The Scathing Atheist - 371: Electric Boog-Achoo Edition

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

In this week’s episode, we desperately try to find something to talk about other than the coronavirus, and occasionally we succeed. --- 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/ --- Headlines: 77% of White Evangelicals Say Trump Is Doing a Good Job Dealing With Coronavirus: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/20/77-of-white-evangelicals-say-trump-is-doing-a-good-job-dealing-with-coronavirus/ Michigan: Churches Won’t Get Punished if More Than 50 People Gather: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/22/michigan-churches-wont-get-punished-if-more-than-50-people-gather/ An Estimated 25,000 People Gathered in Bangladesh to Pray Away COVID-19: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/21/an-estimated-25000-people-gathered-in-bangladesh-to-pray-away-covid-19/ Christian-Owned Hobby Lobby Refuses to Close All Stores During Pandemic: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/21/christian-owned-hobby-lobby-refuses-to-close-stores-during-pandemic/ Despite COVID-19, These Evangelicals Want to Convert Isolated Brazilian Tribes: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/21/despite-covid-19-these-evangelicals-want-to-convert-isolated-brazilian-tribes/ Christian Activist: COVID-19 Arose After the Chinese Ate Biblically Unclean Food: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/19/christian-activist-covid-19-arose-after-the-chinese-ate-biblically-unclean-food/ GOP Lawmaker Opposed Pandemic Relief Bill Because It Was Too Gay-Friendly: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/19/gop-lawmaker-opposed-pandemic-relief-bill-because-it-was-too-gay-friendly/ Christian Group: Don’t Call Us an Anti-LGBTQ “Hate Group” During a Pandemic: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/19/christian-group-dont-call-us-an-anti-lgbtq-hate-group-during-a-pandemic/ FL County Commissioner: I’m “Sorry” for Saying Hair Dryers Cure COVID-19: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/22/fl-county-commissioner-im-sorry-for-saying-hair-dryers-cure-covid-19/ Dave Daubenmire: The “Activist Mommy” is Telling “Half-Truths” About Her Divorce: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/20/dave-daubenmire-the-activist-mommy-is-telling-half-truths-about-her-divorce-2/ What Name Comes to Mind When You Think of Atheism? Many Americans Say… “Satan”:  https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/18/what-name-comes-to-mind-when-you-think-of-atheism-many-americans-say-satan/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Ohio and Texas halt abortions during pandemic: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/22/21189847/coronavirus-ohio-abortion-elective-surgeries and https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/pandemic-new-front-abortion-wars-147315 Pastor: God gave men stronger sex drives so they’d pursue marriage: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/24/christian-ministry-god-gave-men-stronger-sex-drives-so-theyd-pursue-marriage/

Warning, this week's episode is mostly profanity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by The Scathing Atheist Stay the Fuck Home Livestream. This Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern with our wives and scotch. Because if you're stuck at home, you might as well be stuck with us. And now, The Scathing Atheist. My name is Dr. Martini, and I'm an emergency physician. I have a few things to say.

Please don't come to the ER unless absolutely necessary. Seriously, I didn't think I'd have to say this in the middle of a national crisis, but we're still seeing stubbed toes. Second, stay at home. Seriously, this one is important. If you can stay at home, please, please do. Third, please email and call your representatives and congresspeople. Tell them that it's not acceptable that healthcare workers are literally running out of the personal protective equipment that will save our lives and those of our patients. Tell them that it's not okay that the CDC is relaxing regulations because our country is unprepared in the middle of this coronavirus crisis. Healthcare workers are literally being told that if we run out of masks

and other personal protective equipment, we should wear a bandana to protect ourselves. Oh, and after working in ERs for several years, I can absolutely say that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. Yeah, it's March 26th. And it's Solitude Day. Like, officially. Yeah, so everybody keep staying the fuck inside. Yeah, there you go.

I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Derek Jeter's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Corona goes best with a twist of Lyme disease. Eli makes a pun that Instagram's been making for weeks. How dare you? And Heath and Noah will bring some original material to the episode.

Okay. I feel like... The first, the diatribe. I have my own twist on it because of the history. Twist of Lyme. of history. Must have lied. So, this is some weird shit. I mean, to be honest,

it's only weird vicariously for me. I already work from home. My wife doesn't have a job. I don't have any kids to be home from school. I'm too misanthropic to be missing any socializing. So with the exception of a heated, ongoing argument with my father-in-law about whether it's okay for him to keep going to Jerry J's every morning for breakfast, this pandemic hasn't changed anything in my life so far except movie release dates. But watching my friends and family, watching through the online window all across the nation and the world world this looks like some exceptionally weird shit now it's not unprecedented

despite our cultural complacency the whole plague thing has been around quite a while humans have dealt with this every few generations since before we started writing shit down you know how given the timing of the spanish flu i don't even know that we can say that the speed of the spread is unprecedented. You know, we don't have millions of people all leaving the same war for every corner of the globe at the same time as this breaks out after all. What is unprecedented, though, is the state of medical science. This is the first time modern medicine has had to face something on this scale. And of course, part of the reason it's never had to face this before is because it did such a bang-up job of preventing it until now. But in so many ways, medicine was a victim of its own success.

The idea of a genuine pandemic seemed more like a movie premise than a genuine concern. And granted, every knowledgeable person knew that it was a very real possibility and that it had only narrowly been avoided several times over the past couple of decades. But you don't have to be knowledgeable to be in charge so this is what we get and once again everybody's agreed to call time out on all this religious bullshit and the alternative medicine bullshit and then sit back and watch science saved a fucking day again right i mean don't get me

wrong we still got plenty of religious ass hats to talk about this week we're trying to cure covid 19 with prayer and encouraging people to congregate in dangerously large numbers every Sunday morning. And there are plenty of demonic fucks who are hawking homeopathic corona cures. while the adults do the work. Because as a nation, as a larger international culture, and to a great extent as a world, we are all atheists now when the chips are down. One worldview is better than the others because it's the only one that can actually do anything. And if religion was remotely the thing it sells itself to be, nobody would even have time for science right now.

But no, everybody's just as religious now as they were before this shit started. Maybe even a little less so if they started thinking about what a dick move it was a God to go ahead with the pandemic plans. But everybody's all in on science, right? Got a whole bunch of anti-vax natural green mommies just lining up asking big pharma to keep injecting shit into their arms until they run out of needles. A lot of diehard fundamentalists waiting until they're in the ER before they even start praying. But none of that is going to stop the religious leaders from taking credit once this shit is over. They'll all join together and sing the praises of the merciful God who saved us from the thing he subjected us to on purpose. They'll pat themselves

on the back for uttering magic wishing spells. They'll give Jesus credit for science's work, and they'll pretend that they didn't do anything to exacerbate the problem in the first place. And that's always disgusting, right? Like, it always pisses me off when religion forces itself between a human being and an accolade. But it's going to piss me off all the more this time, because while the religious leaders were doing nothing at best, the people whose credit they're going to take are risking their goddamn lives for us. You know, the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies, those people are going into battle every day. And when it's all said and done and the bodies have been cleared off

the battlefield, the religious leaders are going to march right to the center, pat the medical professionals on the back and tell them they're welcome. And while we're on the subject, I want to underscore that last point that Dr. Martini made in the Farnsworth quote. It is goddamn unconscionable that we are sending medical professionals to work without sufficient personal protective equipment. I mean, I know this is a show about atheism

and I'm straying a bit off topic here, but I've had several listeners reach out to me about this problem. People are working in emergency rooms and being asked to reuse masks and gowns and shit, putting both their lives and the lives of their patients at risk. And they're so goddamn desperate here that they're bringing their problem to me. They're saying like, hey, man, you talk to more than fucking six people. Could you scream about this for us?

And look, a whole bunch of us are stuck at home without anything to do right now anyway. So it seems to me we're in perfect positions to absolutely flood our congresspeople's phones with calls about this shit. We're in a great position to plaster social media with calls to fix this fucking problem first and foremost. I'm not normally a big advocate of online activism, but this is one time we're staying at home and bitching about it on the Internet is exactly what's called for. And atheists are fucking awesome at that. Sorry. Look, I know you're drowning in pandemic news and and we're going to be talking about it for most of this show as well i i know

it's hard to see this as anything but a historic tragedy unfolding around you but in the grand scheme of things if you can back up and take a look at for this from like a geological scale the real story here isn't the pandemic. It's Dr. Martini. Right. It's the human beings on the front line that for the first goddamn time can meet plague on the battlefield and best it. I mean, yeah, she's going to need her fucking armor to do it. Right. And it would help if our dumbasses would stop wandering out in the middle of the battlefield and ask her about this rash. But we actually have the tools we need to win this one or at least we theoretically could we've been facing off against this same enemy since the dawn of our species and we've never

been able to beat it before but we can this time and it's precisely because we abandoned prayer and took our defense into our own hands. That is the history that you're living through. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the lather and rinse to my repeat, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to shine? We both shine up there regardless of the hair product.

Oh, yeah. It's a bit of a dick move. Sorry. I'm just picturing myself doing like a crotch like Pantene commercial, shaking it out slowly. That's the only place that lathers up. Doing a handstand and a convertible. All right. I guess it's time for headlines in our lead story tonight we have a small follow-up on an item that popped up last week what's that now yeah you might have heard about a bunch of states and

the cdc telling everyone to shut down all non-essential business and for everyone to stay at their house well this week lots of those same governing bodies told everybody to shut down all non-essential business and for everybody to stay in their house for like double realsies this time but if you're thinking wait a minute i thought this was america you were right it is america and a whole bunch of idiots are refusing to comply, especially religious idiots. Yeah, they are. And the most appropriate way to present all this news is definitely a game show. So, welcome to Coronavirus 2 Electric Boogachoo.

I'm your host, Ethan, right? And joining me, we have two reluctant contestants, no illusions in Eli Bosnick. Gentlemen, any fun introductory anecdotes about yourself before we start? Oh, sure. Hi, I'm Noah. I'm a podcaster and I beat this shtick into the ground pretty hard last week. Good luck, Heath. Good luck. Okay. Actually, this is one of those few times that this works any antidotes for for uh for everybody nobody i took this stuff trump told me i had to drain cleaner not ibuprofen great all right let's get it going

hands uh out of your mouth and on your buzzers question one which of the following groups of people is most likely to believe that donald trump is doing a good job handling this outbreak is it a atheists b white evangelicals c black protest or D, people who describe their religion as nothing in particular because they don't know what the word unaffiliated means, which was also an option. Noah? I'm going to go with people who pride themselves on self-reliance and rugged outdoorsmanship and then spasm hysterically and openly weep on the floor of the Dollar General when the toilet paper starts running out, also known as B, white evangelicals. That is correct. Just for context, among all Americans, about 45% are confident that Donald Trump has been doing a good job on this.

But among white evangelicalss that number is 77 okay i feel like we need to start getting wacky with that group survey just to like establish a baseline right like okay uh donald trump said the earth is a cube and you you in particular only have four fingers how many 55 wow 55 of you all right well there okay let's break for lunch again i have to cry and follow-up question question two being christian person from what ethnic group makes you most likely to be a giant ignorant asshole in the united states who ignores medical experts? A, black, B, Hispanic, C, white, or D, orange? Yes, Eli. C, white. That is correct. Who also would have accepted orange. Donald Trump gave a speech this week explaining that America isn't really a, you know, shut down sort of country. So despite what you might have heard from the doctors,

literally cringing right behind him during press conferences, we're going to open stuff back up for business real soon. Buy Easter at the latest. Well, yeah, no, because it's not cutting Social Security benefits if you just kill them. And by far, the most likely people to agree with him are white white evangelicals again among both protestants and catholics the white people within that group were noticeably more likely to be confident in the president than the group as a

whole white people are ruining this curve in all the worst ways. And just for the record, the group that was by far the least confident in Trump's pandemic response was atheist people. But somehow 15% of us were still confident in Trump. Who the fuck are these people? Right? Look, I'm no theist rube, but it's obvious this virus is a hoax started by Mancy Pelosi to keep Trump's awesome economic policy at bay. Am I right? What's that? Bertrand Russell would hold me down and spit in my mouth. It's crazy how

many people say that to me. So many. Right to my face. Mancy? What is that? It doesn't matter. We're done with you. All right. Question three. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order last week banning all gatherings of more than 50 people in the state. Which of the following is a valid exception to that rule?

A. Spring break. Ooh. B. I eat breakfast at IHOP every morning. That's my thing. C. Am I being detained? Or D, churches are an exception because, you know, God can't hear you pray in other buildings. So we had to keep the churches going. Yes, Noah.

All right. I see how you tried to trick me with B there, but I'm going to go D. They literally made a goddamn exception for big groups of old people doing magic. Yes, correct. Again, B was a misdirect. You are sadly correct. And when the governor's office got asked about this, they responded, but, you know, there's still a rule about 50-person gatherings.

That is a rule about 50 person gatherings that is a rule we're just not gonna make any places of worship pay the fine or have any penalty for being giant assholes yeah well you know to be fair america has a rich tradition of laws not applying to religion no matter what the consequences right yeah no and and religion has a long tradition of festering, so this works out great for everyone. Okay, question four. So many governments are recommending that people stop gathering in groups larger than 10. And many podcasters are actually recommending an order of magnitude lower than that. Nonetheless, there was a large religious gathering in Bangladesh last week, Nonetheless, there was a large religious gathering in Bangladesh last week during which everyone recited healing verses from the Koran like at the coronavirus, which in fairness was definitely in attendance.

Which of the following venues would have been a good fit for this group of people? A. A high school gymnasium. B. Five high school gymnasiums. C. Carnegie Hall. Or D. Madison Square Garden. Oh. Yes, Eli. C. Carnegie Hall. Oh, sorry, but that is incorrect. Noah, chance to steal.

D. Madison Square Garden. Noah, chance to steal. D, Madison Square Garden. Oh, yeah. Also incorrect. We were actually looking for E, none of the above, or F, each of their individual fucking houses. Crowd was estimated at 25,000 people, which is way too much for Madisonison square garden at its full capacity of 20 789 side note the estimate of 25 000 people came from event organizers but the local police chief didn't want to look like an idiot and told reporters that the crowd was more like 10,000. I'm going to repeat that. The local police chief didn't want to look stupid, so he told journalists that his town had a gathering of 10,000 people in March of 2020.

He's just like, relax, it's a football stadium or two max. Relax. Right, no, it sounds bad, but look, every 12th person is six feet away from every other 12th person it'll be fine it's fine all those people are separating them you see yeah how do you measure social distancing without people to stack it out exactly yeah gotta have a thing all right question five the evangelical family, who owns the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., recently found out that pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls they purchased on the Iraqi black market

for religious relics that apparently exists and that they apparently frequent, those pieces were actually just scraps from an old catcher's mitt. How are they planning to make up for the money they lost a refusing to close down the national chain of hobby lobby stores they own b if stores are closed by government mandate they'll force employees to use vacation time jesus c after that vacation time is exhausted employees will get a fraction of their salaries for two weeks maximum. D. God will guide, guard, and groom the employees through the miracle of poverty.

Yes, Noah. D, the miracle of poverty. Oh, that is incorrect. Eli, would you like to steal? No. No. Okay. Oh, that is incorrect. Eli, would you like to steal? Hmm. No. No. Okay.

Bold. Bold. Brash. You know what? We're going to get rid of the stealing thing. It's a complicated rule. I don't want to make it unfair. There you go.

Yeah. Checkmate. And the answer we were looking for was secret answer E, all of the above. the answer we were looking for was secret answer e all of the above at the moment the green family is quite certain that fucking popsicle sticks for shoebox dioramas the crucifixion are essential to the american economy and they will not shut down and owner david green wrote a letter to the whole company staff that said the following quote in my wife my wife Barbara's quiet prayer time this past week, the Lord put on her heart three profound words to remind us that he is in control. Guide, guard, and groom. We serve a God who will guide us through this storm, who will guard us

as we travel to places never seen before, and who, as a result of this storm, who will guard us as we travel to places never seen before, and who, as a result of this experience, will groom us to be better than we could have ever thought possible before now, end quote. God, this guy would have been great on Mount Sinai. And just dear fellow Jews, last night, my wife received a message not to paint lamb's blood on her brand new doorframeframe just because Moses told her to. He's a Jew anyway. I'm going to die and take you all with me.

I'm sorry. Wait. Is anybody else picturing God plucking lice out of Hobby Lobby employees hair and eating them? Or is that just. Moving on to question number six. moving on to question number six in response to the outbreak of the coronavirus the evangelical organization called ethnos 360 took which of the following actions a they purchased a helicopter for approximately nine hundred thousand dollars b they announced their intention to fly that helicopter into the remote western amazon region of Brazil to contact and convert an isolated indigenous tribe.

C. They partially melted Wilford Brimley and put him in charge of the Brazilian operation. D. They explained how the last time they did something like this, the guy who sexually assaulted a bunch of indigenous girls was thoroughly reprimanded he got a stern talking to e a b and d only or f all of the above yes eli ah easy it's always all of the above oh sorry what yeah but the guy they put in charge was actually a melted Stacey Keech. We were looking for a melted Stacey Keech would have been a valid C. We're looking for A, B and D only. Those three are all real. Seriously, they bought a helicopter. I'm pretty sure it cost about 900 grand.

They're going to fly to some remote part of Brazil. And yes, literally the last time they did something like this, a guy sexually assaulted a bunch of indigenous young girls probably underage that all happened and just for the record brazil has a law against flying into the jungle for fucking crusades and that's a rule even if you aren't helping spread a plague to the most remote areas of the planet but brazilian president yair bosnaro recently appointed a former member of ethnos 360 to be the minister in charge of enforcing that law so probably not going to be a law much anymore yeah no like brazil also has a law against you know

setting people's homes on fire if they refuse to love jesus but you wouldn't know that to look at right you'd have to read it all right question number eight the u.s house of representatives passed a pandemic relief bill last week and following the vote gop congressman andy biggs of arizona went out of his way to tell everyone why he voted against that bill what was his reason a the relief isn't likely to trickle up enough b the bill recognizes same-sex couples in the definition of family c the bill is going to force rabbi bakers to make swastika cakes for nazis or d all the above? Yes, Noah. B, it recognized same-sex couples as families. That is correct. Well done. Andy Biggs tried to block a pandemic relief bill

during a fucking pandemic because it would technically let same-sex couples use the word family, which is, I guess, one of his favorite hetero nouns and he doesn't want to fucking share. It's weird that if your senator came to your house to like take your food,

you're allowed to hit him in the head with a stick. But if he votes for the whole country to do that, you're not, right? We all see how weird that is. It is weird. There's one sign.

Yeah, that all seems correct. What Eli just said. Okay, Noah, you got a four to one lead and that brings us to the final question worth 100 points anybody's game yeah no a lot of a lot of suspense going on yes well done and uh for this final question it's going to be fill in the blank uh you both get a chance to answer so you can put away the buzzers. No. Question 10. Here it is. County Commissioner of Okeechobee, Florida, Bryant Culpepper, recently apologized for spreading false information about the coronavirus. He posted on Facebook that he's sorry for saying that COVID-19 can be cured with blank.

Noah, you're first. A candle that smells like Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina. And Eli? Okay, Noah took mine. So a passport shoe from South Africa. Oh, sorry.

Should have gone with all of the above. Yep. Both incorrect incorrect we were looking for hair dryer he said a hair dryer can cure coronavirus you have to take it rectally but yeah it's almost exact it's so close to what noah Culpepper claimed that you can kill coronavirus by holding a blow dryer up to your nose and turning it on and blasting your nose with a hair dryer. What? Here's the exact words from a Florida man. So I guess this tracks. But also he's a fucking government official.

This guy has power in the country. But also, he's a fucking government official. This guy has power in the country. Quote, the nasal passages and the nasal membranes are the coolest part of the body. That's why the virus tends to go there. The virus sniffs out cold areas and runs to them. Yeah, no, it likes it. Cool. Yeah.

That's why the virus tends to go there until it then becomes healthy enough to go into the lungs this is going to sound really goofy and it did to me too correct it works once the temperature reaches 136 degrees fahrenheit the virus falls apart and it disintegrates okay i said how would you get the temperature up to 132 degrees? We're just not worried about those last four. This is a weird question because you said it was 136. It's fine. It's fine.

The answer was you use a blow dryer because it's capable of doing that. So you hold a blow dryer in front of your face and you inhale with your nose because the hot air wouldn't go unless you inhale right no obviously and it kills all the viruses in your nose end quote okay okay in his defense it's a pretty fucking funny image right like we can all at least admit it's a funny image oh no look look if he was just doing this to troll florida people i'd suggest we hire him. Yeah. Alright. Well, Noah,

congrats. You win? Alright, well, apparently I've got a not quite victory to not quite celebrate, so we're going to pause for a quick minute and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible. A horse, which one? If it's a legitimate race. Cooking can be fun. I'm proud of a man this week in massager

look i know that it looks like texas isn't doing a fucking thing to protect its citizenry from the pandemic what with their lieutenant governor hopping on tv to advocate mulching the elderly for the sake of the hospitality sector but don't let their inaction fool you. They may be reluctant to shut down restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and megachurches, but they were among the first in the nation to use this crisis as an excuse to shut down abortion clinics. That's right, Texas, Ohio, and Mississippi have all made moves to ban abortions as part of the general order to ban elective surgeries.

Because, you know, if you put off an abortion, what's the worst that could happen? Now, to be clear, this is horrendous bullshit. As important as it is that we preserve medical equipment and protective gear at this point, cutting off access to abortions isn't an acceptable way to get there any more than cutting off access to stitches. Most of the states that have issued orders to close down non-essential businesses have exempted family planning facilities and abortion clinics. Of course, that's because most of those states are run by Democrats,

which it is important to remember when we're later trying to decide which of these parties deserves the label of pro-life. And while the but the coronavirus, though, argument is probably most egregious in Texas, home of Dan, but granny was going to die anyway, and I need some boneless wings, Patrick. It's probably the most unconvincing in Mississippi, where there is precisely one abortion clinic left in the entire goddamn state. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves didn't even bother to pretend, saying, quote, we'll take whatever action we need to protect not only the lives of unborn children, but also the lives of anyone who may contract this particular virus, end quote. And on that note, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in Let Them Fight news tonight, tonight you know some people are Marvel fans some prefer DC but the Endgame saga and Batman versus Superman have nothing on the battle royale of our favorite fandom this week coach Dave Darvin Meyer versus the activist mommy bad guy fight bad guy fight bad guy fight seriously bad guy fight what come on no we need this we need this right fine all right fine bad guy fight bad guy fight bad guy fight bad guy fight all right bad guy little backstory here uh last week el Elizabeth Johnson, a.k.a. the activist mommy, announced that she and her husband, anti-choice activist Dr. Patrick Johnson, were getting a divorce. Now, before you get too sad for Johnson, quick reminder, regular listeners will remember her for burning a Vogue magazine for talking about anal sex, encouraging the harassment of drag queens who do story time at local libraries. Oh, yeah. And of course, getting a local pride prom canceled because she's a bigot.

Yep. Yeah. And if you've ever asked to see a manager three times, you might remember her from appearing magically behind you. It's true. She does. Yeah. So Miss Johnson took to the Internet to explain that the reason for her breakup was that her

husband had been, quote, repeatedly unfaithful as well as psychologically and emotionally abusive. End quote. Well, man myth legend and apparently close personal friend of the Johnson. Well, half of them anyway. Yes. Coach Dave Dobin Meyer wasn't having any of that. Dave Dobenmeier wasn't having any of that. So he dedicated a sizable chunk of his show last week to ranting against Miss Johnson's accusations. And it is beautiful. Yeah. Apparently, activist mommy posted a really big manifesto about the divorce.

And Coach Dave spends about well about well first he spends about 15 minutes trying to just get it up on his screen yes he does he's really bad at double clicking which was delightful to watch and then he finally gets it to pop up and sees well over his personal reading word limit and immediately announced. He's like, I'm not going to read this whole thing. That's not going to happen. And then he starts trying to read the whole thing. And then I'm pretty sure his Windows 95 popped up with like a reinstall.

He becomes visibly furious at just computers in general and then cuts away right before. He definitely yelled ethnic slurs at his computer and it's just a cut for sure yeah so for those of you hoping to get your love is blind slash the circle slash bachelor nation fix go check out this link in the show notes it is juicy among the usual ravings dopenmeyer accuses elizabeth of quote telling half truths and quote misrepresenting how her marriage was going on her speaking tours and compares her to be ex-husband to brett kavanaugh and roy moore well but but in an effort to exonerate him yes exactly he was trying to come up with other people who were falsely accused of being bad men and his go-to examples were Brett Kavanaugh

and Roy Moore. He's like a modern day O.J. Simpson. He was found innocent. So obviously, this is the top of our priority list and we will keep you informed as the drama unfolds. Bad guy fight. Yeah, that'll be the subject of the quiz

next week. Bad guy fight. that'll be the subject of the quiz next week bad guy fight bad guy oh and finally tonight in compensating news we've got a survey i'd like to cover this week um that should serve as a reminder to every atheist out there that we are still on step zero even when it feels like we're all the way up to step two and since he's got to do a quiz i'm going to open up with a couple of questions too uh so let me you guys, who is the first person you think of when I say Catholicism? Rapist. Cardinal Powell.

Okay. Correct. Correct. You guys got the same answer. Third rapist. More rapists. Who is the first person you think of when I say evangelical Protestantism? Pat Robertson.

Mike Pence fucking his mom. Heath's is way better okay and and i will say of all the time that's been your response to a word association question this is the most appropriate so far so finally who's the first person you think of when i say atheist adolf hitler heath or what what all right so here's the depressing results that you get when the pew research center asks those very same questions to America in general. I should note up front that we're dealing with pluralities here because nobody wound up with a majority except Buddha when they asked about Buddhism. Good to know.

And he still only got 55%. Made the noise of the thing. Yeah, exactly. So no surprise for Catholicism, it was the Pope. That was 47% of the responses. For evangelical Protestantism, the most popular answer was Billy Graham. Really? Yeah, well, all their Gen 2 players suck and they fucking know it.

And for atheism, the most common answer was... Actually, no one in particular, literally 51% of Americans couldn't think of any goddamn name at all to associate with atheism. God damn it. Of those that could, the most popular answer was Satan. What? The fallen angel who was kicked out of

heaven by the god of the universe is the most popular atheist. America is fucking special. We are a special place. Guys, even in your book, Satan's a lot of things, but atheist isn't one of them, homies.

To be fair, Satan may have gotten the plurality of the votes, but he only got 6%. He narrowly edged out Richard Dawkins, so it could have been worse. I'm not saying Dawkins is worse than Satan, but from a PR perspective, Satan spends less time on Twitter. But the most important takeaway, in my opinion, is encapsulated in the top two most common responses, neither of which was Satan. Number one, as I just said, was nobody in particular. More than half of Americans couldn't associate any human being at all with atheism.

But the next most common at 10 was like my buddy chris fucking chris always makes me google stuff after a talk i'm always like fuck you satan wait satan that's my yeah right yeah exactly so yeah no this doesn't count as a winner because everybody has a different buddy, Chris. But when asked who they associated with atheism, one in 10 Americans named like a friend, a family member or a person at work, like somebody that they know that is willing to publicly wear the atheist label. So not to put too much pressure on you, but that's probably you. Really, I get that some of you aren't out about your atheism and that's your choice some of you can't be out about your atheism for fear of your lives or your jobs or your homes no judgment here i get it but for a lot of you you're the only person somebody

knows who is an atheist you represent all of atheism to them and assuming you refrain from pointing out the upside of eugenics on twitter and don't have a subterranean chamber full of damned souls that you torture for a living, you're improving our public image. Or maybe still, either way. Well, right. Yeah, honestly. Honestly, at the very least, if you do that and to give to modest needs, it's still an improvement. So on behalf of all of us here at The Scathing Atheist, good on you. I mean, good on you, maybe.

I just realized that statistically when some people think of atheism, they think of me. That's scary. Feels like there's a bunch of other labels they think of first. Well, when they think of him, they don't think of atheism, but yeah, right. Exactly. And with the realization that Eli self-evaluates below Satan, we're going to close the headlines

for the night. Eli, thanks as always. Marshmallow-themed burlesque artist. What? That makes sense. And when we come back, we're going to outline even more stuff that you can't do right now. Marshmallow-themed burlesque artist? It's what people think of when they think of me.

Oh, okay. All right. I got you. Hi, I'm Anna Bosnick. And I'm Lucinda Lusions. Inviting you to join us this Saturday on YouTube from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. for the Stay the Fuck Home livestream. We'll be playing games. And answering your questions. Isn't that right, Scotch?

Oh, Siriana. I'm delicious. The Scathing Atheists Stay the Fuck Home livestream. 8 to 10 p.m. Eastern Time this Saturday. Because if we're going to be trapped inside with our husbands, you might as well be too. I'm Scotch. And Scotch. I miss you, Scotch. A lot of people find themselves desperately looking for a silver lining to this whole quarantine thing. And to those people, I just want to offer a reminder of what being around humans is like.

So consider all the groups and gatherings that you are avoiding right now as we present another edition of The Holiday Buffet. Now, this is the segment on the show where we highlight holidays from a number of religious traditions with the ostensible purpose of deciding which one of those we want to celebrate as atheists. I feel like this month it'll be more of a case of deciding which ones we want to regret not being able to celebrate. But regardless, Eli, what holiday did you choose? I chose Passover. What we're celebrating. The Jews escape from Egypt that never happened.

Where it's celebrated. Everywhere there's Jews. So, you know, wherever people are ignoring COVID-19. My neighbors would beg to differ on the wherever when it's celebrated the 15th day of the jewish month of nissan till the 21st of nissan unless you live in israel in which case you get to stop a day early which if listeners remember last month's holiday buffet is the opposite of what happens with Purim. So if you're keeping track,

drunk Halloween takes an extra day to get to Israel, but prop-heavy persecution narratives get there early. Who knew? Huh. Best aspect. Blackmailing your dad. Worst aspect. Ketogenic dinner theory.

How it's celebrated. passover is essentially celebrated by acting out each of the hardships the jews endured as they escaped from egypt if those hardships were passed down through a weird passive aggressive game of telephone of rabbis who were less and less willing to actually do not fun stuff. So join me in this journey as we go from, oh, I get that to what does that even have to do with anything that is Passover? So you celebrate by repeatedly being miserable? Yeah, yeah. But don't worry, we half ass it the whole way. Exactly.

Fuck the bees. It's just a hobby. So first and foremost in the story is that jews were in such a hurry to get out of egypt they didn't even have time to bake their bread so for the entirety of passover jews don't eat any leavened bread the rest of the year we spend fighting over what is and is not leavened bread wine is okay okay. Bagels are not. Rice is okay, but only if you're a certain kind of Jew. There's arguments about whether wine is bread? Yeah,

because of the fermentation. Oh my god. Yeah. Ancient Rabbi Heath got into it. He was like, well, technically there's a fermenting in the wine. This wine is a little bit spongy technically. What? Yeast is okay, sure, but maybe it's not. There are literally hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of pages of argument on the subject all of them fun fact boring and stupid the point is before passover begins it's all gotta get out of your home well okay that's the intention. Instead, many Jews do something called the sale of hametz, which is where you agree to sell your non-Jewish friends all the leavened bread in your house for like a dollar, and you agree to hold on to it until he comes to pick it up. But then, at the end of Passover, you buy it back from him for a dollar plus interest in a tradition so anti-semitic i cannot believe it wasn't made up by r slash the don

can't you just like run some yarn around your bread and make it be technically outside of the house for a little bit. There is a whole thing about that. I cut it from the essay, but yes, the answer is to some Jews, literally, yes. They hang it out their windows and bags. I don't want to get into it. It's a whole thing. So with your hametz, also to heath for four days, the night before Passover is bedkilat hametz, For four days, the night before Passover is Bedkilat Hametz, which is where you search all around your house for bread and any that you find that you haven't sold to Heath, you have to burn before sundown.

Yeah, it's funny. Crackheads have this same crumb cataloging tradition before they smoke it. They call it, I don't want to think that's crack later and smoke it, but both groups tackle this task with equal ferocity. Correct. Yeah. So, with all your bread either sold to Heath or burned, you're supposed to spend all of Passover eating nothing but matzah, which is like a

burned cracker and the everything bagel flavor is the best. I will not debate this. More on matzah later. Oh, good. Good. Glad to hear that. So, then comes the Seder, which is a, not kidding, 15-phase story-based eat-and-drink-along with different, ever-less appetizing metaphors to eat. So you start out with stuff like apples and nuts to represent mortar, and then you end up with stuff like lettuce dipped in salt water to represent the suffering during the holocaust yes really yeah that's a real one i didn't know it was for the suffering of the

holocaust i thought it was like the tears of the people leaving egypt or something but yes that's real there's literally an entire dedicated phase for bitter herbs and salt water. And every Seder I've attended completely went off the rails at this point. Yep, this is where they go. People were fasting all day and they're passing around fucking parsley salad with saline dressing and somebody's finally like, yeah, it's the

fucking tears. Brisket, let's go. Let's go with the brisket. It's right there. I see it. That is where it tends to break down. So then, at the end of the night, comes the best part of Passover. The hiding of the Afikoman. Oh, yeah, but when Catholic priests do it, the Boston Globe

does a whole big expose. I see. Okay, so here's how it works. Before the meal... People do it shaped like matzah. Before the meal, one of the adults hides the last piece of matzah somewhere in the house which the kids then go and find but again because jews can't do anything without making ourselves look like a world war ii german cartoon the kids who find it then hold that afikoman hostage

and their parents have to bribe them to get it back or the Seder can't end. Which of course brings me to why we as atheists should absolutely be celebrating this. I'm sorry, of food-based storytelling accompanied by the world's most intense game of hide and seek?

Yes, please. So atheists, secularists, and my fellow ex-Jews, go out out grab yourself a matzah this month and waterboard your child till he tells you where it is okay that's maybe not the best advice to close on all right and heath your selection okay i chose easter it's easter time christianity let's do it what we're celebrating the day jesus found a back door to a cave after he got an atomic wedgie and stuffed it in a locker. Also known as the resurrection. Correct.

Where it's celebrated. Everywhere you can find Christian people. So most places that you can go with or without a helicopter. that you can go with or without a helicopter. But notably not call back North Sentinel Island where they shoot you with a bow and arrow for being an obnoxious asshole and going to their island where you're not supposed to fucking go.

Yeah, which is why I always hide my Easter eggs there. It's a win-win. Also why I applied for citizenship. Turns out it doesn't work that way, but yeah. When it's celebrated. On the Sunday following the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. So fucking weird.

So for 2020, it's on April 12th. Yeah. The Greco-Roman calendar is like when everyone on a group project wants to compromise, so you end up writing a poem about a hermit crab for math class. Best aspect. Candy hunting class. Best aspect. Candy hunting.

Worst aspect. Cadbury cream eggs trick me every fucking year. I don't know why, but I get excited for these things. Every Easter, they come out, it's a big deal. They're seasonal and then I realize, nope, it's still always

chocolate filled with sugar and cum. It's always the sugar and the cum inside chocolate. Really big gob of sugar cum in the chocolate. It gets me every time. Heath, count yourself lucky. The British version is just the cum now. But also, where do you

eat them from? There's no fucking way to eat that thing without getting sugar come all over your face you gotta pop the whole thing in your mouth yeah that no that that is what i do how it's celebrated so the standard tradition on easter is to do something with eggs which are supposed to represent the rebirth of the resurrection. And at some point, Christian people in Germany decided a rabbit should obviously be involved in this. Oh, yeah. So the Easter Bunny became like a Santa Claus figure who would reward or punish kids based on how obedient they were.

But every country, they had that. A lot of countries had the Easter Bunny. But a bunch of them took it in their own direction and made up some ridiculous customs. For example, in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, men walk around with willow switches

and whip women to encourage the women to be healthy and beautiful as that applies to the resurrection of the savior really another no makeup selfie in your pjs what is jesus gonna think martha is that how you want to look for jesus in papua new guinea they don't do the chocolate either churches usually make an easter tree and it's decorated with cigarettes which they hand

out after the service yeah things aren't great over there apparently that's what they're doing in australia they apparently hate fucking rabbits they hate rabbits in australia i didn't know this so the easter bunny kind of got canceled and lots of Australian chocolatiers go with the Easter bilby instead of the Easter rabbit. The bilby is a marsupial that kind of looks like, um, kind of like a rabbit. It's like a rabbit with a zombie disease, like a Tim Burton rabbit. Yeah. And it's endangered, so they do this to promote awareness. Okay, fuck you, Australia. Every animal on your continent is poisonous and filled with bees.

Let them die if they start to die out. Right, no, it's so weird that your whole continent is filled with, like, spikes and poison, and yet all your species are going to go down to our stuffed animal fodder, right? It's like our kittens and our bunnies are gonna get all your shit all right and that brings us to my favorite easter tradition in the philippines devout catholics celebrate easter by crucifying themselves yeah this is this is actually stupid enough that the vatican had to be like hey love the enthusiasm but you're making us the vatican look bad and it feels like this all started as a really bad lie like some guy was setting up an extremely upsetting masturbation thing and his wife walked in he was like hey happy easter easter party cross my sexual i'm like jesus and uh that's how the

christian world especially the philippines celebrates the rebirth of the son of god uh side note in a rare moment of sanity the, the Philippines canceled those crucifixions this year because of coronavirus. Yep. A bunch of guys. Yeah, a bunch of guys who nailed themselves to shit got together and they were like, OK, I think we all agree that would be irresponsible. So, yes, the Filipino guys that nail themselves to shit on purpose for Easter are smarter about this shit than Donald Trump. Yeah, we can still do the Golgotha thing. We'll just spread them out six feet.

Do it over. Let's do it over. We can do it over. All right. And I'll wrap things up by not choosing a holiday that I celebrated growing up. I chose by Saki. What we're celebrating. The formation of the

Khalsa Panth of Warriors. Or the New Year. Or the Spring Harvest. Because at some point in Indian history, somebody's mom had to cram a lot of shit into one Chuck E. Cheese trip. A bunch of warriors sitting around, this is the worst! And my birthday's on 9-11.

You're gonna get me 9-11 presents too, like separate. There's no doubling up. You're going to do that. Where it's celebrated. India and a lot of the places that Americans would mistake for India if they just got dropped into them on a raft. Minnesota, for example.

Yeah. It's the Taj Mahal of America, right? Minnesota. When it's celebrated. April 13th or 14th. Best aspect. It comes with little swords. Worst aspect.

The Jolly and Wallabag massacre, which sucks because A, it's a massacre, and B, it's impossible not to giggle a little bit at the words Jolly and Wallabag, and then I said massacre right after them, and you felt bad. Ooh, this concept is worth an air test. Let's try it. Okay, um, boop boopie doop holocaust. Yeah, yeah,

that tracks. I'm sorry, what are you tracking? Actually, no idea. I just wanted to say boop boopie doop holocaust. I figured. So yeah, that tracks. I just wanted to say be boopy-doop Holocaust. I figured. So yeah, that tracks. How it's celebrated. Risk behaviors during a pandemic. Seriously, everything that you do with this holiday reads like the shit after don't on last week's CDC bulletin. And praise be to the Khalsa warriors.

Everyone pair up and rub eyeballs as it is written. All right, so this is a holiday both in Sikhism and Hinduism because there's a super fine line distinguishing those two, and Sikhs technically aren't a subset of Hindus because that actually wouldn't make sense, but they kind of are. So this holiday originated as a Hindu festival, and it was inherited along with several other big ones when Sikhism came into being. Yeah, okay, good point here.

Christian people, great thing to remember. You and Islam are just fucking cover bands for Judaism. You just copied their homework, and you all look silly to atheist people, all three of those. You look dumb. So, okay, yeah, more so if you've got a hat, yeah like a like a specific hat you have to wear but yeah all all dumb regardless now of course later this particular holiday vaisaki gained extra special meaning to sikhs when it became associated with the martyrdom of guru teg bahadur i remember this johnny cage punched him in the penis i remember that was pretty sure that's racist so

okay so here's the story. You've got this evil Muslim emperor by the name of Muhyuddin Muhammad, who history remembers as Al-Rangzab. Bless you. No, that's the guy's name. No, no, you said a Muslim guy was evil. I was just hoping you don't get stabbed in the heart. Oh, no, much appreciated.

Good looking out. Okay, so this was the sixth Mughal emperor, and he ruled over basically the entire Indian subcontinent for half a century despite kind of sucking at it. And among the acts he's best remembered for is persecuting and eventually beheading the ninth guru of Sikhism when he refused to convert to Islam. Yeah, and then a disembodied head shows up at night and brings pastel candy eggs to all the kids. That would be fucking awesome. shows up at night and brings pastel candy eggs to all the kids. That would be fucking awesome. Alright, so this triggered the coronation of the tenth and final guru

of Sikhism, Gobind Singh, and the formation of a group called the Khalsa, traditionally said to have been formed on April 13th, even though that's way too convenient to be true. Plus, why would he do it then? That was already a holiday, right? He'd have had all that Vaisakhi shit going on.

Of course, of course of course of course really uh eli say anything that noah just said just any piece of information shock rikiki okay there you go all right so the castle was created as a special warrior class within sikhism but now it's kind of like all of sikh. I don't understand it entirely, but these are the guys that are sworn to protect the innocent from religious persecution and they have all the traditional symbols that you and I associate with Sikhism. They're all tied to this group. They're the ones with the tiny

little swords that they try to send their kids to school with and shit. Yeah, which is ridiculous. Everyone knows you got to act surprised when your kid brings a deadly weapon to school and then you blame their video games. Yeah, yeah exactly don't bring a knife to a gun video games about a hat full of virus those those need to go now to be clear uh vaisaki is is like generic indian holiday you got your communal river bathing a lot of huge sweaty gatherings eating of foods

and among hindus they can't even decide what the hell it celebrates. Some say it's the New Year's. Others say it's the harvest. Still others say it's both. But in truth, it doesn't fucking matter. It's an excuse to eat food, dance in colorful outfits, and set up shaky-ass carnival rides. Most years. Probably not a hell of a lot of that this time.

We hope. Yeah. For all the Hindu listeners out there, check out shaky-ass carnival rides for the Oculus Quest. I love her work. Boy, I got to say, this was absolutely the right time in my life to get an Oculus Quest, right? There are a lot of regional variations on this one because India can't agree on a single goddamn thing except for who they hate. In the northern state of Uttarakhand, a popular custom involves beating stones with sticks for having demons in them.

In the eastern state of Odisha, people hang branches on their door for good luck. In Tamil Nadu in the south, they celebrate by cleaning their houses and putting out fruit plates before sitting down for a big vegetarian feast. So, you know, it ranges from banal to fucking awful. That being

said, holidays are generally celebrated by gathering together, which means that if you're socially conscious, you probably won't be doing much holiday celebrating in april anyway and when it comes to avoiding a holiday vaisaki is a pretty solid candidate and we'll have more choices for you to ignore on next month's holiday buffet before we return to isolation i want to urge you one more time to contact your representative and make sure the lack of personal protective equipment for our medical professionals is the first thing on their goddamn minds okay i i know that contact your representative might seem like an impotent gesture to to some of you but trust me, flooding their offices with calls is still the best way to get their attention

shy of being an oil company. 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, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday. An even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday. And an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed,

debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this show would sound hollow if I neglected to thank Keith Enright for all those years he spent mastering social distancing. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for refraining from walking his neighborhood dressed like a zombie so far. I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for putting up with me even more than usual this week. I also want to thank Dr. Martini for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, but far more for providing health care. And on that note, I want to thank all of our listeners who are working in emergency rooms for the work that they're doing and the courage that they're showing in doing it. You are this week's best people. But our new patrons are also pretty fucking sweet. They're

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