The Scathing Atheist - 504: Putting the Sus in Jesus Edition

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

In this week’s episode, we’ll admire Minnesota’s girthy, secular caucus, a Republican candidate for governor ranks the holocausts, and Heath will examine the age old question, “what’s that smell?” --- 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/ --- Headlines: LGBTQ Advocacy Group stages nationwide walk out at Christian colleges: https://religionnews.com/2022/10/10/students-across-the-country-to-walk-out-in-protest-of-discrimination-by-religious-schools/ MN lawmakers’ ‘Secular Government Caucus’ will combat Christian nationalism: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/mn-lawmakers-secular-government-caucus-will-combat-christian-nationalism/ GOP candidate for IL governor claimed rabbis agree that abortion is as bad as the Holocaust: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/gop-candidate-claimed-rabbis-agree-abortion-bad-holocaust-couldnt-name-one/ Texas mom says ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ will make you ‘fall victim to the schemes of hell’: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/christian-texas-mom-hocus-pocus-2-fall-victim-to-the-schemes-of-hell/ Youth Pastor gives out “I Heart Hot Youth Pastors” stickers to kids: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/pastor-who-gave-kids-i-%e2%9d%a4%ef%b8%8f-hot-youth-pastors-stickers-placed-on-leave/ Kanye West’s Instagram account restricted, tweet removed after posts slammed as antisemitic: https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-kanye-west-kicked-off-twitter-20221009-sxoy3oywkbcpjfvsvrsgnxl5ka-story.html --- This Week in Misogyny: Iran update: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/12/iran-hijab-law-protest-ali-larijani Jewish women abortion suit on religious grounds: https://religionnews.com/2022/10/07/3-jewish-women-file-suit-against-kentucky-abortion-bans-on-religious-grounds/

Warning, the following podcast is not safe for work, but that's more of a problem with work than with the podcast. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Allbirds, Stamps.com, and by the newest effort to save Facebook's flailing virtual reality division, Handjobs from Mark Zuckerberg. Handjobs from Mark Zuckerberg. They're not enthusiastic, but his hands are really soft. And now, The scathing atheist.

Hi, my name is Brooke from central Queensland, Australia. I had a wanted abortion, and now I am trying to get pregnant for a wanted baby. I am so grateful to live in this country with ready access to decide what to do with my body. And it is only when looking at the news in America when I realised that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey mammals. It's Thursday. It's October 13th. And it's the International Day for Failure. And they didn't even know about Marjorie Taylor Greene's divorce. I have no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Robert Menendez Jr.'s New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll admire Minnesota's girthy secular caucus. A Republican candidate for governor ranks the Holocaust.

Yep, yep. And Heath will examine the age old question. What's that smell? I will. But first, the diatribe. I only really watch broadcast television during football season, so every September I have this weird moment where I'm like, oh yeah, commercials.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I still encounter ads on YouTube and in some of the shit movies that we do over at GAM, but I don't watch them, right? I do what every other right-thinking person does. I take my headphones off and I look away so that the unskippable ads don't win. But I guess when I'm watching TV, I'm conditioned to just dutifully watch along with the ads. And it's because of that unfortunate tendency that I'm now so acquainted with the He Gets Us ad campaign. Now, we actually talked about this way back on episode 474 before the ads even started airing. But for those of you still blissfully unaware of them, let me ruin your bliss.

He Gets Us is a $100 million ad campaign that tries to rescue Jesus's image from the intolerance of his followers. In the words of John Lee, one of the chief architects of the ad, quote, Our goal is to give voice to the pent-up energy of like-minded Jesus followers, those who are in the pews and the ones that aren't, who are ready to reclaim the name of Jesus from those who abuse it to judge, harm, and divide people, end quote. Now, to find that message, though, you kind of have to read between the lines, because what the ads actually say is stuff like, see, Jesus also suffered from anxiety, or Jesus also hung out with lowlifes, just like you. It tries to present a relatable, relevant Jesus that was motivated by love rather than hate,

but it never comes out and says anything like, Jesus would have supported gay rights, or Jesus wouldn't judge you for who you marry, and therein lies the problem. The idea that Jesus is a cudgel for bigotry is so deeply woven into the fabric of modern Christianity that even an ad campaign designed to counteract it wouldn't dare repudiate it. Imagine the backlash if they did, right? Imagine if they spent $100 million running ads that said Jesus supports LGBTQ rights. Think about the white hot fury that we'd be reporting on. We'd have to put the Christian

freak out toss on a fucking loop. Hell hell i don't even know if those ads would be legal in the state of florida you might have to run them after 11 p.m so instead they run ads that says you know jesus roamed the hood and had a challenge authority and and jesus struggled to make ends meet less jesus isn't a homophobe and more jesus isn't just a homophobe and look i'm not reading tea leaves to get to their intentions. You read interviews with the guys behind this, or at least the non-anonymous ones, and they spell out exactly the problem

they're trying to counteract. They did a bunch of marketing research along the lines of, why aren't millennials and zennials going to church? And they found out that by and large, it's because they think of churches as hate groups. And rather than spending their $100 million tackling that problem,

they decided to go after the perception instead. Now, they defend this by appealing to right and proper Jesus, right? They say, hey, look, all we're trying to do is get him interested in Jesus. If we can do that, they'll look at his teachings and they'll see that Jesus wasn't about hate. Because somehow, despite all the wars of the Reformation standing as counterpoints, Christians continue to insist that if people objectively read the scriptures, they're all going to land on the same theological interpretation. But a truly objective reading of their book notices that both the hippy-dippy love thy neighbor Jesus and the subjugate women and hate gay people Jesus are there to be found. Now look, these ads don't point you towards a specific theology or a particular denomination. They just urge people to get into Jesus in a generic got milk kind of way.

That means that people spurred to action by these ads will get statistically average exposure to the different interpretations of Jesus' message. And based on what we know, especially those of us who did fucking marketing research about it with a nine-figure budget, that means that most of those affected viewers will get

a dose of bigotry. They'll get a anti-gay Jesus. What they're actually effectively promoting is whatever the culturally dominant version of their faith is, and the culturally dominant version of their faith includes a healthy dose of anti-LGBTQ bigotry. Consider the implications here, right? Their problem isn't that there's too much bigotry in their church. They're doing absolutely nothing to tackle that their problem is that there aren't enough people in their church and they're

willing to exacerbate the former problem if it means putting a dent in the latter one but make no mistake until their religion renounces hate at least enough that they can get away with running an ad that explicitly ties their faith to equal rights an advertisement for christianity amounts to a commercial for bigotry they're talking about joining me for headlines tonight are the faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive to my leaping tall buildings in a single bound heathen right in eli bosnick fellas are you ready to get heroic? Okay, I get what you're doing, but I just love to have more common sense regulations

on speeding bullets in society. It's just, it's a lot. I guess I'm saying that Superman is cancelled. He's cancelled. But I do appreciate the sentiment. Yeah, and I feel like more powerful than a steam engine doesn't have the same zip in the age of thermonuclear weapons, but it's fine. I get it.

Right. I just, I meant your equal ability to fuck up traffic. But while we try to think of something more complimentary that we can compare Eli's powerfulness to,

we're going to pause for a word from our first buzzer this week. All birds. Kanye West. Equal ability was generous. All right, Heath, you ready for the ad? Yeah, sure.

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but the shoes that Allbirds sells that are all weather, those are good for that. Oh, yeah? I heard they sent you a pair to try, Heath. Is that true? Yes. Yes, they did. Those shoes are

very comfortable, but they're also stylish. I actually bought a second pair, and I personally endorse it as a product. Sorry, you personally endorse what? Come on, man. You know what... Yeah, but the copy doesn't say the new all-weather shoe from Allbirds. It has a name. I feel like people need to

know what product we're recommending. Don't you? I mean, you could tell them. You tell them. Yeah, but my lines are the green ones. It's the wool Asher mizzle oh yeah okay yeah they're the wool dasher mizzles that's what the shoes are called and they're actually great this fall keep your feet cozy and dry with the allbirds wool dasher mizzles

discover your perfect pair at allbirds.com today that's a-l-L-B-I-R-D-S dot com. See? That wasn't so bad. Yeah. I guess not. I can't believe that he didn't just like puppet it. Just because I was standing here the whole time.

Oh my God, don't turn me into a tree again. Totally didn't turn you into a tree again. I feel like these ads are losing the thread a bit. You think? Be quiet.

You're turning into a tree. Stop it. And now, back to the headlines in our lead story tonight students at over 100 campuses nationwide staged a walkout on tuesday in solidarity with the ongoing and legally protected discrimination of lgbtq students and faculty at christian colleges and universities the walkout was organized by the religious exemptions accountability project and the black menaces and universities. The walkout was organized by the religious exemptions, accountability project and the black menaces and seeks to draw attention to the way religious schools hide behind title nine exemptions to insulate their

bigotry. Because last we forget virtually every civil rights law in this country has an, unless you're a religious institution clause, we have exceptions to civil rights. Like all of them. Yeah. What's happening? And the courts are hard at work expanding the definition of religious institution. So those exceptions are getting more and more dangerous every day. Okay. New rule. If you ever

use Title IX to justify bigotry, Gloria Steinem personally gets to beat the fuck out of you for 60 minutes on national TV yes make that happen congress make that happen I know okay the supreme court would obviously strike it down but it might take a couple days to get that preliminary injunction that's two days of Gloria Steinem going to hell especially if we started her at the supreme court oh yeah yeah have her ready now of course the first question. Oh, yeah. There you go. Right. Yeah. Have her ready. Now, of course, the first question on many of your minds when you hear this is probably some variation on why would you even go to a Christian college if you're LGBTQ? That's the one. Yeah.

Well, and I do. I get that question. But I feel like it ties back into the diatribe I did a couple of weeks ago about regionalism. A lot of these students don't have a choice. Right. Some of them want to go to mom and dad's alma mater or want to go to the school that their friends are going to or genuinely believe in all this Jesus bullshit.

Or maybe they just recognize that they can get a better education there than they can afford to get elsewhere or they have a scholarship or whatever. But regardless, it's their decision, not ours. And more importantly, the onus of change should be on the bigoted school, not the target of their bigotry. As Veronica Bonifacio-Pinalas, a student at Baylor, one of the lead organizers of the walkout, put it, quote, we shouldn't have to compromise where we go because they don't want to accept who we are. End quote. That's a valid point. That is a valid point. That is a valid point. But according to podcaster Eli Bosnick,

maybe not giving tens of thousands of dollars to bigots is more important than going to the same school as your mommy. No, no, there's an argument to be made. I'd love to see all these students just wise up, reject religion and starve these bigot schools to death for lack of tuition as well. But that's not realistically going to happen, right? Some amount of backing off of their bigotry might. The way that that progress happens in this country, to the extent that it happens at all, is that the secular parts get there first and then they eventually drag the religious parts.

They're kicking and screaming. Yes. Right. So the objection is to say interracial marriage were largely rooted or at least couched in religious dogma. largely rooted, or at least couched, in religious dogma. Secular courts struck those down, and over time the culture made it clear that religion needed to adapt or go extinct on that one, and largely they have. Right? For all their petulant denials of evolution,

eventually, begrudgingly, they evolve. Right. And crazy new laws that only last for a couple days. We need to belly-trap the shit out of this and have stuff ready. Yeah. Doing it. Exactly.

And in No Chado News. What? The nation's largest and most powerful secular government caucus with more than 24 members is forming in that liberal bastion of Minnesota. Oh, like, don't you know minnesota got it giving proof that idaho's little sister will always pleasantly surprise you when given the opportunity oh okay you're baffling understanding of u.s geography aside it's really depressing that the most powerful secular caucus is barely 10 of the legislature of america's 22nd largest state but i you know look i

it's i guess that's slightly less depressing than whatever depressing group held that title before so hurrah yeah so the caucus was started by four state representatives representative mike freeberg representative athena holland senator jane mckeown and senator john marnie with the stated goal of supporting a constitutionally grounded separation of church and state oh shit that's a great brand new idea you know what we should have done that as like a federal thing i don't know 230 years ago that would have oh my god right big oversight by us as a country yeah so and like i said it's been joined by 20 other state representatives so far because minnesota has also seen its share of christian bat shittery over the last few years as the members pointed out in their founding documents christian theocrats tried to put

in god we trust posters in schools last year and tried to cut the minnesota historical society's budget by four million dollars for inviting a speaker who said the founding fathers intended to create a secular government. Yeah, no, right. Like if anybody knows the dangers of letting Christians run your shit, it's the home state of Michelle Bachman. I get it. I get how they got there.

And with issues like that to tackle, there's every reason to believe that this secular government caucus will actually only grow from here. Senator McEwen was hopeful in an interview with our buddy Hemet Mehta over at the Friendly Atheist blog, telling him that she expected to see a lot of, quote, fresh faces in the coming year due to several retirements in the legislature. And hey, not for nothing, the fact that she was giving an interview to a blog with the word atheist in the title, that's really great news yeah absolutely i mean hemets chiron said god impaired this is for the viewer at home yeah and i point out this story not just because it's always nice

to report on good news for a change but also because as regular listeners to the diatribe will know there's been one or two hack job uh whatever happened to the atheist movement think pieces over the last couple of months and the answer to that question dishonest as it is is stuff like this right the the accomplishments of secular activism might not be flashy and they might not be as punishing to their enemies as the accomplishments of theocracy but they're there and that is always something to celebrate, even in Minnesota. And in first, they came for the blastocyst news. We have a follow up on a story from last week about Darren Bailey, the GOP state senator from Illinois who's running for governor.

He's the guy who started a private school called Full Armor Christian Academy that uses textbooks from the Bob Jones University Press, including lessons about the existence of women in the workforce, his fucking up the economy, and how dinosaurs and humans coexisted, and how evolution is a hoax, and how slave owners

actually treated their human property extra nicely, if you think about it and you read back. But enough about the opinions of Kanye West. We have a story about him later in the episode so here's the latest news he's a raging anti-semite yep but seriously enough about kanye we'll get there right now we're talking about darren bailey who claimed that abortion is tied with the holocaust in terms of severity and then tried to defend that claim by saying that

all his jewish leader friends can back him up on that yeah and not buying that but if he told me that some of his best friends were abortions i'd be inclined to hear him out on that well sure because they don't have a choice i'll see myself okay. So the absurd claim about the Holocaust originally happened in 2017 during a video that Darren Bailey posted on Facebook. And his opponent in this year's gubernatorial election, J.B. Pritzker, reminded us about that comment as part of a campaign ad

that was attacking all the horrible shit you need to know about Darren Bailey. In response to that ad, Bailey did a radio interview and said, this is an exact quote the jewish community themselves have told me that i'm right oh then most recently he got a follow-up question about the issue and he doubled down and he said jewish rabbis agree with me apparently he knows some gentile rabbis too but they you know they didn't want to weigh in on this he also added quote all the people at the k-bads that we met they said no you're actually right

again that's a real quote so um eli just you know correct that if it needs correction you have some knowledge of jewish culture what do the k-bads think about ranking abortion versus the holocaust and is it the k-bads is that correct yeah no it's kobolds is how it's actually yeah right like the the creature the dnd race yeah yeah i mean i wasn't at the last meeting uh because they won't do vegan baby blood no matter how many times i ask but i think i can speak on behalf of my born people that nobody named Darren can ever speak on behalf of my born people. Okay. Yeah, that's an official rule. And that brings us to the debate last week between Bailey and Pritzker.

The moderator said to Bailey, hey, just real quick, can you name a Jewish person who agrees with you about that abortion v. Holocaust ranking that you did? you about that abortion v holocaust ranking that you did and bailey responded by not at all answering the question and rambling about taxpayer-funded abortion in his head so then the moderator who is an american hero said yeah cool story so can you name a jewish person who agrees with you about the abortion v holocaust ranking that you did and bailey answered it's no follow-up question can you name a jewish person without adding a slur i'd rather not i'd rather i pass follow can you name a jewish i think we're done here yeah so let's just throw out one more reminder about the general rule that's at play here if you're about to say that blank was worse than the holocaust consider instead saying i'm gonna shut the fuck up smoke bomb dive through a pane of glass that you rolled out right next to you for no reason and then actually leave because

you're still in the room after that it's weird yeah fair all right so while we take a minute to really visualize darren bailey throwing himself through a pane of glass, we're going to pause for a word from our second sponsor this week, Stamps.com. Hey, podcast listener. You know, with our New York Christmas spectacular selling out in less than a week and only a few tickets left to see us at QED, we've never been more grateful for Stamps.com. We sure are. Why is that, guys?

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Okay. We're not actually going to send you a Vuvuzela. No, no, we're not. Really expensive. Yeah. Yeah. Quite a bit. Okay. We're not actually going to send you a food. No, no, we're not really expensive. There it is. A man wrote the Bible. A horse.

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Well, since last time we talked, it doesn't look like the intensity of the hijab protests in Iran have changed much. Or actually, let me clarify. It doesn't look like the intensity of the good guy's side has changed much. Women are still taken to the streets a month later. On the bad guy's side, though, we've seen a steady increase in intensity. The Iran Human Rights Center, based in Oslo, estimates over 200 deaths.

Human Rights Center, based in Oslo, estimates over 200 deaths. And unfortunately, none of those are cases of women wrapping flaming hijabs around members of the state morality police. But at the same time, we're also starting to see the first cracks in the Iranian government's armor. Former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larajani, a man The Guardian calls, quote, an impeccable establishment figure, end quote, has called for restraint and urged a rethinking of hijab requirements. Of course, that was in stark opposition to the message of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been uncompromising in his opposition to the protesters' demands. Now, granted, Supreme Leader is significantly

more powerful than former Speaker of Parliament. I mean, it's supreme leader, so it's more powerful than any position, formal or otherwise. But it means a lot that there is a clear conflict on the right way forward. In a state as repressive as Iran, just the fact that the political elites are discussing the matter, even to say no, is a big win and a move in the right direction. And I should emphasize here that it isn't just a matter of massive protests undermining the authority of the state. A lot of businesses have closed in solidarity with the protesters, and the government has been blacking out the internet in an effort to stop the protesters from organizing.

So this protest is really starting to impact the entire national economy in a way that the leaders can't ignore. So, you know, power to all involved, and if y'all need me to set anything on fire in solidarity, you just let me know. Of course, protests against institutionalized misogyny in the states are lower key for now, but they're still noteworthy. I was happy to see a nice little jujitsu lawsuit by three Jewish women in Kentucky trying to use the Supreme Court's weaponized version of religious freedom against them. By their reckoning,

since Jewish law supports reproductive rights, and pretty much always has, they have a religious right to abortion excess. And this marks at least a third similar suit filed by a Jewish group since the Dobbs decision took that right away. Now, I don't expect that they'll prevail. One of the weaselly ways the

Supreme Court justified their overturning Roy v. Wade was by pretending that the opposition wasn't religiously motivated. But it may force the courts to highlight their own hypocrisy yet again by issuing another ruling admitting that the ever-expanding version of religious liberty that's so important to them in cases about school funding, course of prayer, and public monuments only counts when the religion is christian and look regardless the idea that life begins at conception is a purely religious belief the only way to get there is through faith because it sure as hell isn't supported by science so regardless of what the court's willing to admit the constitutional amendment kentuckians are set to enact next

month which is entirely based on that religious belief, is a case of Christian privilege. So the lawsuit kind of highlights that hypocrisy one way or the other. And with those slightly positive stories amid such a negative background, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in Jocus Focus news, Halloween is just around the corner and you know what that means. Yeah. Anna? What are the guys talking

about? It's the newest, the greatest Christian freakout. That's right. Tis the season for Christians to lose their minds over plastic witches, foam bones, and fentanyl-laced Smarties. And while I'm sure this is only the first of many Halloween-related freakouts

we'll report on until the big day comes up, it's a good one because this week a Christian mom took to the book of many faces and then the fucking local news to warn her fellow mamas that Hocus Pocus, too, is, quote, based on harvesting the purity of children's souls so that witches may live on end quotes.

Yeah. So again she got interviewed by a TV station because of this dumb ass Facebook post she made and you gotta be sure that it took so many takes of her starting to talk during that interview and a producer being like hop you said jews again the line is witches you're always saying which is

there yeah so the mama maron question is one jamie gooch who let's be honest based on her name alone was forced to become a humorless shroom just out of survival instinct right she had no choice and she had the following to say about the new film quote mamas i feel a strong conviction to share a word with you oh i feel like she says that a lot right as mothers and wives we are the gatekeepers of our homes meaning whatever we allow in has a rightful place to reside and grow there because we have given it permission whether good or bad fruitful or rotten fruitful or rotten okay i mean i too buy lettuce and let it go bad in the bottom drawer so yeah i know i get it totally get it okay but for reals the odds of something non-stupid following that setup zero or below yep zero or below that is correct she continues with the release of hocus

pocus 2 coming up i would be wrong not to sound the alarm and warn you to protect your children after all the whole movie is based on harvesting the purity of children's souls so that witches may live on witches live on the purity of the soul yeah apparently okay so if you harvest like a shitty kid it doesn't help shitty probably okay noted hocus pocus by definition means meaningless talk or activity often designed to draw attention away from and disguise what is actually happening what's actually happening when we watch these films? What are we subjecting our minds to? What are we welcoming into the homes of our families? Yeah. And speaking of which, I heard that abortion is actually worse than the Holocaust. Cut. Nope. OK, I was just based on what we've heard of this post.

If I had to guess what you were welcoming into your home with your family, I would say an MLM sales rep. Right. Yeah, that's fair she continues it seems silly right that you would need to consider what is coming through your tv screen it does seem silly nailed it you nailed it it seems innocent until it's not i'll try to be brave you have failed miserably lady please hear me when i tell you the truth that the witches and warlocks in the satanic church abuse and sacrifice children in their spiritual rituals to gain more power in the underworld okay that's all insane obviously but my favorite part is during the tv interview when somebody asked i guess hey so what do you think is the worst case scenario? And she goes, a worst case

scenario is you unleash hell on your kids. So there you go. Those are the stakes. She's setting it up. She concludes her Facebook post, quote, so before you hit play on the night of the premiere

of this movie, please ask yourself if not only your mind but your children's minds are strong enough to ward off the hypnotization and bewitching trance that will be coming through the screen to aid in the desensitization of the coming evil in this world i'll ask uh the answer is definitely yes but i'll ask if you want. Yeah. Don't fall victim to the schemes of hell. I can't promise you much, Gooch, but. I say all of this because I, this raises so many questions.

This next sentence, I have so many follow-ups. I say all this because I, too, have fallen into the trap a time or two. Interesting. And the spiritual warfare I had to endure because of my own ignorance, I wish on no one. Awaken and rise up. I'm doing the real quote, by the way, podcast listener.

In case you think I'm not quoting, I'm still quoting. Awaken and rise up, mamas. There's a war being waged on our homes and we are the gatekeepers. End quote. I think that's the dramatic reading she would have wanted to be honest absolutely the inflection of her no me and the gooch are in touch yeah gooch and did youth or dare news tonight gooch or dare a youth pastor in south carolina was placed on administrative leave after multiple instances of engaging in

groomer-like behavior with the teenagers in his care. And you know what that means? Crickets? That's right, not a goddamn thing from the Christians who can't shut the fuck up about the dangers of groomers every time a public school teacher acknowledges the existence of gayness. When Corey Wall, the student pastor at Fairview Baptist Church in Greer, South Carolina, got called out for giving out I Heart Hot Youth Pastors stickers to teenage girls. And this is, by the way, after being confronted about inappropriately sharing details of his porn addiction with those same children this past summer. Yikes. All right. Well, he's going to need a lawyer.

I hear Alex Jones has a pretty good team actually definitely won't share your browser history or any other important details so check it out i just love that he was hoping to groom children via bumper sticker right like he'd be trying to put a move over on one of them and he'd be like whoa whoa whoa is your bumper sticker a liar or not because so yeah so this story first broke when somebody posted a picture of the sticker online, along with concerns about a, you know, 35 year old man giving it to her 14 year old sister. The sticker. Yeah. Hopefully the sticker.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Giving the sticker. Thank you. Fuck. Both the pastor and the church have since confirmed the story and offered up damned insufficient apologies. Wall claimed that it was a joke that, quote,

was meant to poke fun at the I love hot mom culture, end quote. What? Yeah, that's not a thing. That's a t-shirt, not a culture. So his excuse amounted to, it's like the sexist thing, but with pedophilia. Guys, guys, relax. It's just a bit of I'm with stupid appropriation. I'm just making a cultural reference. and the church didn't do much better apologizing only for distributing a sticker that

was quote offensive to some end quote not horribly inappropriate or problematic in hindsight just offensive to some as though the real problem were the prudes that couldn't see the obvious hilarity of a middle-aged man telling tweens how sexy he was. Okay, if you're going to say that, I'm going to need a list of people who are not offended that you're aware of that exist. Yes. It has come to our attention that a

small yet vocal minority here don't want to get in these jeans. And as the moral leadership of your family, we accept your prudery. And apparently, by the way, this isn't his first offense. In one of the church's responses

that was shared online, they also referenced the time last summer when Corey worried parents by sharing details of his porn addiction. And they dismissed this concern by pointing out that he wasn't talking about now. He was talking about back when he was in college. For reals, that's their excuse.

They do admit, though, that those details, quote, should not have been shared with the students until he made parents aware of the topic and explained the context of why he would share it. End quote. That's a weird permission slip. Yeah. No, you see, Dave was really smushing his s'mores together right and i was like oh shit you know what this reminds me of right yes now for their part the church is placed while on administrative leave pending an investigation into the matter but what the fuck are they gonna investigate right he very clearly did the thing he acknowledges that he did the thing and they acknowledge that he acknowledged that he did the thing.

They haven't committed to any kind of additional training or any guarantee that he won't be working with kids in the future or anything like that. And considering that Fairview Baptist is a member of the SBC, which is currently under federal investigation for inadequate responses to sex abuse. I feel like the concern they won't do enough is pretty fucking justified yep sure is and finally tonight i'm so excited in what would jesus do news christian right bigots aren't even good at being anti-semitic anymore okay sorry no i get that's a weird note that's a weird i'm not like rooting for neo-nazis to become extra clever all of a sudden that's not a problem for me i'm just saying like the kids in my all-white super catholic middle school in upstate new york had better material heath can i uh speak to you over in this corner yeah this is a weird intro

just stay with me i'm'm going to get there. One of the most prominent Christian right bigots is Kanye West. There we go. I get he's a member of the most oppressed minority in our nation's history. But I feel like he's really bad at understanding what that means and what you should do next with that. Because for him, what that means is supporting Donald Trump and saying slavery was a choice. I don't even know what the fuck he was talking about. He said that, though, and starting a Christian school asterisk that requires a non-disclosure agreement to attend it. It's not accredited, by the way.

Also, that's why I say asterisk. most recently it means posting some wildly anti-semitic comments on social media that clearly alluded to a globalist jewish conspiracy against him that he is sure is happening right so and we'll get to the story in a second but listener if you would like the original script where heath includes examples of the better material from his middle school we will sell it to you for the low low price of all the money we would otherwise have made by continuing to do this podcast. Yeah, yeah. In Heath's defense, the song lyrics, very catchy. They were. It's been in my head

ever since. Yeah. It's mostly just repeating a slur whenever the other person starts talking again. They make it into a song sometimes. It's just not good. It's not good. So first of all... I wasn't asking for the examples, Heath. I didn't say it. Legally, we're saving this audio for the court he did not say you were there podcast let's all right

so let's all agree that if there's a globalist conspiracy by jewish illuminati against kanye west personally they're not very good at being Illuminati. They're like shitty Illuminati. He's a billionaire and one of the most famous people in the history of the world. Setting that aside, here's what Kanye said. I'll start with a post that was recently removed by Instagram for violating their policy

against, you know, just generally being a neo-Nazi on their thing. Kanye posted a screenshot of a text conversation with fellow rapper diddy in which kanye said he would use diddy as an example quote to show the jewish people who told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me end quote but did he text or no people can threaten you you can't do anything look i want to eat all your pie, Kanye. There's nothing that you can do to prevent that. Kanye, Kanye, on behalf of my people,

for the second time this episode, if we want to send someone to destroy you, you are doing awesome, man. We don't need outside. Why hire a contractor? You know what I'm saying? Just to be clear, in Kanye's head head diddy picked up a phone call and on the other end somebody presumably in eli's jewish voice from bible peace theater said yeah

hi this is the jews on the line we need you to get in touch with kanye and make him do our bidding just be cool about it thanks and those thoughts in kanye's head led to another post this time on twitter saying i'm gonna go death con 3 on jewish people and sick big sick there just a reminder it's death con yeah death con and level 3 is medium it is level 5 is the lowest and level one is the most extreme so assuming he wasn't making a direct murder threat about death con which is not clear no but giving him the benefit of the doubt on that at best kanye was saying that he's increasing his military readiness above normal or basically at normal above a little bit. Yeah. Because he's anticipating a geopolitical conflict between him and Jewish people as a group. Right.

Yes. And he's also given what I have to imagine is a pretty cool goth convention, a bad name. Right. I tried to Google if death con was a real con and all that came up was fucking stories about this shit. So like imagine if you're trying to sell tickets right now. Oh, the worst. Of course. fucking stories about this shit so that like imagine if you're trying to sell tickets right now oh it's the worst of course so that post got removed as well by twitter this time and the part i just mentioned already bad enough but the tweet also described a jewish agenda that's working to destroy him along with the following this is an exact quote the funny thing is i actually can't be anti-semitic because black people are actually

jew also once again sick ah yes the guys who yell at people while dressed like ninjas outside the new york city subway defense so i think he was accidentally describing his personal understanding of intersectionality, maybe. But somehow he landed on, none of my best friends are Jewish. Okay, but no, no, but technically I'm Jewish and I'm friends with me. Nailed it. Can't be anti-Semitic. Yes. Intersectionality.

I understand it. Two other quick details. Kanye wore a White Lives Matter t-shirt during an event at Paris Fashion Week. Not great. Cool. And then he went on Tucker Carlson's show to discuss that. Kanye wore a White Lives Matter t-shirt during an event at Paris Fashion Week. Not great. Cool. And then he went on Tucker Carlson's show to discuss that. And at some point, Kanye said, approximate quote,

yeah, speaking of White Lives Mattering, let's talk about Jared Kushner. He worked on the Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain just for the money. Typical. Clearly what was being implied. Yeah. Anytime the revelation is still getting worse after went on Tucker Carlson show, you know, shit's gotten bad.

Fun fact, even though Tucker didn't air it in that interview, Kanye also accused people in his life of planting fake children to hang out with his children to sexualize them. What? Yeah. Thank you, Tucker Carlson, for some good editing. This is a weird story where I'm saying things like that. There's a lot of stuff going on here. So obviously, this whole series of anti-Semitic messaging, highly offensive. But more than anything else, and the Tucker Carlson thing I just mentioned, I'm angry about the Jared Kushner part. Because don't make me defend Jared Kushner either.

Fuck you. Right, yeah. Kushner probably was doing something nefarious. I don't know. That's always going to be my assumption about Jared Kushner. But it's not because he's a Jewish lizard alien or just Jewish in general. You're hating Jared Kushner wrong, and it's really not that hard to do it correctly. Come on. Fuck. All right, and on that note note we're going to close out the headlines heath eli thanks as always globalist manji and when we come back woo merchants will try to cover up the smell

of their bullshit with lavender oil one of the facts that continuously bedevils the rationalist is that while there may be a limited number of ways to achieve any given outcome, there are an infinite number of ways to pretend to achieve it, which is why we're going to never run out of topics for How Bullshit Is It? So tell us, Heath, what defecatory delusion did you bring for us today today we're going to be talking about aromatherapy oh good so we started the alphabet over we did yes all right all right so what is aromatherapy it's the idea that you can cure disease with smells oh all right but isn't that like right on the nose isn't that the classical example of dumb shit they thought back in the days of the bubonic plague? It is, yes. But unlike real medicine, alternative medicine practitioners generally see antiquity as a good thing.

So the fact that the whole concept was considered cutting-edge medicine in the 14th century, it's both strong evidence that it's definitely wrong and that it's a great selling point for these people. The prevailing theory back in the 1300s was that disease was caused by bad air, which isn't entirely wrong,

and that you could cure or prevent disease by chasing off the bad air with strong smells, which is entirely wrong. Okay, but it would explain why I've never gotten COVID, right? My secret, always eating a Cinnabon. It also sounds like something Herschel Walker would say, yeah.

So back then, they didn't really distinguish between good and bad smells for these purposes. We usually think of, you know, the pocket full of posies or the huge reservoir of incense in the plague doctor masks as ways to mask the smell of corpses. But in reality, people held flowers to their face because they thought it would fumigate their lungs. They also used strong smells to fumigate their homes and even their streets.

And while the image of the latter in the public consciousness is usually of strong offensive odors in the streets you have to consider that we're talking about the streets of 14th century towns basically you were covering up the smell of drunkard urine and horse shit so i doubt anything they were burning smelled worse than the air they were trying to chase off i mean we all used to live in new york city heath we get right, exactly. Alright, so I doubt very seriously that today's aromatherapists tie their practice to like plague prevention in medieval Europe. So where did they start

the story? Much earlier. The use of therapeutic smells goes as far back as written history and then some. Incense has been used in religious rituals for millennia, and the distinction between medical and spiritual use is pretty recent so aromatherapists will point out that ancient egyptians were using smells

therapeutically in 2500 bc and that you can find similar practices all over the world which is true and as your recent pardon from joe biden confirms a lot of medicines can be inhaled through their smoke. So if the incense you're burning happens to be, say, cannabis or opium, there actually is a therapeutic effect. It just doesn't come from the smell. Yeah. I just like the smell is the I'm just reading the articles of opium. Right. It does smell fantastic.

Okay. So when we talk about aromatherapy, we're obviously not talking about smoking opium. You weren't. It does smell great. Yeah. So, okay, so how do aromatherapists distinguish between what they do and the use of oils or inhalants for other therapeutic purposes? Well, to whatever degree possible, they don't. When you point out, for example, that there's no good medical evidence that aromatherapy can prevent or cure any disease, aromatherapy's best defense is to blur the lines between aromatherapy and some legitimate medical practice.

So it's really hard to draw a dividing line that all aromatherapists would agree on. Oh, how purposely deceptive. Yeah, we're just getting warmed up. Okay, so setting aside this bullshit appeal to antiquity that they used to justify their existence, where does the history of aromatherapy really start? Well, the term aromatherapy first appears in a French book from 1937 called Aromatherapie Les Huiles Essentielles Hormones Vegetales by René-Maurice Gatfossé, a chemist who claimed he cured a severe burn on his hand with lavender oil.

Okay, but by like, by smelling the lavender oil? As far as I can tell, yes. But it's tricky because aromatherapists like to tie in topical application of oils into their thing without telling you. So it may also be that he just rubbed lavender oil on his burn. Well, but so how can applying an oil topically be considered aromatherapy? Because you can still smell it. Really?

Really, yeah. Okay, now I'm picturing a very different version of the scene from Fight Club with the chemical burn. In this hand I have I have lavender oil. All right. So what does aromatherapy do? Well, according to resources like Johns Hopkins, WebMD, the Cleveland Clinic, aromatherapy can reduce anxiety, improve sleep, and help you relax. I see.

I see. But what does BoomBoomNaturals.com think, Keith? Good question, Eli. help you relax i see i see but what does boom boom naturals.com according good great question eli according to boom boom naturals.com i guess you have that bookmark too great yep next to yik yak they can boost energy reduce pain and balance your hormone levels what and depending on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go you can find aromatherapists claiming that it can prevent colds, treat burns, eliminate varicose veins, and reduce the symptoms of cancer. Huh! There's also the omnipresent and ultimately meaningless assertion that it can boost your immune system. And you'll find that claim pretty much everywhere with a financial interest in

selling essential oils okay so i i apologize if this is a stupid question but what exactly is an essential oil it's an oil you just can't do without sorry heath him and his questions well according to wikipedia an essential oil is quote a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile chemical compounds from plants. So basically, it's the distilled smell of a plant suspended in an oil. Incidentally, the essential in the name refers to the fact that it contains the plant's essence, not in the sense of it being indispensable as an oil. Gotcha. Okay.

So, and how are they used in aromatherapy? Well, since it's mostly bullshit, there's no one answer to that. Typically they're put into a nebulizer or diffuser, but they can also be infused in candles or incense, stuff like that. But they're not always burned. Sometimes they're just used topically, like in a massage. Wait, let

me guess. Then they say that aromatherapy works because people feel more relaxed after that massage? Because the massage is relaxing. That is one of the ways they justify the existence of this stuff yes and yet noah wouldn't let heath and i go to a spa for massages and mani pedis to investigate for ourselves coincidence all right so is all their evidence that dubious or is there legitimate evidence for its efficacy well to be honest that's trickier to answer than it usually is on these segments. Because if you think about it, it's hard to design an essential oil placebo for double blind testing.

The whole point of it is that you have to be able to smell the thing. So you can't have a control group that smells the same thing, but without the active ingredient. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. but without the active ingredient. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. You can use the same carrier oil and just put in a different but similarly pleasant scent and check the differences between the two. But generally speaking, aromatherapists don't do that.

Despite the fact that aromatherapy is something like a $20 billion a year industry, there's remarkably little in the way of high quality studies. Most of the studies just use a no aroma or no treatment control group, which basically guarantees a study is going to have a positive result, especially when you're testing subjective things like relaxation and pain being self-reported. Steven Novella described the state of the research as follows on the science-based medicine blog. Quote, all the individual studies I found had serious methodological flaws.

Few are double blind, some are single blind, and most are unblinded. The better designed studies tend to have mixed results and reek of pee hacking. End quote. Okay, sorry.

Like, for the listener's sake, what does it mean that they reek of pee hacking? Well, Noah, that's what's known as the forbidden aromatherapy. And it all starts with some lightly grilled asparagus.

Nope. Nope. He cites one study on whether Rosa Damasquena Mill, Damascus Rose, is effective in treating migraine headache pain. And this is one of the rare ones that's actually double-blinded. The results of the study are negative. There was no difference in the

outcomes for people using Damascus Rose oil versus people using the placebo oil, but they do note a difference in hot type of migraines versus cold type of migraines. What does that mean? Go fuck yourself. The study has no idea what that means. And neither does Steven Novella, which is kind of interesting considering that's literally his area of medical expertise. All right. So murder. Is that all there is in terms of research? Well, he also talks about several systematic reviews that put essential oils against various types of pain and not a single one crosses the threshold of evidence where you can definitively

show that something works. Basically, they fare as well as acupuncture. So don't work okay so this is a pretty weak defense but since i'm the one playing devil's advocate i kind of have to throw it out there anyway just because the studies are poorly designed doesn't mean there's no effect to find right like if your starting point is that big pharma hates essential oils because they you know whatever they can't put a patent on lab or enduro oil or whatever the fucking scam people claim you could argue that the reason that you aren't getting good studies is because the best medical research facilities

are ignoring the powers of aromatherapy yeah and that's a good argument because i don't know if you guys know this nobody's selling essential oil yeah nobody's making any money off this shit well to be clear the fact that we don't see good studies doesn't mean they don't exist. Generally speaking, the people funding this research are the people who stand to make the most money from positive results. With alternative medicine modalities, you also have the added ideological motives. So even when you remove the profit motive, you're usually dealing with people or labs that really want alternative medicines to work. And they really want to prove it. But when you review the evidence for something like this, you're not looking at all the studies. or labs that really want alternative medicines to work, and they really want to prove it.

But when you review the evidence for something like this, you're not looking at all the studies. You're just looking at the ones that were good enough to publish. When you see something as widely used as aromatherapy and all the studies out there have poor methodology or unconvincing results, you have to assume that there's a huge pile of negative results sitting in shreds in the sub-basement of goop somewhere.

Right. God, I hope that's the only thing that's in shreds in the basement of goop. That's the best case scenario. These shreds smell like my vagina. And even setting aside the file drawer effect, which is the term for the tendency of negative studies to wind up unpublished, you also have to look at what claims they're testing. I mean, according to the aromatherapists, they've got a whole branch of medicine at their disposal, and yet we don't see tests where you can expect objective results. In other words, they're testing questions like, how relaxed are you? How stressed aren't you?

And how did you sleep? They're not testing things things like is the tumor in remission or right do you still have varicose veins invariably when it comes to these kinds of concrete claims there's no available research at all all right well but as minor as those might be like reducing stress and helping people relax does have medicinal value sure yeah but that doesn't make the stuff that does that medicine laughing reduces stress and helps people relax that doesn't make the stuff that does that medicine. Laughing reduces stress and helps people relax, but that doesn't mean we're doing podcast therapy right now if we tell a joke and somebody laughs. Or are we? I'm buying a laptop.

Yeah, we're charging a hell of a lot more. All right, but even if it can only moderately reduce your stress or help you relax and it has no risks, then ultimately it is a net benefit, right? Well, if it had no risks, sure, but that is not the case. For example, people who think they can cure or treat real illnesses with rose-scented oils are more likely to skip or delay real medical care. Right. I even found a story about an ambulance service that was using essential oils as their go-to for minor

pain. The article said they'd use liquid Tylenol if that was not effective, but it means people who were in at least enough pain to call a fucking ambulance had to wait long enough to prove to the EMT that the placebo stupid fucking oil wasn't working and then get real

medicine. Right? right wow can you think of a scenario more terrifying than climbing into an ambulance at what may be a crippling cost to you and your loved ones and the guy's like so do we try this rose oil first we really god i'm ducking and rolling immediately nope can't charge. Maybe that pumps up your adrenaline enough in pure rage that takes away some of the pain. I don't know. Rose oil gives people Hulk strength.

So there's also the problem that this whole thing is poorly regulated, which means you don't always get what the package says in the amount the package claims. And that can be a pretty severe problem when you consider that the essences at the heart of the thing are plant derivatives, and lots of plants can be dangerous, especially when they're so poorly regulated that the potential allergens listed on the box might not be the only ones in there.

But even setting aside allergies, there's at least as much evidence that these highly concentrated oils can irritate your skin as there is that they can improve your relaxation. And irritated skin is a much more subjective thing to measure. And since there's so little regulation, again, you also don't know what kinds of herbicides were used on these plants that the essences were taken from. Okay. So does that mean that like with better regulation, aromatherapy would be safe? So does that mean that like with better regulation, aromatherapy would be safe? Not necessarily. Many essential oils can be toxic to domestic animals, especially cats.

And at high enough levels, they can be toxic to humans as well. There are multiple reports of exposure to essential oils in prepubescent boys causing gynecomastia, which is abnormal non-cancerous enlargement of one or both breasts. So maybe that's what boomboomnatural.com meant by balancing hormones. I don't know. When it hits both breasts, it's balanced. Now, those reports are heavily disputed, but they're heavily disputed by the manufacturers of essential oils and, of course, the trade organizations for their suppliers. So, you know, take that however you want.

I mean, Heath, I have seen your childhood photos. I guess my question is, did your mom have essential oils? Because I'm feeling like cereal season four right now, buddy. Probably. So they can also be extremely toxic when taken internally. To be fair, in defense of aromatherapy, I don't like saying that, but that's not how they tell you to take the oil. They don't say do it internally. But according to Wikipedia, quote, doses as low as two milliliters have been reported to cause

clinically significant symptoms and severe poisoning can occur after ingestion of as little as four milliliters. So if they're not really effective in treating anything, it's just an extra poison that you're keeping in your home. Wow. No, that's a good point. So is that all? Well, okay. I have a bit of an extreme example, but last year, an aromatherapy spray had to be recalled after it was found to be contaminated with Burkholderia pseudomallei, which is the bacteria that causes melioidosis. That contamination led to four cases of the disease and two deaths from it. So the worst case scenario is the pretty fucking worst case scenario.

All right. Well, I suppose the only question left to ask is, How bullshit is it? Okay, it's such bullshit that it's literally tied with sniffing actual bullshit in terms of medicinal value. No, it is, though. It is, yeah. All right. Well, on that note, and with the risk of using the echo, I think two times too close together,

I suppose our temporary duty as intellectual Febreze is done for the day, but we'll be back with even more nonsense on the next installment of... How Bullshit Is It? Before we power down tonight, I want to remind you that our annual fundraiser, Vulgarity for Charity, is right around the corner. It starts at the beginning of next month. So, you know, start thinking about who you want insulted and stay tuned here for more details coming soon. 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 able to look out for a brand new episode of our sister shows, Hot Friend Godolphin Movies,

debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday and a new episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, it wouldn't be a real episode if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for always giving 100%, Eli Bosnick for always giving 110% since he's worse at math, and Lucinda Lusions for always giving 120% because she's not bound by mathematical limitations. I also want to thank Brooke from Australia for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. And congratulations on not being American. By the way, no need to rub it in, but congratulations nonetheless. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people.

Peter, Yonan, Allison, Dave, Cal, N. Sallowage, Nick, Joshua, Vocal Anesthesia, Marshall, Sam and Keith, David, Justice, Heath Enrights, Husband Scott, Mr. Melkor, and Angie. Peter, Yonan, Allison, Dave, Cal, and N, who are so bright explosions need to shield their eyes to look at them. Nick, Joshua, Anesthesia, Marshall, Sam, and Keith, whose synapses are so busy they need crossing guards. And David, Justice, Heath's hubby, Scott, Mr. Melkor, and Angie, who are so sexy one million moms wants them banned. Together, these 17 savory, secular, sustained-r-sacrilegious screeds this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some to us, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com.

And if you'd like to help, but not in a having-few-or-dollars kind of way, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following at P-I-A-T-Pod on Twitter. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robertson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats,

you can find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com. no i want one that turns his text green when he sends it to me from a fucking iphone oh okay yeah let's double down. There's more of us. The problem is that these sneetches don't have stars. That's the problem. This is the sneetches just waiting to happen. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.