The Scathing Atheist - 268: AA Okay Edition

Episode Date: April 5, 2018

In this week’s episode, we catch us on all the news we missed while we were looking for one single human being in the entire state of Oklahoma. Seriously. Never had to look both ways to cross the street. I mean, we still did, but we never had to. 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: You can check out Talk Heathen here: http://www.talkheathen.com/ You can check out the “Story By…” podcast here: https://storybypodcastblog.wordpress.com/ Headlines: Hearing begins in Pell case: https://www.religionnews.com/2018/03/04/cardinal-pell-facing-australian-court-on-sex-abuse-charges/ Utah Governor calls for entire state to pray away the dry weather: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/03/03/utahs-gop-governor-calls-for-statewide-prayer-in-response-to-dry-weather/ Read more at OK Gubernatorial Candidate: I’ll Ban Abortion and Ignore Judges Who Say I Can’t http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/03/09/ok-gubernatorial-candidate-ill-ban-abortion-and-ignore-judges-who-say-i-cant/ Letter from Gandhi about his opinion on Christianity sells for $50K: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/letter-gandhi-christianity-sold-50000us5a9d64f6e4b089ec353d4e26 Followup: Canadian judge rules that foster parents don’t have to lie about easter bunny/Santa: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/03/08/judge-foster-parents-dont-have-to-pretend-the-easter-bunny-and-santa-are-real/ Kevin Swanson worries Shape of Water will lead to species threatening fish sex: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/03/09/christian-pastor-the-shape-of-waters-sexual-depravity-will-destroy-america/

Warning, the following podcast contains people that were just in Oklahoma. Needless to say, we've got some profanity to get out. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, 4Hims.com, ZipRecruiter.com, and by the fact that American Christians just aren't that serious about it. A thousand atheists in one place this weekend and not a single machete. Slackers. And now, The Scathing Atheist.

This is Lawayne L. White from the Story By podcast. And even though everything on my show is complete fiction, you should still believe me when I say that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. And women. It's Thursday. It's April 5th. And the case for Christ is a mistrial. I'm Noah Lutions. I'm Eli Bosnick.

I'm Heath Enright. From New York, New York. Secret Lair, Pennsylvania. This is Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we catch up on all the headlines we missed New York, New York, Secret Lair, Pennsylvania. This is Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, we catch up on all the headlines we missed while we were trying to find a person in Oklahoma. I start to miss the slow-witted man right next to me yelling out mundane observations. And Lee Strobel will tee up a softball and keep bringing bigger bats

until his interviewee can knock it off. First, the diatribe. The best time I have at atheist conventions are never in the audience of a talk or in a workshop or in an organized event of any kind. They're always at the bar or they're around the ashtrays out front. Now, don't get me wrong. American atheists put together a hell of a speaker lineup this year. And even if you just planted your ass in the main theater and kept it there the whole time, you'd have got your money's worth. up this year. And even if you just planted your ass in the main theater and kept it there the whole time, you'd have got your money's worth. But my MO is to spend as much time as possible drifting in and out of all the great discussions going on among the attendees. There's a downside,

of course. There always is. See, the ashtrays outside of these events are, as the name would imply, outside of these events, which means they're not exactly restricted to ticket holders. And whenever you get a large enough group of atheists in the same place, there's going to be at least a few would-be missionaries seeking to take advantage of that and talk a few of us heathens out of our godless ways. You know how atheists never loiter outside of churches so they can try to talk people out of their religion on the way to their car? It's like that, except with assholes.

So sure enough, on saturday morning they started popping up outside the venue got about you know half a dozen or so perky evangelicals setting out to save our souls all of them between the ages of about 15 and 20 you know because who better to spar intellectually with a bunch of atheists than a group of sheltered high schoolers whose worldly experience ends around tulsa or so every time i go out to smoke i'd see one of them locked in a futile conversation with an attendee desperately working their way through a preordained flowchart of questions in an effort to wire their still monkeys us out of our doubt. Now, for the record, I'm pretty sure I ran mine off the quickest. I don't think there's an official award for that

or anything, but when the dude tried me, he got all about 18 seconds into his spiel before I just started laughing at him. It starts off with, you know, me lighting a cigarette and some impossibly clean cut kid of about 19 asking if I'm with the conference. I kind of thought the giant American atheist lanyard around my neck was a dead giveaway. But I said, yes. Then he asks if I'm an atheist. Seems a little redundant. But I affirm my disbelief and I ask if he's a Christian. And I can tell right away that i'm fucking this up for him by the way i i'm not supposed to say stuff other than yes or no that that messes up his flowchart so when i asked if he's a christian i can see him pause and like reboot his conversational

software he does a quick calculation his head he realizes yeah okay i can answer that question without deviating too much so he offers up a quick, and then he carries on to the next question on his list, which is, where do you think the universe comes from? Now, you and I already know the rest of that conversation, right? We know what's coming, and it's boring, and it's stupid, and I don't want to have a boring and stupid conversation. So I try a quick redirect. He asks me where I think the universe comes from. I dismiss that with a quick I don't know, and then I offer him a question. I say, do you think if you were born in a Muslim country with Muslim parents, you'd

still be a Christian? But of course, he's not authorized to reflect on shit like that. So he ignores that question entirely and he plows forward. And that's when I feel like I've got permission to just laugh at him until he goes away. Right. By ignoring my question, he's essentially failed the Turing test. I'm not talking to a person anymore I'm listening to a kid recite meaningless objections fed to him by a pastor

and I'm doing that instead of striking up an interesting conversation with a fellow attendee so he tosses out the next line which is a doozy he says because the late Stephen Hawking said that energy couldn't be created or destroyed and that's as far as I let him get. I mean, the laugh was genuine. If quoting Stephen Hawking in defense of creationism isn't laughable, I don't know what is. But I exaggerated it. I'll admit that. And when he tried to talk some more, I laughed a little bit louder.

And then he got the picture and he walked off to find somebody more patient than me. And to be honest, it's hardly worth bringing it up. This kind of shit always happens. But I did want to reflect on what a stupid fucking thing to say that is i mean to you and me right like if we're trying to convince somebody at x we're not going to start off by citing as an authority someone who vehemently disagrees with x right kind of counterproductive to your argument to establish an authority who, using the stuff you're quoting, concluded that you were wrong. What's more, there's no fucking reason to bring Stephen Hawking into the conversation if all you're trying to do is establish the first law of thermodynamics.

You know, would have made a lot more sense to proceed energy can't be created or destroyed with like something like the first law of thermodynamics teaches us or even as we all know. But he was attributing it to stephen hawking i heard a few more snippets of the jesus timeshare pitch from a few other would-be missionaries and and they were filled with shit like that every few minutes it was like neil degrasse tyson says x or or carl sagan said y where x and y were just like basic scientific principles that had nothing to do with tyson or sagan or anything and i linger on that because i think it offers an interesting window into the way that these people think or fail to think i guess see from the perspective of a religious kid nothing can just be objectively

true the laws of thermodynamics can't exist without an authority they're attributing this stuff to well-known science communicators because they can't conceive of a world where knowledge isn't handed down. You know, things aren't true because they withstand a rigorous application of objective analysis. They're true because somebody said so. And if they're trying to change somebody's mind, it stands to reason or the substitute for reason that they're allowed to have that they're going to get there by appealing to an authority. Of course, that doesn't work with atheists. You know, we don't believe something's true because Stephen Hawking said it. We don't accept the laws of thermodynamics because they were carved into tablets on a mountaintop.

So needless to say, nobody walked away from those ashtrays as a new disciple of Christ. But with a little bit of luck, somebody walked away wondering if he'd still be a Christian if he were born in a Muslim country. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are two men who are angry at the God they don't believe in. Nobody. Because at the moment, it's just me.

I'm cutting in to explain the lack of a topical news segment this week. Normally, we have one right here, of course. But because the American Atheist Convention in Oklahoma City sucked up so much of our work week, there was no way we could keep up with everything going on in atheist news and have informed shit to say this week. But this didn't exactly hit us out of the blue. So over the last few weeks, we've been stockpiling headlines. We're still going to have a headline segment, just not going to be as topical as it normally is. But before we get to that, a word from this week's first sponsor, Stamps.com.

Hey, Eli, what are you doing? Just mailing this lamp to my mom. Oh, cool. What's with all the stamps? Oh, well, I want to make sure there's enough stamps to carry it. Eli, do you think that the stamps actually carry the package? Also, why aren't you using stamps.com? Okay, ignoring the first question because you seem judgy right now.

What's stamps.com? Well, with stamps.com, you can access all the amazing services of the post office right from your desk 24-7 when it's convenient for you. Buy and print official U.S. postage for any letter, any package, using your own computer and printer. Wow, so you could print like a big stamp. No. No, that's not how it works.

How do you think mail works? It's relevant. So you've used stamps.com? Oh, yeah. We use it to send out our Patreon rewards. Our April patrons will be getting books, Christian movie bingo cards, and more, all thanks to how easy stamps.com makes sending them out. Okay, so which postman do i sign up with the one at the post i want to say store post i i want to know what you think the mail is no okay well right now use scathing for this special offer

which includes up to 55 free postage a digital scale and a four-week trial don't wait go to stamps.com before you do anything else click on the radio microphone at the top of the home page and type in scathing that's stamps.com enter scathing and the postman will come live with you for as long as it takes no you won't okay i don't get it. And now back to the headlines already in progress. And did Pell freezes over news tonight? Australian Cardinal and selective invalid George Pell headed to court on Monday where a hearing to decide if prosecutors have enough evidence to put him on trial began. But this hearing, by the way, is expected to take up to a month but if the anti-kid rape side succeeds it's going to make the 76 year old the most senior vatican official to ever go on trial for

actually doing the raping or for covering up he's actually accused of both i mean is anyone doing the raping and not covering up i really want there to be a guy who's just like yeah i fuck kids but i'm not a liar well he's covering up the other people doing it too yeah well okay so pell who up until now was serving as the vatican's chief finance minister by the way was charged in june with sexually abusing multiple people in australia decades ago he's also been implicated in a shit ton of rape enabling along the way but he might manage to escape prosecution for those crimes by rotting in prison for these other ones first yeah okay so if we're ever gonna use cryogenic freezing i think this is the time right if we

figure out how to bring frozen people back to life in 100 years i want it to be mostly for continuing to punish kid rape like demolition managers just be about that i i love this detail too by the way defense lawyer robert richter chastised the Australian public for their assumption of guilt and then went on to point out the 21 witness statements they submitted that were favorable to Pell. So, yeah, at least 21 people saw him not raping kids. So I'm not sure how the prosecutors are going to share. Yeah, right, right. But, yeah, fingers crossed we get to see how they'll defend against those 21 witness statements and in fault lake city news tonight as our

listeners know heathelton bethesda enright has three great loves scotch none of that weird lady whispers call forward and the great state of utah well one of those has been running a bit dry lately, and I don't mean the disastrous lack of peat production that could destroy the scotch market in the coming years. Don't say shit like that, Eli. Heath breathing into the paper bag comes across in my microphone, too. I understand. Okay, well, here's the thing.

You know how we have that strategic petroleum reserve? I am not. Don't tell anybody. So Utah has had a bit of a dry spell, increasing the chance of wildfires all over the beautiful coffee shop and human-covered state. Also, Mark and Dan live there. I bet they'd invite us to dinner, and their husbands slash wives are already really cool, so we'd, like, go see movies and talk

about it. Vito, the... Where do you think we'd go eat? No, I gotta... Vito. Sorry, I love Utah. Anyway, the governor of Utah isn't just sitting around doing nothing. He sent an official letter of

instruction to religious leaders all over the state to pray for rain. Oh, really? Like with the seal and everything. Here's the letter in part quote, because the health of our waterways, our wetlands, our agriculture and our forests in particular depend on an abundant snowpack. Okay. I'm officially uncomfortable with an abundant snowpack okay i'm officially uncomfortable with the term snowpack just keep that in a note and because none of us can afford i don't know it feels i don't like it and because none of us can afford to witness the destruction that comes with wildfire i am again reaching out to you and your faith communities with an invitation to unite in prayer yeah also i get that we're mormons but

maybe try boreas greek god of the cold north we don't have an ice god so then we get to the prayer instructions which seem bossy give me your opinion quote first and foremost i believe we should thank our creator for the extraordinary blessings that we enjoy as a state but i would also encourage us to pray that the elements be tempered on our behalf. End quote. I don't understand, though. Why not just, like, pray for the reservoirs

to fill back up magically? Now, you're just fucking up the weather. It doesn't need to rain. Just pray. If you think magic stuff happens, pray straight for the solution. Yeah, right, right. Why are you doing that?

It's like Boba Brinkman's riddle. You gotta go right to the center. Nothing like that. Two votes. He finishes, thank you for considering this special request, and thank you for all you do to meet the significant spiritual needs of the people of our

great state. Love, someone who spent tax dollars to do this bullshit yeah right and in showdown in the okay corral news tonight gubernatorial candidate dan fisher who looks like he's always a little too insistent that he's not jewish has a bold new platform to capture the electorate before june 26th and it appears to be declaring oklah Oklahoma its own separate country where the federales dare not roam. The only law is to protect sweet, sweet unborn fetuses that so dearly need his help. Okay, just circling back real quick.

I'm not arguing, but how insistent is too insistent that you're not Jewish? I'm sure he does look like that. If you have to ask, it's too much. That's the... All right, no, just tell me when I get there. Ready? Okay. I'm not Jewish.

Too much, see? Too much. I'm not Jewish? Again, way too much. I love Jewish people. Making it worse, you see? All right. All right, so according to Right Wing Watch, when D. Fish is elected, he'll, quote, ask for a bill on my desk that criminalizes abortion as murder and I'll sign it.

Yeah, right. No, also, I'll ask for a bill that says jerking off is genocide and birth control is kidnapping. Then he's going to close down every abortion clinic in Oklahoma with his signed piece of paper, I guess. And quote, quote, instruct those law enforcement officials that if they find someone attempting

to perform or performing an abortion that next day, they'll be arrested for attempted or committed murder. Mid abortion. Get your hand out of there. Also, why is he talking in like partial future tense like that? Is this going to be like Minority Report? He just like rolls a fetus down a table

and you catch it. Jail or something. Yeah, he just skeeballs it right back up into some lady's sniz. Baby! Now, you're probably saying, saying dan what will you do about the federal government and he has an answer for this um he's going to ignore them literally he would quote advise oklahoma officials to ignore any federal court summons end quote then he would

quote call for judicial reform which will remove the power of judicial review from the courts. What? End quote. Because, you know, what America's political system has is too many checks and balances. Well, right, but I mean, I'm sorry. The dumbest thing I've ever heard. To proactively come out against judicial review is insane no matter what your positions are. Exactly.

That would be like expressing a blanket preference for former rather than latter and also just for the record this is the same guy who sponsored a bill to replace the ap american history curriculum in the state with his personal selection of theocracy nonsense including sermons the ten commandments and ronald reagan also he's apparently part of a christian propaganda group called the black robe regiment which sounds really close to kk like it's different color but it sounds and based on the pictures i saw they're uh 18th century bigot larpers i'm pretty sure so larpers now dan is currently in fourth place in the republican primary but after 2016 literally numbers mean nothing so good luck to dan on his new abortion centric rebel nation

when he wins and then you're gonna to miss me when I'm Gandhi news. Thanks to the robust market for obscure letters between religious pen pals that apparently exists, I got to learn what Mohandas Gandhi really thought about Christianity. And it's delicious. According to a Pennsylvania-based historical document dealer, somebody just paid them $50,000 for a signed letter written by Gandhi

in which he explains to an American pastor why he's not going to be switching over to Christianity like the pastor asked him to. Was it, you guys are mad killy? My money's on two killy. Two killy. Is it lack of official teenage girl enemas because they've gotten a lot better about that just for the record they've really scored a lot up there now who's gotten better doesn't matter so everybody so the story begins

in uh in 1926 when a christian theologian named milton newberry fr France wrote a letter to Gandhi that basically said, Dear extremely important Hindu leader, I wrote a pamphlet about Jesus. Have you heard about this guy? Have you seen this guy? If not, that's probably why your people are being enslaved by England. They don't know about Jesus. You should be Christian. Hollaback.

You up for changing your religion? Yes. And by the way, interestingly enough, when this didn't work out with Gandhi, this guy Christian, holla back. You up for changing your religion? Yes. And by the way, interestingly enough, when this didn't work out with Gandhi, this guy started emailing me every four or five days forever. Yes. So Gandhi did holla back, actually,

and it was in the form of the most polite go fuck yourself ever written. It's the greatest. It was like, hey, white guy, thanks so much for that letter. Great stuff. Great stuff. During my extensive study of world religions over the course of decades, I had not heard about this Jesus guy in your family. Super glad you told me about him. He sounds amazing, like the best teacher ever. But still, you know, I'm a stupid

brown savage. So I'm a stupid brown savage, so I'm actually going to stick with being Hindu. Super sorry about that. Love, G-Train. That's so nonviolent. So nonviolent. So if you ever wondered what it would look like if you made a letter out of the super nice girl

denying a lean-in for the kiss by her friendzone platonic guy friend, now you know. It looks like a letter from Gandhi to American Christianity. There you go. Also, Google what Gandhi thought of black people. That's a fun game. Really? Google it.

Google it. Yeah. Yeah, right. Just Google it. He's a great guy. And in bunny business news tonight, we've got a follow-up to a story we covered back in episode 218. As you'll probably not recall, in April of last year, we've got a follow-up to a story we covered back in episode 218. As you'll probably not recall, in April of last year, Derek and Francis Bars filed a lawsuit alleging that the Christian Aid Society of Hamilton, Ontario had removed foster children from their care

because they refused to tell those kids that Santa and the Easter Bunny were real. Now, this led to outrage, disbelief, and rabbit puns that led to further outrage and disbelief. Yeah, when stupid people have power like this, it really bugs me. That was one of them. It's got me hopping mad. That was another one of them. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, good news.

After only 11 months of deliberating, Canadian courts have decided that telling kids the truth is not a sufficient reason for the state to revoke custody. Yeah. Who's lapping now? I bet they're hopping mad. Use that one. Superior Court Judge A.J. Goodman wrote in his decision, quote,

there is sufficient evidence to assert that the bars did indeed attempt to preserve the children's enjoyment of the holidays even if they were not able to positively perpetuate the existence of the fictitious characters that are associated with those holidays. End quote. Based on that statement's use of the word fictitious, the Children's Aid Society of Hamilton, Ontario is taking that judge's kids away, too. So the parents are saying taking away their kids is what the tort is. And the hair. Jesus Christ.

The hair shouldn't be an issue. No, it should. Taking away their kids is what the tort is, and the hair... Oh, Jesus Christ! The hair shouldn't be an issue. No, it shouldn't. Or it isn't. Hopping mad. No, I should point out here, by the way, that Derek Bars is apparently a pastor, so the not lying to kids thing isn't a hard and fast rule, but one way or the other, the stuff he's telling the truth about shouldn't be the part that's getting him in trouble.

Exactly. And in monkey, chicken, fish, bear, frog news tonight, Christian, pastor, and man who constantly looks like he just said, yeah! Kevin Swanson is really, look at the picture of him, it's really, that's a good description. Kevin Swanson is

probably owed a small part of our Patreon at this point, seeing as he's written more of our show than I have. As regular listeners to our program will remember, Swanson is known for promising to cover himself in poop if his son ever gets married. Gay married, yeah. A great one. And don't worry, we are still honeypotting the shit out of that kid with gay hookers.

It is going to pay off huge when it works out. 40% of our Patreon goes to honeypotting that kid with gay hookers it is going to pay off huge. 40% of our Patreon goes to Honeypot and that kid with gay hookers. See? Give. But you might remember him for claiming that God punished California for gayness with wildfires and for being mad last year at Beauty and the Beast

because it promotes bestiality. Leaving reasonable people everywhere to wonder if he knows what a movie is. Kevin Swanson, making Eli's obsession with which cartoon characters fuck each other seem comparably charming since 1993. Okay, I feel attacked. So it gets worse.

This week, he took to the airwaves to complain about another human-animal coupling in The Shape of Water. Here's the quote. The fish thing. Yep, the fish, the splash, boy splash. Quote, The Academy Awards ceremonies this week provided the best film and best director Oscar

to a violation of the worst possible sexual sin mentioned in Leviticus chapter 18 uh which is bullshit i checked and the oscar for worst sin isn't even at the main ceremony at those tech awards that you just see the clip of is yeah i mean you're saying it as a joke now but if they actually had that we could have been done with harvey weinstein a long time ago see see take take my emails oscars take my emails he continues quote i don't want to defile the ears of my listeners yeah okay well i'd recommend not talking like you're always fucking a slide whistle that's fair that's your concern but this was another milestone in the moral

degradation of hollywood and the nation itself what it did was it presented the ultimate sexual depravity and again i don't want anyone thinking what this is but the ultimate sexual depravity as presented in leviticus 18 is presented in this movie as a tender and romantic and a beautiful thing even saying that is disgusting thing end quote okay uh question is he worried that kids are gonna go out and start fucking their local swamp thing is that is that a concern of his i just i loved it i wanted his awkward dance around actually saying fish fucking to keep going you know by the way he's got a couple of action figures on his pulpit. He's going like, I mean, she's not mucking a Furman, if you know what I mean, right?

I'll pay for an hour of that footage. Right. Yeah, so fainting violet that Kevin Swanson is aside, I'm wondering how come he never talks about all the robot murders that the government ign Yeah, right. Where was his commentary on the brave documentarian who captured Fate of the Eight? And why won't Noah let me bring him on the show to make fun of him? They're difficult questions.

All of these are difficult questions. And on that note, whatever it was, I don't know because I'm recording this way in advance. We're going to close off the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Joe Mangi. That didn't sound like Heath. Sorry. And when we come back, we'll dive back into the case for Christ.

And pre-recorded or no, I'm pretty sure we're going to find some laughable bullshit there. Lou, Lou, Lou. Doing some loft stuff. Loft stuff is my favorite. Hey, Heath. Oh, hey. Fuck. What did you do to yourself?

Oh, you like it? I went to 4hims.com. No, I do not like it. You're covered in like thick, thick, bushy hair. I mean, that's... Dicks. I know. I know. And I mean, that's... Dicks. I know. I know.

I have 18 rock hard dicks right now. Yeah. Really, really want to unsee it. All thanks to the folks at 4hymns.com. But Eli, 4hymns.com is a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, sexual wellness, and other things for men. They offer well-known generic equivalents

to name brand prescriptions to help you keep your hair. And stuff for your dick. Right. Right, and stuff for your dick. But 4HIMS connects you with real doctors and medical-grade solutions to treat hair loss. And dick stuff.

Yeah, right. Right. No, and dick stuff. I mean, trust me, I know. And did you know our listeners get a trial month of 4HIMS for just $5 today right now while supplies last? I mean, they could see the website for full details. This would cost hundreds if you went to the doctor or pharmacy. They just go to 4HIMS.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing. 4HIMS.com slash scathing.

slash scathing forhims.com slash scathing. Yeah, but Eli, forhims doesn't cover you in hair, and it definitely doesn't cover you in dicks. Oh. I also hit a gypsy with my car. There it is. Hard. Okay.

Three weeks ago, we cracked open the case for christ and even though we weren't sure what we were going to find in there we were pretty damn excited well this week we're diving back in for chapter two and i'm kind of curious were you guys more or less excited this time around uh it's kind of like finding out your ex and their father are going to be at a dinner party. Like, it's bad with curiosity invoking bad, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Lovely. And that's why Eli tried to trick me into that exact situation two weeks ago. You didn't come.

I don't know why you're mad. And, of course, rejoining us is the lovely, intelligent Lucinda Lugens. Lucinda, where would you rank your excitement level going in? I'd have to say my heart rate was negative going in. Minus 6 pp. Alright, we'll see if a little intellectual outrage can up those bees p.m.

Now, as you'll recall, when we last left Lee Strobel, he was interviewing Dr. Craig Blomberg, who was connecting pseudo-historical factoids together with nanoscale webs of bullshit in a strained effort to obscure the fact that there is zero contemporary evidence of Jesus ever having done anything. Anyway, when we rejoin him, he's still doing that. Right. We get to chapter two, testing the eyewitness evidence.

Do the biographies of Jesus stand up to scrutiny? And I flip the page thinking about how awesome it would be if the next page just said, no. And we could just take the week off. That would have been great. Yeah, no, that would have been much shorter. Right. But instead, we meet 16-year-old Michael McCullough. Now, he's going to be the almost dead kid that you hate if you don't believe me of this chapter.

I hope one of the workbook questions at the end of this is which almost dead kid was your favorite? Why was it the white one? Alright, so this is a kid who got shot and had to testify from his hospital bed through a respirator after he got shot in the face.

Oh my god. I expected him to end this by saying, oh yeah, and he was a puppy a puppy with aids yeah right he plays the piano while sneezing and built the underground railroad and then moved to germany and survived the holocaust wrestled a teacup pig and then fell off a slippery counter it's amazing and by the way the only point of this little analogy that he's drawing with this kid is that we the people trying to undermine the gospel testimony are in this analogy the lawyer trying to get a reduced sentence for the guy who shot this kid in the

face that's us we sound like that yeah and the guys who mugged a kid and shot him in the face for two dollars that's the the Jews who killed Jesus. Not the best analogy he's got. Right, right. So with another dead kid under our belt, he explains that he's going to subject Dr. Blomberg to the same kind of questions a defense attorney would use. Eight tests and all. And Blomberg looked not just ready, but eager. And again, I want to emphasize the creepy coloring language strobel uses in this book

it's like blomberg looked at me cheekily over his hot steaming cup of coffee with a cherubic glimpse in his eye he said sure i can answer your question it's wildly sexual out of nowhere here's the exact words. Lomberg picked up a fresh cup of steaming black coffee and leaned back. I wasn't sure, but it seemed he was looking forward to the challenge. Go ahead, he said. That's exactly it. Yes, it is. So either Strobel started blowing this guy in the next five seconds,

or they had a super awkward conversation that got left out of the book oh you didn't or both you didn't mean yeah right right about them all right so now we're gonna get eight tests test number one is the intention test and get ready for some tap dancing y'all i feel attacked it was not unintentional because the actual goal here is to decide the intent of the witnesses in other words do they maybe have any ulterior motives other than accurately describing what happened and of fucking course they do they were trying to justify their religion but they can't just say that or they lose it their own book right which is weird because the last goddamn chapter he explained how little people at this

time cared about the truth when it was to his advantage so does lee not remember the last chapter of the book because i remember the last chapter of the book right so blomberg's first answer is well the book sure says it's accurate yeah right yeah no he quotes from the opening of luke boy what i'm about to say sure is truth y'all which makes plenty of sense because lots of books start out with uh okay this is total bullshit but hear me out anyway can't ignore that all right and so strobel says okay well that luke says that are you saying that the other three are bullshit yeah and blomberg's like well no you can tell those three are true because of how harmoniously these keys jingle right here. His actual

answer to this question seems to be yeah, but those books are about the same subject and therefore true. What? It's actually even dumber than that. Lomberg says okay, so Mark and Matthew don't have a preface that says true stuff

starting now. Granted, but they're close to Lukeke in terms of genre yes the genre called new testament so it's like how all sci-fi is factual because paper really does burn that and it actually doesn't no right yeah i just want to like auto ignite well well correct me if i'm wrong here but doesn't he at one point well, you can tell they're accurate by looking at how accurately they're written? Yes! Or some bullshit? No, absolutely.

I pulled the quote. Quote, consider the way the Gospels are written, in a sober and responsible fashion, with accurate incidental details, with obvious care and exactitude. obvious care and exactitude. You don't find the outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing that you see in a lot of other ancient writings, end quote. It's not like we've got him rising from the

dead or anything in this one. I'll tell you what, you tell me what's flourishy and mythological sounding. And then Jesus was like, on his electric guitar. Still good? Okay.

Okay, what if his dick is a chainsaw? That's just too much. That is an outlandish flourish. Okay, what about a sword? Yeah, right. Perfect. Nailed it. That's good. Sword, math, and stuff. Right, so then he gets to answering objections. He's got a whole section on answering good. Swordman of the Sun. Right. So then he gets to answering objections.

He's got a whole section on answering objections. And instead of selecting from any of the many sane objections to this tenuous threat of illogic, he chooses to throw out some weird shit about early Christians not writing anything down because they were pretty sure Jesus was going to be back any second. So why bother? Hey, Dave, should we write down all that stuff the son of god just said or he'll be back in 15 minutes we'll just ask him when he gets here how big of a deal could it be and the way he answers this impenetrable objection by the way

is by saying no jews were always writing shit down accurately remember yeah right just look at that old testament it's yeah and if all that isn't enough for you he concludes yeah but if they were making up stuff that jesus said they would have created a religion that didn't constantly schism and massacre it yes so ah yes the argument from nobody could be that stupid all right so that's test number one. Now it's time for number two. This is the ability test.

In other words, even if they did want to be historically accurate, would that even be possible? And since none of them were eyewitnesses and no eyewitnesses were still alive, the answer is no. Time for a little more soft shoe. Lee says, won't you concede that faulty memories, wishful thinking, and the development of legend would contaminate the Jesus tradition prior to the writing of the Gospels? And Blomberg's like, no. Well, obviously, because as we learn here, people back then had magical super memories that never made mistakes, by the way.

That is his actual argument. People back then always remembered everything perfectly because they didn't have laptops. Yep. Yeah. He also argues that Jesus spoke and did things in easily memorizable meter. Yeah. I never thought I'd have a serious note to add to this book. But as someone who has spent a tremendous amount of time reading

about learning about and working on memory for magic tricks i'd like to contribute an official no uh yeah you never use meter for that seven king of kings like never but but regardless regardless he immediately shits on that yes he's like okay when i say memorize i i meant like you know get the gist there were people who'd get the gist of the whole torah with iambic pentameter actions right there's a whole bizarre bit where he admits that in middle eastern oral traditions it's okay for 10 to 40 percent of a story to be made up bullshit. Yes. And that somehow makes the pre-gospel oral traditions more reliable.

Not less. More. Truth is a bell curve? A person? It's a person who needs to be graded on a curve. Yeah, look out for my new book the case for ulysses coming out this year yeah right and then in this amazing admission of how stupid he assumes his readers to be he spells out the whole telephone game objection to which blomberg argues i shit you

not that that doesn't count because in the telephone game, you have to whisper. What? Dr. Blomberg, one last question. Do you know what a simile is? Okay, well, first of all, it's pronounced smile. You're stupid. And no. Also, by the way, we get a super depressing glimpse into Lee Strobel's childhood here. He says, hey, you guys remember the telephone game? You know, the game where you'd whisper

you're my best friend. And it ended up being, Lee is the worst. Everyone hates it. Can't believe that stuff. The whispering fucks up the truth. So sad. That's so close. Yeah, exactly. And with all of that established, we move on to the

character test. how do we know our witnesses are reliable types of people oh this one is so amazing he says quote we simply do not have any reasonable evidence to suggest they were anything but people of great integrity end quote and well that's true but only because we don't even know who wrote the gospels we have no evidence of any kind of what kind of people they were or weren't your honor i have here an anonymous tweet saying that the defendant is the murderer and we have no idea who sent it the prosecution rests i make a good movie he also has an implicit christians don't lie argument in there too yeah and uh this is the first of many times that we're going to encounter the

die for a lie argument which is basically uh nobody's ever kept lying after someone kicked him in the balls and early christians got kicked in the balls a lot just lots of truth kicks and then we revisit the fact that the gospels are blatantly contradictory in the consistency test here. Yeah, and note how carefully he avoids mentioning any of the, like, meaningful contradictions. Right, right. He admits the contradictions exist, but he sure as hell isn't going to point out other things like, where was Jesus born? Who was Jesus' grandpa? What's the Lord's prayer?

Was he born of a virgin or whether he came back from the dead? Splitting hairs. Obviously not, because then the hand waving, none of it's all that important answer that Blomberg gives would leap off the page and stab itself with a summarize sword to preserve the honor of the Alpha. Ridiculous. the honor of the alpha bolder ridiculous yep plumberg's actual answer here was if you don't count adding giant lies forgetting hugely important stuff and misquoting the son of god if you don't count it's all consistent yeah right right on a curve also now skeptics like to get all in a tizzy over the fact that this book disagrees with itself in a way that makes no fucking sense but if that's such a problem how can we teach columbus discovered america and george washington discovered america think about it yeah he even says i shit you not

quote if the gospels were too consistent that in itself would invalidate them as independent witnesses. End quote. Yeah, he actually argues that you don't want historical records that are too consistent. Yeah, you never want your religion to suffer from too much truthiness. Yeah, right. Sometimes your truth is too big. Like, literally complaints about how big your truth is. You don't want that.

Yeah, and then he backs that up with some lawyers saying that the Gospels had just enough inconsistencies to prove they weren't copying off of each other's work. What?

Which is really weird because this book has already admitted that Matthew and Luke were copying off of Mark. Right. So. But not carefully,

you see, and that's how we know it's true. Jesus. That's the argument.'s true well yeah just to emphasize how bad this is strobel actually says quote fabricated accounts tend to be fully consistent and harmonized end quote he's actually saying that lies tend to be more consistent than truth i guarantee you by the end of this fucking book, war will be peace and freedom's going to be slavery. And then he promises to hit Blomberg with some of the toughest contradictions.

Yes. You know, like, for example, in Matthew, it says a centurion came to ask Jesus to heal his servant, but in Luke it says he sent somebody else to do that. That's the one. That was the part that shattered my faith. I write in the dead all the time who what and his answer for this is fucking stupid he's like well they say the president

gave a speech even when somebody else wrote it sometimes so if you think about it the president gave a speech and dave the speechwriter declared declared war on Uganda. It's both right. Right. The questions are so easy and he still fucks them up. His second example is that Mark and Luke say that Jesus sent the demons into the pig in Garasa, but Matthew said it was in Gadara. Again, he's skipping over where was Jesus born to get to this one. And still he can't knock it down.

Well, and by the way, even this weak ass example requires Blomberg to invent a whole town that can't knock it down well and by the way even this weak-ass example requires blomberg to invent a whole town that doesn't exist in any historical record and assume a series of convenient mispronunciations yeah just to be very very clear this gisara gadara thing is someone in this conversation entirely making a place up yes maybe. Maybe it's Blomberg, maybe it's Strobel, but someone is just like, you know, there's a town that could have been called this. Like when I said I'd be at dinner at 7,

I was actually saying Zvevin, a magical time only I know about, which you guys all know as 730. But I said Zvevin. Well, and the response to this is Strobel being all like, you've done it again, you son of a

bitch. But then he finally mentions one of the actual tougher contradictions, and that surprised me. He brings up the fact that the genealogies in Matthew and Luke are wildly inconsistent. And to answer this when he has to pretend that a jews sometimes use

patronial lineage which they don't and b that mary and joseph's lineage crossed over each other like a hatfield or mccoy don't worry guys i told him jesus parents were cousins but i think it's worth pointing out that some of his excuses actually were like Cousins. What do you mean? Yeah, right. But I think it's worth pointing out that some of his excuses actually were like, well, they made mistakes and thus this information is unreliable. Right. Like he says, hey, look, some names were probably omitted. Some were probably misheard. Some are easily confused. And the fact that this completely contradicts the oral traditions are super reliable excuse.

He used just two pages ago is completely unacknowledged we get this family tree too accurate it'll seem like we're lying what and then strobel concedes the point he's like wow i guess if we use different criteria to evaluate each claim you can special plead yourself out of anything. Jesus wins. Which brings up the very real question for me of what answer wouldn't satisfy Lee Strobel? You're right. Just how do you

explain I'm a Muslim now? Alright. New book. Well, and if you weren't already dizzy, don't worry. We've got you covered because the next test is the bias test in which blomberg is going to try to argue that the people writing down stuff about the head of their religion had no bias and he dismisses this in two paragraphs yeah right he says well sure they could have lied but maybe, maybe they love Jesus so much they didn't.

Did you ever think about that? That is the entirety of his counter argument. Yeah, because when I say devotees of a religious figure, the first thing you think of is the accurate portrayal of their words and deeds. And then he asked a question so leading it came with a link to google maps he's like well i guess if the gospels contain anything that might be embarrassing to the people writing them that would make them double plus reliable huh and i mean they do but we're not about to encounter the argument from why would we make up the yelling at a tree story well but once again blomberg whiffs on this softball his answer is like well if i was inventing a religion from scratch i wouldn't make it as hard to follow as christianity

i'd make it the everybody gives craig blomberg a blowjob religion and i'd call it a day yeah and if an emperor had thought give craig a blow job ism was a good way to control people and get money uh we'd be reporting every week on blow jobs in public school yes okay never mind probably wouldn't have jobs we'd be devoured well he also argues that if superman wasn't a real guy the stories wouldn't contain kryptonite yep he starts citing parts of the bible where j Jesus was somewhat less than omnipotent and saying, if this wasn't real, why wouldn't Jesus' power be more unlimited, huh? Sure, he rises from the dead, does the thing with the fish,

but all his predictions are vague enough to be true, even though, oh my God, Jesus is Darren Brown. Well, it's not just that it's also the argument from okay but what about all those times the son of god and his friends acted like giant assholes yeah guys i think i might be the saver you think of that okay well pin in that but what about all the intentional lying to make everything true what if the flaws in jesus were truth lies then he's the truth how many was it all right yeah right was it odd even all right now we move on to the corroboration test and as strobel presents it that test is so when the people mention places and stuff, did those places exist?

And to be clear, we're about to prove that Bill and Ted's excellent adventure really happened. Like, how about that city you made up three paragraphs ago? Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Right. But Blomberg has to admit, well, sometimes they're referred to people that weren't alive when they were supposed to be, but those are dwarfed by the people that were alive then. Yes. Like an awful lot of this argument seems to rely on the notion that being 51% true is

the same as 100%. Yeah. Okay. Batting 5'10 is legendary. You heard a little place called the Baseball Hall of Fame? It's traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It's in New York. Cooperstown.

He also says, quote, in addition, we can learn through non-Christian sources a lot of facts about Jesus that corroborate key teachings and events in his life. End quote. He then goes on to not mention any of them in particular because none exist. There are no contemporary accounts of Jesus.

Period. And he ends this section by Strobel narrating himself, writing in his notes, expert opinion from archaeologists and historians. I want him to continue the narration, but not physicist or doctor about rising from dead and walking on water. Also buy eggs. And then we finally reach test number eight,

the adverse witness test, in which we ask why there aren't any contemporary records of Jesus not being the sinner. Yes. Right. He's like, notice how his opponents never deny that Jesus performed miracles. And again, this is because there's no contemporary record. He's citing the lack of evidence on one side and not acknowledging that it's

the product of a holistic lack of evidence. Okay. Everyone who is inside tower seven and witnessed a team of Jewish spies, not blowing up the building, raise your hand. Nobody exactly. Yeah. And then Strobel wraps it up by saying i've got to admit those last couple chapters were really fucking good like maybe the best chapters ever

written and and suppose i could just stop here since i've been doing such a good job so far and everything but i'm gonna keep writing anyway because just out of the goodness of my heart. Yeah. Jesus is the son of God. That is locked in. That's where we are. But is he the unique son of God? Was he an only child? That is the only question left to answer. I mean, if I weren't convinced

by now, I'd have to be some kind of asshole. But if I were convinced, I might give this book to my daughter, even though I didn't finish it. You know what I'm saying? Give it to your kid with a note that says, check this out. But before we can finish with Blomberg altogether, he has to add this little afterthought where he says, so how convinced are you about this whole Jesus thing? Yeah, right.

He's asking Blomberg that. And by the way, Blomberg's very convinced. The answer is very. But Blomberg adds, but if you think about it, even if nothing I said was remotely convincing, you should still believe in the atrocity of the Bible because faith in God and Jesus and stuff. Yeah, right.

Try not to think about it. End of chapter. And that's where the arguments end. But of course, this book does us the favor with closing on a couple of questions for our discussion group. Beginning with question one. Overall, how have Blomberg's responses to these eight evidential tests affected your confidence in the reliability of the Gospels? Why? of the gospels why okay well if by that he means was i impressed when blomberg and jesus and vladimir putin skated right out of the book and scored a hockey goal with their dicks

yes very impressed and lee strobel is a world-class goalkeeper extra reliable it's good thing you didn't mythologize at all i mean i'm pretty worried that blomberg owns six timeshares in boca right now that he shares with Lee Strobel. I don't know, though. Look, I checked out a few of Blomberg's online biographies, and they were so consistent, I'm starting to doubt whether he exists at all. Okay, to be honest, I'm going to say that Blomberg's responses have made me somehow less confident in the reliability of the Gospels, simply because this is apparently the best he's got. Yes.

He's got an author that's saying, what should I write in my book to make you look as right as possible? And he still has nothing. Right. Amazing. All right. Question two. Which of these eight tests do you consider most persuasive and why?

No. But I'm going to go with, just for the sake of argument, I'm going to go with number six, the argument from Jesus had a micro-penis, therefore he's the only son of God. Why would we lie about the first thing? We would if we were lying. He'd have a huge dick. I'm going to say number five was the shortest, so it maybe had the least amount of bullshit in it.

All right. All right. That's fair. I was going to go with the one where we learned that they were exactly wrong enough to be perfectly accurate. I think that was number four. I'm going to go with the one where there wasn't anybody at the time to say that Jesus wasn't not God if he wasn't a God to not be. Which brother do you ask? Raise your hand. They always tell the truth.

man they always tell the truth all right question number three this is the last one when people you trust give slightly different details of the same event do you automatically doubt their credibility or do you see if there's a reasonable way to reconcile their accounts how convincing did you find blomberg's analysis of the apparent contradictions among the gospels. All right. So I'm going to answer first. When people I trust tell me stuff, I trust them. It's built into the fucking word, asshole. When somebody asks you a tonological question, how do you pronounce yes?

Also, if someone goes, I was born in Maine or France, I'm pretty sure they're not telling me the perfect word of God. I mean, I'd have to say it really depends on the friend. I mean, if Eli tells me anything at all, I assume he's trying to establish an alibi for later. Yeah, usually you're going to nail that. Well, speaking of which, an Amber Alert popped up in Oklahoma City the moment Eli left the bar. Amber Alert pops up on all the bar TVs. We all look around.

Where's Eli? He's gone. And when we asked where he went after he came back, Eli said, answer. Bathroom. Laser tent. Awkward silence. You are super credible. All right.

So yeah, unconvinced by the historical accuracy of the Gospels, we'll shelve the book for a couple more weeks, and we'll be back with Chapter 3 at Episode 271. Between now and then, Lucinda, Heath, Eli, enjoy being an atheist while you still can. Woo! Dun, dun, dun. Hey, I'm here for the Puzzle and a Thunderstorm interview. Yep, yep, that's us.

Puzzle and a Thunderstorm. What's that a reference to? It's a whole thing. Anyway, let's just go ahead. Yeah, right. So is this a writing job? Yeah, you're going to be writing our Zip Recruiter ads. Zip Recruiter?

Yeah, they're a really big sponsor of our show. And honestly, we're just out of ideas for how to talk about the service.iter? Yeah, they're a really big sponsor of our show. And honestly, we're just out of ideas for how to talk about the service. Really? What do they do? ZipRecruiter learns what you're looking for, identifies people with the right experience, and invites them to apply to your job. Wow, that sounds like a great service. It is a great service. Okay, so what if you guys did an ad where you show like a terrible candidate and the point would be like that the person who's doing that. They should have tried ZipRecruiter. Yeah, right, right.

Yeah, we've done that. Oh, okay. Well, is there like something super impressive about ZipRecruiter that I should emphasize? Well, 80% of employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. One day? Really? Yep. Right candidates are out there, and ZipRecruiter is how you find them. Okay, I got one.

What about an ad where Donald Trump has... Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done that, too. We've done, like, two of those, actually. Okay, well, what about, like, a special offer? Do you guys have one of those? Yeah, right now. Our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free.

For free? That's right. Free. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. Okay. No, I got one. What about like a beloved mascot who...

Yeah, I don't like who can like... Have you seen my garlic bread? Hey, Carl. kind of doing a thing right now maybe oh okay no one lives in his room all right um how about like a meta ad about how awesome zip recruiter is even if their ads are hard to write uh i think we're done here yeah i'll see myself out zip recru, smartest way to hire. convention had a ton of fun with those guys i believe the recorder will be up on their feed soon so be sure to check the show notes for a link 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 god awful 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 i couldn't look myself in the mirror if i neglected to thank heath enright for preferring the aisle seat lucinda illusions for not needing any of leg room, and Eli Bosnick for making me laugh whenever the abject stupidity of airport security threatened an eruption that would have ended with me in a CIA black site. I also want to thank Luane L. White from the Story By podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. If you need more fiction in your life now that you've given up on your religion, you'll find a link to his show on the show notes as well. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most honorable hominids. Benjamin, Robert, Doris, James, Nemetopian, Jason, Daniel, Mrs. Wine Mixer, AJ, Nicholas, Como, Kim, Peach Machine, Mike, Matt, Christiana, Ken, John, Allie, Other Matt, Amy, Jim, Real, Donald, Trump, Jeanette, Justin, Dustin, Leslie, Wesley, Dwayne, Hausdorf, Jamie, Phoenix, Gwen, Mark, Neil, Jay, Ryan, Michael, Jose, Lisa, and Tor, whose intellects cause gravitational lensing.

Also, Phoenix has an amazing tail. Lovely plumage. Together, these 41 formidable fornicators forfeited a fork full of their fortune to forestall the forceful foraging of foreskins this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the keen detection skills and ability to banter well with supervillains that 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. Thank you. This is a P. Andrew Torres and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark. We 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 skatingatheist.com.

That's all right. Lucinda was doing a little clicky. My bad. My bad. She was clicking. My screen went to the wrong screen and I had to get back to the screen. But you could have waited. I know.

That's all I'm saying. I hate it when you get spiked. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle & Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.