The Scathing Atheist - 516: De-Pope-ulated Edition

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

In this week’s episode, there’s Norway Forward for Witnesses of Jehovah, the death of the ex-pope sets off a Rube Goldberg device of slapstick magic rituals, and Heath will end another day tied with Kevin McCarthy in terms of being the Speaker of the House. --- 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: Pew story on religious makeup of 118th congress discussed in the diatribe: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/01/03/faith-on-the-hill-2023/ Nazi pope is dead and the Catholic papal death rituals are ABSURD: https://www.reuters.com/world/rituals-benedicts-passing-could-be-template-future-ex-popes-2022-12-30/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hammer-time/ https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/3515/ancient-tradition-for-confirming-popes-death https://weirdcatholic.com/2019/02/14/are-dead-popes-still-hit-on-the-head-with-a-hammer/ New York Times opinion piece is stupid and I hate it: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/01/opinion/soul-resolutions-new-year.html Greg Locke claims Andrew Tate was arrested for denying climate change: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/greg-locke-andrew-tate-arrested-climate-change-greta-thunberg/ Kirk Cameron is still telling lies to boost sales of his new Christian book: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/kirk-cameron-is-still-telling-lies-to-boost-sales-of-his-new-christian-book/

Warning, this week's episode is mostly profanity. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by Honey, Allbirds, Stamps.com, and by our unhealthy psychological need to bask in the approval of strangers. And now, The Skating Atheist. We're here in Birmingham, Alabama, and Abby has something she thinks you should know. We did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's January 5th. And it's National Screenwriters Day.

Yeah, we're not going to read your screenplay, but we do support you. Unless it's about your ex. Unless it's about your ex, exactly. I'm Noah Lusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from George Clinton's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist.

On this week's episode, there's Norway forward for witnesses of Jehovah. The death of the ex-pope sets off a Rube Goldberg device of slapstick magical rituals. And Heath will end another day tied with Kevin McCarthy in terms of being Speaker of the House. But first, the diatribe. So the new Congress was seated on Tuesday and it was I'll go ahead and say

it was more entertaining than usual. For those of you who don't follow American politics, basically the Republicans were never able to get their clown car out of the fucking driveway because they couldn't agree who was going to drive it. It got so bad that by Wednesday, Donald Trump issued a statement warning Republicans that this was making them look embarrassingly stupid. Donald Trump thinks they're too embarrassingly inept to be associated with. But even though

the GOP's brick fucking incompetence has left them unable to be sworn in so far, there is a new Congress. And look, I know I talked about this a bit back on episode 508 when the midterms first wrapped up, but it bears repeating often the degree to which Christians are overrepresented in Congress is almost as egregious as the degree to which nonbelievers are underrepresented. See, every two years, Pew Research releases a report on the religious makeup of the new Congress. And here's how they open up that report this year. on the religious makeup of the new Congress. And here's how they open up that report this year. Quote, As it begins its 118th session,

the U.S. Congress remains largely untouched by two trends that have long marked religious life in the United States. A decades-long decline in the share of Americans who identify as Christian and a corresponding increase in the percentage who say they have no religious affiliation. End quote. And look, apologies for throwing a bunch of numbers at you here,

but according to Pew, 63% of Americans identify as Christian. The number in Congress is 88. 29% of Americans identify as religiously unaffiliated. The number in Congress is one. And that's not even percent. It's one fucking person. When it comes to atheists, the percentages are still infinitely bad. About 4% of Americans identify as atheists, and the number in Congress is zero. Still.

Now, it's not all bad news. We do have a humanist officially now, which is nice. I mean, we already had him. He's Jared Hoffman. He's the co-founder of the Congressional Free Thought Caucus. And he came out as non-theistic back in 2017. But the CQ roll call data actually lists him in his own category now as humanist rather than sticking him in like the other category like they had until now. There are also three Unitarian Universalists, which is basically atheist light and a couple of secular Jews,

which is like his cultural atheist light i guess and of course in the senate there's only one person who's officially religiously unaffiliated and she fucking sucks she's the fucking worst i would trade her for a random democratic protestant in a fucking heartbeat and even if atheists wanted to claim her we couldn't because back in 2012 a spokesperson for kristin cinema rejected us outright, saying, quote, Kyrsten believes that the term non-theist, atheist, or non-believer are not befitting of her life's work or personal character, end quote. At the time, I was kind of pissed, but looking back on it now, she actually might have meant that as a compliment to us. But that's it. That's the state of non-believers in Congress. I mean, I guess the list of representatives opting for DK refused us slight uptick. There's 20 of them now. Right. At least some of them are nuns that don't want to go on the record about it. But even if we counted all of them, along with Huffman and Sinema and Raskin and Susan Wild and all three of the UUs, you get to a whopping 27 people.

people. 27 out of 535. That's about 5%. And that's the most generous possible interpretation, right, of how many non-believers we have to represent, again, the 29% of Americans in that category. And of course, every huge disparity between the population and their elected representatives matters, right? But of all the groups that could be overrepresented, you'd be hard-pressed to think of a worse one than Christians. Okay, maybe rich people, I guess. But after that, it's got to be Christians, right? Because honestly, of all the privileged groups in the country, none is more convinced, other than possibly rich people, that they deserve the privilege that they have than Christians, right? None is more likely to look at people outside of their group as less american or less deserving of rights and i'm not saying that to diminish the very real issues in this country of

like you know institutionalized white supremacy and sexism right i'm saying that even when you use that incredibly unjust standard as your baseline christians exceed it this matters right and it matters all the more when you consider the degree to which overt religiosity is woven into the very fabric of the congressional institution, right? They open sessions with prayers and invocations. They have a paid full-time chaplain. And in those instances where they're able to get their shit together long enough to elect a fucking speaker, most of them swear in on a fucking Bible. elect a fucking speaker. Most of them swear in on a fucking Bible. The point is that as long as the body itself is overwhelmingly Christian, they're not going to be overly inclined to reform these antiquated traditions. And keep in mind that it doesn't just matter on issues of church-state

separation, right? There are plenty of very religious representatives that can still stand on the correct side of the Christian privilege argument, right? I say that as a donor to multiple Senate campaigns for Raphael Warnock. But religiosity also speaks to a person's epistemology. More and more, we live in a world that can't abide scientifically illiterate legislators. And part of scientific literacy is the ability to understand how knowledge works. Faith betrays a breakdown somewhere along the chain of reason, and that's worth worrying about all by its fucking self. Right? Now, some might push back against the characterization I just made

by pointing out that, you know, like, religiosity amongst politicians is often just performative, but that's not always the case. I seriously doubt that Pastor Raphael Warnock's religion is performative. And even when that is the case, you're not doing much to diffuse a problem when you're defending your elected representatives by pointing out that they might just be lying to you.

And look, yes, as you look at the Republicans piss all over their own pant legs in their efforts to make even the simplest of decisions at the opening of this Congress, it'd be easy to conclude that the underrepresentation of atheists isn't the foremost problem facing this body but if you start looking at the religious homogeneity of the exact people fucking things up the most as well as the overwhelmingly religious nature of their campaigns their messaging and the justifications they have for their positions you'd start to wonder if maybe it is they're talking about your jesus joining me for headlines tonight are the win and lose to my draw heath enright and eli bosnick They're talking about you, Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the win and lose to my draw, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnickfellas. Ready to play this out. Like sentient Simon, I'm game.

Like sentient Simon, I'm game. Alright, well quick before I have to name Icelandic volcanoes to end this shit or whatever, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Honey. Today's episode is sponsored by Honey, the easy way to save when shopping on your iPhone or computer. And that's another win. Another win. Wow.

You are on a roll, dude. On a roll. Exactly. Thank you. Hey, guys. What's all the celebration? Oh, hey, Noah. Eli's just winning at Honey. What's Honey? Honey is the free shopping tool that scours the internet for promo codes and applies the best one it finds to your cart. Really?

How does that work? So imagine you're shopping at one of your favorite sites. When you check out, the Honey button appears, and all you have to do is click Apply Coupons. Wait a few seconds as Honey searches for coupons it can find for that site. We'll be right back. Heath Henright personally endorsed it as a product. Oh, that sounds awesome. It is awesome. And Honey doesn't just work on desktops. It works on your iPhone too. Just activate it on Safari on your phone and save on the go. If you don't already have Honey, you could be straight up missing out. And by getting it, you'll be doing yourself a solid and supporting the show.

Get PayPal Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash scathing. That's joinhoney.com slash scathing. That's joinhoney.com slash scathing. All right, Heath, that sounds amazing. But how is Eli winning at it? Oh, yeah. I told him it was chance-based to stop him from making stupid decisions with his money. Oh, okay. So how's that working out?

He has not purchased any Bitcoin today. Oh, that reminds me. I need to buy more Bitcoin. Don't do that. Don't buy more Bitcoin. Total crew! And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, Pope Benedict was an

evil piece of shit, and I'm glad he died. Yeah. Too soon? No, no, it's not. Of course it's not too soon. This is a guy who took over as supreme leader of the Catholic Church in 2005 and immediately declared that the Catholic Church of 2005 was getting too progressive for him. Yep. So he spent the next eight years trying to get rid of all their infantilizing wokeness like not hating gay people in strong enough language anymore he also spent eight years

being the boss of a company that was employing a bunch of pedophiles that's the grand context and he was covering up for a bunch of pedophiles that whole time also one other small thing he was a literal nazi in germany when it was nazi germany so before we get to the rest of the story one more time i'm very happy he's dead and also he looked like evil universe darth sidious like like the devil that appeared on the shoulder of darth sidious and gave bad advice. Right. Yeah. No, fucking Pope Benedict abdicated almost immediately after we started this podcast as if the Catholic Church was saying, well, let's not make it that easy on him.

I also have to point out that every news article I read felt the need to point out that he was only in the Nazi youth because he was a kid in Germany. Oh, yeah. You fixed it. Cool. Right. But all of them ignore the fact that, A, there's no sign that he wasn't an enthusiastic participant in the Nazi youth.

And B, the Catholic Church still could have chosen any of the several hundred million Catholics who were never Nazis to be their representative. Few choices there. So, again, definitely celebrating his death. But I'm not bringing it up just for that. Never Nazis to be their representative. Few choices there. So again, definitely celebrating his death, but I'm not bringing it up just for that. I also want to talk about the absurd, magical nonsense that happens when a Pope dies.

They actually have two entire dedicated books about that process. There's a 30-page constitution that governs the topic issued by John Paul II in 1996. And there's also a 400-page rule book that's just about the rituals and protocols for the funeral itself. Jesus. But both of those books are meant for the death of a reigning pope. So the Vatican higher-ups are in an absolute panic right now, having very serious, very aggressive arguments about which spells they're allowed to use and whether or not they could accidentally kill Pope Francis if the magic backfires on the technicality that the dead Pope

isn't reigning at the time of the death. A risk we here at the Scaling Atheist podcast are willing to take in the name of science. Sure. And actually, when Reuters news agency reached out with a few questions to the Vatican, the only response they could get was from a couple of Vatican officials who insisted on complete anonymity because the whole thing is top secret classified because the church doesn't want to make themselves look stupid

if they do, in fact, get the magic wrong. Yes. Yeah. And behind the scenes, they're just running around with fucking hats on hats. There's rainbow smoke billowing out of the Sistine Chapel's gym. There's fucking pandemonium down there. It is. Okay.

But I feel like if the history of your organization includes digging up a guy's corpse and putting it on trial you can get a little loosey-goosey right you're new perhaps you've already lost that game well but that's the thing that's what happens when they don't have the 400 page rule book yeah fool me once there are rules so here's a few of those rules when the reigning Pope dies. There's a guy called the Camerlengo who goes to the deathbed and he does a big security sweep at the Pope's apartment. He cuts the telephone lines. What? He locks up that entire papal apartment and he seals it off with festive red ribbons, kind of like police tape, but way more silly and magical. He also physically destroys all the dyes and ink and seals that the Pope was using to authenticate

his official apostolic letters. What? And the Camerlengo also destroys the Pope's pescatario or ring of the fishermen because it's magical and they don't want a magical ring falling into the wrong hands. Well, no, yeah. I'll be sure. He destroys that ring

with a magical hammer, by the way. Oh, fuck you, Vatican. You have a fucking volcano two hours down the goddamn road. You got a magic ring to destroy and you went with a hammer? Eat a fucking dick. Guy's like, oh, sorry, I'm a little

woozy from drinking all of his ink. It turns out it was just blue, so that was nothing. There's other blue ink that's going to happen. We're the Catholic Church. This is part of it. And that brings us to my favorite

part. According to tradition, after a pope is pronounced to be dead by a doctor, the Camerlengo guy does a real death check using that same magical hammer. First, the Camerlengo yells out the dead pope's baptismal name in the correct native language. Just once? Does he just yell it out once? Great question. No, he yells it out three times. And then the Camerolingo takes the magic silver and gold-plated hammer and hits the Pope in the face three times. If none of that gets a response, then we know the Pope is really dead and they start planning the funeral. And I have to assume this means they buried a pope alive at one point

and he somehow got out and he storms back into the vatican fucking furious and he's like all right we have to make some rules probably involving hammers that was ridiculous why like i feel like there has to be a less potentially fatal way to check and see if people are alive than a hammer to the face, right? You ever read a rule and think to yourself, huh, I guess I do eventually get to ride in a time machine. That's cool. That's exciting. Also, side note, there's actually some dispute about whether the hammer thing is real. The Guardian mentioned it when they did a story in 2003, but then a few weeks later, they made a correction saying that according to the Vatican, that's a myth.

And Snopes is calling the papal face hammer unproven. But I was able to find some other sources who seem pretty credible. I mean, literally anything being more credible than the Vatican. Oh, yeah, that's true. And those sources, including Britannica, the sources claimed that at least until the middle of the

20th century, dead popes were getting hit in the face with a hammer. Or tapped in the face. Doesn't matter. Either way, the larger point is this. The Catholic Church is so fucking ridiculous that it's extremely easy to assume they're hitting dead popes in the head

with a magical hammer to this very day. That would not surprise me at all. Right. If it is true, I think they should let a child rape victim do the Ratzenberger one, right? You're picturing a big sledge-matic, aren't you? I am picturing a big sledge-matic.

That's the right thing to picture if you're going to do the cartoon or anything. And in the times they aren't a change in news. It's a new year, which means new beginnings, New Year's resolutions. And if you're the opinion section of the New York Times, for the second year in a row, a new opportunity to be a Christian.

Cool. Great. Yeah, that's right. One of the largest and most respected newspapers in the country decided to dedicate a part of its New Year's Day issue to an opinion piece titled, Forget the Beach Bod, Try These Soul Resolutions Instead. Don't fuck you.

Yeah, by Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren. In the failing New York Times. Fucking typical. No, but I like this idea because, like, you know, you always feel guilty when you fail at your New Year's resolutions. But the soul is nothing. Right. So failing at nothing is the same as succeeding at it. So, yeah, I resolve for my soul to lose weight this year.

There you go. And look, before we get to the actual content of this article, let's just acknowledge for a second the tremendous double standard it represents. Imagine the absolute shitshow in this country if the New York Times New Year's Day opinion piece had been happy 2023, just a reminder, there is no God by Noah fucking Lusion. But, you know, then again, Noah isn't a beminged media prop of an organization that would have literally put him to death

200 years ago. So let's hear what Tish has to say. Now, I'm not going to read all of her stupid resolutions because some of them are just fucking Michael's wall signs like gather, feast, and rest with others. But I am going to talk about a couple of the dumbest ones, starting with

resolution number one, begin the day reading about faith, which translated to its operational definition should read, begin the day by reading about pretending to know things we don't know. A worthy use of your time if ever there was one.

Some faith in the morning really jumpstarts your metabolism. You can digest lies all day a lot more efficiently. Great. Well, here you go. Two birds, one stone. Start the day having faith that you already know all the shit that you would have learned had you read that book about faith.

It's the why doesn't Harry Potter just make himself better at magic with magic thing. Yeah, there you go. But don't worry. Her advice isn't just to be religious. She also wants It's the why doesn't Harry Potter just make himself better at magic with magic thing. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, good. But don't worry. Her advice isn't just to be religious. She also wants you to be actively ignorant in secular ways as well. Listen, item two is so fucking good because it's so close to good news.

Listen, quote, narrow your news focus. This is the advice she quotes from from an author. Quote, resolve to know just a few stories and to know them well. Your time and attention are limited. You can't do justice to every single issue of the day, and maintaining a broad, shallow pattern of news consumption makes you vulnerable to manipulation and confusion. So this year, pick at most half a dozen big stories to follow carefully and in depth. at most half a dozen big stories to follow carefully and in depth, read books, not just the latest headlines, learn key names and legislation, find trustworthy journalists

to keep you up to date. Then remember your finitude and ignore everything else. End quote. So, yeah, as much as I endorse the pick a few news items and try to gain some expertise on them throughout the year, closing with and ignore everything else literally turns the advice into no fewer things now. Yes.

Although she's kind of saying, don't read this that I'm writing now and go look into real news that matters. That's fair. Yeah. But of course, no advice from an outdated relic of the past would be complete without telling us to listen to outdated relics from the past her final resolution is seek the

wisdom of elders and look i i know this is a long quote but it made me so angry so here it is quote we used to go to village elders and ask for wisdom. They were the people who knew our lives and our family histories. They could see our individual strengths and weaknesses. From this vantage point, they could offer nuanced and practical advice. Ancient wisdom that was able to be applied specifically to our circumstances. We need this again. We need eye to eye, knee to knee, heart to our circumstances. We need this again. We need eye to eye, knee to knee,

heart to heart advice. Knee to knee? Knee to knee. What the fuck kind of advice happens knee to knee? Sitting too close is a part of it. Counsel that comes from wisdom. Ow, ow, stop. Spread it.

It's like the buddy bone of my leg, of my leg. Are you putting your leg in my hands like Harpo Marx? Spread it. It's like the buddy bone of my leg. Of my leg. Are you putting your leg in my hands like Harpo Marx? Stop it. Now you're doing elbow to knee. It's even weirder. I think it got weirder. Are we 69ing? Will you give me this advice? Okay, this works. This works. Go ahead.

Okay. Counsel that comes from wisdom but is offered from flesh and blood people who will see it through with us. Pastors, parents, and grandparents can watch our progress and celebrate as well as challenge us. This requires getting up close to people. There's a lot of physical proximity in this place.

This requires getting up close to people and being vulnerable. But isn't that what we all really need? End quote. To 69, a village elder. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah. And no, no, this is not what you need.

Definitionally, listen to me. Definitionally, older people are dumber and more racist than you. It's their defining electoral characteristic. How could anyone anyone no matter how far they have their head jammed up their ass look the last few years and think to themselves you know what we need now to listen to old people certainly not with knee-to-knee contact or whatever else built up there no so look okay so back in the halcyon days of fucking this lady's imagination

or whatever, the world didn't change a whole hell of a lot from one lifetime to the next, right? Like you plowed your fucking fields the same way your great-great-granddaddy did. So like maybe once upon a time there was something to this shit,

but there's something about asking life advice from a person who just pasted that status about Facebook making your photos go public at midnight on Tuesday again that just screams, why would I listen to this motherfucker? No. I have some questions about the internet. You're using T9 word. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And look, I know Tish and her band of crochet pillow resolutions isn't the foremost theocracy facing

America today. I know that among Christians, she's actually probably among the milder threats. But even stupid advice aside, this article is a startling reminder of just how terrifyingly far we have to go for religious equality in this country, even in a newspaper as supposedly liberal as the New York goddamn Times. All right. Well, I'll tell you what. for religious equality in this country, even in a newspaper as supposedly liberal as the New York goddamn Times. All right, well, I'll tell you what, it sounds like I've got a counter op-ed right,

so we're going to take a quick break from a word from our second sponsor this week, Allbirds. Stupid bark, ow, feet. Hey, Eli, what are those? Oh, these are my tree bark shoes. They look uncomfortable. Yeah, they are. But you know, traditional shoes can just be so bad for the environment. Sure. Well, why don't you just try the wool runners from Allbirds?

Oh, what are the wool runners from Allbirds? Oh, hello, Heath. Did you hear we were doing the Wool Runners instead of a different shoe? Yeah, yeah, I did. So I'm in the ad now. What's the bit? What are we doing? Oh, Eli made shoes out of bark. Got it. Cool.

Okay. See what you're doing. Wool Runners are built using premium natural materials with a low environmental impact. They've got ZQ certified superfine merino wool that's temperature regulating, moisture wicking, and it's free. They include sugar cane based sweet foam mid soles that contour to your feet and put a little bounce on your step. And they're made with castor bean insoles that are cushiony and naturally odor reducing. Wow. I mean, it kind of sounds like a vegan dish that Eli's trying to make us eat, but it also sounds good for the planet. It sure is. This year, take a big step forward for Mother Nature with the Allbirds Wool Runner.

Discover your perfect pair at allbirds.com today. That's A-L-L-B-I-R-D-S dot com. Did someone say Mother Nature? Seriously? Seriously? I'm just messing with you. We don't joke about supernatural visitations. Oh, Heath.

Buddy. Can you help me get the bark off my feet? No. And we're back next up in headlines in Caps Lock News. Christian hate preacher Greg Locke took time off of asking people to be very, very quiet while he hunted witches last week

to offer possibly the dumbest take yet on the Andrew Tate Greta Thunberg kerfuffle. That's hard to do. Right? Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, keep in mind, this story starts with a grown man hate bragging to a teenager

about how hard he's going to fuck her in the environment. So the opening bid on stupid takes was quite high, but Locke managed to raise it anyway with a tweet in the aftermath that claimed that the reason Tate was arrested was for arguing with Greta Thunberg. Okay, obviously not how anything works. But honestly, I'd be fine with that. Like if we start arresting every grown man who starts a Twitter fight with a teenager about his anti-ecology stance, that's a pretty good system.

Yeah. Pretty good rule of thumb. I'm sure they did some other crime too, so you're good. Plus, we know that those people are already okay with the suffering of a group of people they find less important if it fits their political agenda.

So we're all on the same page, honestly. No, you're right. You're allowed to do that. Good for the goose. So yeah, obviously, you already know the basics of the story, and if you want our full thoughts on it, we talk about it in detail on this week's Skeptocrats. Suffice to say, men's rights douchebag loses a Twitter fight with Greta Thunberg and then in an unrelated event gets arrested for human trafficking by Romanian police.

And to be fair, a lot of people accidentally conflated those two events by perpetuating the unlikely and unsourced claim that a pizza box in one of his videos somehow contributed to his arrest which some of us are still choosing to believe because it's true in our hearts absurd that that would be how it happened this is how religions start eli but that was some amateur level getting it wrong though right so greg lock stepped in to show people how it was fucking done his response to the news of Tate's arrest was to tweet, quote, So I guess we've reached the point where if you publicly disagree with the left's favorite paid actor brat at Greta Thunberg, you get arrested. Wow. Climate change stupidity has reached peak insanity.

End quote. Pizza is illegal now. That's what you're telling me. It's illegal to have pizza i'm very serious and not wildly pandering to a base whose minds can only be described as racism soup i mean this i'm a different thing than that so of course he tweets this dumb shit out and immediately 27 000 people chime in to say dude what the fuck are you talking about, you idiot? Did you read the first half

of a headline? Get to the dot dot dot, think it was over, and then form your fucking opinion? I'd say that's generous about that. But despite being instantly fact-checked on his misinformation, Locke spent the rest of the afternoon equivocating, digging in, and otherwise refusing to admit that he was damn near wronger than it is possible to be.

Before eventually, begrudgingly, admitting that Tate was arrested for human trafficking. And keep in mind, human trafficking is sort of exactly the boogeyman that right-wing conspiracy assholes are performatively upset about most often. Well, I mean, behind drag queens and trans women pissing, but it's like it's a top three of their things. So it was super duper easy for his detractors to toss up example after example of him

talking about how evil it is to try to cover up or obfuscate in cases of human trafficking. Hey, Greg, are you defending a human trafficker right now? I'm 47 years old. I don't understand the question. And look, I just got to say this. 47, sorry.

Whenever we talk about a story like this, someone always writes us to say like, oh, this is the attention he wants. And no, no, he does not. Nope. Look, I agree with the concerned people that know that craig lock wants attention and i agree that he says stupid shit for attention but he definitely doesn't want

this attention y'all he's just too stupid to connect the cause and effect right yeah he doesn't like he's not having a good time with this i promise he's not a because guy either. No, it's true. So to be clear, it is still legal to troll teenage girls about the size of your emissions on Twitter. Unfortunately, uh, hell on, on Elon Musk's Twitter,

it's downright encouraged. Also, Greg Dunbar is not a fucking paid actor. And if she was, she would not be the left's favorite paid actor, right? That's still Lucy lawless until somebody comes up with a better nickname for kevin sorbo than peanut right and finally tonight we have a

follow-up on the story from last month about kirk cameron being a liar turns out he lied more extra now he's a bigger liar is the follow-up. In case anyone missed it, Kirk Cameron recently published a children's book based on his evangelical Christian worldview. So, a hate crime in the form of a children's book. Right. But then, a hate crime happened to him, too.

He wanted to do a national tour of book readings at public libraries. So, he got in touch with about 50 libraries, and they told him he could rent some space sorry that was the other hate crime the one against him i just really that's the one against him yeah you got to listen closely or you can easily miss the nothing according to cameron it was anti-christian persecution when the libraries offered to rent him space instead of doing the whole thing for free and also sponsoring the event and publicizing the event and giving him free

staffing for the event. Well, he finally decided to pay for a venue himself. And last week he did a book reading and then he immediately told a giant string of just so many easily checkable useless lies about the event when it was over it was like he hired george santos for pr yeah so to be clear libraries also won't sponsor my new children's book clifford takes a fat shit on kirk cameron who then drowns in it which is a hate crime against atheists. So I evened out the original claim. And now Fox News owes me an interview, I think. Yeah.

And we spent so much time on those illustrations. Right. So, you know, poor Angelo. So here's what happened most recently. As an auteur, Kirk wanted his first event to happen in a cosmopolitan hub of the arts. And of course, that means you got to break into the literary world of Indianapolis, Indiana. Obviously, he pulled it off. And then more lying. After the event at the Indianapolis Public Library, his publisher, fucking Brave Books, tweeted, this is a message to every library in the United States.

In 137 years of the Indianapolis Public Library's history, never once have they had over 2,500 people show up to a single event. And that's true. But, you know, until today. Oh, lying. You're lying. The library actually confirmed that that was in fact a really stupid, useless lie.

Tweeting in response that the attendance number was more like seven 50 because you know, they're the library and they counted the door. They also added in a beautiful choice of words. We've had larger. Not the least devastating time a librarian has told him. Maybe it's because they were using alternative stacks.

What? Library. Library thing. Yeah. So again, the lying doesn't even do anything. But Kirk Cameron seems to think there's a big tranche of libraries that would hear a number between 750 and 2499 and ignore that number.

But then get super excited about a girthy number like 2500. And then, you know, profit for Kirk Cameron. And of course, Kirk was personally involved in the lying too, not just his publisher. Here's what Kirk posted on Facebook. Quote, what a miraculous morning in Indy. Nope. I'm just going to, you know, shoot in some nopes when he lies. Nope.

None of that. No miraculous mornings in Indy. That's not a thing. Continuing. Our reading room held only 170 people. Over 1,000 moms, dads, and kids were waiting for us inside the library. Nope. And another 1,000 waited outside.

Nope. What? And this, even though regular nightly political protests have kept most families far away from this beautiful library. So probably nope. I'm not even going to check. I'm sure that's mostly wrong, what he just said there. Continuing. So probably nope. I'm not even going to check. I'm sure that's mostly wrong, what he just said there. Continuing, sadly, this beautiful library has a large auditorium that seats 2,000 people,

but leadership never offered it to us or even told us about it, end quote. And there's one more nope. After saying we've had larger, the library also added our auditorium, which Kirk Cameron chose not to rent, holds 300 people. It's actually two more notes for that last thing. Yeah, right, right. As people who have organized an event or two, that's the funniest part, right? Like you're writing in yellow, like when our reservation for four people turned out to be 11 people, they didn't even tell us about the private room.

for four people turned out to be 11 people they didn't even tell us about the private room i'm sorry i just love that part of his crazy lie was that a thousand people waited outside the library like the fucking americans in miracle on ice cheering outside of the stadium for his children's book about God. Just a shot of him at the Capitol. There's plastic. Obama had, I had the same. It just doesn't count.

And there's one other very important detail. At the end of Kirk Cameron's post on Facebook, he made the grievous error of mentioning that his next stop is in Scarsdale, New York, about 30 miles away from Eli Bosnick. So that means, that means what it means, plausible deniability.

And now that Heath has earned his gold star from Andrew for the day, I suppose we can close the headlines. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Do manji. And when we come back, we'll kind of wish we hadn't. Welcome to local shipping store where everything is covered in boxes. How can I help you?

Yeah, sorry. I was standing in your store for like the last 45 minutes while you read an old lady literally all the zip codes just now. Yes, you want me to read your zip codes? Nope, I do not want that. Anyway, January is actually a really busy time for my small business, and I was hoping coming in today could make shipping simple for me. Oh, so you want stamps.com? What's stamps.com? Oh, I know. What are you doing here? I come

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free postage and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code SCATHING. Okay, well, I'm going to go. Noah, see you at home. Noah? Quiet, man. I'm playing free ski.

Well, I always get eaten by the bear. You can actually press F to go fast, and then you can escape the bear. No way! Yeah. Yeah, totally. You know, if there's just one thing that David Icke

has to say on the subject... Reject the premise. There is no subject where David Icke has only one thing to subject. Reject the premise. There is no subject where David Icke has only one thing to say. Absolutely not. Correct, exactly. This is why we're here to present

even more walls of punishing and meaningless text in this month's installment of Everything You Need to Know. I'm mad at Heath for interrupting the intro to the C segment. They don't even know who we are, Heath. They don't even know who we are, Heath. They don't even know who we are yet. What?

This is Eli. He's the wacky one. Thank you. All right. Now everybody is. Heart and soul of the podcast. Would you like to specifically name some things you've written? So, yeah. So yeah, so okay, so

this week we knocked out chapter 12 of David Icke's conspiracy-laden Everything You Need to Know. It's called Before Your Very Eyes, and this chapter starts with a huge fucking promise. Icke assures us that in the span of the next few chapters he's going to, quote, weave together where all that I

have exposed and highlighted so far has been leading and how it's planned to conclude, end quote. Which, that's the same promise twice, leading and concluding. But it's still a huge fucking promise. He's presented a lot of dots and now it's time to start connecting them.

And I'm stuck in the yarn. I'm stuck in the yarn. I'm trying to tell everybody it was the Jews with the yarn. To be fair, the only unifying theme of this book so far is people make fun of me a lot. So I'm excited to see what he has to offer. No, we needed this. We needed this.

So, okay. So he starts with a pretty thorough explanation of what connected means conceptually. It says quite a bit when you go, and now I'll connect all my ideas together. But first, let me caveat what I mean by connect and ideas and together. Yes. And then from there, we get the platonic David Icke sentence.

He says, this will involve a vastly different explanation of world events to that which is spun daily by mainstream everything. I'm opposed to mainstream everything. Enjoy the next chapter of my book. I'm David Icke. So, okay. So then, in yet another Heath trying to rap level failure

to appeal to popular culture, he christens his next sub chapter, Hunger Games Society. And yes, the Hunger Games analogy is less apt, but I'm just excited to see him moving on from the Matrix for a few minutes. Right? Right.

Topical. He grows ever closer to media published the same decade as when this book was written. Guys, I'm very excited for him. But he fucks it up so bad because he's like ways in which our present society is just like the Hunger Games rich people are mean

there are homeless people end of list right come on David even I can do better than that professional sports doesn't care about head injuries Stanley Tucci wields tremendous power and nobody's sure why. Come on.

Eating a cookie is really hard. Doing the because part of a thought. Really thinky. Zionists control all the hotels in Germany. Lots of problems in the world, man. Absolutely. But I'm very, very angry about what Eli said earlier. The Tucci is

a treasure. He is beautiful. I didn't say he's not. I just don't know why we all united behind him. Because he's a treasure. Was it Princess Diaries? Probably. I hope it was Princess Diaries. Hey, fun fact about the Tooch.

He gave Ving Rhames his name Ving. They went to high school together. It was Irving Rhames. And he was like, you should just do Ving. And now it's Ving Rhames, his name, Ving. They went to high school together. It was Irving Rhames. And he was like, you should just do Ving. And now it's Ving Rhames. Thanks to Stanley Tucci. Yeah, he was like, you know what? I think a lot of people are going to defer to you as an authority on stuff.

I'm going to be the first one to do it. Ving Rhames. He talks about how bad corporate monopolies are. And I'm like, yeah like yeah man this shit is really dangerous and meanwhile you're riling people up about fifth dimensional lizard juice you're outraging people in the wrong direction only liz warren can defeat the fifth dimensional lizard juice great now the progressives like me too i'm nailing it so an actual sentence from this book when he's talking about that very real world problem.

Quote, they are, after all, archontic reptilian satanic psychopaths who are so empathy deleted that they can sacrifice children and real world. There it is. He was doing so good. Talking about like wealth inequality is a big problem. Dude, chop it right there, David.

Chop it right there. Inequality is a big problem. The, chop it right there, David. Chop it right there. Inequality is a big problem. The Jew lizards eat babies. So good. Yeah, and again, so the key to all of this is that there's a secret small group that controls all world events

with the ultimate goal of eventually installing a small group that can control all world events. And inside that doll is yet another doll. The Jaws are all Jewish, by the way. The dolls are all Jewish. And just to be clear about the grand plan, it's phase one, profit.

Well, already having profited enormously is phase one. Phase two, take over the oscillation of the fabric of the universe. Very important. Phase three three profit still again yes the same so so then he tells us about the the world government's enforcement arm in a subchapter called world army nato again they already control all of this right like apparently i guess seizing all the world's militaries is just an effort to like, I don't know, cut down on the paperwork, I guess.

Sure. Sure. And he gives us a Rico chart to explain the structure to us. Visually here, the people are on the bottom, then nations, then continents, then world government at the top.

There's a visual aid for sizes of stuff on earth. Yes. Also, we're all microchipped. Seriously? It's the stupid visual aid and then it's like, we're all microchipped. That's in the Rico chart too. Yes. And also, by the way, he teases

us that their eventual world army is going to be a robot army, so that's very exciting. A little more on that later. Okay, I've been burned by that promise before, Noah. I watched Terminators 3 and 4. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. I want a robot army for so many reasons. And David Icke's freak out is just one more bonus. That is gravy. That's fair. Yeah. And he tries. God damn it.

He tries. He's like, you know, the US military is bloated. And I'm like, good. Very good. And operates in too many countries. Still good. Doing great. and commits atrocities yes they do maybe chop it

and shapeshifts into lizard damn it damn it there it is so close cut to David's editor sadly putting the lollipop back into his pocket so close to earning it this week and look so I'm not saying that it's not unjust right

but the thing that he spends half a chapter accusing nato of doing in the balkans is commonly referred to as balkanization right that's the term for that thing so like i don't i don't think you're exposing the secret you think you're exposing the secret word no yeah only one man can defeat the evil fifth dimension lizard demons and that is Vladimir Putin. That's right. And now all the conservatives like me too. Crushing it. Everybody loves me. And I wrote my notes

at this point. I'm like, oh, there's George Soros. I was wondering when we'd see him again. That would be mention number seven of 90 total coming up. He will be popping up every six pages or so for the rest of the goddamn book. Wow. Just give the guy a chapter.

Give a chapter on Soros. Yeah. Fuck. He has the actual argument in here at one point. He's like, how can populism be bad if you're the populist? Duh. So and then we lump the cops in to this conversation with a subtitle called military police and then in parentheses literally see the military's the one military i guess will also

absorb the police at a certain point cool yeah they can finally get those bleeding heart cops to appreciate the military that's okay david ike and david a.r white need to be buddy cops in a movie about the lizard apocalypse. I will pay for that. Yes. Yes. I love it. There's these moments, too, where it's like his hyperbole outruns this paranoia. Right.

He's like, they already monitor every step that you take and listen to every word you say. And it's only going to get worse. And I'm like, how? How? You said everything. They're going to start listening to the words that you don't say to? Tom Cruise, catching balls, eating old sandwiches. Is this what you want?

Maybe they'll listen to almost every word and then just keep asking about the last thing and saying it wrong. Oh, there he goes. That is irritating, yeah. Cheese and bread and cheese and bread. He makes this weird claim at one point. He says that websites, when you log on to them,

they emit these high frequency sounds that humans can't hear that are used to track you, right? But you're on a website. Yes. You're on a website on your phone, right? That would be like making a sundial out of a watch okay pretty sure david ike is echo locating people he feels like that's what he's a sighted person doing that

yeah well guys obviously the high frequency mind control beam is just for the omega brains who don't accept cookies like david i, then they can't know. Gotcha. You gotta erase those cookies. You gotta eat the cookies. Right. Yeah. And then, then he explains that both political parties

are the same in a subchapter called political choice, in quotes, the sick joke. So now look, we've had some fun in this book with the Teehee. Your dumb point is also David Icke's dumb point. So lest this be dismissed as more of the same, I want to be super clear that David Icke is making the exact same argument with the exact

same supporting points and more or less for the exact same purpose as the people on the left talking about horseshoe theory or about how both sides are the same. Yeah. And before anyone calls that a fallacy, it's only an ad hominem if it's wrong because you agree with David Icke. It's wrong and you agree with David Icke. Right. No, this isn't a statement of how wrong you are.

It's about how embarrassed you should be to be that wrong. Yeah. Also worth noting, you agree with David Icke. Like, that is a thing. Right.

Yeah. So, this argument is so dumb, though. It boils down to, like, because the two parties don't disagree on everything, they're functionally the same. Right? I just imagine that world where they're like, oh, damn it, guys.

The Republicans just called A equaling F over M. This is going to be tough for us. Also, they can't pick a speaker of the House because, like, 30 Republican Congress people think acceleration is a Ponzi scheme. I'm just saying. The parties are a bit different speaking of which yeah right right now he basically closes the subchapter by saying for example the the fed is a ponzi scheme nobody's trying to get rid of that oh god he's like even the smallest of political parties aren't calling for the weird shit ideas that i have and i'm like yeah it must be because they're too good davy a guy wore a boot on his head and a guy got naked in the last

libertarian primary debate and david ike is sitting there in the audience like fucking snobs actual quote immediately after i wrote that bit right he says quote i asked a uk green party candidate about their policy on banks creating money out of nothing and she had no idea what i was talking about all national currency is fiat money stop saying fiat money like that's a useful term that you're making an argument with no it's not until we find the fucking money fairies that will remain true yes what do you mean it's latin what about places that aren't spain you know you sound stupid but then he assures us that trump also sucks in imaginary reality in a subchapter called president drumph of zion so

to be clear the suggestion of this subchapter's title and the subchapter itself is that Trump's biggest problem is how Jewish adjacent he is. I mean, look. Interesting. Davey knows his audience. I'll give him that. Yeah. He's like, just look at how Jewish all the Fed chairs are.

Jerome Powell is Catholic. What are you talking about? The lizards must be furious about that, by the way. And also, they're not that powerful, Catholic. Yeah. What are you talking about? The lizards must be furious about that, by the way. And also, they're not that powerful, clearly. Yep. Also, look, his counter argument to the charge that this might be an anti-Semitic point to make is, come on, if that many of the Fed chairs had been black, you'd all have questions. That's literally what he said.

Come on. You ever see an elevator, it opens opens up and it's all black guys and you think to yourself whoa what's going on here it's like I'm I'm helping I'm David Icke we all we're all on the same page here Jerome Powell gets on the elevator and you're like

nice everyone's nice everybody's nice tied and of course he brings up Steve Mnuchin and I'm like, okay, well, he's a shape-shifting lizard bent on world domination. But that's just a coincidence. Okay, you gotta have a few

obvious ones or it's weird. That's a dead giveaway. You gotta have a couple of Mnuchins, right? Oh, he discusses Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia where he visited that satanic demon orb thing. The ball thing? Yeah.

To be honest, like that seemed like Ike bait to me when they did it, right? You guys remember the gentle, carefree days of the orb? It was all going to be so much fun for us. Yeah, right. Are we all doing the magic ball?

Am I doing it right? Is it working? Did we do the magic with the magic ball? Is that magic-ing? Big Yeah, right. Are we all doing the magic ball? Am I doing it right? Is it working? Did we do the magic with the magic ball? Is that magic-ing? Big smile, right? Everyone's doing big smile while we touch the giant globing orb.

Oh, God. And of course, it takes him a while, but he can't resist bringing up Jared Kushner forever, right? He's like, this is so weird

how the media so rarely talks about how Jewish Jared Kushner is. Wow. I've got some good news for you, David. You fixed that on at least one TV news channel. Buy yourself one.

You did that. Yeah. And Jesus Christ, George Soros comes up in all but like two of the subchapters in this one. Like he put his count in later, but I wrote at this point, I'm like, this frequency would be a bit much if this was a George Soros biography. He even has, like, he's listing people and he's got a little parenthesis beside some of the names that says Zionist, which I guarantee you is what his editor

made him replace Jew with. I mean, the lollipop was already in the editor's pocket. Yeah, right, right. It can't be all carrot. Like, Eli does that as a bit. He'll be like, Jewish. This is a real thing that David Icke is doing. He's right, right. It can't be all carrot. Like, Eli does that as a bit. He'll be like, Jewish. I was just going to say,

I don't love... This is a real thing that David Icke is doing. He's like, Jewish. I was going to say, I don't love that me and David Icke have the same bit

in our written material. This is making me question things. Or, David Icke is the heart and soul of our podcast if we considered that. Oh,

that's entirely possible. He wrote this entire book that we're talking about. David Icke did. a lot of the ads. Wrote ads. You know, this is the danger of me not introducing you at the beginning.

They think you're David Icke right now. That's right, yeah. And he explains that the French are all a bunch of Jews too. Yes, the famously Jewish and Jew-loving French. Yes, yes, exactly.

And then he digs into a little deeper into the question of how the Jews do it in the sub chapter titled Moderate Extremists. He's like, you know, every world leader is the same. If you don't bother to understand the nuances of their policies and their nation's histories. And again, that's true. They all sit at desks and they all write with pens. No, it's the same old, same old. Exactly. Again, it's because no world leader agrees with the crazy shit that David Icke believes,

so they're all indistinguishable puppets of the Illuminati in his mind. Every single one of them. Everyone near me on a train. Everyone I start talking to at the urinal. Every manager of Wendyendy's they're all the same and they're like go away you can't be here stop talking to me so you ever talk to an old person and they're like yeah i don't pay a lot of attention to politics the names change but the game is the same and then you do the math and you're like hey man you know the civil rights

movement happened right and he's like oh never mind yeah make my facebook pictures public on tuesday night put your knee against my knee and and how did the illuminati control the politicians once they've installed them a pedophilia blackmail exactly obviously do you think it's ever awkward for the illuminati when they find a politician who doesn't want to fuck a kid? Right. Right. Like, I'm sure it's rare, but how do you put that genie back in the bottle? Right. It's amazing how he lands on that every goddamn time. It's like David Icke's been holding a puzzle piece in his hand for the last like 30 years that says murder, rape, eating kids. And he's just like trying to jam it somewhere. Anywhere he goes.

It never quite fits, but he tries every time. Where did you get that? Who handed that to you? All right. Well, I'll tell you what. It's hard to close the segment about David Icke on an upbeat. But here's one that should at least lift our spirits. We're now two thirds of the way through this book's chapters

and 1625ths of the way through its pages. Huh? Huh? Why'd you tell us about the pages? And we'll inch ever closer to the conclusion on the next installment of... Everything You Need to Know. I'm Eli. Ha ha! Before we retreat back into the dark recesses of your mind tonight, I want to remind everybody that

there's still a 2019 mini calendar magnet stuck to your refrigerator and it's getting more embarrassing by the day. Okay? Anyway, that's all the best we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait wait that long be a look up for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend god awful movies they're being at 7 eastern on tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister's association debuting at noon eastern on wednesday obviously i can't cue the music until i thank heath enright for never giving me up elah busting for never letting me down and lucinda

illusions for never running around and hurting me yes i know i've used that one before but rick rolls work best when you nail somebody with the same setup twice i also want to thank abby for providing this week's Farnsworth quote and Abby's dad for getting them a head start on the bedrocks of biology. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's and last week's best bipeds, Shane, Eliza, Memphis, Roscoe, shit fucker, cocksucker, Craig, John, Tommy, one-eyed dick, but I'd like I would, Nicole, Brett, Joshua, Siabra, and Samuel. Shane, Eliza, Roscoe, and shit fuckucker, who are so hot 2022 requested an extra day just to hang out with them a little longer. Craig, John, Tommy, and Nick, whose cocks are so long the heads celebrated the New Year's before the balls. And Nicole,

Brett, Joshua, Siabra, and Samuel, whose IQs are what the year number has been trying to catch up to this whole time. Together, these 13 lucky people, profanities, old-timey cowboys, and clever homophone users helped us keep this show on the road for another year by giving us money and if your new year's resolution was to pay for more free stuff this year you too can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad free version of every

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