The Scathing Atheist - 279: Untouchable Edition

Episode Date: June 21, 2018

In this week’s episode, the pope makes it clear not all wives matter, Tennessee needs some extra time to decide if RFRA covers the cat-o'-nine-tails, and Kat Kerr will put the anus back in “volcanoes”. 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/ Headlines: Pope Francis says families with gay parents don't count: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/18/pope-francis-families-with-gay-or-lesbian-parents-arent-legitimate/ Southern Baptist leader calls for armistice in culture war: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/southern-baptists-call-off-the-culture-war/563000/ TV Tattoo Artist Kat Von D Will “Ditch Her Doctor” and Not Vaccinate Her Baby http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/08/tv-tattoo-artist-kat-von-d-will-ditch-her-doctor-and-not-vaccinate-her-baby/ Christian “Prophetess” says God will let her control a storm and a volcano: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/09/christian-prophetess-god-will-let-me-control-a-storm-and-volcano-he-didnt/ Ireland Will Finally Hold a Referendum to Repeal Its Blasphemy Law This October http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/12/ireland-will-finally-hold-a-referendum-to-repeal-its-blasphemy-law-this-october/ NYC Councilman Says Government Beach Will Host Gender-Segregated Swim Days http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/12/nyc-councilman-says-government-beach-will-host-gender-segregated-swim-days/ Goop Adds Disclaimers: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/19/gwyneth-paltrows-goop-is-now-using-misleading-scientific-labels-to-appear-legit/ Christian Band Reunites With Lead Singer Who Hired Hitman to Murder His Wife http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/15/christian-band-reunites-with-lead-singer-who-hired-hitman-to-murder-his-wife/ Christian psychiatrist shut down for physical abuse: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/18/christian-psychiatrist-shut-down-for-whipping-patients-calling-them-mules/

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and I really needed someone calming me down this week. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Dollar Shave Club and by Immigrant Babies. If you need any immigrant babies, come on down to Brownsville, Texas now, because we're almost certainly going to have some extras when this is all over. Immigrant Babies, just like normal babies, but they cry in Mexican. Brought to you by the makers of Trump Steaks. And now, the Scathing Atheist. Okay, what's your name?

Hi, Summer. And how old are you? Two. And where do we come from? Monkey Man. Where? Monkey Man. Monkey Man.

That's Thursday. It's June 21st. And it's World Humanist Day. Congratulations, you optimistic, foolish, foolish motherfuckers. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. I'm from New York, New York.

Secret Lair, Pennsylvania. This is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, the Pope makes it clear that not all wives matter. Tennessee needs some extra time to decide if Riffra covers the cat-of-nine-tails. And Cat Kerr will put the anus back in volcanoes. But first, the diatribe. Well, a fucking course Sessions used the Bible to justify his heinous and unforgivable actions he's jeff

sessions it's the bible and their heinous unforgivable actions bacon lettuce tomato and and i get this story's a little played out but it's not my fault at all the most despicably theocratic shit happens on thursday so i'm going to take a minute to swim around in it so this saga all started when the Trump administration finally found out what you had to do to Hispanics before even evangelicals started getting sympathetic. And it's good to know that that line exists. I was starting to doubt it. You know, leaving an island full of them without power or potable water for months on end didn't do it. Reneging on our promises to immigrants brought to the country as children didn't do it. Ripping parents who'd spent decades in this country away from their families and

deporting them over decades old dust covered marijuana possession children didn't do it. Rippin' parents who'd spent decades in this country away from their families and deporting them over decades old dust-covered marijuana possession charges didn't do it. But pulling a nursing infant from a mother's tit apparently does the trick. And in the wake of those reports, even Trump's staunchest allies in the evangelical community started saying, hey, no, wait a second. And it was in response to that that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions took to the lectern and offered up his biblical justification and of course he went right to romans 13 which can be aptly paraphrased as now go wait in the truck and think on what you've done and predictably if not justifiably this caused pretty much universal freak out in the media now if they were freaked out because the attorney

general thought he could justify u.s policy biblical references, that would have been one thing. Right. If the headlines and commentary and outrage were with the theocratic notion that finding a justification in the epistles was sufficient, I'd have given the media a big pat on the back and moved on with my life. But as you know, that was not the case. couple of people remembered here and there to point out that the Bible is not a binding legal document, but the bulk of the pushback was at the audacity of Jeff Sessions using such a moral tome to justify such an immoral act. In the Washington Post alone, I saw op-ed headlines declaring, Sessions invents a faith all his own. This isn't religion, it's perversion. And leave the Bible out of it. Child separation is not Christian. All of that in the span of three days. When I searched Jeff Sessions on CNN's website in the wake of this, it directed me to clips of three

pastors and a theologian disavowing Sessions' interpretation of the Bible. MSNBC's headline on the whole ordeal was just, Sessions misuses Bible to justify separating children from their parents. That was not an opinion piece, by the way. That was just their distillation of what was going on in headline form and look i'm not usually super inclined to come to the defense of the bible but be nice to immigrants is one of the few things it's actually clear on i mean assuming that this is one of those selective times when the old testament shit counts you got leviticus 1934 you know the foreigner that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you

exodus 2221 thou shalt not exploit or oppress a foreign resident for you yourselves were foreigners You know, the foreigner that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you. Exodus 22, 21. Thou shalt not exploit or oppress a foreign resident. For you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt. You got Ruth 2, 10. You can maybe Job 31, 32. Again, there are remarkably few things the Bible takes a definite stand on, but that's one of them. The Bible repeatedly implores its readers to take pity on the refugee and not oppress the foreigner living in their land. I mean, it equivocates a little bit on Edomites whose babies you're allowed to smash against rocks, apparently. But in general, the

Bible wants you to stop fucking with the immigrants. Of course, those pro-immigrant passages don't say thou shalt stop only at ripping the infant from the breast of the refugee and holding it in an abandoned Walmart. It says you should take pity on the immigrant and treat him as you treat a citizen. And let's be super clear that the evangelical leaders are stopping way short of recommending that. But there is some biblical justification for their outrage. That being said, the Bible also contains Romans 13, which reads, quote, Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which

God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. What's that? The Bible taking contradicting views that are impossible to reconcile? The hell you say. And let's be clear here. This is also one of the things the Bible is super clear on, right? The whole Jesus story is about submitting to punishment for a crime you didn't commit, isn't it? Jesus could have miracled his way out of the Romans' hands, but no, he healed the dude that Simon Peter went all Vincent Van Gogh on and then went on to his death. He turned the other cheek. It's kind of his whole thing. So yes, Jeff Sessions is right for whatever that's worth. The Bible is on his side. Even when the government is doing something immoral, you're supposed to go along. It's part of God's plan. Donald fucking Trump

is part of God's plan, says so in Romans, which is probably why we don't use the fucking Bible to inform national policy. Pundits are getting all incredulous about this going, well, I'll be Jeff Sessions is using the same biblical policies to justify this policy as they used to justify slavery, as though that's more a problem with Jeff Sessions than it is with the Bible. I mean, hey, after you saw you could use your book to justify slavery, maybe you stop using it as a moral guide, right? Maybe we admit that trying to pluck your moral code from the convoluted, contradictory, cryptic musings of morally dubious authors from a time before we puzzled out the technological marvel of the goddamn wheelbarrow is just a doomed effort to begin with but no here we are 153 years postbellum still

laboring under the social delusion that a book that tells us to kill gay people and adulterers with rocks can somehow still be like overall moral though and when jeff sessions comes along with a glaring and unmistakable reminder that that can't possibly be true. Rather than admit the fucking thing isn't moral, the media gets all red-faced in outrage and insists that Sessions is just doing it wrong. But let's be clear here. This whole fucking thing comes from the Bible. The evangelicals didn't abandon Trump when he called Mexican immigrants rapists or stoked fervor to wall our country off from brown people

or ban whole religions from coming here. Through all of that, all the shithole country stuff through all three versions of his muslim bands through through the animals remarks none of these guys were running to their bibles going hold on a second i remember something in here about not exploring the foreigners that live among us they were all romans 13 no exodus 22 it wasn't until he started doing unmistakable cartoon villain shit that they were like, maybe not. And even then it took weeks. And even now the majority of evangelicals support the policy. The whole reason we have Trump to begin with is people look into their Bible for morals. This stain on American history is their stain and what's more it's all but an inevitable consequence of calling a document that tells you to own slaves beat your children and pay

full market value for your rape victims the good book they're talking about you jesus joining me for headlines tonight are the w Waldorf and Statler of secularism, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to heckle? Eli's fat. You're fat. You're fat. You're also.

Both of us are fat. That's the best intro I've ever given to you guys. Make up a joke. Super accurate. Everyone's going to associate it with you and your personality. It's going to attach it to you. I'll make up something. Staplers.

You love staplers. Look at that. I'm going to write a funny song about it. That's all they's going to attach it to you. I'll make up something. Staplers. You love staplers. Look at that. I'm going to write a funny song about it. And that's all they're going to talk to you about. They're going to mail you staplers with your name on it. Great. Eli's brain can't experience joy. Womp womp.

Cool. All right. In our lead story tonight, Pope Francis continued being a slightly better person than his hitler youth predecessor this week by doing uh it doesn't fucking matter it's impossible impossible not to be the best pope ever the bar's just sitting there on the ground and frankie's rolling around on top of it over and over catholics are like wow look at his high jump form look how he points his legs like fuck you well his latest accomplishment was a fun little hate speech last saturday during which he

dehumanized gay people in a super polite friendly manner just like a constitutionally protected cake shop owner and the basic message was families with gay parents don't count but no offense right yeah honestly when the catholic church starts counting people that's never a good thing so maybe consider yourself lucky gay people yeah so according to the earthly conduit to god for 1.2 billion catholic people this whole same-sex parent thing is complicated because family is such a versatile word this was so weird but uh you know on the other hand gay people should all die so it seems tricky at first but actually it's just fuck gay people he told his audience quote the word family is an analogical word because we speak of the family of stars, family of trees, family of animals.

But for the human family in the image of God, man and woman is the only one. End quote. He's like, you guys want to be an animal family? You're like an adorable family of baby bears. What the fuck is he? I sit up there going like, how about a genus, guys? How that good? You're like an adorable family of baby bears. What the fuck is he? I shouldn't have been up there going like, how about a genus, guys? How about that?

It's right below family. You're like one step down from real people, huh? Jesus. Yeah. So, that's an interesting development. Apparently, the Vatican is officially recognizing the existence of homosexual stars and homosexual trees. And animals, yeah.

And although that's fucking stupid, I'd say it's also a pleasant surprise, you know, in terms of how progressive they're being. So that's good. Plus, we should see a good deal of Catholics physically hurting themselves trying to throw rocks at stars and trees. That's going to be a fun shot. One guy's just like, I knew there was a reason I was burning all of this wood with my gay people. It's a gay wood. It's a gay wood to burn

gay people. It's a twofer. So one other noteworthy moment from the speech. At one point, Frankie got into the subject of abortion, which meant that by Christian law, he then had 10 seconds to mention nazis which he accomplished very deftly by making the natural segue to the prenatal test for down syndrome being the same as the holocaust yeah according to the pope quote the whole world was scandalized about what the nazis did to purify the race scandal okay uh scandal feels like the wrong word for holocaust yeah we can all agree it was real faux pas they

were real provocateurs those nazis maybe snafu i don't know whatever continuing today we do the same race purifying, but now with white gloves. End quote. Based on his choice of words, I'm pretty sure the Pope thinks doctors put on white surgical gloves, then stick their hands into a pregnant lady's belly button, pull out a fetus, and check it by hand for Down syndrome? Yeah. And then they squish it on their forehead like a beer can if the fetus and check it by hand for Down Syndrome? And then they squish it on their forehead like a beer can if the fetus fails the test. But they smacked it

with a little glove. Maybe they hit it. Oh, they dool it. Well, that image right there, plus boy trees having butt sex with other boy trees and boy stars doing the same thing with boy stars, girl stars, girl stars.

All that is in Pope Frankie's head right now. So that's fun. And to be fair, for a virgin who claims he's never masturbated, how the fuck is he supposed to know otherwise? I mean, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And no lateral disarmament news tonight. The Southern Baptist Convention signaled a willingness to discuss terms of the culture war this week when the new SBC president, J.D. Greer, demonstrated a willingness to maybe think about sliding a couple of phone books under the corner of the glass ceiling in a downright Franciscan effort to change the image without actually doing anything.

The SBC has nominally come out against wife beating and suggested they might let a black man touch their money. Great. Yeah, and if they hire Roy Moore, they'll have an employee who's seen a Jew once. There you go. They're getting really diverse. I am genuinely curious at what point liberals won't forgive religion

if it pretends to agree with them. Just like, oh yeah, Black Lives Matter. Are you kidding? They got to serve their masters. Just like, oh yeah, Black Lives Matter. Are you kidding? They got to serve their masters, if they're dead in a period of time, you got to pay some money. They super matter. There's a lot going on in our book.

We're on your side. All right, so I want to highlight an article that was damn near credulous and obsequious enough to qualify as a cabinet meeting. This comes to us from, thank you, comes to us from the Atlantic, which is really going out of its way to piss me off recently and it was penned by a totally objective journalist whose dad hasn't been the president of the southern baptist convention for years y'all now the headline was southern baptists call off the culture war. Homophobe with penis in mouth waves white flag.

Okay, sounds confused about how this all works. Man who takes break from punching you in the face. Pacifist? Yeah. All right. So in this desperate flailing effort to find signs of progress at the SBC, he starts off by basically saying, I read the article

i kid you not when i went to these things as a kid the attendees were mostly older than me now they're mostly younger things sure have changed here in baptism over the last 30 years he then goes on to highlight the fresh-faced new leader they found in jd greer because you know what's this change more than replacing an old white male sexist homophobic transphobic redneck with a middle-aged white male sexist homophobic transphobic redneck um because let's be super clear here this time last year we were talking about the southern baptist convention's nashville statement that was a policy uh that that reiterated their opposition to same-sex marriage and adoption and denied the existence of trans people altogether in like a do you hear a voice kind of way and jd queer was among its signatories all right he's

also apparently given talks where he talks about seeing gay people cured in his church he's compared being anti-gay to being an abolitionist in the pre-civil war south wait so he's gonna end gay people that's the idea genocide he's describing genocide i bet he gets told that a lot hey jd jd you're describing genocide again oh oh shit it's only dollar in the genocide i'm bad i'm bad about it. What can I say? Grew up around genocide or theater roles. Right. And look, for all his talk about having more women in leadership roles, he's making no move to distance himself from the official SBC policy that a woman's place is in the home,

which they literally still have on the books. Yeah. Southern Baptists, at least we're not the other guys, only works when you aren't standing next to them you know right and in tattoo stupid to be apparent news tonight in a shocking turn of events this week tv reality star and person who's famous for drawing on her own and other people's bodies for evsies turns out not to know about science. Who would have thought of it?

Boy, we just throw around the word famous these days, don't we? Whatever we got to do so that it applies to me, no. Eli's very famous. Very important. So Kat Van D took to Instagram this week to explain that she'll be raising her baby, vegan, delivering it via doula and without vaccinations. Fuck you.

God damn it. Veganism is like the dirty hippie version of the Nazis anti-smoking campaign. Oh, OK. Walk us through this. No, I get it. I totally get it. I'm saying I only smoke to support Jewish people. I'm being pro-Semitic.

And I eat bacon to support, you know, showering and gainful employment. Haircuts and real jobs. Activism. Exactly. So, Ms. Von D was clear in her post that this was, quote, her body and her child. So Miss Von D was clear in her post that this was, quote, her body and her child. And while that's true for the first two things, I'm pretty sure that if your kid gives my kid fucking measles, that plants you into the other people's bodies category. I'm not sure. Yeah, certainly.

But even before that, her kid had measles. Right. Like, I mean, the right to swing your baby does not end where the other guy's measles begin we should make that bumper sticker we don't let you make bumper stickers and we should okay new rule if you don't want to get vaccinated that's fine is it idaho is now officially america's anti-vaxxer thunderdome yeah there's already one person with plague there right now to get the ball rolling i'm pretty sure i read that recently and you know they're murdering plenty of kids already i feel like it's the perfect fit in idaho that's now thunderdome

and here's the weirdest part of this story for me is that this is someone who injects ink into her and other people's body for a living. My crazy aunt Kathy thinks that vaccines contain the devil, but she's not currently working on her sweet full-body dragon tattoo at the same time. It just seems like she... Either way, let's

hope Ms. Von D comes to her senses, or if not, to her senses, at least as far the fuck away from other people's kids as possible. let's hope she goes away let's get some GMO ink going too to scare the fuck out of her and in gross profit

news people in charge of Christianity really need to D up and hire a competent team of magical wishers right I said it current squad is shitting the bed pretty much every time and uh the most recent example was christian prophetess kat kerr who broke out her enchanted scepter of poseidon and hephestus earlier this month and proclaimed

authority over subtropical storm alberto and also the kilauea volcano in hawaii and she gave them a stern talking to about breaking stuff and killing people unfortunately these natural disasters were like fuck you you're not my real mom and they did all that stuff anyway she's just standing at one, two, two and a half. Ow, ow, ow, fuck. So, somehow, we do not have a large body of stories about this lady, but we are opening up the file today and leaving

plenty of space because she's all the way crazy. Yeah. If you follow live action geriatric hentai or as we call it jerry tie jerry well if you follow jerry tie you already know all about kat kerr uh when she's not cosplaying as voldemort dressed up as a japanese school girl with pink hair getting fucked by a robotic octopus demon she's usually making christianemed videos about controlling the weather.

Usually right after the hentai thing while still in costume. She looks like someone's grandma is about to play the fairy princess in their five-year-old grandchild's homemade movie. Yeah, but taking it way too seriously, right? She's been

training for that role her whole life. She's getting method. Grandma wouldn't respond to anything but Princess Fluffernutter for a week. Fucking around with Daniel Day-Lewis. That would be the best if he was in a live-action hentai. Yes!

Oh, let's put Daniel Day-Lewis in a hentai now. You do not want to be there for the talk that he has to get from the taken guy there definitely will be blood once again so according to kat kerr she's a joint heir to the jesus estate which includes ownership of the weather that's her her reasoning on, which seems like a pretty sweet power and a great way to just not have deadly storms happen. But that's a little too simple for Special K. That's what they want you to do.

Instead, she's going to be taking control of the millibars. What? Because they never see that coming. As we all know, atmospheric pressure is made up of physical objects called millibars. And if you shoot a whole bunch of extra millibars into a storm, the millibars eat all the degrees of temperature

and joules of energy and the storm disappears into nothing. Right, because the clouds get distracted converting to imperial. Also, a volcano that's 4,000 miles away stops volcanoing. Because it's clogged up with millibars. Yeah. Okay. Noah, Keith, not everyone on this podcast is aware that that's not how storms and

volcanoes work. Weatherist. Weatherist. You're being weatherist. Now, besides Eli, you might be thinking to yourself, wow, that all sounds stupid hurtful but kat kur anticipated your skepticism shut all that down announcing that quote people are going to be laughing at this i totally ignore them shut up heath you're fat just ignore them and quote almost exact quote hey to be fair if she said your name we'd all be in

matching pink wigs and scepters right now and in drastically malicious news tonight fresh off their abortion referendum victory reasonable people in ireland are pressing forward with a new referendum scheduled for october that could finally repeal the nation's pre-renaissance blasphemy law currently the irish constitution has a clause that says quote the publication or utterance of blasphemous seditious or indecent matters is an offense which shall be punished in accordance with the law end quote now we talked about this law before when it was used to try to silence a comedian who called the eucharist haunted bread and wondered why a loving all-knowing God wouldn't be able to come up with a bone-cancer-free version of creation.

Just embrace the fact that God's an asshole. Makes it a lot easier. I'm pretty much out of arguments at that point. And honestly, I might even join your team. The idea that God's actually like a mediocre magician just full of spite doing shit because he's pissed off, that actually resonates well with me.

He thinks I'm God. There you have it, folks. We didn't know it, but we know it now. And by the way, we should give a ton of credit to Atheist Ireland for this referendum. Repealing this clause and the 2009 Defamation Act is something they've been campaigning for since at least 2009.

Kind of nice to see that occasionally atheist activism does move the needle. And it's also worth noting that this is scheduled to take place in october and while no date has been announced for the referendum that happens to be the same month we're all heading to england for qed yeah i'm not saying the irish blasphemy tour is carved in stone yet but the timing does seem auspicious oh yeah i'd go back that that all sounds great. Quick request for Ireland, though. Can you guys explain to my weird, backwards, racist hometown of Irish immigrants in

suburban New York that you guys aren't doing the bigot thing anymore? Because they do not read newspapers. They're going to need a direct memo from Ireland. Heath, I hate to break it to you, but I honeymooned in Dublin and heard what the homeland thinks of Barack Obama. You might want to bring them a note from upstate new york

about only using that word when you're fighting someone at a water park or something i don't okay well that's i mean he's scary to them like baby steps like they're doing the blasphemy thing we'll get to race eventually but let's let's hope so that's also in time speaking of which on a related note if you're curious how far reasonable people have to go in ireland i should point out that this referendum will probably take place concurrent with another vote seeking to change a constitutional clause that promises the state will work hard to make sure a woman's place remains in the home which is a thing ireland apparently, because their constitution is the exact drunken rant that people who only know Irish culture through cartoons would expect it to be.

And in old Jews news tonight, a city councilman in Brooklyn has heard the cries of his people this week and finally given them what they've been asking for. Gender segregated beaches with a rule that says men can't be topless either exactly my letters finally got through to somebody it's important yeah that's awesome awesome now all we need is longer lasting ass sand and enough jellyfishes for everyone and that's right since everything else is going so fucking swell in this country councilman hayim deutsch jewish i think normally eli announces that but apparently i'm doing that you're helping out today yeah so hayim is gonna rent a beach owned by a local college using private donations on days when it's normally closed to the public

to host gender-specific events for the Orthodox Jewish and Muslim communities. What? Yeah, we better separate the genders to avoid any conflicts. Okay, now let's get those Orthodox Jews and Muslims together for a friendly beach party with no conflicts. Good plan. Hopefully nobody gets too close to the fence. That's going to be a very intense couple of games of chicken.

Stay away from the buoys. Stay away from the buoys. What did we say? Okay, but here's another problem. The beach itself belongs to a public university, and Chaim, as I mentioned, is a city councilman, which makes this government-sponsored gender discrimination, even if it uses private funds yeah i mean when your motivation is women are gross and i shouldn't have to look at

them you're gonna have a hard time pulling off a legal outcome right now that said a lot of people seem to be confused about this because of the private funds and it's closed anyway. So I think it's time for everyone's favorite game show. Make it black. Hello and welcome to everybody's favorite in-show game show. Make it black. The show that helps you decide if things should be legal. Today, we're very pleased to be joined by another special guest, Chaim Deutsch. Jewish.

Chaim, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Noah. That's a pretty offensive accent you got there, Chaim. It is almost certainly what I actually sound like, Noah. Almost certainly. Now, you've caught a bit of heat for your gender-segregated beach days lately, is that correct? Yeah, Noah, but we're not hurting anybody. We're just letting parts of our community enjoy a day in the sun while respecting their religious beliefs. All right, well, are you ready to make it black? I sure am, Noah. All right,

all right, Go right ahead. Okay. In order to respect the religious beliefs of those who don't want to share a beach with black people, we've rented a beach that belongs to a public university using private donations for a whites-only beach day. Oh, I get it. I'm the bad guy. Yes, you are, Chaim. Yes, you are. Well, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time on May in Black. And in truth and false advertising news tonight, in an effort to quantify how bullshit it is for us in advance, Gwyneth Paltrow's orifice cargo themed website Goop is adding new passive aggressive labeling to the articles.

Yes, it's the best. Yes, I am so happy. They've made varying degrees of does it work. Okay. In a clear scheme to retroactively arm themselves against rising criticisms of their dangerous charlatanism, the site quietly deployed the disclaimers, which would have been a step in the right direction if they weren't essentially replacing for entertainment purposes only with, you don't know, it could work.

Our products are clinically tested to be not wrong yet. Sometimes. Limited. are clinically tested to be not wrong yet sometimes if you shove an infinite amount of jade eggs up an infinite amount of monkeys who has one of them all right so here are the new categories as described on their own website and we should point out these are all real and they are all my everything yeah no i i yeah right normally i wouldn't just read this much of their website but it has to be done okay category one the lowest level of reliability i guess for your enjoyment this is how they explain this category scientific

title of this yes is for your enjoyment here their description. There probably aren't going to be peer-reviewed studies about this concept, but it's fun and there's real merit in that. Translation, you probably can't legally ask test subjects to put this in their ass. Prove to me this swarm of bees is bad for your

vagina. Peer review right now. Peer review right now. Didn't think so. For your enjoyment. Maybe true. All right review right now. Peer review right now. Didn't think so. For your enjoyment. Maybe true. All right. Moving on, we've got ancient modality. This practice is nearly as old as time. Many find value.

Yeah, what the fuck does that mean? Many find value in it, even if modern day research hasn't caught up yet. And then in parentheses, it's possible this practice will never attract its attention translation who's to say how much brown bile is too much brown bile though guess we'll never know unless of course the modern day catches up backwards with the time dimension and it may never be now. Who's to say? All right, wait, there's three more.

She's got speculative but promising. There's momentum behind this concept, though it needs more research to elucidate exactly what's at work. Translation, look, we're bound to broken clock our way into correct eventually, guys. Yeah, they have a category of, okay, even we don't have anything for this one,

but give it a shot. I feel like the Tide Pod Challenge is under this category. Yeah, it's speculative. Who knows? But promising. All right, moving on, we've got supported by science. That's the fourth one up. This one says,

and it's not, it isn't, it isn't. The description is, there's sound science for the value of this concept and promise of more evidence to come soon

that may prove its impact. Translation, this fails to work in a somewhat plausible way. Wrecking your ass with coffee makes intuitive sense is what we're saying yeah exactly some good data is inevitable right like and this one's also for your enjoyment you can use several of them and finally the last category rigorously tested the validity of this

concept is pretty much undisputed within the world of mds dos nds and phds translation somehow medical advice wound up on our website right and i love how it's like this has been proven by doctors and other letters legally protected now look when you've got five levels only one of which is this is actual truth and even that one equivocates with a pretty much in the middle of it. I feel like you're missing the point. So, Gwen, on the off chance you figured out which holes your headphones go in this time, I have a suggestion. Instead of a disclaimer, you just have a giant photo of a pile of fly infested bullshit that covers up all the advice until they go to a different website. Smart. Try it. photo of a pile of fly infested bullshit that covers up all the advice until they go to a different website smart try it and in as i day lying news tonight you know there are so many reasons a great band breaks up artistic differences the pressure of fame yoko ono or the fact that one

of you tried to hire a hitman to kill their wife. But luckily for the lead singer of the Christian band, As I Lay Dying, that last one doesn't seem to be a problem. Then why do you keep bringing it up, Eli? And so many guys, what does Andrew need to technically not know here? We'll talk about it later at the meeting. I don't know why we're doing this now.

All right, anyways, Tim Lambesis, who listeners will remember for trying to hire a guy essentially in a police uniform to kill his wife in 2013, and then from jail blaming new atheism and steroids for it in a 2014 interview, has been welcomed back into his old band this year with arms wide open. That's creed, though. There's literally no difference even a little so no that's fair there is not anyway he's found God now and as we know

Christians are always ready to forgive murderers pretty much nobody else Christianity actually kind of seems like a pro-murder cult if you think about it too hard really well or if you think about it soft or medium really all you're thinking yeah and for the record

i knew this story was going to be about tim lambis the whole time good good nervous at all quick question why would a police uniform help the murder plot how oh because he the guy was so obviously a cop like he was like hey how you doing i want you to kill cop. Like he was like, hey, how you doing? I want you to kill my wife. And he was like, great. Why don't we meet at this hotel room? I'm going to bring the microphones. And he was like, got it. I love microphones.

I'm a singer. Okay. Yeah. Got it. I thought he was like, all right, well, the murder is going to need to be dressed up as something. He thought it was a Native American guy or the construction worker. No, cop, cop.

He's looking through Soldier of Fortune magazine. Oh, come on. Really? You're going to dress as a Care Bear? She'll never let you in the house. Unprofessional. All right. That's cleared up.

Cool. And finally, tonight, we have a story about an African-American woman beating the shit out of people in Tennessee with a whip, which sounds pretty fantastic. That should have been the headline, honestly. But unfortunately, this amazingly clickable news item starts falling apart as soon as you get into the details. The African-American woman in question is a Christian psychiatrist, and the people she got caught thrashing with a horse whip

were patients of hers was it a was it a white person i feel like i feel like that's better if it's a white for me yeah i feel better better yeah okay i would we're gonna go with a white person let's swear it didn't say it might be white science pending so dr valerie fun and there's a lot for your enjoyment it's intuitive so dr valerie augustus runs a practice called christian psychiatrist services which should probably be illegal just based on the title yeah kind of like christian biologist services or christian cake shop services well according to her website she offers treatment that integrates her spiritual beliefs and principles into each patient's healing process and based on our extensive knowledge of christian doctors from

movies we've seen those beliefs and principles say something along the lines of stop taking your medication. I'll just beat you with this whip instead. You'll be just like Jesus. Also, based on police reports, that's pretty much exactly what was happening. Yeah. All right. So anyway, this story really happened. That's all real.

A mental health professional was whipping the asses of patients and referring to them as mules. I love that all the news items included the mule thing, right? Because that means that somebody heard this story and said, well, whip, sure. But mule, that's fucking harsh. Make sure you put that in. That's mean. Yeah. Now, in fairness, the Bible doesn't say you should whip people.

I mean, it could certainly be inferred at plenty of times, but it doesn't say directly you should whip mental health patients. But in Proverbs 26, three, it says a whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey and a rod for the backs of fools. So if you really want to get into it, Dr. Val was actually being extra humane for a Christian, considering she wasn't also putting leather straps and reins on people's faces and also clubbing people in the back with a lead pipe if they acted foolish.

Well, right, right. And also, important takeaway, the Bible is such a terrible moral guide that its starting point is animal abuse. Like, that's the first half of the analogy. Punch a puppy, but for a man, I'm not interested in the second half. Yeah, right. All right.

So that all sounds pretty terrifying. But possibly the scariest part of the story is the response from the state of Tennessee. Upon learning that a licensed psychiatrist was assaulting mentally ill people with a whip, they basically told this woman hey cut it out with all the horseplay stop no stop and they literally gave her a timeout like seriously yes that's what happened she's right now on a two-month timeout and when that's done she can go ahead and get her license back i mean the medical board could refuse but if we find out they were a little too snippy when they said yeah we've got supreme court level legal precedent to

suggest that her free exercise rights might supersede the rights of mentally ill people to not get assaulted like toby from roots by their doctor guys Patreon goal, we send me down there and I will do a therapy session with this woman. I can get her out of practice in 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure. I can just describe some shit. Enjoying it way too much, scare the

shit out of her. Yeah. Alright, your turn. Stop. Stop. Stop resisting. Alright, and while I explain to Heath that that character's name was actually Kunta Kinte, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Dr. Whipping. And when we come back, there will be bullshit.

Oh, things just keep getting better. Welcome back to Queer Eye for the Scathing Guy. This week's show is about Heath Enright, a podcaster who's a disgusting pile of garbage. Okay, I'm right here. Okay, honey, it's me. I'm the grooming guy. Whoa, dude, offensive. No, he actually sounds like this. We're going to make you turnt like Beyonce today with a little product called dollarshaveclub.com.

The people with the razors? Oh, it's way more than razors, honey. Dollar Shave Club, yes, that Dollar Shave Club, delivers everything you need to look, feel, and smell your best. You name it. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toothpaste, hair gel, even a wipe that'll leave your tush feeling tingly clean. Oh, okay. Well, it's a makeover show, so I guess let's do it. Well, here's a great way to try

a bunch of Dollar Shave Club products. For just five bucks, you get their Daily Essentials Starter Kit. It comes with a body cleanser, one-wipe Charlies, their amazing butt wipes, their world-famous shave butter, and their best razor, the Six Blade Executive. Keep the blades coming for just a few bucks more a month. And add in shampoo, toothpaste, or anything else you need for the bathroom. Check it all out at dollarshaveclub.com slash scathing.

That's dollarshaveclub.com slash scathing. Okay, got it. So, anything else? Yeah, Anthony's going to teach you how to make guacamole it's avocados i know anthony i know it's avocados bobby built me a house the worst Hey, Eli, what are you doing? Oh, hey, Noah, just living biblically. You're living... Biblically, Noah.

With all this talk in the news about whether or not the Bible supports immigration or slavery or whatever, I actually just cracked the book open and, yeah, got a whole new guide new guide for life now eli i don't think that's a good idea no the political discourse of the country that i live in is going to be dominated about what a bronze age book does or does not say i'm not going to hold myself to modern enlightenment values you know they're a drag they're complex but the bible bible simple i don't think it is but eli that's the whole point the arguing back and forth about what the bible does or doesn't say is pointless we live in 2018 and we are obligated to live by the ideas of the present day even if the regressives in our society want to pretend that we aren't. Seriously? Yeah. Yeah, dude.

Seriously. Okay. Fine. So what, uh, what was in that laundry bag? If I said watermelons, would you believe me? Legally, yes.

Watermelons. Cool. Cool. If you'd asked me at pretty much any point in my life i'd have identified myself as an atheist but while i may never have believed in god i know way too much about the auric resonance of various crystals to claim that i was always a rationalist so with a few painful memories of my sordid past, we present you another installment of... How Bullshit Is It? So tell us, Heath, what nugget of nuttery do you have for us today? Today, we'll be talking about therapeutic touch.

Which is? It's that massager our wives keep by the bedside for the knots in their shoulders. That's not what that's for. It's waving your hands near somebody and then asking them for money. Oh, sorry. Never mind. It's what I do in bed. Okay.

Okay. So when they're trying to get the money, what might they tell someone it is? Okay. So therapeutic touch or TT is what's called an energy medicine, a treatment that focuses on the body's energy field rather than parts of it that exist in the observable universe. Right. chi or prana. Through this technique, they claim they can correct unbalanced, misaligned, or otherwise obstructed energy flows and transfer some of their own life force into the patient. Okay, so massage plus bullshit? Well, worse than that. Actually, in therapeutic touch, the practitioner doesn't usually make contact with the patient.

Instead, they do what looks to a cynical observer like massaging the air a few inches above your skin. Okay, wait, so the therapeutic and the touch are bullshit? Exactly, yeah. Sad endings every time. Okay, so do we know who we have to thank for this nonsense? That would be a nurse by the name of Dolores Krieger. She pioneered the practice in the late 70s and published the first book on the subject entitled Therapeutic Touch, How to Use Your Hands to Help and to Heal. She also pioneered looking like Wallace Shawn trying out his first and only wig. All right, so who was this Dolores Krieger?

Well, in addition to being an RN and a faculty member at New York's Division of Nursing, she was also a theosophist, which is a form of mysticism people ascribe to when they want to hide behind a more obscure term than mysticism. Dolores was mentored by Dora Kuntz, the president of the Theosophical Society of America and a self-described intuitive healer. And is an intuitive healer what I think it is? Well, do you think it's a person who heals the sick by just sort of guessing? I do. Then yes, exactly. Today I learned every Jewish mother is an intuitive healer. Fun fact. All right. today i learned every jewish mother is an intuitive healer fun fact all right so based on what she

learned from an intuitive healer she came up with therapeutic touch exactly she became convinced that the palms of the hand contained energy manipulating chakras and rather than test that through some sort of scientific means she wrote a book and started charging people for it right away. Oof, we've all been there. Never should have written The Girl Who Never Had an Orgasm Before Me. That's a stupid choice. Alright, so how does therapeutic touch

not work? It involves a four-step process of not working, or four increasingly desperate ways of describing do nothing, depending on how you want to look at it step one is centering which is a meditative process where the practitioner attempts to align with the patient's energy field picturing dolores just twiddling her nipples 103.5 103.6 thek. Where are we at here?

Yeah, when they get done sitting still and nipple tweaking, they move on to step two, assessment. This is where the jazz hands kick in, and the practitioner tries to detect the energy field emanating from the patient and intuit what's causing the problem, also known as uneducated guessing. Yeah, they're not detecting something that doesn't exist it's like playing how many fingers am i holding up with captain hook yep and once they've convinced the patient they've done several dollars worth of that they move on to step three which is definitely the funniest looking step this one is called clearing or

because sometimes they stop even pretending this is real unruffling the field oh wow unruffling now what they say they're doing here is sweeping away stagnant energy but what they actually do is wipe their hands downward with enough freneticism to make you think not touching can't get mad just got accepted as an olympic sport you know russia is gonna sweep that one now they'll touch they'll touch they'll dope but uh but of course once you've swept away all that stagnant energy you have to replace it of course and that leads to step four transfer of energy in which the practitioner moves some of their extra healthy energy over to the patient whose energy is less healthy i i feel like this

is a story that should begin and end on the same day. In a more beautiful world, Noah? Perhaps, but no. Therapeutic touch caught on and is now practiced by over 100,000 people worldwide. But even more disturbing, according to an article I read on Quack Watch, it's been taught to at least 43,000 nurses, it's been taught to at least 43,000 nurses, more than half of whom actively practice the so-called art of therapeutic touch. Picturing lying there in a hospital bed, waving back at the nurse.

Hi. Hello. Yes. Hello. Yes, I see you. Hi. All right. Not that I need to ask, but is there any evidence that this does anything?

Of course not. No. Has it been studied? Yeah, there have been a number of studies and meta-analyses and at least one systematic review that looks into TT. And the better the study, the more definitively they found absolutely no effect. But perhaps the most noteworthy test was conducted by one Emily Rosa and was published in the Journal of American Medicine in 1998. And it's the best.

What makes this one so noteworthy? The fact that Emily Rosa was nine years old at the time that she did the research. Please tell me this was debunked by a nine year old. It was. It's so, so fun. And the test she devised, it's pretty simple. Since the whole concept is based on the claim that practitioners can detect these energy fields that are somehow unmeasurable by science, Rosa figured all you needed to do was blindfold the

therapeutic toucher and ask, is there a human under your hands right now? Yeah. No, I guess that sounds simple enough. The amount of times that that sentence gets yelled at me, I feel like I could win this game. Was there a prize? I could win. There's a human under my hands sometimes. Throw me on the doll where he didn't quite touch you. Well, the test here was too difficult

for any of the advocates of the practice to think up before they started offering it to people with serious medical conditions. But yeah, not too difficult for a fourth grad advocates of the practice to think up before they started offering it to people with serious medical conditions but uh yeah not too difficult for a fourth grader to come up with so with the assistance of steven barrett from quack watch she set up a scientific experiment they made a partition with two holes in it and had practitioners sit across from emily and stick both their hands through to the other side of the table. Then she'd hold her hand over top of either their left hand or their right hand and asked which one they detected an energy field coming from. And the results?

Worse than random chance. Really? They tested a total of 21 practitioners, and on the whole, they were only able to correctly guess 44% of the time. It's worth noting that leading up to the test all 21 of the subjects expressed extreme confidence they'd be able to pass the test with nearly 100 accuracy wow okay but if you think about it that means they have a 56 chance of hand repellent i'm gonna write a book yeah i'm gonna write it might as well there's money in that

uh and this research was published in the journal of american medicine yes emily rosa became the youngest member of a research team to ever be published in a major peer-reviewed journal she's the best i think peer review probably means different things when it's a fourth grader but yeah yeah okay so somehow this definitive demonstration didn't slow down the practice, did it? Well, it certainly didn't end it. But one could argue that Emily's study did have an effect. Leading up to this, there were some insurance companies covering the practice and an embarrassing amount of resources were dedicated to looking into it. And while it's still way too prevalent, mentioned those numbers before, the opinion within the medical community did shift quite a bit after the study's publication.

Yeah, I mean, our current health insurance covers Christian science practitioners, but not CAT scans. These people pick weird battles. Don't they, though? Doesn't it cover CAT scans? All right. It does not.

What? Well, I don't want to leave people feeling too hopeful. So how prevalent is still way too prevalent? Well, the most recent numbers I could find were from 2006 when it was estimated that at least 80 colleges and universities taught therapeutic touch. And the practice had spread to at least 70 countries. Although the article cautions that those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt since people on both the pro and anti side of this have a vested interest in exaggerating. And as near as I could tell, the California Board of Registered Nursing still awards continuing education units toward nurses license renewal for taking classes on therapeutic touch. Well, how the hell can they justify that when even the precept can be proven false? Great question.

I mean, guys, these are nurses here. It's not like they're real doctors. You know what I'm saying? I just made so many people mad. Yes, you did. Did you hear your inbox, Noah? You guys hear your inbox? Yeah, no, I did. Did you hear that all fill up? Yeah. Nurses are awesome. So tell us, Heath, how can they

justify that when even the precept can be proven false? Well, they gotta get pretty creative and often resort to the word quantum, as is the case with a lot of things that are obviously false and then you want to pretend they're true. So the Skeptics Dictionary offers an amazing little sample from a 1995 book called Hands That Heal, The Art of Therapeutic Touch by Rebecca Whitmer. book called hands that heal the art of therapeutic touch by rebecca whitmer whitmer writes the underlying principles upon which this technique is based include acceptance of the einstein paradigm of a complex energetic field-like universe that sounds like something einstein said i.e the existence of a life energy flowing through and all around all of us and she capitalized life there by the way is she mistaken einstein with with obi-wan kenobi well meaningless nonsense was her only

hope so maybe she continues further if life is characterized by an interchange of various qualities of energy it can be assumed that any form of obstruction, either within the organism or between the organism and the environment, is contrary to nature's tendency and therefore unhealthy. She also capitalized nature there. Oh, of course she did. Because why not? Any obstruction that obstructs anything is unhealthy ever?

This woman has seen me poop. So there's more. Continues, the TT practitioner does not so much heal the patient, heals in quotes, by the way, as facilitate the patient's own healing processes by gently manipulating the body's energy flow and adjusting it as a whole, end quote. Now, I'd love to see a non-gentle practitioner.

Yeah, right. Rigorously manipulating the body's energy. Hey, relax. Just fucking softly move my aura, man. God damn it. So that's how it works I'll be offering S&M energy flow adjustments at ReasonCon next year here, here, you like that?

look what I'm doing to your energy safe word but you know what I get it like I've spent a year at a variety of doctors who told me like I should stop being less sad to stop shitting blood once an hour so hard that my heart's gonna stop and you know what i would have loved a little interpretive dance to go with it i would have loved it yeah must be rough learning repeatedly that there's nothing wrong with you all right so heath i guess the only real question left to ask is how bullshit is it

well it literally cannot be described without using a hand-waving explanation well said all right well he thanks as always for your bovine bowel movement expertise and when we come back the next segment will start before we shuffle off our audible coil for the night i want to let you know drum roll please that lucinda will be back next week so if you've been missing her caustic take on misogyny your long suffering is nearly at an end i've been missing a hell of a lot more than that 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 the skeptocrat debuting

at 7 a.m eastern time on monday an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend god awful movies 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 this would be some kind of half-formed sub episode if i neglected to thank heath enright for not using his vast intellect on something more profitable and productive i need to Enright for not using his vast intellect on something more profitable and productive. I need to thank Eli for not using his vast orifices on something more infamous and felonious. I also need to thank, um, I honestly don't know

because I don't quite speak two-year-old Ian Wyatt. Anyway, he provided this week's Farsworth quote, and it was quite possibly the best ever, so thanks for that. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most marvelous mammalia, Bruce, Adam, Joshua, Dion, Daryl with an E, Bronze, Taylor, Kyle, Jarrett, Daryl with a Y, Chris, Diana, Jaster, Alex, the Mammalia, Bruce, Adam, Joshua, Dion, Daryl with an E, Bronze, Taylor, Kyle, Jarrett, Daryl with a Y, Chris, Diana, Jaster,

Alex, The Crash Dummy, Sean, Cal, David, and Paul. Bruce, Adam, Joshua, Dion, and Daryl with an E, whose ejaculations were hydrofracking way before it was cool. Bronze, Taylor, Kyle, Jarrett, and Daryl with a Y, who are so sexy a dude from the MPAA is holding black bars over this part of my notes. Chris, Diana, Jaster, Alex,

and The Crash Dummy are so clever that they could convince Alan Turing that he was a computer. And Sean, Cal, David, and Paul who penetrate deeper than the Red Army circa 1945. Together, these 19 nimble noggin non-believers nursed our nascent negation of the Nazarene nincompoops' nocuous natterings this week by giving us money.

Not everybody has the sheer inner beauty it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button

on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but all your money is tied up with your record-setting money knot, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, telling a friend about the show, and liking us on Facebook. Legal services for this podcast

are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres and our audio engineer, S. 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 can find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingalias.com. It's weird that my answer to what would you have done during the Nazis is a podcast. Am I right? what would you have done during the Nazis is a podcast. Am I right?

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