The Scathing Atheist - 356: Black Sheep Edition

Episode Date: December 12, 2019

In this week’s episode, veterans from the War on Christmas trudge home to lives they no longer recognize, we learn that the Trump campaign literally thinks Thanos was the good guy, and Steve and Tally Cass of Monster on Sunday will be here to rock the f*** out. --- 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: Wanna hear Black Sheep sooner than later?  Donate here: https://monsteronsunday.com/donate/ Wanna hear more from Monster on Sunday? Click here: https://monsteronsunday.com/music/ Check out Ben at Friend Dog Studios here: http://youtube.com/frienddogstudios --- Headlines: War on christmas https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/07/let-reason-prevail-banner-goes-up-in-san-diego-park-to-counter-nativity-scene/ and https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/04/warren-mi-is-home-once-again-to-a-sign-reading-keep-saturn-in-saturnalia/ And https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/07/delaware-town-bans-all-public-displays-media-makes-it-about-the-nativity-scene/ Roy Moore justifies candidacy by comparing himself to Brett Kavanagh and Clarence Thomas: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/08/roy-moore-justifies-candidacy-by-comparing-himself-to-brett-kavanagh-and-clarence-thomas/ Rick Wiles: House Democrats Are “Forcing Me to Stockpile Ammunition”: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/07/rick-wiles-house-democrats-are-forcing-me-to-stockpile-ammunition/ WSJ Essayist: Atheists Should Just “Lie” to Their Kids When Talking About Death: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/07/wsj-essayist-atheists-should-just-lie-to-their-kids-when-talking-about-death/ A Woman Was Nearly Kicked Off a Flight for Wearing a “Hail Satan” Shirt https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/07/a-woman-was-nearly-kicked-off-a-flight-for-wearing-a-hail-satan-shirt/ Donald Trump to Jewish Crowd: You Have to Vote for Me or You’ll Lose Your Money: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/09/donald-trump-to-jewish-crowd-you-have-to-vote-for-me-or-youll-lose-your-money/ --- This Week in Misogyny: SCOTUS won’t hear ridiculous anti-abortion law out of Kentucky: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-upholds-kentucky-abortion-law-mandating-ultrasounds-n1098181?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma PA House Passes Bill That May Require Death Certificates For Fertilized Eggs: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/12/01/pa-house-passes-bill-that-may-require-death-certificates-for-fertilized-eggs/ Reason Wins Out in Alberta’s Anti-Choice “Conscience Bill” Case: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/11/23/reason-wins-out-in-albertas-anti-choice-conscience-bill-case/

Warning, the following podcast contains profanity, like we were getting paid by the expletive. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, Hymns, and by the new jewelry for the atheist on the hoe, Impurity Rings. Impurity Rings, now available in hanky code blue. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Ben from the comedy channel Friend Dog Studios, which you can find on YouTube and stuff. And I'm here to assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men! It's Thursday.

It's December 12th. And it's the Festival of Unmentionable Thoughts. So they come out on stage and it's the Festival of Unmentionable Thoughts. So they come out on stage and it's the... Whoa. Seriously, Heath, we have new listeners. What do you people want from me? You said unmentionable thoughts. I'm no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Samuel Alito's New Jersey. How dare you. Cincinnati, Spring State, and Good Husband, Georgia. This is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, veterans from the war on Christmas trudge home to lives they

no longer recognize. We learn that the Trump campaign literally thinks Thanos was the good guy. And Stephen Talleycast of Monster on Sunday will be here to rock the fuck out. But first, the diatribe. Imagine someone says to you,

you know what show you should watch? TV show X. And you reply, you know what? I watched the first couple episodes and I didn't care for it. And then they get a sly look on their face and say, yes, but what kind of TV did you watch them on? Now, freeze your imagination right there. Zoom in on the look on your face when they said that. That suddenly perplexed look of incomprehension where you're thinking to yourself, sure, different types of TVs do affect the shows that you're

watching, but not in such a way that a show you don't like is going to turn into one that you do like on a different TV. Swim in that feeling for just a second. And now you know how I feel every time a would-be apologist says, yes, but what translation did you read? I mean, look, I get that there will be differences. Most of them are going to be subtle, but some of them will matter, right? Like there's a genuine difference between the strong hand of God and the mighty fist of God. But unless you're arguing that bad translations of your holy book add in knots where they don't belong and leave them out where they do, my issue with your book is a hell of a lot deeper than poor choice of adjective can ameliorate.

a hell of a lot deeper than poor choice of adjective can ameliorate is there a translation of the bible where jesus doesn't cure mental illness by putting the demons in pigs and then massacring them is there a translation without talking animals is there a translation where one isn't encouraged to beat their children or instructed on how to beat their slaves no then what does it fucking matter which translation I read? And look, we anticipated this bullshit, right? Way back when this show first started, we decided we were going to do a book by book breakdown of the Bible. Heath Lucinda and I all read different translations. Heath read the King James, Lucinda read the NIV, and I chose my Bible with a ruler and wound up with the new Oxford Annotated, a Bible with more footnotes

and explanatory essays than Bible. And by the way, most of those footnotes were about alternate translations, right? So when we went to break down the various books of the Bible, we actually talked about the differences in our three versions, but we didn't talk about them very much because they weren't very consequential. When we lined our notes up at the end of the week, lo and behold, turns out we were all still reading the same book. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand why the defenders of faith are so quick to toss out this meaningless defense. Most of the best arguments in favor of holy books are context dodges, right? And those all fall apart when you're arguing with somebody who's actually read your book. See, the way this is supposed to go is that I say, well, you know, the Bible isn't a good moral guide because it says X.

And then they say, well, have you ever actually read the Bible? To which I'm supposed to stammer a bit and sheepishly admit that, no, I didn't work my way through all of these endless pages of genealogies and repetitious Hebrew pseudo-history to discover the exact context of the it's okay to beat your slaves if they wake up passage and already that's a pretty weak fucking argument just like people who fall into that trap can jujitsu it real quick by asking them any context in which that passage wouldn't be grossly immoral but it's even worse for them when you say yes i actually have read the bible because a they can't use their go-to

context argument and b more often than not, that just makes the one of us who's actually read it cover to cover. By and large, I find myself dealing with apologists who haven't read the Bible, but rather people who have been told by somebody that did read it that the passages they were queasy about sound better in context. But on the rare occasion that I encounter somebody who's actually taken the time to read their holy book too, the next bullet out of their gun is always the translation question. And if you say, oh, I read the KJV, they'll scoff and they'll sigh and they'll act as though that explains everything. They'll laugh off your naive ignorance at going with such an outdated version of God's immutable

word and assure you that you just need to reread 11,100 more pages of bullshit, then you'll see why you had the Bible so wrong. And consider what a bullshit dodge this really is. Because it's not like their hopes is that you actually will go out and read another translation and then come back to them. Their hope is that you'll agree to pretend that you don't share enough common facts to have a rational argument. They're not trying to elucidate. They're trying to eliminate. They don't want to have to defend their holy book. So they're trying to

manufacture a situation where we both throw up our hands and say, well, we lack sufficient data to pursue this line of debate. Let's argue from some different angle where atheism doesn't have so much of a head start. And anytime you encounter that strategy, you should raise an eyebrow. You know, don't get me wrong. There are good reasons to make sure everybody's working from the same fact set. So if the goal here is to have an agreed upon translation to pull quotes from, I guess maybe there could be some integrity in that. But if the goal is otherwise, it's just to muddy the water enough so that no mutual fact set can exist. You're just not dealing with somebody who's wrong here. You're dealing with somebody who knows they're wrong, this is somebody who has already concluded that their position can't stand up to logical

scrutiny and they're just trying not to have to say that loud enough for themselves to hear it they're talking about you jesus interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin joining me for headlines tonight are the ho and ho to my ho, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to bring joy to all the boys and girls? Yeah. How come a guy can stuff your stocking and he's Santa, but I do it and it's breaking and entering? Double standard. Right?

Yeah. You're Jewish, I guess, is the double thing? Honestly, with the setup was all the boys and girls, I expected worse. Okay. Quick update on Vulgarity for Charity. I've been making you guys wait for the total, but it's with all the boys and girls, I expected worse. Okay, quick update on Vulgarity for Charity. I've been making you guys wait for the total, but it's so worth the wait. Here it is. Morgan, we're going to need a drum roll for this, please.

Morgan has real drum stuff he can do, so we could just do that. But thank you. I appreciate your enthusiasm. While he smashed that into my eardrums. But here it is. Here it is. Drum roll. And $306,546.53.

Yes, you heard that right. $300,000 plus. Amazing. Now, to be clear, we're done with the charity part, but not the vulgarity part. If you donated and you haven't heard your roast yet, don't worry. It's not that Eli forgot about you. I mean, he did, but that's not going to matter this time

because Tim's organizing it. But we've only done like a third of the roasts so far. There are a ton more segments to come both here and on Cognitive Distance. We just didn't want to do all of them together because I think it would get stale for everybody eventually. So we're spreading them out a little bit, but we're going to get to you as soon as we can, we promise. And on that

desperate plea from Tim, who has to answer all the I haven't heard my roast yet emails, we're going to take a quick break for this week's first sponsor, Stamps.com. Okay, a little to the left. Like this? No, Stamps.com. Okay, a little to the left. Like this? No, no, my left.

Okay, we need to pick whose left we're using now. It's always my left when I say it. I said it. Guys, what is up with the Canon? Oh, no, no. No, it's not a Canon. This is the Present Master 5000. Also, we don't like to use the C word

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Eli, I guess, you know, you should take her down. Yeah, probably best. Yeah, so what were you guys, you should take her down. Yeah, probably best. Yeah, so what were you guys going to send with the present master 5000 anyway? Mostly cannonballs. Heath. I mean, big metal presents. Big metal presents. Present master.

Don't say the C word, bigot. And now, back to the headlines in our lead story tonight the washington post obtained a trove of confidential documents revealing that since its inception the public has been consistently and purposely misled about the war in afghanistan and that the architects of the war hid unmistakable evidence that the war was unwinnable. And not to be outdone, we here at The Scathing Atheist also obtained a trove of confidential documents that reveal the same thing about the war on Christmas. Yeah.

Fun fact, Karl Rove, weirdly instrumental to both. Yeah, no, actually he was. Yeah, and Halliburton got a no-bid contract for the reason quick a couple of dispatchers from the front lines here uh we're going to start in balboa park in san diego no relation to the fictional pugilist where a sign from the ffrf joins a bunch of christian bullshit on public property and reads quote at this season of the winter solstice let reason prevail and if that's too subtle for you, the sign continues, quote, There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.

There is only the natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens the heart and enslaves the mind. End quote. No word yet on how the FFRF really feels, but that's... Yeah, let it out, fellas. It's good work. Okay, how about the secular holiday display? This year we write, fuck you, Debra, you ruined my life.

Steve, are you okay, buddy? I'm a fucking FFRF sign guy. I'll show you. Alright, but San Diego isn't the only place to go to find a great FFRF banner. We've also got news of a far less verbose one in Warren, Michigan, that simply reads, keep Saturn and Saturnalia, which I fucking love that one. It is a spectacularly effective way of reminding Christians how fucking dumb they sound to the rest of us.

Just a militant pagan screaming at a Starbucks barista. Happy Ex-Alia. Fuck you. Fuck you. just a militant pagan screaming at a starbucks barista happy ex alia you you and i should remind everybody these are not just go fuck yourself sites right like both of these come in response to cities and courts deciding to tip the scales towards christianity in cases of obvious first amendment violations the whole point is to get cities to wisen the fuck up and not let anybody set up religious displays on public property. But of course, when the cities actually do the right thing, Christianity punishes them mightily for it. And that's the case in Georgetown, Delaware, where they've simply banned all unattended displays in the town circle. Now, officially, this is about safety. And that might also be what it's actually about, too.

Yeah, no, probably not. But that hasn't stopped locals from concluding that it's really because the city hates the baby Jesus. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, the manger was an OSHA nightmare. Okay. Nightmare. That being said, it is delightful, I'm sure, to watch old men on rascal scooters holding AR-15s and guarding a plastic baby in a park. I don't think delightful is the word I'd use.

All right. So according to town manager. You can push them over. Okay, right. That'd be fun. They start shooting and they just go in a circle like from the recoil. You bend it around like Bugs Bunny. It's just getting bigger and bigger

alright so according to town manager Gene Dvornik the move is mostly quote from a safety standpoint as we have been seeing more and more winds stuff blowing out from the circle in the traffic lane end quote what? yeah I'm a little skeptical about an actual increase in wind under Dvornik's tenure. My guess is they have the same number of winds.

I'm also skeptical of his ability to see more and more wind, even if it's really there. But I feel like everybody can at least agree that, no, we don't want the babyesus blowing out into the middle of the road in winter traffic in delaware but when the local uh news covered the story they described the move as quote saying no to a nativity scene set up on public property end quote as though that's the one thing they were banning yeah it kind of gives away the Holy Ghost there. You know what I mean? I do want to see those rascal scooters chasing Jesus out in the street, though. All firing guns at it. Wait, is this helpful? I don't know.

I don't know why I brought the gun. So just a reminder, the war on Christmas is almost as imaginary as the nativity itself. And I know it's easy to be comforted by the fact that your opponents in a philosophical fight are battling ghosts but when people are swinging their swords at shit that doesn't exist everyone who shares a town square with them should be worried next up in headlines roy moore is running for the u.s senate again again. Yeah, he is. Anna? Oh, wait, no, sorry. Not Anna. Christian people are not freaking out at all about this.

Us? There's, nope, yeah, us. You guys want to sing it? Wow. Atheist freak out. There's a credibly accused child molester running for office, again, on a platform of Christianity. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And Christian people are not freaking out. And again, on a platform of Christianity. Oh, yeah. Again. And Christian people are not freaking out. And, again, they're not freaking out. They voted for him. He almost won last time, right after this happened, right after we found out. Yeah. And they're probably not worried about all that stuff after they saw Roy Moore's latest campaign video because that explains how he's just like Clarenarence thomas and brett kavanaugh his words his words nothing to worry about that was what he chose yeah to compare himself to those

two people and you know what i got that harvey weinstein fella to produce my video about it you know you're in a pretty deep fucking hole when step two in clearing your name is explaining away the two times you were removed from the bench for ethics violations. Right. He hasn't even gotten there yet. Yeah. So the title of Moore's video is Smear, and it's all about this terrifying trend of crimes getting reported. It's confusing how there's going to be a campaign. Oh, I'm sure Trump's guys are working on a couple examples for you for 2020. Don't worry about it. Yeah, and it shows Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh at confirmation hearings.

And neither of them are denying the allegations of sexual assault they were facing in his little video nope and at no point does roy moore deny the accusations against him either in his own ad he he only focuses on the convenient timing of the accusation as if that's relevant it seems like you'd deny it if you were falsely accused of sexual assault as like your thesis statement of an ad yeah wouldn't you yes you would yes i mean honestly given what we're seeing out of the gop these days i'm surprised he didn't just start listing women he didn't sexually assault i mean it would be too short. It would be too short. You gotta buy 60 or 90 seconds.

He'd be just drumming his fingers for 30 seconds. Anyways, vote for Roy. Everybody flip your calendar to my next month of not raping. God damn it. Yeah. And believe it or not, the ad gets even dumber.

They show us Lindsey Graham's bright pink faced meltdown from the cabinet. Followed by Steve Bannon's bright pink face. Just normal, relaxed talking. his face but even worse they try to use a clip of nancy pelosi talking about smear tactics as if to claim she was describing a secret sinister plot by the democrats during a national yeah right since she was giving right her secret plot during that but if you include a tiny amount of context that they obviously cut from their clip, you'd hear Pelosi basically saying, like, all right, well, I bet Fox News tries to cut this part right now where I explain the context. And they just use a tiny little piece of my remarks right after this or right before it. I guarantee that's what they do. Watch.

And it happened. I'm Nancy Pelosi. If you're a creep who's so creepy a mall cop recognized you as a danger, use the following words I'm going to say. I'm Nancy Pelosi. Oh, wow. Yeah. He got recognized by mall cops as a danger. That's a fact.

And one last detail just to make the story even more wildly depressing. Why the fuck not? Roy Moore is going to be running in the gop primary against jefferson beauregard sessions the third that's the state of the republican party in alabama right now the obvious choice to be their best candidate for u.s senate is jeff sessions and he distinguished himself from the competition by not molesting any children that we know of that that's what put him yeah step above that and rescinding the rights of lgbtq people through the proper channels yeah like a gentleman officially the fuck it's a weird timeline where we say the

things we have to say and in whilst Wiles, you were sleeping news tonight. If you've been following our show over the last month, whether you meant to or not, you've been following Rick Wiles, not so slow descent into too racist for right wing Christendom. And it has been glorious. Upsetting. Yeah. So for those of you who are just joining us, So for those of you who are just joining us, Rick Wiles is the host of the self-described end times news program, True News. And he looks like if rape apology was a guy. Yeah, he literally looks like Roy Moore fucked Brett Kavanaugh at that high school party where Roy Moore was hanging out.

And what's more, he personalities like that, too. He does. He does. was hanging out and what's more he personalities like that too he does he does anyway he has had a banner month first by describing the impeachment hearings as a jew coup and then doubling down with the claim that we've let kabbalah practicing jews destroy our country well this week he took to the airwaves to let us know that he would like to die in a hail of bullets because he's stockpiling ammunition because of the Democrats. Here's the quote. Here's the quote of your last quote. The Democrats are forcing me to stockpile ammunition, food, water and medical supplies to defend my family, home and church. This is a bad dream that won't end. and it's brought to you by the Trump haters.

End quote. Okay, so just to be clear, Rick Wiles' nightmare is being in power for four years, only to have it snatched away by your 233rd major political scandal. Yeah, I'm sorry, let's back this up. He's going to defend his church with guns against Trump's impeachment? Yeah, his little mad libby there.

Is he just going to shoot his TV every time the Democrats make a good point? In his church, yeah. And please, start a civil war. We're batting 1,000 up here. We're batting a thousand up here. He continued, quote, I strongly encourage you to take immediate action to prepare your home and family for the worst. Don't foolishly dismiss my warning that a revolution could erupt or widespread civil disruptions, even civil war. And yeah, yeah, right. No, there it is. End quote. Yeah, right.

There it is. The left is going to force me to defend myself from the violence. I'm going to perpetrate shit. Do over. Do over. Start again. So, yeah, I am not saying

you should send Rick Wiles a series of letters sending him practice yarmulkes for the coming Jew regime. But you should 100% do that. You should pretend to be the Jewish regime. Send him Syamakas. I'm saying that. And while we print out some address

labels, we're going to take a quick break for a word from our second sponsor this week, HIMS. Todd! Looking fat, Todd. Looking real fat. How you doing? Oh, man. Dude, what are you doing? Oh, hey, Heath.

I'm feeling a little low about some bald spots up top. So I went online. Yeah. And I heard about negging. So I'm negging people so that they'll like me. That's my new thing. Yeah. I don't think that's working.

Eli, did you tell Kelly she has long feet? I did. Speaking of which, your clothes always have cat hair on them. It's very obvious. Ugh, whatever, creep. Look, Eli, 66% of men start to lose their hair by age 35. Why not just try 4hymns.com? What's

4hymns.com? I wasn't talking to you, Sharon! We don't even have co-workers! Dude, dude, relax. You're a ruse, Shannon! You're a ruse for an ad! Nonetheless, let's get back on topic. 4hims.com. It's a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, and sexual wellness for men. Wait, hair loss pills?

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Go to 4HIMS.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing. 4HIMS.com slash scathing. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash scathing. 4hims.com slash scathing. Prescription products are subject to doctor's approval and require an online consultation with a physician who will determine if prescription is appropriate. See website for full details and safety information. This could cost hundreds if you went to the doctor's office or a pharmacy. Remember, that's 4hims.com slash scathing you know what heath i'm in sounds good also you're getting fat again i meant to tell you you're getting i thought you were gonna try four hymns i i can do both yeah he can do both you know what sharon a man

wrote the bible a whore is what she wants if it's a, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in Massage. Gee, who could have predicted that reproductive rights would erode under a Supreme Court with the likes of Neil Gorsuch and Keg Stan Kavanaugh? Or that voting in a guy who brags about sexual assault would have some negative consequences for women? Well, in case you didn't already feel your rights careening downhill, we learned this week that the SCOTUS wouldn't even bother to hear the ACLU's complaint against Kentucky's 2017 ultrasound law that makes women play virtual patty cake with a fetus before they're allowed to have their bodily autonomy back. The law, which has absolutely no medical purpose and exists only to shame women for having abortions, would have been clearly unconstitutional according to any iteration of the supreme court that we've seen in our lifetime

but to this court it's not even worth reviewing and what we have right there is a green light that just blinked on in every red state in the fucking union by this time next year we'll have women flying 600 fucking miles to begin their five-day government-mandated pre-abortion puppet show of horrors. All the while, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will wink back and forth about how they haven't overturned Roe versus Wade. And of course, all those shit states already knew this was coming, so it's not like they were waiting for that light to click on. Take this example out of Pennsylvania, where the state house just passed a bill that would require death certificates for fertilized eggs, including miscarriages. And while the bill's sponsor argues that this bill doesn't actually require a death certificate for miscarried fetuses, it does require a burial permit, which you can only obtain with a death certificate. But I'm sure it could be one of

those situations where the guy is lying because he wants to hide his good intentions. But with this much bad news to heap onto you, I do want to end with a bit of good news for the American women. And that's the fact that Canada isn't getting any farther away. I'm sure they would if they could, but they can't. And the flee north option got all the more appealing last week when the Alberta legislator defeated a bill that would have allowed doctors to deny patients referrals on the basis of conscience. Now, to be clear, if you're planning to immigrate, you're not going to Alberta. It's basically the Oklahoma of Canada. But it's pretty damn encouraging to see that even in one of Canada's most conservative enclaves, their politicians still have the sense to see why

this is a terrible fucking idea. Plus, the prime minister is the only politician Noah and I both have on our celebrity list. So while our U.S. listeners plot their escape routes, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in Yes, Virginia, there is an afterlife news tonight.

As an atheist, it can be hard to talk to your kids about the afterlife and what happens when you die. It's a complex conversation without easy answers that is unless you turn to the opinion page of the wall street journal this week where you'll find an article by psychoanalyst erica comisar titled i shit you not this is the real title don't believe in god lie to your children. Subtitle. Actual subtitle here too. The alternative is to tell them they're simply going to die and turn to dust. Those are your two choices.

Those are the two? Those are the two. Oh, what'd you say? Is there a God? Little child? Well, two schools of thought on that. It's either yes or we can go out and stab some homeless people together because it doesn't matter what do you think child what do you think we should do yeah so here's the quote i am often asked by parents how do i talk to my child about death if i don't believe in god or heaven my answer is always the same. Lie. The idea that you simply die and turn

to dust may work for some adults, but it doesn't help children. Belief in heaven helps them grapple with this tremendous and incomprehensible loss. In an age of broken families, distracted parents, school violence, and nightmarish global warming predictions imagination plays a big part in children's ability to cope and real quote by a person who is a doctor hey uh maybe don't don't bring up global warming predictions and lying about science at the same time jesus and uh yeah if you're poor you just tell your kid you're millionaires it's way more fun too no wait well you know falling out of a tree breaking your your leg, that's pretty scary. We should also probably tell them they can fly.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, wow, that is just so much terrible advice that any amount of introspection would make obvious. Well, what if I told you she has some faulty and unrelated data to back it up? Yeah, here's what she provides. I was hoping that would be great. Yeah, here's what she provides. Quote, children or teens who reported attending a religious service at least once per week scored higher on psychological well-being measurements and had lower risks of mental illness. They're so bad.

Yeah. Weekly attendance was associated with higher rates of volunteering, a sense of mission, forgiveness, and lower probabilities of drug use and early sexual initiation. End quote. Okay. I didn't even bother to fucking look this up,

but I guarantee you that that is also true of children who attend anything at least once a week in the universe with the possible exception of greedy vindictive drug orgies i guess even then maybe if it's a responsible one and you learn you know to like order your life around it i don't know yeah so secret handshake that initiates you into sex aside this article is is just so super de-duper wrongiest of wrongs i yeah it's it's real sad it makes you wonder what she thinks atheists tell their kids right like i wonder what that would be like what that would be oh it's not even moving i don't know what's happening oh what's the matter here little timmy mr fishy isn't moving oh kiddo i i think mr he might be dead. Dad, what happens when we die?

Well, Timmy, that's one of the big questions, isn't it? People all over the world and throughout history have believed a lot of different things. But the answer is we return to the void from whence we came. things but the answer is we return to the void from whence we came the the the void from whence we came yep that's right kiddo everything that you ever are or ever will be will just snap off like a light switch confining you to an eternity of darkness or maybe not honestly all the evidence points to consciousness ending all together when you die but who knows maybe you're just trapped in your body screaming wordlessly until your spirit is released dozens of years later by the eventual decay oh okay dad okay sweet dreams kiddo yep yeah sleep yep thank you i'm. Did you say something? No. No. Eternity of darkness.

And in crucify news tonight, the TSA can go fuck itself up the cavity with a body scanner. And here's why. And no, it's not that we spend nearly eight billion dollars a year of taxpayer money to prevent the scourge of three and a half ounce fucking toothpaste tubes in an effort to reinforce a bogus paranoia through mass dehumanization it's because every airport has different fucking rules of security so when i don't put my fucking suitcase in a goddamn bin that's because that's how they do it at the other fucking airport so you could just ask me to put it in a fucking bin rather than shoving it back at me and screaming everything in a bin right in my fucking face like a cartoon prison guard

just so I could sit around O'Hare through a three hour fucking delay while some smelly fat ass drunk guy wearing a cross the size of a bar of fucking soap tells me all about his career as an amateur documentarian and ultimately get back home about three hours faster

than I'd fucking driven from Chicago. So, um, what's your quit date, Noah? Today! Cool. Want some gum? No! You want to do your story? Yes! Do your story. Story. Okay.

You walk through the thing and they just throw de-lousing powder in your face okay so speaking of commercial air travel fucking sucks and should be the punishment for petty theft rather than something i fucking pay for an american airlines passenger recently shared a story of some pretty bullshit discrimination by said airline. I'm just going to say it. If Noah's whole story had just been airline travel sucks, I would have let it slide this week. So props for the tie-in, Noah. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So apparently one Swati Rooney Goyal, that's a name, made the mistake of getting aboard one of Prudery Air's planes while wearing a T-shirt that said Hail satan on it and as if that wasn't enough to tempt god to strike the flight down with a thunderbolt it also had a 666 on it and an inverted cross well no sooner had she sat down than a crew member informed her that she was going to need to change her shirt or get the fuck off the plane. What the fuck is happening?

She's just like, all right. And she adds to the bottom of the cross with a sharpie. So it's right side up again. All better. Tricked God. All right. So in her defense, Goyle curiously pointed to her lack of piercings. This is so strange. I'm just an ordinary person. I'm not goth. I don't have piercings this is so strange i'm just an ordinary person i'm not goth i don't have piercings

i wasn't wearing a shirt that had a goat being beheaded on it end quote i get why she threw in that last one there but that seems a lot of unnecessary shade to throw at goth people there swatty gets it so one way or the other um it's still pretty fucked up that american airlines would be selectively censoring religious speech like that something tells me they didn't fare it up by asking the christians to tuck in their crucifixes and those have a dead guy on them those are actually offensive okay shirt's still no good. She turns it into Hail Satan, not ironically, in Sharpie. There, there, not ironic. It's real.

Now bend over so Riffra can bite you in the ass. Yeah, it's worth noting here that this like wouldn't happen if someone wore a shirt that said, Allahu Akbar or in the name of Christ, because those guys have way higher scores than the Satanists when it comes to killing people yeah right right anyway the key takeaway is that airlines are out to suck all that is joyous out

of life until you're left a shriveled raisin of despair and self-loathing and the tsa is just trying to beat them to it so fuck it i'm driving just fucking driving i'm gonna drive every god and finally tonight according to the president of the United States, American Jewish people are not Jewish incorrectly. So, Eli, get your shit together. Talk to your boys. That's fair. Top of the docket for your next meeting. This whole Jewish thing is getting out of hand.

So, it's a good thing. According to the president. It's a good thing. Yes, I want to be clear. Those of hand so according to the president it's a good thing yes i want to be clear those yep according to the president and um yeah it's important that trump was able to address you people as a whole while giving a speech at the israeli-american council national summit last weekend all right time i looked this up okay Okay. So like 29% of Jewish Americans approve of Donald Trump. So clearly at least a lot of them are Jewish and wrong. I mean,

that's fucking great. That's like one out of three Jewish people. All they needed to be okay with Hitler was to be on the other side of the fence. Yeah. Yep. Oh, yeah. So during his remarks he told the american jewish community as a group that

they're anti-israel blood traitors and also proclaimed that they have to vote for him or else they're gonna lose all their goal money all their money because donald trump is a live action adult eric cartman it really is here's the exact words from Trump when he addressed the international Jew like he was reading a Nazi pamphlet by Henry Ford about how those people should be conducting their operation and how they're not doing it correctly right now. Quote, you have people, Jewish people, and they are great people and they don't love Israel enough. End quote. Yeah. You know, when I talk to Jews, the problem is they're way too critical of Israel. I say it all the time.

Yeah. It's obnoxious at this point. Too skeptical. And Trump also added, quote, you're not going to vote for the wealth tax. Let's take 100% of your wealth away. Not what the wealth tax means. No, no. Even if you don't like me and some of you don't, some of you, I don't like at all, actually. And you're going to be my biggest supporters because you'll be out of business in about 15 minutes. End quote.

you'll be out of business in about 15 minutes end quote wow this is how bad he is at not being racist guys there's an aside in the middle of that about how some of his best friends aren't jewish do i hate some jews yes do some jews hate me yes anyway the point of that sentence was vote for me. Yeah, so that was fun. Super important speech by Rabbi Trump. It's about time the bigoted son of a literal KKK activist decided to clansplain to the Jewish people about how politics works. Yeah, it's about damn time. Oh, and with a sad yearning for those bygone days where you had to, like, catch a president on tape to hear him say shit like that. We're going to close the headlines for the night.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Yahtzee. And when we come back, Monster on we'll be here to fuck god as you pick your way through the whamageddon minefield this year inundated at every turn with melancholic crooning to the baby jesus you're likely reminded of the dearth of atheist music in the world. Well, nobody's working harder to change that than my guests tonight. Since the release of their debut album, Baby Eater, which I believe was all the way back in 2015, Monster on Sunday has been the hardest rock band in atheism, and rumor is they got some more tunes into work for us.

So I'm excited to welcome back friends of the show, Tally and Steve Kass. Guys, it's been too long, so happy to talk to you again. Well, thanks so much for having us. Yes, it's been too long, so happy to talk to you again. Well, thanks so much for having us. Yes, it's so good to hear your voice again. Fun times. Yeah, well, no, it's really good to hear your voice rocking out again, too. I got a little sneak peek about what's coming up. So first things first, since the release of your last album, Baby Eater, you guys had a baby that you didn't eat. Believe it or not. Right, right.

So how does having a toddler in the house change the creative process for you? It changed the creative process quite a bit. I remember actually, it's kind of funny with this particular album, we wrote the skeleton tracks in one night that we were able

to have a babysitter in like two hours and then basically the rest of it has been kind of pieced together so i would take something like that and i'm usually up between five and six when no one else is awake so i'll go to the computer and i'll like play music and i'll organize the songs and then i'll send something to tally a lot of this album has been kind of written back and forth, like almost like we could have lived a thousand miles apart. But the reason we had to do it that way is because, you know, there's a baby in the mix and there's not really too much time where we can actually sit down together and work on songs. Somebody's always got to be watching him.

But despite that, I think actually in some ways that really helped us get some perspective and do some really cool things with this album because we were able to sit back. I do my thing. She does hers. And then we bring it together. And and there do some really cool things with this album because we were able to sit back. I do my thing. She does hers. And then we bring it together. And there's some really cool stuff happening. All right. So you guys are raising a kid. You're writing a new album. That obviously wasn't enough work for you because you also just put out a new video, right, for one of the songs from your first album.

That's right. So we edited the video. We shot it in San Diego and then put in the effects for Stardust. So we released it on Carl Sagan's birthday as kind of a, you know, dedicated it to him, a big inspiration, particularly on me for the video and the content and then the idea of the song Stardust. And so really excited about that. You can definitely go check it out on our YouTube page. Yeah. And I'll have it linked on the show notes as well. I really enjoyed it, especially I'm like, I'm thinking about the logistics of this because if you haven't seen

the video, it's all shot on a beach, right? You guys got the drum set and the guitar and everything out on the beach. It strikes me as like, that's a weird place to be setting up a drum set, you know? Yeah, it was. We were kind of worried the waves were going to come in and take them out. Yeah, right, right. Well, yeah, there was a lot of logistics that went into it because we knew we only had one day to shoot it, and we only had a few hours of sunlight.

Well, really one hour. One hour of sunlight to shoot it at. So like I've said before, this, it wasn't for poetic reason, but it is kind of interesting that we used only the sun to light the video Stardust. Oh, right, right. Yeah. No kidding. That's awesome. So let me, let me move back to this, this new album. So one of the things that really stood out to me about your first album was how remarkably personal the lyrics were like that the album really kind of took us through the journey of losing faith embracing atheism like and reflecting on what that makes us

um is the second album going to continue that journey or are you guys going in another direction a second album definitely continues that well uh we're going to be sharing with you a song called fuck god which sounds brutal and it is kind of a brutal song but it's actually um a song about basically my own experience with the board of education don't know if anyone y'all out there heard of that oh my dad had one of those yeah yeah we had that one hanging on the kitchen wall to threaten us, you know. My dad even drew pictures of asses on it, which I like that. Like reflecting back on it, that was in poor taste. Oh my gosh.

Well, in the song, I explain at some point how my dad drilled holes in it because it didn't have enough wind resistance. It didn't hit hard enough, so he drilled holes in it. And then he would give you like a waffle butt. But I'm basically singing about this idea that i i believe this idea that about this board kind of came from the bible or his religion like just the whole idea of the way to punish your kids to get them to do the right thing get them to believe in god get them to whatever you want and so that's how i incorporate this fuse those two together in this song, my story plus about God.

Right on, right on. Well, I'll tell you what. So you've set it up. Great. Let's give it a quick listen. the next one. Oh, all right. So I hate to cut you off right as we get going there. That's kind of the job. Now, I got to say, honestly, I haven't even heard the studio record of this one yet.

Perk of the job, though, I have heard the full demo. It might be my favorite thing you guys have ever done. I love the way it underscores how, like, you know, there's that sort of terror in it and that creepiness. Like, you know, there's this sort of terror in it and that creepiness. And it really underscores how little difference there is between the psychological abuse of religion and physical abuse. Right. Because the abuse is primarily the terror that you feel in between. Mm hmm. And that works the same way, whether you're afraid of dad's, you know, wiffle bat or God's righteous fury. Yes, that's very interesting that you mentioned that. I like that a lot that you draw that out of the lyrics that I wrote.

But yes, I totally agree. Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I'm easy. I fell in love with the song as soon as I found out it was called Fuck God. And then 15 seconds into the music as well. But yeah, no, I really love the way that all came together. So look, I know we've got a ton of monster on sunday fans in the audience that are like desperate have been waiting for this new album for quite a while how can they help speed things up give us your money that's always the quickest way right just like churches we need your money i hate to say it but

that's what's going on so so um the sooner we can fund this album, the sooner we can send it out to all of you because the ideas are done. What we're doing, and it's really cool, we're going to be going into the studio with Jeremy Parker. He is one of the engineers and producers of Evanescence and won a Grammy for that. So he's going to be helping us put this album together in the studio. So what you're hearing right now is a demo, but it's going to go definitely to the next level once we bring it in there. And we need your help. You can go to monsteronsunday.com slash donate and donate there.

And please do. We have really great rewards for people starting at $50 all the way to 2000 from everything for, you know, getting the new album signed by us when it comes out, to getting the t-shirt, to backstage passes for our release shows when the time comes. So there's a lot of really cool rewards that we're giving people who do donate and who do help us make this become a reality. Yes. And we're at over a thousand dollars already. So that's awesome on the steps to get there.

Awesome. Well, I got, I got to say, I don't mean to brag, but my audience is crazy brag worthy. These guys just raised over $300,000 for charity last month. So I think they can help.

I think they can help. Assuming they didn't break themselves on the last fundraiser. We are starting to get to be an awful lot like a church though. Every week it's like, hey guys, 10% or so. But no, I think that's great because look, the mainstream music universe isn't looking at atheist songs, right? If we want atheist music, we are going to have to produce it. We are going to have to fund it.

Absolutely. They don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. Yeah, exactly. Anywhere near it. They don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. Yeah, exactly. Anywhere near it. They don't want it on the radio. They don't want – We're wondering if our YouTube channel is going to just get destroyed as of whenever that thing is going to happen. Whenever – yeah.

We're probably one of those fish in the barrel. That's probably us. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no. It's got – YouTube has gotten insane. And there's nobody I know that's you know that's got a presence on youtube that's not terrified at the moment so all right well i'll tell you what i've got a second clip here and you know obviously again it's a demo record i obviously can't play

the studio record before it happens all right and so this this second clip this is from the title track black sheep before i play the clip you get do you want to set this one up for me i mean i think the name makes it fairly obvious what we're talking about, but what is this song saying to you? So I wrote this song about my personal feelings about what it was like feeling like the black sheep, and basically being the only non-religious person in a very religious family. It was real tough for a long time. I thought something was wrong with me, and once I actually even came out as like, I don't, sorry, I don't believe this. I think I was, I don't know if you

call it like vilified or, but I felt like people were like not liking me because of this thing in my family. And so, yeah, this is my personal feelings on that subject and i think it's a message that relates i think to a lot of well it's also a turn on the phrase because you know a black sheep calling somebody a black sheep is a negative thing but we're saying yes i'm a black sheep and i'm going to own that and i'm proud of it yeah i'm proud to be an atheist in america all sheeps matter right yeah and the way i chose to sing it is almost anthony. Like, yeah, you know what? Proud to be this. I'm glad I'm different. And so it's also an empowerment song. That's awesome. And obviously, like you said, a sentiment that a lot of our

listeners can get behind. So here it is, just a little taste for you, a demo of Black Sheep. I'm the king of my country. And I am the Oscar. Can I be it? Alright, once again, I'm cutting you off just as you're getting into the song. That is the business model. Sorry about that. So very quickly, too, because as I was listening to this song, this question occurred to me. Before your first album came out, you guys, you know, you could kind of hide the atheism when you wanted to. And since then, obviously, you've been way more public.

You've been more prominent in the movement, more visible. Has that created any friction with your family or your friends or coworkers or anything? That's a really deep question. I don't think so. Actually, I don't. You know, it's been interesting. Now we've moved to Prescott, Arizona. Now, it could be debatable whether it did affect our job before not being in this atheist band, and it may have. It may have affected one of our jobs, but we don't know for sure if it did. But here we are in a super religious town, and it's just a matter of time. If anybody gets to know us, they're going to know that we have this band and they're going to know that this is what we do. We sing atheist music. But we've kind of shown some of the tracks for this new album to a number of Christian friends of ours, and they really like the music. And they actually like the messages. Yeah, which is shocking.

It's shocking, but they actually really enjoy the messages. And they're like, you know what? Good for you guys for stating your minds in your music like this. This is amazing. They love it. And it's like, really? One of the things I love about music so much is even though we're speaking our minds, our point is not to be divisive. It's to give people a voice and to let people say how they feel or relate to us on that level of, this is how we feel. I'm sure people out there feel the same. And I think it's good

that we can have these songs that people really like the sound of them. It touches them. And even if they don't agree with us, maybe we can reach them in a way that they can kind of understand atheists a little bit better. And certainly these are really more written for the atheist to be like you're not alone we're here for you and we know what you're going through but surprisingly it seems to be well received from religious people as well which is shocking to me well not like we don't share fuck god not that we don't have plenty of the The other stuff. No, we did. We did share fuck God. Yes, we did. Absolutely.

But not that there isn't trolls and such on the internet because there's plenty of people that hate us on the internet and there's plenty of people that love us. We get stuff from all over the world, hate and love. And, you know, I've always been kind of disappointed. I want a little bit more Christian hate because I feel like we're just not pissing off the right people if we don't get it. Yeah. You know, I'm I'm with you a hundred percent. I from the very first episode, I've ended every show saying, if you have questions, comments or death threats, send them here. And and I get so little trolling. Yeah, I expected a lot more. I expected more out of these

Christians. But, you know, I got to say, I'm honestly not surprised that a lot of Christians really do relate to the lyrics in your songs, because a lot of the Christians that I talk to are every bit as frustrated as atheists are about the anti-biology thing, about the misogyny, about the homophobia, the transphobia and stuff. transphobia and stuff they're just not you know they just haven't made the mental leap to you know there is no god and this is harmful but they're still every bit as upset as as as many of us or many of them are anyway at what the church has done in the name of their god and i i think because of that they can relate to the anger and the frustration and uh the the feelings of uh like betrayal and isolation that the atheists come away with yeah absolutely it's been very fascinating and interesting and that's a good thing that's a good thing that we're getting to this point where a lot of them are in the phase of of cognitive dissonance where where they recognize that what the church and what a lot of believers are doing is terrible and it's

because they believe exactly what the bible says, that they're doing these horrible things. But they haven't been able to connect that maybe it's because it's not true. And these are bad ways to live your life. Well, that's, you know, step forward in the right direction. Great. And I remember being in that phase myself. You know, I don't talk about it a lot, but I was very religious when I grew up and I lost my religion. I was raised Mormon and I had to

peel away many layers of indoctrination and programming to realize everything that was wrong with what I believed. And if there's people out there that are feeling the same way and they're religious, well, we're making headway. And that makes me feel positive about the future. Yeah. Hell yeah, man. Well, yeah, right.

Like there's only so long that you can condemn the fundamentalists before you start questioning the fundamentals. Good point. Well, okay. So I honestly, I can't wait to hear the finished product. I've been looking forward to your second album since I got done listening to your first one. Again, to the audience, if you want to help fund Black Sheep, check out MonsterOnSunday.com slash donate, or you know what? Save yourself the trouble.

Just look for a link on the show notes for this episode. And if you want to hear more from MonsterOnSunday, I'm also obviously going to have their YouTube channel linked on the show notes as well. Tally, Steve, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much, Noah. It's a pleasure talking to you again. Yeah, always great to be on the show. Thank you so much.

Before we cue the copyright stuff, I want to thank all of you who have reached out to offer help in my upcoming battle with nicotine addiction. Haven't quit yet by the time I record this, but I have already quit by the time we publish it. So the next episode will be non-smoker Noah's first. And also, I was really excited to hear from a bunch of people who have decided to quit in solidarity with Lucinda and me. And hey, if you're a smoker who hasn't decided to do that, maybe think about joining in. There has never been a better time to quit. I will do all the getting angry for you,

so all you have to do is smell better and save money. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. I already can't

talk. I'm too nervous about the cigarette thing. That's what it is. Obviously, I can't stop talking until I thank the lovely and talented Heath Enright. I don't say it enough, but damn it, that man is a snack. I also need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, who's the main fucking course. No offense to Heath. And I also want to thank the talented Eli Bosnick,

who is a sad vegan option that added a lot of cherry tomatoes so that it wouldn't look like the shit that you eat when you escape the Matrix, but in a good way. I also want to thank Tally and Steve one more time for hanging out tonight. Again, check the show notes for more links to their stuff. Also, a big thanks to Ben for providing this week's Farsworth quote. You can find a link to Friend Dog Studios on the show notes because life never has enough comedy. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most indispensable individuals. Stephanie Tristan.

I'm not saying that. Wooter, Colston, Charles, Greg, Robert, Michael, Eric, Emily, Bobby, Joe, Michelle, other Michael, and Nick. Stephanie Tristan, I'm not saying that. Wooter and Colston, who are harder to quit than nicotine. Charles, Greg, Robert, Michael, and Eric, whose dicks have created more oral fixation than cigarettes could ever dream of. And Emily, Bobby, Joe, Michelle, other Michael, and Nick, who are hotter than the furious rage I'll erupt into every time anything isn't where I want it to be over the next three days. Together these 15 fabulous free thinkers

foisted ferocious fury on the fallacious flaccid falsities of faith this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash skatingadeus whereby you'll earn only 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 skatingads.com.

And if you'd like to help, but you spent all your money buying breakable stuff to break while you're getting through the first few cigarette-less days, you can also make a big difference by giving us a five-star review, 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'll also roll out all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission.

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