The Scathing Atheist - 339: Saving Silverman Edition

Episode Date: August 15, 2019

In this week’s episode, Christian science turns out to be mostly subtraction, Christian God considers punishing Sarah Silverman with dentistry and genocide, and Don Ford will be here to fantasize adventurously. --- To get your tickets to see Citation Needed live in NYC, click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/citation-needed-live-in-nyc-tickets-67044382553 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 Geologic Podcast here: http://www.geologicpodcast.com/ --- Headlines: The Mormon Church just got sued for perpetuating a giant "scheme of lies": https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/07/the-mormon-church-just-got-sued-for-perpetuating-a-giant-scheme-of-lies/ Christian Science, the Cult That Claims To Heal Death with Prayer, is Dying Out: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/08/christian-science-the-cult-that-claims-to-heal-death-with-prayer-is-dying-out/ The JWs take molesting kids to the Supreme Court: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/11/the-jehovahs-witnesses-want-the-supreme-court-to-help-them-cover-up-sex-abuse/ Most U.S. Catholics Reject the Idea That Eucharist is the Literal Body of Christ: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/06/most-u-s-catholics-reject-the-idea-that-eucharist-is-the-literal-body-of-christ/ TX Lawmaker: If Shooter is Charged With Hate Crime, So Will Preachers Someday https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/07/tx-lawmaker-if-shooter-is-charged-with-hate-crime-so-will-preachers-someday/ Straight Pride organizer calls his own thing a "totally peaceful racist group" during hearing: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/we-re-totally-peaceful-racist-group-says-straight-pride-organizer-n1040816 Adam Fannin is coming for Sarah Silverman, dammit: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/12/preacher-sarah-silverman-will-soon-bow-at-the-feet-of-the-men-in-this-church/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Deputy fired for being sexist claims he was… fired for being sexist: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/08/christian-sheriffs-deputy-i-was-fired-for-refusing-to-train-a-female-cop/

Warning, the following podcast can fuck tanks. You know what? Never mind, too late. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Hymns and by French's Mustard. Our monopoly is total. French's, I'm your mustard god now, and now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, I'm George Robb, and as the producer of the Geologic Podcast, I assure you that we

did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's August 15th. And it's the assumption of Mary. That Joseph was gullible as fuck. Yeah, I was going to have to say. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick.

I'm Heath Enright. And from Derek Jeter's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Christian science turns out to be mostly subtraction. Christian God considers punishing Sarah Silverman with dentistry and genocide. And Don Ford will be here to fantasize adventurously. But first, the diatribe. Now that I'm back in Georgia, by necessity, I've been interacting with a lot more Christians. They are fucking everywhere in this town.

And, you know, I'm no longer shying away from the atheist label, so I get into way more religious discussions with idiots than anyone should ever have to. Now, I'd love to say that I take on their theology and make the case for atheism in these conversations, but I rarely do if it's somebody I'm in danger of interacting with again. You know, I try to keep it as pleasant as possible. And what I've learned along the way is that I really don't even have to take down their theology. They'll do it themselves. Just asking them to explain their religion usually provides them with all the rope they'll need.

Right, so here's my opening gambit. Usually this starts when I say the A word and then somebody asks for clarification. Right. What does it mean to say you're an atheist? What claims about the universe are you making? Is that a devil thing or a commie thing? So I usually summarize my beliefs as follows. I'll just tell them like, I don't believe in God or miracles or an afterlife. And then I'm basically done. Right. They have a bunch of stupid questions, but i've already given the full and total definition of atheism as it pertains to them in that moment anyway and as discussed on the show at length i hate these stupid fucking questions because it's always the same three damn questions but luckily i found a pretty good method for

avoiding them basically i preempt all their questions with one of my own that you know if i don't want to do the whole pascal's w thing again, I'll just follow up my definition of atheism with, so, as a Christian, what would you say you believe that I don't? Now, so far, I've tried this something like a dozen times. I've gotten three types of responses. The first is the fumbling, rambling explanation that starts with what they don't think god is really well i don't think god's a man on a throne in the clouds i also don't think he's a curling iron or a ham and cheese sandwich now the second type are those people who skip right over all the theology shit and get straight to how much jesus agrees with their political

opinions well i believe jesus is going to set all them abortion doctors straight as soon as he gets his mouth soared on them. And the third, of course, is the wishy-washy hippie Jesus that just wants him to love everyone, right? Jesus speaks to me through my heart and tells me where to park. Now, I'm still waiting for theoretical type four, a person whose explanation would match up even vaguely with what a person would garner from reading the Bible, every major work on theology in the past 1800 years, and all those definitions and all those dictionaries. I'm still waiting for that. I haven't found anybody who can just tell me what the fuck their religion is. Now, to be fair, I'm asking the fine people of Waycross, Georgia, so I'm not exactly

dealing with the cream of the intellectual crop. But if you look at where the Christians are in this country, both geographically and in terms of education, I feel like I got a pretty representative sample down here. And not a damn one of them can explain their religion in a way that betrays even the slightest knowledge of what differentiates it from other religions beyond the word jesus i mean you know like we talk all the time about these surveys that show atheists know more about religion than religious people and even when they do know about it they largely reject it right most of the christians don't believe the devil's literal guy a lot of surveys show that the majority don't believe in the holy ghost and regardless of which survey you use it it's a huge fucking percentage. Some of them, most of

them don't believe the Bible is literally true. Most of them don't even bother to lie to the phone surveyor dude and say they go to church on a weekly basis or even a monthly basis. And when you take all that away, what the fuck does that really leave them right they believe god loves them they get to go to heaven and jesus agrees with their facebook memes and look atheists often point to this trend as though it's a positive and i guess in a lot of ways it is right in some ways it indicates that people are spending less time thinking about this bullshit it's less important in their lives less church attendance means less religious influence less money in the collection plate fewer voters informing their decision by listening to a man who believes in fairies for a living. But there's also a dark side to all of this that might outweigh the good. See, Christians

are increasingly unmoored from any theological underpinnings whatsoever, and that means they can justify any fucking thing they want with it. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not like they've had a hell of a lot of trouble justifying whatever the hell they wanted to with their Bible in the past. But at least they were kind of predictable then. I mean, when religious people take their books super seriously, we can at least predict what they're going to do. It might be terrifying. Odds are it's going to be terrifying, but at least it's the kind of terrifying you can plan around. But when you take away all the structure, we're left with a devil we don't know.

I mean, the Bible doesn't come out against abortion. In fact, you can make a damn good argument that it shoots down the whole life begins at conception argument when it prescribes different punishments for causing a miscarriage than it does for killing a person. Or when it specifically states that the soul enters the body upon its first breath in multiple locations. The best the anti-abortion site can pull out of the Bible is God telling Jeremiah he knew him before he fashioned him in the womb and a weird penchant for using all the cum. But that doesn't matter because they've already taken away all the theological underpinnings. They don't know what's in the fucking Bible.

Look, the Bible isn't clear on a whole lot of shit. But one thing that's unmistakable to anyone who reads the damn thing is that you're not supposed to mistreat immigrants and refugees in your land. Right? That's the third leading message of the Bible after God will kill you for not believing in him and God will kill you for not loving him. And yet these tabula rasa Christians have no issue whatsoever justifying their xenophobia through Jesus. Hell, the Prince of Peace seems to be good with their

AK. Look, the book is plenty horrifying by itself, but there's been this multi-century effort to soften its edges and, you know, at least produce something that's not going to sound horrifying to these indigenous people you're now trying to sell it to. I'm not longing for Christians to stick to their books or the teachings of their Messiah, but it's no better when you throw away everything except the creator of the universe has directly condoned my actions. And if Christians have proven anything over their long history, it's that they can be way scarier than their book. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the strawberry and chocolate to my vanilla, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to scoop whichever way pisses Tom and Cecil off? I like to eat all the chocolate, glue the cover back down, and then return it to the grocery store. That makes sense because that's the only good flavor of those three. I like to scoop it, whatever direction,

throw it into a deep dish pizza, and then throw all that in the garbage. Because it's terrible flavor of ice cream and pizza style. So, that's what I do. In our lead story tonight, according to a new class action lawsuit filed by ex-Mormon Laura Gaddy.

Laurie Gadds. Laura Gadds, indeed. The LDS Church, they may have been saying things that are not 100% accurate. The hell you say. And they've been telling these lies and taking her money this whole time. Yeah. The lawsuit begins, Webster's Dictionary defines fraud as deception intended to result in financial gain. Synonym, sermon.

And then there's a few Latin words. And then there's, I think, a link to 339 episodes of this podcast. Yeah, right. That's pretty much the whole lawsuit right there. But unfortunately for the plaintiff and for all of society, sincerely held fraud is the organizing principle of the United States of America. I mean, that's religion. That's coal miners voting for the GOP.

That's Jill Stein's recount. It's like our whole thing in the United States. Yeah. I mean, look, Laura, 100 percent support in spirit, comrade. But, you know, America was kind of founded on, as you say, deception intended to result in financial gain. I mean, they just shortened it. That's all they did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and most of America, it's also the mission statement of the courts themselves. So good luck. Yeah. So here's how it happened.

I guess Laura Gaddy did some research into wooden submarine technology of 600 B.C. and realized that it's impossible to do research into wooden submarine technology of 600 B.C. And even if there was, you know, that technology at that time, she checked the tightness on her dishes and realized there's no way for any kind of boat to be that tight. That would be crazy. So she filed this lawsuit claiming that the church has been changing around their original story.

If they stuck with it, she'd be fine, I guess. That seems to be what she's saying. But it was a bridge too far to see the church waffling about whether an archaeologically invisible tribe of ancient Jewish people sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in a wooden submarine that was decidedly looser than a dish and brought golden plates of non-existent Egyptian hieroglyphics to upstate New York at some point. And all this flip-flopping led to, quote, immeasurable emotional harm. You might want to measure it for the lawsuit, but immeasurable emotional harm in the form of existential crises, suicides, broken families, insomnia. That's a weird addition.

Anxiety and depression, end quote. I mean, again, she's not wrong. Like in spirit, she's not wrong. Yeah. Again, the anxiety, okay. But insomnia, you just, you don't sleep because you think about the suffering. What are you suing them for? Right? Like what do you get in that lawsuit? The insomnia lawsuit? I don't know. Ambien.

She wants all her tithing money back and all the money she spent being a mission. She wants everybody in the suit to get all their tithing money back. OK, but obviously that's not going to work. But I am happy that Ms. Gaddy is bringing attention to the American institution of legalized fraud called religion and, you know, Mormonism as a subset of that. And in addition to the fraud, she's also alleging breach of fiduciary duties, emotional distress and even RICO violations. That's the mafia one. That's racketeering, influenced, and corrupt organizations. And based on the weird passive-aggressive tone of Mormon, they're like regional capos that would visit my Mormon friend every so often,

whether or not he wanted them to, that's a mafia. They're 100% a mafia. That's valid RICO charges. Blood in, blood out. You don't get out. Mobsters sitting around a mafia. They're 100% a mafia. That's valid. You know, RICO charges. Blood in, blood out. You don't get out. Mobsters sitting around a table. They baptize dead people. These guys are fucking weird. Yeah, for reals. It's not a whole lot of institutions that can get hit with a RICO charge that leave the mafia going,

oh, come on, we're not like fucking Mormons. So, bottom line, we have a person suing the entire mormon church for for churching yeah and that's great just i like that concept um typically you sue something for somethinging like that's the exact formula for winning a case you charge a murderer with murdering and you show them murdering and you win. And with Mormons, it's even easier than normal. There's literally a book of absurd Mormon lies. It's like if a 200-year-old serial killer had a giant death diary starting in 1830 explaining every single killing he did. But Mormons are sort of Christian and they're definitely white.

So we'll no doubt be seeing this case get dismissed based on the legal principle of shh America. And in self-solving problems news tonight, the extreme anti-medicine group known as the Church

of Christian Scientists are dying out because of the first part of this sentence. Yeah, right. You just said, yeah. Just works itself out in payroll because they don't believe in payroll, I guess. Yep, yeah.

So for those of you who are unfamiliar with Christian science, first of all, welcome, new listener. How you doing? I'm Eli. I'm kind of the charming rogue of the podcast eli um would you say rogue i would i would like a you would and charming you'd say anyway so for those i see what you're doing wild card and rogue that's me you're absolutely not anyways christian science is a sect of christianity that began in the 1890s

and believes they can pray away any sickness and even death. Because according to the founder, Mary Baker, Eddie, all of those things are just illusions since, quote, there is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter. And quote. So, you know, reality is a Ponzi scheme is what I think they're saying. I see. And they started a religion based on praying to stay inside a Ponzi. Well, I mean, to be fair, look, they're dying off. They're full of shit.

They're idiots. And their theology is shallow. There's no life, no truth, no intelligence, no substance. I feel like they've lived up to her vision. Nailed it. That's fair. Well, as i said at the beginning the problem seems to be working itself out according to an article in the guardian

practitioners of christian science have fallen to an all-time low of 1126 and while their membership is in public quack watch estimated the number of christian scientists at just over 15 000 people in 2015 which again is still way just way too fucking many people and just to clarify that 11 26 was in england right yeah okay yeah i was gonna say i'd love to think they dropped from 15 000 to 1100 over the last four years but yeah but you know in defense of christian science at least religions that are aging out of existence can't rape each other's kids so they have that going for them you sunny optimist no illusions either way i guess this is kind of good news that this movement is dying out even you know even though it's doing it by literally dying out yeah well still good

republican party's gonna do that too eventually. Suck it. And in Jehovah's Witness protection news, after being ordered to pay out $4 million in damages to the victim of a child-molesting church elder, the governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses,

the Watchtower Society, is making an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. But not because the molester didn't do it. The appeal is because the lawyers for the victim should not have been allowed to prove the church was obviously guilty by asking the church to hand over evidence that would have proved them to be obviously guilty. That's the argument from the Watchtower Society. And when they refused to hand over that evidence, the judge in the original case was like, oh, so you're obviously guilty. We're done here. And now the J-dubs are appealing that.

And the Supreme Court might take the case. Their lawyer, Bill Belichick. So here's a little background. A nine-year-old girl from California whose initials are JW because the pedophile topic is perfect for who's on first bit. And we live in the darkest fucking timeline. and we live in the darkest fucking timeline, this young girl, J.W., went to a slumber party with a few friends hosted by a recently retired J.W. church elder

named Gilbert Simmental, along with his daughter, who was also nine. That's a bunch of those big plastic key rings and a fishbowl. It's gross. All of my jokes are so fucking awful. Let me erase a few of these yeah well we'll we'll still be telling the actual story it'll be pretty similar

so during the party jw mr simmental molested jw the child and the other guests and when jw's two friends told their parents about what happened those JW's the parents did not call the police and instead told the JW the the church the JW and in accordance with JW company policy they gave Simmental a strongly worded scolding in private and that's it look man you basically got semen right there in your surname. This is on us, really. We should. Naughty, naughty. And despite strong evidence that the JWs, the church, knew about a history of similar behavior from Simmental, they did nothing else other than obstruct justice for the rest of the time they're dealing with this and the whole thing probably would have been swept under the rug entirely if it wasn't for a school principal who found out about the incident and reported it to the police because that's a law and a moral imperative yeah for educators apparently not for religious leaders i mean it is a moral imperative for religious leaders too well

theoretic i don't know according to us yeah it's an imperative to keep it private more than that they have they ranked it they did jesus and and that's when the jw's the church urged all the jw parents including jw's parents to avoid any police involvement which they all did jesus but then about a year later jw the child told her parents exactly what happened to her and explained that she was also a victim, not just the two friends. So JW's parents eventually pressed criminal charges against Simmental and filed a civil suit against the JWs and the watchtower society.

Thankfully, the California court system convicted this molester. I think he's in jail for a bunch of decades and also found the JWs guilty of enabling the molestation of JW by allowing a known child molester to hide his crimes and continue being a JW. So that's where the $4 million judgment came from. And it upheld last december on appeal by a california appeals court right and the jw's knowing this story were like you know we need to do bring more attention to this story come out right like a rose yep so in response to this four million

dollar judgment against him the jw's decided to go with thoughts and prayers. But, you know, just in case that didn't quite fix the problem in real reality, they also went with an appeal to the Supreme Court. And here's the actual argument they made. They claimed that it was unfair when the family of the victim demanded documents from the Watchtower Society that kept track of their known child molesters on the payroll. This is a list that a existed. So already a bunch of guilty. Yeah, that's it.

And then, and then B there's no B you didn't need to be, there was no B there was never a B. And this list was something the church had already admitted to having but they refused to hand it over claiming it was covered by the secret privilege of a confessional booth what and the judge was like no it's not first of all you guys don't even have confessional booths there's that yeah the molester was already caught he didn't confess to you right he was caught and you now you wrote that down but regardless the fact that you won't hand it over is pretty

amazing evidence that you're very clearly guilty you guys are stupid gavel so now the watchtower society is asking the highest court in the land please make the reason that we're obviously lying into a question you're not even allowed to ask about in a trial. What do they want? They want a law that says that. The new policy to be all lawsuits against churches have to begin with, I don't know if you are aware of this, but... Well, look, I mean, don't get me wrong.

I'm glad they do, but why do so many fucking religious organizations keep physical documents about the crimes they're complicit in? Right. Like who writes down? Well, Jay sure molests a lot of kids and then doesn't think I should burn that. Right. And in God's not bread news tonight. Well done, sir. That's excellent.

Thank you. And in God's not bread news tonight. Well done, sir. That's excellent. Thank you. According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, only 31% of Catholics believe that bread and wine turn into the literal blood and flesh of Jesus Christ of Nazareth when a child molester says magic words over them. And that, this is the the spin is a good thing still terrifying even if that's an improvement still feels like bad news i don't know yeah and also you can't just say only before a number and make it happily low all of a sudden like

only 31 percent of people are terrifying idiots like no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, and by the way, if anybody's curious, the diatribe this week started as the response I was going to say right here. But when it got three pages long, I moved it. So, yeah, maybe not a good thing either. Yeah. Now, I should point out that this survey also found that like Americans don't know shit about religion. Right. On the included quiz in the survey, the highest scoring group was Jews with an average of 19 out of 32 questions. Correct. Followed by atheists with an average of 18 out of 32 questions.

Correct. So may I just say, come on, people, get your shit together. I know y'all fucked up on the Buddhist questions, didn't you? You need to read your noble truths for what it's worth. By the way, I aced it 32 of 32 and then i sat there in crushing depression when i realized what i've been doing with my life for the last eight years winning this game back to the catholic yes please uh the data on this survey is weird uh as hemet meta over at the friendly atheist blog pointed out 50 of the catholics in

the survey knew that the church teaches the cracker and the grape juice are literally cannibalism. But almost half of those people were like, which again is good. I don't know. I don't know. Nah, that's not a real human cracker. That's crazy. Here's a hundred dollars to help hide some rapists i'm gonna go have my 19th child yeah yeah i'm still not going with the good see diatribe above and of course hidden away in this is the fact uh that we've hinted at 31 percent of adults surveyed were like yup skin and blood numbers and then went on to drive a vehicle legally. They drove the car.

So while we reflect on the dangers of pretend cannibalism, we'll pause for a word from this week's sponsor, HIMS. It's a beautiful day for a ball game, ladies and gents. Indeed it is, Mitch, but we won't be watching a single pitch and swing today. gents. Indeed it is, Mitch, but we won't be watching a single pitch and swing today. No, we won't, Mitch, because we here at BSPN will be watching bald guys trying to hide it. And here comes our first contender. Ooh, a classic approach, Mitch, going with the ball cap cover-up. How's it working out for him, Mitch?

Not great. He should have gone to 4hims.com. Sorry, are you guys, are you guys talking about me? What's this now? 4hymns.com. It's the one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, and sexual wellness for men. Oh, I don't know about that, Mitch. Sounds like when the missus tried to get me to try

that dragon root stuff. I'm telling you, Mitch, this ain't banana oil. 4hymns offers well-known generic equivalents to name brand prescriptions to help you keep your hair. And that fella could use it.

Okay, I can hear you and you're not acknowledging me. Plus, with fourhymns.com, there's no waiting room, no awkward in-person doctor visit. Not that this fella sees a doctor that often. I imagine not, Mitch. Okay, I'm like, right here. Do you guys work here? What's happening? And if you want to order now, and trust me you do, our listeners get a

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slash scathing. You hears.com slash scathing. You hear that, big fella? You look like a sunburned egg. Okay. What year is it where you guys are? There's websites. 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. right cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man this week in massage religious excuses are just an explanation of the bad thing they did with religion adverb onto the end i mean the accusation is you discriminated against this gay couple and the excuse is i discriminated against this gay couple religiously and that would be fucking

hilarious if the courts weren't buying them. Of course, as soon as this shit started, all the atheists of the world were sounding the alarm. Because sure, this new imaginary, wholly unprecedented religious right of discrimination was designed to be used against the LGBT community. And that should be bad enough. But in case it wasn't, we made it super clear that it was also going to be used against every other minority. And in the case of women, it would even be used against a majority. So fast forward to 2019, I've got yet another case of it for you. This one revolves around the Billy Graham rule. As I'm sure you know, that's the evangelical imperative that says men aren't allowed to be alone in a room with a woman unless she used one of her evil vagina spells to seduce them. It's what the goddamn vice president of the United

fucking states recommends. Now, defenders of the rule will say it's not there because they can't stop themselves from raping everyone of the opposite gender unless there's a witness. They say it's there to keep people from even having a reason to think anything inappropriate is going on because these people have no imagination when it comes to fucking apparently they think it's incapable of taking place when more than two people are around and requires multiple genders so the story in question comes out of north carolina where a deputy by the name of manuel torres was fired from his job for failing to treat an employee equally because of her gender but of course he was ready with his excuse and is now complaining that he failed to treat an employee equally because of

her gender religiously apparently he was asked to train this new officer but since that meant riding in a car together and since she had a lady hole he refused citing the billy graham rule and then his boss said you know something like yeah but you don't work for Billy fucking Graham. Do your goddamn job. To which Manuel said something like, no. To which his boss said something like, give me your badge and your gun. Torres, you're off the case. And now former Deputy Torres is suing the city, citing the fact that religious people get their own set of rules. He's claiming he was fired for refusing to do his job religiously and in the lawsuit he also claims that his former employer sent negative referrals to other police departments that he applied to which probably said

something like he had to fire him because he's afraid of women which admittedly is pretty fucking negative pretty sure the truth can't be defamation though anyway i'm gonna go start some rumors that mike pence is into all-male gang bangs real quick so that he can't be in a room with men anymore so i'll hand things back over to noah heath and eli thank you lucinda and in oh you hate one two news tonight republican congressman and sentient pustule louis gomer was accidentally way too honest last week when he admitted that present-day christianity is all but indistinguishable from bigoted hatred. This slip of the labellum came during an interview with a local news station about the El Paso shooting, where Gohmert pushed back against calls for the shooter to be charged with a

hate crime by pointing out that, quote, all of this screaming and yelling, we need to punish him for hate crimes. You know, that's just going to be used to lock up preachers someday end quote dude that's your takeaway from the mass shooting louis gomert yeah it's not a good sign you saw that news and you were like fuck i totally have manifesto like that it's called the bible i'm sorry what so every guy who's got a ranting list of enemies to justify barbaric violence is hateful now? Who said yes? Take this serious.

I'm on TV. This is Texas, damn it. Now, I want to be clear that I both agree and disagree with Louie on this one. I agree that Christianity is basically a hate crime at this point, but I disagree with the idea that we're going to use hate crime laws against Christian leaders. I mean, you know, we've got laws against aiding and abetting child rape we don't use those ones on religious people do we but yes your religion is just a framework for the portrait of antiquated bigotry that is conservative america its defining characteristic is the hate but as is too often ignored when people start bitching about hate crime legislation the crime part is

determinative right it's confusing because it comes after yeah but no but hate is a modifier in this sense we still only use those when you commit crimes you know how you don't get arrested for breaking and entering when you drop a plate it's like that or how you don't get arrested for high crimes and misdemeanors for smoking pot or or just at all yeah do those anymore again the problem is that people like louis gomer can't understand that people can figure out sharing and family and shit on their own you need christianity for stuff like how many pieces of silver per rape. Like that's where exactly you're the expert. And by the way, we should point out that this is not the first time Chicken Brittle has sounded the alarms about the government coming for him, despite him being the fucking government.

Indeed, he made a lot of press last year when he pointed out that if Hillary had won the election, one of her first acts would have been to lock up all the Christians, including herself, I guess. You might also remember him from promising a bunch of nursing home residents that they would die if the Affordable Care Act passed. That was back in 2013, by the way. So to his credit, most of them probably did die by now. Suffice to say, Louie Gohmert is concerned that his religion is hard to distinguish from massacring Hispanic looking people in a Walmart. And for once, he and i are cni to i next up in headlines during a city council meeting in modesto california last week don

grundman the organizer of a straight pride rally oh my god i love this story so much this is my favorite this is my goddamn favorite story. Don Grunman had the most delightful meltdown I could possibly imagine. Apparently, his group got accused of being, you know, homophobic and racist for obvious

reasons. They did a fucking straight pride rally, and he showed up to challenge anyone from the council to a public debate about whether he was, in fact, a racist. But then his stupid little brain forgot to keep lying for his entire one minute speech. And about halfway through, he just blurted out, we're a racist group. Literally.

Is that out loud? It was. Everybody's laughing. It must have been out loud. Yeah, because, I mean, he tried to finish the speech at that point while everybody's literally weeping in laughter and he's trying to claw his way out it's the greatest again all of this literally yeah just like yeah before the meeting his wife's like all right don you can do this just don't say you're a racist. I got it. I got it. Leave me alone. Oh, don't say what I just yelled. Sorry.

Yes. So I genuinely wasn't sure if it was a sketch comedy show or a real thing until I checked on multiple websites of real news to verify. Like, seriously, it's indistinguishable. And yes, this is, in fact, 100% real. You got to watch the video if you get a chance. First of all, Mr. Grunman is a chiropractor because of fucking Corsias. And he looks like he just came from defending Bob Ewell for a crime and then straight to this council meeting. He looks like if Dracula decided to sell off-brand suits instead of drinking blood.

Yeah. Dracula decided to sell off-brand suits instead of drinking blood. Yeah. Yeah, very rare you see a man in a suit that flamboyant that isn't, like, hiding pigeons in it or something. And here's the exact words from his stupid fucking face as he's yelling at the city council because they're actually the racist ones, if you think about it. He said, said quote you pulled the race card to pull in you just said pull kind of trapped yourself you pulled the race card to pull in attacks against us to justify attacks against us in that park and when they come you're going to turn right around and say we deserved it we haven't done anything we're a totally peaceful racist group

end quote after which we really can't emphasize this enough the entire room bursts into raucous laughter for eight solid minutes it's so long well yes right and look he clearly didn't mean to say that just as clearly as he meant that. But even if he hadn't fucked up his line, he's just getting all huffy because he's a bigot different than how they're saying it. Right. Yeah. Right. So after Grunman physically injured himself with that Freudian slip and fall, he had full freudian face plant the entire room yes they obviously erupted with laughter the chairperson of the council actually had to turn her spinny chair away from the camera and get through an extended laughing fit like yeah like eight minutes which is fair that i would have had i would have needed longer but But Grunman kept talking.

And just for the record, none of his words were, oh, sorry, I misspoke. Yeah. But he did point out that he's all about diversity. And that's why he started a group called the Whites Against Racism Alliance. Yeah, that's. He started a whites group. A whites only anti-racism group. Yep. alliance. He started a whites group because he's all about diversity. A segregated diversity group

is what he bragged about. It's separate but equal to the NAACP. Same idea. Equal idea, separate entrances. And then he closed it out with this. This is amazing.

Quote, he said, if you want to find a hatred group against blacks, oh, we don't. We do not. Thanks, though. Most people don't. Stop offering that. Weird premise. Glad you were ready with that. No, thank you. Continuing, if you want to find a hatred group against blacks who killed

20 million Americans, look at Planned Parenthood. Oh, Jesus Christ. And then he had to walk out through a long, awkward aisle in a giant snit getting booed. It's the fucking best. It's too long. He can't keep the snit going. He's ran out of snit halfway through. Patreon goal.

Patreon goal. We buy the house across from this guy. We knock it down. We put up a movie theater size screen and we just play that clip all day, every day until this guy kills himself. It'll take a week and then we'll have a movie theater. Yeah, i tried to make his that indignant spin towards the camera he does right after he says this i tried to make that my screensaver but then i couldn't get back to work right yeah he's just watching it i get it

it's like the toaster fish and finally tonight christianity has crossed the fucking line again new line so so maybe okay so maybe it wasn't enough for you when it came for the trans people or the gay people or the muslims or the mexicans or the women or the porn or the birth control or the butt sex or the courthouse lawn or the abortion rights or the wall of separation or your tax dollars but now they're coming for sarah silverman god damn it last they came for the Jewish people? Was it last? I don't think that's right.

Okay, wait. I mean... No, no. No, not that kind of coming. Oh, those bastards! Never mind. Sorry, I was confused. Yeah, so this is actually a year-old story

that resurfaced last week and got some new life breathed into it. And as much as it's the typical hate preacher competing with Steve Anderson to see how many countries he can get banned from says dumb shit story that we cover three or four times a week for seven and a half years and counting. This one does deserve our attention. OK, so this one comes to us from even souther than me, Jacksonville, Florida, where hate preacher Adam Fannin, who you'll remember from his role as Steve Anderson's

fluffer in science, falsely so-called, or perhaps from Episode 289, where we talked about him blaming mass shootings on craft beer and video games who publicly wished for sarah silverman's death because she picked on jesus in a 13 year old comedy special he hoped on video that was later posted online quote that god breaks her teeth out and she dies end end quote. Okay, that's a weirdly specific thing that's obviously from Adam Fannin's life that crept into his murder prayer there. Yeah, right. And speaking of murder praying,

that's either attempted murder or Fannin doesn't actually believe in God. It has to be one of those two things. Yeah, right, no, well done. I want him on the stand being forced to admit one or the other. Right don't know what you would pick now like i said this happened a year ago but apparently somebody finally got around to showing it to the target so last week sarah silverman tweeted out the video to her 12 and a half million followers with the caption if i get murdered start here because yes yeah this is not an illegitimate fear a person in america is in a

hell of a lot more danger when christian preachers call for their death than when some fucking a mom does it. So this past Sunday, Fannin took to the pulpit for the first time since the ashes of controversy got stirred up once again. And if you're thinking that he had some realization about the very real danger he was putting a fellow human being in and sought to clarify his remarks, you're new to this show. Eli's the charming rogue. Instead, he doubled down on it by quoting passages about how God was planning to kill all those disbelieving Jews at the end times anyway. So if nothing else, he's just giving Jesus a head start. And then he implied that Sarah Silverman promoted child molestation. By the way, this was also scattered amid a sermon that could be best described as pogrom incitement. It sure would. We also got another weird glimpse into Adam

Fannin's sad little life at this point. He explains that before God genocides the Jewish people, they're going to get paraded in front of all the good Christian hate preachers as God's way of saying, I love you, specifically Adam Fannin. Your father loves you. You're not a giant disappointment. Yeah. But I want to be super clear here because Eli made this ambiguous. I'm an atheist.

I'm taking the high road here. I will not be responding in kind. I am perfectly indifferent as to whether God kicks in his teeth and he dies. Okay, well, what about me, though? I feel like you didn't address the idea of me kicking in his teeth, and I'm real. Okay, so again, Andrew has given us the signal here,

so that's going to close out the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Yachty. And when we come back, the Bible still won't be fucking over or even close. Not even close. We're not even done with the old one. No, I'm saying the killer knew that Epstein would take the credit.

You think? Hey, guys. What? What are you talking about now? Oh, we're just revamping the script for the never to be recorded Platinum Night episode of Citation Needed for our live show in New York on October 12th. The one about JonBenet Ramsey? Yep.

Yep. The one about JonBenet Ramsey. Did we learn nothing from Chicago? That waitress was fine. Was she? Time heals all wounds. Okay, look, I get it, but I don't want you guys spending too much time on this, okay? We've got two shows on October 12th with two episodes each.

That's three straight hours of shows, okay? Yeah. Got it. Yep. So if Epstein knew the killer... William Jebediah Clinton. God damn it. For newcomers to the Bible,

the final three books of the Pentateuch are a fascinating mystery. By the end of Exodus, all the Moses stuff that you've ever heard of is over. And yet there are three more Mosaic books. So you go into it intrigued, wondering what aspects of his story have been so eagerly left out of these common retellings. And then it slowly dawns on you that the Bible is going to have no trouble whatsoever spending three books on nothing happening, which makes it really hard to read Deuteronomy and even harder to translate it into another edition of Bible Peace Theater. Last time on Bible Peace Theater.

Moses, this is Joshua. He's going to replace you. Hey. He's awesome. Aw, shucks. Thanks, God. Moses! Big fan! Yeah, uh, so, what am I gonna do? Oh, you're literally gonna die. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel. Wait, what? Moses doesn't die? He just, he's supposed to be dead.

Eli, you really need to read ahead. Come on, man. Thank you, Don. We say that all the time. He doesn't even go here. Guys, guys, Eli, yes, he's still alive. Deuteronomy is basically like one big speech by Moses. Okay, but I already did his whole exit thing at the end of...

I mean, it's not like he does anything. Like I said, it's just a giant list of rules. So, you're saying my moving and heart-rending exit for Moses still stands? Would we say heart-rending? If that gets us out of this digression, yes. Your moving and heart-rending exit for Moses

still stands. Good. Good. Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah. Excuse me, everyone. Can I have your attention, please? Okay, so you guys remember the time that I led you out of Egypt? Uh-huh. Cool. Yeah. You guys remember that time that I

sent out them spies and then some of them were jerks, but some of them weren't, so only Joshua and Caleb got to go to Israel? Also, yeah. Oh, yes. Joshua is the best. Cool. Isn't he, though?

You guys remember that one time when we were going to go through the desert? Sorry, just a quick question. Desert? How long are you just going to tell us about the things that happened in this book already, but from like, you know, a height? You're just up there repeating. Oh, that's the whole book. Whole book.

It's the whole thing. Yep. Cool. You guys remember that time that we fought giants? No. What? We didn't fight giants. No.

Okay, well, we did. No. What? We didn't fight giants. Okay, well, we did. Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sun rising, that the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbor unawares, and hate him not in times past, and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live.

Oopsie. You son of a bitch! You killed my son! Ooh, my bad. I... I'll kill you! I'm gonna kill you. What? No, come on, I said oopsie. Get back here, I'm going to murder you now. No, no! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop. I'm safe, I'm safe, I made it.

What? No, no, I absolutely got you. I got you. Uh-uh, uh-uh, you can't kill me, I'm in the sanctuary city. No, uh-uh, no, I got you before you got to the sanctuary city. Gentlemen, no, I absolutely got you. I got you. Uh-uh, you can't kill me. I'm in the sanctuary city. No, no, I got you before you got to the sanctuary city. Put that in your nonsense. Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen. What seems to be the problem here? Oh, hey, Joshua.

Thank you. This dude killed my son. By accident, I killed his son. It doesn't matter. Totally matters, Joshua. Oh, it matters? Really? How much less dead would you say he is right now because of this accident? Fellas, look.

None of that matters. This little guy is safe. But I totally got him. Look at his leg. No, no. Okay, okay. You had that? I hate to be this guy, but if you didn't kill him until now, he's safe. Man!

Ha! Told you! Bullshit. Did I kill his kid? No. You guys are the worst! We'll kill faster next time. Yeah, kill faster next time.

Wait, what? Okay, okay, everyone gathered round? Yeah. Yep. Oh, kill faster next time. Wait, what? Okay, okay, everyone gathered round? Yeah. Yep. Sure. Good, because I want to go over the Ten Commandments again. Great. Are they at least the same as the last

time you recited them to us? They are not. I hate this religion! The worst. Oh, man. Guys, this religion! The worst. Oh, man. Guys, this is the Shema. What? Sorry.

The Shema? Yeah, it's a huge deal in Judaism. It's why Jews do the, like, wrappy leather thing and why they have the things on the doors. It's huge. It's a big, big thing. I thought that was just BDSM stuff.

Well, it sounds like something you would have on your face. Ah, it really does. Okay, yeah. You could be like, come here. You have some schmah on your face. Exactly. Yeah, like that.

Yeah, okay. Just mwah. Just mwah right there. Okay, everyone, you heard him in the outtake beep. This is super important so listen up okay okay here oh israel the lord our god is one lord uh spoilers for the sequel am i right and thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thine heart and with all thine soul and with all thy might. What if we

love God with a hot soul but half of our might? And thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children. Got it. So don't teach our kids English in tax-funded private

schools in Brooklyn. And shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house. No sitting in chairs without saying this prayer. Got it. And when you walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Ah, twice a day. Absolutely. and when thou risest up.

Ah, twice a day. Absolutely. Oh, we got to make an insanely complicated calendar based on sunrise and sunset. Oh, I love that. Right? So right, yes. These words which I command this day shall be in your heart

and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. Cool. So you guys are hearing boxes full of Torah scrolls that we wrap around our head and hand twice a day, right? Yeah, totally. That's what I heard. Oh, absolutely. That's everything. Leather tassels. Got it. Literally going to write this down and nail it to a gate. Yeah. Okay.

I think you guys are like maybe being a little too literal with this. God once killed your brother's kids for lighting a fire wrong. Yep. Yeah. Better safe than sorry, I guess. What's a faith? I said safe. Safe.

Oh. Faith. Got it. Do you? No. Okay, next up, guys. I'm not always going to be around. Aww.

Aww. No, no, it's true. So it's super important that when you genocide people after I'm gone, you really commit. No truth is, no mercy, and no marrying them. Sorry, why would marrying them come up? I mean, you never know. He was a genociding Hebrew. She was a genocided Girgashite.

Oh, no. The one thing they never counted on was love. I couldn't help but notice. Your house is on fire. This summer, the importance of being furnished. This summer, the importance of being furnished. Heath, the doodly-doo is over. You can let go of my hand now.

Hmm? Oh, right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, right. Sorry. Sorry. Okay, everybody, listen up.

Tomorrow, we're going to be standing against the Giants of Anakim. What? Excuse me, no one said there would be giants. No, come on, guys. We've fought giants before. Have we? No. Well, sort of.

There's a lot that's unclear about the canon on this. one that's largely thrown off by medieval forgeries you see so you're saying at some point in the last book we may have fought a race of giants but it's not super clear when that happened yes that is what I'm saying. But we did get like 14 chapters on tabernacle maintenance. Yeah, well, I mean, you want to get that stuff right. Oh, I mean, sure. How is this the foundation of Western literature? Still not psyched about fighting giants. Okay, come on, guys. Remember the time I went up on the mountain,

you built that statue, and God killed a bunch of you? Oh, boy, do I ever. Yeah, remember that. I went up on the mountain, you built that statue and God killed a bunch of you? Yeah. Remember that. Or that time that the sorcerers challenged me to a magic battle so God slayed them? That's not how I remember. You know, I would just avoid S's entirely. It will be

just like that. Right. Sorry. Those are examples of the time God got mad and killed us. So how do we know this isn't one of those times when God is mad and using giants

to kill us? You don't. Right? Alright, now let's kick some ass. Oh, sure. Ray? Here we go. Okay. And then God said on two of the people. Sorry, sure. Ray. Here we go. Okay. And then God said unto the people. Sorry, sorry. Did we just fight giants?

Yeah, it's kind of unclear. I tell you all that God's going to protect you, but it doesn't really say what happens. I'd like to know what happens. I also would like to know what happens. So God was all like, oh, man, a third who want to kill the Jews. But also would like to know what happens. Anyway, so Cod was all like, oh man, a third who want to kill the Jews. But I was like, no.

Oh yeah, we know. We literally lived that story. I'd really like to go back to the giants thing. Did we just fight them? Okay. How about circumcise your heart? You told us that one already. Yeah, that one sort of sticks in the brain like get some new

material yeah how about did we do uh be nice to strangers oh heard that one too uh yep we did a how giant are the giants okay like come on guys look your hand up we left with only 70 people long really want to come back to the giantsants thing. Can we just... We didn't leave with 70 people. Specifically. We've been counting ourselves every two chapters. But now... Like this big? There are as many of you as there are stars in heaven.

Nope. Are you sure? 10 to the 22nd power of us? That doesn't even sound close. No. Don't do what you think is right. Sorry. Did you just say don't do what we think is right?

Yes. That's what I heard. That's what I said. I mean, that's new at least. That is new. Yeah. And also, eat whatever animals you want, obviously. You spent like a whole chapter on what animals not to eat.

Don't eat blood. This is so confusing. And remember, whatever you do, don't add to or change these laws. Oh, like you just did. Don't do that. Also spoilers for the sequel. Dammit. I guess you were right, Lioness.

I shouldn't have picked this little tree. Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don't know what Christmas is all about. Is there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Sure, Charlie Brown. I can tell you what Christmas is all about? Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please. And then there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,

and the glory of the Lord shone around about them, and they were sore afraid. Not so fast. Um, who are you? I'm Moses, motherfucker, and Deuteronomy says that if there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign of wonder, that prophet or that dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign of wonder that prophet or that dreamer of dreams

shall be put to death. Oh, damn. That's hardcore. You bet your ass it is. You killed him. And you're next, motherfucker. Arrgh! And now that Eli

can check murdering the Peanuts office vision board, we'll take a minute to lawyer up, but we'll be back soon with even more Bible Peace Theater. Before we skedaddle tonight, I wanted to point out that you don't have to go looking for those live citation needed tickets that you crave. You'll find a link right here on the show notes, right up at the top. You know, you can just buy them right now from the phone that you're listening to this show on. Everybody's doing it.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy 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 on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and 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'd be in line for demotion if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for being a card, and an undomesticated one at that. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for being such a charming rogue. I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for being so lovely

and so talented. I want to thank Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure, for being so fantastic and adventurous. I also want to thank George Robb of the Geologic Podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote seven years ago. Still, still though, when he sent it seven years ago, he sent two and I only used the one where he actually did a Professor Farnsworth impression, so this one counts as new. Also, you should listen to his show if you don't. It's one of the podcasts that inspired me to get into this business in the first place. You'll find it linked on the show notes. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's and last week's best people, David, Jeff, Chris, Jonas, Taminator, Kristen,

Ftoys, Lindsay, Vinny, Griffith, Faith, Kristen, Lauren, Michael, Eric, Jason, and Robert. David, Jeff, Chris, and Jonas, who can only get vasectomies if we ever discover adamantium, Taminator, Kristen, Ftoys, and Lindsay, who are so hot mirror mirror on the wall printed retraction, Vinny, Griffith, Faith, Chris, and Lauren, whose neuropathways have HOV lanes, Thank you. Everybody has the discerning taste in podcast donations that it takes to give us money. But if you'd like to test your mettle, 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're allergic to financial generosity, you can also help a ton by following at P-I-A-T-P-O-D on Twitter, liking our Facebook page, and leaving us a five-star review on iTunes.

Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres. Tim Robertson handles our social media and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, 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'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScalingAdias.com. Charging his way in. Hey, fellas, how's it going? What's going on, fellas?

Who needs a brewski? All right, Jeffrey, time to die. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.