The Scathing Atheist - 365: Convicted Edition

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

In this week’s episode, we’ll talk about the moral beacon that is Mitt Romney, you'll remember RIGHT NOW to go to a florist and get price gouged by the Martin Shkreli of roses, and Hillary Morgan Ferrer will try to figure out how to doubt skepticism. --- 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/ Additional music for this episode was provided by the US Army Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Fb_A_7jRU --- Guest Links: Glenn’s Landscape Photography: http://aegirphotography.com/ --- Headlines: At Prayer Breakfast, Trump Trashes Faith When Used as a Justification for Wrongdoing: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/06/without-irony-trump-trashes-faith-when-used-as-a-justification-for-wrongdoing/ https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-rails-on-impeachment-at-national-prayer-breakfast/ https://www.salon.com/2020/02/10/national-prayer-breakfast-was-a-moment-for-leaders-to-show-humility-trump-changed-it_partner/ Atheist Gives U. of Texas $1 Million Endowment to Study Non-Religious Americans: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/09/atheist-gives-u-of-texas-1-million-endowment-to-study-non-religious-americans/ Gallup: 60% of Americans would vote for an atheist president: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/11/gallup-60-of-americans-say-they-could-vote-for-an-atheist-president/ AR Lawmaker Wants to Cut PBS Funding Since Billy Porter Will Be on Sesame Street: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/05/ar-lawmaker-wants-to-cut-pbs-funding-since-billy-porter-will-be-on-sesame-street/ Christian Minister Launches “F*ggots Are Maggots” Tour in Honor of Donald Trump: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/05/christian-minister-launches-fggots-are-maggots-tour-in-honor-of-donald-trump/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Oklahoma House Passes Bill to Revoke Medical Licenses of Abortion Providers: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/06/oklahoma-house-passes-bill-to-revoke-medical-licenses-of-abortion-providers/ “Pro-Life” Activist Does Damage Control After Whining About Baby She “Saved”: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/06/pro-life-activist-does-damage-control-after-whining-about-baby-she-saved/

Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Uh-oh, that's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct. Insurance simplified. Warning, I've been saving up some cuss words over the last couple of weeks. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Roger Stone's prosecutorial team. And they're gone.

They're gone? Can they just be gone? I guess they're gone. Weird. And now, The Scathing Atheist. G'day. This is Eli's Australian accent coach. And despite the fact that Eli is a very naughty boy,

by gee, by jingo, by crikey, he's bloody right when he says that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's February 13th. And if you want to podcast a day for a year, this is the episode to help you do it. Except not this year, though. I make no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from

Joe Rogan's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, we talk about the moral beacon that is Mitt Romney. You'll remember right now to go to a florist and get price gouged by the

Martin Shkreli of roses. And Hilary Morgan Farrow will try to figure out how to doubt skepticism. But first, the diatribe. When the media talked about Mitt Romney's decision to vote to remove Trump from office, every outlet I saw was careful to give religion a little bit of unearned positive publicity. Right. They all pointed out that he did this because of his religious convictions. And I'm over here asking, what are the kind of convictions he has, right? What's the difference between saying he did this because of his religious convictions and just his convictions, right? And don't get me wrong. I get that Mormons have plenty of religious convictions that the rest of us don't share. And if Romney just voted to remove Trump from office because he was a coffee drinker

that kept divorcing one wife before marrying the next, it would make perfect sense for the media to point out how religiously motivated it was. But the moral preset we're talking about is bribes are bad. There's no Mormon doctrine on bribes that diverges from the standards. So when they say this was motivated by his religious convictions, they're not claiming he has different moral standards to weigh Trump by. They're claiming he has different moral standards to weigh himself by. It's not that he has different morals than non-religious people or less religious people. He has the same morals, just better. And I'm sure many people would be tempted to excuse all of this as the media just passing along Romney's own assessment of the situation. He said his religion made him do it. And reporters are just dutifully relaying that message. But if I did a good thing and then I told the fucking press, yeah, well, you know, he was obviously

guilty. And I have very high moral standards ever since I tried ZipRecruiter.com and used promo code scathing. I don't think they'd be as quick to parrot my fucking reasoning. Right. If you said you did a good thing because of your atheism, sure, they might report on the fact that you said that, but they'd all distance themselves from the statement as clearly as they could when they did. And yet when the commentary comes about Romney, it's all from people who are buying into this. His God made him do it line of shit all the way. And maybe other people are tempted to overlook it because, you know, like what else are they going to say i mean is a cnn pundit just going to say well admit romney crossed the aisle because he's more moral than the rest of the republicans i mean the obvious answer to that is just yes and

why the fuck would even a theoretical person not think that was the correct answer but also by the standards that people in congress measure themselves by is it any more insulting for cnn to imply that these people are less moral than romney than it is to imply that they're less religious? When people imply or even buy into the implication that Mitt Romney took a moral stand because of how religious he was, they're reinforcing a despicable bigotry against the non-religious. If we set aside our cynicism and grant him only the most altruistic motives, then at best we can say he took this moral stand because of how moral he was. But the words moral and religion are not fucking synonyms. And when they're used interchangeably, it implies that you and I, we're not even capable of reaching that fucking storied playing field of morality that religious people stand on.

Right. But look, if religion was correlated with conviction, wouldn't Congress be loaded the fuck up with it? After all, every single goddamn member of Congress is religious, 100%. It's not just the most religious body in the country, it's the most religious body that's theoretically fucking possible. And if you really want to lean into your bigotry and declare that the Christian religion is better than the others, well, then the absolute paragon of ethical integrity should be the group of people Mitt Romney distinguished himself from by doing the minimally ethical thing.

Of course, religious people would defend themselves from this charge by turning into the goddamn Scottish immigration services. Oh, well, they're not true Christians. They just say they are to get elected. And you know what? That might actually mean something if just saying that wasn't their whole fucking thing, right? Telling Jesus he forgives you is the only qualification for their club. And if we're doubting what people tell us about their religion, why did we only start doing that after we endorsed this story about Mitt Romney and his moral convictions? I mean, I think I can prove empirically that I'm all in favor of doubting every goddamn thing religious people say about their religion, so long as we're not being random about that shit. In this instance, the no true Scotsman fallacy isn't just covering up the

problem. It is the problem. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, as soon as a religious person shows some fucking hint of morality, our culture says, wow, look how religious he is. And when the same person bullies the gay kid or tortures the family dog, they fucking exact same culture looks at the exact same person and says, well, he's not being very Christian right now, is he? And I've got to say, it's really depressing to reflect on the fact that there is literally no amount of child rape complicity that's going to break that rhetorical habit, right? Even after we learned that the world's largest religious institution actually is what the nutters think Comet Ping Pong is, we still shorthand morality with references to

religion. We add the modifier religious before conviction instinctively, even though it doesn't modify anything. Hell, I've caught myself using churchgoing as a euphemism for moral person. So to be clear here, convictions are what you have when a universal moral precept compels you to act in an ethical way religious convictions are what you have at the end of the child rape trial or at least that's what you'd fucking have if we had that first kind they're talking about you jesus joining me for headlines tonight are a sight for sore eyes and a sight to behold. In fact, one of the best parasites I know. Heath Edright and Eli Boston.

Fellas, are you as attached to a host as he is to you? I think we all feel each other's presence. I see what you did there. Thank you. I feel like I love you more than you love me, but whatever. You're not doing the thing. It's not bugs, it's

parasites. Just that I don't know how to express it. Alright. In our lead story tonight, listeners in our nation's capital may have noticed the fabric of the universe tearing apart and a fairly large event horizon over the Washington Hilton last Thursday morning. That could be jarring, but don't worry. It was just Donald Trump and a bunch of evangelical

psy-op domestic political terrorists causing a black hole of hypocrisy to form during the national prayer breakfast trump gave a speech to that secret theocracy cabal about the perils of justifying moral actions by invoking one's faith so that is why time became space and space became time for a little space there but the dimensions are back now, so it's fine. And now I'll be talking about people who over tan. Sorry, that's my bad. Tyler,

can we get a trash bag to cover that up? Just like a trash bag and some tape. Alright, so Heath, I don't mean to embarrass you here, but warning DC residents about the hypocrisy black holes is like warning new yorkers there's going to be traffic on the bridge okay that's true that's a news program every morning about that stuff no i'm not embarrassed at all so trump walked out and

immediately started waving around newspapers including a copy of the washington post that said trump acquitted on the front page but you know they print a bunch of the Washington Post that said Trump acquitted on the front page. But, you know, they print a bunch of fake news in that paper. So everyone in the crowd got a little confused. It's not clear. Yeah, right, right. No, it's like when Ken Ham finds that one sentence of science that seems to agree with him. Yeah, suddenly now this is a credible source.

No, absolutely not. no absolutely not but regardless most of trump's speech was basically a victory lap about just barely not getting convicted of the crimes that were fully acknowledged even by the republican senators who voted to acquit him i guess that's a victory if you switch around time and space actually it's still not doesn't matter though because he'd already started saying jesus really loud and started talking about christianity and then he went on to explain quote i don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong so that's when you probably saw the event horizon start happening yeah right and we should point out that like this was bizarre for the national prayer breakfast right like that yeah

right that's supposed to be a bunch of weirdo boy do we all believe in a talking ghost speeches and trump used it to talk about his enemies list and getting away with treason well i will see you that and raise you eli this was bizarre for like donald trump at the national prayer breakfast right the first time he was there he spent most of his time making fun of arnold schwarzenegger's tv ratings so this was weird compared to that he did that's true yeah and just to be clear that comment it was definitely aimed at Nancy Pelosi and even more so at Mitt Romney. Right. Of course, Romney was the only Republican senator to be intellectually honest and vote to convict Trump of the crimes that everyone agreed he committed. And when I just said intellectually honest, I actually meant the opposite. honest i actually meant uh the opposite romney explained his vote to convict by saying he was guided by his mormon faith which is a terrible fucking reason to do that it's a terrible reason

for anything to ever do pretty much nonetheless the entire audience at the prayer breakfast gave a big ovation and agreed with trump, but for the wrong reasons. Again, we're at level three wrongness minimum at this point. These people thought Romney was wrong because I guess he has the wrong religion slightly. He's Mormon Republican Christian instead of Jesus Republican Christian. And, you know, if you're a Jesus, Republican Christian, justifying terrible behavior, actually correct behavior in this case. But remember, level three wrongness here, minimum. Justifying your behavior with the right religion is the ultimate incorrectness to them. Except they were not aware of this hypocrisy thanks to that third layer of wrong and maybe the inversion of space time, which does complicate things.

So, yeah, leave off the maybes, man. I don't want to put too much pressure on you. But if you have to do a correction on this story, we're going to need to hire fucking Leonardo DiCaprio just to keep track of the layers. We cannot afford Leonardo DiCaprio. No, this shit. let's hope you're not working off a yik yak as well we'll switch around space time we'll pay him by the like the mile instead of the hour oh nice yeah nice so um i think we might have found a problem with religion here um it ruins everything it's mode of thought can't really coexist with the fundamental laws of the universe

even when you get something right you didn't really get it right and it leads to situations this is the most important part where mitt romney is the fucking good guy in a story we can't have that. It's a weird one. It is a weird one. And in not a Juniversity news tonight, someone who sounds an awful lot like he needs three new best friends has given the University of Texas

one million dollars to study secular Americans. And done. It was Noah. Noah was the one. We found a tool. It does sound like somebody

who needs three new best friends. Exactly. So the badass in question is handsome person who I love very, very much, Brian Bolton, a retired research psychologist, author of 10 books,

winner of 12 research awards in his former field, and he also has possibly my favorite meet-a-member interview ever published by the FFR. It's pretty great. Best part. This is actually all in a row in his answers to this little interview thing. I'm a humanist minister, distinguished toast master, the highest level black belt in karate.

And we're all going to die. Next on the docket for everybody is eternal non-existence get used to it and hey so to be clear when Eli makes fun of like when he does the wrist control jokes he's talking about other black belts than you

like the ones whose ass you would obviously kick with your wrist control exactly and while Bolton or the Bolt, as we'd probably call you if you decided to be our best friends,

we'd like to hang out and play ping pong together. Yeah. So while he doesn't have a personal connection to the University of Texas, he's providing a much needed first step in the field

of research. UT will be the first public university to have an endowed chair for secular studies, which is super fucking depressing when you say compare it to how many endowed chairs for christian apologetics harvard has yeah how many do they have so many a lot so obviously this is great news and the secular community is very grateful to

bolton but we here at the scathingist are ready to take it one step further. Hit it, Morgan. I don't think we are. Please, no. Hi, I'm Eli Bosnick. And I'm Heath Enright. You know, our fine nation has thousands of religious universities.

Millions, even. No, just thousands. But here at The Scathing Atheist, we're ready to change that. Introducing the Scathing Institute for Doctoral Studies. Or as our students call it, SIDS. Wow, that. That is an unfortunate acronym.

Anyway, we're going to go with it for now. Pitting that. Here at SIDS, I guess, we provide an educational curriculum that we feel confident is full of true things as much as any religious school. More if you count BYU and

Liberty University. That's right. We've got the head of our history and science department, Noah Lusions. And head of our political science department, Keith Enright. And eli bosnick heading up the humanities because you technically can't be wrong about those things so you'd like to jump start on your education ask brian bolton to give us one million dollars the scathing institute for doctoral studies exactly as good as BYU.

Alright, no, I endorse it. I'm all about it. There you go. I'm good now. He's no illusions and he approves this message. And in Presidented and Scratched news tonight. Atheists have reason to celebrate this week. It turns out that almost two-thirds of Americans aren't bigoted enough to tell a stranger on

the phone that they wouldn't vote for a well-qualified atheist for president this is so sad but yeah right no in related news we need to find better shit to celebrate but yeah so this comes to us from a recent gallup poll and it's a question that they've been asking for more than half a century right they started asking it back in 1958 and it's a question that they've been asking for more than half a century, right? They started asking it back in 1958, and it wasn't until as recently as like episode 121 of this show that a majority of Americans said yes, they would vote for a qualified person, even if they only believed in real stuff. And as of the survey they released this week, the group swelled all the way up from 58%

to 60%. Crushing it. And you guys said I could never run for president. You think atheism is what's holding you back there, buddy? Yeah. Atheism? That's the one sticking point? It was.

Eli, I just said you couldn't run, okay? I didn't say before or something. So yeah, the story here is definitely that 40% of the country is so bigoted against us that they don't even feel the need to lie about it on the phone to a stranger. Because look, on the same survey, 66% of Americans said that they would vote for a well-qualified Muslim. That's definitely bullshit, right? Okay. And 93% said they'd vote for a well-qualified woman. And yet only 27% of them did.

We have data on that, don't we? Yeah. And it's important to be reminded that while we're certainly not the most oppressed group in the country, in a lot of ways, we're still the most hated. Or I'm sorry. I don't want to overstate it. We are at least like we're the ones that the biggest don't know they're supposed to lie about hating. Terrifying. ones that the biggest don't know they're supposed to lie about hating terrifying right well yeah that fucking matters a lot especially when it means that rationality damn near disqualifies

a person for leadership yeah like we started out with laws that black people and atheists couldn't hold office but only one set of those rules is still around yeah unless you count georgia well there's that yeah but real quick before Eli says that we should be allowed to say slur words we're aware of the giant difference there that being said the fact that we'd actually have to remind the KKK

that they hate us too that does say a lot I'm sorry I'm brave enough to say it atheists have it worse than African-Americans historically in the United States. Definitely not the point of the story. All right. I think it's also worth noting, by the way, that the only thing they asked about that rated lower than atheist was socialist.

Jesus Christ. Right. And don't send me an email about that. Send it to Gallup or, you know, the fucking 55 percent of people who said they wouldn't vote for what literally the only group that they asked about with a majority of people were like, oh, fuck that noise. It's also the only group that had less support among the American population than it had when they did this five years ago, by the way. depression juice when you exclude religious considerations the four lowest ranking groups according to gallup in terms of america's willingness to vote read like a goddamn intentional description of the democratic front runners it's gay slash lesbian under 40 over 70 and socialist jesus uh also my OKCupid profile.

That's real scary. That's literally Iowa, New Hampshire. You just read who won Iowa, New Hampshire? I sure did. Everybody that's unelectable here. Great. And Bernie's essentially an atheist too, right? Like if we could fucking get goddamn Mayor Pete to convert'd have the we'd have the bottom six all locked down

fantastic where did pete budaj have his uh honeymoon hopefully not like i don't know north korea what what happened there we gotta like look at this fuck and now that we've all reached our requisite depression quota we're gonna 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. For a lot of years, Republican lawmakers have known they could get pressed by proposing blatantly unconstitutional laws against abortion. The way the cycle worked was that such and such legislature from Mississippi or something would introduce a bill that would mark every woman who got an abortion with a scarlet letter for two years or something. People like myself would freak the fuck out about it. It would get smacked down by the rest of the legislature or the courts, and that asshole would go back to Podunk and tell all of his constituents that he was fighting for their unborn babies. Now, this led a lot of well-meaning people to ask why folks like myself even bothered to get ourselves worked up about it.

Why play the pawn in this jackass's game? Well, the truth is that women's rights were the pawn in the game. That's the thing he was willing to sacrifice. And now that those once ridiculous laws are starting to see a sympathetic Supreme Court, the reason we did it is getting a bit more obvious. So here's the latest version of this cycle. Oklahoma State Representative Jim Olson introduced a bill in his state that would fine any doctor who performed an abortion and take away their medical license for a year for providing a perfectly legal medical procedure. He does work in an exception for cases where women's lives are in danger, but keep in mind that if a law like this came to fruition, that would mean that in the moment when a pregnant woman's life was on the line,

the doctor's chief concern might well be whether or not he can prove that that was the case later. And yes, the bills passed the House with an overwhelming majority, because almost everybody in Oklahoma is fucking terrible. It's not a law yet, but given the direction of the political wind, who the hell knows? And given the direction of the judicial wind, I'm not even confident it would get smacked down anymore. And if you need a reminder the extent to which the people fighting for these laws don't understand the consequences of those laws, we got one of the greatest examples of that in history from an anti-abortion activist named Jamie Jeffries, the pro-life wife. She posted the following on Facebook. And sorry in

advance for the length of the quote, but you really have to hear all of this. Quote, I talked a mom out of an abortion in February. Her baby is six months old now and was just removed from her family's custody by DCS. Unfortunately, it was probably a justified removal. But this family put me down as next preferred placement for the baby. Dude, me? No. No, no, no, no, no, no. I do way too much for this work already. A six-month-old will break me, destroy my marriage, and physical health. I just can't.

End quote. Now, this was posted a while back apparently, but it just recently went viral, leading the pro-life wife to spout out a bunch of excuses about all of that being taken out of context, as though that were not a self-contained story. But I don't want to be accused of the same, so let me add all of the context here. Jamie Jeffries is a privileged white lady who never actually considered the consequences of

her actions and still hasn't. And on that note, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And next up in headlines, we have a story about Arkansas state senator Jason Rappert. So, first of all, Jason,

a big congratulations on that goatee finally filling in the gaps at age 47. We knew you could do it, buddy. Good stuff. Well, almost. It's almost there. Almost filled in.

You're looking great. Ish. You're looking great. Almost great. You're looking almost great. It's almost there. But, you know, once that gapless goatee is in full effect, Just you'll be ready for primetime in 1996. But more importantly, congrats on just fully embracing the pure evil and fighting to shut down literally Sesame Street.

And somehow you found a way to do that based on homophobia. It's almost. It's not. Yeah yeah let me guess uh episodes will no longer be sponsored by the letter g okay all right okay you joke but how surprised would we really be if this story ended with rapert calling for a boycott on h's r's and the number four great yeah that's true that's true yeah So this is a real thing that Arkansas tax dollars pay for. They're paying Jason Raypert to spend time monitoring the guests on Sesame Street, comparing that to the list of gay actors that he apparently has,

and then threatening to shut down the PBS affiliate for the entire state if they try to air an episode featuring Tony Award winning actor Billy Porter, who is on his weird list. Apparently Porter was wearing something other than hetero man pants in one of the segments. And in Jason Rayford's stupid fucking face, that means Sesame Street is promoting the very dangerous gay puppet agenda. And I'm really not exaggerating with that phrasing. He went on Facebook and posted a link to an article about this episode of Sesame Street, including a picture of Billy Porter wearing a, to be clear, fabulous tuxedo gown.

It's beautiful. It looks fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, it does. And Raypert asked the people of Arkansas the following in that post. He said, do you approve of your taxpayer dollars being used to promote the radical LGBTQ agenda of not enough hetero man pants, I guess. And then he did not add, I'm on the clock right now attacking Sesame Street.

I'm an adult. This is serious. Yeah, right. No, wouldn't want your taxpayer dollars to be, you know, nevermind. I'll be, I'll come back. I'll come back. I'll take my time and I'll come back.

Finish your thought Jason Raypert Jesus fucking Christ and here's the scariest part of this to me well other than the general idea that evil bigots are allowed to hold office and also vote in this country but besides that much

larger problem this means that in Jason Raypert's mind Sesame Street played a large role in his sexual development robert ducky fucker jason yeah hate to break it to you buddy but burt and ernie were super gay and yeah they were so are you because that's how sesame street works yeah you figured it out get used to it you're gay and finally tonight in maggot news right-wing activist pastor and self-hating dana carvey character mike heath appeared on coach dave daubenmeyer's youtube show past Salt, last week and announced that he's launching an international crusade inspired by Donald Trump that he's titled the Faggots are Maggots Tour.

Yeah, that's real. So, obviously, vile slur in the title. In fairness, though, I'm sure they tried to rhyme something with gay and just got overwhelmed. Because, you know, rhyming is hard. There's so many fucking gay rhymes. Fucking Juku was already taken. Yeah, no, it's a whole thing.

So, here's what Mike had to say about his Please Don't Find Out I'm Gay tour. Now, I should point out, this quote is going to be confusing because Heath made a joke that is identical to this real quote just now so lock in everybody quote real quote the tour is inspired by the work of donald trump this isn't satire i'm serious yeah fucking satire is ruining everything you You can't be actually evil anymore. What the fuck?

Yeah, no, there's a good disclaimer there. Good disclaimer, Mike. He continues, I started supporting Donald Trump early in the 2016 primary for one reason. He insults his enemies. He makes things personal that deserve to be personal. The decades of leftists being the only ones allowed to make everything personal are over it's long past time for wasp manners to take a back seat to the truth long past time end quote yeah the people who literally invented all of the slurs

have been nice for too long right ang? White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are finally getting their day in the sun. It's about fucking time. Hey, Mike, Coach Dave, quick little PSA for you. If you've been white Christian men in the United States for decades and you haven't been succeeding,

it's because you personally are a miserable failure of a person. Yep. Yep. It isolates a lot of variables. So it's definitely just you. Just you. You're just bad at stuff.

It's confirmed. So Mike's vast lack of knowledge about all things aside. One more quick note on this story. Mike is the head of Helping Hands Ministries, which has an active Amazon Smile account. Really? So if you're hearing this and you don't want that guy to get charity from Amazon purchases, maybe go on and let Amazon know that they shouldn't be giving this guy their money because, well, one, he's

an asshole and he should have less money. But two, because when they do kick him off the program, he's going to have a meltdown and burn his Nikes or whatever it is he bought from Amazon. And we're all going to be here to watch it and make fun of it. And with a quick reminder that his charity has less oversight than real ones, we're going to close out the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji.

And when we come back, we'll use the same old words in a brand new order. And fold and fold and there. Perfect, see? No, dude, that's not going to work. It is too going to work. Hey, guys. What are you up to? Oh, hey, Noah.

Eli's trying to make his own diapers out of toilet paper. Dude, you should not do that. Right. Oh, would that I could, Noah. Did you know that diapers cost an average of $900 a year? What am I, made out of money? Well, I mean, okay, but Eli, you can't make your own diapers. Also, that's definitely not a diaper.

Correct. Okay, now you sound like Anna. Well, what am I supposed to do? Maybe just ask our listeners nicely to sign up to support the show at patreon.com slash scathingatheist. Why would anyone sign up to support the show at patreon.com slash scathingatheist. Why would anyone sign up to support the show at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, Eli? Lots of reasons, Eli, lots of reasons that they would

go to patreon.com slash scathingatheist and sign up. They'll be helping the podcast get made. Plus, they'll get a patron-only RSS feed with an extended commercials at the end, so you can skip a version of our show. They can play on any podcast player. And if they chip in a couple bucks more, they get free copies of our e-books,

a signed hard copy of our latest book, or even swag packages and gifts. Not to mention access to our bonus content and AMAs. That's right, they do. Now, what's that website where they can help the show again? Yeah, no, we didn't say it enough. Patreon.com slash ScathingAtheist enough Patreon.com slash ScathingAtheist Patreon.com slash ScathingAtheist Alright, guys, I'm in

Now, help me rewind this toilet paper But honestly, though, what shape do you think the baby will be? Like, tube? Okay, well, yours Yeah Tube? Okay, well, yours. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha! Have all the acronyms in your life made too much sense recently? Have all the words meant the same boring thing it says they mean in the dictionary? Has A been unable to be both equal to and not

equal to b well why not take a break from all that hassle and dive into yet another chapter of mama bear apologetics on this week's installment of god awful books all right so quick reminder we are now in the second part of mama bear apologetics lies you've heard but didn't know what they were called and we've been name of the sex sorry yeah yeah go ahead not the lies you haven't never heard acronym this urine no okay just i'm not doing an acronym this time no the herd never called that's the title yeah So we've been mutilating anagrams in the name of defeating all the isms Hillary Morgan Farer doesn't like. So far, we've done self-helpism, which we learned was the belief that anyone but God

can fix you. Naturalism, the belief in stuff, reality, nature, and today we'll be tackling chapter seven. I'd believe in God if there were any shred of evidence, skepticism. Wonderful. Hilary Morgan Ferrer is doubtful about doubting stuff. Great. She's going to have even more trouble than normal making sentences happen this time. I'm pretty excited about it. Yes is all right so we're gonna start this chapter with the time in 2012 that bart erman kicked the shit out of daniel wallace in a debate

which if listeners would like they can watch on bart erman's youtube channel but hillary's pretty sure he lost um and actually hillary doesn't want to talk about the debate. She wants to talk about one of the deleted scenes, the one Bart Ehrman is afraid to show you. Namely, when someone during the Q&A asked Ehrman what it would take for him to be convinced that the wording of Mark's gospel was certain, to which Ehrman responded, 10 manuscripts all copied from the original of mark's gospel within one week of its completion end quote and look that's a stupid standard and hillary admits that and ermine later said yeah that was a stupid answer to a stupid question but to hillary that's the problem with skepticism. That it demands too much evidence. Exactly.

I bet it is. She says, quote, Ehrman demanded evidence that doesn't exist for any ancient literary work. Footnote. We do have original documents like shipping logs and receipts, but no original documents of literature that would have been copied and circulated and foot literature means not true also the topic of that debate was is the original new testament lost there's not a number of signed first editions of mark's gospel at which I abandon the scientific method.

This debate has nothing to do with that. Well, funny that she missed the fact that we also don't take any of these other ancient literary works as things that really happened and were definitely said by their authors. We also we get to revisit one of Heath's favorite parts of the case for Christ here when she says, quote, Historians determine authenticity by comparing two things. The number of manuscripts recovered and the time gap between the original autographs and the copies. What about heights? If you were to stack the ancient documents that have survived to this day for an average classical writer, it would stand about four feet high. If you were to stack the recovered manuscripts of the New Testament, it would stand about 5,280 feet high. True. Quite a difference, end quote.

From up till when? Yesterday? First of all, there's no way it's exactly a mile. Right. There's no way. Or even about exactly a mile. They stopped when they got to a mile. They're like, that's plenty.

That's all we really need. That's an impactful number there. But why wouldn't she just say a mile there? Right. That's 280 feet. But more importantly, I'd need to see at least 10 miles of truth height before skepticism is canceled. Yeah, for sure. I need to see the truth height, immediate copies of truth, 10 of them.

100%. So what is Hillary's point, you ask? Well, you know, despite admitting in the footnote that she's full of shit, her point is that if you're going to apply those standards, then no ancient history is true. Except for, you know, history based on receipts or shipping manifests. But as she puts it, quote, when it comes to radical skepticism, evidence isn't the real issue.

Radical skepticism? Yep. The extra medium stake of epistemology radically skeptic but why would the you know why would any of this truth height shit matter unless we were skeptical of the bible's age right like i mean do they feel like there's a certain point at which like lies just mature into truth or something maybe that's possible gotta leave that open you gotta oak it you gotta get them oakier yeah so now it's time for implications for skepticism right yeah realizing malaria is caused by mosquitoes and not the sinfulness of caribbean people i'm not sure what she's gonna use like she's gonna have her own i just want to make sure

that one gets listed right up front yeah no she doesn't use that one uh hmo interesting is gonna start off this section by letting us know she is not against regular skepticism she loves skepticism when it means you can still be christian what she doesn't like is the mean stupid skepticism. She loves skepticism when it means you can still be Christian. What she doesn't like is the mean, stupid skepticism of Bart Ehrman. Radical skepticism. Yeah, exactly. Or as she puts it, quote, you can always put another question between yourself and God. This is why it's so important to ask. Why am I asking this question? Sometimes doubting your doubts is the most rational thing you can do end quote and this is definitely where her editor had to cut a nearly infinite section

about doubt doubt doubting and doubt doubt doubt doubt quick summary even numbers of doubting is the right way to go to make it stick with two to make it simple. So then she's going to do our job for us a little bit more. She writes, quote, how much of the Bible includes things that cannot be measured, counted, or physically experimented on? Probably a lot of it, if not all of it. All of it. How do we respond? Do we say, oh, no, the Bible isn't true because i can't test it in a chemistry lab

and then she literally got confused by her own rhetorical question her very next sentence is wait what that's true that is real she continues exact quote huh? That's not how we test historical documents. No, there is no historical document that can be proven in the same way we treat things that are proven in physics or chemistry. End quote. Well, not the ones that are wrong. Those get proven. We can prove heliocentric historical documents with science hey maybe maybe just admit god is more of a humanities kid that would get you out of so many arguments yeah right okay

so to be clear the argument we're getting right now is that there are things that are absolutely demonstrably true and then everything else is tied right well yeah exactly because she concludes quote why do some people treat the bible like it's the one historical document that has to bear this level of proof end quote yeah but those quran-based astronomy classes are mostly just for anti-christian but i don't really believe that stuff but i get what you're saying set aside all the religious texts. It's because those are the only ones people are saying are fucking true. Right?

Like if people started saying the Iliad was a goddamn historical account, we'd have to also tell them how stupid they were too. It's not that academia is being unusually hard on your theory. It's that your theory is unusually stupid. Yeah. If you walked into the White House and you were like, gays can't get married because Circe turned everyone into pigs, we'd have to be like, no.

Circe didn't turn everyone into pigs. All right. So then she's going to explain to us the problem with demanding proof of things is that it does away with miracles yep which to be fair to hillary is true yeah exactly and she puts it here's how she puts it quote once miracles are dismissed you've done away with christ's resurrection the miracle on which the entire gospel hangs sorry folks you can't have christ have Christianity without the resurrection of Jesus. End quote. The end.

Yeah, you're right. You can't have both Christianity and things that happen in the universe. Why are you telling us this? That's like the whole first Corinthians. That's just like a big letter being like, listen, if you get rid of the resurrection, then we all look like idiots. So the resurrection must be real. Assholes. End of letter but it's time to get serious because as hillary says quote the new atheists are nothing to laugh at while we can poke fun at their ideas and methods uh well actually that's like the only

thing you can't poke fun at that's the part we definitely got right. Yeah. So while she thinks she can poke fun at their ideas and methods, real quote, their influence cannot be underestimated in contemporary online culture. End quote. You hear that, boys? We're important on the internet.

What's worse is that we cannot be underestimated. I feel like I can be underestimated. I am definitely. Every time I tell someone, podcaster, I be underestimated. I feel like I can be underestimated. I am definitely. Every time I tell someone podcaster, I am underestimated. So now it's time for a section titled How Not to Debate an Atheist. All right, well, if her answer is

send a 45-page email to the contact page without ever listening to the goddamn podcast I'm on board, that would be a good one. It sadly is not no her answer is that we new atheists you see we are sneaky we are see she explains to us that each debate has two sides and with old atheism the argument was there is no god versus there is a god but the new atheists have quote redefined atheism as a lack of belief end quote god she's painting clarification as a dirty trick we use literally because as hmo puts it quote the new atheists are essentially saying the soles of my shoes are base thus anywhere they

stand they are safe. The other person has the burden of proof. Yeah, right. Like no matter which argument I use, I keep being wrong. They must be cheating. Fuck you, you idiot. So now it's time to roar like a mother.

Oh, finally. All right. Mangle this anagram again. So first up, we're going to recognize the message. R. Yep. And the message of skepticism is atheism, which to be fair, it is. It's one of infinity different messages. But yeah, on this subject yeah yeah and and she lets us know at the outset that she's going to use atheists own quotes against us here so point number one of

atheism's message if you can't know everything for sure you can't know anything for sure or as hitchens said quote of a quote we can't ellipses, there is no God and there is no afterlife. We can say there is no persuasive evidence for it, end quote of a quote. At which point Hilldog was like, fuck, okay. Hitchens quote is pointing at me, isn't it? And scene, moving on. We should just go straight to the next thing here. And scene moving on.

Let's just go straight to the next thing here. Hey, Hill, it's only using our words against us if we don't still win the argument. Just using our words doesn't mean it's against us. I threw your book at you. Okay, point two of our message came back and hit me in the head. That was impressive, actually. How did you guys do that? It boomeranged.

So point two of the atheism message religion is child abuse so um yes yep right i'm the guy on the couch with popcorn meme let's hear it i want to hear what she thinks about religion is child abuse and how that's uh her side of the point that's uh that's our side but it point? That's our side, but it's not true. Oh, it's not? No, it's not true. Let's explain that away. It's not. Let me tell you why. Here's how she ends that section. If hell is a real place, as the Bible says it is,

then it's definitely not child abuse to make your kids aware of it. That is correct. With that stipulation, you're right. Go ahead. You don't have to describe past what scripture does, essentially trying to scare them towards salvation,

but they should definitely know how miserable an eternity without God will be, end quote about how it's not child abuse. Hey, Hillary Morgan Farrow, quick question about the cemetery fund. Next up! out god will be end quote about how it's not child abuse hey uh no hillary morgan fair quick question about the cemetery fund next up all right message number three oh we're not going to talk about conversion therapy or not teaching them about evolution or okay all right sorry message number three let's move on okay message number three of atheism man is not equal to god he's

better and she doesn't have any quotes from atheists in this section she's just like you all think you're so smart i bet you think you exist don't you yeah well no look i'll concede this one if there is one thing that this book proves it's that existing isn't necessarily better than not existing there are plenty of atheists that would be better yeah if they were more like god yep message number four belief in god is some sort of wish fulfillment akin to believing in santa claus to which she literally responds quote ask those who have lost a child if they believe in Christ simply because it's easy. End quote.

It's not easy to believe in a God who created dead children. And I'm pointing my argument at myself again. Fuck. But OK, look, unless her assumption is that people with dead kids are taking comfort in the fact that at least they won't have to see that little asshole in the afterlife. I have no idea what point she's even trying to make. Yes, of course. That's why specifically that group of people. That for them, for sure.

All the books in the room are hitting her in the face right now. And finally, the last message of skepticism. Religion keeps us from asking questions, which Hillary wants us to know is totally untrue in her chapter about why skepticism is bad. Exactly. Yeah. No, it's not that it keeps you guys from asking questions. It keeps you from listening to the goddamn answers. Right. Like it's the perpetual question. That is our issue.

Yeah. goddamn answers right like it's the perpetual question that is our issue yeah well it's actually weirder than that because she basically spends this section agreeing with us she says quote christians should have evidence for what they believe end quote but again her definition of evidence is the relative height of ancient text so yeah what about? She never talks about width. So, alright, we're roaring. What about time of ancient text? Oh, yeah, no shit. Space and time are the same thing. Alright, so we're roaring.

So now it's time to offer discernment. And man, she is really going to give away the game in this section when she says quote i can't say enough good things about healthy skepticism uh no she can't that is true that is true what isn't healthy is a demand to know everything hey say what you will but at least she's genuine she puts her brain where her mouth is that's right she continues quote this is especially true when

it comes to the problem of evil we are not omniscient we will never fully know the mind of god and why he allows certain things to happen sometimes he may withhold clarity from us until we learn a specific lesson first end quote okay i painted the fence and sanded the floor. Now, can you tell me why you gave my child face cancer, please, God? Still, still no? Okay, no, yeah, sorry. My skepticism, it's getting out of hand. Sorry. No, you're right.

I should have doubted that. You're awesome. I'm going to keep worshiping you. Yep. So God is firmly ensconced as a Batman villain at best, according to Hillary. But we're going to, A, argue for a healthier approach. And again, HMO is going to hit us with that idea that Christianity loves skepticism. Unlike other religions, quote, Christianity is the only one that has testable claims and invites rational inquiry.

End quote. Oh, cool, cool. that has testable claims and invites rational inquiry. End quote. Oh, cool, cool. Like which testable claims? No. Seriously. That's it. She doesn't tell us what those claims are. She just assures us that Christianity has them.

How many miles of truth does your book have? And it's worth pointing out that in the last section her answer to the problem of evil was maybe god was teaching you a lesson with baby face cancer well i mean to be fair i can think of all kinds of testable claims christianity makes right it's like when they say that products are clinically tested yes they are exactly right. Exactly. And Mama Bear approved. So now it's time to R reinforce through discussion, discipleship,

and prayer. Really good section coming up now. Rarring. Nailing it. I mean it. So she's got two things to do here. The first is let your kids ask questions and let them know when you don't have answers to those questions which is great except we know that she doesn't believe

in any of the true answers to those questions right so that comes across less as good advice and more like a spanish inquisitor explaining that he's just curious yeah Yeah. Oh, how did the Spanish Inquisition work? No, it's good skepticism, child. End of parenting. What? Was it like ice? Actually, yeah. Sorry, I said end of parenting.

Don't do that. And now it's time for discussion questions. Are you guys ready? Sure. Why not? All right. Icebreaker. If you were to ask God one question, what would it be and why?

Hey, God. Yeah. Have a seat. What would you say? I think mine might be, when did you stop beating your chosen ones? All right. Two, main theme. There is healthy skepticism and there's unhealthy skepticism. Describe the differences between healthy and unhealthy skepticism. Why should we encourage our kids to have healthy skepticism? How can we tell when skepticism has turned unhealthy? Okay, wait, answer that she's actually looking for here.

Skepticism is healthy when kids apply it to things that we don't bother to lie to them about. Anymore. Yeah. Number three, self-evaluation. People often fall into the trap of either answering every question with only God knows, just have faith or by responding to every answer with, but what about blank? In other words, some people don't seek answers to any of the tough questions and others are never satisfied no matter how good the answers. Draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper with blind faith. Two chapters in a row we've had to draw a paper

with blind faith Betty on one end and never satisfied Nancy on the other. Where do you think you fall on the spectrum and why? Ah, fuck. I drew the line vertically. I'm going to have to pass on this one. I ruined the whole piece of paper now.

Wait a minute. So hold on a second. Did fucking doubting Donna pull out on him at the last minute? Right? What's never satisfied Nancy doing here? When the fuck did the opposite of blind faith become live in perpetual dissatisfaction? She can't even be honest about her scale from 1 to 10 without her whole argument coming apart fuck you

10 is really not on our side with this whole thing let's work with never satisfied Nancy alright brainstorm compile a list of questions your kids have asked you that you didn't know how to answer I bet it's a big fucking list i bet that's a really big list oh i want to see the list if you're part of a group

create this list together keep this list somewhere that allows you to easily access to it and then add to it like on your phone or in your purse i love i love that a whole bunch of Hilary Morgan Farrah fans definitely now have a piece of paper in their purse that says like why would the holocaust happen like on a piece of paper that they have I really wish I could watch them explain that when it falls out that's gotta happen once in a while

hey uh Karen why do you have a piece of paper that says why would the holocaust happen on it my fucking kid. He's a hyper skeptic. Sorry. All right.

Finally, release the bear. Ask your kids what questions they have for God. If they can't think of any, pick one that your group put on the master list. Have a family night to research the answer. Obviously don't pick questions. You can't answer,

like, did Jesus ever have head lice? An actual question asked by one of our mama bear kids recently. She says, okay, all right. So if your friends honestly believe that there is an all-knowing being in the universe and yet cannot think of a single question to ask him your friends are goddamn pre-mulch lady get better for just set yourself on fire in the hopes that some of them will burn with you and well she takes care of that we're gonna close things off for the night eli i appreciate all the suffering that you've endured to get us this far through the book

uh but not enough to let you off the hook. So we're going to be back soon with even more God Awful Books. Before we gently close our pedals until next month, I want to tell everybody that Tim Robertson is fucking awesome. I mentioned him at the end of the show, you know, that he handles our social media, but he does all kind of odd jobs and shit for us. And he has become as integral a part of our team as anybody whose voice you hear on the show. So, Tim, thank you for all the work you do. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't

wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister shows, Hot Friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at seven a.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister show citation needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously this show would wither on the vine. If I neglected to thank Heath Henrick for all the things he does, I need to thank Eli Bosnick for all the things he eventually agrees not to do.

I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda illusions. Forget this shit. 23 years of happy marriage. As of the day after this episode airs. Also want to thank Eli's Australian accent coach for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Incidentally, he said in his email he had nothing to plug except his landscape photography page, which I put in the show notes because fuck yeah, we like landscape photography. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most marvelous mammals,

Matthew D.T., Fausto, Trev Black, motherfucking Summer Blaze, TotesNut and Ninja, and Andreas. Matthew D.T. and Fausto, whose intellects are so vast Trump wants to open them up for drilling. Trevlak and motherfucking Summer Blaze, who might actually be getting any younger. And Totes Not a Ninja and Andreas, whose martial arts skills are just normal levels, wink. Together, these seven people, enthusiastically sunny moments and withdrawal symptoms, help make my bullshit job remain a job this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the ease of complimentability that it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist,

whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but money's too expensive, you can also help a ton by leaving 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, our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, we'll also roll the music that you used in this episode,

which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com. Roger Stone's Prosecutor... Shit. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.