The Scathing Atheist - 463: Webb Slinger Edition

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

In this week’s episode, Baby Baphoment boosts some blood pressure, if you've ever said LET'S GO BRANDON unironically you can go let's yourself, and Anna will be here to play 2021 off. --- 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: Hear more from Tom and Cecil on Cognitive Dissonance: https://dissonancepod.com/ --- Headlines: NASA director invokes Bible during JWST launch: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/nasas-revolutionary-new-space-telescope-due-launch-french-guiana-2021-12-25/ Schmeck says "Let's go Brandon" during Christmas Eve phone call with kids to the Bidens: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/26/lets-go-brandon-santa-tracker-caller-joe-biden Christians freakout about snaketivity scene: https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/conservative-christians-cant-handle NASA hired 24 theologians to study how religion would react to aliens: https://nypost.com/2021/12/27/nasa-hired-24-theologians-to-study-reaction-to-aliens-book/ Christian Right holiday gift guide: https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-lets-go-brandon-the-2021-right-wing-watch-holiday-gift-guide/ Man Sues Bible School Leaders for Spreading Rumor He "Had Contagious Demons": https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/man-sues-bible-school-leaders-for

Warning, the following podcast contains adult language. I don't know how old the language is, but it is definitely old enough to cuss. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Satellites and Shit. And now, The Scathing Atheist. This is Jody from Florida, home of Matt Gates and Ron DeSantis. But I'm saying hello from the blue dot of Orlando, Florida, home of Val Demings and Anna fucking Eskamani. This is proof that we did indeed evolve from filthy monkey men

into powerful badass women. It's Thursday. It's December 30th. And this is your last chance to blame 2021 for all the shitty stuff. So act now. I'm Noah Lutions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Henright. And from Marjorie Terrell Bosnick's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Waycross, Georgia, this is

The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, baby Baphomet boosts some blood pressure. If you've ever said, let's go Brandon unironically, you can go let's yourself. And Anna will be here to play 2021 off. But first, the diatribe. Okay, this should be the only argument we ever need. If Christianity is right, if any of the Abrahamic religions are right, in fact, 2021 was on purpose.

Whole fucking thing. 2020, 2019, all that shit, all of it on purpose. God saw that coming because, of course, he's all-knowing, and he didn't adjust his plans. He planned to make 2021 happen. Now, I know the people who came up with Jehovah didn't know about 2021 when they were coming up with it, but it's not like 2021 is uniquely terrible. It might be uniquely terrible in many of our lives, but as far as historical plagues

go we're not doing all that bad and plagues were very much a thing when they came up with jehovah they mentioned them in the book several times see i think about that shit a lot the very nature of the religions that were pitted against makes our jobs so much easier but right like it's not like the problem of evil just naturally arises out of God belief. It only shows up if you believe in this singular all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God. It, along with nine out of every ten contradictions that atheists bring up, just disappear if you switch up your theology, and yet they went with the concept of God that would seem hokey in the MCU. Why?

I mean, think about all the varieties that were already there for the taking. My job would be so much harder if Christian God just had some kind of kryptonite. Why doesn't God get rid of cancer? Kryptonite, boom, argument thwarted. Give him a weakness or a limit on his power somewhere and you can hide pretty much any inconvenient question that you want behind it. Sure, that might seem disingenuous, but it's a hell of a lot more intellectually satisfying than the mysterious ways gambit that they're using now. Or even better yet, why not have an equally powerful bad guy?

I mean, I know Christianity has a bad guy, but they managed to do it in a way that makes their God less logical. If you balance God out with an equally powerful or even ever so slightly less powerful bad guy God, once again, you thwarted the bulk of my arguments. Why doesn't God get rid of cancer? Bad guy God beat him on that one.

Boom, argument diffused. But instead, they go with a bad guy God that's their God's creation. And not only that, but like his ongoing employee. They can't say, well, Satan created cancer without inviting the obvious rejoinder of like, well, then why didn't God just tell him no that time? And no cancer, like, or what about you could just go with a pantheon. I mean, that still doesn't help if you insist on your God being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. But if you add a bunch of lesser gods with their own sordid motives,

you can at least get two out of those three in one God and give the third to another guy. Right? The results are still pretty much the same if you're the priest. I mean, even better now since supplicants have to give offerings to two or three gods instead of just one. And of course, at the same time, you've wiped out many of the most pesky contradictions in the monotheistic worldview. But of course, as bizarre as this seems to people like us, there are more important considerations than whether or not your assertion defies the very laws of logic. There shouldn't be. But clearly there are, because both Christianity and Islam rose to the top

in a survival-of-the-fitt fittest type battle between all the various religions. Pantheism, dualism, slightly less than omnipotent monotheism, those were all on the table when this fight was happening. They didn't win. So why do people accept it? Now, obviously, some of the answer here is that, you know, people with more power beat them into it. And that, you know, that's true.

The fact that we have the ability to pick our religious orientation like it was a buffet is a bit of a historical oddity, but it's not unique. And religion is so intensely personal that even under the most repressive regimes, people often sway from their prescribed beliefs.

And so to some degree, people did choose this system over the others. Not all of them, not all of the time, but over time, enough people flock this way to make it self-perpetuating. Of course, you might be tempted to write this off as a simple case of bigger versus smaller. If the religion down the street is selling an omnipotent God and you're selling a mostly omnipotent one, you're going to feel compelled to upgrade. But that can only be the case if people are more driven by God's power than his plausibility.

But that can only be the case if people are more driven by God's power than his plausibility. So let's swap out the bullshit here. Let's say that you and I are both selling dietary supplements across the street from each other. I say on my advertisements that mine can take off 10 pounds in 10 days. So you put up a sign that says that yours can take off 12 pounds in nine days. Now, we're both making shit up, so I may very well escalate things from here. But neither of us are ever going to claim that our supplement takes off infinity pounds in zero days there's a point where the plausibility has to overtake the potency even when you're talking about bullshit so why doesn't

that happen with religion now one possible explanation of course is that even the slightest of god claims slips the bounds of plausibility altogether. And from then on, it's just, you know, infinity plus one versus infinity plus infinity. Well, that last one's much higher. I'll admit that's not the only possible explanation. I don't want to gloss over the whole people didn't always choose their religion thing too much. It may very well be that churches just killed off the rest of the pantheon for the same reason that a despot's son kills off all the rival heirs. The fucking Catholic church

had to keep a close eye on the popularity of saints for a long time to actively discourage their worship because it was a potential threat to the centrality of their power to even give someone the ability to bump your prayer to the front of the line. And that may be a sufficient explanation for the history,

but that still leaves the lingering question about the present. And let's face it, honestly, when the question is, why would people believe in something that's logically impossible, there's no answer that's going to exonerate them. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the 20 and 20 to my two, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick fellas.

Are you ready to see what chapter three of this decade has in store for us? I don't know, Noah. Last time there was an eventful early 20s, a world war followed. So, no? What? I don't know. Which world war? I don't know. Which world war? I don't know.

It wasn't called that yet. But I'm thinking we get a sensible, pragmatic American left doing the right thing and turning out for the midterms in 2020. Okay. Yeah. It's going to be good. It's going to be good. It's going to be great.

Okay. Let's talk about the news. Let's do the news. Now. In our lead story tonight, even NASA decided to get in. let's talk about the news let's do the news in our lead story tonight even NASA decided to get in on the Spider-Man fandom this week

by naming their new rocket ship after the web slinger himself though nobody tell them it's Peter Parker and not James Webb what the hell are you doing I'm doing the lead story about the James Webb Space Telescope that I've been wanting to talk about since they started

working on the damn thing 25 years ago? I'm pretty sure it's actually a rocket ship. No, it's not. Hey, do you see that over there? Oh, what? You had a chance to look at the damn thing up close and you passed on that for a restaurant. For a lunch restaurant. You're a fucking

vegan. Worth it. It was worth it? No, it wasn't. In our lead story tonight, we can only wish the James Webb Space Telescope was named after Spider-Man. Actually. In reality, it's named after a notorious homophobe who oversaw NASA during the so-called Lavender Scare in which the

Truman administration demoted or fired everyone suspected of ever having a same-sex relationship at any point in their lives. And even after a scientific American pointed that out and said, hey, you guys want to take a mulligan on that telescope's name? We'll give you a mulligan. NASA decided to double down because the Caucasian

male boomer making that decision doesn't think old white guys should be held accountable for their past bigotries. So weird that he would... We wanted to get into that trap. We like that. We like our trap that we're in. But despite the controversial name,

the telescope itself is on the short list of coolest things ever built by humanity along with the ISS, the LHC, and the air fryer. Okay, well, I'm going to add one more. That flu that mostly kills Republicans is a pretty great invention. There's not a mass death, but... That. The Hess truck's pretty sweet. NASA, NASA, listen up.

You nailed it with optimistic nouns, guys. You got to stick to your optimistic nouns. No, of course, if you've read anything about the James Webb launch over the last week or so, you're bound to have read about the cost. And for some reason, when we're spending the money about the James Webb launch over the last week or so, you're bound to have read about the cost. And for some reason, when we're spending the money to advance human knowledge, the media always puts the price tag in the goddamn headlines.

So weird that they don't do that with wars or anything. That's a very good point. Yeah, I can't help but feel like we would have been less impressed by shock and awe if they'd called it, you know, the education budget of North and South Carolina. Right, yeah. Honestly, I'm fine. If that, what you just said know, the education budget of North and South Carolina. Right. Yeah.

Honestly, I'm fine. If that what you just said now is the name of the telescope, that's fine with me. As long as it's also called the 44 years of the entire federal education budget in Afghanistan. There you go. Instead of the war in Afghanistan. Yeah. Right. But yeah, so the telescope was originally slated to be finished in 2007 with a budget

of $500 million. It ended up coming in at almost 20 times that price and taking an extra 11 years to build, plus another five years to test because, holy fuck, if anything goes wrong with it at all, it's going to be too far away for us to do anything about. We might be able to take a picture of it with Hubble, maybe, and see what went wrong. But all the testing seems to have paid off because so far everything's gone perfectly or at least everything mechanical has gone perfectly the otherwise flawless launch ceremony was marred by human error

in the form of the nasa administrator invoking the goddamn bible in the middle of his post-launch address you oh really bill what the pinnacle of science moment needed was a book that admits its god is no match for iron chariot you're literally launching a device that goes past the firmament at the edge of the universe beyond that and then takes pictures for a photo album called the bible is wrong what the fuck are you doing right right so yeah former astronaut and good universe governor of florida bill nelson started off his commemoration by highlighting the worldwide team that put the telescope together and launched it as well as the universal questions it's built to help answer and then he spent the last half of

the thing shitting all over that message of inclusivity by talking about religious bullshit specifically he quoted psalm 19 which opens quote the heavens declare the glory of god the firmament shows his handiwork end quote he even mentioned it right yeah it's the fake thing he mentioned the thing that makes it so extra dumb that's amazing there's even translations that don't use that silly ass term, but no. And by the way, he didn't quote this part, but the psalm then goes on to talk about how pure it is to fear God and how important it is to keep your slaves from falling into small sins. And then in a bizarrely self-defeating effort to tell only the 70% of the world that believes in a higher power that he's including 100% of the people when he says this, he closed

by saying quote god bless you and god bless planet earth end quote and mom really is grateful for all her children doesn't even have a favorite right you are low maintenance you definitely are now look this is a show about atheism so i'm not going to go into a bunch of details about what exactly makes the James Webb Space Telescope awesome, but if you're not already aware, I'd strongly urge you to read up on it, watch a video or two. It is a truly incredible piece of machinery

that's going to allow us to see light so far away that we'll get to witness the birth of the first galaxies. And, I'll tell you what, if the pictures we get back happen to show Jehovah slaving over top of him with a ruler and some modeling glue, I'll be the first to issue a form of fucking apology. Right. But until then, maybe we leave all the Jesus shit out of the science speeches.

OK, but but fun game listener, if you want to test how superstitious your science nerd friends really are, start loudly talking about how perfectly everything is going to go till they beat you unconscious yeah no that's that's definitely true you could be like there is no way that heat shield tears there's no way you say that enough times they get rabbit footy real fucking they'll tell you to shut right the fuck up the heat shields not bad like it can tear that's not gonna fucking doesn't even make sense it's not a problem i'm just gonna grab this rabbit okay next up in headlines we have a story about a free thinker and a follower of jesus and despite what those words mean i'm talking about one person not two like it might sound it's one guy claiming to be both and

of course he's the fucking worst his name is jared schmeck and he called the norad santa tracker line along with his kids on christmas eve and they all talked with joe and jill biden and at the end of the call mr schmeck said let's go brandon and hung up and hung yep he claims he claims they hung up on him whatever that was the end of the call he said all right merry christmas biden's let's go brandon hang up if anyone's not familiar with that by the way that's code for fuck joe biden but without having to say the naughty words so you don't get in trouble with mom so you know mr schmeck uh he got him It's a classic free thinker It's comedic timing No, no, it's great It's like ding dong ditch without all the

gallantry Thank you so much for this invitation to the White House, Mr. Biden I'm just going to light this bag of poop on fire to get you So, in response to this guy, Mr. Schmeck being a giant asshole and having an aptronym

almost a bunch of the internet pointed out that he's a giant asshole and actually they pointed out that he has an aptronym almost and now mr schmeck is in a snit because he was just using his freedom of speech and all these people are violating his freedom by using their speech he got confused there and tried to complain about it so he started saying like disconnected words about the constitution and jesus christ of nazareth naturally that's what you say next and according to schmeck he said i'm not a trumper but i'm a free thinker and a follower of jesus he also added quote i understand there's a vulgar meaning to let's go brandon but i'm not that simple-minded sick biden seems like a cordial guy there's no animosity it was merely just an innocent jest to also express my god-given right to express my

frustrations in a joking manner and really labored sentence quote that he had trouble putting together it was an innocent joke to express the joke you wanted to express as a joke i got you so it was merely just it was merely merely just that yeah exactly so wait so his response to you're an asshole was eventually yes but i was an asshole on purpose though i was purposefully an asshole i believe you mean hoops are an asshole i get to vote so yeah god gave everyone the right of jokey deflection of your inner frustration about knowing deep down that you're a meaningless asshole from a tom roast during vulgarity for charity that was in the bible it was like ephesians or something but regardless schmeck is a liar it wasn't just a joke he does have animosity

and he is that simple-minded right after the phone call he posted a video of that conversation on his youtube channel with the caption we talked to president biden on christmas eve hashtag let's go brandon and during an interview last week schmeck said his super clever fuck you during a christmas eve call with his kids was based on frustration with biden's policies he mentioned which policies by the way those were uh vaccine mandates inflation what biden's policies he mentioned which policies by the way those were uh vaccine mandates inflation what biden's policy of inflation yeah i bet schmanks really affected by those yeah no yeah he's studied a lot of you know macroeconomics you know so that runs the world bank does he yeah sure you know there's money supply in and out he meant a lot of stuff that

he didn't say there one other policy he didn't like was the global supply chain problem biden policy of that biden's global policy yeah of supply chain problems yes okay you know that moment in a superhero movie where like for no reason whatsoever everyone's mad at superman because lex luther blew up a thing in superman that's the political version of that. It's just like, oh, you let the Green Goblin blow up that tower, Spider-Man. I'm on J. Jonah Jameson's side now. Thanks, Obama. Yeah.

Also, just a quick background on Jared Schmeck. He's a former police officer who resigned in 2018 after, I think, six years on the force and now his job is answering the phone at the electrician business owned by his dad and when asked why he resigned during that same interview schmeck answered pass so i guess we don't know it's probably one of those noble resignations from the police force to work at your dad's company as the phone answering person. You just don't feel like talking about it that day. That's probably what happened there.

Yeah. And now people are being mean to him on the Internet, which is not fair. He's also getting what he described as vague but threatening phone calls. What? And those sound super real. Oh, that sounds real. Do the callers blurt out a coded, fuck you, Adam?

Because I have a good authority that that's just their God-given right to do. They're expressing their meaning about the expressing. The lighthearted jest of the meeting. Okay, but think about this horrible guy's life. You're such an asshole that now your dad has to let you go and change his business phone number because of the shitty thing you did in the middle of your children's phone call about

santa on christmas eve yep this dude is gonna wake up as a monster energy hat in a kafka novel yeah it's to be a Kafka play, but yeah, it's going to be great. Am I a kid rock CD? How did I become a kid rock CD? Yeah, so bottom line, just say

fuck Joe Biden if you want to say fuck Joe Biden. Sure. Just be honest. I mean, if I got on the phone with Donald Trump somehow somehow and I just heard him tell a seven year old moments before that her belief in Santa Claus is probably, quote, marginal at that point. That's a real thing that happened when Trump was in charge of taking these calls on Christmas Eve.

That was like three years ago. He really said that to a seven year old. But if I had the chance to tell Donald Trump to go fuck himself, I might do that. But I'd say go fuck yourself because I'm a goddamn grown-up who just says go fuck yourself. I'm not a child who has to dive into the bushes after that. What I meant to express by the bushes.

And in putting the Satan in Santa news, if you were to head over to the Illinois State Capitol building this holiday season, you'd see a variety of festive displays. The nativity, a menorah, whatever the fuck people in Illinois could think of for Kwanzaa. And thanks to the folks over at the Satanic Temple, an adorable swaddled baby Baphomet. So you know what that means, Anna? What are the guys talking about? It's the newest, the greatest Christian freakout.

That's right. Christians are losing their minds over the adorable little light bringer, starting with Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, who took a moment during the installation of the State House's Christmas nativity scene to say that Satanism, quote, should have no place in this Capitol or any other place, end quote. Any place in any place, huh? Yeah.

Not adding, now let's get back to the very serious matter of putting up a statue of the time God turned himself into a baby so he could grow up and die, so he could eat his flesh and drink his blood because we masturbated. I'm an adult with a driver's license. Take me serious. This is serious.

And not quote. Very important safety warning while we're on the subject. Bishop Thomas John Paparocchi should never be combined with Bishop Thomas John Coca-Cola. That is very dangerous. Yeah, so Bishop Paparocchi wasn't the only christian losing their cool the catholic group american defense of tradition family and property showed up to protest the like little thing in person wearing their silliest of robes and holding signs that said i I shit you not, these are real. Satan has no rights. And my favorite, be gone, Satan.

Mary crushes the serpent. Oh, well, in that case. All right. So I don't know that anybody invented losing their cool, but a Catholic group called American Defense of Tradition, Family and Property seems like the likeliest candidate. Yeah. So, OK, okay tradition i get it but they also defend family okay and property though right that's the property at the end it's like a libertarian kid from the make a wish foundation was at their first meeting and they let him help he's like and property mary crushes the stirp and don't step on sneg i don't know and they like let him do all this shit now i'm gonna go feed the bear some donuts

but of course no christian freakout would be complete without a mega cultist slash terrifyingly running for and or in office and in this, it was state representative Darren Bailey, who's not going to be Illinois' governor, but wrote on Facebook, quote, their evil satanic display of the baby baphomet meant to mock the millions of Christians in Illinois is vile and has no place in our state capitol. I am calling on my colleagues and every elected official in Springfield to stand up and demand this evil mockery of faith, not be allowed in our Capitol. End quote.

Yeah. No, it's time. Somebody stood up to those laws. Yeah. And also, you know, they need to stand up to a rock with carbon because,

because that's a mockery of their faith too. True. And stand up to circles, the geometrical concept, giraffes. There's a lot. There's a lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So good work by the Satanic Temple, once again.

The fake religious version of bigot says what? Guaranteed to always get the loudest and most prominent what? Possible. Isn't it, though? And in space farce news, according to a forthcoming book by Cambridge religious scholar, Reverend Dr. Andrew Davison,

NASA recently enlisted the aid of 24 theologians to help answer the question of how people react if and when we confirm the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. And I mean, not for nothing, but Anna already wrote a little jingle about it. We've already played it

in the show. We've got a Patreon page now, so I feel like we could have saved you a little time and 24 theologians. Yeah. In other news, we've also asked 24 cats

to answer the question, how would people react if a super delicious race of mice landed on Earth? Hey, Christian, buddy, you got an alien in your mouth there yeah yeah you're gonna drop it on my porch you're cool yep cool go get vaccinated please so so yeah this wonderful

use of taxpayer money apparently went to the center for theological inquiry a department i'm sure the real academicians at princeton are super happy to share resources with apparently the upcoming book's author is one of the 24 theologians that contributed to the And I'm sure the real academicians at Princeton are super happy to share resources with. Apparently, the upcoming book's author is one of the 24 theologians that contributed to the study in a desperate effort to sneak Christianity into a sentence with smart people words like astrobiology in it. And in case you're wondering the extent to which this money was flushed, Davidson said in his announcement about the book that the most important question they answered with the funds was how many alien Jesuses there were. The fuck is happening? Apologies for how convoluted his sentence structure is here, but this is the quote. It's amazing.

The most significant question there is probably whether one would respond theologically to the prospect of life elsewhere in terms of there having been many incarnations or only the one theologians talk about as jesus end quote what just alien jesus no but you guys got muhammad right everyone in the federation got muhammad oh we just had upstate new york guy he's the worst did you have that guy

very racist now to be fair to NASA, this isn't quite the complete waste of money that a lot of atheist media has made it out to be. Like it or not, how bad are y'all going to freak out when we find aliens is a question with important ramifications across society. And, well, there's something to be said

for giving that assignment to, say, sociologists or people who study real shit. Oh, there's like a job for that, yep. Well, yeah, but it's not like they haven't also done that. Plus, I feel like giving some head start money to the people who study real shit. Oh, there's like a job for that. Yep. Well, yeah, but it's not like they haven't also done that. Plus, I feel like giving some headstart money to the people who are actually going to have to make up the new bullshit

might not be the worst idea. Yeah, that's fair. Counterpoint, if four years ago we had asked 24 theologians if religion would be the single most prominent source of spreading and worsening a pandemic, they probably would have said no. So I feel like we're getting

into toddler chore chart territory here, right? Like we can give out stickers. Yeah, I feel like Princeton theologians would have admitted, oh yeah, no, they're gonna fuck it all up. Yeah, because you'd have to check the temperature on their foreheads. They'll freak out about it. I think they, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. They're studying at a really fancy toddler chore chart

university. Like that's what's happening there. That's the degree they're getting. Well, yeah, that's true. You sunny optimist, no illusions. And finally tonight in innercirclecircle.com. Well done, sir. Apparently there is a contagious and dangerous conditions that Christians care about spreading on their college campuses.

That condition is demons. Huh. And at least allegedly, that was the case at Rima Bible Training College in Oklahoma, who, as of this week, are being sued for spreading the rumor that a former student had contagious demons when he went there. But, okay, but that's not a real thing no though really like telling people that they have a case of the mondays that's not a hippo violation because it's not a real thing yeah well monday is a real thing right no that's dumber than that yeah so according to one marcus lee the suer when he was a student at the school they quote

disseminated among other students and staff that i had contagious demons thereby endangering my life causing me emotional distress and ruining my reputation end quote quote. Oh, well, okay. But to be fair to Rima Bible Training College, ruin your reputation is one of the bullet points in their brochure, right? Yeah, and at least according to Mr. Lee, this got pretty serious. Again, quote, one student with whom I stayed was so upset when he heard the accusations that he sent people out after me to do me harm. I had to move out in a hurry

and I was literally chased out of town, end quote. You were literally out of town? So the angry throng had a very specific jurisdiction. They stopped? Yeah, they're like, oh, y'all, he's out. We got to call the county lynch mob for this shit. Hold on, let me get him on the horn. Yeah. It's like Grand The, y'all, he's out. We got to call the county lynch mob for this shit. Hold on. Let me get him on the horn. It's like Grand Theft Auto when you

drive past the cops making it until the star goes away. Here's the thing, though. I think he's lying. I think he's lying. I think he's a liar who's lying right now. Also, if a pitchfork mob thinks you have a contagious demon,

it's your job to use that. Right. It seems like that's a good weapon for you. Yeah, absolutely. And now, Heath, you're about to feel really silly because if he was lying, would he be asking for $15 million in compensation? Yeah, no. Egg on my face your reputation was worth in your mind while you were at rima bible college your reputation was worth 15 just over 15 million yeah hey mr lee whatever you make in this lawsuit

i will double it i will make a matching donation to your lawsuit they're Going full vulgarity for charity on this one. So yeah, unlikely to succeed on the not merits this lawsuit, but just in case it does, it is 2021 after all, I'd like to point out that as a whole, Christianity owes me and Heath and Noah about $86 bajillion and counting right now. Right, yes, all the emotional distress

of the hell that I'm going to go to. Yeah, we're up next. Absolutely. And on the reminder that the law is broken and we're all fucked we're gonna close the headlines for the night heath eli thanks as always jumanji and when we come back tom and cecil will be back to finish up the last of our vulgarity for charity if it didn't run long now we're in no danger of running for months like the last one did but we did have some stuff left over from last week so without further ado we're going to be rejoined by tom and cecil from the cognitive dissonance podcast for some charitable roasts already in progress. Heath,

I got another one here for you. Catherine would like a roast for her ex-friend Carlo, a.k.a. Fuck Things. This photo is amazing. What is this photo? It's a pirate doing an infomercial. I'm looking at a pirate in an infomercial.

Absolutely 100% what's happening. He's about to drop an arm full of swords because there must be a better way. He's also clearly using that infomercial shoot to get a pic for his Tinder bio. So he's got a secret, but he won't tell

unless you call him in the next 10 minutes. Also, Catherine, hey, no judgment for past dating mistakes. There are women out there who in their younger and more foolish days dated Heath, but my dude looks like the hip flask of Zorro.

Aim higher, girl. You gotta. You gotta. He looks like too much soap, bae. He looks like the fourth or fifth musketeer that's like wait up guys wait up and it was just three because they didn't wait up the worst if there was a little turner you could do it a brazilian steakhouse for sexual harassment this is who would show up at your table you could shave a little bit of sexual harassment off the side no i turned it over i don sexual harassment off the side of the thing

no i turned it over i don't want anymore i turned over the thing i'm done with both sides being sexual all right noah you are up next peter would like a roast for father brian jerebeck yeah peter didn't share much information about him but that's okay because this picture is one of those thousand words kind of things jesus imagine if sarah huckabee sanders was like a male plumber this motherfucker would look like a child rapist even without the collar and i love this detail apparently he lied to peter about what it would take for Peter to get excommunicated from the church because they're

so desperate for members that they have some unsubscribing from Facebook type maze they present you with now when you want out. She's a way to admit how few people would purposely belong to your club, Catholicism. You can

snatch the crucifix. Oh, you got it. All right. But hey, Brian, look at the bright side. As you pointed out in your letter, he's an anti-vaxxer who spends his time

in crowded rooms. So, you know, he'll probably be dead soon. Yeah, there's always a silver lining. Very likely. And Cecil, Todd would like a roast

of the political idea of conservatism oh you mean the don't pass go with the political right also the don't pass bills of the political world political ideology is like freshly squeezed i don't wanna from some dirty face brattling you're not just the do nothing party you're a stop-everything party. At least if you were a do-nothing party, you'd get the fuck out of the way once in a while. Instead, you're the political equivalent of a guy who's so mad someone slipped past him on the highway,

he spends the rest of the trip break-checking them. The party. Yeah, yeah. Conservatism is a political philosophy the way shitting your pants is a style of riding an elevator like whatever you might think you're doing you look like a monster and you're ruining it for everybody else yeah fuck you all right so eli this next one's for you cast would like a roast of creation but she would like you to do it as god oh Ooh, all right. Morgan, can you give me a bit of boomy voice here, please?

Whoa, what happened? Sorry, I was absolutely wasted. And oh, shit, what did I do? Is that a planet with people on it? Oh, fuck, I didn't even get rid of the eyeball parasites before I put them on there. Jim. Oh, I got to clean this up with some water oh

fuck a few of them survived and now they're fucking they're dead okay thank god think because you know there's going to be millions of them any second i got it i got it i got it i'll kill my own kid that'll make me feel better about what i did to me nailed it who wants a jello shot to celebrate, huh? All right, so, Tom, I'm going to have you bat a little cleanup for us here. Karen donated for us to roast her former co-worker Tammy way back in 2019, and somehow Eli's immaculate system missed it. So why don't you make it right for her here?

Way to go, Eli. Eli. All right, Tammy is described here as a boomer who refuses to learn any new computer skills. And I feel personally. Hey, Karen, if you stop to consider that, maybe it's not that Tammy refuses to learn new skills, but I mean, maybe she's just too stupid to learn. Maybe she's not capable, Karen. Maybe you ought to take it easy on Tammy. Consider it might be that Tammy feels the rising tide of panic tugging at her all the time. Maybe she can see progress rising and rising and she knows she can't swim and she's scared of even trying to tread that water. Maybe Tammy knows that the

world is moving at a pace she can't keep up with and that every day that she closes her eyes at night, she's closing her eyes on a world spinning outside of her control and outside of her ability to keep pace and she feels that water rising, Karen. Every day she's just struggling to fool one more person until the inevitable moment when she succumbs to the force of progress. She can never hope to understand and sinks finally choking on her ineptitude. I'm a little Tammy too.

Yeah. I mean, we're all a little bit Tammy. The best roasts come when you look on the inside, right? Tammy, here's the key. You got it.

You got to close one eye when you're falling asleep in the world, spinning outside of your control and you're too drunk. You get the spins like the existential spins, one eye at a time. There you go. All right. So it's time for all of us to pile on to our top donors for the fundraiser. I'm sorry, right? We're going to pile on their victims.

Well, you know what? It depends on the amount. We really can go either way with amount. If they hate puns, if they rank us for attractiveness. Who was number three? Who was number three? Do you really want to know who was three? I want to know who three was. We all know who it is. It's hurtful.

It's hurtful. I don't think we need to bring it up during Tom's roast and then search for roast number 163 on the document and then find it there. Oh, no. I don't like being second from last. That hurts a lot. It's alright.

Oh, is that hard for you, Tom? It is, Mr. Laugh. Is it hard to rank only above Eli? I don't like to be next to Eli at any rank. What are you kidding me? Keith, what's in the box? We all beat somebody. Well, almost all of us.

But we're moving on to other donors as well here. We have to roast Josh Hawley for Daniel and Ben, who kicked in the big bucks for the roast. All right. Josh Hawley's front part is trying to escape his fucking head i know he thinks he's going for the careless coif of the big boy mascot but it doesn't look like that josh it looks like your hair is seceding based on proximity to your brain and i don't blame it. Also, like, so every single picture I've ever seen of him or whenever I see him

on video or whatever, he looks like he's trying to actively grow a mustache. Right? He's straight in his lip muscles trying to push out some hair or just suck back the skin. He also,

according to his voting record, is the most pro-hate crime senator in american history and his record as missouri's ag does nothing to tarnish that reputation by the way okay so i stared at the picture for a while noah fucking figured it out josh hawley is trying so goddamn hard to actively grow his mustache like minute to minute that's what he's doing all the time i looked at multiple pictures of him. They all look like that. And when you do that,

when you try to actively really hard, grow your mustache, that means sometimes you shit yourself. Look at this goddamn picture. There is no other explanation. I'm looking at a guy who's like mustache, mustache, mustache way too hard hard and he shat himself and now he's like yeah but still worth it you know what still worth it i got a little bit of mustache going and i'm keeping this photo yeah because this photo that i pasted here

for you guys to look at oh my god is. It's from his website. Oh, this is his personal website. If there were congressman trading cards, this would be his picture on it. Yeah, this is his rookie card. There is 0% chance there is not shit in that suit that he's wearing right now. Josh Hawley

looks like a racist Frank Hardy on the cover of the Lost Tiki Torches of January 6th. Also like... A Hardy proud boy. Right. Also, he looks prolapsed.

Like if prolapsed could be a senator from Missouri. Okay. And I think it's very clear that it can. That senator would be Josh Hawley. Okay. In fairness, it might not be shit it can. That senator would be Josh Hawley. Okay. In fairness, it might not be shit. It might

be an anus. His anus. It can be both. It can be both. It's probably both. The benefit, though, Heath, is one day he's going to be on the shitter and he's going to be stressing and then pop a Hitler mustache. He's going to pop right up. Right. Boom. Just like right underneath his nose there. Tom Selleck.

Hawley very consciously closed his open hand to a fist when he raised fist saluted the January 6th treasonous shitheads on his way into Congress. He had a whole conversation with himself before he got out of the car. He practiced this for hours in the mirror.

Keep it closed. Keep it closed. Watch Dr. Strangelove. Yeah, you beat me to it. How dare you? Okay, all right. So I love this one. How about some choice words

for the very concept of standing for Josh? That's such a good pick. It is. Standing is the worst. It is balancing for no fucking reason. Right? We are the only species that evolved to do a thing that is a fucking circus trick for every species but ours. Bring back all four.

I'm with you, dude. You know what? Support. Yeah, what am I, a fucking soldier? I'm not going to... Standing is punishment, right? Standing is so bad that we had to invent leaning. Right.

There's no leaning for sitting. There's no meaning for lying down. Those are like those are the static positions that make fucking sense. Standing sucks so bad that we're like, all right, I'll do it. But this fucking wall is going to help, though. The worst part about standing is that your body eventually just starts resembling a letter.

It's never lowercase L either, by the way. It's a droopy B or a sad S. You start out great and then you wind up lazy penmanship. Absolutely.

Fuck standing. I'm really happy about this request. I am 40 years old. I have the posture of larry king at this point i have the posture of larry king trying to sit in lotus position and do a meditation that's me standing by the way i'm describing my standing posture and it's even worse if you're tall i bartended for a bunch of years i bartend 14 hours at a time with everything at goddamn knee level because that's where it goes. The end of the night, I look like a fucking question mark was melting.

Yeah, I read once that humans evolved to stand so we could look up above the grasses of the savanna and spot predators, which I think is complete bullshit. the grasses of the savannah and spot predators, which I think is complete bullshit. We clearly evolved to stand so the discs in our back could like sploosh out and press against our spinal nerves from being under constant unyielding pressure that we never properly evolved to avoid. Like spend one day standing in line at the grocery store

with the weight of your body, pressing on a nerve, exiting your spine. And you'll be like puss, p puss puss thing for lions to come eat you before you can clear the impulse all right so who's got something to say about christina's boss captain derrick oh derrick looked like he's trying to read his iq off the top of an eye chart and he's still failing this. He looks like straight Pete Buttigieg. Which means he has no idea how to dress

himself and it looks like he cut his hair with a weed whacker, man. What the fuck is up with his Flintstone-esque kid from a creepy Victorian photograph hairdo? And I don't know if this is just a picture or what but he very clearly has resting challenging defecation face yeah he looks like he wants a lot of milk in his life

but he never quite gets it because you know milk is hard milk is hard in the photo we got he was definitely having lots of trouble opening a milk somehow and then he noticed the person with the camera and he pretended he wasn't really frustrated with how little milk he was getting because he couldn't open the thing and he did a fake smile that's him that's what was happening there all right so molly tossed us 3500 and would like a roast of people who say yuck or gross about her pets and while we're at it we should also roast her dad phil as well oh i'm sorry i can barely stand to look at this scaly grotesque monster i mean the eyes alone they just they freak me out like

they just tell you this thing doesn't have a soul the lizards are cute though just not the dad lizards are adorable right i know a lot of people are down on you for your lizard pets and i'm not having fur but i think that if you started referring to them as your skin baby they would think you're talking about your dad or your scale baby yeah either or yeah okay i know it looks like we got a photo with the lizards and then a second photo with the dad, but I actually zoomed out of the second photo and that is a gecko on a rock.

That is what we're looking at. Yes, the gecko is disowning its lesbian daughter because it's an asshole bigot Morgan, but it's a gecko. It's a Mormon gecko.

Yeah. No, right. So speaking of it, your pets are fucking awesome. I'm guessing that given the chance, they'd save you a hell of a lot more

than 20% on your car insurance. But, okay, and I mean this for real. Your dad looks like something that Cuphead would fight. He looks like the byproduct of some bygone problematic era of animation. And we just overlook how shitty he looks out of politeness. What I'm saying is his appearance is a lot like his religious beliefs. Tom just googled Cuphead.

I literally just did. Did you hear me doing it? Tom just googled Cuphead. It's a video game, Tom. I want Tom to play Cuphead. I still don't know what it is because you called me out before I could surreptitiously read it. Here's our goal for next year. Tom will play the first level of Cuphead

on hard until he beats it. The fuck is Cuphead? I love that Tom wanted to surreptitiously learn about it, but he wouldn't type C-U-P-H-E-D by hand. He's like, I'm going to copy and paste with my mouse. I got a loud keyboard. There's no winning with you people.

We can see it. You can see your cursor. It got a loud keyboard. There's no winning with you people. There's no winning. You can see it. You can see your cursor. Is this cuffied? Is this cuffied? Okay, next time you send a picture of your dad to us, I'm really going to need you to tag that not safe for work. It doesn't have like nudity

or anything like that, but I just, I wanted to get flagged by my IT department when I try to write these roasts when I'm at work and I want the file destroyed for all of time. Your dad asked if you loved your husband enough to spend all of eternity with him, and at first, I was like, well, that's really offensive, but then I realized, like, if I woke up every day as your dad, I, too, would be dubious that anyone would want to spend 10 minutes with me, much less eternity. Seriously, fuck, your Mormon dad believes he's going to die and get his own planet.

And I fucking hope he's right. And all the immensity of interstellar space keeps his ugly fucking mug as far from you and me and everyone else with eyes as possible. Your dad's so ugly. All right. All right. So last but very far from least, our top donor for the second year in a row with a whopping $10,666 donation. Brutal. Amazing.

Brad and Lori. Ooh. With like a roast of Washington State Senator Doug Erickson. Ooh. Who died of COVID. So he died of COVID after they made the request it's so amazing but before we got to it yeah yeah your ten thousand dollars is a herman cane award so we're not gonna roast him the best that anyone's roasted him this year so i'd like to start with womp womp yeah i know that we've

joked occasionally on this show about how some donations to this fundraiser are killing people, my man. Oh, no. I just want to point out that the person our top donor wanted roasted is dead of the COVID he desperately tried to help spread. Am I a god?

Yes, I am a god. How do people not see this yet? You send me your prayers, I manifest them. Alpha and the omega and I was last in the attractiveness list and that's going to stay with me for such a long time. Nobody said you were last.

I was last. I know you checked. Now you've checked. I was last. I find you very attractive. Just a quick thing before we keep going. We actually just got a really big, like just now, a really big donation from listener Heath Schmenright, who wants a roast of Brett Kavanaugh right now.

So I'll see if I can work that in too. $10,667. Yeah, it was one more. And that's official. But first I'll do Doug Erickson, who kind of looks like Brett Kavanaugh, actually. Well, okay.

He used to look like Brett Kavanaugh. He used to look like a shitty white guy who didn't die of COVID yet. There you go. Eli, manifest, please. Well, whatever metaphor I was planning to use to describe him before,

he looks like that and a lot more dead. Yeah, I didn't imagine that. What I was going to say and then add dead to that. He's a Trump-supporting Republican that traveled to other countries to make sure their elections were secure. He's the hypocritiest hypocrite who ever hypocrited. That's all in the past tense because I'm not sure I mentioned it, but he's dead from covid because he's stupid so i just want to say those things he's championed

to covid all the way he's dead yes uh brett kavanaugh has covid it's just i'm looking i'm checking i'm googling something no one will notice so but to be fair to this motherfucker's hypocrisy. So one of the elections he oversaw was a phony election by a brutal authoritarian dictator that Erickson called, quote, very free, very fair. And quote, and the U.S. ambassador to the country called, quote, a fucking sham. All right. He just said a sham. He didn't say fucking. sham all right he just said oh shame he didn't say fuck and and the other one was so blatantly fraudulent that the incumbent president sent large military contingents to all the polling places to

shoot people who showed up to vote wrong and erickson called all that show of force quote reassuring and also he he always looks like they made the high school tennis coach teach civics again and he's trying to avoid admitting that he doesn't understand your question oh he does so they say you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead so I won't but I will roast his family

god damn hey Doug Erickson's widow Jesus Christ Tom they're fucking fine, Doug Erickson's widow. Jesus Christ, Tom. They're fucking fine. They're fine. God damn it, Tom. Hey, Doug Erickson's widow. Enjoy being a single mother for two kids because you chose to make a family with a guy who

ended his career stranded in El Salvador, dying of a disease he worked tirelessly to promote. Yes. Tonight, when you look at your children and their tear-streaked faces and your house feels too empty, remember that all of you are responsible for this. You helped make this happen. You enabled and supported it. And this pain and this loss, this has been replicated 800,000 times over.

And the man you chose to marry helped to make that happen. The terrible loss, the empty hollow sadness and confusion that keeps you up at night, that is exactly what your dumb fuck selfish husband wished upon the world and advocated for. So when you bury your children's father, I hope you remember that the way you feel now is the same way hundreds of thousands of other families have felt over the last two years. And I hope this loss stays with you, that it lingers and never fades at all. And that if you wonder, was there more that I could have done

that you always know the answer was yes. Oh God, I so want to end right there. I can't, right? I can't end the whole fundraiser right there, but I so want to, because that's the exact right. Yeah, exactly. Just sign off.

Brett Kavanaugh recovered, by the way. He got a win at the beginning of October. Fuck, first the fucking rankings, now Brett Kavanaugh? You're ruining my night, Heath! You're ruining my night! Maybe he got Delta, now he's going to get Omicron. He's a fucking dumb person. I bet that lady thinks I'm hotter than Brett Kavanaugh. I'm number three, and it's

Brett Kavanaugh. Fuck. Alright, well, I'll tell you what. Before we sign off for yet another year, I bet that lady thinks I'm hotter than Brett Kavanaugh. I'm number three and it's Brett Kavanaugh. Fuck. All right. Well, I'll tell you what. Before we sign off for yet another year, though Kyle Rittenhouse was admittedly our most hated person of the year, there was a type of person that drew even more ire and they've already come up recently. We received no less than 26 requests. Wow. To roast anti-maskers slash anti-vaxxers. And when it comes to a hatred that potent, we have no choice but to ask the one and only Anna Bosnick to write a song that properly expresses what a bunch of fucks these people are.

So without further ado, Anna. Whole anti-vaxxer. without further ado, Anna. You say you did your own research but you don't know what that means And so you think you know better than epidemiologists Do your conspiracy theories query me dearie shut your face You're putting others in a dangerous fucking place We're in trouble And morals just like you make it double So take a taste and show them up your throttle That's what you should do Cause you're the best

Alright dumbass Anti-vaxxer Stop repeating all those Lies Your shit is waxer And I hope your hamster dies Cause you think you're on Some new shit but it's all just in your Head and you're acting like a

Tiger who don't wanna go to bed You're making it harder than it has to be With all that pseudoscience. Stick. Just fuck the fuck up. Chuck and get that fucking pin. We're in trouble. And morals just like you make it double.

So take your takes and shove them up your butthole. That's what you should do. We're in trouble. Morals just like you make it double. So take your takes and shove them up your butthole. That's what you should do. Are we dumbass? amazing as always Anna thank you so much and of course as we wrap this up for 2021 I need to thank everybody who donated if you didn't get your roast read on air I'm so sorry but don't let that

dissuade you from trying again next year and of course Tom Cecil thanks so much for helping make this thing such a success thanks for for inviting us along, man. It's been a blast. It's a privilege, man. Before we drop our balls tonight, I want to thank you for all your support in 2021. I want to thank you for listening, and I want to thank you for the part that you play in giving me a reason to look forward to 2022. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but 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, The Skeptic Rat, debuting at 7 p.m. Eastern on Monday, and an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, they couldn't drop the ball in time square if I didn't

close out the year thanking Heath Enright for being such a winner that he 2021. I also want to thank Eli Bostic, who's a winner 2022. I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for not divorcing me over those last couple of puns. I want to thank Tom and Cecil for busting ass to help us get all of the Bulgarian for charity stuff done within the calendar year that it started. I also want to thank Anna for always elevating every episode she's on. I also want to thank Jody from Orlando for every episode she's on. I also want to thank Jody from Orlando for writing this week's Farnsworth quote, but most of all

of course I want to thank this week's best people Robert Alex Katzebegen, Wes EJ Turner, Connor, Christy, Silvershock Grant Breenen and help your lymphocytes and get vaccinated. Robert Alex Katzebegen and Wes EJ who are so sexy the ball in Times Square would drop early if they showed up. Turner, Connor

Christy and Silvershock whose IQs give years orders of magnitude envy. And Grant Breenen and Lymphocytes, who are hot enough to light a sparkler off of. Together, these 11 enviable emissaries of empiricism emphasize their endorsement of our enmity 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 away 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 thecom slash scathingatheist whereby you'll earn away 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 gestures at everything

you can also help a ton by leaving us a five-star review telling a friend about the show and following at P-A-A-T pod on Twitter. Legal services for this podcast are provided by Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robinson handles our social media and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode which was used with permission. If you have questions,

comments, or doubts, search to find all the contact info on the content page at skatingads.com. Did you get the Resident Evil remake yet? No, I can't handle scary games. That one is less scary. Just a heads up.

It's more of an action game, and it works really well in VR. There's zombies running at you. It's scary. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.