The Scathing Atheist - 455: Man God Edition

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

In this week’s episode, you’ll get the chance to vent your Election Day rage while doing some good, the Supreme Court lets Maine prevent mass death… but on a provisional basis, and we get audio proof that the people at Liberty University don’t think. --- Vulgarity for Charity If you want to participate in this year’s Vulgarity for Charity, here’s all you need to do: 1 - Make a donation at Modest Needs. 2 - Email proof of that donation to [e-mail] 3 - Include the name of (and details about) the person you want roasted. 200 roasts will be selected from donors pledging $50 or more to be read on air. --- 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 Julie’s YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN54Zct1pZ_qjCDlhM8xgHQ --- Headlines: SCOTUS rejects religious challenge to Maine's vax mandate for healthcare workers: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/30/scotus-rejects-religious-challenge-to-maines-vax-mandate-for-healthcare-workers/ Mayoral frontrunner would rather not speak to satanists about blocking them from giving invocations: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/29/bostons-mayoral-frontrunner-may-spend-election-day-getting-deposed-by-satanists/ Secret Call Shows Liberty U “Think” Tank was Just a Tool to Elect Republicans: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/27/secret-call-shows-liberty-u-s-think-tank-was-just-a-tool-to-elect-republicans/ Evangelist Robin Bullock says "God will remove Biden as president...soon...somehow": https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/28/evangelist-robin-bullock-god-will-remove-biden-as-president-soon-somehow/ MAGA pastor says "God will overturn the election of this profane president": https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/28/maga-pastor-god-will-overturn-the-election-of-this-profane-president/ NY Diocese Fires Catholic School Music Teacher Who Married His Same-Sex Partner: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/27/ny-diocese-fires-catholic-school-music-teacher-who-married-his-same-sex-partner/ School district removes ban on “Satanic” clothing after Satanist complains: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/10/28/school-district-removes-ban-on-satanic-clothing-after-complaint-from-satanist/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Liberty U Kicked Students Out for Being the Victims of Sexual Assault: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-liberty-way-how-liberty-university-discourages-and-dismisses-students-reports-of-sexual-assaults SCOTUS hears challenge to Texas abortion ban: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/01/supreme-court-texas-abortion-live-updates/

Warning, charity or no, there's gonna be some vulgarity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by ZipRecruiter and by Vulgarity for Charity, the annual fundraiser where you help prove that you don't need any bullshit about rewards in heaven to be a good person. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hello, Homo sapiens sapiens. This is Julie LaVoix from the Julie LaVoie's Wine and Reason YouTube channel. And I'm here to tell you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people of all genders.

This is a fact. It's not a theory in the colloquial sense. Look up a scientific theory and learn the difference. It's Thursday. It's November 4th. And it's National Skeptics Day. Or is it? It is. I'm no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from hopefully Phil Murphy's New Jersey, Mazin, Bluetown, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Redtown, Blue State, Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scatating Atheist. On this week's episode, you'll get the chance to vent your election day rage while doing some good. The Supreme Court lets Maine prevent mass death, but on a provisional basis. And we get audio proof that the people at Liberty University don't think.

But first, the diatribe. It's like they were having a picnic on a train tracks. And we were like, hey, look, there's a train coming. You don't want to move over into this big empty field? And they were like, nah, that train's still miles away. And besides, that field doesn't even have sunflowers. And we were like, okay, but train tracks don't have sunflowers either and the train's closer now. And they were like, yeah, yeah, no, it could still turn. And we were like, no, because it's a fucking train.

And they hemmed and they hawed and they made us promise to plant sunflowers in the field. But eventually, seconds before the train reached them, they got off the tracks. Well, most of them did anyway. And what we learned on Tuesday night is that as soon as the train went by, they laid their stupid fucking picnic back on the same fucking tracks. After all, the sunflower seeds we planted still hadn't even bloomed. So, yeah, once again, a depressing post-election hangover to record a diatribe in Virginia, a state that Biden won by 10 points and one that's been basking in one progressive win after another for the last few years, decided to abandon the Democrats under a little more than the promise the other guy wouldn't tell their kids what a bunch of fucking racists they are. They still haven't called the New Jersey gubernatorial race as of this recording,

but even if the Dems pull it off, we're talking about a state Biden won by almost a million votes. Which side of the razor it falls on matters a lot for New Jersey, but one way or the other, Democrats lost big on this. Our side could barely be bothered to vote the second the existential threat turned a corner. The threat isn't gone, of course, it's just banned from fucking Twitter. There's another train scheduled to come down this same track, but way too many American voters need to be able to smell the motherfucker before they'll take it seriously. Now, to be clear, this has been true for a long time, right? The apathy of the average American voter is legendary, but we used to be more or less evenly apathetic on both sides of the aisle. That's no longer the case. Made up wedge

issues, increasingly overt racism and bullshit conspiracy theories have left the right side in a seemingly permanent state of apoplectic agitation. Turns out the motivation they could never quite muster when it came to solving real problems was hiding in their bigotry the whole time. See, this is actually another instance where to know what's really going on in this election, you have to look to Moscow, but a different Moscow this time. This time it's the one in Idaho. See, like the rest of Idaho, the city of Moscow is increasingly a haven for right-wing, anti-government, theocratic nutjobs. But that city is doing it way more purposefully. The Guardian just ran an expose about their slide into municipal theocracy at the hands of Douglas Wilson, pastor and founder of the Christ Church in Moscow.

You may have heard of this guy before. You may have heard of this guy before. Many moons ago, he actually toured with Hitch in a series of debates about whether Christianity was a net good for the world and has spent all of his life proving he was on the wrong side of that debate. He also stirred up a little bit of controversy when he co-authored a book called Southern Slavery As It Was, where he argued that on balance, being a slave was fucking baller. He runs this church, which counts about 10% of the city and its membership. And increasingly, he and the leadership of his church are gobbling up every important leadership position in the city with the stated goal to, quote, make Moscow a Christian town, end quote. Now, don't get me wrong. Small town in Idaho with a population of 25,000 people, they're in no real danger of religious pluralism one way or the other. But a vowed theocrat systemically taking over the levers of power should scare us no matter how minor those particular levers are. Think about how little real world experience the

good people of Moscow, Idaho have with non-Christians. They're sitting at home staring through the key hole of one American network, Fox News and the right wing meme mill swinging blindly at threats that don't exist. And all the while heaping power onto right wing politicians who do exist. And look, this shit is scary enough when it's just disingenuous politicians riling up their base with imaginary bullshit about critical race theory. But the tale isn't just wagging the dog here. It's slamming it back and forth like the Hulk did to Loki after the Battle of New York. I think it's safe to say, you know,

Glenn Youngkin is just a rich guy milking that cow for votes, but there are plenty of people ascending to positions of power who actually believe this shit. That's way more terrifying. Sure, some of them are just paying lip service to theocracy to get the tax cuts, but at this point, a lot of them are also just paying lip service to theocracy to get the tax cuts, but at this point, a lot of them are also

just paying lip service to the tax cuts to get the fucking theocracy. We should be terrified of them, and the most terrifying thing is that according to the election results from Tuesday, we're not. They're becoming increasingly militant right in front of us.

They're not trying to hide it. We've covered multiple stories in the last few months about different religious groups buying up large tracts of land for military training they're not even pretending to respect the wall of separation anymore and we're sitting on our fucking hands confident that we're not in any real danger until they actually do that cross thing with the washington monument apparently look the overriding message of the last five or six years in american politics is that the christian nationalists are willing to fight for this shit. And the message we got on Tuesday is that they are alone in that.

They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the vulgarity and the four to my charity. He then writing Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to justify your existence? Okay. Kind of wish you'd ask us that a little bit less yeah four votes four votes just have a more justifiable existence then okay so podcast before we get going tonight i have a super important announcement november

is when we do our mostly annual fundraiser vulgarity for charity where you supply the charity and we supply the vulgarity we're teaming up with Tom and Cecil once again to raise money for our favorite charity, Modest Needs, and we've set the ambitious goal of doing as well as we did last time, honestly, and raising over $300,000. We're already well on our way. We've got an anonymous donor match in the first $100,000, but that leaves us a lot of dollars to go to make it. So we're going to need your help. So if you're new to the show, here's how it works. You donate money to modest needs

and you help people on the verge of poverty get ahead. And in exchange, we insult somebody of your choice on the air. You're on scathing or over on cog diss. Now, last time we did this, we got a bit overwhelmed by all the insults and it took us literally almost two years to get through all of them. It's amazing turnout, great cause, but a little too much for us to handle so this time we're doing it a little

bit differently we'll be limiting the on-air insults to 200 total that'll be the top 100 donors plus another 100 randomly selected from anybody who donated 50 or more exactly now the fundraiser is already going on at last through Thanksgiving, so if you want your insult read on the air, you need to get the donation in before midnight, November 24th. Just go to modestneeds.org, make a donation, then email proof of your donation, along with who you'd like us to insult, to vulgarityforcharity at gmail.com. And if it's not a celebrity, the more you can tell us about the person, the better. Picks up a ton. Again, make a donation at modestneeds.org, and then send the receipt along with your roast request to vulgarityforcharity at gmail.com.

And by the way, we're going to start picking that random 100 before the drive is over, so the sooner you get your donations in, the more chances you're going to have of getting your roast read on the shows. All the details are in the show notes for this episode. And hey, even though we just started this thing this week, we have already reached 12 grand

in donations, which is 24 with our hundred thousand dollar match so keep those donations coming also not for nothing if you're as pissed about tuesday's election as i am this is a great way to vent that frustration go on people reach deep yeah exactly exactly so we i think we need a plus to make a donation of our own so while we do that we're going to toss you over to a word from this week's sponsor, ZipRecruiter. Hi, welcome to Typical Hiring Agency. How may I inundate you? Well, I'm looking to hire a few qualified candidates for a job.

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Reference. Mm-hmm. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, the Supreme Court got something right last week. Yeah, for real. So let's just bask in that broken clock glory of that victory for a second before we get into the details. Because as usual in our current political hellscape, the details really fuck up the celebration. What actually happened is two thirds of the Supreme Court got something right last week and half of that two thirds just kind of got lucky and backed their way into it. So here's what they did in a six to three vote.

SCOTUS decided not to block the state of Maine on their new law that requires health care workers to be vaccinated against deadly diseases. One of those diseases now being COVID, of course. Right. Yeah. So the question is, should a lifesaving public health measure that's been upheld by the supreme court over and over again for 116 years remain legal even if religious people don't wanna and it was six three six three they weren't sure about that like i don't think are you the supreme court gets a unanimous decision at this point no no if only there was something we could have done to prevent this, maybe in 2016. Yeah, there was something. So here's the background in case you missed it.

Maine, like many states, has a rule that says health care workers need to be vaccinated against stuff that could easily kill people. Sounds like a good rule. Mostly, mostly because, you know, people who hang out with health care workers tend to be sick sometimes. Sometimes they need a rule about that. They've had that rule for decades. But they had exemptions for medical, religious, and or philosophical reasons. Philosophical reasons. Yeah.

Those last two are fucking stupid. Right. Especially now. So in 2019, state lawmakers got rid of them. They got rid of those last two exemptions. So in 2019, state lawmakers got rid of them. They got rid of those last two exemptions. And in 2020, 73% of Maine voters approved the removal of those two exemptions in a statewide referendum. And then a group of Christian health care workers tried to sue the state for religious discrimination

because the COVID vaccine was developed using fetal cell lines. And you can't force people to inject a dead baby into their eyeball that's illegal so the case ended up with u.s district judge john levy and his ruling was approximately yeah no enjoy your religion please quit your job because you're fucking dumb i don't want you to be a health care worker then also the vaccine is not made of dead babies but if it was we fucking should inject dead babies into your eyeball right obviously if we've got dead babies i do not your eyeball particularly i mean you should get but like you should be in the back of the dead

baby eyeball injection line at best but point stamps yeah yeah you go last you get yours at walgreens in the middle of october so judge levy's amazing ruling got appealed and the supreme court took the case i could not fucking believe that that yeah it was terrifying that they even considered this every time they take a case any case at this point the ruling might be we are the republic of gilead now that's what's happening. But luckily for sanity in the universe as a general concept, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh had their stupid states rights thing backfire in their faces. And they kind of had to let Maine make a law and then overwhelmingly approve it with a Democratic referendum. But they wouldn't even admit that's what happened that backfiring because they're both intellectually dishonest fucking ghouls yeah barrett and kavanaugh made it clear in their

begrudging snit of a concurrence that they weren't ruling on the very obvious merits of that main law but rather on a technicality they basically said this case was an emergency appeal and it was on the shadow docket so we didn't get to hear a full oral argument about the religious freedom to spread a plague which would probably be an amazing oral argument had we heard it but we didn't i guess we'll side with prevention of mass death for now god yeah hey you know things are bad when I'll get you next time, Gadget. Next time is the good result. Right.

Just for the record, the dissent from Gorsuch, joined by, of course, Alito and Thomas. Of course. Dream team. Was a complete embarrassment. Or at least it would have been if those people were capable of being embarrassed by their own stupidity. They are not. They Dunning Kruger their way capable of being embarrassed by their own stupidity. They are not. They Dunning-Kruger their way out of being embarrassed by their own stupidity.

It's not a good sign for anyone, if that's the case, let alone three of the most powerful people in the country. According to Gorsuch, Maine's decision to deny a religious exemption doesn't just fail the least restrictive means test. It borders on the irrational. It borders. Okay. Yeah, the border of irrational is rational, though. It's just a line between the two. I know you've never visited this side of the line, Neil, but surely you've heard about it in your picture books.

It's a Venn diagram, man. You're a justice of the Supreme Court. Okay, but hear me out. Hear me out hear me out i sincerely believe that someone should pie those three gentlemen in the face way more than christians believe their thing there you go they agree my thing should be legal you're right i think you're right i do i believe it in my heart so much thank you for saying pie those guys in the face eli thank you very much for that's what i meant to say the whole time that is what i wrote in the script

to sincerely held pying in the face pie also you know what does not border on the irrational having a sincerely held belief about stem cells based on a book from 2000 years ago that's nowhere near the border all the way in there are you serious you can't even get a train to the border from no yeah exactly you have to get on a different train you have to take a ferry and in bullshitting up to boston news of the many problematic bigotries growing up in upstate New York that I've had to shed, once in a while, there's one that stands the test of time. Namely, my milk-chocolatey hatred of the city of Boston, Massachusetts, which once again gave me ample excuse to vent my ire as its mayoral elect publicly declared that she was too busy to explain why she doesn't think religions aside from the big three exist okay is she threatening us like no please don't refuse to explain your amazing philosophy and i really wanted to hear that from you look she is three away from how many religions

should exist that's closer to the right answer than most american politicians get i'm and it's true i'm on board so far so good so the mayor elect in question is michelle woo who for many reasons besides her itsy bitsy theocratic bent is an exciting candidate yeah it's good stuff other than this mostly yeah she's a lady she's a person of color she supports nordic social policies from the 1970s or as your uncle would call them radical communism the problem is she's actually the subject of a pretty serious lawsuit brought by the satanic temple over how she ran invocations when she was on the city council so as the lawsuit notes there were 233 invocations given between 2011 and 2017 none of those invocations were given by wiccans other

pagans or native americans a complaint that woo personally responded to by explaining the invocations were of course non-discriminatory they were just invitation only oh great that was the good explanation in her mind the country club doesn't ban people of color we just don't happen to invite them you're welcome everybody right yeah it's cool right that means your discrimination was active rather than passive lately is your point that you're a go-getter i don't cool yeah so as a result of that awesome response woo is due a deposition in the lawsuit and that lawsuit was scheduled for election day this past tuesday okay so i actually do want to hear her explanation of this now yeah she needs to explain and look i get it she was busy on election day

but as a result of the lawsuit's deposition being scheduled on that day, her lawyers didn't just file an emergency motion to move the deposition. They wanted her to never have to undergo the deposition at all, saying that the deposition had, quote, the sole purpose of harassing and annoying the candidate, saying that, quote, if the deposition were permitted, it would encourage future plaintiffs to file lawsuits solely for the purpose of deposing high ranking government officials at the beginning of their actions without having to make any specific allegations related to such official and actual quote. Guys, we've run amok with the accountability. That is that's a new one. That's a new. Yes. If you let them do it against her because of allegations but no allegations is just the next logical step first they came for the

guilty is not the same kind of poem no no it is not and look chances are that this story flew under your radar but i want to bring it to your attention because it's theocratic bullshit like this that leads to the stuff that candidates like Wu will notice, right? Atheists and atheist activists like the Satanists, like them or not, are the canaries in the coal mine and the cave-in is the loss of Roe versus Wade. Invocations are stupid, but they also mean FaceTime with lawmakers they mean access and it's super important if we're giving that out that everybody gets access to it yeah so congrats to ms woo i guess but also go to your fucking deposition and explain why you think native americans don't exist i don't know what to tell you fair fair bottom line still happy she won could have been so much worse yeah right in a lot of ways to be

clear this one don't like it yeah one of the few silver linings uh on tuesday night and then i'm not at liberty to say news tonight it's important to remember that even when we already know shit it matters when we prove it right like the fact that we already knew trump was a traitor and a grifter doesn't diminish the importance of congressional investigations into that. No matter what 60 percent of Facebook comments say about him. Is that a real stat? No, I'm just. Oh, God.

It could be higher. It could easily be higher. Yeah. Fuck. But so that's why we were disgusted, if not remotely surprised, to get definitive proof that Liberty University's think tank was actually just a thinly veiled effort to elect Republicans while maintaining a veneer of 501c3 legitimacy. And we learned this from a phone call where one of the people running it basically said, we're actually just a thinly veiled effort to elect Republicans while maintaining a veneer of 501c3 legitimacy. Hold on. Sorry, I left my phone on.

I think it heard me. It just said, did you mean american christianity since 1980 you know what it's not so much the insane conspiracies the right accuses of on a regular basis it's just that they're always always actually doing that thing they're accusing us of yep but for their side. Exactly. Right. Of course, regular listeners already know all about the awkwardly portmanteaued

Falkirk Center, the propaganda mill half-named after drunken cuck Jerry Falwell Jr. and half-named for right-wing talking head and much smaller right-wing talking face Charlie Kirk. His face is so much smaller than his head. It's very small.

So Liberty University established their global air quote shortage inducing think tank back in 2019 with the grandiose mission to i'm not making this up quote equip courageous champions to proclaim the truth of jesus christ to advance his kingdom and renew american ideals, end quote. Academically, that's our academic goal. It's that with legal pads and granola bars and lemon water in our WeWork space. Cool stand-up desks, if you want. But according to a secretly recorded phone call obtained by Politico, the real goal was, quote,

getting people elected and, quote, motivating our conservative people to really get out to vote, end quote. And again, this matters because as a tax exempt institution, they're not allowed to do that shit, regardless of what the IRS's history of non-enforcement might suggest. Yeah. And the level of stupid here is fucking priceless. The guy who leaked the story to Politico used to be one of the people running the tank of thinking before he got pushed out and he's on the call and he basically said

hello my fellow conspirator we're just a thinly veiled effort to elect republicans while maintaining a veneer of 501c3 legitimacy right i'm not a cop repeat that back to me if you agree with me and the other guy also running it still runs it said yes i'd describe us as a thinly veiled effort to elect republicans while maintaining a veneer of 501c3 legitimacy yes i do yep also my secretary said you sent over this thing about homo says what what idiot yeah so now the phone call in question was between former liberty administrator scott lamb and current president jerry priva in it he pushes lamb directly to do a better job getting conservatives elected and reminds him that the entire purpose of funding it was to do exactly

that and when lamb pushes back it reminds him that explicitly endorsing candidates would be illegal he even gave him a shot of been out there he's like that's he's like that's would wouldn't that be an illegal crime that we would be doing illegally primo responding i'm not i'm not gonna tell political about this but i would just say that that's illegal he responded quote i have a 50 c3 church sick really for 30 years i've known how to handle that and not get in trouble the homosexual community has tried to take me down for at least 30 years, and they have not been successful because I know how to work the 50C3. Still sick.

Okay. I love that this guy thinks he's been making moves. Right. Yeah, exactly. Staying one step ahead. Three-dimensional chess. They juke, I jive. There you go.

What? I've been playing hide and seek by myself for 30 years and I still haven't been found. Hide and seek champion. Yeah, so look, getting caught misappropriating a charitable organization by bragging about how good you are at not getting caught misappropriating a charitable organization by bragging about how good you are at not getting caught misappropriating charitable organizations is the stuff of legend here on the Scathing Atheist.

But honestly, like, so is bragging about how you know everything about him while repeatedly getting the name of the thing you know everything about wrong. Right. So like twice he gets on the board. But admitting that you're breaking the law has to mean something, right? And the fact that it almost certainly won't really mean something. Well, yeah, it's not like it's something serious like, you know, a drag queen reading a storybook at a library. Right. Now, those things have consequences.

I take it serious. And speaking of bullshit institutions that never suffer the consequences of their actions, it's time to check in on the patriarchy, so we're going to hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what's smart. If it's a legitimate race. A dangerous slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man. This week in

Misogyny. Well, since Noah brought up Liberty University, I guess we should talk about that bullshit, huh? As regular listeners will know, of course, Liberty University is embroiled in a whole lot of scandals involving the response to sexual assault on campus. We talked on the show a little while back about the 12 women who sued the school for policies the plaintiffs claim actually encourage sexual assault. There are at least 10 more women who have publicly claimed they failed to take reports of sexual assault seriously. Well, at the heart of those allegations is a policy

called the Liberty Way. That includes bans against consuming alcohol and, in their words, fraternizing with opposite sex. And, of course, sexual assault often happens when consuming alcohol and fraternizing with the opposite sex. So when a student finds herself a victim, she has to decide whether to risk getting kicked out of school for violating the Liberty Way or keep quiet about being raped. And this is not some paranoid hypothetical, by the way. ProPublica just did a story with several case studies of former Liberty students that say they were kicked out of school for being the victims of sexual assault, and they have a lot of evidence to back that up. Hell, as a standard part of the school's sexual assault investigations, they made several victims sign forms acknowledging possibly violations of the Liberty way,

and even the form itself warns that they could face disciplinary actions. And even the form itself warns that they could face disciplinary actions. So they literally wave a paper under sexual assault victims' faces saying, you sure this is worth getting kicked out of school over? Anyway, not much new to report here. But since we were already talking about them, I figured it was worth emphasizing that their bullshit tax exemption is the least of the wicked shit they're doing. Of course, it's not all bad news this week.

The Supreme Court gave us reason to believe that they might not have tossed Roe out altogether this week. On Monday, they heard two challenges to Texas's new abortion law, and it seems like maybe Kavanaugh and Barrett realized that not letting laws count because the law was cleverly worded could come back to bite them in the ass. I'm talking, of course, about the nonsense bounties the new law places on women who get abortions and the way they're hiding behind that provision to insulate the law from a judicial challenge. As Solicitor General Elizabeth Preliger pointed out, if they allow this bullshit bounty system to stand, quote, no constitutional right is safe, end quote. And that includes the ones that right-wing zealots care about, like the gun one. And look, I get that maybe they won't overturn Roe until that

Mississippi law comes up next month. It isn't much of a silver lining to hang on such a dour week. So I have one more up note for you, thanks to astute listener Paul. See, as wrong as we keep getting it here in the States, at least there's hope somewhere in the world. It turns out that just about the time we were using our elections to roll back the tiny shreds of progress from the last one, Queensland, Australia was making a bit of feminist history. As of today, they have a woman as chief justice of their Supreme Court, premier of the state, governor of the state, police commissioner, and heads of the state's four top universities. So if you live in Virginia and you're looking for somewhere to relocate, it appears that at least somebody wants us. And on that glimmer of hope, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. Next up in headlines in Wilting at Windmills news.

It's been a year since Donald Trump lost the election. And the Christian right is still desperately clinging to the hope that God is going to fix it for him. Apparently, the new theory is that God let Biden win without telling anyone. And, well, actually, he told most of these people the opposite. And ever since, he's been just building the moment. And any day now, if they hold their breath just a little bit longer, God's going to put Trump back in office and also send his son Jesus back to Earth for that second coming thing that's been on the to-do list for a while now.

And we got two different sermons about that last week and they're so sad and flailing it's the fucking best i just it is it's fun to watch but it's also terrifying as fuck right like so after the great disappointment the seventh day adventist admitted the world hadn't ended right like they were literally less committed to their thing and they're still around 177 years later imagine what the fucking church of trump is going to look like in the year 2198 yeah well maybe they'll have implemented bleach communion by then so i'm hoping for frothy maybe they'll look okay yeah Long enough time. So, I'll start with a sermon from Pastor Shane Vaughn

of First Harvest Ministries in Mississippi. Not a good start. So, for anyone who's not familiar, he looks like a henchman for a henchman. Like he's a JV henchman hoping to make it big, hoping to get his big break really soon on the varsity

squad. And according to Vaughn, God is going to overturn the election quote you've been wearing a fake election and a fake crown and you've been strutting your stuff with kamala by your side jezebel herself really you've been walking around my people as if to say nanny nanny boo boo you didn't catch me you've been strutting your stuff among my people saying where is your god why didn't he stop us well god said to you enjoy your crown enjoy your diadem i'm coming to take your crown off your head you profane president of my people and i guess he's talking to joe biden right yes yeah so you may walk like a duck and you may quack like a duck but i know the real truth i know the canard oh that's fantastic hey just like as a general rule if someone says nanny nanny

boo-boo i think it's pretty safe to assume that they don't in fact speak for the creator of the universe I think that's a safe assumption thank you that needed to be addressed just a general like no matter what else goes on if the sky opens up and they descend and they're like nanny nanny boo boo

it's a new Chris Angel special it's not it's not your guy and that's going to bring us to self-proclaimed prophet and heavy metal pirate from the future robin bullock who will not take off that leather jacket no he's not gonna take yeah yes i like wearing it when i'm sleeping i sleep naked except for the leather jacket yes i do i like this no stop it he he looks crazy you know he looks like aaron raw got like he looks like aaron raw he looks like okay well great he now aaron raw is going to use us as blood bags on his dune buggy so great that's fine he said it aaron get him that was

that was already gonna happen yeah that's true i'm very heavy to load onto the front of a vehicle. We don't want it. So Robin Bullock gave the saddest, vaguest, hedgiest sermon about how God is going to remove Biden from office or something or whatever soon or later. Maybe next week, but like Friday next week probably late on friday or some other time when the cable guy shows up so according to bullock exact quote don't be discouraged and that is a priceless start don't be discouraged as november comes and goes you just remember something god is still gonna do what he said he was going to do. And in heaven, people that people recognize as president is not recognized in heaven. Six, six, six.

That was the end of his actual sentence there. So you can look for a big event to take place, probably at. I caught it in my spirit standing here. Something I mean, this is the exact quote, the exact quote, something that is going to I caught it in my spirit standing here. Something. This is the exact quote. The exact quote. Something. There's going to be a prophetic event that's going to happen very soon.

And it'll be, I don't know if it'll be in this country. Oh, really? Maybe another nation. But it'll be known loudly. It's an event. I don't know what it is. I'm not sure if it's nature related or something. What? But there's about to be a big event.

And look for the word title. Okay. And I believe that's connected to a wave of something. Something. Exact quote. Exact quote. Jesus. Okay. All right. to a wave of something. Exact quote. Jesus. Okay. All right. His existence is a bit right. He's this time traveler

from 2021 as envisioned by a 1980s kids show farce of a human who's increasingly vague prophecies barely qualify as English. If we were just sitting here like we hadn't done our homework and we had to make some shit up

to make Christianity look bad, we'd make up Robin Bullock. Yes. Who would have thought we'd have been longing for the psychic accuracy of John Edwards and his I'm getting an M. Yeah, exactly.

Or, I don't know, maybe another consonant or vowel something. Maybe in a different language from a different nation. This nation or another one. Cyrillic letter. I don't know. Here's the big takeaway. We all need to stay vigilant

as atheists and Biden people. Keep your eyes peeled for a something wave something. Watch out for that event yeah maybe an event and also watch out for joe biden being removed from office in a different country because if he gets ousted in estonia we're fucked tidally tidally ousted and in i can't believe a leopard at the face-eating leopard school run by the Church of Face-Eating Leopards, ate my face, Vince.

Matthew LaBlanca, a music teacher at St. Joseph's Catholic Academy in Astoria, New York, as well as the music director at Corpus Christi Church in Woodside, New York, was fired from his position this week by his Catholic employer for the sin of marrying his longtime partner in a move that he could only have seen coming if he'd paid attention to the hundreds of other times this has happened. Yeah. Turns out there's a downside to working for a child rape cabal

that doesn't recognize your humanity. Who'd have thunk? But this leopard is different. Nope. So we've told this story so many times that i'm sure regular listeners can sing along with the words at this point but labanka married his partner was called into the office summarily fired and offered three months severance if he would sign a gag order which he refused nice his students and their parents are horrified that the thing

their school explicitly says they'll do happened and they parents are horrified that the thing their school explicitly says they'll do happened and they've signed a petition that nobody is going to read or look at right meanwhile labaka is out of a job with no legal recourse because and i cannot emphasize this enough we have literally carved exceptions into discrimination law so that religious schools can do this shit. This isn't just legal. It's not a loophole. It's not under the radar. We have collectively decided that we want this kind of thing to be in the law.

Yep. Yeah. And it's just normally this is a super obvious Title IX violation. Sexual discrimination. So clear. Even Neil Gorsuch had to admit that yeah if an employee of a different gender married that guy it's no problem so clear as sexual discrimination so i guess now we just need religion to have laws and we're all set right

then it'll be perfect yeah and look i bring up this story not because it's new but because while a lot of our listeners are blue humans stuck in very red states, I know at least a few of you live in seemingly liberal places like Astoria, New York. And some of you are parents trying to navigate the absolute hell that is the American public school system. I get it. Sending your kids to private school is incredibly tempting. I get it. Sending your kids to private school is incredibly tempting. But when you do it at a religiously affiliated institution, you're not just feeding an international rape cabal. You're also but band like this. Fantastic, yes. To set the stage for this story, I want you to step for one moment inside the fever

dream of a Pure Flix movie viewer and imagine that a school anywhere in America issued a rule in its official student handbook banning students from wearing Christian clothing or clothes that promoted a Christian message. Murder!

I can't. Now, if you're having a little trouble with that because, you know, there's like no theoretical series of events that could even lead from here to there inside a century. Let's now try to imagine the school banned clothing expressing some other religion's expression for fear that it might offend christians that'll be easier that's because it happened the offending school was pencrest high in delaware county pennsylvania and until very recently their official student handbook literally banned students from wearing clothes that were quote satanic in nature end quote are those boots cloven you got to turn them inside out are those prada you can't wear those

the devil wears so to be clear just for clarity the clothes that promote the existence of satan are the christian ones right okay the rock bands took your guy yeah he's your guy he's still your guy so so yeah the offending passage comes in a section of the handbook that forbids students from wearing anything that advocates illegal or anti-social behavior okay so they have banned christian clothing now i'm confused no right yeah exactly so well i'll tell you one thing they definitely can't wear that would be the goddamn student handbook which includes in its list of examples things that quote have sexually suggestive writing or pictures advocate violence advertise or promote the use of tobacco alcohol or drugs have double meaning wording or obscene language gestures what are

disrespectful or and here's the important one so I'm going to need you to stop fixating on the fact that it bans double meaning, even though that's a super legitimate thing to fixate on. I get it. But the point of this story is that they also added, are satanic in nature, end quote. And needless to say,

satanic is a god damn religion, and they're not allowed to ban those. so local satanist joseph rose set about getting that handbook changed and after much diligence apparently he just finally did yeah they got rid of the phrase satanic in nature from the handbook but you still can't have shirts with like homonyms unless of course the homonym has a triple meaning or more I want to meet the kid who pulls off

that challenge on that technicality I'll set up a goddamn scholarship for that kid refuse refuse and refuse sandwich board okay but here's the great thing this is just like a bunch of idiots at a school board

meeting being like don't wear rock shirts and some guy showed up and was like i hear you were talking about my boy c tis yeah right let's have a conversation about my lord and savior so yeah to be clear satanism is a religion it. It's a non-theistic one, right? They don't believe in Satan and they don't scroll pentagrams with their own blood. But and here's the important part. None of that fucking matters. As Rose himself told a local ABC affiliate, quote, the idea that a public school would allow religious expression in school, but choose to single out and prohibit the expression of one specific religion obviously seems like a problem for us end quote and the fact that the only untrue word in that sentence is

apparently obviously really underscores just how deeply ingrained christian privilege is in this fucking culture and quick while that's still echoing in the air we're going to close the headlines for the night heath eli thanks as always as always. You should have voted for Hillary Clinton. And when we come back, we'll take a trip to the only thing less deserving of its U than Liberty University. Okay, turn over the sign back to zero. It's got to go back to zero. That's fine.

Zero's my favorite. That sign. Thanks to our sister show, awful movies the recommendations on my streaming services are fucked amazon netflix and hulu all seem to think with good cause that i want to spend the rest of the year watching persecution fetish pieces about the war on christmas but in fairness we haven't quite fucked my youtube recommendations yet which we're rectifying a bit this week with another god awful mini so tell us heath what will we be breaking down today we watched why god is a he by dennis prager from Prager University. It's the story of Dennis Prager. And his perfectly rational obsession with God's penis.

And Eli, how bad was this mini? Well, if you've been kicked out of Wendy's once again for screaming, God has a cock, damn it, a cock. And the only university you could get into was YouTube, you will love this video. I know this is a Wendy's. I come here all the time. I do this a lot. All right. So, yeah. So, we're going to start off stating the question, obviously, why is God referred to as a he in the Bible? So, Dennis Prager wants a non-binary

God who goes by they, them? My curiosity was piqued at this moment with his start. Right. Well, it's not so much that he wants it, it's that God's maleness is, in his words, quote, one of the criticisms many people make against the Bible, end quote.

What? Is that one of the criticisms people make of the bible as professional bible criticizers i feel like my work is being yeah exactly right yeah i was like when did we get around to that there was so much more material but of course dennis has the answer it's because contrary to every appearance apparently the bible is and i quote preoccupied with making a kinder less violent more just world end quote okay my curiosity is no longer pete yeah didn't last long he sees men as kind non-violent and just no heath he has a point you see the back of the original bible said not so really psych Bible end.

Well, and then he risks a lot of his audience by insisting that God isn't actually male or female, which is, I mean, technically that's true. God is not, but not because as Dennis asserts,

God transcends gender. God doesn't verb anything. Yeah. Nope. transcends gender god doesn't verb anything yeah nope but prager explains that the bible writers had three choices on how to depict god's gender he says they could choose quote masculine he feminine she or neuter it i'm sorry did they dennis the authors of the Bible only had three choices. They did.

They only. They did. But then, quick before the transphobics click away, he rules out gender-neutral pronouns because, well, because first of all, gross, but secondly, he claims that there are no gender-neutral terms in Hebrew. Okay, pretty sure non-gendered nouns do exist in Hebrew. God, for example, you just said moments ago

that God transcends gender. They have a word for God, right? He also says that the word it doesn't exist in Hebrew and it definitely does. Well, so, okay, admitting I know virtually nothing about this beyond a quick google

i believe hebrew is one of the languages where every noun has a gender and there's like even a male and a female version of of they but i think gender non-binary people who speak hebrew just switch out their pronouns as they see fit but it's important to keep in mind that like we're not reading it in hebrew right right so like right or wrong this is still fucking meaningless very meaningless he also explains that we have to be able to relate to god and who the fuck can relate to non-gender binary entities am i right totally i get it yeah but as if that's not reason enough and clearly it isn't he has an additional three-part reason three oh i was hoping he would have

three more parts good yes no so because he needs some shit to fly around some words to fly around the screen at him first is the fact that the bible's primary concern is making a good world well the second time around the second world yeah and what an incredible admission of failure it is by the way to say that that was the goal right like the fact that the new testament even exists kind of makes that a useless fuck up out of their god doesn't it so would you say he's crushing it right now he's nailing it anyway he carries that thought on by pointing out that quote to a good world can only be achieved by making good people again version 2.0 of people. He killed all the version 1. Also, I feel like the omnipotent guy

has way more options than Dennis is letting on. But here's the conclusion. And Garrett, ready for an amazing conclusion. Quote, three, the people who commit nearly all the world's violence are males. End quote. Okay.

One correct answer from Dennis Pragerger look at that broken clock everybody we did it yeah but the key is the real reason that the bible made god a man is because it the bible is so feminist he points out that quote it is in both men and women's interest to depict god in the masculine end quote yeah i'm sure the women of the world they really appreciate finally being told what's in their best interest you're welcome the women i'm dennis prager well okay but his point it's not that men need to know god is capable of violence i know that's what it sounds like but he's's going a different way. His point is that young boys aren't going to listen to some vagina-wielding lady god about rules. And as we all know, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, they had two atheist moms.

All of them had two atheist moms. They are also atheists. Yep. It's also why single atheist moms only raise murder rapists. Typical. Yeah. Well, and then he goes full, did you know that Frederick Douglass was actually a Republican on us?

And points out that even Barack Hussein Obama agrees with him. Not really, but here's what he says. In 2008, Obama made a speech where he pointed out that fathers matter. So, same thing, basically. Okay, are we playing with Barack Obama is correct about stuff

you sure you want to go with that did barack obama say anything about anything else ever politics wise cut yeah right and cut right well and to be clear the obama quote that he pulls out in support of his point is just a statistic about how kids with a stable father figure are less likely to wind up in jail as though there was nothing else significant that separated single parent households from two income i mean two parent households no i get it okay what we need to do is rub the money on the single moms and their kids do better in school yeah i understand this correlation trust me it actually is you gotta rub it ancient hebrew didn't have plurals yes it did well now to be clear he's not comparing the statistics of like just moms versus just dads

which is the only way this could even theoretically be meaningful in the why depict god as male discussion it's single moms versus two parent households but despite the disingenuousness of those stats he summarizes them as young men cannot possibly absorb complex moral dictates like don't murder and don't steal unless they hear a man say it okay just to review the male god came up with a world that has some child abuse, murder, and rape. The Goldilocks zone was non-zero for that stuff. Omnipotent God. Also, his list of ten rules did not include the not raping,

which I'm just going to say, a lady God probably would have prioritized over having no other gods before me twice on the same list. Or three times, depending on how you read it yeah well and then he undercuts his own fucking point by claiming that a masculine god in the bible can substitute for a father in real life which means that those obama stats either disprove his point or come exclusively from non-christian house non-abrahamic households he's comparing apple and oranges he doesn understand that that's what he's doing.

Right, right. But quick before any of that can occur to you, he turns this point into what I think is a veiled threat. Quote, any discomfort you might feel with a masculine depiction of God is not comparable to the pain we feel if boys are not civilized into good men. If God was just some fucking lady,

we'd all be like, fuck her, murder! What? Really? I have never wished that God existed, but just for Dennis Prager's sake, I will take one lady God. One.

Right, yeah. Just for Dennis Prager. There's also this weird bit where he points out that the whole thing where God is like nice wouldn't work if he was a lady because obviously ladies are compassionate. But if a man sees a man God do it or

here's about one doing it fourth hand from a historical record full of known verifiable lies he'll emulate it. You see. See I've always wondered why I grew up wanting to kill all the Ammonites and now I know. Well okay so lest you think that we're exaggerating, listen to the

prerequisite sexism in this quote. Quote, if God were depicted as female, young men would deem traits such as compassion, mercy, and care for the downtrodden as feminine and would not identify with them. But if God, their Father in Heaven who is strong, on occasion even a warrior cares for the poor and loves justice mercy and kindness then these traits are also masculine and to be emulated okay again how would you say that's working out dennis prager good is god nailing it do you really think that's going well would you say he's known for his merciful nature right

i don't know maybe his son murdering nature a lot of son murdering and by the way if you're thinking that girls also need female role models you're wrong okay and i honestly think he's trying to imply that it's because we can pop them in the mouth if they get uppity he says quote of course girls need female role models but not to avoid violence end quote okay what if we have another god who's female get the fuck out this is serious who said that okay wait he says of course girls need female role models but not to avoid violence i want to know what dennis prager thinks girls need female role models for yeah it baking. Probably for some vaginal blood thing. I don't know.

Cooking can be fun. Yeah, right. And then he points out that girls are more likely to obey male authority figures anyway, and he justifies that by bullshitting his way through more statistics.

See, in some study or another, more than half of female inmates come from a father-absent home. And as long as you don't pay attention to the fact that the overwhelming majority of single-parent homes are mother-only, that sounds like it might back up his point if additional statistics also existed to support it. Right, but they all came from homes in which God was male, so... No, no.

Nailing it? Right, right. Like, even that doesn't actually back up his point it just comes closer and then he skates dangerously close to an outright threat by pointing out to women that if they go and feminize god it's going to result in men beating them up and then it'll even be fucking feminine god's fault don't fuck up religion that would make it bad for women when are you right that's every time he speaks that's what i wonder and then he points out that with all the absentee fathers on earth already it'd be a real dick move to take away the heavenly father too

yeah honestly i would love a child support check from God at this point. Is he offering that? Can we get one of those instead? Yeah. And then he concludes by freely admitting that he's Dennis Prager, which I feel like should be more embarrassed to talk about that in public. Yeah, his name is a punchline and I don't even realize it. Smash that like and subscribe button.

I'm Dennis Prager. And of course, over on GAM, we usually wrap things up with the Breakfast Club Close, a kind of randomly named conclusion where we predict what happened to the characters in the movie

after the credits. Now, the only characters in this mini were, of course, Dennis Prager and Mangod. So, any Breakfast Club Closes

for them? Okay. Yeah, sure. Mangod got canceled and started opening for Dave Chappelle. Dennis Prager got COVID, raised a bunch of money based on how sick he was from COVID, and then made a video saying that COVID wasn't so bad for YouTube.

That's real, though. God, what a dick. All right, well, lucky for us, Dennis Prager has something like infinity thousand more of these things. So we'll never be short for content on God awful many. Before we put her in park tonight, I want to remind you to get those vulgarity for charity donations in as soon as you can. We're on pace to do good, but not beat our 2019 total just yet we really need your help just check the show notes or go to scathingatheist.com for all the details anyway that's all the blast we've got for you tonight we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more can't wait that long be on the lookout for a brand new

episode of our sister show the skeptic rat debuting at 7 a.m eastern on monday and even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend god awful movies debuting at 7 a.m eastern on tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister show citation needed debuting at noon eastern on wednesday obviously this episode wouldn't earn its number if i neglected to God awful movies debuting at seven Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister. She'll citation need to debut at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously this episode wouldn't earn its number. If I neglected to thank the newly minted Michigander heat, then right. The oldly minted New Jersey and Eli Bosnick and the reluctantly minted

Georgian Lucinda illusions. Also want to thank Julie for providing this week's farms with quote, be sure to check out the show notes for a link to her YouTube channel as well. But most of all, of course I want to thank this week's best people, Joel, Kevin,

Joshua, Dustin, Mike, Jasmine, by any other name, PJ tree hugger, prime Hagan. I love bear all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people, Joel, Kevin, Joshua, Dustin, Mike, Jasmine, by any other name, PJ, Treehugger Prime, Hag, and I Love Bear, Data Angel 9, and John. Joel, Kevin, Joshua, Dustin, and Mike, who are so masculine, Dennis Prager also did videos about

their dicks. Jasmine, by any other name, PJ, and Treehugger Prime, who have so much gravitas they get honorary Lagrange points. And Hag, and I Love Bear, Data Angel 9, and John, who are hot enough to break down the laws of physics. Together, these 13 people, phrases, expressions, and devotion, and, um, Data Angels, I guess, help chip away

at the theocracy this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com, and if you'd like to help but your donations are going to Bulgarity for Charity instead.

Good on you. The people on modest needs need it way more than me, Eli, and Heath do, that's for sure. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robinson handles for social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at

ScathingAas.com. I just, I want to point that out because I feel it's worth emphasizing. They opened a think tank and failed. Yep, sure did. They failed to think with it. To do a think tank. Their think tank is neither a think nor a tank. Discuss.

Discuss. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.