The Scathing Atheist - 522: Putting the Sus in He Gets Us Edition

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

In this week’s episode, a little known religion called “Christianity” finally gets some national exposure, we’ll do the math on Bigfoot, and Heath will finally earn enough punches on the card to get a free penis reattachment next time. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click there: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Guest Links: Check out the Louisville Atheists here: https://www.louisvilleatheists.com/wordpress/ Learn more about Freeflo here: https://www.freeflo.org/ --- Headlines: More on the He Gets Us campaign’s ties to hate groups: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/02/loving-christian-super-bowl-ads-connected-to-anti-lgbtq-hate-group/ Mormon investment arm under investigation by the SEC: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/02/11/money-questions-mount-lds-church/ Coach Dave declares spiritual warfare on the superbowl  https://newswithviews.com/lets-storm-the-gates-of-hell Christian school cancels concert hours before start because singer is gay: https://www.classicfm.com/artists/kings-singers/florida-college-cancels-concert-sexuality-concerns/ School board member buys sign opposing litter boxes https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/02/transphobic-school-board-member-posts-bizarre-sign-denouncing-school-litter-boxes/ Newsmax CEO dubs being dropped by DirecTV an “attack on Jesus” https://www.christianpost.com/news/newsmax-ceo-calls-removal-from-directv-blatant-act-of-censorship.html Bigfoot mathematically are probably bears  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bigfoot-sightings-math_n_63d8d43ae4b04d4d18e80619 Christians “betrayed” by new Chick-Fil-A veggie sandwich: https://gizmodo.com/conservative-controversy-chick-fil-a-cauliflower-sandwi-1850100961 --- This Week in Misogyny: WY GOP defends child marriage, claims trans rights are a threat to kids: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/02/wyoming-gop-defends-child-marriage-while-claiming-its-trans-rights-that-harm-children/ Germany inches toward better abortion laws: https://cne.news/artikel/2564-germanys-paragraph-218-on-abortion-risks-permanent-deletion (context) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-abolishes-nazi-era-abortion-law-2022-06-24/

Warning, this podcast contains both beeps and words that usually get beeped, but not at the same time. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by the new smartwatch alternative for people who don't have a timepiece but think their opinion on what time it is should count anyway, the Sasquatch. The Sasquatch. It's kind of blurry in the promotional photo, but trust us, it looks great. And now, The Skating Atheist. Hello from Louisville, Kentucky. This is Angela, and here's my husband, Sam. And now, The Skating Atheist. It's Thursday. It's February 16th. And it's do a favor for a grouch day. So, Noah, you need anything?

Not with an attitude like that, I don't. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick, and from COVID-positive New Jersey, Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode... A little-known religion called Christianity finally gets some national exposure. We'll do the math on Bigfoot.

And Heath will finally earn enough punches on that card to get a free penis reattachment next time. But first, the diatribe. You know what's weird is commercials for fascism. It'd be great if we lived on one of the earths that didn't have those, but I guess that's not the dimension we wound up with.

And look, I've already dedicated two full diatribes to talking about the He Gets Us campaign, so I really didn't expect to make a trilogy out of it this week, but then I saw the fucking Super Bowl ads. This was hardly the first time I'd seen ads from this campaign, right? They're a frequent advertiser during NFL games. Despite my better judgment, I remain an NFL fan. So I thought I knew what to expect out of them. But the ones they played during the Super Bowl deserve special attention. Well, the second one does anyway. The first one was the same manipulative crap they've been disgorging since this campaign started. But the second one does anyway. The first one was the same manipulative crap they've been disgorging since this campaign started. But the second one was best summarized by New York congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

who described it as an ad to, quote, make fascism look benign, end quote. So in case you didn't watch the Super Bowl or you just timed your piss breaks better than I did, let me describe the ad. It's 60 seconds long. It's all black and white still photos. Now, in most of these ads, it'll show like a bunch of refugees in some Latin American country or whatever, and the VOL will come in and say, Jesus was a refugee too. Tagline, he gets us. Basically, all the ads until this point had centered around the idea that whatever you're going through, whatever marginalized group you belong to, Jesus can sympathize with you. It's all a bunch of disingenuous bullshit designed to

separate the image of Christianity from all the shit Christianity actually does in the world. But this second ad, they decided to break with that approach altogether and go with something worse. See, in this one, we just see 45 seconds worth of black and white photos of people yelling at each other, or in one case, punching each punching each other now some of these are just random fights captured on film but in several instances there's the the photo itself gives you plenty of context that you know what the argument is about right one is a black man screaming at a cop who's wearing full riot gear another is an unmasked guy screams spitting into the face of a masked guy another one has a lady holding up a goddamn sign that says liberty over lockdown. And then this all fades away to a tagline that reads,

Jesus loved the people we hate. He gets us. Gone is the message of Christ's relatability, the stated goal of the fucking campaign. This one wasn't about rehabilitating the reputation of Jesus. It was about rehabilitating the reputation of his shittiest adherents. It was a message of shame, urging us to welcome back the people in our lives that intentionally endangered us and our children during a fucking pandemic. The people who endangered and continue to endanger the viability of our government through disinformation and obstinance. The people who felt that the appropriate response to the phrase Black Lives Matter was a counterpoint. Jesus would have forgiven these people. So why don't you, you

selfish prick? Of course, since its inception, the group behind this campaign has tried to keep its donors a secret. Always the sign of a trustworthy endeavor there, right? But we're learning more and more about him. In November, Hobby Lobby's owner, David Green, admitted that his family were among the major contributors. Quick reminder, David Green's response to the lockdown was to try to keep his stores open regardless of local ordinances. And his justification for that was a prophetic dream that his wife had. and company memo telling everyone that. In other words, he's exactly the kind of piece of shit person that this ad was meant to guilt you into forgiving. And that's what sits at the center of this whole nesting doll of grift. The campaign co-ops the language of social justice. It presents Jesus as a feminist and a supporter of refugees

and a symbol of social reform, all in an effort to distance him from the homophobic, sexist racists that most people outside of Christianity associate him with. But the homophobic, sexist racists are the ones paying for the fucking ads the people they're trying to distance their religion from are themselves i mean the only direct donor we know about is david green but he gets us as a subsidiary of a group called the servant foundation and the servant foundation has given over 50 million dollars to the goddamn Alliance Defending Freedom.

Now, I'm sorry if I just tied too many pieces of yarn to the corkboard at once here, but the Alliance Defending Freedom is basically the main fucking bad guy. They're the boss fight at the end of atheism. They're the legal group dedicated to stripping rights away from LGBTQ people and exempting Christians from all laws altogether. And they're winning see a lot of people responded to these ads by pointing out how many hungry people they could have fed and homeless people they could have housed with the 20 million dollars that they spent airing these dumb ass commercials but that misses the point right because if they had any inclination

to use their money to help the downtrodden they wouldn't have needed the campaign to begin with if the people behind he gets us really wanted really wanted to rescue Christianity from its reputation of being a driver of homophobia that stands in opposition to social justice, they could just stop driving homophobia and opposing social justice. What they want to do instead is find the exact dollar amount it takes for people to keep ignoring that fact. They're talking about your Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast and bring you joining me for headlines tonight is the macaroni to my cheese eli bosnick eli are you ready to dig in hey i'm just hoping to do a good uh job oh there you have them camembert with me if i don't he has big shoes man those are big shoes to fill I appreciate that you tried

in our Lee's story tonight the Mormon church has an insane amount of money like we don't know how much money they have and they don't have to tell us but even just what they do have to tell us about is an insane amount to it Ensign Peake

which is the investment arm of the church has to file partial disclosures to the sec now i say partial because they don't have to disclose all their assets just shit like us held stocks and even just that part of that arm of that branch of the church as of its most recent filing assuming that filing is correct has over 4040 billion in assets. Boo! That's slippery. That is some slippery treasure. If that was a guy, that would be like the 35th richest guy in the world. And if you're thinking to yourself, man, it's amazing the kind of grift that religions can legally get away with. You are overestimating the Mormon Church's dedication to legality.

But it looks like the Securities and Exchange Commission finally isn't because we learned this week that the SEC actually is investigating the numerous complaints against Ensign Peake. Right. So again, podcast listener, keep this in mind. They have $40 billion worth of assets that we can see

and they're cheating. They're cheating about the assets we don't already let them cheat about. Yeah, right. Right. Now, we've talked about this story a little bit before, but it's all stocks and finance and shit. None of us but Heath really understand it. So we haven't talked about it much.

Quick recap. Back in 2019, a whistleblower came forward and said, hey, the Mormons are taking an enormous amount of money that they collect under the guise of charitable donations, and then they're sticking it in an investment firm and making billions of undisclosed dollars off of it. Now, up to that point, Enso Peak hadn't filed any of the required disclosures of large money managers. Basically, there are laws about having 40 billion fucking dollars that include admitting that you do. 40 billion fucking dollars than include admitting that you do. Okay, fine, fine. Now that you bring it up, Noah, I have 40 billion dollars.

I actually only podcast for the hate mail. It's the only way to get it when you're a billionaire. Now, that complaint didn't appear to lead to anything. So last month, the same whistleblower sent a complaint to the Senate Finance Committee with a bunch of new allegations. These included accusations that Ensign Peake made false statements to the tax agency and tried to conceal its ownership over several foreign bank accounts valued in the billions of dollars. He further alleges that by so doing, Ensign Peake dodged more than $20 billion in taxes. Not just taxable money, but that amount of taxes that's like that's like 2800 super bowl jesus ads these revelations have led of course to a lot of mormons wondering why

the fuck the church keeps asking for 10 of their goddamn income then yeah or why perhaps their missionaries still don't bring any food or fresh water, just their stupid book when they go places. Yeah. Now, of course, the LDS denies any impropriety here at all, referring to the tens of billions of dollars as, quote, a rainy day fund. Oh, and and and assuring tithing Mormons that none of this money is being invested in the caffeine industry. Seriously, one of their major points that they've raised in their defense is that they're not invested in Coke or Pepsi. Okay. Here's my thing though. You're a cult whose founder was a known con man and child rapist, and you didn't admit that black people had souls until into the late seventies. What the fuck do these people consider a rainy day

still it doesn't look like the sec is buying their excuses as the wall street journal reports that they're within months of reaching a settlement on multiple violations from ensign peak and sure it's a half-assed too easy consequence coming four fucking years plus after the initial complaints. But when it comes to the federal government regulating anything religious, any consequence at all is more than we've come to expect. Yeah. And in a less superb owl news, as Noah already mentioned in the diatribe, this year's Super Bowl contained quite a bit of homophobic right wing Jesus. But some just isn't enough for some people because this Super Bowl also had a halftime show. Anna?

What are the guys talking about? It's the newest, the greatest Christian freak out. That's right. Like the war on Christmas, mass shootings and a hurricane somewhere you don't care about. It's that time for that thing that happens every year, but you don't remember it till it's right. Like the war on Christmas, mass shootings and a hurricane somewhere you don't care about. It's that time for that thing that happens every year, but you don't remember it till it's happening. Christians freaking out about the Super Bowl halftime show. Oh, yeah. No, it's gotten to a point where Lucinda and I have made a game of like, you know, which parts will they say were satanic while we watch?

Honestly, I feel like the austerity of Rihanna's show was like a direct challenge to those people really was yeah and while this year most of our favorite villains spent the super bowl defending their super expensive ads for christofascism coach dave dobenmeier did not let us down in fact coach dave managed to be enraged by the halftime show a full two days before it happened. Yep. In a blog titled Let's Storm the Gates of Hell, Dave encouraged his listeners to condemn Rihanna for all the things he imagined she would do, saying, quote,

Although none of us know what is going to be vomited into our homes at halftime, we can all rest assured that it was cooked up in the pit of hell. Are we simply to sit around and take it as the demonic bilge spews out of the plasma screen into the conscience of quasi-innocent viewers? It's time we stood up and fought back. Okay, Dave.

Somebody clearly gave Dave a thesaurus and just as clearly already regrets it okay yes indeed but you did hear that right podcast listener that's right coach dave was not gonna stand idly by while a black lady existed in the future no no he had a plan quote here's the plan we are going to gather online to pray against the principalities and powers and their diabolical plan. Instead of offering our time and attention to the halftime orgy, we invite you and those you are watching the game with to join us for 30 minutes of prayer and intercession as their satanic ritual is streaming. Turn off your TV during halftime and join us in

prayer. Nothing hurts the NFL more than turning off the TV. I feel like their handling of the concussion studies should have been a contender, but he's probably right, though. Yeah, no, he's right. He's right. We invite you to log on to www. coachdavelive.com

as we stream live interactive prayer across the world in a counter offensive against the forces of darkness as they perform another satanic ritual. We will war in the heavenlies as the scriptures calls us to do.

End real quote. Jesus Christ. All right. I have a question though. What would a non-interactive prayer be? All right. Y'all don't think this, though. Only I'm thinking this one.

Second verse, same as the first. Well, despite being isolated in my bedroom, thanks to the deadly COVID-19 virus, I did manage to tune in to CoachDaveLive.com during the halftime show to see just how his call to prayer stacked up versus the most televised event in history. And when I checked, there were 133 viewers. Now, look, I'm no scientician. Maybe that number went up by a couple hundred million later. I don't want to make any claims, but that was the score when I checked during the halftime show. Well, according to the Monica Cole School of Rounding Up, he actually was very close to the Super Bowl numbers.

Anyway, I point this out because it's just interesting to see how Jesus does when he doesn't have a $20 million budget for coverage. If anyone knows the Big J Man, I recommend a lip sync battle. Tends to really pop one up in the charts.

Give that a shot. Add in cancel culture news. The British acapella group, the King Singers, were scheduled to hold a concert at the Pensacola Christian College last Saturday.

And then the dean learned that one of their members was openly gay, so they canceled it. Two hours before the scheduled start. And to be clear, when I say that he's openly gay, I don't mean during the concert.

He's just singing, then he doesn't fuck anybody of any gender during the show or discuss who he's going to fuck later. So it's literally impossible for that fact to fucking matter with respect to the actual thing that he was actually scheduled to do. Yeah, I mean,

had it been a Ricky Martin concert, sure. That man makes love to his audience when he performs, but I feel like King Singers. So, yeah, so this story comes to us from Rob via scathingnews at gmail.com. Thanks, Rob. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Noah, you're saying people can send us stories at scathingnews at gmail.com, and not only will we thank them by name on the show, but at the exact second they hear their story, Keith Enright will ring their doorbell to thank them personally. That's right, Rob. Open your door right now.

That's Heath Enright. And you and him are going skate shooting right now. Nope. Not not none of that. Skating news at Gmail dot com. Now, I should point out that this is hardly the first time that we've ever talked about Pensacola Christian College's asinine religiosity on this show. We actually talked about these guys all the way back on episode 14 when we covered a story

about their fire safety policy. Or sorry, I guess safety is a bit of an overstatement. Their fire policy that requires female students be appropriately covered up before evacuating a burning building. That's a real thing. They also just barely missed a mention on episode 324 when their staff took a sharpie to the classical art in their library to cover up inappropriate imagery like, I shit you not, the Mona Lisa's cleavage.

Yep. When you're too prude for Renaissance Italy, you might be the problem anyway so this all started when an unnamed student sent a panicky message to the school's dean warning him that edward button one of the king singer's singers was openly gay what's more button freely posted on instagram about his open gayness so with only two hours until the fucking curtain and the group already on campus and warming up, the dean hurriedly canceled

the show and reassured the students that he'd protected them from the group's vulgar fucking rainbosity or whatever. Hey, everybody. It's me, the dean. Good news. I saved us from the entertainment. I booked us and I made a fool

of all of you on a national scale. You're welcome. I'm the entertainment. I booked us and I made a fool of all of you on a national scale. You're welcome. I'm the dean. Right. Now, for their part, the King's Singers released a super classy statement about their hopes that, quote, music can build a common language that allows people with different views and perspectives to come together, end

quote, and refrains from telling Pensacola Christian College to choke on a dismembered dick. In turn, PCC released whatever the opposite of a super classy statement is where they said that they couldn't quote knowingly give an implied or direct endorsement to anything that violates the holy scripture the foundation for our sincerely held beliefs end quote oh yeah and by holy scripture by the way they didn't mean the bible obviously or they'd fucking cancel concerts over shellfish and polyester what they mean is the most current iteration of our bigotry but you'll notice they included the magical term sincerely held beliefs

in there so unfortunately they are immune from all laws and rules about decorum yeah but with two hours before the show canceling i think they're also going to be immune to refunds. So there's a bright side. Yeah, important to know that the King Sears did get paid, which seems unfair since Eli and I also didn't perform there last Saturday. So while we knock together a quick bill for them, we're going to hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda.

A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what you want. If it's a legitimate rape. You're a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in Misogyny. Pop quiz.

How old does a girl have to be to get married in the state of Wyoming? Well, I'm sorry to say that if you guessed any positive integer, you overbid because there actually is no law in Wyoming setting a minimum age for marriage. See, the law there says that 16 and 17 year olds can only get married with parental consent. And for anyone under 16, the marriage needs both parental consent and a judge's approval. So at least theoretically, you could marry a zero-year-old. Hell, given the GOP's dedication to pretending that zygotes are people, you can theoretically marry a negative 0.75-year-old. Of course, some people would

come to the defense of the law by pointing out the difference between theoretical and practical, but that would be missing the point. Why would you have a loophole that would allow for the marriage of seven-year-olds in the first goddamn place? And lest you think that this is some weird vestigial thing that was written into law in 1780 something and nobody ever has gotten around to changing it, I should point out that the reason I'm bringing it up today is because the Wyoming GOP is currently resisting an effort to change that law. That change is HB 7, a bill that seeks to strip the right of a judge to decide some dude can marry a middle schooler. But the Wyoming GOP is actively

standing in its way. They sent out a mass email urging constituents to contact the representatives and oppose this bill since girls under the age of 16 can still get pregnant. According to the email, the bill, quote, denies the fundamental purpose of marriage by denying a child's father and mother from living under the same roof, end quote. In other words, if we can't force 13-year-olds to marry their rapist, how can we justify forcing them to carry the fetus to term? And I realize that this story doesn't really need a knife twist at the end, but I think it's worth pointing out in times like these that when they're not protecting the rights of child rapists, they spend their time passing anti-trans legislation under the guise of protecting children from sexual predators.

But enough about the Wyoming GOP. Let's shift to a different place that comes to mind when I say a whole bunch of Nazis. Germany. So for those of you who don't know, abortion laws in Germany are actually pretty conservative. Technically, abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or danger to the pregnant person. Now, it's not quite as bad as that makes it sound because it's actually not punishable in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for either the doctor or the patient. So the worst case scenario, you can get mandatory counseling for it. Later than 12

weeks, you have to show that the pregnancy is a threat to the person's physical or mental health. And then you have to go to some bullshit anti-abortion counseling thing for three days before you can have it. So not quite an outright ban, but bad enough that even a person living in the state of Georgia can get away with side-eyeing it a bit. But leaders from Germany's Social Democratic Party are hoping to change that fact with a move to delete paragraph 218, the section of German law that makes abortion illegal in the first place. And to nobody's surprise, German Christians are standing in the way. Interestingly enough, though, they seem to be trying to argue that the way the SDP are going about this change

is unconstitutional because legislative minutiae is your only option when you can't win the argument in the larger culture. And look, I know German politics about as well as I know lunar topography. So their constitutional arguments may be valid. But the fact that they're not even bothering to argue that the law against abortion has merit tells you a lot about how marketable they think their position is. they think their position is. And on that bit of far-removed good news, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda.

And in literally insane news. That's actually really good. That's a good thing. It's going to come around. Once you get it, it's pretty good. The vice president of the Palmerton Area School District School Board erected a billboard last week against his own decision it's pretty good yeah the vice president of the palmerton area school district school board erected a billboard last week against his own decision to build unisex bathrooms accusing

himself of catering to fictional furries he read about on the facebooks because when your conspiracy theories need no grounding in fact you might as well go full total recall and start fighting yourself yeah we shouldn't be surprised that christian spends so much time fighting things that don't exist like you dedicated your life to an imaginary friend you're bound to make some imaginary enemies along yeah that'll do it so here's the story according to the times news online the district is planning to build separate boys and girls locker rooms with three individual showers in each in order to accommodate the ever-growing girls wrestling team. But state building codes

require recreational facilities with more than one shower to provide separate unisex facilities so that, among other reasons, the place where adults go to shit isn't the same place where children go to shower which seems like a good idea to me sure sure i mean i mean when you're eli bosnick building an extra bathroom always seems like a good idea but like your point stands one way or the other yeah no that's true ibs is a recognized disability no illusions you're a bigot bigot take. Say it against my people. Anyway, Earl Pauls, that's the vice president of the superintendent's schools. He realized that transgender students could also use those unisex bathrooms. Or as he puts it when he was interviewed, quote, the next thing you know, they're going to want one of those bathrooms in the high school and then the middle school and then

the elementary schools. It opens a door. I don't think we need to open end quote the door being the door to the bathroom yep right and look it's worth reflecting on because we've been saying this since their fucking obsession with trans kids pissing began their paranoia and bigotry is now leading to a place where common sense precautions that actually keep kids bathrooms safe are being rejected and in this fucking instance demonized in pursuit of their bigotry exactly and with logic and reasoning that concrete of course he had no choice but to erect a billboard

once again against himself as vice president of the school board that said quote it's the real billboard you can see a picture in the show notes no unisex bathrooms no litter boxes in our schools here in palmerton taxpayers have rights and quote taxpayers so to be clear his claim is that taxpayers have rights to how kids shit. Yep. What rights could he possibly wear in the Constitution? I want to know. They need a license to kitty litter,

and there needs to be a 24-hour waiting period for kids to shit. No more Chipotle's. Yeah. So it's actually unclear how this is going to resolve itself right now. The bathroom is there by state law. And the best case scenario is that someone in the district

realizes this guy rented a billboard for the right to walk through the boys' locker room, but probably won't be that. Either way, if this does get built and we have a listener with access to this unisex bathroom, please put a kitty litter box in there as a prank.

Look, he's not here, but I can guarantee you a plethora of Heath points for doing in the future, okay? Plethora. And in putting the smack in Newsmax news tonight, DirecTV has refused to pay Newsmax

tens of millions of dollars in new fees, thus leading the right-wing propaganda network to pull its programming from the service provider. And that can mean only one thing. DirecTV hates Jesus. Hates Jesus, obviously, yeah. Well, at least that's the claim of Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, who dubbed the move a, quote,

blatant act of political discrimination and censorship, end quote, and accused DirecTV of targeting people with traditional Christian values. Yeah, not paying for bigotry is anti-Christian. What is this guy, a Supreme Court justice? Who I recently learned eats alone with all his conservative other justices? So here's the story in an isolated chamber that isn't locked and people just let you into so here's what's actually happening i'm doing a felony right now i meant in the story uh newsmax which is an alternative for people who consider fox news to be too damn woke is hoping to transition from a streaming service to in

ruddy's words a quote traditional cable channel like c, Fox, and all the rest, end quote. But to do that, they need to move from an advertising-based model to a subscription-based model, which is pretty much like me telling Apple Podcasts that they have to start paying us to list this show. It's fucking nonsense, right? They wanted to go from providing their channel to DirecTV for free to providing it for tens of

millions of dollars. And when DirecTV said no, Newsmax pulled their content voluntarily, and then they dubbed the refusal to pay millions of dollars for free shit anti-Christian censorship.

Christopher, stop sliding a piece of paper across the table with numbers on it the first number was zero does that paper say zero no then we multiply whatever is on your paper again by our offer now you might be wondering how you can at once claim to be a news station and claim that failing to carry your news station is an act of religious censorship uh well the answer is by lying. Speaking to the Christian Post, Ruddy explained, quote, Newsmax is not a religious channel, but we believe Judeo-Christian ethics is key to the founding of the country and the principles

upon which the founding documents and the Constitution were created, end quote. Which is wrong, right? That's just, that is an untrue statement, even if you correct it grammatically. So clearly, they're also not a news station. But still, he accused DirecTV of, quote, targeting people with conservative political views, adding, quote, traditional Christians have traditional values. They're viewed as conservative-oriented, end quote. Look, it's not that all Cretans are liars. It's the liars who, like our show,

are also Cretans. It's anti-Cretans. Hold on, I need a piece of paper. Cretans are P, and liars are Q. For their part, DirecTV has basically just said, nuh-uh, in response, right? They were fine carrying Newsmax for free,

given that $0 is an accurate assessment of its value. As to the charge that they're silencing conservative voices, they point to a conservative network called The First, which features hosts like Dana Losh and Bill O'Fuckin' Riley and is produced by DirecTV. So, yeah, not a lot of meat on the bones of the complaint. That being said, on the offhand that it sticks, I would like to point out the DirecTV is also not paying us tens of millions of dollars. So clearly they discriminate against atheism, too.

Oh, damn it. I expect to check shortly. I want to check. And in Trigfoot news, we have to talk about a lot of depressing bullshit on this show. Theocracy and transphobia, the destruction of women's rights and racism. But podcast listener, that's not all there is to skepticism. We're not just gloomy gusses desperately holding back the tide of a crumbling civilization. No, no.

Sometimes we get to make fun of idiots who believe in Bigfoot. And we have a fresh chance to do that this week as a new study shows that Bigfoot sightings, mathematically speaking, are probably bears. Yeah, right. Which means that, statistically speaking, everybody who's ever argued with you that Bigfoot is real is way more likely to be mauled in a case of mistaken identity than you are. So that should make you happy. Exactly. It's win-win-win. So this comes to us from data analyst Flo Foxon, which, can I just say, fucking awesome name.

Oh, it's 90% chance they're a superhero secretly with that name. And it was published on BioRxiv, a preprint study hosting website, which for laymen like me, that's like GitHub. But for science stuff, though, I'm pretty sure everybody involved would not be happy with that description. Probably not. Yeah. Anyway, my point is, my point is in this publication, Flo Fox on.

Yes, I will be using Flo Fox on its name wherever I can, compares Bigfoot sightings and black bear populations and shows generally when black bear populations are up, people see Bigfoot more because black bears are real and Bigfoot definitely is not. Right. Yeah, because here's the thing. Like sometimes black bears walk on their hind legs. It's it's not as tricky as humans make it look, apparently.

And I've seen them do it, right? You don't have to be outdoors for like your entire life. It's weird. It's adorable. Look up videos of Petals the Bear if you want to see it.

But the point is, though, is that there's been a perfectly rational explanation for seeing large mammals walking upright in the American wilderness the entire time. And instead of saying,

oh, well, that's probably a bear with an injured paw. We built an entire goddamn industry around getting the answer wrong. That's who we are as a country. It's the American way. And look, crazily enough, this actually isn't the first study of its kind. There's a 2009 report published in the Journal of Biogeography that showed the same thing. But Eli, you say, does Flo Foxen's study disprove any previously believed

myths? And the answer is also yes. See, one of the theories floating out there for the sightings of the Loch Ness Monster is perhaps that there is a family of giant eels in the lock. But according to Foxen's math, Loch Ness monster sightings and eel population rates are unrelated. So we're not just debunking bullshit here, people. We're debunking bullshit debunks of other bullshit. Fuck, yeah. Now I just need Flo to run the numbers comparing chupacabra sightings with Tony Perkins' last known locations.

Yeah, and we're all set. I have all the info. Exactly. So, there you have it. Yet more true things from the world of math and science thanks to numbers and facts. And now, Noah will play the saxophone. Dude, what?

I didn't have a good ending for my story and I had a fever when I wrote it. You could just stop. You just stop talking. It's going to be the end of your story. You don't need a thing. for my story and I had a fever when I wrote it you could just stop talking it's going to be the end of your story and finally tonight in Veggie Wedgie news one of my favorite aspects of the ongoing descent into

madness that the rights culture war has become is the way that the mainstream universe seems to just laugh it off most of the time like M&M's Super Bowl ad might as well have just been the CEO of Eminem Mars directly talking to Tucker Carlson and telling him to shove one Eminem up each of his holes and report back which ones they melted in and which ones they didn't. And since brands generally recognize that catering to the youth is way

more profitable long-term than appealing to antiquated prudery. Most of corporate America doesn't give a fuck what Christian bigots think of their Christmas cups. Yeah, I mean, not only do they not care, they now realize they get free bigot publicity by being inclusive. Right. Hell, a million moms will tweet about you. A million, everybody. A million moms will tweet about you. A million, everybody. A million. There are, of course, a few companies that have dedicated themselves to the opposite strategy, though.

And in the short term, that's become really profitable for some of them, like Chick-fil-A, which appeased conservative Christian opposition to the existence of LGBTQ people and rode the bigot wave to become the most profitable per restaurant franchise in America back in 2018. And that's even with the other contenders being open on all of the days. But the price that you pay for catering to irrational reactionaries is, alas, a customer base filled with irrational reactionaries. And Chick-fil-A was reminded of that fact last week when they had the audacity to test market a plant-based sandwich option in open defiance of God. And the tweet that announced that fact led to such vitriolic backlash that the company felt the need to turn off comments on the tweet, remove the press release it pointed to from their website, and temporarily shutter the press room section of their website. shutter the press room section of their website. As the marketing department huddles behind steel doors 100 feet underground, they wonder to themselves, perhaps if we targeted the wrong demographic. Right, yeah. So the Twitter backlash was immense, with loyal customers lamenting the

fact that Chick-fil-A had, in their words, gone woke. Fox News published an article on their website decrying the move that used the goddamn F-O-W-L foul play pun no fewer than three fucking times. Yeah, it's like they hired me to do the puns on that article. It's the best. Heath was available this week. He was off, people. Jesus, just ask him. Now, the announcement tweet got ratioed to the tune of about 2,400 to 1,800

as of the time I'm writing. But in their defense, Chick-fil-A assures worried customers that the new cauliflower sandwich is only a little woke. It's not like it's fucking vegan. It's still fried. It contains egg and milk products. And the restaurant doesn't designate a surface for vegetarian preparation like a bunch of fucking hippies so those filthy libs that eat it'll still get straight chicken juice here and there but clearly that wasn't enough look y'all calm down we were just trying to fulfill chick-fil-a's goal of seeing how disgusting a sandwich people will say is delicious so that they can still be bigots we're doing a deep deep fried flip flop next summer. Chill out, everybody. Okay, so now to be clear,

this new breaded cauliflower sandwich is only being tested in three markets. Kind of, at least from the pictures, looks delicious though. So I need to close this story off with a periodic reminder that that doesn't matter. I don't give a fuck how delicious it is. You're directly funding bigotry

and theocracy. If you buy their shit, no amount of delicious is worth dehumanizing people that you care about for. Okay, but like, what if you really liked a book about wizards as a kid? Can you dehumanize people that how human?

What about the wizard book? Alright, so now that Eli's filled up our inboxes for the week, I guess we can close the headlines for the night. Eli, thanks as always. Juicy-o! And when we come back, Don Ford will be here to do his best Heath impression. Hey, podcast listener.

As you may know by now, I have contracted the deadly COVID-19 virus. Really? Two shows in a row with this? And though when Noah and Heath got COVID, they stalwartly soldiered on like old men broken by war, I'm here to remind you that the only cure for my COVID is your money. Okay. cure for my COVID is your money. Okay. Yes. Nine out of ten doctors agree that rubbing your Patreon donations against

my diseased and weakened baby lungs is the only way to ensure my survival. Nay, without them, I will surely die. Okay, first of all, that's not how nay works, and secondly, you'll die if people don't sign up for Patreon. That's right, Noah. That's a promise.

Sure, you've always meant to support our podcast, but you've never gotten around to it. We understand. But that time for understanding is over because now it's a matter of life and death of COVID. No, no, it's not. So head over to patreon.com slash scathing atheist and donate your money today.

Patreon.com slash scathing atheist. donate your money today. Patreon.com slash scathing atheist. Do it or I'll die of COVID. So what do you think? Do you think that's it? Honestly, it was a bit tasteless, dude. Well, they say you lose that with COVID. I think he's skiing he's skiing? well I mean he bought a lot of ski stuff

this month but the stuff he buys and the activities he's about to do aren't necessarily related so really? yeah like one time he just sent me sponges and I was like is this a hint and he was like nope nope time he just sent me sponges and I was like, is this a hint? And he was like, no, no, those are just the best sponges. And are they the best sponges?

Yes, they are the best sponges. Hey, guys, guys, you guys ready to do a Bible piece theater? The part of the show where we act out the Bible so our listeners don't have to read it. I sure am. Hey, wait a second. Did Heath ever send you sponges, Noah? No, because he wasn't hinting that my house was disgusting. Anyway, where were we in the Bible?

Isaiah. Oh, that's the guy where Don does the problematic voice. He's not problematic. He's Homestar Runner. Yeah, no, he's not problematic. That's why I have to put this bit in every episode you do that voice. And that's because I'm not problematic. You knew who I was when you enlisted me.

And anyway, back to the story. So one day, King Hezekiah becomes deathly ill. Did you say enlisted? Oh, hey, Hezekiah. How's it going? Not great, Isaiah. I'm dying. Oh, yeah.

Well, I come with a message from God. You're going to die. I just said, thanks, I guess. I just kind of thought God might cut me a break because I did all that stuff that he wanted me to do, but no, that's cool. Message from God, message from God, whisper, whisper, whisper.

Oh, wait a second Check that God says you're not going to die You're actually going to live for like another 15 years Well, that's great I'm sorry, did God not know that? Or did God lie about that? Oh

Because otherwise he's not omniscient. Oh, right. Yeah, so yeah, it's the second one. Like a prank? Oh yeah, like a fun prank. God pranked you.

Pranked me. Yeah, yeah, you pranked me good. Okay. If you want proof, watch this. pranked me. Yeah, yeah, you pranked me good. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. Anyway, if you want proof, watch this. What? What happened? Oh, well, the sundial

moved a little. Oh. Um, cool. Cool miracle, dude. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, just put a lump of figs on your boils and you'll be all set. Lump of figs. Got it. Isaiah? Yeah?

Is God like, is he like working a second job today or going through like a breakup? Not that I know of, no. Okay. It just doesn't seem like he's really on his game today is all. Like a breakup? Not that I know of, no. Okay. It just doesn't seem like he's really on his game today. That's all. Would you like me to pass that along?

No, I think if you did, he would kill me with fire. Oh, he would. Yeah. Let's see. Yada, yada, yada. God talks about what a badass he is. Oh, oh, here. At one point he says, I am the Lord.

That's my name. So like, is the Lord God's name now? Yeah, I think in Hebrew it's different, but it does feel like weird for God to have a they call me Mr. Tibbs moment regardless. Right? I mean, in the heat of the Night is so good though, right? Oh, yes. Hey, did you guys know they made a sequel to In the Heat of the Night called They Call Me Mr. Tibbs? No.

Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what it's called. Yep. Is it bad though? Yeah, man. It's called They Call Me Mr. Tibbs.

It's like if Jaws 2 was called We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat. Okay, that's a fair point. Let's see. I'm so powerful. I'm so great. Ooh, ooh. There's a part where it says, And kings shall be thy nursing fathers.

Um, like breastfeeding? What does that even mean? I don't know, man. Some say it's a mistranslation from the Greek, but I have no idea how the hell that could have happened. Well, I think I have an idea how it happened. Why am I not surprised?

Brother, yes, brother, homunculus. I have a question about your transcription here. Anything, brother. So I see here that I say the Greek is, and your king shall weep like a babe at the breast. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And you've translated that to, and all the king shall have big honking boobies full of milk. Yes. Do you feel this might be an adjustment? King shall have big honking boobies full of milk. Yes? Do you feel this might be an adjustment? Summarizing, perhaps. Summarizing? Big honking boobies full of milk? Fine, fine. Okay, how about, King shall be thy nursing fathers.

That way, you know, we leave some up the imagination. Seriously, man, you're obviously working your thing into the Bible here. Oh, I'm doing that. I'm the one working my thing into the Bible. Well, while we're checking each other's work, I think I remember some extra feet penis switch-outs that we need to go over. Dude, don't sort out. Fine, fine. You can keep the nursing kings,

but don't say anything about the foot stuff, do you? Do you? Fucking hate being a monk. Dude, me too. This sucks. I,

I mean, your guess is as good as mine, bro. All right, let me see. There's more blood stuff. God's going to kill everyone. God is so powerful. Oh, people who bring good news have beautiful feet. Are you sorry about that?

It's fine. I'm the monk from the duly do. No, we got it. We got it. We know. Okay, then God claims all barren women and eunuchs are his spouse. Okay, that's bizarre. Yeah. Oh, oh! And then here at the end of the chapter, but

by no means the end of the book, God accuses us, everybody, of having sex with other gods on the tops of mountains. What? Honey, I'm home. Oh, uh, Donald, I mean, Gog, you're back early. Yeah, you won't believe the day I had at work today.

Let's just say I made octopuses way too smart. Oh, um, just don't say. Hey, babe, you coming back to bed? Melania, you're sleeping with Ganesh? I mean, can you blame her? I am hung like an elephant. Let's see. Feed the hungry.

That's good. Oh, no, actually, it's only because they're all going to die. So that's actually kind of wasteful. Let's see. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles and shalt suck the breast of kings. That's me from the sketch from before. Oh, got it. Got it.

Thank you. Let's see. The sun and the moon will stop producing light. Oh, okay. Then it talks about how things get nice again. Oh, hey there, neighbor. How's it going? Pretty good.

Pretty good. I gotta tell you, when God made the sun and the stars fall to the earth, that really kind of stunk. But, you know, now everything's great. I even have a vineyard. Oh, me too. Plus the lions eat straw now. Everyone lives to be a hundred

years old. A hundred years old, that's right. Hey, neighbor? Yeah? You ever think the Bible seems kind of bad at paradise? How so? Well, it's just like, you know, this book has like 60 chapters and it had endless

descriptions of torture and hellfire and blood and disease and and now here at the end we get like a like a a vineyard and people live in a little bit longer didn't i mention mention that snakes eat dust just now? But that's not moving the needle for me. Oh, okay. Let's see. Suck on Israel's big milky boobs some more. The worms that

eat the evil shall never die. That's fucking weird. And that's the end of Isaiah. Wow. Not a lot there. No. No, definitely not. I mean, is there anything that we're supposed to learn from this?

Only one way to find out. Anna? What can I say about Isaiah? He's supposed to be one pathetic player Is he the bringer of news? Is any use to the Jews? Or just the muse for the first part of Handel's Messiah? He's sure the world's impure There's people sinning now

God has a cure though though, and will destroy. Whoa, the whole world? No, really, any minute now. When's it gonna be? Oh, when's it gonna be? Dude, it's 2023, 80. And Isaiah's pretty sure that we'd be dead by now. That we'd be swallowed by the seas.

Or succumb to disease with no remedies. Get on your knees Cause Isaiah's pretty sure it's any minute now Tick tock, Isaiah How many centuries have you been saying That anybody who drinks will go directly to hell Two thousand years later Liquor sales are still doing swell

Well, God says cover your shoulders, you whore He'll make the whole world explode He'll burn it all down and cut us to the ground and build another planet with a new dress code when's it gonna be when's it gonna be in 701 bc you were like yeah any minute now it's gonna kill your families or you'll be eaten by a or covered in fucking bees i say it's pretty sure it's any minute now Hurry up and wake in on your shit You don't wanna be late for the apocalypse

Armageddon tired, waiting for the party Heaven's arriving, i'm flashing up the tardy hurry up and we get on your shit you don't want to be late for the apocalypse i'm getting tired waiting for the party heaven's arriving i'm flashing up the tardy hurry up and we get on your shit you don't want to be late for the apocalypse i'm getting tired waiting for the party heaven's arriving i'm flashing fashionably tardy Hurry up and wait, get on your ship You don't wanna be late for the apocalypse I'm getting tired waiting for the party Heaven's arriving, I'm fashionably tardy

Hurry up and wait, get on your ship You don't wanna be late for the apocalypse I'm getting tired waiting for the party I say it's pretty sure it's any minute now Frazzer, frazzer, fratzer, fratzer. Hey, Noah, what's the matter? Nothing. It's just, you know how I like to have our show be exactly an hour? Yeah, you do it down to like the tenth of a second, right?

A hundredth of a second, actually. Yeah, but it looks like we're a couple minutes short this week. That just really irritates me. Oh, I mean, we've got Don coming in for Bible Peace Theater. We could do the thing. Eli, no. Please, you said we need the time. And our listeners deserve 60 minutes, no illusions.

Are you denying our listeners 60 minutes of comedy content? Fine, we can do the sketches you wrote while you were high. Yes! Okay, so this first one is called The Guys Who Worked for the Overlook Hotel See the Shining for the First Time. Well, I'll tell you, Phil, I can't wait to see this movie.

Me neither. The great American director Stanley Kubrick making a movie in our hotel about the great American novelist Stephen King's book. I mean, how lucky are we? So very lucky. Two hours and 26 minutes later. So, that's the movie. Yep.

That's the movie. that that's the movie oh good good movie good great great movie good actually a lot of a lot of very nice shots of the hotel oh oh for sure for sure i i will i will say i i don't think it's gonna make a ton of people want to stay here. Yeah, right, because they'll think it's haunted and that they'll lose their souls. Haunted and lose their souls. Yeah, that movie would kind of actively make me want to not stay in a hotel. Yeah, no, I see that. I do see that. Do you think our bosses

are going to see this movie? The ones set in their hotel about their hotel? Yeah, I would say yes. They're probably going to see it. Okay. Are we fired? I would imagine we are fired, yes.

Yeah, yeah. Hey, Noah. Yes, Eli. How we doing on time for the episode so far? We're still a little short. So does that mean we could do another sketch I wrote while I was high? Yes, we can do another sketch you wrote while you

were high. Nice. Okay. This one is called How I Imagine Super Bowl Commercials Are Written. Hey, boss, you got a second? Sure, come on in. So I finished my draft of our Super Bowl commercial for our major national corporation. Oh, nice. Excellent.

Let me see here. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I like it. This is funny, and people will want to buy the product you did a great job thanks I worked really hard on it now can you fit the

Grinch into it sorry the Grinch from Dr. Seuss yeah that's the one we already paid 11 million dollars for the Grinch to be in the commercial so can you can you add him in there somewhere?

I mean, I guess. I just don't think it's going to make a lot of sense. Oh, that's okay. You haven't even gotten notes yet. Sorry, notes? Oh, yeah. No, there's a lot of money going into this commercial. So everyone from executives to producers to legal are going to feel downright entitled to see their notes no matter how stupid or irrelevant incorporated into the final product okay but won't that make our super bowl ad an indecipherable mess that literally everyone hates oh yeah sure will but don't worry we'll fire you super hard to make sure everybody knows how sorry we are about it. Got it. Hey, boss? Yeah,

kid. I feel like there was a world where we could have had nice things, and I don't know how we missed it. Yeah, me too, kid. Me too. Wow, that one was sad. Damn it! I was trying to do a Michelin web. Don't

do a Michelin web. Don't do a Michelin web. Yeah, don't. Before we skedaddle tonight, I want to remind you that I'm going to be speaking at Free Flow in Orlando, Florida next month. The conference takes place March 10th through the 12th, and I'm crazy excited about my talk. It's called Godawful Gaming,

the History of Christian Video Games, and I'm going to be talking about all the various ways that Christian prudery has influenced the history and development of the gaming industry and also making fun of some truly awful Christian games along the way. For more info, check out freeflow.org or check the show notes.

The link will be there as well. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even new episode of our half-sister's citation-needed,

debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't call this an episode if I don't thank Heath Enright for the echo he leaves, even in the episodes he's not on. I want to thank Eli Bosnick for toughing his way through COVID to be here. I want to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for a lot of shit, most notably the 26 years of happiness that she's brought me since I married her. Celebrated our anniversary on Valentine's Day. Happy anniversary, baby.

I also want to thank Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure, for not telling anybody the real reason Heath isn't here tonight. I obviously need to thank Anna for lending us her seemingly boundless talents once again this week. I also want to thank Angela and Sam for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. And, of course, if you want to learn more about the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers, be sure to check the show note for the handy-dandy link to their website as well. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people, the ones who flocked and drove to support our budding creator accountability network. We've received literally hundreds of volunteer applications, and the response has just been overwhelming.

I also want to thank all the new patrons, but because a ton of people very reasonably paused their patronage when the news about Andrew broke last week and waited to see what was going on, and because patron doesn't distinguish between new and returning patrons, I can't thank everybody by name this week. Just know that we very much appreciate your support and are rather impressed with your intellect, genitals, and overall badassery.

And if you too would like us to marvel at the intellectual badassery of your genitals, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button

on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a having less money at the end of it kind of way, we always appreciate five-star reviews and following us on Facebook. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us. Our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info

on the contact page at ScathingAdeus.com I'm so fucking spoiled by this medicine. What's that? Spoiled by this medicine, huh? I'm so spoiled by this medicine. What's that? Spoiled by medicine, huh? I'm so spoiled by this medicine because I already got the miracle shot that means this thing doesn't fucking kill me. And then they were like, hey, you're fat.

Here, have a thing that turns it into the most minor cold this year, but it'll give you a little bit of a metallic taste in your mouth. And for the last three days, I've been like, yucky. Miracle life-saving literal AIDS drug makes my mouth taste bad a little yeah so noah when do we tell him that he most of the record has been

him having blackout fugue states i i well not now don damn it damn it it's been 10 years man you better hope he's having a blackout fugue state right now i'm counting on it it's where i bring back messages from the podcast of ours the preceding podcast was a production of puzzling a thunderstorm llc copyright 2023 all rights reserved