The Scathing Atheist - 526: Elevated Edition

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

In this week’s episode, we head to Seattle, so we leave you with a whole bunch of headlines we recorded over the last six weeks so you wouldn’t miss us. --- 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: Learn more about Secular Recovery here: https://secularrecoverygroup.org/ Hear more from Tom and Cecil here: https://www.dissonancepod.com/

Warning, we ain't never gonna run out of fucks to give. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by HelloFresh and by the new weight loss system for the theologically flexible Jehovah's Witness Fitness. Jehovah's Witness Fitness, because all those extra steps probably will make you healthier. I mean, unless you like need a blood transfusion, that is. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, my name is Jacob, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm sending this in from the wonderful Hazelden Betty Ford Center in Center City, Minnesota.

To anyone struggling with substance abuse out there, despite what many would have you believe, you do not need God to get sober. The Recovery Community has helped this atheist stay sober. Love, understanding, and support are far more powerful than any tyrannical sky wizard. Just remember, take it one day at a time. Secular recovery is possible, and I believe in you. Also, based on all the dumb shit I did when I was drunk, I can definitely assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday.

It's March 16th, and we're in Seattle getting ready for a live show, so I had to just use pre-recorded Eli and Heath stuff to fake my way through the rest of the intro. I'm Noah Lusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Jared Kushner's New Jersey, Cincinnati Swing State, and Good Husband Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Heath will have already told you about not fucking Matt Gaetz, Eli will have already told you about not praying to Satan,

and Tom and Cecil will also have already been here, too. But first, the diatribe. I had another one of those amazing weekends that only the company of 300 godless people can provide. As you might recall me mentioning over the last few weeks, I was speaking at Free Flow. That's the biennial conference of the Florida Humanist Association. And holy shit, did they knock it out of the park last weekend. They had such a fantastic lineup of speakers. There was a service project for kids with food insecurity we had a drag show quick before florida you know joins in outlawing those and of course there was a fantastic community undergirding the whole thing now heath and eli weren't there so we're not going to do the typical

top 10 memories type of thing that we so often do after these events but to be clear i'm walking away with a lot of fantastic memories and as is so often the case several of my favorites took place when the people who were at the hotel for the conference and the people who were at the hotel for the like you know normal disney type family vacation shit ran into one another and there were actually three memories uh that i wanted to share with you regarding that all of which took place on or near an elevator. So we're staying at this 10-story hotel, and the organizers have me on the top floor because, you know, I'm important. And so I run up to the room for something on Saturday afternoon, and I'm on my way back down on the elevator. This dude gets on with me, and he's got his golf clubs

there, right? And he sees my lanyard and has no doubt seen several more of these already. So he says, hey, so what's free flow? And there are a couple of ways to go when this happens, right? I've seen exactly this interaction at a dozen different atheist conferences to this point, people asking me or people asking other people that I'm an earshot of. And more often than not, the answer to this question is a very convoluted and evasive sentence that eventually gets around to mentioning atheism, but maybe not by name. Right? Something along the lines of, well, it's a conference about science and social justice and humanism from a skeptical and non-theistic perspective, which is an accurate description, right? But it kind of buries the

lead. Personally, I go for the more direct approach. So he asked me and I say, it's an atheist conference. And then he goes, what? Because he certainly misheard asked me and I say, it's an atheist conference. And then he goes, what? Because he certainly misheard me. And I say, it's an atheist conference, like really slow, so there's no confusion. And then we rode the remaining six floors in total and deafening silence, like the kind of silence where if his phone had rung, I think he would have like pulled it out, thrown it on the ground and stomped on it. Now, the second elevator interaction was a bit more dramatic. This came as things were wrapping up Saturday night, and I should say the Saturday night schedule was absolutely loaded at this thing.

It started with a dinner and drag show that included an awesome history of drag component that was a ton of fun. Then some representatives with the Satanic Temple held an un-baptism ritual, and after that, friend of the show Andrew Seidel hosted pub-style trivia. So all of that had just finished up a bunch of us are heading upstairs to our rooms and and by then after the trivia most people had forgotten about the pentagram stamps that so many of them were carrying on their foreheads from the unbaptism ritual so we're all congregating by the elevator drunk and high and

shit looking like it's satanic ash wednesday all of us wearing lanyards that identify us as atheists or humanists or Satanists or whatever. And along comes the platonic fucking Karen, with her two kids in their roller luggage, having just arrived for a fun couple of days at Universal Studios or whatever. And as she approaches the crowd, she goes, would y'all mind not blocking the elevator? As though we're not also just like all waiting on the next fucking elevator and she's not just the last in line but then there's this

incredible moment where everyone kind of turns to her like these dozens of be pentagrammed faces all staring at her with a sort of anthropological curiosity and we just watch her shrink she starts pushing her two sons behind her like through some kind of mammalian instinct. She takes a big step back and she gives us a look like, you know, I don't want to compel you in the name of Christ, but I will if push comes to shove. And then the doors to the next elevator open and to a person, every single one of us just gestures to her and says like, yeah, go ahead. Somebody literally says, well, you look like you just got off a long flight. Go right ahead.

And then she walks past all these frustratingly polite heathens and as tempting as it was for three or four of us to pack in along with her and start muttering in pseudo Latin the whole way. We all managed to resist that urge and just let them go on their way. But there was one other interaction on the elevator the following day that i wanted to mention too because on sunday afternoon i ran back into the golfer dude from the day before we both wound up riding up to the 10th floor and and i kind of assumed that it was going to be super awkward because let's face it we're in descent this country now

but instead it was kind of awesome he says you know i didn't know what to make of it when you said you were with an atheist conference. So I went down the hall this morning to check it out. And I was really surprised. You guys are doing awesome work. We ended up chatting for like five minutes after we got off the elevator. He's a Christian in that sort of instinctual way that most Americans are, but he's not

like a churchgoer or whatever. And I guess when I said atheist conference, he assumed it would be all about God bashing. But when he walked down the exhibitors hallway, what he saw instead was a long line of people helping pack food for kids in poverty and a table raising money for access to reproductive care and a camp that focuses on teaching kids science and a group that offers legal aid to people who have been discriminated against on the basis of their religion and a charity that helps people recover from religious trauma. And not a single table about

god bashing see part of the reason that we do this is to remind people that we're there right it's about community building yes but it's also about visibility and sometimes that visibility is a bit of a fuck you to the status quo but only because our existence is a fuck you to the status quo they've made sure of that. There's nothing we can do about it. But when we come together like this, it's a great opportunity to remind those people that we have more to say than fuck you. That we're genuine people motivated by the same kind of sympathies and moral obligations as them. And that no matter how delicious they look, we're probably not going to eat their children.

They're talking about you, Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is you. That's right, listener. It's just you and me this time around, but no worries. We knew that was coming, so we've been saving up a few extra headlines over the last couple of months. So while the news might be a little old, I checked to use by date on the jokes. They should all still be good. But before we get to those, a quick word from this week's sponsor, HelloFresh.

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So I guess I'm sold. How do you sign up? Go to HelloFresh.com slash Scathing60 and use the code Scathing60 to get 60% off plus free shipping. That's HelloFresh.com slash Scathing60 and use the code Scathing60 to get 60% off plus free shipping. HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Cool. I'll sign up as soon as I get this last hammer cleaned. Is that one Skadigis Kluba, Breaker of Angels? I told you it's getting serious out there, man. And now back to the pre-recorded headlines already in progress.

Next up in headlines, we have one of the dumber headlines I've seen recently. It reads exact words. New Republican Congresswoman wants you to know she's not a witch. Oh, and she didn't sleep with Matt Gaetz. To be clear, I'm not blaming the headline's wording on the source. This wasn't like clickbait. They just accurately reported a real thing that happened.

Attorneys for U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican in Florida, just sent a letter with a list of demands and a threat of a lawsuit to conservative activist and radio host Matt Tito, insisting that he retract his comments about Luna and publicly announced to correct them that Anna Paulina Luna is not in fact a witch.

Who fucked a guy being investigated for sex trafficking a child? Yeah, no. Her lawyer sent us an email asking if Eli could do it as a jock jam. It was kind of weird. It was a weird day. I mean, to be fair, I would also like it clarified that I haven't fucked Matt Gaetz. Yeah, I mean, while we're clarifying it, I also haven't fucked Matt Gaetz. And I'm not a witch.

All of us said something about that. So, all that stuff may or may not be true about Gaetz and about Luna, but either way, that's the demand from a sitting member of the United States Congress because it's believable enough. The story got started on Tito's very serious political analysis radio show called Bubba the Love Sponge. sponge. Matt Tito is, I'm assuming, a love sponge named Bubba as a persona for his platform of very serious political activism in a Florida radio station. To be clear, I'm a podcaster on a show that features a fairy demon based on a sneaker, and I'm saying that's very silly and unprofessional. It's not a good sign. I was going to say, Heath, I just finished cleaning our lovely glass house. So during a recent episode of a show, Mr. Bubba claimed that Representative Luna

was fired from a previous job, that she had sex with a bobblehead of himself named Matt Gates, and that she's a witch who puts magical spells on her political opponents. and that she's a witch who puts magical spells on her political opponents. See, back in my day, ridiculous Republican politicians accused themselves of witchcraft. Damn it. Outsourcing is ruining politics. Absolutely. I just love that she's like, look, the goat may or may not have offered for me to live deliciously, but I would never fuck Matt Gaetz.

You will be hearing from my lawyer, sir. I feel like that was distraught. So in response to that, Luna hired attorneys to write a strongly worded letter and also accused Matt Tito of conspiring with one of her rival candidates to murder her with a gun.

She also made that accusation. He denies the murder plot, whatever. Here's what it said in the letter from Luna's attorney to Mr. Tito. Quote, your statements were said in gross negligence, knowing they were highly implausible and unlikely to be true.

Both of those things. Great. Good job. You're an attorney. Wow. Implausible is too thinky of a word. Put in another. Okay. Fair enough. This was goingy of a word. Put in another. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. This was going to somebody named Bubba the Love Sponge. It was.

Continuing the letter. You said that Ms. Luna, a devout Christian, practices witchcraft. You are hereby demanded to publicly and immediately retract each word and every defamatory statement you made. and immediately retract each word and every defamatory statement you made. Because you don't have the ability to distribute your retraction widely on your social media, you are demanded to apologize and retract your statements on Bubba the Love Sponge

or by making a retraction and apology video that you send to me that Ms. Luna will distribute via her social media. End of letter. Jesus. You think the lawyer that wrote that stopped after typing the words Bubba the Love Sponge and just looked

wistfully out the window and thought about how he could have chased ambulances maybe or something. No job today. Fuck. So here's the response from the Love Sponge. He told the Daily Beast quote, I didn't wake up one morning when i

was going on bubba the love sponge and say i'm gonna pull a bunch of stuff out of my ass and talk about it end quote because you know this is bubba the goddamn love sponge this is serious i wouldn't just pull stuff out of my ass on a serious show like that and tito explained that he has a legitimate source for his allegation of witchcraft. He spoke with Paloma Zuniga of Hispanics for Trump, bad start, who told him that Anna Luna practices witchcraft. He also added, that's where I heard it from. She puts spells on people. I have an anonymous source, Paloma.

Yeah. I didn't realize that you had heard Satan passed her a note in geography and she had checked the box and said, yes, by all means. Yeah. I just love how quick he was to throw his source under the bus. Here's her address. If you're mad, if you want to put a curse on anybody, it would be her, I guess. Yeah. And of course, Matt Gaetz weighed in on this, too.

He had a response. Matt Gaetz weighed in on this, too. He had a response. He took some time away from asking AOC how to cast his vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to deal with Bubba the Love Sponge related business as well. According to Gaetz, the allegation is a lie. And OK, I think we all knew that considering you have to be 25 years old to be in Congress. Nobody was thinking they had sex, obviously. So also he's matt gates right he's got a face only a girlfriend we don't know in canada last summer would love yeah right

gates also added that the rumor was only being spread around because he and luna are quote leading the fight alongside 18 other congress members who who know America deserves better than Kevin McCarthy. At least they knew that for a few days, but then... Yeah, now they don't know that. Matt almost got punched in the face. I mean, he's right. Yeah. And some guy whispered what had to be blackmail

about sex trafficking in his ear right after he almost got punched, and he rolled over like he was getting a prostate massage. So, it's tough. He was a Republican congressmanman but he wanted to punch matt gates in the face i'm very conflicted today is what i'm saying there's a lot of pulled back and forth and in catches catch kansas news tonight it turns out that kansas was not the one geographical location where catholic priests weren't raping kids. And we learned that definitively this week when the Kansas Bureau of Investigations released a report that found 188 alleged sexual predators among that state's Catholic clergy suspected

of committing, quote, aggravated criminal sodomy, rape, aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and aggravated sexual battery, end quote. They also reported at least 400 victims going back to 1950 though in most of those cases the priests were already dead and or the statute of limitations had expired because somebody once convinced everybody that statute of limitations on sex abuse for children weren't the fourth most evil possible fucking thing yeah honestly i think you should be allowed to prosecute the dead ones too if you convict the dead one you get to dig up their graves uh you get to do uh whatever you want for i'm gonna say three hours at least okay and then they get thrown in the rapist pit publicly is that cruel and extreme what i just said yes

but but it's also not in violation of catholic precedent and we know how much they care about that kind of stuff so so now, in this instance, I do want to give the Catholic diocese at the center of it a modicum of credit because the investigation did start in response to a request by the archbishop in charge of the Kansas City Archdiocese. And that earns exactly one modicum's worth of credit. Of course, it's a contingent modicum

with a note on it that says, yeah, but you only ask for that once lawyers publicly stated that at least 15 of your clergy members warranted further investigation for child sex crimes and there was public pressure on you to do so like it's like asking somebody to investigate your group once the public becomes aware of the extent to which it's been covering up child rape is like it's like one quanta of morality, but any measurable amount is more than we're used to from the Catholic Church. So, you know, way to trend in the right direction, I guess. Yeah.

The Catholic Church is like when your friend is dating someone terrible and then they start behaving slightly better and your friend's all excited to tell you about it. And you want to be like, yeah, cool. He got rid of his monster energy hat. Still bad. Still bad. Still bad. Get on hinge. And of course, whatever plaudits they earn for requesting the investigation are more than outweighed by all the shit they

did to hinder that investigation. Both historically and contemporaneously. So the KBI report, it noted that they were significantly hindered by, among other things, inadequate record keeping, perfunctory internal investigations, historical failures to report abuse to the police, insufficient internal accountability, a lack of transparency with victims, and the systemic use of language that minimized the severity of the accusations.

Worse still, they said many victims withheld vital information from investigators because they had signed non-disclosure agreements with the church cool cool being the victim of a pedophile priest has approximately the same paperwork as enrolling in kanye's high school good yeah and i have hundreds for similar reasons yeah i think you're probably right now to be clear there's no nda that can force you to withhold vital information in a criminal investigation, but because of the aforementioned

debt assailants and statutes of limitations, this didn't actually rise to the level of criminal investigation. But the party on the other side of those NDAs is the archdiocese.

It means that they were remotely serious about wanting to know what happened and wanting a thorough investigation. They would have just waived the fucking NDAs for the purposes of this investigation. The fact that they didn't shows you exactly how committed to the truth they aren't. And given what we've seen from other archdioceses in similar situations, there's every reason to believe that the reason the KBI mostly found cases that were too old to prosecute is because those are the ones that the Archdiocese isn't still actively covering up. Yeah, actually, the more I think about it,

I want my modicum of credit back. God damn it. Next up in headlines, Demi Lovato is not a cishet Christian person. Anna? Anna? I'm on my 15. Okay. Yep. 15. Got it. Got it. Got it. Well, a person did

a non-Christian thing in public, and the religious people are having a meltdown. And big thanks to Benjamin for sending us this story. So this one comes out of the UK, where government officials have banned a promotional poster that features non-binary pop star Demi Lovato laying down on a bed shaped like two perpendicular rectangles of slightly different length. And that's a cross. And Christianity owns that geometrical formation. Oh, especially when

you put a person on it. Yeah. And listener, let me assure you that whatever you're picturing, as Heath describes that, the actual poster is less risque than that. So much less risque. the actual poster is less risque than that. So much less risque. The only thing that makes this offensive to Christians is the presence of a non-binary pansexual on it. Mm-hmm. And look, it's like, oh, the Lord is fine with my cross truck nuts

and my cross bikini and my cross machine gun with my bacon-dipped cross bullets, but a spot for lying down, my delicate sensibilities are destroyed. Yeah. Right. So the poster was placed in six different locations around London to advertise Lovato's

new album called Holy Fuck, spelled with a V instead of a U. So the Christian idiots were already mad about the cultural appropriation of their, you know, H-E double hockey sticks type of loophole that fools the god of the universe in their minds. That's their thing. Demi Lovato stole it. And to make it worse, Lovato appears in the poster

wearing a, yeah, like Noah said, it's not risque. It's like a mildly revealing leather outfit. And Lovato is bound up in leather straps which makes it less revealing yeah right they cover up something if anything and lovato's lying on a cross-shaped bed and it actually looks really comfortable like it's corduroy great for a novelty fuck bed honestly like i would get your legs on both sides yeah yeah you can angle in you can get right it's a good idea for a fuck bed, honestly. Yeah, you can get your legs on both sides. Yeah, you can angle in. You can get... It's a good idea for a fuck bed.

Patent something. But four people in London flew into a rage when they saw the poster and they lodged official complaints with the UK's Advertising Standards Authority

or ASA. The aggrieved poster seers claimed the ads were likely to cause serious or widespread offense and were irresponsibly placed where kids could see them and the asa agreed with all that she said where kids could see of all the ways a kid in england is going to see across this is the one least likely to wind up with them getting raped yeah right i feel like i feel like these people are offended wrong.

Also, what the fuck is wrong with the ASA? I swear, everyone under the age of 50 in England is a completely sane secularist, and everyone over the age of 50 is a fucking frowning statue of Miss Marple somehow. I don't know what happened. It's a weird line. So, the ASA

told Lovato's music company that the poster in its current form is banned and they released the following statement this is from the asa quote the image of lovato in a position with their legs bound to one side which was reminiscent of christ on the cross together with the reference to holy fuck which in that context was likely to be viewed as linking sexuality to the sacred symbol of the crucifix, all that was likely to cause serious offense to Christians. Jesus. Yeah, with their arms bound to the sides like Jesus.

Famously. Yeah, Jesus. If you look at this image and think of Jesus on the cross, that is a kink between you, your partner, and your novelty butt plug. But don't pretend it's like a normal thing to conclude. Yeah. Also, you know what causes serious offense to Christians? Demi Lovato existing.

Right. Exactly. Do we want to listen to pretend feelings or are you editing them off the poster no matter what? You tell me where we stop caring about very serious feelings, the A.S.A. Just Demi Lovato on a poster anywhere. Lil Nas X on a poster anywhere. Just doing anything. Yep, that would be offensive to those feelings.

But regardless, the Christian freakout is clearly just helping out Demi lovato with some free publicity so big thanks to the christian out freakers for helping promote the heretical non-binary pop star and hopefully lovato's team is going to respond with some kindness of their own by republishing the ad with uh i would say a bed in a slightly different shape so as to avoid any more geometric persecution of all the downtrodden christian people in the uk right yeah okay but the old bed what she's lying in the same jesus owns knees to the right you can't we also that's parallelogram we get parallelogram version of that too that's bullshit bullshit. And in on the wrong track news,

one of the most nefarious things about Christian theocracy is that its perpetrators hope that the big things they do, like overturning Roe versus Wade and trying to overthrow the government, cover up for the tiny injustices. And if we have a job on this podcast, well, it's comparing Pat Robertson's face to dessert foods. But if we have a second job.

Unfrozen yogurt. Amazing. Excellent. Yeah, but not just yogurt, but like frozen yogurt that's unfrozen. That became unfrozen. Clotty and it's moving a little bit. And there's like mochi in there because they got some mochi. Yeah.

And it's got a little bit of Eli's very quiet urine stream rolling down a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Got a little bit of Eli's very quiet urine stream rolling down a little bit. Yeah, exactly. But if we have a second No, it really says something when you can't get all the way through the sentence, turn about as fair play before they cry foul, right? Yeah, exactly. So as you may have guessed, this all stems from the Bremerton decision, the Supreme Court case that sided with a football coach who led an entire field in prayer

during football games because la la la, Samuel Alito can't hear you. He did it after the games. It's entirely different. It was right after the games. Right after, on the loudspeaker. Center of the field. Super normal. So Gable, like many of us, was outraged. And like many of us, he used social media to express his disappointment and point out the hypocrisy of the decision,

tweeting, quote, the Supreme Court now says that public school employees can lead prayers with students and athletes. Why, yes, I will be praying to Satan around your children. Don't worry, their participation is optional. Smiley face emoji. End quote. Okay, good work.

And the people in Kirksville, Missouri were like, all right, Satan, the Prince of Darkness might help our kids run faster than Crosstown rival Mud Village, but no, not worth it. No deal. I don't know. No, that's cool.

But this isn't a guitar competition. Yeah, exactly. And while that tweet is obviously a fucking joke, if Christians in Missouri got things, they wouldn't be Christians or in Missouri. So they freaked out and an investigation into his tweets and other conduct was launched the following month. So from there, an administrator put him on notice, warning him not to cross any lines again, which, to be fair, he didn't. Right, which is tough because he's the fucking track coach.

Crossing lines is the whole goddamn point. Yeah. Instead, what he did is he took his team to the state championships. And look, I will admit, I don't know much about high school sports, but it seems like someone's good at their job if they do that, right? Okay, he told him to run fast.

What is cross-country coaching? Run fast. And then there's a gate. I know, there's training, regiment, whatever. You told him to run fast. You got him to run fast. That's it. Exactly.

A lion. Exactly. A lion. Well, whatever it was, that obviously didn't matter as much as nine fat guys in MAGA hats screaming in a school board meeting because six days after leading his team to the States, he was fired as coach. Okay, but they're fine with him teaching satanic math still at that school,

which is a weird line in the sand, right? Like magically? Well, I don't know. So like all math where three doesn't equal one is satanic. So they kind of have to make like make peace with that at some point, I guess. Pesky employment laws. So since

his firing, parents have asked the school board to reconsider their decision. Students signed a petition, all to no avail. The bigots won. And look, it's not my horn. I'm tooting. So let me say that this is exactly what Noah predicted in his diatribe after the Bremerton decision, like down to the wording that was used when they fired him, right? Bremerton wasn't about religious freedom. It was about

establishing a state religion wherever the fuck Christians think they're the majority. And any attempts to beat them at their own game with one clever trick was going to be met with exactly this, real world consequences for people who can't fight back. And look, yes, someday Bremerton will be overturned. Laws will be passed and history will condemn it and the last vestige of theocracy that it was. But that isn't and was never the point. Cruelty was and is the point. So next time something like this goes down, listen very, very carefully for the ways people in power tell you not to fight back and then do that. Yeah, do it a lot. Next up in headlines in herd impunity news, Christian idiots are plaguing again.

And as usual, they're not going to get punished for their sincerely held serial killing. So quick background for this one. Thanks to a highly effective vaccination program, we eliminated measles for decades. eliminated measles for decades. But then a bunch of people in America's heartland became epidemiologists by asking fucking Jeeves and they stopped taking vaccines and now measles are back. And then there was a thing called like COVID

or something like that, also a problem, I guess. And of course, the virus called Christianity continues to be fully endemic. Well, that all came together this month to create a giant super spreader event of ignorance and plague. Turns out that weeks long revival meeting and pray-a-thon that included

Asbury University in Kentucky was a bad idea for two reasons. One, there is no God. And the other, it was full of anti-vaxxer idiots. And now there's a measles outbreak. Yeah. Yeah. No, who could have possibly predicted something like this might happen in last week's lead story?

Whoever could have. Okay. I do like that it's caused a measles outbreak, though. Because, like, even the Christians are admitting measles is a thing, right? It throws a real wrench in their usual game plan. Yeah, no, that's true. I did not predict

a measles outbreak. No, that's good. These are freckles. They're worse than we thought. That's the thing. They're always worse than we were giving them credit for. Seriously, I don't know.

There's going to be like a milk leg outbreak in Kentucky soon. They just bring back shit. It's ridiculous. So the event at this Christian university in Kentucky was part of the national craze of revival meetings that we talked about. The events were all trying to help bring about a great awakening or a second coming or a rapture. Well, that did not happen,

but they still might get a pretty big death toll. According to the public health authorities in Kentucky, an anti-vaxxer resident in Jessamine County has a confirmed case of measles, which again was gone for like 20 years. And that person was also one of the tens of thousands of people who showed up at Asbury University during the revival meetings. Wow. And piled into an auditorium full of people to sing and do butterfly kisses for the Lord together.

Yeah. What's funny is that their book is very clear at several points that everyone but them is the ones who's going to get sick. It's just, it's a fun thing if you've read the book. Yeah. So, it would have been literally safer for public health for all those people to just have clunky, unprotected sex in their dorms for the very first

time in their lives. Sure. Nope. They did this instead. Here's the announcement from Dr. Stephen Stack, the commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health. He's Anthony Fauci, but for Kentucky specifically. He's all out of fucks. But he pulled it together and he somehow managed to avoid,

I hope you all die as part of his statement. He said, quote, anyone who attended the revival on February 18th may have been exposed to measles. It's a disease that we eradicated, but then you stupid fuck. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. I'm crossing that part out.

Crossing it out. Crossing it out. Are you chewing Zoloft? You may have been exposed to measles. Those who are unvaccinated are encouraged to quarantine for 21 days and to seek immunization with the measles vaccine, which is safe and effective. End actual quote. I bet his autocomplete just adds axene,

which is safe and effective every time he types a V at this point. All caps, bigger font. Hard for him to dirty chat with his sister because he's like, I want to pound that vaccine, which is safe and effective. Safe and effective. I hope you all get mumps, which is safe and effective. Safe and effective. I hope you all get mumps and rubella and autism. Sorry. Sorry.

All right. Just crossing that. Also, I quit and I'm moving out of this fucking state. It's his sister because Kentucky. Yeah, no, I get it. Okay. One other quick note. I referred to this whole idiot lock-in craze as revival meetings. But that's just what the Christian people are calling them.

It's not at all accurate. Jeopardy champ, professional New York Times crucifermalist, and esteemed friendly atheist, Hemet Mehta, pointed out that there's nothing revival-y about this at all. It's just a bunch of Christians doing a stupid thing, and then more already Christian people joining in, like the dancing mania of the Middle Ages. So yeah, the only revival that might happen

is at the hospital, where approximately 20% of people go when they get the fucking measles. Wow. Okay, I wrote in the notes, but with a little luck, we won't get a revival there either. But then I erased it.

I crossed it out. I decided not to make that joke. I want credit for the restraint, at least. Absolutely. And in Leia Size Matters news tonight. Fantastic! Frank Pavone might actually be more of a piece of shit than we were giving him credit for. Now, I say may because if you had asked me this time last year

if Frank Pavone serially harassed multiple women and engaged in grooming behavior with employees of his anti-abortion charity even before there was evidence, I'd have leaned yes.

Right? But now we have evidence because last month a conservative outlet called The Pillar published a report detailing multiple accusations of sexual harassment,

grooming behavior, and coercive physical contact with young women stretching back to at least 2010 from the former catholic advisor to donald trump that's shocking i'm right yeah people we don't need the psychics for minority report just whenever a republican accuses someone of something they did that thing just go in and arrest them no wooden balls required just just there you go process so so quick reminder frank pavone was the catholic priest who made it his mission to make other

catholic priests look like abortion moderates in comparison to him this is the dude that made a pro-trump video in 2016 where he used an actual aborted fetus as a fucking prop now last year he was laicized that's a catholic priest for having to turn in your badge and your gun but not for the fetus thing and not for being overly political instead the vatican officially booted him for a profane rant against joe biden on twitter and when i say profane i don't mean that i mean that the tweet contained multiple uses of the phrase god damn seriously that was the line for them yes that was it that was at least their excuse yeah I mean that the tweet contained multiple uses of the phrase, God damn. Seriously?

That was the line for them? Yes, that was it. That was at least their excuse. Yeah. They were like, yeah, hey, Frank, that's a cool fetus you have on your hand right now. I love the puppet show. That was super funny. We need to talk about this GD tweet.

Yeah. Look, credibly accused abuser and hopeful enslaver of women is one thing, but a potty mouth? Yeah. This will not stand. Right. But yeah, so Pavone was basically known as the anti-abortion extremist among American Catholics and shocked, as I'm sure you'll be to learn this, he also appears to be a misogynist in all the other ways too. The original report detailed two complaints that had been filed against him from employees of his charity, Priests for Life. A spokesperson for the organization said both of those were, in their words, resolved satisfactorily.

That's a characterization that at least one of the accusers disputes. But several more accusations have come to light since then as well. I mean, to be fair, in the Catholic Church, that kid we molested killed himself before he could sue us is a satisfactory resolution. So you got to know the standard you're working with. Right, right. Who's defining the terms? And it's worth emphasizing here that the accusations against Pavone include but are not limited to classical grooming behavior. Right.

Like textbook shit, like slowly desensitizing victims to inappropriate touching or sexual topics. Not the fucking made-up bullshit the republicans are freaking out about like acknowledging the historical and continued existence of lgbtq people and and i only point this out in case you were wondering why i had to talk over top of that deafening fucking silence through this whole story and in six fetus under news brilliant unappreciated christ Christian right Republicans in Utah are stupid. They're stupid like the ones in Montana. They did some anti-choice theater last week in the form of a funeral for 1,746 fetuses that were aborted in the state since last June.

that were aborted in the state since last June. Last June is when Utah's abortion ban trigger law was put on hold by a district judge, which allowed us to kill all those babies for fun, as we are wont to do. It's our favorite. And the tiny little memorial was a protest against that court ruling. Jesus, they're putting up 1,700 little pinky nail headstones.

Y'all, this seemed more impactful in my mind now it looks silly okay but to be fair all the women they kill with their barbaric anti-abortion laws they get real funerals so there's no point in doing them right right yeah and thanks to Mary for the link on this one

Heath points for Mary and please keep sending us those news tips at scathingnews at gmail.com if you want to help out. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Heath, you're telling me by sending headlines and tips to scathingnews at gmail.com our listeners have a chance to win an all-expense-paid

vacation to your childhood home? What? We're definitely not saying that. I don't know. Maybe send us some headlines just in case. You never know. You do know. So, the event took place on the steps of the capitol building in salt lake city where a bunch of religious leaders and several state lawmakers held a literal funeral for the unborn and they actually did eulogies what i know. Yeah, I'm guessing lots of like I didn't know him very well, but

Yes, he might have liked Next, 1745 to go. So we just got to speed through these. The event also included eight entire minutes of complete silence from all the people while the loudspeakers played the sound of a fetal heartbeat.

Oh, God. Okay, all right, all right. Hear me out. The part where we try not to laugh at that for eight minutes would have made it worth attending the thing. Yeah, no. I feel like our choreographed heartbeat dance at the beginning would have gotten us thrown

out by then. But I like your optimism. Everybody do the fetus. How'd you like Blue Man Group? Well, it was fetus based. It was a lot of fetus stuff. You know that thing with the marshmallows that they used to do? They're doing it different now. Yeah, it's a little different.

It was cool though. I saw this headline and I started thinking about all the absurd, silly things that would happen if I were running this thing as a joke. But then I kept reading and they actually did those things. It was crazy. On top of eulogizing about, I guess, mostly early mitosis, they also had a tiny little coffin on a table at the front.

It was adorable, to be fair, but I don't think that's what they were going for. And they had a team of pallbearers carry the coffin to a hearse. Okay, and sadly, the hearse was regular size rather than an RC matchbox car like it was in my head. They also had big zoomed-in posters showing some of the fetuses that were being honored. in posters showing some of the fetuses that were being honored. And at one point, the Knights of Columbus sent up a team with big swords to do some kind of ritual, but they're right next to a tiny

little coffin. So it looks like they're about to do a very problematic magic trick. The fetus is going to burst out in a red sequined dress at the end of it. I know how this goes. The pictures are great. The pictures that they put up are amazing because they've got a real like,

how zoomed in do we have to get before it's no longer obvious we're holding a funeral for beans look to them, right? And they very clearly cheated in one of the pictures. The one on the right is like proper lightning going through a blob. But the pic on the left is Paul Giamatti. They're just like, here he is. A three-week-old fetus except he was Oscar for sideways. Wow, that fetus looks exactly like Paul Giamatti. It does look a lot like him.

It does, right? Okay, so bottom line, big congrats to everyone who killed those 1,746 babies. That's our favorite thing. We love killing babies. That is a perfectly nuanced understanding of the issue by religious people. We love that. Congrats. But no, seriously, congrats.

Your lives are better because you had that choice. Almost certainly. It's true. Statistically, you are happier. And on that note, we're going to wrap up the pre-recorded headlines for the night. Pre-recorded Heath, pre-recorded Eli. Thanks as always. Jumanji.

And when we come back, I'll remember that we're always pre-recorded from your perspective. As it happens, headlines aren't the only old audio clips I've been saving for this occasion. See, when Tom and Cecil come by for Vulgarity for Charity, we often have way more fun than we can fit into a single episode. So I've got a few insults here that didn't quite make it into the last segment. Enjoy. So, Eli, this next one's for you. Scott would like you to roast his brother-in-law, Joel. All right.

First of all, let's do the job because Joel is the worst. Joel looks like if golf course racism was a person. Good. He looks like he mixed up self-tanner and steak seasoning spray. Great. But Joel sucks so much that you, my fellow roasters, I have a multiple choice question to challenge you with. Which of the following things about how much Joel sucks is true?

A, he thought by marrying his wife in Paris, she wouldn't lose her alimony payments. What? B. He tried to start his own cryptocurrency. Loser. Or C. He only accepts cash

at his small business to quote avoid taxes. He's assholery incarnate. Is it secret answer D, all of the above Eli? You know it baby. You're fucking up the price of Joel coin man. All right Heath, Aubrey donated $537 for you to roast her dog Gilly.

A dog, cool, a dog, awesome. Yeah, here's the her dog, Gilly. A dog? Cool. A dog. Awesome. Yeah. Here's the thing, though. Gilly looks delightful, but like too much. Like bad delightful. He looks like the dog version of, you know, you know that guy you go hiking with or whatever,

and he's in way too good shape. He's being nice and helpful about everything. You fucking hate him. I hate him so much. I'm just vomiting off the side of the trail. And he's like, hey, I got you, buddy. Here, here. I have the vegan-friendly, gluten-free, recycled vomit cloth that I brought just for you.

You're doing great. No, you just got to push through it. That's your body getting the toxins out. This is how to fuck you. Oh, my God. All right. Speaking of pets, we going to help you. Oh my God. All right. Speaking of pets, we got one for you here, Noah. Art would like a roast of his cat, Dingbat.

Yeah. Apparently Dingbat isn't a real name because, you know, they don't want to dox their cat. What? Yeah. Art cares more about his cat's privacy than Heath's mom cares about his. But Art, to be clear, it's not that your cat is stupid. She's a master of the dark arts who seeks to reanimate the ancient one and end humanity's reign once and for all. Okay?

So I look deep into her eyes. I can tell these things. Those meows in the middle of the night, those aren't cries for attention. Those are evocations in forgotten tongues, bro. The incident with the wet paint, her effort at drawing the required sigils. All I'm saying is when the rift finally opens, you better hope you gave good enough belly pets

that she still wants to keep you around as a slave. All right, Tom. Tom, Sarah would like you to roast the 2022 midterms. All right. Well, Sarah very specifically also requested that I roast Lauren Boebert in this process. And I, for one, appreciate a good softball from time to time. So here's the thing. Democrats expecting to get absolutely crushed at the midterms this year, painted losing by a slim margin rather than a wide one as a victory.

And while I get that and I do consider the choices, and I think the situation may read a little bit different, on the right is a cavalcade of numbskullery and trolls, racists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazi collaborators, gun nuts, and conspiracy theorists. Without hyperbole, you have the absolute worst that America has to offer being not only offered, but the left has broken out the streamers and noisemakers because those talentless,

poorly educated, low intellect liars only won by a little bit. And that is the 2022 midterms. It's like if Toy Story 3 hit ended with Woody and Buzz actually descending into the inferno and being obliterated. And then you try to console the kids with the fact that they were holding hands while they burned. And, spoilers, Lauren Boebert, America's rootinous, tootinous GED holder,

the Republican Jan to Marjorie Taylor Greene's Marsha, is a great example of this. Because Lauren Boebert is intentionally unqualified. That is not a bug. It is a great example of this because lauren bobert is intentionally unqualified that is not a bug it is a feature it is her only defining feature in fact bobert as a person as a mind as an intellect is as unimportant as she is vapid the point of her is the point of all the right-wing chaos agents to sow the seeds of our own destruction and soil made rich with the compost of the American dream.

And the fact that we celebrated a pile of manure because the stench of its rot was more palatable than we anticipated is cause for alarm rather than elation. We held the Senate, Tom fucking holding pattern. Also, it's vapid. It's interesting that you referred to Lauren Boebert as a softball because I don't know

if you know or not, but her husband showed his softballs to children in a bowling alley. He did. It's true. It's true. Let's go around one more time on this. Eli, we're going to start with you this time. Ricky gave us $1,000 for you to roast the idea of podcasting as a profession. gave us $1,000 for you to roast the idea of podcasting as a profession.

Oh, I, for one, think it's nice that we've rounded up everyone who sucks at a dinner party into one profession. We're all in one location so that the aliens can get us all at once and make the species stronger with a single jolt of electricity

through all of Electo Voice's products. And as if that weren't bad enough, the way you make a living at it is hoping nobody notices the thing you do is otherwise free. Voluntary air tax of professions. And boy, oh boy, do I hope it doesn't end anytime soon. Thank you. We have to give it away or else they take away D&D Minus. They're stealing it with the license. Bully.

Bully. Racist. So Cecil, this next one's for you. Steve would like a roast of his anonymous customer, M. Picture this. I've never seen in my life a face so filled with dim-witted wonder.

It's like he had a eureka moment and thought, but it's my body, my choice. Except he was thinking about anti, like as an anti-masker. You're almost there, Customer M. Almost there. Customer M looks like Todd from Breaking Bad

if his parents were siblings. Noah, this one's for you here. Paul would like a roast for Blizzard Entertainment. Oh, thank you. Great pick. Thank you, Paul. I'm only going to get the roast about 85% of the way finished before I release it, though. So, no, Blizzard is great because when I was a kid, parents were all worried that video games were going to somehow have us on the street corners buying crack and in the park beating up old ladies.

But thanks to Blizzard, gamers' parents would just be thrilled if their kids were outside long enough to do those things. Right? thrilled if their kids were outside long enough to do those things right now i'm sure blizzard will have some kind of response probably in the form of a cease and desist or a dmca takedown notice or something so i'll look forward to that as soon as the chinese government is done telling them what they're allowed to say a bit of a deep cut there at the end but i think paul will get it and that's going to do it for this somewhat dated chunk of vulgarity for charity insults. But there are still more insults to come, despite the fact that we're now like four months out from the fundraiser.

But rest assured, we're going to be wrapping up soon. Until then, you'll just have to insult one another. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show that sneaks up on you in plain sight. And we're adding this segment today because a few people wrote in to take issue with the way that we covered the release of the Hogwarts Legacy video game a few weeks back. And I think there were two distinct arguments here that I wanted to tackle separately. So the first one is best exemplified by Ryan on Patreon who writes, quote, to tackle separately. So the first one is best exemplified by Ryan on Patreon

who writes, quote, you guys keep bashing that HP game because one idiot will get a few dollars, but by doing so, you're screwing over everyone else who worked their asses off on the game and has nothing to do with that witch. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, end quote. Won't someone think of Harvey Weinstein's

key grips? That's a weird argument. Did not see that coming. And no, I won't think of them. Like if I decide to stop watching Harvey Weinstein's movies and I have to murder a metaphorical baby to do it, I'm fine with that. I'm going to do that. And I'll go even one step further. If there's a bunch of Nazi bathwater and they're selling it all over the world and the head of the Nazi bathwater company is a billionaire. And you're not willing to kill a metaphorical baby?

That's weird. You're being weird. Yeah. You should do that. Also, like, I need you to re-listen to our criticism of the game because at best, everyone who worked on that game was kind of willing to throw their trans friends under the bus for a gig. And at worst, they're the people who made the very obvious Jewish

cheese horn with the dates that match up with the pogroms of Berlin in the game. Right. Yeah. None of the criticism actually mentioned the anti-Semitic stuff whatsoever. Oh, right. Yeah. The key grip was anti-Semitic in this case, too. Yeah. Right.

So and also that argument would basically say you could never boycott anything right because let's face it the the fry cook at chick-fil-a has kids to feed that doesn't obligate me to to eat chick-fil-a or to not discourage people from eating chick-fil-a yeah a lot of innocent train workers in germany at one point so and the other and i think far more widely held view was probably best expressed by Harold on Patreon who says, quote,

I'm sorry, but you guys are wrong about how to handle JK. She wants you to leave. She only wants pure bloods. F that. Embrace it. Show up.

You can say fuck that when you're talking to us, man. Yeah, we'll say fuck all the time. F that. Embrace it. Show up and represent. Make HP the transnational icon. That's how you win.

By leaving it, you allow the bigots to have it as a rally point. Don't allow them to have a safe space, especially Harry Potter. And Eli, yes, Voldemort only needed you to be a coward, but what did he ultimately want? To keep magic pure and inclusive to certain people. Did Harry say, toss it, I'm boycotting magic? No, They fought and fought hard

to allow everyone in. JK can't keep us out. End quote. Okay. I'm a little confused. Is the claim that instead of ever boycotting a Nazi store,

we should start shopping too much at that store? Yup. To make the Nazis feel uncomfortable in that crowd? Fill up the Nazi store with shoppers like

right in their face i don't understand yeah also sorry just kinetically we have to talk about this harry potter literally leaves hogwarts to fight voldemort he actually because he understands that it is now a bad place filled with bad people and that he could do better work fighting voldemort and even if you had read the books and knew that that was true, there's a huge difference between quitting magic, which I guess I would equate to no longer valuing the books I loved as a child, or, you know, never mentioning Harry Potter again, and giving money to Voldemort, as Heath just pointed out,

who then goes on to a podcast produced by the New York Times and says, well, if people don't agree with me, what would they give me all this money then? Yeah. Yeah. And if we're sticking with the analogy in that comment, we're not boycotting magic. We're boycotting one particular author of spell books. We can still do magic and we can still support other spell books and we can still fight against bigot magic. We can even talk about how we really liked some of the spells in that original spell book.

We can even read the old copy we have of that spell book all without giving any more funding to a bigot. I don't understand how this is complicated. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I get the point that you're making here, man. But you should be doubly skeptical of your reasoning when your reasoning tells you it's okay to do the thing you wanted to do in the first place. That's when you should be most critical of the way you got there, especially when basically every trans person and trans rights group that I've heard chime in on this has said the opposite, has called for this boycott. chime in on this, has said the opposite, has called for this boycott. And even more so when

as Eli pointed out, Rowling is using the game's sales as evidence that the majority of people actually do support her turfy bullshit. Yeah. Also, just to circle back, it's weird that nobody said anything about the anti-Semitic part, because that was kind of a big deal in that story we did. Yeah,

I did find that kind of disturbing, that there were several people who wrote in and were like, oh, you got it wrong, Maybe it's OK. But nobody even mentioned the fact that it was also like clearly anti-Semitics. Nobody had any problem with that? I mean, I get it. We are kind of gobliny. I know why they didn't mention.

We are a little goblin now. And that's all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep sending us those emails, tweets and Facebook messages, especially about Eli's comment just now. It's weirdly anti-Semitic. That we will tackle and probably agree with you. You'll get zero feedback. All the Jews right now are like, dude, shut the fuck... Wide-eyed doing that thing of like, stop.

Shush. And you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. to come by and say hi, hang out, whatever. We'd love to see you. 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 show's Hot Friend Godawful Movies debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half-sister show Citation Needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this episode wouldn't earn its place on your phone if I neglected to thank

Heath Enright for an intellect that soars higher than the Space Needle, Lucid Illusions for being more enlivened than a double shot of espresso, and Elinick for being grungier than nirvana see i did seattle things and what about heath is still a variation on being tall anyway i also want to thank tom and cecil for having hung out with us a while back i thanked him at the time but like when you're as socially inept as me you know that the emotional strain of hanging out with you lingers for a few weeks um i also want to thank jacob for providing this week's fworth quote. And incidentally, if you want to learn more about secular addiction recovery options, be sure to check out the secular recovery group at secular recovery group.org or by following the handy dandy link in the show notes. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this

week's best people whose names I don't know yet, because we're recording this early, but who I will thank and compliment by name very soon, and who may have saved the earth from falling into the sun again this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the apocalypse avoidance abilities it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn real 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 you need all your money to beat the high score on the Frogger Den at the Quakey Mart, you can also help a ton by telling a friend about the show and

following us on social media. Speaking of social media, Tim Robertson takes care of that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScalingAtheist.com. dot com. morgan clark who also knew god damn it why can't i say this you would think like the 400 times i've said it would be enough that i would just be primed to be able to say morgan clark who also wrote all the music see even then i fucked it up the preceding podcast was a production

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