The Scathing Atheist - 329: California Dreamin' Edition

Episode Date: June 6, 2019

In this week’s episode, Joseph Smith copies off of Matthew’s homework, Heath gets removed from a winery despite being quite certain we were in America, and the we’ll have to check the “use by��� date on a few of these headlines. --- 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=sr_1_1?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: Check out the Pilot here: https://www.amazon.ca/Pilot-seaside-sci-fi-story/dp/1094942979 Check out the Cup of Words podcast here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/marissaalexamccool/cup-of-words-2?fbclid=IwAR3qu9FlmHhprFJRvap-0NMng5oyIhxN4zL1jvY9yZK8AE_lgLdaOWBoRjY --- Headlines: TN judge shares article telling Jewish people to "get the fuck over the Holocaust": https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/11/tn-judge-shares-article-telling-jews-to-get-the-f-over-the-holocaust/ Anti-Vax Student Who Sued Kentucky Over Chickenpox Vaccine Gets… Chicken Pox: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/09/anti-vax-student-who-sued-kentucky-over-chickenpox-vaccine-gets-chickenpox/ Texas still going on about Chick-Fil-A: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/12/save-chick-fil-a-bill-fails-in-texas-after-democrats-clever-maneuver/ and https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/14/texas-senate-revives-save-chick-fil-a-bill-while-avoiding-public-input/  Religious couples have better sex lives, and this Is totally an objective truth: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/23/religious-couples-have-better-sex-lives-and-this-is-totally-an-objective-truth/ Templeton funded, Vatican presented report about atheism isn’t bullshit: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/28/research-presented-at-vatican-shows-that-anti-atheist-stereotypes-are-inaccurate/ Hate Group Leader: The Equality Act Is Really the “Death to Christianity Act” https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/15/hate-group-leader-the-equality-act-is-really-the-death-to-christianity-act/ Mike Pence warns liberty graduates people will make fun of them for their terrible beliefs: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/11/mike-pence-whines-to-liberty-graduates-its-now-fashionable-to-ridicule-faith/ Kelly Kullberg is a prolific troll: https://religionnews.com/2019/05/17/report-traces-anti-muslim-facebook-astroturfing-campaign-to-evangelical-activist/

Warning, even our profanity warning has profanity in the motherfucker. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by HIMSS, Stamps.com, and by The Scathing Atheist Patreon-only pajama party! Live stream this Saturday, June 8th, from 9pm to 2am Eastern. Games, an Ask Me Anything, magic juggling, and a musical performance and more, because damn it, you delivered. And now, The Scathing Atheist.

All right, this is Denny Gassen, child genius, beholder of all useful knowledge in the universe, and the first human to achieve faster-than-light travel. I went on an adventure, which you can read about in The Pilot, the new novel from david gamer find it on amazon it's a good story you'll like it i even met god turns out he's full of shit because despite what he'd like us to think he knows full well that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men It's Thursday.

It's June 6th. And it's Atheist Pride Day! Okay, it's a weird month to pick for that, but I'll take it. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bonder. I'm Ethan Wright. And from Ariel Versace's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Joseph Smith copies off Matthew's homework.

Heath gets removed from a winery despite being quite certain we were in America. And we'll have to check the use-by date on a few of these headlines. But first, the diatribe. It's amazing how little religious people are willing to whittle God down to when they're trying to sell him to you. See, I've been getting a lot more of this lately. Of course, ever since I started doing the show, I've gotten a steady stream of Christian apologists reaching out to sell me their Jesus. But by and large, they're either all caps, Internet trolls or seasoned apologists that know their arguments and have their William Lane Craig approved flow charts. But since I moved back to Georgia, I've had to reacquaint myself with the layman's brick and mortar version of the Jesus pitch. And to be fair, I bring it on myself.

the layman's brick and mortar version of the Jesus pitch. And to be fair, I bring it on myself, right? When people ask what I do for a living and everybody always asks that, I say, I do a podcast about atheism. Now, so far, I've been able to lump every single reaction to this into one of three categories. There's the disappointed, disapproving side glance followed by a rapid subject change. There's the show me on the doll where the priest touch you. I'm really just concerned for your mortal soul. Look how wide my eyes are, folks that have been convinced by Christian movies and stories that all I really need here is to have a good cry about why I'm so angry at God. And then I'll fall back into the open arms of mother church.

And then finally, there are the let me tell you what I'm going to do for you, folks. These are the folks that are pretty sure they can get me to drive away in this Savior today if I don't answer yet. They've spoken with their pastor and gotten special permission to offer me my eternal salvation at a very steep discount, but I got to get it today. And this is what I call whittling away at God, right? If they can't get even the thinnest wedge into the door, they'll settle for a toothpick. Don't like the anti-gay stuff? Well, their pastor is very open-minded about the gays, and when he gives money to anti-LGBT hate groups, he does it very discreetly. Don't like the sexism? Well, their church lets women hold high-ranking positions all the way to the top, theoretically.

They just haven't found the right woman yet. Don't like the strict moral codes? Well, don't worry, because if you come to our church and join in our collective delusion once a week, literally no one will give a shit how immoral you are. You can still have blood on your fist from abusing your spouse, and we will all dutifully turn the other cheek so we can't see it. Don't like the wild implausibility of the entire concept of God? Well, don't worry, because our religion comes with a toggle where everything we say can be literal or metaphorical, depending on the situation, even if some of the stuff we say occasionally has to be both.

Hell, I had one guy a few months ago try to sell me on his church by telling me that the sermons were really short, like half an hour max. I mean, if I'm not willing to join their religion for that, I'm the one being unreasonable, ain't I? And I mean, I guess I get where they're coming from. You know, a lot of people probably don't go to church because going to church is onerous and boring. Religious people are annoying and judgy. So if you're trying to talk the lapsed Christian back into church, tell them about a church that's quick and easy and still counts is probably pretty effective most of the time. But it's some silly shit when the situation you're trying to rectify is, I don't even believe in your God. But despite the guaranteed misfire undergirding this whole argument, I fucking love it.

Because whether they realize it or not, what they're really saying to me is nothing about my religion matters. There is no element of it that these people aren't willing to jettison if it means that you'll agree that Jesus Christ is the one true Lord and Savior. A statement which, once all the theological underpinnings have been jettisoned, is entirely meaningless. And I know this isn't true for all Christians, right? Some of them have really rigorous constructs and kill each other for generations over the smallest deviations, but most of them don't really give a fuck about the specifics. Jesus loves them, they live forever, bad people go to hell. If you're good on those things, hell, if you're good on the first two, they're good with you. These are the Christians who blame the fundamentalists for giving religion a bad name as though something

can have bad fundamentals and deserve a good one. Hell, at their most extreme, they'll tell you the problem isn't with religion. It's with organized religion. Religion is a goddamn system of organization. By definition, all religion is organized. It's self-contradictory, and yet they don't hesitate to toss it out there like it's a distinction that a sane person would recognize. And the goal here, of course, is to whittle down God until he fits comfortably in your pocket, no matter how small your pocket is, only to layer all that harmful bullshit back on later. Or you know what? Or maybe not. Sometimes there are Joel Osteen types that just want your money. Either way, we have a term for a person whose product suddenly turns into whatever it

is that you're willing to buy. And the term isn't honest. They're talking about you, Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Callie and Forney to my Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to sit back, relax, and not record headlines this week? I mean, Eli never writes his headlines. We write them for him. But I guess this week he doesn't have to read a script, so that's nice. So yeah, we're in Callie this week on a much-needed vacation.

But don't worry, there will be headlines, even if we're not going to record them. Over the last few weeks, we've stocked up on a couple of extra headlines that are, well, possibly a little out of date. Still pretty damn relevant. So without any noticeable mid-sentence change in audio signatures, we'll take a quick break for a word from our first sponsor this week, Hymns. Oh, I got one. I got one. So this guy is sitting in a bar when he notices there's this teeny tiny man sitting on a teeny tiny grand piano. Well, I didn't wish for

a 12-inch penis. Sorry. Sorry. Premature ejoculation. It can happen at any time, but now there's help. Guys, guys, this week's ad is for help with premature ejaculation, not ejoculation. Oh.

There's help for that? Yes. Yeah, there is. Thanks to 4hims.com. No, what's 4hims.com? 4hims offers access to physician consultations and prescription treatments online for the common issues men deal with. Wow. Science and talking about dicks.

That's like right in our wheelhouse. It really is. Yeah. They connect you to a doctor online who can evaluate you and help identify the right treatment for you. Best yet, it can be delivered right to your door in discreet packaging. Yeah, but that's got to be super expensive, right? Not at all. Right now, our listeners get a special offer.

You can get started for just $10. Just go to forhims.com slash atheist to get started. That's forhims.com slash atheist. See website for full details and safety information. Man, I haven't seen an ad this well-placed since we— Coconuts. More like cocoa nuts. Damn heath sorry sorry i got excited there's nothing for the other thing huh no a joke yeah it's a compliment and now back to headlines already in progress and And next up in headlines, if

you look like a Nazi walrus, you should not be allowed to hold a position of power in the U.S. government. Bold. I think that's fair. For example, I should not be allowed to hold a position of power in the U.S. government. Harsh but fair. Harsh but fair.

Okay. And neither should National Security Advisor John Bolton. No. Or Attorney General William Barr. Okay. Shaved the mustache but still looks like a walrus. Or Wilford Brimley. But most importantly, definitely not Tennessee Judge Jim Lammy, who might be a literal Nazi walrus or maybe human. Either way, not great. Yeah, I'm going to need to watch Jim Lammy ignore a beach ball for at least a full minute before I'm convinced

he's not a literal Nazi walrus. Look at this skinned penguin over here, Jim. Oh, I don't care about that at all, but you should probably leave it in my chamber. I thought that was about chamber. I thought that was about seals. I thought it was just

seals. Okay, you're a Nazi seal. Is that what you're arguing? That's a weird argument. Anyway, we recently got all the confirmation we needed that my Nazi walrus rule is amazing. When Judge Lammy went on Facebook and posted a link to an article by

notorious Holocaust denier David Cole. Jesus. And the article included the exact words that Jewish people need to, quote, finally get the fuck over the Holocaust. And really quote. Wow. No. OK, I get it. Tennessee Hillbilly.

You know what? You know what killed my granite cancer? 8.2 million victims every year. So that's like 1.37 Hitlers a year. You don't hear us whining about it forever. Do you? Well, for Jim Lammy, it's more of a, more of a warble and it's, that's just during mating season.

So, you know, you can't really hold that against him. Yeah. So, uh, never say never. Forget. Lovely. Even before Lammy started going on social media and making a public spectacle of his Nazi sympathizing, we already had plenty of evidence that he's a giant bigot. Obvious number one on this list,

he got elected by the people of Tennessee. Yeah. And he lives in Tennessee. And he looks like a Nazi walrus. We had plenty of warning signs. But most importantly, he's been forcing jailed immigrants to register themselves with ICE before he's willing to ever grant them probation. Wow. And he's not doing this with white Canadian immigrants, if that's what you're thinking.

According to a local advocacy group, it's a clear pattern of only doing this with Latino prisoners. Wow. And he's a judge like right now, today, while you are listening to this on your way to work. If someone doesn't call that guy your honor today, they're the one who gets in trouble. call that guy your honor today they're the one who gets in trouble think about it unreal yep that's all factual so following the post about the article by the professional holocaust denier a local reporter asked lammy for a quick interview and lammy's an idiot so he was like yeah great it's about time i got got some attention about my amazing Internet memes. I've been crushing the memes. And just for context, the article in question is called Stop with the Golems Already. And it's about how liberal Jewish Americans are helping Muslims infiltrate the United States, which is exactly like when old timey folklore rabbis used their Jewish magic to create mud monsters that are difficult to control.

And somewhere in there, the article was like, speaking of mud monsters, Jewish people need to drop it already with this whole Holocaust thing. holocaust thing fucking pretty much you know to be fair to to lammy though when he shared it he did warn readers that the article had some swear words in it you know he literally literally yeah he didn't want to offend people hoping for family-friendly nazi propaganda after all dear holocaust deniers language come on signed an actual judge i'm a judge right now so yeah this reporter uh i guess he was trying to give lammy an out at some point and said something like hey so you know like a retweet doesn't equal an endorsement maybe that's your response you can say something like that but lammy was like no I definitely do endorse this um maybe not the holocaust denier part so much but uh a bunch of the other stuff and then Lammy

very literally said my best friend who's deceased now was Jewish and I wouldn't do that some of his best friends he He died in the Holocaust. Yeah. I wouldn't deny the Holocaust because of my dead Jewish friend in camp in Canada. You guys don't know him. Yeah.

So seriously, like that's why you wouldn't deny the Holocaust? Yeah, right. Really? Judge with real political power the fuck are you guys doing down there this is one of just many reasons that tennessee can't have nice things we get like the right to vote they can't yeah or senators if you guys weren't bordered on that side by georgia kentucky and north carolina we give somebody

else your fucking mountains too you assholes exactly and in a pox on both their houses news tonight now regular listeners to the show might remember jerome kunkel who made national headlines last year for winning looks most like his last name three years in a row but you might also remember him for suing the state of Kentucky and losing when they banned unvaccinated kids from school and extracurricular events. You know, because he could fucking kill people. Death. Yeah. But I mean, guns can kill people. We're not taking any efforts to keep them out of schools.

He just wants consistency. Kunkel wants consistency. That's fair. That is fair. wants consistency. Kunkel wants consistency. That's fair. Now we should point out that Kunkel and his parents object to the vaccine because they're stupid.

They believe the chickenpox vaccine of 2019 is made of the cells of a fetus aborted in 1966. So, Noah. They think the chickenpox vaccine is made of Noah, I think all right well at least

you have me being born after the invention of vaccines this time okay i'll see getting closer either way old news i know what you're thinking except this week he got chicken pox that's right i'm so happy at the age the third happiest I've ever been about someone getting chicken pox, right? That's right. At the age of 18, Jerry Conks has chicken pox, making it substantially more dangerous to his health and the health of those around him. Just injecting himself with egg wash. I figure this is the homeopathic vaccine for chickenpox.

This should do it. Eggs and water and stuff. That said, field correspondent Eli Bosnick confirms that if you connect all the dots on his ass, they do perfectly spell out vaccinate your fucking kids. So it's not all bad for him this week. He's got a little message there. I mean, honestly, you were spending so much time connecting the dots on his ass. I'm glad it finally spelled out something. It's a good looking boy. What can I say? Gave himself measles to draw a circle with a cross

through that. And in much a doodle do about nothing news tonight, if there was ever any doubt that the human rights of chicken sandwiches were more important to Texas lawmakers than the human rights of women, those were put to rest over the last couple of weeks as the San Antonio airport legislative cockfight over Chick-fil-A's exclusion has continued to dominate local politics into its fourth week now. Hey, guys, pretty sure the Scopes monkey trial would get decided the same way in 2019 Texas as it did in 1925 Tennessee. Airport chicken! Really?

You got some weird priorities going. All right. So the story that we covered on the show with apologies for covering such a meaningless news item and then accidentally covered again because I fucked up on the edit the following week. Sorry about that. Heath had to talk me out of seppuku, but he did. I said we should just run it every week for the rest of our show and never acknowledge it, but I was out of it.

I was out of it. Listener at home. Anyway, so the story began when the San Antonio City Council removed Chick-fil-A from a list of new restaurants it was approving for the airport, citing the company's long history of anti-LGBT activism. And then Christians freaked out all the way up the political chain to the attorney general and the governor because apparently the First Amendment

has some well-known but as of yet unspoken clause about the right to unfettered chicken commerce if you're a bigot on behalf of Jesus. If i can't fly from cut and shoot texas to jot them down texas to white settlement texas which are real towns and then back to san anton without buying some heterosexual chicken and pickles i'm gonna lose my goddamn mind see now i genuinely don't know if those are real cities in Texas. They could be. My guess is that they are. Those are absolutely real cities in Texas. They really have a white settlement, Texas.

They have a white settlement, Texas. They have Jot-Em-Down, Texas. Cut and Shoot. They have Cut and Shoot, Texas. Yep. What was that shorthand? Who was like, you know what we do a lot of around here? Foreign policy.

All right. like you know we do a lot of around here foreign policy all right so so after all this the state house of representative gets involved they introduce hb 3172 which would block any city from taking adverse actions against a company that did something objectionable while acting on a sincerely held religious belief except they're all a bunch of fucking idiots who can't law for shit so when the bill's sponsor steps up to explain it, one of the Democrats is like, hey dude did you even cross your T's and dot your I's? And they hadn't. No!

The guy has to sheepishly admit that they had not in fact crossed their T's or dot of their I's. And then that same Democrat is like, okay, you know the deadline for getting all your T's crossed and your I done it was last thursday right and then he just stood there for a really long time i'd like to think i mean i don't know what i could like the article didn't go into detail but i want to hear the audio of that silence oh yeah this was absolutely amazing this is state rep julie johnson who tricked them all like Bugs Bunny.

She calls a point of order, gets a bunch of Republicans to huddle up angrily and read the inside of the box of the board game. While they're doing that, she's like, oh, the sand in the little timer ran out. It's too late. You guys are stupid.

That gavel I gave you was a squeaky hammer sorry i can't stop all right so anyway at that point the bill seemed like a dead issue but let's face it if their own stupidity was enough to take religious people down we'd be out of a job so a few days later republicans in the state senate took a crack at it and fast-tracked it past all the public comments bullshit that tripped up the house version and honestly as upset as i want to be about this i can't help but take a bit of solace from the fact that debating this bill means that they're not publicly arguing about whether it's okay to execute a woman for getting an abortion

right so yeah pretty low bar texas is set there alabama's digging under it. What's this, motherfuckers? No, they are. And in female orgasms and eternal paradise news, according to a new study, traditional religious couples have the happiest relationships and the best sex lives. Really?

The study was conducted. This is very exciting stuff. So, the study was conducted by none of your business and the raw data they gathered is none of your goddamn business. Footnote, none of your business is a fully owned

subsidiary of the Institute for Family Studies, a conservative propaganda group with ties to the Koch brothers and a history of homophobia. Second footnote, the study was conducted in tandem with the Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University. Oh, okay. So the secret, possibly non-existent data got a bunch of Mormon on it, too. Yeah, no, it was inscribed in golden plates, but they had to give them back after they did the study.

Okay, how about we conduct our own fucking study? Everybody listening, tell your partner tonight, I'm going to fuck you like a Mormon. And then afterwards, before you fuck them, ask them if they think that's a threat or a promise. Is that a good thing, a bad thing? Scale of one to ten. Or, hey, Noah, maybe when you you say that you're just initiating your weekly Bryce Blakenegal roleplay like don't there's a lot of reasons you'd say that

explains the soup so maybe some people are just hungry so here's how they arrived at these numbers first they decided that the god of the bible is the all-knowing creator of the universe, and then he gets mad

when numbers make him look bad. That was the first part of the science step one. Two of their science projects was putting together a big sample of women and then throwing out anyone who wasn't a heterosexual married woman. And then they asked all the

real women that were remaining if they were in a relationship with above average quality and apparently highly religious wives in marriages with old-timey gender roles answered yes about 73 percent of the time which was the highest score of any group estimating if they were in an above average relationship. 73% of their sample was above average. That's literally what they went with. That's the conclusion they went with. That's the best.

That's the dumbest statistics I've ever heard. If you're religious, all nine of you can be the top how much of you would say is half don't say a number larger than half i was damn it s was already wrong three quarters hey more than half of them are probably right. Yeah. So. Yep. That happened. They also asked, are you satisfied with your sexual relationship with your partner?

Caliente. And once again, the highest scoring group was highly religious women who strongly agreed 48% of the time. Oh, wow. Yeah. yeah yeah give it a second you'll get there everybody how terrifying and fucking sad is that the winning group of married women had less than a 50 50 chance of being sexually satisfied and and keep in mind that the bar we're trying to clear is satisfied, right? Like you lost before you lost,

right? Yeah, exactly. Ah, sex that hit the spot. Plus to be fair, conservative religious women are way more used to getting that question and that exact wording.

There. Are you satisfied? No, no, absolutely. Meh or better. Absolutely. Wow. Yeah? No, no, absolutely meh or better. Absolutely. Wow.

Yeah, and in case you're wondering, no, they did not correct for the inability of religious people to handle uppity data that might contradict their thing or, you know, their inability to understand what average might mean as a thing in between zero and 100. Nor did they correct for those people being goddamn liars or being terrified of speaking honestly about their male owner.

Yeah. So I'm assuming the majority of the responses they got from allegedly the happiest group were like, yeah, no, I'm loving our traditional Christian marriage. We've been doing lots of consensual recently. I am a lucky lady. God is love. Look how wide my eyes are. So wide.

Would you like a baked good? Yep. I made too many again. So I guess we learned that ignorance and lying are bliss. Or maybe being gay. Maybe, bliss or or maybe being gay maybe yeah or maybe being not married uh those are also possibly bliss i mean we we've only got a sample size of one i would not describe you as blissful i will say that um compared to you would you describe me yes i would okay he's above average two-thirds of us are above average when it comes to blissfulness

yeah but again we have no idea about you know whether there's any happiness in being gay or not married because those people don't count right obviously put that in their data but that said heath and i know a business opportunity when we see one so hit it morgan oh god no Hit it, Morgan. Oh, God, no. Hi, I'm Eli Bosnick. And I'm Heath Enright. Do you want to spice up your love life according to science? Are you looking for the scientifically proven secrets to rock your woman's world? Well, then check out the first sex guide written by conservative Christians for conservative Christians. conservative Christians or conservative Christians.

The Sama Sutra with over 200 Jesus-approved sex positions. Like the literally a missionary position. And pretending not to be gay. And of course, rape.

The Sama Sutra just because you're not going to hell doesn't mean you can't be hot. And in I'm Not a Monster news tonight, a Templeton Foundation-funded survey about atheism was presented at the Vatican this week and... I'll give you a million guesses how this sentence ends. You'll never fucking get it. Hamsters keep eating your teeth while you sleep. What? No. 999,999

guesses to go. No. I'll tell you. It was bullshit? No. It wasn't bullshit. I was so close. That's right. No, you weren't. We'll give a lot of money to the scientist that lies the most for Jesus Foundation,

funding something presented at the first international church of you're not going to look in the trunk, are you? And it actually turned out to be kind of useful. So the researchers for this study spoke with atheists in six different countries, the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Denmark, China, and Japan. And I automatically liked the study because they didn't group atheists by people who identified as atheists, but rather as people who said they didn't believe in God. Oh, atheists. Yes, exactly.

Right. In fact, the second of their eight key finding was that a fuck ton of atheists identify as Christians. Right. In Denmark, 28% of atheists do. The third key finding is that the majority of atheists don't self-identify as atheists. Now, believe it or not, America actually leads in that category. But even then, only according to their survey, 38% of atheists are willing to use the A word.

Cool. What are the other people using? Humanist or agnostic or rationalist or freethinker or something like that. Okay, humanist. Yeah, all right. Well, I mean, I guess it's about whether you want to be in a group with Neil deGrasse Tyson or the other group. So tough call, whether you want to use that A word. Do you like music?

Do you? So the survey also debunked the myth of the dogmatic atheist pushing back against the common perception of the overly confident atheist by pointing out that atheists in each country studied were about as or less confident in their beliefs than the religious folks in the same nation. Wouldn't we have to? I'm glad they figured that out. But how is this fucking complicated? Our entire position is those guys are overly confident about that god thing that's it i don't know i feel like if you had to measure me against the average christian i might win but it also shreds the notion that atheists are purposeless nihilists the bullshit idea that we're less moral or have no moral code or have a different moral code than

other people all of that debunked all right well i i get what they're saying but just for the record we do have a different moral code and it's objectively better it's we we move it remember the moral code from 1850 ours is different now ours changed well remember the moral code from zero ours is different now that's the great thing they've got from one so but here's the thing though is is that so has theirs, right? When you take religion out of it and you ask the questions just based on morals, we all answer the same. Their moral code and our moral code are the same unless you inject the Bible in there. And then they're like, oh, right.

Yeah. Also, fuck the gays. Right. The book means a new thing now. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So and that's what they do over and over again.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So and that's what they do over and over again. So, yeah, these researchers stood at child rape cover up central and proclaim with charts and data that you can get all the morals, meaning, purpose and humility that religion has been selling for 10 percent all this time for free without creating superstition corporations with more dedication to holding on to power than to preventing child rape. And the fucking Templeton Foundation paid them to do that. So whoever just got fired at the Templeton foundation and the Vatican, give me a call. We don't have anything right now, nothing permanent,

but we could probably find some hedges for you to trim or something while you're looking. Okay. Let me know. And while we scrounge for odd jobs here at puzzle and a thunderstorm HQ, we'll take a quick break for a word from our other sponsor this week, Stamps.com. No, that's terrible. Try again.

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Tornado's are fast. Hey, guys. You giving him a backstory what are you guys doing we're changing our identities oh no did those pictures leak i thought we destroyed the originals no it's not it's not that not that it's about all the uh patreon promises we made i mean swag bags coloring books personalized messages it's all too much noah we're gonna have to change our identities and move. Alan Tornado, pleasure to meet you. Okay, number one, nobody is named Tornado. Thank you. And two, why don't we just use stamps.com? Wait, what's stamps.com?

Stamps.com brings all the amazing services of the U.S. Post Office right to your computer. Whether you're a small office sending invoices, an online seller shipping out products, or even a warehouse sending out thousands of packages a day, Stamps.com can handle it all with ease. Wait, how do they do that? Well, you can simply use your computer to print official U.S. postage 24-7 for any letter, any package, any class of mail, anywhere you want to send. Once your mail's ready, just hand it to your mail carrier or drop it in a mailbox. It's that simple. Plus, with Stamps.com,

you get five cents off every first class stamp and up to 40% off priority mail. Wow. So we can send Patreon rewards quickly without breaking the bank. Exactly. We've been using Stamps.com for our Patreon fulfillment for years. It's made sending merch, rewards, and more a breeze. Unless you lower your pledge, or your pledge isn't active, or you didn't include your home address, or you limited your pledge to a dollar, which I can clearly see it's how I filter the pledge reward.

And then you send me a message on Patreon, like you're waiting for medicine from the dog in the cartoon. It makes the shipping a breeze that's true it does make the shipping very easy 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 just go to stamps.com click on the microphone at the top of the home page and type in scathing that's stamps.com enter scathing you know what noah i think we can stick around after all i still want to be alan tornado we know you do buddy and we're back next up in headlines in good news tonight

you might have missed it as the banjo belt turned themselves into a live action role play of the handsmaid's tale this week but the house you elected in the midterms the one we told you was super important and that your stupid asshole cousin who didn't vote in 2016 told you wouldn't matter so he stayed home and got another tribal tattoo while listening to this mortal coils it'll all end in tears that house they passed the equality act this week which would add non-discrimination protections to federal law for LGBTQ people, something that doesn't currently exist and really, really needs to. Yeah. Of course, the operative word there is would, unfortunately, but yeah. It's terrifying that we have to make an exhaustive list of who gets to have the 14th Amendment.

We're doing that. Right. Especially when originalism would say it's nobody. The founding fathers didn't want anybody who isn't a landowning white man getting any new rights. That's right. According to the philosophy of a bunch of Supreme Court justices. What we are saying is Antolin Scalia was a genius. That's our position.

Now, a good thing happening in the world just isn't complete without a Christian losing their goddamn mind. And the Christian this week is Community Theater Production of Mannequin, Michelle Critella. Critella is a pediatrician and the executive director of the hate group, the American College of Pediatricians, who you might remember for hoping people confuse them for the real group of doctors, the American Academy of Pediatricians, long enough for them to get a chance to lie to people about gay and trans kids. Okay, that's it. You win, Eli. We are starting the salivation army. Get your red buckets and your bells okay you joke that lawsuit would make us a million dollars of free publicity just saying

so michelle is not happy about the equality act as you may have guessed and had the following to say about the bill quote a better name for it is the Death to Christianity Act. Okay? Yes, that is okay. I love that act. Absolutely. That's accurate. Continuing, that's going to be the umbrella. Christianity, it will cease to be publicly practiced. It will become against the law.

End quote. And one, Bill doesn't mention Christianity, but but i gotta say if your definition of christianity is discriminating against gay people then i mean michelle you're right and i'm glad you're right and i'm glad how do you know it's not bad when you're like look you can either have our religion or equality how do you not know you're the bad guy then i wonder who the bad guy is How do you not know you're the bad guy then? I wonder who the bad guy is. And in While My Guitar Gently Veeps News,

Vice President and White Power Ranger Mike Pence gave a delightfully sad commencement address for the graduating class of Liberty University last week. And much like the education they all got, the speech was mostly lies and flow charts for explaining your sincerely held hate crimes pence spent pretty much his entire time just whining about all the persecution that you're going to face if you're a christian in modern day america where society is now dominated by the lg and atheists. Unless, of course, you go to Indiana, where Pence set up a little Jim Crow thing for lots of those people during his time as governor. Okay, I mean, look, I know we talk about this same thing every fucking week, but I still can't even get my head around what they think.

Right? You're violating my rights to other people aren't having sex. Like, how do you even form that as a fucking sentence, let alone a persecution complex? With a little thing known as American gumption, Noah. American gumption. So, with the help of his wife to sit behind him and ward off all the vagina magic from thousands of women in the same enclosed area. Pence explained the Christian white man's burden. And instead of delivering an inspirational message, he just kind of like got sad and

gave up. He really did. We got to watch the vice president of the United States have this depressing realization about his own life in real time while standing on stage in front of thousands of people. He's just like, I don't know, guys, Liberty University. It's not going to work out. There's they're all going to laugh at you. Fuck, I don't know. You're going to try to see hamilton and the cast is gonna make fun of you and just everyone just yells boo all the time everywhere you go you can't get a cheese plate

i'm just i'm having a bad couple of years you will too it's not good luck throw your cap i don't know. Throw them. Great. Okay. Okay. Like, he might as well curl up behind the podium and take a nap. Just shiver a bit. He's just like, y'all ever hope that sometimes history gets amnesia? Is that just me? I wrote the New York Times editorial.

Boo. Nobody cares. Gerbils. You're gerbils. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It is okay. You. Gerbils. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It is okay.

You're gerbils. So, uh, no, normally a speaker at a college graduation, they'd give some sort of positive message about the next phase of your lives. Maybe something about engineering students, inventing new technology and future doctors, creating new medicine, future teachers, inspiring the next generation. Maybe some advice about how to accomplish those goals. But these kids all went to Liberty University, so they don't get to be those things. Yeah, yeah. Plus, impress a rapey Nazi and become his sidekick.

It's not really a great story for Steve. Accomplished his goals goals that's what he did uh it's more like a strategy for surviving jail um you know impressing a raping nazi becoming a sidekick that's a jail thing so instead we got 30 minutes of beautiful self-loathing instead of an inspirational message it was so much fun i turned it to an MP4. I jam out to it in my car. It's the best. And in AstroTurf War news tonight, Eli's nemesis has returned to do battle once more.

So I was so happy when I saw this story. Longtime listeners to the show might remember the name Kelly Kohlberg. And Eli's neighbors probably know it from the increasingly frustrated voodoo chants he yells over the fires in his backyard. But I feel like I should recap the story for the rest of it. Thank you. That voodoo doll is intense, by the way. Seriously, Eli, that's crazy. It looks like Sam

Kinison got attacked by a cinnamon roll. It's not attractive. It's accurate, is what I'm saying. It's an accurate Kelly Kohlberg voodoo doll. Very hardahlberg but very hard on that disturbing for a while so here's the story clearly way the hell back on episode 173 we covered the story of a christian author who claimed the writers of the movie god's not dead stole the idea from their script from her book and and we covered it with a who the fuck would take credit for that shit angle but eli was new to the show and his passion hadn't yet waned into the lackadaisical apathy that marks his performance these days so he decided to buy the book that she claimed they'd lifted their screenplay from

and and present a book report about it okay so just for the record when i die i will have not read finnegan's wake but i will have read read Finding God at Harvard and The Case for Christ. I mean, you could read Finnegan's Wake. I literally cannot. I literally cannot. Read some Keats. Alright, so...

So here's the rub. In the book, Kahlberg takes credit for reducing the numbers of suicides that had taken place in NYU in the early to mid 2000s by having a Christian seminar there once. And Eli took issue with this claim because, A, suicide statistics are complex things that move for a number of reasons, many of which are random. And no single suicide prevention measure could have been successful alone. And thus, it would be insane for a single person to take credit for them. And B, eli did that he's the one that made all those nyu kids not kill themselves with his play

i did she stole the only good thing i have ever done without noah and heath it matters so do you create the program or like not the point Heath isn't it and you never mentioned anything about that A thing that Noah was talking about I didn't come up you didn't suggest the statistics are complex he didn't kill himself though so there's that

single handedly not too late for me to fuck up their numbers so Eli bitches about Kelly Kohlberg for a couple dozen episodes. And then she fades from view like the nobody asked person who pretends she inspired God's not dead for a living is supposed to. And we thought we'd heard the last of her until she resurfaced at the end of a long Snopes investigation that started with the question. Gee, who's running all these rapidly anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant Facebook pages? Yeah, and the answer was high-ranking officials in the U.S. government.

Well. Police officers all over the country, even chiefs and sheriffs and judges all over the country, too. Plus that lady who stole credit for Eli's ever positive life-affirming sunshiny happiness play that right yeah come on god this is my jackpot this is like a 9-11 truther leaning on a door at the memorial and just stumbling into a room filled with dick cheney and george w and thermite just pictures come on give me this all right so basically here's the story kelly kohlberg sees uh news reports about how the russian troll farms got trump elected and she said to herself man i gotta get me one of those so she did and using a who's who of evangelical

trump supporting gop donors she created at least two dozen insanely bigoted Facebook groups to expound on the proclivity of Muslim immigrants to rape the Jesus right out of your daughter. And as if she was aware that she might be slipping a notch or two down on Eli's arch nemesis list, her pages also accused social justice warriors of hijacking the country and working to destroy America with Sharia law. They do. And on whatever note that winds up having been we're going to close the headlines for the night heath eli thanks as always dnd and when we come back lucinda won't be here either What I love about Joseph Smith is that his defining characteristic, above the promiscuity, above the charlatanry, above the deception, was his laziness.

I mean, sure, he wanted a cult of mentally enslaved sex toys, and he had designs on overthrowing the United States government and ruling America as its god and king, but not if it's going to be a whole big thing and nothing that we've seen better exemplifies that than the compendium of shit he meant to finish that is the pearl of great price it feels like it's all made of post-its that he forgot to number. Right. He doesn't even know when he wrote it. It's just like, connect to dream about skin. Whatever, next chapter. Flaming globes of Sigmund, what?

So, yeah, we've already heard Joey's take on Moses' journey. We've heard his script notes on the first few chapters of Genesis. And that's it for the Old Testament. We're done with that one and now we're going to move on to the New Testament for the one chapter long Joseph Smith translation of one tiny part of the book of Matthew and of course because it's Joseph Smith it's the part where Jesus meant to mention the importance of Joseph Smith it is and of course suffering alongside us again this time is my lovely wife, Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome back.

I don't really care how many rose petals you put between the door and the mic. This is not romantic. Fine. I don't know why I'm here. Thought it was the thought that counted. All right. So just to emphasize one more time, we're mostly just going to be talking about chapter 24 of the gospel according to Matthew. But I did read this side by side with a king james

version so i'll be able to point out all the tweaks that joey made and we're going to start i love this so much we're going to start with the words chapter one even though there is again only one chapter book one part one one all right so we're picking up the action at Matthew chapter 23, verse 37, which is the tail end of the seven woes bit he does about what a bunch of hypocrites the Pharisees are. And as you may recall in the original, Jesus ends this one with a promise to fuck Jerusalem shit up. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sorry. Just to be clear, basically, Joseph Smith rewrites the beware of false messiahs bit of the Bible to add an exception.

I mean, unless he seems legit and has like three dudes who say they saw his golden plate. Yeah, well, if he's got more, jump in with both feet is what I would say. I am Matthew. Sorry, Matthew here again. Last thing. Always trust white guys from upstate New York. They are perfect. And don't Google stuff to fact check.

Whatever you do. Wicked trustworthy. No doing that. All right. So Jesus is like, you know, he's like, I'm going to tear your tower down, Pharisees. And then he leaves. And all his disciples gather around and they're like, hey, man, you want, he's like, I'm going to tear your tower down, Pharisees! And then he leaves, and all his disciples gather around, and they're like, hey man, you want to show us that cool

tower-tearing thing you were talking about, or are you just leaving now? And Jesus totally gives the, oh, they're lucky I didn't tear down their tower thing. Right. Like, you know, the guy who just got beat up, explaining how he had to hold back

his karate because he would have accidentally killed the guy. Right, yes! If more people knew, guy who's lying about holding back his karate is way more on brand for Jesus than the golden rule, the world would be a better place. So anyway, Jesus trots

up to the Mount of Olives. All the disciples come after him and they go, so if you should show up to the mount of olives all the disciples come after him and they go so um if you should show up in the body of some dude from palmyra new york how would we know for sure so yeah jesus does his whole let no man deceive you a bit but to really get all of this you have to do the side by side reading where you realize things like the fact that he admits the whole part about how you'll know a would-be christ is a deceiver if he starts talking about a bunch of wars and shit and starting those he just he just plucks that out like he literally looked at a part of the bible where jesus was like well look out for guys like x thought it sounded too similar to him and left it out yeah you know

how christians think anti-discrimination legislature is always about them it's like that but genocide yeah right so the pearl of great price is basically the bible as reported by william barb yeah pretty much everybody dies well and from that point on jesus delivers the religious equivalent of the shit noah says on the drive home from a bad trip to denny's or something okay he just spends the rest of the chapter going and then i'm gonna burn down their houses and woe to the women who suck babies because i'll be shaking the fucking earth along the way okay it's very specific why why would i order appetizers if i wanted them with the meal how would they even be appetizers then

no that waitress seemed like a crier anyway you were barely yelling thank you that's true something was gonna set her off no help me uh this is also where he warns that christians will be persecuted but i also love how quick jesus gives up on them you're right in verse 7 he's like they'll persecute you verse 8 and you bitches will roll over like a sick stall. And then you get the part where Jesus warns that the destruction of Jerusalem will be the cue for the start of the apocalypse. Also known as Mike Pompeo's foreign policy platform. Yeah, seriously.

One of these days, Pompeo's wife is going to leave a pile of her clothes on the floor and we're going to nuke Tehran. Yes. He's going to be like, fuck, rapture's on. Let's get this ball rolling. Red team, go. It's important for Jesus, Prince of Peace, by the way, for you to know that when he comes back, your wicked ass might try to run. But if you so much as go back for your shoes, he'll smite the fuck out of you. Yes.

Right. And if you think pro-life anti-abortion jesus is going to make an exception for pregnant women you're mistaken those bitches get it too right right okay but what about suckling newborns and the suckling newborns too he makes that clear he actually stops in the middle of his rant j Jesus, Prince of Peace to say, and those pregnant bitches are really going to get it. They're going to be waddling at best. They're going to be easy to pick off with my eye lasers.

Hey, Joe, why do you think Jesus spent so much time on killing breastfeeding babies? And another thing, Karen, fucking Karen, are you writing? I'm writing. And then he makes it super clear

that when he goes off and triggers Armageddon it's going to be because the Jews pissed him off. Okay, okay. This entire verse is Joey's very own. Okay, most of this shit is more or less directly lifted from the King James but Joey added a whole verse about how it's mostly going to be the Jews' fault

when the world ends. Yeah, I mean, what are they even doing in that neighborhood at that time of day? Dressed like that, fucking breastfeeding? Come on. God's not a mind reader. They're asking for it. They're asking for that. That's them.

Despite his frequent additions and omissions, Joey does keep the whole bit about, you know, if any man say unto you, lo, here is to Christ, believe him not. And I have a theory why in the bible it says that the false messiah will quote show great signs and wonders and shall quote deceive the very elect so maybe this was a defense right like he was joey was going like guys i can barely do the coin from the ear trick and the smartest guy i deceived was oliver cowdrey i can't be a false messiah. It says so in the Bible. He's doing the juggler thing, right? Like, oh, if I didn't drop, you wouldn't know it was hard.

But again, with genocide. With genocide. Well, this is also about where Jesus goes full Dr. Seuss in his warnings about false messiahs. He's all like, you will not find me in the desert. You will not find me in the secret chamber. You will not find me in a box. You will not find me in the secret chamber. You will not find me in a box. Then he comes, he warns about all the wars and pestilences and earthquakes that will foretell the second coming of the Prince of Peace.

Yeah. And then we go full apocalypse with the sun going out, the moon not giving off its light, stars falling from the heavens, and then some vague shit about space shaking. The sun's going to go out, and guys, I know what you're thinking. Don't worry. We just switched day and night and used the moonlight. But the moon is not going to pick up

that slack. No. Not going to happen. Also, I love every chance we get to highlight this bit. Matthew 24, 34 in the bible and who knows some verse in this one that doesn't quite match up to that because he had to add shit about fuck the jews um at least two of the people that jesus is talking to at that moment will still be alive when the apocalypse happens i cannot overemphasize that this particular verse verse was demonstrably wrong before it was written down and that joe kept it yeah in his version

of all the edits this is the part wait a second what you two very old guys walking around that's got to be an awkward moment by the way you're hanging out with jesus and the rapture happens just like oh i'm still here cool no that's fine no heads up great no that's great be that way uh so anyway tribulation tribulation tribulation then jesus makes this heroic entrance to the sound of trumpets and he'll kick the ass of all the people kicking the ass of all the people and then and i've never understood this moment okay in the bible after 30 or so verses of explaining exactly what's going to happen in the lead up to jesus's return we spend the rest

of the chapter and half of the next one talking about how nobody will have any clue when jesus is going to come back okay i got it theory you know how someone will say something and it doesn't register in your brain that you want to respond until it's too late like someone just works at the end then i think that's what happened but with like there's gonna be the two living guys thing like he rushed right through that and he's he's right and he's like oh did i say too little and by the way, obviously, it's implied nobody knows. Anytime. And of course, we also get the part where Jesus tells us that he might check our side work any day now.

So it better always be done right. Right. And I noticed you guys are putting out cookies and milk for Santa Claus. So, I don't't know maybe a cheese plate yeah and just a reminder what a cold-blooded motherfucker jesus is the exhortation to look busy with jesus returns ends with a reminder that if he comes across any drunk assholes he'll quote cut them asunder and appoint them their portion with the hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth end quote you hear that heath asunder and appoint them their portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

End quote. You hear that Heath? Asunder. So yeah, one chapter and we milked it for all it was worth and then some, and now we really have a sense of how little we're going to get from this slack ass book. So I guess we're going to be back next time with the first six sentences of

the next chapter of the Pearl of Great Price. At least it's been a quick read. Sunder? I'm not complaining. Before we go west, young man or woman or non-binary person, I want to remind all the patrons that this Saturday we're going to be live-streaming the Pajama Party starting at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

It's a patron-only thing that only patrons get, though, so don't tell all the non-patrons or they'll get super jealous and rush to Patreon so that they can have it, too. Look for more info on Patreon over the next couple of days and also the last couple of days. Sorry, I'm recording early. I'm confusing myself. Anyway, that's all the all the blast movie we've got for you tonight we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more if you can't wait that long be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show the skeptocrat debuting at 7 a.m eastern time on monday and even newer episode

of our sister shows hot friend god of movies debuting at 7 a.m eastern time on tuesday and even newer episode of our half sister show citation needed debuting at noon eastern on wednesday obviously this show would sink below the rss feed if i neglected to thank heath enright for promising to chloroform eli anytime he offers to drive on this California trip. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for volunteering to chloroform himself if Heath is eating, and I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for offering to chloroform Eli if Heath is chloroformed. I also want to thank David Gamer for providing this week's Farnsworth quote as Denny Gasson. Incidentally, if you'd like to find out what happened when Denny Gasson met

God, you'll find a link to the pilot on the show notes. Also, speaking of which, I need to thank Page Converse for providing last week's Farnsworth Quote Herc podcast. We'll also be linked on the show notes. And sorry about neglecting you last week. I had a lot of names and thanks and stuff to get through and they broke me. They broke me. I'm a broken man. And on that note, this is the part where usually I would thank a bunch of patrons in a single breath, no matter how many of them there were, but I'm not going to do that this week. And it's not because I'm still devastated by my inability to get out in one breath last week. I am still devastated by that, but it's because I'm recording this on last Friday.

We headed to California on Saturday. I just don't even know who they are yet, but I promise to thank you by name next week in one breath, even though I'll be stacking two weeks of patrons together next week. I can do it. I can do it. Back on that horse. Anyway, if you'd like to join the ranks of those as-yet-unmentioned new patrons, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button

on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help but you need your money more than we do, you can also help us a ton by leaving a five-star review on iTunes, liking our Facebook page, and following at piat pod on twitter legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of p andrew torres tim robertson handles our social media and our audio engineers morgan clark who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode which was used with permission if you have questions comments or death threats you find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingadius.com

you notice how many of those paragraphs that i usually would take a breath in i didn't take a breath in that time i just i was like i just like, I'm trying to make up for it now. It's really kind of pathetic. And feeling like you're riding a sweet, sweet dragon made of orgasms. Damn. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.