The Scathing Atheist - 280: Return of Lucinda Edition

Episode Date: June 28, 2018

In this week’s episode, the Supreme Court rules “not touching can’t get mad”, our collection of rejuvenating cum might finally pay off in Western Canada, and Lucinda will make her long awaited, triumphant return. 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: SCOTUS upholds travel ban: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/supreme-court-travel-ban-trump-upholds-countries-muslim-ruling-latest-a8417781.html Duterte calls God "stupid": http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/25/mass-murdering-philippines-president-loses-some-support-for-calling-god-stupid/ TX Gov. Promises Dying Child He’ll Ban Abortion in All Circumstances (god this is so fucked up) http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/19/tx-gov-promises-dying-child-hell-ban-abortion-in-all-circumstances/ If FL Town Bends Rules for Orthodox Jews, Satanist Will React with “Giant Dongs” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/23/if-fl-town-bends-rules-for-orthodox-jews-satanist-will-react-with-giant-dongs/ Hot dog water sells big to Canadian stupid people: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/25/artist-sells-hot-dog-water-for-38-a-bottle-to-show-how-gullible-people-are/ This Week in Misogyny: Saudi lifts ban on women driving: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middleeast/as-driving-ban-lifts-saudi-women-in-crosshairs-of-change/2018/06/23/3722734c-7708-11e8-bda1-18e53a448a14story.html Walgreens Pharmacist Refuses to Give Woman Medicine to Induce Miscarriage http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/24/walgreens-pharmacist-refuses-to-give-woman-medicine-to-induce-miscarriage/ SCOTUS rules in favor of crisis pregnancy centers: https://religionnews.com/2018/06/26/supreme-court-rules-against-california-law-targeting-anti-abortion-pregnancy-centers/

Warning, I've been saving up a lot of cuss words over the last few weeks. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, 4Hims.com, and ZipRecruiter. And by the new restaurant chain for members of the Trump administration, The Soylent Green Hen. Visit our pop-up locations in Brownsville, New York, Seattle, Michigan, Oregon, hell, even we don't know where all of them are. The Soylent Green Hen. It's not people, it's animals. And now, The Scathing Atheist.

Hi, I'm Jerry. And I'm Paul from What Did the Brits Say to the Indian Podcast. And I may be a dark and loathsome Lamanite, but even I know we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men it's thursday it's's June 28th. And it's International Caps Lock Day. I'm not shouting, I'm celebrating. I'm no illusions. I mean, I'm Osnick. I'm Heath Enright.

New York, New York. Calm down. Secret Lair, Pennsylvania. This is the Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, the Supreme Court rules not touching can't get mad. Our collection of rejuvenating cum might finally pay off in Western Canada. And Lucinda will make her triumphant return. First, the diatribe. As many of you know, when I was a younger man, I made my living for a few years as a juggler. And when you tell people you're a juggler, they almost always respond in one of eight ways.

Seven of them are humorous puns that take advantage of the fact that ball could mean both a thing you juggle and a testicle. And the other one is to ask you how many balls you can juggle and that always bothered me because i wasn't a numbers juggler i was what we call in the biz a gentleman's juggler and that's a radically different shtick than a numbers juggler but i got asked this so damn often that eventually i buckled down and learned to juggle five balls which is really fucking hard and pointless if your act is all about cigar boxes canes and hat tricks and after months of work i put the five ball juggle out there and nobody said hey wow five balls they just said can you do six so i go back i spent a few months mastering a six ball juggle

which doesn't even make sense geometrically by the way and as soon as i add that to my act people just switch up to can you do seven now at the time i didn't realize i was learning an important lesson about atheist podcasting, but it turns out I was. See, when I first started this show, I got a lot of feedback from people faulting us for not having enough biblical knowledge to do a show like this. And at first, my response was, there's a talking donkey in it. That is literally all I need to know to call bullshit. But after hearing the same criticism from a dozen listeners within the first half dozen episodes, we decided to read the Bible and break it down on the show. And while I still maintain that I didn't need to read the whole damn book to know it was bullshit,

I figured the listeners were right. I should read it if I'm going to talk about it, if for no reason but comic material. So we read the whole goddamn book cover to cover, even read a bunch of the apocrypha. And I didn't giddy in my way through this shit. No, sir. I bought my Bible with a fucking ruler. I got the goddamn new Oxford annotated Bible. I read all the intro articles, all the summaries, all the footnotes. But no sooner had I finished that all of that stuff that I start getting the but can you do six messages in the form of people saying, well, sure, you read the Bible. But the beliefs of modern Christians are based on centuries of interpretations and writings that have built upon that base. And at first, my response

was right. But if they were built on a base that had a talking donkey in it, that doesn't matter, does it? But after hearing the same criticism from dozens of listeners, I started boning up on that too. I read William Lane Craig, C.S. Lewis, Tim Keller. I even tried to read Augustine. What's more, I started studying up on Near Eastern history, mythology, the history of the Catholic Church, the history of the Reformation. And while I was doing that, I also read the goddamn Koran and the Book of Mormon. But no sooner had I finished all that than I start getting the but can you do seven messages in the form of people saying, well, sure, you've read a lot about Christianity. But most Christians don't get their belief from books. And at first my response was, yeah, but that's because they know less about their own religion than me at this point. But I heard the critique enough, so I started consuming Christian pop culture too. I watched well over a hundred Christian movies.

I watched Christian TV shows. I sampled Christian music, became a regular at their news sites and their blogs. I watched sermons on YouTube. Hell, I even lived among them and observed them in their natural habitat for years. And just this week, I get my first, but can you do eight message in the form of a Facebook comment, taking me to task for not reading the academic stuff from the cutting edge theologians and instead attacking easy targets like case for christ and don't get me wrong it was a remarkably civil and productive conversation and i bear the comment or no ill will but are you fucking kidding me look we didn't pick case for christ because it was stupid and easy to rip to shreds we picked it because it was the fastest selling apologetics

book of all fucking time the fact that it was also poorly argued horse shit from cover to cover well that's just a welcome bonus and no by the way i'm not pulling anything by referring to the fastest selling instead of the best selling since all the best sellers that outdo it have been in print for hundreds of years and shit and every single one of these comments from you should read the bible to you should perpetually avail yourself of all the newest in academic theology all stem from a concern for my credibility, right? They all say something to the tune of, you'll never understand what Christians really believe until you consume X. But it doesn't matter what X is here. The precept itself is flawed. I mean, how fucking hard is it to know

what Christians really believe? They tell you whether you ask them or not. It's not fucking complicated. I mean, it is complicated, but only because of the intellectual contradictions they really believe they tell you whether you ask them or not it's not fucking complicated i mean it is complicated but only because of the intellectual contradictions they have to ignore but it's not like the true heart of the christian is some kind of mysterious puzzle box their beliefs are for the most part childishly simple and yes sometimes we oversimplify christian beliefs for the sake of brevity on this show it's one of the advantages of doing a comedy show instead of an academic one you know i mean i can know all for the sake of brevity on this show. It's one of the advantages of doing a comedy show instead of an academic one. You know, I mean, I can know all about the history of apocalyptic literature and the modern consensus on the symbolism and revelations.

But when you tee me up with a comedy precept, like a dragon trying to figure out how to get 10 crowns onto a seven edge, you can bet your ass I'm going to knock it down. But all of that is beside the point. The point, as it turns out, was my instinctive response way back at the genesis of this show when I pointed out that their entire fucking religion is based on a book with a talking donkey and it was the right one. I'd been right all the way back then. And as evidence of that claim, I'll point out that I did all the legwork through four, five, six and seven balls. I did read the Bible. I did learn the history. Hell, at this point, I've read more Christian shit than ninety nine percent of Christians and I may well be the world's leading expert on contemporary Christian cinema. And through all of that, the Christian worldview has never grown more nuanced, less naive, more complex, less contrived. It's the same puerile, pre-intellectual jabberwocky it was before I got to in the beginning.

it was before I got to in the beginning. It took me way too long to learn this, but if I've taken anything from the last five years, it's that whenever you take a deep dive into a shallow intellect, all you get is smacked on the fucking brain. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special

news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are self-loathing foodies Heath Edright and Eli Bostick. Fellas, are you ready to finally eat that goddamn baker bucket? I've been trying to build this table for years with no base like a fucking idiot. It's about time we got that. Damn it, I even ordered the wrong bucket. Measure twice, cut once, Eli.

So yeah, long overdue, but with Heath and I about to move, it's now or never. Incidentally, if you're a patron patron you can watch us make ourselves violently ill live during an AMA just check out your patreon feed for a link on Friday night around 9 p.m eastern time we'll eat we'll take your questions and we'll try not to throw up on camera we were supposed to have a nice company dinner that was the plan before the bucket showed up. I'm going to also eat an entire dinner. And while I swallow back the vomit that talking about this always induces, we're going to pause for a quick word from this week's first sponsor,

Stamps.com. Hey, Noah, have you seen my cat? Eli, I'm on the phone. Sorry. He's a cat. About 65 pounds. Yes, 65. Okay, well, can I rent a bigger

box? Yes, I'll hold. Meow. Hey, man, what are you doing with your cat? Well, you know, we're moving and moving with pets can be really hard, so I'm trying to see if the movers will take him. Yeah, no, I don't think that the movers will take him.

But then I realized, I suddenly thought to myself, hey, stamps.com. Stamps.com. Yeah, 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. Meow. Quiet, buddy. With Stamps.com, you can buy and print official U.S. postage for any letter, any package, using your own computer and printer, and the mail carrier picks it up. Just click print mail, and you're done.

It couldn't be easier. No, Noah, I know how great Stamps.com is. We use it for all our merch fulfillment, to sell stuff online. Heck, you and Heath are actually using it for your moves coming up in a few days, but I don't think that you can mail. But it gets even better. Right now, I can use scathing for this special offer that includes up to $55 in 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 homepage and type in scathing. That's stamps.com. Enter

page and type in scathing that stamps.com enter scathing okay that is a pretty amazing deal do you have air holes in there uh yeah now look at my butthole now and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight the supreme court found a compromise this week when they ruled that some muslims are allowed in the country after a couple of failed iterations the supreme Court finally got a version of Trump's travel ban that the conservatives could stomach enough to uphold. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that it is within presidential discretion and that it's really on Congress for assuming that we'd never elect a president on a platform of naked xenophobia and bigotry, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Yeah. Thanks, Hillary. Get a fucking VPN orn or whatever do something yeah one unexpected side effect of 2016 is it is obliterated my political skepticism right like at

this point i'm like oh i mean yeah of course there'll be concentration camps but what state do you think they'll be in like i want to be able to jump the train. Yeah, right. It's a short trip. Dubbed a Muslim ban by the pre-trying-to-get-it-through-the-courts Donald Trump, the original EO was signed in January of 2017 and sought to bar entry into the U.S. from residents of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Yemen until the Trump administration could, quote, figure out what the hell is going on, end quote. And since they haven't managed to do that on any subject at all in the intervening 17 months, we're still talking about it.

To be fair, though, people were awful nasty about this Muslim ban. And we know how the SCOTUS feels about that. Yeah. I should ask one side anyway. Yeah. So in a demonstration of just how many ways this was wrong, the four justices against this decision wrote two dissents. And Sotomayor showed me what a diatribe would look like if I was way smarter. And look, I'm not a legal scholar.

Oh, my God. I will say that, like, even during the election, Andrew was pointing out over on opening arguments that there was a legal way that Trump could effectively ban Muslims. Right. And Trump made it harder on himself by being incredibly stupid, but by a strict reading of the law, hey, you know what? Maybe the court's conservatives got this one right. That being said, as Breyer and Kagan pointed out in their dissent,

there is evidence that exceptions to the ban are being applied with a religious bias, which would make the ban in practice illegal. And as Sotomayor and RBG pointed out in their dissent, the president said publicly that he was trying to do the illegal thing. Yeah. And I mean, in a general sense, the exceptions to the ban are about 99 percent made up of a group called Not Muslim Country. Yeah.

Feels religious because of the word. Right. Right. Right. And again, the reason this went through officially is that Justice Roberts feels like it should be legal to remove blood from someone's dry cleaning, whether or not they're wearing a child's head as a hat. Now, an interesting side note here. The court's majority was very clear that they were only considering the executive order itself when making the decision not trump's previous statements about the order's intent and that was nice to see i'm glad to see the court moving on from that 2018 standard about having to be nice to people's religion when considering possible first amendment violations wow that was a dark three fucking weeks in the court's history wasn't it weeks ago nos ago, Noah. Weeks ago.

It'll be better. Everything's going to be better on the Supreme Court soon. Oh, God. We didn't get any bad news today. I hope Neil Gorsuch is a magic fan. I will refuse the fuck out of some service for him. He will see no card tricks. That is the joke that Andrew

wrote for me instead of what I wanted to say. Big shout out to Andrew. A little joke writing help from him today. And in shit or get off the despot news, the Philippines is fucking weird. So according to recent reports, everyone's super angry at President Rodrigo Duterte all of a sudden just now yeah not before just now apparently he'd been doing great so far with the filipinos

you know like with his vocal support for the murdering of all those obnoxious journalists and his encouragement of the military and their their use of white hat sexual assault but you know only in nice civilized groups of three because he's classy like that right uh seriously google that he said that and of course who doesn't appreciate a good death squad that exterminates homeless orphans on the street so they've been liking him but uh then he finally slipped up last week and did something wrong he He suggested that the story of Adam and Eve is silly. Right. And that is what got him. Yeah.

Sir, you may kill my child with a machete, but when you come for my giant that lives for 400 years after its expulsion from paradise for eating fruit, you go too far. You go too far. For eating fruit. You go too far. You go too far. So yeah, Duterte had a weird moment of lucidity, but also the opposite at the same time. And just started speaking honestly about the Bible during a speech,

seemingly unaware there was a microphone or other people in the universe at that moment. He's in the middle of talking about stabbing a crack baby in the eye or whatever he normally talks about. And then just out of nowhere, he was like, yeah, so who is this stupid God? This son of a bitch is really stupid. How can you rationalize

a God? You're not involved, but now you're stained with original sins? What kind of a religion is that? Exact words. And now a bunch of Catholic military leaders and police officials are drawn a line in the sand. Yeah. After domestic death squads, but before questioning a part of the Bible that Christians didn't even write. Right.

And in Make-A-Wish news tonight. You know, we take on a lot of taboo subjects here at The Scathing Atheist. It's not a lot that we haven't mocked, but today we'll be breaking new ground by taking on a kid with cancer. Okay. I'll be over here getting a head start on the editing. Talk amongst yourselves and say whatever you want, Eli.

No, no, you are here. You are here with us. So, Jeremiah Thomas is a 16-year-old and battling bone cancer. But, you see, he has just one wish before he shuffles off this mortal coil. He wants to make all abortion illegal. To plan B or not to plan B? That is the question. Dying Kid says not to plan B. Good to know. Yeah, so Jeremiah is the son of Rusty Thomas,

the national director of Operation Save America, who listeners will remember for burning Korans and rainbow flags on their mission to eventually make me unsympathetic to a dying child. Well, I've also seen beating you at smash brothers do the trick though that's right yeah but watching eli perform the first ever rage quit in the history of the make a wish foundation was delightful it was okay little asshole chose fox whatever you don't you don't have smash brothers in the void do they caden prick prick great character best character so yeah with full brain with full brain

washing intact Jeremiah had a meeting with Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Dan Fisher and a phone call with Texas Governor Greg Abbott who listeners will remember for supporting our living for the last few years with their unending stream of douchebaggery yeah right for which listeners may or may not have sent with their unending stream of douchebaggery.

Yeah. Right. For which listeners may or may not have sent him a never-ending stream of douchebags and other used feminine hygiene products, if I remember correctly. Right. So first up was the meeting with Fisher, where we learned the origin story of the world's worst make-a-wish. See, Jeremiah had already had all his wishes granted when he actual answer met tim tebow ray comfort and kirk cameron oh wow those were his wishes so all that was left was for him to

wish forced birth on all the women he'll never fuck and fisher totally agreed by the way knowing less about the law than Andrew Torres' Twitter mentions, he like super best friend promised to shove every baby right back up in there for Emsi's in Oklahoma. I mean, you know, I get, I'm sympathetic, but like Tom Hanks and David Morris would have just told him about Fetusville down in Florida, which not coincidentally is the subject of our newest animated feature,

If Cartoon Network Will Ever Grow a Pair. Stop ignoring our voicemails. So, sadly, Greg Abbott was slightly more sane. Due to the fact that Jeremiah's wish is, you know, illegal, in their phone call, which there is a video of, I guess Greg Abbott couldn't make time for a visit, he let Jeremiah know that being anti-abortion was part of the Republican platform at this point. At which point in the video, Jeremiah acted like the law had been passed and they were going to cremate him inside an old abandoned Planned Parenthood.

I think Planned Parenthood should put a statue of this kid outside all their clinics. Just in fond remembrance. Good idea. Good idea. Either way, this is kind of a sad story. I mean, the kid's sick. Kid's brainwashed. He's going to die brainwashed.

But more importantly, you know there has to have been some brutal meetings at Make-A-Wish this week, right? Okay, everybody. Thanks for coming to jeremiah's big day thank you all so much for coming bless you god bless every one of you yeah this job leaves you with a lot of faith in god jerry sorry sorry so uh you come up with a wish there, kiddo? I did. Well, go ahead, champ. I want... Anything in the world, buddy. Anything. I want...

Yeah? To resegregate the South. Yeah. Sorry. What? I'm a Bible-believing Christian. The sons of Ham shall serve their brothers' descendants. It would be so nice just to have one day where I knew a filthy... Whoa, whoa, kid, kid, kid. We can't resegregate the South, can we, Jerry?

No, dude, we cannot do that. Nope. Oh,, then. How about a big party with your friends and you can invite whoever you want or not invite whoever you want? Really? The kid's dying, dude.

No. No, I have everything I need. I just wanted to have a single day that was clean, you know? Clean for white people. Okay, okay. I have an idea. Yeah? Now, it's not entirely resegregating the South, but it's pretty close.

It is? Yeah. Come on, kid. We're going to Chicago. Oh, yeah. No, that'll do it right yay close and now that virtually everybody needs a minute to send us an email about how tasteless that was we're gonna pause for a long overdue toss to my lovely wife, Lucinda. But first, a word from our second sponsor this week, Hems. Man, this line is taking forever.

All right, I have another question. It says to take them with water, but can I take them with milk? Okay, okay. How about juice? Heath, Heath, hey, hey, hey. What are you doing at the pharmacy? What about tea. Hey, hey, hey. What are you doing at the pharmacy? What about tea? Oh, hey, Eli.

I was just, you know, picking up some stuff. Some stuff? For what? What kind of stuff are you picking up? Just relax and quiet down. It's some dude stuff, you know. How about Gatorade? Ooh, ooh, yeah.

Yeah, dude stuff. See, I use 4hims.com. Oh, what's 4hims.com? I see, I see. And it says to take two at bedtime. Can I take four halves? I can't. Okay, what about eight quarters?

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pills and hair pills and stuff. Like doctor stuff though? Yes. And best of all, products are shipped directly to your door. No waiting room. No awkward doctor's visits. You can save hours by going to HIMSS.com. What about 51212,250? But that's got to be crazy expensive, right?

Not at all. If you order now, our listeners get a trial month of hymns for just $5. Today, right now while supplies last. See website for full details, but this would cost hundreds if you went to the doctor or pharmacy. Go to 4hymns.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S

dot com slash scathing. 4hymns.com slash scathing that's f-o-r-h-i-m-s dot com slash scathing so i don't have to be in this line at all i could just go there okay but why are you here oh i'm picking up chicks man you know what they say if she's got yeast you know she's a beast okay well i'm, I'm going to go. That's great. Now I'm going to pay in pennies. One, two, oh, I've lost count. Hold on, let me start over. We should get some death panels.

A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she wants. If it's a legitimate race. If it's your slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in Masajid.. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. I know, I miss you too.

And I hope you understand that I got back as soon as I could. Trust me, if I was trying to avoid misogyny, I wouldn't have been in South Georgia. Now, after a seven-week absence, I don't want to just show up with the same shitty news I always bring. So I thought we'd start with a few of the positive news stories that took place while I was gone. As you might have heard, Saudi Arabia finally got around to lifting its ban on women drivers, making it officially the most sexist country on the planet by less. I mean, kudos and all, but perspective.

And that's going to do it for the feel-good reunion. On to horrific shit. Like, how about the story of Nicole Artiega, the Arizona teacher who was refused service at a Walgreens because she wanted evil devil drugs. Now, this is one of those stories that emphasizes just how willing they are to abandon the basis of their so-called moral objections. Because in this case, the woman was trying to abort a fetus that was already doomed. So she goes to the doctor, gets her prescription, and heads down to the local Walgreens,

where she's told that the pharmacist is too Christian to help her murder her baby. In a Facebook post after the incident, Arteaga recounted, quote, I stood at the mercy of this pharmacist explaining my situation in front of my seven-year-old and five customers standing behind only to be denied because of his ethical beliefs, end quote. And what's more, after this incident came to light, Walgreens went out of their way to stand behind this pharmacist's decision because that's what women should go through to exercise constitutionally protected bodily autonomy, apparently. And since the guys already have you warmed up to some bad Supreme Court decisions,

we should probably talk about their Tuesday decision regarding so-called crisis pregnancy centers in California. If you'll recall, these are businesses that pretend like they are abortion clinics, but are actually Christian disinformation mills that spread debunked, scaremongering bullshit to unsuspecting women. suspecting women. Well, in 2016, the state of California tried to push back against these moral monstrosities by passing a law that would require centers licensed by the state to tell clients about the availability of low or no-cause contraception, abortion, and prenatal care available, which of course goes against the very mission statement of crisis pregnancy centers. So they sued, arguing that the California law amounted to compelled speech. Like, you know how restaurants have to tell you what to do when someone's choking to death? Even if they actually want that person to choke to death? Yeah, kind of like that.

And surprise, surprise, the dubious legal claim found five willing takers in the court's conservative wing. Despite the fact that many of those same justices had no issue with this kind of compelled speech when they were talking about laws requiring abortion clinics to tell patients about adoption services. And with that glaring contradiction desperately trying to reconcile itself in your conservative cousin's mind, I'll take my leave. But I promise to be back soon, like in the C segment. But until then, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in dicks out for harambe news tonight.

As regular listeners to this and our other shows will know, being an Orthodox Jew is like playing a very, very serious game of the floor is lava. All while being dressed like a cut side plot from the Matrix about negotiating a better price for white fish salad which by default would have been the second best part of the sequels after the freeway chase that's true that's true so one of the life hacks for when your bronze age god is really about the letter and not the spirit of the law is the a roof a wire that orthodox jews string up around their neighborhood that allows you to do work inside the home on the sabbath why because homes are defined as squares of wire if you don't think too hard about it i don't know and orthodox judaism and religion in general for that matter is all about not thinking too hard about it yeah if i was a really rich orthodox jewish person i think i'd be paying a team of sabbath goyim to just like

follow me around with a circle of yarn right you just go everywhere do whatever you want on saturday heath crazy billionaire money we can do that anyway i'm about to move to georgia guys i could do that for 40 bucks anyway it looks like right now the city of Hollandale, Florida, might join in the fun as they consider a proposition of local rabbis to build several a roofs on two beachfront parks to encircle their condos where they live. Citing the fact that one of the congregants four year old daughter is in a wheelchair and that this would allow them to move her on the Sabbath. To which a sane person responds, move her regardless of the magic wires, you assholes! Or,

have God fix her legs. Well, right, there you go. I mean, either God wants this girl to be a cripple or he doesn't, so just figure it out. He knew the rules. Now, to the city's credit, it looks like they will not be putting up the polls, but if they do,

one man is ready to step in and do the Lord's work. That man is Chaz Stevens. The wind beneath my wing. Love you, Chaz. Yeah, so Chaz, who runs a emotional support animal website, is the local representative

of the Satanic Temple, who listeners will remember for, according to his First Amendment rights, putting up festivus polls, distressed of his polls that look like Donald Trump and my personal favorite, an upside down butt plug Jesus outside City Hall. hall and he has promised that if the city acts like dicks they're gonna get some saying he will quote come to town with a platoon of giant dongs and quote to plant right alongside the magic jewish pole platoon is a good choice no yeah exactly exactly rabbis are out there just furiously circumcising right and finally tonight in Frank war news, while continuing to live in kid murdering ignorance in the friendly land of maple syrup, meningitis cures, Canadian alt med hippies got to taste their own medicine last week. And the flavor was hot dogs.

It all happened when Vancouver resident Douglas Bevins got tired of watching stupid people waste their money on fake medicine. So he decided to run a little hoax to teach everyone a lesson in critical thinking. And it's the best. He boiled hot dogs, bottled the hot dog water. Oh, fucking gross. And put it up for sale at a street festival as a health product. And it sold way too fucking well.

Okay, counterpoint, it is Pride Month. Maybe people were just confused by what he meant by wiener juice? So, Mr. Bevins boiled 100 free-range organic beef hot dogs and put the essence of bologna water into bottles. Each one had an actual hot dog inside to, you know, really max out that infusion. And then he put on a hot dog onesie and successfully sold these keto-compatible beverages using intentionally nonsensical marketing points like keto-compatible. For example, the bottles were labeled as ph 8.4

accurately and and therefore they carried all the benefits of alkaline water which is true all those benefits were present yeah no it was also fully oxygenated and hydrogenated yeah yeah double hydrogen yeah exactly yeah and uh this is my favorite part he told people the hot dog water would cause faster sodium uptake okay why would you want that is slow motion sodium a problem for people who the fuck knows here's the exact words he was using quote hot dog water and perspiration resemble each other so when you drink hot dog water it bypasses the lymphatic system what whereas other waters have to go through your filtering system so really hot dog water has three times as much uptake as coconut water quote oh no you do not fuck with big coconut this guy is going down he is going

down now obviously this brings up the ethical issue of selling a product by claiming it has health benefits that don't actually exist and ideally we'd find out that bevin's like gave the money back or donated it to research to real medicine or something like that. But either way, he revealed the hoax immediately. And the news has since gone viral, which was really the whole point. Right. To illustrate how easy it is to be a giant liar in the field of unregulated alternative medicine. Bottom line, he sold 60 fucking liters of hot dog water with literal hot dogs inside

for $38 each. Jesus. In one afternoon. That's how stupid people are numerically. Canada needs Marsh. Michael Marsh needs to go to Canada. We have dibs. After we get him, then he can go to Canada. And while we

make some slight revisions to our business model, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Rooting for that fucking kid to die. And... You thought he wasn't going to say that when you wrote it, didn't you, Eli? And when we come back, Lee Strobel will take on the haters.

Vicarious. Yeah. Hey, Eli, what you doing? Oh, hey, Noah. So, you know how we announced that we're doing a patron-only livestream AMA while we eat the Baker Bucket this Friday, June 29th at 9 p.m. Eastern Time? Good plug, Eli. That was subtle. Thank you.

So, here's the thing. I really don't want to eat that bucket. I mean, neither do I, but we are going to do that, though. Yeah, well, I have another idea. We could use ZipRecruiter. What's ZipRecruiter? ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. They send your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards, but they don't stop there. With their powerful matching technology, ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience

and invite them to apply to your job. In fact, ZipRecruiter is so effective that 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. One day? Yep. With results like that, it's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is the highest rated hiring site in America. And right now, our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address, ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G. ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing.

ZipRecruiter, the smarter way to hire. See, found someone already. Eli, that's Heath. Dibs on the pizza crust, I called it. Still though. One day. Normally, I can read a book cover to cover without feeling a single moment of guilt to the tree that gave its life to make that paper possible, especially when it's on Kindle. But when I read Case for Christ, I feel sorry for everything.

I just want to say the last time I picked up this book, I smushed a fly with it, and I liked using it that time way better. Yeah. There's a book? I've been re-watching the movie every week. You guys are assholes. I'm returning after a way too long absences. My lovely wife, Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome back.

I never thought I'd say that I missed this book and I still never think I'll say that. No, it's just only in the setup. All right. So when we last left our hero, he was promising to take on some of jesus's harshest critics and we're going to get that in chapter six the rebuttal evidence is the jesus of history the same as the jesus of faith and by the way if you're confused about the concept of rebuttal evidence strobel has a handy murder trial related antidote to help spell it out oh yeah for usual least trouble is like the How I Met

Your Mother narrator, but with murder instead of all the women he fucked before their mommy. It's weird. They're both weird, but now that's weird. And honestly, given the pattern, I was expecting like a blind, deaf Native American fetus in a

wheelchair getting yelled at by an atheist who framed him for murder somehow. And that's actually kind of close to what we got. But yeah, the whole point was to explain the word rebuttal with a three-page anecdote. Can you imagine the Lee Strobel dictionary? It's like 75 volumes. And then he heads off to do his interview. And remember when he said he would be interviewing somebody who disagreed with his

conclusion in the last chapter about that what he yeah exactly what he really meant is that he was going to be interviewing somebody who was an expert in refuting the people who disagreed with his conclusion that's basically the same

thing right I need a biography of my friend Tim so I interviewed all his exes. Yeah, right. So, in this next chapter, we'll be interviewing Gregory A. Boyd, PhD, by the way, who tells Jesus Stalners to fuck themselves for a living. Yeah, and the best Strobel could do in terms of credentials for Boyd is to say that his book was, quote, honored by the readers of Christianity Today as

one of their favorite books of the year. End quote. Another credential was how super true it was, considering it was heavily footnoted. Yes. Heavily. So, this book is heavily true.

Just like all previous books. Yeah previous books yeah we should also point out here that he has a phd because they'll give you one of those in bullshit right apparently and it's not like he has real academic expertise here no yeah right but don't worry he's not a actual quote from the book ivory tower intellectual and because and here's why he's not one of those he looks like howie mandel yeah in case you're wondering about greg boyd's credibility in comedian terms he's the howie mandel of theology yes the howie mandel, what the fuck does he mean by that? Boy, it's not a typical Ivory

Tower intellectual because Howie Mandel looks stupid? Apparently, yes. No idea. So, abiding by the principle of charity, Strobel sets out his opponent's arguments under the heading,

writings from the radical fringe. Yeah, at first I thought it was a fleeting moment of radical self-awareness and i've got to be honest here i've never heard of this jesus seminar he's all bunched up about but apparently time ran an article about it which was physically weaponized against biblical scholars like Strouble actually relays the story of a biblical scholar having the magazine aggressively hurled at him. Don't say good. Don't say good.

Don't say good. Greg Boyd tells this absurd story. He's like, yeah, well, I was visiting a dying friend in the hospital and the moment I got there, I was immediately tackled by a militant left-wing crino who started yelling fuck your god and violating me with a time magazine hope our mutual friend dies right

now because nothing matters like i looked up the jesus seminary and more than half of the wikipedia article is criticisms and a lot of this shit is like and this one is real only 14 of their scholars were considered leading New Testament scholars. And of the remainder, nearly half have degrees from Vanderbilt, Claremont, and Harvard. And those schools favor liberal interpretations of the New Testament. Yeah, those are communist divinity schools. Boyd also accuses them of having their own brand of fundamentalism because they insist on a single methodology, which all legitimate academic fields do. Yeah, as a prerequisite.

Yeah, apparently the liberal wing of Christian theologians is too dogmatic about having diversity of opinions. They're diversity bigots. And this whole section reminded me of an Estes Perkle movie rant, right? Like just arguing over the Greek word for grave. And I'm like, hey, dude, your wizard came back from the dead. That's the issue I have. Focus. And then in a remarkably effective attempt to poison the well against the Jesus seminar,

Boyd describes him as a bunch of liberal theologians who are trying to give jesus a modern day makeover to breathe new life into this frankensteinian monstrosity of a religion that still lurches forward into the future long past its antiquation yeah we want to put a backwards hat on jesus and have him freestyle yeah you know exactly oh you mean like a like a black Jesus get the fuck out serious well yeah and to be fair it does seem like the Jesus Seminar

is a bullshit thing but it's called the Jesus Seminar so a fucking course it is this is like listening to one of those podcasts about

which podcasters that podcaster doesn't like okay Lucinda if you don't like my blog you can just say so like spending time eventually boyd gets to the heart of the issue the quintessential academic flaw that fatally

handicaps their research the fact that they refuse to entertain the possibility that jesus had superpowers racist and he literally presents this as and that's why it's not true scholarship yep did anyone have a weird moment of agreeing with boyd at the beginning here of being like yes there is no room for a funky hippie feminist jesus who was just a nice guy you asshole and he's like exactly he was god incarnate sacrificed to himself. Thank you. Yeah, I agreed too fast. But then after spending several pages shitting on the view before expressing it, Strobel's skepticism kicks in and he says, but isn't it possible that your religion and career and thus the very scaffolding on which you hang your sense of self requiring this to be true affects your ability to look at it objectively? To which Boyd responds, no, you are, but what am I? Yeah, he's like smoke bomb. self requiring this to be true affects your ability to look at it objectively to which

boyd responds no you are but what am i yeah he's like smoke bomb they reject the historicity of the bible because it contains quote things that seem historically unlikely like walking on water and raising the dead end quote those. Those things are historically unlikely. I find your claim that you jumped up your own asshole and met a leprechaun historically unlikely. And observationally unlikely. Totally unfair, though. Yeah, those seminar people were like,

okay, no saying impossible magic. Now explain your theory about Jesus. And we were like, no saying impossible magic now explain your theory about jesus and we were like impossible magic impossible and after a really long silence the communists won the fucking argument assholes well and at this point strobel goes so straw man that the wizard of oz shows up with a brain he says but if we accept supernatural things in the Bible, doesn't that mean we'll have to find supernatural explanations behind

everything that ever happened? Yeah, to which point it says, yeah, but these scholars go beyond that to say you can never use supernatural explanations. And who the fuck does that other than physicists, chemists, biologists, economists, ecologists, geologists, astronomers, botanists, statisticians, mathematicians, engineers, anthropologists, entomologists,

historians, and zoologists? Huh? Yeah, he's like, real physics only? Really? Now you guys are doing metaphysics. Yeah, right. By saying no metaphysics. Wait.

Why am I getting dizzy? Are you guys dizzy? I feel like it's dizzy down here. You guys are spinning and I'm still. And as though he's trying to undercut himself here, Boyd says, look, if a tree falls over, I'd make sure it wasn't termites way before I conclude an angel pushed it over.

What? But I'm not going to just rule out the possibility that an angel could push it over. Yes! Really? That is his real argument. He really says that. No termites?

Point one for angels. Scholarship. Boom. I'm smart. A gay dragon falls in the forest. Nope. Gonna stop you right there. Remember with the shh from before? Nope. So then we really dig into whether assuming dead people stay dead

really is a reasonable academic criteria. Yeah, and Boyd literally says that standard practice among historians is to, quote, operate with the burden of proof on the historian to prove falsity or unreliability. Yeah, burden of proof. The fact that we call

it burden of proof kind of like works against that. No, dude. It's the exact opposite. Okay, boys. Year one. Everything's true. Let's start disproving shit. And go.

It's like whittling, you see. We must look for the truth inside. And by the way, his reason for this is that you know people don't usually lie yeah and he says exact quote without that assumption we'd know very little about ancient history so you have to assume everything's true or else we'd only know know the false half of things. That's what we're talking about. How's that work? Just a quick reminder about this chapter. Christians recommend this book to atheists.

I know! I wouldn't recommend this book to a Christian for spite. This is your most popular book. Enjoy. And this is one of my favorite little moments here near the end of this section lee strobel gets genuinely confused by what lack of evidence means and he admits it in the book he says dealing in this theoretical realm was starting to bring more murkiness than clarity for me i needed some concrete examples yeah he asked for concrete examples of lack of

evidence you see this gay dragon concrete but then he gives boyd a chance to respond to the claim that jesus was eerily similar to previous mythical figures yeah Yeah, and Boyd seems to think yeah, but not mythical figures in Jewish history is like all the rebuttal he needs. But even then he equivocates. He's like well sure, a lot of rabbis did the kind of stuff Jesus did, but did they crank it up to 11?

Yeah, Jesus was way less plausible than those rabbis. That's how, you know, he's real. Can you play that back for me? I feel like I sound crazy. Just play that back. Yeah, but did those rabbis

have their own book? Yes, the church burned them and edited them down so Jesus would seem more important. Did they keep their own book? And then Strobel hits it with the parallels between ancient dying and rising gods and Jesus, which, though overstated by atheists all the fucking time, are still a valid point. Yeah, again, as much as this point has some interesting validity when it comes to like addressing mythology as a whole, whenever I hear this from an atheist, I just know I'm going to get Bohemian Grove in the next couple of sentences. Generally speaking, yeah.

30 seconds later, Heath's yelling about the Fed. Like, no! They made $100 billion last year and just fucking gave it to the Treasury. Like, every year, they give us money. And am I misreading this, or was one of his arguments Jews were too

stingy to let other people use their also the bible never has the phrase once upon a time in it so you know it's basically the opposite of a fairy tale jesus is the unique son of god that's the opposite there's also this weird bit where he's like, and some of these mystery cults sacrificed animals. Could you imagine Jews involved in stuff like that? Of course not.

Right? I mean, they might suck a baby's dick, but they're not going to get all covered in bull blood. That's barbaric. Come on. But what the fuck did that have to do with anything?

Just out of nowhere. We're in the middle of some other conversation. Like the book had a video editing mistake here. And Boyd's like, speaking of which, if you think a Jewish person would just stand under a bowl and get showered in blood when they cut it open, you're crazy. So, end of section. What? Usually you need a reason to bring that up.

But, you know, he's wacky i was like howie mandel and and then he hit on a few apocryphal gospels in a subheading that he calls secret gospels and talking crosses which reminds me we should do the apocrypha negative one vote and the the refutation on this one is to say, oh, yeah, well, those arguments have been used to say Christians were gay magicians. Do you think we're gay magicians? Because we're not gay magicians. And this escalated so quickly. Lister almost starts to bring up the gospel of secret mark.

And Boyd's already yelling slurs at him. He's like, you're gay. You're gay for even bringing that up. Why would I even want to suck a dick? It doesn't even make sense that I would want to suck. Like, where would you even put a penis in my ass? Play it back one more time. I feel like this is great.

What were you asking about? You talk now. You go. And here's the crazy thing. The way that this book describes unreliable texts is indistinguishable from how it describes proof that a book is the word of God. Yes. It's like a source from a book that turns out to be fake by a guy who we know was lying.

That is from the last chapter. Yeah, we had to fall into a well of infinite mirrors for a second when Boyd dismisses one of the apocryphal gospels for having, quote, fantastical claims in it. Really? And at this point, Boyd says that the Jesus history and the Jesus of faith are the same guy. And his academic defense of this seems to be otherwise. It fucks up our whole religion yes his actual defense quote take away miracles and you take away the resurrection and you've got nothing to proclaim paul said that if jesus wasn't raised from the dead our faith is futile it's useless it's empty end quote and i'm like well that's our point this is is your point. Yes. You take away the resurrection, then

when Peter gives that speech about it in Acts, it would just be a long blank spot on the paper. It doesn't even make any sense. Why would we print Bibles with a giant blank spot? And I'm thinking at this point like, okay, I'm going to get on the subway to the indoor building where I

live. You're staying here in the doorway? Cool. Good luck. If your historical scholar is telling you what his heart tells him and you aren't at the beginning of an Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider movie, you should leave.

And then we get to the wrap up and we know this because Strobel says, but now I wanted to know what this pastor and theologian thought about Jesus. Because pastors thoughts so often vary on that subject. Surprise! He thinks

he's for realsies. Just in case anyone... Yeah, by a pretty big margin. Oh yeah. Final score was Jesus Seminar 4 definitely a real zombie god like way more. Like probably seven or eight truth points.

Yeah. And then we get a little summary where Strobel reflects again on how much he agrees with the point that he's making. Yeah. And there's a great moment here when he gives us a quick little repressed meltdown that he accidentally writes into his book he's like i felt the same way as greg boyd if jesus didn't do all the magic stuff he's powerless and meaningless and so is this book and and this sentence right right now this this would be stupid but it's real i'm doing doing great he's starting we're not even halfway through the book yet he's Right now, this would be stupid. But it's real. It's real. I'm not crazy.

I'm doing great. We're not even halfway through the book yet. He's starting to crack. I'd love to monitor this as we go. But, of course, we can't finish up with Lee Strobel without a few of his study questions. So, question one, which is actually four questions. Have you read news accounts of the Jesus Seminar opinions? What was your response to what

they reported did the articles give you the impression that the seminar's findings represented the opinions of the majority of scholars what dangers do you see in relying on the news media and reporting issues of this kind all right yeah the only question that applies to me is that last one about the dangers of the media reporting about the New Testament. And my answer is, no, I'm not anti-Semitic. It's weird. You keep asking that in all different ways without saying it. No. A lot of people ask you that, Heath. There's a lot of

winking. I'm going to go no on the first one, N-A on the next two, obviously, and the exact opposite answer than the one he was hoping for on the last one. I just love the implication that Lee Strobel's readers are out there consuming non-paneled newspaper content i looked at the charts okay question two as you conduct your own investigation of jesus should you rule out any possibility of the supernatural at the outset or should you allow

yourself to consider all the evidence of history, even if it points towards the miraculous as having occurred? Wrote that backwards. Why? I know this one. Gee, if only there were some sort of hypothetical razor I could use. Right, yeah, right when you need one.

Oh man, I think I wrote down the wrong thing. I thought the assignment was to read about the passionate gay love affair between Secret Mark and Jesus. Leading ass question having fucks. Sorry about that, Lee Strobel. I did the wrong thing. And next week. Next week. I'm going to go with a hybrid of

the second answer. You should consider all the evidence of history, which by definition will not point towards things that can't happen having happened. Ooh, happened okay i like that one a bonus question which other book should you read with the idea that it might be true in defiance of natural law harry potter it's fun all right and finally question three boyd said i don't want to base my life on a symbol i want reality why do you agree or disagree some people don't

want reality of course is it enough that jesus is a symbol of hope or is it important for you to be confident that his life teaching and resurrections are rooted in history also why god these questions are so long i love that he doesn't even have an option for i don't want to base my life on a symbol or a bronze aged rabbi. Like, that doesn't even occur to him as a possibility. Right. No, it's got to be one or the other. Strange that Strobel doesn't even notice. This is

another way of saying, so is the possibility of you being objective just super unlikely or outright impossible? It was so weirdly poetic. He's just like, yeah. As the great philosopher said, don't want to close my eyes. Don't want to fall asleep.

Yeah. Sorry. I'd love to answer this one too, but an angel knocked over a tree and then stole my homework for this. Oh, well, you know, by the separate, obviously. Sorry. All right. Well, that's going to do it. That's actually going to get us all, we acted by the separate, obviously. Sorry, Lee.

All right, well, that's going to do it. That's actually going to get us all the way through part one of the book. Hooray! Struggle is apparently finished offering the evidence for Jesus portion of this. Shitty joke. So when we crack this book open in three weeks,

we'll finally be digging into part two, analyzing Jesus. Well, I'm not going to say I'm holding out hope that another close relative is hospitalized, but I am holding it out as a possibility. Yeah. There's a lot of this book left. Oh, I didn't get out when my grandma died. She's still dead.

Can I? Still counts. We go to that Texas kid's funeral and take a little time off. Yeah! Before we pull into port this week, one more reminder that if you're a patron, you can watch a sample Jim Baker's Apocalyptic Cuisine live at 9 p.m. Eastern on Friday. That's tomorrow as the show comes out. And if not, no worries.

We'll put together a compilation and let you know when that's available, whether you're a Patreon or not. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this show wouldn't count if I neglected to thank Heath for being such a good friend and roommate over the last three years. I'm going to miss having you in the loft, bro. I also need to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for finally coming back and making my life complete

again. I also want to thank Eli Bosnick, and he does all kind of good shit, but after the last two, his thanks would seem lame no matter what I said. I also want to thank Jerry and Paul from the What Did the Brit Say to the Indian for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, and if you're curious to find out what the Brit did say to the Indian, you'll find a link to their podcast on this week's show notes. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's farnsworth quote and if you're curious to find out what the brit did say to the indian you'll find a link to their podcast on this week's show notes but most of all of course i need to thank this week's most dynamic diploids william jason blake jonathan skip bean brand the fucking man that six-foot jackal patricia paget mac and chisel's yummy bs hold my beer podcast alex todd david devil vamp anna seiki day of the night t madman 42 and, and Nobody. William, Jason, Blake, Jonathan, Skip, Sean, and Bran the fucking man,

whose erections give inflationary cosmology rapid expansion envy. That's Six Foot Jackal, Patricia, Padgett, Mac and Cheezle's Yummy BS Hold My Beer podcast, Alex and Todd, who are so badass hurricanes named disasters after them, and David Devil Vamp, Anna Seiki, Day of the Night, Team Madman 42, and Nobody, who are so hot adolescent lava plays the floor as David Devil Vamp, Anna Seiki, Day of the Night, Team Madman 42, and Nobade, who are so hot adolescent lava plays the floor as David Devil Vamp, Anna Seiki, Day of the Night, Team Madman 42, and Nobade. Together, these 21 tantalizingly talented

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... ... comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScathingAtheist.com. Scathing Atheist Pro Death Panels. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle & Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.