The Scathing Atheist - 315: Pell in a Cell Edition

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

In this week’s episode, Cardinal Pell will start rethinking that ‘clearing his name’ strategy, professional skeptic Susan Gerbic teaches us how to catch a mentalist predator, and the Pope will name a long series of children they didn’t rape. Extra special thanks to Don Ford (voice of fantasy and adventure) for helping out with Bible Piece Theater this week. And apologies for not thanking or crediting him during the episode! Sorry Don!!! Find out more about the American Atheist Annual Convention here: https://www.aacon2019.org/ 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/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://audioboom.com/posts/7143587-gam178-science-falsely-so-called Guest Links: Find Arendahl 38 here: https://www.twitch.tv/arendahl38 Headlines: Pope Calls for “All-Out Battle” on Child Sex Abuse… But Offers No Solutions: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/02/24/pope-calls-for-all-out-battle-on-child-sex-abuse-but-offers-no-solutions/ Pat Robertson: Gay People Just Want “Their Weird Way of Doing Sex” Legitimized: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/02/25/pat-robertson-gay-people-just-want-their-weird-way-of-doing-sex-legitimized/ Skeptics set a trap and a so-called "celebrity medium" fell for the hoax: https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/operationpizzaroll-thomas_john Cardinal Pell is going to jail: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-26/george-pell-guilty-child-sexual-abuse-court-trial/10837564?fbclid=IwAR1HZHkAmoliYaDrz1IhsEUmJxy7FF62JENp8xP5JbSIA1bIy9ukHFGt-w8 Canada is Using Foreign Aid Money to Send Homeopathic “Doctors” to Honduras: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/02/24/canada-is-using-foreign-aid-money-to-send-homeopathic-doctors-to-honduras/ Almost All Flat Earthers Say YouTube Videos Convinced Them, Study Says: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/02/20/almost-all-flat-earthers-say-youtube-videos-convinced-them-study-says/ This Week in Misogyny: Trump administration redefines domestic abuse: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-domestic-abuse-sexual-assault-definition-womens-rights-justice-department-a8744546.html?fbclid=IwAR23uEOkUhDDjZbzy6DjaWducJ9FJMztS2JCDYzUyIPHuzNsGbY6PBOI0 Trump administration cuts funding to planned parenthood again: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/22/trump-administration-bars-family-planning-clinics-that-provide-abortion-referrals-million-program/?utm_term=.271da90d5be6

Warning, the following podcast contains words that would make Winnie the Pooh faint. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by HIMS, Wix.com, and by the new Kegel-based exercise bike for people who need to strengthen their asshole muscles quickly, the Cardinal Peloton. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Arendal38 from Twitch, and as a nerd who plays video games in front of other nerds, Twitch chat has proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's February 28th. And it's National Tooth Fairy Day.

Yup, big shout out to my tiny ladies who trade the dead bones of children for money. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Jared Kushner's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. This week's episode, Keith never praises

me for trading the dead bones of children for money. Professional skeptic Susan Gerbic teaches us how to catch a mentalist predator. And the Pope will name a long series of children they didn't rape. But first, the diatribe. A couple of weeks ago, I'm guesting on the iFriends podcast, and one of the stories Jake tosses out there is about this robot dog that Sony's making. You might have seen it. It's fucking adorable. And among the features they're trying to build into it is the ability to relay vital health information

about elderly people to their families and or doctors. So that's the story we're talking about. And one of the other dudes on the panel says, I don't know, this kind of reminds me of that one Black Mirror episode. And then we all have a laugh at the Sony Abo coming to kill us all. But think about this. Our cultural fear of technology is so profound that when a group of science-loving secularists get together and talk about a robot puppy that helps grandma if she falls down,

something that could just as well have been a hyperbolic example of harmlessness. It only takes a few minutes for somebody to bring up the possibility that it's going to kill us all. And look, I'm not trying to disparage my fellow panelists here. It's a comedy show. He's a comedian. He was exploring a comedic angle. But the fact that we even get the joke there betrays a bizarre cultural acceptance of this dark side of technology thing, right? Our fiction is saturated with it. Hell, our nonfiction is saturated with it. There are plenty of authors out there making a living warning us about the dark side of the internet or social media or cell phones or video games or automation or whatever

the tech du jour is. Meanwhile, while these professional doom criers desperately search for a boogeyman under every microchip, what does technology actually do? It feeds our hungry. It cures our diseases. It lengthens our lives. It connects us to ever more disparate parts of the world. It eradicates mundane tasks. It keeps us entertained during those ones that it couldn't eradicate yet. I mean, I'm not saying there are no dark sides to all this stuff, but how often do we temper that with all the good shit it does? I mean, other than in our day-to-day choices, because sure, we all agree that there are dark sides to a lot of tech, but with the exception of Luddites and zealots, we don't choose to do without it. I mean, pretty safe statement when

your audience is podcast listeners, but the point remains valid. Even recognizing the harms of, say, social media, very few of us would elect to do without it, not because we're weak and addicted, but because the ability to stay in contact with your family and meet and communicate with people from other parts of the world is valuable enough to offset the problems. And I'm not saying religion created this worldview, and I'm also not saying it didn't, but damn, has it benefited from it? it benefited from it. See, the alternative to hyping the shadow of maladies cast by the beacon of science is admitting that one of the worldviews is just clearly better than all the other ones. I mean, think for a second about how badass you're going to seem to your great-grandchildren. Okay, they're going to grow up in a world of self-driving cars, then they're going to see videos and marvel at the sheer courage and fortitude it must have taken to get into a half-ton box of steel, then manually steer it through other steel boxes weighing upward of 30 tons at 70 miles per hour

with nothing keeping you alive but a flexible strap and a bag of air, right? To us, that's just driving a car, but to them, it'll be an unthinkably dangerous endeavor, like the idea of crossing the unsettled country in a wagon train or crossing the ocean in a wooden sailboat seems to us now, and we tend to think of this as part of the human condition, right? As though we could go like trace this all the way back to the first Homo sapiens, but it only actually starts with a scientific revolution. The word anachronism doesn't appear in the English language until the mid 17th century, because until then, people didn't really have a sense of this linear advancement of technology that we take for granted now. Sure, new shit would crop up here and there back then, but so little advancement would take place over a human lifetime that it was almost imperceptible. That's why Shakespeare could get away with clocks striking three and Julius Caesar and Cleopatra playing billiards

without anybody calling bullshit on them. But today, we define the decade we were born in by the level of technology we had at the time. Throughout human history, we've tried out a hell of a lot of different worldviews. Most of them were religious. Some of them were philosophical. And until we tried on science, all of them came to the same end in terms of technology. Right. Some of them might have been better or worse in terms of fairness, freedom, prosperity and the like.

But only one of them consistently made people's lives better over centuries. And sure, Christian apologists would dispute that. They try to pretend that their religious worldview has improved lives for 2,000 years and counting, but all it takes is a quick glance at the standard of living in ancient Rome and the standard of living in 12th century England to disabuse yourself of that bullshit. I'm sure Muslims say the same thing, but I can disprove that by looking at Iran and two points in the single human lifetime, right? But enamored as our culture is with this religious framework, we tend towards this belief that science can't give you anything without also taking something back, right? Like it has to be balanced out. We're conditioned to

think that for every convenience we gain, there's something just as valuable that we lose. And that makes sense when you look at it from like the perspective of virtually every worldview that preceded science, right? Like that's how almost all of them worked throughout human history and up to the modern day. If you want Muhammad to give you the ticket to heaven, you can't jerk off now. If you want Jesus to forgive you, you have to obey your husband. If you want Buddha's enlightenment, then you can't wonder how you'd fare against a team of robot ninjas while you brush your teeth. Science does not have those requirements. It prevents your polio, whether you believe in vaccines or not. It treats your cancer, whether you're pious or sinful. No amount of doubt can bring down an

airplane, just like no amount of faith can lift one. But if our society just unabashedly and unapologetically admitted that science works, it would also have to acknowledge that religion doesn't. They're talking about you, Jesus. doesn't. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the hydrogen and oxygen to my other hydrogen. Heath

Edright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to make things moist? No. Being honest? Nope. Just my palms, Noah. Just my palms. Sidebar, you guys ever wonder why eminem didn't change his sweater if there was vomit on it what i think about that a lot like did other

people notice they come up afterwards and they were like hey man good freestyle you are covered in vomit that's what i was mostly focused on i mean all right his mom's spaghetti so you want to hold on to that in our lead story tonight, the Catholic Church held its 16th annual We Should Stop Raping Kids Summit last week. And this year's theme was for realsies, though, which was nice. So after four days of meetings, speeches, testimony, and data, the 190 assembled bishops ultimately decided on what new course of action might finally untie that Gordian knot of not raping children. Hey, guys, what if we just, you know, stop raping kids and stop covering it up? OK, Dave. All right. Pin in that, I guess. Let's crunch the numbers. Yeah, right. Let's be responsible about this.

There's not a ton of space on the board, but we'll keep that in mind, Dave. Who said bribe people with Nazi gold? Everyone but Dave. Everyone else. Okay, so before we get to their final resolutions, let me list a few of the things they didn't do. They didn't release victims from nondisclosure agreements that were signed as part of church settlements. Okay, so I'm just going to pull that pin back out real quick. They didn't announce a policy of no longer asking victims to sign such agreements.

And one more pin back out. They didn't announce a zero tolerance policy that would assure priests credibly accused of child rape were removed from the priesthood. Ah, fuck. Okay. This is a bad system with the pins um they didn't extradite the priests currently in vatican city that are wanted for child sex abuse in foreign nations do we have a box for the pins they didn't announce a policy to no longer harbor wanted sex offenders in vatican city it's fine it's fine just gonna use this part of the table we'll pile them they didn't adopt a

single recommended action from the australian or the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report. No, they're rolling. They're rolling off the table. They didn't approve an independent audit of the Vatican's role in the cover up. Can you vacuum pins or does that mess up the vacuum? And they didn't release the findings of the two independent audits they started and then canceled without explanation. A cushion. That's what we need. We need a pin cushion.

There's a word for that, right? All right. And, by the way, they also didn't even mention their policy on celibacy. Somehow that never came up. Okay. So Dave goes last from now on. We're just wasting pins. We bought this box for nothing.

So, okay, now here's what they did do nothing literally after four days they emerged with some strongly worded words that promised to do shit like quote confront child pornography and online abuse and quote combat quote, combat sexual tourism, end quote. Hey, what about a new recipe for cookies? Yeah, right. See, I was thinking chocolate chip oatmeal and peanut butter, just like all in one. So to close this thing off, Pope France on fire just comes out at the end and he reads this list of like aspirational goals about how the church could help out with

child trafficking in india in his speech every time he mentioned abuse in the church he conspicuously added and elsewhere as if to point out the whole fucking conference was to underscore that they were only doing some of the child raping i shit you not the closest they came to a concrete step of any kind was to formally announce the intention to create quote task forces of competent persons to help episcopal conferences and diocese that find it difficult to confront the problem and produce initiatives for the protection of minors end quote that's how they're going to stop themselves from raping kids and covering it up okay uh silver lining at least they're aware that they'll need to be outsourcing the not raping ideas

hey you know who has a task force of competent persons to not help you rape kids the police you can find them everywhere except for your golden city state. Yeah, well, other than that. Yeah, everywhere else. Except where you put all your rapists. And in weird sex, but okay news tonight, pastor, host of the 700 Club, and man who looks like his show is named after his age, Pat Robertson made headlines this week for accusing gay people of destroying society

just to get, quote, their weird way of doing sex and, quote, legitimized, leading literally everyone to ask, how does Pat Robertson think gay people do sex? Tying dick knots? That's what I was picturing. I feel like maybe they do that little Newton's cradle thing with their balls. One goes and then the other. They interweave their butt cheeks.

It looks like a really old peach. He looks exactly. He looks like the last peach at the gas station. Still trying to sell that. Not in a southern state. A northern state gas station. So here's the quote, quote, the incredible thing about homosexuals is they are willing to destroy lives and destroy the

whole fabric of society so long as they and their weird way of doing sex is legitimized, end quote. That's right. We're going to keep improving local economies and adding to property values until the world accepts our dick nuts well i mean this is way closer than pat usually gets they do want their way of doing sex legitimized i i don't think they tear perfectly good fabric to make that happen but that's what they that's one of the things they want yeah He continues, quote, that's what they want, and they will take away everything. They will destroy marriage. They will destroy families. They will destroy, in this case, the foster children. They are willing to tear down the entire edifice in order to have the majority of people recognize the way they do sex, end quote.

And the only reason I extended the quote beyond the do sex thing is by destroy, Pat Robertson means do those things, right? In Robertson's opinions, gays destroy families, marriages, and foster children by having them. So, you know, just in case you're new, how evil is Pat Robertson? He's better orphaned than adopted by gays level evil. This week. This week. If we were allowed to go even farther back, he's, I done heard the gay people put AIDS in secret needle rings so they can kill straight people by shaking their hands levels of evil. It's true.

Real thing that he actually and in natural pathological liar news tonight the center for inquiry is warning lawmakers in new mexico that just because you could solve the shortage of licensed medical professionals with a single pallet if you granted licenses to dr pepper that doesn't mean you should sb 135 was proposed by democratic state senator harold ortiz y pinho and seeks to license naturopaths to provide primary care to patients because the only way to stop a good guy with a scalpel is uh hiring a happy ending oncologist for your hospital and that would make the cigarettes a much better investment. So a quick review.

Naturopath is a bullshitologist with no genuine medical training. This would literally be no different than granting medical license to tarot card readers or certified astrologers. I mean, yes, they're required to go through four years of training, but it isn't training in medicine. So I don't really feel like it should factor in right and when you point this out a lot of people say like yeah but some naturopaths are mds too but that's like saying you know a lot of doctors are ventriloquists let's make ventriloquist doctors yeah these are already licensed yes and now i'm gonna talk away your cancer while drinking a glass of alkaline water. How am I doing this?

With memory. Okay, but Ortiz y Pino, both of him, I guess, justified the bill saying it would, quote, reduce health care costs through early prevention, give credibility to alternative therapies, and have a positive effect on the medical community and its patients in new mexico as a whole end quote so wrong on one wrong on three two is a bad thing the only positive thing about this is that you used an oxford fucking comma this bill will provide an alternative to medicine yep yeah and look i don't doubt that this bill would reduce medical costs in the state because dead people who thought they were seeing a real doctor don't take up hospital beds. Right. Like you take out all the meningitis babies early. There's way more medicine for the rest of us.

Yeah, but less maple syrup. So fuck that. No, not worth. Absolutely. Look, to suggest this would help through early prevention is shitting through your ears levels of backwards. Okay. The result of increasing the legitimacy of alternative medicine is a decrease in preventative treatment to the point that eradicated diseases reemerge. Right. Like the total pool of dollars spent on active measles outbreaks is on the rise right now. God damn it. I feel like we just make one state

into a lockdown biosphere for these idiots. Yes. All right, let's pick one. North Dakota. From now on, all the naturopaths and anti-vaxxers

and Republicans, they go to North Dakota and they can be a bubble boy all they want. Get all fucking sick. If there's any problems with security, we just, you know,

remember in Outbreak, we go Operation Clean Sweep. There you go. There you go. And in case the very existence of this bill wasn't enough to depress you, by the way, I should point out that if New Mexico passes this bill, it will become the 21st state to put their government seal of approval on pretend medicine unless unless the pending bills in wyoming indiana and or mississippi make their way through first in which case it could be the 24th state to do so and if we need to expand those biospheres out there's a few good starts right there there's two dakotas yeah oh yeah obviously we go there too all right and in fundamentalism news tonight, we have a delightful story about California-based skeptical activist Susan Gerbic, the founder of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia, or G-S-O-W, which is exactly like it sounds. They correct stuff when big fat liars try to lie on Wikipedia. It's the best. Fat liars try to lie on Wikipedia.

It's the best. And in case you missed it, Ms. Gerbic is actually a scathing atheist veteran who appeared on episode 132 doing an interview with Noah all about her amazing work. Well, that amazing work continued recently with a reality sting, I guess we would call it, in which she exposed the giant lie behind Eli's other profession of mentalism. she exposed the giant lie behind Eli's other profession of mentalism. Except Eli's actually honest about mentalism, whereas self-proclaimed Manhattan medium Thomas John is a fraud who pretends he's actually magical and charges people money to channel their dead relatives. That does not exist, in case it wasn't clear. We can't do that.

Oh, okay, wait. Let's see how honest Eli really is about this. Hey, Eli, is mentalism just garden variety card tricks done so slowly that by the time you finish, your audience assumes you must have done something impressive? Yes. That sounds pretty honest. Okay, yeah.

Sometimes the cards are replaced with pictures. A book. A magician just rappelled into Eli's apartment and slid his throat. Snap my neck. So, Thomas John is the star of a show on Lifetime Channel called Seatbelt Psychic. Although he seems like a lot more of an airbag type of guy. He looks just like Fat Guy in a Red Hat, but he forgot his hat and brought extra face gravity instead.

Yep. Like he just started melting. That's what he looks like. And here's how Susan Gerbic trapped his lying fuck face, fuck face. She got tickets to a recent live event with Mr. John and planned ahead starting last year by having her friends write up fake profiles on Facebook in which they discussed how excited they were for Susan to meet with the psychic. And they included a bunch of made up details about fake deceased family members that he might be able to connect with. This

included a story about a twin brother named Andy who died of pancreatic cancer. So when Thomas John looked up Facebook stuff about everyone who got tickets to his stupid fucking show, he learned about fake Andy and built that into his upcoming show with susan in the audience and just to make me extra happy susan gerbic called this operation pizza roll i mean i don't know if i mean she hasn't declared but if susan wants to run i'm in i'm in ah so many votes susan susan is the human on Earth who hasn't declared yet. Yeah, that's it. She's the one, yeah. Yeah.

So it's the middle of the live show, and Thomas John says, okay, I'm getting a channel from someone's twin. At which point Gerbic raised her hand and claimed this must be about her. So the staff brought her a microphone, and the airbag psychic asked if she had a brother brother named Andy who recently died of, you guessed it, pancreatic cancer. She said yes and started fake crying, which was apparently convincing enough to have Thomas John keep going for about 15 minutes with other details he found on Facebook. Wow. Just scrolling through his phone as he's talking. Also, your dead brother says you like posts about your friend's baby.

What? And just for the record, Gerbic intentionally wasn't told about all these extra details by her friends who set up those profiles in order to make sure the giant liar couldn't then claim he actually read her mind as the excuse. Right, yeah, right. Seriously, that's the fucking go-to excuse if you don't isolate that goddamn

variable. Randy has anti-powers, but now that he's right, Benachek's blocking me. Get him out of here. Cindy has anti-powers, but now that he's... Right, right. Benetech's blocking me. Get him out of here. Show him stuff.

He's in my head. Get him out! But despite having to stumble through some questions about stuff she didn't actually know all the details about, Gerbic was able to fully dupe and expose the big fat liar. Also, fun fact, I have a Thomas John story, but to hear it you're gonna have to be a patron and while you're furiously heading over to patreon.com slash scathing atheist we'll pause for a quick word from our first sponsor this week hymns hi welcome to a typical hair clinic experience how can i help you yeah i uh well i mean i wouldn't say I'm dealing with hair loss so much as there's less hair. Well, did you try 4hims.com?

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Oh, okay. So for hymns, I would just go to forhymns.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing. Forhymns.com slash scathing. Great. Thanks, Doc. Doctor, it's important that you say the whole thing out. Now, let's say we cut off your ass and staple it to your head, huh?

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Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Massage. Okay, so the news cycle is moving a thousand miles an hour, and I'm trying to record this in advance of a surprise vacation. So, for all I know, by now, Trump has offered Kim Jong-un a cameo in Spider-Man 3 if he won't nuke us. And Michael Cohen showed us video of him trying to strangle a puppy with his tiny little mutant hands. But here's the thing we have to constantly remind ourselves as we watch the Trump administration flounder and burn before our eyes. It can be really easy to look at this mess and think that nothing's getting done.

Trump can't get his wall built. He can't get troops withdrawn, even when Putin asks nicely. He can't outlaw the bad press. But there is one track of his presidency that's been steaming ahead at full speed this whole time. And that's the one out of the VP's office. See, the evangelical Christians have been getting what they want even more than the Wall Street fat cats. I mean, sure, they got insane tax breaks and the right to put as much asbestos in the fruit loops as the market can bear, but they didn't want a trade war with China or a slow dissolution of NATO. But there's nothing on the evangelical agenda that's been derailed.

Their platform of dehumanizing the LGBTQ community, oppressing women's rights, and demonizing Muslims hasn't paused for a breath since Inauguration Day. For example, just a few weeks ago, we learned that back in April, the administration quietly redefined both domestic abuse and sexual assault. The new guidelines say that only abuse that causes physical harm that would otherwise constitute a felony counts as domestic abuse. So they literally went out of their way to decriminalize psychological abuse and coercive control. The only consequence of this move was to make it easier for men to abuse their wives. But that's been drowned out

of the news cycle a bit by the latest round of cuts to Planned Parenthood's funding. The organization is challenging a new rule issued by the Trump administration that bars any group that provides abortion from participating in the quarter billion dollar federal family planning program. Now, they've taken this to court and maybe they'll win, but the other full steam ahead end of the Trump presidency is the shameless packing of the courts. So who knows how well future Planned Parenthood will fare once McConnell's had another couple of years to rubber stamp zealots into the federal judiciary. And sure, maybe Trump will get impeached. Hell, I'm recording this on Tuesday, so maybe he already has been. But something tells me none of this slows down under interim President Pence.

Anyway, just something to keep in mind when you're tempted to buy into the line that trump's administration is infinitely limping through an extended lame duck session and on that depressing note i'll hand you back over to noah heath and eli thank you lucinda and in pellinous cell news tonight after australian courts determined that gag order was a kind of fucked up thing to apply to a case involving so much mouth raping of children, said order was lifted and now everyone's allowed to know that Prefect Emeritus of the Secretariat of the Economy, third in line of the Catholic pecking order and prepubescent testicle enthusiast George Pell is a child raping child rapist that raped children. The conviction took place in december

we reported on then australian listeners you'll remember we asked you to leave the room a couple months ago this is why but because the second set of charges were ultimately dropped we finally have all the details of the verdict okay why the fuck does he still have a job though like did he distract everyone with uh an old blackface video how is he still employed he let's be fair wait a second i'm checking nope still has a job yep still has a job anyone got any pins yeah i think i think actually i think they announced right before we started recording that he doesn't have a job anymore i think that like this was what it took um but i could be wrong i'll have to double check that so okay here's what we do know ultimately pell was convicted on all five charges against

him one count of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16 and four counts of committing an indecent act with or in the presence of a child and little aside here kudos for australian law for spelling that shit out right for making the news media say what fucking happened as opposed to the euphemistic lewd and lascivious behavior bullshit that our g-rated courts hide child rape behind this is a fucking court this is in sesame street this conviction wasn't brought to you by the letters s and m and the number 12 anyway it's just struck me while i was reading these reports and i thought i'd throw it out there yeah i mean i'm definitely glad they had a dedicated charge for like penis inside child right yes for that but i'd still like for the second charge to be separate crimes too yeah what was it it was committing an indecent act with

or in the presence of a child let's lose the or part on that one too. That needs to be separate. He got four counts of fucking a kid or taking the tag off his mattress. No, absolutely not. Separate stuff. Kid walks in on his parents in Australia. This is just like George Pell. Let me tell you right now. We're going to glaze over the fact that you just put it in. Eli's had the jacket off in front of kids. It's like taking the tag off of his mattress. Anyway. I would never take the tag off my mattress.

It's irresponsible. There's safety information. All right. So despite Pell's lawyers arguing for leniency based on the flavor of the rape, the dude literally referred to it in court as plain vanilla penetration. Gee. His lawyer vanilla penetration. Gee.

His lawyer said that. Yeah. Pell was convicted in December despite that awesome argument. His counsel requested an extension of his bail so that he could have knee surgery, and the judge figured Mufferger was about to spend a lot of time on his hands and knees, so he granted that request. Ultimately, though, that request was withdrawn, and the motherfucker is finally behind bars awaiting sentencing on March 13th and if any of his future soulmates happen to be listening i hear he has no issue with plain vanilla penetration yeah it's no big deal uh watch out for the flu though he gets those

for a while yeah right you won't be able to fly at all a catchy bug and in water you're doing news tonight in response to a recent thank you in response to a recent deadly outbreak of chagas disease in honduras the canadian government is sending homeopaths oh great yes so hopefully the homeopaths can get all the disease themselves and dilute the population of sick people yeah they illness sponges is great i mean i'm not i'm not against sending homeopaths to a disease-ridden nation with the world's highest murder rate what's the way there's a is there a downside to this yes that's right an organization called terre sans frontieres, or Earth Without Borders, which might as well have called itself

not Doctors Without Borders, except for the ones that don't allow us to call ourselves doctors, received $350,000 Canadian dollars to provide supplementary care, or in other words, nothing. They are providing

nothing. Okay Okay guys, this splash fight needs to be big. We'll need about 350 grand for this splash fight. Hey, Canadian homeopaths, if you give us $349,999 of that, what you have left over will be 10 times

as powerful as it started. PowerMoneyPatrion.com And look, this story is important for so many reasons. is powerful. Oh. Because it started. PowerMoneyPatrion.com. And look, this story is important for so many reasons. One, it's largely flown into the radar.

It's a huge fucking waste of money. Chagas disease is curable with real medicine. And that $350,000 could have gone to literally anything else.

But also, because the major defense skeptics here of homeopathy is like ah what's the harm this this is the harm if your crazy aunt kathy thinks homeopathy is real and you humor her the government ends up giving money to this bullshit yeah right so if you were still in that what's the harm of giving people pretend medicine and telling them it's real camp hopefully this will sway you yeah that's it that's it you guys asked for it we're sending over marsh he's gonna go full gene gray phoenix on all of his homeopaths as he said i think we can all agree there's only one man for the job a man who can drink 12 beers in a single sitting a man who we watched punch a woman in the face as hard as he could

a skeptic of the year if you will the one the only michael marshall marsh you know what to do get over there i'm so glad don't go to relax to their libel laws and in wu-tube news we have a story about flat earthers in case you're not familiar well uh congrats good work um these are people who believe the world is literally flat like a disc and according to a new study 100% of these flat earthers landed on their current belief because of videos they saw on YouTube. Yeah. And you know, it would make that better if giant internet companies didn't incentivize

stupid shit. People click on over whatever it is. Noah sees on the internet. I don't know. I'm mostly the first thing I'm told I'm using it wrong. So, yeah, thanks to idiots who do their scientific research on the same platform as fucking cake farts. We have an actual community of flat earthers. Apparently, firm believers in this make up about 2% of the world population.

That's real based on that number we can estimate that u.s congress has about 11 entire people who believe the world is flat major lowball well plus if plus if two percent met you adam in congress we'd have some atheists there so no not necessary that's correct but even if they're not in congress they're definitely out there and they're putting absurd amounts of effort into their opinion about the shape of the planet that's wrong they even have annual conferences now and that's where the research team from texas tech university decided to go in order to collect some data about these people. For example, at a recent conference in Denver, they interviewed 30 flirthers and copyright Heathenry 2019.

All rights reserved. And all but one of these flirthers said they believed the earth was round two years ago and had since been flipped thanks to YouTube videos. And by the way, the only person who didn't say that was some guy who just came along with his daughter and son-in-law after they told him about the videos they saw. He was like, I'm glad I heard there too. That is the guy I want to meet, right?

His son comes up, hey, dad, we read online the Earth is flat. Sure, absolutely done. I'm convinced. Let's take a trip. Let's go to a fucking conference let's do this yeah so um i'm just so confused by this whole thing so first of all apparently none of the videos these people are watching on youtube are you know showing the earth or i guess they only show the planet from from the top or bottom

which which actually turns out to be all the photos and videos of earth ever taken they're all exactly up yeah or from exactly down it's a large coincidence but also why would there be a conspiracy of this why like, big spheroid? What the fuck would that accomplish? Oh, poor innocent Heath. Dude, the answers to these questions just make it stupider. They have answers, right? Marsh has a buddy that'd be happy

to give you some of them. Be reasonable. If you don't pause to scream, you're not listening. Do they really have answers to the conspiracy part because we hate god yeah right because if we knew how unlikely the shape of the world was from a perspective of physics we'd have to accept that god existed oh yeah that's dangerous to my worldview i do not

want to know about that okay um touche um one other note by the way Because this story wasn't dark and terrifying Enough for a normal 2019 News story This trend of bad information on YouTube That's how Nazis Happen too sometimes I found several articles that describe Just how crazy the algorithm

Is for YouTube's Up next recommendations Apparently you can open up a private browser window with like all your history and cookies deleted. So they're not recommending to you based on anything. And pretty much regardless of where you start, the recommendations for up next are going to trend toward stuff like conspiracy theories, bad science, and eventually alt-right propaganda. And in one article, sometimes it ends up with little kids punching each other's teeth out.

That was where that led. Or, you know, child porn. That little oopsie came out in the news this week. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, and YouTube's response was, don't worry, we canceled their ads. I know you found that giant community of people watching child porn. we canceled their ads i know you found that giant community of people watching child porn we canceled their ads cool yeah and uh by the way they found similar trends to this on twitter too apparently an ai robot that starts with no political opinions and goes on twitter will quickly learn to be a neo-naazi just by being there and absorbing the information that shows up.

So there's that. Silver lining, YouTube developers are now aware of this and they recently announced their intention to shift that algorithm to maybe, you know, not help out Nazis. We'll see how that goes. Nate Silver says it's a lock.

Well, there you go. Well, with theis getting their first bit of bad news in at least three years i suppose we can close the headlines for the night heath eli thanks as always yahtzee and when we come back moses will be here to kick off the even less courthouse friendly commandments 11 through 613. Hi, I'm Noah Lutions. You know, it's no secret here on The Scathing Atheist that we love the easy and usable website building tools over at Wix.com. But did you know that you can build a website

even if you don't have a great idea for a business? That's right, Noah. Wix's free website building tools and 500 stunning templates are for all ideas, even the terrible ones. Have you ever wanted a hat that's also a knife? Knifehats.com is available. Love music but hate stereo? Why not make justoneheadphone.com your own? Are you a medium funny podcaster who thinks you should start a blog so people can hear your serious opinions?

That one's taken, actually. Because with Wix.com's built-in SEO tools, unlimited storage, and email tools, any idea can look pretty damn good. Get started now by going to Wix.com, that's W-I-X dot com slash podcast to get 10% off. Wix.com slash podcast. That's Wix.com slash podcast. That's Wix.com slash podcast.

Medium funny? Medium. We're being nice. The American Atheist Conference. Home to some of the brightest minds in science, technology, philosophy, and now, this. You look harsh for the money.

I will press you between my milky thighs. I'm not saying that you can't fuck a weasel. I'm saying I don't have a weasel for you to fuck. God Awful Movies, live at the American Atheist Conference on April 18th through the 21st. We're not the biggest speaker, but we'll definitely be the weirdest. awful movies live at the american atheist conference on april 18th through the 21st we're not the biggest speaker but we'll definitely be the weirdest check the show notes for more

information when in fact wolverine must have had his adamantium removed at a later date if it's the same universe because his claws hey uh eli what you doing there oh hey heath i was just shouting my personal opinions. You know, in case anybody wanted to know, like, my favorite food or how I make my coffee, our favorite books from last year. Eli, you don't have to shout those answers out randomly. If people want to know about that stuff, they can listen to our new patron AMA. Patron what now?

Patron AMA, yeah. This week, we release over an hour of questions and answers. How you and I make a cup of coffee, our favorite books we read this year and our opinion on controversial topics like the accusations against Neil deGrasse Tyson. Ooh, sounds juicy. Oh,

it is. And all you have to do is head over to patrion.com slash scathing. Atheist pledges little as a dollar and you'll get access to all our AMAs, an extended commercial-free version of the show each and every week, free swag and more. Sounds to me like I can't afford not to be a patron, Heath.

And besides, if I really want to shout my opinions into nothingness, that's what Twitter's for. Nope. Nah. It's not? That's not what it's for? It is not.

Nope. Nah. It's not. That's not what it's for. It is not. Nope. The problem with communicating just how stupid and terrible the Bible is begins with the fact that nobody's ever read the damn thing. You get three untrue, crazy stories in, and then it's just a boring list of rules that nobody believes are in there unless they've read it, which they didn't because Ibid. But if any medium is going to bust through that barrier, it's sketch comedy. So we're pleased to present yet another installment of Bible Peace Theater. Last time on Bible Peace Theater. Last time on Bible Peace Theater. So there it is, a list of ten rules to live by.

What are you talking about, ten rules? I'm not done. You're not? No, I've got like dozens more rules. Oh, see, I was under the impression that you just gave me ten rules. Yeah, no, I've got fantastic PR. I did, uh... That's for sure. Okay, so if you're going to give me a giant list of rules, isn't this going to be kind of a boring skit?

Not if people get a peek at life along my guidelines. Doodly-doo. Doodly-doo. I'm sorry, why are you saying doodly-doo? I thought that would... I thought it would do thely-doo. I'm sorry, why are you saying doodly-doo? I thought that would... I thought it would do the thing. Nope, I'm still here. You guys are jerks. Hey, Phil,

where are you headed? Oh, hey, uh, just sacrificing stuff at the altar. You know, the usual. You, uh... Are you going in that? Um, yeah. Why? what's wrong with this outfit well god specifically mentioned not to put the altar on stairs and you're it'll be fine lulu doing sacrifice stuff sacrifice stuff is my favorite stuff. Lou, lou, lou. Ow, shit.

Jesus, dude, put on some underpants. I'm almost done. Seriously? Just don't, just don't look for a second. Turn around. It's like you're trying to steal a desk toy. Um, that seems oddly specific. Yeah, but I mean, did you see those things? Dude is 38

and his sack looks like he caught it in the toilet lid and tried to do a backflip. It does not. No. Heath, get out of sketch! You get out of sketch! And I'm 37. You're 38 and your balls look like a tar drip experiment. Get out of sketch! Play 37. Sorry about that. So, here's another big one, mosey suppose experiment. Get a sketch. Play 37. Sorry about that.

So here's another big one, Mosey Supposey. Slavery. Ooh, slavery. Yeah, pretty important we get this one right, or it'll be super obvious that this isn't a moral book or absolute truth. Absolute truth, precisely. So hear me out. Hi. Welcome to Slave, Slave, Slaves. How can I help you today?

Yeah, uh, just renewing my slave. Fantastic. Now, is he a Hebrew? I mean, look at him. Hi. Right? Fair point. And I see he's been with you five and a half years. Is that correct? Yep. Five and a half years. Did you assign him a wife? Yes, I did.

And are there any children? Yeah, actually. I've got two children. Okay, great. I've got two children. Okay. Great. Sorry, quick question. Is there any chance I can go free and keep my wife and children? No, I'm afraid not.

Dude, I told you. Okay. Okay, that's franky. I guess I'm gonna stay, is what you're, I'm gonna stay. Great. Okay, I just need you to say, I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free. I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free.

So yeah, if I could just stay with my family, that would be. No, you need to say it like you mean it. I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free. Okay, that's better. Okay. Ow! Here's your ear piercing. You're

a slave forever. Great. Oh, uh, just one other thing. A buddy of mine sold me his daughter, but I'm, uh, not really feeling it. You know what I mean? So can I sell her to a foreign power? Oh, no, I'm sorry.

That's in the bylaws. You can't do that. Motherfuck, really? Well, now that, that you can do. Oh. So what do you think of my rules about slavery? I'm sorry, I didn't erase her. I stupidly started my sentence with don't.

I don't know why you would have done that. Yeah, silly me. Ooh, ooh, ooh, another important thing about slavery. This week on Judge Julie. He don't kill my brother. Then kill him. Don't piss on my leg and He done killed my brother. Then kill him. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. Your Honor, God clearly provided a place to hide for my client.

Innocent. I'm the boss, applesauce. Your Honor, my son hit me. Death. My son cursed me. Death. He stole my slave. Death. I beat my slave to death? How many days did he live? One and a half? Death. I mean two. It was two. Never mind. Beauty fades, but Great. Wow.

That is a lot of super specific rules about slavery. Well, you know, you got to get these things right. You can't just wing them. Or you could, you know, not do them. Say what now? I mean, you could just say that slavery is bad. Like, you're just like, no slaves. Okay, Optimist Prime. Now, where was I?

Oh, hi. Welcome to Slaves. Oh, oh, it's you again. Hi. Yeah, um, we got in an argument on the way out to the car, and you poked me in my eye. I believe that means I can go. So can I go?

Did the eye perish? No. You know what? It didn't. But it really hurts. So... No. Sorry.

Ha! Told you. See? Okay. He also didn't mention this. He also knocked out my tooth. He did? Yeah.

I did. I did do that. Yep. Then I am afraid you are free He did. Uh, yeah, I did. I did do that. Well, then I am afraid you are free to go. Wait, what? I'm sure you're not. Nice. Can I take my wife and kids with me? No, still no.

Oh, boo. Ha, see? And the mom thing? Oh, you're still good with that. Excellent. Hey, neighbor. Oh, you're still good with that. Excellent. Hey, neighbor. Oh, wow. Dude, that looks bad.

Yeah. See, your ox gored me right here in like this middle region. Yeah, right in the middle. Sure did. Wow. Really sorry about that. Yeah, right in the middle. Sure did. Wow. Really sorry about that. Yeah, not as sorry as I am. But, you know, rules are rules.

So I got to ask you to stone your ox. I mean, okay. Yeah, I guess rules are rules. This is a weird rule. No. Hey, neighbor. Really? Again? Yeah. Sorry. Rules are rules.

Your ox needs to be stoned and you need to be put to death. Man! Man! And you need to be put to death. Man! Are you, like, sad about your owner being dead? No, no, no, no, no, no. Whoa.

Was that It's Sad Everywhere Man in cow? It was! Okay. Nice. Okay, nice. And then, if an ox gores a slave who doesn't die but can't be sold... This is so super specific and technical. Yeah, I guess people are going to need some form of entertainment to help them parse it, you know? Okay, Andrew, you've got a lot of bullet points on this tablet. What are we going to start with today?

Okay, well, Thomas, today we're going to be discussing the Fourth Circuit's ruling that an ox... God, I am not okay. I just wanted to start a legal show with my smart lawyer friend. Now I just clean Clarence Thomas' feces off the Constitution twice a week. Now I just clean Clarence Thomas' feces off the Constitution twice a week. Ruling that an ox who's been gored by another ox while inside a pit is still worth 30 shekels of silver. I've lost all faith in law and democracy as a whole. All right.

Look, next up, we have a listener question from Dave. And Dave asks if God's rule about killing a thief applies to Paul Manafort. And this is actually totally fascinating because— Sweet Phoebe, what world are we leaving you? Okay. Were there like four coughs left in that podcast? Don't they have a guy? Hearth. All right, anything else? Oh oh i've got some more rules

for you hey neighbor seriously again no really hey no no no okay it's it's about my daughter you well well you know oh Oh, yeah, yeah. So do you want to marry her? Here's the thing. I don't like labels. What's the going rate for virgins right now? Let me see here. 122 Onans.

What? Really? What happened on that? It was Bonnaroo. Oh. Yeah. Bonnaroo. Right. Uh, alright. I'll get my wallet. Okay, thank you. Yep. Let's see what else. Ooh, ooh.

Moses. Super important. Kill all the witches. Um, done? Awesome. I'm done. Awesome. That was fast. Great. Way ahead of me. Oh, and anyone who fucks an animal, you got to put them to death.

Nobody can ever know about this. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Seriously, was that if you're a bird, I'm a bird in cow? Yes! Nice. Oh, okay. Yada, yada, yada. Be kind to strangers and widows.

Yada, yada, yada. But the reason is because if you are not, I will fucking burn you to the ground. Wait, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Did you say, did you say be nice to strangers? I mean, I did, but it's a warning because I will kill you. That's it! What, what's it? The central tenet of this book is about kindness and goodness and equality, don't you see?

It, it is literally about the opposite of those things. Hit it, Anna! You know, so many people wonder what the It is literally about the opposite of those things. Hit it, Anna! You know, so many people wonder what the Bible's all about. But if you read selectively, then you'll thoroughly have no doubt. It thanks in love and sympathy and wants you to be kind. Just read it like you're meant to. Only one in sixty lies. God wants you to be nice to strangers.

God wants you to be sweet to widows, too. If you read the stinking book, it'll leave you pretty shook. So just ignore the parts that don't sound good to you. He loves the little children. He loves the poor and the weak. I promise if you read the book, you'll only see what you seek. He might say he wants murder and tacitly condone rape. But you know he doesn't mean that part just gives a man a break god wants you to be nice to strangers god wants you to be sweet to widows too if you

read the stinking book it'll leave you pretty shook so just ignore the parts that don't sound good to you. Dance break! Tapity tap, tapity tap, tapity tap, tapity tap, tapity tap, tapity tap, tapity tap. Actually, you know, this isn't really a visual media. Oh. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. We know that stuff's for real. But whether gays should live or die depends on how we feel. They say the book's barbaric, but what do they all know?

They've only ever read the parts we've acted out on the show. Yes, God wants you to be nice to strangers. God wants you to be sweet to widows, too. If you read the stinking book, it'll leave you pretty shook. So just ignore the parts that don't sound good to everybody. God wants you to be nice to strangers.

God wants you to be kind to widows too. If you read the thinking book, it'll leave you pretty shook. So just ignore the parts that don't sound good to you. Voice of Fantasy and adventure. We're going to make a lot of money, aren't we?

We sure are. And with a lisp firmly stuck in your head, we'll take a month off, but we'll be back before you know it with more Bible Peace Theater. Peace Theater. Before we tie this one off, I want to remind you to check the show notes for more information about the American Atheist Convention. Come see us in Heath's hometown of Cincinnati, Swing State on Easter weekend and see some of the brightest lights in atheism along the way. 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, 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 towards our stats if I neglected to thank Heath Enright, who always comes through in a pinch,

Lucinda Lusions, who always comes through when you need her, and Eli Bosnick, who always comes through a straw. Not sure what that's all about, but it seems to be working for him. I also want to thank Arendal38 for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Incidentally, if you're interested in nerds playing video games or playing video games with nerds, check the show notes for a link to his Twitch channel. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's

most dashing diploids, Trent, Luke, Jeff, Leah, Slardabart, FastNiko, RunningToastTurkey, Henrik, and I own LaterCheese.com. Trent, Luke, and Jeff, whose cocks are so long they make the DMV lines jealous. Leah, Slartabart, Fast and Nico, whose orgasms have to be canceled out of seismic data. And Running Toast, Turkey, Henrik, and I own LaterCheese.com, who are so elegant that when they fly, the best anybody else can upgrade to is second class. Together, these nine people, mobile bread, birds, and internet entrepreneurs came together to ensure our dick jokes might be preserved for future generations by giving us money.

Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingadius, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended app-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 scathingadius.com. And if you'd like to help, but your money carries with it a great and terrible burden you don't wish to inflict upon us,

you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review on iTunes, liking our Facebook page, or following our new one-stop shop on Twitter at P-I-A-T pod, where you'll find up-to-the-minute info on all our shows. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres. Tim Robertson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who wrote almost all the music that was used in this episode. It was used with permission, but Anna's was used with permission, too. Anna, great job. I mean, you know, you were trying to make me sound good, so you did your best.

If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingadeus.com. Boo, Monji. Really? Because I just said the thing about the Nazis. Do you really want to be booing the fact that Nazis got bad news? Oh, I wrote that other ways. I felt like saying Jew would be worse.

The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.