The Scathing Atheist - 340: One Nation, Indivisible Edition

Episode Date: August 22, 2019

In this week’s episode, the Supreme Court will decide if trans people exist, Steve King tries to give a hot take on the upside to rape and incest, and Hemant Mehta will tell us why god hates flags. --- See our live Citation Needed show in NYC on October 12th: 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 Hemant’s show, The Supreme Court vs. Church/State Separation here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-supreme-court-vs-church-state-separation/id1472426149 You should also be reading Hemant’s blog: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/ --- Headlines: Conservatives Want the Supreme Court to Legalize Firing People for Being Trans: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/17/conservatives-want-the-supreme-court-to-legalize-firing-people-for-being-trans/  Steve King wants an apology for negative coverage of his pro-rape, pro-incest remarks: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steve-king-apology-rape-incest_n_5d59641ae4b0d8840ff4bcef Steve Anderson rips on the Westboro Baptist Church for being too anti gay: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/19/anti-gay-hate-preacher-trashes-westboro-baptist-church-for-being-too-anti-gay/ A Preacher Claims He Miraculously Healed a Polio-Stricken Man’s Short Leg: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/16/a-preacher-claims-he-miraculously-healed-a-polio-stricken-mans-short-leg-2/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Lawmaker tricks pastor into honesty and it doesn’t look good for him: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/17/tn-lawmaker-gets-anti-abortion-preacher-to-admit-he-doesnt-see-women-as-equals/ Duggar daughter photoshops skirts on immodestly dressed girls: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/21/a-duggar-daughter-appears-to-have-photoshopped-long-skirts-on-girls-in-a-photo/

Warning, the following podcast contains profanity, but don't worry, it's really good profanity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Honey, Stamps.com, ZipRecruiter, and by the Cardinal Peloton, the stationary bike of legal proceedings. Pedal as hard as you want, Cardinal Pel, you aren't going anywhere. And now, The Scathing atheist. This is Hemant Mehta from the Friendly Atheist, and we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's August 22nd.

And it's World Plant Milk Day, everybody. What? Because bleached nut juice just didn't have the same ring to it. I think that's better, though. I am no illusions. I'm Eli Bos better, though. I have no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Alfred Kinsey's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist.

On this week's episode, I'll realize too late that Alfred Kinsey had some really problematic beliefs. Steve King tries to give a hot take on the upside to rape and incest. And Hemant Mehta will be here to tell us why God hates flags. But first, the diatribe. Okay, so if you haven't seen The Family on Netflix yet, I'm going to have to ask you to go ahead and do that.

But spoiler alert, Christianity did it. So on the off chance that you're not familiar with it, let me give you the basics. The Family is a five-part documentary series on the secretive cabal of politicians, businessmen, and religious leaders that seek to control the world through an international anti-democratic network of subversive cells and have managed to influence every U.S. president since Eisenhower. And as tinfoil hat as all of this sounds, this is a real group with real power and a ton of fucking money. They're the guys that put on the national prayer breakfast every year but despite this insanely visible annual flex they really didn't rise to national prominence until the whole mark sanford scandal broke you remember the dude who said he was walking the appalachian trail when he was really in argentina banging his mistress anyway in in the wake of that scandal it came out that he was staying in this dirt cheap gorgeous apartment in dc where his rent was being

illegally subsidized by a christian lobbying group so in the wake of all that the media starts digging into this group and finds out all kinds of creepy shit right okay so like one of the main ways that this group gains influence is to find the nobodies of congress right some low-level representative or ex-representative that's a a christian zealot and b in danger of going unrecognized at his own birthday party so they take representative bubba mccoy or whatever and they send him on a trip to some country in africa or eastern europe or some some country that barely registers at the state department and hope the good people of latveria mistake this for a sanctioned visit by a

representative of the u.s government and and what does the family do once they've gained influence in these small nations? Well, maybe you remember Uganda's kill the gay bills from 2014. Yeah, that was them. I mean, until it started making press back here in the States, at which time it wasn't them. If you ask them, if you ask the Ugandans that were enacting it, it was still very much them. And look, this is a diatribe, not a five-part documentary series, so I'm just giving you the tip of the iceberg here.

You should definitely watch the whole thing. I warn you ahead of time, it takes a little while to get going. First episode is basically a dude having a rough go of it at Bible camp, but eventually it's more than worth the time you invested. But I also have to issue a little bit of a warning, because this movie is going to piss you off left and right, back and forth, up and down, and not just in the ways it means to. See, the thing I found myself saying over and over again throughout this entire thing was,

but aren't these just Christians Christianing? Isn't the only thing that makes them different the fact that they're good at it? And maybe you dismiss that, right, because I'm the jaded atheist who sees only the bad in Christianity, or, you know, probably not you, but you know what I mean. But I'd submit that most American Christians watching it would be hard pressed to find anything wrong with what these people were doing. Influencing foreign governments with the word of Jesus. Why, that's noble. Leveraging the apparatus of state to increase the centrality of Christ's message and government policy. Well, that's high minded.

Cavorting with tyrants and malicious dictators and offering them the gospel's message of forgiveness. Why, that's saintly. And I don't even have to invent hypothetical Christians to make my point. We could use any number of the ones interviewed in this documentary over and over again. They're presented with these radically anti-democratic things that they've done. And they're like, yeah, then they cooked up some bullshit about me being an unregistered foreign agent, apparently covertly undermining your own national interest in a quid pro quo with a hostile foreign leader is suddenly a crime. But I stand by what I did. Over and over again, the Christians wrap their arms around their crimes and give them a big ass hug on camera.

and give him a big-ass hug on camera. And yet, the series goes out of its way over and over again to present the theology of the family as some weird aberration of Christianity, and they do it on the thinnest fucking threads. Here's a great example, right? So they talk about the story of David and Bathsheba a couple of times, and the family uses this as an exemplar of how bad people can still be chosen by God. Quick refresher, after he gets done defeating Goliath, David goes on to be king. He's watching some naked chick splashing around her tub, decides to rape her.

Then he decides he wants to keep raping her. So he arranges to get her husband killed in the war. But despite all that shit, God still favors David and his generations. Now, the real reason for this is because the Bible is a terrible book and all of its heroes are monsters. Now, the real reason for this is because the Bible is a terrible book and all of its heroes are monsters. But the family finds this to be a useful analogy when they're presented with the fact that they've cozied up to some of the most brutal dictators of the last half century. Sure, those people are evil, but they're still chosen by God. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in control of the country.

God does everything. This happened. Ergo, God did it. And granted, that's a terrifying justification. ergo god did it and granted that's a terrifying justification but at one point the documentary refers to it as a radical interpretation of the story of david and bathsheba i'm sorry what the fuck other interpretation is there how radical can it be if the vast majority of evangelical christians in america can look at donald grab him by the pussy trump and see a man chosen by god you know don't get me wrong. I'm glad the documentary is out there.

It's information that more people should have, but it inadvertently plays into the same problem it's trying to expose when it goes out of its way to find the real Christians that oppose the family's tactics and goals. And whether or not it does so knowingly, it never acknowledges the progressive Christians standing up to the assault on the wall of separation is the diminishing minority. Christians standing up to the assault on the wall of separation is the diminishing minority. They're the radical offshoot. The megalomaniacal sexism that seeks to undermine the will of the people represented by the family is mainstream Christianity.

They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Larry and Curly to my Moe Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to tell them what really happened to Shemp? Actually, he went on to become George Costanza, the hero of yet another show. That's right. Hero of Seinfeld, George Costanza. Oh, see here.

I thought we were going for the true kind podcast because I am in. Right. Get some sound effects, some lies. It'll be great. It's really easy. You don't have to tell the truth. A lot more money in that. All right.

Well, we're going to reveal whether we're still an atheism show or if we decided to do something profitable after a quick word from our sponsor this week, Honey. Okay. What about this? Nope. $14 cheaper with a coupon. Dang it guys what are you doing oh hey no um carl the pug of peg corn is helping me with my online shopping find the deals online is what i do best well why don't you just use honey oh yeah let's use honey i mean i can't reward him if he doesn't get it right no no no honey is a free browser add-on that finds the best deals online oh like um like in an email or it's it's better

i just installed the app and it magically auto applies the best deal to my car to checkout i just used it to save some money on some dice for our D&D game. Wow. They just automatically apply it, huh? Yeah. That's my whole thing. It's funny. Next thing you're going to tell me is that it runs on garlic bread. Even better, it's totally free. Wait, totally free?

Look, there's really no reason not to use Honey. It's free to use. It's easy to install on your computer in just two clicks. So shop with confidence. Get Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash scathing. That's joinhoney.com slash scathing. Yeah, we'll see about that. Heath, you know where to find me.

Is our flying dog friend going to go murder the people at Honey? I mean, that's certainly what it sounds like. Yeah. Seems like that's exactly what's going to happen, yep. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, American conservatives have found a fault line in American culture, and they're going to keep fracking until it bursts,

because otherwise they'd have to run on their merits in 2020. Now, they've already lost the gay marriage fight, so they just decided to head one letter down the acronym and started painting targets on trans people's backs. And, of course, the Trump administration has been happy to pander to their malleable hate by rolling back protections for trans kids in public schools, confounding the entire U.S. military with their dumbass trans ban. And now they're going to pump even more earthquake juice into that fault line with an effort to legally protect any employer that fires an employee for being transgender god damn fucking gross but honestly it does feel like this is going to be confusing for a bunch of christians just being like okay hold on shouldn't the boss get

fired now too for for hiring the transgender person in the first place because that means the boss is gay right no no all right okay i will become trans then i was just hiring someone i want to fuck that's just regular fucking yep now obviously they're not bothering with legislation here partly that's because you can't get legislation within six feet of mitch mcconnell without him eating it at this point but another part is they gained a majority on the supreme court and lost their aversion to legislating from the bench so close together you could be forgiven for thinking they paid for the one with the other so instead they'd like john roberts to do it yeah uh this year we got the supreme court big rubber stamps with crosses on them. Get to work, John. Yep, exactly.

All right, so the case at the center of this revolves around the firing of Amy Stevens, a transgender woman who claims she was fired for no reason but her gender identity. And she offers as evidence her boss saying, no, yeah, we totally fired her for no reason but her gender identity. That's pretty good evidence. Yeah, but despite that that evidence a federal judge ruled that her employer did discriminate against her but they did so religiously so it didn't count an appeals court however overturned that because it's harder to find three dumb judges than one

and now the supreme court is going to weigh it yeah and just for the record this boss it's a funeral home where she worked yeah uh-huh This boss is claiming he fired Stevens because she wouldn't wear a manly suit to work. Yep. So now the Supreme Court is going to consider protecting the biblical doctrine of binary business. What the fuck are they talking about? Not so business casual now, are you? I know, Brooke, this is the law now i i know brooke this is the law now right they know this is the law like we got to write this shit down when we turn it over this is the legal

equivalent of lighting a fire at a house party there are cops we got to deal with this now well okay so of course if the argument is should this group of humans get human rights we already know which side the trump administration is going to land on. No. Yeah, exactly. Which is why it came as no great surprise when they filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to not only overturn this specific ruling, but to make it clear that it's super duper legal to fire people for being trans no matter what. And apparently their argument is that Congress had no way of knowing about the existence of trans people when they made laws against sex discrimination did they not you know as

trans people were a newer model that wasn't released until the 70s i guess yeah and that's why muskets are the only legal firearm thank you you. Get a nice brief from the White House about that soon. Flash cut to Jordan Peterson sitting next to Thanos in that straw hut from Endgame. Come on, Thor. You can do it, Thor. And as bad an argument as that is, and as meaningless as it would be,

even if it wasn't wrong, it's probably going to win the day because the Supreme Court is comprised of five faithful Republican puppets and four Supreme Court justices. So I'm sorry. Was I supposed to put a silver lining here? Fuck. Silver lining. Silver lining.

If you ever read the arguments that overturned Dred Scott, we're going to get a whole new set of those. Right. We're just like every lawyer in the country got together and be like, fuck Jay in particular. Jay. What's his name fuck him and next up in headlines we have a story about congressman steve king of iowa excited steven king story sorry steven king uh steve king and as usual it's because his Excited Stephen King story. Sorry, Stephen King. Steve King. And as usual, it's because his GOP assigned chaperone got distracted for a second and nobody was there to slap away a microphone and blast an air horn when King tried to say words out loud. So we got to hear his thoughts again.

And yeah, not great uh this time he explained that we need to completely ban all abortion even in the case of rape and incest because rape and incest are actually underrated if you think about it yes yeah that is yeah and um that is what he said and now he wants a very close paraphrase yeah i know seriously not exaggerating no and now he wants an apology from the media yes um all of them i guess just all media because they put a negative spin on the the positive spin that he put on rape and incest. That all happened. Seriously, that all really happened. Yeah, not just that. You are being too generous.

You could have just read the direct quote and been like, and now he's mad that he said that on TV. Yeah, we'll get there. I'll give you the quote in a second. All right, okay. So I get why they have the single chaperone guy. That makes a lot of sense but it is incumbent upon the entire gop and everyone that ever voted for him to carry around air horns

for these occasions right like that guy's gotta pee and sleep or something whenever steve king starts a sentence with well the thing about rape and incest is the air horn should be audible from space. Yeah. So anyone who's been paying attention to Steve King's career is already aware that he's been a much indistinguishable from a fictional character drawn into existence by a liberal cartoonist in order to mock the Republican Party. Like, you'll be watching him give a demonstration to Congress of the scale model electrified border wall that he made in his basement. Seriously, this happened. Yes. Talking about how immigrants are killing 25 americans a day in a slow motion holocaust again exact words that really happened and and you're thinking to yourself okay but this

can't possibly be reality there's no way but then you spin your inception top to check, and you see babies in cages, and you see New York City having an outbreak of the rickets in 2018 and 2019, and Steve King's yelling another ethnic slur on the house floor, and the top morphs into a giant locust that's got Ann Coulter's face and the tail of a scorpion and starts hovering above you. And you really can't tell if it's a nightmare or if it's just normal 2019 stuff. It's a tricky time to be alive.

I am very scared all the time. He's just walking through a rain of menstrual blood carrying a blue torch. Yep. Tricky, tricky days. Pretty tricky. Tricky. Yeah. blue torch yep tricky tricky days pretty tricky tricky tricky yeah so ah that's this is our lives so again i'm like 50 50 i'm optimistic i guess is what that means i'm like 50 50 any minute i'm gonna wake up the day after the 2016 election and it's all gonna be this craziness i am just so willing to get poofed out of existence to make that happen

oh two votes even if it's not a dream i'm willing to get poofed out of existence i'll take any kind of snapping however the odds are on that. Yeah. But Steve King, he might have actually shown me behind the curtain last week against all odds. He managed to somehow push all the way past satire and then circle back to a disproof of Poe's law. He went so far past absurd that we know he's real. There's no way for a satirist to write this. You can't make this stuff up. Here's the real reality words that we got from Steve King last week. Quote, what if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest?

Would there be any population of the world left if we did that considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages pillages he threw pillages in there yep the pillages too that's weird that's a weird thing we gotta consider all the pillages yeah he's just like oh plus pillages i mean we're talking about the rape and the incest you know let's consider all the wars and the rapes and plunders and the pillages that happened throughout all these different nations. I can't say I wasn't a product of that is how he closed that real quote. Okay. To be fair,

I also believe that Steve King is the result of incest. So I don't want to turn anybody off here. Yeah. A quick note for you, Steve King. Pro tip. Just one? You got one? Yeah, well, I have one.

We can, it's not exhaustive. I have one. Pro tip. If you're arguing against a policy, maybe don't explain how that policy would have prevented you from existing no one's on your side yeah i mean you got benched by the entire republican party earlier this year the republican party was like we need to distance ourselves from you that already happened and now he said this

like even evangelical republicans are like yeah all right, murdering a baby in a wood chipper is bad. But I mean, Steve King was one of those babies. He sang when he was one. And fucking Iowa goes first in primary season. That's a tough call. Let me see. Let me see the wood chipper again. Just demonstrate it one more time. How fast?

That looks fast. That looks fast. That was really fast. That was just like half a second. It's basically a guillotine if you think about it. You don't feel that. Alright, well while we're all still giddy over the mental image of Steve King and a wood chipper we'll pause for a quick word from our second

sponsor this week, Stamps.com. Lou Lou Lou doing death threat stuff. Death threat stuff is my favorite stuff. Hey, Carl, are you still upset about Honey stealing your job and helping people with coupons? Oh, hey, Noah. Nah, I'm over that. In fact, I'm sending them a little gift just to show them how angry I'm not. I just wish it wasn't so expensive to ship it.

Really? What are you sending them? That's not important. Well, why wasn't so expensive to ship it. Really? What are you sending them? That's not important. Well, why don't you use stamps.com? What's stamps.com? Stamps.com brings all the amazing services of the U.S. Post Office right to your computer. 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. Is vengeance ever simple, Noah? What? I said, where do I sign up? Oh, well, 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 homepage, and type in scathing.

That's Stamps.com click on the microphone at the top of the home page and type in scathing that's stamps.com enter scathing stamps.com for when your vengeance needs to arrive by mail i'm pretty sure that is not their tagline carl it will be a man wrote the bible a whore is what she wants if it's a legitimate race you're a slut right cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man. This week in Misogyny. For a long time, I wondered how we could possibly be losing in an intellectual battle against such stupid opponents. But over the years, I've come to realize that their stupidity actually winds up protecting them. See, the judges in this fight are the vast swath of America that isn't paying attention to this shit. And when you say, hey, we've got a very real problem that you should take very seriously and hear Steve Anderson to personify it,

it's really hard to expect other people to take the threat seriously. So keep that in mind as I parade a bunch of idiots before you today. Starting with Tennessee pastor Randy Davis, whose state is poised to be the fifth to enact a heartbeat bill to effectively criminalize all abortion. So Davis is, of course, speaking in favor of this affront to women's liberty. And unfortunately for him, Democratic State Senator Katrina Robinson got to ask him a question. Here's the exchange. How many women executive pastors do you have in your convention?

How many women executive pastors? Or senior pastors? None. So is it the same ideology that restricts access to women being able to lead a congregation that leads you all to support women not being able to make a medical decision about their body? I don't think the biblical interpretation of the leadership of churches has anything to do with the question before us. And if you're wondering, that three-second pause contains the greatest raised eyebrows

since the silent film era. But of fucking course it has something to do with it. The fact that you work in the most sexist industry allowed to exist in this country probably factors into your thinking. Anyway, one other idiot for you. And this one comes in the form of a dugger. This one is Jenna Duggar.

And the internet's been having a little fun with her after somebody noticed that before posting a picture of herself at the fair on Twitter, she took the time to Photoshop modest skirts onto a couple of girls behind her. The picture is amazing. I've seen more convincing clothes on a paper doll. Amazing. I've seen more convincing clothes on a paper doll. But just the mental image of her gasping at short shorts and then asking God's forgiveness when the little finger icon in her editing software had to roll over their butts is going to keep me warm on a lot of cold nights. And on that uncharacteristically positive note, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in homophobe says what news tonight, hate group and atheist trump card

the Westboro Baptist Church has a brand new firebrand critic this week, Pastor Steve Anderson. What the fuck is happening? That's right. Organizer of the Straight Pride Parade and man who's been banned in more countries than that faces a death vhf took the wbc to test this week for being too anti-gay okay all right

but i feel like this is analogous to the like the way loki hisses when the kittens get near his food bowl you know it's like uh it's like two nazis goose stepping down the road together and one says the other like dude it's jewish people will not replace us please say out the whole word you're a bigot yeah well his issue seems to be that they aren't pro fruit enough i don't know okay so here's the quote. And before I read this, I want to point out that this quote makes exactly the same amount of sense if Steve-O is talking about salvation or what's in the fridge. So just keep that duality in mind. You know, there are ministries online. All they do is just destroy, root out, put down, throw down. You're

like, man, I'm loving this hard preaching this guy knows how to throw down this guy really is ripping some face we learned so much about steve when he has to reach for a metaphor right so you know how christian preaching this is a lot like skin mask right so, bear with me. Stop bearing with me. Come back to me. Please don't bear with me. He continues, okay, but is there any fruit?

Is there any building going on? Is there any planting going on? Or is this all negative all the time? Look, we could go on and on about examples. You know, one famous example is the westboro baptists false prophet the guy had the wrong salvation wrong gospel wrong doctrine not saved total heresy and he's just getting up and ripping on homos all the time but when did he ever get up and preach the gospel of jesus christ never you, I got a lot of negative things to say about having negative things to say all the time.

Shit, time loop, time loop. Hold on. That sucked into my stupidity singularity again. Okay, I'm back. I'm back. One second. I got to go fire myself for being trans. It's a whole thing.

And then I got to fuck myself. I don't know. Yep. and then I gotta fuck myself? I don't know. Yep. He concludes, when did he ever have a positive message about reaching people with the gospel,

winning souls, all the good things? Never. Why? Because he had no fruit. He's without fruit. Twice dead. What? He's a tree whose fruit has withered.

End quote. He? All right, let's do something positive. So who wants me to arm wrestle his wife right now? Let's go. Let's do this. And then plant fruit, I guess. I'm stuck in the loop again.

I was trying to get fruit into it. What was I saying about skin masks? Okay, but here's the best part of this. Okay, the Westboro Baptist Church are attention whores. Most people don't know this, but they actually make a ton of their money by suing people who punch them or yell at them or cities that don't let them be terrible close enough. So now, and this is really great, there is a solid chance that the WBC is going to picket Steve Anderson and in

response he is going to fucking get banned from their country either way in the words of Mr. Godzilla himself super not that guy's name Ken Watanabe Mr. Godzilla

let them fight or not that guy's name. He's got just a name. Ken Watanabe. Mr. Godzilla. Okay. Let them fight. And finally tonight, we have a story about this guy. Here's a couple photos for you guys. I have never regretted

not being a visual medium more. All right. Well, for everybody at home, regretted not being a visual medium more. Alright. Well, for everybody at home, this is Pastor Todd White of Lifestyle Christianity Ministry. I'll give you a second to Google him. Definitely click on images, please.

There you go. And honestly, this guy's physical appearance can easily be the whole story. Like normally, we talk through it. There's a news story. There's something to it. This could be the whole story.

You guys are Googling it. Just look at him. It's so fun. It's so fun. It's all you need. I'd even say the story, there is a story. I'd say it's implied by his physical appearance, though, and vice versa.

In fact, let's try it out. So if you haven't Googled him yet, and you guys, pretend I hadn't shown you this picture yet. I can't. I literally cannot. I cannot see this picture. All right, but just to test it out, I'm going to describe somebody's backstory,

and then you guys picture that person in your head based on the backstory I described. So imagine a guy who got caught doing drugs. Noah. backstory and then you guys picture that person in your head based on the backstory i described so okay imagine a guy who got caught doing drugs no um pretended to find jesus to help him get out of trouble never mind not no um became a pastor to back up that lie, stole a visual affectation from another culture just to get more attention as a pastor and then claimed to make a polio victim's shortened leg grow out three and a half inches by praying just while he watched it happen. So are you picturing a middle aged white guy with dreadlocks and a soul patch that looks exactly like a late 90s pubic hair landing strip? Is that where you guys were at? That is what I pictured.

Okay, well, you nailed it. That's Todd White. Listener, he looks like Dr. Cox took the second divorce super hard and decided to move to a sandals resort forever. Honestly, I literally needed to find video of this guy in action to ensure heath hadn't been duped by a bad photoshop yeah that's fair normally your face is the same size relatively as your head not in this instance no not in this case normally i might skip over this story um it's just a pastor telling a blatant lie that's the job not really newsworthy but first of all

he looks like the predator got laid off from hunting humans and got a job at Bonobos his sad little retirement from predating so that had to be addressed he looks like Miss Cleo's love interest he looks like a tasteless

biopic about Toni Morrison starring the rock Dwayne Johnson. It's too soon. Also, he told the exact same lie that I heard from a kid at Georgia Southern University during their

Ask an Atheist Day. I forgot about this. You were so about this no and i went to this remember that oh yeah yeah i was in like statesboro georgia i think so the kid he comes up to me and he's like okay atheist would you believe in god if you watched him regrow a leg. And I was like, well, that's a dumb sentence. And he was like, well, I regrow a leg with the power of God. And I said, oh, cool. So how's your tour of all the hospitals going? And he said, what? And I was like, I said, you're a liar.

I said, you're a liar. Well, the same thing happened with Pastor Todd White, except he's even dumber about the lie than that dumb kid at Georgia Southern, especially the part where Pastor Todd White mentions multiple times during his story that the guy he healed was born with polio. Really? Which is impossible. It's not genetic. You can't be born with polio. Don't pass down the polio. Also, I can't promise you much, but that kid rehashes that argument every time he takes

a shower and he still loses. He still loses. Heath was in a livid rage for three solid months after that conversation. You could not talk to him about literally anything except that young man and the words he said god you'd be like how's your salad and he'd be like he's not at hospitals he's a liar yeah what does he think he saw so in honor of dude bro pastors and i guess in honor of cultural appropriation, let's put however many seconds on the clock. Keep roasting Pastor Todd White's physical appearances.

I was hoping. He looks like Aretha Franklin Graham. He's like a slam poetry bouncer, which is confusing. He looks like if patchouli could have a dad. He looks like he needs to shut the fuck up and finish cutting out those lines. It's like he's the lead singer for Age Against the Machine. He's so sad.

He looks like the love child of Whoopi Goldberg and protein powder. All right, well, confident that our own physical appearances are beyond reproach, we'll close the headlines off for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. He actually kind of looks like Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson fuck each other. And when we come back, Hammett Metal will teach us how to

indoctrinate children into xenophobic jingoism for fun and profit. Must provide your own sniper rifle. What? Hey, Carl. What you doing there, buddy? Oh, hey. How you doing? The folks over at Honey didn't seem to get the message I sent them about honing in on my coupon business, so I'm hiring someone to take care of the problem. Wish it

wasn't so hard to find someone professional, though, you know what I'm saying? Oh, well, I mean, if you want a professional, you should just use ZipRecruiter. What's ZipRecruiter? Oh, it's the smarter way to hire. ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards, but they don't just stop there. With their powerful matching technology, ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job. Right, so they could recommend veterans

of urban wars, special ops, stuff like that. I don't think they have people like that, but ZipRecruiter is so effective that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. Wow, that sounds fast and effective, but it must cost an arm and a leg, right? Not at all.

Right now, our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address. ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G. ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. The smarter way to hire. Yeah. Well, who are you trying to hire anyway? Why do you ask so many questions, Heath?

Never mind. I guess. I guess I was in the eighth grade before it ever occurred to me to think about the actual words I'd been taught to recite to the flag every morning. This litany had long turned into a syllable slurry rendered meaningless by repetition, so much so that I actually had to make an effort to turn all those sounds back into words. And when I did, I realized I'd been saying some weird shit so after the liberty and justice for all that time i turned to the kid next to me i said something along the lines of isn't it weird that we're pledging allegiance to a design on a piece of cloth to which this random 12 year old in podunk georgia responded you got a problem with our flag now i didn't

realize it at the time but apparently i had just blindly stumbled into a controversy that was nearly a century old even then. And in the intervening time, the reasons it seems strange to me to have schoolchildren swearing fealty to a polyester rectangle have only multiplied. But I've got to admit, even after 30 years of reflection, I never really grasped the exclusionary, jingoistic, xenophobic history in full until I heard it from my guest tonight. Hemant Mehta is the author of I Sold My Soul on eBay and the Young Atheist Survival Guide. He's the host of the Friendly Atheist podcast. And of course, his blog, The Friendly Atheist, has been the gold standard in atheist news sites for more than a decade. But I've asked him on today to talk about his newest podcast project, The Supreme Court

versus Church-State Separation, which debuted with a four-episode season entitled The Complicated History of the Pledge of Allegiance. Heman, welcome back, man. Noah, thank you. It's been way too long. So, okay, first obvious question, why start with the pledge? What got you interested in this topic specifically?

So I was looking to do a project of some sort, and I thought, you know, taking a deep dive into some issue that's connected to church-state separation, I don't think I would get bored doing that. And I thought, well, let me try to go into depth with some of the Supreme Court cases that involve church-state separation, because we only ever hear about a handful of them. because we only ever hear about a handful of them. And some of the ones that a lot of other cases have been built on, we don't always know the backstory of them. So that's what I thought would be interesting. And I started compiling a list of all the cases

that maybe spending a day or two digging into the history of case number one, and then I would do it again for case number two. And I of, you know, case number one, and then I would do it again for case number two. And I thought, you know, it'll be interesting to start with these Pledge of Allegiance cases from the 1940s, because the only pledge case I ever hear about is the Michael Newdow one, which happened, you know, a couple of decades ago, a little less than that. And the more research I started doing into those original ones, and I knew a little bit decades ago, a little less than that. And the more research I started doing into those original ones, and I knew a little bit about it, just not all the details,

the more I looked into those cases, the more I realized, oh my God, there's way more research to do. You go down the rabbit hole and all this other stuff starts popping up. And I realized there's no way I can handle any other story. Like, I just got to do this one. So why don't I just put all the Pledge of Allegiance cases together? There's been three of them. And try to tell a bigger story about the Pledge of Allegiance.

And I'll set aside all the other ones that involve atheism in the Supreme Court. Save those for another day. And this is the end result. Like you said, it was four episodes. I think my written draft of the whole thing was like 50 pages long. And it's because the more I start, you know, oh, here's an interesting story I want to tell. Oh, but to make sense of that, you got to go into this. Or here's an example. There was the first Supreme Court case that said everyone has to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. And then literally like three years later, the same Supreme Court, different makeup,

but the same court said, hey, you don't have to say it anymore. It's totally optional to try to make sense of, wait, what the heck happened with the Supreme Court to change its mind and do a 180 on this issue that fast, which never happens, trying to explain the story of why did that happen? What was going on to make that happen? It just took way longer than I thought it would, but I thought none of it was fluff. I thought it was such an interesting story that you have to understand it in depth. And it really does tell a bigger story about, you know, just the history of church-state separation in this country and how powerful the Christian right can be when it wants to be. Yeah, it's one of the things I really enjoyed about it is how it snaked through a lot of the

different arguments and debates and fights that we're having today and sort of gave origin. I guess that's how you know you've got a good historical topic when as you're researching it, you're like, wow, this is way more interesting than I thought it would be, right? Absolutely. And how many parallels there were to what's going on today. Like, I thought we were done debating the pledge. And occasionally you'll see a news story pop up about a teacher who said, hey, all kids have to stand for the pledge. And it's like, oh, they can't do that.

That's wrong. And then that story goes away. But the fact is there was a lot of stuff that involves the history of the pledge that without saying the pledge, we are still discussing today, such as, you know, the nature of immigrants in this country, which is a whole big chapter of the Pledge of Allegiance. And obviously, we've seen that debate play out now. Yeah. Well, okay. So

I've got to admit, because I'm an avid follower of your blog. And when I first heard that you were going to do what was going to amount to like three plus hours of serialized history on the Pledge of Allegiance, I kind of doubted you. Right? I wasn't sure that you could keep that interesting for four full episodes. It's nothing personal, but like filling a show with nothing but your voice is not as easy as Dan Carlin makes it look. My thoughts exactly, my friend. Okay, so now I will say, I'm going to spoil the suspense for the listeners. You totally pulled it off, but can you speak to us about some of the challenges that you faced in trying to put something like this together? It was a lot of research. But as someone who has listened to Dan Carlin a lot, I think the whole thing is, look, if I'm going to be bored putting this

together and doing the research, I can't expect anyone else to listen to it. And the thing is, the more research I did and I'm talking not just reading books about the Pledge of Allegiance, but reading law review articles about the Pledge and about the legal cases involving the Pledge, not just, you know, here's the Reuters or AP article about what they said in the courtroom, but the people dissecting what the Supreme Court justices wrote and how it could be manipulated. I mean, that to me was really interesting too. And so it wasn't boring to me to do the research. And I figured, okay, if I can tell you this stuff in my own words, I think you'll be as interested in what I'm hearing as I was when I read it. All right. Well, I'll tell you what,

obviously, you know, you had almost four hours of story to tell here. So we're not going to be able to do more than I get a few brushstrokes of the history here. But if you could sort of set us up here, what is the Pledge of Allegiance? Where does it come from? And what was it meant to do? Sure. So the thing it was meant to do, which I don't think we ever talk about this these days, because today we think of it as a symbol of patriotism. You know, how much do you love the country? And the truth is, it was designed as like advertising lines to sell flags for a magazine. They were like, well, if we have kids say something to the flag, maybe people will buy more flags.

That's so American. That's totally American. And it was only later, and especially through conservative groups like the American Legion, who started doing it at their meetings, that they're like, no, this shows how much we love America. doing it at their meetings that they're like, no, this shows how much we love America. And so it quickly turned into a more patriotic ritual than anything else. And I mean, look, if you know nothing else about the pledge, but you are an atheist,

someone who's listening to this podcast, maybe you know, you know, it was written by a socialist minister. It did not have under God when it was originally written. Under God was placed there in the 1950s to distinguish us from those godless communists. That's kind of the CliffsNotes version of what the pledge is, of the history of the pledge. But the truth is when Francis Bellamy wrote this thing, and yes, it was advertising copy, but he was also like, this was shocking to me because I did not know this part of the history. He was totally xenophobic. I mean, part of the thing is like, I pledge allegiance to my flag, the American flag, not your weird little Italian flag. Like, dude, he was basically trashing anyone coming to this country. He

actually gave a speech years later where he basically trashed everyone who didn't come from countries like Norway and Sweden. Like, oh, the drag immigrants. Like, we don't want those shithole immigrants to come our way. Like, dude. Well, that was one of the things that I really loved about it is that when you present that that history it's like wow this so this was like you know whatever way it was like the 18 the late 1800s when it came about yeah so this was like their version of going well how come there's a gay pride parade no straight pride parade right with for the for italian immigrants having an italian flag out or whatever that right and i guess that shouldn't surprise me again this is the is the most American story ever. So let me back up a bit into the history, because as an atheist, when I think

pledge controversy, of course, I think about those two words, under God. But as I learned from you, the history of protests against the pledge actually predate that edition. So can you tell us about the early pushback? Yeah. So the reason people had been protesting the pledge since really shortly after it was written, like more than 100 years ago, people were protesting the fact that the pledge said we have liberty and justice for all. I think like 100 years ago, there was a young African-American boy who basically said he didn't want to stand for it. And he took a very Colin Kaepernick

approach to it all, just saying, we don't have liberty and justice for all in this country. This is like a black kid in the early 1900s. He's totally right. So he didn't want to stand for it and he got in trouble for it. You also had religious people, not evangelical Christians, but like Jehovah's Witnesses or predecessors to them, who basically said, if you're making me pledge allegiance to the flag, you are saying that I would do anything for my country. And the truth is, I don't believe in war. I'm not going to war to defend my country. That goes against my religious beliefs. I don't want to pledge allegiance to the flag because that to me is idolatry. And the only person I would pledge allegiance to is Jehovah. And so they had religious reasons for not wanting to stand for the pledge. We're not talking about atheists saying, I don't

want to do it on principle. We're talking about people who had genuine religious reasons or personal reasons for saying, I don't buy what this thing is trying to say. And they all, all of these people got in deep, deep trouble for saying they weren't going to stand for the pledge and not standing for the pledge. Wow. Okay, well, then let's, and again, like, I'd love to dig in on so many of those points, but listeners, you're going to have to listen to the whole podcast because we're just not going to have time to get into all of the interesting nooks and crannies here. But let's fast forward to the poison pill. So when does One Nation become One Nation under God? And you've already hinted at this, but why? So obviously it was to gin up American patriotism at a time when we were just coming off of a world war and we were in the Cold War and we just wanted to distinguish ourselves. And the truth is there were like more than a dozen congressional motions to stick under God in the pledge.

And Eisenhower never took the bait. He didn't pass them. It was only after the president went to a church service. I forgot the year, maybe early 1950s, but he went to a church service. And really, this minister was like, you need to do this. There's a lot of reasons we ought to be scared of the coming secular world that is coming our way and trying to infringe upon our religious beliefs. And once that guy gave this sermon, the Reverend Doherty gave this sermon, Congress once again tried to stick under God in the pledge, and this time they had next to no opposition. Like the one member of Congress who said, you guys, maybe this is a bad idea. The one guy who said it, one of his constituents was Francis Bellamy's son. And his son is like,

well, I don't want to mess with my dad's creation. So I don't want to change. It wasn't like an underdog. It's a work of art. Don't change it. But even that member of Congress is like, yeah, but I'll totally vote for it if you guys want to change it. And so that's that's when they added it. And it wasn't until much later that it really became such a political weapon. Like if you don't say it, you hate the country and you hate God. Well, and I think that's so important to really focus in on this because this often gets shortened in conversation to, yes, it was added to distinguish us from, you know, atheist communism, you know, but it was also just added to distinguish us from atheism and to make atheists specifically less American. Right, right, right. And by the way, it would also make non-Christians less American. Right. They really wanted to hoist up a specific version of Christianity as kind of the de facto religion of the country. And of course, even more people had problems after.

The weird thing about it is all of that happened in 1954. and it was only a decade earlier when the Supreme Court said everyone has to say it, and there were violent battles over people who didn't want to say it. Like Jehovah's Witnesses who didn't want to say the pledge were physically beaten up, and that helped hasten the movement to say, okay, okay, it's optional. That happened less than 10 years earlier. And here was the whole like Congress saying, no, no, add under God. We got to say it. This is patriotic. Everyone needs to be doing this. Like, oh, my God, you learn nothing from history.

And this happened like just a little bit ago. Yeah, right. Now, yeah, not history, but even your own memories at this point. Yeah. All right. So let me ask you this. This is sort of the mission statement on this. What do you hope to gain from putting this podcast out into the world? What's the point of all of it? So to me, there's a couple of reasons I really wanted to do this

project. One is that I think a lot of atheists could already tell you, here's why I have a problem with the Pledge of Allegiance. But I don't know how much that gets. I don't know how many people believe that beyond atheist circles. And so I wanted to present this podcast to show, hey, look, I don't care if you are deeply religious. I think you could listen to this podcast and you can come away still believing in God. This isn't an argument to get you to stop believing. It's an argument to say, look at the long history of the pledge and all of the myriad reasons. It's problematic. Don't you see what I'm seeing here? Like, why do you not agree with me on this? So my hope is that people who might not read my website, who are not atheists, they might listen to this because

they're interested in history or they're interested in learning about the pledge. And they would come away from this thinking, wow, the pledge is way more problematic than I thought it was. That's my goal in putting this out there. And by the way, I hope to do that with the other Supreme Court cases that I didn't get to in this go around in the future. Awesome.

So, OK, well, let me toss out one more big endorsement. This new show is super informative, super entertaining, super funny. Unfortunately, in the world of podcasting, as I've long ago learned, it's never about what you just gave us. It's about what you're going to give us. So you've already kind of hinted around

about some of the things that you might be thinking about tackling next. Do you have any ideas of where the show goes after this? You know what? I've been trying to figure it out. I coach this team from a public speaking, competitive public speaking team. It's weird and I do it on the side. I love it. It's competitive from October to February. And so this Pledge podcast, I started doing after that ended in March. And I spent two or three months researching it.

And I'm like, yeah, this is interesting. Let's see what I can do by putting it out there. Let's see if anyone's interested. And it worked out, but it took a few months to put it all together. What I think I want to do is look into a couple of the other big Supreme Court cases. Obviously, the one that is probably the most famous one is the one that took mandatory Bible readings out of public school. And that wasn't just Madeline Murray O'Hare. There's other cases that got involved in that. It's one of these things that when you say, I'm going to study this one case, it's actually like four cases that all together. And so I kind of am collecting resources right now. And once our competitive

season ends i might go back for that deep dive again but i need a break right now from all of this like clear my head i'll return to it in february or march it take a few months to put something together and once i'm ready i'll bring it back out and we'll see what happens all right yeah the good news is for you though the leader in the industry of serialized history podcast has already established a once every 13 years release schedule. So no matter what happens, you're going to be like lightning fast compared to these guys. Well, I want to say, again, if you haven't listened to the show, you should absolutely check it out. There will be a link to it on the show notes. And it was again, it was entertaining.

It was informative. And what really surprised me is that by the end of it, it was actually very uplifting. I'm shocked by how empowered I felt after listening to four episodes of us losing this fight every time we fought it. I totally hear you. And again, I hope that one of the things people take away from it, especially if you're listening and you're in school where you have to say the pledge, is you come away with a lot of respect for the people who stood up to the pledge, including the very courageous religious people who stood up to the pledge. It's like, wow, look at what, as an adult now who is a public atheist, I would find it really awkward to stay seated if people around

me were saying the pledge at like a city council meeting. And yet you have these teenagers doing it in school. And it's like, oh my goodness, like they stand to lose friends and they might be unpopular. And it's so hard to do much less a hundred years ago. And they did it. And it's amazing what they were able to do because of that. And so I hope it is uplifting. I tried to make it uplifting at the end because it can be like the people who stand up to the pledge are really incredible people. And so I hope they get that. The podcast, by the way, I should say, it's called the Supreme Court versus Church State Separation, which is a broader title than just the Pledge of Allegiance.

But it's The Supreme Court versus Church-State Separation. And like you said, the first season is about the Pledge. I hope there's a second season, which will be next year. We'll see how it goes. I was fortunate that people were interested in this topic enough. And maybe next year they'll say, all right, you did the thing you said you were going to do. Even more of us are willing to take a chance to see what comes next. Well, I'll tell you, I'm certainly hoping for a second season as well. So, Hemant, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for putting this into the world. And thanks

for all the work you do, sir. Thank you, Noah. Likewise. And thank you for anyone who listens to it. I'd love to hear back from you if you get a chance to listen to it. I'd love your feedback too. Hey Heath, what you cooking? Oh, hey Noah. Carl and I were just making a brand new meal from Blue Apron. What's Blue Apron? Oh, Blue Apron is one of those meal service things that...

Sorry, boys. I gotta take this. Hello? Mm-hmm. This is him. Yeah, well, I told you midnight and that time has passed. No, no, no, no. You listen to me. I don't give a fine fuck if you need more time. I'll tell you who doesn't have more time and that's your fucking son you want me to send you another finger that's what i thought that's

what i thought no no no no no you can't speak to him speaking to him was a privilege for those who cooperate you have until midnight tomorrow mr honey do not disappoint me again. Okay. As I was saying, Blue Apron is... We're not going to get paid for this ad, man. Yeah, probably not. Whatever. They send you a fucking box of food. Before we live happily ever after,

I want to remind you that we're going to be doing a live citation-needed doubleheader in New York City on October 12th, and you can find a link to get tickets in the show notes. What's more, you should. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show'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 risk losing XP if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for bearing down, Eli Bosney for bearing with us, and Lucinda Lusions for none of your business. I need to thank Hemant one more time for being so generous with his time tonight.

Once again, check out his podcast. It's linked in the show notes. And yes, that was a recycled Farnsworth quote, but since Hemant was the first person that ever sent one to me, I felt like it was, like, you know, fitting to dig it back out of the archives. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most mellifluous mammals, Robert, Melissa, BT, Timothy, Donald, Roderick, FileID.diz, and the Doctrine of Daylight Savings Time is our deference. Our deference. Robert, Melissa, and BT, who are so badass that previous badasses had to get demoted to goodasses, Timothy, Donald, and Roderick, whose dicks are technically prehensile

if you wrap them around the limb enough times, and File ID and the Doctrine of DST are so sexy they give cellulose wood production envy. Together these eight idyllic eyefuls idealized our echinoclastic irateness with an iota of icing this week by giving us money. Not everyone has the money it takes to give us money,

but if you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation to 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 money's too expensive to give away, you can also help a ton by following at the IAT pod 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 Morton 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 skatingavs.com. Are you guys Shemp fans? Nobody's a Shemp. Not Shemp fans? Nobody's a Shemp. Not Shemp fans?

Nobody's a Shemp fan, man. Shemp's not a Shemp fan. Nope. He preferred Chrome. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.