The Scathing Atheist - 550: Dragon My Heart Around Edition

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

In this week’s episode, last week’s diatribe gets a sequel, we revisit some headlines we missed over the summer, and we find the saddest wing of the creation museum. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] 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/

Warning, the language on this podcast is so profane that even this warning can fuck right off. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new diet that'll have you surrendering in 215 pounds of style NutraFiction. NutraFiction, because it's at least as plausible as this bullshit election numbers and they already believe those. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Good day, I'm Sir David Atomborough. those and now the scathing atheist good day i'm sir david atumbrill please join me as we peek into the oxymoronic phenomenon known as a conservative think tank what's the thing again before you know donald i believe it's a piece of my latest exploding space rocket or maybe it's a

spoon it might just be a spoon spoons are freaking deep state conspiracies this is my control and it's turning all the freaking frogs gay he's right don't be ridiculous logically spoons are freaking deep state conspiracies this is my control and it's turning all the freaking frogs gay he's right don't be ridiculous logically spoons are part of the leftist agenda to grow our children into civilized eaters you're all wrong i can't blame you no one else is talking about it i wonder why tucker who cares is this what you're doing with your newfound free time hurtful guys it's clearly disney's woke drag queen agenda that's confusing wait what were we talking about again hamburgers frogs groomers deep state false flag operation very drappy words wait hold the phone what in the actual fuck is going on here we just want to know what exactly

is this little dookie right here helen says it could be part of a rocket i totally destroyed twitter for shits and giggles. Tee hee. Alex and Marge say it's mind control. True. Tucker doesn't have a job. It's rich coming from you. Fuck your face, Tucker.

Run DeSanctimonious is a loser and a sad Florida man. At least I'm not orange. Rudy has shoe polish on his face. Donnie, I am a man for four seasons. Penis. Benny Shaps hates me, so I don't care what he says. I will not be silenced. For fuck's sake,

it's a spoon. You eat soup with it. No, you're a liar. It's Hollywood mind control. Exactly. You socialist, fascist nerd. All right,

fuck this. I'm out. You chuckle fox are living proof that we did, in fact, devolve from filthy monkey mail. But evidently, some of us stopped the ritual short. Despite being extremely believable, this was a work of fiction created

with artificial intelligence. But you already know that because you're not anti-intellectual wankers. Ta-ta. It's Thursday. It's August 31st. And we are in that same room again. Come here. Come here, you boys. Why is yours so sticky? I have no illusions.

So much. I'm Eli Bostic. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Ethan Wright. And from vacation destination New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, I spend a week watching Heath and Noah sleep like the gentle lambs they are. I book a separate Airbnb at a secret location. And I take Eli's admiration as the compliment it was intended as.

But first, the diatribe. Touch it. No, no touch. I kind of want to do a rare direct sequel with this week's diatribe, because last week we talked about the ever-increasing need for robust communities for atheists to join. And we got a lot of really good responses to it, but in a lot of ways, they were the wrong kind of good responses. I mean, I didn't go through all 600 ways they were already getting in touch with me online and crunched the numbers or anything. 600 ways there are to get in touch with me online and crunch the numbers or anything. But I'd say approximately three quarters of the feedback that we got on that diatribe were from very enthusiastic people looking for advice on how to start a group in their area.

And that's awesome. We need enthusiastic people to start groups. But just fucking definitionally, we need a far greater number of enthusiastic people to join existing groups. And we got very little feedback comparatively from people who wanted to know how to find a group, how to join a group, how to be a good member of a group, how to influence a group towards positive secular goals, etc. And when you talk to community organizers and atheism, you hear about this problem constantly. Our collective instinct is to start rather than to join. I've heard dozens of stories of people starting groups in their city only to find out six months or a year later that the exact same group already existed.

Hell, I was hanging out with a few friends in the community this week, musing about this topic, and one of them told me that the atheist group that she's involved in is actually the remnants of three failing groups that Voltron together and were probably failing at least to some extent because they were competing with one another. I mean, think about the statistics on this one. I don't have the exact numbers. I can't imagine how you'd get them even, but the overwhelming majority of secular meetups, skeptics in the pub groups, atheist service organizations, whatever, fall apart in less than a year. And in my experience, this can happen even when all the founding members are super enthusiastic about the group's mission. It's just really hard to consistently find the time and the resources to keep things going. People move away or they move on and they're not always replaced.

So no matter how good a job you might do as the group's creator, statistically speaking, you'd probably have done more by being an enthusiastic member of a group that already survived for more than a year now to be fair there are a few downsides to joining an existing group that you can avoid by starting something new right groups that have been around for a while and have more than half a dozen members tend to have some amount of lingering drama that you have to learn to navigate and there's animosities and disagreements and power struggles and factions and bullshit that's just inevitable in any sufficiently large human community and if you start something with a small core group of friends that you already get along with you can more or less avoid that stuff you know at least at first right it'll creep in over time if you're successful but you have time to get used to it you don't have like that initial blast of 10 years of pent-up

shit hitting you on your way in the door. There's also the question of compromise, right? Odds are that there's no group that's doing exactly what you want to do in the exact way that you want to do it. Working with existing groups often means subordinating your own vision to somebody else's. Of course, a group that you start will eventually mean the same thing again if it succeeds, but at least by then you'll have the advantage of momentum in terms of your initial inspiration. Now, both of these drawbacks are problems with communities in general rather than this or that community, but they can still act as impediments to joining. But it's not like we even really need impediments, right? Like as a group, we tend not to be joiners. The thing that unites

atheists is, after all, rejection. We rejected an idea, and many of us in so doing rejected a whole community. And since then, whether we wanted to or not, most of us learned that we can live without a community. We can exist on our own, and that in many ways, we're stronger on our own, right? But fucking communities can fail you. They can reject you or belittle you or try to change you or abandon you. And so we've convinced ourselves that we don't need community to begin with. And we certainly don't need someone else's vision of a community imposed on us. But see, when we join secular communities, we take as much power as we give. We put ourselves in a position where we can now influence the group,

right, where we can help choose its path, its leadership, help maybe even be its leadership. And when it's a community that makes no pretension to divine ordination, at least, it knows that you can just walk away whenever you want and take one 23rd or one 58th or 106th of the group with you when you go. You have a kind of leverage that you don't have when the group's leader speaks for an omnipotent God. And of course, the other big advantage to joining rather than creating is that it takes a lot less of your time, right? You can join four or five or six fucking groups for the same time investment it takes to start a single good one that meets once a month. Now, it's doubtful that many of you live in a place where there's such an embarrassment of riches when it comes to

secular groups, but I also think it's important that we don't limit ourselves just to those, right? As much as atheist groups need more members, the one thing we can generally say for them for certain is that they have good atheist representation, right? So joining community service groups or hobby groups or book clubs or whatever can also be really impactful from an atheist perspective if you're someone that can be open about your atheism. If you've ever been involved in a technically secular community group, you know that religious people have no issue whatsoever with trying to hijack them to talk about Jesus shit. Having examples within the group of open non-believers that are volunteering their time, being supportive community members, otherwise doing all the shit that the sanctimonious

Christians are doing, that sends an important message that could be every bit as effective as the one that a good atheist group sends. Christians are doing, that sends an important message that could be every bit as effective as the one that a good atheist group sends. My point here is that when we talk about communities, it's not just about how we need more communities. It's also about how communities need more us. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are nobody, because we're in Jersey this week getting ready for the big patron only pajama party live stream on Saturday night.

But luckily, we've been saving up a few headlines over the last few months for just such an occasion. So with all due warning that people are going to kind of randomly appear and disappear within them, we're pleased to present headlines from the past already in progress. And in PU report news, the American Bible study released the second chapter of its State of the Bible USA 2023 report this past Thursday, and the news is not good for bigotry's favorite book. Less people are reading it, less people think it's true, and less people are going to special buildings dedicated to ignoring those first two things. And reports like this are going to keep happening. Whenever I hear one of those numbers, like, you know, 100 people die every minute, it actually makes me happy because more often than not,

those people suck and they help with stats like this. And it's not just by people dying. It's also by the Bible is stupid. It's slow, but, you know, slowly but surely, we'll do what we can. You classic optimist, Ethan, right? Classic. Now, in the defense of the ABS, an acronym that the American Bible Society

probably should have seen coming, the report, which is based on responses from 2,761 adults across 50 states, does its absolute best to put a positive spin on things. Stretching credulity by pointing out desperately optimistic things like way more people are attending in-person church services than they were in 2020 and 2021. Oh, really?

What was happening? I forget. And and that those who are Bible engaged are more Bible engaged than ever. What? What does that mean, you ask? Who fucking knows? They made up a metric so they could make a chart that goes up. That's why. But the truth is, there are four positive things that we, atheists, can draw from this report. So we're going to talk about them. Also, I want to give you all a heads up that I'm going to speak in like weird vagaries here, but that's because largely if something is bad news for Christians in this report, they're extremely vague about it in the report, often not providing the numbers at all,

just like conceding the bad news without statistics. I'm guessing the first draft of this chapter two had like incomplete pie charts and shit but this is what they settled on guys every time we put the y-axis part it looks bad for us i think we're just doing x yeah from now on we're just dots on a thing yeah so to the good news the first is that the number of what the report calls Bible skeptics has gone up considerably. This is what they define as people who believe that the Bible is just a collection of stories rather than the word of God, or as we call them here on Scathing Atheists, not literate. Got it.

Yeah. Second piece of good news, the report admits that far more people define God as a, quote, state of higher consciousness, end quote, rather than a literal being or the God of the Bible, which, to be fair, is still wrong. Yep. But technically less wrong because consciousnesses exist. Okay. Lots of people, they're trying to get laid at three in the morning at college.

I'm going to let them have that one. Go ahead. Exactly. Third, third, overall church attendance continues to decline. Yes, I mentioned at the top that the numbers of in-person attendance have gone up from 2020 and 2021. But that's not overall attendance. And they're still not at or above pre-pandemic levels. Way longer lines at the airport than August of 2001. People are flying to church way more now

this is another good stat for us yeah exactly and last but not least the rise of the nuns because even the american bible society now admits that way more people either identify as having no particular religious belief or no denomination within Christianity, which is a pretty big freaking deal if you believe that the differences between said denominations might damn you to hell. Yeah, just don't ask him about Bud and Chorus. Oh, yeah, obviously. It's about hell and that stuff. So, yeah, this is definitely good news because even when the American Bible Society

interviews less than 3,000 people, all of whom want to talk to the American Bible Society. That is a select group. The news isn't good for Christians. Yeah. Which means it's great for reality. And of course, as always here at The Scathing Atheist, we humbly, gratefully would like to accept the credit.

Yes. So if you're on the fence about chipping in for Matreon this year, keep in mind that we are the ones actively killing God for you. One podcast at a time. Damn right. And in separating the men from

the boys' nose, Republicans are straight up evil. And I know some of you are like, dude, that's too broad. My uncle's a Republican and yes, he's flawed,ans are straight up evil and i know some of you are like dude that's too broad my uncle's a republican and yes he's flawed but he's not evil but you're wrong he's evil at this point one cannot simultaneously support the republican party in america and not be evil that's a square fucking circle and it has been at least since they started stealing immigrant children from their parents as a matter of policy. But just in case anyone had any lingering doubts, this week, we got a story about intentionally booby trapping boys with saw blades so that migrants can't cling to them to keep from

drowning. Yeah, my uncle's not evil. He just uses the only demonstrable political power he has to do an evil thing and support evil people is called being evil. The word you're thinking of is polite. Your uncle is polite about his evil. Right. Even the really evil people still walk the dog sometimes.

Yeah. So, yeah, the story starts when the state of Texas starts putting out strings of boys with hidden saw blades in them along the Rio Grande in an effort to deter migrants. Well, the Justice Department told them to stop it. And as much as I'd like to say they cited the law against hiding potentially deadly traps in an effort to kill innocent people, apparently the most direct route to getting them to move the shit was to argue about jurisdiction. See, the Rio Grande is managed by the federal government, not the state of Texas.

And the law explicitly states that no obstruction can be put into a federally controlled navigable waterway without permission. So the state of Texas is now arguing that that part of the river that they're booby trapping that isn't navigable. Right. Also worth noting that the saw blades are hidden. So how the fuck would they deter anybody? They think word's going to get out via the drowning refugee

whisper network like this right yeah no with the drought the dead ones won't come that's that that's what i'm saying that's how they'll know so now the argument about the deadly immigrant traps comes down to an argument about what makes a waterway navigable and you might be saying at this point cool noah why are we talking about this on an atheism podcast? Well, this is where the book of Genesis comes in. See, Texas is arguing that the DOJ couldn't take a boat down that river like right now. And the feds are saying, right, because we're in the middle of a historic drought. Well, in an amicus brief filed by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Republicans defending the torture buoys pointed out that if we're calling any waterway that's ever been navigable federal jurisdiction, that would include the entire world since all of that was navigable to Noah's Ark.

Seriously, in a court of fucking law, here's the relevant passage. Quote, the government's theory that navigability is established if navigation was ever possible at any time in history would lead to absurd and likely unconstitutional results. Indeed, if one takes the book of Genesis literally, then the entire world was once navigable by boats large enough to carry significant amounts of livestock. End quote. And since we all agree that Noah's Ark is a true story filled with trueness, you are saying everywhere is a boat. Boy, do you sound silly. Right, yes, exactly. I hate to break it to you.

Unfortunately, absurd things could happen, yeah. So yeah, always a great sign when your legal case includes if we take this Bronze Age myth at face value as a predicate. Still, kind of fucked up that we can't force Texas to take down their migrant traps until we solve the fucking goose in a fox in a people in the moral direction is in terms of immigration policy if they actually read the fucking thing so i guess it could be worse yeah when i saw that you had a story about invoking noah's ark in this saw blade buoy case i assumed it was like an example of righteously drowning evildoers. So I'm just saying it could have been a lot worse. I was expecting worse. And in bad out of hell news,

you know, sometimes as I search our inbox over at scathingnews at gmail.com, I think to myself, this is a new man's game. Kids on the block like Kent Christmas have overshadowed the villains

of previous scathing eras. And perhaps it's time for me to move on. And then, like a shining star in the darkest night sky, Greg Locke comes soaring into our inbox. And I am reminded that the oldies are goodies for a reason. And this week is no exception, when during a sermon on unclean spirits,

he smashed a Barbie house with a baseball bat wrapped in Bibles. Okay. It sounds like that's a euphemism for a sex crime, but it's not. It's Greg Locke's real life. He bought a Barbie house. Bought a Barbie house. He was about to smash it with a baseball bat that I'm sure he also bought just for this. And then he was like, wait, don't be fucking stupid.

You better wrap that bat with Bibles or else it doesn't make any sense. So he did that. Oh, every Greg Locke headline is a weird, sexually repressed mad lib, isn't it? Isn't it, though? Yeah. Now, I should point out that this clip is from back in June, but it's just now come to public

attention, so that's why we're making fun of it. In it, Greg talks about breaking down demonic strongholds for a little bit, and that's all nonsense. And then like a fucking professional wrestler unveils a Barbie house to roars of applause from the congregation he hasn't killed of COVID yet. Right, yeah. I just checked this again, and there is still a piece of property next to Greg's church. It's only $47,000 on Zillow. I don't have the money, but we

could get it. Maybe we could get it. We're definitely building a giant Barbie house on that property, right? Either that or a Dunkin' Donuts that only takes immortal souls as payment. Right? Guys, we could literally just put up a sign that says,

by driving past this sign, you deny the Holy Spirit. You would starve to death. Hundreds of months. Think about it. Just him inching up to it like it's the never-ending story. Centuries. He doesn't know what to do. Yeah.

So this was all, obviously obviously Greg's pathetic attempt to get in on some of that pre Barbie movie release action sadly it did not go viral for him in time everyone just thinks he's an idiot also the Barbie movie made a billion dollars and Greg Locke supported the brand

Mattel for absolutely no reason so you know you hate to see it, Greg. You hate to see it. Do you, though? And on that note, whatever it may have been, we're going to close the headlines for the night.

Pre-recorded Heath, pre-recorded Eli. Thanks, as always. Jumanji. And when we come back, we'll stare into the mouth of a dragon and say, I'm pretty sure that's a part of me that kind of wants to go to Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky.

Fuck yeah, you do. It's not a large part and it's not a part that has credit card privileges, but it's there. Right. and it's not a part that has credit card privileges, but it's there, right? And it's also the part that has me most excited about this week's God Awful Mini. So tell us, Heath, what will we be breaking down today? We watched dragons.

Are they real? It's the story of whether or not dragons are real. Answers in Genesis. It's the story of whether or not dragons are real. No real need to embellish beyond that. No, no. And Eli, how bad was this mini? Well, if you loved Jack Nicholson's performance in The Shining, but you wish it involved more sad sign stroking,

you will love this movie. It's fun because we get to watch this man slowly come to grips with what he does for a living, and it's not pleasant. He's not pleased by it. Yeah. So is there anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at? Yeah, I'm going to go with best worst army

of rascal scooters that we get yeah baby so crazy they pan over the front of their creation museum and there's so many lined up on the wall like you remember in i think air force one and like the secret service they're like oh panic and they like open up the thing on the wall. There's AK-47s or whatever all along the wall. It's like that with rascal scooters. Yes. No, I had in my notes, it's like they won more and it qualifies as armored cavalry.

Yes. You first look at it and you're like, oh, ADA compliance. That's actually really not. And then it pans down and you're like, oh, they've just never seen a person who can walk. Okay. Okay.

Well, that is a different effect. So I was going to go with the movie's ghost. Best worst bored daughter in the reflection. Fuck yeah. Because like the whole movie, we're just watching this guy go up and down this hallway showing us stuff in glass cases. And once in a while,

you can see his like nearly grown daughter, like teenage or adult daughter, like in the the reflection and she very clearly like was promised ice cream just as soon as he's done right and this has gone on so much longer than she thought it possibly could have and she's getting angrier and angrier just doing the jerk off motion with her hand she's listening to this podcast right now being like good oh finally yes yes and i guess i'll just take the easy one best worst sad man alone in his empty museum so as i was trolling through the uh you know answers in genesis youtube. This was on their Good for Kids page. And it happens to be a tour of their dragon exhibits,

exhibits in scare quotes there, during COVID. So while this is ostensibly about dragons, it's genuinely, and I cannot emphasize this enough, a portrait of a man alone in the Creation Museum descending into madness from loneliness. It's so good. I almost did best worst existential crisis during a museum tour

and we get to see it happen because this guy runs the dragon section of the Creation Museum and so he gets laughed at by creationists who are like, that's stupid your thing's stupid yeah oh he's bullshit squared yeah yeah and so he's just lying to himself all alone it's so sad yeah would you gentlemen care to take a guess i did count does he provide more

exhibits about dragons or more references to the fact that this building is usually full of people. But then he has to admit like, but not in my section. But not now. I wish they would come tonight. I don't really have a section. It's just like the front.

I tried buying one of those T-Rex inflatable costumes, but my daughter filled it with fart powder, and I vomited. Doctor says I legally drowned in it, so we don't talk about it. So yeah, so we're going to open up with four long, this is Bodhi Hodge is the guy's name.

He runs at least part of the Creation Museum. We're going to open up with four long seconds of him not sure whether the camera is on yet. Amazing. It's so good. Daughter's first revenge, best revenge, being like,

okay, dad, so I'm going to hit the thing and then you count to 100 in your head before you start talking. Tell me when we're rolling, though. No. You're going to tell me

when we're rolling, right? No, I will not. You're not going to tell me? Uh-uh. No, but for real, tell me when we're rolling. This would have been more professional

if he'd started with, are we on? Yes. Truly, if he had just been like, go on. Good, good. All right, all right. And the very first words out of his mouth are, hey, we're here to talk about Dragon Legends. And I wrote in my note, shit, I said legends and gave it away, didn't I? Motherfucker.

Yes, he's coming to us from the Dragon Hall bookstore in front of their very impressive St. George Bass Relief. Right. Okay. Now, be honest, guys. How sure were you that we were going to do the entire tour inside the bookstore? Well, I mean... Oh, I was almost certain that was going to happen. We do...

Absolutely. Yeah, me too. We don't get into the museum. We get out into the hallway. But it's mostly the do. Absolutely. Yeah, me too. We don't get into the museum. We get out into the hallway, but it's mostly the bookstore. Right. That's the thing. It's not even in the bookstore.

We get it with the entire thing takes place in the hallway leading to the bookstore. Yeah. We are watching the result of Ken Ham saying to this guy, you can have an annex. Yes.

This is, I think, the first movie or mini or anything like that that we've ever done where I got one minute in and wrote in my notes, man, that was a long minute. I feel like he did, too. Like he said that to himself. He's like, this is a long minute. I work in this bookstore. And then he tries to tell us that the bookstore is like a castle.

And we're looking at it he's like it's just like a fucking castle in here it's really cool guys it's really cool and we're seeing it i'm like no no no no it's not you're showing us a bookstore do you mean that the plastic behind you is squares like stone i'm like i've seen more impressively themed escape rooms right like like have pulled this up. But if I went to Pizza Hut and I got, like, the medieval-themed birthday party for my kid,

I would have expected this much. Yeah. One of those castles with a spinny keychain display. Got it. Yeah. Just like in the days of yore. Also, this was almost my best worst.

I almost went with best worst plug. As he starts, he grabs this stupid dragon mug off the shelf and he goes, and of course if we're going to talk about dragons we have to have this mug. And he forgets that he grabbed it off the shelf.

So he will pretend to drink from it for the rest of the video. Until about 20 seconds before the end of the video when he'll be like there was never anything. There's no, obviously not a thing. My arm's tired. So we follow him along this gift shop like a bored 10-year-old who got dragged to this stupid place

instead of fucking mini golf. And he's going like, you know, a lot of people will tell you that dragons aren't real, which is dumb, which is really, if you think about it's kind of dumb eneas this is also where he introduces his like rectangle square thing but with one made-up shape right he explains that all dinosaurs could be dragons but not all dragons are dinosaurs and if this little spiel has a theme that's it like he doesn't want us to think he's

crazy he knows the leviathan was technically a water dragon not a dinosaur but like that is his message because of the hips it's he's doing a wrong venn diagram wrong right like he's not even doing that thing correctly the way he says it and he starts that by saying dragons and dinosaurs are not necessarily the same thing and i was like yeah yeah but well that's an insane thing to say i guess it's true but why would you anyone ever say that that's so weird right broken clocked it yeah but still and he reminds us he's like now of course you'll have to keep him because he's showing us like water dragons and air dragons and and land dragons i.e dinosaurs pterosaurs and whatever the fucking aquatic ones are are called i forget but he's like now remember though god made the flying

and sea stuff on day five the land stuff on day six so these dragons were not made on the same day yeah very different dragons god created within a 48-hour period. I don't want anyone to think I'm silly, okay? I do know which day God created the water dragons. Yeah. So we leave the bookstore. This is the first time that we see all of the rascal scooters and literally all of our notes for like a page and a half

are about how many Rascal scooters there are. You have no idea how long it is. It's insane. It's like the one-er from True Detective season one where you're like, God, this is really, there's a lot of work went into how many Rascal. Did they get a deal?

Did they buy a pallet? Like, what happened? It's like somebody was setting up like a Domino's Rube Goldberg thing where they were going to like pull over and lead to something. Right. Or like they were eventually

going to need all of their power to pull one large item in the museum or something. So, yeah. And so he takes us out into the hallway and he's pointing at various parking lots

and shit. I'm like, this is like a six-year-old showing you their room. Right. Stop. Just pick a thing and show it to us.

He's taught, he points to the ceiling and he's like, and because this is a dragon hall, you can see we have paper lanterns from the east.

Huh? That's how he describes it. Because Asia has dragons. We actually appropriated all of this in the top part of this hallway. We got it in the same palette as the drasco steak he sent.

And then there's this dragon and this dragon. My favorite is red dragon. Yes! I can't help my juice. Somebody help my juice. It's so good. And then he takes us

to his first shoebox diorama of different dragon legends. Now, I didn't know at the time that this was going to be the whole fucking movie, right? And can we say it's not actually a diorama like if you made this and the assignment was diorama they'd be like no you made a sign it's a sign because it's

he calls it a diorama but it's just a boxed in sign yeah right right though i use diorama in my notes because i don't know the term for half-assing it to that degree. This is the beginning of the big existential crisis. You see him realize that, like, I'm in charge of the dragon wing of the museum, and then be like, well, it's not a wing. It's the lobby. It's the lobby. Actually, it's just a hallway, really.

It's not even a lobby. Several signs along the hallway. The lobby is technically part of the hallway if you think about it. I have a job. Really the first thing a lot of people see. It's not the main parking lot as I just pointed out. Most people just walk by this and don't notice it.

But it is the first thing they see just like in a technical, their eyes fall on it way. Ken Ham had an extra Christmas card this year and I got it. So, but his sign has all, like, these, it has, like, four different dragon legends from different points in history and everything, and one of them's from Greek mythology,

and I just point that out because he's like, now, with the Greeks, you know, not everything that they say in their mythology is true. Yeah. Really? I'm not an idiot. I know the Hydra's not real. This dragon from the Apocrypha, however, scientific fact.

Yeah, no, some Greek mythology is bullshit. Just not the parts that agree with him. But then he walks us over to a different dragon diorama. This one is from Peru. And now the point he's going to be trying to make throughout this movie is that dragon legends come from all over the world. So they must have been real things, right? Except that the dragons, the things that he's calling dragons from all these various

regions, don't really share any single characteristic. Even a little? No, not at all. Also, this is where he begins to call his diorama slash signs call-outs? Yes, uh-huh. Is that like he got canceled on Twitter and he went over to his daughter

and he was like, honey, how come everyone says they're calling me? I'm responding badly to call outs. No, it's a shout out. It's like a radio DJ giving you something

about history. It's like dragons. Yeah, no, they're big fans. It's like those things you have in that hallway you're in charge of. Oh, okay. Thanks, honey.

Yeah. Love you. He goes, now, if you look at history, dragons are very clearly real. And I'm like, yeah, just don't ask historians because they're all a bunch of fucking liars. The claim is that people only draw stuff that they actually really saw. And then he's like, as you can see, people made dragon pictures. So dragons. Yep. That's actually the argument here yes bode i'm drawing a picture your mom's boobs bode what does that mean ontologically bode dude we could get this

guy to have a pug a pegacorn section in this hallway if we like no question the right stuff oh you're right he doesn't deserve it and then he also has this one also has um a carving from cambodia that looks kind of like a stegosaurus. And I wrote my notes. I'm like, well, now that can't be a stegosaurus. It doesn't have a thagomizer. But then he concedes that point. He was immediately, he's like, it doesn't have the spikes on the tail though. So it's

not a stegosaurus. So probably a dragon. He probably didn't see it. And he also says here, because this is a baffling sentence. He goes, they're in the peer review process right now of whether stegosauruses were alive at the same time as people.

Oh, no, no. No, he says they're in the peer review process as to whether that carving of a stegosaurus has a muzzle on it. Yes, that's exactly. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, that is what he is saying is in the peer review process and do you think that's like he handed that idea to someone and

they were like oh yeah no i'm gonna you're my peer i'll look over this and he was like peer review and they were like sorry did you just whisper peer review this is not peer review he was like no i know i know well peer review means a different thing when you're talking about Bodhi's peers, okay? Sure, yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, and he's like, you know, but whoever carved this clearly thought that this creature was real, this Stegosaurus thing, because it's near other real creatures.

And I'm like, right, like how Spider-Man comics often have cars in them, which is proof that Spider-Man is a real thing. Spider-Man is real. Yes. And then, I don't even know why he did this to himself. The third drawing is lions

with super long necks. And he's like, and here we see... Well, those aren't dinosaurs or dragons at all, are they? It's just lions. It could be a brontosaurus. Those are just proof that people draw things sometimes. Why would I have this in my annex?

Do you think? And then there's this great moment. He's about to take us to the next diorama or the next call out or whatever. And he has to stop and marvel at the fact that even though it looks like the walls are made of rock, they're not. That's just fake. That's just pretend rock. And then he's like, yeah, we did this on purpose. It's just like the great flood from the Bible, you know, the historical event.

And I was like, oh, just like the great flood. It's fake. Just like the great flood. You got one correct, I guess. Yeah. Good job by accident. And we should put his point here is he's like, well, you know, in canyons, you can see the different layers that just really disprove everything we believe. Just like in a very touchable, real way.

Yeah. Don't talk about sedimentary rocks then. Right. Exactly. Don't talk about rock layering. Don't put it in your museum next to the lions with the long necks, Brody. No, see, that's the whole thing is that they want you to ask about it. Those are layers that were laid down in Noah's flood, right?

That's their whole fucking thing, that all the various layers were laid down in the flood. So they want you to ask about that. They have a whole fucking, there's probably another video where the guy who runs the layers of fucking noah's flood wing had to put out some shit during covet as well yeah no they love to talk about that one oh god but ultimately we land on the third diorama this one has john of damascus and marco polo big dragon sears marco polo right because when you hear that I can't not think of that when you say Marco Polo he says tell me if I'm doing an accurate performance

I don't want to exaggerate now when I say Marco Polo you probably think of the pool game I've seen funny skits about that okay what skits he's watching like YouTube videos of marco polo sketches guys we're comedians let's jam on this let's do a really marco polo or do you mean that guy who explored ancient china you know dragons are real yeah there you go well you know but Marco Polo, when he was in China, he saw several dragons.

And if dragons weren't real in China, why is it that they're on the Chinese zodiac when all the other animals are real? Oh, great question. He says, by the way, to get into that is, have you ever been to a Chinese restaurant? Yes. They have dragons there. You know why? Because it's not a sure thing with this crowd.

When someone walks into the Creation Museum, you're a coin flip on whether or not they said, I don't need none of that Chinese's food. I heard it's made out of cats. Actually, yeah, right.

Now give me my rascal. I'm failing. He goes, you know, you can actually find old Chinese recipes that include parts of dragons in them. And I'm failing. He goes, you know, you can actually find old Chinese recipes that include parts of dragons in them. And I'm like, really?

Do you have one here in your museum? Because it seems like exactly the kind of place that you would want to reproduce that evidence in some ways. Like, we don't have, no.

But you see here in this description, it says, all serpents are poisonous except dragons. And I wrote in my notes, but that's also not true. Do you care that that's also not true, Bodhi?

Also, that was according to John of Damascus or whatever. Yes. That guy is, we're to believe, somebody who tested all the serpents for poison. Yep. Including dragons. And the dragon like bit his arm off, but there were no poisons going into him.

Clearly. He took no poison damage. He wrote that down. he goes john at damascus you know he was all about trying to figure out what was and wasn't real his book on dragons and ghosts very scientific yeah him and steve-o and chris pontius did a show together it's. So yeah, so now he's going to take us to another diorama. This is the first time he starts going like, normally, by the way, there's people that are paying to be here.

You don't know them. They're from Canada, but we have a lot of... It's so crazy to be here when there's not just bustling voices and everyone high-fiving me. Hey, Bodhi, what's going on, man? this is my favorite part of the museum nah don't say that and then then ken usually comes by and he's like what's up b-dog and i'm like what dog k-dog is silly actually how fun it is yeah i'm very popular everybody

wants to sit with me at lunch i I wish I had got COVID and died. I have peers that like me. They're reviewing my stuff right now. That's why they're not here. But the next display, this is about Kircher and Herodotus. He goes, Herodotus is known as the father of history. Okay. And that's it.

I wrote in my notes, did he have any other father-based nicknames was he the father of anything else the father of lies perhaps this is other jesus christ people but and then and then he's like but herodotus talked about these flying poisonous dragons and i'm like oh we just learned in the last one that dragons weren't poisonous. So either Herodotus or Merkur Polo is full of shit. Herodotus was the Eli episode of Citation Needed of history. Exactly, yeah. Herodotus still, even though that he's the father of lies, even though that's true, he fucked up the narrative for most of the Creation Museum

by saying a few things that are actually true about history. Yeah. So stupid. Right. And then he starts walking down the hallway and we're like, oh, is he out at dioramas? He's like, look at this picture on the opposite wall. And we're like, goddammit, there's a whole nother wall.

Now, some people miss this one because they're so psyched to come into the museum, which often we are told is too full of people. But the sign that he points out, it says, are dinosaurs dragons? And I'm like, no, dragons have hips. We already did this once. The Black Eyed Peas taught us all about dragons.

We're good, man. We don't need this. Yeah, but then he shows us this world map that shows where all the different dragon legends come from. And they have pictures of what that culture considered dragons and again none of these are even similar one of them's a large cat yep one is a large cat and he positions his body in front of it like my toddler hiding candy just

like gently steps in front of a large cat and And you see the daughter in the reflection being like, we can still see the cat. And he's like, no, do you have a cat dragon in your mouth right now? And then he takes us over to the Romans and dragons diorama. Because apparently the Romans were just encountering dragons left and right. Really?

One time, my friend, Craig, a Roman, he said said he killed a dragon and and then that he did got it and then he goes like he's like but if you look at like most of the stories we see about dragons and with people killing the dragons which is probably evidence that we hunted them to extinction that's why you don't see dragons anymore, because they always lose at the end of the story. Right.

Same thing with bad guys in the world. That's why there's no bad guys. If we can trick this guy into going on deviantart.com, he will have a very different opinion about how stories with dragons end. That's all I'm saying. And then we finally get around to the big sign for Leviathan and Behemoth, the two

dragons in the Bible. Well, two of the dragons in the Bible. I guess he didn't talk about Revelation. Yeah. Right. And he's he basically yells at us for like four minutes. He's like, it's not a hippo dick joke. It's not. The Scaling Atheist guys are going to tell you that it's about hippo dicks.

It's the tail that moved like cedar. But the passage about the behemoth is on the little sign. We can read it if we're watching this which and

it's a very sexual ode to a hippo by somebody who wrote part of the Bible and also wanted to fuck a hippo. Right? Yeah. Like that's what we're reading.

Yes. Yes. It's the very first deviantart.com. Yeah. This is exactly what's happening here. So good what we're reading yes yes it's the very first deviantart.com yeah this is exactly what's happening here so good and he's like well it's right here it says tale of cedar that can't be a hippo hippos don't have a tail that looks like a large tree so it's it's a dragon that has a tree on its ass that must must be what's happened here. Dragons don't have tree tails either, man. And he goes, and there's, I love

this fucking line. He says, am I saying that Behemoth is a dinosaur? No. And I'm like, yeah, no, you're stopping a millimeter short of that, so I can't say that you were wrong later, technically. Right. Yeah. But also, hey, Bodhi, that's not the win you think it is. Like, I don't know

whether or not Behemoth was a dinosaur and we're like we do we do man we do that's why we're laughing at you is because you pretend not you do know that's why you built a hallway about it that's why your granddaughter's behind you doing the jerk off

exactly but then of course we also he also talks about Leviathan now we know he's not a dinosaur right because of the hips obviously but he even does the like and god's not a pussy like he can make a leviathan big big fucking leviathan god's not scared of you open the doors of his face god the intelligent designer did he design a giant thing that's a sea monster and also breathes fire under there?

Seems like I'd be a little bit wasted on a sea monster. Very steam. Maybe you haven't... Oh, is this steam? One of the most dangerous... What were you going to say?

What does he do with the steam? I actually have action figures in my car. I could show you, but you're mean so you don't get to see. Are you allowed to park closer? No. And of course, he senses that we might be skeptical of the idea of a fire-breathing

water monster, but then he reminds us that God has infinity powers plus magic, so duh. Yeah. Like, of course he could make that happen. So then we head down to the next diorama. He does us the favor of telling us that this is the anti-penultimate one. Yeah. Like, of course he could make that happen. So then we head down to the next diorama. He does us the favor of telling us that this is the anti-penultimate one. He's like, I just have three more to show you.

And I'm just like, three more? You can see the daughter in the reflection going, three? Right. Silently screaming. Dad, I have plans with my friends. I have plans with my friends. Wrap it up. But this one is saint george

who who killed the dragon in north africa as you'll recall from the apocrypha and again like of all the drag i don't know maybe it's silly but like this is one of the dumbest dragon stories from history right sure where he he stabs and defeats the dragon but then saint george is like no one's gonna believe me because dragons aren't real. So he fucking drags it back to the camp like a cat with a dead sparrow and then kills it. And he's like, canonize me.

Yes. And they did. Peers gather round. You're all peers of mine. Everybody say that out loud. Got it. I could use some review. Reviewed my kill.

Great. Everybody be Christian now. Yeah Got it. I could use some review. You've reviewed my kill? Great. Everybody be Christian now. Yeah, right. That's the story there. They said he killed the dragon and he saved the princess and they're like, you can have any reward you want. He's like, well, your entire kingdom has to be Christian now. And they're like, oh, getting off easy.

And in this next diorama you can see Saint Mario, the Italian plumber. He picked one up by the tail. He picked one up by the tail. and in this next diorama you can see Saint Mario the Italian plumber who once did that same thing he picked one up by the tail and saved the princess pretty sweet

prove that's not real that was in your door he goes he goes and that's just proof that you never know what your actions will accomplish

as in like you know you think you're just fighting a dragon saving a princess but maybe you will convert people to your religion. Just be a good example. Kids, kids.

And then we move on to the penultimate diorama. This one is fucking Beowulf. Yeah. Oh, I thought you were going to say the giant line of horribly sticky strollers was the next diorama. Yeah, no. Gross. Yeah, oh no, right, because before he gets to Beowulf he has to stop and show us the Welsh. Yeah, no. Gross. Yeah. Oh, no. Right.

Because before he gets to Beowulf, he has to stop and show us the Welsh flag and the old Chinese like siege flags also had dragons on them. That's why the sun in Korea is red with little black scooches on the sides. That's what the sun used to look like. Yeah. And he's like, and this is the old Chinese flag, and you can see this has five toes. The dragon has five toes. It was a whole big thing there.

Only the emperor's house was allowed to depict a dragon with five toes. And I'm like, oh, so it was obviously a symbol and not a living thing, because then it was a living thing. There would just be the number of toes a dragon has. No, he was really

into foot dragon stuff and he was only... The five-toed ones, they could work you in a way that you can dream of today. I was on deviantart.com, Eli sent me, and the five-toed dragons can do some shit. That's all I'm saying. Yeah.

Heel skin. Wear you like a bowling ball. And then he shows us the Beowulf display, right? Okay. I'm confused because he switches age groups of his target audience for this spiel, right? He says

you had to read Beowulf when you were in school, so he's definitely not talking to kids. Right? Right. Okay. Question about beowulf real quick um was grendel a dragon nope not even a little bit of dragon not at all grendel not a dragon i think maybe when he says that he's thinking of the dragon which is a dragon in the poem the dragon and the mom dragon are the dragons that's what's so fucked up because he seems to recognize that there is a dragon in the story but for's what's so fucked up because he seems to recognize

that there is a dragon in the story, but for his bit to work, the dragon has to be Grendel, right? Because Beowulf tore off Grendel's arm. And what he's trying to say is that it was a fucking, like a Tyrannosaurus type thing that had a tiny little arm

and that's why Beowulf could rip it off. Come on, him doing the Tyrannosaurus arms, though, for Grendel? At one point, he does the claw thing because he's like, yeah, you know, a little arm with the claw like this. A little claw. Claw. Claw.

I'm clawing you. Risk control. Honey, honey, come closer to dad. I want to show you how dangerous this is. I was going to say, yeah, do you have a kata for this? He had a kata. Stop the episode right now. outro no nothing clata just a dead silence while everyone appreciates that

like a 9-11 memorial that is what I want from this episode so yeah but then he takes us to the last display and we're curious at this point we're like okay can it possibly be dumber than every single one of the other displays that we've seen to this point sure the fuck can it possibly be dumber than every single one of the other displays that we've seen to this point? Sure the fuck can.

It just says cowboys and dragons. I was so goddamn excited when they get close enough for me to see in large letters cowboys and dragons. Oh man. And we should point out they'll have a sign and some information

about the dragon story, the relevant dragon story, and then they'll have a few acc that they'll have like a sign and some information about the dragon story the relevant dragon story and then they'll have a few like you know a coot like like a historical looking museum type shit right at the bottom like they'll have a replica roman helmet on the romans and dragons one or whatever they'll have they had some pottery from peru on the peruvian one on this one they've just got a cowboy hat and it's labeled it just says cowboy hat and they have gloves and they're labeled they just say gloves i thought i thought for sure we were gonna see the pterodactyl who fought for the union army and got killed by the that's why powell doesn't work for ken anymore that he's found that exhibit and he was like i have the fucking perfect picture for this and they they were like, Matt, you were actually wrong about that.

And he was like, I'm never wrong. And he jumped out the window. So now, but this diorama, the one, the cowboys and dragons, when it's all based around a news article that they found in a newspaper for, from 1890,

that is by the way, the absolute pinnacle of the era known as yellow journalism, right? In terms of newspapers that said that some cowboys found a flying reptile out in the desert right that was it that's the whole thing they made a whole diorama with cowboy hats and gloves this is in a museum presenting evidence and it's like two drunk guys

came home from hunting they said they shot a giant flying alligator, 160 feet long, sent it to universities. Everyone lost it, but it's real. End of science exhibit. And that's why we have a hat and some bullets, okay? Yes, and some bullets. You motherfuckers. You gave me a whole annex. You knew I couldn't fill an annex.

I was so excited. I i went home i designed that first one i was like i'm gonna run out of room and then by the time i got to two same guys they shot a marlin and then these sharks started but this is old man in the sea fuck i started doing old man then he was trying to convince her to get an abortion he, just a gentle puppy. He's like, what else? So, but then there's also this remarkable moment where he's like, well, you know, for me to know for sure that dragons are extinct, I would have to be able to look at every place in the world at the exact same time. And I'm like, you know, that's the understanding of epistemology I have come to expect from you, Bodhi. Yeah. Fuck yeah, Bodhi.

Right. Does everything I can think of exist right now? Yes, it does. By the same logic I just used. Yep. At least maybe. Yes, exactly. Do we have Bodhi's nose?

Is there anything that does not exist ever? No. Impossible. Is Eli fucking your mom right now? Right now? You'd have to check. You don't know. I've got this picture of her tits, Bodhi. How would he know? That's peer-reviewed right there.

Heath, look at these pictures of Bodhi's mom's tits, right? Wow. Yeah. Yikes. Yep. Peer-reviewed. So, he's got some books to show us. They've written some books with some pictures in them and everything the cards are the saddest thing

that's ever my heart has never sung for another human soul harder than when he goes we got these cards they got dinosaurs on them you can trade them like trading cards please in that you can trade them back and forth.

No one will stop you from mercantile. You have to be allowed to move one from the spot to the other and then switch the original second one from this other. That is what I understand trading. You've traded them. And they have to let you. Please buy my stuff or else I'm out of money. Also, this fucking idiot does not know how tables work apparently, right?

Because he picks up like five different books and we get to watch him try to hold the books while opening the books, while holding the microphone, while showing us the picture. Dude, you're going to pick up 10 loose apples now? This is going to go badly. Why are you doing that? Fucking Gus, Gus the mouse is watching off camera. You look like an asshole, man. Just so you know.

He goes, this book right here, this made the top 200 children's books in America when it first came out. And I'm like, I guarantee you're talking about Amazon listings and I'm guaranteeing you that that was like four minutes after it was posted and not six. Right. And it was the subcategory

of like children's books, dinosaurs, but fake though. Yeah. Bodhi wrote this. And then he has to transition from like selling stuff to like,

actually, don't, don't, don't buy our stuff because then we have to give you, just give us money. Yes, right. Yeah, exactly.

But don't, if you don't want the book, you don't have to book. We take small gifts. We take big gifts. Yes, right. Yeah, exactly. But don't, if you don't want the book, you don't have to book. We take small gifts. We take big gifts. Big, large gifts are better. Medium gifts. Medium is fine too.

We just really need money. On the larger side of medium. Look at all these rascals. We purchased an insurance policy for a flood at our creation museum and it went badly for us. That's a real thing that happened in our lives. Fuck. We bought so many rascals.

We're rascal poor right now. We're real rascal poor. Charged, you know. And then he wraps it up and just like at the fucking beginning we watch him just stand there for like six stupid fucking seconds while they figure out where the off button is. God bless that daughter.

Because he's looking. He's begging with his eyes. He's like, turn it off. And she's like, oh, where's the button? No. Oh, where is it? I had to waste 37 minutes. I'm going to be late to meet my friends. Oh, there it is. She's like, and action. We've started. There you go. All right. Well, as thematically appropriate as it would be for me to end this segment with like nine seconds of dead air, I'm as thematically appropriate as it would be for me to end this segment with like nine seconds of dead air, I'm physically incapable of editing as poorly as these assholes did, even if it's for a bit. So instead, we're going to close off with a I want to remind patrons that the patron-only

Pajama Party livestream is this Saturday night starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time. We've got the same film crew that did such a stellar job last year. We're going to be playing games. We're going to be playing music. We're going to be answering your questions. Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure, will be here for the first time. We're going to have a great time, and we'd love to share it with you. Look for a link on Saturday if you're a patron. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for

you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be sure to look out for a brand new episode of our Sister Show's Hot Friend Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our Half-Sister Show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't convert this to MP3 until I thank Heath Enright for helping me stay undefeated at Codenames this week by being an awesome teammate. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for helping keep me undefeated at Codenames this week by being on the other team. Thank you. in this case. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people, and I can't do it by name though, but I still thank them. Sorry, I'll compliment you by name next week, and if you'd like to hear your name alongside theirs, you can make a per-episode donation

to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode and get access to our annual Pajama Party livestream this Saturday night. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but you're busy beating all your money into plowshares, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review,

telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats,

you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com. oh dear i flubbed my line in such a way as to create a humorous outtake the preceding podcast was a production of puzzle in a thunderstorm llc copyright 2023 all rights reserved