The Scathing Atheist - 436: Cracker Jack Edition

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

In this week’s episode, the Supreme Court rules that there are separate but equal kinds of parents, Ted Cruz performs the saddest one man show in the history of theater, and we’ll tell you just how bullshit some bullshit is. --- 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: Supreme Court rules in favor of anti-gay Catholic foster care agency: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/17/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-anti-gay-catholic-foster-care-agency/ US bishops move forward with plan to stop Joe Biden from receiving communion: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/18/u-s-bishops-move-forward-with-plan-to-stop-joe-biden-from-receiving-communion/ https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/06/18/aoc-communion-bishops-biden-240893 Florida will now force kids to observe a one minute moment of silence in school: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/16/florida-will-now-force-kids-to-observe-a-1-minute-moment-of-silence-in-school/ GOP lawmaker who made $5500 "donation" to hate preacher says it was a mistake: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/15/gop-lawmaker-who-made-5500-donation-to-hate-preacher-says-it-was-a-mistake/ MAGA guy mad a slightly less assholish guy elected as SBC leader so the election was rigged: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/21/maga-activist-suggests-fraud-after-his-guy-loses-southern-baptist-election/ What exactly is Ted Cruz trying to do in this bizarre flag video?: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/17/what-exactly-is-ted-cruz-trying-to-do-in-this-bizarre-flag-video/

Warning, this podcast is known to contain fuck by the state of California. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by IPVanish, Stamps.com, Allbirds, and by Tuna Sandwiches from Subway Sandwiches. You paid $5, never mind what the fuck it is. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hello, fellow secularists. It is I, Floon Poff, crown prince of Ethusbania, here to tell you that we did, in fact, magically evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday.

It's June 24th. And it's midsummer. No, it's not. Okay, no it's not. But feel free to murder your shitty boyfriend anyway. Absolutely. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm it's not. Okay. No, it's not. But feel free to murder your shitty boyfriend anyway. Absolutely. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. Don't really murder. That was a joke. And from Geraldo

Rivera's New Jersey and Geraldo Rivera's Ohio, this is the Scathing Atheist. He's living to... Oh, this week's episode. The Supreme Court rules that there are separate but equal kinds of parents. Ted Cruz performs the saddest one-man show in the history of theater. And we'll tell you just how bullshit some bullshit is.

But first, the Aliatribe. No, new atheism has not merged with the far right. And I just want to say, if you're thinking to yourself, what? Of course it hasn't merged with the far right. What the fuck are you talking about? I envy your inbox because as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, someone has once again written an article making just that claim in Salon Magazine. And no less than 30 people emailed us about it. So rather than talking about something fun, once again, I got to explain just how wrong and insulting that headline is.

So let's begin with the term new atheism. Now, the author of the article is defining new atheism as those four guys who wrote books that were relatively popular in 2004. And also a few jerks who had nothing to do with the atheist movement, but they prove his points to them too. And even if you accept that bullshit definition, jerks who had nothing to do with the atheist movement, but they prove his points to them too. And even if you accept that bullshit definition, no, they haven't merged with the alt-right. Look, a few of them are assholes, wrong about important questions of social justice for sure,

but they haven't merged with the far-right. And that's the fucking headline, merged with the far-right. You know who's merged with the far right? Evangelical Christians. Those assholes in Charlottesville chanting Jews will not replace us. Christians. Politicians writing bills and making it illegal to teach critical race theory, stripping people of voting rights, defending the rights of cops to murder unarmed black men in the street. Christians, the Braveheart cosplayers who tried to overthrow the government in January, so Christian that they Facebook-lived their prayer circle to Jesus. That's who the far right are, and that's what they're doing in this country. You don't get to scale the meaning of far right back to interviewed a racist on their podcast when it's convenient for your dialogue.

And it's not a defense of those authors to point that out. It's a defense of the English language. Most people who read that article aren't going to read the words new atheists and think of four authors and a couple of jerks. They're going to think of atheists who are new. Again, because, you know, of how words work. Like if I said new music these days sucks or I don't enjoy any new movies, would you intuit that I meant the four best-selling CDs of 2004? Of course not. You'd think I meant the movie makers of today in general. And since that's the claim that a lot of people are going to read, let's break that one down. Is the new atheist movement merged with the far right? Let's start at home.

Maybe the author means podcasters. So let me check out the top of the atheist charts for that one. Nope, that's Hemet, Tom and Cecil, Seth, Thomas, us, and Oh No Ross and Carrie. So unless Carrie went too deep in a KKK meeting and never came back, no. And yes, Sam Harris has a podcast with an audience that dwarfs ours. But you notice that it's not a podcast about atheism. It's not in the atheism category. And he doesn't talk about atheism on it.

And that's not a coincidence because when Sam did start talking out of his ass, the atheist community is where his pushback came from. He turned to the Joe Rogan explicitly not skeptical alpha brain pill taking audience for a reason, because the atheist community wouldn't have him anymore. So maybe he means convention organizers, right? That would be a fairly convincing argument if atheist conventions were populated by far-right speakers and advocates. Well, luckily for me, we've been to the largest atheist conventions in the world over the last couple of years, so let's run through that list. AA Con, no. Nano Con, no. Skeptic Con, mm-mm. Oh, maybe the author means the largest skeptical convention in the world, QED, run by our dear friends Marsh and Andy, who work countless hours for less pay than they could make selling hot peanuts on the streets of London to ensure that their convention is safe and welcoming.

Who put in countless safety measures to make people feel comfortable and loved. Sure as fuck ain't them. Are you picking up why I'm pissed off yet? Look, these people might not be who the author of the article meant, but it's who they fucking smeared and they don't deserve it. Maybe it's the blogs, Hemant again, PZ Myers, or the activists, Nick Fish, Jeff Blackwell, Alison Gill, Andrew Seidel. No, no, no, and no. So who does that leave us? Well, that leaves us you, doesn't it? That's the only other kind of new atheist I can think of, atheists as a demographic.

But we've got some data on you. It's actually kind of our job to report on this kind of thing. And survey after survey after study says that you tend to be among, if not the most liberal accepting pro-gay marriage, pro-trans rights, religious demographic. You're the least likely to believe in far-right conspiracy theories. Hell, you're even least likely to watch Fox News. So what the fuck is this author talking about? Assholes on Twitter? I mean, can you think of any other social justice movement that we judge on the merit of its YouTubers, let alone a religious denomination?

Hello, Salon Magazine? Hold the presses. Yes, the article's called How Jews Merged with the Far Right because Ben Shapiro exists. Because social justice is what atheism is. I mean, yes, it is also the answer to the world's easiest philosophical question. And it's a religious demographic because everybody's got to fill in a bubble on the survey. But once you got that out of the way, the mission of atheism as a movement is social justice. It's stopping evil at its root. It's taking away where it gets all its fucking money because religion is where the far right actually gets its money religion is how they get their laws passed

religion is what's merged with the far right in effect so obvious that if the title of that article had been religion has merged with the far right the body of the article would have had to have been, duh. Because you know what this article is? It's an excuse. It's an excuse to sit back and do nothing till the perfect movement comes along. Then, then when there are no assholes, when there are no real disagreements, that's when I'm really going to roll up my sleeves and do something. You guys keep fighting the good fight. Keep trying to fight back the tide of theocracy. I'll be here in the back telling everyone what assholes you are, but just as soon as the movement's perfect, count me in. So why am I mentioning it? Why not just ignore it and let it go away? Because non-existent God knows it will. Well, because I believe in this movement. I'm honored to be a

part of it, however small. And look, I know we're not a big part. I know that I won't even be a footnote in the history of the atheist movement, but I've been lucky enough to witness parts of it when the history books look back on the people who did lead our movement. At the very least, I'll be able to say, hey, I was there. I even got to do the diatribe while they were getting their dental work done. I did my best to help. I cheered as loud as I could from the cheap seats. And I won't let that be ruined by so-called critics from the outside any more than I'll let it be defined by the jerks on the inside.

I hope you won't either.'re talking about you jesus joining me for headlines tonight is the oscar to my felix eli bosnick eli are you ready to severely trigger my ocd i guess uh sure there go. Okay. I don't even know why I ask. For the listeners at home, Eli just put a comment in our Google document. So now everything is aligned to the left and not centered. It won't center and I also hate him. Yeah, and it doesn't go back until I delete

my comments. I need you to delete it, please, right now? No, do the podcast. Okay, well, while I wrestle his laptop out of his hands, we're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsor, IPVanish. All right, Eli, you ready to do the IPVanish ad? I sure am,

Heath. I've been waiting for years for a product like this one to sponsor our show. Okay, great. Love the enthusiasm. So, go for it. All right. Hey, podcast listener, do you love urine-based pranks but hate the drag of covering up your crimes? Well, then check out IPVanish. No, no, no.

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IPVanish isn't a special solvent that makes it easier to clean urine-based pranks? Nope. No, it is not. It is not any of that. Oh, man. I bought so much urine online, though, Heath. I spent so much money. Well, good luck with that. I don't know. Keep the receipt. So for listeners of the show,

IPVanish is offering an incredible 65% off, just $3.49 for the first month or $31.49 for the year. I mean, that sounds like a great price, Heath, but I went into debt for the amount of urine I bought. I mean, I made promises I cannot keep for that urine. All right, so just go to IPVanish.com slash scathing and claim your 65% savings. They have plans starting at just $3.49 or $31.49 a year.

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Remember, it's IPVanish.com slash scathing to get the deal and start protecting yourself online. IPVanish. It has nothing to do with urine, just good internet service. I gotta make a call. Okay, yeah, make a call. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight,

Heath bit me. I did. He did, but now the page is centered again, so, you know, you decide, Listerister it is centered also in our co-lead story tonight the supreme court of the united states ruled unanimously last week that not only can catholic foster care agencies deny kids to gay people it's illegal for the city of philadelphia to deny them money as a result you have have to give them money, especially if you live in Philadelphia.

But just in general, the Constitution and the laws as interpreted by the highest court in the land say that you personally owe bigots money. In a new specific way that you weren't already paying for. Yeah, exactly. This is a new one for you.

So here's the story on this. In 2018, the city of Philadelphia stopped funding a group called Catholic Social Services, a.k.a. CSS, for refusing to place foster children in the homes of gay couples because, you know, they want kids to have homes and stuff, just not as much as they hate gay people. That's their policy. So Philadelphia rightly stopped giving them public funds to do that. Yeah, they provide homes for kids where there's a nurturing environment of cishet penis vagina sex in the master bedroom. Homeless kids really need that.

That's a really important thing for homeless kids. They have to check that box. they have to check that box. Yeah. So in response, CSS said that they weren't actually violating the city's anti-discrimination clause because they would refer gay couples elsewhere, which the city's attorney rightly pointed out was bullshit, saying, quote, if one of the agencies had a sign saying no Baptists allowed, it would be cold comfort to those folks who say, oh, you could just go somewhere else, end quote. The attorney also pointed out that the exact same argument could be made to agencies that wanted to refuse service

to interracial couples as well, or hey, even just couples with different religions. Yeah, or couples who might work on Saturday or like their neighbor's yard better or have tri-blend t-shirts. There's everything. There's so many dumb things. Yeah, all those valid. So, as I said, the Supreme Court, the highest legal authority in our nation, thought long and hard about those arguments and ruled base.

I'm on base. No backsies. Really? You're on base? Just, okay, quick question about i'm on base no backsies really you're on base just okay quick question about base when we said no back okay yeah you're the supreme court yep we're the supreme court so yeah as in the masterpiece cake shop and other similar decisions since the court got filled with the bad guys from handmaid's tale, in one case literally, the Supreme Court ruled on behalf of theocracy on a technicality, saying that the anti-discrimination laws of the city weren't applicable because, quote, section 3.21 also permits exceptions to this requirement at the sole discretion of the commissioner this inclusion of a mechanism for entirely discretionary exemptions renders the non-discrimination provision not generally applicable end quote which in my humble not legal expert opinion translates roughly to circle circle dot dot now i have a bigot shot i'm on base yeah they're saying that if you have a rule that allows case by case exceptions, no,

you don't, you don't have a rule. Yep. That's insane. By that logic, the civil rights act of 1964 doesn't count now. Okay. I'm sure there's some bullshit nerd reason,

law reason, whatever about how it's different than that, but no, it's not just basic logic. That's crazy. Yeah. Also Heath, don't give them ideas about

the civil rights act yeah we might have to beat that just in case they're listening but it actually gets worse so even though the supreme court ruled unanimously in favor of the bigots the bigotier wing of the court wasn't happy because it only applied to this case and didn't permanently enshrine into law that gay people aren't people yeah there's like an escalating series of concurrences that are more and more bigoted to be like this is okay we we said yes but it should have been way more bigoted this is bullshit yes that really happened and they're saying that the exception clause that's decided by the commissioner would be unfairly targeting Catholic groups if some other group got that exception. But the whole issue is about bigotry and the rule targets bigots. If your thing got targeted, that's your fault because you're a bigot. It also targets atheist bigots theoretically too.

And if your thing needed an exception to the anti-bigot law, no. No. We should say no. We should not have those. Yep. So Philadelphia can just get rid of the exception and they'd have a functional anti-bigot rule again but that just sets up another supreme court case that would entirely overturn employment division versus smith and pretty much cancel all church state separation just a reminder the champion of secular government

who wrote the smith opinion was antonine. Our current Supreme Court has six, possibly seven people who think Antonin Scalia was too secular. That's where we are. So one of those people is fellow New Jerseyite Samuel Alino, who in his lengthy dissent said, quote, this decision might as well be written on the dissolving paper sold in magic shops. First of all, not a thing, Sammy. Stay in your fucking lane.

He continues, quote, what does he think's happening there? All right. The paper is dissolving into air and disappearing. All right. Now, if you'll just take that piece of paper and place it in this bowl of water, magic. Yeah.

He continues, the city has been adamant about pressuring CSS to give in. And if the city wants to get around today's decision, it can simply eliminate the never used exemption power. If it does that, then voila, today's decision will vanish and the parties will be back

where they started end quote so good news thank you justice alito all right yeah i see the rule there you have a rule that says non-slip shoes required for safety but uh that commissioner let in a guy with no feet so now you have to pay for a barefoot neo-Nazi parade. That's the law. That's the law now. Yep. You can start banning amputees if you want. But then we're going to have a Supreme Court case that sets up a cabinet department of neo-Nazi parades with a big budget.

What the fuck is happening? Yeah. Yes. He continued, quote, Yes, he continued, quote, today's decision will be of no help in other cases involving the exclusion of faith based foster care and adoption agencies, unless by some chance the relevant laws contain the same glitch as the Philadelphia contractual provision on which the majority's decision hangs. The decision will be even less significant in all the other important religious liberty cases that are bubbling up. After receiving more than 2,500 pages of briefing, and after more than half a year of post-argument cogitation, the court has emitted a wisp of a decision that leaves religious liberty in a confused and vulnerable state. Disappeared your paper. Yeah, exactly. Those who count on

this court to stand up for the first amendment have every right to be disappointed as am i end quote yeah okay translation dear bigot cities make sure you put this little bigot glitch in your rules and you don't have to say the quiet part out loud like i am right now as a supreme Court justice. Oh, you know what? Or don't. And we'll set up that Department of Neo-Nazi parades. Either way. Enjoy.

So, yeah. Justice Alito and the rest of the Legion of Doom are mad that they can't rename the country Jesusvania this time. But just to be clear, it's not for lack of trying. And I can't emphasize this enough. They just haven't gotten to do that

yet but they are willing to write lengthy and heavily cited dissents about why they should be able to do that so keep an eye out for it or you should have voted for hillary clinton and in eucharist control news fantastic keep. Keep that right. Fantastic. The U.S. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had their annual spring meeting last week, and their big accomplishment was voting to withhold magical

crackers from Joe Biden for spite. That's what they did. Yep. That was their job last week. Apparently everything else is going great for them. No internal problems with catholicism really good hr team just all around crushing it so they decided to spend a bunch of time denying communion to any catholics who don't agree with their anti-choice policy translation aoc and joe biden are fucking up our whole christian right thing the baptists are making

fun of us they're like hey d up get D up, get your shit together, get your house together. So we are taking away the crackers from all the pro-choice politicians. Yeah. Just think, Mark, think if they took your cracker power seriously, they wouldn't be pro-choice. Come on, man. Here's the thing you got to remember about Catholic leadership. They're rapists. They're cowards. Okay. Yes, they're cowards and also terrible at their jobs. So they failed at their own stupid spite thing. What actually happened is they voted in favor of eventually refusing crackers to Joe Biden. But not even really that. They voted in favor of eventually drafting a document that would refuse the crack.

Well, you know what? Still not really. They voted in favor of eventually writing a strongly worded letter and actually a medium worded letter that says, oh, we'd really appreciate it if our regional managers would follow a very loose guideline with no penalties about refusing crackers to anyone who doesn't believe in our anti-abortion stance, which does not even include Joe Biden, who is openly against abortion, but just not as a public policy. Yeah. And and they're not making their announcement about their letter, not letter about their policy, not policy until right before midterms. You know, exactly as the Supreme Court is planning to overturn Roe versus Wade. So the timing on this is...

Yeah, so great job with the reverse virtue signaling. I guess that's what they've done here. And seriously, I actually mean this. Great job alienating a big swath of Catholic people who support bodily autonomy for all the organs you might have and those people are pretty much exactly the same ones who aren't going to panic about their continued access to cannibal magic going away no they will not no i can't imagine they would it's dumb so now a whole bunch of liberal Catholics are like, no, please don't take our magical crackers.

We're backing out of the room. You can't hear us anymore. And that's about 48 percent of the Catholic population in the U.S. that's pro-choice. OK, but like, do you think there's one guy who's like, this is his line. He's like at home right now. He's like, look, I can appreciate running an international rape cabal based on Nazi gold. That happens. But taking away people's crackers, that's a bridge too far. Okay. You're joking. But yes, you described some Catholics just now.

That is. It must be. So in response to the announcement from the bishops conference, a group of 60 Catholic Democrats in the House got together and released a statement that it basically said, what are you fucking five years old? That's fucking stupid. We don't even want the crackers. They're dumb. But don't weaponize the Eucharist. Idiots.

And the bishops had a big meeting. It was about three and a half hours of their conference. And they responded, no, you're five. We keep it now. We keep the crackers. Yeah, look, Demo-Catholics, bring it in. I get what you're going for here, but appealing to the humanity of guys in

dresses who canonically believe there's somewhere between men and literal angels, not going to work, people. Not going to work no stop being catholic just cut it out cut it out you don't actually believe that stuff liar you're a liar so now the conference of bishops is gonna uh they're gonna kill one piece of the body of christ every five minutes until joe biden stops killing a fetus every five minutes i don't know i guess we're at an impasse yeah it's a weird mass grave it's a weird one and in silence of the lambs news

for as long as we've been doing this show we've been responding to the patently ludicrous claim that prayer has been banned from schools every time a football coach decides to prophetize to his team, every time a substitute teacher kicks a kid in the nuts for having two gay moms, Christians cry persecution and assure us that their thought magic has been driven out of schools like snakes before St. Patrick. Yeah, by the way, those examples were real that Elijah said.

Those things happen. The football coach thing, the kicking a child thing. Yes. Yeah. And of course, all of that is bullshit. You can pray whenever you want in school. It's thinking Heath could be praying right now for all I know. What you're not. You don't know. You never know. Or am I not? It's impossible to tell because it's useless, but you don't know. Yeah, wouldn't matter if he was. But what you're not allowed to do is force students to pray. Well, at least you weren't until this week when Florida, of course it was Florida, passed HB 529, which, and I'm not joking, forces all public schools in the state to have a moment of silence that lasts at least 60 seconds by law legally at the beginning of a school day. Great. Yeah. The public school system in Florida

was crushing it. Now they have one less minute. This should go great. And by the way, this fits right in with the new history curriculum. When they start talking about the redacted war, they can throw in the 60 seconds of silence right there. Put it right there. Yeah, that's all of history class. Just be that 60 seconds. Fuck. Now, of course, the bill's sponsor, State Representative Randy Fine, who, fun fact, is neither, doesn't admit that this is so schools can force students to pray. He says that, quote, I fundamentally believe that our kids have issues today in part because they don't have time for moments of reflection, end quote. OK, well, that's Buddhism from Satan right there.

You're a bad Christian, Randy Fine. That's bad Christianity. You're letting Buddhism into schools. OK, but that quote actually gets worse. You see, he said that thing in reference to the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School. What? So, he thinks the

mass shooters just needed 60 seconds of forced silence at the beginning of the school day and, you know, it would have worked itself out in payroll. That would have fixed it. Cool, yeah, yeah. You know what? Maybe we can swaddle all the kids for a minute just like i'm gonna murder summit this is cozy this is nice hey i mean look we're not trying gun control so why

not try a power swaddle i'm just saying like it's compressing me it's nice now other politicians were more honest about the bill with Republican presidential hopeful and man who always looks like he's just realized that, yes, he did, in fact, get hit in the balls. Governor Ron DeSantis saying, quote, the idea that you could just push God out of every institution and be successful. I'm sorry. Our founding fathers did not believe in that. End quote. OK, well, that's incorrect. But they think God is going to be up there in heaven being like oh

thanks thanks yeah that's great you gave me 60 seconds of avant-garde music i love this this is a great gift from florida thank you no more school shootings thank you yeah yeah i was doing school shootings before but you know what i might take a little time out on that probably not but maybe you won me back over thanks for that avant-garde music. So yeah, that sucks, but it's also very clearly an invitation to any students out there in the state of Florida who listen to our podcast

to ruin this moment of silence. Do you hear me? Ruin it. I'm just saying. I'm just saying a lot of stuff is silent. Maybe. That's true. Maybe you institute 60 mandatory seconds of very intense, very erotic charades every

day. You know what? I don't want to give you ideas. I'll leave it up to you. I'm sure you'll think of something. I just want to send so many bags of, I don't know what the loudest chip is, but we need to send those to Florida. Soon as that 60 seconds starts, giant crunches all over the state of Florida. Soon as that 60 seconds starts, giant crunches all over

the state of Florida. Well, I know how we're going to send those chips and that's our next sponsor this week. Stamps.com. That's the best segue I've ever had. Stamps.com, you're welcome. Thank you. Hey, Eli, what you doing there buddy oh hey sorry well good news i found a buyer for my urine uh bad news the dude is all the way in germany so i gotta schlep all of this down to the post

office so okay but why trash bags It's what it came in, man. This is the container. Okay, I don't even want to know about the details. But Eli, if you want to save yourself some hassle with sending it, why don't you try stamps.com? What's stamps.com? Stamps.com

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includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and type in SCATHING. That's stamps.com, promo code SCATHING. Stamps.com. Never go to the post office again. Yeah, because stamps.com is so easy. Yeah, that and you brought them trash bags of urine.

Sure. Sure. Yep. And in birth of a donation news, we have a story about hate pastor Stephen Anderson. Yeah, we do. Hate congressman Louie Gohmert and a very, very obvious lie about a donation. Very, very obvious lie about a donation. Thanks to some great work by the Daily Beast,

we learned last week that Anderson received a donation of $5,500 from Gohmert at the end of 2020. This, of course, was a big surprise to literally nobody. Gohmert is basically just a hate pastor with a few extra big words and a few question marks to make his public statements. Technically not hate speech quite at the same level as Steven Anderson. But instead of just admitting that he gave money to a giant bigot, Gomer got himself wrapped up in a series of lies like me and Eli fighting over the chair on a Bowflex. It is fucking delightful oh yeah I was totally gonna squat Jack like 450 but then Heath and I just had to talk to the girl at the juice bar for an

hour instead so yeah so you might remember Stephen Anderson from that time he called for the literal genocide of the entire LGBT community via firing squad. Yep. Yep, yep, yep.

You might remember also all those other times he did exactly that. Mm-hmm. And you might also remember him getting banned from 34 countries, including some he's never even visited. If he gets within 10 miles of an airport, Tom Cruise gets hit in the head with a ski ball somewhere and has to go arrest this guy for eventual hate crimes. And the only reason it's not more than 34 countries is that Anderson only speaks English. He's banned from the vast

majority of the English speaking world, plus a few other countries, just in case he learns their language. They pre-banned him guys he went to taco bell last week we need to start banning him from some of the spanish-speaking countries we can't take this risk yeah he also tried to sneak around his youtube ban last year by starting a bunch of different channels and then like asking people in his church to upload his sermons instead of him and youtube was like hey man you're an idiot that's not how videos work that's amazing he thought it would work yeah the same hate speech video oh for oh it's from a different ip address now cool yeah great now uh you might also remember louis gomert from

you know what i'm gonna save us some time here from being a republican congressman that'll cover all the horrible shit also he looks exactly like dobby the house elf in live action that's what he looks like yeah and here's the lie about the donation according to gomert he hired a christian singer named steve am, but accidentally told the Federal Election Commission that he gave money to Steve Anderson. And, you know, those words are very similar. Just like the words fee and donation

are very similar that he also mixed up. And just like all the words of the entire address in California versus all the words in the entire address in Arizona versus all the words in the entire address in Arizona. Yeah. All those buttons on the keyboard, they're right next to each other.

It's very tricky to parse this out. Willie Gilmore's working with a weird keyboard, everybody. It's just got Steven Anderson on one button and Steven Amerson on the other. Okay, but we... So rather than being a hateful bigot, he wants us to know that he's a hateful bigot and a liar, which I'm pretty sure is a crime when it comes to political donations. Sure is.

But here's the thing. Even if Gohmert really did mean to pay the singer Steve Amerson instead of make a donation to hate Pastor Steve Anderson, Steve Amve amerson he's a piece of shit too not like steve anderson level but still pretty awful on steve amerson the singer's website he proudly mentions that he's worked with prosperity gospel preacher bruce wilkinson and serial sex criminal Ravi Zacharias. Yeah. Bottom line, if that money went to Steve Anderson, I don't know who it went to, but it did actually go to Steve Anderson. But if it meant he may be meant to go to the singer. Either way, if that went to Steve Anderson, Louie Gohmert managed to find just about the

only thing worse than donating money to himself by keeping his own money. It's almost impressive. Yep. Credit where credit's due. And in BAP to the future news, as we reported extensively, last week was the Southern Baptist Convention. And as well as affirming that racism isn't a problem and calling themselves pirates for a second, they elected Pastor Ed Litton, who defeated the slightly more conservative Pastor Mike Stone by a mere 556 votes. And since this is how they react to everything now, conservative Christians are pretty sure George Soros and Hugo Chavez snuck into the Southern Baptist Convention and elected an ever so slightly less bigoted bigot. You remember in the office when Jim got Dwight to punch himself

in the face with his phone by slowly adding nickels to the handset and then taking them all away? Remember that part? Yeah. This is nothing like that. It's not even close to really it's nothing like that at all. I just wanted to mention that story. This is just them standing in the parking lot, punching themselves in the face. It's a lot closer to that. Yes. So the creator

of this just asking Jewish questions moment is none other than MAGA activist, Christian sovereign nationalist, and this is my favorite, owner of James Lindsay's LLC. What? Yep. I'm guessing he mostly works on the

ninja axe fighting parts of the business. Michael O. Fallon, who tweeted, quote, just thought I would ask, who was in charge of the counting process at the SBC? After all of the lies, slander, and mainstream media involvement, shouldn't this be in full public display?

End quote. And then in a follow-up tweet, he said, quote, you can always tell that you've hit a hot wire with a reasonable question when you receive ridiculous answers from the progressives. End quote. Progressives? Yeah. Again, quick reminder, the progressives in question in that tweet are

the southern baptist convention exactly yeah and by the way the people in charge of counting the votes there are called the tellers and they clearly did a blood ritual with hand cutting absolutely there's robes and everything the chair of the tellers was a woman named tina bosh who said quote may our conversation fellowship and ministry together reflect the character of christ and his love for the world and his had a capital h there she's the communist jewish mole on the inside that this guy thinks is messing with their votes. Yep. So yeah, we do know who is in charge of counting the ballots. It was that crazy lady. And also I should point out, literally nobody sane has any problem with

this election, right? Even the loser, Mike Stone, congratulated his opponent on a race well run but this is just a thing that right-wing christians do now because they want their participation trophy to say that the other guy probably cheated democracy was in their eyes it doesn't count yep and finally tonight in flag day news who the fuck cares about flag day it's stupid we've had a holiday for a cloth rectangle since 1916 and we just now got juneteenth as an official holiday in 2021 anyone who makes a big deal about flag day belongs on a goddamn watch list. Almost guaranteed they own a Confederate one too. It's fucking creepy. And in other news,

Ted Cruz celebrated Flag Day last week. There he is. He sent out a tweet with a video of himself pledging allegiance to a flag in an empty room like a fucking lunatic. And he wrote,

this didn't used to be controversial. Hashtag flag day. Okay, here's the thing. If my body looked like Ted Cruz's, and honestly, it kind of does, I would post as few side view cell phone videos of me in an ill-fitting suit on the internet as possible. It's unrelated to the stupid thing he did. It just needed to be said. It needs to be said, Ted.

Yeah, you know what I don't do is put a lot of videos of under my neck view stuff. It's unrelated to the stupid thing he did. It just needed to be said. It needs to be said, Ted. Yeah. You know what I don't do is put a lot of videos of under my neck view stuff. Yep. I don't do that a lot. Under boob shots. Nope. That's not a thing I do. Got to go to our OnlyFans for that.

So, first of all, it's never a good sign when you're doing a protest against the nobody. Never good. Nope. Here's the sequence of events. It starts with nobody talking to Ted Cruz. Long silence. Yes, the fuck I am allowed to salute the flag. You're controversial.

And then his whole office was like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Did you just get Tom Sawyer by complete silence somehow? And yes, he did. Yes, he did. Then he made one of his aides film this sad little skit declaring allegiance to God and some fabric, definitely with multiple takes and notes and like a whole thing. That was somebody's job that day. OK, but to be fair, Heath, it was somebody's job that day. Okay.

But to be fair, Heath, it was somebody's job who chose to work for Ted Cruz. So I'm kind of for it. I'm okay with it. Yeah. Some asshole at like a junior Federalist Society club at his college. Yeah.

Fuck you. I'm glad you had to film Ted Cruz. And I know he's just pandering to Christian people in Texas, but even among that group, one other thing, who the fuck is searching the hashtag for flag day? That's insane. What's happening in your life? You're clicking on a hashtag for flag day to celebrate. That's another great way to build a watch list, by the way. Check on everyone who searches that hashtag. Yep.

But here's the big takeaway. And I think there's a fun project built into this. I'm thinking we can trick him into doing more stuff, right? If Ted Cruz thinks anything got canceled by the left, he'll do that in a video for spite. So, I don't know. Get creative. We got to come up with something. Hey, Ted.

Liberals are very against suicide. we have a lot of hotline okay come on just something with we hate when you dive into a pool of marbles kill yourself like scrooge mcduck they're soft you can totally swim around in them. And on that note, we're going to close out the headlines. Seriously, Heath Bucks and Eli Bucks, if you figure out good ones. All right. And wrap it up.

Eli, exclaim. Felix was a power bottom. And when we come back, we're going to talk about some liars and we're going to rate their lying on a shit-based log scale, I guess. But first, a word from our final sponsor, Allbirds.

Woo, that's the last of them. Oh, hey, Eli. So where have you been? Oh, hey, Heath. I just dropped off all the urine I sold this afternoon. Okay, great. Yeah, so you're ready to do the Allbirds ad? Am I? Okay, Heath. I just dropped off all the urine I sold this afternoon. Okay, great. Yeah. So you're ready to do the Allbirds ad? Am I?

Okay, okay. Before we start, are you certain you know what that product is? Yes, Heath. I know what this product is. It's obvious. Is it to you? Yes. Look, I got this. I got this. Okay. Hey, podcast listener. Have you ever seen a bird and thought, God, I wish I owned that bird? Well, now there's all birds. Nope.

Nope. This is why I asked. They are shoes. All birds does shoes. They do shoes? Yeah. And nice shoes. They're made from sustainable natural materials that feel light on your feet and are better

for the planet. Plus, the tree runners are breathable, machine washable, and made with responsibly sourced eucalyptus tree fiber. That does sound good. So like no birds. They won't even sell you one bird, let alone all of them. No, they will not. Nope, not even one bird.

That's unrelated entirely. But their simple and versatile design for their, again, shoes, it makes the Tree Runner shoe a perfect shoe for any outfit. They sent me a pair, and they've become my go-to walking around shoe. I actually really like them. Really? Really. Really, really, really do. So, keep things light and breezy

with the Allbirds Tree Runner. Discover your perfect pair at Allbirds.com today. That's A-L-L B-I-R-D-S dot com. Okay. You got to make another phone call. I do. Yes.

Yeah. Yes, I do. You're going to come out of your room with a garbage bag full of dead birds? Yeah. Yeah, I am. There it is. There it is. Obviously, our focus here on the scathing atheist is presenting the wrongheadedness and dangerousness of religious thinking.

But it's important to remember that you don't need religion to have wrongheaded and dangerous thinking, which is why we also take time out here and there for a segment we call How Bullshit Is It? So tell us, Heath, what load of lunacy will we be learning about this time? Did you see I did the alliteration thing good? Yeah, yeah, you did. It's because Noah wrote it for me. Anyway, what's the bullshit? So today we're going to talk about Kirlian photography.

Okay, so what is Kirlian photography? It's a way of ruining a photographic plate. But if you're gullible enough, it's a way of taking pictures of people's auras. Okay, pinning that for a moment. Where does the story of Kirlian photography start, Heath? It starts in 1939 when Soviet inventor Semyon Kirlian accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a high voltage source, it produces a really cool looking image on the plate. And this is very much a real thing that goes by a lot of different terms. Electrography, Corona discharge photography, and gas discharge visualization, to name a few. But all of those names are a little too descriptive of the actual somewhat mundane process. So when

it's employed for wooey nonsense, you're going to hear vague terminology like Kirlian photography or Kirlianography. Okay. So it sounds like we need to answer two questions, Gary Heath. What's really going on? And more importantly, what does naturalgreenmommy.com think is going on?

Yeah, the first one, the answer to that is just boring science-y stuff. When electricity enters into something moist, like say a living thing, it ionizes gas around the object. That makes the air around the object conductive and it leads to a coronal discharge.

So what you see on the photographic plate is that discharge. I didn't realize we were going to get sexy. No, we're not. It's not sexy. Well, then I don't know what you just said. Okay, either way, the point is, it's definitely not psychic auras. It's not that. Okay, so I think I've gotten a hint here, but what does naturalgreenmommy.com think it is? Psychic auras.

So why do they think that? They're stupid. They're stupid people. Oh, sorry. Why do they think that in a way that fills the C segment of our podcast? Probably a better way to put it. Yeah, got it. So for that, we have to thank Thelma Moss. She wrote a couple books that claimed the official explanation about ionized gases doesn't count for whatever reason. And what was really being captured was a picture of an aura okay uh why

did anybody believe her i guess because the 70s oh that'll do it yeah the 70s this was the height of the new age movement and even academia dipped their toes in the color-infused mood water. Despite Paris psychology being the study of bullshit stuff, they had a department for that at UCLA. So when Moss published her 1979 book, The Body Electric, claiming that she could photograph auras and use them as both a diagnostic tool and a portal to the astral plane.

Yeah, that's my girl. She did so with all the authority of a professor from a respected institution. And the 70s were way too high to argue with that. You know how boring people like to say like, oh my gosh, I was born in the wrong decade. That's how I feel about conning people out of money. I was born in the wrong decade for conning people out of money. It's too hard now. Yeah, it got harder

at least. So Moss was an interesting character, as one would expect from a professor at UCLA who published books about how to take pictures of an aura. She came to academia in middle age. She was a big fan of LSD and probably had some genius

revelations about real science stuff based on all that LSD. And eventually she managed to become a professor at UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute, where she studied nonsense like auras and levitation and ghosts. Like for real, she did that. Sorry, sorry. UCLA had a ghost department team? Yes, they did. Yes, they did. Yes, they did. But to their credit, it was an unfunded, unsanctioned division of the Neuropsychiatric Institute. And it was mostly staffed with volunteers.

I'm sorry, mostly? Mostly, yeah, not giving them too much credit. But ultimately, Moss would write two entire books about the powers of Curlian photography and in order to fill that many pages with it's totally not just ionized gas it's something else she had to photograph a lot of this stuff and apparently one of her favorite things to photograph was Uri Geller a charlatan liar that Eli's other profession will never live down even if David Blaine cured cancer. First of all, he ate rope on Twitter

the other day. David is doing his best. Secondly, he really... His best is eating rope. I just want to be clear on what you said. It's not a trick. He's just eating rope on Twitter. Everyone can see it. Secondly, secondly, just to be clear, it's

entirely woo, right? Well, it's entirely woo right well it's actually worse than that it's meta woo it's woo of woo building on the work of Moss a lot of parapsychologists started using Kirlian photography to quote validate the existence

of other shit they were studying people were using Kirlian photography on patients undergoing acupuncture or who claimed to be telepathic and presenting changes in their so-called auras as proof that something magical was happening. Okay, so wait.

They were electrocuting people who said they were psychic? Because I'm starting to like this idea more. You're winning me back. Well, generally they run a current through the photographic plate itself and then have the subject touch it but i don't think they have to use a high enough voltage to shock the person actually but you could i mean i mean yeah you could theoretically yes okay but if what they're actually taking pictures of are crayola discharges or whatever the fuck

they're called shouldn't they always be the same like if they're not actually taking pictures of are Crayola discharges or whatever the fuck they're called. Shouldn't they always be the same? Like, if they're not actually taking pictures of auras, shouldn't the Kirlian photography of telepaths and muggles always look the same? No, just the normal variability from one person to another, from the

composition of the air in the room, and from how hard they press against the photographic plate can actually make a difference. So, according to Wikipedia, quote, Corona discharges can interact with minute variations in the different layers of dye used in the film, resulting in a wide variety of colors, depending on the local intensity of the discharge, end quote. Okay. So for the sake of argument, how do we know they're not taking pictures of auras? Oh, because auras do not exist. Oh, no, bad phrasing.

That's on me. That's on me. But if we're talking to people who believe in auras and they say auras are a thing and they believe that they have pictures of them, they're not going to buy that explanation. So how can we prove to those people that they're not taking pictures of auras? Yeah, no, good question. And it turns out to have a really easy answer. So the official explanation is that we're actually seeing pictures of electricity being carried by ionized gas. To test that, all you have to do is remove the gas.

And when you try to take a Kirlian photograph in a vacuum with no gas, you get nothing. That makes perfect sense if it's actually based on a gas discharge. But I couldn't find any parapsychologists explaining why auras would disappear in a vacuum. Yeah, so, I mean, how do parapsychologists counter that? Oh, they do it by changing the subject to the torn leaf experiment. That way you've cited a scientific study and they've now cited a scientific study. So you're tied again. Now it's a tie.

Is that how that works? No, it is not how it works, but that's how they do it. Okay, fair, fair. So putting aside my excellent idea for electrocuting psychics in a vacuum, what is the torn leaf experiment all right well according to proponents of the aura theory it's proof that curlian photography can photograph the auras of phantom limbs here's how it works first you take a freshly picked leaf you set it on a photographic plate And then you take a Kirlian photograph with it Then you tear a piece of that leaf off

Place it back on the same plate In the same position And take a second photograph And sometimes, but not always You'll get a faint image of the missing part Of the leaf as well Alright, pretty convincing But what if you put it on a different photographic plate?

Then you do not get an image of the missing part. Okay. What if you thoroughly clean the photographic plate between the two pictures? You do not get an image of the missing part. What if you place the torn leaf slightly askew or on a different part of the plate? I'm going to stop you right here. You don't get an image of the missing part if you change pretty much anything. Okay. So very obviously what they're getting is an image of the residue left over from the last time they set down the leaf, right? Or you're getting a picture of

a very finicky phantom aura. A shy one, if you will. So it feels weird to ask this, but are there any legitimate uses for curly in photography? The pictures look kind of cool.

Apparently David Bowie's 1997 album Earthling used some Kirlian photographs he took before and after doing a whole bunch of cocaine in 1975. Sure. Somebody got to have a coke party with Bowie. That's a good use of curly yeah good use of an afternoon yeah so is this just historical woo or is this like is curly in photography still a thing well when i googled it the first suggestion was curly in photography

app what that means all right so i guess the only question left to ask is How bullshit Is it Alright I'd say it's The steam from the steaming pile of shit Is actually a psychic shit Or a level of bullshit Alright well

Thank you Heath and we promise that next time We do this segment Noah will do the science questions Again so I get to go back to doing japes. Yeah, gotta have japes. Right? Jape the shit out of Noah. You want to do a jape right now? I heard it. Nope. I heard it.

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 Skeptocrat, debuting 7 a.m. Eastern time on Monday. An even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday. And an even newer, newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting on noon Eastern on Wednesday.

You can also listen to Heath's Slowly Drive Me Insane under the guise of playing Dungeons & Dragons the first Friday after the first Wednesday of every month at 7 a.m. over on our sisters, daughters, boyfriends show, D&D Minus. Of course, I'd be ungrateful if I didn't thank Heath for steering the ship while the captain's below. I'd be unhinged if I didn't thank No Illusions for continuing to write for and edit our show while he's recovering from oral surgery. Gives a whole

new meaning to some people just can't catch a break. And of course, I want to thank Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure, for being so awesome last week. I was stunned into silence till just now and forgot to thank him. But most of all, I need to thank this week's new patrons, many of whom have waited three weeks now to be thanked. So if you think about it, waiting one more with genitals that stupendous, not a big deal. Together, these money givers gave us money that we need to spend to live to not to die. You can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode or you can make a one-time donation

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to fuck us as a thank you for enjoying the podcast. I bet Noah's glad he's back next week. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of P. Andrew Torres. Tim Robertson handles our social media and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music used in this episode, which was used with his permission. If you have questions, comments or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScathingAtheist.com. All right.

Bags of urine. This is a weird job for Tiffany or whoever. Getting weirder every day. Guys, all right. She's flipping through. We didn't technically say no bag of urine and stuff. They said no bag of urine. If they had said it, we wouldn't have done it. It's on them. We got to get

really specific with this one contract, guys. All right. One more time. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.