The Scathing Atheist - 402: Please Vote Edition

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

In this week’s episode, Donald Trump converts to whatever kind of christianity will vote for him, Steve Bannon continues his "Under Indictment" tour while he still can, and we’ll provide you with even more holidays to cancel next month. --- 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/ --- Headlines: James Randi dies: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/22/the-extraordinary-influence-of-james-the-amazing-randi/ Pat Robertson: Trump Will Win, But Eventually an Asteroid Will Destroy the World https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/20/pat-robertson-trump-will-win-but-eventually-an-asteroid-will-destroy-the-world/ Trump Says He Now Identifies as a Non-Denominational Christian, Not Presbyterian: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/24/trump-says-he-now-identifies-as-a-non-denominational-christian-not-presbyterian/ Rise of “Patriot Churches” should scare the hell out of everyone: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/10/26/trump-christian-nationalism-patriot-church/ Christian Sues School After Daughter Gets Sent Home for Wearing Anti-Gay Shirt https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/25/christian-sues-school-after-daughter-gets-sent-home-for-wearing-anti-gay-shirt/ Preacher John Piper: I’m Not Voting for Trump, But I’m Not NOT Voting for Trump https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/23/preacher-john-piper-im-not-voting-for-trump-but-im-not-not-voting-for-trump/ Correction: Even tiny shred of impotent support Pope offered same sex couples was misreported: https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/popes-civil-union-comments-appear-be-taken-out-context Bannon tells messianic gun-church that Democrats are stealing Pennsylvania from Trump: https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/steve-bannon-tells-messianic-gun-toting-conspiracy-theorists-that-the-left-wants-to-steal-pennsylvania-from-trump/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Poland effectively bans abortion: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/24/polands-top-court-overrun-by-conservatives-effectively-bans-legal-abortions/ GOP house candidate accused of being a sexual predator: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/26/gop-house-candidate-was-a-sexual-predator-in-college-say-christian-classmates/ Megachurch pastor pees on a lady on flight: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/10/27/we-finally-know-which-well-known-pastor-peed-on-a-woman-during-a-flight/

Warning, the following podcast contains warnings. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by honey and by the secret checks that George Soros gives us to pretend we like human rights. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, I'm I.C. Zorro from the All Things Nerd podcast. I am in no way speaking for the thoughts or beliefs of my other podcast members, but come on, you know we all evolved from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's October 29th.

And it's Internet Day. Yeah, so go out there and rub your nodes together, everybody. You've earned it. I'm Noah Lusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from G. Gordon Liddy's New Jersey Cincinnati Swing State

And Good Husband Georgia This is the Scathing Atheist On this week's episode Donald Trump converts to whatever kind of Christianity We'll vote for him Steve Bannon continues his under indictment tour While he still can And we'll provide you with even more holidays to cancel next month

But first, the diatribe. All right, just shy of eight years that we've been doing this and I've had an original diatribe for you every single time.

Yes, Eli and Heath have chipped in and done a couple here and there, but regardless, you've always had new content every week for 401 weeks in a row. But I'm about to break that trend today because this is the last episode we have before election day. And if there is a single person out there that could vote who isn't planning to, that I could still talk into voting. It is a moral imperative that I do everything I can to make that happen. So this week, I want to replay a

diatribe from four years ago. I want to remind you what it was like for us when we all woke up feeling like that day because the mind does its best to block out trauma that bad. So you might not remember it as well as you think. So here it is. This is the first diatribe I recorded after we learned that Trump was going to be our president. Or this is most of it, at least. It was so funny on Tuesday. Tuesday was so funny. You were probably in on it.

I mean, I know a lot of you were, but for the rest of you, I'll tell you guys what happened. So Eli was mad at me for eating the last devil dog again. And you know Eli. He started a prank war. And what he did was he hired all the guys from CNN and MSNBC and Fox News, and he had them record hours of presidential election footage, but like, you know, as if Trump had won. And then he hacked into my cable and made a whole different internet that corroborated all this, like, Trump's going to be president nonsense and rerouted all my devices to that.

And I'll be honest with you, he almost got me. I almost believed it. And then, of course, I realized how infinitely more likely that series of events was to the alternative explanation, namely that the election for the president of the United States of America was just won by Donald wall building, Muslim banning, disability mocking, climate change denying, fat shaming, pussy, grabbing Frank and Cheeto Trump. I mean, seriously, guys, gals, what in the muggy shit just happened? Donald Trump is going to be president. That will always have happened, right? We will never make up for that. If every American went out tomorrow

and cured a different strain of cancer, we would still be the country that elected Donald Trump to run it. This shit's going to be in history books. Our great, great, great grandkids are going to know about this and they're going to tell them that we already knew about the pussy grabbing shit before we elected him. I mean, remember back when I was going to tell them that we already knew about the pussy grabbing shit before we elected him. I mean, remember back when I was going to do jokes about the president having a vagina? I was going to come out and I would say like more like over office and then you would laugh and we would move on to other shit. It was a simpler time. A time when we so radically underestimated the per capita stupidity of America that we never

took the words President Donald J. Trump seriously. You know, we just went through an election where one of the candidates would literally just make up whatever number he wanted, attach it to whatever problem he wanted, and then just carry on. And as we speak, four out of every two black people in Chicago is being murdered. And it doesn't fucking matter that even the most conservative media outlet you can possibly take seriously is saying, well, yeah, that's bullshit. That doesn't even make sense. Sorry about that. Because apparently the majority of voters don't care what's true.

They live in a world where global warming is a myth and Jesus is going to save them and their biggest concerns are the mind control powder on their juice box lining and the yoga mats they put in Subway bread. And while I'll admit that this isn't the worst thing that's ever happened in all of human history, I feel like it's a pretty solid contender for the stupidest. It could lead to the worst. We've been running around here pretending we're smart enough to keep doing democracy even after the George W. Bush reelection thing. You know, we were all like, no, look, we did a black guy. He's a lawyer. He knows smart words.

And we fooled ourselves into thinking we could be trusted around voting booths again. And make no mistake, if you're looking for somebody to blame, look in the fucking mirror. Because when things are this fucked up in a democracy, it's too late to blame the candidates. You have to blame the electorate. And no matter how much you did, you obviously didn't do enough. So, yes, I am talking to you, too, unless you're one of our non-American listeners, in which case I'm just glad you haven't stopped hanging out with us. And I apologize in advance for bombing your country when one of your late night comedians makes a joke about our president's sexual assault bravado. I mean, I'd love to just point at somebody and be able to say like, yo, it was all the, it was the Christians or whatever. And then we could gang up on the real culprit.

But in a case like this, there is no one real culprit and pretending there is, isn't any way to solve problems. Unless of course those problems are voter turnout in the Rust Belt, in which case it works just fucking fine. Look, the real problem here is that we're a bunch of spoiled brats that have lived in a democracy that could essentially function on cruise control for a couple of decades. We bitch about the system without realizing that we are the system now. And despite all the evidence to the contrary, trusted americans not to do the most stupidly self-destructive thing they could possibly do now don't get me wrong here i am not trying to tack onto that tired trope that says we're all equally able to blame for the 60 million people who actually went to the polls to vote for a misogynistic white supremacist sexual assaulter

there are certainly people who bear more blame than others. And if you happen to see a frightened white man pining for the days when brown people were easier to subjugate internationally, when you looked in the mirror, you deserve way more derision than the guy who's thinking to himself, you know, I could have taken Ted to the polling station. Ted liked Hillary. Fuck. But when something is this broken, it is everyone's fault who has the remotest chance of fixing it and hasn't done that yet i never want to do that again please vote make sure the people around you vote take people to the polls take people who are waiting in line at the polls water and snacks i don't care if you live in a swing state just make the fucking numbers that much more overwhelming.

Do whatever it takes. Please. I don't have four more years of this in me. They're talking about you, Jesus. Interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the

vote and vote to my vote, Heath Enright and Eli Fosnick. Fellas, how about that? Having already voted. Voting. Ooh, yeah. Good stuff. You know, I am a millennial. Took a team of horses. Nine stamps, 11 tries, but we did it, damn it. Yeah, you got it.

Nailed it. Well, you know, I'll tell you what. I'm a white, straight guy in Georgia, so they actually, the state came and picked me up. You know, took me to a golden... It wasrian kemp to drop by yeah blocked some other people while you're on the way good times my vote counted so much more than it's ever counted before it counted it counted in a presidential election oh yeah i've been voting in new york my whole life until this year for presidents anyway somehow mine counted voting in georgia yeah you're you're in a swing state man what are the odds all right so let me bring the mood down a bit in our lead story tonight skepticism lost one of its best last week the news broke right

after we got done recording last week show that james the amazing randy macarthur award recipient bane of charlatans and hucksters and godfather of skepticism died last tuesday at his home in florida at the age of 92 yeah and he's in heaven right now proving heaven isn't real okay all right we'll give him that so randy was of course most famous for publicly humiliating con artists like erie geller who secured a government contract to bend spoons with his mind and peter popoff who made his living promising terminally ill cancer patients that he just burned away their tumors with his prayers. And for his million-dollar challenge,

wherein Randy would offer $1 million to any purported psychic who could do even the barest kernel of anything psychic. They could not. Yeah, needless to say, he died with that million bucks still in his pocket. Yes, he did. And that fact will continue to get people making claims

about psychic magic to shut the fuck up forever. I've used that several times. The people are just like, oh, yeah, nobody ever got that million? No. Fuck.

Yep. And I should point out that it actually wasn't just psychics. All you had to do was say what kind of magic powers you had and do it. Yeah. You didn't have to be sad. You could, and one lady did, claim the ability to make people urinate.

And if you managed it, you got $1 million. Oh, yeah. No, by the end of it, if I'm not mistaken, he would give it to anybody who could tell if they were listening to something through monster cables. It was pretty amazing. Now, James Randi was very clear about his wishes. When you live to be 92, you get a lot of chances to

articulate your death instructions. So we will not be saying that James Randi passed away. We won't be instructing him to rest in peace. And we definitely won't say he's gone to a better place because he said that he didn't want anybody to say that shit. He said he wanted people to a better place because he said that he didn't want anybody to say that shit. He said he wanted people to say James Randi died.

So James Randi died. James Randi died. And as for his mortal remains, he also left very specific instructions with regard to them. This is a real quote. Quote, I want to be cremated and I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes. Still making me laugh. I love you, dude. And in bad news, good news news.

Televangelist, host of the 700 Club and Keebler elf that uses the Ark of the Covenant as a knife mask, Pat Robertson, has spoken to the Lord our God, has the results of the election and spoiler alert they're mixed on the downside donald trump will win the presidency but on the upside

an asteroid will hit the earth and kill us all i feel like you just said the same thing two ways but fine so yeah here's the deets. According to Robertson, Trump is definitely going to win, but it will lead to massive civil unrest, and there will be at least two attempts to assassinate him. Now, I don't have the heart to break it to Pat, but he might have accidentally

been given the ability to tell the past by our Florida Insignia, unless we assume all those guys who've jumped the fence and tried to get to the white house with a gun were doing it because it was a gift for donald we don't know yeah i mean come on at one point his own coronavirus response was an assassination attempt just doing spin moves around the secret service i'm gonna inject him with bleach because i'm a patriot i'm a patriot stop trying stop it get up. Stop trying to tackle me. Don't let fear

dominate your life. So yeah, after the assassination attempts, it's pretty standard apocalypse stuff. Islamic nations are going to use all the civil unrest in America as an opportunity to attack Israel, who will beat their asses and usher in a time

of great peace. And just as we're enjoying all that great peace and asteroid will hit the earth and times sword mouth Jesus the whole bit. So yeah, that all seems unpleasant. So you should definitely vote for Joe Biden this coming Tuesday to prevent it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But on the bright side, even if this were 100% true and we knew it, you know, there'd be an undecided voter on CNN talking about, yeah, asteroids are bad, but see those Hunter Biden emails? Yeah, right. I mean... Right, yeah.

Oh, my God. How the fuck does that asshole outlive James Randi? Fuck. Burisma. And in person's front of Judea news. Fantastic. Donald Trump is officially no longer a Presbyterian.

And instead, he's a non-denominational Christian. Wait, what? Apparently, those are meaningful words to some people. Some sort of distinction has been made. You're probably thinking, wow, this is the dumbest piece of news ever. Who the fuck cares ever who the fuck cares who the fuck cares exactly thank you yeah well it's two groups people who actually care first of all big congrats to the presbyterians they are great work all the denominations really

but this also matters a whole bunch to American evangelicals, many of whom don't like to have a specific name on their church, like Presbyterian, because I guess it connects them to like communist European stuff, like Marxist Scotland of the 1500s. So now Donald Trump is officially from the church of God, guns, grits and gravy and strip malls, and segregated bakeries, and the eagle wings that snapped off the lion in the book of Daniel, and formed America in the Bible.

He's an Americhristian, and it's official. Yeah, can you undenominate? Like, I don't think that's a thing, man. Hey, look, if anyone can take their ball and go to your house it's donald j trump people yeah so we learned about this very important distinction between brands of white and wrong thanks to the religion news service we sent a religion quiz to the president via his spiritual advisor, Paula White. And apparently question number one said, any chance you're more vaguely, specifically American Christian now, just like all the voters, that we really need to vote like twice and also block a person of color if we're going to win?

Is there any chance that happens? Yeah. Well, it turns out he is now. Weird. More vaguely, specifically American Christian. What parts of Presbyterian doctrine did he abandon? Go fuck yourself. Speaking of which, when asked for his opinion

about the biblical stance on helping refugees, also part of the quiz, Trump responded, pass. Huh. responded pass weird you know that was also his answer when asked the difference between presbyterian and non-denominational christian as it turns out oh i want to read every single answer he gave on that quiz now right it's just name whatever it is you people like. Age. I love Jesus. Great guy. Vote for me. That's pretty much it.

Person, person, man, can. Yeah. Except he cheated off. He got somebody who can speak and write to write his answers. He cheated off Paula White. Yeah, he definitely cheated off Paula White. And just for the record, that refugee question from the religion news service was very specifically about Trump breaking his promise to help Christian victims of persecution. Oh, yeah.

Just the Christian. They're cool with all the Muslim refugees that he denied and the other religions like Mexico. Yeah. They weren't worried about those ones either. No, they didn't mention that. But the fact that he didn't save enough, you know, Eastern Orthodox Christians from Syria was the problem or Coptic Christians from Egypt. That was it.

Oh my God, is that a crucifix on the drowned body of that four-year-old? What a tragedy. Oh God, yes, though. That's it, though. Wow. And one other amazing detail. When asked how Donald Trump lives out his faith,

Paula White got a question here. She answered, he meditates a lot. He meditates. He absolutely does not. But I cannot get the image out of my head now of Donald Trump trying to sit still and be quiet yeah because that's amazing he would be the one man who would argue with the voice in his head until the voice in his head calls it a day the monkey mind would give up on donald trump and in fascism news tonight

fantastic thank you just a quick reminder that even if we do manage to evict Trump in January, we're going to be cleaning up his mess at least as long as any of us are alive. And this week's reminder comes in the form of Christian nationalism basically being a denomination now. In case you're looking for one, Donald, they're called patriot churches. They are non-denominational congregations that rest on the historic narrative of David Barton as well as the last remaining thread of the Johnson Amendment. Yeah, let's hope they take a bleach and sunlight as their communion and this problem will solve itself.

Alright, so quick reminder, Christian nationalism begins with the notion that America is inherently a Christian nation, but like Republican Christian. None of this namby pamby love thy neighbor turn the other cheek gay people are also children of god bullshit okay they have a denomination of gop yeah yeah well right right yeah so it's it's the byproduct of a bunch of

christian bigots realizing that they all seem to know way more about the bigot part than the christian part and figuring out that none of them actually showed up for any of the Jesus crap. So it's basically fundamentalist Reaganism with crosses. And thanks to a recent expose of the Washington Post, we know that they even have their own churches. Yeah, lots of them are actually called police departments, but yeah. So Post reporter Sarah Pulliam Bailey highlighted a recent service in knoxville tennessee in a church that was started with seed money from greg lock by a pastor who handed his old church off to matt shea when he left matt shea the domestic terrorist the biblical justification

for war manifesto guy just to be clear that's the guy yeah and the service is so blatant it's functionally unduly doable right the opening prayer included the pastor beseeching god to ensure quote communism and socialism and transgenderism and homosexuality and abortion will not have their way in this land, end quote. Speak the Lord. Yeah, all huddled, maskless, under a ceiling, painted with a 60-foot American flag. That doodly-doo would get rejected by the universe of the doodly-doo. It'd be like, hey, welcome to the doodly-doo.

This is a room of homophobic men with erections chanting USA, USA. I guess there's no need to wonder what that would be like, what that would be like, what that would doodly-doo back to you. Why would you come here? See, yet another reason to vote for Biden, people. Think of the podcasters.

Joe Biden is satirizable. It will be possible for us to exaggerate the things he says and does for comedic effect. Yes, exactly. And in homophobic piece of shirt news much like a curious dog on a walk classic we here at the scathing atheist are always on a hunt for a new asshole and this week boy oh boy did we find one in pastor rich pancoski who made headlines for suing his school district after his 15-year-old daughter was

sent home from school for wearing a shirt that said, homosexuality is a sin. Yeah. Yeah, I bet he'd feel way different if somebody else at the school was wearing a shirt that said, Christianity is bigotry. Yeah. Which is really weird since that's what his kid's shirt said

too in so many words. Oh, it did. I really need every other kid in the district to just wear a shirt that's like, fuck whatever that kid's name is. Is this okay? Do you like this? Allah is going to murder you because you deserve it. Is that okay? Great.

And if you're thinking to yourself, this lawsuit's obvious bullshit. It's never going to go anywhere. I would like to offer you a quick reminder that a student in Ohio wearing a shirt with the exact same message was given the okay by a judge in 2005 who called it offensive but protected speech. And now it's 2020, which is like four 2005s, people. Actually, I see how you got there. And you know what? them. Actually, I see how you got there. And you know what? I hate it that I see how you got there. Fuck.

Yeah. But Pankoski isn't stopping there. Oh, by the way, is he filing a lawsuit against Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser because naming a street Black Lives Matter Plaza violated the First Amendment by establishing the Black Lives Matter cult, which is a sect of the religion called secular humanism? Is he also doing that? matter plaza violated the first amendment by establishing the black lives matter cult which

is a sect of the religion called secular humanism is he is he also doing that yes he is that's the guy yeah he's actually not new we've talked about him before anyway he was saying we need to have a you know legalized pro-slavery t-shirt law about having school in school you can have pro-slavery t-shirts. That's important for religion. Freedom. Yes. And according to News Channel 9, quote,

the suit claims the girl's rights were violated by the school, violating her freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, due process, equal protection, and rights under the Tennessee Religious Freedom Restoration Act

of 2009. Jesus, another school on trial in Tennessee to see if we evolved from monkeys. Yeah, well, let's see if the judge who hears this case has anyway. So, yeah, we have no idea how the court is going to rule on this. I mean, we hope we find a judge who's like, no, you're fucking stupid, but you never know. That said, in the meantime, since it was definitely

this 15-year-old girl's opinion and not her dad using her as a political prop, I would like to officially invite her on the show, the Scaming Atheist. No, no, no, no, no, you cannot invite a 15-year-old on this show. You didn't let me finish, Noah, to fight me.

Not better? Nope, markedly worse. Yeah. I hate being the new guy. And well, I wonder why we even have the fucking whiteboard. We're going to take a break for a word from this week's sponsor. Honey,

uh, $25. Can't do it. No 30 guys. Guys, which one of you guys put peanut butter all over my cat Binky? And why is he standing in front of Eli's computer like that? Oh, hey, Noah. Heath and I were just shopping for deals.

Shopping for deals? Shopping for deals, yeah. Pretty much all the shopping we do is online now. So we figured out a great system for getting deals. One of us shops and the other one haggles like we were the computer. So we go back and forth. Why don't you just try Honey? On Binky?

Well, he was very scratchy with the peanut butter as it was. Yeah, he was very scratchy, yes. Honey is a free browser extension that scours the internet from promo codes and automatically applies to the best one available

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If they find working codes, it applies the best one to your cart. Wow, that sounds awesome. It's simple. If you have a computer, Honey should be on it. It's free and it works with whatever browser you use. You can get it for free today at joinhoney.com slash scathing. That's joinhoney.com slash scathing. All right, Noah, we will try that for sure. Okay, so, but why did you put peanut butter on my cat?

Yeah, I think we might have misunderstood something we read on the internet. Definitely. That's it. I'm telling Lucinda. Don't, don't, don't. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race.

If it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. It's like Poland wanted to fire a warning shot across our bow. About two days before the Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett and ushered in a reversal of civil rights that stands poised to erase 50 years of progress, Poland sent us a stark reminder of what it looks like when you give right-wing government too much power when their constitutional tribunal effectively outlawed abortion across the board now I should be clear that it's not like Poland was killing it on reproductive rights up to this

point women's rights have been eroding there for years and they weren't exactly starting at some golden age standard but the already restrictive laws still allowed a woman to get an abortion if, the baby was going to be born with a severe genetic deformity that would make it unviable. Well, as of last week, that's illegal too. There are still narrow exceptions in cases of rape and when the life of the mother is threatened, but who the hell knows how much longer that'll last. And if you think I'm exaggerating about how little regard the GOP has for women's rights, perhaps I should introduce you madison caulthorne aside from sporting the whitest most republican name you can form with the human mouth caulthorne is running for congress in north carolina's 11th district and this guy is beyond despicable to begin with he's a white supremacist

who posted pictures on instagram of his trip to Hitler's former vacation house, where he said that visiting it had been on his bucket list for a while. He also accused a reporter who was critical of him of trying to make it impossible for white males to run for office. And let me just say, it looks like he's killing it. But Cawthorn is also a raging misogynist. At least that's what several women who went to school with him say. Multiple women have accused him of sexual assault and verbally abusive behavior, including forcibly kissing them, reaching under their dresses, grabbing their thighs, just being a general piece of despicable shit, really. Now, there's a chance Coulthorne is going to lose his race even in a heavily Republican district. But even if he does, that's not exactly an exoneration of the party the fact that he's even in the running is plenty to indict them on and one last story i wanted to fill you in on about a week ago a story broke about a pastor peeing on a woman during a red eye flight to

detroit now we had very little in the way of details at first just that it was a well-known pastor and i don't know about you but I've been dying of curiosity since the news broke. Well, we finally learned the specifics this week. It turns out the pisser in question was Daniel Chalmers of Love Wins Ministries. And it seems to have been a situation where he was on sleeping pills. He was barely conscious and he thought he was in the bathroom. And I'm sure he didn't intentionally whip out his dick and start peeing on a stranger. But there's something about a pastor pissing all over a random woman

without realizing it that encapsulates religion at least as good as any story I've ever covered on this segment. And on that note, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda.

And in Pied Piper news, Christian apologist and Larry David Body Double John Piper took to the internet this week to let us know who he wasn't not voting for, maybe. Cool. In a blog post so boring and without substance that I can make

fun of it and I have read my blog. Have you, though? Because spelling says other like we know you wrote it that stuff's like public domain now isn't it when was the last time you know it's like the happy birthday song me and mickey mouse yep now for those of you unfamiliar with piper's blog book podcast and i'm sure set of fucking commemorative plates. It's called Desiring God, which is disappointingly not nearly as pornographic as it sounds. And he brought us hot takes in the past, like Trump and Hillary should both withdraw from the

race because they're both bad. So it should come as no surprise that last week his 800 page flip-flop boiled down to trump is bad but so is abortion i know lots of greek words yeah or i can look them up anyway yeah no it's i'm the entire thing is i'm not committing the atrocity i'm just standing by and watching so technically yeah now a generous reader might give piper a bit more credit. I mean, he spends way more time on Trump in the piece than he does on abortion. And he even goes so far as to say, quote, I think it's baffling and presumptuous to assume that pro-abortion policies kill more people than a culture-saturating pro-self pride, end quote. Okay. And just for the record, right before that sentence, he said,

Planned Parenthood is ethnic cleansing, cleansing historically i think he was trying to say black lives matter maybe is that what he's trying to say literally the worst attempt physically possible at saying black lives matter but maybe he was trying he described the democratic platform as quote baby killing sex switching freedom, socialist overreach, end quote. I appreciate you getting some of your poison in Trump's well, too, but I'm not giving you any credit for it. Yeah, exactly. But he never actually gets around to saying you should vote for Joe Biden

because we can't abort babies faster than Trump is killing people with COVID. Well, I don't know. I think we could. Yeah, it seems presumptuous of him. Get some sort of assembly line scenario. I don't know. But the point is, fuck him. Fuck John Piper.

And fuck all my so-called woke Christian friends sharing this thing on Facebook like it's the think piece of the century. Fuck John Piper. No kidding. You have a bunch of woke Christian friends? I do. I get in trouble with them

because they talk about how much Jesus agrees with them. And then you talk about anything on your mind? That's right. And then they're like, you're mean. And I'm like, but it's a quote from the book. And it told you so news tonight. We have a quick correction from last week's a quote from the book and it told you so news tonight we have a quick correction from last week's show despite the theme of last week's diatribe being hey let's not oversell this

pittance the pope has thrown to the lgbtq community in making that argument i still somehow managed to oversell the pittance the pope had thrown to the lgbtq community because i shit you not they had deceptively edited the video to make him sound even that progressive yeah but we still got a bunch of catholic leaders who didn't know that putting out panicky statements that were like that's not what it meant there has to be some hateful content oh there was okay well thank god it was hateful so anna what are you guys talking about and cut no freak out still bigots false alarm exactly hope still a bigot don't worry about it they're not freaking yeah so just a quick reminder last week it was all over the news that a new documentary contained footage of the pope kind of sort of half-heartedly agreeing

that same-sex couples should have human rights and while the mainstream media was falling all over itself to congratulate him for being slightly less bigoted than normal we in the atheist community were pointing out that he said shit like this before and it never led to any meaningful reform but it turned out we were righter than we knew because he'd said exactly that before the video from the documentary was just a clip from an interview on Mexican TV where they had very deliberately cut out the words, quote, that does not mean approving of homosexual acts, not in the least, end quote, right?

So he was literally saying the opposite of what the mainstream media was praising him for saying. And I'm sure that now that they know all of this, those very same sources will be quick to condemn him with equal vehemence. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're never hypocritical. But this brings up the question, who told the original lie, right?

Because it's not the Catholics. Catholics were crazy about this. They wanted to correct it. Was it? I think it might have been the Pope's mom. I feel like it was the Pope's mom. She likes the hot takes. And finally tonight in bloaty McBloatface news,

Steve Bannon's face is getting crazy. Yes, it is. Just insane. The Sith Highlander look was already problematic, I would say. But now it's like he forgot to breathe out all the bees and he's getting stung from the inside too. If you're religious, it seems like you couldn't possibly interpret his appearance to be anything other than a literal demon. Yeah. demon yeah but that didn't matter to several thousand messianic gun cult christians at the rod of iron freedom festival in pennsylvania that's a real thing that happened they gave

bannon a giant ovation after he gave a virtual speech about how the left is going to steal the election from trump by by mostly voting but also, you know, we're gay and we're killing babies and we're going to take away their guns and they're a gun call. Well, yeah, but little do they know we've mostly just been aborting the tiny little Republicans. That's the real cheat. I got to say, part of the poetic

justice I already see forming is that Trump and his administration are going to have to spend the rest of their lives around the people they despise. Yes. administration are going to have to spend the rest of their lives around the people they despise. Yes. He's going to have to hug them. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a guy who got into Christian music for the pussy. And I love watching the hate in their eyes. So the cult is called Rod of Iron Ministries, and it's run by two sons of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Really?

He's the Corrigan religious lunatic who came to the U.S. for his famous Orthodox Christian evangelism tour, also made friends with Richard Nixon and the Bush family, also got convicted for felony tax evasion, and founded the right-wing Washington Times. Busy guy. He's the guy. And now his kids are keeping that tradition going with their gun cult. They're actually called Rod of

Iron because they think that phrase from the Bible was God's early advocation for the AR-15. Yeah. Armalites in the AR-15. Yeah. Armalites in the Bible, too. And the chariots of iron is everyone's God given right to a tank. I get it.

I get it. And the pillars of iron are the cages they put the babies in. It's all coming together, guys. It all makes sense now. So the gun cult is standing by, I guess. And when I say standing by, I mean, they're literally standing by early voting locations in Pennsylvania to wave around iron rods and say menace, menace, menace, menace from the legal distance just across the street. Yeah. Which is admittedly harder to do through a coughing fit. But to be fair, though, if anybody can wave around an AR-15 without looking

at all menacing, it's going to be a Trump-supporting Mooney. Okay? And just in case anyone wants to learn some important principles of Christianity,

Rod of Iron offers biblical firearms training. What? For only $495 a person, you can attend a Red Dawn response course. Jesus Christ. That's a real thing they do. You know, just in case the communist Antifa terrorist army

ever takes over the United States like in Red Dawn. And according to their website, you'll learn shooting and moving with tactical rifles and pistols. the United States like in Red Dawn. And according to their website, you'll learn shooting and moving with tactical rifles and pistols. Moving? Yep. They teach you how to move while holding things. Yep.

What about while chewing things? Yeah, right. Yep. And it was tactical rifles and pistols, by the way. Nothing about chaotic rifle work or chaotic pistol work. Whatever. That's a 201 course.

That's a 201 level. Call me Rod of Iron. Use that moving, chewing to your advantage. You'll also learn sniper techniques, close quarter battling, urban and rural considerations, rural considerations, small unit tactics, and the hard target mindset that was capitalized in the website.

The hard target mindset. And if you have a kit or war belt that you want to work out of, it's welcome. You can bring that. What? I have no idea what that means, but it's terrifying because that means a bunch of these people have something called a

war belt that they like to work out of. Well, because if they call it a utility belt, everybody laughs at them. So war belt sounds bad. No one's going to laugh at me now. Wait a second. My cell phone's going off on my fucking war belt. I'm just going to take out my tactical sunglasses from my war belt. It's not

a utility belt. So, moral of the story, we are saving up and we're going to ruin the next Red Dawn response. Yes. Also, for those keeping track, this is the second

Christian Antifa preparedness course we've learned about this year. Racist homophobe coach Dave Dobenmeier runs one out of his Airbnb and now this. I am telling you guys, gun LARPing is to the Christian right

as OnlyFans is to the atheist left. We need to get some video equipment and like Sasha Cohen loves to play. I was thinking the same fucking thing.

Yeah. All right. So now that we know that heavily armed zealots training to respond militarily if they lose the election is a growing trend. We've got some ramparts to fashion.

So we're going to close the headlines there. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. And when we come back, we'll remind you of how little 2020 you still have to suffer through. Thanks to COVID-19, a lot of us have had to cancel our normal holiday plans, which is a shame. Unless shit goes bad on Tuesday, in which case you probably don't want to be around Uncle Frank anyway. But as ever, we're ready to help with a few extra holiday options you might not be aware of on this month's Holiday Buffet. All right, so Heath, what do you got for us this week? All right, so I went with Tahar,

also known as Deepawali, Yamapanchak, Swanti, or just generally Nepalese version of Diwali. No, Heath stole my, Heath stole mine. Nope. What we're commemorating. Much like the Indian celebration of Diwali,

Tahar is a festival of lights, but Tahar is so much more interesting. So that's why I skipped Indian Diwali, which would be kind of boring to talk about. If somebody picked that, that'd be kind of boring. Candles, light, dark, that one episode of The Office, Kelly Kapoor, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But Tahar is a celebration of the four animals associated with Yama, the god of death.

It's pretty great and just so much better than regular Diwali. Where it's celebrated. Nepal and parts of northeastern India. Is that where Nepalese Diwali is celebrated? Okay. When it's celebrated. Diwali is celebrated. Okay.

When it's celebrated. It's a five-day festival that starts on the 13th day of the waning moon and it ends three days later. What? Go fuck yourself. In the Gregorian calendar, it happens in October or November.

And for 2020, it starts on November 13th and it ends five days later on the 16th. Best aspect. There's an entire day just for worshiping dogs. It's the best. You already have 365 of those every year.

Where would you even put another one? I don't know. They put five days into three days. You cram it. You figure it out. Worst aspect. It's associated with the boring Indian Diwali. Again, super, super boring.

Nobody cares. How it's celebrated. So again, the festival is five days long. It's meant to honor four different animals. And the festival is three days long. Also, it's five days long. So each of the first four days is assigned to one of Yama's animals, and the final day is for honoring people, the animals who invented religion.

And on top of the animal theme for each day, most families celebrate by creating elaborate murals on the floor using colored sand and rice and flower petals. These are welcoming areas for the gods and goddesses that you want to show up at your house. And kids go around from house to house asking for money and food, kind of like Halloween, except they sing and dance,

which seems like a way better, like much more competitive system, and I like it a lot. Oh, damn. The Showtime kids from the New York subway would clean up during Duvaling. Oh, Showtime? I like that Heath's immediate thought is that he gets to withhold his candy from the kids

if their dance sucks, right? I'd give more if it was better though. It's a competition. Two ways of saying the same thing. Gotta have incentives. Starts to reach for the bucket of floss. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Do a flip, Bobby. Do a flip.

But the best part is obviously the animal themes. So day one is called Kog Tahar, and you honor crows and ravens, the messengers for Yama, the god of death. In order to ward off mortality for the coming year, people leave grains,

seeds, and candy on their roof as an offering to the birds of death. Right, and keep in mind that this is India, so if you leave taffy or something sticky up there, guess what? Free bird trap. Alright, so far this holiday is way too goth for me. What else do you have? Okay, day two is called Kukur Tihar, and this is the best holiday in the world. All dogs, whether or not they own humans, are worshipped for being the greatest life form ever created.

So all the dogs get some magic face paint on their forehead. Sweet. Called tika. They get garlands of marigolds. Sweet. And of course, they get all the treats because of being good boys and good girls. And if you don't have a dog,

but you walk around with a bag of dog treats that day, nobody thinks you're weird and you get to play with all the dogs. And the people have to let you. It's divine law. They have to let you play. You're not weird. Okay, Noah, I'm pretty sure Heath made up and a wikipedia article so they'd stop calling him the dog guy at the park

across the street so you know you can just have a dog right he's like all the time he was your dog i just like i have all the dogs they're all mine so moving on to day three that's called lakshmi puja and the morning of that day is called gai tahar lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and she rides a cow as a vehicle uh so this third day is all about honoring the cow i feel like the goddess of wealth could do better it's a sweet cow it's like souped up it's do better. It's a sweet cow. It's like souped up. It's got a spoiler. It's a sweet cow.

Tesla cow. It's got gnaws. Yeah. So you can summon it like a Tesla. So the cow is revered in Hinduism for being a friendly animal that gives more than it takes. It has like positive plus minus. It produces milk and dairy products, obviously. It also produces urine and dung, which are useful. The urine is a medicine.

No, it's not, but they think it is. And the dung is a fertilizer. It's also a great source of atmospheric carbons. That's another plus. So the cows get the face paint and the garlands like the dogs do for the dog day. Lakshmi gets big candle and light shows at every house inviting her to visit. Does anyone ever call my urine medicine and thank me? No. We do call

you a great source of atmospheric carbon though. We do. That's how they declare me on the taxes. Eli's going to be banned by 2050. We're going That's how they declare me on the taxes. Eli's going to be banned by 2050. We're going to be Eli neutral. I think we're going to beat that, Heath. Yeah, I think we got it.

We could bump that up. Beat that goal. Greener New Deal. Moving on to day four. That's called Govardhan Puja. The ox is the animal of the day. The standard ritual for Vaishnav Hinduism is a veneration of both the ox and the holy Govardhan mountain. And you make a big pile of ox dung to represent that mountain and you worship the pile.

It's pretty fucking cool. Not to put too fine a point on it, but OG Diwali definitely wins on day four. That's kind of hard to imagine how it wouldn't. I think this is why there's all that disagreement about whether it's three or five days. And finally, day five is called Bai Tika, which translates to the festival ended two days ago, but it's still going. This is when we celebrate humanhood, especially the bond between siblings. According to the legend, the goddess Yamuna's brother was dying. So Yama, the god of death, showed up to take the brother to hell. But Yamuna started stalling and just like making shit up about face paint and marigolds and working Yama into the ritual and just trying to stall as best she could.

The brother eventually died and went to hell, but I guess it took longer than normal. So on this final day of the festival, sisters do a protection ritual for their brothers. And then the brothers touch their sister's feet with their forehead and I'm an only child so I go fuck myself for my version all five days are playing with the dogs so whatever it's fine you know the big advantage to being an only child

is that you could go fuck yourself alright you know you took that shit for granted and you're probably jerking off years I just want to say oh would you get would you get interrupted like if you're sharing room? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't have any private space as a kid. Are you kidding me?

Bathroom. You got to go on the shitter. Like married people. Yeah, but then there's somebody standing outside there waiting for you to get done. Banging, yelling at you. Yeah. I feel like I like that. Anyway.

Adds an air of competition to it. Exactly. I won. I think I won. And Eli, what holiday did you pick for us this week? I chose

original America David Barton Diwali. Boo. Boring. So boring. But we're commemorating

the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. So they canceled it for 2020. Gotcha. When it's celebrated. Hopefully early this year on November 3rd.

But this year, Diwali is for five days and definitely five days starting on November 12th. Where it's celebrated. India and on that one episode of The Office. Best aspect. Candy buffets and fire hazards. Worst

aspect. Religious sexism and badly managed fire hazards. How it's celebrated. So Diwali, the original one, or for the QAnon fans out there, Deepwali, is the five-day Indian festival of lights, candy, floor rice, and whatever the fuck people

have wanted to cram in there for the last couple hundred years. It consists of five days, definitely, each with its own theme, and it kicks major ass. Derivative. This is embarrassing for you. I can't believe you picked Diwali.

Day one, or Danterras, starts out simply enough. People light traditional oil lamps near pictures of Ganesh and clean their houses. Women and children decorate the doorways with rangoli, which is what the colorful designs. You can't just like say the word with extra emphasis to make it sound exciting but you didn't say about this they're called rangoli anyways the boys and men decorate the roofs and walls of the family home and it's not got nothing to do with birds they just do it for for funsies the day also marks a major shopping day to purchase new utensils home equipment jewelry firecrackers and other items.

So, Anna, if you're listening and I know you are, I am buying some useless kitchen shit on November 12th. And if you try to stop me, I'm telling everyone you're racist against Indian people. I love that. Can you also pick me up some flatware while you're there? Somehow got rolled into the holiday. That where, while you're there, somehow got rolled into the holiday. Day two, or Narka Chachrushdi, is where you release your ancestors from hell by eating a fuck ton of awesome looking candy called Mithai. Day three is Laksmi Puhan and the peak of the Festival of Light.

Stores close early. Bosses give their employees surprise bonuses and gifts everyone dresses up in their nicest clothes and cities light hundreds or thousands of earthen lamps all over town to welcome various hindu gods into their newly cleaned homes i love that their gods are judgy buvanaswari just walks and wipes a finger along your mantle. Durga comes in and you're like, oh, fuck. No. Damn. A lot of arms. He's doing all the mantles at once. That's impressive. I could never do Diwali. Day four is Anakut

Bali Pratipada, which translates to mountain of food as opposed to ox manure. Communities prepare over a hundred dishes in a massive citywide feast in honor of Krishna. People also traditionally offer gifts of salt to nearby temples. And this one came first, right?

Like this, some Nepalese holy man was once like, but what if we used ox shit instead? Day five is Bahai'í Dúz or Brother's Day and as Heath mentioned it celebrates the sister brother, Bront.

So for those of you who are patrons of Godawful Movies and listen to this month's bonus review of the crazy sexual and sexual crazy Species 2,

you already know how important this fifth day is to Heath and Ryan. I don't, okay, I don't like how this, I feel like it's getting built

into this whole thing. I'm being taken out of context like the Pope, but like I'm not a bigot. It's alright, nobody gets this joke. What? I contextualized. Alright, and this month I chose the nativity fast. What we're commemorating.

The last half or so of Mary's last trimester. Where it's celebrated. Mostly Eastern Europe, but all over Christendom to different degrees and by different names. When it's celebrated.

November 15th to December 24th, or if you're a heathen, it starts on November 29th. Unless you're a heathen, it starts on November 29th. Unless you're a heathen barbarian, in which case it's November 28th. It's nice that D&D is making its way into so many different lives. Best aspect. The fact that Eastern and Western Christianity

haven't really killed each other en masse over this. Worst aspect. The fact that I'm not sure whether to add yet to that last sentence. You probably should. Yeah, we haven't had a pogrom in forever. We're due.

We're due. TikTok. How it's celebrated. Okay, so to be clear, there is no agreement on anything with regards to this celebration. The Wikipedia for one of the two main branches of it has a four-paragraph section and a robust and passionate discussion page devoted to whether the liturgical color for this fast is purple or blue that

admits at the end the proper color might also be gold. So it's like if the people who saw the dresses white and gold were going to hell. It's very much like this. Yeah. So in lazy ass Western Christianity, this is just Advent and the way you celebrate Advent is you decorate for Christmas and get a new miniature bottle of bad scotch every day or something.

It used to involve religion's laziest fast where you fasted only from like fish, red meat and three other things. And you only did that three days a week. But even that has been jettisoned over the years and replaced with just saying merry christmas a lot soon to be illegal once we pack that cord up so yeah enjoy it while you can motherfuckers all cups will be the godless red of starbucks you hear me all cups yeah but eastern christianity takes this shit seriously. Like pretty much all of Eastern Christianity. It's like they sucked all the joy out of the Western tradition and replaced it with dark gray fabrics and self-loathing. So instead of Advent, it's called the Nativity Fast, which is designed to produce suffering and thus bring one closer to Christ. Because, you know, suffering is the cornerstone of every great holiday, really.

I mean, certainly the Jewish ones. And the Muslim ones, actually, yeah. So you're also not allowed to have red meat, poultry, fish, other meat. Not sure why all the sources separate those all out, but they do. Also, no dairy, no eggs, no wine, and no oil, except you're allowed to eat fish on November 16th and 30th, as well as December 12th and 20th. What?

So, yes, the people of Moldova remind themselves what it's like to really suffer by selectively eating like Eli for five and a half weeks a year. Yeah, whatever. Call me when their communion is half a gallon of mango nectar a day. Then they'll know.

All right. So this all culminates in paramony or Christmas Eve, which is a strict fast day. Though, again, there's little agreement on what that actually means. And then when the first star is visible in the sky, you're allowed to eat ribs or whatever it is you want, because, you know, nothing's better than a big ass meal of meat, poultry,

fish, eggs, oil and dairy late at night when you're otherwise starving. Triple slam. Jesus, this really is the Denny's of holidays. So, yeah, so if you're looking to lose a little weight this holiday season, but you don't want to do it healthy, give the nativity fast a try, and don't worry, no matter when and how you celebrate it,

the overwhelming majority of Christians will agree that you're doing it wrong. And that's all we've got for you this time, but the Holiday Buffet will be back next month because who knows? By then, we may have won that war on Christmas. Before we save and quit tonight, I wanted to offer an apology to anybody who heard a goddamn Donald goddamn fucking Trump ad running before or after one of our recent podcasts. OK, so the ads that run before and after the show are dynamically inserted, which means

that they differ based on who you are, where you download it, what demographic information they have about you particularly. And that means that there are hundreds and hundreds of possible advertisers. We can't go through those like we do with the ones that we read on the show and say, no, we don't want to do that one. No, we don't want to do that one. Yes, we want to do that one. So what our ad company does allow us to do is block categories of ads. And generally that does the trick. Like as soon as we found out in 2016 that Trump ads were running our show, we blocked all political advertising.

But it turns out that, and this should surprise nobody, the Trump campaign blatantly fucking cheats. They intentionally miscategorize their political ads as like financial services ads or some shit like that just so they can slip past the firewall to be advertised on shows that don't want to advertise for them what's more when our ad broker bans that advertiser for doing that they just start a new company and purchase more ads and call themselves a fucking tire salon so So they're essentially hacking into our show to insert those ads. And I don't think there's anything we can do about it, which, as frustrating as it is, also means that they're pissing away their limited resources, putting podcast ads on shows that don't want them at the same time that they're taking down TV ads in battleground

states because they're out of money. So, yeah, silver lining, I guess. Anyway, sorry about that, though, if you had to sit through any of that shit. Anyway, that's all the Blast Movie we've got for you tonight, but we're back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of Our Sister Show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, an even newer episode of Our Sister Show's

Hot Friend at Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of Our Half-Sister Show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, the episode wouldn't count towards our stats if I neglected to thank Keith Enright for for never giving me up eli bosnick for never letting me down and lucent illusions for never running around and hurting me also want to thank icy zora from the all things nerd podcast for providing this week's first quote if you need more nerdery in your life you'll find them wherever you find your podcast but most of all of course i

want to thank this week's most memorable mammals mark william ryan matthew brent the moose help i'm stuck in a podcast factory yosemite ham oh sorry maybe Factory, Yosemite Ham, Chris Tobin, Mousy Tongue, Sheldrake, Michael, Mad Ahola of Danish Little Atheists, and Heidi. Mark, William, Ryan, Matthew, and Brent, whose ejaculations are so powerful Egon won't let them get crossed. Podcast Factory, Yosemite Ham, Chris, and Tobin, who are so bright you need sunglasses to talk to him on Zoom. And Mousy, Sheldrake, Michael, Mad Ahola, and heidi who turn heads quicker than the demon from the exorcist together these 14 ferocious free thinkers for when a fork full of fortune to forfeit the fanatical fuckers foolhardy frenzy for falsifying facts this week by giving us money not everybody has the money it takes to give us money but you might if so you can make a pre-approved donation at patreon.com slash scathing

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page at scathingatheist.com my wife page at skatingidius.com. My wife. It's relevant again. I'm allowed to say it. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.