The Scathing Atheist - 437: Indentured Edition

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

In this week’s episode, Noah’s back so Eli will be edited more, Republicans are pretty sure the Critical Race Theory was calling from inside the house, and Ken Ham will learn how hard he can bite rocks. --- 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: Learn more about the Ark Park protest here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1038430813356540

Warning, if you're offended by vulgar language, you might want to lay back on your fainting couch in advance. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Adam and Eve, and by Novocaine. Because as bad as dental work sucks, it used to suck more. Go science. And now, The Scathing Atheist. I'm Christian. I'm Maggie. I'm Nikki. I'm Sandra. I'm George. I'm Hertie. And I am Alicia Anne. As admins of the Puzzle and the Thunderstorm Facebook group, we can confirm that we did in fact evolve

from filthy monkey men, women, and enbies. Now stop posting dicks in the group, guys. No real dicks. No fake dicks. No silicone dicks. No dicks. It's Thursday. It's July 1st. And Noah's back. Woo!

Thank you. Oh, and you wrote into the notes that I missed you too, Eli. That was nice of you. I'm July 1st. And Noah's back. Woo! Thank you. Oh, and you wrote into the notes that I missed you too, Eli. That was nice of you. I'm Noah Lusions. Who had zero seconds for him killing that moment. I had zero. I'm Eli Bosnick. Okay.

I'm Ethan Wright. And from Carmen the Christian Singers, New Jersey. How dare you? Cincinnati Red State and Redtown Blue State. This is The Scathing Atheist. Oh, this week's episode, Noah's back, so I don't have to do work anymore. Republicans are pretty sure the critical race theory was calling from inside the house. And Ken Ham will learn how hard he can fuck himself.

But first, the diatribe. if you want to know what it's like to acclimate to dentures here's what you do go grab a jar of peanut butter take off the lid and stick it in your mouth now hold it there while you talk to people and eat your lunch it's like that only with sores all over your gums now i have it on good authority that most people eventually get used to it and carry on like they did when they still had teeth but i've talked to enough people now to know that some folks also don't right some people wear them only at work or when they're in public or when they have to and they learn to eat with their gums and they just get used to sounding kind of funny when they talk,

and given that I talk for a living, that knowledge scared the hell out of me. There was a point a few days after I got my teeth evicted where I wondered if I was going to have to start looking for another job. Now, if you follow me on Facebook, you saw all of this playing out in real time. A lot of people who wear dentures are embarrassed to admit it, and a lot of people who have trouble with them are embarrassed to admit that they're getting their asses kicked by

something that their grandma managed to get through, but I'm an open book. The whole point of crafting the no illusions persona was so that I could be completely honest with you, so I publicly documented the entire ordeal in a series of long and admittedly self-pitying Facebook posts. And I'm really glad I did, because my friends on Facebook were the main resource I used to get through the anxiety that was otherwise crippling me through those first couple of weeks. See, I'm really lucky in that regard. Between fans of the show, the online atheist communities that I'm a part of, my real life friends and my family, I've got a really robust social support network. So in addition to business partners that were perfectly okay with me easing myself back into work over a month-long period, I had a ton of emotional support when I

was shrouded in depression. I had so many people trying to help me from so many different directions that one of them was bound to get through. Hell, it's the same reason I was able to quit smoking. It was because of you. And the whole time I'm basking in all the encouragement and sympathy, I kept thinking about what a fucking demon you would have to be to take that away from someone. See, like a lot of introverted atheists, I never really had a social support network before. I never went to church.

I've never belonged to a club. I'm not particularly close to anybody in my family. I've always had friends, but, you know, none of the share our problems and be vulnerable with one another variety. So when I heard about churches that ostracize members and encourage people to shun their own family, I knew it was a terrible thing to do, but I didn't recognize how terrible. You know those studies you see from time to time that show how religious people live longer than non-religious people? Yeah, this is why. When you just look at religious people who don't regularly attend a church, you see that difference disappear. Just like it does when you compare churchgoers with atheists who belong to groups that meet regularly.

Now, religious people trot that statistic out all the time as though it supports their faith somehow. But what it really tells you is that when you withdraw support from apostates, you're taking years off their lives. withdraw support from apostates, you're taking years off their lives. The weaponization of the social support network has deadly consequences. Still, though, it's something that religions are better at than us. I mean, I get why newly minted atheists are leery of anything that remotely smells like a church, and at a certain point, any group that meets regularly might start smelling like a church. And I also get why introverts are hesitant to put themselves through the anxiety of trying to join a club or go to a weekly meeting of any kind but you still owe it to yourself to try maybe you're like

me and you never had a social support network so you think you're fine without one maybe you had one ripped away from you by some heartless tenant of your former faith and don't want to leave yourself vulnerable to that again but you still owe it to yourself. And if that's not enough to convince you, think of all the people that might need you. You could be the reason that somebody smiles for the first time in days. You could be the reason somebody realizes that they can too carry on. You can be the reason somebody gets out of bed in the morning and tries again.

Hell, some of you are already that reason for me, and you probably don't even know it. The biggest failing of the atheist community is in its inclusivity. Our charge, and by our, I mean Heath, Eli, Lucinda, and myself, is to create that community, right? That was the whole point of starting the show. And I think that by and large, we've succeeded in it, but our success is proportional to the number of people who can benefit from that community, right? Like if nobody gets the advantage but me it's a miserable fucking failure look i get it people are assholes right the internal politics of any club get to be a pain in the ass eventually social gatherings can be stressful as hell obligations to other people

are our burden by definition and maybe you think you don't need them maybe you think you're fine on your own and maybe you're even right but you think you don't need them. Maybe you think you're fine on your own. And maybe you're even right. But even if you don't need the community, the community might still need you. And if it turns out you were wrong and you actually do need a community to support you, it'll be too late to find one. Hi, I'm Eli Bosnick here with our resident sexually inexperienced cast member heathen right to tell you all about this week's sponsor adamandeve.com it's not i'm not inexperienced i am selective i'm a sex connoisseur i guess is how i would say it adam and eve is a sex and sex work

positive lgbtq friendly company that loads on the free fuck stuff. So today, I'll be quizzing Heath on some of their products to see if he can guess what they are. Heath, are you ready? I am not ready. I don't like this. Can you just read the ad copy? Alright, first up, Heath. What kind of product is Eve's Sweetheart Swirl?

Is it a candy? Oh, I'm afraid not. It is a solid glass dildo. And if you wanted to purchase that dildo, you could. For 50% off plus free shipping using the code SCATHING at checkout. All right, let's do another one. Heath, where do Magnus' mighty magnetic orbs go? I feel like that's in your butt.

Nope. So close. They are for your nipples. What? Nipples. Yes. And assuming you bought them using the code SCATHING at checkout, you'd get 10 tantalizing free gifts. That's SCATHING, S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G

offer code SCATHING at checkout at adamandeve.com. One last one for you here, Heath. What is the Liberator Wanda? The glass dildo. Ooh, so close. It is a pillow you put your wand massager in. Come on.

Yeah. So remember, everyone, don't be a heath and get your sex stuff at adamandeve.com. adamandeve.com. All the sex stuff you know about and a bunch of it you don't. A pillow, like, to sleep on?

Yeah. Is that what it is? No, like to sleep on. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt the schmear to my everything eli bosnick eli are you ready to spread the good word okay not spread he's schmear we're gonna schmear the good word i evolved it from that one it's fine i explain later. In our lead story tonight, we're going to start with a quick little exercise to make sure we have the right audience for this. All right. Get into the topic. Nice and slow. Critical race theory. Oh, OK. And now that we've

scared away the bigots who tuned in because they heard atheism had merged with the far right. That's not this show. Go away. Good. You're gone. Now we can talk about a concept that is illegal to teach in public schools, including universities in a growing handful of bigot states.

So, in very simple terms, critical race theory is just saying, alright guys, history happened. Yup. And there's been racism. That's it. Just don't be a liar. When you talk about it,

just don't lie. That's part of it. So now the liars are fucking terrified. And of course that includes pretty much the entire Christian, right? Anna. What are the guys talking about? It's the newest, the greatest Christian freak out.

That's right. The Christian white is freaking out. It's the newest, the greatest, Christian Freakout. That's right. The Christian White is freaking out. Yes, they are. And that most definitely includes their drizzly mascot, Pat Robertson. He joined the panicky chorus last week and he called critical race theory quote, a monstrous

evil. Okay. Do you think P-Robes has a things Christians are mad about, but I don't understand at all, mad libs at the ready? Because this felt like a mad libs. Very mad libs. So that's almost everything he does. Yeah. I think that's just the format of a show you just described. So just in case anyone missed it, here's a tiny bit more detail on critical race theory. It's an academic framework that very correctly includes our long history of systemic

racism as an important piece of context for examining our political institutions and our entire socioeconomic structure. One might say it's a growing competitor in the marketplace of ideas actually. But the fucking bad guys called time out on that

whole thing that messes up their their argument for this particular moment so they called time out and as part of their campaign to stifle free speech with big government that's what they're doing now as part of that campaign twitchy conservative white america is turning critical race theory into this insane caricature of all their deepest fears like they were huffing with scarecrow and here's what pat robertson thinks critical race theory is and you know we're gonna need to take this in pieces it's fucking rough he starts by saying quote critical race theory says that people of color have been oppressed by the white people. Okay.

Yeah. And that white people begin to be racist by the time they're two or three months old. Okay. So kind of went downhill there after the first half of that sentence. Here's the thing. I don't want to play translate Pat Robertson into reality, but it's kind of our job. That's our thing. I think what he's referencing is a

study done at the University of Toronto that shows that babies might associate sad or negative music with darker skinned people. Absolutely not what he's talking about. Okay, but he could also just have pulled that out of his ass. He's Pat Robertson. There are no rules. No, you think he's referencing a study from a university right now. also just to pull that out of his ass yes pat robertson there are no rules no there's there's

you think he's referencing a study from a university right now i i don't fair fair from canada you think he knows where toronto is absolutely none of that it's not coming together you're right it's not that okay he continued with his definition here therefore people of color have to rise up and overtake their oppressors and then having gotten the whip handle if i can use the term and no you cannot you absolutely cannot hey hey very few people can use the term less pat robertson very few no you may not are you asking could somebody stop you in in the studio maybe if you're gonna ask rhetorical questions god damn it okay whatever he actually said having gotten the whip handle they're gonna instruct their white neighbors how to behave wow so he had to use the term whip handle

when talking about black people because it's the only metaphor he can think of for teaching people to behave even if it's not the only one that's the one he said he thought of that you double extra can't use that term pat robertson more extra no you're really bad at mad libs man you're really bad it's just you need you need a few guidelines about that all right and here is the big close from pat robertson this is the way the communists take over like when when is he what is he talking about how is this communist for it anyway he continues they try to destroy the children. It's a monstrous evil. You don't want to have your children in third grade indoctrinated into a hate group so that

he'll wind up hating people or hating himself. And so the white people are supposed to feel guilty and they're supposed to have white guilt. And the people of color are supposed to cleanse them of that guilt by taking over. Again, it's a monstrous evil, end quote. Okay, at least we can comfort ourselves knowing that he alienated a bunch of his audience by saying you don't want your kids getting into a hate group. That's going to cost him, right? That's going to hurt his numbers. And just for the record, if you go back through Robertson's little speech there

and you switch out critical race theory for Christianity as what he was talking about, a bunch of that ridiculous fucking rant actually becomes accurate. Christian people do tell their neighbors how to behave. Their kids do become bigots. They join hate groups. It's monstrous evil. It really fixes a bunch of that if you make that switch. When you are is actually a good argument. It's not a good sign.

Like at the end of it, I could have said you are in the studio and he would have had to be like, oh, yeah. Damn, damn. Also, one other thing. If this whole backlash to critical race theory seems to have come out of nowhere? No, it hasn't. This has been workshopped by religion for years now. And now that they have the support of a bunch of Christian politicians, they're putting it into action, you know, like religion does.

So for a separate reason, I was looking this up by my own research. And keep in mind, that just means searching our Google Docs for keywords. Oh, you didn't go to the University of Torontoonto yeah i didn't go to ut for this but by on our show christians have been plotting a backlash to critical race theory for more than three years so yeah we don't just keep our eyes on these assholes for the fun of it we do it because in four years they're going to be making laws about what they're workshopping in front of their congregations today.

Guaranteed. And in the bookie of life news, Christian health insurance is a giant scam. Actually, you know what? Sorry, let me start over. Yeah. Christianity is a giant scam. There we go. Also, pretty much anything that starts with the word Christian or Christianity. And that includes so-called Christian health insurance. There we go. Much better. across a big group of Christian people, they collect a bunch of money from everyone.

And then if someone in the group gets sick, giant asterisk, pin in that. If somebody gets sick, they tell some healthy people to send their premiums straight to the sick person. And then step three, if you have a non-biblical health need, go fuck yourself.

Okay. End of list. So they do understand collectivism. They just, just, they need the word Christian at the front. Also, just to be clear,

this is very similar to regular insurance in its general concept. Health insurance companies are giant legalized bookies who take bets about the life and death of human beings. And they profit by taking a middleman cut and by trying to mostly gamble on healthy people. And of course, by refusing to pay out as much as possible. Same racket for the Christian health insurance companies, except they have no rules at the Christian ones. And by the way, that's relative to the current health insurance industry they're more problematic

than that in terms of under regulation they're basically a segregated country club that can kick you out after years of paying dues if they find out that you know a black person or you're part of a same-sex marriage or you want anything uterus related for your health or literally just because you got sick which then makes you a bad bet in retrospect it's insane in gambling terms they're allowed to play poker with you until you win a hand and then they can call time out retroactively starting before that hand that you won. Only religion could figure out too evil

for health insurance companies. They did it. Religion is the Serena Williams of evil. You think they can't break through and then... I like that you're doing a sports thing and I see that, yes, Serena, it's a positive thing, sort of, if you really think about what you're saying there, but I don't like associating. She's the GOAT thing, sort of, if you really think about what you're saying there. But I don't like associating.

She's the GOAT, the greatest of all time. Anyway, if you want to hear more about this giant scam, check out the June 27th episode of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. They've done a handful of great taketowns of the Christian blank industry, including Prosperity Gospel and now health insurance. And Oliver's British, so, you know so it's automatically smarter and funnier somehow. It's not fair, but that is how it works. Or you could check out the June 7th episode of Opening Arguments. Yes, absolutely. I was going to add that too.

That's a great point. I'm just saying, either Opening Arguments has a time machine they aren't telling us about or they have a fan at Last Week Tonight. I'm pretty sure they have a fan. Yeah, this is the ninth time OA has done an episode on something, and then John Oliver's done one right afterwards. I'm not accusing John Oliver of anything nefarious, but just like, guys, you can hire Andrew. If we can hire Andrew, HBO can hire Andrew. Okay, what about Thomas?

I'm pretty sure T-Dog's all ours. Okay, either way either way here's the moral of the story two big takeaways first of all don't get involved with anything that starts with the word christian good this is a really good heuristic good advice yeah and also shouldn't they do a prayer pool instead of a money pool like that should be plenty if they're not giant liars you're not lying it's just a prayer pool and you're fine. And if they did that by accomplishing exactly nothing, which is what happens with a prayer pool,

by doing nothing, these Christian health insurance companies would actually be way less problematic than they are now if they stopped doing money and just did prayers. Yeah, the no would be way better. The zero would be fantastic. That would be great news. And in failure pile in a sadness bowl news, we have a story about Mike Lindell.

Yes, we do. And also, you know what? We have an apology for KFC about what I said just now. Mike Lindell is way sadder than Patton Oswalt's description of a KFC famous bowl. And Lindell gave us another delightful example of that fact when he stopped ugly crying into his very uncomfortable pillow for a minute to headline the latest stop on the Republican desperation concert series last week and he told the audience okay we keep having these failure galas and i keep headlining them and i keep getting this wrong i keep saying wrong stuff about this all right shake it out i'm gonna do this one more time donald trump is definitely back in the white house this time i'm saying by this fall like for real this time this fall he's back okay can we take the bet

because mike will give you fantastic odds buddy i'm talking connor mcgregor versus floyd mayweather buddy i'm really good odds look at you naming a sports thing that's like that made sense i know i was in a bar trying to get cool and espn was on okay there it. There it is. There it is. So the latest failure gala was the Restore America rally in Tampa, Florida. Florida. Yep. Yeah. Nailed it. It was hosted by the River Church.

If that sounds familiar, it's because the head pastor at the River Church is Rodney Howard Brown. rodney howard brown he's the guy who hires very obvious plants to sit in his mega church audience and have laughing fits yep and then something with jesus happens there's like a magic thing at the end somehow i don't know also that guy helped kill a bunch of people with covid so the big rally included that guy rodney howard brown along with lindell greg lock roger stone and michael flynn okay look i'm not saying it's as bad as 2020 but 2021 has a very series finale feel to it right all the bad guys are coming back. I'm just saying there's a vibe. There's a vibe that things are wrapping up. But despite all that competition, all those people I mentioned,

Mike Lindell managed to outstupid the whole pack. It's impressive. And it wasn't even close. The concentration of stupid and wrong, it's almost chemically impossible. I don't know how he did it. And I'm actually curious how he did it. And I'm actually curious how he stacks up. So you remember

a few weeks ago, we had a story about Greg Locke, and he scored like six different stupid wrong points in like a hundred words or so. Pretty much the same amount of time as Lindell's thing that we're going to tell you about here. So, Eli, you think you can

keep score for us as we go? Oh, alright. we go okay so according to lindell quote we're bringing in all the cyber guys one that is one yes yeah then we're bringing all the media two and then we're going to bring in all senators governors even the corrupt ones brian kemp and legislatures secretary of states fuck it's secretaries of state you dumb fuck and also every single government official that wants to be there i'm counting that all as one that was one sentence so three okay yeah we're being generous with just giving you one there. That's three. Fine. Continuing. Because when we show them these Hackett captures, we're going to give them out to all them cyber guys. Four.

So they can have their own guy go, how many votes were flipped here in Tampa? Okay, that's a lie about a lie. Five? Negative one. I'm scared. I'm scared. I don't know. Fine. Yeah, we'll call that five, I guess. Five? Negative one. I'm scared. I'm scared. I don't know. Fine. Yeah, we'll call that five, I guess.

Five? Yeah. So he says we're going to give them to the cyber guys so they can have their own guy and go, how many votes were flipped there in Tampa? Here you go. Boom. It's going to be a worldwide event. Six. Millions are going to see it. Seven. And the Supreme court is gonna go nine zero that this

country was attacked eight donald trump will be in office by this fall for sure nine the record stands at nine ladies and gentlemen we got a nine nine checked again. There was 114 words from Lindell. Nine stupid wrong points and we were being generous. Okay. And I still haven't mentioned one extra moment here. This is haunting us, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know. This is fucking nuts.

I have no idea how to score this. You call it. See what you can do. He finishes. He finishes with this he said it's called a quo warrento and he realizes that he just made a series of noises not like words i'm pretty sure so he tries again and he says it's called quote warull. And then he just moves on. I had no idea.

I tried to Google this so many different ways. I watched the clip so many times. I watched it over and over trying to figure out what the noises might have been. The internet had no fucking idea what I was talking about. No idea at all. So what's the score for that? Okay, I don't have a score. I have a theory.

Okay. Keith Enright. Could he have been trying to say quid pro quo? Absolutely not. It's all we have, Keith. We are working blind here. The noise was quorn. Oh.

There's a quid. There's a quid. The letter Q is in it But that doesn't The first vowel noise was not I It was O for sure So he tried to say like Quod prequo No I don't accept that

Absolutely not That was nonsense Nearly incomprehensible But I'm slowly learning to speak Lindell, I think. So tell me if I have this right, just the general concept. He has cyber guys, all of them, actually, according to what he said. And he's pretty sure they're in possession of physical objects that physically contain internet cyber boats that are visibly flipped somehow.

Yeah, on the flight map. They're going to hand those physical objects out on video and the Supreme Court is going to reelect Donald Trump nine to zero because God and pillows and flop sweat and. Well, warrants dull okay our words he felt in bethesda and right look at me look at my heart squirrel warrants look at me i've never meant this more than i mean it right now your guess is as good as mine all right so as you might have already heard noah's still recovering from major dental surgery but we've already got him back for today's episode and he will be all the way back for everything very soon but before that happens we have a handful of headlines that we didn't air yet that i recorded with eli over the last few weeks i'm still here here they are already in progress next up in headlines in adam and easement's news the owner of aries tax service in radcliffe kentucky kenneth lee randall is

running a special deal right now for new customers he'll prepare your taxes for just 55 dollars if you file electronically bring in some pieces of paperwork and promise not to be gay wow okay well new project this is gonna be fun i will happily pay for this you eli bosnick are gonna hire this guy yeah you are gonna send him your pallet of shoe boxes full of whatever like old-timey calculator tape and cryptex riddles cowrie shells whatever you have that makes up your tax paperwork because i've spoken with our accountant tony after you've done that and he has gone mad i tony would happily pay for this too we could probably get tony to pay for it absolutely tony's all in on this yes on his sign which expresses that he also takes debit cars well i know item j on his list of requirements for the

55 service is quote homosexual marriage not recognized and quote your face which is weird because the taxes he's offering to prepare do acknowledge yep you think he'd understand he was missing something yeah also i will be delivering $55 fee in the form of 5,500 matchbox cars with a penny stuffed in each one. Most people don't take debit cars, but this guy does. I'm bringing him debit cars. Debit cars. It's on the sign.

And when asked about this, Randall doubled down on his bigotry, telling the Courier Journal that he has a quote moral objection to homosexual marriage adding quote i have filed and do file for homosexuals who are single as i do not ask about sexual preferences prior to filing a return good for you man good for fucking you this is legal as i have already researched this. End quote. Okay. That's not how it's not. You researching it had nothing to do with the legality.

Yeah. But that's just a weird moment. He's like, am I am I being a bigot legally? Great interview question, Courier Journal. Yes, I am. And I researched it. What the fuck? And by the way, he's right. It is legal in kentucky to discriminate

against gay people yeah just in case you wondered why there was still plenty for us to skate about and in great spite north news we have an amazing story out of canada about telling religion to go fuck itself and it all starts with the grace life church in Edmonton. You might remember them from a couple weeks ago when we talked about their pastor, James Coates, who responded to the global pandemic by turning his church into a giant COVID petri dish, just like God intended. passive aggressive the alberta health department showed up 18 different times to help the pastor you know spread out chairs and wipe down all the agar gel full of disease that he has so that that church might be able to pass a health inspection they failed every single time 18 fails in a row that's 0 for 18 and that's why there's a giant chain link fence around the entire building now. Because Canada has a rule that says buildings full of plague get shut down. At least after 18 failures full of plague.

Okay. I love the big chain link fence. But I still feel like they should have gone for the back-and-forthy velvet ropes like at Disneyland. I mean, the cardio requirement alone would have dropped his attendance by 75%, people. Think! Think! So, I know this is just an obvious response, like a very

simple, obvious response to a giant public health hazard. But that level of basic logic is so foreign to us Americans. You know what I mean? So it's like this exotic show on Nat Geo about logic in its natural environment. And defense is just the latest. We also got to watch Pastor Coates very easily lose a game of chicken and get arrested, which was also great.

He spent the last year just daring the Canadian government to do something. And eventually they were like, okay, you're under arrest. also great he spent the last year just daring the canadian government to do something and eventually they were like okay you're you're under arrest and now your whole building is blocked up did you see this as a game of chicken this is just a win-win for us if we're stupid now you're under arrest there was nothing for us to be afraid of there's no chicken you're just under arrest now i thought maybe you would turn into a ditch. Why? There's no ditch. Why would I turn into a ditch? We're government.

No. And again, I know it sounds silly to marvel at this, but laws count in Canada. What? Like for everyone. They are a fascinating species. Oh, and they never use condoms. It's great there. I'm not 100% sure that that's true.

It's like a very important thing. Trust so. Poor Noah, not here to stop me. So just pretend Noah jumped in and corrected whatever I just said. Pretend that Noah said they use condoms. So most of Canada is super happy about the very helpful anti-plague fence. We actually have a couple listeners good friends they uh they confirmed that most of edmonton and the edmonton area is very happy about the

anti-plague fence so uh yeah hi jordan hi jenny but naturally the grace life people had a freak out they do not get a jingle from anna by the way we're not no absolutely no their freak out included an absurdly long instagram post from er Coates, the wife of the pastor, that said, quote, Now they've chained the doors of Grace Life Church in closing in Chainlink Fence. This is all under the guise of a health order. Too bad the church isn't a building. It's a blood-bought people christ has and will prevail end quote it's a blood-bought people that was terrifying i don't know is she sure she's describing her

tax-free wish building and not uh jet lee's character in unchained because sounds like she's describing jet Li's character in Unchained. Blood-bought people. That's terrifying. There's no good use of that. Nobody has ever made a good salient measured point that includes the phrase blood-bought people. Except just now.

Even if you were stopping it. If you said, we are putting a stop to blood-bought people, someone should be like, oh, you need a better way to put it. I agree. were stopping it yeah even if you said we are putting a stop to blood-bought people someone should be like oh you need a better way to put i mean phrasing i agree but still that's crazy you sound crazy now of course they also had a protest like a physical protest because their magic only works in that one building which is weird though it seems like they'd be fine just doing their magic anywhere after all they're a yeah blood-bought people not a building but no they showed up to yell about persecution at the actual yeah if only there were a part of the bible about being able to pray at

home they should put that in the bible they should no or they should read the bible is what i said you need a blood-bought people so they yelled about persecution for a while but then they got distracted literally by their own racism and they went across the street to a piece of land owned by the enoch cree nation to do some harassment vandalism and attempted assault on the indigenous people of canada but then they got redistracted by their own persecution narrative again, and they went back to the fence and tore some of it down. And this leads to my favorite part, which I spelled with a U, favorite with a U part. The fence breaking backfired in beautiful Canadian fashion. This is so good. When a few of the protesters actually felt bad and they very

politely helped fix the fence that their idiot friends had damaged. Please let us move to your country. Please. I never use condoms. Next up in headlines in OK, stupid news. America, it's a difficult place for Christian men. Yes. Yeah. It's really hard for them, especially when it comes to finding a female servant to fall in love with. Preach. You got to go to church in person.

You have to hope the woman you meet isn't just lying about her enthusiasm about the misogyny out of the extreme social pressure she faces. So common. And then you have to trick her into liking you, even though the context of the extreme social pressure she faces. So common. And then you have to trick her into liking you, even though the context of the entire situation is that you're human garbage. Yeah. And yes, the man is in charge.

But until you're married, her dad is the owner, actually. It's tricky stuff. So you're probably thinking, there must be a better way. Well, it's finally here. It's called Dominion Dating dating and there's no feminism allowed it's in the rules do you pinky swear to be human chattel because this is serious guys super serious dating okay you click on a thing that says i agree to be human

chattel it's seriously what's happening like Fucking iTunes terms and conditions. Terrifying. Yes, that's real. So, you know, if you're tired of going on Christian Mingle and finding nothing but militant, woke feminists who need to shut their whore mouth, you will love Dominion Dating. Here's a few highlights from their official

members agreement. I was not exaggerating about that. First and foremost, she, the woman on this site, has to declare that Jesus Christ is both Savior and Lord. He's fucking both. He's both. You have to declare. Halfway assholes.

The guys have to declare that too. Everybody declares Savior and Lord. Also, she has to promise that she goes to an evangelical church for at least three months prior to joining Dominion Dating. None of these fly-by-night evangelical girls. And she will never dress, quote, sensually or immodestly. Sensually has so many red flags.

Baffling, yes. But here's the really good stuff. Quote, we affirm male headship as normative in the spheres of family, church, civil governance, and society at large. So just also all the other stuff.

Okay, yeah. And, continuing the quote, and we affirm God's normative plan for women to exercise dominion in the home as homemaker and help mate in glad submission to a husband. We recognize the necessity at times for women to seek employment outside the home, but we reject careerism. End quote. I love that they had to build it can you have a hobby job because i got fired from yet another quiz nose for fucking a blank angus sub yes but no making

it your life's mission all right this is a pause while i wait for my background check to clear up again that's such a weird extra there imagine being such a piece of shit that eventually i will need you to get a job is built into your misogynistic worldview i'm that horrible but don't get all fucking career-y about it now sign this document yeah i am the worst but i'm also the worst you can work at 5 11 on the weekend there you go your chattel contract's right there next the x great so i checked out dominion dating out of morbid curiosity i checked out their site it is a goddamn nightmare first of all their site is dominion dot dating they couldn't quite afford a dot net or a dot coffee for dominion no dominion dot dating and aside from that user agreement slash indentured servitude contract the most

terrifying part besides the contract obviously the most terrifying part is the picture of the two founders it's a married couple and it looks exactly like nickelback made a ransom note with a selfie on top that's what i'm looking at okay so heath has just posted this picture into our notes and i have to say it is weird to see this photo without a headline about luring girls to their death underneath it. It's off. Yeah. Juxtaposition is weird. It's just weird. It belongs with what Eli said. The caption says, Brandon and Amanda in parentheses,

Durham founder. The founders are labeled founder, singular. And again, Amanda's name is in parentheses. Brandon and Amanda Durham. You know that they have one Facebook profile. If there's anything I know about these people, they have a single Facebook that they share. They also own an answering machine with a tape and they trade off sentences. I guarantee it.

No question. Also, they have a podcast to promote their launch at Dominion Dating, which is happening on August 1st. And they appear to be looking for guest spots with people sharing their stories. Eli, this is very important. We are obviously going to find our way onto that show. Yes. And tell the story of our true love. That is happening.

Oh, my God. Yes, please. Please, yes. Also, as of right now, if you want to join the website, you have to back their Kickstarter to make the website. To make the website.

Oh, let me... You're not just a member of our weird misogyny cult. You're a founder. That's exactly correct. Just one final note on this. If we have any K-pop fans out there in the audience. Careful. They're a powerful group.

Okay, well, here's something you should not do. I'm saying you should not do this because it would be mean. You should not tell that K-pop army about this. And that army of apparently billions should not sign up for fake accounts and set up elaborate pranks on the anti-feminist Christian men on Dominion Dating. You should not do that. That would be, I believe, unethical. Don't do that. Oh, you know not what power you toy with, Ethan, right?

And finally tonight in trans sub situation news, Kansas State Representative Mark Samsel, a conservative Christian lawmaker, was arrested last week and charged with misdemeanor battery for assaulting a student while doing his job as a substitute teacher. In a series of interactions caught on video, Samsel threatens several students while talking about the wrath of God, pushes one who then leaves the classroom and then tells the rest of the class quote class you have permission to kick him in the balls end quote in a different video he then goes on a rant about how he has a student in high school who's tried to kill himself three times because he has two moms what and then he asks the entire class if they masturbate

saying quote what make babies who likes making babies that feels good doesn't it procreate And then he asks the entire class if they masturbate, saying, quote, what? Make babies. Who likes making babies? That feels good, doesn't it? Procreate. You haven't masturbated. Don't answer that question. God already knows. End quote.

Cool. Cool. Well, maybe God can share a cell with Josh Duggar because apparently he's watching kids masturbate. Just both God and Josh Duggar holding a big handful of shit. Is it weirder if you hold mine or is it better if you hold mine? Maybe if we just both pile to one set of hands. I feel like we trade off.

It's a bonding thing. Days, even odd. Right. All right. Rock, paper, scissors. That was a bad idea. Oh, no, God. Why did I choose rock?

I squished it. And don't worry if all that sounds bad. And it does. Oh, no, God. Why did I choose rock? I squished it. And don't worry if all that sounds bad, and it does. There is a great explanation. You see, it was all part of the plan. Sorry, the shit flew everywhere. Yeah. So, according to Samsel, who gave an interview after being released from jail,

quote, every little bit of it. That's right. The kids and I planned all this to send a message about art, mental health, teenage suicide, how we treat our educators and one another. What? To who? Parents and grandparents and all of Wellsville, end quote,

adding, I went to jail for battery. Does that really make me a criminal? Time will tell. End real quote. Sorry, the really make me a criminal um time will tell and real sorry the answer was yes before you said time will tell that's not how time works yes you're a criminal yeah but just circling back talking about god watching kids masturbate was sending a message to wellsville about art yeah Yeah. That was one of the things he was sending a message. What message is that?

What did that mean? These are great questions. So, as of this recording, Samsel has not yet resigned from his position or been fired, but I have a feeling that's coming any second now. Yeah, hopefully. I guess it depends on how much the rest of the

political body appreciates a good sketch plus this is kansas so you never know however you do not i will say this he has since released a second much longer statement it's like eight pages long in which he references his four favorite sports teams jesus christ martin luther king great it's too long and crazy to repeat here seriously it's so fucking long and crazy but if you follow us at piat pod on twitter you can check out the whole thing it's amazing my friends wow i have to assume he made it worse over eight pages right like it could it seems like it couldn't get worse and he made it worse for eight pages that's i haven't even read it. I guarantee that's

what happened. And welcome back to the present. On that note, we're going to close out the headlines. Eli? Time dimension. And when we come back, Noah's going to be speaking with Chrissy Helton of the Tri-State Freethinkers about Ken Ham's Museum of

Old-Timey Landlocked Boating. The pandemic has changed a lot of things over the past 16 months or so, but one thing that it hasn't changed is how hard Ken Ham can go fuck himself. His Ark Encounter theme park, laden as it is with unethical hiring practices, legally dubious tax breaks, and scientific misinformation, stands as a testament to just how much work atheist activists still have to do. And joining me tonight is one of the atheist activists doing that work. Chrissy Helton is one of the co-founders of the Tri-State Freethinkers, and in that capacity, one of the organizers of an annual protest against the park that's coming up not this weekend, but next. Chrissy, welcome to The Skating Atheist. Thank you. Great to be here.

It's really great to have you. I was two years ago, of course, I appeared at the protest, and then last year I was with you guys online and unfortunately couldn't make it this time, but hopefully we can send some listeners in my stead. Fantastic. All right, so few places in the world have more worthy targets of atheist protests than Kentucky. So what is it about the Arc Park in particular that draws you out? from the state with their hiring practice really drew, we and other organizations drew awareness to people. This isn't just, you know, a great thing happening in your community. The businesses around there and the employees are paying back 2% of their paychecks to cover

funding that they got from the state. So it's just, you know, we want to raise the awareness in which we've had miraculous success in doing so, so that people aren't bamboozled by just, oh, this is going to boost our economy, which if you follow the reports, they have not done that. It's lost money every year. So this was just an idea to raise awareness and we had no idea of the impact that this was going to create for people just to educate themselves right yeah and

i think it's really important to emphasize that because a lot of people see something like that and they're like well you know why can't christians have their own amusement park well they can't have it on my tax dollar correct well or they shouldn't be able to anyway. Right. So along with, you know, the tri-state freethinkers and other organizations, you know, that message was loud and clear that may not have been so loud and clear if they just kind of did their thing. So we're very proud of that, working with so many people just to say, hey, did you realize this? And many people weren't. And even now today, still talking about it, there are still many people that don't understand the mechanics behind their funding. Right.

Now, obviously, you're in a very Christian chunk of the country. Do you encounter a lot of pushback trying to put this together? Do you get heckled? Do you have trouble advertising it, stuff like that? No, actually, a lot of people embraced it. You know, I think once people realize that maybe some of these hiring practices or funding issues that they have may not directly impact them, but to realize that, you know know somebody down the street may not be able to get a job because they're gay you have to open the whole picture you know there's a few people that drive by when we're there um protesting that you know might flip us off or something but generally it's very well

taken we even have some employees that work at the Arc Encounter come and kind of mingle with us and just ask us questions. So it's pretty well, like I said, embraced. I was a little nervous the first year we did it just because you're not sure of, you know, the outcome of it or what kind of conflicts you're going to encounter. But it was surprisingly well taken. Awesome. Yeah, that was my experience as well, that the majority of people that stopped or slowed down to say something or yell something were yelling something in support. Right. Even there in Kentucky. That's great. So I'm sure we've got a few listeners who are in the

general area. They have the day free. They're on the cusp of deciding to come out for it. Can you give them the hard sell? Why should people come out and join your protest? Well, first of all, it's free. It's outdoors. It's a great time just to not only stand up for what we need to stand up for, the discrimination and things of that nature, but it's a great opportunity to network with other organizations, other folks. We have amazing speakers. You've been one of our speakers. Just some great entertainment as well.

This year, we're excited. We have Caitlin Poulter coming out. She's an American songwriter, visual artist. So this is the first time we're going to have some music there. And we're super excited about her coming but it's just a great network of like-minded people we have many people that travel you know from various different states just to come and unfortunately we couldn't do that last year and you know hopefully those folks that couldn't make it out last year due to the pandemic, we will see them this year. So it's just a great time to network and send your message.

Yeah, it's a great community. Now, you kind of touched on my next question. I think this is something that's obviously near and dear to a lot of people. There are still very reasonable concerns about COVID, especially with the Delta variant on the rise. What precautions are you taking to keep everybody safe in that regard? Yeah, it's been a tough year. I mean, we've battled back and forth.

You know, do we do it in person? Do we do it virtual this year? Do we do it, you know, so we've kind of just, you know, been watching the CDC, trying to follow their guidelines. The plus side of it, that this is an outdoor event. We will do everything that we can to follow the CDC guidelines to keep everybody safe. Those folks who are going to set up any kind of tents to promote their organizations, we'll make sure that they're spaced out. Usually we do that two by two rule to march up to the ARC encounter with Savannah.

You know, we'll take different measures, just single-person file. So we're going to do everything that we can. Folks are welcome to wear their masks if they choose to. We will have some there on site if folks need them. So do what we can. Awesome. Awesome. So now you've already said that the point here is to raise awareness, but

once you've raised awareness, what are people going to do with the awareness? What is the ultimate goal in organizing these protests? The ultimate goal is change. We've been out here on that location protesting ever since

they opened back in 2016. Just like anybody that goes to the state houses calling their congressmen and women, we're going to keep coming with this message that this is wrong and equality should apply to everybody until they change their practices. It's not necessarily against people's religious views. This is more of a church state violation and the fight for equality. Awesome. Awesome. As noble a goal as you can have in it. So what kind of things do the tri-state freethinkers do when they're not holding Ken Ham's feet to the fire? Well, again, everybody's experienced some hardship with COVID. We operate under what we call an ACES program, activism, LGBTQ rights, equality, anything that's a basic human right

that we need to be that voice for, we are an advocate for. We do many, many community service projects. Pre-COVID, we were doing about 50 per year. Most of our things have been local drives this year, but we're starting to get our feet back in the ground, getting back into facilities. We also hold educational meetings every month. The first Wednesday of each month, we have a speaker come in and talk about things that are relevant and that people, you know, want to make a change or need to hear about. So we hold those educational meetings. And then of course we have social events, you know, like disc golfing is something that we've been doing, something that we can do outside. We used to host game nights on Fridays. Haven't gotten back into those yet because of COVID, but you know,

try to build that sense of community. Cause that's, that is one thing that churches do have as an upper leg is that sense of community. So we try to build that sense of community. In a lot of ways, I think that's the theme of this week's show. Speaking of community, I want to shift gears a little bit here because I know there are a lot of people who might not be able to make this

protest because of the timing or because of the geography, but they have plenty of church-state violations in their own neck of the woods that they would like to raise their voices against. So what advice do you have for somebody who's trying to organize a protest for the first time? I say speak up. I mean, I'm just going to base it on kind of back in 2012 when, you know, Jim and I were talking about forming a group, which now is the Tri-State Free Thinkers. You know, if you have an idea or something that you think is important,

share it with people. There are like-minded people out there who are afraid to speak up. We had our first meeting, we had six or seven people show up. Well, they have six or seven people that they know that have the same mindset, the same passion. You got to get the word out there and then, you know, just delegate organizers. And there's a group in your community that will support anything that you have an idea for, like the LGBTQ rights or qualities. We have PFLAG, we have GLSEN, we have the Human Rights Campaign. You know, there's so many organizations that you can reach out to somebody just needs to be that

voice to start that you know that conversation yeah and i think it's important to remind people that even if you're in a part of the country that is overwhelmingly religious like like you actually are there are plenty of people out there that still that have this same passion and that care about these issues or people that would care about these issues if they were brought to them. Right. Awesome. Well, I'll tell you what,

obviously I wish I could have been there again this year. I had an awesome time when I did come. Hopefully, like I said, we can send some of our listeners, if they want to know more about the protest, just check the show notes for this episode. There'll be links to more information.

And Chrissy, thank you so much for hanging out with us and thank you for all the work that you're doing. Thank you so much for the opportunity and we'll set a date and hopefully we can get you here next year excellent excellent before we take out our teeth tonight I wanted to thank everybody who sent messages of support over the last few weeks and I especially want to thank Heath, Eli, Lucinda, Tim, Morgan, Andrew, and Don for stepping up and helping out in my absence. Anyway, that's all the Blast Maybe we've got for you this week.

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 at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, God Awful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday,

and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Fuck, I need to slow down. Obviously this wouldn't be a real show if I neglected to thank all the people I just thanked at the outset, but, but I also want to thank Chrissy one more time for hanging out tonight. Remember the protest is on Saturday,

July 10th in Williamstown, Kentucky, and they would love to see you there. Oh, also need to thank the mods for our unofficial fan group on Facebook for providing this week's Farnsworth quote and for moderating our unofficial fan group, even though people keep posting dicks in it.

But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's, last week's, the week before that, and the week before that's best people. And I know you're probably thinking that I can't do the say everybody's name real fast in a single breath thing now that I have dentures, but I've still got that shit. Bunnyhood, BC, Kuiper Belt, Transport,

Shapeshifting Demons, Sarah, Kendall, John, Dominic, James, Rob, Always Save My Soul, Amy, Siv, Appropriately Inappropriate, Former Internet Spaceship Recruiter, Graham, Kevin, Plug, Whatever You Want In Here, Chelsea, Jerome, Lex, Al, Kid, San Diego, Ray, Joshua, Michael, Space Ace, David, Bruce, Katie, Joe, Brent, Skaldaron, Just John, and Derek, who are more mouthwatering than holding an undigestible hunk of plastic in your mouth all the time. Sorry, if you have dentures, that totally makes sense. in your mouth all the time. Sorry, if you have dentures, that totally makes sense. Together, these 34 flirty no shit, nothing complimentary rhymes with four, so I'm just going to take a mulligan and go with awesome people made it that much easier for us

to tell Jesus freaks to fuck off this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some of it to us, 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 ScathingAdias.com.

And if you'd like to help, but money's been avoiding you, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following at P-I-E-T-Pod on Twitter. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at

skatingadius.com. Who I would like to say has been... No. What? Don't. I almost thank you, man. Don't Ron Burgundy me. I'm Ron Burgundy. I got so close to Ron Burgundy him.

Don't do that. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.