The Scathing Atheist - 446: Vacated Edition

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

In this week’s episode, BYU gets mad about having to share a letter with LGBTQ, Walker Texas Ranger gets a WEIRD new job, and Liberty U cancels classes without a decrease in the total amount of learning. --- 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: To learn more about the important work American Atheists is doing, click here: https://www.atheists.org/ --- Headlines: National Religious Broadcasters fire a dude for urging people to get vaccinated: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/08/28/christian-media-group-fires-employee-for-urging-people-to-get-vaccinated/ You should have Voted for Hillary clinton https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/us/supreme-court-texas-abortion.html Liberty U Students Rebel Against COVID Quarantine: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/08/28/liberty-u-announced-a-covid-quarantine-and-many-students-cant-deal-with-it/ Evangelist Robin Bullock: I Met God, and He Lives in a Cube Made of Gelatin https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/08/27/evangelist-robin-bullock-i-met-god-and-he-lives-in-a-cube-made-of-gelatin/ Apostle is mad that BYU isn’t antigay enough https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/08/25/mormon-apostle-chastises-brigham-young-univ-for-not-being-sufficiently-anti-gay/ Christian Lady sues virtually all legal entities over her having to wear a mask: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/08/30/christian-woman-sues-cdc-dr-fauci-krispy-kreme-and-others-over-mask-mandates/ Matt staver says vaccines requirements are causing airline employees so much stress they’ll crash the plane: https://www.joemygod.com/2021/08/hate-group-claims-vaccine-will-cause-plane-crashes/

Warning, the following podcast contains those words that stupid people get more offended about than actual harmful stuff. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the Gimme to Loot podcast, Manpaper, and by the new travel site for Christians, Christline. We'll compare travel prices to your destination and, for much less than any of them, we'll just lie to you and tell you you've already been there. Christ lied. Because nobody wanted to look at your fucking pictures anyway. And now, the scathing atheist. Hi, I'm Jeffrey Blackwell, litigation counsel for American atheists, here to tell you that we did, beyond any reasonable doubt,

evolve from filthy and wet monkey men and women. Also, Ben Shapiro thinks that wet vaginas are diseased. It's Thursday! Oh, you've been practicing. It's Thursday. Oh, you've been practicing. It's September 2nd. And it's Pierce Your Ears Day. Ow, I said your ears, Noah. I did, I did. I pierced your ears, and I'm no illusions.

I'm Eli Bostic. And from Actually These Hoops Make Me Look on Fleek, New Jersey, and Redtown Blue State, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, BYU gets mad about having to share a letter with LGBTQ. Walker, Texas Ranger gets a

weird new job. Some deleted fucking scenes. And Liberty U cancels classes without a decrease in the total amount of learning. But first, the diatribe. So I get a call from a friend the other night. I haven't talked to him in a while, but he's a good enough friend that I answer the phone even though he's just calling me with no warning like it's 1986 or something. Anyway, glad I did because he was in desperate need of somebody to hate religion with at the moment.

It was the evening of his sister's funeral and contrary to its sterling reputation, religion wasn't helping much. Instead, it has spent the entire process making shit more difficult than it had to be. And I'm not just talking about like, you know, making my secular friend feel like an outcast at a remembrance for his beloved family member, though I'm sure it did that too. I'm talking about the random obstacles that it created for him throughout. Now, obviously, I don't want to dive too much into my friend's personal shit on the show, but suffice to say that she was in the hospital before she died, and they all knew what was coming. Or, I'm sorry, no, at least he knew what was coming,

because when the doctors explained it to him, he didn't argue back that God was capable of any miracle. While the rest of his family gathered to pray for impossibilities, he was inordinately burdened with all the real shit that has to happen when a person dies. On top of that, he was the one that had to be honest with her daughters instead of teasing her with talk of miracles and prayers answered and people looking down on him from heaven. So after dealing with all that shit and plenty more,

we come to the day of the funeral. And if you've ever been the one non-believer at a funeral for a very religious family, you already know what that's like. And he's a polite guy. He doesn't want to offend anybody. He doesn't want to make any waves under the circumstances, obviously. So he's acquiescing to one one. Will you pray with us after another? He's nodding along as people dismiss his family's grief with platitudes about a better place. He's suffering through more than one. Makes you wonder about your own mortal soul. Anyway, haven't seen you in a church in a minute conversations. But until this point, that's just what it's like to be the atheist when you lose somebody. But until this point, that's just what it's like to be the atheist when you lose somebody. Right. I mean, as fucked up as it is to say deaths are the time that society is quickest to flaunt its prejudices against the nonreligious.

So every atheist learns to endure a certain amount of this shit, whether they want to or not. As rude as society finds our very existence to begin with, it's downright obscene at a funeral when our skepticism might rob somebody of their illusions of life everlasting. So, you know, this is definitely commiserate with a friend about it later kind of stuff. But it hasn't risen to the call no illusions about it on your way home from the wake levels just yet. That part would come that night after all the official stuff is over. My friend finds himself in possession of the urn that contains his sister's remains. Now, to be clear, he's flown into town for the occasion, but he lives elsewhere. The family home's all full up, so he's staying at a hotel. But before he heads back there, he swings by the family home to drop off the ashes. But he's not allowed to leave them because according to at

least one member of the family, they will invite evil spirits into the home. Let me say that again, but more dripping with derision. They will invite evil spirits into the home. And again, we're not talking about me here. We're not talking about Eli. This is a guy who just wants to keep everybody happy. So he plays along, you know, after he accepts that this is indeed what's happening in the universe at this moment, he says something along the lines of like, well, is there some kind of blessing we can say over them, though? Bored off the evil spirits because, you know, he has the self-restraint not to just say, isn't Jesus magic stronger than devil magic? And if not, are you worshiping the right fucking guy? But they're undeterred. The ashes of his sister are apparently goddamn haunted.

So he has to take them back to his hotel and figure out what the hell he's going to do with them at this point. Now, I need to point out the person objecting here is Mormon. The whole family is Mormon. And I've read their fucking book. There's nothing in it or the Bible about cremated remains acting as a doorway into the fucking spirit realm. That's just some random shit this superstitious motherfucker managed to concoct on his own. There are no ghosts in Mormon theology, but that doesn't matter because virtually no American Christians even know their religion's official theology. Hell, outside of Mormons and Catholics, you're lucky if you can find leaders that know their official theology.

I doubt the likes of Joel Osteen could convincingly define theology. So what you most often are left with is a hodgepodge of superstitions and sacred precepts, often contradictory, that percolate and bubble up unpredictably. You know, if haunted ashes were an official part of their script, they'd have an anti-haunted ashes spell that he could do or something. But since he's essentially making up his sincerely held beliefs as he goes along with little more than you never know to guide him, there's no ready solution to this made up problem. And again, it's worth emphasizing here that this is supposed to be religion's time to shine. The whole justification for it, as far as most of the secular world is concerned, is that it helps grieving people move on with their lives. But even if you think lie into a motherfucker so they'll shut up about their dead relative counts as solving a problem, religion still creates whole new problems along the way. And unlike reality, there is no roadmap for success.

And unlike reality, there is no roadmap for success. Yeah, end of life counselors can at least to some degree experiment with the normal problems that we encounter when we grieve. They can refine their recommendations and their therapies. They can get better over time. But when you start adding in random shit like my niece's ashes are haunted, how the fuck is anybody supposed to prepare for that? the fuck is anybody supposed to prepare for that look i've never been a fan of organized religion obviously but it turns out that disorganized religion isn't any better they're talking about joining me for headlines tonight is the heat of my haw eli bostick eli are you ready to put your hands together and bray heck Heck yeah, I am. I was taking horse dewormer before it

was cool, Noah. Okay, I'm pretty sure that's true of everybody who's ever taken horse dewormer, but while we sort that out, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Gimme to Loot. Looking for a Eurocentric D&D podcast where a gaggle of cisgender white dudes play a cluster of Mary Sue Paladins

or Edgelord rogues? Too bad! They didn't pay for this spot, but the Gimme to Loot guys sure did. Gimme to Loot is a D&D 5E actual play podcast with comedic and satirical overtones, featuring a diverse cast whose experience levels range from first-time players to 1E veterans. Gimme to Loot's story centers around five dysfunctional randos who meet up at a fantasy truck stop, try to save some lumberjacks, and end up magically stuck together. Now the party of five must find a way to overcome organized religion, the god of lawyers, Ducky's hyper-capitalistic mercantile guild, and each other as they roam the countryside in the Winnebago searching for a cure to their condition. Give them a listen at www.gmdlcast.com slash atheist or any of your podcast platforms. And be sure to check out patreon.com slash gmdlcast for access to their

bonus video content like a challenge of the challenge ratings and bonus podcasts like the Hunter's Party, a supernatural rewatch show with a D&D homebrew twist. They promise they make fun of the bad parts. Give me the loot podcast. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, listen up, you supernatural fans. You keep tweeting at me to tell me how great

a show it is. Well, I'm gonna... Eli, there's a script. What the hell are you doing? Oh, you and I are about to go on vacation and I figured since people aren't going to hear from us for a month, I can really, you know, give it to the Supernatural fans and they'll be over it by the time we're back on the air. No, Eli, we're not going off the air.

What? Yes, we are. We're taking a month for September off. I made birthday plans, Noah. You cannot cancel my vacation. No, no, no. We are taking the month off, but the listeners aren't going to miss any episodes of Scathing Atheist, God Awful Movies, D&D Minus, or Citation Needed. We got ahead on headlines, Bible readings, David Icke, and even another fun segment or two. So they'll get their podcast as they usually do.

Oh, they will? That's right. They will. Well, if the podcast is going to come out as usual, then why are we telling people we're going on vacation well first because it gives us a chance to thank our patrons who made this possible by supporting the show our patrons made it possible for this show to be our jobs and that means stuff like you know having health insurance and taking vacations it's also gonna be kind of obvious when we start talking about headlines from back in april but most importantly as creators of stuff on the internet it's important that we

acknowledge when we take a break. So you're saying this isn't my opportunity to tell off the supernatural fence once and for all. It's never that. No. Okay. Well, supernatural fence, you're off the hook this time and next time in our real lead story tonight it seems hopeful to the point of naivety that i once thought the world needed a book to make the case that religion is one of the chief contributors to the pandemic i guess i ignorantly assume that there would eventually be some effort to pretend otherwise or at least a less vigorous effort to sign their names at the bottom of the page but from the moment the world health organization first busted out the P word, religious leaders and institutions have been in a seeming competition as to who can undercut public health the most.

Yep. Case in point, at a time when most organizations are firing people for promoting vaccine hesitancy, national religious broadcasters just fired a guy for failing to. That's right. Daniel Darling had the audacity to appear on TV and urge Christians to get vaccinated. So he was fired for, I swear, this is the wording they used, violating their requirements that he remain neutral on COVID vaccination. that he remain a neutral on covid vaccination well i mean he should have known when he started working for us that someday there'd be a massive plague that kills millions of people and we would want him to be neutral about it that's just a standard that's contract not no yeah so this problem began on august 2nd i believe when darling the senior vice president of communications for

national religious broadcasters appeared on msnb. So right there, he's just asking for trouble. And during the appearance, he talked about how his faith motivated him to get the vaccine. He was obviously reacting to the statistics that show how prevalent vaccine hesitancy was among evangelicals. So he was pulling out all the stops. He pointed out, for example, that an awful lot of people who worked on the vaccine shared his religion. So seems weird that they'd be in league with Satan's microchip plan. If you think about it. Come on, y'all.

Come talk to Francis Collins. He is waterfalls in force. My invisible friends level of Christian. Yeah. Yeah. Come talk to Frankie. Now, of course, the same vaccine denying evangelicals he was trying to cram some sense into are the very same evangelicals that make up the 1100 member nonprofit he works for. Responding to the MSNBC appearance and an op ed he'd written for USA Today with a similar message, the group reprimanded Darling and told him to state publicly that his pro vaccine stance was mistaken.

That stance, by the way, was that you should love thy neighbor yeah and when he refused he was fired without severance well until he sues them something tells me he's gonna end up getting a check it's not like he's gay or anything let's be serious you know now to be clear all of this comes from darling right so nrb has refused to comment on why he left and they did issue a statement saying that nobody was ever terminated from their employee because of their views on covid vaccines but that very same statement confirmed that their policy was to stay neutral on the subject and firing darling for endorsing the vaccine isn't the same as firing someone because of his views on covid vaccines so like either he's telling

the truth or nrb is being awful coy about their innocence still since the entire group stated purpose is to protect the free speech of its members the firing seems hypocritical even by christian standards oh boy does it and in roe versus wade in the water news you should have voted for hillary fucking clinton yeah sorry sorry i know that's heath's thing but he's off this week so as a belated birthday present to him just a reminder you should have voted for hillary fucking clinton because hillary clinton wouldn't have committed open treason with the Russian government. There's one. She almost certainly wouldn't have been impeached twice.

She wouldn't have let a plague ravage over our country and the planet. And most importantly, today at least, she wouldn't have packed the Supreme Court with religious stooges who would essentially overturn Roe versus Wade without lifting a finger or making an official decision, which is what could happen any second as we record this podcast. So we're going to talk about it. Yeah. Well, yeah. No, I mean, to be clear, by failing to block this law from taking effect, they've already overturned Roe v. Wade. It's just a matter of whether that's temporary and how temporary.

Exactly. So the law, Texas Senate Bill 8, amounts to a near complete ban on abortion in Texas, prohibiting most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and is the most restrictive abortion ban currently legal in the nation. The listen to this the law allows private individuals not even just texans anybody private individuals to sue violators of the law for up to ten thousand dollars in damages and makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape and since the supreme court did not take early action to stop that law, as of the recording of this podcast right now, that law has gone into effect. There are abortion clinics turning away patients right now because that law is in effect.

Now, it's worth noting that an emergency application from abortion providers seeking to block the law remains pending. And the court is expected to rule on that literally any second as we record this. But the fact that they haven't already, it's not a good sign. Yeah, because like this is not a complicated question in any way. It's like they're being asked to rule if theft is still illegal if you're left-handed yeah and look i'd honestly rather speak about this once we had all the information but we're gone next week and by the time we're back it's kind of gonna be old news so well it depends on what the supreme court does yeah yeah but i want to get to this while it's fresh even if it means

that by the time you hear this they've backed down or they've blocked the law, because whether or not this particular bill goes through in its full insane nature, we shouldn't be here, right? Roe versus Wade has been settled law since the 19 fucking 70s. And the reason why we've gone through this exact cycle of terror and relief about basic reproductive rights what seems like maybe a dozen times over the last year and a half is because of religion well okay but to be fair any institution that was exempted from laws against sexism that purported to be a source of morality and was politically untouchable could have done it though it did yeah it's true any of those ones look this is a religiously motivated bill it was written by christian politicians it was supported with

church dollars as often as i'm sick of saying it religion is the sickness and the symptom here and as much as every other media venue is gonna throw its hands on the air and act like, oh, this this came from the dark dimension where the bad America is. You and I need to be honest about this. This has been part of the religious rights agenda for decades. And the way their agenda gets enacted always all the time is by religion coming into power. Yeah. Well, OK.

And what's more, with the exception of the Catholics, this came from the politics, right? The politics seeded it into the religion and then used the religion to justify it. Now, far from being exculpatory, that actually proves they can use religion to do pretty much any damn thing. And in taking the lib out of Liberty News, I try to keep myself from doing all COVID stories on the headlines because you can't do that week after week after week. But I need to talk about the way that Liberty University is being devoured alive by a creature that they created

and can no longer contain. And no, I am not talking about Jerry Falwell Jr. In fact, I'm also, I'm not talking about how even the barest scrap of boulderized education is still enough to reject the underpinnings of fundamentalist Christianity. In this instance, I'm talking about their student body rebelling against a desperate effort

to impose the bare minimum of safety precautions amid a rampant COVID outbreak. Oh, boy, are they. Also, a side note for our less literate listeners like myself, boldlerize means to cut out the parts you don't like. But fun fact, the Merriam-Webster definition is to expurgate something. So I had this moment where I saw that word and I don't know what that means. So I looked it up and I was like, okay, Miriam, you too.

You're supposed to be on my side, Miriam. It wasn't supposed to be you. Sorry. No, you were saying Frankenstein wasn't the monster the student body was. Go ahead. You studied Shakespeare. You have a degree in Shakespeare. He made up his own words every time.

It was very much easier. Anyway, so the good news is that unlike last year, Liberty University is admitting that COVID is both a thing that exists in the world and a bad thing for students to have. Good for them. Right? Baby steps. When they realized that they had

159 active cases at the school of about 15,000 students, they decided to close down in-person classes for a couple of weeks. 159 active cases at the school of about 15,000 students. They decided to close down in-person classes for a couple of weeks. And not only is that the end of the good news, but that kind of overstates the case. Yep. Right. Because the students are still living on campus. They're still allowed to use school facilities and the dining areas and shit.

And there is no mask requirement on campus. And of course, there's no vaccine mandate to attend the school to begin with. But even that bare minimum afterthought of an effort to protect them from dying was too much for many of Liberty's brainwashed students, so they started a petition to end the lockdown.

The lockdown! Man, if this isn't the year that we learned, you could just get Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson to say fire isn't the year that we learned you could just get alex jones and tucker carlson to say fire isn't real christians will do their own waco we wasted a tank everybody jesus christ so the petition was apparently the idea of the exquisitely caucasionally named landon nesbit how the fuck does that name not have a roman numeral? Anyway, Landon Nesbitt points out in his petition and in subsequent interviews about it that Liberty's willingness to endanger

its students was one of the main reasons he decided to get a degree from them instead of an education. And so far, that petition has over a thousand signatories. That would be about one in 15 students even on a good year. Or about 8 times their rate of COVID positive students well for now let's see how the petition does those numbers will go up in tandem

yeah and in God's Not Dead he's J-E-L-L-O news tonight I'll be honest I find it hard to rustle up empathy for the jerks we talk about on a regular basis. Right. They're con men, racist loons, or most of the time they're all three of those things together.

That said, a precious few of them have made talking about what God and heaven look like, like physically look like a part of their shtick. look like like physically look like a part of their shtick and you know i'll be damned but i feel a pang of empathy every time one of them tries to conjure a new and desperately magnificent sky wizard for the hundredth thousandth time on youtube and who should tug on my heartstrings this week dear podcast listener but robinock, when he described a visit to heaven where he saw God wrapped in a cube of holy power gelatin. Yep.

You know who I have empathy for? Who's that? Steve Schultz. Right? Because if there is any unhinged psychotic yelling on YouTube about how God lives in a gelatinous cube

or you have to be this tall to ride the heaven volcanoes. You can bet it's going to be Steve Schultz standing on the other side of that split screen, nodding along like a fucking pot committed Ziggy that's looking for any way out. It's so dark. His life.

And if you don't watch the full, you can't because they're like 97 hours. He's like past the light things. But if you watch the clips, you can't because they're like 97 hours. Yeah. The light things. But if you watch the clips every time someone does a new thing, he's just like, oh, Steve. Come on, Steve. What have you done? Done it again, Steve. OK, so regular listeners will remember Robin Bullock for perhaps claiming to talk to Jesus

by walking through a water portal a couple of years ago. A couple of months ago, a couple of months ago, he threatened to make people who made fun of him have leprosy. I'm still waiting on my leprosy. Yeah, still good. Still good. Or maybe you just know him for looking like the anthropomorphic version of all

the bad thoughts Dave Grohl has ever had. Either way. I apologize to Dave Grohl, by the way, either way. And Cecil. Just to chat. He took to the increasingly depressed

looking steve schultz's youtube show past the light to describe a recent encounter with the almighty's jiggly visage which which i will be reading in a drunk voice for clarity i'm not saying robin bullock was drunk on the show i'm saying that robin bullock was stone cold sober he just thinks like a drunk person yes yeah and he also looks like a drunk person thinks but that's a different that's it's different yeah when you hear it'll make sense okay quote i remember one time you know i've been to heaven in different throne rooms a few times and every time i was in a throne room he has a different throne rooms a few times. And every time I was in a throne room, he has a different throne rooms for different things.

I watched him create the world one time. It was the most amazing thing you've ever seen. Anyway, the white throne, it's set on about seven tiers. And when you look down on it, it was massive. It was a massive thing. And it was inside this cube of like gelatin. It was like clear gelatin and it went around in a square around him and his whole throne you could see his hair you could see the

outline of it inside that and his beard and inside this cube of gelatin it was clear like it was pure energy it was power it was just like electricity alive inside this cube when you when you see him like that that cube had to be around him there was too much power coming out of him it had to be there oh my god i love how pretty much every christian who has ever taken it upon themselves to describe god's physical appearance does so in a way completely consistent with the thing angry christian apologists tell us that nobody believes they sure do right no christian believes god's a white-haired bearded old man on the throne except literally every christian who's ever described him shit okay but they don't mention the Jell-O thing.

Right, yeah, exactly. Let's tell William Lane Craig about the Jell-O. Right, so I think it's obvious that Robin's running out of ideas. I think we can all agree that. But I have a personal theory that he started stealing God descriptions from the Dungeons & Dragons monster manual. So I'm just saying

everyone, keep your eye out for you know, God having a bunch of eyes all around his body. Maybe a pet goldfish. We're going to see if I'm right. Oh, this is going to get interesting. Alright, well if he's going alphabetical I feel like the gibbering mouth is coming next and I think most of our listeners

are going to need to Google that to appreciate what an awesome god he would make so we're going to pause for a quick word from this week's second sponsor, Man Paper Our gibbering mother is an awesome gibbering mother Well hey there Noah

you wiping your ass? Damn it Eli what are you doing? I just wanted to give you the opportunity to learn about our newest sponsor, Man Paper. What's Man Paper? It's toilet paper for men. Are you tired of the girly scents and the coddling softness of traditional toilet paper? Well, then crack open a six-pack of Man Paper and get to work on your grundle like an ice road trucker.

But Eli, what makes Man Paper different than traditional toilet paper? When you're a man, you don't have time to wipe a second or even a third time. You're busy building a business. You're closing a deal. You're yelling at your son about a hose, which is why man paper uses grade 11 sandpaper to provide you with their one wipe guarantee. One wipe guarantee. That's right.

One wipe and your crack will be as smooth as Ryan Reynolds chest or your money money back order now and each roll comes with a tightly bound hard leather belt all right eli i'm in so long spoiling girl paper man paper dear god what are we doing that these people keep buying ads from us and how do we make it stop and we're back next up in headlines hey podcast listener can i interest you in a very specific time machine one that allows you to go have all the internet fights of 10 years ago today no well then you won't be interested in the mormon church which is all of us this week about whether or not i cannot make this up brigham young university is anti-gay enough yeah what okay so little background here in 1820s america everyone's just making up their own christianity right when a young short con runner named joseph smith decides to give it himself. Sorry, Eli, I know it's unlikely for me

to be the one to say this, but perhaps a little less background. No, that's fair. That's fair. Anyway, yada, yada, yada, polygamous cult, yada, yada, yada, tries to overthrow the government, owns everything in Utah, weird secret Mormon Vatican, run by old white guy bigots, Brigham Young University.

Yeah, okay, so that's pretty much spot on. You don't have to listen to naked Mormonism anymore. Eli just summed it up. Exactly. Keep your headphones soup smell free. But more recently, i.e. two years ago, valedictorian Matt Easton announced that he was gay in his commencement speech,

which I got to say is a pretty brave fucking thing to do. Right? BYU can and has kicked students out for being gay they kick students out for being sexually assaulted by members of the same gender but as i said easton came out publicly anyway and byu has apparently been in a little mini war about it ever since with homophobic graffiti and counter graffiti and counter counter graffiti and lots of people yelling about what throwback homophobes they are like the supreme court didn't decide this shit in 2015 but if ever there was a throwbacks throwback it's a mormon apostle specifically

mormon apostle jeffrey r holland one of the highest ranking members of the mormon church who chimed in last monday to remind everyone that he's way back in some pre-Stonewall shit y'all need to get on his level. Yeah, right, because who better to lead us into the future than a guy older than color television? Have you guys heard about this Pong game? I'm telling you, it'll blow your asshole out of the back of your head. He was in his 30s when Pong came out. 30s, okay. Okay. Quote, if a student commandeers a

graduation podium intended to represent everyone getting diplomas, in order to announce his personal sexual orientation, what might another speaker feel free to announce the next year? Until eventually, anything goes. What might

commencement mean or not mean if we push individual license over institutional dignity for very long? Do we simply end up with more divisiveness in our culture than we already have? And we already have too much everywhere. Oh, we have too much divisiveness, he said in his anti-gay speech. Jesus, I love the parade of horribles that must be marching through this man's head, right? He's imagining next year's valedictorian going like, yeah, I didn't think I'd like it, but finger up the butt is pretty nice. Don't judge it. It's when it's coming out.

That's when it'll get you, you know? Person the next year just has their finger up their own butt. I told you this was going to happen. you know person the next year just has their finger up their own butt i warned you all i told you this was gonna happen right pong wasn't enough for you okay but don't worry don't don't worry he's heard about the viral videos of people assaulting gay kids on campus or calling them faggots and he's got a word for the open homophobes on campus as well. Quote, yes, we will always need defenders of the faith. Not good. This is not a good start. But friendly fire is a tragedy. And from time to time, the church, its leaders, and some of our

colleagues within the university community have taken such fire on this campus and sometimes it isn't friendly wounding students and the parents of students who are confused about what so much recent flag waving and parade holding on the issue means confused end quote they're confused so just to be clear the most progressive part of his speech was don't shoot your classmates they're just confused by gay pride parades yep that's the best thing he had to say yeah no he can't validate the existence of gay people long enough to condemn the people who won't validate their existence surprise surprise it's crazy most inevitable and in suit yourself news fantastic indiana asthmatic jennifer reinhold would like to speak to the manager of the law she's had enough of this

mask wearing bullshit and she's seen more than enough youtube videos to know her right so she's suing the cdc and the fda and her governor and his state health commissioner and anthony fauci and both her county and municipal health departments the people who run them and menards and sephora and amc theaters and crispy cream donuts and the complaint is so glorious and wonderful that it makes me wish we had a sixth podcast where we teamed up with andrew to review terrible christian lawsuits yeah let's get a bounce on it we don't need a vacation god all the lawsuits andrew andrew you have to say yes or i'm gonna try to buy a billboard again we all know how that went the first time so the complaint opens up with

a 25 page summary of the research she did on google that begs for multiple flashing fonts she literally starts with the advent of the germ theory of disease and takes her time getting to the present day but the long and short of it is that masks don't work no matter what them scientists tell you but listeners she reserved the full brunt of her untamed karenosity for those filthy motherfuckers down at the Krispy Kreme. And I have to offer it to you in its full glory. He really does. This is an actual excerpt from her legal complaint that she filed with a goddamn court of goddamn law.

Quote. Honor about June 5th, 2020. Good start. This is the law take it very serious very serious jennifer reinhold went to the speaking about herself here jennifer reinhold went to the krispy kreme store where there was an extremely long drive-through line that wrapped around the building and did not appear to be moving there were only two people in line inside the store. Jennifer Reinhold was forbidden entry into the store without a mask. She explained to the store manager that she had a medical disability and could not wear a mask but was still denied entry. She continues, Jennifer Reinhold, having promised her daughter donuts,

returned to the car, donned a mask, and waited in line in the store for 10 minutes to get the donuts. She had an asthma attack in the store as a result of wearing the mask. Store employees, including the manager, emphasis mine, were unconcerned she was having an asthma attack. End quote. Podcast listener, podcast listener, my birthday's coming up. You're going to miss it because we're on vacation.

I want nothing more than the security video yes from this krispy kreme where jen is rolling around on the ground like the surgical mask is a fucking face hugger from alien i know it exists and i need it i need it for my birthday. I need it by September 26th. I need it. And finally tonight in Fly the Plague Friendly Skies news, there was a time when somebody, anybody, took Liberty Council's Matt Staver seriously.

And for that, we should all be ashamed. Based on that knowledge alone, we could make a convincing argument to superior life forms that they should in fact blow us up and start over and the marclarians warmed up their lasers even more this week as staver put out a press release that vaccine mandates are bad because they're gonna make the planes crash i am dying to know where matt has been putting his mask but i also don't want to know, you know, sort of in between.

Well, Jen is on the plane and she's violently rolling around in the aisles. It's very distracting. Okay, now to be fair, it's not what you think. Staver is not saying that, like, you can't put the microchips on airplane modes. No, he's defending a much more believable type of stupid namely he's saying that anti-vax flight attendants and pilots are so fucking stressed out that they're gonna have to get a free miracle care for the plague that they cannot do their jobs well yeah if there's any industry that needs to coddle science deniers who don't care about the lives of the people around them, it would be aviation.

Yeah. Oh, please. More of them in control of the giant jets we fly through the sky. Here's the quote. Based on direct conversations with airline workers, including many pilots and flight attendants, the pressure is resulting in an increased number of safety incidents a captain of a major airline said that due to the extreme stress under which pilots are being subjected to regarding taking these unwanted shots or losing their jobs this captain would not fly on the airline unless in the captain's seat end quote okay so to be clear there is a very real problem with increased stress for airline employees the source of that stress however is matt fucking staver and all the

assholes who listen to him yeah he continues another said that flight attendants are coming into the cockpit in tears due to the stress yet another said that due to distractions there are also more safety incidents on the ground another said said that a co-worker, under fear of being terminated, succumbed to the pressure and took the COVID shots, went into anaphylactic shock, and died. He flies Air Canada. You don't know him. It's such a lazy lie because it's shots, plural. So, like, he was fine with the first shot, but that second one, he went, oh! It's lying on the ground next to Jenniferennifer oh she's faking it he concludes quote no one should be forced to inject this or any substance in their bodies

against their will it is wrong to violate the fundamental right to free and informed consent and bully people into compliance, end quote. Not adding, my entire career and the point of my existence up until these fucking vaccine mandates was to try to stop gay marriage and abortion. I just got sucked into myself and I turned into a black hole. End quote. And on the closest thing that we've ever gotten to an actual warning that the sky

is falling i guess we're going to close the headlines for the night eli thanks as always everyone starts stockpiling abortions yeah and when we come back heath will be here and i won't you'll be all kinds of confused So we've been avoiding this like that novel your stoner friend is working on, but alas, there's no more stalling. We read another section of David Icke's book, Everything You Need to Know But Have Never Been Told. So where did we leave off? Well, that's a Zen koan that requires a lifetime of sitting still in a turquoise jumpsuit to answer,

but I will give it my best shot. So here we go. Reality can't pee when you're looking. Everything and nothing is holograms. David Icke is going to be anti-Semitic at least 867 more times based on a control F. Time and space are a hoax. Yeah. But also hoaxes are a hoax.

So it's confusing. And the number line is a hoax. So it's extra confusing. Also, doctors are constantly talking to sick people, which is highly suspect. And of course, something, something, waveform, oscill is highly suspect. And of course, something waveform oscillation waves. Anything important? Oh, how about

the fact that our protagonist is a stock photo of a raindrop? A raindrop, yes. That is correct. Very important. That photo is doing a lot of work in this book. Yeah, certainly more than David Icke. Alright, well that brings us to chapter two, the

inversion. So, this is where David Icke tries to establish his religion as the correct alternative to all the silly religion out there. He says, reality is one gigantic inversion, and there's no better example than

mainstream religion. So so religion is the best example of reality that's i think that's what he's saying but reality is a hoax so now he's going to explain how all the major religions inverted something and it all started when he had a conscious awakening after his quote download remember on that hill in peru oh when he clearly got struck by lightning and he pretended it was a magical revelation instead he had to tell his cab driver he's like yes i went out in the storm just now and i shat myself i think i had a revelation download that led to quote historic levels of public ridicule so it makes mad at everybody making fun of him okay david i actually feel like religion is not the opposite of that

time you looked like an idiot on tv if if anything it just is that time you looked like an idiot on tv and he choked on the cookie as soon as he started his interview. Immediately. The best. Okay. So long. So long. Here comes the international Jew segment,

but he doesn't drop the J-bomb quite yet. No. He says, those who appear to be in power in politics, corporations, banking, media,

science, medicine, religion, et cetera, are only agents and pawns. here to be in power in politics corporations banking media science medicine religion etc are only agents and pawns some knowingly most unknowingly of a force operating from the shadows and pursuing an agenda of global human control and it's just like in real books that he has definitely really read like 1984 1984 and Brave New World. So he mentioned that. I also have this library card. No big deal. Not everyone gets one.

Also, I just want to throw this out there. Hey, podcast listener, have a fun little moment here. Pause the podcast. Write down what you think the force behind the power in politics is. Because we're going to get to it in this chapter. the power in politics is because we're going to get to it in this chapter and if you just unpaused and didn't write down serpent face multi-dimensional being made out of a lady's sad feelings you were incorrect who is also an international jewish person somehow yeah also jewish and this is what he started seeing all the reptilian people when he was walking around.

And the classic, quote, greys of alien legend. So he published The Biggest Secret and Children of the Matrix exposing those lizard aliens. And he says, quote, more mass ridicule followed. That's true. But then I didn't give a shit. He keeps taunting the people making fun of him. It's true. But then I didn't give a shit. He keeps taunting the people making fun of him. It's the best. Okay, but that implies that he

gave a shit when he came out dressed like if the thing from the Fantastic Four had worked in a healing crystal shop. Now I'm confused, David. Now I'm confused. Alright, you ready to get a little more confused? This is when he took some ayahuasca in Brazil

and his knowledge of the universal fabric was complete. Can I just say, the war on drugs wasted their messaging and their money. If they had focused on how many people on drugs turn into insufferable douches instead of overdosing on a gas station or shooting your friend in the face with a drawer gun, this would be a drug-free nation if they just use David Icke as their example. There you go. Nancy Reagan.

Come on, listen up. All right. That brings us to the first subsection of chapter two called using your noose, noose, noose, something like that. N-O-U-S, Using your nose or going beyond it? Question mark. That's the name of the subsection. So Ike tells us about how a few years ago he learned about the real physics from the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, which were written by the Gnostic people of ancient Egypt.

No, they weren't. of ancient egypt no they weren't and gnosis which is you know the base of that word means secret knowledge so secret secrets okay but guys like the nagamati are literally just the time someone found an ancient jar full of ancient david ike's book like it's not even outside of judeo-christian mythology it's just the bad chapters the pope cut for time it's fine it's fine i'm just there's nothing it's fine so according to him the gnostics realized that true awakening meant expanding your awareness beyond your nose or your brain stuff no No. And into your pneuma. None of this.

Your infinite self. None of this. Correct. It's the gospel of Thomas. It's nothing. None of this is correct. None of this is in there. Well, he also mentions that the Catholics were terrified by the Gnostics.

Okay, that's true. That is true. Because the Gnostics knew that God was the source of evil that created the material world, which is actually just holograms. They could see through the illusion of, quote, matter by using psychoactive potions that, quote, took them out there. So that's why the Catholics were afraid. And that brings us to the next subsection called the Gnostic, all that is. So apparently the Nag Hammadi said all the stuff that David Icke was already thinking. Like he already had done that, but they said the same thing. They confirmed it.

Coincidence. Coincidence. Yeah, right. For example, they talk about the father, which means infinite awareness, possibility all potential that is meaningless word salad you might be thinking isn't that meaningless word salad yeah so here's the full context from the manuscript oh there's context here okay no i'll give you the context this is from the nagamati quote he is an incomprehensible one this Quote, he is an incomprehensible one. This is the father.

He is an incomprehensible one, but it is he who comprehends all. He receives them to himself and nothing exists outside of him, but all exist within him. And he is boundary to them all as he encloses them all. And they are all within him. You already said that a few times. It is he who is father of the aeons existing before them all. There is no place outside of him. Are we sure they aren't describing Goethe?

Because it feels like a description of Goethe. Okay. So that did not clear it up for you. No. So yeah, point being mainstream religion is stupid. And okay, sort of that mainstream religion is stupid. Okay. Sort of. You got that part right. It's all about the father who is everything.

And just in case you're still confused, we get a visual aid. Absolutely not. Well, we do get a visual aid, but absolutely not to what it's saying. I guess figure 79. It's just a bunch of stars with the father typed in the middle in like arial font it's word art ladies and gents the book that has inspired q anon and the attempted overthrow of our government has microsoft word art in it but heath what's an aeon okay don't be confused by aeon it doesn't mean a long time like it actually does mean it means bands of perception reality and potential so you got the upper aeons

we should we should explain there's there's multiple types of them. You got the upper ones and the lower ones, and they're separated by a, by a curtain. So you don't mix them up. Oh, it's like first class on an airplane, but with bands of reality and potential. Yep. So,

you know what? Just first class on an airplane. It's the business of first class. Yep. Yeah. So the upper aeons are all that is in awareness of itself. So imagine concentric circles expressing the oneness of their creator. No.

That's what he says. You can't make that. No, don't do that. Don't do that. That's dumb. The Gnostics called these upper aeons the silence, the silent silence, and the living silence with watery light. Okay. And if you need another visual aid, figure 80 is a bunch of stars with the silence type in the middle in Ariel Vaughn.

People, he didn't even pick a different word art. We're working so much harder to read this book than he did to write it. He has so much money. He has so much harder to read this book than he did to write it. He has so much money. He has so much money. Just stars and text in the middle of it. Yep. Twice in a row there. I want to be a bad guy, Heath.

Can we be bad guys? I have word art on my laptop. I'll play soccer. I played soccer. I was a goalie too. Isness. I love Isness. Isness is the fucking best.

How to succeed in Isness without really trying. Okay, if David Icke just kept looking at us, like winking at the camera, this would make a little more sense. He doesn't though. That's not what he's doing. Okay, but he also explained that this is not to be confused with our so-called light. So the watery light in the aeons, you don't want to confuse that with our light, which is, quote, a trap like energetic flypaper.

But that's for later. He actually said that. The important takeaway, time and space are a Ponzi scheme. Do most informational books have twist endings? They do not. I feel like they're not supposed to have twist endings.

We'll get to that. There needs to be like actual pins in this book with like yarn leading to another page like 12 chapters later. After this commercial break. Alright. now we have the next subsection called the error so the fall from grace in the bible is all wrong that's the point of this true it was a woman's fault according to this part but that's the only part they got right, according to David Icke. The Gnostics knew the real deal. The Father, the Infinite

Awareness, had a splinter awareness called Sophia, and she created our physical reality without permission, like a dumb lady. Oh, I get it. My wife buys plants and I'm like, oh, come on. She's like, what? It's nice. And I'm like,

right in the living room. It's just like that living room. It's just like that. So Sophia created our reality without her man consort to balance it. So it's all fucked up. Sure. And the evil manipulation force in our reality is what mainstream religion calls the devil or Satan. Or what David Icke calls Jewish bankers.

Yeah, I get it. It's all coming together. So he only implied that so far, but he will literally say that a whole bunch of times coming up. So the universe that Sophia made, try to follow me here. It turned into a lion faced serpent. I am lost. Okay.

Well, she created the universe lion-faced serpent pops up she knows she's gonna get in trouble now so she threw it out of the upper aeons and now that is the lower aeons where we are okay are you picturing just like an interdimensional god force trying to flush reality down the toilet before its parents get home just coming that's the story of the gnostics and well at least according to david ike so the lion-faced serpent is called yaldabaoth by the way and i hope he gets a nickname later that makes no fucking sense yeah well we'll get there we'll get there. Yaldabaoth created rulers for the lower aeons called archons, and they are made of smokeless fire. Yep.

Well, in Islam, they're called jinns. And in Satanism, they're called Satan. Just the one. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. They all get a break in the Christian world. All right. Next up, we have the section called Realms of Down Here.

So we're living in one of the seven bad copy lower aeons where the energy is all fucked up and shitty because Sophia made it. Sure. And figure 81 shows us what that looks like. Does it, Heath? what that looks like. Doesn't he? Well, it shows us a lion-faced serpent who is removing a, I believe, skin tag from the original Earth universe

in the upper Aeon. Yeah, his wife's bugging him to get that checked out by a multiverse doctor, and he keeps meaning to, but, you know. You don't want to. Yeah, so this explains the difference between the good psychics and the really good psychics. According to David Icke. Does it now?

He says, you know, I'm getting a merry psychics. They're only communicating with the lower aeons, but the really good psychics are working with the upper aeons, so they have way more advanced knowledge. And when those really good psychics do that with the upper aeons, they're called crazy. Just turn into someone, oh, you're getting to marry? Well, I'm getting a lion-faced serpent with a really weird freckle. So yeah, maybe put a little effort in. And that brings us to one more subsection we're going to do here it's called insane god of the limitless chaos and now we're going to learn a bit more about the lion-faced serpent guy his name was oh good his name was as you remember

y'all the bath but david ike's gonna him Demiurge from now on. He's like, yeah, I'm going to call him Demiurge now. Deal with it. So Demiurge was also called the blind one by the Gnostics. Very next sentence. Demiurge looked out on the realm of matter.

Apparently after blindly seeing everything when he looked out, Demiurge got arrogant and said, it is I who am God and there is no other power apart from me. And that's the origin story of Yahweh, the quote, angry, bloodthirsty, nasty God of the Old Testament. You know, I feel like I've been too hard on the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. There are way dumber stories out there. I've been too critical. I'd like I've been too hard on the lion the witch and the wardrobe there are way dumber stories out there been too critical I'd like to apologize

yeah that guy was way more woke yeah and by the way David Icke still not dropping the J bomb but he does add Demiurge and the vicious Old Testament God are the same fella alright and that goes along with figure 89 and the vicious Old Testament God are the same fella. All right.

And that goes along with figure 89 that has a scary reptile serpent in a plague mask, I think. And it says Demiurge, Satan, Devil, Yahweh, and a few other alias names, like his brainstorm. Rosenberg, Goldstein. So, yeah.

Jewish God. Ugh, gross. Yeah. This is where David Icke says, okay, but Christian God from the New Testament. I feel like I was being mean to God. Christian God is a loving God. And he knew about the infinite awareness in the upper aeon. He's cool.

Christian God's cool. Wait, when did Christian God sub in for the self-nicknaming lion guy? This story is starting not to make sense, Heath. Did I just lose you now? Yeah, I feel like you're going to lose me. We'll try to pick you back up. And that leaves us with a section called

Agent Smith Archons coming up next. So I really hate to stop here, but no, I absolutely don't. I'm extremely happy to stop here. Maybe we could just stop. But I know that we're going to be back next month with David Icke explaining the Matrix and Rene

Descartes, because that's what I want to hear from David Icke. Before we power down the treadmill tonight, I want to assure you that there will be a brand new episode of Scathing Atheist next week and throughout the month of September. The headlines will be a bit outdated and some of the topical references might be a little stale, but we will have an hour's worth of all new content for you every Thursday at 7 a.m. Eastern, just like always. Same goes for Godawful Movies anyway. That's all the Blast Movie 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, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even new episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this episode would feel hollow if I neglected to thank Keith Ed Wright for contributing, even when he's gone.

I need to thank Eli Bosnick for taking on a tremendous amount of work leading up to the break. I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lutions for patiently waiting almost nine years for me to take an actual vacation. I want to thank Jeff Blackwell for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, and I'm not sure if he mentioned the Ben Shapiro thing as a birthday present to Heath or whether it was just good timing, but either way, Heath says you're welcome.

Oh, I also want to thank all of you listening for making this my job and making it possible for me to step off the creativity treadmill for a month and recharge a bit but most of all of course i want to thank this week's most magnanimous mammals mary christopher evan michael black people tip fuck you heath jacob enrique gene trump's ineptitude likely killed the voters he needed to win robin joe and brendan mary christopher evan and michael whose intellects make Will Hunting look like Will Ferrell, Black Tippers, Jacob, Enrique, and Gene, whose neuronal pathways have traffic reports, and Trump's ineptitude, Robin, Joe, and Brendan, whose IQs are so high that even I told them to lay off the pipe.

Together, these people, morbid observations, racial exonerations, and scurrilous actionizations against Heath, I think, helped contribute to our sacrilege this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn 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 not giving money

to a bunch of lazy motherfuckers who take whole months off, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following at P-I-A-T-Pod on Twitter. Legal services for this podcast were brought up in the offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robertson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also rolled the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats,

you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScathingAdias.com. seriously what are we what are we right we have a section of our show called this week in misogyny what is the product dot com yeah fuck your ass dot net also why do so many of them not buy their dot coms yeah that's getting weird the preceding podcast was a production of puzzle in a thunderstorm llc copyright 2021 all rights reserved