The Scathing Atheist - 272: Pell Freezes Over Edition

Episode Date: May 3, 2018

In this week’s episode, my pug gets really good at Blackjack, Australia gives Cardinal Pell a timeout in the corner to think about all the kid-raping, and Mark and Dan will be here for some DIY Heathenism. To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To check out our new YouTube video, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7U32vRjZOU To buy our book, click there: http://www.amazon.com/Diatribes-Godless-Misanthrope-Scathing-Presents-ebook/dp/B00J53FZFI/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid=1396141562&sr=8-1 To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out out half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ Guest Links: To check out the How To Heretic, click here: https://howtoheretic.com/podcast/ To check out Dumb All Over, click here: http://www.dumballoverpod.com/ To check out Opening Arguments, click here: https://openargs.com/ Headlines: Pell to face criminal charges: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cardinal-george-pell-will-face-trial-on-historical-sex-offense-charges/2018/05/01/76adb5a8-4cf1-11e8-af46-b1d6dc0d9bfe Bryan Fischer is glad the not gay House Chaplain was fired because he's gay: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/04/30/bryan-fischer-im-glad-the-house-chaplain-was-fired-because-hes-gay-hes-not/ Buying likes on Facebook is now haram: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/04/18/buying-facebook-likes-is-now-against-islamic-law-but-child-marriage-still-isnt/ Anti-Vaxxer Crowd Expands Its Fears to Fido, Sees Non-Existent Autism in Dogs http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/04/27/anti-vaxxer-crowd-expands-its-fears-to-fido-sees-non-existent-autism-in-dogs/ This Week in Misogyny: Southern baptist leader encouraged abused women to pray and avoid divorce: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/04/29/southern-baptist-leader-pushes-back-after-comments-leak-urging-abused-women-to-pray-and-avoid-divorce/ Crisis Pregnancy Centers in NC Are Spending Tax Dollars on Christian Propaganda http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/04/27/crisis-pregnancy-centers-in-nc-are-spending-tax-dollars-on-christian-propaganda/ Modesty ponchos: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/prom-night-dress-code-modesty-poncho-michigan-divine-child-high-school-a8331466.html

Warning, the following podcast contains profanity because it's about religion. Seriously, it's the religion podcast without profanity that should come with a warning. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, Stamps.com, 4Himps, and by the new Amazon service for people who didn't think the $120 a year hike on Prime was quite enough, Amazon Prima Nocta. Because if you're going to get fucked, get fucked. And now, The Scathing Atheist. This is Tom and Austin of the Dumb All Over podcast.

And as a podcaster of America, I can assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. I wanted to say that. Too late. Damn it. It's Thursday. It's May 3rd. And we made you a YouTube to go with this podcast. That's Thursday. It's May 3rd. And we made you a YouTube to go with this podcast. That's right, we made you a YouTube.

I'm Noah Lusions. 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, my pug gets really good at blackjack. Australia gives Cardinal Pell a timeout in the corner to think about all the kid raping he did. And Mark and Dan will be here for some DIY heathenism.

First, the diatribe. If you saw the Vice article on Facebook or Twitter or something this week, you might have guessed you'd be hearing a diatribe about it today. But just in case you didn't, let me give you the title. The Seven Types of Atheists and Why Most of Them Suck. Now, at first blush, this probably seems like a blatantly bigoted guide to stereotyping a minority, but it's not as bad as you think. It's actually part of a series. Next month, Vice is going to do the seven types of Jews

and why most of them suck. In July, they're going to do the seven types of jews and why most of them suck in july they're going to do the seven types of puerto ricans it's a whole thing now i haven't actually spoken to anyone at vice to confirm that but that must be the plan because the clear implication of this fucking article is that there's no discrimination against atheists so unless they're doing this with all the other minorities too it would prove itself wrong before it got past the subtitle all right so before we get to the stereotypes proper i should say that this article was a promotion for a book by a new dude named john gray he's a british philosopher that wrote a book about us atheists and what's

wrong with us and according to both of the reviews on amazon he nailed us now to be fair i can't speak to the book because i'm not an immediate family member i haven't read it but i have read the article so i'm going to keep my criticism locked on its author one adam forrest and that's only fair because in the article you barely get the blindest fucking clue of what the dude's book is even about hell forrest never bothers to mention the first two types of atheists he's singularly interested in telling us what a bunch of douche nozzles we atheists are and he'll be damned if he's going to confine himself to numbered lists in his effort to do so now adam lays down his bias in the first paragraph without recognizing it as a bias apparently he opens by admitting that not believing in god is sensible and all but talking about it is tedious

and to be fair that's probably true because forest is clearly a fucking idiot and talking about all thought-related subjects is probably an uphill battle for him but rather than recognizing the tedium as a byproduct of his underdeveloped intellect, he dismisses people who do talk about atheism as fanatical online acolytes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. You know, those three interchangeable people that his 11-year-old research says equals atheism. So we start off by dismissing all of new atheism by pointing out that religion wasn't trying to be correct. Plus, plus the B button on their controller was sticking the whole time. Gray says, yeah, religion's wrong about every point of fact that

ever asserted, but it wasn't meant to be taken literally never at any point, not even back when they burned you to death for not taking it literally. He then goes on to assert that the very idea, like the concept of progress, is something that comes directly from Christianity. He really says that. No, you fucking putz. The idea of progress comes from retrospect. It comes from the scientific revolution or, more specifically, us looking back 100 years after that started and saying, hey, what do you want to call this concept of how everything got better when we stopped letting religious authorities dictate truth to us of course by now john gray's sphincter is getting sore so he has to take a break from yanking historical assertions out of his ass but that's okay adam forrest has

spent the whole morning loading questions and they're ready to burst so he starts in with questions like i shit you not quote the fourth kind of atheist is the kind who turns politics into a kind of religion. Does that kind of zealotry help explain things like the French Revolution, the rise of Bolshevism and Nazism? End quote. Hell, at one point, he literally stops asking questions and just throws in bitches and grapes. One of his questions is, quote, let's move on to the God haters. These atheists seem to be so obsessed with evil that they actually still have some sort of belief in God. End quote. No question mark

there. I mean, it's listed after a Q and before an A, but it's just him bitching about losing an argument to me on Facebook. Now, there are a few points that are curiously missing from this article. The dangers of religion don't get so much as a passing mention and neither does discrimination against atheists same goes for religious abuses preferential treatment to religion under the law religious bigotry religious encroachment on education and religious opposition to scientific progress now me i'd have trouble dismissing an entire movement without so much as paying lip service to the things they're actually fighting against but adam forrest doesn't have time for shit like nuance and overarching points the important thing is that we've annoyed him with

our tedium and that's all he can be bothered to address. See, to judge from this article, there are no stakes in the religious debate. God existing or not existing is as trivial as whether you pronounce that first R in February. It doesn't even rise to the level of Mac versus PC. that first R in February. It doesn't even rise to the level of Mac versus PC. When we atheists say produce weekly podcasts about the disturbing trend towards theocracy that's being actively and vocally sought by the majority of the executive branch of our government, that's basically just pedantry. Who cares if Jesus was really crucified or if omnipotent and omniscient are mutually exclusive or if restaurants have to serve gay people who cares if our tax dollars go to rebuilding churches or scientific research six of one half dozen of the

other and who cares if that scientific research assumes the earth to be 4.5 billion years old or 6 000 years old it's all the same thing clearly this argument just doesn't matter or rather i'm sorry it matters in so much as it annoys petulant freelance clickbait mills like Adam Forrest. But that's where the stakes both begin and end. Can't wait to find out what minority annoys him next month. Joining me for headlines tonight are two people who make Michelle Wolf look like Fred Rogers on a regular basis. Heath Ed Wright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to skew the grading scale?

It's so weird. The party who ran a guy on the fuck your feelings platform. Yes. They got all offended when their feelings got fucked. And now they're all crying tears of dramatic irony. It is so delicious. Heath, it's fuck your feelings. Not their.

Fuck your feelings. Important. Fuck everyone else's feelings. Yeah. And as if to remind everybody that saying mean shit about people still pays, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Zip Recruiter. And in fact, you are the one whose face is covered in the blackest of lies. Hey, Sarah. What are you

doing? Oh, hey, Tyler. Just trying to write some roast jokes to get back at Michelle Wolf. You know? Yeah. I think maybe you should just let that go. Let it go? Absolutely not. In my home, this would have been a challenge in the battle pits.

Jesus, where are you from? Arkansas. Oh, no. Okay, that makes sense. Yes, it does. Anyway, what do you think of this? More like Michelle Wolf in sheep's clothing, Zing. That's not great.

Curses. Well, she won't respond to any of my combat missives, so I don't know what to do. What should I do? Okay, well, why don't you try ZipRecruiter.com? What's ZipRecruiter.com? It's the smartest way to hire. ZipRecruiter learns what you're looking for, identifies people with the right experience, and invites them to apply to your job. In fact, 80% of employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. The right candidates are out there. ZipRecruiter is how you find them. Okay, okay, but is it expensive? I may have spent a large portion of my funds on extra absorbent tissues lately. Well, right now, our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free.

That's right, free. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing, huh? Yeah, ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Do you have any jokes? You look like Matilda ate Mr. T. Okay, I meant, that's's really good but i meant about her they could call you blubber lang blubber lang and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight vatican finance minister and selective invalid george pell will face trial for sexual abuse allegations making him the most high-ranking catholic pederast to do so after a month-long pre-trial hearing in which pell's lawyers presented numerous eyewitnesses who saw pell not raping kids australian magistrate belinda wallington dismissed many of the more serious assault charges but that left several gropings and

assaults to try him for yeah pell's got a hell of a rape negotiator yeah rape negotiator i wonder what that show would be like would be be like. Would be like. No. You are no fun. You're breaking my balls, Belinda. You're breaking my balls. Knock it down to medium assault and we're done. We all just want to go home, see our kids. Sorry, bad phrasing.

You know what I meant? Let's just medium assault. I want to dwell on this for a second because Catholic priests raping kids is one of those things that we've all kind of become numb to. And it's easy to hear a headline like this and think, yeah, that again. But this one is significant. Weird thing to be numb to. Just want to throw that out there. Not saying it's not true. It's just weird.

I want to solve. No, I. Yep. I call it job security. So not only is George Pell the highest ranking Catholic priest ever to face trials for this kind of shit, but he got there because they promoted him several times after the allegations started surfacing. Yeah, it's called the St. Peter Principle. That it is.

Up until now, most of these cases have been settled by some low-level priest getting jailed and all the higher-ups that enabled that getting off unpunished unless of course you count having to hide some of your money in a cemetery maintenance fund being punished yeah it's like if the punisher comics up to now had been about him giving the mafia a stern talking to yeah right now i should say some have faulted the australian judiciary for how hush hush the pre-trial stuff has been and believe me few people are more frustrated by the lack of public details than the guys who have to write headlines about it but cries of cover-up may be overstated right the trial does concern offenses against children and even though they're all grown up now it is

the standard that trials like that are closed to the public of course pell maintains his innocence his lawyers released a statement to that effect that pointed out, quote, he has voluntarily returned to Australia to meet these accusations, not adding eventually. Come on, come on. He had four years of pink eye. It happens. He had a long

pink eye. He deals with kids. And to be fair, a trial is a long way from a conviction and apparently pal has some pretty good lawyers it's also worth noting that he's not facing any charges for all the rape allegations he ignored or disappeared while he was serving as a over australia's rapist diocese so even a guilty verdict would be a long ways from justice right but but the punisher gives gives a guy a wedgie in this one you see a wedgie atomic wedgie hello and in no homo news tonight you know in today's

hustle and bustle news environment of who paid off which porn star and when one was and was not watching hookers pee on each other in moscow it can be easy to miss the little stories like last week's firing of House Chaplain Pat Conroy by Paul Ryan. Yeah, and this is a disaster. I mean, now Congress won't be able to get anything done. What will we do? Yeah. Now, we don't know why Ryan forced Conroy out. Some speculate it was because of his overly political invocation some because he invited a

muslim speaker and some people are just kind of okay with it because we're pretty sure the last thing the house of the u.s government needs is a chaplain yeah i get the feeling conroy kind of checked out and just started fucking with evangelicals in congress just walking around with like a plexiglass wall in front of him. Hey, this job I have should not exist. This is stupid. Read the Constitution. Or you know what?

Better yet, do a single thing at your job that helps the American people. That'd be great. Right, right. Like if Ryan said, no, I'm just trying to save the money, I'd be okay with it. But without a chaplain, who will make florid speeches about helping the less fortunate while not taking any action to actually... Fuck.

Oh, no, okay. But who will genuflect to a merciless arrogant dictatorial wait oh no actually i think they're good i think they're good they don't need them anymore cut the fat cut the fat so those aren't the only theories that are flying around constantly squinting basketball coach and worst person who isn't a murderer brian fisher has a theory that he put forward this week. And it's that Conroy was fired for being gay and married to a man. One little problem. Neither of those things are true. And I want to be clear here.

We're not certain Brian Fisher isn't a murderer. We're just speculating there. Okay. I feel like Andrew yells at me and then you're fine. The rules are weird. So yeah, for clarity, Conroy is a Catholic priest

and so he's probably gay, but B Fish didn't mean that. Instead, it seems that Fisher misquoted an article about the firing from LifeSite News in which a gay married Democrat defended Conroy. What?

You know the expression, gay is as gay defends? Maybe? He just saw the word gay. Yeah, that's it. And just like, distributive property applied it to the entire article.

Like, if your name appears on the same page as the word gay, you technically had butt sex. You hear that, Brian Fisher? Because I'm looking at a page right now so uh either way brian is ecstatic and we can't allow that so gentlemen any suggestions for replacements for conroy to get b fish's blood boiling uh yeah merrick garland because you oh that's a good one uh okay here's an easy one but a good one barack obama i don't think they can afford him uh michelle wolf uh okay one last one barack obama but he does

muslim invocations just to fun all right all right i think we have our answer and in anti-social media news according to a new fatwa issued by egypt's main fatwa guy that they have anyone who buys likes on facebook is in violation of islamic law from now on because one of the biggest problems in the muslim community is overinflated facebook popularity i was just saying that to you. Okay. Well, has anyone told this so-called FOTPA guy that Facebook popularity is all some people have after a certain post about Skittles took the internet by storm?

Well, no, but Eli, your followers are legit. You're a shoo-in from Muslim heaven, bro. Don't worry. Thank you. I like shares. I like shares. And milk from rivers and virgins all right so just in case anyone's not familiar with fatwas they're rulings made by

muslim clerics about subjects that might not be directly addressed in the quran examples from the recent past include questions like is it cool to play chess? And the answer was, fuck you, Anwar, you're a cheater, no more chess. Another one was, are we allowed to take selfies with cats? And the answer was, there's a theocracy cop right behind you, seems like you would have seen him during the selfie, you are now under arrest. And one last example, shall we all murder Salman Rushdie? And yes, was the answer to that one. I mean, to be fair, I've seen the documentary. He was killing Muslims with a sword on his island full of champagne.

Well, was being the operative word, though. Pretty sure we also covered a fatwa about women not being able to buy dick-shaped vegetables once, too. I can't recall exactly. A lot of them are dick-shaped. Zero votes. Yeah, a lot. A lot of them are dick-shaped. Zero votes. Yeah, a lot. Okay, getting back to the Facebook thing. This latest fatwa

came from Grand Mufti Shaki Alam, who's in charge of the Dar al-Iffa, which is Egypt's ministry of Sunni Q&A. Basically. And apparently this place gets a constant stream of questions about the official Quranic policy for just like everyday subjects. So this Mufti's job is basically just reading

letters about stand-up comedy premises and then making insane rules to deal with them. And this actually explains a lot about different laws we see in the Muslim world, not just in Egypt. It's just all day for these clerics. Dear Mufti, what's the deal with women drivers? Okay, new rule, women cannot move without permission. Dear Mufti, what's all this talk about the clit?

It's very confusing. New rule, no more clit. Dear Mufti, what should I do when people clog the gate area before their boarding zone gets called at the airport? Oh, don't worry. We've got a whole big plan about fucking with airports forever. Just wait for it.

A lot more clogging, though. I think we can all agree that airport security is the worst thing that's come from Islam, right? I mean, it's fair. Well, look, if the sun rose in the West tomorrow and ushered in the Muslim apocalypse, that would still be true. Sir, I need you to put your hands above your head in this weird spinny thing, sir.

Sir, I don't care where the sun is rising, sir. Take your laptop out of your bag. Hopefully this new social media rule fixes Islam and other Muslim majority countries eventually catch on and also become amazing places to live, just like Egypt is now because of the spot. Okay, well, let's talk about airport security. It has my blood pressure up, so we're going to turn things over to Lucinda. But first, a word from this week's second sponsor, Stamps.com. But put a note in there i'm thinking smart idea okay uh watch this or i'll kill you no no no no okay um i meant obviously like a compliment not oh okay i'll kill you beautiful okay well a little bit better hey guys uh what's with all these cds

oh i'm mailing all our listeners a copy of the Salvation Army thing that we put on YouTube and Facebook. You mean the one that they can watch on YouTube or Facebook by following the link in the show notes? Yeah. I mean, sure. But this is like a personal touch. You know what I mean? Yeah, I guess. But mailing these things out has got to be really pricey, right?

Not when you use stamps.com. What's stamps.com? Oh, great question, Noah. 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, and the mail carrier just picks it up for you. Just click,

print, mail, and you're done. It could not be easier. Wow, that does sound easy, right? Yeah. By the time people hear this, our May Patreon rewards for both Scathing and GAM patrons will be on their way, thanks to Stamps.com. Okay, but that doesn't mean it's cheap.

Well, right now, our listeners can use scathing for this special offer it includes up to 55 of 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 all right i'm sold on theamps.com, enter scathing. All right, I'm sold on the Stamps.com thing, but the CD thing, I mean, do we have to include a $20 bill? It sweetens the pot. Sweeten the pot. Exactly. Wait, we put a 20 in each one?

A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she wants. If it's a legitimate race. If it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fine. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. Two things you can't help but notice when you soak up as much religious misogyny news as I do.

Number one is, holy shit, are religions reliably sexist to a disturbing degree? And number two is, boy, are reporters perpetually shocked by this. See, there's this impossible tightrope they're trying to walk where they're pretending that religion has some generally positive function so as not to piss off the religious consumers. But the only newsworthy shit religion ever does is awful. So they always have to pretend to be shocked and outraged by religion behaving like religion. To demonstrate this phenomena, I brought along three stories of the media being shocked, shocked to find religion going on in here. We'll start with Paige Patterson. He's a 75-year-old president of the Southwestern Baptist Theology Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. And knowing nothing

about him but that, I could confidently predict that he's the kind of guy that would discourage an abused woman from getting a divorce and advise her to pray about it instead. So when video surfaced of him doing exactly that, I just said to myself, well, there goes Southern Baptism, be in Southern Baptism some more. But the media at large had to act like Southern Baptists don't make movies with this message that the guys have reviewed on GAM multiple times and pretend that this is beyond the pale. And I mean, don't get me wrong, it is beyond the pale, but that's true of their whole fucking mindset. And if you want to know how feigned this outrage really is, this same tape seems to surface every couple years for a new round of counterfeit incredulity. And despite all that, he's still the head Jesus stroke or at whatever.

And despite all that, he's still the head Jesus stroke or at whatever. Reporters were also shocked this week to discover that religious centers would use tax dollars to spread Christian propaganda when it came to light that the crisis pregnancy center in North Carolina were doing exactly that. And kudos to the reporters that managed to be surprised by that since, you know, crisis pregnancy center is a euphemism for fake abortion clinic for spreading Christian propaganda. The fact that they had any tax dollars to begin with was proof that they'd used them to spread Christian propaganda. It's the only thing they do. And the details of this are disgusting, by the way. Apparently, they're using federal dollars to support a program that gives pregnant women mommy money that can be exchanged for diapers, car seats, etc., which they earn from watching church videos about Jesus loving all the little blastocysts. To their credit, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services agreed that those expenditures were, quote,

not consistent with federal law, end quote, and promised to strengthen the oversight of the program. But still, the address was the only information you needed. And you already had that or you wouldn't have been able to send them the check. Also, one last story for you this week. It's still prom season, so of course I've been inundated with stories about all the little harlots trying to show scandalous amounts of shoulder at their school dances. But I particularly like this one out of Michigan, where a Christian school will be handing out modesty ponchos to girls who look too slutty on the way in. If you need a visual, I think the flying nun meets the

cone of shame. Needless to say, the students are pissed and so are the local reporters who just can't believe that a religious institution would demand that young women dress like nuns. And as much as I'd love to stay, I've just encountered some water that's shockingly wet. So while I go and investigate that, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in good news tonight, in a unanimous decision announced by the New Jersey Supreme Court this week, taxpayer dollars cannot be used to help repair or maintain churches,

representing a major step forward for both church-state separation and things people in New Jersey probably didn't know was happening but are glad it's now over. Yeah, like Chris Christie's career, for example, or the life of Atlantic City, or their parasitic commute home from a host state

down the tapeworm turnpike that they do every day. Right, so the case in question was about the more than 5.5 million dollars in, quote, historic preservation grants, end quote, that were given to churches in Morris County, New Jersey between 2012 and 2015. All right, can we have that historical preservation money if just our opinions are antiquated? All right, how come no, then? How come no? Now, perhaps you're wondering, Eli, didn't the Supreme Court just vote

that churches do get tax dollars last year? And yes, they did. But the New Jersey supreme court actually addressed this pointing out that the rule of law doesn't apply because while it's hard to pretend a church playground doesn't promote religion it's impossible to do that with just a church so right while this is a win let's just hope these churches in jersey don't figure out that all they need to do is install a slide and they're packing the money yeah and you know what tax dollars aren't even the main reason we don't want more play places and churches folks let's be careful here and finally tonight in rain man's best friend news

you are a treasure we don't say it again Treasure, we don't say it again. Autistic. Next big panic in the anti-vaxxer community is canine autism. Oh, this pissed me off. Oh, my God. That's a real thing that's happening. Apparently, two of the worst groups of people in the world, that would be terrible dog owners and idiots who murder people with their stupid,

they all decided to get together and see how their little slice of the Venn diagram lines up with the good old Heath gets to stab you section. And it turns out they all slot right in there real nice. Okay, what we need to do is find their queen, who is also vegan and part of an MLM, and kill her and then they all die, right? Well, you can try, but as soon as you get into her lair, she starts reading you her poetry yeah it's tough yeah so uh you know the people who own their dogs too

hard like they own aggressively their dogs and it's not fun anymore it just ruins it for everyone and they buy records without owning a record player and they wear scarves and wool hats in the summer their voice sounds like they forgot that half of breathing is the inward part. And they memorize one quote from books they didn't read. And then they quote it back to you. Okay, all right. I feel attacked. I feel like we can go back to it.

They own Apple products. Yes, exactly. Well, I was attacking Eli. As you might expect, a growing number of these same people are also refusing to vaccinate their pets because they read about the secret public government conspiracy to continue being the government by amassing an army of socially awkward dogs yeah what the fuck how the fuck would that help dogs who are super good at math yeah it's like you know autistic dogs they won't smell you right in the ass there it's always like slightly off to the left what the fuck are they talking about

so apparently one of the big pet anti-vaxxers who's spreading this idea is a guy named john clifton who writes books of lies for a living and runs the website stop the shots.com already fuck this guy yeah we're the first thing you'll see is an ad for his book about curing cancer with a thing called pawpaw, which is a fruit that's also known as hillbilly mango. That sounds healthy. Also a real thing.

And the rest of the site is just a stream of nonsense created using all five HTML tags that he learned. Do not visit the site and definitely do not take any medicine that includes the word hillbilly. One of our listeners who just cured cancer is sadly crossing out hillbill at all off a

whiteboard, throwing a paper full of sparkly juice down the sink and he's just like, never mind. You see what you did, Heath? Yeah. And one other especially dangerous asshole is a so-called homeopathic veterinarian. Oh, fuck you! Yep.

A person from New Jersey named Rosemary Manziano. This person actually tells people that pet vaccinations can be replaced with just taking them to the park and soaking up little bits of disease from all the other animals, much like the pox parties that anti-vaxxers organize for their human children. How do you have to take a dog? So he's going to get dizzy as opposed to the sterile poop and toilet water he consumes at home. Jesus. And people are taking this advice they don't want their dog to develop anti-social behavior so they're having rabies parties instead in public parks yeah right okay okay plus side two birds one stone we combine the pox parties and the rabies parties and just let things a lot of anti-vaxxers with rabid dogs does solve some problems it does yeah it does we're helping

so bottom line even if pet vaccines did cause autism they absolutely do not but if they did you should still get them because an autistic dog would be hilarious they just like ignore you and push you away so they can do the crossword puzzle kind of angrily so basically a cat yeah right worst case scenario you have a really big cat exactly autistic dog is all right well now i feel the urge to ask my cat a six letter word for gradually removed so we're going to close out the headlines for the night heath thanks as always and when we come back mark and dan from the how to ask my cat a six-letter word for gradually remove so we're going to close out the headlines for the night heath eli thanks as always jumanji and when we come back mark and dan from the how-to heretic podcast will be here to help eli woo cecil hi it's heath right yeah hi doctor hello, so how can I help you today?

Right, so Here's the thing I was hoping So you see My Penis Is Do you My penis

I'm sorry, do I Your penis Yep, okay I want my penis? I'm sorry. Do I your penis? Yep. Okay. I want a medication penis. I'm sorry. Heath, is something wrong

with your penis? No. No. I want what you can do for me i want a better penis a better better penis a better penis yep as this ever happened to you going to the doctor for those problems can be embarrassing and expensive so why not not try 4hims.com, a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, sexual wellness for men. HIMS connects you with real doctors and medical-grade solutions by which we mean well-known generic equivalents for name-brand prescriptions. No snake oil pills or gas station counter supplements. These are prescription solutions

backed by science. With 4hims.com, you'll just answer a few quick questions, a doctor will review and can prescribe what you need, and then products are shipped directly to your door. But that's not all. Our listeners get a trial month of 4hims for just $5 today. Right now, while supplies last. See website for full details. This would cost hundreds if you went to the doctor or a pharmacy. Just go to 4hims.com slash scathing.

That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing. 4hims.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing. 4hims.com slash scathing. Because nobody wants to end up like this. You want a penis transplant. No, no. I want penis. Penis. Put.

You. I want you to put a pill in my penis. You want a pill in your penis? No, okay. Because I'll put a pill in your penis. What would that, how would that go?

Badly. Let me see the pill. Let me see the play. Back on episode 249, we had Mark and Dan talk about their new show, The How-To Heretic, a podcast that walks new heathens through all the various life adjustments they might find themselves making when they leave their religion. You know, how to drink, how to cuss, how to watch movies with boobs in them, etc. And a lot of you wrote in to say, hey, that's a great idea. You should do a segment like that on your show.

And as much as I love the idea of ripping Mark and Dan's idea off, my favorite aspect of the How To Heretic is the part where Mark and Dan do all the work. So joining me for this week's segment are Mark and Dan from the How To Heretic podcast. Guys, welcome back to the Scathing Atheist. Hey, Noah. What's happening, Noah? Nothing much, nothing much. So I don't want to do the same interview we did last time, but just kind of give us a reminder what was sort of the inspiration for this show? What kind of topics have you guys been covering? We've been working hard to try and make

the world a better place for the heathens out there and I think the way that we do it is we take the things that were forbidden or out of bounds for people in their religious world, and we blow them up. We talk about them. We've had experts in sex on the show to talk about that. We've had experts in sex on the show to talk about that. We've had experts in drinking, as you said. We've had experts in swearing.

We haven't had you on yet. We're not to the advanced stuff at this point. Right. I am not 101. No. So we'll get there eventually. But yeah, I mean, and then we just we talk a lot about uh you know about religion and sort of just extracting it from your brain i have to say just on the topic of having a

sex expert on on my calendar here i had how to heretic 9 p.m uh for my to-do list and my wife looked over my shoulder and thought it was said how to erotic and really got way more excited about 9 30 p.m than she should have been so well you've come to the right place dan take it off so no we we do a lot of it keeps it sexy it's true we do we but like dan says it's it's not only kind of how to engage with the forbidden fruits of of uh you know life religion, and some of them are just ridiculous, right? Like for a lot of us, we're from the Mormon spectrum, a lot of us, R-rated movies were forbidden, certainly drinking, even coffee. But then there's other subjects that we're trying to help out with, like

how to deal with death and dying and mourning as an atheist or skeptic, especially if you're surrounded by people who aren't. You know, we're going to do eventually next few weeks, hopefully a big abortion deep dive and how to think and talk about that. So, yeah. Or how to have one. Maybe we'll just do how to have an abortion.

How to have an abortion. Well, right. No, I got to say, anytime you have abortion and deep dive in the same sentence, you've got my attention. All I remember from TV in the 70s is people would say, bring towels and hot water. That's what you need. Right. So.

But yeah, like I kind of inspired by that show. I started to think about how we could have sort of a mini how to heretic on scathing atheist. And when it came time to pick a subject, I thought, you know, there's one subject that all the listeners who are new to atheism seem to ask. I can't put it succinctly into a word, but basically a lot of people, to some degree or another, lose their social support networks when they leave religion. Now that could be, you know, in the extreme, like a J-Dub who is ostracized from their family and their friends and everybody they know. But on the other end, that can just be like, you don't get invited to the cookout anymore, right?

Right. So I thought maybe this week we could drill down on how to commune. Yeah. I mean, community is the toughest. It can be so hard. I mean, making friends, anyone who's moved from one part of the country to another knows how hard it is as an adult to even just make new friends. So getting communion going, getting community going can be a real trick. Well, and it's also one of the few

things, you know, religion obviously says it does an awful lot. Most of it it doesn't do. It doesn't help you when you're grieving. It doesn't help you make moral decisions, but it does help you build community. And that's one of the ways that religion, you know, that especially the really oppressive religions trap people is, you know, that becomes where you go on Tuesday night. That becomes how you meet up with your friends or, you know, where the point of departure for brunch is, right, is the church. So as people move out of that, like I said, to varying degrees, they lose that. So before we actually talk about like specific advice, I was wondering if either of you guys had any anecdotes that you i said to varying degrees they they lose that so before we actually talk about like specific advice i was wondering if if either you guys had any anecdotes that you'd like to share about uh sort of going because i i came out of a woo sort of religion and it slightly changed my

social network you know i didn't want the same people sitting in my house after that necessarily but it certainly wasn't as extreme as say coming out of mormonism often as so do you have any experience directly with you know losing uh part with losing part or all of your social network on the way out of religion? Yeah, I think I can speak. I wanted out. I wanted away from this. I wanted away from that whole social group.

So I wasn't too sad when I finally fled. I was intentionally getting away. But I can speak to a lot of the experiences of friends. And like you said, Noah, a lot of people that reach out, like quite a few people reach out to communicate with us saying, you know, I couldn't believe it anymore, and I had to leave it, but now I'm so lonesome, and now I'm so alone. And especially if you're in a rural place or a small community. And, you know, even when I was stuck in Mormonism, it was, if what you wanted more than anything else was community, it was a hot and cold running community

all day. Like every, every, you know, obviously every Sunday was completely programmed, but every night of the week there was something going on. And in Mormonism, they would send people around, you know, once a month. The visiting teachers were just volunteers in the ward that came around to your house to see what was up and talk to you and what was going on. So there were scouts and there were dances and there was ice cream socials. So all you had to do to get all that community was give up your spiritual and intellectual autonomy.

So if you decide you're going to take that back, you just unplug from that community and it's over. Now, you might still have Mormon friends, and there are certainly more tolerant Mormons that won't fully ostracize you, but it can be extremely intense. And I think that's a common, certainly for J-dubs, certainly for people leaving Scientology. But, you know, churches that don't have official shunning, kind of Mormonism doesn't really have official shunning unless you're excommunicated. There are other coercions. There are other cruelties that are more casual, right? And you're just not, like Dan said, you're just not included anymore.

You're just kind of on your own. So look, we're we're skeptics. We're atheists. I don't even have a Starbucks card. Like, I don't want to fucking join anything. You know, I don't I don't join stuff. But I think for a lot of people and and and I'm and a lot of us are that way. A lot of atheists are just kind of like cats. Right. We don't want to be in a group. We want to be on our own.

But I think there are those people to whom that community, when it was working for them, when they could intellectually square the circle and be in it, was incredibly meaningful. And sorry, I just wanted to jump in and say there is, it's not just the religious community that rejects you when you leave. I know a lot of people, I'm sure a lot of your listeners have the same experience. You leave your religion and then suddenly you reject them. They don't make sense anymore.

And the way that they think is so different from the way that you think now that you're not going to get along. You might still be friends or friendly, but for the most part, different from the way that you think now that it's that you're not going to get along like you might still be friends or friendly but for the most part like your life is now entirely different from theirs and that's not them rejecting you that's just how things have turned out right and that's what that was my experiences i i rejected them as much as they rejected me it doesn't mean

i wasn't lonely it doesn't mean that, you know, searching for a community without skills. I just, I was young and I was in the closet and I was a mess. And so, but getting, getting away from them saved my life. It just made it also unpleasant for a while. So, and, and, you know, talking about that gay subject, as I was thinking about this today, Noah, I, I thought, you know, you know, it's not dissimilar. I think when you talk about building community as a nonbeliever, as a skeptic, the first thing you have to do is come out. The first thing you have to do is reveal yourself, right, in some way. And so I think that's a very important moment. so I think that's a very important moment and

like we were talking a little bit about a little bit earlier when you reveal yourself to the religious people in your life for many of us the religious people in our life that religion consumed everything that consumed their time and their thinking and their energy and every bit of space on their hard drive

suddenly it doesn't work for you you come out and we all know when you decide you're an atheist, there is nothing more consuming than that sense of truth and wonder and terror and excitement and anger. So the last people you probably are going to want to spend time around are your former co-religionists, right? Right. I'd like to pile on to something that Mark was saying. And I think the coming out thing is actually the second thing. And I think that because I think that one of the things that you need to do,

and this is a process, but the more you can do this process over time, the easier community is going to be for you. And that is just to know yourself. So the reason that you're coming out as an atheist, the reason that you've changed, you know, from being a religious person to an atheist is because you've started to learn something about yourself. And I think self knowledge, the more you can, A, know yourself and B, become comfortable with who you are and own that and take real self-possession, the more you can be just you in any situation that you're in,

the easier community is going to be for you to find. The worst thing that people can do is try and be who they think a community would want them to be. Right, exactly. they think a community would want them to be. Right, exactly. Not only that, but self-knowledge helps you narrow down onto what community you would want to be a part of as well. Exactly. So let's start where I think most atheists seem to start

when it comes to this problem. And this is also one that sort of has a universal application even if you're in a rural area. Obviously, that's online. So I think we've already established that the first thing you want to do when you come out of religion is subscribe to HowToHeretic. But after that, you're going to have to – well, yeah, well, you know, hey, I'm moving paper here.

But after that, you're going to have to, like, at least replace your social network with something. Because like you said, you can still be friends with your religious – you know, your former co-religionist, but you're not going to be able to have interesting conversations about disbelief with them, right? Right. So any advice for, because obviously, you know, communing and trying to replace human interaction with social media interaction, that's fraught with peril. So any advice for how to commune online? I would say just as you engage with the world generally,

just there's a few things that you should first take stock of. And again, this is part of coming out, which I think then leads to the building of community. We had a therapist on to talk about coming out as an atheist, and I think it was an enormously helpful segment. And the first thing, even if you're going to go online online and it's okay to be anonymous, it's completely, you have to protect yourself. So the first thing, if you're in a risky position or you're a kid is, are you safe? Are you in control of your own material wellbeing? Will being public affect your school or employment? And when you answer those things first then decide if you need to be anonymous or if you can kind of embrace the online community as yourself but then once that happens

you know it's like you said Noah it's fraught it's a perilous place like it's easy to go oh this guy seems interesting and before you know it you've been you know watching Sargon of Akkad YouTube videos for ages so I think it's put yourself out there a bit, start to explore, but it's important to take your time. And it's probably worth noting that there are plenty of options for you if you want an anonymous online community of atheists. I'll throw in a little plug for Thank God I'm Atheist's members-only lounge. It's an

invite-only, and it's all atheists, and it's not argumentation, and it's not religious people coming to tell you burning in hell, and it's a really good sort of thriving online community, and obviously there are tons of those. It might be a little bit hard to find when you're a new atheist, but that's one thing that you can look for early. And obviously, you know, there are a lot of them, right? So there'll be ones that, you know, might not match whatever your political stripe might be or whatever you want to talk about. But if you bounce around a little bit, you will probably find one where you feel welcome and you feel comfortable. And that's what I was going to talk about. I was going to say that, like, just like in life, I mean, all of this is going to be a contingent on you.

You don't have to be a member of any group. You don't have to be friends with any person. So if you go into a group and you think, oh, cool, it's an atheist group online. This is great. And all it is, is people screaming at each other. And all it is, is people like calling each other out and, you know, being better atheist than thou or whatever, and you don't like that, then just leave. You don't have to be a part of it. Don't, you know, trust me, trying to change a group, you know, an online group to what you want it to be.

I mean, I thank you so much for plugging the Members Only Lounge. Obviously, that's my group from my other show. Thank God I'm atheist. And I have worked tirelessly to keep the tone of that. I have extensive rules in that group, and I tone police like a motherfucker. And I know people don't like that online, but that group is for a specific purpose. And that specific purpose is community. And it's not for, you know, you may feel so fucking passionate about your vegan

views but it's not a place to like put your views on everybody else and scream at them if they disagree it's a place where we practice the art of disagreeing congenially and it's a place where we love each other and where we support each other. And, you know, we had one of our moderators last year's place burned down and people banded together and, you know, did a GoFundMe and gave him some money. And that's the kind of thing that I look for. So, you know, if the first group doesn't work, fuck it. That's fine. Find another group. You know, fuck it. That's fine. Find another group. You know, ask around even in,

even within the group that isn't working. Ask, Hey, does anybody know of a group that's more this or that's more of that? Or if you, you know, if you like to troll, go find a group that's all about everybody trolling each other. I don't know why you would want to do that, but go ahead and do it. Clearly a lot of people do. Yeah. Right. So, you know, eventually online meeting turns into real world meeting, which can be a kettle of fish. But in my experience, it's mostly pretty cool. All right. So let's move on to that.

Then let's move out of the virtual world and into the real world. So how about trying to find and build friends, you know, here in the real world now that you no longer have your church to act as a mediator. It's a tricky one. And one of the things that I think will serve almost everybody, because we talked already about learning to be yourself as fully and richly as you can. The next thing is to learn just a little bit of boldness. It's a scary thing out there in the world. But, you know, nobody has to be your best friend ever. So you're not, there's not, you don't need to put any pressure on it.

But just see who's out there. You know what I mean? I was just going to say as well, you know, there are, if you live in a larger place, if you live in a big city or even a medium city, you go online, you're probably going to find an atheist or skeptical meetup. I'm in Vancouver right now, and a few minutes ago I googled. There's four substantial ones just in one minute of googling that I found. But you may not live in a place like that, or maybe that's not your jam just yet. So here's a suggestion I have. If you're a skeptic, you're probably a person who gives a shit about something else. So I would say, why don't you try to back into a skeptical community

by doing something else? Volunteer or put yourself in a place where you're doing something else you care about, whether it's taking care of animals or working with the elderly or someplace you think is going to be a target-rich environment about, whether it's, you know, taking care of animals or working with the elderly or someplace you think is going to be a target rich environment where you're going to meet other good people who are trying to help their community. You're probably going to meet some other skeptics. So you can build community kind of by going in that back door rather than just saying,

well, there's no skeptical meetup in my neighborhood, in my area. I can't afford to drive to one, so I got nothing. Well, and that's an interesting point because you know the truth is that if you go to a skeptical meetup uh and i encourage people to do that i've been to several here in salt lake and i i you know i enjoy the people but i'll be honest with you skepticism slash atheism is not like an interest that gets you too far like other than those meetups you know everybody drinks and talks together it doesn't guarantee you that anyone in that room will have a lot of the same

interests that you have right so i so you gotta you gotta also think in terms of like you know are you an outdoorsy type of person there are plenty there are you know there are hiking groups there are biking groups they're all you know and these are all pretty easy to Google and find. Right. And, you know, the thing about, the thing that religion gave us, gave people as far as community is, as long as you said, mecca lecca, hi, ni ho, or you were baptized or you said, I'm a Mormon or I'm a Methodist, you're good to go. You're in the door and everything's there and you have this massive thing you agree on. So once you leave that, that's not going to be replaced by anything. There's no binary to that.

So building a community outside of religion is going to be work. So don't expect it not to be. It's okay for it not to work out sometimes. It's okay for you to go to a skeptical meetup and be like, fuck, that was weird. You're going to have to continue to take risks and expose yourself to different kind of experiences before you start building those friendships that are going to in some way fill the spaces that you lost when you walked out the church door.

I think that's a really good point. And sort of the other side of that coin is that when you were a Mormon, you can walk in and say, I'm a Mormon, everybody's your friend. But that also meant that you had to be friends with all those asshole Mormons, right? So it means that it took away the selectivity that you have, right? So now you get to choose. You get to pick the cream of the crop of people to befriend. And because you have, right? So now you get to choose. You get to pick the cream of the crop of people to befriend. And you don't, because you have this binary agreement on Mormonism, you no longer have to accept someone who just annoys the piss out of you. Well, and that's a great point. The other thing that just, one of the great ways to make sure that your community, that your people,

that you stay strong and that you continue to have the ability to relate to these people and to give yourself and make yourself vulnerable to these people because that's what this is. Being able to be as open and yourself as possible is what makes community great. So as you're going through it, when you find toxic people,

when you find people that don't have your best interests at heart, that don't seem interested, that are sucking life from you and giving nothing back, you can just shuffle them off. You owe them nothing. When you're starting over, there's this beautiful moment where you just get to

you've just got carte blanche and when someone throws up a red flag, you can decide if that's a killer for you or not. Now, following on Dan's point, I'm a person who's completely estranged from my family because of religion. This is the source of a lot of pain in the lives of ex-religious people. If you come from an incredibly toxic family, if you come from a family like mine that was so infused with religion and so completely single-minded about

it and also abusive and also dangerous to you, you're under no obligation to stay there. When you have the opportunity to leave, you can leave. That's another relationship in your life, just like a boyfriend or a girlfriend or just a buddy. If it's toxic and terrible and it's driving you to despair and suicidal thoughts and great unhappiness, that's what divorce is for. You leave, right? And you leave and you build a new community and you build a new family. And I know lots of people who stuck by terrible families by way too long out of an obligation that I think doesn't exist if it's not mutually addressed. I'm going to jump in here just so that that's not the last thing that we have to say about things.

Again, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I think that your best chance at really connecting with other people is when you are comfortable and happy with who you are and what you are. So I think leaving religion can leave you in a bit of a lurch in terms of knowing who you are and understanding yourself. And I think that therapy can be super duper helpful with that. And I think that, you know, certain therapy groups out there, and I think that certain therapy groups out there there's a lot of ways to meet people

that can also be helpful to you and that can also be useful to you and so I can't emphasize enough that being in communion with yourself is what will open you up to

greater community with others. Excellent point. And I just want to close by reminding everybody that everyone else is just as shitty at this as you are. You think they know what they're doing, but they don't either. They also are looking to make new friends and that look didn't

mean what you thought it meant. Oh, that's so smart. Good job. Along the way, right? All right. Well, Mark, it's always a blast having you on the show. Obviously, I could talk to you for an hour because I just did. We'll have to probably trim it down a little bit before it's all done. But thank you

so much for your time. Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Thanks so much, Noah. Before we tie off the court on this episode tonight i want to let you know that everybody's favorite godless cartoonist has been added again we teamed up with the incomparable angelo madrid from madrid tunes for another animation which is going to be dropping on youtube along with this episode it's an old what the fuck is that i did about the salvation army and trust me the visuals make it worth a second listen check the show notes or facebook page or our twitter feed for a link also while you're there check out a link to come see me in Syracuse this weekend.

I'm going to be there on Sunday teaching some heathens how to survive a theocracy in eight easy steps, and you can come too. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy 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 on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at 7 a.m eastern on tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister show citation needed debuting at noon eastern on wednesday obviously i'd be ashamed to show my voice around these parts if i neglected to thank heath enright eli bosnick and lucinda illusions for being my friends after all that talk with mark and dan i am far more cognizant of how lucky i am to have them so i'm not gonna make a joke out of it this time obviously i want to thank mark and

dan one more time again check the show notes for a link to the how-to heretic also want to thank tom and austin for providing this week's farnsworth quote you'll find find a link to their show, Dumb All Over, on the show notes too. But of course, most of all, I need to thank this week's best people, Adrian, Christopher, Jacob, Bill, Jesse, the soulless ginger, Dave and Tase, Nemecine's favorite, Barbara, a lion driving a semi truck in Cthulhu Night.

Adrian, Christopher, Jacob and Bill, whose engorgement has a shining elevator quality to it. Jesse, the soulless ginger, Dave and Tase, who are so sexy, their pheromones have been classified as human nip. And Nemecine's favorite, Barbara, a lion driving a semi-truck in Cthulhu Night, who are so awesome the emergency exit road needs to be qualified for them.

Together, these 12 tremendously trustworthy twubble makers tweeted us a twinkle of twesher this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the alliterative motivations it takes to give us money, but if you'd like in on the compliments, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode,

or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a way that costs money, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes,

liking us on Facebook, or telling a friend about this show. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Towers and our audio engineer, Russ Morgan-Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode,

which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at SkinnyAtheist.com. The whole reason I have this show, Morgan, is so that when I see shit like that online, I have a fucking venue to scream about it from.

The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle & Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.