The Scathing Atheist - 449: Not So Friendly Edition

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

In this week’s episode, our headlines will be closer to the present, but they still won’t be the present, Lucinda will continue to pop in when you least expect it, and Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta will be here to learn that the word “new” isn’t legally protected, apparently. --- 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: Check out more of Hemant’s work on his blog.

Warning, this podcast is not safe for work. But other than that, it has very little in common with capitalism. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Gabby, WordTune, and by the new Christian kids game Hungry, Hungry Hypocrisy, because Christian kids need to learn to swallow shit without question early. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, I'm Katie from Dallas, Texas. I don't have anything to promote other than wear a mask and get your vaccinations.

And we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men and women. It's Thursday. It's September 23rd, and it's National Dogs and Politics Day, because we learned on January 6th that housebroken was not the least you could ask for. I'm Noah Lusions, and from Judy Blooms, New Jersey, Cincinnati, Red State, and Redtown, Blue State, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, our headlines will be closer to the present, but they still won't be the present. Lucinda will continue to pop in when you least expect it. Hey, Lucinda. And friendly atheist Hemant Mehta will be here

to learn that the word new isn't legally protected, apparently. But first, the diatribe because it's one big sports analogy, and a lot of you hate anything that mentions any sport of any kind. Doesn't matter if the analogy requires any prior knowledge about the sport. Some of you just have this weird, inexplicable prejudice against all things sport. But I feel like I love a good analogy more than you hate sports talk, so I'm going with it.

So one of the things that makes my job tough is that I was never really religious. Unlike many of you, I never had to walk away from a faith, and to the extent that I kind of did, it was gradual and painless. None of my personality was wrapped up in my belief system. None of my family disowned me for my apostasy. I didn't need to make new friends. Of course, I had to give up things that I felt were integral to my personality. I've alienated family members. I have lost friends. So I can sympathize with all of that stuff to a certain degree,

but the one thing I can't really get my head around is the psychological break so many of you had to suffer through. You know, there was like a conscious moment where you had to admit that you didn't believe in this shit anymore. And then you had to decide to walk away from it. And I can't imagine what that was like. But it occurred to me that I can get pretty close to an analogous sports thing. Now, as many of you know, I'm a big fan of American football. It wasn't really by choice. I didn't pick my personal sports denomination, but rather it was handed down to me by family tradition. I didn't come from a hockey family or a basketball family or a baseball family. I came from a football family. My dad was a football fan and My dad was a football fan, and his dad was a football fan before. Super Bowl was sacred at my house. Now, as a kid, I didn't care much for football. I found

it boring, and I didn't really understand it. Plus, it tied up the TV all day on Sunday, so it kept me from watching fun stuff. But my dad loved it when I watched football along with him, and the more knowledgeable and interested I became, the prouder he seemed to be of me. And eventually, it got to where I really liked it. But more than the sport itself, I like the community, the camaraderie. You know, like when you watch football with a group of people, everybody's all into it together. You feed off one another's energy, and like when I met a stranger for the first time, football gave me a good conversational in. If they were a football fan, I could have an interesting conversation with them for half an hour without needing a personality in any way but along the way i stopped really believing in it you know when i was a kid i was

100 invested in every play but now it's just something that's kind of on in the background while i scroll to facebook or play candy crush but more than that as i've gotten older i noticed a lot of problematic elements to this game that i didn't see as a kid. The exploitation of uncompensated young people, the inherent violence, the sexism, the racism, problems made all the worse by the sports governing body, downplaying well-documented dangers, and excommunicating players who stand up for racial equality. Plus, when I was a kid, football players all seemed like moral icons.

The teams were always involved with all these charity drives, the players were always visiting kids in hospitals, the league gave out its most prestigious award every year to the player who did the most work in his community. Hell, there's even a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. But as I've gotten older, I realized that sure, some of the players were really good people, but that had nothing to do with football. A lot of them were also rapists. What's more, the league seems way more committed to ousting people with outspoken views on racial justice than they do to ousting rapists and abusers. So now, here I sit reflecting on my own moral culpability. I've tithed to this thing. I watch the ads on their broadcasts, but I've also purchased

their jerseys. I've bought tickets to their games, I bear at least some responsibility for the astronomical success of this inherently destructive, ultimately valueless institution. And yet, for whatever reason, I can't make myself walk away from it. Some of it is family pressure. Sure, my dad texts me about Lions games. My mom asks me how the Jaguars are doing when she calls. Some of it's community pressure. My friends still invite me to watch playoff games with them. I still get roped into fantasy leagues now and

again, but mostly it's just momentum. During football season, I watch football games. It's been part of my personality so long that I don't really know who I'd be without it. In other words, I don't have the courage that you did. Now, look i i get this is not a perfect analogy it's an insult to the formerly devout atheists to pretend that giving up a sport that i like is akin to the kind of personal overhaul that many of them went through but the analogy is too good to pass up hell they're giant gaudy facilities or even huge burdens on the local tax base in a sense the comparative triviality of what i'm talking about just reinforces my point i can't muster the nerve to just you know go on a hike on sunday afternoon and not check the scores

later nobody's gonna disown me and the nfl never promised me eternal life and yet that ingrained nugget of personality is still too much for me to sever just know that if you left religion as an adult i stand in awe of you you know when i meet people like you at the conferences and stuff they usually seem embarrassed to admit that they were devout believers in their 20s or 30s or 40s they act like i'm going to think less of them because of that so for whatever it's worth it's the exact opposite the older you were when you left the church the harder that journey was and i have nothing but respect for that. They're talking about you, Jesus.

Interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is the past. We're still out gallivanting and whatnot, but we still have plenty of stories that we stocked up on before the break to keep you entertained, and we'll get right to those after a quick word from this week's first sponsor, Gabby. Hey, Noah. What are you doing to the paper towels? De-plying, Lucinda.

De-plying? That's right. There's actually two rolls worth on each spindle if you're willing to commit. Noah, if you're trying to save money, why not just start with your auto insurance? That makes no sense. It doesn't even have plies. No, I mean trying Gabby. It takes all the hassle of shopping for the best deal on auto insurance.

Things that would take days to do on your own are over in minutes with Gabby. Cool. Well, yeah, deploying really does eat into your schedule. No worries, because Gabby uses your current policy to compare your current coverage with 40 of the top insurance providers like Progressive, Nationwide, and Travelers. with 40 of the top insurance providers like Progressive, Nationwide, and Travelers. They're the one true comparison platform with fast, verifiable quotes, not ballpark guesses. I don't know, Lucinda. I've had some problems with things that claim to be the one true X. I get it. But Gabby is free to use, and they never sell your info.

So no annoying spam or robocalls. Really? Well, no more spam or robocalls, anyway. Well, no more spam or robocalls anyway. I actually tried Gabby before they started sponsoring the show, and it turned out we were overpaying for our insurance by almost 50 bucks a month. But they gave me like a dozen comparisons, and now we're saving big. In fact, people who switch with Gabby save, on average, 80 bucks a month versus their current policy. $80!

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Is it just you that loves Gabby? No, no, it's not just me who loves Gabby. Gabby has been featured in TechCrunch, Forbes, and USA Today. Paragons of journalism that they are. Indeed. So start saving on your auto insurance today. Go to Gabby.com slash gating to start saving today. It's totally free. That's G-A-B-I dot com slash gating. Gabby.com slash gating. All right. Well, I'm convinced. Good. Now, please tell me you didn't do this to the toilet paper.

I can not tell you whatever you want. And now back to headlines from the past already in progress. And in ruining our global pandemic news tonight, COVID is still hard at work trying to help us out with that churchgoers live longer statistic. And we learned that yet again this week, this time from data released by the UK's Office of National Statistics.

The data tracked COVID deaths in the UK from January 2020 through February 2021. And lo and behold, people with no religion were the least likely to die from the disease. Get the fuck out of here. No. And not by a small degree either, by the way. The religious demographic in second place was Christians

and atheists were 15% less likely to die of COVID than them. And that was even without using the promo code scathing at checkout. Hey, Tiffany at Audioboom, I know you're listening. We want that Pfizer ad campaign. Tiffany!

Johnson & Johnson, all of them. I won't put a tragic scene in the background. I promise. It's just a normal one. I bet poor Tiffany does have to listen at this point. What? So, world-saving medicine. Now, of course, the more educated and richer you are, the less likely you are to be religious and the more likely you are to have access to top notch everything in terms of health care, even if you live in the UK.

Right. So some of this is not causal, obviously, but some of it also is. So the Office for National Statistics summarizes the data like this, quote, men and women in the no religion group and women identifying as other religion had lower rates of death involving covet 19 compared with the christian group and then they like rank all the different religions and like who did the worst and then they add quote adjusting for differences in location socio-demographic factors and certain pre-existing health condition accounts for a large portion but not all of excess covid19 mortality risk observed in some religious groups end quote okay but not all is pretty key there so just to be clear for statistical purposes believing in things that are definitely not real kind of needs to count as a pre-existing condition

right so it is treatable but that's a pre-existing condition yeah or hear me out we find this valley right okay are you with me talking about john gall oh god they'd be so pissed if they weren't invited when it finally happened yeah so yeah education and income are definitely important christians also tend to be older on average than atheists but not going into a tiny room with a big crowd of people to amen at each other really loud also factors into it right not thinking a magical being was looking after you also factored into believing in science also factored into it and look interesting i think it's important to remind everybody that while religious people tend to be less educated than atheists, the same is

not true for religious leaders. Right? Oh, so you're like super guilty. Exactly. If you're leading a group that's disproportionately uneducated, I feel like it's all the more important that you don't lie to them about what can and can't cure a disease. And that

puts me in the fucking minority. Yep. Jesus. You're ruining our pandemic our perfectly good pandemic yeah damn it also excludes you from the supreme court at this point yeah and all other points actually yeah exactly and in furniture dicks news the adorable furniture shop that's gonna make sense yeah thank you the adorable furniture shop fourth That's going to make sense. Yeah, thank you. The adorable furniture shop, 4th and Main on Laurel, located in Conway, South Carolina, not at 4th and Main on Laurel,

has challenged us to a Hallmark theme. No, they have a different location that's on Laurel. How could that be addressed? 4th and Main is on 4th or fucking Main, not Laurel. They have a really weird grid. It's just crazy.

Laurel just runs diagonally right through it, apparently. MC Escher designed their city. Anyways, that poorly named furniture store has challenged us to an adorable Hallmark themed prank war. Slide on your Ugg boots, order

extra whip on your pumpkin spice frappuccino and let's slip the people who dress up their dogs of war okay so what's the story all right yeah fair fair so here's the story fourth and main on laurel came to national attention this week when one of its owners wrote on the store's blog that they include a tiny wooden crucifix inside every piece of furniture they sell as a blessing because go fuck yourself yeah here's why quote every home needs a blessing of some kind maybe there's something going on maybe there's not but every home needs a blessing so it's my way of doing it end quote okay hate to break it to you, 4th and Main on Laurel that's not actually in that place.

A bunch of those crosses are upside down by the time they arrive at someone's house. That's why the magic isn't working. It's pretty much canceling out. Half the time, it's going to be closer to upside down than right side up. Also, I know this isn't the point, but 4th and Main on Laurel,

something is going on, right? Just in case that was keeping you up at night like whatever the possibilities are something going on and or not it's going to be the former unless you're in deep fucking space yeah until the heat death restaurant at the end of the universe and look we talk about some truly evil motherfuckers on this show, and they are not in the same league over at Forth and Laurel. But I got to say, I've seen this story reported like six times in mainstream news outlets as this like adorable gesture of goodwill that this store does. Nope. Which it is not.

No. At best, at best, it's a creepy thing to do to your fellow christians and at worst you sell a piece of furniture to i don't know a non-christian and then it's an itsy bitsy threat you put in each of your objects you sell right in some muslim kids dresser yeah yes exactly but either way i'm still hollowing out gideon bibles to hold fuck toys when i stay at a hotel really big dicks usually of course obviously or like medium well because the gideon bible is only so big you know yeah exactly of course well luckily for us one of the best ways to help christians see their own hypocrisy is with the help of their imaginary enemy, Satan. So if you live in Conway, South Carolina, move.

Why not head on down and support a local business that believes everyone deserves a blessing? Totally unrelated, you can buy a bag of pentagrams on Etsy for $8. Huh. No idea why I brought that up. I'm just saying. I brought nothing.

Just save yourself eight bucks. I feel like waving your hands over an Ottoman while mumbling pseudo-Latin would be enough to scare them into exercising it, right? Now we got to do two in that one. That guy, he lifted his butt cheeks and waved at it. I don't like that. Flip it upside down. And next up in headlines. Flip it upside down.

And next up in headlines, a Colorado woman named Amy Carlson was found dead last week with her body mummified by a very inept mummifying squad using a sleeping bag, some cloth, and a string of Christmas lights. Jesus. Also, her eyeballs were completely removed. Jesus Christ. lights jesus also her eyeballs were completely removed jesus christ and seven close acquaintances were then arrested and charged with abusing a corpse and possibly killing her in a different state and then moving her to an apartment in colorado to decompose for the last month

so you're all probably wondering was she the organizer of a secular hobby club turns out she was not she was not she was the mother god of a religious cult and the name of the cult is love has won okay the cult okay, Pedden, and me wants to toss out how unnecessary the has is in that name as possibly a motive. Love has been having one. Imperfect. Okay. Again,

tragic, but I feel like if you're the head of a cult and it ends with people removing your eyes with grapefruit spoons, you didn't maximize your leadership in the cult all right so just in case anyone missed one single episode of dr phil when they had a big emergency last year here's what we learned about carlson and the love has been having one cult during her episode of dr phil last year she's somewhere in the range of 45 years old to 19 billion years old okay she can cure cancer with the power of love oh i would lead with that one yeah no that's a good one using

that power she's done over 100 000 spiritual surgeries she stabs out the cancer with the love apparently it seems like it wouldn't be a surgery yeah i don't know she also talks with robin williams a lot since he died never before he died they met after that okay sure and she's been reincarnated over 530 times it's it's a number above that i was gonna say how many more 30 she knows exactly 530 or more somehow her past lives include jonah vark who actually probably had a death that was worse than that yeah no sure yeah also marilyn monroe killed by fdr what fucked anton lave yeah no she Also, Marilyn Monroe. Killed by FDR. What? Fucked Anton LaVey. Yeah. No, she didn't.

Cleopatra. Also died. Tragic. I'm getting a pattern here, lady. And wait for it, Eli. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Oh. Interesting.

Again, the eye gouging, not that bad compared to the other ones. Yeah, really. You know's a veteran of bad deaths. Hey, stop reincarnating. You suck at living. Well, she's trending up. It's getting more pleasant, I guess. That's true. She's just going to be like a guy named Dave next time.

Well, here's the thing. She didn't mention any lives of not famous people. It's weird. It lives of not famous people. It's weird. It was just all famous people. And she actually has full memory of all those lives, including the entire crucifixion. Wow. Okay, so really fucked up half-related story about this. So I guessed it on a podcast called The True Crime Campfire Podcast, where we talked about a couple of different cults and the hosts,

Katie and Whitney highlighted this particular cult. So the episode aired the same, I believe the same day that this chick's body was found. What? Interesting. Yeah. I guess what I'm saying, Katie,

Whitney, if you guys want to do an episode about the, my pillow guy, I am down for it. Forget the death note. We found the death podcast, people. Okay, so I think there's a couple good lessons in there, believe it or not. First of all, we learned that love has been having won.

And also, based on the data, if you want to avoid getting murdered and having your eyes gouged out and getting wrapped in cheesecloth like a badly rolled joint by an idiot and then dumped at a secret human composting apartment in Colorado, here's what you do. Don't be an occult. Don't be an occult. Guaranteed foolproof strategy right there. Also, don't talk to Dr. Phil. Just probably another good move just in general, unrelated. Always, yeah.

And on that note, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Pre-recorded Heath, pre-recorded Eli. Thanks as always. Do manji. And when we come back, Hemant Mehta will be here, and I won't. So I'll feel kind of cheated. Hey, podcast listeners. Do you have a co-worker who suffers from bad writing?

Yes. Over here. Yes. I was talking to the listeners, Noah. I listen to this show. Fair enough. Well, you're not alone. Every year, U.S. businesses waste over $400 billion because bad writing causes confusion,

misses the mark, or just takes too long to get to the point. I find that hard to believe. Come on, imagine Eli writing stuff where large amounts of money are at stake. And it all makes sense now. Yeah. Well, our new sponsor is looking to change all that. WordTune is a subscription service that fine-tunes the writing of your whole team. We got a free trial of it, and I was amazed by how much time it saved me. It was like having a real-time editor. WordTune understood what I was trying to say and saved me a ton of time trying to figure out the best way to phrase it. Well, I don't know, Lucinda. What about...

Okay, actually, I do know there is no other service I need more in my life. How do I get this? Well, this part is huge. For our listeners that want to improve their entire team's right now, WordTune Teams is 50% off. That's 50%. WordTune improves writing efficiency up to four times. How in the world is that calculated? No idea, but it's in the must read. Okay. Better, faster writing means better business. WordTune improves performance on any project, everything from internal emails to press releases, sales outreach to customer service support, and so much

more. You can use WordTune anywhere you're writing online, including Google Docs, Slack, Outlook, Web, and WhatsApp. I appreciate the detail, but I would literally cut off a finger to install this on Eli's computer, so... Well, right now, our listeners can get 50% off WordTune for Teams at wordtune.com slash scathing. If you want to see the benefit of WordTune, you can try WordTune for free at wordtune.com slash scathing. But this 50% discount

is only available for a limited time and only available for Teams. You might never see a discount like this again. Never? Never. Wow. Your team can start writing better right away for 50% off. That's half price at wordtune.com slash scathing. So here at The Scathing Atheist,

we consider ourselves to be dedicated skeptics. We're always looking for new arguments that might refute our current worldview. So here at The Scathing Atheist, we consider ourselves to be dedicated skeptics. We're always looking for new arguments that might refute our current worldview. And that's why we went to Prager University's YouTube channel to find something like that. They're the bleeding edge of metaphysics and epistemology and the perfect source for another God Awful Mini. And Eli is still here from the show. am i we're both here just want to be clear that we're both still here eli you good with that we're both here i cool i just you know just like a little welcome little little clarity okay well there it was

and for contrast we're joined by a truly great voice in the atheist movement we have hemet meta of the friendly atheist hemet welcome back gentlemen hello i'm so excited for this this video makes me so happy it's pretty stupid so let's get right into it. What god-awful mini are we going to be breaking down today? We watched this video from 2014 from PragerU, and it's called, Does God Exist? Four New Arguments. And I have to say... I told you, cutting edge, bleeding edge of metaphysics right here. The thing that excited me most was that PragerU found new

arguments for God's existence. And I was so excited to hear these. I mean, one new argument would be amazing. Love to hear it. But man, they got four. And to introduce these four new ideas that are going to convince atheists everywhere to believe in God, they found the most prominent astrophysicist slash science expert slash biologist they could find. Did they? A theologian. I'm pretty sure the person has multiple PhDs in everything. From PragerU, maybe. Maybe. Yeah, we'll get to it.

No, they found no one of academic influence. They found no actual theologian. They found a mediocre Cincinnati Reds pitcher. Yeah, they did. And that may

be, besides the four new new arguments the fact that this is their narrator for all this it's amazing and did they even really find four arguments for god i feel like they found four things about science that they were like we're gonna expand this into four things and say these are wrong but there there was no argument. Four things I don't understand. Yeah. It's rough. Yeah, there are four new arguments for the sort of people who watch PragerU and think, I've never heard

anyone comment on anything. I've never read a book in my life. What are? I mean, everything's new to somebody, I guess. Yeah, and Eli, let's be a little more specific. How bad was this mini? Well, if you love Thanksgiving arguments with your Christian Uncle Frank,

but he lacks the hubris of an Act 1 Final Destination character, you will love this mini. I love Final Destination. All right. Is there anything you guys would like to nominate this one love this mini. I love Final Destination. Alright, is there anything you guys would like to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at? Yeah, I am stunned by the amount of over

confidence matched with the level of ignorance. You have to be arrogant to say... Yeah, you have to be somewhat arrogant and i don't necessarily mean that in a bad way to say i have not just the definitive proof of god's existence but four of them and i'm gonna tell them to you in like three minutes four minutes but the amount of arrogance with which he's like yep i got it here they are boom drop the mic

mixed mixed with the fact that when we examine this he's not actually saying anything of value that to me was just amazing even for prager you it's impressive yes i mean it yeah i mean i mean arrogant in a bad way i think hemet was just being nice i i mean all that in a bad way I think Hemet was just being nice I mean all that in a bad way when I say the same thing absolutely I would also like to do a best worst yes you would I'm going to say best worst

backstory so as you heard from Hemet the narrator is a former Cincinnati Reds pitcher his name is Frank Pastore he was on the Reds in the 80s, and he later became a Christian radio host. He's going to tell us about why God is definitely real. Well, that guy did an episode of his radio show in 2012 and explained how he rides a motorcycle, adding, quote, exact quote, at any minute, I could be

spread all over the 210 freeway, but that's just my body part, and that key distinction undergirds the entire Christian worldview. Now, okay, that's ridiculous, but here's what happened next. Three hours later,

he was riding his motorcycle. Three hours later! This is really what happened. He's riding his motorcycle three hours later this is really what happened he's riding his motorcycle and he got spread all over the 210 freeway when he got hit by a car and he died from that because god is apparently jewish or muslim or one of the other ones and also hilarious two quick things about that one is i did not know that detail, but I saw the video and I'm like, who is this guy? Oh, my God. You've got to be kidding me. But to the video, as you said, he died in 2012.

When was this video released? 2014. He came back from the dead to make a PragerU video about this. And the thing is, look, obviously he filmed it beforehand and they're premiering it in 2014. But they make no mention of the fact that this guy is dead in the description. They're just like, yep, this is it. You don't need to know anything else about Frank. No, they don't mention that he died of God.

Yeah, I mean, it took them two't mention that he died of God. No. Yeah. I mean, it took them two years to edit five minutes of video. Imagine how long it would have taken them to put that in the description. See, and I was going to go with best worst misappropriation of the term Big Bang, which in this

video will just mean shit I don't understand or believe in. I honestly thought you were referring to the getting hit by a car oh that too could be that too that's the fifth big bang yeah we'll talk about it all right well let's get into the video so we're gonna start with jim pastore elmer fudd in a sports coat and he was an atheist he announces right here for 27 years so you know he's credible yeah yeah he went to atheist church every sunday really dedicated to the cause man i don't know if you're gonna play it right now but i every single time an apologist opens any

lecture or video with like i used to be an atheist for, I was a hardcore atheist for this long, immediately the red flag should go off. Because it's like, what does that mean for you? What exactly does it mean that you were a hardcore atheist, that you were an atheist at all? Because for a lot of these people, Lee Strobel, Kirk Cameron, those types, it really, I mean, when you listen to more of what they say, it just comes off like they were apathetic and they never thought about this stuff, which is fine. I'm not saying you were secretly a Christian or something, but you didn't really think about it. And there's nothing, I don't have a problem with that. Not everyone cares about this stuff as much as all of us do. But don't say, I was an atheist

for 27 years, as if you were like one of you guys with a podcast, or you vlog, or you were an activist on the ground. No, no, no. You just didn't care about religion or whatever. Yeah. If I don't take up tennis until I'm

27 years old, I wasn't an anti-tennisist for the first 20 years of my life. You're an anti-tennis apostate at that point. Yeah. Nonsense. He's like that guy calling up the radio show for the Yankees and being like, I'm actually

a huge Yankees fan. I used to be a Mets fan, but now I'm a Yankees fan, so you know I'm incredible. No, you're not. Fuck you. Absolutely not. You switched from Mets to Yankees. Get out of here. So he also says here right at the beginning, I used to think religious people were less intelligent and less educated. And I'm thinking to myself like, okay, but then you learned that big data is a hoax? Like we have very clear stats on

the averages there he also says i used to think religious people were just in it for the money the sex and the power and look the money and the power i get but are there people into like the mainstream religions for the sex i mean maybe there's not in a good way it's that's a really bad thing for most of the answers to that question. I don't think Kenny Copeland is in this for the pussy. Also, by the way, there's a little visual aid on the screen here. And he says the thing about money, sex, and power. A guy with no sleeves and no pants and a cigar holding hands with the sign from the women's public bathroom. That's the visual aid for sex. With a ponytail and lipstick, which I don't even know why, but I'm offended.

And I don't really understand why I'm offended by that image. But yeah, it's a weird way. I'm offended. Yeah, I'm with you. I don't know why either. I am though. I understand where he's coming from with the concerns about like,

you know, religion used to be bad and evil and I thought whatever, whatever. Okay, I know where that's coming from. But seriously, anyone who I've known as an activist, as someone who's promoted as much as I could say atheism for a while, they will be the first to tell you, no, of course, there are intelligent religious people.

I think they are wrong on this particular subject. The fact that, I mean, right after this guy says, you know, or at some point he says, I was an atheist for 27 years. Here's another red flag. Your entire opinion of religion is the most un-nuanced stereotypical atheistic thing like nope all religious people are in it for money sex and power like no there have you never met a pastor who was just like no i don't really make any money but i really believe this stuff like i've met tons of those people. Those are not my bigger problems here. This guy has no nuance on any of this.

He's saying right off the bat, here's why you should not trust me, because I have no awareness. That's what came out to me right up front, and I'm like, I'm not even at the four arguments yet, but right off the bat, you're telling me all the reasons I cannot trust your judgment judgment because you clearly don't think

about this stuff. No. Yeah. In a second, he's going to say religion is a psychological crutch for intellectual weaklings. And I'm like, I don't know, man, maybe don't argue with 4chan so much. Talk to an actual atheist. Yeah. Like I wonder if someone wrote that script for him because they were like, oh, we have to write something for a former atheist. I know what we can have him say. I mean, honestly, that description sounds exactly like the same trumped

up version of atheism you see in every apologetics book. Yep. Nonsense strawman thing, yeah. Yeah. And this is where he says, uh, so what changed my mind after my 27 dedicated years as an atheist? Yeah. And then he says, I tell the whole story in my book. So he tries to sell his book two years after he died. The book is called Shattered, Struck Down, But Not Destroyed. You know, that's a very, very unfortunate name right there.

Yikes. Yeah, he published that book in 2011, literally the year before he got shattered and destroyed by God as a prank. I tell the whole thing in my book, I will never get hit by a car and die. Available now on Kindle. Right. available now on Kindle. Right. But he says, okay, we're just going to focus on one little section of my book for our purposes here at Prager University.

That's where they first announced it. I was like, I almost turned it off. I almost turned it off right here. I didn't know it was Prager right away. Yeah, he says, now look, simply put, I set out to disprove theism. I wrote in my notes, oh, you set out to prove a negative. How'd that go for you? Did it go awesome? Yeah, so he did that because

his Christian teammates on the Cincinnati Reds challenged him to read some religion books and critique them, which sounds like a really real, real thing that happened in a professional baseball clubhouse in 1983. Classic locker room talk.

Pete Rose was like, oh really? Cosmological argument? Let's do this. Let's fucking do this right now. Fuck you. And then he said, let's bet on it. What are they talking about? That's excellent. There are coaches.

I'm from Chicago. Phil Jackson, who used to coach the Bulls, would make a big showing of like, yeah, I gave my players these books on Zen Buddhism and how to get in the right mindset. I understand there is a place for that and that could be a tool. But like, who are all of these people who are getting together in the dugout and discussing these issues? and discussing these issues. I don't have these conversations ever with anybody, and I do this for a living. Who is this guy? No wonder he was a mediocre pitcher.

He's not focusing on the game. People avoid these conversations because we do this for a living. You know what really helps my slider when I read Augustine? Really? You read Augustine to help your slider? Okay. But he actually says that. He says, I ran into some difficulty along the way in my trying to disprove the religious people on the Cincinnati Reds of the 80s. The difficulty along the way was stuff like Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas. Keep in mind, this video is called Four New Arguments, and he has yet to mention a philosopher from the advanced era of the 18th century. But what he realized is that

if he was going to disprove God, he would need to believe in four big bangs. So we're going to start with the first one here. It's the big bang that you know about. Everything else is an insane rambling on a PragerU video. But the big bang, at least according to Frank, is that nothing popped and then boom, there was something. And I just wrote in my notes, man, that is not the big bang. Yeah. I was just like, I reject everything that comes after this.

I guess because we're doing the segment, I'm going to keep watching, but absolutely not. And then we get another visual aid here. He's like, yeah, it's just like a light switch. And in case we didn't understand what the fuck he meant by light switch, because that's confusing. We actually see a light switch being switched. So that's how the Big Bang happened.

That's what you have to believe to be an atheist is that there was a light switch at the beginning of the universe yep and someone flipped it on this is where your tuition money goes to prager you for illustrations of light switches yeah ads for salt pills and illustrations of light switches yeah Yep. And dark money to Republicans. Yep. That's where your money goes. And so this is when he says, all right. So, you know, again, I'm a critical thinker.

I decided I want to follow the evidence wherever it leads. And I want to make an extra nomination for best worst here. Best worst visual aids. I already mentioned a couple at this moment we see a placemat at denny's so the truth about the origin of the universe is following the evidence wherever it leads just so we understand what that means we watch a map being filled out very slowly as if on the placemat at a denny's it's a maze it's it's not even a hard maze there's literally like one path that you can go on without any real blockades or anything but yeah i mean have you i mean if you look at the quality of some of the science videos on youtube

they're like gorgeous and they look incredible. And then you see this. It's like, I know you have money. I mean, the visuals, when you look at him, like it looks like a professional is talking. You know they have some money to put into this and yet they use none of it on these visuals. No, no, this is a Fiverr-based business strategy for sure. No, no, this is a Fiverr-based business strategy for sure.

So what he's going to bring up now is the problem, quote unquote, of abiogenesis, but he's three elements they turned into all the other elements but that's just matter and energy not life and i wrote in my notes is life not matter and energy to frank pastore also i got excited here i was like oh so that was first big bang matter energy the second one is going to be when two amoebas fucked and he's going to show us that like what's about to happen now those are already alive man actually this is interesting because i don't think he shows amoebas at all i think when he jumps from big bang one which is the big bang to big bang two which is like life coming into existence he jumps right to a picture of like a fully formed human there is nothing in between there we came fully developed i mean creation

style but that's the thing he doesn't show two amoebas he jumps right to like frankenstein yeah he also confuses himself with the word abiogenesis and he's like a bio what and then he has a visual aid to like tap along all six of those syllables for us yeah he says how did abiogenesis happen and i wrote my notes well i'm glad you asked it's impossible nobody knows this is also where he like tries to sneak in like a post asterisk explanation of abiogenesis he's like i mean yes let me concede everything we've learned about life but that doesn't matter if you can't make a rock dance so nothing we know nothing we know nothing because you can't make a rock dance and where i at some point here he says you know

i don't know if he said i read the the following scientists or that, you know, we can look to what the great scientists figured out. And he shows, of course, like Einstein and Watson and Crick, as if the ones that are most familiar to everybody are the only scientists who have ever said anything about these issues. Like, Watson and Crick, or Darwin. Darwin, like, developed the theory, but he's not like the evolution expert that you would see today, because we know so much more now than he did. So to suggest, as he does, like, well, you know, I read Darwin, or Darwin said this, why are you quoting Darwin who didn't even know about DNA? There are so many people who could do a better job of explaining all this stuff you don't understand and you're quoting none of them. Yeah. He also mentioned Louis Pasteur here, which was a weird like circle, the one that doesn't belong for me.

But yeah, important sciences. I remember Louis Pasteur talking about the Big Bang. Exactly. important sciences. I remember Louis Pasteur talking about the Big Bang. Exactly. And that actually is going to bring us to our third Big Bang in Frank's definition, which is, how do you explain that there are more than one animal? And then we get another visual aid, a graphic, a really bad one. They're all really bad. A graphic of Noah's Ark. And there's a shepherd with like the shepherd crook hook thing. Yes.

And he's apparently telling two elephants and two lions and two rhinos to get on the fucking boat. That's what's happening right here. All of whom, by the way, if you look at the visual, appear to be copy-pasted. You made one. You copied it. You put it in the image. Which means these are all very gay animals that are going on the ark. Very good point.

I did not internalize that. He would be angry that he was blasphemous just then. Yeah. If he were alive. Maybe that's why God smooshed him. There you go. Work in theory. Also, if you look at that image with the animals going up on the ark,

they're on this platform. What is the shepherd standing on? I believe it's air. I think he's just standing on air. He is floating. Slightly hovering past her there. He's bigger than the lions, by the way.

Very small lions or an enormous shepherd maybe giant noah or giant shepherd who noah hired i don't know and then he points out he's like yeah evolution is a great explanation for that question i just set up but could darwin answer when did all the animals become different exactly at the exact moment in the Christian calendar? No? Okay, God is real. Right. Yeah. I mean, this entire video is there are a bunch of things I don't know the answer to. Therefore, no one does.

That's the entire video. Oh, by the way, I think we forgot to mention this. I know he's just kind of riffing here. I know he's just kind of riffing here, but at one point he said the again, if you're the expert trying to explain why the scientists know nothing, maybe being off by a couple billion years is a telltale sign you're not the expert here. Yep. 12 strikes and you're out.

We all know that. You're a pitcher. And that, of course, is going to bring us to our fourth Big Bang, which is that we need to explain how animal brains became unprovable magic brains mumble mumble grumble yeah how like the mechanistic animal brain becomes self-reflective so like yeah how does uh and we this is another amazing visual aid the question is according to that visual aid anyway,

how does a tiger turn into Rodin's sculpture of the finger? Checkmate, atheists. Yeah. He says, even the lowest life forms have brains and central nervous systems. And I was like, no, no, they don't. No, they don't. They do not. Why are these all explosions in his head is my question.

So this is a great question. Why are they all big bangs? He heard the word bang and I think he was just like, oh, that's explodey. So the atheists must mean literally explosions. Yeah. That's where our brains came from. They exploded into existence. And just in case you weren't convinced by that,

he wants us to remember that animals don't do art and they don't appreciate beauty. At which point I wrote in my notes, how would you know? Like if Frank caught a dog sighing at a sunset, would he stop believing in God? That's a crazy argument. And there's no shortage of examples of, you know, animals being charitable, helping each other out. They're not just animalistic, quote unquote, like, and they do appreciate beauty in their own ways. Like the idea that, you know, we are somehow super special is just not accurate to anyone who studied the animals.

is just not accurate to anyone who studied the animals. Absolutely. And also, this is all an argument in favor of God existing. But if I could watch a penguin paint a Picasso, that would be so much better. God's kind of shitty for not doing that. That would be adorable. Are you kidding me?

There is an image, by the way, of a squirrel holding a paintbrush in the video. There we go. They even thought of it. Come on. Already better. And this, of course, is going to bring us to his final argument, which is not only do animals not make art, but animals also don't have free will and introspection. And I wrote in my notes, I mean, I've watched Cupcake Dog, man. Cupcake Dog is definitely introspecting. Again, why an explosion? Like a lion was just hunting a gazelle and then blam and the lion's like, what am I even doing right now? This is mean, right? What does it mean to roar? I mean, the weird thing is, i actually think that's a good question we don't

have a clear answer to which is how do we develop consciousness and our our thoughts that might be a good unanswerable question sure but like all the other things beforehand he just puts it all in this bucket of i don't have a perfect answer to these things. Therefore, no scientific theory that accounts for this stuff, or that is the reigning explanation for this stuff. None of it works for me. And therefore, I'm going to put them all in this

bucket of impossible things that require us to believe in God because they never could have happened. Yeah. It's lazy. Jim Pastore doesn't know so many things. Why is he not like, it doesn't make any sense for him to have any stance on any of these. You just don't know stuff. It's fine to not know stuff, but don't, you can't form strong opinions about it.

Don't make a video on YouTube about the stuff you don't know. Yeah. You're ruining PragerU's entire economic model. Yeah, no, you know what? That's fair, Hammett. That's fair. Very good point. And then he closes it out here.

He's like, just to be clear, I was serious about all those being literal explosions. Just like anger me. And then he gives us the list again. The physics explosion is one. The life explosion is two. The anthropology explosion was three and the self-reflective lion who's sad about eating the gazelle is number four yeah yeah yeah he concludes by saying next time someone asks you if you believe in the big bang which i want to

point out has literally never happened to anyone except a Christian apologist. He tells them to answer which one. But that's a terrible piece of advice for a Christian apologist. Someone's going to be like this, the science one, you know, with the earth and the Carl Sagan, like, make sure you start all your debates with I'm stupid and pretend not to know what words mean. Can you imagine going to a pitcher, a professional major league pitcher, and saying, oh, you pitch? And of course, the person would be like, no, there's nuance to this. Every pitch is different.

You throw very... But no, he's basically packing it all into Big Bang. It's all like one thing that I just don't understand. He of all people should understand that the outside world may not really understand this topic you're an expert in. Maybe it helps to ask a pitcher to explain the different types of pitches.

Maybe it helps to ask a scientist to explain the different types of questions that he's asking throughout this video, which he never does. So you're saying you just explode a grenade in your hand and then a slider flies out and it goes over the plate that's what you're saying that's ridiculous that's the only explanation yeah and then he gives us the ridiculous closer here he's like so here are the two options and i was like nope gonna go ahead and reject your false dichotomy right now. I don't care what you say next.

False. Unless his options are stop watching this video or continue watching this video. Too late. He is incorrect. I reject that. It's too late to even offer that. His two options are either believe in all four of those big bangs, possibly a fifth one, something coming from nothing nothing or literally the Christian God of the Bible. Those are those two options.

There's nothing in between. I always love that. It's never just you have to believe in something from nothing or maybe God exists. No, he didn't go there. It's something came from nothing or everything in the Bible is literally true. Like a little bit of a leap there like there's a big jump yep and then he he says so when people ask about the big bang be ready with this make sure you ask which one join prager The end. Smash that like and subscribe button. We're a university.

The end. Yep. Fuck you. The worst. It shouldn't be that hard. Honestly, I would think it would be more effective if any of these people with these platforms just said like, look, there are really good explanations for

this, but you know what? There are certain things they can't explain either. Let me talk about that one. I mean, there are really good explanations for this, but you know what? There are certain things they can't explain either. Let me talk about that one. I mean, there is a way you could give a video like this that is actually helpful for the Christian side. He does none of that stuff. No, yeah, he does really badly for his team. Just stay in your lane and do the unanswerable question stuff

and stupid, you know, vague philosophy stuff. You make it sound good for Christians. You never really cross any like obvious wrong lines. If you, if you word it correctly. No, he doesn't get any of that. He doesn't understand how that whole liar game works. No, not at all. He knows how to explode a ball 60 feet and six inches. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, uh, let's wrap it up here one question though as an atheist which of those bangs is the hardest to defend in your opinion do you have a trouble defending one of those in particular oh i'm gonna go with the introspection one since this video literally disproves introspection's existence okay yes which big bangs are we talking about i think uh what eli's saying the last one where it's how do we develop consciousness i think that's the hardest for

me personally to wrap my head around but again to make that jump from i don't know the answer to i don't know god poof the universe into existence is is not a good leap no no it's not but also i mean i just want to add because your question was which bang is the hardest to defend i don't see anyone trying to defend it in the sense that i have a definitive answer that doesn't involve god it's one of those i don't think we have enough information to answer this scientifically in a way that makes a lot of sense yet. And by the way, I'm saying that as me, a guy who is not an expert in this stuff. But I mean, that's the thing.

If it's evolution and how evolution occurred or how the Big Bang occurred, there are experts who could explain to the best of our understanding how that stuff is happening. That's a far cry from this guy saying, nope, we don't have 100% definitive answer. The Bible says it's 100% true. I'll go with the one who sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Right. None of them would say, we're not 100% sure, but we do have this and this and this,

but maybe also God and the Bible because we're not sure. None of the experts would say that. Nope. You know the saddest thing about all this? That video has about a million views. Get the fuck out of here. It's very discouraging. A million?

Okay, well, I think we proved why God's not dead. He's surely alive. Times four, actually. And huge thanks to Hammett for joining us. We really appreciate it. Where can everybody hear more from you? Every piece of Frank Pastore. Watch the video. You can watch me.

Yes! Yes, Hammett! You can find me at... Get naughty at the end, boo! Get naughty at the end! You can find me at FriendlyAheist.com go on youtube and search friendly atheist you'll find me there too thank you guys fantastic and that's gonna do it either we explain four entire big bangs or christian god does in fact exist i don't know what to do we

might have to shut this whole thing down but if we do happen to come up with some amazing counter arguments to defeat Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas and the Cincinnati Reds of 1983. When you do that episode, I want you to call it four new counter arguments for God's existence. Because no one has ever thought of these things before. All right. Well, if we find those four new counter-arguments, we will be back again soon with another God Awful Mini. Before we skitter away this week, I wanted to let you know

that by the time our next episode comes out, not one but two of our team are going to have celebrated a birthday. So if you get a chance, be sure to send birthday wishes to Eli on Sunday and Lucinda on Tuesday. And if you've got any great last-minute ideas for awesome birthday presents for either of them, let me know.

I'm terrible at presents and I'm getting kind of desperate. 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 Data, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this wouldn't quite be an episode if I neglected to thank Heath Enright

for being the meat to my potatoes. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for being the soy-based meat substitute to my... I guess still potatoes, probably. I need to thank Lucinda Lusions for being the... No. Okay, so everything I can think of that goes with this theme has sexual connotations that I'm not super comfortable with here, so I'm just going to say for being the greatest thing that everything i can think of that goes with this theme has sexual connotations that i'm not super comfortable with here so i'm just going to say for being the greatest thing

that ever happened to me i also want to thank katie for providing this week's farnsworth quote and also she's right wear a fucking mask and get the fucking shot or better yet wear a fucking mask and have gotten the shot because holy hell but most of all of course i want to thank this week's most honorable hominids jamie laurie c owensens, Rosemary, Stephen, George, Andrew, Maddie, Goat, James, Maggie, Nikoto, and Yas Queen. Jamie, Laurie, C., and Rosemary, whose IQs have more zeros and ones than the internet. Stephen, George, Andrew, and Maddie, whose ejaculations are measured on the Richter scale. And James, Maggie, Nikoto, and Yas, who have enough sexual magnetism to wipe out a hard drive. Together, these 12 tremendous twaters to the faith helped keep our lights on for another 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 scathingadeus, 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 scathingadeus.com. And if you'd like to help but money costs too much money, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following at PIAtPod on Twitter.

Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robertson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you can find all the contact info on the contact page at ScalingAdias.com.

You would think their copy would be better written right like you would think that would be like so important to them that their copy would be really really well written right the preceding podcast was a production of puzzle in a thunderstorm llc copyright 2021 all rights reserved