The Scathing Atheist - 319: Promise Keepers Edition

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

In this week’s episode, all churches are bad, we learn that Donald Trump had absolutely no part in [REDACTED], and we’ll learn about the dangers of going ash to mouth. ---  To learn more about American Atheist’s 2019 convention, click 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://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ Headlines: Christians react to the Mueller report: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/24/after-barr-report-franklin-graham-condemns-donald-trumps-enemies-for-lying/ https://twitter.com/JerryFalwellJr Pompeo compares Trump to Queen Esther: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/26/mike-pompeo-perhaps-trump-like-the-biblical-esther-is-meant-to-save-the-jews/ Physicist Gets $1.4 Million Award for Saying Religion and Science Are Compatible https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/19/physicist-gets-1-4-million-award-for-saying-religion-and-science-are-compatible/ Catholic Students received Toxic ash https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/24/catholic-students-received-toxic-ash-on-ash-wednesday-leaving-permanent-scars/ Politician Who Fought Against Mandatory Chickenpox Vaccine Contracts Chickenpox https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/19/politician-who-fought-against-mandatory-chickenpox-vaccine-contracts-chickenpox/ Lifeway is closing https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/21/lifeway-the-largest-christian-retailer-in-the-country-is-closing-all-stores/ This Week in Misogyny: Pakistani Man Stabs Professor to Death for Throwing Co-Ed Party for New Students https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/21/pakistani-man-stabs-professor-to-death-for-throwing-co-ed-party-for-new-students/ Christian blogger argues for marital rape: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/03/25/christian-blogger-a-woman-not-in-the-mood-cant-deprive-her-husband-sexually/ Whole newsroom of Vatican women’s magazine quits over pressure not to cover nun abuse stories: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/founder-and-staff-of-vatican-womens-magazine-step-down-citing-pressure-over-nun-abuse-stories/2019/03/26/

Warning, the following podcast contains full frontal profanity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Wix, 4Hims, and by Bill Barr's new line of toys, Redaction Figures. You give us 20 bucks and we'll tell you how much fun you'd have with these toys if we'd given them to you. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Redaction Figures. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Redaction figures.

Don't worry about it. And now, The Scathing Atheist. It's Thursday. It's March 28th. And it's Weed Appreciation Day. Every day is Weed Appreciation Day. You're damn right it is. I'm no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. I'm from Kellyanne Conway's New Jersey. Oh no! Too far! Cincinnati Swing State. I'm Good Husband Georgia. This is The Skating Atheist.

On this week's episode, all churches are bad. We learn that Donald Trump had absolutely no part in redacting. And we learn all about the dangers that go on ash to mouth. But first, the diatribe. Last weekend, I was in Austin for the ACA's first International Atheist Day event, and it was awesome amounts of fun. I gave a speech there. I got to rub elbows with some pretty awesome atheists and I also got to drive 32 hours worth in three days from all the way out there, did the event, turned around and drove back. So the short end of that is that I had

remarkably little time left over from my normal weekly activities like writing a diatribe, for example. Of course, I did actually have to write a speech for the Atheist Day event, and it was approximately diatribe length or so. So with apologies, I'm going to repurpose some gently used material here and share the speech I gave in Austin. Now, the cadence will be a little weird for a diatribe,

but you'll get used to it. I should say the theme of the event was community. So I decided to talk about why building atheist communities is such an uphill battle. And here's what I wrote. Ahem. I have to talk about why building atheist communities is such an uphill battle. And here's what I wrote. Ahem. I have to admit it. Atheist communities are nowhere near as good at making promises as religious ones.

That is one place where we can't touch them. They promise all the answers, miraculous healing, and heavens everlasting. Atheism sure can't keep promises like that. Of course, neither can religion. It's just that that doesn't stop them from making those promises. But it makes it really hard for us. A person starts to doubt their religion. They wonder if their God is real, and they come to us and they say,

okay, what's in Brandex? What do you guys have to offer? My last guy promised me all the answers from an omnipotent omni-temporal being that loved me unconditionally and knew which way every hair on my head was oriented at all times weird thing for god to keep track of in my mind but anyway how the hell are we supposed to compete with that you know when it comes to answers we don't ask god we ask alexa half the time she doesn't even know what you just said. Of course, she does answer. And no, she doesn't know the meaning of life and she doesn't know what your divine purpose is. But if you ask her and God what the capital of Mozambique is, she's going to be God to the answer every time.

But still, this is what we have to settle for. We can't turn to a God for our answer. So we have to turn to humans. And that means we get the kind of answers you get from humans, imperfect, incomplete, and full of mistakes. But our answers keep getting better. Our answers today are better than our answers 50 years ago and worse than the ones that we'll have 50 years from now. But when you were promised to God, how lame is we're trying our best, right? I mean, their side promises miracles. They can't deliver on them, of course, or at least not anymore. You know, God used to do miracles all the time back in the days before medical records and photography used to be that every saint worth is salt had cured at least one blind person but god stopped doing that or never did i'm guessing never did but that didn't stop religion from promising it

and as bad as their track record is people start doubting their religion they come to us and they say hey you know my last guy promised me miraculous healings what do you guys have and what do we have okay in this instance it's actually pretty good right i mean once we shoved their lazy ass god out of the way and started taking this shit on our own shoulders it's actually pretty good, right? I mean, once we shoved their lazy-ass God out of the way and started taking this shit on our own shoulders, we actually got pretty good at curing diseases and stuff. I mean, we did a remarkably bad job for a really long time, but as soon as we got over that Hippocratic Oath bar, we were already ahead of God.

And yes, our medicine is imperfect. It's incomplete. We make a lot of mistakes because we're humans, and that's how humans do things. And yes, we can't cure blindness yet, but we're a hell of a lot closer than we were 50 years ago, and nowhere near as close as we'll be in 50 years. But all of this pales in comparison to their big promise, right? That one where you get to live forever in a city of clouds with golden streets,

and your grandma's there and Fluffy's there and there's a bunch of little cherubs playing a harp and nobody ever has to die. I feel like that's about as big a promise as a promise can get. But I got to admit it, we got nothing on that shit. Science can't give you immortality and it probably never will. So when the newly doubtful Christian comes to us and they're like, hey, the last guy offered me heaven everlasting, we're going to bite the bite the bullet and say yeah we just admit you die right i mean you know if you think of mortality on a spectrum everything we don't die of anymore

gets us a little closer to immortality but you can't reach infinity incrementally so we'll never have much on this one of course you're still closer today than you were 50 years ago right i mean think about this used to be a few lucky people per generation could expect their words to echo forward into history when they like you know wrote a historically important work of literature or they led a nation or they wrote a poem or a song that would outlive them and most of us will never do anything like that. But hey, you know, at least the Library of Congress is archiving your tweets. That doesn't seem like much, but think about that. Your great-great-grandchildren might get curious about their ancestry and they'll be able to read your tweets. And that should terrify you. But it's also pretty cool. The point, though,

is that this is what we're reduced to. Doubting Christian comes to atheism and they say, Hey, what do you guys have in terms of immortality? And we're like, Twitter, right? So considering all that, it's amazing that we're able to build communities at all,

but here's the thing. And I think even the religious people will agree with me on this one. Here's the thing, and I think even the religious people will agree with me on this one. God is already as good as he's ever going to get. That nothing that you hear when you ask him a question, that's never going to get any louder. That nothing that happens when you pray, that's never going to get any better. That nothing that happens when you die, never going to get any less terrifying. So atheism won't promise you any different. But the trick up our sleeve is that we don't have to. Right. Atheism doesn't have to compete with the promises that religion made. We just have to compete with the promises they kept. And that we can do. I mean, our communities are imperfect. They're incomplete.

They make a lot of mistakes, but they get better. And even before they do, we're already in the lead because our imperfect something was already better than their perfect nothing. And our hard truth is already better than their easy lie joining me for headlines tonight are the yakko and wacko to my dot heathen right and elot bosnick fellas are you ready to get loose and then vamoose okay who locked the talking dogs in the water tower in the first place these are the questions the show don't worry i'm obviously wacko and i packed away the snacks well there you go yeah later cheese in the tower we're all set in our lead story tonight donald trump has been completely cleared of collusion. At least according to Attorney General William Barr, the guy who got hired two months ago to say exactly that,

whose number one qualification for the job was saying exactly that before the report was even done. Yes. His number two qualification, to to be clear was literally being an attorney general of the united states once before it was number two and uh now we're watching trump supporters all taking a victory lap even though we haven't even seen the muller report this is like somebody thinking of the seven of diamonds in their head and then eli dancing around on stage like he won after he pulled out a blacked out card that says redacted on. This is nothing.

Well, I tell you about the card. Yeah. Yeah. Tell you what I saw. Keep in mind that what we've seen to this point, like to the point of this recording is it's like the studio's blurb about a movie the critics haven't been allowed to see yet right and the best the studio can say of this film is of the evidence the president committed felonies some of it is already known to the public plus i decided not to arrest him yeah side note if you want like a longer breakdown of this, opening arguments did an amazing deconstruction of Barr's statement. So, you know, maybe listen to that and send it to your weird gloaty uncle who pretends you could change his mind. But you can't. You can't. He

doesn't actually want to talk to you. No. He just doesn't want to feel like a bad person. He doesn't want any arguments opening, closing, rational and otherwise. He's not even going to listen to it, but send it to him. Why not? Yeah. So the most obnoxious redacted victory laps are being taken by prominent evangelicals who somehow support Donald Trump. And honestly, that's exactly what we should be expecting. Redacted victory laps is basically all of religion summed up in a single phrase.

And of course, that means we got to hear from Franklin Graham of the nobody fucking cares. I'm not listing these credentials like they're real. Absolutely not. They are the fakest credentials ever to require nepotism that's for damn sure yeah so graham took some time away from being brian dennehy's cutco salesman stunt double and tweeted out the following on sunday quote the muller report is in and no evidence of collusion the sad thing is america has lost two years and untold millions of dollars. You just told it.

Also didn't lose that. We spent the money. Yeah. And the two years existed temporarily. I don't understand that comment. Continuing. America lost two years and untold millions of dollars on investigations as President Trump's enemies spouted lie after lie. Then there was something about the liberal media.

I blacked out a little bit. Continuing again. My prayer is that this is over and the Democrats and Republicans will now work together to solve the problems our country faces. Good luck with that. Maybe he'll learn about how well praying works. Maybe there's something there. Yeah, and then he closes it out. Pray with me that God will guide, direct, and protect President Trump and our nation.

End quote. Like, starting now yeah been doing that weird time to pick to start doing the prayers yeah and one other prominent evangelical that we heard from this week was jerry falwell jr who took some time away from being davy crockett's cutco salesman stunt double to also tweet about how Donald Trump got completely exonerated of any wrongdoing by the Russian nesting doll of reports about reports about

reports of the Mueller report. I guess William Barr finished his report report and then he unzipped his skin and the xenomorph from Alien was inside and then the xenomorph confirmed what Barr said. And then obviously the little baby alien mouth popped out. Yeah, right.

The bigger aliens report. So it's extra true. It's a lot of layers. Apparently, this was all a witch hunt and quote, a Democrat onslaught, the likes of which has never happened in our history. Guys, guys, if it wasn't good, I don't think this studio could get away with calling it an exhilarating thrill ride, okay? It's a legally protected term.

At this point, theocrats might as well be rolling a single six-sided die and then bragging about rolling a seven. Like, that's where we are as a nation. Yeah, and by the way, Falwell has the attention span of about a tweet, like 280 characters. Actually, not even 280. And we learned that when he finished his one single tweet

about the Mueller report and then immediately spent the rest of his day getting way too excited about the liberty university basketball team they won a single ncaa tournament game for the first time in their history last weekend so he started throwing out prayers for their big cinderella run which ended two days later when they obviously lost to Virginia Tech because God prefers STEM subjects and other real stuff. It says all we need to know about Falwell that them winning their first tournament game ever bolstered his belief in God, right? Big comeback here we got

and we lost. We did it, everybody. We did it. Just in case anyone forgot, we already know that the Mueller investigation And we lost. We did it, everybody. We did it. Yeah. Just in case anyone forgot, we already know that the Mueller investigation exposed a giant web of illegal activity surrounding the 2016 election and led to prison terms for several high-level members of the Trump team. If even a tiny fraction of that was uncovered about President Hillary Clinton, We'd have like tiki torch riots at every Walmart. It would not be pretty. Right. They'd be overturning all of those new taco trucks.

Whose aisle? Our aisle. Yeah, it would not go well. And in Folly Esther news. Fantastic. According to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump is just like, follow me on this, a Jewish girl who won a beauty contest to become queen of Persia and then went on to save her people from persecution by the Persian equivalent of Trump's voting base who wanted to eradicate foreigners, starting with the Jewish people.

Yep. Yeah, for real. Our country's highest ranking diplomat was visiting Israel. And he said out loud into a microphone that he thinks Donald Trump is just like Queen Esther from the Bible, the book of Esther. Mr. Trump, please put your clothes back on. No, you heard Mikey. I thought he was going to be singing

Bye Bye Bye as part of the beauty contest. Yeah, absolutely. There it is. Here's a quick background on the queen esther story for context it was around 470 bc uh xerxes the first was the king of persia and he threw a big party and he told his queen queen vashti to come out and you know be hotter than everyone else's wife so i look good but she didn't feel like it because obviously that's obnoxious so he banished her forever obviously

that meant it was time for a beauty contest to pick a new queen which was won by esther um so spot on donald trump so far sorry remind me when did xerxes cheat on his wife with a porn star right after she gave birth to his son I'm just trying to it shouldn't be this easy to think of something about our president that makes him look bad in comparison to Xerxes fuck so eventually

Esther found out about a plot to have all the Jewish people in Persia get exterminated because some Persian Nazi advisor to Xerxes was like, hey, how should we pick a genocide since we have to pick one? I know I'll cast some lots. So he threw some rocks on the ground and they spelled out kill the funny ones with the money, I guess. They always do. They always do. They always do. Somehow, the rocks are interesting.

But Esther found out about the plot. She told her people to fast and pray, and then she managed to talk the king into killing the Nazi guy instead of doing the genocide. And then the Jewish people lived happily ever after, forever and ever,

in both the Middle East and Europe because of all the great praying. And now they're a beloved minority here in the United States, too. One of Donald Trump's best son-in-laws is Jewish and his daughter birthed some amazing Jewish babies. So, yeah, Donald Trump is the Esther of 2019. Clearly, obviously. Said our Secretary of State. Secretary of State.

of 2019 clearly obviously said our secretary of state secretary of state it's 50 50 that at some point he'd had to talk himself out of ordering a genocide so i can see how pompeo might get there that makes sense sure so getting back to mike pompeo's story uh he was in jerusalem and he decided to do an interview and he figured the best bet for a news outlet in the country of Israel would be the Christian Broadcasting Network. Fucking asshole. Because again, you know, he's an expert in diplomacy. That's his entire job. And during the interview, he was asked, quote, could it be that president trump has been sort of raised for such a time as this

just like queen esther to help save the jewish people from the iranian menace and quote and i gotta assume this question happened as part of an elaborate wager but regardless here's the response from pompeo quote as a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible. So good start. I mean, that fits after literally any sentence. He continued, we were down in the tunnels where we could see 3,000 years ago and 2,000 years ago. If I have the history just right, you absolutely do not. years ago if i have the history just right you absolutely do not to see the remarkable history of the faith in this place and the work that our administration's done to make sure that this

jewish state remains end quote now if i'm correct magic jews dug these bottomless pits to poop into four billion years ago i am the secretary of state he starts telling him about the fun little reenactment village he went to where people still live like they did back in bible days somebody's like mr pompeo that's palestine shut up shut up oh i wondered about the fence but now wow yeah so Mike Pompeo if you're listening just a quick suggestion tuck it

you tucking it? you tucking it Mike Pompeo? there we go here's the suggestion maybe stop trying to fit Donald Trump into stories from the Old Testament as one of those characters. Yeah, that is our thing.

Right? We called it. But if you really feel like you absolutely have to, maybe go with God, the giant bigot who got replaced by other minority groups after his first term. And in Temple of Dumb news tonight, every man's dignity has a price and for dartmouth college professor of physics marcello gleiser that price was 1.4 million dollars boo and i'll be honest not a bad price and to be fair to the professor he was basically a prostitute that was already gonna fuck you before you offered him money it's really hard to say

who's the dumber side of this uh physics transaction i guess right just uh just want to throw this out there two-thirds of this podcast will also literally say anything for 1.4 million dollars but go on no you were saying i just wanted to make sure so So, okay. I knew. This story is about this year's recipient of the Templeton Prize. Boo. An annual grant. Boo. Yeah, right. Yeah, let me give you some time to boo.

Boo. This is an annual grant given to the scientist who does the most to squirt the perfume of science under the bullshit of religion. It's awarded annually to the most credible sounding person who says religion isn't definitely wrong in public the loudest. Because like all things that are true and genuine and could win in the court of ideas if it only was given a fair shake it's subsidized to the tune of seven figures by ideologues with no claim to objectivity cool

just out of curiosity crazy how does one go about being a credible sounding person? It's going to start with better typing skills. Okay. All right. So this year's winner is Professor Gleiser, who in the Templeton Foundation's words, quote, is a prominent voice among scientists who rejects the notion that science alone can lead to the ultimate truths about the nature of reality. End quote. Yeah.

And despite all the words that come after scientist directly contradicting the word scientist, Gleiser proudly accepted the award saying, quote, my mission is to bring back to science and to people that are interested in science, this attachment to the mysterious, to make people understand that science is just one other way for us to engage with the mystery of who we are. End quote. Okay. I mean, you could engage however you want.

Just like, ooh, mystery. Like, engaged. Check. Nailed it. Right, right. Yeah. Imagine scientists who are interested in mystery. So, look, if you notice that the entire quote was bullshit, congratulations.

You might just have seen your path to earning 1.4 million bucks. That is his whole fucking shtick, right? Like he goes out there with his shoddily constructed straw man says, I reject the atheist assertion that they saw there not being a God and took pictures of him not existing, as well as their claim

that they had a circular square girlfriend in Canada that we've never met. And then he goes home. Last week, his strategy of yelling, la, la, la, can't hear you anytime somebody tried to actually define atheism to him seems to have paid off. Great.

We're going to make science great again. Really excited about that. Well, it's obviously time for revenge. So we managed to send Eli in undercover as Gleiser's new lab assistant. Morgan, roll the tape. Hi, as Gleiser's new lab assistant. Morgan, roll the tape. Hi, Professor Gleiser. Hi, Eli, right?

So excited to be working here. I'm really glad to have you. Okay, so now we're going to be for the... Sorry, one second, just before we start. Dear sweet heavenly father. Oh, we're praying. We're praying. Please shine your lightning down on our endeavors and help us discover how a donkey talked.

Amen. I'm sorry, how a donkey talked? Yeah, yeah. I really dug your speech thing. And I was just thinking like, sure, science is great. But what if you and me, we just like really figured out how god made a donkey talk right sorry sorry hello good he's here uh i'm sorry who's here this is a lab okay we have standards this is heath and i really really believe he's a scientist you know did you Did you tell him about the doggy thing? I did.

I told him. I did. Yes. All right. It's going to be like Shrek. Yes. Like Shrek. Like Shrek.

Damn it. I don't want to like parfait. And having Inshever closer to the mascot we want and you deserve, we'll pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Wix. All right. All right. I hereby call together the meeting of totally not racist, just happen to be white guys who run social media. Let's take attendance here. Jack here, Mark here in this planet where I always am. You don't have to say that. I say things with my mouth. Okay.

Thanks, Mark. Gentlemen, I'm not going to beat around the bush. More and more people are unhappy with our websites. Not enough Nazis? Nope. Actually, opposite of that. C'est un grand temps. Nope.

Not. Mark. Come on. No. They're building their own websites is the problem with Wix.com. Building your own website. But that's impossible unless you're a super rational, not racist genius. Or a time traveling computer sent back to delay the apocalypse.

Well, that's the thing with Wix.com. You can make a great looking website in minutes using one of their hundreds of beautiful templates. They have built-in SEO tools and much, much more. So wait, you're saying people might build a website and not have Nazis on it? But then how will it be a website? Doesn't even make sense. By going to Wix.com. That's W-I-X dot com slash podcast, and they'll get 10% off. Wix.com slash podcast, and they'll get 10% off. Wix.com slash podcast.

We are talking with our mouths, all of us together. We are. I'm a robot from the future. We know, man. Everybody knows. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what you want. If it's a legitimate race.

If it's your slot, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. It's a legitimate race. You're a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man! This Week in Misogyny. In the wake of the Christchurch shootings, a lot of well-meaning atheist voices called upon our community to moderate our criticism of Islam. And while I get where they're coming from, I reject the premise that gets them there. The problem isn't too much criticism of Islam.

It's too little criticism of white supremacy. I mean, I'm not going to tell other people what to do. They can moderate whatever the hell they want, but I'll still be calling out religious misogyny every week. So I'll still be talking a lot about Islam. Because look, all the religions are sexist and they're all dangerous. But I feel like a good metric when comparing the relative dangers between the religions is to ask yourself, what's the dumbest thing that religion ever inspired somebody to kill over? And when you ask questions like that about Islam, you invariably land on answers like the recent death of Pakistani professor Khalid Hamid. He was stabbed to death by an Islamic militant for the crime of hosting a co-ed party for new students. That's right, he allowed men and women to be in the same building without partitions. Now, don't get me

wrong, Christians don't fare a hell of a lot better when you use that yardstick, but since I don't have a topical story of an abortion clinic bombing or anything handy, we'll have to measure them by a slightly modified version of the same test, and that's the one where you judge a religion by the most grotesque actions they find themselves defending. And when you use that metric, you invariably land on answers like the recent marital rape denial from the fundamentalist mommy blogger Lori Alexander. She published an entire article this week about how women don't have the right to deny their husband's sex. And while she doesn't explicitly endorse marital rape, she does bolster the argument that it doesn't exist.

Her advice to ladies who may not be in the mood is to always remember that God is watching. Not sure how that's supposed to help. Maybe showing off to old guys does it for her. Maybe married fundamentalists are like God's porn and Lori doesn't want him to have to switch the videos halfway through. Not really sure. One way or the other, it's pretty fucked up. But since I hit you with two depressing ones in a row, let me close on a high note.

See, you can measure a religion by what it demands its followers defend, but you can judge a person by how much of that shit they take before they say no. Well, a whole bunch of women just found that line this week, which is why the Vatican's all-female magazine finds itself suddenly looking for an entire new staff. That's right. The founder and the entire newsroom quit en masse a couple days ago,

citing Vatican pressure to stop talking about the nuns that they raped so much. So despite Lori Alexander's advice, here are a few Christian women who weren't in the mood to get fucked, so they said so. And on that brief glimpse of empowerment, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in making an ash of yourself news tonight, Thank you, Lucinda. And in making an ash of yourself news tonight, for many people, it's... Thank you.

For many people, it's hard to remember when their friendship really blossomed. When did you first start hanging out? Where did your bromance begin? But for me, and no illusions, there's a pretty concrete beginning. Oh, there is? And that's quite a few years ago

when I drew a smiley face on my forehead on Ash Wednesday and told everyone who tried to yell at me that my priest had Parkinson's disease. I can vouch for that. There are pictures, 100% true on all counts. And it wasn't just friendship. Like, I mean, I had

the time of my life started playing. Eli jumped off the stage. He ran to me. We did the lift. Yep. Noah lifted me. Correct. Yes, I can lift you.

If you think our listeners won't step up for a reenacted finale of Dirty Dancing Patriarchal, you misjudged them, sir. Exactly. Gentlemen, this is a Wendy's that you're in. Okay, sir.

Yeah. You got a good spring floor going here. And now it's a Wendy's with class. Does your fat friend want some burgers? I do. Thank you. Thank you. Acknow it's a Wendy's with class. Does your fat friend want some burgers? I do.

Thank you. Thank you. Acknowledge me. He's ordering for the three of us. Well, it appears at long last, this year, I've been outdone when it comes to Ash Wednesday prank wars, specifically by St. Augustine's Catholic High School in Redditch, England, which accidentally handed out toxic ash. What?

redditch england which accidentally handed out toxic ash what this past this past ash wednesday sending two of its students to the hospital what the fuck y'all remind me why we even have toxic ash oh uh theresa may was hanging out by the you know the regular ash pile and she touched her hair near that okay but i guess that doesn't answer the question uh the toxic pile is for the orphans stuff face i mean orphan face stuff it is a catholic school so uh so far 73 students and 16 staff have been affected with nobody aware of what caused the problem. And while medical experts did warn that there could have been permanent cross-shaped scarring, it appears nothing that funny actually happens. So you can go ahead and laugh at this. This is just, I was just hurt anyway.

Catholic schools hire people from the American South sometimes to England. You don't know about what just happened. Exactly. Thank you. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are you getting on me for not doing the accents? No, I did an

American South accent. You're a race coward. And in more Ronic news tonight. You know, in today's woke culture, it's nice to know that we'll always be able to make fun of Italians. Mbaba de bopade, pizza pie!

See? No emails. No tweets. Feels good. Whenever I want. Eli, do you have a story? That's a spicy meatball! Right? Heath gets it, but yes. I'm rubbing olive oil on my beautiful body.

Right? We can do this. Never have to worry. I don't know if we can. But I do have a story. I do. Massamiliano Federica. Sorry.

Last one. I promise. A senior member of the far-right Northern League party spent four days in the hospital this week after contracting chickenpox, which is amazing. I'll explain. It's amazing because a bad thing happened to a bad person. But it is extra amazing because one of the foremost policies and causes of the Northern League Party is fighting mandatory vaccination. is fighting mandatory vaccination. Okay.

I'm glad you eventually got around to that because I don't know if you noticed, but until those last two words, this was just a story of you liking it when Italian people were itchy. Okay. I feel attacked. I can have stories sometimes. I like when they're slippery.

Thank you. See? Everyone's got different preferences. I was complimentary. They had a beautiful naked body. Olive oil's delicious. The cuisine is delightful. I just want to be clear about everything I said.

Heath wants to fuck Mario. I like it when they're great. You want to do the show you founded. So that's right. The man who called Italy's mandatory vaccination policy. Stalinist got a taste of his own. Not medicine. And that's fantastic.

But as doctors have pointed out, he also could have like infected someone who we don't want bad things to happen to, like a pregnant woman or a baby that wasn't old enough to be vaccinated yet. So even when perfect, just, and wonderful things happen to anti-vaxxers, they're dangerous. Never forget that.

Yeah, right. Like if drunk drivers always just hit embankments, the laws wouldn't need to be as strict. Or if they just hit anti-vaxxers. Yeah, there you go. Bobbity boopity. Sorry, I have no regrets. I have no regrets.

We were with the Nazis. And finally tonight, in Afterlife Way news, it turns out that paranoid old lady who still keeps her savings in a mattress stash hasn't heard of Amazon and needs a steady supply of mothball scented candles that explicitly praise Jesus is no longer a large enough demographic to build a 170 store national chain around because we learned this week that life way America's favorite source for books about the Bible for people who have and will never read the Bible, will be closing all its locations.

God starts drawing him a supply and demand curve to explain it. Okay, so this, wow, already lost you. That was quick. I just wrote the letter P is for price. That's all I've done so far. Okay. Really. Okay. Really? Okay.

What if we also sell cheap Velcro shoes that fall apart once a month? How's Payless doing? What? God damn it. What? That's right. Despite being my go-to source for Jesus action figures and Armor of God Daniel Edition playsets, both real items that I've bought from Lifeway,

Daniel edition play sets, both real items that I've bought from Lifeway. They found that even their backward ass customers can just buy shit online now. The announcement was filled with righteous lamentations about how they did everything they could to keep their stores open, including, and this is

real, recently banning books that affirm marriage equality and refer to female genitalia. But still, despite all that, the invisible hand of the market delivered the inevitable demographic bitch slap we've been waiting for. Oh, I just love the idea that their first thought was maybe we weren't hateful and prude enough. Yes. And they're cool with penis books, but not genital books. You can mention the existence of penises i

think it's because the bible does that you know you gotta you gotta tell them where to cut and with another rival vanquished we're gonna close the headlines for the night he feel i thanks as always i very much respect the italian ethnicity and when we come back we'll reach way deep into the miracle barrel. Yeah, so that's why I'd like some, you know, dick pills. Have you tried thinking of like Farrah Fawcett? Has this ever happened to you? Hi, I'm Noah Lusions, here to talk to you about 4HIMS.com, a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, sexual wellness for men. HIMS connects you with real doctors and medical-grade solutions to treat hair loss, which means no waiting room, no awkward in-person doctor visits.

Please just prescribe me the medicine I need. Okay, but have you tried like a magazine? I like Forbes. Um, Forbes? As like a sex thing? No, just as a magazine. With four hymns, just answer a few quick questions. A doctor will review and can prescribe you what you need

and products are shipped directly to your door. Oh, I like to rub it between my hands like I'm starting a fire. Like a Boy Scout. Okay, this has to rub it between my hands like I'm starting a fire, like a Boy Scout. Okay, this has to be illegal. If you'd like to order now, our listeners get a trial month of HIMSS for just $5 today, right now, while supplies last. Restriction supplies? See website for full details. This would cost hundreds if you went to the doctor or a pharmacy. Just go to 4himss.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing. 4himss.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing.

forhims.com slash scathing. Anything is better than this. Okay, what if I give you one pill and then you film it and send me the tape? I'm calling the police right now. Please don't. I will do the tape thing. I will do the tape thing. You know, it's been said for the purposes of this intro that making a movie is the act of painting a thought across the screen, which adds a special challenge to Christian movie makers whose thoughts tend to be really, really short.

And that leaves us with a lot of tiny little Christian flicks that wouldn't fit into our sister show, God Awful Movies, but are still too God awful to ignore, which is why we're presenting another edition of God Awful Minis. So tell us, Heath, what will we be breaking down today? We watched In the Arms of Angels. It's the story of how God is a manipulative sociopath who has Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Yep.

And that's why he's the best. But lazily. But lazily, though. Yeah. So, Eli, how bad was this mini? Well, if you love hearsay, but you hate when things happen you will love this mini it's what it's rare that we watch a film where i'm like i'm surprised they got a full 11 minutes out of this all right so is there anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best to be in the

worst at um no all right it's a it's a mini so we'll do a mini version of the best worst i got one how about mcguffin okay this movie is propelled forward by the unquenchable desire for unwashed tree cum it is it is i'm gonna go with best worst breakfast club clothes the protagonist of this movie gets the saddest goddamn postscript you have ever i've thought about it a hundred times since i watched this thing how empty a life must have been yeah right for that for that to be what they said about her all right so we're going to start this off with a bullshit combination of words that follows. It says on screen, this is a true story, and then in much

smaller font, taken from pioneer accounts. It's true. Well, I mean, this guy said it was a true story. It's a true claim. William Barr read the story. Yeah, it's true.

Yeah, so we open off on those open up on some rocks falling into the water yeah and one of those like life is falling rocks yeah like life is i'm just gonna stop you right there it's gonna be stupid whatever you say when you try to say life life is gravity great go just don't don't say the thing on the screen no please just please and then the narrator says learning obedience might be life's hardest lesson of all guess the gender of the narrator that said that non-binary also not if you're dumb is clear on pre and after care okay so like be real about that all right so we see this little uh slow motion landslide and just and just at the end of it we see a basket in it that's pretty scary then we cut to the american west

in 1885 america is great right now. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. This is what we're shooting for. And of course, because it's 1885, we open on wood chopping. Well, kind of. They could not get a single shot

of anybody on their set actually chopping one piece of wood. No! Nope. We went extreme close up every time it was time. And I think that was the same shot of a splitting log that we saw like four times. This is so bad.

And there's a little kid off to the side just bothering the dad who's supposed to be chopping wood. Just being like, dad, dad, why can't you ever chop the wood with your body in the frame? Kid's a wood voyeur. I wanted to know where that was going. He's just like, oh, chop that wood, dad. Chop it. I've been there. My dad was so much better at chopping wood than me. It took me so long to get good at it.

You are much better at chopping wood than him now, though. I am. That's true. Maybe. I don't know. He might still be weirdly good at that it's very possible he has this weird muscle memory that supersedes stroking yeah spaghettiing around with an axe he's just gotta put him in it's very possible all right so so the kids bother and dad though because it's almost time for them to go get gum off of the trees and that's the in their own words most exciting day of

the summer. It's fucking sap time. Let's do this. Sap day. What? Yes. Well because you see they get to leave the work behind for that day. And

collect sap in buckets for hours not work yeah sap in buckets collection time for those hours yeah also they describe it as the chewing gum for the year that is is that a real thing that they would do back in the day would they chew tree sap as gum i guess i feel like that would be good i mean you don't have to chew gum like you can just chew food only and no they show her picking some of it off the tree and i wrote my notes okay that's the grossest thing i've ever seen someone intending to chew and i watch porn yep absolutely but okay so here's the thing she's really excited to go pick tree come but dad tells her that she has to stay home this time around because mom's

pregnant and can't take care of the toddler so she has to do it and she loses her mind. She hangs herself like a goddamn Stoneman Douglas kid. She is out. Oh, Jesus Christ. She goes bananas on this. She wanted to go booger picking. What? Okay, so here's what I'm going to edit in where Eli said that. I liked what he told her to stop.

Like, she's taking, like like that gross stuff off a tree. And he's like, bell, bell, her name's bell. And he's like, bell, that's,

that's come. How many times do I have to tell you? That's the country. You're the, all the other ones are the, it's similar. I get it. But that's the,

that one is the country. I'll put a flag and distinguish. Yeah. Put a flag. I thought we agreed you would put a flag. All right. But but yeah so she has to stay home and watch her little brother and she's really sad that she's gonna miss the tree come picnic so she decides to take her little brother with her and she's now keep in mind the family left on a horse-drawn carriage hours ago she's gonna catch up with them with the toddler now so i decided to take a toddler on a dangerous hike where he'd clearly get almost killed but saved by god

exactly right that was the plan um and they take a shortcut through the dangerous scary place and oh it's a this hill they're trying to make it look scary you could murder a roman soldier on that thing let me tell you right now all sideways it's so dumb they're trying to make it sound all dangerous at first it's like all right we took a shortcut through death trap gully yes there's a Valley. We got Death Trap Gully. It's similar. There's a flame quagmire, a fire swamp, a flame quagmire. I'm not misspeaking. Please listen. Above average stature.

There's a lot. I'd be a dick. Yeah. So they cut through Death Trap Gully and she's going like the narrator's going like, dad always told us to avoid the fuck out of this place. And then they come upon the place and it's just this rolling Glen, you know, just kind of a lovely little lake. I'm just saying, if you get, it's supposed to be a rock slide. Now, look, I didn't Google whether or not rock slides are real, but I haven't been outside in a very long time.

Sorry, you're not sure still at this very moment whether it's real that rocks can slide downwards? That is correct. But I don't believe it. He's not a gravity denier. He's just asking questions. I don't feel it in my heart that rocks slide.

But yeah, that's real first of all eli um and the point is yeah that their path they come upon a part of the path being blocked by a recent rock slide and but it's not dangerous either it's this again like you said it's this beautiful pond and she's like the path was blocked by a good deal of pebbles. There's a lot of pebbles here. A lot of pebbles. Tens. Tens of pebbles. Yeah, but she just says she's going to navigate this rock slide anyway.

And they last a good two steps before everything goes to shit, right? Yeah. She's just like, all right, this is going well. I'm just going gonna pull on this lynchpin right here yeah and i apparently if any of the rocks move in the lower area an avalanche begins yeah right right like the mayans rigged a trap for indiana drones next to this lovely pond yeah so they start falling down but but luckily she can speed pray. So she speed prays and tells God

that she'd rather not get killed by rocks and promises not to disobey her dad if God doesn't kill her with rocks. And God thinks to himself, well, you're not going to disobey him if I do kill you with the rocks either. You know, I mean, just like, to be clear, I get that one way or the other.

Yeah. And she says, I i mean she does speed pray but it's also a serious heartfelt speed prayer well right right not dying it's not one of those half-assed don't kill me if you get a chance passive aggressively texting god hey just a quick poke about this did we land on you killing me or not killing me in the last meeting can you read back the notes yes i could search for it if we use slack but the important thing is she prayed not to die she didn't die and that meant that god was real so she decided she would always be christian from that day forward yeah and she says that god or god's angels picked him up out of the avalanche and set him back down on the path but not on the path that they were going to go to the

sap party on the path leading back home yes it was it was one of those one-way paths i really wanted her to try again she's like all right obvious time to go say me again say me again i got it sorry my bar yeah but so she was pretty, pretty stoked about this miracle of falling down without dying. So she decided and she and she even says, and I decided never to say anything about this to anyone, which I clearly fucked up on since you're watching this. But then we get a scene like she's like, you know, I decided I'd always do whatever my dad told me from now on. Then we get a little montage of her doing what dad told her. Right. Just sitting.

Yeah, exactly. Well, sitting in church. Yeah. In a time when church was even worse than it is now, apparently. What was happening there? Apparently, women did lots of beekeeper work all the side all the time. It was crazy. It was like Handmaid's Tale,

but all the women were super old. Yeah. And fucking bees instead of rich people. I don't know what they were going for. Be the doily, Edith. Be the doily. Praise be. All right. So she served on a lengthy mission trip thank you and by the time she comes back from the mission trip uh joe her little brother that fell down the time with her

that she didn't die had moved away and dad wouldn't have a very important talk with her. So dad sits her down and he says, so, hey, were you and Joe ever falling down a rock slide? And a couple of angels showed up and yanked you back out of the path or something like that. And she's like, oh, my God. So what happened? Crazy. I wanted dad to be like, oh, you never mentioned the angels? It's 1885. Do you know how boring my life is? You didn't

tell me about the fucking angels? Do you know what story? We have started about tree sap here, lady. Do you know what story I have told whenever I have had a story to tell? That time the cow almost looked at me. That was the story. I'm going to die in six minutes.

I'm married to like an 85 year old beekeeper over there. I look like Waluigi for some reason. You got to tell me stories. This is not going well. I don't even know how you were conceived. Tried to make you a younger brother four times. Got a fold.

Just a cloth fold. So yeah, so dad tells, and and by the way this actor speaks entirely through his nose which is quite distracting so yeah so the dad tells bell about when joe had a terrible fever and in his delirium he told her he told dad the story of the angels saving them from the pebble slide back in the day yeah and dad's like well this is canon um during a violent fevery rant he said angels saved you from a rock slide that must be accurate that's what's happening yep yeah it's one of those reliable memories that goes away with the disease yeah exactly yeah right no because he says that he's like dad's like oh but then you know i asked joe about it after the fever and he forgot he ever said it yeah and she confirms it she's like yeah

yeah it's true sorry i lied about that and he's he's so excited he's like this confirms it this is great god's protecting us it's awesome we're we're we're never gonna die let's let's test this chops his arm off fuck okay hold on really really thought i was gonna do a big impactful demo there normally i'm not good at actually chopping things that's weird yeah yeah my man is i was i was in the frame though that's kind of miraculous yeah but then there's this weird moment where she gets really jealous of Joe for getting to see the angels, whereas she just felt lifted. Yeah. Turns out angels are invisible if you're the one who almost kills a toddler. Yeah, right.

No, that's where she lands. who almost kills a toddler. Yeah, right, right. No, that's where she lands. They still save you, but they're like passive aggressive invisible angels. I don't know. Casey Anthony gets to heaven.

It is empty up here. All right, so now it's time to wrap things up. She goes, you know, I felt lifted by angels a lot in my life but that day was the most significant time that god ever intervened and i'm like wow feels like you're arguing on our side now doesn't it doesn't anyway god is real just thought i'd yeah because one time

i fell down and didn't die. Bye. Yeah. Bye. The end of movie. Right. Then, yeah, then we get a couple of Bible quotes. We get Matthew 18, 10, which I paraphrased as don't rape kids. They might be angels. Yeah. This is where we get the breakfast club clothes, which is the saddest thing in the world.

Yes. Bell Richards went on to write many beautiful poems. No. No, she did not. I found her book. It is not good. And she wrote one of them. It was.

And it's bad. She went on to play Scrabble by herself in the dark while drinking whiskey. Yeah, and that's somehow literally all the story had to offer. Somebody came across that account and said, oh, my God, this needs to be seen, not just read. And they continued to think that all through the process of realizing how much money this would cost,

which is the kind of stupidity that ensures we're always going to be able to promise more god-awful minis to come but until then we're going to leave you with a much happier or at least better breakfast club clothes joe ended up marrying a jewish lady and went to hell it was too bad God didn't let him get killed in that rock slide. Bell eventually discovered masturbation and doesn't mind being left behind on tree sperm day anymore. Most people don't die of fevers anymore thanks to vaccination.

Go science. Bell traveled the world starting avalanches. Trying to catch a glimpse of an angel. No, look, watch. I won't die. I won't die. Trust me. Oh, she's the Mr. Glass of Angels? Much better.

Before we snuff the candle this week, I want to remind you that we're less than a month away from the American Atheist Annual Convention. We're in Cincinnati this year. It's Easter weekend. We're going to be there recording an episode of GAM Live. There are going to be chock full of great speakers. If you want more information, you need go no further than the show notes. 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 would await a lot more if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for doing all the heavy lifting while I was on the road this

weekend. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for doing all the same amount of work as he usually does, but bragging the road this weekend. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for doing all the same amount of work as he usually does, but bragging about it more often. I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for all the late night Azul sessions. I also want to thank Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure, for reminding me that I forgot to thank him last week for helping out. I also want to thank the reverse audio and modulate pitch functions on Audacity for distracting from the fact that I ran out of Farnsworth quotes.

Incidentally, if you'd like to promote your Facebook page or your Instagram page or your podcast or your blog or whatever, send me a Farnsworth quote, check the website for details. But most all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people. Jay, Derek, Brandon, Nate, Joel, Penelope, hashtag Heathen, Berglamer, Christina, Kira, John, Josh, Aaron, Phil, and James. Jay, Derek, Brandon, Nate, and Joel, whose dicks are so big that when they're in Texas, people just call the river, the Rio media. Penelope, hashtag Heathen, Berglamer, Christina, and, Nate, and Joel, whose dicks are so big that when they're in Texas, people just call the river the Rio Media.

Penelope, Hashtag Heathen, Berglamer, Christina, and Kira, whose wit is so sharp it gives Atari Hanzo razor envy. And John, Josh, Aaron, Phil, and James, who have to take turns ejaculating so as not to fuck up that tsunami warning system. Together, these 15 feisty freethinkers forewent frills like food and fuel to further our foundational function of flouting the fallacious foibles of faith this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist, whereby you'll early access to an extended ad free version of every episode. Or you can make a one time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathing atheist.com. And if you'd like to help but you can't afford money on your salary, you can also help a ton by following at PIA teapot on Twitter, liking our Facebook page or leaving us a five-star review on iTunes. 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. We also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page. It's getting a ds.com. I'm going to splice in you saying that's a spicy meatball one way or the other.

Thank you. No, you got to stay true to the script. Yeah, script is the script, man. Oh, is that the role we're playing with now? No, no, it is not. Yes, yes, it is. You want to play script chicken? Ain't that right?

I'll play fucking script chicken. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.