The Scathing Atheist - 376: To Bleach His Own Edition

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

In this week’s episode, the one time we hope Donald Trump's fans are listening and “he was only joking”, we learn about the Kalam meteorological pound cake apologetic, and even Noah start wondering where the hell Noah has been. --- 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: Did Trump Get the Idea for Injecting Disinfectants From Florida’s Bleach Church?: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/24/did-trump-get-the-idea-for-injecting-disinfectants-from-floridas-bleach-church/ A Hate Crimes Bill in Scotland Will Finally Abolish the Country’s Blasphemy Law: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/24/a-hate-crimes-bill-in-scotland-will-finally-abolish-its-blasphemy-law/ Pew Finds That God-Belief Is a Big Factor In Allocating Scarce Medical Resources: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/25/pew-finds-that-god-belief-is-a-big-factor-in-allocating-scarce-medical-resources/ Pastor: In a Financial Crisis, Give to Church...That 10% Doesn’t Belong to You: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/20/pastor-in-a-financial-crisis-give-to-church-that-10-doesnt-belong-to-you/ Right-Wing Pastor: Send Me Cash So God Can Defeat Satan’s “One World System”: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/20/right-wing-pastor-send-me-cash-so-god-can-defeat-satans-one-world-system/ Scamvangelist Praises Donors for Buying Him the World’s “Finest” Private Jet: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/25/scamvangelist-praises-donors-for-buying-him-the-worlds-finest-private-jet/ Donations to Churches Nosedive; Levels Now Lower Than During the 2008 Recession: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/23/donations-to-churches-nosedive-levels-now-lower-than-during-the-2008-recession/ Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis Threaten “Drastic Steps” If Corona Limits Aren’t Eased: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/24/ultra-orthodox-rabbis-threaten-drastic-steps-if-corona-limits-arent-eased/ Franklin Graham: 30 People Died in a Tornado, But God Saved This Pound Cake: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/04/23/franklin-graham-30-people-died-in-a-tornado-but-god-saved-this-pound-cake/

Warning, the following podcast contains offensiveness distilled down to its purest form. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by HIMSS. And by the official self-administered curative bleach for the Trump supporter on the go. Nazi clean. Nazi clean. Gets the ass pains out. And now, The Scathing Atheist. It's Thursday. It's April 30th. And it's International Jazz Day.

That's right, so pull up with your best girl and talk during the bass solo. I'm Noel Lucians. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Count Basie's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, the one time we hope Donald Trump's fans are listening, he was only joking. We learn about the Kalam meteorological pound cake, apologies. And even I'll start wondering where the hell I've been.

But first, the diatribe. All right. So here's the thing about religion, though. It doesn't work. Like every single claim they make about it, large or small, fails to shake out if you do the math. Prayers aren't answered. True believers aren't immune to snake bites. Being better Mormons doesn't change your skin color. But it's the same way with all the little claims, too.

It doesn't make you happier. It doesn't help you cope with death. The family that prays together doesn't stay together. Yes, sure, there are some religious people that are happy and fearless and actually look forward to Thanksgiving, but statistics show us that religion has fuck all to do with it. Now, to some extent, you can get around that by not making any claims. If the Lord's ways are mysterious enough and his motivations are vague enough, you can forgive him from ever having to take any measurable action in the universe. But since failing to ever take any measurable action and not existing are functionally identical, you can't go down that road forever.

The happy middle ground, of course, is to make grandiose claims, even more grandiose excuses, and then scream from the goddamn rafters about it the two times a day that your broken clock nails it. And you'd be amazed how well that works. Right? I mean, it's dependent less on the merit of the excuses to the quality of the excuser. God has a really good reason for killing your hamster is a pretty shitty excuse. But if you offer it up with a sincere enough voice and you add a sympathetic tear and, you know, a lot of pomposity of office. People will spend their whole lives believing it, which is why it really fucks them up. If you can't come see them every week. That's the dirty little secret that churches don't want to tell you.

You know that feeling you get a few minutes after some pushy salesperson just got the better of you. A couple minutes ago, you were thinking that this scented microwave eye pillow was going to solve all your fucking problems. And now you're five kiosks down the hall and you can't for the life of you remember why the hell you ever thought that. Well, whether or not you know that feeling doesn't matter because I guarantee you that your preacher does. He knows that the minute you walk out of that church and get done shaking hands and hugging and you get back in your car, the buyer's remorse clock starts ticking once again. Now, his sales force is better than the herbally infused heat mask at the mall. So, you know, you get a little further from the point of sale before the pitch starts breaking down.

But believe me, it does start breaking down. After all, you can think of a perfectly viable world that contains immortal hamsters and you're not even all knowing. Give it a few days and maybe you'll start to have questions. Of course, if you come back to church next Sunday, preacher man can provide you with answers. His answers are going to have flaws in them, but if he's good at his job, it'll take you a week or so to spot him at least. And by then he'll be ready with brand new bullshit.

Of course, he's had most of these customers since they were kids. He's been indoctrinating with brand loyalty since the christening. So you miss a week here and there, no problem. He'll be all right. You'll keep keep even three weeks might not be a problem but four five and by then preacher man might just have to sue the fucking governor because your questions aren't going to keep forever and the answers you're going to come up with yourself are not

going to be as favorable to as bullshit as his would have been worse yet you might start looking up your questions on the internet and he can't afford that we're on the fucking internet and sure he's still there he's doing his little zoom sermons and shit and some people are still showing up but the reasons people show up in church are to see and to be seen either they like the camaraderie or else they just feel social pressure if you're not in church grandma's gonna notice but grandma doesn't know if you're watching the live stream she sure as hell doesn't know if you watch it live i mean people don't go to the church for the sermon why would they that would make no sense you can get infinity hours of sermon on demand anywhere when you strip away all the actual reasons they go they're not

going to keep coming just for the bullshit answers and now even if you do come for the sermons they're going to ring hollow. Without the amens coming from the crowd. I think about what that tradition really is. We don't have that anywhere else do we? I've been to a lot of cons. I've listened to a lot of talks. I've never heard anyone in the crowd.

Screaming out about how correct the lecturer is. Even when they're really correct. But you don't have to yell out. That is a true statement. When it actually is. The tendency of religious congregations to validate the preacher's claim is basically just a collective version of preempting a lie with trust me. And think about it. You watch a comedy in the theater, you laugh more than you would if you'd watch that same comedy sitting

at home. Amen and preach the word and all that shit. That's the same thing for belief. You sit in a church and you listen to people scream, boy, do I believe the shit out of this, and you believe harder. Plus, in a big enough crowd, the one person whose prayer was answered can make up for the 99 who's got ignored. Consider how much harder it would be to know for sure your clock was broken if it could convince a bunch of different timelines to show up together once a week. This whole thing is an existential threat to churches. And if they did something useful, it wouldn't be.

They need a chance to reinforce the lie or the lie dissolves. That's why they're willing to risk their own lives, the lives of their congregation, the lives of their families and the lives of their communities to make it happen. Because, yes, there will be a lot of corpses on that one side of the scale but anybody who's ever glimpsed the mountain will know it's not going to be enough to outweigh their bullshit they're talking about your jesus interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin joining me for headlines tonight is the mac to my cheese eli bos. Eli, you ready to take the Swiss out of all things holy? Oh, I'd be blue if we

didn't, Ethan, right? I'd be blue if we didn't. Till sit tits in our lead story tonight. In to bleach his own news, as many people already know, the President of the United States

has the attention span of a mosquito. And that's a big part of the reason he speculated out loud during a nationally televised coronavirus briefing last week that injecting oneself with a disinfectant-like bleach might be a cure for COVID-19.

He also got literally distracted by a mosquito during a briefing last week. And in possibly related news, according to a report from The Guardian, a cult-slash-church-slash-industrial-solvent retailer from Florida was recently in contact with Donald Trump

about their miracle mineral solution, a bleach-based liquid that they claim can cure malaria, hepatitis, H1N1, autism, cancer, HIV, and the coronavirus. And even if that's unrelated news, what the fuck? What is happening? Right. But again, to be clear, this cult slash church slash industrial solvent retailer has very, very firm ties to the White House and its spiritual advisors.

So, yeah, it's related. I feel like it's somewhat related. Just that's enough for what the fuck. Yeah. So just in case anyone missed it during the briefing, Trump was supposed to be talking about some new research into the lifespan of COVID-19. Trump was supposed to be talking about some new research into the lifespan of COVID-19. Apparently, ultraviolet light and certain types of disinfectant are both able to kill the virus pretty quickly, but not inside the human body. Scientists were studying the behavior of the virus on physical surfaces and in the air. Well, Trump got distracted from his teleprompter by naturally his internal monologue. And you can watch this happen on his stupid fucking face. He gets distracted and he says to himself, hold on.

The lungs are a physical surface. And what's in the lungs all the time? Air. What if we inject ourselves with purple and bleach. And since our president is a fucking cartoon henchman, this was also an external monologue. He started wondering out loud about disinfectant, and he said, exact quote, is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?

Right. And look, we know that you've heard this story already what we're telling you is that there's a solid chance that part of the reason that idea popped into his skull is that several of his spiritual advisors have shared a pulpit with religious leaders who've been telling their congregants to drink bleach for decades. Yep. And like try to cure their kids autism with that bleach. It's terrifying. Bleach enemas. Yep.

Yeppers. And just for the record, the day after that briefing, you probably already heard about this too. Trump said he was being sarcastic, which makes it so much worse. It's so much worse. How does he not see it? That's worse. Wow. It went so much worse. That's worse. Wow.

It went from stupid to evil. And he didn't even realize that because he is, of course, stupid and evil. Yep. He's both. Well, regardless, the miracle mineral solution people should have exactly zero access to the president of the United States. But we just learned that they have approximately infinity times more than that. Immediately following Trump's disinfectant injection remark, the so-called archbishop of that bleach cult, Mark Grennan, posted on his Facebook page that

he sent some magical bleach to the White House and Trump is actually in possession of miracle mineral solution at the White House. That's real. And Mr. President, if you're listening, no, you are big fan. I hear it is amazing for bone spurs, Mr. President. Not just good, the best. Obama used it all the time. All the time.

Chicken. Triple dog dare. Wow. How didrew get on the call just now he's screaming in one of my headphones he got into one i don't know i'm on stereo that's crazy so this is obviously terrifying that a president would have any communication with a criminally insane religious cult for any reason but you know christ, Christianity is a big problem. I'm getting off track. In terms of this bleach cult, the only correspondence they should have with the president is a letter explaining that, no, they are not being pardoned and they're staying in jail forever.

That should be it. That being said, silver lining, I guess, Trump's clearly going to do something with that magical bleach. There's no way he's not doing something. And in We've killed God knows Britain's adorably wedding, drunk nephew and dubious winner of most racist statues we've ever seen in a storefront abroad. Scotland is a bad to be at the Glasgow show to get that one,

but it was, there was a very upsetting, upsetting, upsetting racist statue in Scotland. Should have bought it. Anyway, Scotland is about to become the latest country to ban the crime of blasphemy. So blasphemy laws have been around in Scotland since 1825. And although nobody's been prosecuted for it since 1843, the last time anybody could understand what Scottish were saying, the laws remained on the books. All right. I mean, great job, I guess.

It's like the two of us finishing a marathon the next day and just vomiting across the finish line and being like, why is everybody gone? Where's all the celery? Yeah the salary yeah so however thanks to the five year end blasphemy laws now campaigned by humanist international and the humanist society of scotland a new hate crime spill designed to modernize the law was introduced in the nation's parliament last week and includes a clause that abolishes blasphemy as a crime okay guys can't believe we have to say this but but this is official now. Hating a hate crime doesn't count as a hate crime. That's the new law that we had to write, apparently.

Yes, it is. So, Fraser Sutherland, chief executive of the Humanist Society Scotland, celebrated the news by saying, we are delighted that a Scottish government is taking this important step. It's clear that the cabinet secretary has listened to the

audience and please from the English containers and many others that blasphemy laws are equal to all the human rights. End quote. So, you just put the quote there so you can do the accent i did i did yes the whole reason for that

i did great you can just do a scottish accent when you want you don't have to read a whole quote it's fine it's true usually i have to trick him in if i'm doing a noah thing but he's not here so yeah big ups to scotland and the humanists therein in In case those keeping count, one down, 68 countries with blasphemy laws left to go. And in triage of knowledge news, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, Christian people with a source

of absolute morality are especially bad at evaluating morality. It's weird. That's so crazy. And they're especially bad at the tragically important triage choices

that are happening in hospitals right now, which are overcrowded with COVID-19 patients, thanks in large part to the refusal of people with absolute morality to listen to the advice

of medical professionals and stay the fuck home during a plague. Religion is ruining our plague. Just think about that. Yeah. And they're literally doing worse than their medieval counterparts right who at least wore beak masks and filled them with rose petals and shit so here's what the survey found when asked about who should get a ventilator if there aren't

enough to go around the majority of religious people from almost every denomination are in favor of giving ventilators to whichever patient is closest to death at that moment, even when another patient has a much higher chance at survival. And people with no religious affiliation were the only group with a majority who said we should be minimizing death by prioritizing patients with a higher chance of recovery. Okay, to be fair, based on what we know about the age of people who identify as religious, this is a lot more personal a question for them than it is for us. That's true. Also, side note, the survey team attributed some of this discrepancy to religious people having a problem with the idea of doctors playing God. And of course, that would mean they were interfering with this this plague that was created by god playing god they have confusing problems with things right

but i love the idea that like making medical choices is playing god but dealing out ventilators like cards at a poker game is not so in philosophical terms this comes down to the argument of deontology versus utilitarian ethics okay well with deontology boobs people have a set of unwavering rules mostly the bible and the deontologists they decide on the ethical thing using those rules. Kevin Spacey. Usually the Bible. And they decide on things regardless of the outcome.

But with utilitarianism or consequentialism, the ethical choice is determined by what actually happens in, you know, real reality. Just for the record, as it applies to ventilators, religious deontology is the opposite of standard medical ethics guidelines that call for preventing death as much as possible. Now, in fairness, this isn't an easy question for everyone. There were plenty of non-religious people siding with the deontology thing. It wasn't just religious people who agree with that. But in fairness to the fairness, pretty much none of those religious people know the word fucking deontology. They were just yelling stuff from the Bible at a person trying to do a survey. Yeah.

What do you mean there's no answer? E, make them drink unclean water to see who's guilty. I don't understand this survey. Are you Jewish? That's a quote from a footnote in the survey almost exactly so 2020 is a dark time obviously i've been calling it the year of the plague rat but i think that rat actually just resigned now so uh we're gonna call it the year of the trolley dilemma this is a thought experiment that keeps coming up, especially when it comes to the pandemic. And inside a crowded hospital with not enough ventilators, the scenario is

pretty clear. There's a runaway train heading for 100 people spaced out along a track. And the only way to save them is to give them one of only 50 ventilators that you have. And religious people are saying, give those ventilators to the first 50 people. But intelligent people and professional medical ethics people are saying, no, that's stupid. The train is inches away from most of those first people. Let's save the people that we might actually save. Fun side note to that, podcasters are saying, also, most of those first 50 people attended the same mega church two weeks ago so they're all going to heaven you're welcome we solved it yeah we can fix that plus plus win-win uh be careful heath we are on a dangerous path that ends in riffra legally enshrining both

dibs and shotgun so here's the that's that's not far from the truth it's terrifying all right so here's the takeaway according to math atheists are pro-life on this one when it comes to you know living human beings yep anyway uh maybe we need to have religious people imagine come and over on the train tracks so they can wrap their stupid heads around it better. Yeah, sure. We also need to have them stay the fuck away from important decisions because the grownups are busy dealing with a runaway train careening

toward the entire world population. Go sit in the fucking corner is what I'm saying. That's the other takeaway. Or go jerk off on the train tracks. You like that? Yeah. No, the last thing is definitely the takeaway. And that is what we call a segue so let's take a quick break for a word from our sponsor for hymns they'll love this

so i set you on fire on three or like one two three set you on fire the first one why would anyone do the second one it seems like it would be guys guys do you smell gas what are what are you doing oh hey noah just getting ready to go to the pharmacy for my hair loss meds so so he's dousing you in gasoline can't be too careful noah yeah the virus can't survive fire noah that's science okay okay look not that I don't want to set Eli on fire sometimes, but why don't you just try 4hims.com? Oh, what's 4hims.com? 4hims.com is a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, and sexual wellness for men. Hair pills from a website, Noah? Sounds dangerous. You are literally about to set yourself on fire.

Yeah, for safety. Yeah, for safety. Safety, for safety. Never mind. But 4hymns.com offers prescription solutions backed by science. They connect you to real doctors online, which could save you hours. Plus, it's completely confidential and discreet. That does sound easier. It is.

And right now, our listeners can get started with their first month free. Just go to 4hymns.com slash scathing Just go to 4hymns.com slash scathing. That's 4hymns.com slash scathing. Prescription requires an online consultation with a physician who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Offered valid only if prescribed. Three months minimum subscription. Additional restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information.

Remember, that's 4hymns.com slash scathing. All right, Noah. I'll give it a try. Okay, but so we're not lighting Eli on fire now? Oh, no, we are. We are. It's just not. Oh, okay.

Like for the farmers. Nice. Perfect. Thank you, us. Next up in headlines in money, money, money, money news. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you.

So much as we hate to admit it during the COVID-19 crisis, the church has proven itself to be the bastion of charity. It's long claimed to be. Nope. Sorry. Wait. It's the opposite of that. It is proven itself over and over again to be the vector of infection

and has defined itself by defiance of safety and killing its worshipers but just because you're the cause of the problem doesn't mean you shouldn't profit and that's why several of our favorite villains took to the internet this week to ask people they were killing for their money okay that's just uncouth at least be classy about it and ask for that money in the will. Yeah, exactly. Thank you.

So first up, we have right wing pastor and Steven Spielberg during an allergic reaction. Kurt Landry. Regular listeners will remember Landry for telling people not to get the covid vaccine when it comes out because it's from the pit of hell and reminding them to listen to donald trump over anthony fauci because god chose trump to be president i guess god chose to have hillary win the popular vote as a smokescreen yeah it's not clear plausible deniability yeah i don't know well this week landry took to youtube to inform his parishioners that not tithing was stealing from God. Here's the quote. Quote, the first thing you need to do is absolutely keep the first fruits of your giving

and get that seed in the ground as soon as possible. So what first fruits is, is the first fruit is tithing. You need to make sure that you tithe 10% of your income. And since I'm speaking to Life.Church, that 10% needs to go into Life.Church. Okay? Here. Here to be getting a lot of rascals out there tricking me. This means here.

And I want to say this. That 10% spiritually doesn't belong to you. Okay? The Lord gives that to you to sow back into the kingdom. Okay? Okay, so you're saying the Lord overpays everyone by 11% or so, so that they can pay him 10% of the final total? Get the fuck out!

She's like, sorry. Sorry. I'm a nerd. Sorry, sorry. Continuing, quote, So it's kind of like you give your grandchild a dollar and then you give her a dime with it nope nope you're getting i said get the fuck out you have the math wrong it's fine i'm leaving back to the real quote okay so you give her 10 dimes that would would be better. And then say, now make sure I'm actually only giving you 90 cents

because the other 10 cents you need to give to that house of the Lord because God actually gives you nine dimes and the 10th one is for him. Sorry, just as I'm leaving, couldn't the Lord just give us the nine dimes? I will stab you. I will stab you. Sorry. Okay. Okay.

I'm leaving. Okay. Continuing the give us the nine dollars i will stab you i will stab you sorry okay okay i'm leaving okay continuing the quote again this is all real it's all about being obedient it never belongs to you if you have a financial problem yes prayer is good yes fasting is good but what really causes financial problems to break is giving and so if you follow the 10 to the lord don't rob we're in passover week right now you can sow a seed into life church for passover okay that's an offering ramadan seeds you go with ramadan seeds i'm out of leaving i'm out i'm out i'm out that's a first fruit of your increase over the 10 and whatever that amount there's not really a percentage on it that's whatever the lord tells you is in your heart okay end quote you might as well hand out check presenters with like 15 18 and 20 calculated for you all right next up pastor robert hend, who listeners will remember for saying that Donald Trump's reelection is already secured in the kingdom of heaven.

And for looking like Martin Sheen saw a ghost, he also jumped on the Internet this week. And Henderson spent his live stream asking for money, not for him. No, no, no, no, no. But so that he could defeat the one world government oh yeah okay here's the quote would you consider sowing a seed because watch that seed i don't have time to teach that but that seed connected to our prayers actually begins to speak in heaven because when we mix our seed with our prayers it creates a memorial in heaven that speaks that keeps speaking that gives god the legal right he desires to be able to render a judgment against the one world system and see its power broken end quote okay just say

jewish people instead of one world government but you don't have to speak in code at a bigot meeting. You're fine. Just say Jewish people. You do not. And last, but certainly not least, evangelist and coked up Liberace impersonator Kenneth Copeland took a break from claiming to defeat COVID-19 for the fourth time since the pandemic began. Four times. for the fourth time since the pandemic began to thank his high-level donors for buying him, his words, not ours, the world's finest private jet. Here's the quote. Quote,

those of you CX team members, those are his $50 patrons, by the way, that got involved with the new interior of the gulfstream 5 they're doing the extended test flight on it today it'll be in forthworth tomorrow or maybe the next day and you know what they said now this man works on gulfstreams all the time he put interiors and gulfstreams all the time and he told duane our chief pilot he said duane i think this is probably the finest G5 in the world. The things that you, who? You. No? Wait, what? Is he okay?

Yeah, no. He's not. Partners did on this airplane. Finest in the world. Hallelujah. End quote. Okay. But only nine-tenths of that airplane is yours, Kenneth Copeland.

That's a rule. You got to seed the nose or the tail. Ten percent%. That's the word. It's a rule. However, there is some good news. Don't want to leave you on a bummer. According to stateoftheplate.info, a religious service so obvious, I'm surprised they didn't call themselves money, money, gimme, gimme dot org. America

is having to admit just how literally worthless religion is. According to their survey of 4,413 America is having to admit just how literally worthless religion is. Right. According to their survey of 4,413 tithers who give 10% or more of their income, 65% of donors have lowered their donations by 10% or more. 34% of those surveys have reported a drop between 10 and 20%. 22% said the decline was between 30 and 50. And 9% reported a drop of 75 percent or more sadly numbers weren't available on those who stopped giving altogether because

quote well this is obviously bullshit end quote so uh again on the bright side callous assholes predling religion might be asking for money but at least they're getting less of it. Something good there. And in y'all are ready for this news in a big surprise to exactly nobody. Well, at least nobody who's not crazy. The map of COVID-19 outbreaks in Israel is pretty much just a map of the ultra-Orthodox Haredi communities of Israel. Just to give you an idea, the predominantly ultra-Orthodox cities of Beit Shemesh, Elad, and Modin Elite have a combined population of about 240,000 people. Jewish.

Yeah. So that's an average of about 80,000 people per Jewish. Yeah. So that's an average about 80,000 people per city in those three cities. And each of those three cities individually has more cases of the virus than all of Tel Aviv combined.

Tel Aviv, by the way, has a population of 450,000, much more than 80,000. Yeah. Now, the Haredi community is only 8% of Israel, but they represent half the coronavirus patients being treated in hospitals there. All that being said, fuck us.

That group is not going to obey regulations and stay home. No. Some prominent conservative rabbis have officially threatened the Israeli government with, they were kind of vague, with something. They put a threat out there if the coronavirus restrictions are not lifted on yeshivas. Yeah, don't push us or we'll die menacingly in your direction. It's a weird threat.

So according to Rabbi Chaim Konevsky, he's the charity fraud guy we talked about. Jewish. Yeah. And also Rabbi Gershon Edelstein. Also Jewish. Yes. If yeshivas aren't immediately exempted from the stay-at-home orders, they're going to take, quote, drastic steps.

Kanyavsky also recently declared that, this is a real quote canceling torah study is more dangerous than the coronavirus real quote and this is my favorite part right after that last remark a news team released a video showing this 92 year old rabbi going up to his grandson and being like, okay, what the fuck did I just say? What's COVID-19? I don't know. And having that explained to him after he made that remark. Yeah. Which by the way, his grandson then explains incorrectly and they're both like, yeah, great job. We did all the research on this decision. Glad I said that thing. Nailed it. Science. Yeah. So here's a quick recap of the timeline here. This guy said missing Torah class is worse than the pandemic. Then his grandson explained what the pandemic is badly. And then he officially threatened the federal government.

And Israel was like, nope, magic class is still canceled. with it also good luck playing the anti-semitism card against the government of israel i see you taking out the card just slide it right back okay don't make us put up a fence in front of the torah guys you know you're how we feel now just to be clear this isn't related to judaism uniquely if georgia wasn't just one big red circle of christian people with a little dot for Noah and Lucinda's house, we'd be able to give the same description of that map too, just like the outbreak map of Israel. But regardless of all the factors, Israel is fully aware of this trend in ultra-Orthodox areas, and they're trying to deal with it, which is – it's turning this super awkward, like timeout on magic and it's fun to watch. There's lots of like, come on, you know, don't be a dick. You know what we're doing? You know, you know, just we're doing a thing.

Right. But what I love is that over and over again, these past couple of months, religion hasn't been able to chill for the minute we need them to chill. So it keeps running out to the front and telling mom, like, dad said I can have cookies if I didn't talk about Karen coming over to wrestle. And now we all got to deal with it. That's what's happening. And finally tonight, inesus cake the wheel news credit where credits do it cannot be easy to be a miracle peddler in the days of covet 19 all right now don't get me wrong it's probably never been easy for a moral person to pretend miracles exist in the modern world at

all but this week even the likes of Franklin Graham are reaching. Okay, but just want to take a moment here to put brackets around that first clause you just said about moral person and put some distance. Two, three, four, between that and Franklin Graham at the end of that sentence. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. So here's the story. Word for word, according to Franklin Graham's Facebook post, quote, when Gerald Wade. Definitely not Jewish.

Yeah. Turned on the weather on Easter Sunday morning. He saw that a deadly twister, one of the many that struck across the south, was headed straight to his parents. So, so Mississippi home. By the way, there's a fucking city in Mississippi called so-so mississippi home by the way there's a fucking city in mississippi called so-so called man welcome to mississippi he continues he texted them and they immediately took cover in their bathroom when robert and judy wade emerged they stepped out into wholesale destruction a massive tree lay against the house.

The roof had collapsed into the kitchen and the refrigerator had vanished. Amazingly, the pound cake Judy Wade had baked earlier that morning was still perfectly intact

on the kitchen counter under a glass cover. Yeah, good thing God invented that AccuWeather forecast to alert people about his deadly tornadoes that he also made. It's a good system. Yeah. Praise God. Wow.

He heads up. He continues, I've seen this hand of mercy. I hear his voice of cheer. And just the time I need him, he's always near. This Easter ham has come to life. My parents were home during this storm. Their house was completely destroyed, but their lives and mama's pound

cake were spared. He concludes real quote. I have to point out this is the exact next sentence after their house was completely destroyed, but their lives and mama's pound cake were spared. Next sentence.

Some 30 people were killed in Storm's Easter weekend. Jesus Christ. What is wrong with you? You said it. Did you hear yourself? We need to play back what they say to them. Frankie, baby, space it out. Little filler. Something.

Anything. Not always. Speak in tongues for a second. Do a little shala. Shala, la, la, la, la, la. You can check your texts. So, anything. Just speak in tongues for a second. Do a little shalala. You can check your texts. Talk about so-so Mississippi some more. Do a little bit. But we know what this means. Everyone,

look out for Trump's big announcement to inject pound cake into your lungs or pumping underneath the skin at next week's press conference. I've got a pound cake in my breast pocket. Mike, shoot me in the chest. I've got a pound cake in my breast pocket. Mike, shoot me in the chest. Shoot me in the chest right now on live television.

Look at this. It's going to save us. Yeah. And while we all think about Donald Trump trying to drink a tornado in a bottle of bleach, we're going to close out the headlines. Eli, thanks as always. Focciangi. Oh, so close.

It was similar. Harder than you think. And when we come back, we'll celebrate that Noah's back with a trip around the world. We started out this year with highfalutin expectations like going outdoors and gathering with other humans. So much so that we started this whole segment about it where we were going to try out new holiday traditions from other religions, but it turns out that most of those can't be done while social distancing. So I guess the point now is just to brag about how the lack of religious holidays

that we miss out on leaves atheists way better off during quarantine on this month's Holiday Buffet. All right, so we're going to start off this month with my pick, Beltane. What we're commemorating. The previous eighth of the calendar. Seriously, that's how all the pagan holidays work. It's like they let Heath design their shit. All right, so it's anal retentive and based on properly coiling a hose, I'm guessing.

Nice. Sort of. Yeah, no, that's kind of close. What they did is they just have like eight equally spaced holidays littered through the year, and they just commemorate that day happening. I mean, they say that this is a celebration of the beginning of summer, but since when does summer start on May fucking 1st? So no, it isn't. I mean, it depends. Am I allowed to lie in an encyclopedia

to lend a persecution narrative to my wooey bullshit? No, you are not. Ah, then never. Never. Oh, there you go. Where it's celebrated. Anywhere there are two or more practicing pagans. So nowhere ever.

When it's celebrated. Again, nowhere ever, but on May 1st, if that ever. Best aspect. Watching white people somehow culturally appropriate themselves. Worst aspect. Ibid. Yeah, that could be both. How it's celebrated.

All right, so there are four elements that are essential to all pagan festivals. Conveniently, whether you order them from most to least important, most to least common, or alphabetically, it all shakes out the same. Bonfires, boobs, drugs, nature. I like three out of four of those things, no illusions. I am listening. I know he likes the middle two. And a properly coiled hose to put out that bonfire. I love it.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. It is a Heath Holiday. Okay, so to be clear, like most of neopaganism and like all of neo-paganism claims beltane has ancient roots that are in no way connected to the modern practice historically it was widely celebrated in scotland ireland and ireland's ireland the isle of man but then they stopped because british people killed all of them or well the ones they didn't kill they just like beat all the weird bonfire and titties shit

out of ah i knew qed was missing something andy marsh yeah no you you you got to stay till the monday they do that on monday actually yeah now apparently all this bonfire stuff is traced back to cows uh so back in the day may 1st was when the cattle were driven out to summer pasture and there was a bunch of rituals and magical shit they did to protect their cows along the way, I guess. The smoke and ash from these special Beltane bonfires was supposed to have some kind of protective powers. So after the fires burned down a bit,

all the people would walk their cows around in a line near where the fires were or over the embers and shit. What? Which is bullshit, because they didn't make any cows do the fire walk at the corporate retreat last year. It was really... And by the way,

the trust falls were admittedly a bad idea. I see that now. Trust tips. Of course, the people who celebrate it today don't have cows. So instead, they light bonfires

to dance around in various stages of undressed while stoned which is i'm gonna be honest with you what they were gonna do anyway i mean it's that or make ember days again so i'm for it okay yeah yeah right guys guys it's beltane i just realized we need to uh okay well i guess you know buy more molly and keep the fire going exactly yeah exactly now it's worth noting that this is all based on ancient celtic festivals that nobody has any fucking idea how they celebrate it right like literally the only two things we know from a contemporary source about this is that it happened on may 1st and it involved druids making bonfires that cattle would walk

between everything else is conjecture and and most of it doesn't come from like you know informed educated anthropologists who are trying to genuinely reconstruct the cultural history of the gaelic people it comes from fucking hippies looking for excuses to dance around bonfire stone with her dicks and tits out so so really the may bush should be a pubescent All right. I'm going to go with Savtri Brata, a.k.a. Hope Your Husband Doesn't Die Day, a.k.a. Every Day for My Wife. Yeah, at least she leads you to believe that. I'm sure it's... What we're commemorating.

The time a lady tricked death into bringing her husband back to life in Hindu mythology. So here's a story once upon a time there was a very nice king named asvapati he was very wise but he also wanted a son so he gave up all his worldly possessions and meditated super duper hard to impress the sun god savatir okay it just feels like you flip that coin a few times first before you go straight for the hobo meditation thing. Like you're king. You'd think, yeah.

So Savatir saw his super meditation and appeared before him, and he was like, hey, sweet meditation, bro. As a reward, you will have a daughter. To which Asvapati was like, oh, a daughter. A daughter. No, that's cool. That's fine. That's fine.

Daughters are great. Thank you. Thank you. And he names his daughter Savitri after the god. Her middle name was Gol. So Savitri was wise and beautiful. So wise and beautiful that she intimidated all the men in the kingdom. And nobody proposed to her.

And that was definitely not just a lie. Her parents told her to make her feel better. Well course not parents don't lie about that eli sometimes you're just too wise and beautiful for marriage that's what parents tell you and it's true that's real that's right that's a real that's right heath that is a real thing thank you so not just your parents a lot of people say that and they never lie thank you noah so savitri decides to go off and find herself a husband. And eventually, she settles on a guy named Sarivan, the son of a blind king named Dumitesna, or of the Salwa kingdom.

Why would you even write a sentence like that, knowing you were going to have to read it out loud, Eli? You wrote that. That's fair. Anyways, Dumitesna lost everything, including his sight, and lives in exile as a forest dweller with his wife and son. So he's not really so much a king as he is just a blind gentleman, but whatever. There's a one-eyed guy comes back and he's like, fuck, man, god damn it.

So Savitri gets home to tell her dad she decided to marry the heir to a bunch of dark nothing. But dad gives her some bad news. Her new husband, Dabee, is cursed to die in exactly one year. A fact that I'm assuming he failed to mention on his Tinder profile. Yeah, and by the way, that's probably a pretty strong bullet point. People swipe right for cancer, is my guess, if you put it on. I figure for terminal curses, too, dark curses, that's just like, you know,

TikTok. I'm on Tinder. But it's okay. Savitri has a plan. She spends the next year studying wisdom really hard, getting super good at meditating, fasting, and other stuff

that Hindu gods love the shit out of. The day Satyavan is supposed to die, she goes with him into the forest for his daily chores. And he's, you know,

he's chopping wood when all of a sudden he's like and he falls down dead in savitri's lap why the fuck is he doing chores i mean that seems like the one day you definitely have to don't have to do any fucking chores you think so yama the god of death comes to collect his soul but when he does savitri's like hey yama how do you like this wisdom and then she says a bunch of Hindu shit, which Yama is like super impressed by. And because apparently this is how Hinduism work. Yama's like, hey, that was some pretty sweet wisdom recitation you just did. I will grant you three wishes. But nice.

But no cheating like Heath Enright. You can't wish for your husband to come back to life time stone boom pretty much yeah so savitra's like yeah she's like no problem first thing she asked for is the eyesight and restoration of the kingdom for her father-in-law and yama's like smart good move done that's sweet then she wishes for a hundred children for her father and yama's like big thanksgiving i get it kind of sucks for mom but whatever and then finally she wishes for a hundred children for herself and satyavan awesome so yama's like okay i see what you did there i'll tell you what so this doesn't get super awkward and sticky.

Do you have another wish? And this time you can wish for anything. And right away, she's like, yep, want my husband back to life, which Yama grants. Plus, he lets them both live for 400 years as like a bonus. Wait, did that God just get insmarted?

I don't know. Apparently. He did. That's awesome. Where it's celebrated. Nepal and the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,

and Odisha. When it's celebrated. This is metal as shit. Are you ready for this? Ready. The no moon day in the month of Jyestha. Okay.

This year it's May 22nd. Just curious, name something else that's metal as shit in your book. There's not supposed to be scraps of metal in it, man. Go to the doctor. No. Best aspect.

A little appreciation for a change. Okay, look. Father's Day is just for fathers. Anniversaries, Valentine's Day, those are just for her. Everybody knows it. Plus, I like the very specific direction. It's not, ooh, I love you, or ooh, you're so great. It's just, hey, I hope you don't die day today.

And I, for one, am for it. Yeah, Anna, you can wish whatever you want those other 364 days, but this day. Worst aspect. There's no lady version, but there could be. How it's celebrated. So here's how it works. All the married women wake up early and take a magic bath. Then they spend the day worshiping Savitri as a Devi or lady god.

Then they make a big fruit salad because ladies love fruit salad. And they spend all day fasting and praying that their husbands don't die. Then at the end of the day, they bow to their husbands and also all the old people for some reason. And then they eat Debbie's fruit salad. So they get a nice bath in a salad? Yeah. All right. So let's say in the atheist version, they can just do, you know, whatever salad based thing to their husband that they want.

Let's make it that. All right. My pick is Eid al-Fitr. What we're commemorating. The end of a month-long festival of lying, also known as Ramadan. That's when followers of Islam all pretend they're not eating from dawn until dusk for the entire month. Or they pretend to have one of the technicalities that gets you out of it. There's a handful. So it's a celebration of no longer pretending you're pregnant

or pretending you're breastfeeding your 12-year-old or pretending you're having your annual month-long menstruation or pretending you're having your annual month-long flare-up of your chronic Morgellons disease or whatever. Any of those technicalities. The fake struggle is real, yeah. I just love that ancient Muslim me heard he was going to have to wait till 530

for dinner and he was like, colorblind bones birds, IBS AIDS. That's probably the origin. Yeah. Where it's celebrated. Everywhere that Muslim people live. Often whether you like it or not. When it's celebrated. Everywhere that Muslim people live. Often whether you like it or not. When it's celebrated.

Short answer, go fuck yourself. It happens when somebody tells you it fucking happens. And what they're telling you is that it's officially the first day of Shawwal, which is the 10th month of the Islamic calendar. This moves around throughout the year because it's a lunar calendar. And again, I'd love to tell you which calendar system is the official one, but I tried to look it up and the internet yelled at me a bunch. It was aggressive. So different groups each have their own system.

For example, the Islamic calendar of Turkey has each month starting when the center of the crescent moon is more than five degrees above the horizon in Ankara, Turkey, and also geocentrically more than eight degrees from the sun. Fucking what? Somehow now in a tremendous amount of danger, nerd. There's also something called the tabular Islamic calendar that has a rule-based system instead of astronomical observations. And there's a variation on that, which is actually used by Microsoft, called the Kuwaiti Algorithm Calendar.

Yeah, or Minesweeper for short. I mean, honestly, if you told me that's what Bing was, I wouldn't be able to argue with you. That might be what Bing is. But the most popular version is Saudi Arabia's Umm al-Qura calendar. And this is based on the visual sighting of a crescent moon by one of their official sighting committees that they have. But sometimes just so – Wait, wait. I'm sorry.

I just – that occurred to me. Like what do these guys fucking do? Is it committee? They got to turn to another guy and go, hey, is that the moon? Yeah. Is that two votes? Two votes. Do we have a quorum on seeing guys fucking do? Is it committee? They got to turn to another guy and go, hey, is that the moon? Yeah. Is that two votes? Two votes? Do we have a quorum on seeing the fucking moon?

What? Yeah, that's real. They have official, multiple, plural, citing committees to deal with this. I don't know, man. That could be the Death Star. It could be anything up there. Yeah. Right.

So they got these serious, very serious. These are serious jobs, Noah. Official sighting committees to see the moon. But sometimes just some random dude calls in a crescent moon before any of the professional moon lookers. And when that happens, shit gets real. shit gets real besides determining holidays like ramadan and eat all fitter at the last minute this can mess with the dates for the pilgrimage to mecca for example which throws off travel plans for like two million people coming in from outside saudi arabia and a bunch more from inside going to mecca some guy's wife is like oh hon there isn't a hotel room anywhere. And he's like, one second. Is June 2nd free? It is. Okay, go ahead. Just book that. And would you look at that?

Moon 2nd. I mean, moon. I found the moon. I saw it. Yeah. So the whole system, it's such a pain in the ass that a bunch of Muslim groups are trying super hard to get a unified calendar, but it still hasn't happened. For example, the French Council of the Muslim Faith decided in 2012 to calculate the calendar in advance. Obviously, that's what you should do. And they wanted to use astronomical rules that take into account the sighting of a crescent moon

anywhere on Earth. But then on the eve of Ramadan in 2013, somebody was like, ah, fuck it. Saudi Arabia just called it. We're going back there. We're staying with that rule. And this actually led to a big division

in the Muslim community of France that's still going on. All that being said, for 2020, Eid al-Fitr is going to be May 23rd or May 24th for most Muslims.

It'll depend on the cloud cover and sunlight on the evening of the 23rd in Saudi Arabia. But, so if you wanted to help fund our realistic-looking moon drones over Mecca Kickstarter campaign, we had to push it back to 2021. It's still good, though.

It's still going. There's still time. You can still get the t-shirt. Best aspect. Ramadan is over. Yeah. Worst aspect. Ramadan is over. Worst aspect. Ramadan is coming up in 11 months.

I don't know why Jews and Muslims fight. We both hate that fast we plan our year around so much. There's so much in common, yeah. How it's celebrated. So the one big rule is no fasting. Makes sense. I guess you can eat nothing, but not by choice. You have to give money to poor people and you have to say an official prayer. And this goes along with a series of calisthenics with the number of reps varying based on Sunni or Shia regulations.

Right. And we cannot overstate how many people have died over this difference in burpees. No, we can't. We can't. Hey, Muslims, when you don't celebrate Ramadan, every day is eat alfitter without the prayers. Plus there's bacon. We have bacon on our side. There's a lot of just check the pros and cons.

So on top of the prayer stuff and very happily eating, the customs vary by country and region. And apparently there's a, I learned this recently, there's a very passive aggressive Wikipedia edit war about this whole thing between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. According to the article on Wikipedia, in Jordan, people decorate their homes and prepare sumptuous meals for family and friends, and they prepare new clothes and shoes for the festival. In Saudi Arabia,

on the other hand, people decorate their homes and prepare sumptuous meals for family and friends, and they prepare new clothes and shoes for the festival. Citation, citation, citation, citation. Fuck you. But they both agree that Lebanonbanon can suck it i'm sorry wait what the fuck is preparing new shoes i didn't get what are these people doing

to their clothes and shoes checking them for scorpions just brining them i don't know yeah yeah no idea. All right. Moving on to Turkey. They do a Halloween version of the holiday. I kind of like this one. Kids go door to door wishing everyone, hey, happy, no more fucking Ramadan. This is great. And they get rewarded with candy, baklava or money.

And on the upside, if a house gives away toothbrushes or apples, you get to kill that guy for being Sunni. No, it's Turkey. It would be Shia. Good point. Also, I don't think that's how it works, but I support it. Fuck you with the apples. Get out of here. Toothbrushes.

Fuck you. McDonald's coupons. Go for it. All right. In Afghanistan, the big themes for Eid al-Fitr are baked goods. That's eating of some sort everywhere. They do baked goods a lot. Also, fire and gunfire.

Well, you know, Afghanistan does that a lot, too. More often than baked goods, I would wager. I guess. Yeah, so after eating a bunch of cake, people light multiple campfires surrounding their houses. Sounds like a great idea. And the entire valleys look like they're just completely engulfed in flames. That's what it said in the article. And according to, again, either a real source or perhaps another edit war, people also celebrate by firing automatic rifles, often with tracer rounds.

So, of course, you know, you could safely keep track of where all the bullets are going for safety. automatic rifles, often with tracer rounds. So, of course, you know, you could safely keep track of where all the bullets are going for safety. Yeah, toothbrush guy's house. Okay. I get it now. Got it. And last but not least, we have New York City

where E.D. Al Fitter is celebrated by having this is my favorite. They have alternate side of the street parking suspended citywide in celebration of Eat Out Fitter. Well, there you go. Alright, well, you know what? It took a minute,

but we finally got to a holiday you can celebrate in quarantine, so on May 23rd, probably, be sure to have parked your car somewhere and don't forget to eat. And that's going to do it for our base suggestions, but we'll be back in a month with another holiday buffet. Before we turn over the shot glasses tonight, I want to remind you that we're still doing our stay the fuck home live

stream on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. Eastern. Check out our Facebook page, our Twitter, or our YouTube channel for the links to that. We're going to be bringing in new guests every week. We play games, we take questions, and we just generally have fun. We'd love to have you along one of these nights. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with

more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show'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 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'd keep myself up all night regretting it if I didn't thank Keith Enright for taking on the Herculean task of keeping Eli from libeling anyone. I want to thank Eli Bosnick for eventually admitting

that he couldn't prove those accusations against the Allstate guy. It's probably better not to bring him up. I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, who's doing just fine and will be back soon. I also want to thank Jeff from Pennsylvania for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Good advice there, incidentally. If you can vote by mail, do that.

If for no other reason than if all the atheists vote by mail and the theists don't, then we get more congresspeople next time. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most dashing diploids, Ed, Morton, Stephen, Ben, John, Treeling, the Badger, Stephanie, Proxy Fox, is going to steal your rail, Jack, Charlotte, Kitty, Seal, and David. Ed, Morton, Stephen, and Ben, whose ejaculations give colliding black holes gravitational wave envy, John Treeling, the Badger, Stephanie, and Proxy Fox, who are

so cute Baby Yoda's been complaining about the lack of good them merch, and Charlotte, Kitty, Seal, and David, who are so hot the sauce was officially downgraded to Frank's Red Warm. Together, these 13 theistically thoughtful thinkers thought to subscribe to the special services we supply to our supporters this week by giving us money. If you, too, would like to give us money, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingadeus, We'll see you next time. and tell a friend about the show. Legal services for this podcast are brought to you by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robertson handles our social media,

and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com. Not so fast, Noah.

What? Have you accidentally hired a prostitute recently during the quarantine somehow? I mean, yes, but that was... Uber Eats is confusing. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.