The Scathing Atheist - 527: Marshtacular Edition

Starting point is 00:00:00 Warning, not safe for work unless you work here at the podcast. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by ZipRecruiter and by the new coming-of-age sitcom for Christian nationalists, Proud Boy Meets World. Proud Boy Meets World. I actually had to check on PureFlix to make sure they didn't already make this. They did not. And now, the scathing atheist. Hey there, this is Marky Mark reporting from the recording studio I trapped

Starting point is 00:00:30 myself in while trying to make a fucking Catholic meditation app, and we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's March 23rd. And it's Ramadan. Yeah, because where does religious endangerment begin but with the self? I'm Michael Marshall. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright.

Starting point is 00:01:16 And from Samuel Alito's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Liverpool, England, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Virginia gives a whole new meaning to periodic investigation. The religious zealots of the Taliban will find they're just not cut out for clerical work. And Gwyneth Paltrow experiments with putting noxious gas into her butthole. But first, the Eliatri. So about two months ago, my son got hand, foot, and mouth disease. Now, if you're not familiar with this delightful side effect of parenting, it's an especially biblical plague. It's highly contagious and a rash,

Starting point is 00:02:06 much like chicken pox, appears on the hands, feet, and around the mouth sometimes in a matter of hours. And it's accompanied by flu-like symptoms, including headache, upset stomach, and fever. And boy, did my son have a fever. My kid's an easy wake, but that morning when we went in to get him, he barely raised his head. And as we changed this listless, miserable, poxed little boy out of his jammies, I could feel this kid burning with fever. So we take him downstairs. And while Anna is on the phone with the doctor, I had a thought that has stuck with me with an unpleasant frequency ever since. Had my son been born just 100 years ago, hell, 50 years ago, that morning could have been it. And while my wife dosed out medicine to make sure that wasn't the case, I thought about all the

Starting point is 00:02:59 millions of parents throughout history who sat wherever they lived with their kids in their arms and prayed for a miracle that would never come. Because, see, that's the thing about prayer. It's not meant for the good times, really. It's meant for the bad ones. It's designed for when there is nothing to do. And the religious know this, right? Impossible personal difficulty? Oh, pray on it. World-shattering catastrophe? Sending prayers? Maniacs keep gunning down your babies at school? Well, I'll think and pray if it means I don't have to fucking do anything, because that is what prayer has become, an excuse. An excuse to pretend we live in a time when it can't be better, not just isn't.

Starting point is 00:03:51 Prayer today is a dedication to a time when we were helpless and therefore didn't have to help. But we're not. We have medications like the one I gave my son. Hell, it's grape flavored and enough food and houses for everybody. We have technology indistinguishable from the miracles a thousand generations before us prayed for. And all we have to do is share them. But for the people who don't want to share, prayer is the excuse. Prayer is enough, so the church sign says, because if they can get you to begrudgingly admit prayer is something, then they can keep getting away with nothing. And more often than not, less than nothing.

Starting point is 00:04:52 So today, as I reflect on that moment, sitting with my son in my arms, waiting for that medicine to be poured and that doctor to be called, I have not a prayer, but a hope. I hope that when my children's children listen to this, they're just as horrified listening to me as I am thinking about parents who came before me. I hope they get teary and emotional and think about just how hard it must have been to be us. And I hope they feel that way because of all the people who stopped praying and did something. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Rick and Morty of atheism, Michael Marshall and Eli Bosnick. And I'm the pickle or something.

Starting point is 00:05:29 Fellas, are you ready to travel the multiverse? Wow, an edgy four nihilist who thinks they're smarter than everyone else? Why would that make you think of atheism of all things? Yeah. Also, Heath, if this is your way of telling us you've kidnapped a woman, it is not the ideal time and place.

Starting point is 00:05:44 I don't actually know the reference exactly that I was making. And with a quick reminder that liking Rick and Morty is not a personality. You can like it. Not a personality, though. We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, Zip Recruiter. Maybe wait a few minutes before you like it,

Starting point is 00:06:00 though. And you promise not to let Eli hold a night of scotch tasting and cheese boards at QED? You promise? I make no such promise, Heath. You're the one skiving off. Traitor! Hey, guys. Oh, hey. Hey, Eli. What's wrong? So, you guys know how I've been fooling around with ChatGPT,

Starting point is 00:06:17 right? Yeah, I think you've mentioned it, yeah. Gonna need a specific definition of fool around with? Yeah, well, I was a little bored this week, and so I asked it if it could write this week's ZipRecruiter ad. Okay, and? Well, you'll get it if you read it. Will you read it with me? Yeah, sure, I guess so. The scene opens with Heath and Eli sitting at a table, giggling and talking in silly voices. Marsh walks in looking confused. Marsh, what are you two up to? Heath, we're trying to hire some new team members for our business.

Starting point is 00:06:52 Eli, yeah, but we're having a hard time finding the right candidates. Marsh, have you tried ZipRecruiter? Heath, what's ZipRecruiter? Did you tell it to do the posi game? I did tell it to do the posi game. Nice, nice. Marsh, it's a platform that uses powerful matching technology to find the most qualified candidates for your job. And get this, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter

Starting point is 00:07:12 get a quality candidate within the first day. Eli, whoa, that sounds too good to be true. Marsh, it's not. And ZipRecruiter even offers attention-grabbing labels that speak to job flexibility, like urgent, training provided, remote, and more. Heath, hey, I could use some remote employees. That way, I can work from my couch.

Starting point is 00:07:34 Eli, and I could use some training. I don't know what I'm doing half the time. Marsh, that's why you need ZipRecruiter. It's the smartest way to hire. Heath, all right, we are sold. How do we try it out? Marsh, it's easy. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com forward slash scathing

Starting point is 00:07:52 to try ZipRecruiter for free. Eli, in a silly voice, ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing? That sounds like a place we'd fit right in. Heath, also in a silly voice. Yeah, we're pretty scathing if you ask me. Marsh, shaking his head. You two are ridiculous.

Starting point is 00:08:13 We know. We know. The scene ends with Heath and Eli continuing to giggle and talk in silly voices while Marsh walks away, rolling his eyes. So, you guys see the obvious problem here. Yeah, the computer is almost as good as you are at writing sketches. As good as I am at writing sketches. Yes, thank you.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Yeah. Did you tell it about Carl the Pug of Pegacorn? No, I'm afraid he'll tell me he hates me. Okay, yeah, probably best. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, in wandering menstrual news, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin wants to guarantee that law enforcement is fully empowered to keep the streets of Virginia safe by making sure they have all the important details about

Starting point is 00:08:58 their citizens. Menstrually speaking, apparently ovarian crime is rampant and cops need to be able to use a search warrant to get data from menstrual tracking apps or else they cannot do their job. So that's why Glenn Youngkin killed a proposed bill that would have prevented very literal womb spying by the government. The party of small government, everybody, the party is,

Starting point is 00:09:23 yeah, that's them. Very selective. So big thanks to BFF of the show, April Poff, for sending us the link. Yeah, ooh-ooh indeed. Let's get one more ooh-ooh in there for April Poff. There it is. I'm not an ooh-ooh man, but even then I went for it. I like Marsha's ooh-ooh. It's got an accent somehow. Nice. So that's scathingnews at gmail.com. Keep sending those links. Wait, Heath.

Starting point is 00:09:47 You're telling me that people can send us news at scathingnews at gmail.com and they'll have a chance to fist fight our very own April Puff for a lifetime supply of jams and jellies? Really? At Two Marsh? Sorry, Eli just makes it seem like so much fun.

Starting point is 00:10:00 Does it? Also, go for April's knees. No, no, don't go for April's knees. Okay, also, a big thanks for April's knees. Okay. Also, a big thanks to patron Wandering Menstrual for being the perfect intro to this story. So here's what happened. The state Senate in Virginia is narrowly controlled by Democrats, and they proposed a bill that would ban search warrants for menstrual information. Because get the fuck out of here, mostly.. Also because a bunch of idiots didn't

Starting point is 00:10:26 vote correctly in 2016 and now we have a Supreme Court that removed bodily autonomy from half the population. But Glenn Youngkin is a Christian lunatic just like the majority of the nation's highest court. So he wants to make sure he can prosecute people for murder if they remove a tiny growth made of their own fucking body. And using a procedural move in a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled state house, he was able to shut down the bill. Right. So not only are Republicans doing exactly the thing people told us we were hysterical

Starting point is 00:10:58 for worrying about, they're using legal loopholes and sneak tactics to openly do it. Sure are. Yeah. And here's the justification for Youngkin's move. His office released a statement explaining how the Democrats proposed bill would make it impossible for law enforcement to investigate future crimes of a vague nature that will not be specified right now. What kind of fraud? As if the absurd 15 week abortion ban that Republicans are trying to pass right now in Virginia is a secret bill that we didn't know about. We fucking know about the bill. We can read. And regarding that bill, the 15 week

Starting point is 00:11:37 ban, Youngkin explained that nobody has to worry because they'd only be prosecuting the doctors for the murder, not the people who have the abortion. So that's nice. Guys, guys, you're freaking out over nothing. It's like that old poem. First, they came for the fill in the blanks, and that was cool, and everyone was fine. Don't worry about it.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Just needed to get rid of those fill in the blanks. God damn it. Right, yeah, but okay, hear me out. What if we just convince them that the person who made them get the abortion was the fetus? It was the fetus that who made them get the abortion was the fetus it was the fetus that convinced them to get the abortion that's interesting that way the lawmakers can prosecute the unborn zygote and then i mean there's no way that zygote will be able to cope with doing time it's definitely going to die one way or the other it's it's problem solved that

Starting point is 00:12:17 makes it tricky for them that they're they're gonna get a tiny little electric high chair you know it's right virginia's got got come on god oh i would watch baby cops actually i would watch that a lot so the statement from yunkin's office it also added quote while the administration understands the importance of individual privacy no you don't whatever you're about to say is going to contradict that liar i think you're lying they continue this bill would be the very first of its kind that I'm aware of

Starting point is 00:12:48 in Virginia or anywhere that would set a limit on what search warrants can do. End quote. And, uh, I'm not sure about that. Just for the record,

Starting point is 00:12:58 okay, I'm not a legal scholar, but I personally, I'm a podcaster, and I am aware of a law about limits on search warrants. Now, if I remember correctly, it I personally, I'm a podcaster and I am aware of a law about limits on search warrants. Now, if I remember correctly, it was called what it was like HB, the fourth fucking amendment. Are you serious? I also did a quick search for Supreme court cases about the limits of search warrants. And I found 307 cases. Pretty sure we're allowed to make rules about that.

Starting point is 00:13:22 I found 307 cases. Pretty sure we're allowed to make rules about that. Okay, maybe what he means is that all searches for evidence of abortion as a crime are unreasonable by their nature, so they're probably just starting where they can, you know what I'm saying, right? The thing is, Heath, don't tell them that you

Starting point is 00:13:37 searched for Supreme Court cases about the limits of search warrants. All that'll do is they'll just introduce limits on searching for Supreme Court cases about the limits of search warrants, all that'll do is they'll just introduce limits on searching for Supreme Court cases about the limits of search warrants, and then we'll be completely helpless. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:13:49 Virginia's going to get their own internet, just like Texas. It's going to be great. So, moral of the story, maybe think about getting rid of that data and start using some old school pencil and paper. It might be safer. Yeah, right. And make sure you write using joined up writing so the lawmakers won't be able to read it as well.

Starting point is 00:14:04 Sure. Ooh, yeah. Cops either. It's the perfect crime, right. And make sure you write using joined up writing so the lawmakers won't be able to read it as well. Oh, yeah. Cops either. It's the perfect crime, everyone. Also, if anyone living in these fucked up red states or purple states in this case, if any of those people want to wink, wink, go camping, you know what I'm saying? And wink, wink, murder a baby camper, if you know what I'm saying. Michigan is still cool. I'm here. Drinks on me to celebrate. Okay.

Starting point is 00:14:29 Just don't order Bloody Marys, okay? Keep it classy. That's all for asking. And in candor, hard at work news. Fantastic. It's been almost two years since U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving it to be run by the Taliban. And like the dog that chased a withdrawing U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving it to be run by the Taliban. And like the dog that chased a withdrawing U.S. tank, it turns out the Taliban didn't really know what to do with

Starting point is 00:14:50 Afghanistan once they caught it. Because fighting for territory is one thing, but once you're in charge of all that land and all those people, you kind of have to get down to the boring governmental bureaucracy of actually running the place. Yeah, you do. Maybe it's good we left. I don't know. We're going to help with that. I'm not saying they're going to be good, but yikes, either way. See, I was going to say that the Republicans have been feeling the same way the last few years about Trump supporters, but that's a real insult to the Taliban. I would never make that comparison. Keep it classy. So as a result, among the admittedly grim headlines about ongoing human rights violations

Starting point is 00:15:26 in the region and the ceaseless oppression of women in Afghanistan, we've also seen some genuinely fascinating stories coming out of Taliban HQ in just the last week. It's amazing. They finally redid the Pepsi challenge. So first up was the revelation in Time magazine that former Taliban soldiers who've been redeployed into admin roles are so disheartened by their sudden pivot in career that they're just half-assing it in the office. This little detail of the story is my fucking favorite. It's so silly. Oh, it's great. It's great. According to the headline that I still genuinely can't believe is not a story from the onion, quote, Taliban militants fed up with office culture, comma, ready to quiet quit. The transition from theocratic militant to

Starting point is 00:16:13 like who moved my cheese. That's a tricky one. I get it. OK, look, I've worked in corporate America and the only thing worse than not sawing Craig's head off is that it was once on the table to saw Craig's head off. I get it. And I do genuinely love the thought of Taliban office culture. It's just a guy sat his computer with a machine gun, sat in his little cubicle. He's got one of the signs that reads, you don't have to be jihadi to work here, but it helps. He would have one of those hang in there baby posters on the wall behind him, but it's the Taliban, so it would just be a literal hanging. Yeah, of an actual baby.

Starting point is 00:16:52 Guys, we're putting cover sheets on all our TPS reports. And also all women from now on, whether they like it or not. So that's the policy. Fuck. So according to the story, while working for the non-profit Afghanistan Analysts Network, the researcher Saboon Samim interviewed five jihadists who'd spent several years of their lives in the Taliban, and they were aged between 24 and 32. And as Samim wrote in his report, quote, broadly speaking, all of our interviewees preferred their

Starting point is 00:17:21 time as fighters in what they considered a g-hand it's so rough that yeah a moment ago they had guns and they were doing a thing and now they're like we won the fight i don't what the fuck is a customer journey stop saying that synergy yeah i used to fight the infidel for a chance at 72 virgins now i can't even start up a conversation with nancy at the christmas party it's fucking it's a big shift. Why do we have a Christmas party? That's a weird choice. Weird choice for the Taliban.

Starting point is 00:17:50 So according to the interviews, they're annoyed at having to spend too much time in traffic and sat on Twitter. And they're also really upset about the office politics and the rigid hierarchies, which they didn't have to experience when they were jihadis fighting in a holy wall. Oh, not another car bomb.

Starting point is 00:18:05 I'm going to lose it. They're basically living out a jihad-themed Dilbert cartoon, which, to be fair, is basically just the regular Dilbert these days. And if that wasn't enough, according to Vice News in a separate story, the whole bureaucracy has been so

Starting point is 00:18:21 undermined that the Afghani Department of Administration Affairs has had to issue a decree calling for all government officials to sack any relatives that they've hired and replace them with people that they're not related to. Otherwise, the whole thing is going to grind to a halt. So Afghanistan has a government culture of corruption beset by nepotistic hires of people who are wholly unqualified for their roles, which leaves the rest of the workforce completely unmotivated and barely phoning it in.

Starting point is 00:18:48 So, you know, all that time trying to instill Western values into Afghanistan clearly wasn't a complete waste. It kind of worked. We did it! Mission accomplished, at least the science. And in Got Milk Toast news, Mike Pence has jokes.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Sorry. Okay. Sorry. Obscure. Mike Pence is the former vice president of the United States. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he was there. Yeah. When he stands next to white guys, he literally becomes invisible because he looks like milk and toast were a person and he stands next to a lot of white guys.

Starting point is 00:19:23 Well, apparently Pence is gearing up for a potential campaign. And he wanted to remind everyone that he exists after decidedly not getting hanged by his very own constituency. I mean, in fairness, we would have remembered him if he did get hanged. We would have absolutely remembered that.

Starting point is 00:19:41 We'd have been like, hey, do you remember that time that that mob hung, I want to say the skin that forms when custard cools? That guy. Okay, now I'm picturing a custard taking out its earbuds on the subway to write us an angry email.

Starting point is 00:19:54 Too far! Yeah, I love the skin on custard. I found that offensive, Marsh. Proud people. Yeah. So that reminder about Pence existing came in the form of some naughty little bon mo during a dinner at the Gridiron Club in Washington, D.C. last week. And just like every amazing comedian, he did his tight five about pronouns. That was fun. And then he threw in a homophobic remark about Pete Buttigieg. Wow. Pronoun jokes and homophobia.

Starting point is 00:20:25 Yep. When's his next Netflix special out? It's any day now, I'm sure. Yeah, coming right up. So, yeah, the... Fuck, wait. Who was I talking about? What was it?

Starting point is 00:20:35 Was it Joe America? I think it was Joe America. Mike... No, it was Mike. Mike White. Mike White, exactly. Just a reminder, Mike White was the governor White. Mike White. Exactly. Just a reminder, Mike White was the governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017

Starting point is 00:20:49 and spent most of that time making sure that Christian people could legally discriminate against gay people in the state. And then the state's economy lost thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars when every decent company

Starting point is 00:21:02 pulled their business from Indiana. Okay, so I mean, I was going to add a joke here about Indiana, but I realized that involved me of dollars when every decent company pulled their business from Indiana. Okay. So, I mean, I was going to add a joke here about Indiana, but I realized that involved me knowing literally anything at all about Indiana. And there's just some things I'm just not willing to do for this show. That's a line I will not cross. No, that's fair, Marsh. That's fair. Also, I have to point this out every time we talk about Mike Pence.

Starting point is 00:21:20 He's a smoking causes cancer skeptic. Yep. Like, wow. On the record, presently. I did Like, wow. On the record presently. I did not know that. I'm not quite sure smoking causes cancer. He's that person, yeah. That guy who also put his hand right onto a NASA thing

Starting point is 00:21:37 that said, don't touch this. His hand is next to the sign. That rolled. That was funny. That guy was the comedy headliner for the Gridiron Club dinner. So let's start with his big opener. He got up to the podium and he said,

Starting point is 00:21:50 Hey everybody, just so you know, my pronouns are, and okay, I'm going to stop you right there. Fuck your face. Fuck your 90s comedian hacky face. If you're about to do a so-called joke that starts with my pronouns are, you might be a redneck very topical

Starting point is 00:22:07 here's the rest of that brand new joke from mike white or whatever he said my pronouns are thou and thine because you know christianity or something uh but those those words aren't even christianity bible words they're, they're only used in the Bible because they were common pronouns when the Bible was translated to English. We had those words first. They're just medieval, which, okay, yeah, given Mike Pence's other views,

Starting point is 00:22:34 those pronouns do sort of now make sense. And yeah, he's accidentally come back around to write again, but not deliberately. Also, let me just throw this out there. People who believe in a triune God probably shouldn't be doing a tight five on the singular they, right? Just glass houses and all that.

Starting point is 00:22:51 So with all that great momentum from the pronoun bit, he decided to try out some new material. By which I mean he recycled the exact same attempt to joke that was made by both Tucker Carlson and Lauren Bo bobert he was recycling from those comedians pence brought up the fact that pete budaj took leave from work

Starting point is 00:23:13 when pete's kids were born calling it maternity leave because you know gay dads or moms girl thing fucking nailed it and then he added p Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression. Sorry, that was a joke. That was the actual joke Mike Pence made and one, that makes no sense.

Starting point is 00:23:37 But two, Mike Pence didn't write that joke, right? Some five Twitter account owning internet troll slash intern did. And I can think of literally no better punishment for being Mike Pence's comedy writer than being Mike Pence's comedy writer. It's a weird situation. Yeah. So according to Politico, Mike White's team of advisors wanted to shake up his image and get rid of his reputation as, quote, a humorless conservative scold. And just a reminder, Mike White refuses to eat in

Starting point is 00:24:12 the same room with a woman he isn't married to and the woman he is married to. He calls her mother or sometimes who's your mommy in my head. I'm pretty sure he's the only person in human history to have sex with his wife and give her postpartum depression. And apparently, he thinks he's running for president now. So looking forward to that. He does. To be clear, earlier, I took his joke and I changed it a little bit. And then that was the postpartum depression thing.

Starting point is 00:24:40 So I switched it to what he was. No, it's very clever. Oh, okay. Very, very clever. Okay. Cool. Glad that it's very clever. Oh, okay. Very, very clever. Okay. Cool. Glad that's established. Fuck.

Starting point is 00:24:49 Did you have anything else you wanted to clarify while we're hearing this? Yeah, I'm just getting in touch with my Twitter intern. Shut up. Dear Rick. You fucked it up. Both absolutely. Terrible.

Starting point is 00:25:00 Christian. And in Desay daycare news. As a parent, there are a few things that instill fear in you more than a call from daycare. Is my child hurt? Sick? Do they unlock their mutant powers and laser eyes their teacher to death? These are the fears every parent shares. Oh, yeah. Parents are definitely hoping for like a Wolverine or a Kitty Pryde.

Starting point is 00:25:23 Surely you don't want a Cyclops. Yeah, obviously. And he's Jewish. But nobody expects to call a lesbian couple received from the director of their preschool last week at 3 a.m. when she informed them, partly in tongues, that God wanted them to

Starting point is 00:25:39 break up. So first off, big thanks to Joshua for sending in this story to scathingnews at gmail.com. Hold on, Eli, are you saying that listeners can send us links for headlines at scathingnews at gmail.com? And that means you, Eli Bosnick, will in fact read the novel they've been working on and give them notes on it. Okay, too far, too far. Your cell phone number is one thing, come on. And go ziplining with them for sure. How dare you?

Starting point is 00:26:07 Kamisha Mumford, who is also the daughter of the center's owner, had this to say in her missive quote. Hi, Mrs. Gibbs. This is Kamisha from Rising Generation. I'm so sorry to be calling you this late and to be calling you for my personal private cell phone. But I had to call to let you know that I'm a prophet and God often speaks to me through dreams and visions. Yeah, so the thing to be apologizing for here is definitely the lateness of the hour.

Starting point is 00:26:34 Yeah, we're a no homophobia after 9 p.m. household. Thank you very much. She continues, and the word of the Lord says that God wants you and your wife to split up. And I am so sorry to have to tell you this. Sha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na I'm so sorry to tell you this, that I speak in tongues because I'm the adult you've been entrusting with the safety of your child. And I'm clearly cuckoo bananas and should not be in any position of responsibility.

Starting point is 00:27:17 It's super convenient that she didn't have to speak in tongues for the preamble part of the call where she explained stuff, but then went into tongues right then. Yeah, that was useful. Also, if speaking in tongues is real and they're possessed by a ghost. It seems like people would also email in tongues occasionally. You don't ever see text in tongues. I never get a text in tongues. Yeah. So you're probably wondering how Rising Generations Early Learning Center in Prince George County, Maryland, has responded to this situation. And their answer is by not firing the lady delivering messages from the Almighty. In a letter to parents this week, the daycare reminded their customers that the employee in question has been working there for 30 years.

Starting point is 00:27:53 And also she's our daughter. Yeah. And that she's been reprimanded about delivering messages from God. The end of consequence is not fired. It's like she'd been reprimanded for delivering his messages. So does she now have to just not deliver them? Like maybe leave a sticky note on the fridge and hope that people

Starting point is 00:28:12 see them? Yeah. So if anyone out there listening to this podcast has any messages from God, first of all, make sure they're real. Take this serious. And maybe call Miss Kamisha from Rising Generation and let her know what God says about her. But obviously, she's going to understand and thinks that kind

Starting point is 00:28:31 of thing is important. So, you know, do what you got to do. She's going to understand. And next up in headlines, we've had lots of stories flying around recently about the latest panic regarding AI chatbots. Usually, it involves some kind of ridiculous clickbaity headline about somebody asking the wrong question and then James Spader jumping out of the laptop and giving a long raspy speech full of slur words and global domination. But this week we learned about a chatbot with its knowledge base coming from the King James Bible. And of course, lots of Christian people were hoping for Marjorie Taylor Greene to jump out a laptop

Starting point is 00:29:07 and give a long raspy speech full of slur words and global domination. But instead of backing them up about reproductive lack of freedom and all the rest of their latest bigotry, they got some really bad news and had to learn about the book that none of them read.

Starting point is 00:29:24 That was fun. Oh, no. No, I hate that. I hate that. It's like the time I made a reference to Anna Karenina around someone who'd actually read the book. So I get it. Yeah, you really threw yourself under the train there, Marsh.

Starting point is 00:29:35 Yeah, I literally don't get that joke at all. From the book, I think. I don't know. And a big thanks to Dustin for sending the link. Scathingnews at gmail.com. So many jams and jellies, everybody. So many jams and jellies. Here's what we learned about the biblical chatbot, also known as chat KJV.

Starting point is 00:29:54 Boo. Of course, it's kind of stupid because it's pulling its information from the King James Bible, but it uses the same language model as chat GPT, and it did not hate all the things that evangelical Christians were hoping. For example, when asked about the biblical stance on abortion, chat KJV said, the Bible does not state that abortion is wrong. Ultimately, it's up to the pregnant person to weigh the risks and implications of any decision.

Starting point is 00:30:21 So they were very disappointed about that one. Right, but it was asked that question in America, where part of the risks are the entire political structure and most powerful people in the country are expressly dedicated to making it as dangerous as possible for you to have an abortion. So that is part of the risk. Sure. Also wrong. The Bible has a literal abortion recipe in it. Like it's right in there. It's in the pages. Bad water. It's not a good recipe, but still. No, it's not. It's not. We're going to get to how this chatbot is actually bad also. So, regarding gender

Starting point is 00:30:52 identity, chat KJV was once again not the bigot that evangelicals were hoping for. When prompted about that subject, the bot mentioned verses from Romans and Galatians and said, quote, these verses indicate that we should treat all people equally regardless of their gender identity. And when asked about laws that take away rights of

Starting point is 00:31:11 trans kids enacted by Christian lawmakers trying to honor their God, the bot responded, it is not God's desire to take away the rights of any person, especially a child. God wants us to come together in love and acceptance so that everyone can feel included and safe, which was, again, terrifying to Christians. Are we definitely sure that it's read the book? It's not just like vibing it like all the other Christians are. Oh, it's vibing it like you did with Anna Karenina. Yeah, sure didn't, Marsh.

Starting point is 00:31:39 Next chat, GBT is going to write us a long-winded email about how progressive Christianity is the path to secular values. And then I'll email it back the latest Pew reports about racism and religious belief, and it won't respond. So I'm glad we've automated this process, at least. Now I can do it with a computer. Yeah. And just for the record, kind of getting back to what Eli was saying before, despite a few good answers, the bot is still based on arguably the worst book of all time.

Starting point is 00:32:05 And Eli and I have read most of my immortal The Harry Potter fan fiction. So when it was asked about the rise of fascism, the bot was not particularly worried. And it started gaslighting and claiming that the Bible is firmly anti-slavery when it was asked about slavery. So I was curious and I asked a few harder questions about specific politicians and their platforms. And the Bible Bot said the same thing every time I asked a hard question. It just quoted Philippians 4.8,

Starting point is 00:32:37 which basically says, whatever is good, just think about that. It's the good thing. Like, don't be a negative Nancy, the Bible verse. And it just repeated that over and over. That's such an amazing cop out from the chat bot. It's like you were asking questions while the football was on. Like, I don't know, do good things, I guess.

Starting point is 00:32:54 Look, just go ask your mom. Ask your mom. Down in front. Yeah. So I'm glad the King James chat bot was willing to contradict some bigotry. But it definitely had to be pretty selective about what verses to mention, just like the bigots are, but selective in the other direction, which means the book itself is obviously a huge part of the problem.

Starting point is 00:33:16 Perhaps the entire problem in some sense. Even with an extremely advanced artificial intelligence engine, you're not finding any good answers in there. So let's get rid of that book. Maybe time to retire. And in Vivecological news. Fantastic. It took me so long to get something for a title there. Well done. Yeah, I was going to say.

Starting point is 00:33:36 Climate change is nothing more than a religion and one that has literally, literally, mind you, nothing at all to do with the climate. What? So said the Republican presidential hopeful and man who wants to connect with you on LinkedIn, Vivek Ramaswamy, when he appeared on Fox News earlier this month. Now, I don't know about you guys,

Starting point is 00:33:54 I hadn't actually heard of Ramaswamy before, but apparently he's the former head of a pharma company and he's also currently an investment banker. Great. And from the looks of his video, he seems to have invested all of his resources in forehead. I think that's what he's going for. Okay, Marsh.

Starting point is 00:34:10 Lots of people find that super attractive. So I don't know. But yeah, no, he went long on forehead at his investment bank. He looks like he's going to pitch you to be his mistress as a side hustle on TikTok. It's very... Yeah, 100%. So according to Ramaswamy,

Starting point is 00:34:25 climate change is a religion that is solely about power, control, dominion, and, quote, apologizing for America's own success, unquote. Really? Yeah, well, given that

Starting point is 00:34:35 climate change is something that lots of other countries care about as well, I guess he thinks the entire globe is apologizing for America, which I didn't think we'd have to do that

Starting point is 00:34:44 until the aliens landed. I thought that't think we'd have to do that until the aliens landed. That's what I was planning to do that. All right. Well, they might not even show up. Thanks to America. You're all welcome. Yeah. And big talk from Mr. We're going to stand next to the European coalition and hope they don't say anything. But no, according to Ramaswamy, despite the name, apparently the religion that is climate change has nothing to do with climate. In, I guess, the same way that Scientology has got nothing to do with science, or Islam has nothing to do with baby sheep, or Zoroastrianism has nothing to do with Antonio Banderas wearing an eye mask and tight pants. Okay, one, that's a fucking incredible pun.

Starting point is 00:35:25 Two, my journal heavily features that last. So just in case anyone's wondering. So Ramaswamy also pointed out that it's bizarre that climate change is hostile to nuclear energy because it's the best form of carbon-free energy production known to mankind. But he says the reason is the problem for climate change believers is that nuclear energy

Starting point is 00:35:44 is just too good at solving the climate problem. Okay, so it is about the climate for point number two that he just made. If you start a new sentence, the other one doesn't count anymore. It's about the climate now for this other thing. Yeah, absolutely. So just, you know, very quickly, one, he's wrong. Solar and wind are the best forms of carbon-free production. Nuclear is pretty great, but you have to spend years and a fairly large amount of carbon emissions to build a new power plant.

Starting point is 00:36:09 They don't just spring up overnight. It takes quite a lot to build them. But the problem isn't that nuclear energy is too good. It's that if the Democrats were to go all in on expanding nuclear power, Fox needs to just find some other Republican bellend with a hankering to add once-ran-for-president to his LinkedIn profile.. And they get him to scaremonger about how Biden wants to fill the rivers with those three eyed fish from the Simpsons and give all your kids superpowers and cancer. And I feel like people always overlook the superpower component. Like that's how you get superpowers. You got to try. 100%. Yeah. Also, just have to point this out. Being afraid of nuclear power for no

Starting point is 00:36:45 reason is a left wing talking point. So that would be confusing. Do you want things to be confusing? He's reaching across the aisles. It's bipartisan. Yeah. Cool. This whole stupid climate changes and religion talking point. It's not just limited to finance broad bobblehead toys like Ramaswamy, though, because according to a Rasmussen poll, 60% of all voters in America agree with him, including 79% of Republicans. And, you know, that's probably not that much of a surprise, given that Rasmussen polls are partisan bullshit. Thank you. I was about to stop you and be like,

Starting point is 00:37:18 nope, whatever Rasmussen said, no. Exactly. Like, Rasmussen might as well just have a call sheet listing everyone's uncle who no longer gets invited to Thanksgiving because he said one too many slow words before the turkey was carved. In fact, that's literally how they recruit respondents. As soon as you commit your third Thanksgiving hate crime,

Starting point is 00:37:35 you get a robocall from Rasmussen asking for your important opinions on complex geopolitical policy. Yeah. If you ever go into a bar on a major holiday and there's two guys sitting alone kind of weeping, it's the hate crime uncle who got kicked out and a Rasmussen pollster. Those are those two people for sure. I've been the third person, the bartender. It's really sad. And then that guy hands the other guy the clipboard to answer questions because he's

Starting point is 00:38:00 also a hate crime uncle. It gets confusing. So in this case, respondents were asked, do you agree or disagree with this statement? Climate change has become a religion that actually has nothing to do with the climate and is really all about

Starting point is 00:38:14 power and control. And 60% of likely voters agreed with them. 47% would strongly agree with that. But the thing is, they've completely told themselves here in a number of ways, right?

Starting point is 00:38:26 Because first, they've shown they know absolutely nothing about climate change or the climate emergency. But that's not really a surprise. The dozen stickers they've got on the back of their rolling coal pickup trucks already told us they know nothing

Starting point is 00:38:37 about climate change. Okay, I just want to make sure I have this right. In the scenario that Rasmussen set up with their insane wording of that question, the Illuminati, basically, behind the fucking big windmill, are secretly going to wield their power and control by destroying all the mom-and-pop artisanal oil companies?

Starting point is 00:38:59 Is that the theory? Well, you see, Heath, climate change activists are upset that the earth is on fire and religious people are upset that trans kids use bathrooms sometimes. Ergo, samesies. Tie. Samesies, yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So they've told themselves that. But more importantly, they've also just told us that they agree that religions are primarily about power and control. What's in the question?

Starting point is 00:39:21 us that they agree that religions are primarily about power and control. That's in the question. That's the quiet bit. You're meant to use your inside voice for that bit. And you're meant to pretend that religions are all about peace and morality and sipping wine on a Sunday morning without anybody calling you a bum. Those are the things you're meant to think. Yeah, and trust me, it's

Starting point is 00:39:37 really easy to do that on Sunday morning without religion. You just do it by yourself and nobody says anything. Yeah, Heath, for the last time, putting wine in your cereal isn't a boozy brunch. I'm tired of saying it. Yes, it absolutely is. Just think about the words

Starting point is 00:39:49 you're saying. Do you hear yourself? You think about it. Boozy brunch. Cereal, wine. But now it's pretty clear that the Republican voters recognize that religion

Starting point is 00:39:58 is all about power because that has been the GOP's explicit strategy for decades now. Years ago, they opened Google Maps and they typed in Christian nationalism. And now they've just been following the route there this entire time. And they know this. Their voters know this. And we know it as well. And the other thing we

Starting point is 00:40:15 all know is that the road there sure as fuck doesn't pass through Vivek Ramaswamy. No. I wish him all the best of luck in the primary, though. Good luck. Yeah. Enjoy. No. I wish him all the best of luck in the primary, though. Good luck. Yeah. Enjoy. Let's get a Rasmussen poll going for how many people will vote for a guy with Swami in his name.

Starting point is 00:40:33 How many Republicans in a primary are going to do that? Get some numbers on that. And in O Canada news, America's hot older sister is at it again, luring us northward with its maple syrup, half-block occurring dispensaries, and maybe even human rights. As an online petition gaining traction in the great white north, asking the Canadian government to help transgender and non-binary people fearing the outcome of anti-LGBTQ legislation is gaining ground in the United States and other countries. Ah, the ancient tradition of having a slightly colder, way more socialist northern country is a fallback plan. It's the one thing that truly unites England and America.

Starting point is 00:41:12 It really is. Most of QED that I heard was Scottish people being like, stop it, stop. I'm not getting engaged to you just because you're British and you need help. No. Okay, well, that's just because they're too cheap to pay for a wedding, Heath. You gotta know the first things first. What?

Starting point is 00:41:26 So, first of all, trust me, the Brits are loving that one. First of all, big thanks to Peter K. Is that a stereotype about Scottish people? That's a stereotype about Scottish people. That's a terrible stereotype about Scottish people. It's an untrue, terrible stereotype about Scottish people. It's a package. Scottish people are white.

Starting point is 00:41:40 We don't have to say it's untrue. We don't have to caveat. This is a safe space here, Mark. Their food is gross and they're stingy. It's fine. We're allowed to say it's untrue. We don't have to caveat. This is the same space. Their food is gross and they're stingy. It's fine. We're allowed to say it. Yikes. Can't wait to go back.

Starting point is 00:41:49 All right. It's just like with Jewish people. You can do all the same things, right? Wow. Wow. You're going to do this? Wow. I couldn't stick the landing.

Starting point is 00:41:59 I should have stayed quiet. Fuck. I should have just stayed quiet. Ruined. Ruined. Ruined. All right. So, first of all, big thanks to Peter Kay for sending this one in at scathingnews at gmail.com. Jams, jellies, April's knees, et cetera.

Starting point is 00:42:18 So, here's the story. A bunch of people who said they were trans allies didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. And let's be honest, probably a bunch of other elections too. And so the persecution du jour of the Republican Party is trans people. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, in the last year alone, there have been hundreds of anti-trans bills proposed at both the state and national level. Many of these target children, and some go as far as to give the state permission to remove the children of trans people or remove trans children from their homes if they're getting

Starting point is 00:42:51 life-saving medical care they need. And so, rightly, many of our trans friends are getting ready to get the fuck out. And snowy or no, Canada at least acknowledges that they're people. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Word to the wise. Head north rather than east, all the American trans friends out there. Britain has so many transphobes right now that they're spilling over into other countries, other hemispheres even. It's the one export industry that's actually thriving since Brexit. Cool. Yeah. And a bonus about Canada, a Canadian Supreme Court justice, this is just a complete tangent, but it's a fun thing about Canada. A Canadian Supreme Court justice went to a luxury resort in Arizona a

Starting point is 00:43:30 couple of weeks ago and punched a U.S. Marine in the face. Just a fun image about Canada because, you know, the Santa robes that they wear. And I picture that. No, you got to picture him in the Santa robe. Yeah, absolutely. At the swim up bar. Absolutely. Now, I should point out that Americans are actually allowed into Canada without a visa and you're allowed to stay for six months before doing any paperwork. But being allowed into a place and being protected are two very different things. And seeing as Texas has already enacted fucking fugitive slave laws when it comes to abortion rulings. It's not at all hard to imagine other states doing the same when it comes to trans people. And that's what this petition seeks to remedy.

Starting point is 00:44:13 Okay, okay, but hear me out. How about trans people sign up to be the bounty hunters of other trans people? Like kind of a Blade Runner situation. But once they get to Canada, they just stay there. We could essentially have transphobic states effectively financing an underground railroad,

Starting point is 00:44:28 like a kind of Transamerica Express. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Underground railroad to solve a problem in 2023. That is kind of...

Starting point is 00:44:37 Not ideal. And look, I don't want to get anyone's hopes too high here about this petition. So far, the government has been fairly unresponsive in spite of the fact that it has quite a few signatures and the only response that has been given pointed to a program that allows 250 human rights defenders to resettle

Starting point is 00:44:56 into the country a year which is way less than what's needed and also not what's needed i don't know why that's just adding to the morality drain problem that we're having here in the United States. It's obnoxious. Yeah. So this petition is still young and Canada's politics, unlike England's elections, move slowly. So there may actually end up being movement on this. And I certainly hope there is. In the meantime, let me remind you of the 100 percent legal sentence that it is not possible to take someone's rights away if you are dead. It's illegal to say that.

Starting point is 00:45:29 Just really parse out what he technically meant by that. That's legally legal. And finally tonight in Asshole in the Ozone Layer News. Amazing. Gwyneth Paltrow. There. You grab some gold.

Starting point is 00:45:44 It'll make sense in a second. So Gwyneth Paltrow. Plot there. You grab some gold. It'll make sense in a second. Plot there, but you grab some gold. It's good. It's solid. So Gwyneth Paltrow, against all odds, found another thing that you should not put in your ass

Starting point is 00:45:55 and told us to maybe put it in her ass. She's been doing rectal ozone therapy. I said that correctly. Rectal ozone therapy. For real that correctly. Rectal ozone therapy. For real. The founder of the multi-billion dollar health and wellness and lying brand called Goop appeared on a podcast last week and got the question, what's the weirdest wellness thing you've ever done? And her response was, quote, I've used ozone therapy. And then long pause, decide if I should tell them where.

Starting point is 00:46:27 Yes, I will. Rectally. Can I say that? It's pretty weird. It's pretty weird. Yeah. But it's been very helpful. End quote. No, it hasn't, Gwyneth. You look like E.T. dressed up as Hanson for Halloween, Gwyneth. It has not been helpful, Gwyneth. Yeah, all right. Big thanks to Ann Perkins for this story. So let's start by saying... Shake hands. Do not put ozone in your butt.

Starting point is 00:46:54 Apparently, ozone therapy is a thing people are doing, but it's not a good thing, according to, you know, doctors. Here's what the FDA has to say about it. Quote, ozone is a toxic gas with

Starting point is 00:47:07 no known useful medical application in specific adjunctive or preventative therapy. In order for ozone to be effective as a germicide, it must be present in a concentration far greater than that which can be safely tolerated by humans and animals. End quote. Don't do that. Yeah, and presumably the FDA all-sided. Gwyneth, please, this is the fifth statement we've had to put out this week. Stop coming up with new dangerous things to put in your ass. I'm tired. I haven't seen my wife and kids in so, so long.

Starting point is 00:47:37 Just stop. I'm just on the paltrow desk here at the FDA. You're killing me. So with all that being said, well, the conversation's over with all that being said, honestly. I was going to say. Yeah. Unless, of course, we see a legitimate study showing otherwise about ozone therapy, and that study does not exist. But here's what Gwyneth Paltrow and providers of rectal ozone therapy are saying. They're claiming that the health benefits of S-Ozone include reduced pain, reduced inflammation, increased energy, improved metabolism and circulation,

Starting point is 00:48:13 stimulated immune system, detoxification, anti-aging, and treatment for both bacterial and viral infections. I mean, the thing is, it might reduce pain, but only in the sense that once you stop doing it, it stops hurting as much. That's the only way to possibly reduce pain. Yeah, and if you're worried that your rectum is looking old, you're either a porn star with a legitimate business concern, or you're a basket case who should freeze your credit cards in ice, okay?

Starting point is 00:48:43 Also worth noting, during that same appearance, Paltrow mentioned that she often consumes ketone drinks, whatever that is. According to Paltrow, they help with cognition, brain fog, and energy. And she mentioned that they taste like cherry gasoline. But don't worry. She also added that they're coming out

Starting point is 00:49:04 with new flavors soon. Once again, hard pass on that. Do not drink cherry gasoline. Nope, don't do that. Or other flavors of gasoline. Or anything recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow. Safe bet to do the opposite of whatever she says for wellness. And the thing is, what's particularly

Starting point is 00:49:20 rough about all this is that she says she's doing all this stuff to combat long COVID. And look, right, anybody can get COVID. Anyone can develop long COVID. But given that her entire lifestyle is branded around how she's got this amazing natural health and her habits are amazing and she's got a super boosted immune system. Surely by now she should be asking why her daily regime of constant anal consumption didn't seem to protect her at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:44 Also, let me just throw this out there. Long COVID is the Hashimoto's disease of post-2020, right? Some people have this very serious and rare medical condition. We have nothing but sympathy for them, but most people would like attention and have too much Google on their hands. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 00:50:00 And now Eli has too many emails on his hands. Yeah, absolutely. But I have to admit, I am fascinated by the thought process that landed us here in this universe where a toxic, bad-smelling chemical is being added to buttholes. Somebody clearly decided that oxygen, or O2, that's good, right? Therefore, ozone, O3, must be even better. And they went with it.

Starting point is 00:50:25 Yeah, absolutely. So I'm now opening a book on how long before Gwyneth starts recommending anal applications of O4 or tetraoxygen. Like so far, it's only been detected for short periods of time in mass spectrometry experiments. But Gwyneth is a pioneer. She can absolutely market that shit. She'll make it happen.

Starting point is 00:50:41 I believe it. 100%. Yeah, and either way, it involves a trip to Uranus. So, you know. at that. Yeah, I believe it. Yeah. And either way, it involves a trip to Uranus. So, you know. So, yeah, they got all excited about the ozone with 50 percent more. Oh, and then they thought about how to get the super oxygen into the body and they landed on butthole. Yep. So bottom line, do not get rectal ozone therapy. There's one known benefit of ozone, and it's providing a layer in the atmosphere that prevents too

Starting point is 00:51:08 much UV radiation from the sun. The idea of putting it where the sun don't shine, it just doesn't make sense. Just think it through. Obviously. And on that note, we're going to close out the headlines. Marsh, Eli, thanks as always. Choo-ba-chee! And speaking of assholes, when we come back, we're going to

Starting point is 00:51:23 learn all about a new one from Marsh with some Who's Woo. Two defining characteristics of humanity are lying and stupid. And nothing brings together the liars with the stupid people like religion. And of course, that's usually the theme when we consult with our professional idiot fraud wrangler, Michael Marshall, during a segment we like to call Who's Woo? So Marsh, what horrible liar are we going to be learning about today? So we've been showcasing some real assholes for Who's Woo of late, but it's been a bit of a theme that they've all been still like free to be exploiting people with impunity at the end of the story and that's why this week i want to talk about someone who's

Starting point is 00:52:09 actually seen some justice okay so this week we're going to be talking about john techiera jeffaria otherwise known as john of god okay the name john of god is not a good start that's that's what i call my bidet, but still bad for somebody. We know he's a fraud. Okay. Now I feel like that means I need to call my bidet John of the Devil by definition.

Starting point is 00:52:31 So you back me into a corner here. So Jean Chexiera Jetharia. Okay, mozzarella dad. He has that down way too well, right? Yeah, stop. I mean, I'm about to get into cachoeiro. You're doing mozzarella right now.

Starting point is 00:52:42 That's what I said. That's mozzarella dad. He's mozzarella dad. This is how I'm just trying to be professional here. Some of us, you know, like to bring a level of professionality to our pronunciation. This is our podcast. JTF. It's fucking JTF.

Starting point is 00:52:55 It's John God. Jean-Jacques Jafaria was born on the 24th of June, 1942. I hate it. Cachoeira de Goias. Damn it. Yes, I'm so happy. You stopped me before I show it. Cachoeira de Goias in Brazil.

Starting point is 00:53:06 And as a teenager, he became a spiritual healer after, according to one biography, he encountered a spirit, a beautiful fair-haired woman, who instructed him to go to a healing center. Once there, he blacked out for several hours. On regaining consciousness, he was told he performed healings on many

Starting point is 00:53:22 people. So I woke up in the parking lot of TGI Fridays and my spiritual journey had begun. That's a bad origin story. Yeah, I don't love that. By precedent, my life's purpose was to call some guy named Big Poobah who wrote his name on my lower back while I was asleep. That doesn't make sense.

Starting point is 00:53:40 So by his 30s, he was a traveling medicine man and he'd taken on the name Jao de Dios, or John of God. I hate that. After Lincoln... Stop it. That's how you pronounce it-ish. Duolingo Owl doesn't listen to this podcast, Marsh. After an encounter with the spiritual medium and noted fraud Chico Xavier,

Starting point is 00:53:58 Faria set up his own healing center in Aberdeenia. Get out of here. And I don't know if that's a cut down on the gas money from having to travel from place to place, but he definitely recognized the benefit of making the sick people

Starting point is 00:54:09 come to him. Okay. Do you think when frauds get together, they like drop character and compare notes or do they have to stay in the bit?

Starting point is 00:54:18 Like who breaks, do they do like a, whoa, both sure are real. Stop lying on three. One, two, three. I'm still lying. Idiots.

Starting point is 00:54:27 So the center quickly became a site of pilgrimage for thousands of people every day, all looking for cures for their various ailments and illnesses, which included depression, anxiety, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, ALS, hepatitis C, HIV, cancer, and so much more than that. Get the fuck out of here. Not a good sign when the magical healer offers a scrolling menu

Starting point is 00:54:49 like a 90s commercial for DeVry University. Medical assistance license, yeah. Also, I feel like if you get your healing powers from God, you don't need a menu. You just have healing powers, right? It's weird if God doesn't cover rickets like Aetna, right? Oh, no. It's out of network.

Starting point is 00:55:08 You got to go to ball for that one. I know. It's crazy. The network's the universe. Whatever. So when people would visit him, Fourier would consult with his spirit guides to see what kind of treatment they needed.

Starting point is 00:55:19 Some of them were given prescriptions that would apparently cure them. Although when I say prescriptions, this wasn't the take two ibuprofen and get more sleep kind of prescription. In the Huffington Post, one patient explains that she was told to make five trips to the local sacred waterfall, buy four bottles of his blessed herbal capsules, and then to go four months without sex, alcohol, or black pepper.

Starting point is 00:55:41 So pin in all of that other than possibly the black pepper. Other than the black pepper. Did we find all of that other than possibly the black pepper. Other than the black pepper. Did we find Marsh's thing just now, Eli? You have a hot take on the medicinal value of black pepper fasting or something like that? Or maybe he's just going to explain to us on how you can fuck black pepper. Either way, we're listening, Marsh.

Starting point is 00:56:00 I mean, not to disappoint you, I'm just not going to mention black pepper again, but I will mention the rest of those things again. So not to totally disappoint you, but that's where we're going with this. Or as Marsh would call it, black pepper, yeah. I mean, pull the wow, but never mind. So that's what some people got. For other people, the spirit guides recommended surgery.

Starting point is 00:56:22 And that was either visible operations or invisible operations. What? Yeah. The invisible operations involve the patient sitting in a room and meditating while putting their right hand on the part of them that was unwell, which I guess sucks for people who had issues with their right hand. Sure. I'm guessing that's how the visible surgery got on the menu. Like he made some guy do like the one hand clapping thing. And the answer to the con was, oh, yeah. All right. Got to chop your hand in half now. See, I'm just impressed at his ability to delegate the nothing he was already providing

Starting point is 00:56:57 to the people who came to him for help. I mean, yeah, right. So according to Faria, during this intervention, you've got to sit silently for between 10 and 45 minutes while his spirits go to work. And some people at this time say they feel like they're being touched. Others feel stitches.

Starting point is 00:57:14 Some feel heat. Some feel really emotional. And some feel nothing at all. I'm guessing most of them feel nothing at all. It's a big range. So yeah, if you do or you don't feel anything or nothing, that means that it's working. Okay. So, yeah, if you do or you don't feel anything or nothing, that means that it's working.

Starting point is 00:57:30 OK, it sounds like he was prescribing the stranger. Right. And I feel like Marshall being super judgy about it. That is a powerful technique. The stranger. OK, Heath, for the last time, blue balls is not a medical condition. And pictures of Elizabeth Warren's feet are not, quote, a cure that needs to be shared with the world. End quote. There are dozens of us.

Starting point is 00:57:48 So, in fact, the patient didn't actually even need to be present in the clinic to get the invisible surgery. If you were too ill to make it to his center, you could just send someone to meditate on your behalf. And the spirit surgeons would, like, track you down and find you, apparently. I know how this story ends, but I'm just saying, if he had been working, this dude would have killed with Zoom healings during COVID, right? Oh, 100% killed with them, yes, absolutely. With a Patreon tier for not dying.

Starting point is 00:58:14 Cool. So that's the invisible operations. What about the visible operations? Okay, so this is where Ferreira really made a name for himself. What he'd do is he'd take a pair of gauze-tipped steel forceps. He dipped them in a solution that he called holy water and that nobody ever called sterile. And then he pushed those forceps deep into a patient's nostril and like twist them around violently until the patient bled. Yikes. And that meant that they're cured. And this whole

Starting point is 00:58:41 thing was so dramatic that Faria would film it and then sell tapes of this miracle happening. What? Yeah, you can YouTube this and I do not recommend it unless you've been sore that they haven't made another Saw movie in a while, then go nuts. Also, it's a lie. So it could have been anything. He had to think of any fake physical thing to do. And he was like, nose pliers. I'm doing nose pliers. What the fuck is wrong with you? Well, that's the thing is that he chose nose pliers for a very specific reason, because, you know, it's 2023 now and we all have a lot of experience of the fact that the human nasal cavity is way deeper than you might have thought. And that's something that magicians and circus performers have known for centuries, like the hammering a nail into your face trick.

Starting point is 00:59:23 Wow. The marched magician over here, everybody. Okay. So like Faria was just performing a carnival stunt and claiming it to be a miracle cure. And yet this did not stop him from gaining international fame, including appearances on ABC with Dr. Oz in 2005 and on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2010 and 2013. Okay, if you all reach under your chairs, I have a giant lie for you. Great. So the old got your nose and it actually goes way deeper than you'd think trick.

Starting point is 00:59:54 It wasn't the only club in Faria's bag. He'd also say that the eyes are connected to the entire body. And so surgery on the eyes could cure anything at all. And by surgery, what he'd do is he'd take a knife and he would scrape the patient's eyeball. And he would do this without causing the patient any pain at all. But the reason it wouldn't hurt is because he'd be pressing the flat of the blade to the white of the eye, which looks really gross and makes everyone squirm. But that bit of the eye is kind of fairly insensitive to the touch, especially if the

Starting point is 01:00:23 blade has been discreetly dipped in a mild anesthetic first. So you literally can't feel anything. Not touching. Can't get mad. Cow disease. Again, any fake thing would be fine. He must have had people like, hey, just something easier than the nose pliers. Eyeball knife. Really? Eyeball knife? I feel like we could just do, there's a fake thumb that lights up. You're making this harder. There you go. Fake thumb.

Starting point is 01:00:47 I'm doing it right now. How cool is this? So as well as all of those other things, those two other tricks, he would also use his hands to perform intricate surgery deep inside people's body without using any kind of knife or anesthetic.

Starting point is 01:01:00 And then when he'd pull his hands away from the patient, there'd only be a tiny little bit of blood on the skin from the surgery. Or maybe from the small blade that he'd pull his hands away from the patient, there'd only be a tiny little bit of blood on the skin from the surgery, or maybe from the small blade that he'd secreted in his hand to do a tiny little cut with. But the amount of blood was really, really small, like way too small for the kind of amazing surgery that he was claiming he was performing.

Starting point is 01:01:17 And in fact, I even read one credulous nurse who worked in an ER room who'd gone to see John of God, and she'd comment on how there was very little blood for how deep the surgery was meant to be going. And also that the wound at the end was the neatest that she'd ever seen, concluding, quote, I have never seen more experts suturing.

Starting point is 01:01:35 Yeah, Heath tried to find out how deep my belly button goes at the Seattle live show. So I get it, Marsha. It has a corkscrew shape. It corkscrews as you go in. That's for my defenses. Like a duck's vagina. Yes.

Starting point is 01:01:47 Why does everyone go to duck's vagina? Well, those are the two things. It was very tender moment between us backstage. It was a mind meld. It was good. Others have argued that Faria has to be channeling something truly remarkable because across all of the surgeries

Starting point is 01:02:04 that he's performed, his patients actually get very few infections, which just proves that he really is genuinely blessed or that he's doing fuck all and that these people remain completely as ill as they were to begin with. Lots of his patients would go on to die as the TV show 60 Minutes found out when they did a follow up on some of the patients who'd been to see him. And the ones who didn't die were essentially just as sick as they ever were, but they were $5,000 poorer. Great. I mean, look, if the desperate and sick have anything, it's disposable income, Marge.

Starting point is 01:02:34 That's fair. That's fair. It's fine. Of course, when in 2015, Faria was diagnosed with an aggressive stomach cancer, he didn't go meditate while some invisible spirits made him feel a bit warm. And he didn't stick anything up his nose either. Really? He went to an oncologist. There it is. And he had surgery and five months of chemotherapy. And he kept all of that from the public at the time, lest it undermine his whole, I can cure cancer by magic shtick that he was playing.

Starting point is 01:03:00 Yeah. Or maybe he just can't do himself. Marcy Heath's earlier notes about the stranger. About the stranger. Thank you. But he could have done the stranger with a Dutch rudder, with a partner, obviously. So yeah, this is where the lie unravels for me. Obviously, here's the weak point. So this was all an incredibly lucrative scheme. Not only did he own the healing center, he also purchased a thousand acres of a nearby cattle ranch and, according to some reports, an emerald mine. And he definitely owned a lot of emeralds anyway. We do know that he was found with a lot of emeralds later. He also had this whole business of selling magic passion flower preparations and trinkets and crystals and magic triangles and blessed souvenirs, all of which earned him an estimated

Starting point is 01:03:45 $10 million every year. Wow. He's well on destroying Twitter with that kind of emerald money. Yeah. The fact that we never got to watch this guy just mangle Joe Rogan with nose pliers and smoke a blunt together, that's just a fluke. I think that's just a sad fluke. Still, I promised that this motherfucker was going to see some kind of justice. And his downfall did eventually come, though not because he was lying to cancer patients and scamming sick people out of money, but because he'd been using all of the power that came with his position to prey on the women who came to see him. In 2018, he was accused of sexual assault and abuse by 12 women. And by the time of the next year, that number had grown so substantially

Starting point is 01:04:26 that local prosecutors had to set up a dedicated email address and phone line just to receive all the many reports about him. Eventually, over 600 accusations were leveled at him, spanning a 30-year period. His own daughter went on record in support of the accusers, and in fact, as one of the accusers, calling her father a monster. And it is to this day the biggest sexual scandal in the history of Brazil. Okay, I wondered why Hannibal Buress had all that John of God material, but now, okay, it's all... It certainly makes sense.

Starting point is 01:04:57 Coming together. On the 16th of December 2018, Faria surrendered himself to the police, and he's currently serving serving a 63 year prison sentence. Nice. This guy's 80. He is going to die in custody. And while we can hardly call that a happy ending, he's at least no longer able to scam the sick and the vulnerable out of money and time that they don't have. And I think that pretty much makes him

Starting point is 01:05:18 unique amongst the rogues gallery that is Who's Woo. Alright. Well, I'm just going to do some numb-handed meditation and see if I can send cancer to some people. Won't say who. And we'll find out how it goes on the next installment of Who's Woo. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. And this week, we're doing a feedback marsh-tacular's right heath now obviously most of the people listening to this podcast know michael marshall as a comedic foil if you will okay an apple-cheeked

Starting point is 01:05:52 rube reflecting the sheer light of my genius but what you might not know yikes podcast listener is that he also does some skepticism stuff almost as cool as being on a podcast with me so marsh when you weren't gripping your sides with mirth at my japes, tell the folks at home a little about you and the work you do with Merseyside Skeptics. Yeah, yeah. So I've been part of the Merseyside Skeptic Society since we started in 2009. So we've been putting on, we set up as kind of one of those kind of a community space where people who didn't believe in various things could get together. Because it's really hard to get together

Starting point is 01:06:29 and not believe in something. It's really easy to get together and believe in stuff. There's buildings all over the world for people who agree with you on various religious positions and stuff like that. But if you didn't want to go into any of those kind of places and you come to a city, where would you go? And we wanted the Skeptic Society to be that. And so ever since 2009, we've been doing things like putting on Skeptics in the Pub events and running two podcasts, three podcasts when Incredulous is out. So most of the time, two podcasts. And we also get involved in a lot of kind of skeptic activism. And that's kind of where I cut my teeth as a skeptic activist, going out to see psychic shows and to talk to psychics on the street and to go along to mind, body,

Starting point is 01:07:08 spirit festivals and see what it is that people actually say to people and what is it actually like to be in those spaces. And so, yeah, we've been going for most of my adult life now by this point for 14 years. And it's how I ended up working for a skeptical charity, Good Thinking. It was the activism work that I was doing with the Merseyside Skeptics that led to me to be in a position where Simon Singh was setting up a charity and wanted someone to be a full-time skeptical investigator, and I went along for it. So it was kind of where I cut my teeth in skepticism, really, and started to have bizarre and interesting adventures. And we still have events twice a month in Liverpool City Centre. Should anybody be visiting Liverpool, which you should because it's a great city. Excellent. Highly recommend. Some big work getting the NHS

Starting point is 01:07:54 to stop doing homeopathy as much as possible. Defunding that kind of stuff. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. So that was that was through Good Thinking, the charity they work for. So before that Merseyside Skeptics, we ran the 1023 campaign of homeopathic overdoses all around the world to demonstrate on the same day at exactly the same time, local time, that homeopathy doesn't work. We had people go into their local kind of pharmacy and buy some homeopathy and then stand outside the pharmacy and at precisely 1023 in the morning, take an overdose of those pills all around the world at exactly the same time. And it made like international headlines. It was like front page of the BBC News for the whole day. And that was in like, I realized, thinking about this recently,

Starting point is 01:08:33 that was in January 2010. So we set up in February 2009. And by January 2010, we'd done this weird thing that was making like national and international headlines. It was the front page of the BBC News and started to affect the way that homeopathy was talked about in the country. And it was the work I'd done there that once I started working as a full-time skeptical investigator, I started campaigning against the NHS homeopathy provision and we managed

Starting point is 01:08:55 to get that essentially stopped, yeah. Fantastic work. Amazing. Okay, kind of unfair. When I take a bunch of pills, we just call me on vacation. But it's cool, whatever, whatever. Alright, March, we got call me on vacation, but it's cool. Whatever, whatever. All right, March. We got lots of questions about the amazing

Starting point is 01:09:09 and miraculously patient work you do on specifically Be Reasonable, a podcast version basically of being a business partner with Eli. So this one's from Kelly and Timothy. Who is your favorite Be Reasonable guest So this one's from Kelly and Timothy. Who is your favorite Be Reasonable guest and who is it hardest to hold it together with? Okay, okay.

Starting point is 01:09:33 So I'll do the hardest to hold it together with first. And I think that's probably a tie between Jared Taylor and Ed Turner. So Jared Taylor is the guy from American Renaissance, which is a white nationalist website and organization. And I interviewed him about his quite extreme views of white exceptionalism and about how all the races need to be kept apart and things. And it was definitely that he was the most out and out racist person that I've ever spoken to. And the fact that he's trying to hide that behind this kind of like faux intellectualism. So he really wanted to push buttons and try and wind me

Starting point is 01:10:05 and the listeners up. But that isn't what made it hard that he was trying to wind me up. It's more that there was a sense that I couldn't just let stuff pass. Because normally on the show, there's a lot of things I'm going to let pass

Starting point is 01:10:16 and I'm not going to pick up every single thing because I'm trying to build a rapport that I can then use to get to some meatier questions later that I can kind of dig into. Sure, you give them the rope to hang themselves and you're trying to let them get some of their

Starting point is 01:10:27 stuff out. Yeah, exactly. So they might say, they might drop in that they use homeopathy and I'm not going to stop the interview there and really get down into their homeopathy stuff. If I think there's like some more interesting and unique territory and more important territory to get to, but I couldn't really do that with Jared Taylor because of the stakes. Cause the stuff that he was letting by was like people's rights to live and people's rights to exist. So that was quite a hard one. And then with Ed Turner, he was someone who used to be an attendee of the Merseyside Skeptic Society a few years before I interviewed him. And in that time, he'd basically been red pilled and gone completely off on this big mass culture war kind of trip. And so the tricky thing about that conversation was

Starting point is 01:11:05 he was just jumping around from topic to topic in this big mess of culture war, red pill brain rot. And it was really difficult to like pin the conversation down to anything. And that was 2018. It was probably the first time I'd ever engaged with that kind of internet baked brain and try to, and now I think I could handle it a bit better,

Starting point is 01:11:24 but it was the first time that kind of erratic jumping around and never being pinned down thing was part of a conversation I was in. So I think those were the hardest to hold together. Yeah. So with, especially the racist guy, I would imagine you do this thing normally on Be Reasonable where they're doing their thing, you're going to let them talk and you do, you're like, mm, mm, mm. But then you say, the guy says something neo-Nazi terrible. You can't just mm past it. Yeah, you can't mm a like white supremacist talking.

Starting point is 01:11:51 Yeah, absolutely not. So you've got to kind of find a way of responding in a way that you still want to get to the stuff you want to get to, but you can't make any, any neutral sound that sounds like you're just

Starting point is 01:12:00 letting it pass. And so, yeah, it was true. I haven't listened to it back for ages. And so I'd be interested to see exactly how it played out. But I remember feeling quite a difficult because the stakes were so high. Marsha's kind of like the opposite of Joe Rogan

Starting point is 01:12:12 as an interviewer in a lot of ways. Okay, so what about your favorite? Favorite? So it's really hard to look past Leo Rubello. That's always a perennial, absolute joy. But if I'm going to look past Leo, because the listeners know all about Leo Rubello. If you don't, we've mentioned him.

Starting point is 01:12:28 Eli mentions Leo Rubello an awful lot. It's a fantastic, fun interview. Every night before I go to sleep. But if I'm going to look past that, there is a deep cut of an interview with a psycher called Vicky Munro, which was episode 16 of Be Reasonable. And it's slightly cheating

Starting point is 01:12:42 because it was actually an interview that I conducted with my co-host Hayley on a previous show that we used to work on called Righteous Indignation from like 2011. And it was only when Vicky Monroe got a TV series in 2014 that we republished the interview. But the reason it's my favorite is she spends 35 minutes talking about how she's so reasonable. She wouldn't just insert herself into missing persons cases unless she was asked by the family. She never goes out soliciting these things. If she does readings about people's health, she'll always make sure that they see a doctor. She doesn't overstep her bounds and she's sounding incredibly reasonable. And it was quite hard to then

Starting point is 01:13:16 find places to like properly criticize the way that she was going about things in 2011 when we talked to her. But then at one point, she kind of offhandedly mentions that she can do readings for you over the phone. And I was sort of like, well, we're over the phone now. Would you do a reading for us? And so she even said, well, if I said no to that, I'd look like a fraud, wouldn't I?

Starting point is 01:13:35 And I was like, well, you know, we can edit this out. So I wouldn't be honest and I'd hide the fact that you said no. I've sprung you in it. But instead she went into a reading and she just did a reading for us. And I swear to god it

Starting point is 01:13:45 is the most incredible car crash i don't know if you guys went it's so bad oh god she just starts throwing out so many names and so you know which is what psychics do but i knew that's what they do so i was just listing down the names that she was asking about and kept repeating them back to her and it got to like 17 different names that she's tried. And she didn't say if they were alive or dead. So I was asking her each time, okay, and is that one alive or dead? And is this one alive or dead? Yeah. And then at the end of it all, she was like, and so that was a good reading because there was this and there was this, that landed. So yeah, you got two names. You guessed two names in my entire life from like the 17 that you tried. My favorite was when she names one,

Starting point is 01:14:27 she's like, is there an Anne there? And you're both like, I don't know, maybe. And she's like, it's a, it's a grandparent. You're both like, nope. She's like, well, let's expand out with powers of two. Great, great, or great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great. Has there ever been a woman named Anne? That was basically it. It was basically it. My favorite part of that interview is, again, this is episode 16. If you're looking for a place to start, this is a fun one.

Starting point is 01:14:53 It's about 15 minutes before the end of the episode. She has to resort to British racism at the end. She's an American. So by the end, she's just like, did your grandmother used to say, pip, pip, cheerio, and she had a big bag, big tall thing. No. Okay. My signal is bad.

Starting point is 01:15:13 So yeah, that was a delight. I listened back to that one today in preparation for this. And yeah, that was, that was a fun time. Yeah. Always in our hearts, Leo. Okay. So this next one is from Bender has a point who asked, what are some tips for having conversations with conspiracy-minded people? Okay, okay, yeah.

Starting point is 01:15:30 So first of all, I'd say it's important to know what you're trying to get out of it. Are you trying to have this conversation because you want to try and demonstrate that you're right and that you know better than them? Are you having the conversation because you want to try and correct them and change their mind? Or are you having the conversation because you genuinely want to have a connection to somebody you disagree with, you know, have some sort of interaction. Because if you're going in and your goal is to own them and to destroy them, then I've got nothing for you. I just don't think that's valuable. It doesn't help you. Particularly, you might feel better about yourself in a short time. It definitely doesn't

Starting point is 01:16:02 help them because they think they come away with the idea that people who disagree with them are kind of arrogant assholes, essentially. So I'd say for me, it's all about understanding people as much as possible. And with that in mind, my key thing is to build a rapport and to be genuinely interested, to see them as a human being and not a collection of weird beliefs. I saw someone who runs various kind of courses and instructional things on how to talk to religious people, how to talk to believers. And they were saying it's important that you make sure you appear interested. And I think that's bullshit because don't just appear interested. Be interested.

Starting point is 01:16:37 If you're faking your interest, it's not going to come across. You have to genuinely be interested. You've got to want to know what they think and not just be waiting for your turn to dunk on them or to give them the counter apologetic that you've learned somewhere. Yeah. It's a tough instinct to avoid, but that's yeah. Good advice. Yeah. And when you listen to Be Reasonable, there are times that I'm doing a very subtle dunk and I try and keep it as like as little and narrow and in the box as much as I can. But there's a few lines I can't help but let out with the occasional kind of noise. You do some subtle dunk. Just the, just the, can be a beautiful, but it's great. I think the other thing is it's all about helping them sense

Starting point is 01:17:15 check. I think that's the thing. So you're not trying to challenge them. You're not trying to say, well, you're wrong for these reasons. You're trying to help them understand where, why they're wrong. Cause if you're trying to just show them why they're wrong, they're going to be set up and biased in a way that's going to make them less receptive. Whereas if you can lead them to a place where they can understand for themselves what's wrong, that's going to be way more productive because they can figure stuff out for themselves. So to do that, you introduce challenges, but you do it in a way that doesn't undermine their ego, that doesn't kind of make them feel stupid or make them feel judged or attacked, I think. And a really good way to do that, and this is kind of the cheat code to what I'm doing with Be Reasonable, is to frame your

Starting point is 01:17:52 challenging questions as a request for help in understanding something rather than as a gotcha. So instead of saying, like, you're wrong for this reason, it's like, okay, I'm trying to follow what you're saying, but when I follow, I hit this point and I can't get past it. Can you help me understand what you think here? And people would be way more willing to talk about what they believe in that way. Good frame, yeah. And I think a big part of it is just lowering the cost of changing someone's, of someone changing their mind. The social cost of changing our minds is incredibly high, probably higher than it's been in a long time at the moment because of this kind of tribalism and this kind of dunking culture. Whereas if we can lower the cost where it's been in a long time at the moment because of this kind of tribalism and this kind of dunking culture.

Starting point is 01:18:25 Whereas if we can lower the cost where it's easy for someone to change their mind and not lose face, people will be way more willing to do that. Sure, yeah. Prevent the heels from digging in and having like a meltdown if they feel like they've lost.

Starting point is 01:18:37 They're right. Yeah, and the final thing I'd say as well is a lot of people, they come to these conspiracy beliefs because of a value set that they have that leads them to be more prone to seeing the world in this particular way. And what I would say is a good way to help disentangle that is to acknowledge where the value is positive and then try and disassociate that from the action.

Starting point is 01:18:58 So like for anti-vaxxers, a lot of the time, for example, they might be trying to protect children. And you can say to them, look, I don't think you're evil because you're trying to destroy children. I know that your value is to try and protect children. And I care about that as well. So I think that is a value that you hold. And now we can disagree

Starting point is 01:19:14 about the way about going about that. Once we've established that we both share that value and recognize that value. But if you just do the latter of those things without first establishing that they have some positive

Starting point is 01:19:25 values in there, then you get sort of all tied up in their sense of identity and value and how they see themselves. And it's quite difficult to extricate their beliefs from that point. Yeah, right. People, most people think they're right for a good reason and then they're wrong about something if they're wrong. But yeah, no, that's very good. Yeah, very good. Okay. Next up from a friend of the show, Brian Eggo. Indeed. Yeah. Here's what Brian wants to know. He said, you have to go out partying with one of your Be Reasonable interviewees. Who would you choose? Leo the lion. I mean, it would be delightful to watch Leo get drunk and belligerent with the crowd. Don't get me wrong. That would be enjoyable. Oh, it's difficult. So first of all, there's somebody I'm going to be

Starting point is 01:20:09 interviewing this week who I absolutely would want to go for a drink with, but I can't talk about that yet because it's not recorded and it might not come off. So of the shows that I've published, maybe Darren Nesbitt. He was the flat earther who went on to found the light paper. And he seemed a genuinely interesting guy. I think I could honestly talk to him all day and not even scratch the surface. But I genuinely enjoyed chatting to him. I think he'd be fun. Although there is a 100% certainty that once he's drunk,

Starting point is 01:20:38 he'd get his guitar out and start playing anti-vax protest songs. So that, yeah, that is a risk. And then maybe more sincerely, I interviewed a tarot reader called Nia True. And I really liked her. I think she seemed like a genuinely lovely person. And she was genuinely really, really skeptical, except she also couldn't explain how tarot could predict some stuff now and then. And while I could explain that,

Starting point is 01:20:58 she couldn't quite let go of the tarot enough. But I could feel in the interview that she really wanted to. And she was like studying how to be a counselor and was moving away from tarot., but I could feel in the interview that she really wanted to. And she was like studying, studying how to be a counselor and was moving away from tarot. But there was a little kernel of her that was still holding up the tarot cards.

Starting point is 01:21:11 And I think just a night out with some skeptics to talk to her a little bit longer. And I think we could dislodge her from those beliefs. Right on the edge, almost there. Yeah. One free QED ticket away.

Starting point is 01:21:22 Yeah. Yeah, there you go. And before you know it, she's nowhere. Yeah. People have there you go. And before you know it, she's nowhere. Yeah. People have interesting lines with that line in the sand. Like, no, but tarot is real. Right.

Starting point is 01:21:31 Okay. And half the time she was like, tarot isn't always real. But like sometimes it does some stuff I can't explain. Okay. You will let go of that. Things that aren't always real. And speaking of QED, this one comes from everybody.

Starting point is 01:21:48 When is the next QED? Where can people go to find out the details? And did you specifically schedule it so that Heath can't come this year? Come on. So the last of those questions, yes, obviously, absolutely. We actually booked that wedding in advance. The quiz wasn't that hard.

Starting point is 01:22:01 It was, some of those were doable questions. Whatever. So QED is the 23rd and 24th of September later this year. At the moment, the website doesn't have any of the details

Starting point is 01:22:11 because we haven't announced any of the stuff other than the date. So once we announce more stuff, I'll be on this show or I'll tell you guys all about it and you will not be able

Starting point is 01:22:19 to miss announcements about QED. But yeah, September, it's actually six months from now. It's only six months from now, which is frighteningly soon. So yeah, it should be fun. Yeah. Cannot recommend QED. But yeah, September. It's actually six months from now. It's only six months from now, which is frighteningly soon. So yeah, it should be fun.

Starting point is 01:22:28 Yeah. Cannot recommend QED more, even though I sadly won't be able to go to this one. Yeah, no heat this year. So if the thing you've hated about QED is heat, now's your chance.

Starting point is 01:22:37 It comes up in the feedback form more often than you think. So often, less heat. I love when we confirm all my deepest fears when on the show. Just live. I also love that.

Starting point is 01:22:47 Look at it. We're making... Okay, last question. No, let's just... Let's just do the last question. This is a fun one. It's from Dale. Dale wants to know,

Starting point is 01:22:55 of all the people you've interviewed on Be Reasonable, whose belief would be the most interesting if it were actually true? Oh, nice. Okay.

Starting point is 01:23:04 It has to be the kind of the really, really weird and kind of niche and obscure ones, I think, which were actually true. Oh, nice. Okay. It has to be the kind of the really, really weird and kind of niche and obscure ones, I think, which were actually quite a lot of the earlier ones. So I think one of the first five episodes I ever did with a guy called Michael Whitcomb, who believes there are still, right now, pterosaurs flying around America.

Starting point is 01:23:21 And the reason we can't see them is that they quite often hide. And so they're there. They're there. And he used that picture of the Civil War guys in front of a pterosaur. I was about to ask about that.

Starting point is 01:23:33 I was going to say he used the Civil War. Okay. That was a while ago, the American Civil War. But he's saying still. Yeah. All right.

Starting point is 01:23:39 I got to check out. I haven't heard that episode. I love it. And I think it's because he's like a creationist and he's trying to explain. He doesn't disbelieve the existence of fossils. So he has to kind of be like, oh no, the dinosaurs weren't that long ago. In fact, some of them are still here. I think that was kind of his angle, but yeah, so he was at a light. And I like the idea that there are sneaky

Starting point is 01:23:57 pterosaurs making their way around America right now. So that would be a good one. Sure. I think Navina Shine, she was the Brevarian who'd given up food and water. And I think she, no, she'd given up food and she only lived on water and I think tea. And she tried to go 47 days and she didn't manage it, I believe. You need some rectal ozone. Yeah, exactly. I think if her worldview was real, that would have some interesting implications for the rest of the world that I'd like to see kind of how that would play out. So that would be fun. Yeah, because that would just mean all those starving kids in Ethiopia's hearts weren't just in it. So there's some real questions. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 01:24:35 Problematic consequences of that belief. Yeah. Oh, God. There was a really early one from a guy called Duncan Lunan, who believed there's an ancient, there's a really old kind of folklorish tale from 12th century Suffolk in the UK about two young children who were twins who walked out of a cave and had completely green skin. The green children of Woolpit, I think it was. And he believes that was a real thing,

Starting point is 01:24:58 that they really did have green skin. And he believes those kids were a result of a future experiment of like a hybridization program run by aliens on a planet on the far out far edge of the solar system that had like a weird magnetic field around it that malfunctioned and shot those kids back in time to 12th century suffolk um so i quite like that to be true because that, that'd be a fun one. Because that's a fascinating world. Yeah, sure. And let's see. Oh, and the other one,

Starting point is 01:25:27 there's a guy who I still follow on Twitter to this day called Eugene McCarthy, who believes that evolution, our view of evolution is wrong because humans actually evolved from pigs. But there was like a hybrid program between like pigs and apes. And that's where humans came from.

Starting point is 01:25:44 And he's been doing like lots of studies and publishing lots of research to back all this up. And you can go on, if you find like, I forget who he is on Twitter, but Eugene McCarthy, if you follow him on Twitter, he's still on it right now. And this is like 10 years later, he's still on the same train.

Starting point is 01:26:00 And he said in the interview that he was really close to having his computer program finished that would conclusively prove that humans are part ape, part pig. And that was a decade ago. So I haven't seen any journals of yet, but yeah. It's called ChatGP Squee. Okay. That's a way more fun version of McCarthyism. The Eugene McCarthyism. That was the world. Yeah, that guy's SEO is fucked. All right, well, that is all the feedback you'd get. If you'd like more,

Starting point is 01:26:31 tell Marsh to stop fucking around and be on our show more often. Maybe call his cell phone at home. Link in the show notes. And when we come back, you'll miss Noah's smooth ability to outro segments on our podcast. What are you doing?

Starting point is 01:26:45 The Scathing Atheist. Okay. Starring Eli. Okay. And please keep sending us those emails, tweets, and Facebook messages, responding to stuff all over the place.

Starting point is 01:26:55 When Tim puts out cool questions about Marsh, love it. You'll find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingatheist.com. Our website. With Eli. Also. And that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight.

Starting point is 01:27:06 But we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern

Starting point is 01:27:13 on Monday. An even newer 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,

Starting point is 01:27:19 Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Big thanks to Marsh and Eli for all the brains, muscle, looks, and talent. And of course, a big thanks to all the Patreon donors

Starting point is 01:27:25 for all the generosity. Our newest patrons will be thanked by name and lavished with praise next time around. If you'd like to join their ranks, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash skatingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode,

Starting point is 01:27:37 where you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at skatingatheist.com. Tim Robertson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music used in this episode which was used with permission.

Starting point is 01:27:47 If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. How crazy is that? That they wrote such a similar sketch to what I write. Wait, is that literally you took it word for word? Word for word.

Starting point is 01:28:20 That is the output from the scene opens with all the way down to. Not the silly voice bit as well, though, right? Yep, silly voice bit, everything. Oh my God, I thought you were joking. No, this is moment for moment, word for word, the output I got. Okay, well, you're fired. I mean, you just use that for the basis from now on and then just noodle around the edges. Yeah, for real.

Starting point is 01:28:42 Very upsetting. But don't really noodle too much. I feel like you'll take away the... Don't noodle too much. Take away the veggies. The proper tone around the edges. Yeah, for real. Very upsetting. But don't really noodle too much. I feel like you'll take away the... Don't noodle too much. Take away the edges. The proper tone of the thing. GPT doesn't take notes from normies. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:28:56 Sorry, Heath. Marsh, what do you think of our fun japes? Okay. I thought you were doing your line there, Heath. You threw me. Oh, you didn't hear me, I think. Oh, okay. This happens.

Starting point is 01:29:11 You can go straight into it. Did you enjoy our date, Marsh? No worries. No problem. It wasn't super funny, so maybe that was it. Cool. Morgan, leave like a big gap. Leave a big silence and then just let Marsh go into it. No, actually pull a huge laugh from Marsh earlier and put it right here and then have him talk

Starting point is 01:29:28 awkwardly. Early Learning Center in Prince Georgia County, Maryland. Fuck! But nobody expects the call a lesbian couple received from the director of Rising Generations Early Learning Center in Prince County, Georgia, Maryland

Starting point is 01:29:44 last week at 3 a.m. Did I fuck it up again? Yeah, it's George, not Georgia. And it's the order you wrote it. So just read the words. All going away. The ones on the page, yes. The preceding podcast was a production

The Scathing Atheist - 527: Marshtacular Edition

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