The Scathing Atheist - 452: F--king Waste of Time Edition

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

In this week’s episode, the government gets a hold of Joel Osteen’s pp, the planets conspire to interrupt Facebook and no other major platforms, and Anna Bosnick will be here to spear an earworm on a hook. --- 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 hear more of Anna’s stuff, check her out here: https://open.spotify.com/album/72NZaCJQW4XTnbujSKUMBR --- Headlines: Lady gets ordained, immediately hands out 150 religious mask exemptions: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/12/a-mom-got-ordained-and-signed-150-mask-mandate-religious-exemptions/ Joel Osteen’s Church Is Finally Paying Back the $4,436,224 It Got in PPP Loans: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/11/joel-osteens-church-is-finally-paying-back-the-4436224-it-got-in-ppp-loans/ "Mercury Retrograde" has nothing to do with Facebook going down: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/05/mercury-retrograde-has-nothing-to-do-with-facebook-going-down/ Rod of Iron Ministries Keeps Getting Scarier: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4avkdw/rod-of-iron-ministries-purchases-property-in-tennessee CA Man Sues Psychic Who Promised (and Failed) to Destroy a Curse for $5,100: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/08/ca-man-sues-psychic-who-promised-and-failed-to-destroy-a-curse-for-5100/ Prophetess says moms get to decide the age of their aborted fetuses in heaven: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/04/prophetess-moms-get-to-decide-the-age-of-their-aborted-fetuses-in-heaven/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Mississippi AG wants “outdated” Roe v Wade overturned: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/01/mississippi-ag-roe-v-wade-should-be-overturned-because-its-out-of-date/ Misogynist rapper Logan Dorn now complaining about cancel culture: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/04/the-christian-who-harassed-women-on-the-beach-is-rapping-about-cancel-culture/

Warning, the profanity in this episode isn't fucking around. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, Adam and Eve, and by the new online service for people looking for all the mental health services with half the fat, I Can't Believe It's Not Better Help. And now, The Scathing Atheist. This is Nikki, and as someone who has worked with people for over 20 years, I can assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy, demanding, demeaning, soul-sucking, why-the-fuck-can't-you-treat-me-like-a-person-you-sentient-piece-of-monkey-men. And please, treat your customer-facing reps with kindness.

We have filthy monkey feelings too. It's Thursday. It's October 14th. And it's Be Bold and Be Free Day. Okay, one out of two ain't bad. Yeah, there you go. Celebrate it. I'm Noah Lusion.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Henright. And from Jason Voorhees, New Jersey, Cincinnati, Red State, and Redtown, Blue State, this is The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, the government gets a good look at Joel Osteen's pee-pee. The planets conspire to interrupt Facebook and no other major platforms. And Anabasnick will be here to spear an earworm on a hook. But first, the diatribe. As atheists, we deal with two distinct types of religious arguments. The first broad category is arguments about the veracity of religion.

Is it true? These are the apologetics, the arguments that say God is real or the Bible is true or an apologist increasingly retreat to this dodge, that science is somehow flawed, incomplete or inaccurate, and therefore religion wins a point by default or however the hell they think that works. And these arguments are basically silly. They're cognitive contortions, tricky wordplay and logical fallacies. The second and far more potent type of argument is about the utility of religion is it useful these are the ones you get from sideline atheists defense straddling agnostics

and of course the spiritual but not religious types that are trying to justify their own inaction or demonize your activism these are the arguments that take the form of yes yes god almost certainly doesn't exist but it helps people cope with death or it helps people rebuild their lives after a disaster it helps build community whatever the condescending dismissal of atheism because the rubes need a god to cling to when they get scared of the dark now we spend a lot more time on the latter than the former on this show because let's face it the other ones are are just simpler. Either God exists or doesn't. Literally all available evidence points to him not existing.

Plus, those arguments never change. All the veracity arguments have been in basically their same form since the late Renaissance. But the utility arguments deal entirely with things that actually exist. They rely on data sets. They can be differently interpreted. They don't directly refute themselves. And most importantly, I feel like they have a lot more to do with society's willingness to tolerate religion's excesses than shit like Pascal's wager or the fact that there

are still monkeys. So the one I want to focus on here is the idea that religion helps to give people's lives a meaning. This idea that religion justifies its existence by providing a narrative that can stave off depression or get people through the existential dread that might otherwise overwhelm them. I mean, let's face it, there's probably no other place religion can outdo atheism to a greater extent. Atheism offers you no more narrative than that which you can craft for yourself. take one example of religion, has you allied with the creator of the universe, the redeemer of humanity, and all the forces of light against the author of all misery himself in a perpetual battle

for the eternal souls of everyone on the planet. What's more, you personally play an integral part in that plan. God himself has laid out a specific role for you in the grand scheme of the universe and, to at least some degree, the entire plan hinges on your contribution. Now, very obviously, all that stuff is bullshit. You know, when we're called on to refute that narrative, it's like dunking on an unguarded trash can. But what we're talking about here is whether it's useful for people to have the belief should they want it. Does society benefit from people having the option to be full-time larpers for bronze aged hebrew mythology i mean i guess given the misogyny

homophobia violence and slavery justifications in their book i guess that's a pretty obvious no so let's set aside the specifics of the faith and ask if it helps society for people to have access to a narrative that though unt, provides them with meaning and direction. Now, the first problem many of you will have noticed with this argument and with this type of argument in general is that you have to start off by placing yourself on a bit of a pedestal. I mean, clearly you and I are able to make it through life without a fictional narrative undergirding our actions. So to even ask the question, you have to assume a mental or psychological inferiority in others. That being said, there are obviously differences on how well each of us copes

with all the shit life throws at us, right? So like not everybody needs therapy, but there's no arrogance in admitting that some people might need it even if I don't, right? So as tempting as it might be to dismiss this argument as sheer vanity, it isn't a sound dismissal. If we really want to tackle this one, we have to look at the value of purpose. Is it a benefit to believe that your life has meaning? Well, ultimately, I actually find this argument as unconvincing as the one about religion helping people cope with death, and for the same reason, essentially. Despite all the arguments to the contrary, pretending death doesn't exist is not a fantastic coping strategy it turns out that the healthiest psychological strategy in coping with death is confronting it because as uncomfortable as that is it's the only actual option and everything else is just a delaying tactic the same is true with narrative

sure it's not appealing to hear that your life has no intrinsic purpose, but that's the fucking truth. And ultimately, life is almost certainly going to force you to confront that fact at some point. What's more, the throwaway apologetics about God having a plan get less and less effective as we get older. So whatever benefit a person might derive from it is certain to weaken over time. And then they're going to go looking for more. Right. I mean, I guess they have the option of getting a late start on coping with the inherent meaningless of life, but the other option is to double down and start looking for narrative elsewhere.

That search for ever more potent narrative can take several forms, and all of them fucking suck. Sometimes it means getting more and more serious about whatever religion you started in. Sometimes it means trying out all the other different religions you can think of. And since the religion with the most potent narrative tends to be a cult, it leaves people primed for some pretty fucked up stuff on that journey.

But there's also the non-religious directions to take as well. And we see that every time somebody tries to explain how the fucking deep state is hiding the truth about ivermectin or the Illuminati is sacrificing babies under a pizzeria conspiracy theories are after all just the search for narrative and overdrive they're created by our tendency to find patterns and random occurrences and they're perpetuated by our need to assign

meaning to happenstance is so often the argument about religion providing purpose are presented as though purpose is an unmitigated good but but it's also a fucking lie. Lives don't actually have meaning. Narratives can only be assigned to them after the fact. And by perpetuating the childish notion that one's life not only can have meaning, but should have it, like that you are owed a meaning for your life, just hinders our ability to cope with that in a realistic way. But far worse, it leaves people vulnerable to cult leaders, conspiracy theories, and at its worst, authoritarianism. Look, it's no great revelation to say that people are better at dealing with problems when they first admit that those problems exist. But unfortunately,

for us in our culture, admitting that problems exist is pretty much the opposite of being religious. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. religious. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Gi-hun and Sae-bak to my saying, will he then write an Eli Bostic? Fellas, are you ready to somehow complete this intro with no spoilers? Red light, red light. Shit, does green light count as a spoiler? What if listeners haven't played the game? Damn it. Alright, right. Okay, well quick before we spill something important, we're going to take a break for a word from this week's first sponsor, Stamps.com.

Hey, podcast listener. This week's episode is sponsored by Stamps.com. So we thought we'd give you a quick tour of the Scaling Atheist podcast factory so that you can see how all the sausage gets made. So this here is the sensory deprivation tank that we keep Heath in 23 hours a day so he can craft his puns perfectly undisturbed. Okay, what about Tara Fawcett? I already used that one.

Ah, damn it! And over here, Carl and Eli are hard at work in our continuity office making sure the character and bit timelines stay secure at all times. No, Carl, ClipClop Tom has expired by 2020. We have to use faraway Cecil instead. Again? Yes, again. We will always use him again. And last but not least, our patron rewards shipping center. But unlike all our other jobs, Stamps.com makes this one a breeze. Stamps.com brings the services of the U.S.

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That's stamps.com promo code scathing stamps.com. Never go to the post office again. Okay. What about weed? G board. Weed. Weed. Weed. Maybe. okay uh what about weegee board weed weegee weegee maybe man and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight they're literally trying to kill us y'all and and well it might be technically inaccurate to say that religion is trying to kill us we're talking about a group of people that's virtually all religious and they're using

religion to do it so it's almost a distinction without a difference at this point when it's death the correlation causation thing it's not important for distinction exactly and by the way when i say us of course i don't mean atheists i mean humanity and since i could literally be talking about at least like a dozen different topics that we regularly discuss on the show to this point, let me narrow things down a bit. I was going to say. Yeah. This week's lead story is about them trying to kill us with COVID using religious exemptions again. Specifically, it's about a lady getting a quickie ordination and immediately passing out over 150 religious exemptions to mask mandates.

Fuck your face. Fun! It's like the murder version of getting ordained so you can do your buddy's wedding. Yep. She got ordained so she could do her friends' and family's funerals, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Okay, I think blue states and blue localities need to start leaning in all the way on this thing. If you want a religious exemption to the vaccine in like California or New York,

I think you have to wear a plague mask with the giant beak. There you go. The all black leather, something like that. If they think we're persecuting them anyway, we might as well get some enjoyment out of it and actually persecute them, right? At least get to persecute. Yeah. So I just, I hate to keep harping

on the existential threat to our lives and prosperity. But this story is such a perfect exemplar of exactly the kind of shit we've been talking about that I had to arm you with it. The homicidally misguided idiot at the center of this story is Kristen Grant, an Ohio mom that noticed a loophole in the school district's mask mandate. Specifically, it said that if a student submitted paperwork signed by a religious official they didn't have to wear a mask now keep in mind that there's literally no religion in all the goddamn world that has a faith-based reason not to wear a mask isn't that one of the commandments no as it turns out there's literally no known religion on earth that ever said anything about that at all prior to 2020 yeah if there was a religion that

knew about germs it would be called the right one yep yeah and yet the school district felt compelled to add that line so kirsten grant got herself ordained by the universal life church which is the religious equivalent of a diploma mill like seriously they've ordained pets before four states specifically have rules saying their ordinations don't count for fucking weddings. It's one of the like nine churches in America the IRS is iffy about giving a tax exempt status to. And yet it was good enough for medical exemptions. Okay. Okay.

No joke. A few years ago when I put out my all churches are bad challenge. TM, TM, TM. Someone offered this one as an example of a good church so one more notch in the bedpost everybody we found it yeah and they're literally the least churchy of any church according to the u.s government and there's still a giant problem this is basically your closing argument qed part of your thesis there. Right, yeah. So armed with those rock-solid credentials, Grant proceeded to pass out signed exemptions

to mask mandates to anybody who asked for one. And among the most terrifying details of this story, that was 169 fucking people. Tight. Tight, tight, tight, tight, tight. Yeah, also competing for most terrifying detail is the fact that the district went on to accept all

169 of those, even though you've got to imagine that literally every single person with a mask exemption was getting it from her. And apparently that wasn't the only school district she was signing exemptions for. Okay, I want to put this carefully. I'm not saying it would be funny if she and her family got COVID and died. I am saying it would be fitting. It would be fitting. Okay. I don't know. Let's think about the funny thing. Would that not be? Okay. Well, if she died from like a piano or anvil situation, that's definitely funny. That's very funny. That is funny. Okay. All of it's funny. All right. Yeah. If she had COVID while dying from a piano

situation, that would be both fitting and funny. She coven and she walks out and then the piano there you go okay yeah that's actually okay that's pretty funny all right so when questioned about the ruse about how she determined if they had a genuine religious objection to the mandate grant defended her murderous bullshit thusly quote it's not my job to prove or really ask and it's not my business what their religion necessarily is i'm a constitutional christian what i think the constitution is there for a reason god created our bodies in a perfect way end quote that is in the constitution so in other words my political whims supersede the public good because i'm christian and i look i know political parties don't generally have slogans but if the republicans are looking for one yeah alternate slogan if we die it's fitting and maybe funny

the republican party we are robert nozick's utility monster the party non-ironically seriously that's what we are wow and in olstein can't you pp news okay as businesses struggled to survive the first covid lockdowns as mom and pop shops across this nation closed their doors forever in the face of shutdown joel olstein's lakewood church in houston texas ample provider of absolutely fucking nothing received 4.4 million dollars in PPP loans to keep their busy staff of nothing doers employed. And this week we learned that they're giving at least some of that money back, probably because they didn't keep all their nothing doers while they were shut down. Yeah, right.

And by the way, before anybody says, well, I mean, they're employees like any other. town yeah right and by the way before anybody says well i mean they're employees like any other i want to remind you that churches are exempt from eeoc regulations with the excuse that they're not like any other employer so in this instance they had their cake ate it too and then gave it back and just to be clear their cake is legalized bigotry and stealing tax dollars for nothing yeah and now they're giving back regurgitated tax dollars still keeping the bigotry yep yeah so if you're wondering why is ostein giving the money back well we don't know his church has less than 500 employees so he's not obligated to repay the loan as long as he used it for staffing. And my guess is, based on nothing but

the shiny, shiny evil radiating from Osteen's teeth, that's not what happened. This is a dude who lives in a $10 million mansion who publicly bragged to his congregation about buying a $300,000 Ferrari. I think he

saw the money, went all hungry, hungry hippos on it, and repaying this loan is the church cleaning up his mess. Well, right, because thanks to our fucked up legal system, those $4.4 million were the only dollars he was accountable for in any fucking way. Yeah, they were already looting the public coffers so much already. The PPP loans is just a new version of wasting money on magical nothing. Quick reminder, we give religion about $85 billion a year as a tax subsidy for the magical nothing they do. Just in the U.S.

That's just the U.S. But don't worry, everybody. in the U.S. But don't worry, everybody. That very probable reason for repayment hasn't stopped Lakewood Church from telling everyone who will listen that they're just giving the money back like it's some fantastic act of charity. Right, yeah.

No, it's like when you thwart a crime by thinking of a better thing to do that afternoon. Exactly. So, news of this return has been unskeptically and admiringly reported just about everywhere everywhere as though giving the money back now at their own pace and i should point out stopping whenever the fuck they want to was the same as not raiding government coffers during one of the most fragile times for small

business in the last 50 years either way i guess it's good that Joel Osteen's church has less money. Sure. I mean, giving money to Lakewood is essentially throwing money down a hole if that hole was also somehow racist, sexist and homophobic. And it's it is 2021. So I'm going to take the win where I can. I'll take the win where I can. And in Zuck your face news, Facebook mostly shut down for a few hours last week, preventing everyone from arguing about nothing and sharing dank memes,

at which point millions of people flew into a murderous rage. And we have two theories on the cause of that. Option one, Facebook's VP of infrastructure is right, and it was configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between data centers, which led to an interruption in digital communication. Or option two, Mercury was in retrograde. It's one of those two. Hard to say. Speaking of correlation, just unrelated, all supporters of that second hypothesis keep dating guys with tattoo sleeves and they don't know why it doesn't work out.

Sorry listeners with tattoo sleeves. Okay, I want to be clear on this. I'm not sorry. You did that to you. So people who couldn't make it an afternoon without Facebook have issues and they need to do some inner reflection after that. But I don't want to diminish the very real problems this caused for people all over the world that rely on Messenger and WhatsApp as their primary source of communication as well as people who were competing in very important weekly challenges on their inexplicably bricked oculus quest why the fuck would facebook have to be up for that to run the struggle is real okay absolutely yeah so point is that it nerd was probably lying So let's examine the cosmos. According to astronomy expert

Lisa Stardust, Get the fuck out of here! She's an astronomer for Teen Vogue, or astrologer, but basically the same. According to Ms. Stardust, Mercury retrograde occurs four times a year.

During this time, miscommunication, technological meltdowns, travel issues, and faulty news are rampant. Except this. This is real news right here. Fuck. Okay, whatever. Continue. I'm continuing my quote.

Every time I talk about this, fake news is rampant. So she continues. Six planets are currently retrograde in the sky at the moment. Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Not a planet. No. All of these planets are playing a role in the delay to fix social media. Jupiter connects people.

Saturn takes on the task of fixing matters. Uranus is ruler of the internet and innovation. Which is damn impressive because there are a lot of is ruler of the internet and innovation which is damn impressive because there are a lot of anuses on the internet so the fact that mine is the ruler that's neptune is the planet of confusion and illusion collusion and pluto represents turmoil and therefore annoyances with these five planets in retrograde motion and mercury added to the mix it's safe to assume that it'll be a hot minute before any of these technological issues are reconciled after today it'll be hard to tell an astrologer that astrology or retrogrades

are not real especially since you'll have to tell them offline. Oh, you'll have to use your face. Okay, my favorite thing about that is that she's like, Jupiter is in charge of peanut butter and Pluto is split ends. Also, Mercury is in the mix. She couldn't make up one more set of planet power.

Okay, I love that Uranus is in charge of the internet, right? Listen, it's just been sitting there suffering through all the ass jokes for centuries thinking you motherfuckers just wait, Tim Berners-Lee is going to change everything. It's so important. So listeners, maybe you're thinking Teen Vogue is not the best source for news about astronomy and network hardware stuff.

I am not thinking that. Fair enough. Let's check with Cosmopolitan. Ms. Stardust was backed up by Erica Smith of Cosmos Astronomy Desk, I guess. Okay, and she doesn't even have a space name. How can we trust her? Right?

Dumb. Come on. What's a Smith? Nothing. Smith star. Nope.umb. Come on. What's a Smith? Nothing. Smith star. Nope. Smith. Erica Smith.

She also added that Instagram has a Zodiac sign, which added to all the chaos. Here's the quote from Erica Smith of Cosmo. Yes. Instagram is a Libra in astrology apps and buildings and countries and pretty much everything else you could think of have birth charts just like people instagram launched on the app store on october 6th 2010 making that its birthday and that means instagram is being extra affected by this particular mercury retrograde and the same goes for all you human Libras out there. Sorry. End quote.

Oh, you know, I'm a Libra, so that explains why nobody signed up for my OnlyFans. Mercury is in tardigrade. I would correct you, but it's not more correct if you say it the other way. Equal. And just in case anyone's not familiar with the term retrograde,

as it applies to planets, it just means appearing to move backward. So most of the time we see the planets moving from west to east through the stars, but the planets revolve around the sun at different speeds. So when a faster moving planet catches up and passes a slower one, it appears to be moving the other way for a bit. Just to be clear, retrograde motion of a planet doesn't even actually happen. It just looks like something different is happening, but it's not. It's nothing. It's nothing happening.

It's just like, if I stand next to Eli and he starts walking, he seems to be moving forward in my eyes, away from me. But then I start walking faster, and when I pass him, he seems to be moving backward relative to me while I pass. And my computer exploded.

Okay. That was weird. Shouldn't have pissed off Uranus. Just burst into flame. All right. Well, it looks like we need to find he's a Sagittarius computer. So while we do that, we're going to pause for a word from our other sponsor this week, Adam and Eve. Hey, podcast listener.

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It's not just for eating. I'll be the judge of that. Okay. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what you want. If it's a legitimate race. Then you're a slut, right? Cooking can be fun.

Hey! I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. It's almost like misogyny knew I had the month off, isn't it? Like, I get that I'm pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but it really kind of played out like they didn't want to get rid of Roe vs. Wade while I was on the clock. played out like they didn't want to get rid of Roe versus Wade while I was on the clock. So look, I'm not going to rehash all the fucked up shit that's been going on with Texas's on again, off again abortion law since the last time I was here. And I'm not going to take an I told you so victory lap around all the people who've emailed me over the years to say Roe wasn't in real danger.

But I do want to underscore how under threat it really is. Look, the American public is still overwhelmingly on the side of abortion rights. Look, the American public is still overwhelmingly on the side of abortion rights. Hell, even 43% of Republicans oppose overturning it. But despite that, the Christian zealots in government are getting awfully brazen about advocating for it. Where they used to couch their efforts in bullshit platitudes about safety standards and the sanctity of fetal tissue, they're now just admitting that the goal is to remove the rights from women. Take, for example, Mississippi's Attorney General Lynn Finch, who could barely contain her excitement when interviewed about it on an anti-abortion video. Now, Texas has overshadowed some of the other states at this point, but it's worth remembering

that Mississippi, in many ways, kicked off this most recent series of challenges to Roe back in 2018 when they passed their 15-week abortion ban. At the time, it was the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, and it was pretty much immediately halted pending judicial review. Well, that review is about to reach the Supreme Court, where many expect Roe will sputter its last breath. And Finch just couldn't be happier about the threat to bodily autonomy, saying, quote, this will be the most significant game-changing case probably in my lifetime that affects overturning Roe versus Wade and sets us on a new course. I just think God has given us

this opportunity to be here. The prayers, the uplifting, it's just been incredible for myself, for the team, end quote. And why is she so excited about removing people's rights? Well, according to the person who invoked an invisible space wizard in her preamble, Roe, quote, End quote. Because the last thing Mississippi Republicans want is antiquated thinking. But just so that I'm not overloading you with bad news, I want to leave you with the

sad, sad tale of misogynistic Christian asshole, Logan Dorn. Dorn earned a bit of unwanted fame last month when he confronted two women at a beach for wearing swimsuits that he deemed too revealing. They recorded this ridiculous asshole and posted the video to TikTok, where it quickly went viral and garnered him all the derision he so richly deserved. Well, like many an asshole before him, he took a feeble swing at apologizing and just made it worse. His non-apology doubles down on all the shit that was wrong with his presumptuous harassment in the first place. Plus, it adds a bit of transphobia with a throwaway line about how we're living in a time when people, quote, don't even know their gender, end quote. So normally the story ends there but in

the month or so since his first response video fell flat he's been trying to figure out how it all went so wrong and apparently what he came up with was that the first video didn't rhyme so no shit he posted another video this week where he raps his feelings about the issue. Now, the gist of the rap is that he's the victim of cancel culture because he did a thing and there was a consequence. But if you can make it far enough into the video to realize that, I commend your tolerance. Luckily, friend of the show, him at Meta, transcribed the damn thing or I'd have no clue what it said. Anyway, with that reminder that sometimes the asshole gets what's coming to him, I'll hand things over

to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. Next up in headlines in Gun of a Son news. Some of them are trying to kill us harder than others. Look, I don't know if harder is the right word, but like with fewer steps, maybe, and that

means it's time for us to once again talk about the Rod of Iron Ministries. Gun of a son. Awesome. Thank you. Well done. Because of all the religious groups that should terrify our American listeners, this one pretty much should be at the top of your list. Of course, we've talked about these militant

lunatics and their AR-15 enriched worship services before. We talked about them a couple of months ago when they bought a million dollars worth of property in Texas to build a compound they could fight the deep state with. Well, we learned this week that one compound just isn't enough and they've also purchased a 130

acre mountain property in Tennessee which is intended to serve as a training center. Terrorism training center. Yeah. Say what you will about Cassandra's situation, but at least she didn't have a podcast, right? Right, yeah. Oh, you're prophetic?

Eli Bosnick, you're a prophet? Thank you. Okay, I'm just going to check on your Tesla prophecy from one of them. Let's see. Tesla stock, it's at like $809. You said sell at $300? I'm just saying, everyone stay tuned. You said big short.

It's going to come. You'll see. You'll see. Time will tell. Keep Death in the Universe coming. Yeah, it'll be worthless at that point. So, okay. So, quick reminder of the background here. Officially, the World Peace and Unification

Sanctuary Church, Round of Iron Ministries was founded by Hyungjin Moon when he was deemed too nutty to run the unification church started by his father's son, Myung Moon. They first came to national attention when they held an assault rifle blessing ceremony pretty much immediately after the Parkland shooting.

And since then, they've grown increasingly militant and conspiratorial. Yeah, when God's on the mass shooting side of the mass shooting is where you start, you know we're in trouble. Yeah, they've descended from there. God. And you know these people are studying that Waco video constantly. And they're saying to themselves, okay, you know what the problem was? Nobody's

doing dive rolls at all. Yeah. So everybody out to the paintball course in Tennessee, we can practice that. Well, we'll get this. So, okay, the main takeaway here is that Hyunjin Moon, also known as Sean Moon because he's trying to gain acceptance in the far right, is about as quintessentially a Hollywood bad guy as you can possibly be. He is a self-proclaimed messiah that calls himself the second king. His brother owns a small arms manufacturer where his church holds spiritual events.

The SPLC lists his church as an anti-LGBTQ cult. And when he addresses his followers, he often does so wearing a crown of polished bullets. Okay, that's not at all an exaggeration. Literally a bullet crown. Just imagine a Muslim leader with a crown of fucking bullets buying a training compound in Tennessee, 130 acres. And he got killed by a drone. He's dead. You can't imagine him.

Imaginary guy. compound in Tennessee, 130 acres. And he got killed by a drone. He's dead. You can't imagine him. They sent a real drone against the imaginary hypothetical guy that Heath just sent. So yeah, the race to be the craziest gun-toting maga-loving lunatic church of terrorism and deep state bullshit is apparently on, and there

are multiple contestants. And we're still trying to find the national line where laws start applying to religious organizations and beliefs christian ones yeah well yeah right yeah well okay so with a little luck we can turn them against each other by telling dave dobenmeyer that their church is run by an asian but until then we're gonna have to just continue to exist under the constant threat of far-right christian terrorism and inside kicked in the balls news too often when someone is the victim of a scam or a huckster by the time they know they've been had the thief in question has vanished into the night with their money which is why it's fantastic to hear that this week

the ripped off rube of a california psychic is suing her and fucking everyone she's ever known for charging him $5,100 to remove a witch's curse. Yeah, right. Like, this is less like selling somebody the Brooklyn Bridge and more like selling them the Brooklyn Bifrost. You should get to sue him twice or something. All right. You got to pay that $5,100 back. And also, Idris Elba gets to got to pay that $5,100 back. And also, Idris Elba gets to punch you in the face 5,100 times.

That's the ruling. That's the rule. That's true. Okay, that I would pay for. Yeah, I'd pay to watch that. Yes, when Mauro Restrepo went to Sophia Adams, who runs the business Psychic Love Specialist by Sophia, and calls herself a PH.d life coach she gave him a tarot reading that surprise surprise revealed to him that he was cursed because his ex-girlfriend

had hired a witch and that she could remove said curse for the low low price of fifty one hundred dollars which restrepo made a $1,000 down payment on. A down payment? I love this as an installment. If he misses a payment, the repossession jokes write themselves. Now, it's not clear when

Mr. Restrepo realized Ms. Adams was not, in fact, removing a witch curse from his love life, but as soon as he did, he sued her, her her landlord her daughter and her husband for 25 000 which includes compensatory as well as punitive damages cool cool let's see this go up to the supreme court looking forward to alito and coney barrett explaining that ristrepo did not prove the curse is still there so you know that's the founding fathers intended for that to be a

proof so sure did sure did and look i know it's easy to blame restrepo for his gullibility or to look at his ask as a bad faith money grab but scams are the fault of the con artists and tarot cards are a scam okay they are not an ancient spiritual practice they are not the sacred practice of an oppressed people they are the fuck paintings of a couple of white con men that are used primarily for this exact scam not for fortune fun right nope not for entertainment purposes yeah right the fact that me and my cousins might play the three shell game on the weekends doesn't make it less of a scam when it's used by con artists to hurt people because while you might know tarot cards are fake there's a lot of people out there who don't and those people are paying

for their ignorance at around five thousand dollars a pop and finally tonight we have a story about self-proclaimed christian prophetess kat kerr and with the retirement of pat robertson she's very important to the show and to the atheist movement in general we're running out of people yeah she talks out loud all the time so you know how matt powell trapped himself into being our indentured servant who makes videos of how stupid religion is? I do know that, yes. She's like that, but a volunteer. We didn't trick her or anything.

She just does this for fun. She's also a cryptkeeper who's very badly disguised as a pink troll doll. Well, last week, she announced the rules about aborted fetuses in heaven. In case you were wondering, if a mom gets to heaven,

the mom can pick the age for their aborted fetus who's also in heaven. Really? I'm really sympathetic to the aborted babies. Just like, okay, first you murder me and now I'm two for all eternity because you like my cheeky cheeks? You're the worst, Diane. The worst. Can I say that? So, I'm two for all eternity because you like my cheeky cheeks? You're the worst, Diane.

The worst. Can I tell you that? So I'm going to start with a few other important details about fetal tissue that we know about thanks to Kat Kerr. For example, a miscarried fetus ends up going back inside the mother's uterus. Does it? She said literal words, god will put it back and with about 23 million known miscarriages in the world every year that means god is putting them back about 44 times every minute that we know about it it actually takes up a bunch of god's time just this one i can't be the

only one picture and this is like a lucy and ethel at the chocolate factory type situation absolutely yeah he's just mumbling to himself i knew i should have made him do it like seahorses this is taking forever by the way we also learned from kat kerr that right after brett kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court. All the aborted fetuses in heaven sang and celebrated. Also, she stole our idea for an adorable Broadway musical. I didn't say what song they were doing. Here's the latest. According to Kat Kerr, quote, if you had an abortion and you repented, you will get to raise that baby.

Normally, they stay as babies because the mother wants them as a baby. Possibly it's growing. It grows very slowly in heaven, or God just keeps it young. And that's for the purpose of the parents coming to heaven. End quote. See, I was going to make a joke about how much it would suck to spend eternity unable to wipe your own ass. But then I remembered who I podcast with,

and I realized that everybody's heaven is a little different. and it's not that i'm unable no i'm unwilling right unwilling moving right along cat cur also added you won't have to do all night feedings or diaper changes they have beautiful nurseries all over heaven where your little babies are taken care of by angels that's their assignment the angels ah yes the only thing terrifying to a hundred face screaming ball of fire a onesie poop explosion okay so based on all that i have a few questions yep you guys shout them out if you have any answers to these questions. First of all, do you think some of the moms pick a super old fetus? Do you think they're into that?

83. 83? Yeah, I don't know. Do some of them do like a Benjamin Button scenario? Are you allowed to do that? Have it move different ways? And why does heaven,

the magical realm of eternal paradise, have areas full of orphaned, aborted fetuses all over. Like it's the fucking Texas border. That's insane. Bottom line,

the design is very unintelligent based on everything we heard. All right. Well, you know, pink hair is our fat and babbling about cartoony heaven minutia is our singing. So that's going to do it for the headlines tonight. Heath,

Eli, thanks as always. And when we come back, Anna's going to remind us that in artistic terms at least, the opposite of talented is Christian. After doing a few on this show, we eventually spun our cinematic reviews

off into their own podcast, but as a quick reminder that all of the Christian forays into the arts are worthy of our mockery it's time for another installment of god awful music and he had to hop off early so he's not going to be on this segment but we will be joined by our resident musical expert anna bosnick anna welcome back oh no i have been waiting for this one. Yeah, I haven't been as excited as long, but I've been as excited. So tell us, Anna, what will we be breaking down today? We will be breaking down Smell the Color 9 by Chris Rice. Smell the Color 9.

Yes, you heard that correctly. And now we gave you the choice, Anna, on what to do. So why did you pick this one? Oh, so I have a playlist on my phone that's called God Awful Music that I'm constantly adding to because I have this grim fascination about it. And this was the song that inspired me to start said playlist. Oh, really? Yeah. I was on a road trip with my buddy who was raised Pentecostal, and I mentioned doing the parody of God's Not Dead and Jesus Take the Wheel, and they were like, oh, hold my beer, you sweet summer child.

And they played this song. And it was stuck in my head for fucking months. It really was. It was. I got back home from that trip, and I was like, Eli, Christian music is whack. We really need to It was. I got back home from that trip and I was like, Eli, Christian music is whack. We really need to make fun of it more. I have written two parodies of this song. Two. I have a hate, love, to hate, hate, some more relationship with it. I love it.

And Eli, how bad was this music? Well, if you got a vague feeling that this cult might not be all it's cracked up to be, but damn it, you're next up for Kool-Aid. You will love this song. It's daytime television does a ghost episode, the song. Yes. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah.

And please don't fucking email us. Yes, Flavorade, whatever. It's just Flavorade. But the joke doesn't work if you say Flavorade. Alright, so let's start with the musical aspect of it. I'm not going to pretend to be musically inclined enough to tell you the key signature here. So Anna, you tell me. So

this song is four fucking chords. Very simple. The verse is in G flat. The verse is in G flat. The chorus is in E flat. So basically, it's a fiddle player's worst nightmare. They're like, don't fucking play music on this one, Anna. So, yeah, no, it's pretty simple chord progression, though. All right.

So let's go ahead and fill in that staff. What can you tell us about the time signature? All right. So we've got something besides 4-4. Right. Something besides 4-4. This is a first. Yeah. It's like we got a 6-8 time signature. That's great. But if you think that's going to bring anything new, fun to the mix, you are so wrong.

Because they play it like a waltz. You cannot clap along with this song without feeling like a passive-aggressive conductor. It's impossible. All right. So for those of us not musically inclined enough to understand all of that, how would you describe the musicality like to a layman? Okay. So it's like if Barney the dinosaur tried to write a Nickelback song. Yeah.

All right. Yeah. So, okay. So I'm going to admit that like we were 15 seconds into this song and i was like okay but it seems like music at least though and then these artful lyrics kicked in yeah they did yes they did so we're gonna go through them starting with the line i would take no for an answer oh that makes him the first Christian musician to do that. So good start. Yeah, totally.

And he goes on, just to know I heard you speak, which is some creepy stalker shit. We'll eventually find out he's talking to God, but if you think of that as a lady, that's like, that's some jerking off to your dryer lint type shit, right? Yeah. Judgey Noah.

A lot of these Christian songs are like that, though. Yeah. He goes on, and I'm wondering why I never see the signs they claim they see. Oh, oh, I know. Yeah, yeah. There's a whole lot of answering of your own questions in this song.

Right. Definitely. Well, if you stand off to the side and just go atheism every eight fucking beats, you're right it might even fit the meter that was the first parody better than the fucking lyrics do anyway which which brings us to this line a lot of special revelations meant for everybody but me like fuck the rhyme scheme everybody fits he could have just gone with everyone and then it just fits the goddamn meter it's like he was paid per syllable

for these next few lines. It's wild. He goes on again and he's like, maybe I don't truly know you or maybe I just simply believe. He makes three... He's crammed in there like he was doing improv and realized that the last... Oh, believe is not gonna...

Okay, this rhyme scheme is equivalent to like, you know when kids will get to the end of the page too soon, they start writing downward along the margin. Yeah, exactly. That's the rhyme scheme for this song. Okay. Baby's first birthday card, the lyrics. Right, yeah.

So, and that brings us to this amazing chorus. He goes, because I can sniff, I can see, and I can count up pretty high. Oh, pretty high. It feels like a weird thing for a grown man to brag about. Yeah. Don't throw that out there. Yeah. I get what he's trying.

He's trying to bring back the smell site, smell the color nine. Yeah, right. But for the title or whatever. But it makes him sound like a dingbat right sure does right he basically goes like i know my colors and my animal sounds yeah and that's literally that's literally why when i first buried this song it was i know a is for apple and b is for boat and i just fill it with that. And Eli said it was too informational for this podcast.

This is a fucking citation needed here. Okay. So the chorus goes on. He goes, you can count up pretty high, but these faculties aren't getting me any closer to the sky. But my heart of faith keeps pounding, so I know I'm doing

fine. Actually, I would really like to know what he means by this because none of the information so far points to doing fine yeah no he's a grown adult bragging about how high he can count yeah i don't miss it and that he can smell shit i suppose in the time of covid that is something to brag about. Okay, yeah. But then he wraps it up with, but sometimes finding you, that's God, is just like trying to smell the color nine. Alright, now, side note, if you're

looking at these lyrics on Genius.com, an anonymous commenter has said, quote, Chris is frustrated that his senses and mind won't stretch into the right shape to bring him close to Jesus. The use of synesthesia as an analogy suggests to me a solution to the problem. Maybe it's not what was consciously intended, but I think Chris has a hole in his heart shaped like one of these.

And then there's the picture of shrooms. What? Yeah. And then they conclude shamanism isn't conventionally christian i know but maybe it's crazy enough to work what high on shrooms ex-mormon was sitting there looking over the lyrics to smell the color nine and was like i gotta weigh in here you know what help is some psychedelics for this motherfucker. Chris needs my help. Right. No, okay.

That's fucking amazing. But I don't want to gloss over the fact that the chorus for this Christian song is, wow, God sure is indistinguishable from the non-existence. Yeah. Finding you is nonsense. Yes. Yep.

Pretty much. So if you look this song up. Yep, pretty much. So if you look this song up on YouTube, you won't find a music video for it. You will, however, find a million fucking slideshows and covers of this song because Christians fucking love it. It is literally a song about how dumb it sounds to believe in God. Yeah. They fucking eat that shit up. It's literally a song about how dumb it sounds to believe in God. Yeah. They fucking eat that shit up. It's wild.

Oh, why don't we just turn to the dark side, guys? Okay, so second verse. Now I've never felt the presence, but I know you're always near. Okay, why though if you've never felt the presence? Yeah, I've never tried walking around this wall, but I'm pretty sure if I smash my head into it one more time, I'm going to break through. Yeah. He goes on,

and I've never heard the calling, but somehow you've led me right here. Which is like, okay, I have no evidence, and it doesn't make any sense, but what are the odds, guys, that we would be headlining at this wing hut if it hadn't been for divine intervention? Yes, I know.

Wing stop is just pizza hut. But still, right? I'm nailing it, everybody. So I'm not looking for burning bushes or some divine graffiti to appear. Okay. Do Christians think graffiti just appears magically? No, no.

Like there's graffiti in the women's bathroom stall of the Times Square Toys R Us that showed a guy playing his dick like a guitar. I'm wondering if I should have followed the sign. I mean, you did end up marrying me, so. I did, it's true.

Maybe I was following. Yeah, right, right, exactly. That was the sign. But I just, I love that he ran out of miracle examples after one. Right, he came up with That was the sign. But I just, I love that he ran out of miracle examples after one, right? He came up with bird and bushes and he's just like, fuck, divine. Like he didn't even need it to rhyme.

It just had to end it up here. Yeah. He goes, I'm just begging you for your wisdom. And I believe you're putting some here. Then why are you begging for it and then we repeat the chorus and then this song like ahs and doos for a bit yeah it's like there was supposed to be a bridge but he didn't feel like coming up with more lyrics exactly yeah and then while you're listening to this they decide to see if they can give a person motion sickness with stereophonics.

Oh, yeah. And there's also this undercurrent of these little 90s, the wiki wiki DJ sound. Yes. It just screams, see, we know what the kids are into these days. We know. This song is nothing. Right. This guy was just like, oh the color nine sounds fucking deep bro

and then like padded it with bullshit there's like there are 13 lines of opportunity to say anything at all before smell the color nine and they chose not to yeah it's finished at you do not have to listen to this song it is finished at the title no you are a songwriter too does this song go fucking anywhere so okay it's like it's like the song that you'll start singing like you'll just start singing out the actions

that you're doing to keep your pets calm when you're about to leave the door or whatever it's like that and a chorus and then as if it's not stupid enough he cuts in after that chorus to go nine's not a color and even if it was you can't smell a color

no that's my point exactly always good to clarify this kind of thing yeah you know it's a clever turn of phrase if you have to spell it out for everybody right yeah exactly this song is pretty sure we're arguing with it let go my arm and then it just do do do do do sits way into a fade out yeah they could have ended it really

well that's my point exactly and even the beat pauses for it to like, but then they come right back into this instrumental, I guess, just so they can fade it out. It has a very like, oh, are we still going? We're not going. Are we going? You're still going. I feel stupid not going if you're going.

It's a very first time doing Hey Judith karaoke ending. It's true. Are you fucking with with me there can't be that many we're still going there's still it's so true all right well to prove that we're not just about knocking shit down i also want to say something nice about the song before we wrap it up and since that would require lying anna was kind enough to write one of them parodies she was talking about so now we can at least say that this piece of musical feces inspired something as awesome

as this. Hit it, Anna! I would straight up teach you science If I knew you'd actually hear But it seems like all the silence Makes you think someday you'll appear Any proof of evolution only seems to piss you off you resort to seeing signs of god in your mom's beef stroganoff you can search through the ocean, the sky or the dirt If you can find any evidence, then I'll eat my fucking shirt

When you're looking through nature to find the divine It's not magic, it's a tragic fucking waste of time He's the reason for your happiness And every single good day But when I mention baby cancer Suddenly it's mysterious ways i wish you would put down the bible and listen to the experts instead because you're acting like a stubborn toddler walking around with a bucket on your head you can search through the ocean

the sky and the dirt if you can find any evidence then I'll leave a fucking shirt thinking every coincidence must be a sign it's not magic it's a tragic fucking

waste of time Like, literally, your point is Look how good God is at pretending he doesn't exist And hiding the fact that he exists Like, if you want people to believe in you Why would you hide the fact that you exist? That's so fucking dumb You can search through the ocean the sky

and the dirt if you can find any evidence then i'll eat my fucking shirt because searching for jesus is truly asinine it's not magic it's just tragic you can't search through the ocean, the sky, or the dirt. If you can find any evidence, then I'll leave my fucking shirt. There's no literal way to turn water into wine. Are you fucking high? You'll get a DUI. What you're going through, what you're trying to do. It's a fucking waste of time It's a waste of time If you change the definition of God

Until it means something amorphous like love Or a black hole You're literally admitting that there's no evidence for intelligent design That's fucking stupid Thank you, Anna. An amazing job once again, as always. Anyway, that's all the blast 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 Moose,

debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister show citation debut at noon Eastern on Wednesday obviously this episode would barely qualify as a sub soda if I neglected to thank Keith Enright for all the writing Eli Bosnick for all the snickering lucid illusions for all the illusioning I don't know in fact I thought it was going to work it didn't work I need to also

thank Anna Bosnick one more time and remind you to check the show notes if you want a link to buy her album also want to thank Nikki for providing this week's Farnsworth quote and the important public service announcement that went with it. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week and last week's best people. Snack, Mark Hineyburst, Charles David, Chairman Mousy Tongue, Eric Raleigh. Support your local library. Mike, person number 42, House Alexander, Fiona, Stephen, and Action Lion with a commercial driver's license. Robin, David, and Patricia, who are also smart Asian 86, got them.

driver's license robin david and patricia who are also smart asian 86 got them together these 17 savory secularists summon sufficient spirits and subsidize our sacrilegious streets 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 to patreon.com scathing atheist 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 home page at scathingatheist.com and if you'd like to help you don't have enough dough to spell out donation 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-P-O-D on Twitter. Legal services for this podcast

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