The Scathing Atheist - 341: Bear it All Edition

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

In this week’s episode, New zealand will shoot yet another arrow through our heart, the MyPillow guy finally gets recognized for his contribution to the intellectual progress of humanity, and we’ll dip into a little more ursine wisdom. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist So see Heath say words at the Kentucky Freethought Convention: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kentucky-freethought-convention-2019-tickets-59172485497 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 Left at the Valley podcast here: https://www.leftatthevalley.com/ --- Headlines: The Babylon Bee's satire is confusing Christians who think the stories are real: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/21/the-babylon-bees-satire-is-confusing-christians-who-think-the-stories-are-real/ A Man Threatened to Kill His Friend With a Crossbow Over Their Flat Earth Wager: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/21/a-man-threatened-to-kill-his-friend-with-a-crossbow-over-their-flat-earth-wager/ Democrats notice atheists exist: https://secular.org/2019/08/democratic-party-embraces-nonreligious-voters-at-annual-summer-meeting/ Liberty University students just got $600,000 worth of MyPillow products: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/22/liberty-university-students-just-got-600000-worth-of-mypillow-products/ Bethel (CT) Officials Finally Agree to Fair Lottery for All Holiday Displays: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/21/bethel-ct-officials-finally-agree-to-fair-lottery-for-all-holiday-displays/ Priest Who Allegedly Stole $100K in Donations Sent Some to Men He Met on Grindr: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/22/priest-who-allegedly-stole-100k-in-donations-sent-some-to-men-he-met-on-grindr/ --- This Week in Misogyny: GA school expels a girl for ‘sexually impropriety’ after she gets sexually assaulted: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/28/a-ga-school-expelled-a-girl-for-sexual-impropriety-after-she-was-assaulted/ A TN Church’s Sermon Series on “The Christian Woman” Has Only Male Speakers: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/25/a-tn-churchs-sermon-series-on-the-christian-woman-has-only-male-speakers/ Pastor Running for Colorado State House Says It’s Wrong for Women to Wear Pants: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/15/pastor-running-for-colorado-state-house-says-its-wrong-for-women-to-wear-pants/

Warning, the following podcast contains adult language. I don't know how old the language is, but it is definitely old enough to cuss. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new nighttime sedative made especially for Christian politicians, the My Sleeping Pillow. How do you sleep at night? The My Sleeping Pillow. And now, The Scathing Atheist.

Hi, this is the Left of the Valley crew. My name is Kevin. My name is Kevin. My name is Nancy. I'm Christina. And I'm Kirsten. And we definitely evolved from filthy... And we definitely evolved from filthy hairy men. Monkeys.

No, no, monkeys. I, blah. Go again. Filthy hairy monkeys. Filthy monkey men. Filthy monkey... Jeez. It's filthy what?

Monkey. Monkey men. Oh, God. All right. And we what? Monkey. Monkey men. Oh, God. And we definitely evolved from filthy monkey men. Yeah, because look at Kevin's hairy chest. He's practically half ape already. Hey, I'm right here. It's Thursday. It's August 29th.

And it's International Day Against Nuclear Tests. But are we going to stop all these hurricanes? Yeah, I got one coming right at me. I'm Noah Lusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Sorceress Christine O'Donnell's New Jersey. Damn right.

Cincinnati Swing State. And good husband Georgia. This is Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, New Zealand will shoot yet another arrow through our heart. The MyPillow guy finally gets recognized for his contribution to the intellectual progress of humanity. And Heath will not even make it this far into the show without being so embarrassed that he's in New Jersey that he lies to you about it. But first, since we're the diatribe, I tried to make alive. Imagine you bought a used car.

And for the purposes of this example, let's say that you don't know a hell of a lot about cars going in, but you researched it a bit online and you're pretty sure you got a good deal on this make and model. So you buy your used car, you drive it around for a week and you hear this weird knocking in the engine. So you take it to the nearest mechanic and the mechanic tells you, you got ripped off. She says, this car's falling apart. Every major system is on the brink of failing and it's being held together with chewing gum and chicken wire. But you're an inherently suspicious person and you just don't want to take somebody's word for it so you decide to get a second opinion so you take that car back to the used car dealer that you bought it from in the first place and you say hey can you look at this thing and make sure you didn't rip me off and and so he looks at it and he comes back and he says with the utmost of sincerity that no

he didn't rip you off at all. So you drive away satisfied. The knocking persists. You don't trust that first mechanic anymore. So you take it to a different mechanic and he tells you the same thing that the first one did. So you take it back to the used car dealer again and you say, hey, man, are you entirely sure that you didn't rip me off? But he takes another look at the car and once again affirms with 100 percent certainty that he did not rip you off and that the car will be fine for years and years to come. And you're a little suspicious at this point. So you point to some of the chewing gum and the chicken wire that these mechanics keep showing you. But he explains that all away with a bunch of phrases that, you know, they don't entirely make sense to you.

Remember, in this example, you don't know a hell of a lot about cars. But you do know that these are all legitimate car words. And if you understood more, this would all make sense. So you drive away again. Fast forward a couple of weeks. The car's broken down altogether. It doesn't run. It doesn't idle.

And one of the doors fell off. So you tow it back up to the used car salesman. You tell him that you're pretty darn sure he ripped you off. car salesman, you tell him that you're pretty darn sure he ripped you off. But once again, he gives his utmost solemn oath that there's nothing at all wrong with the car. You're probably just flooding the engine when you try to start it or something. And when you think about it, the point of having a car was never that it was going to start anyway. So he sends you away again, you tow your car back home, patting yourself on the back for thwarting all those dumb ass mechanics that tried to lie to you and tell you there was something wrong with your car. Isn't it amazing how obviously stupid you are in this story if we switch out religion for anything else? So this analogy occurred to me the other day as I was perusing one of the many

Facebook atheist pages that I frequent. I saw a listener recounting his deconversion, and it was almost exactly this story. He kept being presented with the atheist arguments via books, YouTube videos, and friends, and then he kept taking all of those arguments back to his pastor, back to the same guy that sold him this defective worldview in the first place. Now, to be fair to the listener in question and to the many people who have similar origin stories in atheism, the analogy breaks down in a couple of important places. So the poor victim of religious indoctrination doesn't have to kick themselves the way that our hapless second person car buyer did. If we wanted to make it accurate, we'd have to add in a whole bunch of that dealer's other customers towing

around their cars that didn't run and insisting there was nothing wrong with them. We'd have to add auto magazines that argued that cars were never meant to run in the first place. We'd have to assume that you bought this car as a child and it's definitely the make and model your dad recommended. We'd have to assume that trade schools had special classes for mechanics that wanted to work on cars that didn't run and never would. But the basic issue still holds, right? When religious people are given challenges to their religion, they invariably take them back to their pastor or their imam or their priest or their bishop or their rabbi or whatever. And they say, are you entirely sure you're not ripping me off? They'd feel like idiots immediately if they did that with any other product or service.

But when it comes to religion, people don't seem to realize that they're just asking the salesman to sign off on his own work. And yes, they're paid on a commission. Right. And that's the real place that the analogy breaks down. See, at least the used car salesman would be honest about the profit motive. right? They'll tell you stuff like, I want to sell you a car. They'll ask, what's it going to take to get you to drive away in this car? They'll make it super clear what they're there to do. Religious leaders will fucking lie about that. You know, they're there to sell you something just like the used car salesman. Their job requires that they sell a certain number of units to keep the lights

on. And yet they will never be honest enough to say, what's it going to take for me to get you into this pew? Right. They pretend that they really just have your best interests in mind. They're really just worried about you and your immortal soul. And thus, whenever they make a sale of their non-existent product, it's dishonesty squared. And that's the group that we're dealing with an entire profession subsidized by the government more so than any other that can only aspire to achieving the level of honesty that we'd expect from used car salesmen and even though they could aspire to it they don't. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Daryl and Daryl to my Larry Heathenwright and Eli Bosnick.

Fellas, are you ready to explain to most of the listeners what the hell I'm even referencing at this point? Deep into the old TV right there. And I think we're all about to wake up from a nightmare spooning Bob Newhart. Spoiler!

Spoiler! For our listeners under the age of 85, Bing Crosby beat his wife and children. Okay. You have a lot of weird details like that. A lot of important knowledge. Give you that note. Okay.

In our lead story tonight, according to a recent study about the difference between real news and satire, Christian Republicans are super bad at identifying things that are true. Yeah. And a study conducted just now about the meaning of Christian and Republican backed up the original study so case it wasn't already obvious idiots of all different groups are sharing headlines that aren't real but america's christian right is mathematically extra extra super duper extra

wrong when they do that sort of stuff right yeah to be clear that's their extra wrong when they do that sort of stuff they sure are right yeah to be clear that's their extra wrong when you subtract out the extra wrongness that comes into it with them being demographically defined through their religion and power god it's actually it's difficult to explain how wrong american christians are that's that's literally true whoo so study was conducted by a team at ohio state university to see how well different groups of Americans were able to tell the difference between a real piece of journalism and satire from a site like The Onion. And it turns out there's a site called The Babylon Bee, which is basically the Christian onion. And the existence of The Babylon Bee accidentally created a perfect case study on the terrifying stupidity of their target audience. And apparently a bunch of them think all those headlines are real. Like so much.

Very many. So many too many. It's way too many. Many. It's terrifying. So the Babylon Bee got some attention recently thanks to a big argument they had with snopes the bee published a satirical article based on a real story involving georgia state representative erica thomas in reality thomas was in the 10 items or less lane at the grocery store

and some guy started harassing her for having more like 15 items just for the record she was almost nine months pregnant at this point oh wow rules are rules detail yeah and some guy said rules are rules and then possibly started saying slur type stuff but at least mean type stuff anyway after the incident thomas who happens to be african-amer, put a video on Twitter that accused this guy of using the phrase, go back to your country. But the store reviewed the security tape and it turns out the guy actually just yelled other offensive stuff, but not specifically that phrase.

Exonerated, got it. Should have gotten into Harvard, exactly, thank you. Turns out he had like a Cuban person in his person in his ancestry somewhere so he couldn't have been racist yeah yeah so he was marco rubio we should have told you this at the beginning it makes a lot more sense it was not marco rubio that would have been marco bethesda so anyway it turns out this guy didn't specifically say, go back to your country. So Thomas had to walk back her statement. And here's the headline we got from the Babylon Bee surrounding that real headline.

Quote, Georgia lawmaker claims Chick-fil-A employee told her to go back to her country. Later clarifies he actually said, my pleasure. Which, I mean, yeah yeah that's kind of funny it's kind of funny but not at all a real headline obviously but this got shared by way too many idiots with comments that clearly indicated they thought it was a real story so it eventually got onto the snopes radar and they explained to the internet how the internet works and they also added a little bit of scolding for the Babylon Bee that basically said hey if your audience is super dumb and they are you should probably make it a bit more clear that your story is a joke well but yeah I mean but Christian humor sites can't exactly rely on being funny

the way the Onion can. That's how you know The Onion is satire is because it's funny. Or honestly being satire. Yeah, right. It's very tricky. Getting back to the study from Ohio State. They found that when satire has a political leaning similar to your own, you're way more likely to think it's real. Makes sense.

So Democrats were way more likely to think headlines's real. Makes sense. So Democrats were way more likely to think headlines from The Onion were real compared to Republicans. But when it came to the Babylon Bee and its conservative Christian theme, Republicans were way, way, way more likely to fuck it up than Democrats, like double the amount of fuck it up and double the amount of stupid and sharing it and thinking it's real. One quick example, people were presented with an article from The Bee with the headline, Ilhan Omar says, if Israel is so innocent, then why do they insist on being Jews? Okay, now that's actually funny. And the article also includes another fake quote from Omar where she says they want people to feel sorry for them, but they're just out there every day being Jews.

It's almost like they're taunting everyone. So you guys ready for a terrifying number? Yeah. About the amount of people that thought that was real? Oh, no. Yeah. Thought that was real? Oh, no.

Yeah. The study found that 23% of Republicans thought that article was, quote, definitely true. Also, 8% of Democrats, which is fucking terrifying also. I mean, to be fair, they are being Jews, though. Yeah. That part's true. I'm surprised 23% of the people who stuck with grabbing by the pussy guy can read so i don't know so the point here isn't about snopes having a snippy tone when they're debunking obvious satire it's about how the bible is a giant

onion or babylon b article that three quarters of the United States uses as the basis of their worldview. And that means way too many Americans think typed words are a credible source, assuming it agrees with their existing opinion. So here we are in a post-truth universe where Hillary Clinton fucks kids in a pizza dungeon, which is way more plausible than the Bible. Way more, yeah. That's physically possible. Yeah, we're like three months away from finding out how many kids are husband-fucked with Jeffrey Epstein. So, like, you don't even need to switch last names to be talking about real shit. I believe that case got dismissed.

And in a bets-a-bet news tonight, regular listeners to the show may remember that we recently praised New Zealand for their public and open mistrust of evangelical Christians. Well, this week they doubled down on winning our love forever when a Kiwi man threatened to shoot his flat earther friend with a crossbow when he proved how fucking stupid he was.

This is the best. Oh, New Zealand, we love you so much. New Zealand, land of Rivendell and skepticism and apparently Wookiee fights. Our three favorite things. And those are absolutely three. Crossbow attacks. Fuck raindrops and roses. Yeah, exactly.

So here's the story. According to the Otago Daily Times, hero and handsome man who is handsome, Jamie Matthew Sutherland was having dinner with his old school friend, Louis Lanz. Well, it turns out Louis dedicated himself full time to being an asshole and bet Jamie 10,000 New Zealand dollars or three American dollars that the world was flat. So presumably, Jamie then sent Louis some evidence that the world wasn't fucking flat because Louis later posted on Facebook that he did, in fact, now believe the world was a sphere. Okay, let me guess.

He sent him mass that doesn't fall diagonally. He would not return our request for comment, so I don't know. However, that's not how Mr. Lanz... Also, it's not a sphere, dude. Also, that's not how Mr. Lanz tells it. According to Mr. Lanz, Jamie approached him at a gas station about a week later not how mr also it's not a sphere dude also that's not how mr lands tells it according to mr lands jamie approached him at a gas station about a week later demanded his ten thousand dollars and threatened to murder him and his father with a crossbow if he didn't pay up so so so louis lands

then goes to the cops this ends up in court where where despite the fact that Jamie doesn't even own a crossbow, a judge like officially and legally called the bet off. And I guess also the proposed murder. Okay. That's a weird legal system. Murders have to get called off by a judge.

Also, fuck you. The bet still counts. Absolutely. Everything about that judge's decision is weird to me and look there's some good unbiased takes on this story we got it from him at meta over at the friendly atheist blog he did a great job the original story that he linked does a good job but i'd like to take a moment dear listener to tell you what really happened because if i'm an expert in anything it's arguing with dishonest morons i have anything, it's arguing with dishonest morons. I have a doctorate

in arguing with dishonest morons. I feel like you'd have nailed the spelling on that sentence if that was true, but for the purposes of this setup, yes, okay. Thank you. There's just a really big cluster of spelling mistakes right here. The little squiggly guy was there. But anyways, when my body is dust and the aliens roam

our planet looking for archaeological signs of our civilization's existence, they stumble across me in any way, shape, or form, it will, in all likelihood, be me arguing with dishonest morons. All right, kids. As you can see, this fossil here is doing a face palm and giving the middle finger with the other hand. This is called the Cenozoic Holocene Atheist Podcaster. Yeah, exactly. So here's what really happened all right jamie and louie run into each other louie doesn't have any friends anymore because he's an ignorant

piece of shit so jamie does that weird like frozen the guy keeps saying days and you run out of excuses things so he agrees to hang out with him and have lunch because he'd feel bad if he says no. So during that hangout, Louis is just like so monumentally, proudly ignorant that when he finally gets around to just outright denying the shape of the fucking planet, Jamie calls him out and is like, hey, you know what? $10,000 if I prove you wrong. Jamie just pushes over Louis' chair, takes the money off the table. Hey, look, you fell downward from gravity. Thanks for the 10 grand.

Right. So over the next couple of days, I bet you here's what happened. Louie sends like YouTube videos from Truth Seeker 420 Blunt 69, which Jamie like does a bunch of Wikipedia to debunk until Louie pouting and filled with the realization that he would have been better off ground up into food for starving kids, goes radio silent. Or he was pretending he'd fallen off the edge. Yeah, that's possible. So then at the gas station, Jamie sees Louie and he's like, hey, you owe me $10,000.

You better pay up. Wink, wink. But see, Louie is, like all conspiracy theorists, a stupid, self-centered, concerned piece of shit. So he immediately calls the cops and pretends he received death threats because he's so self-centered and detached from truth as a concept that literally anything that feeds into victimized special one worldview becomes the perfect omnipresent word of God. view becomes the perfect omnipresent word of god yeah the god of the universe who got outsmarted by some atheists who routed all the flights from south america to australia via dubai to hide the truth exactly yeah so then jamie who's just fucking joking he gets dragged in front of a fucking judge where he has to like say with a straight face that no he doesn't expect ten thousand dollars

from or plan to murder the worthless human being standing to his right in the only suit he'll ever own and be buried in jamie's like okay does it count if i only just now started planning to murder him because that's valid so jamie if you're listening and we know you are big fan from one warrior to another take my advice delete facebook my dude in the words of future president tim ryan nobody's coming to save us it's gonna be a sweaty four years all right well eli just called himself a warrior so i think we need a minute to remind him of him. So we're going to take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucid. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she was. 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 Misogyny. If I were to ask you, what's the appropriate punishment for sexual assault, you would probably immediately assume I meant for the perpetrator. And apparently that's because you don't run Fayette County High School in Fayetteville, Georgia. So here's one of the more disgusting stories I've come across in a while. It's about a lawsuit filed by a young woman who goes by the initials AP in the court filings. According to the lawsuit, AP in the court filings. According to the lawsuit, AP was staying after school one day and met with a boy.

They flirt, they kiss, and then the boy asked her for oral sex. She says no. He asks harder. When she tries to leave, he grabs her by the throat, pushes her against the wall and threatens her. So she performs oral sex on him, gets the fuck out of there and reports that she was sexually assaulted. Already a pretty horrible story, but you already know what's coming, don't you? I mean, there's no video of the incident. So what, the principal is just supposed to take her word for it? And sure, that's a rhetorical question, but not in the direction that FCHS assistant principal Brandy Johnson thought. According to AP, at one point, Johnson told her, quote,

it looked like you liked it, end quote. But apparently it wasn't enough just to doubt her and humiliate her. They also expelled her from the school for sexual impropriety, for getting sexually assaulted. And that's the world we live in, folks. We live in a world that punishes the victims so that the next victim will know

to keep their fucking mouth shut or open, depending on what the rapist is in the mood for, apparently. But it's no mystery how we got here or why we can't escape. It's not just that we have men in charge of everything, but an awful lot of them are misogynistic idiots, too. I mean, consider the story that comes to us from fellow podcaster Karen Aaliyah of Deconversion Therapy, a comedy podcast about religion. She wrote a guest post over at The Friendly Atheist that points to an upcoming lecture series that the Middleton, Tennessee Church of Christ is offering called The Christian Woman. Basically, it's a series of lectures on subjects like how to be a loving mother and how to be a faithful wife. Five lectures from five speakers on the issues facing women today. All five of them are men,

even the one doing the speech called The Christian Woman's Response to the Feminist Movement. And it's not like these assholes are willing to confine their stupidity to church. Just look to Colorado where Corey Sulean, a pastor at the Hopewell Baptist Church, is running for Colorado State House under the Women Shouldn't Wear Pants platform. So basically, the instant this guy announced his candidacy, former congregants

of his church started speaking up about his apparent long standing obsession with the evils of lady pants. So much so that his campaign had to file a statement in which he totally doubled the fuck down. The statement reads in part, quote, Pastor Sulean has made it known that he believes that the Bible says it's immodest for women to wear pants, end quote. A statement that wasn't immediately followed by, which is why he's withdrawing from the race. Because legal weed or no, this is a state that once elected Gordon Klingenschmitt. And now that you're good and convinced that there is no hope like I am, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in meet my brother Reza News tonight.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. One of my one of America's major political parties just noticed that atheists exist. Hi. Hi, the Democratic Party. So as I was meeting my mom. atheists exist hi hi the democratic party so at their summer meeting this past we're getting played off all right so at their summer meeting this past weekend the democratic national committee voted unanimously to pass a resolution that recognized quote the value ethical soundness and importance of the religiously unaffiliated demographic end quote and okay well we're important that's that's that we matter uh but and according to the secular coalition for america by the way this is the first time a major u.s political party has ever specifically courted

religiously unaffiliated voters you guys have a non-zero value and are not automatically evil. We have resolved. I mean, it's really negging more than courting. Well, it's a kind of courting. Which is sort of technically courting too, yeah. Our shirt hides our love handles nicely. Thank you. Yeah, but we're really at a point where we're like,

we're thankful to be negged, right? Yeah, absolutely. You exist. Get excited. who wants a tim ryan 2020 shirt get on out there they are absorbent those do not hide the love handles nicely no all right so obviously resolutions like this don't tend to move the needle but they are a good signal that the needle is moving i mean this is an election that's shaping up to be the most religiously partisan in the nation's history, and yes,

I'm counting JFKs here. JFK was Jewish? Yeah, that's what the J stands for. Jewish Fitzgerald Kennedy. A lot of presidential candidates, of course, are already doing backbends to prove to Christians that they

love Jesus, too. And by and large, atheists are just going to naturally vote for the party that isn't led by a guy who once promised to pass a law forcing businesses to say merry christmas so it says a lot about where we are as a movement that the dnc feels comfortable wrapping their arms around us so publicly at this exact moment yeah i mean thanks for the kind of bullshitty nod, but yeah, thanks for something there. But, you know, maybe focus the fuck up. Head out to the Rust Belt.

That would help. Folks that are going to turn elections. You're going to lose no matter what. Run Marianne Williamson. We might as well have some fucking fun. That's all I'm saying. Opposite of what we just said. That was satire. That was the onion onion i'm sorry for

trying to make it pleasant time for having some fun fun all right so obviously we're having fun shitting on this because it's like the only thing we've ever gotten and it's so little but for what it's worth this resolution is is worth a read it makes some pretty solid points about why this is so long overdue and they'll actually leave you feeling empowered as a non-religious voter. For example, quote, non-religious Americans make up 17% of the electorate as of 2018. Or maybe, quote,

the religiously unaffiliated demographic represents the largest religious group within the Democratic Party. End quote. So, you know, let's fucking act like it. okay so no writing yourself into an absentee ballot which you forget to mail this year okay we're all on the same side this time and in take the red pillow news phenomenal liberty university recently decided to grant an honorary degree to an important public figure

for his contribution to academia just like they do at the real university during their mandatory attendance convocation last week liberty president jerry falwell jr Jerry Falwell Jr. presented an honorary doctorate to Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, the world's top-ranked retailer of Christian bags of soft. And thanks to Lindell and his amazing contribution to humanity, he became an honorary doctor of letters? Letters! Mostly Zs,'s i guess i don't know and liberty university got to do a celebrity doctorate ceremony just like a big boy except instead of a you know nobel laureate or something like that it was the ron popeil of soft rectangles. Are we going to say soft, though? Fermi, softer. Okay, and you have to watch this bit.

It's like kids playing honorary college degrees. I've seen invisible tea parties with more realism. So, during the pull-up diaper training of honorary degrees, Dr. now Mike Lindell recounted his inspirational story of making the world a better place one $50 pillow at a time. Jesus. the world of non-secular bags of foam started really taking shape back in 2016 when he met with donald trump at trump tower in new york city trump was in the final stretch of campaigning for president and arranged a meeting with this titan of the infomercial industry uh jared kushner would have been there too but he was meeting with a a Russian guy about knockoff shamwows or something like that. Well, yeah, well, so he didn't want a Jew there.

Yeah. So according to Dr. Mike, quote, when I met with Donald Trump, it felt like a divine appointment. End quote. End quote. Yes. Go forth, my seraphim, and make sure that a game show host and Russian spy meets with a guy who lies about how comfortable memory foam is to old people. This is my will. He's gotten weirdly specific in his old age, this guy.

Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Foam Phil got his fake degree and told the story about God anointing him the pillow messiah. The unknown adulterer. And then he went for the big reveal. This is so fun. He literally did, you know, the old

everyone please reach under your chairs. Well, sorry, under your asses. We ran out of tape. Kind of fucked up my big reveal. You get a pillow and you get a pillow. That's right. He gave out $600,000 worth of my pillows.

And then without any idea of the words he was saying, told the mandatory audience of 12 000 creepy virgins the pillow is just a platform for a much bigger thing your head that was followed by the tacit segue speaking of large asses and he continued my calling is to speak out the word of Jesus. End quote. You make fun, but the crossover of people who need a special pillow to sit down and Christians is a circle in a circle, my friend. It's a circle in a goddamn circle. And then following the big ceremony,

Jerry Falwell Jr. made a very excited post on Instagram with the caption, Mike gave each of the 12,000 students a MyPillow. Retail value, $6,500. Retail value. What an amazing man who epitomizes the entrepreneurial principles that Liberty University was built upon. Apparently that's like part of their, I don't know. Liberty University, Luke's Veritas, call in the next 10 minutes. Prestigious University.

Supplies are limited. Yes, they are. And in O Come All Ye Faithless news tonight. You know, here on The Scaling scathing atheist there's a few things we'll never run out of noah's boundless rage he's being smart and funny and of course okay stories about fucking nativity displays i feel like we could at least hope for a summer lull couldn't we never stops never slows down perhaps, over the last couple of years, there is no city that spent more time on our desk than Bethel, Connecticut.

So, this all began in October of 2017, when city officials put a nativity scene outside of the municipality building. However, when a local atheist asked if he could put up a display, he was told that he had to fill out a formal application, something that was not required of local Christians. Huh, different rights. He's like, alright, well, someone's reading the phrase,

butt-plug Jesus from official paperwork during a town meeting in Connecticut. So, that's all I know about that. You made that happen. Yeah. Also, I really didn't want to do this, but unleash the Blackwell. Yep. Exactly. So, Jeff Blackwell

from American Atheist sends a letter over saying no, and Bethel is like, sorry, sorry, our bad, our bad. Everyone has to fill out an application. But, since there's not enough space for everybody, it's gonna be a race oh my gosh

would you look at that Christians won the race did you just tie the finish line to the back of their shoes you just tied the finish line to the back of their shoes no yeah so Jeff Blackwell walks over to his photocopier scratches out the last date

he wrote the angriest sweatiest photocopy you ever done seen sends the city letter again saying still no and bethel's like okay got it got it our bad we'll do it by lottery except for atheists who are guaranteed a space because you guys keep sending us right okay blackwell so muslim ban for the entire town got it we understand don't let him tea to space because you guys keep sending us letters. Right. Okay, Blackwell. So Muslim ban for the entire town. Got it. We understand what you're saying.

Don't let him leave even if you come to get him. Got it. Yeah. At this point, I'm just imagining like Jeff in his office bedraggled, his ties undone. He's got 15 destroyed pop stress balls in a trash can next to his desk. destroyed pop stress balls in a trash can next to his desk he just writes a letter in crayons saying no the point

is nobody gets special treatment even us love Jeff so just the one water fountain? we're very confused Jeff Blackwell ok so 17 letters later and

10 years of Jeff Blackwell's life later, this week, finally, and at last, Bethel has announced that there will be a lottery for everybody who wants a space this holiday season. And listener, this gives you a distinct opportunity. If you live in Bethel, Connecticut, or just represent a Satanist or an atheist group, please, please, please fill out this lottery and put some giant dicks on the front lawn of this town's municipality building. Make that butt plug Jesus happen. Do it. Do it for your fellow man, but mostly do it for the bleary-eyed, half-mad wretch of a man that was Jeff Blackwell. Make it worth his while, people. Where's Chaz Stevens?

Shouldn't he be up in Bethel? And finally tonight, in grifter news, and you can't tell, but I spelled that without an E, so it's clever. Pennsylvania Catholic priest Joseph McLuhan didn't rape any kids. So that puts him in the top half of like yeah most ethical catholic priest in pennsylvania spreadsheet is uh he's rocking that but he did steal almost a hundred thousand dollars from the church and use it to pay men to fuck him allegedly okay so that was stealing from a church and also consensual sex with a male adult prostitute. The end justifies the means or the means justify

the end. It feels pretty ethical. Thank you, Noah. We are strong supporters of both sex work and embezzlement on this show. Shame on you, sir. Alright, so according to local authorities, his grandson, damn it. Over the past eight years, McLoone, who looks like he just committed an atrocity over an improperly wrapped up extension cord, diverted about an eighth of a million dollars intended for the church into a private account.

He then used said account to fund a lavish lifestyle that included a beach house, fine dining and fucking a lot of dudes he made on Grindr. And by the way, just to demonstrate where we now are as a society, every single news article I saw about this guy felt the need to specify that his paid gay relationships were with, quote, adult men, end quote. Wow. This guy should be running HR workshops at the Vatican. Exactly. Fantastic. Beach house, real, fine dining, real, fucking dudes, real real victimless crime yeah right right the god this money was intended for all right also circling back there's no atrocities if you don't wrap an

extension cord correctly whatever happens to you you deserve a game fair game i was gonna say you look like heath but angry but you know i figured all right so now some of you might be wondering how we could steal over 15 grand a year without anybody noticing for two goddamn presidential administrations and that's because you're new to the show to atheism into america elias the lovable rogue i look shit like that tends to be treated fucking easily when there's no governmental oversight of your charity churches don't have to say what they're doing with their money. And what they're doing is so fucking heinous that they would rather fight to protect that privilege than not get ripped off for 100 grand's worth of fucking rusty trombones now and again. And that by itself should be the only admission of guilt that we need. Yeah.

Who knew those weird, always angry ladies across America who run our church treasuries weren't the best and the brightest. I didn't see it coming. All right. Well, now that we finally caught a Catholic priest fucking an adult, I suppose we can close the headlines for the night. Heath Eli, thanks as always. Tim Ryan 2020.

Nope. Damn right. Nope. And when we come back, we'll see what it does to one's psyches when their porridge is always too cold. Once upon a time, a mama bear named Hillary Morgan Ferrer was reading some stupid and thought to herself, hey, I can make stupid. So she did, and she quickly rose to the top of her subcategory of a subcategory on Amazon. But then along came an English major that writes in phonetic hieroglyphs.

And he said, look, even I can make fun of your writing, lady. And so he did. And now that you're all caught up on the action of Eli's ongoing book report on Ferrer's mama bear apologetics, I suppose that we're ready to dive into chapter two. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, chapter one was by this book. So now it's time for chapter two. How to be a mama bear.

Is this code for being the weirdest mom on the playground? Yeah. Well, weird doesn't feel like the right descriptor there. Like giving out craisins on Halloween. That's weird. that's weird that's weird yelling at your nine-year-old to make sure the culture doesn't distract them from god kind of puts you right there with anti-vax mom it's it's weird how they kill people no it's not the right word weird is not appropriate there yeah and and as if this book wasn't confusing as it is i should point out

that this chapter is written by a different Hillary. Hillary Short. Either way, she's going to start this chapter off with the story of the time she and her husband went whitewater rafting with his family because what this apologetics book was missing was slides from someone's vacation. Yeah, God. Okay, but if the turbulence of the river turns out to be an analogy for life, I fucking quit.

Spoilers. A literal mama bear balls her like a salmon. Okay, well, this is actually kind of funny. I'm writing a book. Okay, it's ironic. The story she uses at the beginning of this chapter here is amazing because it 1000% does not prove what she think it does. No. So in her story, her sister-in-law and her both get swept overboard in the side of the whitewater raft. And she talks about how her mother-in-law like leapt to the side of the boat and dragged her sister-in-law back on.

And they're like, that's what a mama bear is. Smart and strong and quick to act and blah blah blah but what she doesn't mention is nobody pulled her out of the water yeah it's sophie's choice from ava's perspective and miss short doesn't know it yeah sophie's choice from god's perspective is having the holocaust happen yeah right but here's the other thing I love. It also proves since she didn't die before she wrote this, that it was unnecessary. She was

fine. Her sister-in-law could have just swam back over to the boat. So even in her own fucking story, the mama bear is irrational, overprotective, and doesn't improve the situation. Yeah. So she talks about how hard it is to be a mom for a little bit. And now it is time for her to shit on Camp Quest.

Literally. The, like, creative camp for skeptical kids. She actually names Camp Quest. And the example she uses is the invisible unicorn test they talk about with the kids. Now, for those of you who don't know, this is a fun little exercise they do with the kids at Camp Quest where they tell the kids, hey, there's an invisible unicorn somewhere at camp, but it can't be seen or smelled or touched.

And we only know it exists because of a thousands of years old book. And then the counselors sort of talk the kids through how we would disprove that unicorn. Yeah. And by the way, regardless of what camp quests, restraining order says, Eli, I think using that to convince the kids you weren't masturbating was brilliant. Thank you. Thank you.

Stupid, itchy ankle bracelet. Anyways, the invisible unicorn, it's a fun sort of lighthearted way to talk to kids about critical thinking, unless you're Hillary short, in which case your response in this chapter is you motherfuckers don't even want to find the unicorn

because you love being gay so much. I'm hetero-fucking this unicorn right now. We're going to have a unicorn baby and nail it to a cross. Learn some morality. Here's her literal response. Quote, this belief is known as scientism.

No. And it's flavor of naturalism, which we will discuss in chapter six. I ask you, dear reader, is that very belief able to be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched? Why do you want to lick everybody's brain, Hillary? Stop it. Stop it. And that, by the way, is the end of the section. She doesn't, like, go further.

She's just like, fuck you, Bertrand Russell. You can't smell your thoughts. Smells like victory, just for the record. So now we're on a section titled Apollo What? What are we apologizing for? The kid rape, maybe? Genocide, roads, the aqueduct. Yeah, because this section should very well be called Maybe. Genocide, Rhodes, the aqueduct. I really want to play this game.

Yeah. Because this section should very well be called most of the people who read this book literally only know one definition of the word apologetic

at most. Whenever I say Christians need to learn apologetics, people throw sandals at me and yell, I ain't apologized. Shit.

Is the subtitle of this chapter about this? Yes. Yes, yes. Right, so I totally knew this. Just want to throw this out there because I'm super smart. But apologetics, the word, comes from the Greek apologia,

which referred to how a lawyer would argue their case. So I'm just saying, now we can't say that Hillary Short didn't teach us anything. I mean, we can definitely say that. Well, we can say that. I mean, it means speaking in defense.

Anyways, moving on. Now we're in a section called A Call for Moms. And this section is another goddamn ad for Mama Bear Apologetics, the website. We are two chapters into this book. And so far, the intro and both chapters have been ad for this book and related products. Yeah. But also, though, we learned from Lee Strobel that when your readers are Christian, you got to constantly give the next page the hard sell, though. But this book, it's even better if you read a chapter three, guys.

Yep. Just reading this page on my Casper mattress sure is comfy yeah so she has the saddest plug ever for her podcast here i want to read it so this is a real quote quote the mama bear apologetics podcast is a conversational style podcast where she and a partner discuss various apologetics topics i don't know about you but i can't follow a university lecture while i'm driving or packing lunches but i like most women possess the ability to follow a conversation no matter what else i'm doing end quote yeah just just someone else chew my gum for me for a minute my lady brain can't handle the complexity of the monologue format as complicated.

Seriously? They need to have a little sexism in there, too? And then she actually says packing lunches, like, uses up all her intellectual ram. Yes, yeah, right. She put that in her book. Yep. What the fuck is this? Like, she's listening to a lecture on apologetics.

Just like, so God works in mysterious peanut butter, jelly bread, peanut butter. Fuck, I lost track again. Mysterious what? Mysterious what? What was he going to say? God works in mysterious peanut butter? Peanut butter. That doesn't make sense.

So now it's time for what a mama bear is and isn't. Are you guys ready? Because these section headings literally never mean what you think they mean. I feel like I can name a lot of isn'ts. That's just like an easy category. I feel like she's just setting herself up to have some easy ones. So first up, a mama bear is not necessarily a mom. Okay.

Go on. And if you thought this section was going to be, you know, gender inclusive, you're new here. Welcome to the podcast. Lovable Rogue. No, what she means by this section is that you can yell this shit at other people's kids. And the proof is the most horrifying twist since old boy is Hillary Morgan Farrer. That's right. The collector of this book, HMO, wrote a book

about defending your kids from the satanic influence of reason and she does not have kids. Which makes this book 8 million times creepier! Wow! That really does. Terrifying. Okay, so next up, a mama bear isn't necessarily

formally educated in apologetics you know because that's not what those words mean yeah no i feel like necessarily formally in and apologetics are all just there to pad the word count all superfluous all right our next one is a mama bear is not abrasive or argumentative. I do not believe you. Yep. That whole little, this mini section comes up way more protesting too much than it does as advice. Yeah, no, this chapter isn't mad, it's disappointed.

Gotcha. Then we get, a mama bear isn't one stereotype. Not a great sign when your list of shared characteristics include they don't have shared characteristics. Sassine Paz and Mama Bear. In this section, she points out that Mama Bears can be anything. They can be mothers and yoga

instructors and CEOs. And my reaction was, yeah, but they're not CEOs. They're not, though. You can just be a CEO and stuff you want by the way I just became a CEO of like six things look at me go alright so now that we know what mama bears

aren't besides actual fucking mamas or bears this is the holy roman empire of apologetics or. Or pipes. It's time to learn the four key traits of mama bears, or as Hillary calls them, the four H's.

Do they all start with H at least? They do. Wow, okay. She nails it. She does now. That was 50-50. Oh, you would not have been wrong if she had gotten one that was like a silent. Yeah, absolutely. Rhythmic in there somewhere. Number one, honesty. a silent. Yeah, absolutely. Rhythmic in there somewhere. Full. Yeah. Number one, honesty.

Liar. Yep. Yeah, okay, just going to start this liar clock. Let's see how that goes. So she sets up the bones of Christ challenge here, right? But then she doesn't answer it. She literally, in this chapter section, is just like,

what if someone showed you the bones of Christ and proved that he never rose from the dead? We are basically scientists. And stopping the clock. Was that eight, nine seconds? Yep, she did it. Number two, the H number two, humility.

Be sure to dedicate a few paragraphs to how humble we are in this. Okay, just going to start this pride clock and stop it again. I really didn't need to start that one at all. That's a double click. All I want to add is that she wraps up her humility section about

how humble Christians are by saying quote, above all the mama bear recognizes the dignity in the questioner behind the question because she loves others as God's creatures and as a fellow passenger on this ball we call home that hurdles through space at 67,000 miles per hour. You don't get to know the speed of the earth.

Fuck you. And it's just worth noting, she probably lost some readers for saying that it's a ball that spins at 67. Let's not forget that Mama Bears just recently, your side accepted the fucking round earth model. So don't use it.

Not all the way. Yeah, not universally or anything. H number three, humor. Will any of these not be self-contradictory? No. Okay, but in fairness, I laughed when I saw that number three was humor yeah that's true that's true when i first saw that that was quite humorous to me oh and this this

section it oh it's paint it's a humor is great i mean i'm a christian woman writing in an apologetics book so my understanding of humor is what comes between live and love on a wooden board I keep in the kitchen. Go ahead and chuck some jokes in there if you want. Maybe we can get Hillary to do some of her awesome jokes on the show. A thousand votes. Please.

15 minutes of air time. She does characters. She does impressions. I bet she does impressions. Carl gets into a fight with a Christian punk alright and finally

number four of our H's in the spirit of humility which was number two just quick reminder heroism and again this section is

is just like if you think about it being an asshole about Jesus to people way too young to defend themselves really is like being Superman asshole about jesus to people way too young to defend themselves really is like being superman yep i just want to cover one little quote she says quote what worked for our generation growing up attending church awana and reading the bible is no longer sufficient

are we saying that scripture is insufficient absolutely not stop hitting yourself. I'm saying that we are useless. Us. I'm saying it's important to be humble. And I'm also saying the Bible is incomplete without your copy of Mama Bear Apologetics. No, I'm not. Yes, I am. $9.99. All right.

So now it's time for a section. She is called, I'm new to apologetics. Where do I even start? I bet the answer is this fucking book, isn't it? One of them. One of them. So number one is know your Bible. Yeah, that's how you know where to find your Achilles heel.

And Achilles anatomy chart. Yep. It's all parts of the body. That's what we're using. So number two, gather resources. And Noah, you guessed it. This section is once again, buy this book and listen to our fucking podcast. Number three, carve out regular family time to study, which feels like cheating to me.

Is that not cheating? Again, what does it say about your readership? Would you feel the need to spell out that this will all take place in the time dimension and therefore will require a blocked out segment thereof? But if you're studying the Bible and, you know, you keep mixing up the order of peanut butter and jelly, don't worry. That's just normal lady brain happens standard so just check out bible peace theater you can hear the book in a nice digestible conversation form that us lady people can follow we got songs that's great number four find like-minded mamas and in case you're wondering

yes this entire section is block your shitty atheist niece on Facebook and her dumb questions. Minion memes should be the only thing on your timeline. Yeah, right. No, if you want to learn how to argue your side of the debate, be sure to team up with people that don't disagree with you ever. Yeah. Great place to start. Just walk out front of a Walmart and yell, I'm looking for answers. You will find a mama bear who is happy to help you

right away. And number five, practice, practice, practice. Now look, Tim's going to put this on YouTube. It's going to be a hashtag. Mama bears, if you're listening, and I really, really hope you are, if you ever want to practice,

give us here at the Scathing Atheist a call. One out of three of us promises to be nice. He really does. But he's lying. He is. He's going to ask you how your hospital tour is going and make you cry. But he is humorous and a hero.

What was the other one? Humble. There you go. There you go. All right. So with that fun out of the way, it's time for some discussion questions. You guys ready for the discussion questions? Oh, yeah.

All right. Number one's an icebreaker, as usual. What have you witnessed, either in yourself or someone else, that demonstrates the strength and ferocity of a mama bear protecting her kids? Okay. In 2003, Deanna Laney killed two of her sons by crushing their heads with rocks so they wouldn't have to suffer during the end times. Does that count? Is that what you're promoting, lady? The heavy rock.

Did she spare a few of her sons? She tried to kill the third one, and the third one survived just with terrible fractures to his skull. Mysterious ways. Mysterious mama bears. Okay. Let's see. Something that demonstrates what was it? The strength and ferocity of a mama bear.

Protecting her kids. I would say this book, but Hilary Morgan Ferrer isn't being fruitful and multiplying because she's a bad Christian and a broken woman, so pass. I'm going to pass. I'm not answering these questions. Andrew deleted isn't being fruitful and multiplying because she's a bad Christian and a broken woman. Oh, God. Pass. I'm going to pass.

I'm not answering these questions. Andrew deleted my answer from the notes because it's the condition of the lawsuit, so whatever. We'll move on. Question number two, main theme, you can do this. What are some misconceptions you have had about apologetics in the past? Did this

chapter help clarify how you, as a mom, can be a Christian apologist? What stood out to you? The fact that you already took away the you don't have to be a mom clause. Number three, time for some self-evaluation. All right, we're going deep. Review the four H attributes. Which characteristic comes most easily to you? Which is the hardest and why? Just to review, the 4Hs were honest, humble, hero humor, which is the title of our Christian stand-up comedy tour, by the way.

Yes, it is. Back into back and across the megachurches of the country. All right, number four, it's time for a brainstorm. What are some ways you and other moms can encourage and reinforce learning apologetics for each other and in your church community? Oh, good one. Recruit better authors.

Yeah. For the Bible. Get a better God. Better ghostwriter. All right. And then four, finally, release the bear. Okay, please be literal. Someone make fun of you for being bald?

Tell me she involves a bear. Would you be willing to talk to your pastor or other church leaders about their thoughts on apologetics and the importance of worldview training aimed at helping youth? What are some ways we could help the church reverse this trend of young people leaving? Stop raping them. Stop rap people leaving? Stop raping them. Stop raping them. Stop. So much. Don't release bears when they make fun of you for being bald,

perhaps. Or celebrate books that recommend that anyway. All right. Well, we're not going to ask poor Eli to read more than one chapter of this thing at a time. So we're going to close it out there, but we'll be back in a few weeks with even more ad copy in the next

God Awful Books. Before we reach the caboose tonight, I wanted to wish a happy belated birthday to our friend and colleague, Heath Enright. He recorded today's episode with us on the day after his birthday, and he spent the whole day on his birthday writing headlines and shit for you. Least you could do is send him some birthday wishes once the episode's over. I should also remind you, by the way, that he's going to be speaking at the Kentucky Free Thought Convention on September 21st in Lexington.

So if you're going to be anywhere near that, be sure to check out the show notes and follow the link to get your tickets. That would be a way better way to wish him a happy birthday. 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 an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'd be deprived of a wish or something if I neglected to thank Keith Enright for making yet another successful solar lap.

I need to thank Eli Bosnick for eventually agreeing that the severed heads of his enemies would not be an appropriate gift, even if it was accompanied by a singing telegram. I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for making my world go around, but most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most omnificent omnivores, Ashlyn,

Richard, Jason, Amber, Michael, Robert, Joshua, Daniel, Jeff, Sarah, James, and Leanne. Ashlyn, Richard, Jason, and Amber, who are so bright you need sunglasses to look at them. Michael, Robert, Joshua, Daniel, Jeff, Sarah, James, and Leanne. Ashlyn, Richard, Jason, and Amber, who are so bright you need sunglasses to look at them. Michael, Robert, Joshua, and Daniel, whose erections are pictured at the right side of the Mohs scale. And Jeff, Sarah, James, and Leanne, whose IQs are higher than I have to be to make it through

GAM movies. Together, this dozen denizens of disbelief delighted our debtors and delayed our descent into dejection this week by dealing us dollars. Not everybody has the dollars it takes to give some of them to us, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll learn 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 not in a dollar-giving way, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review on iTunes, telling a friend about the show, and following at P-I-A-T pod on Twitter. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of P Andrew Torres.

Tim Robertson handles our social media and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark. We also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skating, a theist.com.

I'm joking. Sorry. He's going to die. It was a very small sip of coffee left. Do you want some of my water or do you want to die? I'm good. I got it. He's going to die.

I'm going to make it. All right. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.