The Scathing Atheist - 528: Banned Wagon Edition

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

In this week’s episode, book banning bites the butts of the city of Brigham, God visits a town in Connecticut to serve unlimited breadsticks made of his son, and Don Ford visits a podcast in Jersey, Michigan, and Georgia and doesn’t bring any breadsticks at all. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click there: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Guest Links: Learn more about AACon here: https://convention.atheists.org/ --- Headlines: Utah parent moves to have the Bible banned from schools for sexuality and violence: https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2023/03/22/utah-parent-says-bible-contains/ Church leaders says he regrew a woman's toes: https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2023/03/22/james-river-church-leader-say s-woman-regrew-toes-during-a-service/70028744007/ Also: Showmethetoes.com Citing his faith, Texas university president cancels drag show fundraiser: https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/citing-his-faith-texas-university Petition to save the drag show at WTAMU: https://www.change.org/p/save-the-wtamu-drag-show Lauren Boebert asks Democrats to declare human fetuses an endangered species: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/03/lauren-boebert-asks-democrats-to-declare-human-fetuses-an-endangered-species/ He Gets Us is feeding personal info to right wing political groups: https://baptistnews.com/article/he-gets-us-is-feeding-massive-amounts-of-data-to-cambridge-analytica-and-conservative-political-groups/ Possible eucharistic "miracle" happened at Saint Thomas Church in Thomaston, CT: https://www.wfsb.com/2023/03/24/possible-eucharistic-miracle-happened-saint-thomas-church-thomaston/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Christian Post hosts forum on the dangers of trans people: https://www.christianpost.com/news/unmasking-gender-ideology-panel-warns-women-lose-rights-if-trans-ideologues-win.html Idaho Republicans block tampons for being “too woke”: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/idaho-republicans-woke-liberal-tampons-menstrual-products-schoolsbill_n_641cd6efe4b0a3902d3602b6

Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Uh-oh, that's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct. Insurance simplified. Warning, the following podcast is even more offensive than Michelangelo's David. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com, Sparkle Donkey Tequila,

and by the new service that comes over and draws black boxes on your kid's glasses so they're not in danger of seeing statue dicks, Warby Marker. Warby Marker, because everything your kid sees is a threat to your worldview. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Lucky McChancey, and I'm here to tell you that if you live in Wisconsin, there's an election on April 4th that will determine control of the state Supreme Court. Because if you know anything about the conservative candidate, Dan Kelly, then you know that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's March 30th.

And it's I Am In Control Day. All right. Because if the Reagan assassination attempt gave us anything, it's a catchphrase. Love. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Kevin Smith's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The

Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Bible banning bites the butts of the city of Brigham. God visits a town in Connecticut to serve unlimited breadsticks made of his son. And Don Ford will visit a podcast in Jersey, Michigan, and Georgia and doesn't bring any breadsticks at all. But first, the diatribe. Sorry in advance.

Got another sad diatribe to give you this week. Because last Monday, Lucinda and I had to say goodbye to one of our fur babies. And I know that I don't have to share every sad thing that happens in my life with you. And I don't. But I feel like this is one of the things I do need to share. Because, well, first of all, because he was kind of a character on the show. But also because this kind of grief speaks to the very heart of what we do here.

So Loki first came into our life of his own accord. We'd been traveling for years, pretty much constantly with work. And we just, we couldn't keep pets at the time. But after years of living out of RVs and motel rooms, we'd settled into an apartment for a bit. And Lucinda took a job waiting tables in a nearby restaurant.

So she's out back taking a smoke break one day when this little tuxedo cat comes trotting up and rubs against her legs, and she falls in love, and so does he. She pets him a little, and she goes to head back into work, and the little cat follows her in, and she puts him outside again, but he spends the rest of the day trying to sneak back in the door anytime somebody opens it, and then when she gets off of work that day, he's there waiting for her. He follows her to the car and he just hops right the fuck in when she opens the door. So naturally, she calls me from the Walmart that she stopped at to pick up a litter box and some food. And she's like, we've got a cat now, by the way.

And so we had a cat. And like every cat, he was the best cat. He was big and he was poofy and he was silly as all hell. He was also demanding as shit. And I could never say no to him. He loved to drink water out of a dripping tub. So when I get up in the morning, my first duty was to drip the tub for him and my shower could wait until he was good and fucking done with that tub. Then a couple of years ago, he got a severe infection that left him with a vestibular disorder that really fucked up his balance. It got to where he couldn't turn around without falling over. Now that got better, but for several weeks, we had to do everything for him. We had to carry him

back and forth to the food dish and the litter box and to bed every night. And of course, he doesn't know what the fuck's going on. He doesn't know that he's sick. So naturally, he just thought he got promoted, right? He thought he'd ascended to a level where we just carry his ass around on a Palantine for the rest of his life. And what's more, he seemed to think it was about fucking time. So even after he more or less recovered, he demanded to be carried around a lot. And when I dripped water for him, I was now expected to lift him up

and gently place him in the tub in front of it, wait until he's done, and then gently remove him at that point and place him back on the floor. And you can bet your ass that is exactly what I did. And Lucinda would say to me, sometimes she'd say, you don't have to give him water every time he cries at you. And I would nod and I would say, yeah, but he's not always going to be around to give water to.

See, that's the thing, because at times like this, it's tempting to be envious of your religious friends. It's tempting to wish that you could believe what they believe, to fool yourself into thinking that someday you'll get to cuddle with your lost pets again on the other side of the rainbow bridge, to spare yourself some shred of the overwhelming loss that you feel. But that's not how it works. You can't avoid bereavement with this one simple trick. Everything comes with a price. And the price of delusion, at least in this scenario, is regret.

Look, part of having pets is losing pets. I get that. You go into every relationship with an animal with every intention of outliving them, right? And you hope you do. A person can at least comprehend losing their pet in a way that a pet could never comprehend losing their person. I would take all this sorrow and more if it meant sparing Loki some measure of it And if you're brave enough to look their mortality in the eye You'll remember to give them water in the tub every time they tell you to

You'll make time for them You'll give of yourself more freely and more openly because the temporary nature of your relationship Will be right at the forefront of your mind instead of buried deep behind a bunch of religious bullshit and motivated reasoning. I mean, as I've said a number of times before on this show, I don't think that most people who espouse theism really believe in an afterlife. Why would they be sad at funerals

if they really thought that person was in heaven and they were going to get to hang out with them for eternity in just a few decades? But even if you could believe that, why would you want to? I mean, if I could actually live in a world where there's an eternal paradise and Loki gets to go to a great big bathtub in the sky, I would obviously choose that. But that's not the choice. The choice is to live in this finite world and admit it or live in this finite world and deny it. That's the decision

tree. And ignorance has a cost. And it's not just a cost that you pay. The object of your love pays it as well. To cheat someone of their due grief is to withhold some measure of your love from them. As an atheist, you can look your loved one in the eye and you can say, yes, I know this is going to hurt me. I know that I'll be crushed with loss when you go. I know that my life will never be as full and as rich again once I say goodbye to you. And you're worth it.

You're worth all that heartache. You're worth a lifetime of heartache. Hell, that's what it means to love something. The price for love is grief. And it's a bargain. They're talking about you, Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the Calvin and Hobbes to my Susie, Heath Enright, and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to transmogrify? Cool, yeah. I represent a very problematic theologian. And I am a tiger. And now that we've perfectly encapsulated

the show's dynamic in nine words, I guess I suppose we can pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Stamps.com. But then we hire Max, pay him in college funds, and boom, we can use his dorm as a rental property as another side hustle. Literally none of those words. Hey guys, what you talking about?

So Eli's been watching too much TikTok again and he's obsessed with side hustles now. Noah, did you know we could make thousands of dollars a day just by buying land that the government owns? No, because we can't. 60 second long videos don't lie, guys. But they do.

Like the majority of them do. Yeah. Look, Eli, if you're looking for a way to actually save yourself money, why don't you just try stamps.com? What's stamps.com? Is it drop shipping? I hear we can make a ton with drop shipping. No, it's not that.

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They even send a free scale so you'll have everything you need to get started. If you need a package pickup, you can easily schedule that through your stamps.com dashboard. Wow. Set your business up for success when you get started with stamps.com today.

Sign up with promo code scathing for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the page, and enter the code SCATHING. Stamps.com. Side hustles aren't real, but post office discounts are. What about selling your blood?

Wait, your blood or our blood? Answer for both. No. And now, back to the headlines in our lead story tonight it turns out that the bible has dicks in it like just a lot of days so many dicks that they have to start calling them feet just to obscure how many dicks are it has a chuck tingle would tell you there are too many dicks in your book level of dicks in it. It's true. Which is why it's really fucking weird that they spend so much time trying to pave the way to ban all the stuff with dicks in it.

And of course, we were reminded of the potential danger of doing so this week when we learned about a parent in Salt Lake City trying to use Utah's new laws about sensitive materials in schools to ban the Bible. Utah's new laws about sensitive materials in schools to ban the Bible. Oh, damn it. We described our book of morals while trying to talk about child endangerment again. So, yeah. So, quick thanks to Marcus for alerting us to this story at scathingnews at gmail.com. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Noah, are you telling me- Every time.

That folks can send us atheismnews scathing news at gmail.com and we in turn will send them a pizza but when they open it instead of pepperoni it'll be possum nipples now this is why you can't have running jokes eli everything past a three beat turns into some psychosexual hellscape that's not true 100 Yeah, it's kind of true. Well, I mean, depending on your appetite for possum nipple. Oh, no, that's fair. It's going to be a hellscape. It's psychosexual. Now, this story starts with HB 374, a law that was passed and signed into law last year in Utah

with the intent of banning library books that acknowledge the legitimate humanity of LGBTQ people. But, of course, since they still feel the need to couch their bigotry in some larger shared value, they pretend the law is about disseminating pornography. But then they define that to mean whatever we can get a majority of people to call inappropriate. But as the complaint against the Bible points out, that book contains, quote, incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos,os rape and even infanticide end quote and the complaint then adds that quote if the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses this should be a slam dunk end quote yeah not adding a principal in florida literally got fired last week because michelangelo's sculpture of the biblical david has a penis is this a prank

is there like a hidden camera thing is religion a hidden camera show what the fuck is happening if so it's gotten wildly out of hand we really need the turn absolutely now the complaint is an absolute work of art because not only did the parent provide the list, but they also included a list of specific verses demonstrating all of those charges. And interestingly enough, they never had to get past Genesis to find examples. But they added this fabulous close quote. I thank the Utah legislature for making this bad faith process so much easier and way more efficient. Now we can all ban books and you don't even need to read them or be accurate about it.

Heck, you don't even need to see the book. End quote. You guys are the firemen in Fahrenheit 451 with flamethrowers and water hoses going at the same time, you fucking idiots. You made that thing even dumber somehow. Yeah. Now, Heath,

Christians have only heard of Fahrenheit 451 when they're banned for saying slurs on Twitter. Pay attention. Right. Now, of course, we have to emphasize here that this won't work, right? At least in the sense that the Bible is not going to get banned in any Utah school. The law has been intentionally crafted with a bunch of panels and shit. They get to make up the law on a case-by-case basis, so there's no danger of consistency, right? It's a majority rule. But the intent of the complaint is obviously to highlight the hypocrisy of the law rather than to subvert it. And given that I read about this shit in the

Salt Lake Tribune, I'd venture to say it at least succeeded on that front. And in something's afoot news. You know, sometimes as we hear the scathing atheist report on yet another transphobic bill in a state Senate or a Supreme Court decision about how you have to break for tooth fairies on the highway. Now, I long for and miss the old time religion we used to report about on this program. Miracles, madness and whatever dribbled out of Pat Robertson's mouth. Well, he got so melty that eventually his mouth dribbled out of his mouth. But I know what you mean. I see what you mean.

And if you missed that too, buckle in, podcast listener, because a Springfield area church is claiming that prayer re-grew a woman's amputated toes last week. I love it. You're lying and you still don't lie bigger than the least useful digit. Right. And your story starts with this little piggy got amputated inside a universe with a loving God. That's where you start.

Yeah. So first off, big thanks to Jessica for sending us this story. Nipple pizza on the way. Scathing news at gmail.com. Yes. During a live stream of James River Church's March 15th service, Pastor John Lindell, no relation, explained that a creative miracle took place the day before at the Joplin James River Church campus, and that he had grown the toes of Christina Dines, a congregant whose toes were shot off by her husband in 2016. Oh, right.

Yeah, no, sorry. This little piggy got shot in the face by an abusive husband inside a universe with a loving guy. That's the beginning of this. Quote, this is from the pastor. As the ladies prayed for Chrissy over the next 30 minutes, all three toes grew. And by that point, were longer than her pinky toe.

Within an hour, nails began to grow on all the toes. End quote. And it was about then that we thought, oh shit, y'all, we should have remembered that everyone on earth has a camera on them at all times right now at some point in the last hour.

Damn. And while she has since taken it down, Dines, the toe grower in question, put a video on Facebook making the same claim. Quote, tonight I can stand on my tippy toes. Listen, do you understand? I got it. I can stand on tippy toes.

No, I couldn't do that because I didn't have toes to tippy on. End quote. She had just laid like several dismembered toes on the carpet and stood on them. I would add her to my will. Just ballet dancing on point through an amputee ward. Tippy toes. God loves me. This is the best.

You guys, though. Yeah. So obviously, people have been very interested to see evidence of this toe regrowth and several posts about the story have gone viral across social media. One comedy genius even bought the website showmethetoes.com, a domain name that I am shocked and ashamed that I didn't own already, which has collected the claims about the incident as well as asking for proof from anyone involved.

But here's the thing. Lindell isn't just limiting himself to toes. No, no, no. He made one more claim at the end of the live stream that I personally will be keeping my eye on. Quote, I'm going to say one other thing, and I don't say this lightly, but I just think you need to know what's going to happen.

There are going to be, some of you are going to raise people from the dead. I'm not saying everybody will be raised from the dead. I'm just saying there are some people in this room, you're going to raise people from the dead. It's going to happen. End quote.

Cool. Cool. Great stuff. In the meantime, maybe the magic toe growing people can visit some fucking hospitals and do that again. That'd be great. There you go. Looking forward to hearing about all of that healing that they're going to do. Yeah, and that'd be a great place to raise people from the dead, too, while you're there.

Sure, yeah. Why not? Oh, no, I was just waiting to see if that happened. Nope. Cool. And in Drag Race Wars news, the great swordsman and philosopher Miyamoto Musashi once said, to become the enemy, see yourself as the enemy of the enemy. And when I read that, I was reminded of two things.

One, don't be the guy who models his life based on quips from an old-timey sword fighting guy. But also, two, you can learn a lot by looking at the fears of the other team. But also, too, you can learn a lot by looking at the fears of the other team. And just to review, the deepest fears of the Christian right in 2023 are learning math without a slide rule, truthful history curriculum, uterine autonomy, of course time making mccarthyist laws against a delightful performance art and now we're seeing the bigot fear spill over into other areas outside the government and not surprisingly that includes west texas a&m university where the school's president canceled a drag show fundraiser because fucking Jesus or something.

Right. Yeah. To prove that we've always hated this and that this is not a sudden shift rightward in political ideology, I hereby cancel the 38th annual Fighting Buffalo Drag Show. Yeah. Right. So big thanks to Trey for the links. Scathingnews at gmail.com if you find a good one.

Right. So big thanks to Trey for the links. Scathing news at gmail.com. Find a good one. So the university president is Walter Wendler, and he looks like a leather elf who killed Kennedy. So that's fun. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, he's named after a claymation figure who learns the meaning of friendship

by the end of the movie. So what do we expect, you know? Fair. Right. So here's the official statement from Wendler. Quote, I believe every human being is created in the image of God and therefore a person of dignity. Being created in God's image is the basis of natural law. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, prisoners of the culture of their time,

as are we, declared the creator's origin as the foundational fiber in the fabric of our nation as they breathed life into it. What? I have no idea. Good question. No idea.

Continuing, does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not. As a performance, exaggerating aspects of womanhood, sexuality, femininity, gender, drag shows, stereotype women

in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others, and discriminate against womanhood. End quote. Alright, so, bullshit. But first, like, I have to go back to that Jefferson and Madison thing. What the hell was that?

This is so confusing. Is he trying to get out ahead of the but the founding fathers wore wigs and powder rebuttal i don't understand that at all yeah so yeah he's anti-drag because of his feminism right as the christian president of a university in west texas that feminism that's why he's anti-drag. But how does that relate to blackface? You might be wondering. Great question. He continued. He'll explain.

A person or group should not attempt to elevate itself by mocking another person or group. As a university president, I would not support blackface performances on our campus. I don't believe you. Even if told the performance is a form of free speech or intended as humor, it is wrong. A harmless drag show? Not possible. Wow.

Well, I guess we're in danger of West Texas A&M outpacing us in terms of feminism. So we're going to try to even the score a bit by handing things over to my lovely wife, Lucid. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she wants. If it's a legitimate race. Then it's a slut, right?

Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. Well, I suppose I should thank Heath for the lead in because I kind of wanted to start off today talking about the bullshit ways Christians are co-opting feminism in their crusade against trans rights. It's fast becoming their go-to excuse when they're banning drag shows, but it's also long been the rallying cry against trans rights in general. They're protecting women in public restrooms, or they're protecting the integrity of women's sports, or both more generally and more grandiosely, they're protecting the very concept of womanhood. Hell, the Christian Post just sponsored a whole conference on that subject last weekend. They invited a bunch of panelists to address a crowd of 150 people in Dallas about all the dangers that trans people pose to women and to women's rights.

And this is obviously full of the most ridiculous, hypocritical, scaremongering imaginable. Hell, one speaker talked about the dangers to women in prison who, quote, are required to share prison cells with men due to gender self-ID laws, end quote. As though anyone attending a Christian post conference in Dallas ever gave a shit about a prisoner before. But the reason I wanted to talk about it is less because of the event and more because of the article they posted about it. And as loath as I am to do it, I'm going to drop a link in the show notes so that you can confirm this.

Because a lot has rightly been made of the parallels between the rise of organized transphobia in modern America and the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany. And if you ever think maybe that's been overblown, I need you to recognize that the Christian Post just ran the headline, quote, unmesting gender ideology. Panel warns women are going to lose rights if trans ideologues win, end quote. And the opening goddamn line of that goddamn article was, quote, what is a human being and what does it mean to be a human being, end quote. And even though I didn't really need an example to prove that the concerned conservative Christians are suddenly showing for feminist issues is a load of shit, Republicans in Idaho provided me with one last week

when they blocked a bill that would have guaranteed access to menstrual hygiene products to any student in public schools that needed them. And their reasoning was that doing so would be woke. So yeah, Idaho was poised to become just the 16th state to pass a law saying that schools had to provide tampons,

sanitary napkins, and other menstrual products to anyone who needs them. The cost of doing so was estimated at a meager 435 to 735,000 bucks a year. And this shit matters for people in poverty. According to a recent survey from a women's rights group on this, 23% of U.S. students have limited access to menstrual products. This obviously leads to a ton of embarrassment, but it also leads to missed school days for poorer students, adding yet another barrier between them and success. But alas, it wasn't to be, because Shidry Bublin stood in the way of it and declared it to be an effort to turn Idaho into a nanny state. As state representative Heather Scott puts it, quote, what's going to be next? We can't help but sweat. So are the schools going to be providing deodorant for these kids? End quote. Which she presented as though it was a point for her side. But of course,

the biggest problem that Republicans cited was that the discussion around the bill used terms like period poverty and menstrual equality, which means the bill is woke because they've successfully redefined woke to their constituency as anything we don't like that has thinky words in it. And with apologies, both for being gone so long and for depressing the hell out of you on my return, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. Next up in headlines in Los Lobobes news, we have a story about Lauren Boebert, wolves, and human fetuses. Boebert went to a hearing for the Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries Subcommittee last week and presented photographs of dead babies. Dude, what?

Yeah, great question. That's what everyone in the committee said, too. So apparently it's very important to Lauren Boebert that we start hunting gray wolves with guns and stop hunting human embryos with guns. What? Those are two big pillars of her very serious political platform in U.S. Congress. Okay. All right.

Listeners, if y'all would just send me to Congress, there would be at least one person on that committee that would have the guts to say, oh, that's a great thing to feed the wolves, Lauren. Yeah, really fatten them up before the winter. Thanks for your input. So here's how we got there. Boebert was supposed to give a speech for that hearing about her opposition to the gray wolf still being listed as an endangered species apparently people

in certain parts of the country including bobert in colorado are worried about that gray wolf population getting big again i have no idea if that's a legitimate concern but i'm certain that the people who study animal populations and ecosystems know better than fucking lauren bobert yeah i'm pretty sure the people who don't also know better than her but yeah stuff very very good yes it's weird to have to think to yourself i don't know anything about this issue but if lauren bobert is on this side i i feel pretty confident in my guess, right? Yeah. It's not skeptical, but I'm pretty sure.

That's big data right there. So, yeah, regardless, though, she was supposed to be arguing for the murder of an endangered species, and it somehow went downhill from there. Yeah, yeah, it got worse. She started on that, got dumber and worse. She walked up to the podium and said, quote,

since we're talking about the Endangered Species Act, I'm just wondering if my colleagues on the other side would put babies on the endangered species list. What? And then she held up her collection of fetus pics, pinning that. Oh, man, she got us, guys. She got us. Everybody get out your bags of jew gold she got

us good yeah why would we humans are what yeah and believe it or not it gets even dumber no she held up the fetus pics asking for them to be considered a species that's endangered huh And then she added, quote, these babies were born in Washington, D.C. full term. I don't know. Maybe that's a way we can save some children here in the United States.

End quote. Yeah. She held up pictures of fetuses and was like, these are full term babies. Lauren. Yes. That's not even your argument.

It's not even your argument. So much confusion. Also, while we're on the subject of lobobs, Lauren, that's not even your argument. It's not even your argument. So much confusion. Also, while we're on the subject of lowbobs, a few days later, after that hearing, she spoke on the House floor about a piece of Republican legislation called the Parents' Bill of Rights. Buck your face. Which deals with the curricula for the public school systems. Those places, the public schools, those are where one might learn that a fetus that gets born after a full term is often referred to as a living child.

That's just a baby, yeah. Nonetheless, she argued for some transphobic amendments to the already horrible and ridiculous bill and also proposed a big idea solution to the whole thing. She said, we should abolish the Department of Education. So yeah, if you're keeping score at home, Lauren Boebert's list of enemies would be endangered animals, trans kids, time-traveling assassins who abort fetuses that get born, and the concept of education in a society being organized and educational.

Yeah. I think those are bullet points from a platform on our website, Heath. I'm not sure. And in except all wafers news tonight, Christians are always worse than we're giving them credit for. Always. If there was an overall plot to the 10 years of headline segments that we've done, that's the plot, right? If there was an overall plot to the 10 years of headline segments that we've done, that's the plot, right? So despite the fact that we've already had three diatribes and a couple of news stories devoted to how shitty the He Gets Us ad campaign is,

it turns out that it's actually worse because it's not just a desperate attempt by conservative Christians to trick people into forgetting that they're a legally protected hate group. It is that, provably, but it's also, and one might even say primarily, a means of harvesting personal data of the people most likely to vote Republican and using it to drum up support for bigoted social policies. Okay, so the Jesus TikTok connects to the Wi-Fi with a cord,

and then they have your SSN? Yes or no? So yeah, so this new revelation comes from a report in Baptist News. I know that doesn't seem like a source I'd be quoting from, but they're the ones that really kind of broke the story wide open about how much of the funding for He Gets Us was coming from the extreme right-wing sources to begin with. And in this latest story, they present a fuck ton of evidence

to suggest that the whole point of the thing was as a means of data harvesting. and rather than being motivated by some genuine desire to rehabilitate the image of jesus and use his message to heal the cultural divide it was an effort to target the leftmost wing of christianity and hand their shit over to right-wing marketing groups that could persuade them to lean the other way okay but you're not going to get progressive-minded people to vote in a way that helps the Christian right take over the American legal system. That's insane. People are way too smart.

They know what a general election is and how that very basic concept works. That's not going to happen. I'm not worried. Okay, I'm just excited that they fucked up in a way that Christians are going to care about, right? It's like, you hear that, Grandma? The nice Jesus billboard is coming for your candy crush numbers. Get them, get them, Grammy. Yeah, right, right.

Get them. Now, honestly, the story is way too long to really go into here. But if you want to know more, I'll have the expose linked in the show notes. Suffice to say, a group called the Christian National Project, which the Washington Post has described as the most secretive political organization in the nation's capital and whose members include Mike Pence, Ginny Thomas, Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, and Tony Perkins, is leading a multi-hate group effort to partner with churches and share a single database of analytics on American Christians, which they will then use to steer political advertising in the way that Mike Pence, Ginny Thomas, and I'll want it steered.

Okay, sorry, I stopped listening to some of those details. But what I just heard is that Mike Pence, Ginny Thomas, Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, and Tony Perkins are, in fact, all in the same building together sometimes. That's a thing that's true that I just heard. Okay, if I find out that they're eating lunch in the same unlocked room as the conservative Supreme Court justices, I know we're in a simulation. Yeah. It's not going to work.

So no. So I want to be super clear here. The goal is to make churches dependent on this organization. Right. All their marketing towards churches is like, hey, let us be your outreach ministry and fill your pews and let us give you this super expensive predictive analytics service for free on the condition that you agree to share data on your parishioners with us forever. And of course, this puts

the right-wing mega donors like the Koch brothers and the founder of Hobby Lobby who are funding this shit in a position where they can chop off access to that shit to any church that doesn't fall in line with their politics. So yeah, stay tuned because by next week I'm pretty sure that we're going to find out he gets us also sponsors a recreational

puppy kicking league. Yeah, and they won the Christians back over again with that. Damn it, we had him for a second. And finally tonight in Eucharist control news. Fantastic. The Son of God took some time away

from taking some time away last week to make an appearance at a Catholic church in Connecticut where he magically multiplied the party mix made of his own body. Huh. Or, or somebody's lying. You decide.

Seems far-fetched. According to Father Joseph Crowley of the St. Thomas Church in Thomaston, Connecticut, he was doing the communion thing and the amount of crackers in the bowl got bigger instead of smaller.

Sorry, cancer kids. I've got some crackers to multiply. Yes. That's the miracle. At least now we know what he was busy with during that school shooting. Alright, so big thanks to Patrick for the links. Scathingnewsgmail.com. Good stuff. Nipple pizza.

Nipple pizza. Yup. It was possum, nipple. Doesn'thingnewsgmail.com. Good stuff. Nipple pizza. Nipple pizza. Yup. Right. It was possum nipple. Doesn't matter. It matters. Come on. It matters. It matters. He gets us. So just for context about how stupid we are as a people, here's the exact words from the anchor

of Hartford, Connecticut's Eyewitness News, an affiliate of CBS. They started their segment on this by saying, quote, the possibility of an extremely rare miracle at a Thomaston church is getting the attention of Catholics near and far. Nope, literally not a possibility.

And the anchor people, they're so excited. They take this serious. It's so ridiculous. From there, they spoke with Father Crowley. He explained how he thought they were about to run out of wafers when he was doing the thing, and he glanced around to find some more. And when he looked back down at the bowl,

more fucking crackers! What?! Yeah. And when the communion was done, he saw the bowl was equally full, or maybe even more full, than when they started. Get the fuck out of here i know he added quote our lord multiplied himself eucharist really is the body soul and divinity of jesus christ and all things are possible with god this was one of those moments where God showed up in a very powerful, powerful way here. Pretty cool.

End quote. I get it, Jesus. As I've gotten older, I've found I've been multiplying myself too. I'm trying Noom right now. That's the thing. Either you're talking about Jesus getting fat or Jesus getting erect, right? It's got to be one of those. But also, like, it's powerful.

This is the least powerful way god could possibly show up right like imagine you're getting beat up by satan and his demons and you call upon god to help you and a fucking pile of crackers shows up like tell me you wouldn't be massively disappointed father crowley now we need what we need is demons to start doing stupid shit like god does right she's like oh is that a little trickle of blood on the wall got a demon attack you're just shaking the bowl like hey who wants a cracker every time someone says enjoy your meal and you say you too that's you being possessed for just like a second oh right yeah exactly that's the devil right there by the way this news team also spoke with several witnesses to the miracle.

I was hoping at that point for somebody to name a number of starting crackers and a number of ending crackers. That would have been great. But I was shocked to find out it was a bit more vague from the eyewitnesses. Nonetheless, this was a very serious headline for eyewitness news the story on their website said eucharistic miracles are extremely rare in recorded history there have only been about 100 total wow exact quote yeah just 100 total eucharistic miracles i bet they have tons of evidence and probably even some videos of those 100 miracles. Aren't those total 100?

No, I mean, otherwise it wouldn't be recorded history, would it? So, the Archdiocese of Hartford is officially looking into this possible miracle. That's what they said. They have a miracle investigator team doing, like, forensics, I guess. I don't know. That's both incredibly stupid and also one of the best things they could do with their money at a Catholic church. So weird. So bottom line, stop being Catholic. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, it's hard to imagine that we're going to end up with better advice than stop being Catholic. So I guess we can close the headlines there. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji, but seriously, stop being Catholic.

Yep. And when we come back, we'll do silly voices. Stop it. Hey, folks, sorry to chime in with a rather serious piece of news. But as those of you who listen to our sister show, Godawful Movies, know, we recently had a live show sponsored by Sparkle Donkey Tequila. That's right. And while Sparkle Donkey Tequila is refreshing with a creme brulee floral at a price point you can't beat, we recently learned that their mascot,

the eponymous Sparkle Donkey himself, was one of the 9-11 hijackers. Yes. Now, we want to be clear that before we accepted sponsorship, Sparkle Donkey Tequila gave us no indication that their mascot

had any part of 9-11, nor did they tell us that he could clearly be heard on later recovered black box tapes yelling, you just got Sparkle Donkey to America. And if we had, obviously, we never

would have accepted their sponsorship. We also should have looked more closely at the product. I'll admit that we were swept away by Sparkle Donkey's tequila's fantastic taste and delicious mouthfeel and did not examine the bottle closely enough to see that their label does, in fact, trifold into an image of the towers on fire with a winking donkey above them. That's on us. So yeah, if you're looking for a delicious and smooth tequila, ask your bar or liquor store for Sparkle Donkey. You will not regret it. What you will regret is tattooing Sparkle Donkey on your ass like Eli did.

In retrospect, it's weird that he's holding a bomb in the picture. I thought it was like a tequila bottle, maybe. We know you did, man. We know. A werewolf totally beats a vampire. What are you talking about? He's a little kid. Right, right, right. But the uncle

is old. Vamp vampires get stronger as they get older don read a book you read a book hey hey guys uh one i told you not to finish arguments you started on other podcasts here and two are you ready for a bible piece theater oh you mean the part of the show where we act out the bible so our listeners don't have to read it we sure are great yeah so um where were we? We were just getting into the book of Jeremiah, technically the longest book of the Bible. Nice. I bet it's like packed with stories, right? Not exactly. No. Does it have a story? Kinda. So Jeremiah is one of the only self-placing books in the Bible, right? Basically,

it's a collection of speeches and prophecies of the prophet Jeremiah that are kind of interspersed with his bio. Right. Plus, it takes place during 2 Kings, so you're already out of order. Right. Yeah. So I guess it's probably best that we just go out of order with this one. Ooh, look at us taking artistic liberties.

Okay, says the guy who wants to do a sassy gay voice for Jesus. Sassy gay Jesus is going to be comedy gold, Heath. Is it? Is it? It's, no, it's not. So Jeremiah was born and grew up in the village of Anathoth, a few miles northeast of Jerusalem.

And as a little kid, he gets his first instruction from God. Jeremiah. Hey, hey, Jeremiah. Uh, yes, um, who's there? Hey, how you doing? It's me, God. Oh, wow. Hi. Yeah, yeah, hi.

So, you know how everyone's bad now? Uh-huh. Like, they're all sacrificing to other gods and... Okay, well, it's mostly that. They're sacrificing to other gods. I mean, you could be talking about one of the literally dozens of times that you get mad at the Jews in this book. Anyway, I've got some good news.

You're going to be my prophet, and you're going to tell everybody in Jerusalem to cut it out. Oh, wow, what an honor. Oh, yeah, it sure is, kid. I've had my eye on you as a prophet since you were a fetus. I looked up inside your mom's vajooch, and I thought to myself, that AA battery is going to be a hell of a prophet.

Um, weird, but Mr. God, sir? Yeah, kid, what is it? Nobody's going to believe I'm a prophet because I'm just a little kid. Oh, don't worry about that, kid. I'm going to tell you exactly what to say. Oh, and everyone

will believe me and act better? Uh, no. But then you're going to tell them that the Babylonians are coming to destroy the city. Oh, and then they're going to act better. No, still no. But you will get to be like, I told you so. Oh, I told you so. Okay. Yeah, sure. And so began Jeremiah's illustrious career as a prophet. And at first, it kind of goes okay because the king, Josiah, is doing his best to keep everybody Jewish and on their best behavior. But then Josiah dies and his son, Jehoiakim, he comes to power and he does not care for Jeremiah or Jew God.

He starts worshiping other gods, sacrificing animals and even kids to Baal, which Jeremiah is pretty pissed about. And that's the first 24 chapters of the book. Collection of him telling people to stop being bad, most famously in his temple sermon in chapter 7. Oh my God, Harper, how are you? I haven't seen you in forever. I know, I know. Things have been so busy, you know, with the harvest and everything. So, how's your son, by the way? Oh, we sacrificed him to Ball. Oh, no. So sorry. No, no. Honestly, it was for the best. Ball gave me this lovely necklace.

Oh, beautiful. Is that real right there? Oh, shit. It's Jeremiah. Ah, I hate this guy. Ugh, right? I hate this guy. Right. Jews, Jews, hear me. You, especially you, are all sinful and worship other gods. We know, Jeremiah, you're blocking the door.

Listen, listen. You're all like a whore. Yeah, like a whore. We got it. God is going to send the Babylonians to destroy you. And then you guys are going to be like, oh, why was I such a whore? I wish I wasn't a whore, but I was a whore, you know? A lot of saying the word whore. Yeah, it feels like a thing for him.

He's saying it a lot. Excuse me, sir? Yes? Are you Jeremiah? I am. That's what I thought. You're under arrest. Excuse me, for what?

For yelling at everybody like an asshole and calling us all whores. But you are like whores. Uh-huh. Yeah, tell it to the king okay next ah yes jeremiah the prophet your highness yeah look jeremiah i know my dad was a big fan so i'm gonna do you a favor here and not kill you for calling everyone whores i appreciate appreciate that, Your Highness. Thank you. But, but, you got to stop preaching in front of the temple. If people want to have, like, uncircumcised hearts or whatever, you got to just let them. Okay, okay, look, Your Highness.

The Babylonians just conquered Egypt. If we don't apologize to God now, we are going to be next. Look, look, I even had my scribe Baruch write down all my warnings for you. Hi. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, this is great. Thanks for this. This is fantastic. Oh, dang it. Would you look at that? I tore it. I just tore it. And again, oh my God, you hate to see it. Now, get out of here before I throw you into the fire, too. Get out of here. Okay, okay.

We're going. We're going. Man, it took me like eight months to scribe all that. I know, Baruch, but now it's not the time. We'll make another one. You mean I'll make another one? I mean, seriously, you're going to be like this? What? No, I'm just saying I'm the scribe here.

Oh, what's that, God? You want Baruch to stop complaining so much. I'm not writing that down. If you want me to write... Jeremiah 45, write it down. A whole chapter about how you should shut the hell up. Fine. Raz, Raz, King ripping up my good scroll.

Hey, hey, J-Dog. What's going on, buddy? You seem upset. Oh, I am upset. I told everyone that you're going to kill him super hard. Uh-huh, I see. Did you call them whores? Oh, so many times, but none of it mattered.

Oh, that's too bad. Hey, hey, kid. I know just what's going to help you feel better. Uh-huh. Take your loin girdle. You got a loin girdle? Oh, well, yeah. All right.

Go bury it in a hole in the river. Come back in three days. And then I, God, am going to show you something cool. You got it. God? There he is, Jeremiah. How's it going, big guy? It's been three days and I got my girdle like you asked.

And? Um, it's, it's ruined. Exactly. And just like that girdle, I'm gonna ruin the prize of Israel. Oh, is that it? Yeah, yeah, that's it. Pretty good metaphor, huh? I liked this girdle. Well, I used to like Israel. Lou, Lou, Lou, doing Potter stuff.

Potter stuff's my favorite stuff. Oh, excuse me. Hi, are you the Potter? Yeah, yeah. Didn't you hear me doing the Lou, Lou, Lou intro? Obviously. No, no, I don't really listen to other people. Sorry, God sent me here,

so I'm kind of waiting up for a follow-up from him. Oh, yeah, no problem, no problem. Let me know if I can help with anything. Loo-loo-loo. Pottery stuff. Doing more pottery stuff. Jeremiah. Oh, God.

Jeremiah. God, finally. Why did you bring me here? Watch the potter. Watch it. Watch him. Ah, dang. Messed up my pot. And?

Keep watching, keep watching. Well, dadgummit, I messed it up again. You see? Huh? Um, what am I seeing? You are like that pot. Um, you messed up when you made me? No, I'm perfect. But you are messed up and I can mess you up more

like, like the pot's messed up. Um, okay. Good, alright, good, good. Alright, see anything you like? No, no, I'm good. Turns out this was just a overly complicated metaphor for failure. Yeah, yeah, God uses a overly complicated metaphor for failure.

Yeah, yeah, God uses me as a metaphor for failure a lot. Sorry about that. Maybe learn to make a good pot, Richard. I'm doing my best, okay? What am I going to do, like take classes at the Y? I don't understand. I mean, that's a good point. No, it's not. He's a metaphor for failure. Okay. And so I said to him, look, nobody's making you wipe with that hand. Wipe with the other one like a normal person.

Good for you. Excuse me, excuse me, everybody. Could I have your attention, please? Not this guy again. Okay, that is what God is going to do to you. He is going to break you like a pot. Is that one of Richard's pots? They're not very good.

He's doing his best, okay? So Jeremiah warns people the Babylonians are coming some more, and sure enough, the Babylonians invade, and they put in place their own King Zedekiah. King Zedekiah. Hi, Jeremy the Prophet, right? What are you wearing? Well, your highness, I came bearing a message from God to submit to the yoke of Babylon.

So you're wearing a literal yoke around your neck? Oh yeah, exactly. And my message is most grave. Alright, don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like if it was the most grave, like, props aren't the way to go, right?

I mean, seeing this doesn't fill your heart with fear? No. No, man. It's like I'm getting a prophecy from Carrot Top. Oh, man, I knew it.

Well, look, I'd really like to help you here. Maybe you could stop calling everybody whores and maybe help us fight the Babylonians. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought you worked for the Babylonians. Yeah, no, I do, but I'm rebelling against them. Okay, that's confusing. Tell me about it. So what do you say? You want to stop calling everybody whores? Sorry, no can do. Can't help you. All right, well, don't say I didn't offer. Yeah, well, thanks. Yes, I'll be going.

Do you want somebody to help you with that? Oh, yes, please. It's really heavy. Stupid yolk prop. Didn't even work. J-Machine, what's up, buddy? How do you like the yolk thing? He didn't. He said it was like carrot top.

What's wrong with carrot top? That guy's great. I mean, if you say so. Yeah. I mean, look, kid, kid, come here. You see these two baskets of figs? What can you tell me about them? I mean, those ones seem good. That's right. They are. But what about this basket? You can put your in*** in my a** and then I'll put it straight in your a**. Eli, why did the fig just offer to do ass to mouth? And why was it censored? I feel like we talked about this at some point. No, no.

This is in the Bible, guys. Quote, the other basket had very naughty figs which could not be eaten they were so bad end quote that's in the bible i'm pretty sure that's not what the bible means by naughty elon you don't know don you don't know anyway my point is the naughty figs right are like are like israel Israel, right? Are like Israel, exactly. Now, get out of here, you scamp. Uh, sure, but, uh, can I, uh, keep one of the naughty figs? No, no, they're for the metaphor.

I'll let you f*** in my a**. Oh, come on, just one. Just? I said they're for a metaphor. So, with his advice ignored, Jeremiah decides to leave the city and go to the land of Benjamin, but he's arrested on the way and sentenced to die in an abandoned cistern. Jeremiah, are you down there?

Uh, who's that? I'm, uh, Abimelech, the eunuch. I told the king that you didn't mean all that stuff you said about God killing everyone and Babylon taking over, so he sent me here with 30 guys to get you out of that cistern. Oh, that's amazing. Thank you. Yeah, just out of curiosity, when we pull you out and the king asks you what God says, are you just going to say he's going to kill us all and destroy Babylon again? to say he's going to kill us all and destroy Babylon again?

Nope. Sorry, did you say nope? Okay. So sure enough, Jeremiah gets let out and continues to tell everyone that the city will be destroyed, but so will Babylon. Hey, Jeremiah, you want to see me? Yes, Sarahiah, the son of Neriah. Wait, who's that right there? Oh, he's like this other prophet guy. Hear me, take this book. It contains all my predictions about what will come to Babylon. It contains all my predictions about what will come to Babylon.

When I am gone, throw it in the river. Thus will Babylon sink. Okay, got it. Quick thing, though. How are people going to read the book if I throw it in the river? Ah, um, just tell people what it says. Okay. Do you think people will just take my word for it, though?

Okay, just throw it in the river. I'm trying to do a metaphor thing. And then finally, after 52 fucking chapters of saying it, Babylon attacks Jerusalem, and all the stuff Jeremiah said would happen, happens. said would happen, happens. Well, everyone, it looks like I was right. I? Okay. Well, I know you're all pretty bummed or actively dying right now, but the good news is that God has made a brand new covenant about killing you all. No spoilers, but it's about Jesus. Anybody? Oh, you're all busy dying. You're all busy dying. Okay, that's fine. And that's Jeremiah.

Man, that one was long. It's long. Yeah, and the teaser for Jesus at the end is not worth it. No, super not worth it. No. Okay, so what did we learn? Well, hit it, Anna. What's up? We might not necessarily want to hit it with Anna this month.

What? Why? People talk more about Anna's songs than my piddly contributions. Yeah, no, I mean, that makes sense. But it's just this one is a little artistically tense this particular song what do you mean? okay so she was writing the song about this book of the bible and she was like hey what if we make it about how Jeremiah

is not a bullfrog oh like the song yeah like the song it doesn't seem like that bit would have a lot of staying power staying power exactly that is what I told her but you know she I guess the word is disagreed. So I guess it's probably best if we just. I mean, come on.

How bad could it be? I mean, if you guys want to hear it. Yeah, I think we do. We do. Hit it, Anna. Jeremiah wasn't a bullfrog He definitely was a dude Cause frogs can't hop

And Jeremiah can't hop Plus he didn't have the attitude I see what you mean about frogs And you know frogs got an attitude He said watch out Jerusalem And all the sons of Abraham. He said, better get ready, because before I'm done, Babylon's going to come. Jeremiah was a prophet, and bullfrogs can't even speak.

They also don't pretend to know much about the future. They just sit beside a pond or a creek and say, Watch out, Jerusalem! But no one believed our man.

So when the Babylonians finally got to it, Jerusalem was like, oh shit. Bulldogs can't inflate the neck and their chest to scare away a lodge of prey. Very specific. And Jeremiah couldn't do any of that, or they might have listened when he said, might have listened when he said, what shall Jerusalem for the Babylonians? But don't you go crying to your sin at God, because Jesus is coming along. And also, I'm not a fraud. This all ties together.

Before we retreat to our corner tonight, I want to remind you that we're going to have a table at American Atheist Annual Convention in Phoenix April 6th through 9th, and we'd love to see you there. No obligation to buy swag or anything. Just come by the table, hang out with us, say hi. We'd love to get a selfie with you.

Anyway, be sure to check the show notes for more details if you're going to be in the Phoenix area on Easter weekend. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. And an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'd be the worst host since Steven Seagal did Saturday Night Live if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for always kicking ass. Eli Bosnick for always kicking ankle.

He can't get his leg up his high. And Lucinda Lusions for still hammering away at it. I want to thank Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure, for helping out with Bible Peace Theater. And I need to thank Anna Bosnick once again for an awesome song to cap it off. I also want to thank Lucky McChancey for providing this week's Farnsworth quote just in the nick of time. April 4th is this coming Tuesday.

Wisconsinites, make plans. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's and last week's and the week before actually is Best By Peds, Rocktoberfest, Shane, Blake, Not NMI, John, Others, Shane, Jay, Lori, Andros, Ostrianos, The Hey Elliot Podcast, Jody, Pete, Austin, Peggy, Caleb, Jay, Faithless, Pyra, Zanheim, Nikki, Jeff, Alex, and Adam, who are so sexy, Floridian principals dare not say their names in class. Together, these 25 new and returning patrons help pay for all the raw ones and zeros it takes to make these podcasts this week by giving us money.

And if you'd like to join the ranks of our noble patrons, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, where I buy you one-off access to an extended ad-free version of every episode. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help but not enough to have less money, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, or following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson takes care of that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions,

comments, or death threats, you can find all the contact info on the contact page at ScathingAlias.com. You okay this with them? I did not. No. Absolutely did not. Awesome. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC.

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