The Scathing Atheist - 379: Apocalypse Service Edition

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

In this week’s episode, a baby killing contest is adjudicated in the courts, the Pope gets a stern talking-to for letting Muslim people play magic with him, and we’ll wipe some cobwebs off a 30 second timer. --- 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 our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Guest Links: Learn more about The Condor Project here: https://www.thecondorproject.org/ --- Headlines: Conservatives Are Mad the Pope Prayed with Muslims and Jews To End COVID-19: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/17/conservatives-are-mad-the-pope-prayed-with-muslims-and-jews-to-end-covid-19/ Anti-vax BAD GUY FIGHT: https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-vaxx-movement-civil-war-has-erupted-and-its-just-as-ridiculous-as-youd-expect In California, 3,000 Churches Vow to Open on Pentecost Sunday In Spite of COVID: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/15/in-california-3000-churches-vow-to-open-on-pentecost-sunday-in-spite-of-covid/ Calif. Christian With COVID-19 Exposed 180 People During Illicit Church Service: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/18/calif-christian-with-covid-19-exposed-180-people-during-illicit-church-service/ Hairdresser Says Her Salon Is Also a Ministry, So She Should Be Allowed to Open: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/15/hairdresser-says-her-salon-is-also-a-ministry-so-she-should-be-allowed-to-open/ Liberty University Just Got Rid of Its Entire Philosophy Department: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/12/liberty-university-just-got-rid-of-its-entire-philosophy-department/ Republican Atheist group releases teeny tiny little list of elected Republican Atheists: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/19/this-is-a-very-very-tiny-list-of-elected-atheist-republicans/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Roe admits Christians paid her to say she was anti-abortion: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/19/norma-mccorvey-a-k-a-roe-christians-paid-me-to-say-im-anti-abortion/

Warning, profanity ahead. Have your fainting couch ready. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by 4hymns.com and by Dressing on the Side. No, please, ask me to bring you your dressing on the side so you can still pour the entire ramekin of dressing on your salad anyway. Dressing on the Side, adding a dirty ramekin and nothing else. And now, The scathing atheist. Hi, this is Jonathan, co-founder of The Condor Project,

a non-profit organization devoted to preventing human trafficking in Southeast Asia. And based on the victims I've met and the stories I've heard, monkey men should be ashamed that we evolved from them. However, that does not negate the fact that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's May 21st. And it's Rapture Party Day. It is. Wait, wait.

Because fuck Harold Camping? Because fuck Harold Camping. I have no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Dave Thomas' New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Scathing

Atheist. On this week's episode, a baby-killing contest is adjudicated in the courts. The Pope gets a stern talking to for letting Muslim people play magic with him. And we'll wipe some cobwebs off a 30-second timer. But first, the diatribe.

May 21st is a big day for this show. In fact, in a lot of ways, it's the show's birthday. Now, officially, our birthday is January 17th of 2013. That was the day that our first episode debuted. But there was an aborted start that happened about 600 days earlier or so. I've talked about it on the show before. Heath, myself, and a third friend who wanted to be part of the show until he saw it was going to require work and stuff, decided to start. And we set May 21st of 2011 as the date of our first practice record. Now, what we learned that night was that audio capture was harder than we were giving it credit for.

And we were a long ways off from ready for primetime. So ultimately, we gave it a significant period while we gathered up all the equipment, learned what we were doing, you know, research hosting, decided not to do it, all of that. We just kind of stopped. And eventually, Lucinda got sick of me talking about it and not doing it. So she just bought me a microphone and a book and gave me a swift kick in the ass. So that's our origin story. But I'm reminded of that aborted start every year at about this time, because even though the Scathing Atheist as a podcast was born on january 17th no illusions was born on may 21st now i'm pretty sure twitter still lists that as my birthday because i was trying to be surreptitious and using my real birthday would have fucked that up now this

was the time of the year when i first bought scathingatheist.com it's the time that i first set up my no illusions email address and twitter account and facebook page so all of those sites send me emails reminding me to, you know, buy my alter ego a cake around now. But as Eli mentioned in the intro, there's another reason that May 21st of 2011 is particularly memorable. In fact, if I ever forget when that first attempt at the show began, I just Google, when did Harold Camping say the world was going to end? Because not coincidentally, the date we chose for that

record was also the date he and his acolytes lined the streets of new york city confident that the rapture was about to begin of course we all lived in the city at the time and we saw him knowing we were going to be doing our first record of a atheist podcast that night we stuck around the city for a while after we got off of work and we stood on the other side of fifth avenue from them reading their signs watching their hopeful little faces and i don't remember the exact time but they but they had it down to the minute right camping had predicted that the apocalypse was going to start at 4 18 or something and it was it was it was something like that was like four something in the afternoon so there they were right in the den of sin and iniquity itself leering at all the evildoers salivating over the coming judgment

and then at the appointed minute nothing fucking happened um or actually it was even better than that in new york city it started to rain at exactly the minute that the world was supposed to end so you know we got we got like dark clouds rolling in and everything and they were fucking giddy and they seemed shocked that the dark clouds weren't enough to sway us, right? But, you know, maybe forgetting that dark clouds happen all the fucking time. So we get this light little drizzle of rain and then it just stopped and the sun came back out. And the world just carried on existing. And we watched them realize that nothing just happened.

We watched their whole universe fall apart. And at first I felt bad for reveling in it so much. But then I remembered that the thing they were so disappointed in was the fact that I wasn't presently being raped to death by a scorpion locust. And I felt fine again. And I know I've told this story on the show before, but it's worth bringing it up now and again so that we can all be reminded what they're after. bringing it up now and again so that we can all be reminded what they're after. I mean, I get that there are no Christians actively calling for all the non-Christians to be massacred through heinous torture or very few of them anyway, but most of them are kind of rooting for that. And that shouldn't just disgust you. These motherfuckers are in power. That should terrify you. You know,

they want vindication for their worldview more than they want you to survive. So they've kind of, you know, they're already primed to look the other way if all us terrible heathens started to die. And I'm not saying that Christians are on the verge of marching non-believers to the gas chambers, but I am saying a lot of them would be grinning ear to ear if that happened, as long as the soldiers marching us in had wings and halos. You know, it's not just the lunatics that followed Harold Camping's numerological musings here. I've listened to many a cookie-baking grandma wax poetic about the rapture,

knowing full well that at some fucking point in their rapture, the blood reaches the bridles of the horses. That's our blood they're talking about. You know, the big takeaway for a lot of the media that day was about how wrong the believers were every news outlet wanted to stick a camera in their face at like one minute post-rapture and ask them how they felt now that they knew that they were mistaken

and let's face it stupid but that's not what lingers for me i you know christian people are wrong all damn day by definition christians being obviously and ridiculously incorrect either doesn't have an anniversary or it has 365 of them and a quarter you fucking pedants okay not quite a fucking quarter you overachieving pedants the point is that for a terrifyingly large percentage of americans a majority even their paradise requires that you burn in eternal torment and judging by the looks on their faces seconds after they thought that was going to happen based on their loathing and their utter void of sympathy that's not just a theological requirement that's part of what makes it paradise they're talking about you jesus interrupt broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the Tearthin and General Agassius to my Denomocles, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to put the line back in headlines? All right, no, but just be ready for a classic Tearthin tangent line. Tangent line. Tearthin. All right. Poor Heath. Most people won't get that joke, but donar thin. All right. Poor Heath.

Most people won't get that joke, but don't worry. I thought it was acute. Oh, actually, nobody will get that joke, Eli, because I just made up those names and told Heath to play along because we figured you would just not ask.

What did you mean when you said it was acute? Because you said tangent line, so I figured like triangle, and then I said acute. I i told lucinda i'm like you know heath would just email me or message me or something go like hey man who the fuck is tierthin and general legacies i'm like no eli i'll play along you'll pretend to yeah nailed it by the way see we went from people i don't know to something math, so I did something math. Crushed it. Oh, you like that song? What's your favorite lyric in that song? Oh, the beginning?

Right at the beginning? Yeah. A little bit of the C note. I love that one. Yeah. In our lead story tonight, Pope Francis and the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity released a statement last week

calling for a day of prayer fasting and charitable works as a way to ask god super duper nicely to stop killing the world with a plague and apparently that announcement was full of bigotry against christians thanks to its lack of bigotry against Muslim and Jewish people. Yes, that was the problem. Literally, this is what happened. And that means we have another good old-fashioned idiot fight. Anna? What are the guys talking about?

It's the newest, the greatest Christian freakout. That's right. Conservative Christians had a meltdown because the pope called for magic in a way that was unreasonably non-hateful spoiler alert no he didn't right yeah right no relative to their level of appropriate hatefulness it was non-hateful but it was hateful so first of all i'm very curious about the lower committee of human fraternity what is that and why were they conspicuously quiet on this issue yeah right to be fair they're still working on getting everyone to put their shopping carts back

oh wow that's even less effective than asking God to cure a plague. Yeah. Well, regardless, the higher committee made the following anti-Christian remarks. Quote, fellow believers in God, the all creator. And the hate speech kept going from there, but I don't want to upset anyone by repeating it all. The basic idea was that people of all different religions should spend a day talking with real God trademark. Even if they're savage, heathen cultures like Judaism only taught them simple grunts and uncontrolled screaming as a communication. And that was way too inclusive for a whole bunch of christian people yeah someone was like so muslims are just beings now where will the pc madness end

if it was only just someone yeah no i mean look it's worth at least pointing out that they snuck muslim god's first name in there when they talked about an all creator right subtle yeah so in response to that i have a dream speech a whole bunch of christian people immediately started grunting and yelling we don't want you people distracting our god with grunts and yelling this included several attempts at turning that outburst into a scholarly piece of writing for example gene smiths of life site news wrote the following if this is not an actual global unified religion in action it's beginning to look more and more like it more more like it than what cheese because i mean more more like a global religion than cheese does sure

depending on the cheese i don't know continuing the quote since the beginning of the chinese coronavirus pandemic coronavirus hussein obama chinese flu since the beginning of that mainstream voices have been raised telling us that we're moving towards a new civilization of empathy and solidarity end of quote about a bad thing called a civilization of empathy and solidarity yes right and and hey gene on the global list of things that might happen the lowest one is religious unity i want to be clear on that like to be less likely than that you have to be a logical contradiction yeah and keep in mind her idea of the one world religion living coexist sticker starts with so we all believe in the

almighty god right let's start there and uh among the other all caps tirades the pope got accused of superimposing allah onto yahweh which is hilarious to me because that came from a christian guy whose entire religion is based on superimposing jesus onto yahweh yeah My favorite response was from an angry Catholic group that organized a spite feast to counteract what they were calling the Pope's fast with infidels day. They encouraged

everyone to eat a whole bunch of pork right in Judaism and Islam's face to block the evil magic that they said definitely doesn't work, but they're blocking it also. Oh my, malicious bacon

eating is the purest distillation of American culture that I've ever encountered in my life. And there's bigotry in it too, it's amazing. Spite, bacon, bigotry. That could be our flag and all they need to do is get coveted that dinner and circle gets the square so yeah

they will so just to recap the idiot fight this is what we're dealing with the good guy in this story at least in relative terms is the leader of a homophobic also often gay pedophile cult who got yelled at for being too tolerant and at the time he was calling for people to fight a plague with magic which you know that's not directly harmful i. But it takes away time and effort from anything, you know, real. Yeah. So congratulations on being less of a bigot than larger bigots and for being indirectly harmful. You win. Is the win conditional yes for you?

He just won religion. Yep. Yep. Jesus. And in anti-facts news, bad guy fight. Yes. Bad guy fight. Bad guy fight.

Bad guy fight. Guys, seriously, you did this a couple of weeks ago. Aren't we above this kind of thing? Who's this even about? Rob Kennedy Jr. and Shiva Ayyadurai. Well, fuck. Why didn't you say so bad guy yes bad guy fight indeed this week's pugilists are none other than anti-vaxxer and i think we can all agree major oversight by the cia robert kennedy jr and allegedly somewhat less anti-vax self-proclaimed inventor of email and Republican senatorial candidate Shiva Ayyadurai.

Not at all true. No, no. In order for that to be true about the emails, he would have needed to invent email in 1971 or earlier when he was seven years old or younger slightly before the guy from arpanet definitely invented it in 1971 and despite that being easily available information he claims he invented email in 1978 now i didn't go to mit like i do i did but 1978 minus 1971 is a positive number makes it really hard to believe that he married fran drescher when he was 50 if he's gonna play things like he invented email when email was seven years old but but hey while we're on the subject i invented the graphic interchange format.

I just want to let everybody know the correct pronunciation is fifth. It's nice. It's nice. So I adore I who listeners might remember for his staggering loss to Elizabeth Warren in 2018, where he ran under the campaign, quote, vote for the real Indian. quote vote for the real indian has been feuding with kennedy for months alleging that kennedy refused to take a picture with him at an anti-vax rally because i adore i had exposed his ties to hillary clinton and bill gates vote for me technically i invented but her emails that was me so in response kennedy took to the only blog people care about less than mine and alleged that cytosol a company that iadurai runs is involved in none other than vaccine production yeah so this month the battle has come to a head with Aya Durai taking Kennedy to court for

$95 million. Yes, of course. Of course. Indamages. You get that number. Well, because $100 million would have been silly, Heath. Right. Yeah.

Honestly. $99.99 million. Yep. Claiming that Kennedy's blog was intended to discredit him. Oh, my God. Wait. The damaging claim is that he indirectly is involved in saving human lives. That's what he's doing.

How do they not know that they're underpowered comic book villains? He sunk my skull cave. So, yeah, the case of bad guy versus worst guy is now being considered in the u.s district court for massachusetts so far no hearing date has been set but when it is i can assure you we will be there and we will chant bad guy fight until we are escorted out of the courtroom and we will wear giant foam fingers. And in getting the Petrie started news tonight, just a quick reminder that while science is busting ass to fight a vaccine and or treatment for the disease that's overturned our society and the

practitioners of science are risking their lives to mitigate the disaster. Religion is wishing real quiet and the practitioners of religion are risking everybody else's lives to exacerbate the disaster. And our latest reminder comes from Califuck you if you thought you were safe from reckless religious endangerment. They are fornia where three thousand churches have vowed to open on Pentecost Sunday. Public safety regulations be damned because that is a magic Sunday. All right. What's that golden rule again? Plague unto others. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So this comes in protest to California Governor Gavin Newsom's decision to declare churches

non-essential during the pandemic because they literally could not conceivably be less essential. You cannot construct a world in your imagination where churches are less important to the day-to-day functioning of our society than they presently are. But since they can't risk admitting that you actually can afford not to buy this timeshare, they've opted to kill a substantial number of their congregants to maintain the illusion of purpose. Yeah, that tracks. I was going to say payday loans loans but they're not crowded enough so yeah right point stands yeah also what the fuck does pentecost sunday matter yeah that's just 50 days after easter right like

i want jesus to show up for this now he's up in heaven like all right 50 days after easter time to float down as the Holy Spirit. Tell everyone about the, what the fuck are you all doing? Go home, seriously. What? I'll tell you, I'll Skype you, idiots. Jesus. That's me, me.

Give me your shopping cart. I'm not going to spit in all of your eyes. I'd run out, I'd be so dry. And by the way, just in case the entire nation grinding to a halt to send one singular message which it then reinforced with every single minute of news coverage for the last two months wasn't enough to get this fucking point across these 3 000 defiantly homicidal pastors got yet another reminder a couple of days after they announced this impending disobedience a church in chico california decided to violate the governor's order and hold a service on mother's day and one of the 180 attendees tested positive for coronavirus the following day so at the very least public health officials have to invest a bunch of time and money in

tracking down all those attendees and testing them at worst a bunch of people die. You know, so that nothing. Yep. So that nothing. And in Once I Had a Beehive news, the owner of a faith-based hair salon, Once I Was a Beehive is a Christian movie about a girl who gets attacked. It's a whole thing. I nailed it. Trust me.

Yeah. The owner of a faith-based hair salon in Appleton, Wisconsin, has filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the state's coronavirus safer at home order violates her First Amendment rights to freedom of religion, speech and assembly. In related news, faith-based hair salons exist, but there are zero atheists in Congress. Well, zero atheists who don't have to lie so people aren't fucking terrified of them. So here's the story.

Jessica Netzel, owner of Kingdom Cuts, has named both the governor and the local police chief in her lawsuit, which states that there are, quote, spiritual references throughout the salon and that she sincerely believes she is to share her faith with others through her work at kingdom cuts well there you go okay well if she can show me pictures of every single customer growing payas in accordance with the old testament this is still fucking stupid it doesn't matter

more believably stupid but still fucking stupid so so wait more believably stupid, but still fucking stupid. So, so wait, so her argument is we don't just do useful things. You should let us open. And who the hell even knows if that's a good argument anymore, right? Yeah. Yeah.

It's a post post world, but worst of all, miss Netsl has obviously missed a fantastic opportunity with the name Kingdom Cuts. Come on, that is nothing, Jessica. It's nothing. Even though you spell cuts with a K. Come on. If anything, that gives it a weird racist vibe.

So let's put 29 seconds on the clock. Better names for a Christian hairstylist slash ministry. Go. All right. What about the Holy Trinity? Scissors of Mercy. How about Delilah's? Oh, nice.

Excellent. Our Lord and Savior. Fantastic. Hairdeuteronomy. All right, all right. O Come All Ye Faithful. Oheronomy. All right. O come all ye faithful. Oh, nice. Thank you.

Thank you. That's excellent. Kalam Cosmetology. Fantastic. All right. All right. Well, the room's all dusty now that we broke out that clock. So we're going to pause to let the clouds settle a bit and hand things over to my lovely wife lucid a man wrote the bible a horse which one if it's a legitimate rate

cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man this week in massage one of the favored arguments among abortion opponents is that women who have abortions spend their lives regretting pining for the baby that could have been. And this has been exhaustively studied, and no evidence has been found to support the notion that rates of depression are higher among women who have had abortions and women who haven't. Of course, there's a strong correlation between depression and poverty,

and another between poverty and being a young single mother, so there is evidence going the other way. But none of that has ever stopped them from making the argument. Because data be damned, they have anecdotes. And when we got better data, they just went out for better anecdotes. And that's where Norma McCorvey enters the story. Now, if you don't recognize the name, that's because she was going by the name Jane Roe when she instigated the lawsuit that would enshrine abortion rights in law.

Well, back in the mid-90s, despite her pivotal role in legalizing abortion, McCorvey became an outspoken critic of the practice, declaring herself firmly in the pro-life camp. So when I debunk claims of post-abortion depression with data, the anti-abortion advocates would always go, well, then why does that lady who got it legalized regret it so much? Now, in the past, I've responded with a link to their community college's course offerings and statistics, but it turns out the argument is even worse than I was giving them credit for. Sure, the fact that Roe was anti-abortion was no more convincing than any other random

lady coming out against it, but just because it was a shit argument doesn't mean it wasn't also a lie. That's right. According to a documentary that's going to debut tomorrow night on FX, Norma McCorvey was never really anti-abortion. She was just taking a fat check from anti-abortion propagandists to pretend to be. And the documentary source of this is pretty solid.

It's Norma McCorvey's deathbed confession. Before she died in 2017, she recorded a message saying, and I quote, if a young woman wants to have an abortion, that's no skin off my ass. That's why they call it choice, end quote. So yeah, the plural of anecdote isn't data, but in this case, it turns out it isn't even anecdotes. And sure, I could go on to give you some actual misogyny in the news but after watching sexist christians fall on their face that fucking hard kind of feel like letting it linger so on that note i'll hand things back over to noah heath and eli thank you lucinda and in closing up

shopping our news fantastic in crimes against humanity's news in can't cut the mustard seed news liberty university the most prominent evangelical school in the country just got rid of its entire philosophy department like the whole thing that's not a subject they have anymore at their university that's real yep university president jerry falwell jr sent a letter to the entire department explaining that they're all fired and none of them are going to get a retirement package that's just done jesus the letter reads like they were the triple lambdas and the dean just found out they'd been running a farm out of their fraternity house.

I bet the fucking nihilists were unbearable on the way out, though, right? On the way out, on the way in, weren't there? So, I guess nobody should be surprised that Liberty University would eventually realize how offering the study of knowledge, reality, and existence is fucking up their whole thing. Especially considering the literal description of that department on their own website. It basically said, you know, here's where you can learn to fuck up our whole thing, but just, you know, don't. Just don't. Don't. And this is the exact quote from liberty.edu. Maybe this is going down, but this is their exact description of their own department of philosophy. The philosophy degree develops the whole person and will prepare

you for a lifetime of problem solving and critical thinking, learning to think and write clearly, argue a position with good reasons, interpret new data, and offer creative solutions. Develop your mind as an original thinker, someone who can think outside the box, someone who won't look at naked pictures of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s, oh, okay, I see, this is a sarcasm description. We're doing a sarcasm description.

All right. Yeah, so if we were just making this shit up, we'd be less on the nose department. This week, the folks at Liberty University were looking to trim the fat somebody literally sitting around the table says well come on guys when are we going to have any use for people who can think and write clearly argue a position with good reasons interpret new data and offer creative solutions and the answer the collective answer was

low-hanging fruit right there and just for the record liberty is not out of money no granted their policy of making the campus a safe space for covet 19 was super woke and might have put a dent in their living enrollment but the type of person who applies to liberty university is also very likely to be blocking the michigan capitol building right now with an ar-15 in order to protest the virus hoax that they believe is happening these people are still happily applying to liberty even if the only department left is advanced my pillow studies it's not a matter of people yeah but you know look the pretense of being an educational institution is getting less and less necessary so why even waste the money now yeah

exactly and in case there was any doubt about liberty's budget being in jeopardy they literally just started up a right-wing propaganda think tank with their money. And that was made possible because they're funded by an extremely wealthy Christian benefactor called the U.S. government. Uncle Sam, yeah. They get about $800 million a year in federal grant money. That comes from programs that are meant to pay for tuition at a school where they teach things like knowledge, thought and reality. Liberty does not.

Right. And now they don't even have a department to fake it like they do. They still have a non Euclidean biology department. Not great. No. And finally, tonight and having the list laugh news, there's this tiny little group. And by tiny little group, I mean one lady who's been kicking around the atheist community for the last couple of years, calling them slash herself Republican atheists. And you've never heard of them because the closest they ever come to breaking into the community was getting hung up on by Cecil. up on by Cecil, but if you run an atheist blog

or an atheist podcast or something like that, you know the lady because she periodically chimes in to bitch at you for not acknowledging all the Republican atheists out there. We're a serious group that deserves respect. Maybe you've heard of David Silverman, for

example. Sorry, he did what? Parachute. Never mind. Never mind what I just said. Scr said scratch they're the silliest group i've ever heard of and i belong to several magical societies and look literally i get that there are conservatives that are atheists right like i have no issue with that i know many of them but republicans supporters of the modern day american gop that are atheists it's hard not to believe in god wrong but they've managed it atheists to support active efforts to curtail the rights of atheists don't deserve recognition on this show which is

why we've never brought up republican atheists before and why i only bring them up now to make fun of them because in a misguided effort to prove that there are two republican atheists before and why I only bring them up now to make fun of them because in a misguided effort to prove that there are two Republican atheists, the group released a long promised list of elected officials in the GOP who identify as atheists and after much

ballyhoo, the list has three names on it and the most powerful elected position represented is city council member in a town of 44 000 people okay but in fairness if that guy switches from atheist republican to christian democrat he's pete budaj and he wins he does that's true also also if you have not gone to their website and clicked on their leadership page, fun fact, it is identical to the results of when you Google image white guy who thinks he got away with farting in an elevator. Now, I will admit that this list might not be exhaustive, but it very likely is right.

Like the folks slash folk at Republican Atheist are slash is exhausted. That's for sure. And here it is in its entirety. And no, by the way, they did not present this as a punchline. Here it is. Carolyn Umphrey, city council member, Sierra Vista, Arizona. Steve Anderson. No, not that one.

Precinct captain in Illinois. Okay. Not quite lieutenant. No, not that one. Precinct captain in Illinois. Okay, not quite lieutenant. Sean Polson, vice chairman of the Kent County Republican Central Committee of Maryland. The list is over.

By the way, I'm also a serious advocate for people of color. Maybe you've heard of Clarence Thomas, perhaps. Wait, he did what what you need to tell me before whoever is standing there telling me this you need to tell me stuff before before i did the announcement thank you by the way sean the last guy is on their board yes so a third of their list is them yep yep assistant to the chairman of kent county republic vice chairman and look as near as i can tell there are something like 519 000 elected positions in the u.s

nearly half of which belong to republicans and these motherfuckers found three people who identify as atheists slightly over one one thousandth of one percent so carolyn steve sean if you're listening to the show sorry we don't cater to your needs a bit more also fuck the everloving fuck out of you you self-loathing pieces of shit. All right? Real dedicated. And while Carol and Steve and Sean are fucking themselves, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always.

Log cabin atheism. And when we come back, there still won't be any Republican atheists. Dude, yeah, I'm talking to you. It's me. It's your hairline. I snuck onto the podcast to tell you. Well, do I seem to be creeping backwards lately? Because I'm afraid you might be losing me.

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and by the way while we're talking, a fedora? Come on. Come on. With thousands of shit-filled diapers in Eli's future, we figured it was our responsibility. Our duty. Thank you. Noah. Thank you, Eads. To prepare our co-host for constantly slaving over nauseating

shit which is why we asked him to break down hillary morgan farrah's cheat sheet for christian karen's mama bear apologetics so eli we're well into the and here's another thing i want to bitch about phase of the book what did you want to bitch about in this chapter also known as the book yeah so this month we're gonna tackle having emotions what yeah in a chapter titled quote follow your heart it never lies emotionalism ah it's worth noting that an apologetics book needed to dedicate an entire chapter to look we understand basic human decency will tell you that a lot of the stuff we've said in this book is bullshit ignore that basic human decency so god gave us instincts that are wrong but he also gave us ignoring well there you go he's got a system

weird but there's a system what about ignoring ignoring what about the instinct to ignore the ignoring instinct of ignoring your it's fuck heirloom okay heirloom will help yep got it got it got it thank you uh so we're gonna start this chapter by pointing out that one of the authors tsc used to be a real drama queen as a teenager. Here's a quote from TSC. Quote, it was not uncommon to find me standing in front of my bedroom mirror and listening to sad music just to make myself cry so I could enjoy watching each tear travel down my cheeks. What? End quote.

Been there, sister. Spoiler alert. She's going to compare this behavior in a second to the fight for gay rights a bunch oh no like a bunch great yeah no being gay is just like listening to alanis morissette i've heard that a lot i've heard that's what it's like all right this is this is the first time i've confirmed that heath cries at alanis morissette songs but it's not the first time i've concluded it okay that's his new intro at live shows. You ought to know Noah.

It's a jagged little pill to swallow. So she concludes this section by saying, quote, emotions are like toddlers. They're fun, but you'd never put one in charge. End quote. Oh,

I'm sorry, Eli. I miss what you just said. I was watching Donald Trump try to kill the coronavirus by holding a candle under his nose. What did you say? Yep, that's fair. That is fair. So now it's time for a section called The Difference Between Emotions and Passions.

Here's how Hillary starts us off. Quote, emotions can be powerful little beasts and are often immune to the various methods of truth seeking, like science science divine revelation authority and even logical reasoning i think she forgot to mention whistling for truth like a lost cat and shaking a bag of food that's that's actually one of the best ones might as well be yeah uh she also takes a moment to stumble through the mind brain difference here and it does not go well for her quote what's the difference between the brain and the mind naturalists believe that they are essentially the same the christian who acknowledges both body and soul can distinguish

between the two the brain is the physical component of our thoughts okay well the mind is the non-physical part that sends out commands end quote well well yeah right but we also we have the non-physical to physical usb adapter to convert those shapeless commands it never goes in the way you think you get you have it right it just doesn't go it's a bitch this is cool i've never learned about non-euclidean neurology it's a good chapter good chapter hillary morgan right but our point about this is that passions are the quote chemical physical part of our feelings over which we have little control while emotions are a kind of judgment emotions can change quickly regardless of what's going on in the body end quote so emotions are what you're allowed to feel while agreeing with the Bible. Exactly.

Or as Hillary puts it, quote, when disciplined by scripture, reason and reality, emotions are powerful reinforcers. But when I, as a mama bear, see truth compromised, quick reminder, she is just a bear, not a mama bear, just a regular old bear, I can get very indignant. And this might motivate me to write a book to help other mama bears wade through the lies. Wink, end quote. She wrote the wink.

As you can see, I wrote a book in this book. Footnote this book. Footnote this book. Arrow loop. I'll reach back in. I owe you one. However, she does have the world's saddest short story to use as an

illustration in this chapter. Quote, I, Hillary, love chocolate. Occasionally, I'll get a bag of chocolate and go through it slowly when it's gone i'll feel sad oh my god this book doesn't even belong on the fridge in construction paper this is so bad it gets so much worse sometimes when I know I've run out of chocolate, I'll check the bag just in case there's one more piece. Oh, have an orgasm, woman. Have a fucking orgasm.

Occasionally, there is exclamation point. What? Oh, the elation of finding that one last M&M, italics, emphasis, hers, in the package, other exclamation point. Okay, that's full confirmation. Hilary Morgan Ferrer keeps empty old bags of candy just in case. That explains so much. Wow.

I wager that's how mankind felt after tossing out all the methods available for truth finding. End quote. Oh, so wait, so wait. Christianity to Christians is like that sad, broken handful of Dorito lits in the corner of the bag. Oh, that explains so much. Okay. This book is her attempt to slap the back of the Pringles can.

Sometimes you just got to let those hard to reach pieces go, Hillary. Yeah. I mean, I got to admit, I didn't think this book would have a section where I'd feel bad for someone who has yet to make it through a chapter without shitting on trans people. But the image of Hillary just desperately clawing open a bag of M&M's in hopes of feeling anything resembling joy did it. desperately clawing open a bag of M&M's in hopes and feelings. Anything resembling joy did it. So, you know,

I guess this chapter does have something to teach me. She's just, she's got that like area bags full of bags from the grocery store and then like a thousand empty M&M bags. With a post-it on it that says, just in case. Yeah. But her point with that horrifying little metaphor is that emotions are useful, but they need to be informed by truth. Specifically, the Bible.

What? Or as she puts it, quote, our emotions must be disciplined according to scripture, reason, and reality. If they're not, then who knows if our emotions will turn out as truth. Just Nietzsche listening to Alanis Morissette crying in the mirror. Hold on. I have a plan. I'm going to murder God. Emotions are great.

This is the best. Help me think. She concludes, Emotionalism has left reality completely out of the equation. Here are some examples. Does hell make you uncomfortable? Don't worry. Just turn it into

a metaphor and by all means don't use dna or body parts to determine your children's gender end quote end of feeling of any sympathy i had for hillary oh i'm sorry hillary we're playing with dna now huh why are you fucking why are you part cyanobacterium, Hillary Morgan Bear? Why is there still cyanobacteria? Answer me, you fucking banana slug chimera. Also, can we all stop sexing children like they're fucking chickens? You had a person. Done.

You birthed a person. After that, most everything's up to them. So now it's time to roar like a mother. And I'm not sure if you remember this amazing little letter game she's got going here, but we're going to start by recognizing the messages of emotionalism. Message one, I cannot choose or control my emotions. To which Hillary responds, you can't too control your emotions you gay sinner doomed to hell calmer than you are who am i talking to the books are hard books are hard

yeah the second myth of emotionalism is that negative emotions are harmful that's that's a myth apparently and hillary admits that like like, sure, feeling bad hurts, but, quote, the belief that negative emotions are harmful has led to two recent phenomena. One, the tremendous emphasis on the importance of self-esteem, not entirely bad. She feels the need to clarify.

And two, the removal of competition from many children's activities, end quote. Yeah. That's right. The problem with emotions is that everyone gets a trophy. All right, whatever. You know, broken clock. She got lucky that time. Next up, the third myth of emotionalism.

We must change reality to protect emotions. And she just provides us with a bigot list du jour here. She's like, it's like she has Dave Rubin Tourette's. She's like, sex, basis, Canada, free speech, pronoun slavery. She scream cries into a mirror while listening to You Oughta Know. During her chapter about controlling emotions and speaking of which now it's time for the packaging of emotionalism and her first point here is about trigger warnings and hey to her credit hillary knows what trigger warnings are quote really trigger warnings are statements that alert people in advance to topics or words that might cause some distress. The term was originally applied to warnings

directed at trauma victims who would need to know that an upcoming discussion would cause flashbacks, panics or anxiety. But wait for it. Here it comes. Now the term is used much more loosely to refer to material that might cause any kind of uncomfortable feeling, all because of the assumption that negative feelings are supposedly harmful and must be avoided at all costs. End quote. Yep, you heard her. If a term is ever misused, it's bad. Just wait till she hears about Christianity.

But if you thought trigger warnings were bad, just wait till you hear her second package of emotionalism follow your heart that's right this book has hit disney levels of villainy and i'm assuming you have no quote here because it was just 10 pages of hillary morgan fair typing slur words in all caps about elsa from frozen being gay that is accurate yes that is true. Next up, the package of emotionalism called I'm offended. That's right. The lady who wrote a book about how gay people are coming for your kids brains thinks everyone

is too damn sensitive these days. It's almost like the right co-opted the language of counterculture being used against them to trick Generation X into being bigots. But mostly the fear of their hypothetical billionaire money that they will absolutely never have being taxed. That's a big, big thing they've done. And again, her example here is fantastic. Quote, a few years ago, one of our local banks removed a Christmas tree from its lobby because a customer claimed it was offensive. No, I didn't.

All I have to say... Absolutely not. No, never happened. All I have to say is that if you live in the United States and you can't handle the sight of a Christmas tree, then don't leave your house from November to January 1st. Don't risk, friend. Incidentally, this wasn't reported in any newspaper or documented in any way, but I heard about it.

So trust me. Yeah. And speaking of not leaving houses, we need a series of giant menorahs all over the American South right now. That's a useful project, I think. Yeah. So now it's time to offer discernment. And just for the record, the number one apologetics book on Amazon, quick reminder,

has a section dedicated to nuh-uh. So, Hillary's going to start off by telling us that emotions are great if they lead us to Jesus. They're only bad if they lead us to not Jesus. And you'll know they're bad because of the not Jesus you see. She also quotes a long passage from an article called

I was an atheist until i read lord of the rings the quote is way way too long but i recommend checking out the article because the guy's point is basically fuck i heard a good fantasy story and i was like you got any of those that i can pretend is true forever because i i want magical wizards plus legalized hate crimes. You got anything in the back like that? Anything? I'm sorry. You mean other than Tolkien? All right.

So now it's time for lie number one, as opposed to the myths that we just debunked in the last letter. Here's the lie. If I feel it, it's true true which is very different than the messages and packaging in the last two sections patting the word count you're patting the word and again i just want to note this section for the inevitable part of the book where she's going to tell us that she knows jesus is real in her heart yeah right like right call my shot okay in fairness jesus is real in her mind not her brain you need the firewire adapter to understand what that all means line number two my feelings are your responsibility

by which she means i'm not sorry i'm a bigot and you can't make me be sorry or as she puts it quote sadly legislators in north america are under this delusion and are trying to engrave this aspect of political correctness into law end quote actually they're trying to scratch out the added engraving that says hate crimes don't count for sincerely held Tolkien. Right? And finally, lie number three, to endure emotional distress is to endure injustice. And it's worth pointing out how fucking insidious this is, right? Because what she's actually saying is,

when people tell us they're being oppressed, it's just because we hurt their fifis. And again, she is saying this from the perspective of a christian apologist right right and also by the way fucking masterpiece cake shop was literally decided in favor of bigotry because the city hurt religions fee fees yep they almost used the goddamn yes so now it's time to argue for a healthier approach and i'm not gonna lie i was kind of excited to see how she was going to argue against whether or not your feelings are hurt in this chapter you don't even own jagged little pill it doesn't count liar so her argument here for the arguing for healthier approach is you can too control your emotions and the example she uses for this is that you can picture a hot dog what let me clarify

quote uh okay yeah yes quote think about a hamburger are you envisioning a hamburger in your mind no because fuck you now think about a hot dog were you able to switch the image in your mind when i asked you to then i have great news for you you're able to change your thoughts what the fuck is she she accidentally wrote a passage in her own book about how she has the emotional depth of a hamburger or a hot dog either she could switch back and forth at will look at my emotional depth hot dog hamburger hot dog hamburger deep i'm just waiting for a call from the x-men so please you you you argument number two praise emotions when they do align with truth or as she puts it quote allow your emotions to reinforce that what god has said is good

evil shameful praiseworthy and beautiful but do not let your emotions dictate what is good evil shameful praiseworthy or beautiful you're patting the word count here's the list of things your emotions can say there you go i'll let you be off book by next week you can't use that after next week yeah so now it's time for discussion questions gentlemen are you ready i've been crying into a mirror this whole time sir all right icebreaker describe a time when you followed your heart and ended up doing something really stupid be honest every person has at least one of these stories okay i asked a girl out on a date when i was 11 and she said no and i've been terrified of that entire gender for 27 years this is fun fun. This is a fun quiz. I like this.

You ought to know. Two, main theme. Emotions can be helpful as long as they are disciplined with scripture, reason, and truth. How is our society confused facts and feelings? Well, they tried to learn about philosophy from a book

with the phrase mama bear in the title. Yeah, that'll do it. That'll do it. Number three, self-evaluations. How often do you allow emotions to dictate your decisions? Oh, I have a PC and Android. Yeah. How might renewing your mind, Romans 12.2, aid in sanctifying your emotions?

Okay, well, I read Romans 12.2 because she said so there, and it's missing an Oxford comma. So, fuck your face. Is that sanctified enough? Fuck your face. The first five answers I wrote to this question would qualify if I hadn't erased them. Number four, brainstorm, why are you a Christian? And skip.

But, you know, please go ahead. Tell us what we're skipping, I guess. As you answer, this is the chapter on how emotions are bad. As you answer,

don't leave out the Holy Spirit's role in your salvation. Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. God damn it, no. I'm trying, I'm fucking, that's my line down the middle of a piece of paper. God damn it, no. I'm fucking, that's my line in the sand is what I'm drawing.

Absolutely not. And label one side emotional reasons and the other side factual reasons. She definitely did this without drawing the line one time and got super confused. How many of your reasons fall under the factual category? How many under the emotional category? No need for drawing a line this time.

If your primary reasons for being a Christian are emotional, how might the enemy come in and steal away your foundation? What are some ways that you can integrate factual reasons for belief into the mix? End real quote.

Okay, no, that's called apostasy, Hillary Morgan Ferry. You're describing deconversion. That's our thing. And by the way, if you'd like a free copy of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, just go ahead and start up a conversation about literally anything with Heath's born-again cousin. I'll send it right to you.

Number five, release the bear. Next time you're faced with a strong, unpleasant emotion, don't let it overtake you. Take that emotion captive and ask yourself,

sorry, I forgot she said take that emotion captive, and ask yourself, what judgment is this take that emotion captive and ask yourself what judgment is this emotion making is that judgment true and quote all right and while we check to make sure hillary really meant to end her chapter with a fucking question we'll close this second round for a month but we'll be back soon with even more God Awful Books. There's a question about chattel emotion,

just to be clear. Before we put our masks back on, I want to pre-graduate Anna and Eli. The baby is due this Friday, so like tomorrow. Assuming their kid is more punctual than Tom over at Cognizant, Eli will be on paternity leave by the time the next episode comes out. But don't worry, I'm sure he'll be desperate to escape domestic duties and duties soon enough. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,000,

22 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 time 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 friend, God of Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I need to make amends in the ancient ways if I neglected to thank Heath Enright in advance for all the extra work he's going to do while Eli's away.

I need to thank Eli for all the extra work he did to help us prepare for while he's away. I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for breaking away from her animal crossing island long enough to do a twim for us. I also want to thank Jonathan for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. I haven't looked into the Condor project that deeply, but it looks like they're tackling human trafficking by tackling the

poverty that leads to it. That seems like a really good idea. Learn more, follow the link on the show notes, but most of all, of course I want to thank this week's best bipeds, pale Dan rum runner, David,

Darren, Scott, Adam, other Scott, other Dan, Jill incubus, M Bryce, red cup,

Thomas, no true strum and atheist mortician, Brian, Leah and hail hospital and grocery other Scott, other Dan, Jill, Incubus, M, Bryce, Red Cup, Thomas, No True Strawman, Atheist Mortician, Brian, Leah, and Hale Hospital and Grocery Store Workers. Pale Dan, Rum Runner, David, Darren, Scott, Adam, and other Scott whose cocks are so big they can only send dick pics by mailing flash drives. Other Dan, Jill, Incubus, M, Bryce, and Red Cup who are so hot they compensate for the solar minimum. And Thomas, No True Strawman, Atheist Mortician, Brian Brian Leah, and Hale Hospital and Grocery Store Workers,

whose IQs are at least a couple orders magnitude shy of being impressed by Jeff Bezos' bottom line. Together, these people, professions, fallacy montos, vehicles of Christian oppression, and worthy accolades helped us keep doing the voodoo that we do so well this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode

donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but your money's too expensive, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, following at P-I-A-T-P-O-D on Twitter, or telling a friend about the show and then just, like, relentlessly nagging

them about whether they've listened to it yet. And tell them about that bit just now where I, like, I made a portmanteau where one of the words was portmanteau, right? the words was portmanteau. That's pretty solid wordplay. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of P. Andrew Torres. Tim Robertson handles our social media and our audio engineer, S. 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 skinningideas.com. Hey, Heath, in the outro, in the outro in the outro i made a portmanteau where one of the words was portmanteau so nice that's awesome the preceding podcast was a production of puzzle in a thunderstorm llc copyright 2020 all rights reserved