The Scathing Atheist - 413: Farnsworth the Wait Edition

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

In this week’s episode, Heath Enwright takes the week off to laugh at the terrorist who tazed himself in the balls till he died, Andrew Torrez swings by for long enough to regret it, and the Christian right goes coup coup for Cocoa Puffs --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click there: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ 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: Christian reactions to coup attempt: Michele Bachmann and Franklin Graham: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/01/07/michele-bachmann-and-franklin-graham-wont-blame-conservatives-for-capitol-coup/ Robert Jeffress: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/01/10/robert-jeffress-blames-kingdom-of-satan-not-christians-for-capitol-siege/ Ex-Muslim Activist Zara Kay Faces Blasphemy Charge in Tanzania https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/01/04/ex-muslim-activist-zara-kay-faces-blasphemy-charge-in-tanzania/ My Pillow guy somehow more insane today than he was yesterday: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/01/08/mypillow-loon-the-ga-senate-seats-were-stolen-and-trump-will-remain-president/ Angry Christian Mom Condemns Match.com for Ads Showing Satan on a Date with 2020: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/01/09/angry-christian-mom-condemns-match-com-for-ads-showing-satan-on-a-date-with-2020/ PayPal dumps Christian crowdfunding site that was raising money for Proud Boys: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2021/01/paypal-dumps-givesendgo-christian-crowdfunding-site-supporting-proud-boys-other-extremists/ Republican Lawmaker Admits It Sounded Bad to Say “Hitler Was Right on One Thing” https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/01/11/republican-lawmaker-admits-it-sounded-bad-to-say-hitler-was-right-on-one-thing/

Warning, the following podcast contains language that may offend some listeners. And if not, we'll try harder next week. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by The Air. The Air, now with fewer Trump supporters. And now, The Scathing Atheist. This is Billy West. On behalf of Noah, Heath, Eli, and Lucinda, here at The Scathing Atheist,

I can assure you we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. You know, Zap Brannigan would tell somebody like him to go take a nap and improve the quality of life around here. Yes, and Zoidberg would tell everybody to eat. And Fry would tell everybody, did everything just taste purple for a second? It's Thursday. It's January 14th. And it's take a missionary to lunch day. I'm pretty sure they don't mean us.

No, they do not. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. And from Bruce Springsteen's New Jersey and Redtown, Blue State, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode... Keith Enright takes the week off to laugh at the terrorist who tased himself in the balls till he died. Andrew Torres swings by long enough to regret it.

And the Christian right goes cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Nice, nice. But first, the diatribe, which is me. Feels weird to introduce myself, dude. Uh, segment's written for three people. No, I... Originally written for two.

You just divvied up the lines. It's Thursday! Nope, that's not... It's Thursday! Well, holy shit, y'all. It took them five fucking years to notice it, but it looks like the mainstream media might finally be catching on to the root of the problem. In the last week, I've seen CNN, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New York Times,

and fucking USA Today, all running stories highlighting the role of evangelical Christianity in Trump's attempted coup. And yes, most of those are left-leaning publications, but USA Today is the goddamn definition of mainstream. And even left-leaning publications acknowledging that Christian terrorism is a genuine threat represents a big step forward. To understand the importance here, I think we should try to rewind the clock to, I don't know, let's say September 10th of 2001. Pick a date out of a hat. Even for those of us old enough, it's hard to remember just how worried we weren't about Islamic terrorism back then. Right?

I mean, we had countless examples by that point. Beirut in 83, the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 98, the First World Trade Center bombing in 93. There was no question that this was an ongoing deadly threat. And yet we didn't take it all that seriously. Now, I'm sure there were plenty of people within our government who were taking it very seriously at that time. Right. Our intelligence services did issue that report called Lookout. Os bin laden's gonna crash airplanes into buildings in new york city after all but as a nation you know as a culture we didn't take them seriously and that's because they were a fucking joke i mean yes they'd killed people often by the hundred but as often as not

they'd fuck up some kindergarten level shit or get caught the dumbest way imaginable like remember pan am flight 103 the the one that blew up over lockerby scotland now that was a wholesale tragedy 270 people died i think it's still the deadliest terrorist attack in the uk's history but but the dudes who did that got caught because they had to fill the suitcase that the bomb was going to be in with clothes to make it like look like a regular suitcase at a glance. So they just went to a thrift store and randomly bought a bunch of clothes with no thought as to the sizes, types or styles. Needless to say, the guy running that store was like, what the fuck's going on here? He calls in a tip after the bombing, after they put on the news that it was in a suitcase.

And there was a camera there. I mean, for fuck's sake, they caught one of the terrorists from the first World Trade Center bombing when the idiot tried to get the deposit back for the truck they had rented to put the bomb in. Right. And so by and large, the attitude amongst most Americans at the time was that, yes, they could be sporadically dangerous, but mostly they were just fucking silly. If you want a great representation, look at the 1994 Schwarzenegger movie, True Lies. I mean, the first thing that you're going to notice about the terrorists in that is how wildly racist movies were back then. But then you're going to notice how, sure, the jihadis were dangerous, but far more than that, they were a thing to be mocked, not a thing to be mocked not a thing to be feared

and then we saw the consequences of stupidity at its grandest scale and there were no silly islamic terrorists in our movies anymore you look i'm not saying that we can't laugh at the guy who tased himself in the nuts to death i'm not even saying that we shouldn't i mean even though that turns out not to be true, we should still laugh at it. The very fact that his supporters are so fucking stupid that we couldn't dismiss that out of hand is funny.

But let's be very careful along the way that we're not using that laughter to temper our fear. If I have my choice to face off against an angry rioter dumb enough to tase himself in the nuts to death and one smart enough not to i'm not at all convinced i'm better off picking the former and obviously for things to get as bad as they've gotten a lot of safety valves have to fail right i mean i mean there will no doubt be reports and committees digging into all the levels of failure that happened there for years

to come and even though nobody's ever going to single us out for official blame. We are among those failed safety valves. By we here, I mean the nation's skeptics. It's rationalists. It's atheists. Our self-anointed role is battling against conspiracy thinking and irrationality. Our chosen nemesis is religious stupidity. And yet there we were impotently watching them bumble their way through the capital looking for the button they had to push to switch our government over to fucking handmade prequel see the thing is they're gonna keep doing this shit and while the nation

will no doubt get better the second that they're out of power their terrorism is going to get worse at that point and along the way they're going to keep tasing themselves in the nuts to death and strangely enough that's going to give them their greatest advantage. Right? Stupid disarms you because stupid is funny. But if there's one overriding lesson of the last four years, it's that stupid is actually way more dangerous than smart. And nothing can coax the danger out of stupid quite like religion. They're talking about you, Jesus.

We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is the rum to my coke, Eli Bosnick. Eli, are you ready to mix it up a little? Only if you let me hold you, no illusions. Only if you let me hold you. All right, well, we'll have to wait for a vaccine then, damn it. In our lead story tonight, Trump supporters had themselves one of them coop detats and just to fuck up our ability to be topical they started it literally as we started recording last wednesday sure the hour of the

minute of and the fact that i scrapped the diatribe i was going to use and wrote a new one at that point means that i literally did more to respond to the attempted coup in the six hours after the Capitol building was breached than the president of the United States. Now, no, that's not fair. What about that deepfake video Mike Pompeo made on his iPhone that released on Twitter of Trump saying treason is bad? Right. phone that released on twitter of trump saying treason is bad right but yes as a cluster of angry megalomaniacs brought shame upon their family stock with history's stupidest insurrection i'm doing including the fucking videos they posted of themselves online now christian leaders are left with two choices right one is to ignore the four years of documented religion-wide Trump sycophancy and the abundance of Jesus saves banners and Christian flags amongst the terrorists

and pretend that Christianity had nothing to do with it. And the other is to throw their arms around the insurrection and pretend that they haven't spent the last four years begging for laws that would allow people to shoot rowdy protesters in the face. Either way, the turnaround is going to have to be so abrupt that even registers on the conservative Christian clock. Okay, blue lives matter unless we kill him with a fire extinguisher and the windows, okay, we just care about Starbucks windows.

Fuck all other windows. Right, Starbucks and Target. Yeah, okay. We just care about Starbucks windows. Fuck all other windows. Right, Starbucks and Target. Yeah, exactly. Of course, as we saw, even as the protests were still unfolding, the strategy du jour is to just pretend all the shit you don't like was some other dude that looked like you.

And that was certainly the case when ex-Congresswoman and haunted painting Michelle Bachman participated in a prayer call and blamed, quote, paid rabble rousers and quote who you know are getting paid enough to hurl themselves at bullets until they die in their effort to discredit an election fraud conspiracy that was already discredited before it was disseminated was her theory okay maybe they're thinking that if they do literally

everything they falsely accuse the left of they can just like write their name on our paper right before we turn it into history i guess what are they going for so the the absurdity of that claim didn't keep evangelical heavyweight and man whose celebrity was not earned but ejaculated franklin graham who told religious news services quote the people who broke the windows in the capitol did not look like the people out there demonstrating most likely it was antifa end quote because you know if there's anybody out there with solid motivations to stage an insurrection in support of fascism. But it's amazing. They have to combine it wasn't us and it's fine if it was into the same sentence.

Yes, right. Me, not me, Antifa, you. It's OK. But evangelical preacher and three-time returning champion on the syndicated game show card sharks in 1986 that's real looking up robert jeffress knew better than to simply blame the minions he took to fox news sunday morning to explain that the real culprit for the impotent insurrection that was orchestrated by and in the service of donald trump was satan oh i'm so close yeah by which he did not mean Donald Trump. Quote,

the people who stormed the Capitol, the people who killed that police officer were not part of the kingdom of God. As some people claimed, they were part of the kingdom of Satan. End quote, because otherwise he wouldn't even be a true Scotsman. If you think about it. Well, now, if you look real close close you'll see each of the christians who killed that police officer they were doing it in the name of goad that's that's god's younger brother so yeah that's on them so his little brother so yeah bottom line it turns out that decades of feeding the dumbest half of the white people a manufactured narrative about how oppressed they are and then handing the reins of it over to a pathological egotist have consequences.

Oh, yeah. Fortunately, it's the dumbest half, so they usually fuck it up. But some things are terrifying, even when they're tragically stupid. Of course, if Christians were in the habit of acknowledging reality, they wouldn't be Christians. So the only silver lining is that shit like this

makes it a lot harder for rational people to keep accusing us of alarmism. Yeah. If the comfort is that this is a mob that was literally misdirected away from the senators they were hunting by a cop going, hey, hey, hey, over here. The discomfort is that some of those senators were rooting for the mob. So. is that some of those senators were rooting for the mob. Yeah.

And in blast from the past news, it might be hard to believe, but there are actually way worse countries to be an atheist in than America. I know. I know, podcast listener, but it's true. And we got a reminder of that last week when ex-Muslim, atheist activist, and founder of Faithless Hijabi,

Zara Kay, was arrested in Tanzania on allegations of blasphemy. Well, I mean, yeah, but how bad could a Tanzanian prison really be? Cushy. Darn cushy.

Now, of course, Zara wasn't told why she was under arrest when she was first brought into custody. According to Hemant Mehta over at the Friendly Atheist blog, she was held for 32 hours before knowing the charges against her.

But it's pretty clear now that her real climb is being an ex-Muslim and talking about it. Yeah. Yeah, women and talking rarely go well together in super religious countries. But it gets better worse. The cover story is that she's under arrest for criticizing the Tanzanian president's response to COVID. So, you know, just in case the yokels at the Capitol got you down, the Tanzanian police's cover story

is that they're suppressing political rivals. How could we be holding her on manufactured charges if we cut her body up and dumped it into the Indian Ocean? Come on, come on. It doesn't even make sense. Yep, indeed. Now, the good news is that as of writing this story, Zara is out on bail, but her Australian passport is revoked and she can't go home where, you know, nobody will lock her up on

bullshit charges like this. Now, the good news is the Australian government is aware of the situation and advocating on her behalf. But as always in these situations, the more people that know about it, the less likely the Tanzanian government will feel comfortable doing horrible shit they think they can get away with to someone for not wearing a scarf on their head anymore so make sure you take a moment check the link in the show notes and help however you're able and in jagged little pillow news tonight fantastic thank you the my pillow guy can too get crazier fine fine 20 bucks you win you win noah and sorry in advance if there's something of a theme to my

headlines this week but attempted theocratic revolutions have that effect on me but yes even in the wake of wednesday's deadly insurrection my pillow founder and person who single-handedly disproves the meritocracy fantasy that undergirds the moral justification for capitalism mike lindell showed up on a live stream service for eagle mountain international church to throw still more fuel on the treason fire not only did he recommit to the lie about trump's election being stolen but he also added service for Eagle Mountain International Church to throw still more fuel on the treason fire. Not only did he recommit to the lie about Trump's election being stolen, but he also added some new bullshit about the two Georgia Senate seats being stolen as well. All right, everyone, be sure to check out the new children's book. Everything I lose was stolen by Stacey Abrams. Yep, there you go. So, yeah, in a terrifying glimpse into where the yarn is tied on his basement map, he says, quote, those two Senate seats that they stole yesterday, all eyes were on them.

Now we've got more evidence to be clear. That's that's more than none. And no, they don't. Anyway, he continues, quote, this stuff went to Pakistan. It went overseas to other countries. Can you think of one? It went overseas to other countries. Can you think of one? China, where these boats went over again. And they, you know, this attack on our nation. Sick.

Okay, wait. The votes went overseas or the evidence went. Okay, this makes no sense for Mike Lindell. For Mike Lindell. Exactly. He's going downhill somehow. So yeah, I'm pretty sure he's technically not trying to start a war with China in an effort to install a despot, but only because he

lacks the mastery of the English language required to do so. He did, however, trace a silver lining around this dark cloud of the will of the people. He pointed out that by stealing these last two runoff elections, we've provided even more evidence that the system is rigged. He pointed out that by stealing these last two runoff elections, we've provided even more evidence that the system is rigged.

So if you think about it, like Mike Lindell's mother, no doubt had to constantly tell him losing is technically just like winning. Yeah. And based on the massive leaks of parlor data, a lot of Trump supporters are probably hoping that prison means freedom while we're at it. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Next up in headlines, scathing atheist favorites, least favorites, activist group,

one million moms found another thing to be mad about this week. No, it's not the riot at our Capitol or the fact that they killed a cop with a fire extinguisher and an American flag. It's a match.com ad about Satan. Yeah, no, yeah. Think about the kind of message that sends to children. So yeah, the ad in question is a surprisingly funny take about Satan getting matched with the year 2020

and their relationship going well. But since it talked about a goat demon, the one million moms, current Twitter following 4,606, are very, very mad. And, as usual, started another useless petition to nobody

that nobody will read because they suck and there are less of the one million moms than there are active members of NAMBLA. Right. Yes, and that's even before you factor the Catholic Church in as a subsidiary. So as Monica Cole puts it on the One Million Moms website, quote,

these two ads, both created by Ryan Reynolds, make light of hell and the eternal dangers of the demonic realm. Read They Don't Take Our Goat Demons Seriously Enough. read They Don't Take Our Goat Demons Seriously Enough. One million moms does not want viewers to be deceived by this unbiblical depiction of Satan and hell. These two dark commercials make it difficult for family and children to avoid such evil content while watching TV shows during primetime and sporting events, end quote.

Why, it's gotten to where middle-class white kids can't watch minorities get injured for their amusement without being bombarded with negative messages. And look, I empathize with the nearly 5,000 moms. Only if you include the bots. It's a tough week for them. Their favorite lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is going to get kicked out of the New York bar. A lot of them just got put on the no-fly list, and their reaction has gone viral on TikTok. So we here at The Scathing Atheist are here to help with a set of Christian-approved,

totally biblical, Match.com ads. Enjoy. Oh, whoa. Gosh, how did we meet? Well, let's see. I was married to his brother. Uh-huh, and then he died. And, like, as soon as that happened, Match.com sent me a message like, hey, you're his property now. Yeah, it's true.

It's true. They sent that message. And it's been just great since then. I've borne him children. Yeah, she has. She has. And she even got me a concubine for Christmas. I did. i love to spoil

but her kids will always be my favorite that that concubine's just for fucking yeah christianmatch.com illegal and technically slavery and in give send go fuck yourself news tonight yet another website dedicated to the idea that websites should be allowed to put whatever they want on them is raving mad over some other website exercising the right to put whatever they want on them. Because it turns out that when you're a jackass right wing site that endorses Christian terrorism, what a lot of websites don't want on them is you. And free speech isn't fun when it's working against you. So now they're against it in the name of it. It's very confusing. The bottom line, though, is that failing to force Apple to say, here's the Christian nationalism app, is a violation of free speech, despite being the opposite of that.

Yeah, you know it's bad when big tech takes a break from verifying literal Nazis to kick you off their platforms. You've done something wrong. Something's gone wrong. But yeah, it turns out that Parler, I know that's not how it should be pronounced, but they're stupid, isn't the only site on the chopping block. Gizmodo reported on Monday

that PayPal was cutting its ties with the Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, a site known for raising money for vile pieces of shit like Kyle Rittenhouse and Proud Boys leader Enrique Terrio. And while there's been pressure on PayPal to disassociate from this Christian terrorist funding platform for a while now,

they've resisted, citing how bad it is for their corporate image to admit that Christian is a code word for domestic terrorist as often as not these days. But I guess tangential involvement in the slapstick coup attempt is even worse on their corporate image. So now they're ceding to that pressure. Yeah. If only trying to overthrow the government were as serious as, I don't know, Nick Kristof imagining that your website is full of child porn. This would have been taken care of long ago. Yeah, right. And look, I've seen a lot of otherwise reasonable people try to equate this ongoing online purge of sites like Give, Send, Go to some kind

of slippery slope towards censorship. I understand why you feel that way, except no, I don't, and that's stupid. There have always been laws against trying to publicly foment violent revolutions against the state, and for good reason.

If I put up a podcast every week about how we should violently overthrow the elected government and install stacy abrams as her king i'd be kicked off of every podcast platform in the world and i'd get a visit from the fbi the fact that i'd be correct wouldn't matter right this is not some new fucking standard that's being made up on the fly maybe they've taken their goddamn time in enforcing it. But this has always been the case. And somehow freedom of speech has endured. Right. And if you're worried that this is some newfangled, cucky interpretation, I'd like to refer you to the Federalist Papers where

S.J.W. Alexander Hamilton said, quote, Of course you're wrong, you idiot. Of course you're wrong, you idiot. And finally tonight, in Doitian slip news, it may have been slightly lost in the hustle and bustle of the terrorist attack last week. But in case you hadn't heard, Illinois Congresswoman Mary Miller gave a speech to the group Moms for America, in which she said, quote, Hitler was right about one thing. He said, whoever has the youth has the future, end quote, because she couldn't possibly think of anyone else who has expressed the thought children are important from history.

Honey, honey, I'm not saying that Hitler never said, no, thank you, I'll wait for the entree. I'm saying it's weird that you keep citing him one way or the other right so as is to be expected miss miller has since released an apology and by apology i mean she's sorry that you antifa cucks are trying to twist her perfectly great hitler words into something bad quote earlier this week I spoke to a group of mothers about the importance of faith and guarding our youth from destructive influences. I sincerely apologize for any harm my word caused and regret using a reference to one of the most evil dictators in history to illustrate the dangers that outside influences can have on our youth. This dark history should never be repeated and parents should be proactive to

instill what is good true right and noble into their children's hearts and minds okay wait so she so she apologized for acknowledging hitler existed what does it say about her that even now she doesn't understand that like finding common cause was the issue yeah now maybe you're thinking yourself okay that's all well and good but are some of her best friends countries that are kind of jewish well good news she concludes while some are trying to intentionally twist my words to mean something antithetical to my beliefs, let me be clear. I'm passionately pro-Israel, and I will always be a strong advocate and ally of the Jewish community. I've been in discussion with Jewish leaders across the country and am grateful to

them for their kindness and forthrightness. And their totally normal size noses well i was on the phone the other day i was forgiving him for killing christ as i am want to do and they told me i was the least nazi person they even knew ever yeah it's an excellent way to put jewish people are yelling at me into your apology oh but i gotta say i look forward to what miss miller brings up next or as joseph stalin once put it the sun will come out tomorrow all right well in the words of edie amin we're done here so i guess we can close the headlines for the night eli thanks as always blue manchi and when we have kumanji maybe even and when we come back, Andrew will be here to ask that his introduction not follow Idi Amin and Joseph Stalin references anymore.

Too late. Hey, Eli, what's the matter, dude? Hey, Noah, I'm just trying to tie this letter to this shot put so I can send it to my friend. Dude, why don't you just mail it? And go to the post office with all that hassle? No, thanks. Well, I get it. But why don't you just try stamps.com?

What's stamps.com? Stamps.com brings all the services of the U.S. Postal Service right to your door. I'm sorry, Noah. I couldn't quite hear you. What's stamps.com brings all the services of the u.s postal service right to your door you can sorry noah i couldn't quite hear you what's stamps.com eli that's not in the script man i know but if you could just tell me again what stamps.com and while you're at it maybe tell me what's hello fresh what's hello fresh what's hello for like, are you using the fact that Heath isn't here to win some weird game that you guys do in the ads? What? No. No, never.

Because we don't get paid for the ad. WhatStamps.com. WhatStamps.com. WhatStamps.com. It's fine. It's fine. WhatStamps.com. WhatStamps.com. WhatStamps.com. I've already stopped recording. I've already stopped recording. You know, I was never much of a fan of short film until I started watching Christian movies. And now I'm a shorter, the better kind of guy, which is why I'm happy to introduce another segment of God Awful Minis.

And what fun is suffering if you can't bring along some friends? And what fun is suffering if you can't bring along some friends? So to help us out tonight, we're happy to welcome back friend of the show and host of the Opening Arguments podcast, Andrew Torres. Andrew, welcome back, sir. Thanks, Noah. A runtime of 17 minutes. Oh, yeah. I'm in for those anytime, even if there's no pimp game.

Yeah, right. You were getting off easy, too. All right. So before we dive into this video, I was hoping you could tell our listeners about your newest podcasting project. Oh, thanks. It's called Clean Up on Aisle 45. Great title. And it's with A.G. of Mueller, she wrote. And it's about how we do the hard work of rebuilding the Justice Department, our executive branch, rebuilding our institutions now that we're post-Trump. branch rebuilding our institutions now that we're post-Trump. And AJ, you might know she was a former high-ranking civil servant.

She's ex-military. It's going to be great. So we drop on Inauguration Day, January 20th, and every Wednesday after that, clean up on Aisle 45. All right. Well, that's awesome. I'm really looking forward to that. Sounds like a really huge job, and I'm glad that you guys are breaking it down. So tell us, Andrew, speaking of breaking down, what video will we be breaking down today?

I don't even. Oh, sorry. I mean, you mean the title? Yeah. Don't ask me what it is. But the title was called Hey, you want reward? I mean, you can make your hands look like a V, people. No, that's right hail on

reward the fucking youtube had it wrong all right so eli how bad was this mini well if you love the anti-bullying improv troop that came to your high school but they didn't talk enough about the afterlife you will love this movie. Oh, yeah. This is a special one right here. Okay, so before we get going with the breakdown, is there anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at? Ooh, ooh, ooh.

It is the best worst iPhone footage about bullying on YouTube. Wow. Yeah. Big claims. Big claims. And true ones at that. Yeah.

All right. I was going to go with best worst understanding of how lunch money works. We're going to get there. I'm just going to say that they get this wrong in at least three, maybe five different ways. It's impressive. It is impressive. And I was going to go with best worst, you'll be sorry when I'm dead. Right. impressive and i was going to go with best worst you'll be sorry when i'm dead right look the whole

pitch of christianity is you'll be sorry when you're dead that's the selling point yep you'll be sorry when i'm dead is as nonsensical as the last 45 seconds of this short film boy yeah i'll tell you what it's it's to be absolutely nothing happens, absolutely nothing happens. What the fuck just happened? That is the formula for this one. Alright, so let's turn to the YouTubes here. We're going to start off with the interwebs, as they'll be identified in this film.

We're going to start off by establishing that Jenna, our hero, is bullied and poor and Cassie and her cool friends are the bullies. And if you don't get that with this first scene, don't worry. We will do nothing but establish this for the next four

goddamn scenes. But right away, we are going to be introduced to the star of this short film, children improvising conversations before their script defines. Oh, God. Which in the very first scene begins,

do you guys want to go get nails done later? Yeah, it's so clear. Like, the director here was like, hey, you remember Mean Girls? And then everybody

on the film was like, that movie's rated PG-13. So my dad says I can't see it until I'm 35. So no. But I know mean and I know girls. Okay, no, that'll be enough. That'll be enough. That'll do.

Also, we established right here that because they're making fun of Jenna for being poor. They're like, oh, she's so poor. She's so poor. They all live in the same fucking neighborhood, right? They live next door to each other. Yes, right. So it's not that next door to each other yes right so it's not it's not that much of a disparity i'm guessing all right so then we see her sitting at lunch

all by herself at the school we watch her sit there by herself for so goddamn long that like we start wondering if the video is expecting us to go up and say hi yeah and the kids are improvising the dialogue again the uh nine-year-olds are talking about how school lunch is ruining their diets i they're they're 15 eli well yeah the b-plot is about the lead mean girl getting a car for her birthday come on yeah but so we listen to them have pretty much the exact same conversation about what a loser jenna is right but they forget to talk loudly enough so our main character just has super hearing they whisper nobody likes her and she's like god damn it i hate my superpowers and hops away it's like daredevil the super hearing uh you know is a compensation for well we'll get into

yeah right right exactly but before we do we have to go with this bizarre title screen that uh andrew alluded to where they're saying heaven's reward but they're trying to use hands to make the v but it's actually kind of a you and even that's being generous you know and then we're gonna watch the same goddamn scene again, but this time the bullies are following her home from school. I wrote in my notes, okay, now they're following her home. Are we sure these girls aren't ghosts

of a soccer team she hit with her mom's car? That's right, because I want to be clear for the listeners. When you say following home, they are six inches behind her for like two minutes like like one seventh of this film's runtime it's it's disturbing yeah so she and they're picking on her because apparently she has a stutter uh right something

that the movie hasn't established yet great filmmaking yeah. Right. And when it does, look, I understand that you guys have me on and our listeners expect me to be the calm, sensitive, voice of reason

for these things, but could they not have hired an actor with an actual stutter? Or they could convincingly fake one. Oh, God. It's so... Buh, buh, buh, buh, bring. but even that would be an improvement on what she does

half the time she kind of forgets it's there and she does vowels occasionally which is a hell of an interesting stutter i i i so yeah the only way that you can tell she's going for stutter in this conversation with her mom is the fact that those girls had made jokes about her stuttering early right yeah and and the only way you know it's mom is because she says it because the movie decides to film mom from the neck down brilliant this is the next parasite so okay so she goes over she's all sad and everything so she goes to her room and gets on her her computograph to tell everybody how lonely she's like how bad did they fuck up computer in this scene okay are we gonna address that this girl is very obviously being groomed by a pedophile

because it really seems like she's being groomed. We never find out who she's internet chatting with. We just know that like she tells them all their problems and they give her religious advice. The plot of the movie is that she has no friends except that she has a friend, right? She has somebody that she talks to online and admittedly could be a 38 year old who's naked from the waist down we never know that well i think it's supposed to be her pastor which means

that yes 38 and naked 100 yeah and and yes she's being groomed by a pedophile even if she's not being groomed for pedophilic purposes she is being groomed and it is by a pedophile yeah if your pastor mows your lawn a pedophile mowed your lawns and noah you you alluded to this but the the site that she's on is called r messenger.com so of course i i went there wow and it is a domain farm in Poland. So what this means is this movie was incapable of paying the $9 to register, you know, an actual domain name like, I don't know,

christianchat.tube. And now that I've said that, if I know Eli at all, he's already reserved and has that redirected to point at porno. Way ahead of you, Andrew. Way ahead of you. I will say that if there is

one theme like an ongoing theme to the way that this movie was shot it was didn't have the nine dollars too right so yeah so the the pedophile on the interwebs which is actually what it says on her screen oh yeah on the interwebs there's little open windows with test patterns on them. They think there are test patterns. Anyway. So anyway, so the pedophile says, just make sure that you aren't being a little bitch about it. Right?

Because she's going like, all the kids make fun of me and my life is just terrible. And he's like, well, you worry about not bothering them then. Try and be extra nice to them. That'll help. Everyone knows bullies react really well to displays of weakness.

Well, look, if you weren't allowed to say meaningless bullshit, you wouldn't be allowed to be a Christian. And what's amazing is Internet Pedophile, he's like, what are you good at? And she's like, I can draw

and I'm good at taking care of plants. And he's like, everyone's good at taking care of plants. They grow themselves, you idiot. Draw a picture for someone. Also, stop replying with I'm good at taking care of plants. All right.

So yeah, they were enthralled by my conversational abilities okay so i just want to point out eight percent of that video was us reading that bloated vacuous conversation on the interwebs i did the math on that okay so now we cut to church it's one of those churches that has a black pastor and white congregants, you know, from the movies and nowhere else. But luckily, his sermon is about what that 11-year-old girl is going through, so now you... Eli, you

have a teenage sister. How is it possible that you don't remember what teenage girls look like? Sorry. Well, so, okay, but that's why I thought it was supposed to be the pastor that she had been talking to online. I thought, you know, like maybe he was trying to speak directly to her or whatever. But ultimately, what he's doing is just reading the entry for uplifting from the thesaurus.

Oh, God. Yeah, my note here is, can we generic up this sermon a little bit? Right. But the key here is that during this sermon, bully girl Cassie hands stuttery girl Jenna an invitation to her birthday party. But don't worry, if you miss that, we're going to spend the next four scenes going over that. Yes, exactly. Establishing that that's what just happened.

All right, but first we have to have this weird scene where nothing happens in this hallway. Yes, this is some of my favorite improv in the movie though it begins with i love the highlights in your hair popular girl does not have highlights in her hair nope and ends with my parents are gonna buy me a green car to which her friend responds don't you have enough green things in your room yeah no i don't really want a car now that you mention it i and eli you said begins and ends with the only line you elided over in that collection of gibberish was have you been going to the tanning salon which comes in between i love your highlights and aren't you going to get a car? Like, it is 100% clear that just a random number generator wrote this.

A random teenager generator. Oh, God. Also, I have to point out that, like, just to reinforce the quality of production we're getting here, they're not really in a school. So, Jen is supposed to be standing at her locker while these girls walk by having this dumb ass conversation about the highlights and tan that neither of which things Cassie has. But they don't have a locker because they're not in a school. So they've put a padlock on some kind of like Ikea pantry thing or something. Oh, yeah.

You can still see the BB sticker on the side of it. Yes. Yes, exactly. see the bb sticker on the side of it yes yes exactly this is also where we get the background music here which uh i wrote my notes did you know christian rap was a thing yep it's bad yeah i wrote my notes at this point and just then literally nothing happens oh my god was the point of that scene the dialogue it totally was too because apparently jenna went home and drew a picture of during this conversation cassie talked about no i'm not going to a tanning salon i'm going to the beach a lot right because i i'm cool and popular and so jenna

went home and drew pictures of cassie on the beach. Yeah. This is the conversation I overheard you and your friends having. It is the first, but by no means the last, like foreshadowing that we get of our protagonist's unhealthy obsession with Cassie. Yeah, no, right. Like if your character is drawing pictures of her bully in her bikini, like there's a problem here that we're not talking about. Right. Yeah.

So, OK, now we have the scene with Jenna and her mom. Jenna is telling her mom that she doesn't want to go to this party that she's been invited to. She's starting to suspect that Cassie, the girl who does nothing but bully her, doesn't really want her at the party. Oh, I'm really grateful that you clarified that for me, Noah, because I couldn't hear what they were saying over the garbage truck full of snakes that were being dropped through the ceiling of whatever building they were filming this through.

Yeah, oh gosh, this was the first point in this in which I wished you had invited Thomas on instead of me. But then I was glad you didn't because he would have had an aneurysm and I'd be a new co-host for Opening Arguments. Oh, the room hiss. And what's...

Okay, so the thing about the room hiss is it's not just that it's really, really bad. And it is. It's as bad as the worst podcast you've ever accidentally downloaded in your life. But it's not equal. So when we go from mom's lines to daughter's lines, we lose. It drops out and comes back just so that you can never acclimate to it. No, no.

We cut to the room hiss at one point. The camera's like, so do you have something to add to the scene? Yeah, it's spectacular. Yeah, exactly. But underneath that, mom explains that don't worry. I know that person doesn't like you, but I tattled to their mom for you. And now you'll be great friends. Trust me.

It's even worse than that. She says, if they're not nice to you, you'll be great friends trust me it's even worse than that she says if they're not nice to you they'll be grounded that's a great foundation for friendship isn't it as somebody who was nine in middle school uh let me just say in case you're wondering no not a great idea as someone who was no in middle school, I concur. Yeah, and so she says she doesn't want to go to this party. Her mom's trying to talk her into it. She says, also, I'm too poor to buy a decent present for her. And then we get the montage that I opened up on on my best worst.

This is the mom saving money for the gift montage so here's how they represent this mom takes an envelope out of the drawer that says lunch money she takes the single dollar that is in that envelope out takes out a new envelope writes gift money on that envelope and puts that $1 into it. And then, as if this were Rocky IV, we see a montage of that seven times in a row. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. But they made the actress change her shirt. So she's like sweaty and out of breath by the sixth. she's like sweaty and out of breath by the sixth.

All right. So first of all, that's not how anything works, right? Like for your lunch doesn't cost a dollar. You don't have an envelope sitting in your drawer. What does she have an envelope in there? That's just like rent and telephone bills. She's a,

she's a grownup. She could carry a purse. Yeah, right. Exactly. You can carry multiple dollars all at once. But yeah, exactly. And then also like you're forgoing

your daily meal so that you can buy a present that your daughter can give to a bitchy girl that's already rich. It cannot be overstated. What a terrible message this is. of the christian stuff right like we will learn i don't know two and a half minutes from now that the single mom's minimum

wage job is hanging by a thread and she's like no no no like uh why don't i just take a couple of lessons from the Greek parliament here? It's bananas. Right. And also, look, I don't mean to be all, well, just brew your coffee at home if you're not, if you don't have enough money. But like legitimately, if your only way to save $1 per day is to forego lunch, maybe you move into a one-story house. Yeah, your money is going other different places. All right, so now we get a scene where Cassie, the bitchy girl, has to complain about the fact that her mom made her invite Jenna

and she's not even allowed to give her a wedgie. This was the single moment in which I realized that other than us, the only people who have ever watched or ever will watch this movie are the grandparents of the teenage actors who are in it because it has that like Matlock style pacing of now here's a recap of what you just saw three times 90 seconds ago. If this movie had tried to sell us a reverse mortgage in the credits, I would not have been shocked.

I'm the actor that played the funds. Do you like soup right out of the can? And then we have to reinforce the same thing again by having the other two bully girls sit there and talk about what awesome gifts they're going to be able to buy for bully girl because they have credit cards. The credit card is so good. Also, during the scene, Cassie is literally sitting in front of a sign for anti-bullying money. I wanted an arrow to be pointing down at her. I'm sorry, but we cannot pass

lightly over this credit card scene because these two girls are like human-lizard hybrids in David Icke's fever dream imagination going, I too am real human hatchling. And as proof,

here's Telly Savalas is diners club card, which I am holding roughly the way Donald Trump holds a Bible. She's holding it so awkwardly that she gives up on putting it back in her pocket. She looks down at her pocket and is like the human hand can't get into a pocket. She just lowers it to her side like it's a sidearm there's no way from here to there yeah exactly all right so then we cut to cassie's

party oh my god at this fucking back it's it's the second saddest party in history i mean the first is kirk cameron alone with his Subway sandwiches on Twitter, which is the greatest upset party. I included that picture in the notes. Just in case Andrew and Noah weren't aware. And that is a delightful...

I mean, it made reviewing this movie 100% worth it. But there's at least color in the Kirk Cameron. This is, this is, and again, if we haven't made this Matlock levels of clear to you, every other line of dialogue has been,

you know, calling Cassie, the girlfriend of Richie rich, like the, and this party takes place in what I can only describe as the bare white closet in the basement of an abandoned mental institution. It's so blindingly bland. It's like the

fucking construct from The Matrix. It's the Zoom wedding. Right. All right. So, yeah. So, she's opening up her presents and one friend is like, oh, I got you the Hope Diamond. Hey, just what I always wanted. And then we get to Jenna's present now jenna's present is wrapped in tissue paper because

they can't afford wrapping paper tissue paper more more expensive than wrapping paper it would be so much more expensive to do that plus you'd need all the extra tape anyway yeah but so then she opens up the present from jenna and doesn't like it now you guys are telling me that that you could tell what the hell this was supposed to be yeah okay i would like to posit my guess andrew you go first it's a box orange box yep the box says welcome to beach cass, which is human reptilian hybrid for welcome to the beach, Cassie. Okay. It has a pot in there, so it's clearly got her ability to take care of plants, right?

And the fact that there's carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And then there's a drawing of something in there, probably inappropriate to show on the atmosphere. And then there's a drawing of something in there, probably inappropriate to show on the screen. That was how I decoded it. Eli? Also, so we need to point out that the box is a orange carton,

which is very important to me spiritually. Secondly, the picture, I believe, is the picture she drew of the overheard conversation of the girl at the beach. And finally, the pièce de résistanceistance the reason why mom has been starving herself not one but two

christian bookmarks was that wow i missed those entirely oh they're they're to the right of the drawing oh okay i i'm sure the audience can understand why i didn't exactly pick up on that yeah box of garbage is the right way right yes all right but so the next day though jenna walks out and remember that she lives right next door to her bully and she sees that jenna threw away her awesome present in garbage and left it sticking out so that she could be damn sure Jenna would see it. With a note that says, Jenna's present.

Now that was a realistic bully move there. Oh yeah, no, that was good. We'll give her some bully points for it, yeah. Alright, so Jenna comes into our house all sad. Mom says what's wrong before she even makes it in the door. It's the way that we greet eli by saying eli did you hurt yourself usually there's something wrong apparently

but this reaction of mom's is fantastic she's like oh honey don't worry about those bullies at school this is exactly her response don't worry about those bullies at school i just got fired from my job so we're to have to move in with grandma anyway. Look, Eric Altman and I really, really tried to get Billy West to come on right here to say, good news everyone.

Sadly, he just mumbled something about one cameo per customer. But he mumbled it as Zoidberg. Oh, there you go. But it was that level of like no time to celebrate we're we're all dead poor flat broken you're gonna have to leave the neighborhood and they do well yeah and and the fucked up thing is that she leaves this hanging right she says oh don't worry cheta you won't have to deal with those mean girls anymore dot dot dot i'm like mom what did you do all right moving

you're winning me back you're winning me back but then she's like i got fired from my job and we have to move in with grandma next week i'm like next you pay rent by the week there what the hell really wanted a flash cut to grandma bullying her what do you want for lunch today asshole why didn't you win the easiest presidential election in history you fucking

alright so then the next day at school the bully girls are talking about how awesome it is that Jenna had to move to the projects where she belongs. And apparently one of the girls found Jenna's obsessive Cassie worship notebook that she left laying around. Yeah. We're really glad that the filmmakers decided to, you know, tie that thread up in a bow. really glad that the filmmakers decided to you know tie that thread up in a bow because we learn that not only does jenna have pages of prayers about cassie but also has drawn like lots and lots of pictures like look this could easily be the prequel to single white female yeah

right it's some creepy fucking shit but then but cassie feels bad right because like she's like wow it kind of would have been awesome to be openly worshipped right missed out on some shit there so she goes and apologizes to her imagination yep she asks god for forgiveness note that she does not ask jenna for forgiveness no yeah the the 100 sincere lesson of this christian film is oh don't even for a second give the tiniest shit about clinically depressed teenage girls the real victim is jesus yes yes that's the only person she reconciles with and then the floor disappears from beneath our feet and we give up any pretense of sanity for the remainder of the film all right andrew i am counting on you you

have read the lawsuits from the trump team what the fuck is happening you're our only hope and i will tell you i had to watch this i realized in my notes it says three, I had to watch this. I realize in my notes it says three times. I had to watch this four times because my own notes were like descending into levels of madness. It's just all caps like, what the fuck is happening here? I finally think I have figured out what the fuck is happening here. Okay. And that is we flash forward 90 years in this like the floor dropping out right so and the reason is because we get an old woman's voice with the same bad stutter saying i hope my daughter is praying for me while i undergo the operation which by the way like none of that like

it's not set up in any way it's it's i to do, you know, Indiana Jones spelunking levels of deep dives to figure this out. And then and then Jenna dies. Right. And then shows up in heaven. Yep. And I think that this heaven or possibly hell, we'll get there. But I think that this heaven uses the Titanic rules. So when you die,

you wake up at the age you were in the movie. And so God is like, I remember. Because we all want to be 15 for eternity. Yeah, well, 15 and reliving for eternity the slightly confused

feelings you had about the popular girl neighbor. Oh yeah, that's a good way to... Good one, God. You got me on that. Because Cassie is there to greet her in heaven with a cake and no utensils.

Yes, she shows up and she's like, hi, i'm your high school bully and and and that at that point we all had the oh she must have been bad in those intervening years she wakes up in an itchy field with no adults around in her high school bully that didn't strike me as heaven but no she has a cake and a hug so i'm just saying as someone someone who was a high school bully, I've got a lot of cakes to hand out. Shit, I'm only on the Bs. Benson, right? Okay.

To be fair, look at yourself. Look at how you looked at this age. So much material. Here's your cake and no utensils. Enjoy really getting your dirty, stained hands into that all right yeah right heaven looked itchy um yeah well i mean with that like honestly after watching this convoluted weird ass descent i thought to myself were they going for full-length movie and just then realized that the phone was dying all right well that's it i guess the you know on that reminder that if you love jesus enough

asian teens will hug you when you die we're gonna wrap it up there andrew thanks so much for helping us out today man yeah thanks question mark all right well that does it for this segment but i'm sure a time will come again soon when a Christian will have very little to say. And that's the time that we'll be back for another God Awful Many. Before we get back to watching those no fly list videos on loop, I want to remind you that this time next week, Donald Trump will not be the president anymore. Just soak that shit right in for a second, huh? Oh, that feels good.

Anyway, last episode of the Trump presidency. Woo! Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptic Rat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday, and an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, God of Moose, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our

half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this show would have been too weak to make it to your feet if I neglected to thank Heath Enright, who, though not with us in body, was with us in spirit, which is a thing that doesn't exist, should be back next week. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for being with us in body, and knowing Eli,

I should also be thanking him for it just being his body and only his body. I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, though I'm going to refrain from any comments on her body. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best person, Eric. And normally, I would reserve this spot on the show for thanking

all the new patrons, and I promise, new patrons, I don't love you less than I love previous new patrons. I will thank you by name and compliment the shit out of you the way that you deserve next week. But this week I needed to reserve this space for the dude that got us a legitimate Billy West Farnsworth quote. In case you're unaware, that's the voice actor that actually did professor Farnsworth on history's

best cartoon show Futurama, as well as like half the other characters. So Eric, whose dick is so big it didn't leave room for other compliments in this week's outro, sincerely thank you. Thank the fuck out of you. You absolutely made my day. All that being said, giving us money also makes my day. And if you'd

like to do that, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash skatingadius, 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 skatingadius.com. And if you'd like to help, but money's expensive and Billy West Farnsworth quotes are already taken, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, or following at PIAATpod on Twitter. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres. Tim Robson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark,

who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats you can find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com Morgan we have a Billy West Farnsworth quote it's the greatest West Farnsworth quote. It's the greatest goddamn Farnsworth quote ever. And if I thought I could get away with it, it would be the only one we would ever use from now on.

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