The Scathing Atheist - 418: Everything You Need to Know Edition

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

In this week’s episode, Tennessee Republicans will be confused about how many vaginas they have, James Randi manages to debunk more liars without even being alive, and Joe Biden decides we were getting a little too “First Amendmenty.” --- 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/ --- Guest Links: Check out the Chat of the Wild podcast here: https://www.chatofthewild.com/ Check out the Freakin’ Sweet podcast here: https://anchor.fm/freakinsweet --- Headlines: Diatribe Headline: https://www.newsweek.com/how-pandemic-forces-leftists-atheists-make-peace-home-schooling-1569685 Biden restoring office of faith initiatives: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/02/15/joe-biden-is-restoring-the-white-house-faith-office-but-its-no-cause-for-alarm/ Christian Website Blames Ravi Zacharias’ Abuse on the “Ubiquity of Smartphones”: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/02/14/christian-website-blames-ravi-zacharias-abuse-on-the-ubiquity-of-smartphones/ Here’s How a Christian “Prophet” Made Some Hyper-Specific, Accurate Predictions: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/02/13/heres-how-a-christian-prophet-made-some-hyper-specific-accurate-predictions/ AEI survey shows 27% of white evangelicals still think Qanon is real: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/02/11/27-of-white-evangelicals-think-qanon-is-real/ The Most Popular Christian Album on iTunes is by a Gay Critic of Church Culture: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/02/11/the-most-popular-christian-album-on-itunes-is-by-a-gay-critic-of-church-culture/ QAnon Adherents Claim Trump Will Become President Again on March 4th: https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/hold-the-line-qanon-adherents-claim-trump-will-become-president-again-on-march-4/

Warning, the following podcast doesn't care what words you're offended by. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by electricity. Like, I don't mean to be so literal, but an awful lot of you got that shit on the mind today. Stay safe and stay warm. And now, The Scathing Atheist. I'm Ian from Frickin' Sweet, a Family Guy podcast. And even Peter Griffin knows that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. Monkeys.

It's Thursday. It's February 18th. And Jesus isn't the only one who'll let you finger his holes. I thought you'd do something about the Mars landing. Anyway, I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Ethan Wright. And from Joe Rogan's New Jersey.

How dare you? Cincinnati, Red State. And Redtown, Blue State. This is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Tennessee Republicans will be confused about how many vaginas they have. James Randi manages to debunk more liars without even being alive. And Joe Biden decides we were getting a little too First Amendment-y in here. But first, the diatribe. I guess it should come as no surprise to anybody that a guy in the fake education business

is hard at work mischaracterizing the opposition to fake education. But it still pisses me off. So yeah, some lying asshole that works for Dinesh D'Souza's old college of Christian bullshit takes issue with American atheists' position on education. But since American atheists' position on education is unassailable, he actually had to make up some different bullshit opinion that nobody on earth ever had, and then assign that to American atheists and then take issue with it, which would be par for the course if the motherfuckers at Newsweek hadn't printed it.

But since their standard these days seems to be has words in it, they did. So let me back up to the very important point that American atheists made back in January. Obviously, one of the most visible effects of the pandemic for parents, at least, are the repeated and often sporadic school closures. The efforts to make distance learning work on the fly have been a source of perpetual consternation across the country. But despite all the growing pains, it's actually working out really well for some students and some parents. So that, combined with lingering fears that a lot of folks aren't taking disease prevention seriously enough, has led many parents to give homeschooling a second look long term. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I was homeschooled for a big chunk of my childhood, and I learned a hell of a lot more in those years than I did in the ones where I had to wake up at 6 a.m. and listen to a tennis coach read an economics textbook at me. So when it's done right, homeschooling is a phenomenally good

way of squeezing knowledge into kids' heads. That being said, it's not done right all that often. So I was homeschooled because my parents recognized that my inability to refrain from telling people to fuck themselves was problematic with both my teachers and my peers, and they sensed it was getting in the way of my education, and they were right. Far more often, the impetus is finding out that schools are teaching that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. So homeschooling becomes a convenient off ramp for people who don't want their kids to know facts. Even worse, it's a convenient off ramp for physically abusive parents that don't want other people to see their kids on the regular. And that brings us around to American atheists. See, it's entirely possible to

preserve homeschooling as an option without opening up to these perversions. But since those perversions are so often the fucking point, a lot of states are hesitant to enact rules about mandatory testing, review of the home environment, and standardized curriculum requirements. After all, as soon as you do that, you're well on your way to forcing religious parents to admit that evolution is real. And both political parties are hesitant to do anything at all about that which is exactly why nick fish president of american atheists felt the need to bring it up see 38 of the 50 states have no requirements whatsoever about the qualifications instructors need to teach in home right so so if a homeschooler hires let's say a spelling a spelling teacher to come in, that teacher could be Eli. OK, 41 states have no requirement for evaluating student progress at all.

And just in case any laws might accidentally apply to homeschooling, households where one of the adults has been convicted of homicide, aggravated assault, rape or child abuse. And this is not a small problem. American Atheist Press release pointed to a 2018 study that showed 36 percent of kids being withdrawn from public schools were living in likely abusive families. withdrawn from public schools were living in likely abusive families. And that's to say nothing of the abuse done when you deprive a kid of the kind of education that they're going to need to take care of themselves in the modern world. In other words, it's exactly the kind of thing that you want a civil rights watchdog group like American Atheists raising a stink about. And that brings us to this story's antagonist, Paul Gladerader glader is an associate professor at king's college in new york that which is like a real college except with religion instead of information i mean you know

look it's one of america's 221 finest liberal arts schools but it's still obviously named to trick people into thinking you went to the one in london anyway so glader writes this whole stupid fucking piece about how much atheists hate homeschooling because I shit you not. We hate it when kids spend time with their fucking parents. That was his takeaway from all the statistics that American atheists offered up about, you know, physical abuse and lack of educational standards that we hate love. Here's his actual fucking line. Quote. that we hate love.

Here's his actual fucking line. Quote, It's unclear if these secularists are afraid of children having more time with their parents in general or only for those whose children are completely detached from public schools and whose parents offer religion within the curriculum. It's got to be one of those two things that we're pissed off about. You couldn't more clearly mischaracterize the objection if you interpreted the press release as Nick Fish claiming his penis was the emperor of mars but that didn't stop glader from claiming it and it didn't stop newsweek from promoting it and in his half-ass attempt to demonize something that

was gonna you know sound scary to his face he wound up signing his name to an article that indirectly attacked an effort to hold abusive parents accountable. Now, the problem, of course, is that a Christian advocate for homeschooling cannot admit that any of the concerns that American atheists raise are valid. Closing the loopholes that they're talking about also deprives Christians of the ability to hide information from their kids. And for people like him, that's the whole fucking point at the same time he can't admit that an organization called american atheists could have a valid moral concern that the church wasn't already addressing what with morality being under faith's sole jurisdiction

and look i'm not asking for fucking perfection here i'm asking for a motherfucker to refrain from an obvious and gross mischaracterization of another person's position that was clearly crafted to degrade their reputation and if i can't get that from all the christians i hope i could at least get it from the goddamn professors of journalism joining me for headlines tonight are the name and quest to my average wind speed of an unladen swallow. He then writing Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to provide some answers? I'm gripping it by the husk. Is that helpful?

I mean, to be fair, he's always doing that. I like to carry a coconut. It's like a towel. You never know when you're going to need it. Exactly. In our lead story tonight on Valentine's Day, Biden signed an executive order to reestablish the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Go fuck yourself. And it's a real testament to just how trapezoidal the Overton window is that several prominent atheists have gone out of their way to argue that this is no big deal. So let me be clear what's happening here. Biden is going out of his way

to reinstate a government program that gives taxpayer dollars to churches as long as they pinky swear not to use those dollars religiously. It is a textbook violation of the Establishment Clause that was started by George W. Bush. So it doesn't have some like storied long fucking tradition of hundreds of years or any goddamn thing and has absolutely no place in our federal government but after four years of now christians are allowed to eat everybody else's cheese type executive orders apparently atheists have been cowed into thinking that this is fine but they pinky promised noah with their pinky yeah okay just to be clear the first amendment says congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. So if these people really wanted to get technical, yeah, they can have an office that does nothing.

Like they can have the office, but none of the laws. But the entire point of the office is to meet with religious leaders who demand laws that respect an establishment of religion. So that's obviously not what's happening. Yeah. No, this box of shit does come with a very nice ribbon. Biden has already signaled that he'll be tapping Melissa Rogers to head up the office. She led it during Obama's second term and earned plaudits across the board from atheist organizations. She did a great job including humanist groups, inviting atheist voices into the dialogues, and pushing for policies that emphasize the ostensibly secular nature of the office and that's good it honestly is right if you got to have that office she's the one to run it and apparently josh dixon's going to be her deputy director too and

he's awesome he's a good guy he was instrumental in setting up humanists for biden and he certainly respects the wall of separation at least right but but if we got down to it right like if we could get melissa at lunch once she got over how terrible it is to watch me order she would say like yes that rabbi did come back from the dead and ascend to heaven well there's that yeah exactly i don't think she'd get over the order though no no you never get over that shouldn't invite my voice in when she was in charge of the obama thing i never got a call melissa so no i should also probably note that biden is like reinstating this office because it fell out of use under trump in favor of paula white's office of grift

and unconstitutional emoluments so like the box of shit is replacing a box of radioactive shit they put this really nice ribbon on it and this is all a step in the right direction. But still, a better bad organization isn't good. And having good leaders for a bad institution is still a net bad, especially since we can't do lifetime appointments or anything. And the other team was putting climate change deniers in charge of the EPA way before Trump ever showed up. Right.

And like all moderate religion, as soon as it's not moderate religions turned to be in charge again, all that will be there as a well-established and well-funded office of doing God stuff, which wasn't a good idea in the first place. Right. The only way this becomes slightly less unconstitutional

would be creating the Office of Secular Outreach, and all that office does is literally build a physical wall that blocks the door to the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Still unconstitutional, but that would be like slightly less bad. But we'll

get a cool guy. We'll get Hemet. Hemet will do it. He'll build the wall every morning. No, look, he'll throw some food'll build the wall every morning no no look yeah he'll throw some food over for him and shit yeah now look ultimately this is a terrible idea the only reason anyone in the atheist community thinks otherwise is because it's been around for a while when bush set this shit up the ffrf sued the fuck out of him mr chance at the scotus by one goddamn vote over it there have been several occasions where judges found that these funds were being misused for direct evangelism

and worse. Shocking. Shocking, I say. Right, right, yeah. From the beginning, it was used by the Bush administration to line the pockets of religious supporters. At best, it filters tax money

intended for social services through groups that deny the rights of LGBTQ people, oppose common sense birth control, and question the foundations of fucking science. And given that we're still watching religious groups use orphans

as leverage in their stand against gay rights, maybe this isn't the best time to increase our fucking reliance on them. Even if they can make it through a brunch without throwing holy water at us. There you go.

Exactly. And in Ravi Don't Pre preach news, Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias passed away in May of last year, and they barely finished digging the grave before his ministry confirmed what the rest of us have known for years, that he was a thieving, raping, cheating liar who lied about almost everything it's possible for a person to lie about. So much so that it stands out compared to the curve that we grade Christian apologists on. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

It's impressive almost. Yeah. So let's start with some of the less rapey lying. While he was alive, Zacharias claimed to hold three doctorate degrees. No, he didn't. Nope. He claimed to have been a visiting scholar at Cambridge University. Nope.

No, he wasn't. He described himself- We can check on these Nope. No, he wasn't. He described himself as... We can check on these things. Why are you just... How did he think this would go? He described himself as a senior research fellow at Oxford University. No, he wasn't. And my personal favorite, he claimed he was the chairman of the Department of Evangelism

and Contemporary Thought at Alliance Theological Seminary. No, he wasn't and that department doesn't exist wow and keep in mind this dude was a professional christian apologist he didn't manage to get degrees in nothing right he had to lie about the nothing he didn't have it's not like he had to lie about his doctorate in neuroscience. He could have showed up at Cambridge and been like, hey, how much is God real, right? And they'd have been like, yeah, man, right this fucking way.

He's lying about Alliance Theological Seminary. That's like pretending you have a degree from DeVry. I think you'll find this is my Trump University diploma. But it turns out that padding a resume made of nothing I think you'll find this is my Trump University diploma. I hang it. But it turns out that padding a resume made of nothing wasn't close to the worst stuff he did. So first off, it's incontrovertible at this point that he used tens of thousands of dollars that were donated to his ministry to pay massage therapists to fuck him. Which I want to point out is fine to do with your own money. Right? That's downright neighborly. It's not so much okay to

do with money that people give you for God stuff. Yeah, dude, you're supposed to do that metaphorically. That's the job. But way more importantly, he apparently forced himself or indecently propositioned a bunch of other women. And when they came forward about his behavior,

he told them they were putting, quote, millions of souls in danger, end quote, by stopping his work. Okay, how do religious leaders manage to sell that idea that they're the uniquely qualified person to just to hand you a Bible? I mean, like, they're like the track coaches of souls. Just run faster, be Christian, that's it, done.

Do they show people stats about their winning percentage? How does that work? Now, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries has come forward to say how very, very sorry and how very, very sad they are that this happened. And moving forward, they'll be doing both fuck all and nothing to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again.

But if you're wondering who's at fault for Zacharias' behavior, don't worry. Colin Hansen, editor-in-chief of the evangelical website The Gospel Coalition, has the answer. So Rabbi Zacharias. Ravi Zacharias is at fault. It was Ravi Zacharias, probably. It's cell phones. Because we failed to beat Ravi Zacharias to death with them sooner. Okay. So here's what Hanson had to say about the rapist who stole church money.

Quote, digital communications helped Zacharias in his abuse. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine this crime without the ubiquity of smartphones for taking and sharing sexual images, end quote. He's basically trying to argue his way out of a DUI by offering to turn state's evidence against Jim Beam with this one. Exactly. He continues, we used to think that the Billy Graham rule and windows on the pastor's door would protect victims. Did we? Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying statement. Now we know they're more likely to be targeted through text messages on burner phones. End quote. Yeah.

So now you need a window on that door and to not hire a rapist. Yep. You used to think that because you're a fucking idiot. Right. That's an idea that showed up in your brain pre-disproven. Yeah. Jesus. God damn it.

He concludes, sex is increasingly disembodied with the ubiquity of porn. Oh, it's also porn's fault. Yep. Yeah. Because it jumps us out of our body, apparently. Abuse follows the same pattern. Ministry policies for prevention and protection must fully account for this shift end quote so yeah just remember that when your colleague is

discovered to be a serial abuser don't swerve from your shitty agenda even for a second christianity don't swerve yeah right next up in headlines, magic is cheating. Okay. It's all cheating. They're all cheating. Either they double lifted two cards instead of one from the deck, or they looked you up on Facebook. That's the whole thing.

I'm pretty sure that's the whole thing. Eli, right? That's like pretty much the whole thing. I can neither confirm nor deny. Well, bottom line, they definitely didn't commune with your family member on the atemporal astral plane in order to predict a car accident that severely injured a child. And even if they did do that, that's super duper fucking evil if that person doesn't travel around the world preventing car accidents, which they never seem to do. Well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that exactly what I just said was the main theme in a recent episode of Sid Roth's uplifting liar show,

It's Supernatural. Spoiler, it was not magic. Okay, but I feel the need to come to the defense of Eli's chosen profession here. It's not always just hot reading and double lifts. Sometimes it's that there was one more ball than they were telling you about.

Okay. That's another thing. It's a complex craft. If we could just get to the story and stop pointing out which of our hobbies may be something that most children grow out of at age eight,

I would appreciate it. Okay. Well, we're not going to stop doing that. The episode in question has Sid Roth telling the story of a magical guest from last month named Chris Reed. And when I say guest, I mean liar. Back in January, Chris Reed did a mentalism act. And Sid Roth is now describing that as, quote, the most accurate prophecy I've ever heard with proof.

Which is honest, I guess. Yeah. But that was by accident. Well, yeah, the fact that all the other prophecies were tied at zero factors in. Yeah. Technically most, but it's weird how he said it there. So here's the so-called prophecy from Chris Reed. Quote, I just had a vision that came to me and I believe there's

going to be someone watching this broadcast and I believe this person lives in Kansas, okay? Is that okay with you guys? Yeah, no, that's fine. I'm good with that. Moving on now that it's okay. I think it's a woman and this woman's either son or grandson was involved in a car accident in the last two or three months. And there were some injuries that came about to this grandson. I believe this woman's name is Evelyn. And I believe she's around 70 or 71 years old. And I believe that there is a Joshua, perhaps a David.

Uh, I want to say a Janice. That's the end of the quote, end quote. And from there, Warlock Reed doesn't explain how Joshua David Janice is involved. He's just speculating that maybe there are those people somewhere. And from there, he just adds a mailing address for Evelyn's job at a daycare and closes with some bullshit about how almost dying in a car accident is a great way for that grandson to find God. To be clear, that's the God who almost killed that child in a car accident. Wait, wait, wait. There's more to the prophecy. I'm also seeing that she needs extra moves on Candy Crush.

So apparently this Evelyn person heard about the show somehow and she called in to confirm the magical prophecy about what had already happened oh a preface I got you okay yeah yeah not even prophecy a preface that's gross and just a few other important details. Hemant Mehta did a very casual Google to check on this, quote, prophecy. And he found that all of the following was freely available information before Warlock Reed taped his prediction. Evelyn liked It's Supernatural on Facebook. She posted about her grandson's car accident back in December. And Evelyn's age, job, and job location are all on the internet. You know,

just like everyone who's not an old-timey train hobo or a fucking spy. Which means, that means that they were like, hey, Chris, you got anything for your appearance this week? And he was like, yeah, give me one second. Scroll, scroll. Yeah, I got a prophecy.

God, you talked to me. So moral of the story, it's never magic. If it ever was magic, James Randi would have lost a million dollars so many times. In case anyone's not familiar with the late, great James Randi,

he was an ethical magician and professional skeptic who offered a million dollars to anyone who could demonstrate any kind of magic ability without him and his team catching you cheating using non-magical, obviously cheating stuff. This was available for 51 years and nobody ever won. Over a thousand people tried because I guess they thought they could trick James Randi or maybe some of them thought they were actually a wizard. I don't know. Nobody ever won.

Never happened. If any real wizard in the entire world between 1964 and 2015 wanted $1 million, it was available. So never magic. It's never magic.

And just even if it was somehow magic,, never magic. It's never magic. And just, even if it was somehow magic, God is a giant asshole who hands out the occasional vague prediction about horrible shit he's planning. Even if there's magic, it's definitely not, there's magic and you should give money to a church.

Right. Or to Sid Roth or to Chris Reid. Eli, don't do it. It's not even the same show, man. Just like that. Don't do it. Young husband, young husband. There it is.

And in QAnon Plus news tonight, the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing DC think tank, conducted a Jesus fucking Christ, just how stupid are we? Survey of American conservatives and the results were not encouraging. For example, more Republicans think Antifa was mostly responsible for the Capitol riots than believe Trump encouraged his supporters to do it, even though the latter is on tape. Are you serious?

More? Yeah. Yeah. on tape are you serious more yeah yeah oh more than half think that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and better than one in four believes the basic tenets of the q anon conspiracy theory and to the surprise of literally nobody those numbers just get worse when you hone in on white evangelicals as your subgroup yeah and, and just for the record, the basic tenet of QAnon, we're going to talk about QAnon a little bit more in a second, but the basic tenet is that Hillary Clinton and a bunch of Hollywood

are part of a satanic potluck group that fucks and eats children. That's the lowest level and most plausible part of QAnon. The most discerning and credulous members of QAnon just believe that thing and then stop. Yeah, right. Because, you know, everything else they come up with is unreasonable. Right, which is ridiculous because everyone knows you don't potluck your child sacrifices,

you get them through Uber Eats. Or Wayfair. Or Wayfair, exactly, yeah. Now, there's an important caveat that a lot of sources leave out when they're reporting on this survey. We still tend to think of Republican-Democrat as an approximately equal way of dividing up the conservative and liberal wings of our political system. But self-identified Democrats are about 25% larger as a group, at least. And the GOP has been shedding its sane members at a steady clip for about four straight years so the fact that a significant percentage of republicans

think something doesn't mean what it used to still people are not leaving their religion over donald trump so examining it from the perspective of evangelicals is to me a far more useful way of examining it than by political affiliation yeah and among evangelicals believing in hillary's cannibal pedophile fuck cult is by far one of their most reasonable beliefs it's physically possible that's true hillary babies eating and fucking are all things that exist that's like the top of their list hillary fucks and eats it's downright reasonable i tell you downright reasonable and look i get. It's downright reasonable. And look, I get that religious people believing nutty shit beyond the prerequisite

nutty shit that is their religion has become something of a background hum to us. Like, it should be terrifying, but it's so ubiquitous that we tend to forget about it. But there's a new nugget of terror that's hiding in these numbers, which an AEI spokesman pointed out. See, normally conspiracy theorists tend to be

socially isolated people they tend to not interact with a wide range of people which is kind of an essential component of believing easily disprovable shit right yeah helps yeah yeah but but but but less so now because the evangelical QAnon supporters did not exhibit that tendency which means they've reached this bullshit critical mass where they can be demonstrably wrong in large groups without fear of anyone ever correcting them. Terrifying snowball.

And the last time that happened to a conspiracy theory, it was granted constitutional protection and exempted from property tax. And now they own all of Utah. So everyone keep an eye out for our first QAnon Supreme Court Justice

any day now. Yeah, no shit. We might already have one. Yeah. It's not going to stay. Honestly, yeah. And in CMA pump news, an openly queer artist

is sitting in the number one spot on Christian music charts. And damn it, if she didn't manage it without getting caught saying the N-word. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like just making country music is real close to using the N-word all by itself. Yeah, it's in there. It's between the lines in most of those songs somewhere.

Yes, in spite of being married to a woman, most of her music being a critique of the church and earning that coveted iTunes explicit tag, Grace Baldrige, known professionally as Semler, snagged the number one spot on iTunes this week with her new album, Preacher's Kid. And Christians are losing their goddamn minds. Which in turn is making more people buy the album. which in turn is making more people buy the album. As one reporter put it,

this is creating a sort of GameStop effect, if you will, for the Christian music industry. Not what that is. Except we're pretty sure this one doesn't end with asshole billionaires making twice as much money as they lost. Yeah. This is not the GameStop effect unless, you know,

the Newsboys almost went bankrupt and then got bailed out by DeGarmo and Key. And then Evanescence made a billion dollars while a bunch of other LGBT Christian singers lost their life savings. So that's not, it's not the GameStop effect. New rule. You don't get to call anything the GameStop effect until you explain like, I don't know. You know what? You just don't get to say that.

There you go. No saying GameStop effect. Stop using that. Thank you. This rule also applies to the verb form GameStopping. All right. All right. I consider myself GameStopped.

Now, regular listeners will remember. You're interdicted. Call sideways. Call sideways. Now, regular listeners will remember Baldrige for her documentary series, State of Grace, Now, regular listeners will remember Baldrige for her documentary series, State of Grace, which covered topics like the dangers of gay conversion therapy, bigotry within the church, and never mind all that.

I found one person who says God loves me, so maybe we can keep our stupid beliefs after all. But she's definitely a force for good. And most importantly, her success makes Dave Dobin Meyer very, very angry. So by all means, get out there. Buy her stuff. Every time you do, an angel loses its wings. Well, we just cut the feathers off the bottom so they can't fly. Guys, Anna plays bluegrass. We can take country music back.

Thank you. I can see that you think, like, why the fuck would we want it? But sometimes it's worth taking something just so people who suck can't have it. Yeah. Yeah. And Anna would make it good. She would make it good. Yeah. And finally tonight,

QAnon is still a thing. It is still a thing. I don't know how, but it is. For years, they've been ugly crying about their latest conspiracy theory and making prophecies about the day of reckoning. But every single time somebody checks and it's fucking nothing. No professional journalists go on TV and they're like,

Hey, look, no basement. You can't fuck a child and eat it inside the nothing. Nope. Look, Hillary Clinton in the sunlight. There she is.

I personally tackled George Soros. I held him down and I took off his shoes. Look, human feet. It's human. Unbifurcated everything. But they could always still cling to that day of reckoning thing. They call it the storm when Donald Trump was going to round up all the satanic pedophile cannibals and have them arrested. But now that Trump is gone, they're just flailing. And their latest flail, their latest epic flail, they just moved the prophecy a little bit. The storm was supposed to be January 20th, Trump's last chance to do it. And that obviously didn't happen.

So now it's March 4th. Just because, I guess, they just wanted to bump it a little bit. And their new rallying cry is, hold the line, because Donald Trump is going to come back as president on March 4th. They're positive. Okay, guys, this was not a random date.

My birthday is the 5th. QAnon is getting me a fresh crop of their own tears for my birthday. And it's exactly what I asked for. Okay. Okay. QAnon, if you're listening, my birthday is in September and I would like one Jonestown.

Here's what Trump is going to become president again on march 4th and as you probably already assumed it's all about the district of columbia organic act of 1871 of course why else would the flags have gold fridge heath so according to the fremen on the land, sovereign citizen movement, and now also QAnon. We stopped being a country in 1871, and now we're technically a corporation. That's because Washington, D.C. became, quote, incorporated as the state of government for the United States in 1871 in that bill. And that can only mean corporation-like business. There's no other use of the word incorporated.

And the owner of the corporation, of course, is the Rothschild family because yes, they are. And also international bankers as a group, just all the bankers that aren't here in America, they also own it somehow.

And it's all official because the Rothschild family tricked that law writer guy in Congress in 1871 into capitalizing United States when he wrote the act, which means all the references to the name of our country

in that law were secretly describing the United States corporation. Yeah, and it's literally, it's also, they say, why American flags in federal courts have gold fringe. Because they're admirality flags

operating under maritime law in the land equivalent of international waters. Yep. According to people who think Hillary Clinton is fuck-eating babies under a pizza arcade that doesn't have a basement.

Right. And hey, thanks to our Supreme Court, corporations are people. So now we're a corporation and a country and a person. It's tricky. I know we can't abort us. I know that. Yep. So that's official.

We're a corporation owned by Jewish bankers. And therefore, every president since 1871 didn't really count. Because as we all know, corporations can't have presidents. That's not a word you would ever use for the corporation. Which means Joe Biden, he's just some guy. And technically, he's a prisoner in a foreign land called Washington, D.C., which is just a branch of USA LLC owned by the Rothschilds. Therefore. Yada, yada, yada.

Donald Trump on March 4th. And then some magic happens. Yeah, right. It makes me really sad that I actually do see how they got there to Mars and everything. Okay. But what I love about this is like Joe Biden isn't president because elections aren't valid because we're a company, not a country. But Donald Trump is president.

Right. Yes. Yes. Because election. Yep. Now, I think my favorite part of this is imagining their thought process as each of these prophecies fail. Some amount of these people are definitely thinking, all right, fuck, Trump was in on it. That was definitely Trump's part of it. But most of them are still on board and most of them are super religious. means they think god was totally planning to get around to stopping all the kids from getting fucked and eaten they thought god was going to do that back in january but then god procrastinated on that again more he's been doing that the whole time regardless they're all excited for march 4th

and so is the trump international hotel in d., where they literally jacked up all their prices for that week of March 4th to almost double. No! And people are booking it so they can be there when Trump de-incorporates the White House. Jesus Christ. Again, Meta, sorry. Do you think the people showing up on March 4th are making backup plans? You know, are they like, OK, so obviously the president will overtake the evil communist naval law. But just in case he doesn't, we're going to do a walking tour of the museum.

OK, guys, just in case. No, I think they're going to scramble to get that walking tour at the last second. I think you're right. They're going to go the next day. Yeah. So I know this all sounds pretty scary, but don't worry. We might be owned by the Rothschild family. But if they try to tell Joe Biden what to do, he'll just be like, no.

Yeah. And then he'll threaten to take all the incorporated land they own and he'll be like, no again? Yeah, it's pretty awkward when you secretly own shit. Even if this was true, that's nothing? No. Alright, well, while we try to sort out what E.E. Cummings

knew and when he knew it, we're going to close out the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. America LLC! And when we come back, we're going to introduce you to the reason I know so much about that silly shit Heath was just talking about well we've put it off

long enough okay that's not true we put it on us for as long as we could get away with but after reading the Bible the Quran

the Book of Mormon the Case for Christ and Mama Bear Apologetics, you'd think we'd have built up a tolerance to this shit, but no, every time we crack open a terrible book full of dangerous bullshit, it hurts like the first time. I feel like my dad was just

trying to help us out. He was like, they don't want to start that yet. You know what? I could delay this for a minute. So, and that's why I'm anything but excited to report to you this week we'll finally be cracking open david ike's delusionally titled everything you need to know but we're never told solid title solid yeah right right really succinct now i i shouldn't i can't say anything now i should point out that i'm the only one who actually bought a physical copy of

this book and I bought it used and I bring that up to A. Allay some of your moral concerns. B. Have a reason to point out that this book smells like old newspaper and it's like the cheapest printing you can possibly do. And C. I want to point out that he knows people want to read his

book without actually paying him for it because there's no fucking way this copy was used when I got it. There's no fucking way. So Gary Dam's selling he's got like a dummy account selling fake used fucking books for like a couple bucks less than he's selling the new one for yeah no i actually got it with a free copy of triggered by donald trump and a stick of dry bubble gum right it was really for the bubble gum that I went. I wanted to get the match. And for the record, I got my copy from archive.org,

which I'm pretty sure doesn't pay out residually, so I feel okay. All right, so this book has 18 chapters, and not counting the front matter of the postscript, 689 pages. That works out to an average chapter length of over 38 pages per chapter. That's a lot of David Icke to take all at once before you warm up. So rather than diving right into chapter one this week, we're going to kind of shit our way through this and limit ourselves to the introductory shit. But don't worry, it's not like we have to get all the way to the first chapter to get to some good crazy. The table of goddamn contents leads like a list of websites your conspiracy uncle tries to get you to go to

a couple examples the inversion terrified of truth saying the unsayable and perceptions of freedom and just for the record noah was able to make a list of crazy chapter titles just now without including mind control and shape-shifting royals that's chapter seven it is yeah right no i didn't pick the weirdest ones there i just picked the ones that sounded most like conspiracy theory websites and then he opens like a goddamn 14 year old quoting song lyrics that really spoke to him the first time he smoked weed that includes a quote from don mclean that is not from american pie yeah right there's never been a better intro quote that operates also as a warning to stop reading right the fuck now at the start of his book we're told this is

the 689 page equivalent of that guy at the bar yelling about how you have to really go deep into Chumbawamba's catalog. It's not just about Chumbawamba, assholes. The book. Yes. Well, not just that. The quote is from Vincent. His song about Vincent Van Gogh. The schizophrenic whose mental illness ended in his suicide.

Yes. And as though he's trying to seem sane compared to something, he opens with a couple of quotes that I initially assumed were just from Facebook comments that vaguely agreed with his Jew lizards are coming to eat us posts. What's that? It's impossible to Google me without hearing that I'm full of shit. Well,

that's because everyone but me is a liar. Yeah, right. The book is, that's the book you just described the thesis of the book basically more or less yeah there's also this first quote has a lot of like no you're the bigot kind of a theme to it yeah by this point more than a few people had figured out that lizard was code for jews or vice versa so So he's going to get out in front of us by letting us know he's not a bigot. He's crazy and a bigot.

Damn it. This was another quote, by the way. So like basically he started his book. A great philosopher once said, am I being detained? Dash, dash, guy with no mask at the front door of Walmart. All right, time to start my book. Great. Well, okay.

So you know you've nailed it in the title department. When you feel the need to include a quick explanation of what you were going for with that title before the book. Like, seriously, there's a mini section

at the beginning of this labeled title definition. There is. The first words that we get from the author of this book. Okay, the title page is confusing. Sorry about that. Just stay with me.

Let me explain the title. This book is technically everything you need to know ever, but it's not all just, but that you haven't been, it's not. It's a good title. He starts off explaining that all of the necessary information for human survival isn't actually in the book. So if you need to like inject insulin or something, you should talk to a professional. It's for spirit stuff.

It's everything you need to know for spirits. I just love the idea of some guy slamming this book down. Oh, now I need to buy a second book. False advertising. False advertising. book false advertising yeah false advertising he also says this book is a start not a finish which i read as don't expect this to make sense by the time you get to the end you have to keep going no he also says the book is written in layers and then he explains what he thinks that means he's like all right so i'll write something and then you know layers i follow it up with another unit of writing

right after pages pages it's right that's the word it's written in pages that's the term for word i put them in or sequential pages in order so enjoy my book now that you understand how that works and then we finally get to this introductory essay titled On the Road to Now with now in quotes as if he's hedging his temporal bets. Opens with an Isaac Asimov quote. I believe the quote was, please don't use my legacy to promote anti-scientific worldviews based on racism. Also, be careful when you get a blood transfusion. Isaac Asimov. He got AIDS from a blood transfusion, everyone.

I know. I know. So, yeah, thanks for it. It's funnier when you clarify. Topical. He got AIDS from a blood transfusion, everyone. I know, I know. Thanks for... It's funnier when you clarify. Topical. Even funnier. Okay, it's not funny. Fine, it's not funny.

It's a little funny. All right, so the book literally begins with an, I know you are, but what am I about whether he's crazy or the rest of the world is? Everyone always makes fun of me, but as it turns out, they are the ones who are the joking, laugh,

you are. That's the beginning. He literally started with you are. Yes, exactly. Premise one, you are. He explains that he's so extra sane that he's now looped back around to where it looks insane to normies yeah and the whole time i'm reading this i'm like guys i didn't

spend any time at all in outbreak a crisis of faith arguing that i'm not bat shit crazy was that a mistake you think clearly i mean nobody reading that book was in the airport in ireland so i think you're fine no that was a perfectly sane reaction to the situation. No. So he explains that our belief that he's insane is just based on what other people in control want us to think that sanity is. And I'm like, nah,

man, mine is based on the way you constructed that sentence. And he's so poetic in this section. Do they call me mad because I see past the veil of their lies? No, it's the lizard thing. Okay. All right. I get it.

I see how you'd get there. Exact quote. There are none so crazy as those who wrongly believe they're sane. And from there, he goes on to say, and another thing about how sane I am, it can safely be said that rumors of my madness were exaggerated. You can say that, like, you won't get in trouble if you say it's safe to say that. And hey, fun fact, if you've written more than two sentences about how sane you are in your book, you're wrong. Is it funny? Yep.

Universally correct. So yeah, so he explains how humans can't handle considering stuff outside of their belief system, which must be why we hate movies, video games, stories, novels, and drugs so much.

And then he goes, Lao Tzu says, care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. And I'm like, oh, so you just spent a 44 line rambling paragraph telling us how insane you aren't because you don't care about our approval.

Gotcha. Got it. And again, for context, he's a fucking sports announcer, right? Imagine reading a book by Curt Schilling that began, in the world of the blind, I walk with silence. Lao Tzu once said, just start your fucking book, man. Cryptic.

I wonder what he meant by that. Anyway, before we get going with my book, what's the deal with smartphones, right? Oh, God, yes. Yes, so he gets some biographical material that takes zero seconds to get to the old man back when I was your age. But he says it as a compliment to himself. He says, quote, Yeah, life was simpler then.

And you had more time to think, ponder and daydream. My default state and quote, like, that's a good thing. Dude, you're writing a book, not trying to get me to fucking match with you on Tinder. dude you're writing a book not trying to get me to fucking match with you on tinder and then the green party chose him as a national speaker for him which lines up nicely with the kind of judgment that we get out of our green party here the green party we seem stupid but we're actually dangerous and again he's like trying to act like there's a mystical force behind the fact that every time he'd lose one job, he would get another one. Right.

He says doors were synchronistically opening and closing. Like what was going on? I had no idea. Synchronous. I mean, that's all that doors do. He's just describing existence in the time dimension as doors mystically doing the thing they do. Yeah, he's blown away that weeks after he joined the Green Party, they asked him to be a speaker for them,

but he was a famous TV presenter. Right. If Nicole Kidman started working at my magic show, I'd mention him. Yeah, exactly. Put her right out front. And then he explains how it was actually him that broke up with television, not the other way around.

I don't know what you've heard. The quote is, I am tired of the television world, which I found vacuous and full of its own self-importance. End quote. Anyway, back to my book about how I know all the secrets of the universe. And then, okay,

he describes what I'm pretty sure as a layman are classic symptoms of schizophrenia. But since it's untreated, he thinks he's telling us about a mysterious presence that actually does accompany him into all the empty rooms he goes into. Yeah, he was in an empty room and he was like, I'm sure there's some kind of presence here. And that's when I said, if there's anybody here,

please contact me. Literally next sentence in the book. So a few days later, I went to a bookstore. So he just stood there waiting in silence for three days, presumably in that area of Durham, being like,

this is going to happen. It's getting awkward now, but now if I abandon it, I feel like right when I leave. Or, the metaphysical forces of the universe choked in the moment. Is anyone there? And they were like, oh,

fuck, hats. Never mind. We'll get them in the bookstore. We'll get them in the bookstore. Yeah, and then he describes like fits of catatonia and hearing voices in his head which could only mean not schizophrenia to him apparently and that's when he saw a psychic and she was a very accurate so you would be surprised how accurate he's not just a sucker she knew things yes just for the, she was healing his arthritis psychically. He went to a psychic arthritis healer. Yep.

So he's laying down on a bench and she's bending his knee and he's like, hey, hey, hey. So in terms of my knee, any chance there's an ancient Chinese guy with a message for me from the astral plane? And she was like, yep, definitely. Sure. The fuck is. So just, you know,

come back for a few more sessions and I'll tell you that in pieces. All right. Yeah. Right. A little bit at a time. Yeah. So then he goes into this long string of complimentary prophecies that he bought from that psychic,

right? The person being paid to cater to his ego game, all about how he's extra magical and spiritual and and he's been chosen because he's the most courageous of all the people and then all of the prophecies of things he was entirely in control of like self-publishing a certain number of books and quitting his job came true all of those ones came true yeah but uh also part of the prophecy, there will be a different kind of flying machine,

very different from the aircraft of today. So I guess that was just a misdirect from the ancient Chinese guy. Right, well, yeah. So eventually they're probably... Ancient Chinese guy didn't say it had to work and there have been different kinds of flying machines. And also part of that prophecy,

time will have no meaning except for the hourly rate from me, the psychic and what it feels like to read this book. We haven't even gotten to the book yet. And then he tells us about

his sweet trip to Peru. Yes, the Peru where legitimate spirit stuff happens because brown people and mountains. Yes. And countless coincidences and synchronicities, Noah, also. The hotel could accommodate a late checkout, as it turned out. Coincidence? I don't think so, Noah. Interesting.

At this point, I just wrote, oh, my God, I'm reading about David Icke's semester abroad. Where did I go wrong? Oh, God. So he starts telling this story and nothing happens in the goddamn story. It's so amazing. But he walked up a hill, but, you know, profoundly. Yep. And then information was drilled into his brain.

And also his ass? Yeah. I think. Okay, that's what he's saying about another flow coming the other way, right? He was taking it from both ends. That would make a lot of sense. So, yeah, he stood there for some amount of time, and then it rained on him. He tries to sell this as this big life-changing occurrence.

But what really happened is he walked up a hill and then he stood there until he started getting all wet. And then he went back to the car. And then he went back. It's supposed to be this magical story. But in reality, he's just a giant asshole to a taxi driver. Yes, right. That is what that story is. He makes this Peruvian taxi driver pull over because of voices in his head.

Then he walks up this little hill, stands there for an hour while this taxi guy's just like, what is happening? He gets soaked by the rain. Also, I'm pretty sure struck by lightning is what actually happened. That's what he seems to be describing, but not knowing what happened. He got struck by lightning. He's soaked by the rain. And then he just walks back to the taxi and gets in the back seat and gets it all fucking wet and then made the guy drive him a few more hours making weird noises of somebody who just got struck by lightning and smelling like seared flesh the whole time okay

but the best part of this story is figure three oh Oh, yes. Which is a photo of him recreating this momentous moment. But it's just a photo of him standing in a field with his arms in the air like an asshole. Yeah, right. Figure three. I look like a dumbass. Why is that? He thought we needed a visual aid of holding arms up. Yes, but Peruvianly.

Yeah. All right. So then he went home now all the way crazy. visual aid of holding arms up. Yes, but Peruvianly, yeah. Alright, so then he went home, now all the way crazy, and he explains that it took him a while to process all of this new shit that's just been laid on him in Peru, which is why the stuff that he says now is irreconcilable with the stuff that he started saying back in the early 90s. Yeah, this is when he very

publicly made an idiot of himself on national television. But don't worry, everyone. It's not because he's a jackass who couldn't pull off. I'm going to wear green forever. It's because his brain was loading the mystical truths of the universe like a PlayStation 2. Yeah, I got to mention this. When he did that infamous TV appearance, the first thing that happens is he walks out on stage, tries to eat a cookie and chokes so badly,

almost to death before describing himself as God. It's so good. But he explains this downfall as a quote, incredible synchronistic adventure, end quote. And the synchronicity he's talking about is that like, just when he would need to know something, he would like go find a book or a video about it. It's like he was living in some kind of information age or something.

I describe my adventure as synchronistic. All the now stuff just keeps lining up. That's like one thing. Constantly over and over. Doors opening, closing. Now, now, now. It's like right on and then it's another thing. Constantly over and over. Doors opening, closing. Now, now, now, now. It's like right on. Synchronistically.

So yeah, I guess time, well, yeah, so yeah, time still has meaning. Well, there's that, yeah. And the wormhole airplane isn't happening. Ooh, turquoise.

I'm the godhead. Yeah, he might as well be stealing sections of this book from the DSM-IV at this point. might as well be stealing sections of this book from the DSM-IV at this point. If ever there was a section of this book that was going to make me feel bad for David Icke, it's this one.

Yeah, yeah, it'll come back. And then he tackles the, but if you've known this shit this long, why didn't everything in this book come up in any of your previous 23 self-published 700-page books, right? Weird. And the answer is that either he's super, super dumb or his magical muse is so bad at communicating

that 30 years on, he's still trying to figure out what the fuck they were talking about in Peru. Yeah, and his evidence that the prophecies are still working is that sometimes I say just stupid shit that makes no sense, which is exactly what they told me would happen. That's literally true, though. That's really what he said. It's not the phrasing, but that's literally what he said.

Also confirming the prophecy, Jewish bankers are controlling the world. I think we can all agree that that's happening. Well, it's this great meta-aware moment for the book, right? Because he's like, first, I talked about the connected powerful families of the world, but people can Google that shit now. And then I was like, okay, it's in space, but fuck if you can't Google that too. I mean, there's a whole

page on Google. So now I'm on reality isn't real. Kind of running out of obscurity, everyone. He also, at one point, admits that his brain physically hurts when he takes in new knowledge like that was a point in his favor so yeah my face hurts like all the time but uh yeah i'm getting used to it ah okay that was a big one that was me that was a big face did i start my book yet? Are we in the book?

See, now I want to start texting him fun facts just to make David Icke suffer. Yeah, right, right. There you go. Leonardo DiCaprio got his start in a cereal commercial. And then he does this uplifting wrap up about how like, you know, he raised himself up from moderately successful BBC two announcer to

self-published crazy person and you could too that's right everyone if you're white and rich you can become slightly richer and racist yeah at any moment you can and then he closes his intro by insisting that there's more to me than just bad shit guy in turquoise that everybody laughed at this is the actual quote. What happened to that nutter who people said had gone mad? How come so many are now listening to what he says? What? Why? How come?

I didn't quit and never will. That's how come. Ow! Okay, that was the last one. Start chapter one now. 700 pages of that. Okay, well was the last one. All right, start chapter one now. 700 pages of that. Okay, well, assuming we can't get 15 minutes out of the chapter title in the opening quote, it looks like we're actually going to have to start reading the book proper

on next month's installment of God Awful Books. The End back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, God of Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation D, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this show wouldn't show up as a show if I didn't show proper respect for Heath Enright for being unrivaled, Lucinda Lusions for being unequaled,

and Eli Posney for being unhinged, but, you know, in a good way. I also need to thank Ian from Freak and Sweet for this week's Farnsworth quote and Jeremy from Chat of the Wild for providing last week's. And now I want to see Peter Griffin fight a Lionel. God damn it.

Anyway, you'll find links to both of their shows if you need more Family Guy or Legend of Zelda in your life. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's and last week's best people. Josh, David, Dave, Jacob, Kendall, and Debra, Godless, Heathen, Tolkien, Geek, Samuel, Eric, Taylor, Mellis, Son, Soft, Whisper, Colin, Big Black Cockatoo, Sir Arcane, Jimmy, Flynn, Son, Joshua, Brunesson,ack, Stefan, Maggie, Axe Telestration, and Marcy, who are so hot, Lava wears protective gear when they're nearby.

Together, these 28 terrifically tawdry talents tallied a toad for the telling of truth this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the homepage at skatingatheist.com. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robertson, Handels of Social Media, and 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 doubts,

register to find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. No, it should be subliminal. We should just have him like super, super low in the background. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.