The Scathing Atheist - 325: Founding Myth Edition

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

In this week’s episode, Ken Ham will argue the age of the earth with somebody old enough to remember it’s formation, Donald Trump doesn't think Barack Obama is the only president who deserves reparations, and Andrew Seidel will join us from the Castle Black of the wall of separation. 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/ Guest Links: Preorder (or order, depending on when you read this) Andrew L. Seidel’s “The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American” here: https://www.amazon.com/Founding-Myth-Christian-Nationalism-American/dp/1454933275/ See Andrew’s talk, “Sweat the Small Stuff” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbq05fhOFs Listen to Jordan Norman and the Wisdom Teeth on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ZfuYxuFCAjRCt6D0Q2VlA Headlines: Trump retweets Jerry Falwell's suggestion that his terms should be extended by 2 years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/06/claiming-two-years-his-presidency-were-stolen-trump-suggests-hes-owed-overtime/?utm_term=.21de672b1546 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-retweets-jerry-falwell-suggesting-his-term-should-be-extended-by-two-years/ar-AAAWeOY?ocid=sf Amish Wolverine v. P-Robes: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/06/ken-ham-is-desperately-trying-to-get-pat-robertson-to-visit-ark-encounter/ Kids in Philly Islamic center video say "We will chop off their heads" for Allah: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/06/kids-in-philly-islamic-center-video-say-we-will-chop-off-their-heads-for-allah/ The Satanic Temple is now officially an IRS-approved tax-exempt church: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/04/25/the-satanic-temple-is-now-officially-an-irs-approved-tax-exempt-church/ 50% of American think Christians face discrimination: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/04/30/a-very-deluded-50-of-americans-think-evangelical-christians-face-discrimination/ This Week in Misogyny: Brian Kemp signs “heartbeat” abortion bill: https://www.apnews.com/cab6dcbdb37341f39fb50f806aca0182 Kansas Supreme Court rules state constitution protects abortion: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/26/717449336/kansas-supreme-court-rules-state-constitution-protects-right-to-abortion

Warning, the following podcast contains those words that stupid people get more offended about than actual harmful stuff. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, ZipRecruiter, Wix.com, and by $80 billion. The amount of revenue we give away every year in religious tax exemptions. $80 billion. They owe us that money. Reparation of church and state. And now, the scathing atheist. Hey, this is Jordan Norman from everyone's favorite band,

Jordan Norman and the Wisdom Teeth. My day job, however, is as a playground installer. And as a man who builds both monkey bars and jungle gyms, I can confirm that we do, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday. It's May 9th. And it's Lost Sock Memorial Day. See, dead veterans, you and smelly foot tubes that have been neglected, you both get the same amount of debt.

I'm no illusions. Um, he's then right. And from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, maybe? Cincinnati swing state. And good husband Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Ken Hamill argued the age of the earth with somebody old enough to remember its formation. Donald Trump doesn't think Barack Obama is the only president who deserves reparation.

And Andrew Seidel will join us from the Castle Black of the Wall of Separation. But first, the diatribe. Later on in the show, I'm going to be interviewing FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel about his new book, The Founding Myth, Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, which sets out to eviscerate the David Barton the interview. But I just read that book. It's 300 pages of pure diatribe fuel. So we're also going to talk about that right now for a little bit, because one of the points that Andrew really emphasizes throughout this book is that when they claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, they're not just lying. They're also stealing and they're stealing from us. God it you're not atheists exactly but rationalists free thinkers people who value reason over superstition i mean setting aside our weird founding fathers fetish for the time being look at who those people were you know benjamin franklin

would be remembered for his scientific accomplishments alone even if he'd never gotten involved in the nation founding business He discovered electricity for fuck's sake. George Washington was responsible for a shitload of advances in farming. Thomas Paine spent his waning years as a prolific inventor. John Adams founded the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. Nearly all of them were, first and foremost, men of reason. And very clearly, when they set out to form a nation, they based their decision on scientific principle, observation, reason, experimentation, theory.

There's no divinely handed down bullshit in our nation's founding is the product of enlightenment thinkers trying to distill the natural laws of governance and revolutionaries trying to manipulate them. America was founded not as a Christian nation, but as a scientific experiment. Hell, the founders themselves used the term the american experiment that's clearly the language of science religion doesn't have experiments unless you count antediluvian human society hell one of the few truly unique aspects of the government they crafted was it separation of religion from the apparatus of government the wall of separation that's one of the few things that we actually built and And look, given the present circumstances, I can see how science wouldn't be in a hurry to claim America as one of its products. But all the good aspirational shit at its core is a child of

science. And look, it's easy to lose track of the ideals at the heart of the American experiment when you have to peer at them through a blood-soaked history of institutionalized bigotry and slavery, but they are there. You know, Christians fight for the past because they want to steer the future. They recognize that a myth can be stronger than the truth. Hell, it's a prerequisite to be in their club that you recognize that. And so they paint America's founding with the same historical integrity they used for the building of the pyramids or the founding of Israel 1.0.

And their myths, no matter how historically laughable, still seep so deeply into the soil of American culture that they start sprouting out in textbooks and documentaries and, as Andrew highlights in his book, legal decisions. See, to win this battle, it's not enough for us to fight against their narrative. We also have to fight for the real one. You know, and even with the truth on our side, it's us to fight against their narrative we also have to fight for the real one you know and even with the truth on our side it's hard to fight we have to limit ourselves to the actual history and that's not pretty it's filled with unjustifiable wars of aggression and expansion inhumane public policy driven by corporate greed bigotry against every ethnic group you can name

and several you can't unrestrained capitalism at the expense of the populace, and a system of slavery so heinous it managed to be bad for slavery. So true or not, it's never going to be as easy to swallow as that romanticized, sterilized, lionized history the Christian nationalists have on tap. But if anybody's qualified to sell a hard truth in the face of an easy lie, it's us, right? We've been countering eternity and paradise with just dead for centuries, and we're still somehow here and growing. That could only be the case if the truth had its own momentum. You know, look, nobody's going to fight this fight but us, and nobody else could. And with all due apologies to our international listeners for this America-centric diatribe, and a quick reminder to them that if we fuck up bad enough,

our nuclear shit's going to spill into your country too. It's a fight we can't afford to lose, right? Because you can't hold these truths to be self-evident if you've already abandoned both evidence and truth. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is the ketchup to my mustard Heath Enright. Heath.

Object. Are you ready to get smeared over a wiener? Ketchup is revolting and has no place in society. Also, yes, I'm ready to get smeared over a wiener, but unrelated. Okay, no, right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're saying Eli's the ketchup.

You would be, I guess, the relish. More mustard. Okay, that's fine, too. We're just smearing our mustards together on a wiener, me and Noah. All right, well, there's an unsmeared wiener waiting for us, so we're going to pause for a quick word from our first sponsor this week, Stamps.com. Hi, I'm Noah Lusions. And I'm Heath Enright. And we're small business owners.

And after most of a decade running a small business, we've learned a few tricks of the trade that we'd like to share with you. That's right. Rule number one of owning a small business, never count the number of hours you work. It can only serve to depress you. Rule number two, if you accidentally count the hours, whatever you do, don't divide the amount of money you make by that. Rule number three, if you accidentally count the hours and then divide the amount of money you make by that amount, mitigate that depression by using stamps.com. That's right. With stamps.com, you can save the hassle of going to the post office,

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because that would be weird. Yeah, it would. It would. We use stamps.com to mail all our Patreon rewards and it saves us a ton of time. With stamps.com, you can use your own computer to print official U.S. postage 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any letter, any package, or any class of mail.

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It saves you time and money. It's no wonder over 700,000 small businesses already use Stamps.com. And right now, our listeners get a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale without any long-term commitment. That's a big plus for me. I like that no i know with the labels anyway just go to stamps.com click on the microphone at the top of the home page and type in scathing to get your four-week trial that's stamps.com enter scathing and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight theocracy activist and liberty university president jerry falwell jr continued cosplaying as john lithgow the protagonist from footloose who saved that little town from kevin bacon and the dance demons and naturally that included a tweet last

week suggesting that donald trump should get two extra years added to his first term because of the failed coup d'etat conducted by the democrats uh just to be clear he's referring to the criminal investigation that's already led to seven convictions from the trump campaign team conducted by republican Democrat Robert Mueller. Right. Yeah. Not the one where Russia stole a presidential election in 2016. It's easy to confuse those two.

Fake news, coup d'etat, crooked Hillary. It's the I know you are, but what am I, president? Yeah. So here's the tweet from Falwell Jr. Quote, after the best week ever for Donald Trump, no obstruction, no collusion. New York Times admits Barack Obama did spy on his campaign. What? And the economy is soaring.

I now support reparations. Pin in that. pinning that Trump should have two years added to his first term as payback for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup, end quote. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing would show us how bad a failed coup is like a successful one for two years. Jesus fucking Christ. I don't think that means what you think it means, dude dude very few of those words mean what you think they mean yeah so i'm pretty sure the only thing in that entire

tweet that's not objectively incorrect was the use of one oxford comma that was the only thing that i enjoyed but i want to focus on one particular word he used there remember he said uh i now support reparations reparations yeah that was the word he used yeah um jerry falwell jr heard about the idea that centuries of slave labor represent an enormous amount of money that's owed to the african-american community and he was like you know who's owed a similar debt donald trump basically the same basically tied and uh over 75 000 people on twitter agreed pretty much immediately and liked the tweet within two days including the president of the united states who retweeted this about five seconds after Falwell posted it. Yeah, well, the five seconds I'm not surprised by.

I'm sure Twitter's algorithm pushes any tweet with the words corrupt, spy and stolen to Trump right away. Is this you talking to you? And Trump also added some of his own commentary to Falwell's tweet. Trump also added some of his own commentary to Falwell's tweet. Spoiler, Trump did not say anything like, no, I will not try to illegally extend my term. Laws are real things. I won't do that. Nothing even similar to what I just said.

Instead, Trump responded with the following quote. Despite the tremendous success that I've had as president, including perhaps the greatest economy and most successful first two years of any president in history they have stolen two years of my our presidency collusion delusion that we will never be able to get back end quote oh i i'm sorry, were those ones single-use years? What the fuck are you even talking about? Also, did we steal it or not? Yeah, right. If we stole it, then those two years of the greatest economy and greatest success ever, that was us. Yeah, exactly. The Democrats who conducted the coup d'etat with our Republican Democrat investigator.

Exactly. Who conducted the coup d'etat with our Republican Democrat investigator. And if we didn't steal it because stealing from the time dimension is nonsense, then go fuck yourself. But either way, I'm guessing everyone's still not clear on the reparations thing. But don't worry. Trump realized that, you know, being compared to the entirean-american community that might have been a little confusing so he sent a follow-up tweet that said quote the witch hunt is over but we will never forget end quote so wow it's not that he's owed reparations just like the victims of american slavery um it's that plus he's just like all the Holocaust victims, too. It's both.

Right. Yeah, exactly. If you wrap them all together in one burrito of self-pity. Yeah. And then you gave him a red cup at Christmas. And in ham-fisted news tonight, it's been a rough year for Ken Ham so far, and we're still early on. The attendance numbers at the Arc Park have been sinking faster than the boat would, if you put it to sea.

He had to host Ray Comfort all through Easter weekend, and that smell never comes out. And this week... Scrub all you want. Yeah, he had to contend with the realization that he's so fucking stupid that even P-Robes looks at the shit he says and goes, All right, now that's dumb. That's right. Ken Ham doesn't know how old the world is, idiot. And

coming up next, we'll show you how gay people make used heroin needles into HIV spreading handshake rings in our craft segment. Real thing that he said. Yeah, so this story starts when host of the 700 Club and only man with earlobes on the top of his ears to Pat Robertson took a question from Sheila. Right.

Now, Sheila was trying to reconcile the age of the earth that she learned in church with the fact that science says, quote, dinosaurs are thousands or millions of years old. End quote. Well, it's both thousands or millions of years old. End quote. Well, it's both. Thousands and millions. You nailed it. You didn't mean to. Thousands of. You nailed it.

And in response, P. Robes basically flew to Kentucky and smacked Ken Ham's books out of his hands and gave him a fucking wedgie. So he explains where the 6,000 year number comes from and then counters that by saying quote the truth is you know that dinosaurs were extinct maybe 200 or 100 or 50 excuse me i'll get it right no you won't no you know what i'll give you two orders of magnitude leeway. What do you got there, Herobes? Continuing the quote, about 50 billion years ago. So close. It was so close. Yeah, well, to yours. And this planet

has gone on much longer than that, end quote. Much longer than the 50 billion. He then goes on to describe creation science using words like nonsense and embarrassing and said, quote, it just doesn't compute, end quote. Yes, the guy who swung at the extinction of the dinosaurs

and missed by more than three and a half times the age of the universe just called Ken Ham's math embarrassing. Ken Ham, the mosquito that got trapped under my cheek flow is older than 6,000 years. Read a book. Right, right. Were you there? Yeah, actually, in this instance. Well, never one to shut the fuck up.

Ken Ham fired back on Twitter by daring Pat Robertson to shower Ham's creation theme park with free publicity. He said in part, quote, I challenge the 700 club to bring their cameras and record our conversation even broadcast it live and quote um he he then went on to bet that pat robertson couldn't tickle him even if he tried and emphatically requested not to be thrown in that briar patch. All right.

Next up in headlines. The holy book for the second largest religion in the world advocates genocide. Yeah. And so does the holy book for the first largest while we're listing stuff. No. Yeah, it does. That first place one is called the Bible. But for this story, we're going to on islam and how the quran is full

of murdery stuff because it turns out there's a children's song about it and it's fucking terrifying we got an extremely creepy reminder of the murder theme in the religion of peace this week thanks to a video of a musical number performed by a group of kids at the Muslim American Society Islamic Center of Philadelphia, during which they literally describe beheading infidels and torturing them for all eternity. Children do that. Wow, that's fucked up. Yeah.

And that's coming from a guy who spent his childhood singing about old ladies swallowing ever-larger carnivores in hopes of instigating an intestinal death match. Here's the exact words from one of their songs. Quote, glorious steeds call us and lead us to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The blood of martyrs protects us. Take us, O ships, until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones.

Flow, O rivers of martyrs. End quote. Jesus! So, just to recap, that's talking horses directing a mob of in this case singing children to a mosque in Jerusalem

via rivers of blood from heroic martyrs. That's what I got. Yeah, and the blood protects the mob along the way. The mob of singing children is protected by a magical shield made of a blood river on their way to kill Jewish people is the plot of that children's song yeah yeah that's fucking

terrible it doesn't even remotely rhyme and we also got a dramatic spoken word cadenza i guess during the musical program that included the following quote we will defend palestine with our bodies we will chop off their heads and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted al-aqsa mosque we will subject them to eternal torture end quote yeah and and if you think the song is bad you don't even want to see the fucking pop-up book. Actually, you do want to see the pop-up book. Yeah, so following the release of this terrifying music video, the Muslim American Society put out a statement explaining how not all the songs were properly vetted. No mention of how not all the holy books were properly vetted. No mention of how not all the holy books

were properly vetted either. And by the way, if Islam is listening, you guys need some peer review? If you need some peer review, I'm sure we can help out with that. The Quran would be a much snappier read if you pulled out the murdery parts.

This is a lot of fat in there. A lot of repetition. Yeah. Yeah, right. And while you're at it, you could drop the murdery parts. This is a lot of fat in there. A lot of repetition. Yeah. Yeah, right. And while you're at it, you could drop the sexist parts, the embarrassingly stupid apologetics, and the repetitive stories of Moses

without losing anything. And then you can kind of wrap that empty cover around any book you want. Really. There you go. You're saving so much money right there. Point being, there's no such thing as Islamophobia.

A phobia is defined as an irrational fear. And I don't see anything irrational about fearing Islam or Christianity. Right. There certainly is discrimination and bigotry toward Muslim people, the people. And that's what a lot of people mean when they say Islamophobia. But that's an incorrect use of the word. yeah that bigotry is terrible especially considering that muslim people as a group are actually one of the biggest victims of islam that being said the other really big victim would be the people whose genocide is called for in the quran and that would be everyone else oh yeah us everyone else it says

that in the book not making that up it says murder non-believers until those people run out of people seriously so moral of the story islam christianity and judaism shouldn't be legal until they amend their books plus a bunch of other religions too probably yeah right so while we talk to andrew about suing the religions we're going to pause for a quick word from our next sponsor zip recruiter i am for job oh and what makes you think you'd be a good fit at Puzzle in a Thunderstorm. I fight bear. Yeah. Not a lot of urson combat

in the position that we're trying to fill here. We're mostly looking for somebody to do clerical work. Make sure Eli remembers to wear pants to live events. Stuff like that. I fight you. Has this ever happened to you? Probably not, but one way or the other, hiring is a challenge. I fight you. ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards. But they don't stop there.

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ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G ziprecruiter.com slash scathing. ZipRecruiter. Smartest way to hire. I feel like that was punchy. I did a voice in everything.

You sure did. It was Eastern European taxi guy? Uzbekistan. Uzbeki? Okay. Nailed it.

A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she wants. If it's a legitimate race. If it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man. This Week in Massage. Look, I don't want this to be This Week in Misogyny.

Look, I don't want this to be This Week in Abortion. I really don't. I actually know a lot of secular women who have mixed feelings about abortion. That being said, mixed feelings is a long ways from wants to outlaw. And like it or not, abortion is the not-so-thin wedge into rolling back women's rights across the board. And if you don't believe that, look how seamlessly they transition from the fight against abortion to the fight against contraception in all forms. So yeah, self-appointed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp went ahead and signed that impossibly onerous abortion bill we talked about last time. Under the new law, which is set to take effect on January 1st,

it will be illegal for a woman to have an abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detectable, a thing that generally occurs before a woman could conceivably know she was pregnant. So if you want an abortion in Georgia, you just have to go in and have a preemptive one every month and a half or so. Now, there's no question that under the current law, this is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has been striking down far less cumbersome restrictions for the last 50 years, and there's no question that any previous court in my lifetime would do the same to this one. But this isn't any of those courts. And the whole point of this fucking law is for it to wind up in front of the Trump-packed high court. Now, off-the-record assurances to Susan Collins aside,

there's every reason to believe that this court will overturn Roe the first chance they get. But there may still be hope, as we saw in Kansas last week. The state Supreme Court there was presented with a case that effectively banned all second-trimester abortions by banning the most common and safest method used for them. The law, diplomatically called the Kansas Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, was passed in 2015, but was immediately blocked by a district judge. Over the last few years, it's worked its way up to the state Supreme Court, which basically took a look at the law and said, not only does this violate the Constitution, it violates

the goddamn preamble. That's right. Their legal argument is that the law violates the goddamn preamble. That's right. Their legal argument is that the law violates the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness part. And I'm no legal scholar, so I can't really comment on the legal merits of the argument. But the logical arguments seem pretty fucking sound. Of course, never one is to be deterred by the realization that they're violating basic human rights. Anti-abortion activists are now shifting tactics in an effort to add an abortion ban to the state's constitution. So don't worry, I'm sure I'll have some bad news soon to offset this story.

And until then, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in Pews Will Not Replace Us news tonight, I covered some encouraging demographic news on the show recently. So let me counterbalance that this week. This is amazing. Oh, thank you. According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, fully half of Americans believe that Christians face discrimination in the

U.S. Despite being the goddamn majority and having actual codified laws giving them extra bonus rights. So, first and foremost, the survey confirms that the recent efforts to redefine discrimination in such a way as that it applies to people not being allowed to discriminate

against other people is working. Yeah. Just like all those sexual assault laws that were foisted upon men without our consent. It's offensive. Right. Okay, so I should note that that's not the only disturbing takeaway from the survey. So the survey looked at nine categories of people and they asked 1,500 respondents whether those groups face a lot of discrimination, some discrimination, or none at all. And for an atheist show, yes, the key takeaway is that 50%

of Americans have deluded themselves into believing that evangelical Christians face discrimination, like not just Christians, but specifically the least discriminated against group, the most powerful subgroup of Christians that is in current charge of the goddamn government at every level. But it would be a crime to report on this story without at least mentioning that 20% of Americans seem to think that black people face no discrimination in this country. What? Yep.

Quarter of them feel the same way about LGBT people and Hispanics. And nearly a third don't think women face discrimination either like 31 okay uh i gotta say though i'm not convinced those people are familiar with the numbers and words you were using so maybe there's that i hope then again laws are discriminatory against criminals so that's yeah it's rough for the criminals it's like explaining the law to drax at the end of guardians of the galaxy what if i find a gay person irksome and remove their spine okay well that would be a murder pretty much the biggest crime that's illegal all right so in addition to presenting the results of the survey pew also compared them with the same question asked three

years ago the biggest shift in the data was a sharp rise in the number of people who recognize the discrimination that jews face right okay so some discrimination rose from 44 percent to 64 percent and a lot rose from 13 to 24 yeah no all the numbers are insanely low um but i was encouraged to see that the number of people who recognize that misogyny is a thing did rise 9% all the way to 69%. But the third biggest shift over the last three years was the uptick in people buying into the Christian persecution dilution. And in milk money news tonight, the Satanic Temple is now officially a tax-exempt religious organization approved by the irs this yes it is yes it is according to a press release from magnolia pictures which just released their new documentary about the temple called hail satan with the question

mark at the end apparently according to magn Pictures, full religion status in lawsuits and tax exemptions for donations have been granted to the so-called religion of the Prince of Darkness. Or at least that's the lie they were forced to tell in order to get this approval. Yeah, right. I don't know all the implications just yet, but I'm pretty sure this means that when you put money in the swear jar it's tax exempt that's a good point damn so uh there's been a debate in the secular humanist community about whether the hypocrisy of accepting this bullshit tax exemption that's only available to religious organizations is worth the benefit of the new status. Strangely enough, there's no debate about that among legal scholars who know how to read the Constitution. Those people are aware that the very First Amendment says none of this should be necessary.

So there's that. But those people aren't in power enough, sadly. And here's the explanation we got from Satanic Temple co-founder Lucian Graves. He basically described the move as the best available strategy given the current set of nonsense rules that exist. According to Graves, quote, this will assure that the Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm its standing in court when battling religious discrimination and enable the temple to apply for faith-based government grants. End quote.

Yeah, no, I'm with him. It's like, okay, so you know how if like, even if you're against the electoral college, you should still participate in it.

It's like that. Yeah. Maybe stop in at the Rust Belt once or twice, whoever 2020 person. So, yeah, I definitely appreciate the argument that if we're fighting against the negative influence of religion, we want to have all the same advantages that our opponent has, especially when it comes to fundraising and legal status. But I get the feeling that the federal government is not going to understand the absurdity of the situation that's being pointed out here and i'm confident in that because we just saw the idiot christian theocrats in the federal government choose to give special status to a group named after the magical demon of supreme evil in their thing rather than just make religious people

follow the law and pay taxes like everyone else yeah yeah no look but yeah right if they didn't burn the house down when they had to let the mormons in they're not gonna burn down the fucking house guys exactly so if you're an atheist and you're wondering why the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which, by the way, was granted to African Americans in 1868 by the people in charge of America in 1868. Yeah. If you're wondering why that doesn't apply to nonbelievers in 2019, don't worry. You can get the full suite of American human rights now as long as you're willing to sign up for the satanic temple and agree with the way they spend their money.

To be clear, I probably do agree with their politics, but this is the dumbest possible system. I can't just have human rights for being human. I have to do this whole stupid lie thing. If only you were a corporation, right? And now that we have to draft a corporate charter for Heath Co.,

I guess we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, thanks as always. Jumanji. And when we come back, Andrew Seidel will be too polite to correct me when I mispronounce his surname for an entire interview. It's Seidel, by the way, not Seidel. Oh, I thought it was Seidel. Despite what I'm about to say over and over again.

Like Eric Seidel, the poker player? Maybe that's Eric Seidel too. I don't know. I thought it was Seidel. Good correction. Hey, Heath. You still working on that website for later cheese? Yeah, yeah.

So I learned Java, Python, and HTML. And now I've just got to learn Linear B and Esperanto. No, I'm telling you, man, it doesn't have to be that hard. You need to try Wix.com. What's Wix.com? What are you, the memento guy? Just for the ad, just for the ad. Oh, right.

Yeah, no, okay. Wix.com is the most technologically advanced website building platform available, but it's still easy to use. You can choose from over 500 stunning templates or start from scratch. You can change, customize, and add anything you want. Sorry, let me ask you something.

Exactly how stunning are those templates? You said stunning. customize, and add anything you want. Sorry, let me ask you something. Exactly how stunning are those templates? You said stunning. Oh, very. Very? Very. Okay. Plus, you can start and publish for free. All their sites include built-in SEO tools that'll help you get found online and in search engines like Google and Bing is also in the copy.

But I think Later Cheese is going to need a pretty advanced website, so. Well, Wix can give it to you. You'll get the tools you need to create the website you want, unlimited storage, a custom domain, email addresses for your business, email marketing tools, premium apps, and a dedicated support team. All right, Noah, I am convinced. How do I try it? Well, you can get started now by going to Wix.com.

That's W-I-X.com slash podcast to get 10% off. Wix.com slash podcast? Wix.com slash podcast. Last week, we called upon our listeners to give us more money, and they did. They're the best. So this week, we're asking'all to go ahead and keep doing that we've already blown past our goal to make the patreon only pajama party live stream a reality and now we've added new goals so you can make us do ever more embarrassing shit on camera

now unfortunately eli's not here because you know, no, we really need you to donate like taking a week-long trip to Europe on a moment's notice. But he was nice enough to leave some of his characters behind. As you know, one of our biggest goals at Puzzle in a Thunderstorm is to launch a whole bunch more podcasts. No, no, it isn't and foremost of those is a spin-off with our beloved mascot carl the pug a pegacorn i work 164 hours a week so to remind you what your patreon dollars might do we're pleased to present the pilot episode of kicking it with carl he's a pug and he's also a unicorn. You know that's a horse that has a horn but don't forget he's a pegasus too. That's called a pug a pegacorn and he likes you. It's Kicking It With Carl. Hey everybody welcome back to Kicking It With Carl. my guest today is podcaster no illusions noah welcome to the show

what the fuck is happening just go along with it oh okay uh hey carl thanks for having me so you're a podcaster yeah uh yes i am and do you like garlic bread sure oh we got a garlic bread lover over here you know what that means what does that it's time for recipe roundup today's recipe comes from allrecipes.com and is titled toasted garlic bread he's gonna read a recipe as the dog isn't't he? Cut one large loaf of Italian bread into slices of one to two inch thickness. Combine five softened tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Little tip here. Buy a Californian olive oil if you're in the United States. Three crushed garlic cloves and a teaspoon of dried oregano in a small bowl and then spread that evenly over your bread slices. Noah, let me ask, are you a Mexican or a Greek oregano guy?

We used to have such a normal atheism show. Fantastic. I'm sorry, Carl, did you have a question for me about podcasting? I did not. Well, that's all the time we got for today. Join us next week when we'll have Nick Kroll to promote his new documentary,

Why Do People Keep Hiring Nick Kroll? He's a pug and he's a unicorn. You know, that's a horse that has a horn. But don't forget, he's a pegasus too. That's called a pug, a pegasun, and he likes you.

It's kicking it with carol so don't forget to head over to patreon.com slash scathing atheist and make your pledge today we've added new rewards and even more patreon bonus content and if you pledge enough andrew has to play twister with us in his pajamas. We have it in writing. We have it in writing, actually. That's legitimately in writing. Please don't deny me that.

I will be furious as well. Please do not. Don't fuck this up. In 2010, Pew released a survey showing that atheists tended to know significantly more about the Bible than those who profess it to be the word of God. And as unsurprising as these results were to we non-believers, many atheists still arm themselves for debates with Christians by studying up on theology and scripture. and scripture. But today's Christian, especially today's American Christian, increasingly grounds their arguments not in theology, but in history, or some illusionary variant thereof. And that means that atheists need to turn increasingly to history to refute them. Well, thanks to my guest today, that just got a lot easier. Andrew Seidel is a constitutional attorney with the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the author of the upcoming book,

The Founding Myth, Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American. Andrew, welcome to The Scathing Atheist. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. I got to say, usually when I have a lawyer on named Andrew, it's not you. Is it that Torres guy? Yeah, I feel like I'm committing androltory or something. Oh, that's one of the commandments, man. You got to be careful. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Our nation was founded on these things after all. Okay. So speaking of that, every good book needs a good villain. So let's start with a villain here.

Just so that we're all working from the same definition. What is Christian nationalism? Christian nationalism is the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation or founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that it needs to go back to that foundation right now. It is now a wildly popular view. It used to be sort of this kind of impotent sideshow that really the only the extreme fringes of more conservative politics adopted. But now it is in the mainstream and it is actually the reason that Donald Trump is president. Yeah. In your book, you present some damn convincing statistics that that is the primary factor, really. And this is not my research.

This is Andrew, another Andrew, Andrew Whitehead out of Clemson has done some brilliant work on this. And he actually examined the data from the 2016 election. And the biggest predictor of whether or not somebody was going to be a Trump voter was not their political party, which is kind of amazing. It was not their socioeconomic status, despite all the stories that tell us otherwise. It wasn't even whether or not they were a Christian. It wasn't their religion. It was whether or not they were a Christian nationalist. That was the number one factor that made somebody a Trump voter. So we don't just see Christian

nationalism as this weird sideshow anymore. It is the reason Donald Trump is president. He rode this wave of Christian nationalism into the highest office in the land. Yeah, it was pretty obvious that was his goal as soon as he picked Mike Pence as his VP there. And they've been remarkably good at employing the rhetoric. I mean, Trump is, I think he's an atrocious public speaker, but a lot of Christian nationalism is focused on these myths and really the underlying emotion of what it means to be an American. And Trump is very good and has become even better

since he's entered office at playing those Christian nationalist heartstrings. And it's a little bit alarming to see, in my opinion. Yeah, this from a Presbyterian that had to ask another Presbyterian whether that was a kind of Christian. Okay, so now we know that, you and I know anyway, that America was not founded as a Christian nation. So why does it matter to them so much to build this mythical history? I mean, it's incredibly important because a lot of their political power is tied up in it. So

the lies surrounding whether or not America was founded as a Christian nation, all these myths that they have about the American founding and prayer at the Constitutional Convention and phrases like, in God we trust, one nation under God, God bless America, all of that, Convention and phrases like, in God we trust, one nation under God, God bless America, all of that, those lies make up the Christian nationalist identity, and that is where they get their political power. These lies are driving public policy. We see it in education policy, immigration policy, civil rights, women's rights, minority rights, LGBTQ rights, even our foreign policy, when they moved the embassy to Israel. And prominently these days in the redefinition of religious freedom as basically a codification of discrimination.

I mean, judges now are deciding cases based on these lies and myths. So it's not just in the culture war issues, but in many areas beyond that. I mean, if you had to put it simply, it would be that these lies are destroying our country, really. They're gnawing away at our liberty. And I think that we, the people, have a duty to stand up to the lies and to the bullies pushing them. Yeah, I mean, the Constitution doesn't invoke God, but it sure invokes us. Yeah, it absolutely does. Right there in the first three words. All right. So the whole argument is that, like you does. Right there in the first three words. All right.

So the whole argument is that, like you said, that the government, the legal system, et cetera, are grounded in Judeo-Christian principles. Now, this is a question that people don't ask enough, but you address really well in your book. What are Judeo-Christian principles? And that question was actually one of the things that kind of led me to write this book.

Because if you've ever had a debate about whether or not we're a Christian nation, and you know, you know, even the most basic facts about American history. And if you're an atheist, you tend to go straight to the Treaty of Tripoli when somebody claims that we're a Christian nation. But the fallback position is always, well, I actually didn't mean that we're a Christian nation. I meant that we're founded on Judeo-Christian principles. And I had this argument for a living. I mean, this is a big part of what I do at the Freedom From Religion Foundation is try to get government officials to stop using their public office to promote their personal religion. And I'll write them a letter and explain, hey, you can't tell kindergartners and first graders to pray before they go down to lunch. That's illegal.

And one of the things that we'll always get back is, well, actually, we were founded as a Christian nation, so that's okay. So I've been having this argument for a living. And the argument that I kept hearing in return was, after it was debunked, well, we're founded on Judeo-Christian principles. And whenever you follow up on that, well, name one, what is a Judeo-Christian principle? People did not have a good answer for that. The Christian nationalists did not have a good answer for that. And so I set about to figure out, you know, exactly what is a Judeo-Christian principle and how could it possibly have influenced the founding of our nation? And it turns out that if you look at those Judeo-Christian

principles, especially the ones that are central to the Christian nationalist identity, they are so thoroughly opposed to the principles on which the United States was built. I mean, they differ and they conflict to such a degree that, to put it bluntly, as I do in the book, Christianity is un-American. So, okay, let's compare them. What would a nation that was actually built on Judeo-Christian values look like? It would look a lot like the early settlements in Massachusetts that the Pilgrims and the Puritans created, I think. Those were these sort of monochromatic theocracies that really worked to enforce religious conformity and uniformity using the government.

And if you saw a government founded on Judeo-Christian principles today, I think it would look a lot like that. I mean, it might look a lot like what we would see in the Middle East now, just with a different religion as the motivating factor. I mean, and to go to tie into your previous question a little bit. So those Judeo-Christian principles, you know, if you listen to the believers, it's the main principles in the Bible. It's the principles in the Ten Commandments. And generally, if you talk to any person, any American out on the street, they tend to think of those as positive, good principles. But once you dig in, you find out that they're really not. the time when atheists are called upon to refute Christian nationalism, they go straight to the Treaty of Tripoli, right? And that's good, right? The United States is in no way a Christian nation is a pretty good quote to have in your back pocket. But the Christian nationalists also have quotes in their back pocket, and they can present those and make it seem like the founding

fathers are also saying the opposite. Your book does a lot more than that. So if you don't mind, can you expound a little bit on what your plan of attack was when you set out to refute their narrative? Yes. And there are a lot of even good Christian nation, quote unquote, books out there that do a pretty good job of refuting the myth. But I wanted to take a different tact. And so there are kind of two main differences, I think, between my book and some of the other books that are out there. The first is, again, that as soon as we debunk that Christian nation myth, they always fall back on, I meant founded on Judeo-Christian principles. So I actually focus on that second myth, because it pervades all the other Christian nationalist arguments out there. If America was not founded on Judeo-Christian principles, it is not a Christian nation. All of their other arguments failed. And while many

authors have refuted that first fiction, the Christian nation, nobody's ever touched that second myth. So I went and I compared Judeo-Christian principles to our founding principles. I compared the Bible to the Constitution. I compared the Ten Commandments to the Ten Amendments. And I really walk the reader through and argue not only that we were not founded on Judeo-Christian principles, but again, that those principles are opposed to the values that founded America. So that's kind of the first big difference. And the second big difference was my approach. You know, previous books have offered, they've offered gentle corrections to the Christian nationalists. You know, actually, guys, here's what history tells us. Here's what the founders actually meant. Here's what the founders actually said. And they

kind of leave it at that. But correction is not enough. Otherwise, President Trump would not be President Trump. And I also go on the offensive. This book is an assault on the Christian nationalist identity. Not only are Christian nationalists wrong, their beliefs and identity run counter to the ideals on which this nation was founded. They are un-American. And I think that's really kind of critical because we are in a fight for what it means to be an American. They want to say that to be an American is to be a Christian, but patriotism has no religion. And honestly,

this is not a fight that we can afford to lose. Well said. Well said. Well, I'll tell you what, you are absolutely speaking our audience's language when you talk about going on the offensive. But I want to give you a chance to respond to a potential criticism that I think you'll probably run into. In the book, you say things like, you know, Christian principles are un-American. You compare God to a gorilla in a threat display. Are you worried that you're turning away potentially sympathetic Christian readers when you say stuff like that? Not particularly. I mean, you know, calling out Christian nationalism as un-American, I can understand maybe why that might be distasteful to some people. You know, the word un-American might make some people squeamish because there's this

inherent value judgment in it. But the point I'm trying to make is we are in a fight for our values. America is in a fight for its values, and Christian nationalism is warping and torching those values. It's dragging our country down this dark hole. So to hesitate to describe that identity with apt phrases because they might be unpleasant is to cede the American identity to an imposter. To refuse to label that which is antithetical to America

is to watch Christian nationalists hijack our nation. Yeah, the thing is that they certainly aren't avoiding that, right? So it would be a unilateral disarmament if we did. That's a great way to put it. I think that makes perfect sense. Absolutely. Yeah, it's also kind of the principle that this show was founded on as well. All right, so now the book is broken down into four sections. The first section kind of deals with the quotes, and then you go into more of the stuff that you were just discussing. And then the book sort of closes off with a lot of discussion about the Christian phrases that have sort of crept into our government language.

God bless America, one nation under God, et cetera. These are, you know, we cover a lot of this stuff on the show. And invariably, I get atheists that will comment on it, that will write in and say, hey, man, these fights don't matter. Right. Like the the fights that matter are the fights for gay rights and the fights for this, that, the other, you know, whatever their X, Y, Z issues are as the most important ones. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Why do fights like this matter so much? That's an excellent question. And it's something that, especially working at FFRF, that we get in our work all the time. And I've given a talk repeatedly on this. I'm sure there's a version up on YouTube somewhere called something usually titled like Sweat the Small Stuff, why it's important to challenge these small violations. And especially when you're talking about these

phrases like in God we trust or one nation under God, they are symbols. And we disregard the power of symbols at our own peril. You know, Greta Christina wrote a great piece on this once, and she pointed out that, you know, segregated drinking fountains weren't really the biggest problem facing the civil rights movement. Segregated lunch counters weren't really that big a deal, but they were symbolic of the larger fight and important to tear down those symbols for that reason. So I think that's something that everybody needs to keep in mind. They can certainly go check out the talk that I gave. I think I gave it at one of the FFRF conventions. And as I'm answering that, I'm thinking about another point to your previous question about turning certain members of my audience off with some maybe stronger language.

And I should say too, I don't think I'm going to convince Christian nationalists with this book to change their minds. I'm aiming at secular Americans and the middle section of the country, trying to wake them shout that argument down, defeat them so that it doesn't get repeated and end up in our legislation or in a court case, a judge citing it in a court case to decide the law erroneously. Yeah, which is a real thing, by the way, that Andrew points out in his book. That's not a hypothetical there. No, it is absolutely not a hypothetical i have seen that happen and i can say you know as a person who just read the book you do a great job of exactly that i you know i because you know the arguments are worse than you think if you just have like a sort of a cursory understanding of american history as i do and you have a cursory understanding of the law, you can refute these arguments pretty convincingly, but they're actually way worse than you think. And this book does a great job, I think, of arming you with, you know, not just the

baseline refutation, but like you said, the offensive bit that goes after that, right? Absolutely. And that is the primary goal of it. So if you take things like In God We Trust or One Nation Under God, since we were just talking about those, most of your listeners probably know that those are not from the founding era. And they'll leave it at that. But that actually tells us, and if you look at the history, it tells us even more, that Christian nationalists used deliberately, they took advantage of times of strife and division in this country to impose their religion on everybody else. I mean, it was deliberately done. One of the Christian nationalists who's responsible for getting In God We Trust on our money specifically said that during the Civil War, when our country is tearing itself apart, brothers are killing brothers, that that was a, quote, propitious time. It was lucky that that was going on because they could get the money or their God on our money. Yeah, unbelievable. Well, luckily, we're not in a divisive time where the country is rent apart now or they could really get their foot in the door. So, you know, thanks for the book. Thanks for the information. Thanks for the great read.

That was my pleasure. And thank you so much for having me on. before I read it. The book is available for pre-order now. It's releasing on May 14th. It's densely packed with information, but still manages to be a really fun, easy read. So if you want to learn once more that the Christian arguments are even worse than you thought, check the show notes for a link to pre-order your copy. Once again, the name of the book is The Founding Myth, Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American by Andrew L. Seidel. You got to have an initial if you want to be a great author after all. Andrew, thanks again for hanging out, man. It is absolutely my pleasure. Before we straighten your ear back out tonight, I want to tease you a little bit.

Andrew Seidel was kind enough to stick around after the interview for a Patreon exclusive where he shared what he believed to be the two biggest legal battles facing the wall of separation. One was the answer I kind of expected. The other wasn't. And it was goddamn terrifying. So if you're not already a patron, be sure to check out Patreon dot com slash scathing atheist. Get your extended episodes. Get not one but two AMA episodes this month. Get early access to an ad free show. Get merch discounts and rewards and make Andrew Torres go lefthand red. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight, but 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, I have to thank Heath Enright for not abandoning us right before all the Matreon stuff. I also want to thank Eli Bosnick for abandoning us right before all the Matreon stuff. Honestly, probably a lot fewer goals that we're going to get sued over this way. I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for lending us the lovely talent once again this week. I want to thank Andrew Seidel one more time for hanging out. I also want to thank Jordan from Jordan Norman and the Wisdom Teeth for providing this week's Farnsworth quote.

If you want to give them a listen, you'll find a link on the show notes. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's small army of new donors who apparently don't think I can do this in one breath. Here we go. Sandy, Bungabop, Mark, Max, Ryan, Lewis, Leslie, Penny, Rachel, Brandon, Gavin, Christian, Adam, Sharon, Sammy, Steve, Michelle, Char, Stacy, Matthew, Nicole, Starlight, Lim, Rami, Ross, Tris, Luna, Yes, Jamie, Jason, Jennifer, John, Ben, Robert, DC, Hooligan, Dylan, Robin, Jake, Matt, Brian, Bob, Michael, Danny, Paul, Skullbeard, Martha, Patrick, Window, Cleaner, Aquaman, Jaster, Keely, Angie, Doom, Nola, Gal, Bahul, Chris, Charlotte, P.S., Timothy, Stuart, Scott, Marcus, Andrew, Napoleon, Vasher, Ian, Evan, David, Fox, Skull, Alter, Transformation Sequence, Julie, Emily, Andy, Jacob, Caleb, Stephanie, William, Humanist, Skull Alder, Transformation Sequence, Julie Emily, Andy, Jacob, Caleb, Stephanie, William, Humanist, Turtle, Cyborg, RBG, Harrison, a Dragon, Mediosh, Ender of Necros, Corey, Eric, Grand Priapism, Daniel, Miles, Nookin, Ketilin, Ramen,

Guy, Peter, Justin, Peach, the Fucker, and I'm sure I can find a logical reason why I spend this money. Whose intellects are more capacious than my lungs had to be to get through that? Give me a second. Together, these 103 people didn't quite get to my lung limit, but maybe next week's donors can do it. Also, by the way, a belated thanks to Sir Harry Palms the Blind,

whose dick gives the Hubble telescope deep penetration envy, and who donated a while back but slipped through the cracks when it came to thanking people. Sorry about that, Sir Harry Palms the Blind. Anyway, legal services for this podcast are provided by the 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 at scathingatheist.com. And boy, is this paragraph easy to say after doing all those 103 names. Woo! I've had, like, curry ketchup once in a while that was good, like a little dip. But that's because it's, you know, the extent to which it's something else, it's good. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, right, right, exactly. Fuck ketchup. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC, copyright 2019, all rights reserved.