The Scathing Atheist - 438: Dumb-brella Edition

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

In this week’s episode, the Catholic Church is pretty sure not getting away with murder FOREVER is persecution, Right Wing Watch gets rescued by Jesus our Lord and Savior, and Geoff Blackwell of American Atheist will be here to not trust in god. --- 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 how you can support American Atheists here: https://www.atheists.org/ --- Headlines: Hobby Lobby takes out full page ad in favor of theocracy: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/4/2038368/--I-m-a-Democrat-I-hate-the-company-So-sums-up-my-feelings-for-Hobby-Lobby-this-Fourth-of-July Canadian Archbishop: I’m Facing “Persecution” Over the Residential School Crisis: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/07/04/canadian-archbishop-im-facing-persecution-over-the-residential-school-crisis/ Catholic priest resigns after praising the good done in residential schools: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/27/catholic-priest-resigns-after-praising-the-good-done-in-residential-schools/ Anthony Fauci named Humanist of the Year: https://thehumanist.com/features/articles/fauci-named-american-humanist-associations-2021-humanist-of-the-year New Analysis Finds That 84% of White Evangelicals Voters Backed Trump in 2020: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/30/new-analysis-finds-that-84-of-white-evangelicals-voters-backed-trump-in-2020/ Clay Clark - the man behind the conspiracy theory rallies happening around the country: https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/clay-clark-the-man-behind-the-massive-conspiracy-theory-rallies-happening-around-the-country/ Rick Wiles prematurely claims "Jesus Christ shut down Right Wing Watch": https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/30/rick-wiles-prematurely-claims-jesus-christ-shut-down-right-wing-watch/

Warning, the following podcast contains F's followed by U's. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Gabby, IP Vanish, and by T-shirts with the Coke logo except it says Jesus. T-shirts with the Coke logo except it says Jesus. Because those fucking idiots will buy anything and the Coca-Cola company is afraid to piss off Christians. And now, The Scathing Atheist. My name is Birdie Jones, long-time listener to the show. As a childhood fundamentalist

evangelical Christian, desperately trying to be straight, a once-upon-a-time Orthodox Christian, desperately pretending to be straight, and now a full-time wildly bisexual atheist, comfortable in their sexuality for the very first time, one fact is abundantly clear. We did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's July 8th. And we knew the Catholic Church were murdering baby psychos before it was cool. I'm Noah Lusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Woodrow, Wilson's, New Jersey, Cincinnati, Red State, and Redtown, Blue State, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, the Catholic Church is pretty sure not getting away with murder forever is persecution. Right-wing watch gets rescued by Jesus, our Lord and Savior. And Jeff Blackwell of the American Atheist will be here to not trust in God. But first, the Diatrax.

I was scrolling around Facebook the other day, as I want to do for reasons that I can't really even explain to myself, when I was confronted with one of those sad Christian attempts at visualizing their shitty worldview. It's one I've seen before, and you probably have, too. It's a hierarchy of Christian sexism presented as a series of ever more subordinate umbrellas. Now, there's a thousand versions of it, but this is the one I see most often. There's four umbrellas all on the same shaft. So already it doesn't make any fucking sense.

There's a really big one at the top, and each one down is smaller than the last. The top one says Christ, of course, because if you think about him as a real guy for a fucking second, he's the most arrogant piece of shit you've ever heard of. Now, below that, there's a slightly smaller umbrella canopy that says husband. Below that, a slightly smaller canopy that says wife and an even smaller one below that with children on it. And just in case you're not getting the message, the whole image is labeled biblical order of the family. Now, think about what a stupid fucking image this is. Just from an image perspective, why would you have littler canopies below bigger ones on an umbrella? Right? Is that in case like a storm slides in below the top one if the top can't

be as work and the other ones are just always going to be dry and let's turn the damn thing sideways and isn't that admitting way more than they want with their visual aid right like after all if you actually had the omnipotent omniscient god of the universe who loves you protecting your ass why the fuck would dad need a gun collection why would you need locks on your doors even unless christ is a leaky umbrella the rest of this apparatus is just decorative but wait there's more again bunch of versions of this but the one that i'm working from also includes a few of the family responsibilities each participant in the hierarchy is expected to fulfill well almost there's actually no responsibilities for Christ at all.

His mere presence fulfills his end of the contract, apparently. But below husband, it lists three responsibilities. It says protect family, lead the family, provide for family. Below the wife canopy, it says comfort, teach, nurture. And below children, they've got love parents, obey parents. And I don't need to tell you that every fucking one of those is a terrible thing to present as an absolute. Let's start at the top here. The idea that the husband is going to provide for the family is antiquated for way more reasons than just the sexism.

Very few families are in a position where one person can take care of all the financial needs. And the only reason men have an advantage over women in this one is because of the gender wage gap. And yet this idea is so ingrained that men in this culture are driven to suicidal levels of depression when their wives make more money than them. I've talked to women who refused promotions or quit jobs to placate their husband's egos in this regard. in this regard and the idea that a penis is the only qualification you need to claim leadership in literally every fucking situation is such a recipe for disaster it once gave us president donald trump but the prescribed roles for the wife are no better you know sure some women are great at comforting teaching and nurturing others not so much but worse than that is the idea that this somehow absolves the husband from all of those responsibilities right i mean even conservative

christian dads still teach their kids shit, by and large, but holy shit at all the serial killers they've churned out with their phobia about comforting and nurturing. And then we get to, in my opinion, the worst advice on the fucking chart. At the very bottom, it tells children that their chief responsibilities

are to love and obey their parents. And keep in mind, this isn't being communicated as a company policy or as good advice from a motivational poster. This is being handed down on high by God himself to brains that haven't yet developed the ability to question what they're being told. Any responsible human being would be tossed in and all kinds of caveats on that, right? Like obey your parents unless they tell you to X, Y, or Z. But Christianity is all about the absolute. So come hell or high water, you have to obey them. And you have to love them too, which is somehow even worse. Don't get me wrong. I love my parents. I'm sure most of you do too. But I also know some of you who don't. I know plenty of you whose

parents don't deserve your love or your forgiveness or your time, and yet almost all of you still want to love them. The idea that you should always love your parents no matter what cruel shit they've done to you is the source of probably 50% of the terrible sad stories in my inbox. Having abusive parents or parents that reject you because of your religious beliefs, your gender identity, or your sexual orientation is already bad enough without the overwhelming societal pressure to reconcile with them or to love them anyway. So yeah, no surprise. Literally every fucking word and image on the Christian chart for how to be a good family is wrong, misguided, stupid, or some combination of the three. In fact, I have to share one last detail on the image because the stupidity of it

annoys the hell out of me. Immediately below the children canopy is the fucking handle. So apparently you have to hold this contraption straight up in the air if you're using it or something. I don't know. So yet again, they've accidentally got something in their dumb ass image right. And it's not something they wanted to admit right would you use the biblical order of the family there's no room left over for your head joining me for headlines tonight are the of the people and by the people to my for the people heathen right in the eli bosnick, are you ready to not perish from the earth? Okay. If you're going to start the way my personal trainer does, we're going to have problems.

Sorry. Sorry. You have a personal trainer? Yikes. Well, he actually pays us to never identify him on the show, though. He's like a reverse sponsor. And speaking of how we make our money.

We got to up that ransom. Yeah, right? Here's a quick word from our first actual sponsor this week. Gabby. I don't have a personal trainer. No, right? So here's a quick word from our first actual sponsor this week, Gabby. I don't have a personal trainer. No, you don't. No. All right.

And now I just need your mother's maiden name's most favorite pet's birthday. Okay. I think it's June 22nd. Sorry. Okay. We've been doing this for hours. I was just looking to compare my insurance rates. Yeah, I know.

Almost done. What color underpants were you wearing on the fourth day of sixth grade? White. All right. That was the last question. And your rate is five-ish. Okay. Sorry.

Five-ish? What's five-ish? Oh, well, we don't actually compare your insurance rates. We just give you an estimate based on your answers to our questions. You find out what your rate is when you actually apply. Which I can do by... Answering all those questions again. Seriously? Again?

Yeah. Yeah. Who do you think we are, Gabby? Wait, what's Gabby? Well, Gabby is the one true comparison platform with fast, verifiable quotes, not ballpark guesses. Okay. Do I have to spend like nine hours answering questions for them? No, actually. With Gabby, you use your current policy to find a better policy.

Comparing your current coverage with 40 of the top insurance providers like Progressive, Nationwide, and Travelers. All in one place. It's free, and they only show policies that are the same or better than your current coverage. Many of them at a lower price. Yeah, I actually used Gabby to compare prices on my car insurance. Logged in with my current info. It was fast and they saved me money. In fact, Gabby customers save $961 per year on average and they'll never sell your info.

So no annoying spam or robocalls. Wow, that sounds so much better than what I'm doing right now. So how do I give it a try? Put your policy to the test like I did. Get better insurance with Gabby. It's totally free to check and there's no obligation. Go to Gabby.com slash scathing. That's G-A-B-I.com slash scathing. Gabby.com slash scathing. All right. I guess I won't need your help after all. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you go. Yeah? What? What flavor was your birthday cake in 1994?

What? How does that even help you? I need the information! And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, Hobby Lobby is a fucking hate group. Yeah. Right? I mean, they sell potpourri and skeins of yarn and shit, but that's just to pay for the hate group stuff. And we were reminded of that yet again when they took out a full page ad in a bunch of newspapers on July 4th that never mentioned a damn thing about crochet patterns or sales on scented candles.

Instead, the ad reads One Nation Under God in like nine inch fucking type with a little kid wrapped in a flag. And below that, it has a bunch of cherry pick quotes from American history about how if you think about it, everybody who isn't a Christian is kind of a worthless piece of shit. Yeah. And they didn't even bother to put it on a mug and fake handwriting. Lazy. Hobby Lobby. That's what it is. Right.

Exactly. You should at least have to set it up with your own decorative letters now the ad includes a series of quotes from george washington john adams james madison thomas jefferson and john quincy adams all talking about the importance of religion noteworthy that not a goddamn one of them mentions christianity also worth pointing out if we lined up a series of quotes from those same dudes on i don't know the rights of african americans yeah right right it would be super obvious why we can and should ignore the fucking opinions of all of those guys on social issues altogether what's more the fact that the most recent quote they could find in defense of their bullshit was a fucking supreme court ruling from 1844 should tell you

exactly how relevant they are to the present. Under their little education section, they actually quoted from the Harvard student guidelines of 1636. What is that? Chris, should we include this quote about you kids these days and your high-speed

buggies? I feel like we need to cut it for space. Yeah, let's cut it for space we need plenty of room for the entire dread scott decision right as it applies to yarn yeah well yeah so the message of the ad was very clearly that america isn't theocratic enough and that non-christians have no place in our government that's fully one-third of the goddamn country to be clear and the people expressing this position of moral superiority are of course the people who smuggled stolen artifacts looted from iraq sued the government for making them cover contraceptive costs for their employees refused

to close their stores for covid on the strength of a vivid dream the boss's wife had forced their employees to use sick time to cover their time off when they were forced to shut down, illegally reopened stores when states were still on lockdown, told a Jewish customer their stores don't cater to your people, asked for a federal exemption from having to sell yarn to LGBTQ people, and staged a hostile takeover for a charity to feed children because it wasn't Jesus-y enough for them. According to those people, you just can't trust non-Christians. They have no morals.

And in I Love Your Persecution news, as regular listeners to the show are doubtlessly aware, over the last three months, mass grave sites have been uncovered at so-called residential schools in Canada with the number of dead children uncovered totaling more than a thousand so far. Jesus Christ. And as they have every time we've discussed an evil thing

they were doing way too recently, the Catholic Church is pretty sure it's everyone's fault but their own and that they're being persecuted. Okay, you know what? Yes, they are. We're persecuting you now for murder. Yeah.

Okay, so how fucked up is this? Murder understates the case a bit, right? Yep. Baby genocide. We're persecuting you for baby genocide. I the persecute. Yep. Yeah.

So, a little backstory here. Residential schools were Catholic institutions that kidnapped the children of indigenous people in the hopes of Jesusing them into not being savages anymore. Now, by all accounts, they were absolutely brutal places meant to beat the other out of children. And as we're discovering more and more each day, they also seem to have just been murder factories. So as you can imagine, catholic church is coming under a bit of scrutiny for this after all literally the only good thing you could say about the catholic church until recently is we were under the impression you left children alive yeah yeah they're out there going like well first you say you don't want us leaving them traumatized for

life now you're pissed about this make up up your mind, you persecutors. Yeah, we can't have it both ways. That's our fault. Yeah. So here's how the Catholic Church has handled the revelation that their schools were murder factories. First, at Merciful Redeemer Parish, Monsignor Owen Keenan addressed the issue by asking his parish to focus on the good things the residential schools did, saying, quote, really, two thirds of the country is blaming the church, which we love. Yeah, I was going to say, seems low, seems low, Owen, for the tragedies that occurred

there. I presume the same number would thank the church for the good done in those schools. But of course, that question was never asked asked and we are not allowed to even say that good was done there i await to see what comes to my inbox end quote your inbox okay we ask everyone respect our privacy during this very difficult time of us getting caught murdering yeah email persecution is serious it's serious yeah Yeah. Real struggle. Well, good news. Turns out quite a bit came into Monsignor Keenan's inbox, and he has since resigned. There you go. But he is far from the only Catholic passing the buck here.

During a recent sermon, Archbishop Richard Gagnon, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and Archbishop of Winnipeg, took a moment to talk about the real victim in all of this was it him him yep personally yep it's him so according to the globe and mail quote he said that in his role he is getting bombarded a lot and that in dealing with the media he's noticing a lot of blame a lot of accusations a lot of exaggerations a lot of false ideas and quote so much better shit that we could bombard him with guys come on yeah hands us soup which brings us of course to the fires so as you probably heard over the last month there have been more than a dozen fires slash vandalisms at churches many of which are catholic and a lot of people, especially the Catholic Church, believe that these fires are revenge for the uncovered bodies of children at residential schools. And it's worth pointing out, we don't know that. True. Right. One of the most recent

attacks was on the Vietnamese Alliance Church in Calgary. And I'm pretty sure vengeance arsonists know that they weren't involved in colonial genocide in fact so far as i can tell none of these arsons have been proven to be vengeance based yet so look i'm not saying anything either way but maybe we shouldn't be taking the child rapists who were recently discovered to be child murderers word for it well yeah and honestly look as much fucked up shit as the catholic Church has done, even if we knew it was revenge, we still wouldn't know what it was revenge for.

Yeah. Okay, does revenge arson look different than regular arson? Like, do they spell stuff out in the fires, like, to tell them what was happening? Yeah, you do a crow shape, actually, I think. Oh, yeah. No, that's fair. That's fair. And look, if these are revenge for over a thousand dead kids, no that's fair that's fair and look if these are revenge

for over a thousand dead kids and that's just what we've discovered so far that's bad i'm informed by our attorney that is bad but it's not like i don't get it right i mean the catholic church they're the largest landowner in the world. There is literally nowhere on the planet survivors and families of these victims can go to escape the constant reminder that the institution that genocided them is still well and in power. Wow. That would make anybody pick up a pack of matches. You know what I'm saying? But again, as I said before, I'm informed by my lawyer. Don't do that.

Yes. Or advocate for it. Or advocate for it, which I'm not by my lawyer. Don't do that. Yes. Or advocate for it. Or advocate for it, which I'm not doing. Nope. Sure aren't. And in Oscar the Fouch news tonight. Okay, now that's how you get me to remember a name, pronunciation, solutions. Oscar is an award.

Anyway, so atheism could scarcely have scripted a better us and them contrast in the responses to covid last year from religious and nonreligious public figures. On the them side, you had at least one full book's worth of pastors, priests and televangelists promising miracle cures while suing the government for the right to keep gathering in unrestricted numbers despite their wholesale dismissal of safety protocols. protocols and on the other side you had the humanist head of the national institute for allergy and infectious diseases patiently suffering the slings and arrows of their outrageous stupidity without ever throwing his hands up in the air and saying fuck it you assholes aren't worth saving fine drink some goddamn bleach he's a saint he should be saint right well we don't have that in atheism but we do have this the american humanist association announced this month that dr anthony fauci will be the recipient of the 2021 humanist of the year award and if it turns out that he created covet in a lab in wuhan and gave it to people as part of a genocidal

illuminati plot he gets to keep the award this is very important to some people. And I feel like every winner, they get to pick one person who had the award revoked for whatever reason and pocket sand them in the eyes. Whatever that might be, I think that should be part of the award. So yeah, Fauci is one of ours. Since at least 2003, he's publicly identified as a humanist.

He said in a recent interview, quote, I look upon myself as a humanist. I have faith in the goodness of mankind, end quote. And honestly, his ability to retain that faith and light all the anti-masker hydroxychloroquine hock and microchip implant fantasy bullshit that he's been suffering through for the last year kind of makes Job look like a dithering flake. Yeah, I don't know how recent that interview was, but let's not ask what he thinks now. So can we not poke?

Well, so in the press release the aha sent out accompanying the announcement they also mentioned this quote quote i'm less enamored of organized religion than i am with the principles of humanity and goodness to mankind and doing the best you can end quote which is some champion level understatement right nice way i'm less enamored of organized religion than i am with those little barbed fish that swim up your dick hole and after the shit that that dude's been through for the last right nice way i'm less enamored of organized religion than i am with those little barbed fish that swim up your dick hole and after the shit that that dude's been through for the last 15 months i feel like the same is true of the good doctor but i'm pretty sure he can't get away with

saying that so you know he said what he thought oh i don't know no a raw dog honesty dr fauci just comes out in a tank top vis visibly drunk. Hey, everybody. Well, the idiots and their families are still dying. Pretty pleased with sugar on top. Take the miracle I made for you in world record time. Was that? No? Okay, I'm gonna burp the alphabet now.

Fauci is actually a John Galt character, like in a reality way. If anyone's been holding the world on their shoulders and deserves a shrug right now, it's Anthony Fauci. Yeah. So, yeah, Fauci will officially receive the award at the AHA's 80th annual conference, which will take place virtually on July 24th and 25th this year. I think you can still register today. And assuming he can refrain from tweeting a bunch of transphobic bullshit eugenics ideas, he gets to keep that award indefinitely. refrained from tweeting a bunch of transphobic bullshit and eugenics ideas, he gets to keep that award

indefinitely. And we here at The Scathing Atheist would like to celebrate this win by pronouncing his goddamn name correctly from now on. I mean, we'd like to know, but we want a lot of things here at The Scathing Atheist. Eli, what's the last name?

Fousey. Yep. We'll get there. We give a Fouse a cookie. And in, oh say can you see, evangelicals do. This is terrible. Thank you. White evangelical Christians are worse and more Republican than we thought. More. Again.

Yep. I know that sounds like it's just an emergency sentence I can say if I ever forget to write headlines for our podcast podcast but we did actually get new data to back that up this week so we're gonna talk about it yeah yeah evangelicals vote republican we're dropping all kind of knowledge bombs this week i hope you brought a pen and a paper listen scoop so it was widely reported that trump's support among evangelicals dipped from 81% in 2016 to 76% in 2020, which religious apologists proudly proclaimed was proof that for 5% of evangelical Christians, the plague and the rape and the treason and the racism was too far. So if you think about it, religion ain't so bad after

all. Please keep giving us your money i'm the new york times and even though that's bullshit this week the pew research center let us know that it's actually bullshit bullshit that it's it's a bad argument but it's a bad argument about a lie okay but just to be clear we knew about the rape and the racism way before 2016 so even granting that lie one in 20 evangelicals decided to draw a line after multiple rape allegations and decades of racism but before treason and helping a plague and that's a win condition for christian apologists right it's actually a bad argument about a lie within a lie. There you go. Plus a mic

drop because they think they won something. It's that meme where the guy sprays himself in the mouth and he's at the last place trophy. So Pew Research came out with an election report based on something called validated voters, which is people who said they voted, but then those votes are later confirmed

using the public record. and according to those numbers the numbers of evangelicals who voted for trump actually went up in 2020 from 77 to 84 jesus christ so again just to be clear it turns out that seven percent of evangelicals drew a line after plague rape treason and racism but as a fucking goal line as like a thing to get to yes for them yeah and so wait so now it's a bad argument about a lie within a lie that is a jesus i feel like joseph gordon levitt is floating through a hotel in one of these levels or something so if you're wondering how did atheists do pretty fucking well second only to black protestants 87 of self-identifying atheists voted for joe biden well and and to be clear like if we got to split by race the way they do for protestants i feel

like we'd have done even better like like black atheists i think would have been doing a little better i feel like we would not have had the nine percent who voted for trump now the point is religion did worse than they pretended they did and they pretended they did awful again i know like it feels like that could just be a filler sentence for when i didn't do my job it's just always true and it always bears repeating and quickly you process the whole idea of evangelical christians being both terrible and liars we're going to pause for a word from our second sponsor this week ip vanish b-u-s-y-d-o-n-k-e-y busy donkey what's the donkey busy doing being busy hey eli what you doing there? Hey, Heath. Oh, you know, with the hackers out there trying to steal our info,

internet safety is more important than ever. That's why I'm making this. You're making a box to put your computer under? No, Heath. It's a trap. Hackers will come to steal my computer stuff. Boom, trapped under a box. Right, but Eli, if you want to protect your computer, that's a lot.

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I bought this refrigerator to get the box. I'm kind of low on funds right now, if you know what I mean. Yeah, okay. Well, not a great way to get a box. Anyway, for listeners of the show, IPVanish is offering an incredible 65% off. Just $3.49 for the first month or $3149 for the year. Wow, even I can afford that. Where do I sign up?

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They're repeat sponsors. Remember, it's IPVanish.com slash scathing to get the deal and start protecting yourself online. Aha! Caught one already. Show yourself, hacker. Eli, it's me. You put my laptop in here. I see. So,

Noah was the hacker all along. Okay. And we're back. Next up in headlines, we have a story about possibly the worst person you've never heard of. So you ready? Are you picturing this person?

You guys got a picture in your head? I do. Okay. Is it a middle-aged white guy who runs a business selling 15 minute videos of how to be an emerging market entrepreneur, influencer, synergy, bullshit, customer journey, logistics, touchpoint. Touchpoint. Yeah, exactly. Word for word.

I didn't think you were going to get the touch point, but yeah. And a podcaster. Got it. Yep, well, you nailed it. Yep. Is he also an evangelical Christian who organizes conspiracy theory conferences headlined by people like Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell? Of course.

Okay, well. Now you're in my head. This is your job. Two for two. And does he look like he's super proud of the upper-decker shit he just took at a party that he's about to announce to you? Yeah.

Okay, you guys are really good at this game. And by the way, just for the record, you are picturing exactly Clay Clark. That is who I'm talking about. He's posted a picture of this gentleman in our news. He is ridiculous. Not only is he perfect, I don't know why he thought it was a good idea to take this picture.

Okay, he's got steepled fingers. Yes. He's looking out from under his eyebrow. Why would you put this on anything other than like bad guy tin right no he's he looks like a backstreet boy themed bond villain yes he does yes he does and that makes me larger than life so clay clark is the guy behind the Restore America rally. That's the event we talked about last week that featured Mike Lindell talking about his cyber guys who captured some what he believes to be physical packets of Internet stuff that are going to get Donald Trump back in the White House by September. Well, that rally and a series of other very similar events, including some that are coming up soon for the rest of the year, were all set up by Clay Clark. Why would he do that? Is there some kind of prophecy from God? Yes, there is. In 2013, self-proclaimed prophet Kim

Clement said, there is a man by the name of Mr. Clark and another man by the name of Donald and also end of prophecy. Really? That is the whole thing. Also, God's telling me there's a Mr. Smith, a man named John, and that prophecy is

really easy. Standards have really fallen. So yeah, that was God telling clay clark mr clark to help donald trump that that's the donald by organizing q anon rallies about the covid vaccine being a plot by bill gates so that bill gates can finally profit and make some money. Also, Democrats are trafficking babies to harvest adrenochromes so that Democrats can win something with adrenochrome. Also,

doesn't it seem like we do that with grown-ups? Just bigger adrenochromes? It seems like you get more. Whatever. Nobody listens to me at the meetings. Regardless, you're probably wondering at this point what's the agenda well according to clark quote what's the agenda the shot the injection the bioweapon the bioweapon the bioweapon exactly what they're calling the quote vaccine everyone

needs to look this up it's's called SM-102. A core ingredient of the shot, SM-102, also contains a technology called luciferase. Lucifer race. He says this. He says it out. He says luciferase, then he's like lucifer race. Nailed it. It's a racial thing to him somehow.

But that's the end of the quote. It's not that conspiracy theorists are stupid. It's that they think the bad guys are as stupid as they are and would put devil genetic inducing drug in the name. Okay, so this might just be my favorite conspiracy theory ever because

luciferase is a thing, right? It's a compound involved in bioluminescence apparently well fucking lightning bugs have it it's not in any of the vaccines because you know we don't need them to glow but apparently some experiment showed you could use it to like speed up testing for covet or something like that and now professional reporters at the new york times have to explain, no, there's no molecular Satan in your vaccine. Yep. At this point, you're probably wondering, okay, but do you have any numbers to back that up, Clay Clark?

Yes, he does. Bitcoin crypto thing using the filing number W02020060606. Well, we all know from the book of Revelation, 666 is the number of the beast. Yeah. And what's a different number entirely with some of those digits? 02020060606. Exactly. 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 6, 0, 6, 0, 6.

Exactly. Science, numbers, data. And if you translate that to binary where 2 and 6 represent 1 and 0 still represents 0, what number is 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1? That's right. What's that?

661. So close. And then, and how many points are there on that w five oh we did it oh god they're gonna use that one now aren't they we shouldn't have done clay you have to paypal us that's called research clay don't steal our thing come on buddy just there's infinity points on a W if you think about it. Don't use that because you'll make it worse. So Clark continued, what's the motive? It's to get you

and I to take the shot aka the mark with the patent number W0202060606. The technology was cooked up by a spirit cooker praised to Satan and the world's most prolific pedophile teaming up with Bill Gates, who right now stands at the threshold of the gates of hell. I mean, the threshold of the gates of hell is one way to describe a divorce.

I get it. Oh, so I assumed he was talking about switching over to Windows 11. But yeah, OK. All right. I assumed he was talking about switching over to Windows 11, but yeah, okay. All right. So just in case your shitty Uncle Frank is curious, who organized the super reasonable Trump rally that he heard about on Tucker Carlson? The answer is Clay Clark, who literally said everything you just heard. And that includes our atheist plot that apparently started in the late 19th century when French chemist Raphael Dubois named that enzyme luciferase.

Yes, exactly. That's when we started the long con. I will name this light in my native French and everyone will really like it. A hundred years later, you ain't putting that in me, Joe Biden bomber. Okay. They're on to us. And finally tonight, we have some good news and some bad news. The bad news, we have a story about Rick Wiles, but it's not about how he died of COVID and also acute poetic justice.

Oh, I'm so sad. Yeah, he had the COVID. He's still there. Yeah, he had the COVID. He's still there. The good news, he thought he had a win last week, and he tried to gloat on behalf of God for that win, and then the universe immediately contradicted him.

Yep. So in case anyone missed it, YouTube shut down the channel for right-wing watch because YouTube is kind of stupid sometimes, and they can't tell the difference between hate speech and exposing hate speech. So Rick Wiles tried to humble brag. I don't know what's the word for this, but he tried to something. He tried to verb somehow that his hate speech got taken down. But that very same afternoon, YouTube realized they were being stupid and they put the channel right back

up sorry that i have to give you a nose on air heath but um when the bad news is that rick wiles didn't die of x the good news kind of has to be that he did die of something else right or everybody's gonna be really disappointed like this is a fun story and everything but it's just your setup made it into a letdown. All right, let's just refresh really quick. Rick Wiles. Damn it. Okay. Still alive.

Sorry about that. I hacked into his Apple Watch. He's fine. Here's what we got from Rick Wiles. He started by saying, the Bible tells us that Christian people are not supposed to gloat. So that during his dedicated gloating segment on his show and he quoted romans 12 19 where it says beloved never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of god

for it is written vengeance is mine i will repay says the lord adding but yeah right however that being said here's my gloating segment yeah so yeah wrath of god he was hoping god would do a magic the gathering board wipe on right wing watch and here's the big announcement quote let me make this very clear today jesus christ shut down right wing watch not youtube jesus christ shut down right wing watch. Not YouTube. Jesus Christ shut down right wing watch today. Actually, no, no. Nobody shut him down. It was just their YouTube channel. That's a thing

on the internet. You know what? I'll explain it later, Rick. I'll explain it later. Continuing. This is an example of God working through unsaved people at YouTube to carry out his vengeance against those who attack and smear his servants. You think?

So I didn't have to lift a finger against Right Wing Watch. I think they'll disappear in the coming weeks and months. There's no purpose for them now. End quote. Okay, all I'm saying is when Tim gets a channel shut down for putting our content on it or whatever,

it stays down. So clearly Tim is more effective than Jesus. This is yet another. And Andy doesn't ask for 10% of our income. Being an atheist is great. Yeah, fight back. That's right there. Get the shit out of some Roman guards.

Tim is more powerful than Jesus Christ of Nazareth. We know that mathematically. I always said that. And even though Right Wing Watch normally uses Vimeo for hosting embedded videos, that clip of Rick Wiles was very decidedly on their YouTube channel.

Yes! I love them so much. They're such a good job. Well done. Great job. Quick review. Here's the narrative from Rick Wiles. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the son of God, who is magical, filed a complaint with YouTube

through the proper channels about an account that was literally just playing clips of his followers saying their Christian beliefs out loud yeah which happens to also be hate speech a lot and then rick wiles tried to gloat about it and then fucking minutes later jesus was like fuck all right see what happens yeah this is why we need critical race theory you guys need to put it back up i'll come get my boy i'll come get my my boy. So Rywy was in the middle of a victory lap and he got fucking side tackled by Jesus Christ and the universe. That's what happened according to Rick Wyatt on his show. Like, come on, man. If you're not even going to make it a challenge, it kind of ruins it for us.

It's not as fun. Actually, no, it does. It does not ruin it. I enjoyed this. I enjoyed this a lot. Please, please keep failing horribly. Keep doing it. And die of COVID so that Heath's story has an upswing.

Exactly. Rude. You could ruin our story. Just die of COVID ruins the whole thing. We were wrong about it at all. You won't do it. With that admonition delivered, I think we can close the headlines for the night. Eli, thanks as always.

Go to the penguins at the zoo and then find them. What are you doing? He's back. Sorry, I got used to it. Jumanji! And when we come back,

Jeff Blackwell will be here to set up a lawyer-off with Andrew at some point in the future. Blackwell! Blackwell! As Hobby Lobby aptly demonstrated this week, there are few things that conservative Christians enjoy more than telling atheists that we don't belong.

From the giant crosses that peer at us over the tree line, to the religious statements on our money, to the ostentatious displays over the holidays reminding everybody that peace on earth is their thing damn it they delight in forever making us the outsider in our own country well thankfully we have some pretty dedicated folks in our corner pushing back against that like for example litigation council for american atheists and my guest today jeff blackwell jeff welcome to the scathing atheist hey there noah thanks for having me on it's great to have you man so you're involved in a new lawsuit from American Atheist. I've seen coverage of this all over the media, and basically everything I've seen has managed to get it wrong. Over and over again, I've read that American Atheist is suing to have In God We Trust removed from the Mississippi license plate.

But that's not exactly right. So can you clarify it for us? What exactly is this lawsuit all about? Yeah, Fox News in particular has been repeatedly mischaracterizing the lawsuit. So we are not suing to have the state remove In God We Trust from its standard license plates. What we are suing for is to allow non-Christians to remove it from their vehicles by requiring the state to offer an alternative plate at no extra cost that doesn't have In God We Trust on it. All right. So, but, I mean, why not, right? Like, shouldn't just having In God We Trust on the license plate count as a church-state violation? plate count as a church state violation? According to your own lawsuit, quote, the phrase in God we trust is rooted in hostility towards non-Christians and atheists intended to convey a message that non-belief in the Christian God is un-American, end quote.

Shouldn't the goal be to get it off altogether? I mean, yes, the motto is explicitly religious and in my personal opinion, does violate the Establishment Clause and the hostility is part of that. And instinctively, you might want to say that, yes, that hostility that's at the root of In God We Trust should be enough to do away with something like this. But if I turn my lawyer brain on, I know that the answer to that question has to be no. Because if you look at, for instance, the Supreme Court's decision a couple weeks ago in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, you have to ask what makes something hostile and how much hostility is enough to invalidate a governmental

policy. In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Catholic Social Services was asking the court to force the city to contract with them despite the fact that they would not comply with the city's non-discrimination requirements. And in part, they based their arguments on a number of statements by government officials that they claimed were evidence of religious animus. And if you read the actual statements by the government officials, they either had nothing to do with Catholic social services, or they were completely benign statements in the course of trying to come to an agreement with Catholic social services about this issue.

So if we based it purely on whether there is hostility involved, it would raise a bunch of problems. And it's actually really easy to imagine harms that a government would seek to redress and that are motivated solely by religion. I'll offer a hypothetical. Let's say a private school that's run by a Christian science organization has a policy of confiscating medication that they find among a student's personal belongings. There's outcry over this, and the state decides to pass a law prohibiting any educational facility from interfering in the medical treatment of students that's prescribed or administered outside of the school. And during the legislative process, some member of the health committee

for the state legislature raises this school situation as an example of what the problem is. Is that hostility? Would that statement invalidate the very thing that's trying to prevent the harm that the state has an interest in preventing? These are the kinds of things that we have to ask and why it goes beyond, why it's about more than just hostility, which is a very long answer to a very simple question. Okay, but still, like if either in God we trust is an explicitly religious message, in which case, at least in my opinion, it's a violation of the Establishment Clause, or it isn't and you have no lawsuit. So how is there a middle ground here?

Well, it's important to note that we aren't bringing an Establishment Clause claim in this lawsuit. Okay. Now, there's a case out of the Ninth erino from like 1970 something something where the ninth circuit somehow says that in god we trust has no theological content okay i don't know what they it seems like i'm no lawyer here but there are There are things in the history of the court system where it's just like you didn't cite anything to that for that. You're just asserting some, you know, you're lying essentially. Right. But regardless, we aren't raising an establishment clause claim here specifically because there's all this messiness about is it a religious statement?

And the motto in and of itself doesn't require you to do anything, so there are standing questions. But we are bringing this challenge based on the fact that forcing someone to display the motto on their own private property is just black letter compelled speech and violates the First Amendment's

free speech clause. And failing to provide atheists and non-christians with an alternative if they have an objection to displaying a god we trust on their vehicle violates the free exercise clause okay yeah well yeah no i guess if and baking a cake for a gay wedding is enough but yeah i was who exactly we've certainly reached this line. Okay, so I have a little judiciary nomenclature question for you as well. So, American Atheist is suing the

state of Mississippi, but the case is called Griggs v. Graham. So, who the hell are Griggs and Graham and why are they stealing your thunder here? Sure. Well, American Atheist is a plaintiff in the case, but there are a number of other plaintiffs, three individual Mississippi residents, Jason Griggs, Kim Gibson, and Dorinda Hancock. There's also the Mississippi Humanist Association. Mississippi residents who are non-religious or non-Christian and object to this being on their vehicle. Jason Griggs, for example, is a professor at the University of Mississippi. He does research

into things like designing medical implants that last longer inside the human body. He has brought actually a fair amount of funding to the university through grants and things like that to pursue these things that help Mississippi. Durant Hancock and Kim Gibson are long-term residents of Mississippi. A member of the Mississippi Humanist Association who has a disability has no choice but to display in God We Trust on her vehicle because you have to have that in order to get a plate with a handicap plate. Really? You can't even pay for a different license plate that has a different image if you're disabled? Nope. Wow.

Nope, if you are disabled, except there is an alternate plate if you're hearing impaired. Don't know why, but that's the case. And because this case is about these Mississippi residents and what the state is requiring them to do, they are the named plaintiffs. Gotcha. Rather than American atheists being at the top of the list. Okay. So, now, I'm certainly not a legal expert, obviously. That's why I've got you on.

But I feel like if there's one major shift in the American judiciary over the last few years, it's been this hard right towards theocracy. So I can't help wondering if this maybe isn't the right time for a lawsuit like this. Why bring this suit now? Well, we brought it now because a number of Mississippi residents contacted us late last year, and 2019 happens to be when Mississippi started forcing residents to put this on their vehicles. So this is when it happened. So this is when we bring this lawsuit. I understand that there are, you know, the trend at the Supreme Court is certainly not good in terms of religious liberty and religious equality.

But if we're going to let some fear of what this court might potentially do about anything control our actions, I may as well pack up my office and go home. Right. There are cases that you have to bring, and particularly in this case, I think it's one that should be brought because all of the precedent is in our favor. favor. This court is not going to overturn Woolley v. Maynard and say the government can compel private individuals to display the government's preferred message on their private property, because guess what? That's going to apply just as much to conservatives as liberals, to religious people as atheists or apotheists or whatever you want to term the people who just don't care. And the court's not going to take that step. So this seemed like a case worth bringing. All the law is in our favor. And particularly after the court handed down its Fulton decision,

this was kind of a no-brainer. Okay, so let's kind of zero in on that because, you know, what I know of the Fulton decision, it didn't seem like anything good for atheists was going to arise from that. So can you explain the connection there? Sure. Well, like I mentioned earlier, Catholic Social Services wanted an exemption from the city's non-discrimination policy. And in addition to the statements that they claimed were hostile, they said that because the commissioner of health for the city had this unilateral ability to waive that requirement, they were entitled to that. This is something that's in the legal scholarly world referred to as the most favored nation theory, that essentially if you offer any exemption to a law for reasons having absolutely

nothing to do with religion, then you must also provide an equivalent greatest degree of protection to someone who seeks an exemption for religious reasons. And this is something that has been developing for a little while. Earlier this year in a case called Tandon v. Newsom, something on the Supreme Court's, air quotes, shadow docket, laid out pretty clearly with regard to COVID restrictions, where California allowed things like liquor stores, grocery stores, laundromats to have people come in and conduct their business and leave. And the Supreme Court said that because they allowed that, the state also had to allow people to attend religious services. Otherwise, it was a violation

of their free exercise. Here, as I mentioned, the state provides, for example, a free alternate license plate to people who are hearing impaired, and it happens to not include In God We Trust. They do the same for people who have received Purple Hearts, active duty military, and the surviving spouses of veterans. There are a number of exemptions within the Mississippi law that provide alternative plates at no extra cost to certain narrow classes of people. And because they provide those exemptions under Tandon and under Fulton, we argue that the Supreme Court has to provide an exemption of equivalent type to atheists and non-Christians who have a religious objection to displaying in God we trust on their vehicle. They are entitled to no less treatment than someone who's deaf or a Purple Heart recipient or someone who works at a sheriff's office. Oh, that is awesome, like judicial jujitsu or something.

That's very cool. Okay, so, but now, and I apologize, because I don't want to harp on this too much, but Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves is basically daring you. Like, he was desperate for somebody to sue him over this, right? And like you said, this plate's only been around around since 2019 he actually featured the plate in a campaign ad where he bragged about how much out-of-state liberals hate it so you know is it wise to give him exactly what he's asking for here i think this is a classic case of be careful what you wish for especially in a campaign ad

personally i would like to thank Governor Reeves and actually Mississippi Attorney General Fitch for going out of their way to help us in our compelled speech claim. They have been falling all over themselves in that campaign ad and in their media appearances about this to repeatedly point out that having In God We Trust on the state seal and on their license plates is a substantive message that the state intends to deliver using people's private property. The attorney general has gone so far as to say that In God We Trust is an expression of the state of Mississippi's philosophy, which you couldn't ask for a better statement from a government official when you're trying to make a compelled speech claim. I mean, going back to West Virginia Board of Education v.

Barnett, the Supreme Court has said, if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. This could not be a more clear example of the application of that language. Okay, so now obviously not all atheists are on board with this lawsuit because something something hurting cats. I know that a lot of people are going to see this and say this is the wrong fight there are more important things that we could be focusing our efforts on so what do you say to the atheists who see this as as like petty or or too small to go after or just the wrong fight at the wrong time to them i i would say and no i i hope that you'll forgive

me my turn of phrase here but believe it or not I am able to walk and chew gum at the same time. And so, no offense. No, that's an insensitive comment and I apologize and retract it. I think it's a deserving one nonetheless, but okay, you do what you want with it. And for that matter, so is every other litigator in the atheist movement. We've been putting this lawsuit together, like I said, since late last year. During that time, we have been proceeding in our litigation against an Arkansas state senator who was censoring atheist constituents when they criticized him online. The last month or two, we've been assisting a resident of Colorado in getting non-religious substance abuse treatment in a rather emergency situation. We've filed a lawsuit against the Trump Department of Education and a number of other Trump agencies regarding religious social services.

We are still pushing in legislatures to end child marriage laws in the United States. And we're preparing to oppose the diversion of public funds to religious private schools in the upcoming Supreme Court term. The idea that because we're doing this means we're not doing anything else just strikes me as absurd. So I wish they would put a little more trust in us and that we have some idea of what we're doing. All that being said, I just want to add one thing, and that is this may, you know, they construe not just atheists who may think this is not the right fight to have right now, but just members of the public who are religious often downplay this.

Oh, you know, it's just a few words on your license plate. You can't even read it if you're in a car behind a license plate. But these little things add up. In God We Trust and the push to inject it into more and more aspects of our public life is part of something called Project Blitz. of our public life is part of something called Project Blitz. And Project Blitz is, in fact, a coordinated effort to make our government more religious. And by opposing these small initial steps, we can hopefully put ourselves in a position

where we don't have to try and stop an avalanche of things in the future. It's when things are small problems that they're easiest to put an end to. You know what, for lack of a better term, amen. So one more quick question, and I think this is a really important one, only somewhat related, but if our listeners want to support American atheists and their mission,

this lawsuit, lawsuits like this, and the ones that you were just talking about, what's the best way to help? Well, if you'd like to support our efforts, and please do, we need all the help we can get right now, I would encourage you to visit atheists.org slash donate, A-T-H-E-I-S-T-S dot O-R-G slash donate, and contribute a one-time payment or a monthly payment,

become a member, get a copy of our magazine quarterly. Yeah, we welcome the support. And of course, if you can't remember that one, it's pretty easy to remember. But just in case, we're going to have it linked in the show notes as well. All right. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for what you're doing. And thanks for hanging out and helping us understand what you're doing. Oh, thank you, Noah.

I appreciate you asking me to come on. Before we duck and cover tonight, I wanted to remind you that there's a brand new episode of D&D Minus dropping tomorrow. If you haven't checked out our monthly D&D playthrough, there's never been a better time because, you know, we just keep getting better at 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 shows 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 obviously i need to thank heath and ray for all the extra editing and eli wrangling that he did while i was gone these last few weeks i need to thank eli bosnick for not issuing any felonious threats to government officials in my absence i I want to thank Jeff Blackwell once again for being so generous with his time tonight. I wanted to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, who will be back soon, hopefully next week. And I also want to thank Bertie for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, and I want to wish her a happy birthday. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this

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