck i'm told yeah my name's toby peace out yeah no whether i think it makes sense or not this is her exact quote whether i think it makes sense or not this is her exact quote whether i think it makes

sense or not i'm gonna support the church leaders that's the message of this damned video yep and there's at this moment there's this uh creepy elder guy like spying on them over the shoulder like whoa space you better say the line right right now i feel like 90 of j-dubs are just blinking furiously whenever they're talking trying to signal each other like i'm a hostage get me the fuck out of here and as if to double down on that when we cut back to the meeting they go well it's good to do that because when gog and magog attack us we must obey no matter what. Like just doubling down on, oh, you think we're a scary cult now? We have two demons you've never heard of.

You know what I'm saying? Gog and Magog. It's so ridiculous. The contrast, it goes from like kindergarten lesson to like insane sci-fi in the same sentence. So that's why you follow directions. Because when we get attacked by blargon and flargon what were they called no time for questions when blargon and flargon show up demonic lords you need to be ready and directions yeah right oh jesus the actual

line is i shit you not one guy says well courageously following directions now will help us follow directions then courageously following directions and i proudly stand up because you told me to whatever you say and then it's time for the boss to share what happened with the monroe family and this is the greatest thing ever. This is the scariest part. That too. Yeah. So I love that the video, by the way, feels the need to promise us it's about to end right here.

Right. It's like, all right, we're almost done, y'all. This is like the penultimate story, but we're not done yet. So this is the story of when he went to some family's house for indoctrination night. They're doing their like weird J-dubs workbook study night, I guess. And the question dad's like, okay, so how do we prepare for the apocalypse? And mom's like, oh, oh, Mr. Kata, Mr. Kata. My husband, whatever.

I'm an adult raising my hand to answer a question. That's not crazy. And the kids looking at a picture of like the crazy apocalypse horses coming out like killing the world and that's the lesson we're gonna learn is like that's seems scary but no you'll be fine yeah yeah exactly so the the boss guy luther he's like all right so let me ask you little brad i think that's the kid's name, Brad. What are you looking at there?

What are you thinking about? And he's like, I don't know. Am I going to have to fight evil Armageddon locusts? And the guy's like, no, you won't have to do anything at all. Let me tell you the story of the Moabites and Ammonites from Second Chronicles. And then we get this guy standing in front of a goddamn green screen because i shit you not because they used the green screen and then they couldn't figure out how to put other backgrounds there so they just left it green they don't use it like i think

somebody just like they heard the words green and screen and they're like, okay, we got a green screen. What do you think they thought was going to happen? I think they just had the green screen and they're like, oh, when we shoot this, it's going to look so cool. Something is going to, like, I thought the people were going to turn into like a desert

landscape, like the people. And then the people are all Hawaii and then outer space. So and i like i we cannot overemphasize that you have to watch this video to understand this is absolutely this is not like there happened to be a green wall behind them they absolutely positively were trying to do a green screen thing and just left the green background in it's amazing also we have to talk about this story is just well the israelites were afraid because they were supposed to go to this battle but god was like nah they'll fuck each other up

and by the time they got there everyone was dead and the kids like that's a great story i feel all better right yeah that's like and the jewish people lived happily ever after forever so there's nothing to worry about and he's like oh great yeah and then finally albert takes a turn to tell the story of philip getting accepted to ldc okay right and this entire story is about this kid so philip we should expect philip looks like one of those pictures after a thing that happened in a place far away where you're asking to give a dollar this is like a skinny thin this and he's he basically brings his letter to his church brother or whatever weird thing they have in their cult and he's like hey um i uh i got assigned as a construction volunteer and i look like this and he's like well uh i can see how you would think you would

do something else and now being a literal slave would be tricky but um fuck you yeah no that's you that's the answer well he's got a bible verse he pulls up a handy dandy bible verse that's like fucketh thou but yeah that's about it and his phone's like already open to a relevant bible verse yeah he has like j double just like always listening she's like hello chronicles chronicles 28 every listen listen yeah but like and and then he says he even says he like, this verse reminded me not to overthink things. Over and again in this goddamn video, the message is, don't you go thinking now. The message of their Be Courageous videos is don't overthink it.

Yeah, no, exactly. That's the overriding message here. But okay, so then we have to have this like montage of this guy being as bad at construction as we knew he would be. Right. Proving his point. It's just like I accidentally built this pipe inside myself. Yeah. And again, the guy is built like a fucking wacky wall walker, right?

Like that's his appendages and shit. And they show him hammer and nails and stuff. And you feel sorry for him. You feel sorry for the hammer. The hammer, you know, it's getting made fun of later that day. He's wrapping a tape measure around his face to measure something and just rolling along it with his face.

Whatever they're building is going to collapse on these poor people and wherever. That hotel in North Korea. Yeah, right. Also, one other thing. Why does every Jehovah's Witness from all over the country, no matter where they're from,

they say Jehovah like a fucking crazy person. Jehovah. Jehovah. It's like they're W-A-N-B-C. I want to watch them teach that because they have to be teaching that. Yeah, right.

It's insane. Just like Jehovah. Jehovah. Jehovah. Jehovah. You know Just like Jehovah. Jehovah. Jehovah. You know, one more time. But the moral of this story though is ultimately Philip did just fine and I love the way this closes because

we cut back to the meeting and we see because like at the very end of the construction montage, Philip's having a blast and they all take a picture together and then we cut back to the meeting and the dude who was telling the story is holding that picture and it's framed.

Well, it's on an iPad. Oh, okay. That would be amazing. I wish it was in a frame. It's like a growing page, freeze frame. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was seeing. Family ties.

And with the knowledge by the way that we have scarcely dampened our toes in the grand scale of J-Dub insanity I guess we're going to wrap up for the night I'm not sure about you guys but I have a shitload of petitions to courageously not sign at the moment so

we'll close it there before we fly the coop tonight I wanted to remind you that if you're going to be anywhere near Allentown Pennsylvania on Sunday March 4th you should come see me at the Lehigh Valley Humanist monthly meetup I'm going to be giving a talk called how to survive a theocracy and eight easy steps at the Bradbury Sullivan LGBT

Community Center things kick off at 1030 a.m. they run to 12.30. There's a brunch afterwards, which me and Lucinda are both going to be at. Check the show notes for links to more info. Anyway, that's all the Blast Movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at

7 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously this would be a sad excuse for a show if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for all the usual stuff, plus all the unusual and above and beyond stuff that he did last week while I was sick.

I need to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for powering through the tail end of a damn nasty flu to be here tonight. I want to thank the lovely, in his own way, Eli Bosnick for being the best damn buddy a guy could hope to have. I also want to thank Matt from Consciousness3D.net for providing this week's Farnsworth quote.

I honestly don't think I can summarize his website in a sentence, but if you'd like to check it out, you'll find a link on the show notes. Most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most dazzling diploids, Aaron, Jake, Cameron, Blake, John, The Wrong Crowd, Jose, Polar Atheist, Mark, Brad, Stephen, Chetil, Wes, Corey, Wesley, Tamara, Christian, Brett, Leslie, and Amy. Aaron, Jake, Cameron, Blake, and John, whose cocks have enough mass to slow down time and enough skill to make you appreciate it. The wrong crowd, Jose, Polar Atheist, Mark, and Brad, whose asses are so tight dishes use them as submarine analogies. Stephen, JTL, Wes, Corey, and Wesley, whose ejaculations making saladists look like a super soaker.

And Tamara, Christian, Brett, Leslie, and Amy, whose ice cubes are so high binary gives up and starts using twos. Together, these 20 tremendously tantalizing totems of talent took the time to turn over a tittle of treasure to torment the tabernacle this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the tenacity it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, 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 with all your money's tied up and not spending it on podcast donations, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, I love that you just have a piece of shit voice. comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. I love that you just have a piece of shit voice. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle & Thunderstorm LLC, copyright 2018, all rights reserved.