The Scathing Atheist - 442: Breakfast at Anna's Edition

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

In this week’s episode, we all sit in a room together long enough for Noah to remember why he's an introvert. --- 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/

Warning, the following podcast contains adult content, adult language, mild violence, drug use, full frontal nudity, pigeon noises, and unreliable lists. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by IP Vanish, MySheetsRock, ZipRecruiter, and by the only sheets good enough to beat MySheetsRock, MySheetsPaper. MySheetsPaper, because covering actually kind of makes sense in this context. And now, the Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Harrison. And this is Amy from the Sketchy Sketch Sketch Show. A new comedy podcast where anyone can submit a comedy sketch. We read it on the air and then have fun talking about it.

We may just be another podcast that only our moms listen to, but even we know that we did in in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. And women. It's Thursday. It's August 5th. And we're all in the same room. I'm touching Heath. I am touching him.

Yep, yep, it's true. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Baby Cheeks, New Jersey, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Anna Bosnick tells us just how god-awful Christian music can be. Eli is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode Anna Bosnick tells us just how god-awful Christian music can be. Eli is still touching me. I am. Like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate

just touching me. And I'm remembering why I'm an introvert. But first the diatribe. I probably won't surprise you to learn that the library in Waycross, Georgia didn't have a hell of a lot about atheism circa 2001. But ultimately, I did manage to find one and a half books about atheism. But ultimately, I did manage to find one and a half books about atheism. One was called The Atheist Debater's Handbook, and flawed though it was, it acted as my first introduction to a lot of the arguments that I still use today. And the half book was a 1994 book called Creationism's Upside-Down Pyramid. And though it wasn't technically about atheism, it was about how full of shit Christianity was, and that was pretty close.

So I checked both of the books out, and i read them over the next couple of days now at the time i was working at a pizza place that was on the verge of going out in business and my job was to you know look busy in case the boss showed up so i'm sitting in the office reading when the get to work bell goes off on the door and i hastily like toss the book on the desk hop up try to act like i'm in the middle of cleaning something now i know that my boss is super christian but i also have a great relationship with him at the time and i've got this childlike naivety about religion that assumes if a person is reasonable in one aspect of his life, he must be at least kinda reasonable in the others. So, you know, sure, he went to church and he wore a cross and shit,

but I figured he was intelligent enough to reject creationism. But when he saw the book, he kinda freaked the fuck out and proved me wrong. Now, he wasn't the yelly type. He didn't lose his temper, but he was clearly furious to see the work of the devil burning its way into his desk and expressed a profound disappointment that I didn't believe in creationism. His exact words were,

I thought you were smarter than that. Of course, I was far less confident in my beliefs at the time, and he was my boss, so I wasn't inclined to argue. I just kind of nodded along while he told me about all the great sacrifices that God made in sending his only begotten son to die for my sins, and then sheepishly admitted that I didn't really find his religion convincing. I didn't exactly argue, but I also didn't acquiesce. For a week or so,

he treated me with some mixture of disappointment and disdain, but after he'd had enough time to process my betrayal of the baby Jesus, he started asking questions about why I rejected Christianity. Thinking back on it now, I gave some embarrassingly uninformed arguments that a better prepared apologist could have probably shredded, but neither of us really knew much about the side that we were defending, so he had little in the way of rebuttal. Over the next few weeks, this actually blossomed into an ongoing discussion about religion, and despite how strong his initial reaction was, he abandoned defending his beliefs altogether pretty early on. Instead, I became a sounding board for a lot of his doubts and distractions. I was, after all, the only person in his life that wasn't going to judge him harshly

for finding fault in the teachings of the Bible. I was the only person he knew that wouldn't think less of him for expressing his doubt. This was a guy who dedicated one day of every week to congregating with people around the subject of religion, and yet here I was, the only person he could have an honest discussion about religion with. I just find this weird because religions like to brag about the way they create communities. The more progressive apologists will even try to use that community building aspect as a rampart to hide their doubts behind. Like, even if it's not true, just look at all these benefits. But when you build your community on a lie, what kind of community are you building? You know, my boss back then couldn't be

himself around his religious peers. When he had doubts, he had to suppress them. When he had hard questions, he couldn't ask them. And you add to that all the superhuman expectations of morality that Christianity imposed on him, he couldn't admit that he lusted after women or watched porn or liked alcohol or masturbated. He couldn't even be proud of his own fucking achievements. He was forced to subvert the part of himself that cussed when it got angry and enjoyed violent movies and appreciated a good boob and replace all that with a person who hated gays and defended traditional gender roles. So sure, he might have been part of a community in that his physical presence was surrounded by other people, but what's the point of belonging if you're pretending to be someone else the whole time?

How much community could he possibly have if I was the only person he could be himself around? have if I was the only person he could be himself around? In that sense, religions create, if anything, anti-communities, right? Not only do their communities fail in the all-important aspect of communing, but they also take up the space where a real community could go. You can't explore some other group that might be more accepting of your real personality because you already have Bible study with the Whitakers on Tuesday and volunteer night with the pastor's wife on Friday night and church activities all day Sunday somehow they're taking up the space without managing to fill it and that's the dark secret that hides at the base of most religious communities everybody in them is pretending to be somebody they aren't when people leave their insular religions it often feels like they've sacrificed this huge community in so doing.

But once you get farther away, you often discover that all you lost was an illusion. If you're in a room with 100 people pretending to be somebody they aren't, there are fewer people to get to know than there would be if you were in a room by yourself. Joining me for headlines tonight is nobody the whole team's on a company retreat this week so most of this week's show was recorded in advance but don't worry we've been stocking up a couple extra headlines every week over the last few weeks so heath and eli will be here in just a moment but first a quick word from our first sponsor this week ip vanish a podcast listener i'm no illusions i'm heath enright and i'm eli bosnick here to tell you about this week's sponsor IP vanish. Hey, podcast listener. I'm Noah Lutions. I'm Heath Enright.

And I'm Eli Bosnick, here to tell you about this week's sponsor, PI Vanish. If you're being followed by a private investigator who knows too much, PI Vanish. No, no, no, no, Eli. This week's sponsor is IP Vanish. What's IP Vanish?

Great question. IP Vanish is a virtual private network, or a VPN for short. VPN is a super important tool that helps you safely browse the internet. You can use a VPN on your computers, tablets, phones, even things like your fire stick when you're streaming media. When you use a VPN, all your data is encrypted. What you're reading, what you're searching, what you're watching,

whatever it is you're doing. Oh, man, I got to go take care of something. And for listeners of our show. Oh, man, I got to go take care of something. And for listeners of our show, Hey, buddy, you awake? IP Vanish is offering an incredible 65% off, just $3.49 for the first month or $31.49 for the year. Yeah, I'm so sorry about this.

I got the sponsor. Wow. No, that is a great deal. So, where do I sign up? Oh, it's a sponsor for my podcast. They're like the radio. So, go to IPVanish.hing to claim your 65% savings. They have plans starting at just $3.49 or $31.49 a year. No, I was going to use the shovel for gardening, man. This is the time to sign up.

With our discount and their current promotional offerings, you can get a VPN for 65% off their usual offerings. IP Vanish is the best of the best. Even rated 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot, and that's with more than 6,000 reviews. I don't know why you're being such a jerk about this, okay? I am letting you go right now. I'm letting you go.

Show these guys some love. They're repeat sponsors. Remember, it's IPVanish.com slash scathing to get the deal and start protecting yourself online. Guys, guys, are we sure the sponsor isn't pi vanish this guy is being a real negative nancy yes we are sure ah fine why would don't don't ask him questions and now back to headlines from the past already in progress and in law talking guy news there are many villains in the story of the COVID pandemic. The Trump administration,

Tucker Carlson's lying vaccinated face, Pastor Tony Spell, whose stimulus challenge got ruined by Heath asking everyone to tweet gay porn at him. But in the northern reaches of Manitoba, Canada, perhaps nobody represents the problem better than the religious legal group,

the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, which recently sued the province for their covid restrictions on behalf of a bunch of religious assholes. Well, this week, it turns out that at least one of their lawyers engaged in a little extracurricular stalking of the judge in the case. Jesus. And he is fucked. So we're going to talk about it. OK it okay but eli did you choose this story to send me a at least you just have to stop me from talking about it message you have to tell me right is there curricular stalking yeah well i mean you have to show up at the it's a weird

way to say it at the courtroom this is why we need critical race theory right so little background here jccf's case isn't based on just like regular stupid stuff we see in america where people are like first amendment means that i get to stay in this tornado no they claim that the province has lied about case numbers to justify lockdowns and their modeling is flawed what why yeah why is the province doing that because freedom canada jesus we're crazy people yeah so they think the illuminati got in touch with like big manitoba yeah like right why would they have to lie three manitobans get covid you've got a scary looking percentage on your hands i don't get it right so one of their lawyers john carpe who regular listeners will actually remember for comparing pride flags to nazi swastikas and calling in

school gay straight alliances ideological sex clubs that guy thought it would be a good idea to catch the judge overseeing their case chief justice glenn joyal violating covid restrictions oh for fuck's sake i imagine because he thought he'd be like is this you at a picnic and the judge would be like click clack you win this is how the law works so he hired a private detective to follow justice joyal who paid a kid to ring their doorbell to confirm that's where he lived and even followed him to his vacation home the judge is just weeping with laughter dude i can I can see your love and hate knuckles sticking out. You're doing the Cape Fear thing. You can come out from under the car now.

I wanted to see how far I could take it. I rode over a lot of difficult stuff. I feel like I'm going to get in trouble. You got to come out. You got to come out. You're under arrest, by the way. Yeah, you are. So he honestly thought he was basically going to call the judge as a surprise witness.

Yep. So, yeah, as you can imagine, John Carpe got in trouble for, you know, trying to intimidate a federal judge. And has now taken a indefinite leave from JCCF because he faces disbarment. There's that. What I'm saying is Canada is awesome. And really, this is just the latest example of that fact, everybody. Just the latest example. The whole Canada is awesome thing starts to break down when your story takes place in Manitoba. But we'll let you get away with it.

How dare you? The maple syrup province. And in sink like a Stone news tonight, few names bring more delight to the scathing atheist newsroom than that of Perry Stone. Perry Stone! He's his old... Like, you know, Matt Powell is still top dog, yes,

but if he dies or is otherwise unable to fulfill his duties, I feel like Perry Stone is high on the running to replace him. He burst onto the scene in 2019 when his failed effort to both scroll through his phone and speak gibberish at the same time went viral. The equivalent of being unable to walk and talk about chewing gum.

But anyway, he ran out of pixels. La la la la la la la la. Well, he's back again with proof that he can perform miracles in the form of an x-ray of a man whose nerve damage disappeared after Stone

baptized him. That is absolutely, verifiably fake bullshit. Perry, did you write really real x-ray across your crayon drawing of a cartoon bone? That's what it looks like, buddy. It's not.

It's crayons. This doesn't even make sense. So crayon. So like most pieces of evidence that completely upend all known medical science. This was presented on YouTube where Stone and his co-host Nick Walker are sharing stories of the numerous miracles they've witnessed in their days as professional liars. And they're telling the story of a man named Jacob that had, quote, nerve damage in his hands so bad that he could not use it, end quote. But upon baptizing him in the name of the Holy Father, quote, as soon as his hands came out of the water, his hand was loosed. And everybody saw this, end quote.

What? water his hand was loosed and everybody saw this end quote what now just just in case you're inclined not to believe him they present before and after x-rays that are entirely unmarked take their word for it total miracle hands okay mr stone so according to the x-ray we got you did not damage your hand while you were fisting yourself. So that's good news. The bad news is you can't keep the x-ray even though it is, quote, for a work thing. So, you know. All right. Can you guys do like the hair and the makeup for the after photo x-ray for me? Have it smiled better.

It's a good posture. Put on a belt. Make it red. Now, you might be thinking that nerve damage would be really hard to see on an x-ray, and you'd be right. Nerves don't show up on x-rays. It's not like the damaged ones would be flashing

red or anything. What the picture actually shows are four right hands, okay? Two with gaps between the finger bones and two without, and even to a person like myself who has absolutely no experience or expertise whatsoever in x-rays, it's super duper obvious that these

are four different right hands, right? And when Hemant met over at the Friendly Atheist blog, did a little snooping, it turned out the picture was from a 2018 article in Scientific Report about a bone disorder called Kassenbeck disease. Amazing work, Hammett.

Oh, shit. You guys googled it? Any chance you guys will believe that this happened to my good friend, Jacob Kasson? No? Jacob Beck? So, bottom line, Nick Walker and Perry Stone verifiably lied about witnessing a miracle and obtaining

proof of it. The absolute most favorable possible interpretation here is that they are Olympic levels of stupid, which is actually very plausible given what we know. I mean, Occam's raising. Yeah, but to be clear, just like every other verified miracle in all of human history,

this one was verified to be false. Yeah. All right. Keeping score at home, zero. Zero to lots. And in the H, zero. Zero to lots. And in the HIPAA in the room news. That's very good. As it becomes more and more obvious that proof of vaccination is going to be necessary to return to any semblance of normal in the United States, Republicans all over the country are madly scrambling for any excuse to remind us that they are the party of bodily autonomy.

Except for women who want abortions and gay people who want to get married and trans people who want to use bathrooms and history teachers who want to teach history. But except for those people, Republicans are the party of bodily autonomy. And proof of that position, according to the Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, of that position according to the republican senator kevin kramer of north dakota is that they don't even pray for your health in church anymore because it violates your right to privacy okay first of all no no that's not but but really you sure you want to talk about that data point theoretically have cancer recoveries gone down a lot since praying got banned in your head no you're backing out of the room now yeah fuck yourself yeah to paraphrase our friend tim robertson it's only a matter of time before and how's your mom is met with cries a hip violation

motherfucker yeah so this logical gem took place during kramer's appearance on MSNBC, where host Garrett Hockey pointed out that Kramer hasn't publicly said whether or not he's vaccinated and that that might make his encouragement to his constituents ring hollow because it does. Right. And Kramer responded with the following quote. People are very well informed. No, they don't need to be lectured to. Yes. They certainly don't need to be bullied.

Yes. They respond more negatively than positively to that. And frankly, I prefer to listen to my constituents rather than lecture them and inform them.

I inform them about what's going on in Congress. I'm not a great informer of what's going on in their personal health care. End quote. Cool, yeah. It's time to drain the swamp. I'm not a great informer of what's going on in their personal health care end quote cool yeah it's time to uh drain the swamp we need epidemiology outsiders let's get more input

from the random people of North Dakota about epidemiology great she said well as soon as he said people are very well informed fucking polygraphs he wasn't hooked up to started going haywire so yeah yeah but it gets better so here's the money shot quote i want to honor personal privacy by the way which is also crucial we can't pray for people's healing in church anymore because it would out their health situation so i don't know why we should be outing everybody's personal decisions on vaccinations end quote by the way that lie detector and uh the doomsday clock just moved to very valid points by kramer so new deal mr kramer if you're listening and i

know you are a big fan you have to tell people if you're vaccinated because you are you fucking liar coward shit cake but you can also tell me about all the magic wishing you do. Just go nuts, buddy. I'll even give you a little white card to carry around with all your wishes on it. Whatever stops the fucking plague, man. Just, yeah. And on that note, we're going to pause for a word from our second sponsor this week, MySheetsRock. I'm telling you, you need to squinch it a little bit to the left. Dude, I'm not going to miss it.

It's the moon. You're going to miss it. Guys, what are you doing messing around with my death ray? You know you're not allowed to touch that. We're blowing up the moon. Yep, blowing up the moon. Why? Okay, so summer's almost here, and Heath and I are both hot sleepers,

so we figured... Blow up the moon. Just cool things right down a little bit. Okay, first of all, blowing up the moon. Just cool things right down a little bit. Okay, first of all, blowing up the moon wouldn't cool things down a bit. And secondly, why don't you guys try the regulator sheets from MySheetsRock? What are

the regulator sheets? From MySheetsRock. Sorry, do both of you guys get a point there? Yeah, we both get a point. Yeah, we worked out ahead of time. Okay, alright. MySheetsRock created the regulator sheets Okay, sorry, do both of you guys get a point there? Yeah, we both get a point. Yeah, we worked out ahead of time. Okay, all right. We both got one. Yep, a tie. My Sheets Rock created the regulator sheets, which are designed specifically to keep hot sleepers cool and cool sleepers comfortable.

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actually sent us a set to try and I ended up buying a spare set because they're my new favorite sheets. Well, then why did you want to blow up the moon? I don't want to talk about it. But Noah, what if I don't believe you? Don't believe me? Their five-star customer reviews speak for themselves.

Plus, they offer a 90-day risk-free trial and free shipping and returns. Check out MySheetsRock at MySheetsRock.com slash scathing and enter our code scathing for 10% off and free shipping. All right, Noah, I'm sold. There you go, Moon. You live to moon another day. Okay, I still think you're wasting the death ray just blowing up our neighbor's motorcycle.

Yes. Do I tell you how to use your doomsday devices? Yeah, you do. All the time. No, okay, that's fair. You're very specific. And in BC's the day news tonight. Fantastic.

You can't cure or prevent COVID-19 by slathering yourself in cow shit or by drinking cow urine and now that I've said that I'm pretty sure I just made this podcast illegal in India y'all so yes you did because according to vice world news not one but two men have apparently been in jail since mid-may for having the temerity to point that out online. Arendro Leichenbaum and Kishore Sendro Wankum had the audacity to challenge these shockingly common superstitions that are now in jail under allegations that they, quote, deliberately and willfully insulted and outraged religious feelings and sentiments, end quote. I mean, to be fair, my feelings would be hurt if someone pointed out

that I was smeared in cow shit for no reason. So I get it. Yeah, right. Your feelings have been hurt when someone pointed out that you were smeared in cow shit for no reason. That happens. Yeah, that's my art. So many more times than you. Whatever number you have in your head for that, listeners, it's more.

Yeah, it is. It has too few digits, that number. yeah it is it has too few digits that number yeah so yeah as we've discussed on the show before there's a long and storied tradition within indian hinduism that sees cow dung and urine as miraculous panaceas and i guess the idea is that cows are sacred and therefore anything that falls out of them must be good now as tempting as it is to make fun of that for being some backward ass nonsense i should point out that like if christianity had a steady supply of jesus turds they'd be smearing them all over their faces constantly how well yeah they pretend the wine that they're drinking magically turns into jesus's bodily fluids before they'll even drink it for

fuck's sake but regardless believing you can cure covid with any kind of poop is really dangerous and it was all the more dangerous in india May when, A, their new COVID cases were spiking upwards of 300,000 a day and B, when these two guys were arrested. Yeah. Also worth pointing out, we've reported on like five times when shit water landed on a statue of a Catholic saint and people immediately started smearing themselves with it as magic oil. More than five. Right. This is an international problem, folks. This is not an India problem.

It's everywhere. I'd call it a religion problem. Well, yeah, fair. And yes, also international. If we can run a leaky sewer pipe near a statue and then people start hunting Satan like the fucking predator, there should not be religion.

That should not be a thing. Now, to be clear, the real reason behind this has less to do with cow shit than human shit. And by human shit, of course, I mean India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi has been rightly criticized for his lackluster response to the nation's COVID crisis and specifically for catering to religious nonsense instead of following the recommendation of scientists and medical experts. scientists and medical experts. Leckenbaum and Wengum are prominent critics of his bullshit policies, and that's the real reason they're sitting in jail.

Dismissing the medicinal properties of covering oneself in cow shit was actually just a convenient excuse because and thus is the power of religion. That sounds more reasonable than what he's actually jailing them for. Alright, moving straight along. Next up

in headlines. According to a new study atheists are the fucking worst everyone hates us and that includes us oh yeah and we're not even hating the other religions back for spite and i said other religions like we're one that's how they see it though whole thing, we're not hating them back. And that holds even when you include all those new atheists who merged with the far right. Despite Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins being, yes, assholes, the data shows that people with no religion are super nice on average with respect to this topic. In fairness, we don't especially like religions either obviously we're just evenly meh which means we are mathematically better at disliking stuff correctly without being

bigots than every single religious group and for that i am proud of us right you're welcome everybody yeah and i mean that's even with all those alt-right mergers fucking up our average, we still managed to come out on top. What I love about this study is that it blatantly reveals religious bigotry and also atheist misanthropy at the same time.

It's like, get them atheists out of my town! And I don't know, man, everyone kind of sucks. The study, right? That's the two results. That is the results.

That's correct. So, the study was done by david speed and melanie brewster and it looks at the opinions of evangelical christians mainline protestants black protestants catholics all the other religions as a single group and finally people with no religion and respondents were told to describe their opinion on a scale from very positive to very negative of people who are from different groups. The groups were Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and atheist. And we got some useful information. So good work by Speed and Brewster. But let's be honest, Ryan Burge, they are not. Rybie!

So fortunately for us, our very esteemed colleague, he's a colleague of ours, Mr. Burge, they are not. The Rybie? Yeah. So, fortunately for us, our very esteemed colleague, he's a colleague of ours, Mr. Burge, he analyzed the data and presented it just right. Here's what he found. I'm going to start with the evangelicals. They were asked to rank the religions, and they very happily provided their very clear answers with a distinct, widely spread hierarchy. First of all, they fucking love themselves yep they rated christians as very very positive more than any group rated any other group of

course in terms of other religions evangelicals begrudgingly find Jewish people not quite somewhat positive. And they just barely don't hate Buddhist and Hindu people. Of course, they do find Muslim people to be negative, and atheists are super negative. They rated us lower than any group rated any other

group. Okay, but that's only because me and Noah got disqualified for drawing our own part of the bar graph to put Christians on. So if they kept those in. So the Catholic group and the group made up of all the non-Christian religions were a bit better in the sense that they rated everyone as mildly positive. But again, Christian people were clearly the best and atheists were just barely above the hate zone for the non-evangelical protestants also worth noting every group rated muslim people as the least positive of all the religions so anti-muslim bigotry was trying to hide in the form of people being like yeah they're

okay i guess at least they're not atheist gross But that anti-Muslim bias was definitely there, so it's worth noting. Right, and keep in mind that atheists weren't even the bad guys in every action movie since 1979. They really had to hate us organically. Right, yeah. No help from the outside here.

And that brings us to the no religion group. And we rated everyone in a small little cluster just above neutral. So basically, yeah, you're all fucking stupid, but we don't hate any individual people because that would be bigoted. Again, it's a tight area that we had there, but we actually rated Buddhism the highest,

making us the only group that didn't say Christian people are the best. So that was encouraging in some little way. I don't think we should rate Christians best at pretty much anything in a positive way. That being said, at the bottom of our cluster was Muslim people just into the positive zones. So there's still some of that bias showing even for the no religion group. And in second to last place for us, for the no religion people, was atheists, second to last. People with no religion are thinking, yeah,

atheists are fine too, but they're being dicks about it. And you know what? Yes, we are because Ibid for this entire study. And because there are not gods, also that. Well, look, based on what I see on social media, I'm kind of shocked that there's any group that

hates atheists more than atheists. Here's the explanation of the data from Speed and Brewster. I enjoyed this. The reason everyone hates us, but we don't really care, it's kind of like a sports fan situation to them. Okay. Christian people don't like atheism because they see us like the fans of a rival hockey team. Apparently Speed and Brewster are from Canada, so they use the Maple Leafs and the Canadians. Whatever.

I especially enjoyed that analogy because all the religions are talking trash about a game of fucking Calvin ball that we're not playing. They're yelling about their team and wearing obnoxious oversized uniforms and we're like, cool, yeah, enjoy that hockey tournament with invisible goals on the ice. You guys are losing, all of you, losing like Q to 12 to 0 to 0 to 0. Good luck with that. Yeah, enjoy. Well, and that's the thing is that they also

recognize that by not playing the game we're winning, right? So, I mean, like everybody hates the Yankees nobody bothers hating the mets that's all i'm saying hey hey hey i hate the mets noah oh you really hate the mets name one met tripolitan museum of fine arts and in dio cease and desist news tonight in the world's most disturbing reenactment of the how many licks tootsie roll pops commercial we learned that it takes about 60 sexual abuse lawsuits to bankrupt the diocese

or at least that's how many it took to force the diocese of norwich and connecticut to file for chapter 11 that makes it the breakout the noisemakers and party hats 31st catholic religious entity in the u.s to declare bankruptcy over child rape. Yum, yum, yum. Which, if you think about it, isn't a thing you should be able to say about any of the clubs the president belongs to. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, wait.

Are you saying I have to throw away these pilot wings I got from Jeffrey Epstein because I was a brave boy, Noah. You cannot take these from me. So, yeah. On Thursday of last week, the Diocese of norwich decided to file for bankruptcy after what they call two years of careful deliberation and prayer though given the timing

i can't help but feel they listened to the last week's episode of this show realized there's no hope left but regardless of our show's impact everyone can agree that the nearly five dozen lawsuits filed over alleged sexual abuse by at least 43 priests at their Mount St. John school, heavily factored into the equation. And if you follow the Catholic press on this, by the way, the message that they're very clearly trying to send us that they won't be able to do any more of that awesome charity work they're known for because all those greedy victims of child rape. Also important to point out, european union would be doing

way better with that third reich economy if it wasn't for all this fucking narc right yeah exactly and yes look anytime a catholic diocese declares bankruptcy that's a good thing it's worth busting out the noisemakers for but the main thing you should take away from stories like that is that they are yet more proof that the Vatican has zero commitment to their victims. They talk a tall game and they impanel all kinds of investigative bodies and they put forward a bunch of symbolic reforms, but if they felt anywhere near as bad as they should about the children that they've been condemning to torture this whole time, the Vatican would keep pumping money into this diocese until every victim was fully compensated. They would

sell off a few bars of Nazi gold, pawn some Jewish artwork, siphon a bid off the cemetery maintenance fund, whatever they had to do. Instead, they're using the diocesan structure as a stopgap to keep their hordes of wealth protected from, again, the greedy child rape victims. Yeah, sorry. I know we have a literal city made of gold and own the most land in the world,

but Steve's Catholic Church is out of money. Right. So, better help? Try better help. I hear that's good. Work out your shit. And with that, whatever that was, we're going to bring the headlines to a close.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji. And when we come back, Anna will be here because Christian music is so bad that sometimes it takes a pro to break it down. Hello there. You look like a strapping young fellow. Ow. Ow.

I didn't even get to the... Whatever. Hello. You look like a strapping young fellow. Would you care for... And you're walking away. You're just walking away from me. Cool. Cool.

Great. That's great. Eli, what are you doing in the parking lot of this Arby's? Well, I'll tell you, I'm trying to hire people, but nobody wants to work anymore. Let me tell you. Actually, Eli, more people are hiring than ever, but modern problems require modern solutions. Okay, so are you telling me that I can't hire people these days by walking up to them and saying you look like a strapping young fellow?

No, no, you're going to need ZipRecruiter. What's ZipRecruiter? It's the smartest way to hire. When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, they send your job to over 100 of the top job sites, giving you access to their networks of millions of job seekers. ZipRecruiter's matching technology scans resumes to find qualified candidates for your open roles and proactively presents them to you. You can easily review recommended candidates and invite your top choices to apply to your job, which encourages them to apply faster. So I can actually reach out to people right for the job? I don't have to just wait? That's right. In fact, according to ZipRecruiter's internal data, jobs where employers invite candidates to apply get two and a half times more candidates.

ZipRecruiter's technology is so effective that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Wow. So where do I sign up? Well, right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address, ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. All right, Noah, thanks. Ooh, ooh, here comes another one. Hey there, you look like a strapping young lad.

Eli, I thought you were just going to use ZipRecruiter. Oh, I am. I was just hitting on that guy. Oh, I get it. I get it. So Christianity is bad at so many things, but for a long time, at least some of their music actually had some merit. Mozart's Requiem, Handel's Messiah,

Bach's Yesu Joy of Man's Desiring, all winners. But then the modern American evangelical touched it and Christian music got rough. And apparently we hate joy. So we're going to talk about some of God's newer stuff in another installment of God Awful Minis. And we're joined by the way too good for us level of talented Anna Bosnick. Anna, welcome back. Oh my God, I'm so fucking happy to be here.

Are you? I'm so fucking excited for this. I usually get reactions like that. Cool. And Eli, you were already here from before. Hello, Eli. Hi. Hello.

Thank you for the introduction, Heath. I feel as though a new segment of our podcast has begun. So, with that new segment officially introduced and everybody involved... No one's not here. Pre-recorded. Eli, what god-awful music

are we going to be breaking down today? We listen to Breakfast by the Newsboys. It's the story... It's so bad! It's the story of the Newsboys manager listening to peaches come from a can. A 45 minute fight about how the president wouldn't even have time to start a band.

What do you mean? And then the Newsboys writing this song anyway. They sure did. And Anna, I'm not a professional, so maybe the artistic genius of this thing was going over my head, but I'm guessing all that musical nuance

was not lost on you. So how bad, or perhaps how genius, was this music? Well, if you liked Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, but you thought it lacked the poetic nuance of the Doug theme song. You will love this

music. Yeah, I will. All right, so we're going to run through all the lyrics, but first I think it's important to explore what they're doing musically here. Yes. Composition wise, symphonically. Absolutely.

Let's start with the meter. They went with four, four. Common time. You don't hear that a lot. I thought that was interesting. Anna, did the use of four,

four fit well with the overall presentation in your opinion? Oh, it did Heath. Oh, it fit very well. They came at that four, four meter, like a white girl dancing.

Like Eli trying to clap along to anything. Always on that 1 and 3, 4. For the last time, darling, that is a choice. I don't know why I married you. That brings us to the heart of the song.

The poetry of those lyrics. Shall I heath shall i do do you want to do the lyrics yeah go right ahead so uh verse one please eli hold the milk put back the sugar okay okay before that first line before we even go on hold the milk but yikes like they're gonna be talking about cat and crunch and fruit loops in a second with apparently sugar on top. Dry. Yeah. All cereal must be as dry and flavorless as a communion wafer.

According to this song. Yeah, that's how it works. Oh, they are powerless to console. We've gathered here to sprinkle the ashes from our late friend's cereal bowl. Yikes, even more. Okay, it's a turn. They wanted to write a memorial to a dead friend

and they went with a breakfast cereal metaphor for that memorial. Yeah, he died from too many Captain Crunch dry scratches on the roof of his mouth. Yeah, that'll do it. That'll do it.

I heard this was actually written for a friend who died and really enjoyed breakfast food and they were like, oh, that's the fucking best. Because they're Christians, so grungy breakfast Christian rock, upbeat pop song. No, that's the best

because the thing is like when you're Christian, you can't have a personality. You can't like art. You can't like good music. You can't like fucking or anything fun so they were like hey steve as you die of this rotting cancer god gave you what should we use to symbolize you as a human being and he was like pancakes i really like batman crunch but dry but with sugar on top extra please like a hash brown please oh my god that's very funny because i thought that they were talking i didn't know that it was written by for a real person i thought this was a some sort of weird metaphor for jesus christ oh it is that old breakfast

cereal friend okay okay cool their friend was jesus christ yeah he died all right next verse breakfast clubbers say the motto uh these are the cool teen references of a 30 year old in 1996 yeah that's what these are are they gonna do a line from the breakfast club no no no it's just about breakfast that he taught us to repeat you will lose it in your gym class if you wait till noon to eat okay i'm confused by this are they saying that god wants us to eat a healthy breakfast of fruit loops with sugar on top that's a possibility it is a possibility being christian is like getting through gym class without that healthy breakfast i think they were going for something like if, if you wait to get good with God,

then you'll go to hell, but that image is like, you'll throw up your Christianity if they give it to you too fast. Yeah, I'm getting a runner's workout from evangelicalism. That makes sense. And see, here I was just thinking the newsboys were warning us about the dangers of hypoglycemia, so

maybe they were. Alright, next up. Back when the chess club said our eggs were soft okay i gotta stop it right there what are they saying that they were bullied by the chess club i love that or maybe the chess club just enjoys soft eggs and who doesn't who doesn't love a runny yolk? Yeah, right. Yeah. I don't understand. Yeah. The chess club complained that they're...

So they were serving breakfasts to the chess club? I have no idea what's happening here. The image they're painting is a horrific hellscape. All right. Every Monday, he'd say grace and hold our juice aloft. Okay. Hold our juice a lot. Like he held everyone's juice.

This dead friend would hold everyone's juice and do it. She mentioned up cups from the table with orange juice. Yeah. See, this makes more sense than my theory. I thought the chess club was stealing our juice. Oh, like we had to. I love that the chess club was stealing our juice. Oh. I love that the chess club is bullying these people. I do love that. I want the chess

club side of this story. See, I just love this image of their friend being the teenage version of the old Irish guy in the bar who's trying to make it through. May the road rise up to meet you. I'm just saying, this death gets less tragic by the second. I'm more and more okay with this guy being dead.

Each new thing I learn about him. All right, next up. Oh, none of us knew his checkout time would come so soon. And it's a hotel metaphor. Yeah, it's a continental breakfast. Fantastic. But before his brain stopped waving he composed this tune so i i think so this is where i was like okay this breakfast club friend is obviously metaphor for jesus and the breakfast clubbers are

the christian kids because they're getting bullied which is weird because they're like jesus wrote this song about breakfast right Right. Well, honestly, Anna, I am relieved with your interpretation because the literal interpretation is we had this dick friend who always used to propose a toast at breakfast. He wrote this song and we stole it to play when he died. All right, it's time for the chorus. Don't worry, it's not better than the verses. No.

This is the tune he composed. Don't worry, it's not better than the verses. No. This is the tune he composed. Don't forget, this is right here. Oh, the tune he composed is actually the Doug theme song, but go ahead. Yes, the chorus. When the toast is burned and all the milk has turned and Captain Crunch is waving farewell. I get it.

Captain Crunch, like the ancient Egyptian honey, didn't have a choice of metaphor there. When the big one finds you, may this song remind you that they don't serve breakfast in hell. Okay. So what they're saying is like, okay, sometimes when I make breakfast,

I just forget what I'm doing and the toast burns and the milk turns sour. I forget for so long. And that is just like when my friend died or when I died. If he's, he wrote this, he's speaking in first person.

Yeah. What I take from this is that Captain Crunch is not the ride or die friend. You thought he was at the first, at the first whip of burnt toast. He is like peace. He is military. I get he is like, peace. Well, he is military. I get it. Oh, fair. But here was my question as I was listening to this chorus

and wishing I was doing anything else. Do you guys think anyone was saved by this song in particular? Oh, God. Right? The Newsboys have been playing fucking megachurches since 1904 or whatever. Was there a kid at a megachurch?

Like, no croissants in the lake of fire. You know what? Jesus is my Lord and Savior. You know what? My friend did die at a Denny's in the middle of breakfast. This song is for me. This is mine.

What the fuck? Verse number two. Here we go. Breakfast clubbers drop the hankies. Okay, now I'm just picturing Jud Breakfast clubbers drop the hankies. Okay. Now I'm just picturing Judd Nelson flirting at the scotillion. Yep. That is an excellent image.

Okay. Though to some, our friend was odd. The day he bought those pine pajamas, his check was good with God. Okay. First of all, buying the pine pajamas is now how I'm going to say death forever. That's my new thing. Absolutely. We're doing that.

Also, are they saying God takes checks? Like when you get there, you need to have a check that's good or like negotiate with him about PayPal and Venmo. But not if it's an atheist check or a Jewish one or a Muslim one. It has to be Christian check. To be fair, those folks have been giving him at least 10% for years now,

so their money's good, you know? This is the weirdest fucking version of Jesus anybody has ever come up with. Just like some dude jamming cereal into his face. Honestly, more terrifying than sword mouth jesus i like it yeah yeah right similar similar there you go i want i want to get attacked by spoon mouth jesus all right now it's time for the news boys to come after us guys are you ready oh i'm. Those here without the Lord is nobody. It's a Newsboys concert or a Newsboys radio.

There's no one there without the Lord. But fine. Oh, we're not going to go to a Newsboys concert ever? Oh, we will go. I think I'm going to have to go to a Newsboys concert at this point. I know like half their song. But only if I get to Bugs Bunny and fuck the entire band. Oh, please.

Thank you. What? How is that? I mean, they're on your celebrity list. Let's be honest. Put on a wig. Bugs Bunny fucks a lot of bands. Oh, you're Thank you. I mean, they're on your celebrity list. Let's be honest. Bugs Bunny fucks a lot of bands. You're going to dress up like a girl bunny? Yeah. Keith, Google Bugs Bunny gangbang

right now. You'll find a lot of pictures. Eli, if we're being honest, you do not have to dress as anybody but yourself in order to fuck the newsboys. I guarantee. See? This is love, everybody. This is the real love. Maybe the newsboys

want to fuck a rabbi. You don't know. Alright, anyways, back to this. Those here without the Lord, how do you cope? With the song? Good question. Very good question. For this morning, we don't mourn like those who have no hope wow okay they actually

had a hate verse in here how do you cope with being jewish that must be hard we better write a verse about that and honestly if hope means a song about cereal when your friend dies i'm a fucking kafka protagonist my friends and i'm okay with it right and also they're saying we're actually pretty fucking happy our friend died so we wrote a cereal song he's going to heaven because he had that good christian check so great he's dead i love it oh rise up fruit loop lovers he's a thing out sweet and low with spoons held high we bid our brother cheerio. First of all, amazing pun, fantastic.

But I really want a video of this so we could watch them, quote, holding their spoons high and just spilling all over the place. Like a fucking end of Harry Potter. Now this is not in the notes because I wanted to save this as a

surprise for you, Heath Enright. But when we are done with this recording, you can catch the seven minute long live performance. Absolutely not. Of this at a Newsboys concert where. Hard pass. I'm going to watch this. So much better than them all holding the spoons up. One poor, deluded asshole in the audience brought a spoon with him to this Newsboys concert.

Takes it out. And I can only imagine the camera cuts away because he slits his throat with it, realizing what he's done. It's pretty great. That is so good. that is so good a guy brought a spoon to hold up high for that one tiny little prop there's also a kid with a cereal box at one point who hands him a cereal box from the audience the guy's like yeah see oh i don't have anything no space work to do with this so he just like gently puts it down it's pretty great I've watched that live performance a bunch of times that's amazing

well this is the ultimate shit tits song yes we got Fruit Loops we got the sweet and low we got Cheerios we got eggs are soft it's it Cecil would be proud oh absolutely they came up with we bid our brother Cheerio and they

wrote this entire breakfast song around it just so that they could have that line yeah 100 absolutely and again just to be clear the message of their song is because we believe in god we don't even care our friend is dead sounds like a cool belief system guys sounds great yeah that's the message the worst all right well from there we get another amazing chorus and then we get a whistling chorus which was fucking horrifying whistling chorus do you remember when the song started out in c sharp minor you do you remember that 90s smash of guitars not at the beginning halfway through the first verse because they're too cool to start with that they got to give you like a little teaser

first do you remember the ashes of a dead friend now we're whistling in a major i'm sorry do i have to take that again because i was clapping god damn it and nobody, so you got to be really fucking good to have whistling happen in successful harmony. They are not. No. It's so rough. No. Yeah. And then after the whistling chorus,

that's a real thing that happened. After that, we actually get a really interesting close. They repeat the original chorus again as it fades out. So anna uh musically speaking how does that kind of ending add to the artwork in your opinion yes the fade out ending i like to call that the parade ending like the band is slowly walking away from you and off to have a cooler party somewhere else but unlike the beatles hey jude or princes you

got the look i have never been happier i wasn't invited to this party yeah like that's cool you take your cereal and get out of my face prince and all the dead beetles are furious about being involved in this segment right now yeah and the live ones too. Yeah, Paul's not happy either. Big listener. Loves our show. Big fan. Alright, well that's the fucking song. So, let's put it in context. If you were a DJ at a party,

where does this fit on your playlist? What goes before and after Breakfast by Newsboys? I'm going to say that the before is I'm serious, you all have to leave now or I'm going to start playing the Newsboys over the loudspeaker.

And my after would be the blissful silence of everyone being gone. Okay, that's a fun party. See, mine is similar. I'd say this has the potential to be great for a really good I'm Breaking up with you playlist so you start with the classic big girls don't cry by fergie perfect if they don't get the hint you scare them off with this monstrosity and then if they still don't get the hint follow that up with somebody that i used to know by what's his face yeah sure

love it yeah just holding up a giant boombox at somebody's window playing this song. Breakfast. Wow. All right. And let's get an official rating from you guys, too. How many stars out of 10 are you giving this song? I'm going to go with as many as will fall out of the sky during the apocalypse. That's accurate.

Okay. See, see, as a budding connoisseur of Christian music, I would say that this isn't that bad. Actually, there, there weren't many fake instruments in the background.

You could tell they actually used a metronome when they recorded it. Unlike a lot of the soundtracks of the movies you guys watch. And it only made my son cry once which is better than you know the veggie tales ever did so uh yeah i'm gonna say five out of ten all right so you want to leave the news boys with the breakfast breakfast club oh go fuck yourself i'm glad your friend died okay yes we're not gonna do that well there's no way we're letting the newsboys have the last word musically or otherwise. So we had our crack songstress put together her own take on the subject of breakfast evangelism. Anna?

Yes, Heath? Would you care to hit it? Yes, I would, Heath. Yes, I would. Fantastic. Past the milk and past the sugar, this coffee's getting cold. Waiting for you to finish talking to me like I'm five years old. I'm a little old for scary stories About marks of a beast

It's 8 a.m. I'd like to finish my Whole arm of this I'd like to finish my Bacon, my hash brown And my toast Without being bothered By the fire, the sun

Or the holy ghost I believe the world's in trouble And there's a lot That we could do But it's not gonna happen By worshiping a 2,000-year-old Jew. When the Jesus lovers try to make us shudder with a tale of torture and dread, we'll just keep on munching our delicious brunch, cause nothing happens after you're dead

Hold up a second, pass the orange juice Gonna need me some fructose The way you're horny for this execution's really kind of gross. I understand you think you're saving me from living my life in sin. And after I die, you'll see me up in the sky for one final cosmic win. Can we talk about anything else besides your mission from Jesus to recruit troops? Cause if I have to hear much more of this, I'ma lose my fucking fruit loops. When the

Jesus lovers try to make us shudder with a tale of torture and dread, we'll just keep on munching our delicious crunch cause nothing happens after

you're dead. When the Jesus lovers try to make We'll see you next time. Cause nothing happens after you're dead When the Jesus lovers try to make us shudder With a tale of torture and dread We'll just keep on munching our delicious lunch Cause nothing happens after you're dead When the Jesus lovers try to make us shudder With a tale of torture and dread We'll just keep on munching our delicious brunch Cause nothing happens after you're dead

Before we return our seats to their upright position, What happens after you're dead? Before we return our seats to their upright position, I want to remind our patrons to be on the lookout for the link to the pajama party. If it hasn't already gone out, it's going to go out in the next day or so. We're all going to be doing a Patreon-only livestream where we'll be taking your questions, playing games, singing, dancing, who the hell even knows what. We're going to figure it out as we go. It's going to be a ton of fun, and all the patrons are invited.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, God Off the 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 Enright in advance for giving me and Lucinda the better room at the Airbnb. Trust me, we land way earlier than him. He will. I need to thank Eli Bosnick in advance for letting me pinch his baby's cherubic little cheeks. I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions in advance for putting up with me

for yet another trip. I need to thank Tim Robertson for all his hard work helping us get in this trip together. I need to thank Morgan Clark for doubling up on a bunch of editing so he could be with us this week. I want to thank Andrew Torres in advance for keeping Eli out of jail, given the scale of the pranks that he's been threatening us with. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people, the people who gave us money.

I can't do it by name because I'm recording this outro in advance, but I'll be sure to fill in the blanks next week. Likewise, I will thank this week's Farnsworth quoter next week as well. And if you would like to hear your name alongside theirs and get a last-second invite to the Pajama Party livestream, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com. You can also ask us to escape the atheists, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode. Or 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 scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but you're saving all your money to bail me out of prison after my return flight, I get it. Airports suck, and I'm an angry person. But you can also help a ton in the meantime by leaving us a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following at P-I-A-T-P-O-D on Twitter. Legal services

for this podcast are provided by the offices of B. Andrew Torres, Tim Robinson handles our social media, and our audio engineer, Spartan Clark, was the one who wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments,

or doubts, there's a funnel to contact info on the contact page at scathingideas.com. Okay. Okay, now I'm just picturing Judd Nelson flirting at the Scotillion. Yep, that is an excellent image. Okay. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.