The Scathing Atheist - 567: Need to Knew Edition

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

In this week’s episode, we serve some holiday leftovers in the form of headlines, we pop in and out of existence like the finale of a multiverse movie, and we finally finish that damned David Icke book. --- To get your tickets to see God Awful Movies live in Orlando, click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/god-awful-movies-live-in-orlando-florida-tickets-778242784117 --- 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, we've got an annual profanity quota and this is our last chance to meet it. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by Factor and by Godawful Movies Live in Orlando, March 2nd. Godawful Movies Live, because all the other ways you might see Eli's ass cheeks are far scarier. And now, The Skating Atheist. Hi, I'm Seamus, and even though I'm 13 years old and probably don't know what I'm talking about, I still can assure you that we did in fact evolve from filthy, monkey, people.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go talk about Philly sports now. It's Thursday. Nailed it. It's December 28th. And it's Pledge of Allegiance Day? Yeah, because nothing proves the commies wrong like a weird little oath that you force your kids to say, I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick, and from the world's best pizza and bagels, New Jersey, and way across Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we hurry through all the headlines we missed in 2023. Heath will reappear just to rebut my bagel joke.

Yeah, right. And we'll finally bury that goddamn David Icke book. But first, the Diatribe. December 28th should be its own holiday where we gather together with our friends and celebrate surviving all the family bullshit of the holidays. Now, in that regard, I'm pretty lucky. My family knows what I do for a living and knows that I'm better at arguing about religion and politics than they are, and, you know, we don't talk about it. My parents have religious beliefs.

The last thing they want to hear is what I think of them, so that subject just never comes up. And while my extended family has its share of Trumpers, I sure the fuck ain't voluntarily spending any time with them, so the gatherings that I do attend don't tend to have a lot of political arguments either. But even from that enviable position, I don't come home with a tongue free

of bite marks. There's always some kind of bullshit dying to be commented on, right? Whether it's cousins so-and-so treating their psoriasis with crystals, or uncle what's-his-name recommending a good chiropractor, or my dad sharing one of the many conspiratorial ways in which they get you, dad sharing one of the many conspiratorial ways in which they get you, right? And of course, that's part of the course for us, right? The curse of the skeptical atheist is that in pretty much any social gathering, either we're miserable or everybody else is. I mean, I guess there's a breed of who-gives-us-shit apotheist who can co-mingle with theists all the time, and it's rarely an issue. But if you're like us, right, if you're not just non-religious but anti-religious, it can be physically painful because it's not just that you disagree with what's being said, it's that you realize that

it's harmful, right? So the sentence, your clenched teeth are holding back, isn't, I disagree with you, it's, you know that worldview can be directly linked to increases in teen suicide, right? And in nearly every group, they forced the issue. It's not just family. You start socializing with a new group of people, and it's all but inevitable that somebody's going to invite you to their church or tell you to check out their psychic or their naturopath. And it's very rare that a simple no thank you is sufficient to rebuff this invite. If you say no to church, you have to hear all about how their church isn't like the other churches you've been to before. It has a rock band. Right.

And eventually you have to be like, does your church also believe in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being that decides which kids should and shouldn't have face cancer to get the no to stick? And that leads me to my New Year's resolution this year for you. I have one, but I don't have, I know I'm supposed to make New Year's resolutions for myself, but fuck all that. It never works. Plus, I'm way better at diagnosing other people's problems than my own. And sure, you can ignore it, but that just makes it more resolution-like if you think about it. So one way or the other, you're stuck with it. This is your New Year's resolution. This year, I resolve for you to invite an atheist into your home that's never been there

before. All right, so a couple of obvious caveats that I need to acknowledge here. Not everyone has a home they can invite people to. Many of you have weird roommate situations, or you have tight quarters, or you live with family that wouldn't be welcoming, or you just don't have a home that you're comfortable inviting other people to. So all of you are exempted. And while I figure you already knew that, I thought it was worth bringing you up, if for no reason but to emphasize to everybody else here how important a resolution it could be. Now, of course, the biggest challenge here is

probably going to be meeting an atheist worthy of a home visit for a lot of you there could be an atheist meetup or skeptics in the pub group or something like that but if you live in a town like the one i'm in it's going to be a lot harder hell you might even have to bus an atheist in from out of town or make your place available to one who's passing through and i know that might seem awkward but think about it christians do this shit all the time right welcome random christ Christians they've never met into their home. And from my experience, atheist skeptics have a lot more in common than two random members of the same brand of Christianity. And look, in my experience, most of the time when we try to do shit like this, right, when

atheists are like, oh, we need to meet up more or whatever, we overshoot. Instead of aiming for playing board games with a few other skeptics, we start with like a, let's have a monthly meetup with speakers in a service project. And as often as not, what you end up with is one really good meeting and then diminishing returns. And then the whole thing feels like a fucking failure because it's so much less than you set out to do. But if what you set out to do was a single visit, any echo that comes after that is just a bonus. Look, I know I probably talk about the community angle here too often, but there's a profound sense of self-actualization that happens when you're surrounded by people who you can be

yourself around, and nothing brings the value of that camaraderie to the forefront of your mind like spending a few days chewing on your tongue in a desperate effort to be somebody else. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is nobody. And I'm not here either, actually, because we're all off seeing family this week, and we had to record all this stuff in advance.

But in anticipation of that, we've been saving up headlines all month, and we've got money. But before we get to those, we're going to pause for a word from this week's sponsor, Factor. Oh, man. I'm going to be so prepared. So prepared. Hey, Eli.

What's with all the veggies here? Oh, I know. I've been up all night meal prepping. Meal prepping? Yeah. Yeah. It's all part of my New Year's resolution. It's actually super time saver.

Is it? You say you've been doing this how long? 11 hours now. Right. Right. Well, Eli, if you want to cross meal prep off your list the easy way, why don't you just do it with Factor? What's?

Factor. Sorry. What's Factor? What's Factor? Factor, America's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietician-approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. You'll save time and stay on track with your healthy lifestyle while tackling all your holiday to-dos. Wait, ready-to-eat so I don't have to cook? Nope.

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delivery boxes are bad for the environment. Well, with Factor, you can rest assured you're making a sustainable choice. They offset 100% of their delivery emissions and source 100% renewable electricity for their production sites and offices. Amazing. All right, Noah, I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Head to factormeals.com slash scathing50 and use the code scathing50 to get 50% off. That's code scathing50 at factormeals.com slash scathing50 to get 50% off. Thanks, Noah. I'm definitely going to give it a try. So do you want to stop chopping and get some sleep?

Eh, I'm almost done with this carrot. That's a rolling pin. Mm-hmm, almost done. Okay. And now, back to headlines from the past already in progress. And in lying in your transphobic bed news, a small religious school in Vermont

Is suing state officials After they were banned from participating In athletic and academic events Because they refused to let their girls basketball team Compete against another team That had a transgender player Cue the sad violin music Yeah

Also cue millions of evangelical bigots All over the country Who are definitely avid fans of girls high school basketball in Vermont and have very strong opinions about the competition in Division Four in Vermont. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Their cries of how dare you refuse to let us compete in sports just because we refuse to compete in sports rings a bit hollow to me. Yes, the Mid-Vermont Christian School was supposed to compete against Long Trail School back in February, but decided to forfeit the game when they found out that one of Long Trail's players was trans.

In my book, a forfeit is just as good as a win, so go Long Trail Mountain Lions. Extra points for not being bigots. Hell yeah. Also, according to the website for Mid-Vermont Christian School, quote, the women's basketball team is a group of young ladies enjoying the sport of basketball

while they learn and grow in their faith in Christ. End quote. So instead of doing a bigot forfeit, maybe learn and grow at running a fucking fucking two three zone on defense get there you is what i'm saying thank you exactly yeah i think i think mid vermont christian school is about one generation past denouncing women's basketball as satanic for requiring young ladies to bounce up and down so i don't know that they really have anything to say here there's definitely members of the board who aren't sure about shorts. Yeah.

So the school, short pants? In this century? In my country? In West Virginia? Anyways, the suit says that the school was, quote,

irreparably harmed by being denied participation. Really? And, quote, losing out on playing competitive sports as well as academic competitions. End quote.

Not adding, and damn it, that's what we were trying to do to trans people. Right, yes. Also, yes, you're being harmed and losing out. Fucking good. That was the point. You did it. That's what we were trying for. Yeah, why do they think what our bigotry had a consequence is such an ironclad argument all the time?

I don't know. Unfortunately for the school, despite their particular mission to make sure to oppress anyone who isn't a straight Christian, they are still subject to Vermont's Principals Association, or VPA, in order to participate in inter-school competitions. The VPA's executive director, Jay Nicholas, said that the school violated the association's, quote, commitment to racial gender fair and disability awareness, end quote. And on gender identity, Nicholas said, quote, if you don't want to follow VPA rules, that's fine. But then you're just not a VPA member. It's fairly simple. That is pretty simple.

That's really all we're going to really say about it. Okay. Nice. Bigot school. I forget what you're's really all we're going to really say about it. End quote. Okay. Nice. Big at school. I forget what you're fucking called. You're going to be fine. You can always drop out of Vermont's Division IV

and go back to the sports league for the Association of Christian Schools International where you used to play. I'm sure all the millions of Christian people who chimed in about this news item are also big fans of that other league I just mentioned.

I mean, unless they're all lying, you're all set in terms of your fan base. It's going to be fine. Don't worry about it. So for their part, the mid-Vermont Christian school says it was acting on its own religious beliefs, which they state are mainly concerned with the, quote, mind of Christ.

But in the classic words of the poets, she doesn't even go here. Also, the phrase mind of Christ, that's just meaningless buzzword nonsense for Christian people. But just for the record, the Bible was written hundreds of years after the historical Jesus existed. Anyone claiming to know the mind of Christ is just saying whatever they want right now and adding a 2000 year old rabbi's name to it to make it better somehow. The argument that like the mind of James Madison wanted the right to own AR-15s right now is actually way more tenable than the mind of Christ argument they're trying to make. Right. Yeah. When originalism isn't originalist enough for you. Yeah.

Unoriginalism, if you will. Yeah. And the school clearly has no grasp of irony because the lawsuit says, quote, the state is not entitled, nor is it constitutional, to force private religious schools across the state to follow that orthodoxy as a condition in

participating in Vermont's tuitioning program and the state's athletic association, end quote. They even used the word orthodoxy and they didn't hear it. Jesus. On a pleasant note, however, I should point out that it is worth noting that Vermont is one of the few states that even allows transgender students to compete in high school sports, which is why, as we all know, every high school sport in Vermont is

dominated by an army of gank to the gills trans children. No, it's not. Children are children. Stop being weird. Yeah. Also, their maple syrup candy is just mwah. Oh, love it. You gotta love it. You don't have to. You got Bernie over there.

You got Bernie Mittens. Come on. That's pretty cool. Bernie me? Bernie me? Big Long Trails fan. Anyways, the story that I read from Fox News also points out that Long Trail competed in 20 games

before a school even had an issue, which I think is just more evidence to support that mid-Verm Vermont just didn't have the game! Yeah, yeah. Laying my chips down now. If they win this lawsuit, the next one is going to be suing to be allowed to answer that the Earth is 6,000 years

old and that the flood killed the dinosaurs in those academic competitions they were so worried about. Yeah, they're coming for the mathletes next. Pi is 3.5. We're being irreparably harmed by facts. And in conspiratory news, there's an old tale in Jewish folklore about the rabbi who brings to life a lump of clay

in the form of a golem, a mindless and powerful servant to do his bidding. And in many versions of the story, the golem goes rogue and eventually leads to the death of his creator. And in 16th century France, soldiers laying siege to a castle would employ specialist infantry who would use a small primitive bomb or a petard to destroy the castle gate. And sometimes these petardiers would fail to escape the area before the bomb exploded and they'd find

themselves thrown into the air or hoisted, if you will, by their own petard. Damn it, Marsh, we let you on the show with Heath one time and you're already being converted to fun facts. What did he say to you? This is a good one. Everybody gets the phrase wrong, too. So nice. And in a long running nature documentary series, a particularly inventive or wily coyote would try to catch a rather quick and evasive roadrunner via an ingenious device or two, only to find himself getting caught in the very trap he was employing to catch the roadrunner.

Yeah, it's a great docuseries. It's like Hamlet, but with better dialogue, I would say. How dare you! Anyway. Thank you, Marsh. All that being said, I read this week that the Tory government in the UK are having to give their MPs special training on how to avoid falling for conspiracy theories in order to prevent them from being radicalized

by culture war talking points, anti-vaccine propaganda, and climate denialism. Oh, that's amazing. In my mind, they're all being forced to listen to skeptics with a K at gunpoint, right? Right. Or sausage point. Whatever you guys use instead of guns, I'm never sure.

So this move comes after former Tory MP and regular feature of my Skeptocrat Stories, Andrew Bridgen, was radicalized by COVID vaccine misinformation essentially since his encounter with the Who's Who Hall of Famer, Asim Malhotra, including claiming that security services around the world knew about COVID in the summer of 2019.

And he also shared a conspiracy theory that the U.S. Department of Defense was responsible for both the virus and the vaccines. Now, they can't be because those things were successful. No, sorry, I'm sorry. The US Department of Defense,

they couldn't invade Cuba. That is an island the size of Tennessee that we have surrounded on two sides by default. So Bridgen is subsequently defected from the Tory party to an even more far-right party. And he's subsequently taken a conscious break from reality.

But clearly, he's not the only Tory at risk, which has now resulted in the leader of the Commons, Penny Mordaunt, introducing a service that will, quote, help explain some of the most prominent conspiracy theories circulating online, including those relating to the Ukraine war and anti-Semitism. Okay, as usual, Marsh, check your UK privilege. If the Republican Party did the same thing, it would make their congresspeople less electable. But also, it wouldn't work because those are stupid people. Our evil party is slightly bound by reality.

That's you. That's what you said. Yeah, that's what you're saying, Marsh. Embarrassing yourself. But the thing about all this is, right, a huge chunk of the Tory party's susceptibility to conspiracy theory comes from their own prolific attachment to pushing the big red button marked culture war red meat.

You know, when Andrew Bridgen wasn't comparing the COVID vaccine to the Holocaust, he was questioning the consensus on climate change and warning about the horrible, scary danger posed by trans kids. Positions that are still a primary part of the rhetoric coming out of Rishi Sunak's government. Yeah, no, to be clear here,

the lesson they're going for is how to avoid believing these conspiracies, not how to avoid spreading them. Yeah, yeah. Guys, we're drug dealers. No getting high on our own supply. OK, you end up like Andrew. So it's starting to seem like the Tory

party are finding out that you can't get all of your political positions out of a crate with Acme written on the side and then be surprised when your conspiracy theory rocket blows up while you're still sat on it. There you go. And in growing pain in the ass news, Kirk Cameron wants schools to ditch the scholastic book fairs for a right-wing alternative. Because things that are actually pretty conservative by any normal standards are not conservative enough until we attach Christ to it. After all, we have Christian pop songs, Christian fashion week,

and Christian poker chips now. Why not Christian book fairs? These are the same people who would insult Queen Bey by making her song Single Ladies into the Christian version Modest Ladies. Clearly, these people are already monsters even without Kirk Cameron. I'm sorry, but like Christian book fair,

it seems like it'd just be like a bunch of copies of the same book surrounded by book-shaped piles of ash. No? And also, Eli, Christian poker chips. That's a thing, you know? On the third day, Jesus raised again, but Peter called it. And then Jesus had three kings.

Well, he had one king, but he tried to argue it's the same as three kings. Right. Judas had already cashed out by that point. Fabulous. Excellent. As we all know, Kirk Cameron has spent most of his post-growing pains career

subjecting us to his particular, shall we say, flavor of Christianity. The kind where he used Jesus as a way to make sure anyone who's LGBTQ, including teens and children, feel, you know, completely demonized and unwelcome in society. Surely, Mike Seaver could have at least been grounded for being racist, sexist, and homophobic, but I digress. Cameron, who calls Scholastic Book Fair's controllers in part of the woke matrix, end quote, is asking people to support skytree books instead

as a conservative christian alternative the woke matrix so a film by two trans siblings written as an allegory for the trans experience but a woke version of that exactly yeah yeah, Skytree is, surprise, surprise, owned by Brave Books, which I don't know if you guys remember this, just happens to publish Kirk Cameron's titles. I got to wonder if maybe this is actually just a ploy to make more money and actually has nothing to do with religious beliefs at all. Now, normally we are all in favor of getting kids to read here on The Scathing Atheist, but even Skytree can't compete with Scholastic in terms of content. Skytree has vetted and approved about 200 children's books compared to the over 1,000 that are approved by Scholastic.

Aren't both of those numbers small to you? Yes. Yeah, I was doing the same thing. What are you doing? It's children's books. You can read 200 children's books so fast. Listen on, Heath Henry, because you're going to learn what the problem is here. Are you ready? Only 100

of those scholastic books are categorized as LGBTQ children's books. And of course, no one is forcing parents to choose those books for their kids, but you know how this particular flavor of Christian rolls, if it exists but is not directly about Christ, we're being oppressed.

So yeah, the 100 books is too many. This flavor of Christian rolls, honestly, that sounds so dry and mealy. I'll stick with Pillsbury. Thank you. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. Thought you might appreciate it down in Georgia.

And if that's not enough, Skytree and Brave Books apparently can't even confirm what books they have in their catalog, or even if Brave Books is their only publisher, only that their titles promote family values, which, of course, Scholastic does too. They just do it while also featuring gay characters or stories that admit racism exists.

You know, the kind of stuff sure to turn children also featuring gay characters or stories that admit racism exists. You know, the kind of stuff sure to turn children into soup-wielding Antifa murderers. Right, because good Christians don't want people using books to indoctrinate and spread propaganda. That would be unethical. Yes, exactly. Heath gets it. And they had dibs. Yeah, but it actually gets better.

Friend of the show and good universe Heath Enright, Hemant Mehta, over at the Friendly Atheist blog, asked Brave spokesperson Erin Kukowski to release a list of the book titles and publishers that Skytree will carry. But the request was denied. Kukowski merely noted in her reply email that Skytree will not carry, quote, anything that's not age appropriate, uses sexually explicit language or images, causes gender confusion or that's racially divisive. Also, they will not carry anything published by Scholastic, end quote, which I love that she says that like it's a decision and not we're starting a McDonald's, so we're not allowed to serve Burger King here.

Yeah, right, right. Look, we don't know what books we have. To know that, we'd have to read them, and that's for nerds. What we know is that our man books fuck lady books. That's what matters, all right? Damn it. But they want schools to switch to Skytree, but they can't tell those schools which books they stock.

How do they expect that conversation to go? Like, do they think't tell those schools which books they stock, how do they expect that conversation to go? Do they think schools just order books by weight and volume? Or do they think school libraries just like the element of surprise, like it's a literary loot crate? Yes, absolutely, Marsh. Absolutely. Side note, it's obviously been a few years, but I don't remember the Scholastic Book Fair carrying sexually explicit materials. And if they did, I just want to say, I absolutely wasted my parents' money on all those Garfield books, okay? I just want to be clear. I actually once read a book from Scholastic about a mouse who ate a cookie, and then he wanted another cookie.

It was really disturbing stuff. It was pretty bad. Yeah, I get it. That's basically a mukbang right there. Yeah, exactly. So it's unclear as to why... I do remember that, yeah. So it's unclear as to why

Cameron is suddenly promoting Skytree, but I have a hunch it's that Scholastic recently reversed its very unpopular decision to make books about race and LGBTQ issues optional for schools at their book fairs, saying, quote, we understand now that the separate nature of the collection has caused confusion and feelings of exclusion, end quote. Not adding, but you have to admit, us making books about black people and gays

optional in the same decision was a pretty heavy-handed hint as to what you should have been doing. I mean, yeah, well, you're really going to bring this to us? You can't bring this to us. Come on. And the only cure, of course, is creating watered-down Christian versions of beloved children's books so kids hate reading altogether because every book their parents buy them is fucking terrible. Carol Seaver would never have done this to us. Thank you. I just love that statement by

Scholastic. They're like, upon further reflection, having a separate but equal book fair for the black books was a terrible idea. We should have seen it right away. Our bad. Sorry. Especially when those black books were listed at three-fifths the price of the books about white people. That, Jesus Christ.

That's on us. Yeah. It's on us. So, luckily, it's very unlikely that Skytree will take over Scholastic anytime soon. Even though the Christian Book Fair claims to have over 100 schools signed up for their fairs, that's compared to the 120,000 fairs Scholastic has. So, I guess pornographic Garfield is safe for now. Well, it's good to know.

And fucking a cookie. And in barbecue Ron news. Fantastic. Not really though. In 2017, Denmark repealed its 334 year old blasphemy law and there was much rejoicing. We did some on this show, but now a mere seven years hence,

they kind of got to missing it. And so now pending a signature from their queen, they've welcomed it back in the form of a new prohibition on quote, inappropriate treatment of writings with significant religious importance for a recognized religious community and quote idiots. And much like that divorce couple, you know, who's getting remarried, this

is a terrible fucking idea. Yeah, listen, you can still fuck the blasphemy laws if you want. That's a great idea. Just don't remarry, obviously. Right, yes. Wow. Okay, I mean, I thought Haley and Tom's wedding was lovely, but I mean, if that's what you want to say publicly about

Tom and Haley's wedding, Keith Enright, then, I mean, gosh, the magic was meh. But I thought the wedding was cool. How dare you? How dare you? Morgan? So, yeah. So this is in response to a recent spate of Koran burnings in Denmark and neighboring Sweden.

Or if you want to put the blame where the blame goes, it's in response to a recent spate of Muslims freaking the fuck out and threatening violent retribution over said Koran burnings. It's a capitulation to terrorism and directly. Lawmakers supporting the bill in parliament cited increasing risks to national security as a driver for the change. Over the summer, hundreds of Iraqi protesters stormed the Danish embassy in Baghdad over this shit. And Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard justified the law by pointing out that Quran burnings, quote, damaged the security of Danes both abroad and at home, end quote. So instead of protecting them, the government has opted to allow Muslim mob violence

to dictate their policy. Yeah, their policy is we don't negotiate with terrorists because we already did what they want ahead of time to play gather. No negotiation required. What the fuck? And look, it's easy for some people to dismiss this as an anti-bigotry thing, because that's mostly what it is. Most of the people out there burning Korans are Christian bigots protesting immigration from Muslim-majority countries. And free speech shouldn't protect a person's ability to, like, you you know scream slurs at minorities as they walk by or whatever but even if that was a legitimate

argument it's also far from universal qurans are often burned as a protest against the religion itself that's a motivation i have a vested interest in protecting right hell the highest profile quran burning in sweden came from a a Muslim immigrant who was trying to highlight Muslim oppression and intolerance which, to his credit, he did. Nailed it. Got it in one. I feel like we have to say this all the time but you can't reasonably accommodate fucking magic.

That's ridiculous. That's like a law that says you have to pretend I didn't put the card inside the lemon ahead of time. You have to pretend that. Why is that complicated? Okay, that, first of all, that's a bad example because that should be a law. Second of all, there's also just a lot of problems

with giving paper magic powers, right? For example, if I may, the holy text of Eli Bosnickism is now a roll of toilet paper. Bam, Denmark, you just became a bidet-exclusive country. Or are you bigots? Now, as disappointing as this law is,

apparently it was almost worse. The initial draft of the law would have banned the desecration of, quote, all objects of significant religious importance, end quote. But eventually they realized what a fucking nightmare

that would be, and they narrowed it down to just books. And technically, you are allowed to still burn a Quran. you just can't do it publicly. Or privately if you film it and then broadcast that to a wide audience.

Which is awesome, right? Because free speech still totally counts when it's restricted to the privacy of your own home, right? Cool, yeah. You can burn a Quran on Eli's blog, but not a podcast. That's what the point is. Hey, you could burn the Library of Alexandria during the auto ads.

I mean, there's a lot of flexibility there. And look, I get that we probably don't have universal agreement within our audience on shit like this. It feels gross to side with Islamophobes that are belittling the culture of an oppressed minority in their country. I get that. But there are a fuck ton of steps between endorsing what those people are doing and outlawing what those people are doing and the idea that a nation should be held responsible for the protests that it allows is a terrifying precedent as is the one where you allow threats of violence from foreign mobs to dictate your national policy yep obviously come on danmark d up and in proud boys Yup. Obviously. Come on, Denmark. D up.

And in proud boys and proud moms news. Up until somewhat recently, moms have had a pretty decent run in the PR department. They're dominant in the field of tattoos and oak tag signs at arenas. The delightful Allison Janney won two Emmys for playing one on a popular sitcom. And from what I hear, they even have their own category on various websites. That's cool. What you hear.

Grapevine says, but that near flawless reputation came crashing down in 2021 when Moms for Liberty entered the scene and besmirched the good name of the family matriarch. And all of a sudden, your mama's worldview is so ugly jokes weren't so easy to repudiate. Ah, cut to Monica Cole disgustedly taking out her headphones. How dare you, Heath?

That was a pre-smirched word and you know it. word you know it and in a long line of racist embarrassing and embarrassingly racist scandals that organization has racked up promoting a christmas toy drive for literally this is serious whites only is definitely up there i mean it got to be top five, at least. That's seriously what they did this year. Moms for Liberty is doing a whites-only toy drive. Wow. It's like, I feel like this came from a what could be controversial enough to distract from our rapey sex triangle meeting. Right? It sure did.

Yeah. And for the record, I said we should make a croquembouche, but they wouldn't listen. So, you know, that's their loss. All right. And a big thanks to Brian for the link. Scathingnews at gmail.com. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Heath, are you telling me that not only can folks send us

the latest atheism news at scathingnews at gmail.com, but they'll be entered to win one of our limited edition atheist Elf on a Shelf alternatives watching Wittgenstein, who doesn't judge you for the evil you do, but does want to have a discussion about you

and the failures of the boundary of language around those behaviors. Cool language stuff. We also have an elf themed one. It's Gnome Chomsky. Yeah! We moved away from the rhyme to like an alliteration and then I did

it's fine. So here's the official announcement from the Liberty Moms. It was on Telegram by the way. Really bad start. Their Telegram channel is called Moms for Liberty Uncensored. Uncensored. I'm subscribed. Sadly not what I was

expecting when I saw Moms for Liberty Uncensored as a title. They shared a flyer for a, again this is serious, for a whites only toy drive organized by the likewise colored supremacy group known as the national justice party they dubbed the toy drive operation white christmas and like even rudolph would say it's a little too on the nose come on? The non-miscegenated toy drive aims to assist the downtrodden

white people of America and all the others need not apply. According to the flyer, quote, in the interest of racial justice and pro-white advocacy, you can't say those things at the same fucking time,

whatever. In the interest of those two things, we want to ensure that white families in need are not turned away as they frequently are by other charitable efforts end quote are they though so what happened i think it literally is that they probably saw that public assistance was disproportionately going to minorities and they assumed that the problem was that they were discriminating against the needy white fuck.

Exactly what happened. Alright everybody, shut it down. We found the perfect metaphor for the religious right. I assume we just play this story on a loop from now on. What are you guys going to do now that the podcast is over? I was thinking butcher. Maybe we could do butchers. Cheese monger.

Butcher sounds fun. I was thinking cheese monger nice meat and cheese all right well of course the flyer it's limited for space so the national justice party doesn't provide any examples of the rampant toy-based racial injustice against the whites but the ad did state it would be using anonymous methods to deliver the donated items. Almost like they're aware they should be very, very ashamed of something, but they can't quite put their pasty little fingers on it. Let me guess.

They're going to donate the toys while wearing a hood? Moms for Liberty, they've yet to respond to the backlash, although it's not clear if they even understand the problem or why there would be backlash. And considering the co-founder of their puritanical bigot group is now, as we said earlier, embroiled in a giant scandal after her husband got accused of sexual assault by the third member of their now ex-thruple, they've got their controversy plate kind of full. Bottom line, I'll be sending nothing but black barbies to that toy drive enjoy and in none too angry news anyone who's come out the other side of a strict catholic school upbringing can vouch for a nun's capacity for violence any indiscretion however minor could potentially be met with a swift smack of the ruler, an angry slap across the face, or in some cases, a flawless roundhouse kick.

Okay, you know weird Catholic schools, what? Yeah, but in my Catholic school, the nun's weapon of choice was embittered passive-aggressive disapprobrium. So to be honest, I'd have preferred the karate 100%. See, exactly. It could always be worse. And this is all perfectly sanctioned by the lord of course when it comes to assaulting with impunity the cross is just as good as a police badge

thank you yeah so when an ongoing dispute hit a fever pitch between environmental activists and the construction of a lavish mega church sister mary marg Margaret and her kin were ready to throw hands. Hands? I would have assumed they'd go with nunchucks. What the fuck do I know? Amazing. So this story comes to us from the south of France, where plans for a 26,000 square foot holy compound have been underway for seven years. The Roman Catholic group Missionary Family of Our Lady hopes to usher in godly pilgrimages to the local Catholic community of 150 Catholics. And as work slowly

continues to break ground, climate activists have been fighting to preserve the lush Ardeche mountainside and protected species threatened by the massive religious center. Okay, but it's a new place for the nuns. So a habitat, if you will. How dare you? Even a former local archbishop, Jean-Louis Balsa, objected to the church's construction and called its size and scale, quote, disproportionate to the needs of the community. Yeah, it has a size. Got it.

Like, I'm dying to know what he thinks the right number is or even what the unit would be that he's using. Square meters per soul? Is it proportionate at what number? Exactly. And look, I want to admit,

I'm not usually a huge fan of when environmental activists position themselves on the other side of building stuff, right? They're usually trying to spoil a perfectly good telescope platform so that a bird that's been dead for 50 years has a summer vacation home. But in this case, we're talking about a building that has a net negative versus an open field. So I'm team Greenpeace. Yeah. No, but, and meanwhile, they're like, but if we don't tear down this forest, how will we teach people to be good stewards of God's creation? Exactly. Yeah. So, so far,

activists have been able to slow down the church raising by disputing errors in the authorization forms. But back in October, when construction began in earnest, they were forced to show up in person to block excavators that were deployed to tear down protected wildlife. person to block excavators that were deployed to tear down protected wildlife. And then, on the second day of the protests, a group of nuns and friars assembled to thwart the protesters and protect the construction material, reflecting that famous Christian saying, what environmental destruction would Jesus facilitate? Yeah. What would Jesus do? Yeah. There it is. So anyways, there they stood, the army of heaven on one side, army of earth on the other. But when one lone environmental protester broke through the Catholic throng and headed for an excavator,

the doom music began in earnest and it was time to draw sword for the Lord. In a viral video that you, podcast listener, can watch for free as many times as you want. I'm going to say it 25 times. You can't stop watching it. You can't stop. It's incredible. It's incredible. a nun can be seen giving chase and flying tackling an older protester into a muddy ditch in a moment that would make mean Joe Green throw her a jersey to wear over her hat.

She pulls out a switchblade, but it's a ruler. The hippies hold hands to block a bulldozer and starts whacking the hands apart. The tackle is so good. It's like an open field tackle. It's such a beautiful tackle. It's exactly, hey, whatever you're picturing, podcast listener, it's that. It is actually the thing you're picturing.

So yeah, with construction still tied up in red tape, it's uncertain which side will emerge victorious, but just to be safe, protesters should probably brush up on their hand-to-hand combat trading because if the nuns ever plan on breaking out the rosaries and swingable incense burners,

they're in for a hurting. And on that note, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Pre-recorded Heath, pre-recorded Eli, pre-recorded Marsh. Thanks as always. To Manji. And when we come back,

half of us are going to polish off David Icke. Wait. Shoes? No. Candle? Stupid. Hey, Eli, what's the matter? It's Anna.

She hated her Christmas presents. She did? Oh, yeah. She did that thing where she opened it and she was like, oh, fun. But then they immediately put it super far from them, you know? Oh. Ouch. Ouch, indeed.

I've got to get her something really special to make up for it. Well, why don't you try tickets to Godawful Movies Live March 2nd in Orlando, Florida? Anna doesn't need tickets to the live show. She's in the cast. Do the ad. I mean, Godawful Movies Live in Orlando March Florida. Anna doesn't need tickets to the live show. She's in the cast. Do the ad. I mean, God Awful Movies live in Orlando

March 2nd? That's right. Beat the winter blues with us down in Orlando for an evening of fun roasting Christian movies. And onstage shenanigans Noah can't delete

from your memory. Though I wish I could, yes, and you'll wish that too, probably. And hey, if you want to get someone something really special,

why not get them a platinum package, which includes a night of food, drinks, and fun with the cast? What's a better Christmas gift than gaslighting Heath into picking the wrong word during code names, am I right? It's true. So head over to GodawfulMoviesLive.com for tickets today. Thanks, Noah.

You really saved my bacon. So hey, so what were you going to get for Anna if I didn't think of tickets? Oh, I told you, my bacon. Was that tofu? Tofu bacon? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

It's been almost three years since we first cracked open David Icke's Everything You Need to Know But Have Never Been Told. We chose this book on the recommendation of somehow still friend of the show, Michael Marshall. And whatever I did, Marshall, I'm fucking sorry. Okay, man, I'm sorry. And we've been slowly pecking away at it now for 1,043 days. pecking away at it now for 1,043 days. But our Christmas present to ourselves this year is never

having to read a goddamn word of it again. A present which Heath characteristically opened up early because he's not here for this one. As we wrap up the postscript in this final installment of Everything You Need

to Nope. So Eli, are you going to know. So Eli, are you going to miss it? Yeah, but if the longing gets too bad, I have a cousin who I'm pretty sure is schizophrenic that I'm friends with on Facebook, so I can always get my fix on his page. Oh, well, there you go.

Yeah. So yeah, so quick recap. Aliens or lizards or Jews or demons from a lower dimension via Saturn, and they're trying to feed on your sad by making everyone woke. 689 pages to get there, but that is where we got. Yeah, and also he's not mad about it. He's laughing, actually.

You're crying because you lost your YouTube channel. You are. Yes. Now, okay, so we knocked out the final chapter last time around, but since Davidid ike is never done talking there's also a postscript i guess the illuminati did extra evil shit in the weeks immediately following his publication like they were holding off a bunch of their evil shit hoping to catch david after he'd written the book but exactly damn it he wrote more like their week

between christmas and new year's he just really but they go into overtime yeah so what pray tell happened that was so important he had to go back into his book Antifa shit Antifa apparently

is an Illuminati funded effort to start a civil war in the US yeah say what you will about reading this book but it's definitely been like a thousand plus days

of listening to the anti-Sjw oldies station like oh yeah yeah they thought we were yeah so now he literally both sides nazism right he's like there are nazi white supremacists sure but there are also nazi black and brown supremacists yeah no there aren't david well you know what I mean. No, I don't. Yes. Yes, you do. You're Antifa. Well, and he explains that Antifa is just like ISIS. Brown. You did know what he meant. You got me there. They're also the harbinger of World War III. Which is weird because Fa was the reason for World War II. You'd think they'd take more of the blame, but no. You'd think, yeah.

It's got to be so hard to be a bootlicker and warn that all levels of government are controlled by an interdimensional evil cabal. But he manages to thread that needle nicely in this postscript. Yeah, at this point, this book's target audience is David Icke, end of list.

Yes. Yeah. Then he presents the heritage not hate delusion vis-a-vis the confederate statues he literally compares taking them down to the destruction of idols by isis sorry david did you say that the south worships slave owners and traitors as gods and it's bad to not let them do that is that what you said well yeah so yeah he refers to the zionist southern poverty law center in case you're wondering if he's still trying to disguise the anti-semitism and how hard he's trying shockingly also hates the anti-defamation league ahead of his time and behind it also if he explains that if this book that we're reading doesn't sell well that will mean that the adl terrorists won oh okay i got it at one point he starts just hate

listing all the venues that canceled on him in the last couple of years and can i say it's an impressive list of venues right yes we could literally arrange a you told david ike to go fuck yourself live show yeah that'd be fun we get to go to england so yeah he explains that when they cancel his events they're not even thinking of the veterans who died face down in the muck to give him the right yeah he's got this whole long like i'm just a simple caveman author. What effect could I possibly have on world events bit? Oh, man. I wish that were true, David.

I really, really wish that were true so bad. I wish you were so not as important as you are. And then, like, out of nowhere, he goes, also, when I say reptilians, I don't mean Jews. They just happen to be Zionist reptilians that control the banking system and killed Jesus.

He suggested that the U.S. government is in the pockets of major defense contractors and banking giants, which seems like the conspiracy theorist version of when a psychic starts off by telling you

that you feel stressed. Yeah, I'm just setting him gently on a shelf. I'm going to miss this here broken clock, David. I'm going to miss it. Unless there be any single bad take meme that he neglects to say, we get a but her email section here as well.

Yes, which again, to be clear, David has hinted here in this book and explicitly said other places that Hillary Clinton fucks and eats babies. Yes. So in that context, her email security is lax is a weird shot to take in the postscript of your book. Right.

Also, he tells us that North Korea isn't all that bad. Yes. And he's right. They aren't lizards. That seems to be one of his big points there. Okay. So in his left hand, he's got, there's a secret cabal of magical demons with alien technology.

They control every aspect of world events. And then in his right hand, he's got, they've been targeting North Korea for regime change since 2000. I feel like that's a one or the other scenario. Yeah. What is North Korea's secret sauce here? He doesn't really give us a hint. Is it parasites? Are the parasites the thing?

And then he says, he's like, also global warming, still bullshit. I'm like, yeah, man, you said that in the book. You don't have to repeat that in the post. Did it not stop being bullshit after the book went to print? Well, thank you, sir. He also, he brings up Jennifer. He feels like he has to dunk on Jennifer

Lawrence. He's like, well, you you know she said hurricanes were trump's fault i'm like no she she implied that electing climate change deniers made climate change worse is what she oh well i know he actually got me there because i actually get all my climate change policy recommendations from the hunger games press tour i still do okay well yeah so i'm glad there's a new one coming out. I've had no takes. None for so long. But the real culprit for the hurricanes, Ike explains, is the Illuminati who are using weather controlling technology to convince you that climate change is real. He literally, he tries to quibono hurricanes.

Yeah, which is a weird move because he's not running for Congress yet. Right, yeah, exactly. And at this point, he just gives up on maintaining any kind of linear narrative through the prose script and he descends into just listing and another things in bullet points. Yes, literally. It's just like

how are more thoughts I couldn't be bothered to sentence. Yes, they will be 14 another things here, by the way. Fuck yeah. The first bullet point, of course, is that the transgenders are out of control. He says that schools are banning skirts and mandating gender neutral shoes. Okay, look, I'll admit, I didn't really have a lot of issues with dress codes growing up, but I feel like if we could get creepy gym teachers across the country to agree that dress codes are a tool of a trans non-binary leftist android, we could prevent so much shaming and trauma.

No, that's fair. Let's lean into this one. saw a news article about DARPA teaming up with somebody or another to make something called the segmented planar image detector for electro optical reconnaissance or spider just like the analogy that he's been using and and the spider the segmented planar it looks at stuff. Just like a spider does. Coincidence? Not. Yeah. And then he points that to a report,

which he says shows that Building 7 was a controlled demolition. Weird thing to add into what is essentially the PPS of your book, David. Can I throw that out there? You figured it would be front and center. He talks about the Labor Party ousting a leader just because she mused publicly

on how many white women get raped by Pakistani immigrants. He says that Google, YouTube, and Facebook stole the election for Trump. David, you forgot what side you're on again. Shit. David.

He tells us about a petition that demands that George Soros be declared a terrorist and have all his assets seized. And I'm like, look, man, I'm all for eating the rich, but let's do it alphabetically by religion, okay? What? Okay. Why do you hate atheists and Buddhists, Noah? That's what I'm hearing from you right now.

No, atheist isn't a religion. It's a philosophy. We'd be classified under none. And Buddhists suck. You know what I mean. There it is. I knew I'd find your path. He says the powers that be are dead set against Brexit. And I'm like, well, then they're not the powers that be. They're the powers that wish they could be.

God. He says that the EU commissioners called for a single president of the EU. And we all know that with the array of accents available there, we're virtually guaranteed to wind up with the Antichrist on that one. So there's that. Yeah, I didn't think an Antichrist fit into the David Icke mythology. I mean, I still feel like it doesn't, but he'll get it in there, right? He's like a Marvel writer.

Yeah, right, really. Yeah, he says Whole Foods isn't competing fairly in the market. And I'm like, oh yeah, that seems out of place place i felt like circling that in my book right like i have to complete my place mat he's in the middle of writing his final words on the giant conspiracy that unites the universe and he's like also that guacamole this morning was fucking insanely expensive six dollars for like a little shitty thing i've seen then they're fucking ripping me off. And he closes by saying that Netanyahu is a warmongering demon

and I'm like, okay, one for 14. You know. Okay, I mean, depending on what in on it means, I'm willing to give him two for 14. Three too, because the Whole Foods thing, yeah. The Whole Foods thing, yeah, thank you. But just because his random bullet points are over

doesn't mean the book's over because he still has one more page long story for us he basically he wanted to complain about how his egregious wrongness is being made to look bad by even more egregious wrongness on other conspiracy sites right he's like he basically comes right out and says well the key is that you make up shit that isn't debunkable. He says the problem with other websites isn't that they're wrong, it's that they're so easy to debunk.

I like this. It's like how occasionally we'll talk a little shop on the show for podcasters in our audience. He's parting the curtain a little bit. And the penultimate thought of the entire book is, how dare Facebook take down my post and not the other guys? And then the ultimate thought,

the final words in this behemoth 700-page fucking book are, quote, one final, final thought, always keep your eyes on Georgie boy, end quote. Where Georgie boy is, of course, George Soros. Yeah. And in my head, we then lowered him into a big vat of lava. Right?

So that's what happened in my head. It's in my head too. Let's take a minute. So Eli, are you going to leave an Amazon review on this one, you think? I try, but the Zionists keep lowering my stars. Oh, yeah, they'll get you. So, okay. So, over the past years, in conjunction with this show, you have now read the Bible, the

Quran, the Book of Mormon, Mama Bear Apologetics, The Case for Christ, and this pile of shit. So, where does this one rank, you think? Ooh, okay. I'm pretty confident we're the only three people on earth who have read this book so in a way the only person it's harmed is us which is better so i'm gonna say fifth place damage to the world second place most unreadable huh okay second place all right so they were six all together which means there's one worst in terms of damage and one worse in terms of readability, correct?

Right. Yes. Exactly. So which is which? Okay, I'm going to say the Koran, harder to read. Okay. Yeah, and I'm going to say that the Koran, worse. Yeah, no, that's fair.

That's fair. Yeah, it's definitely not fair. That's fair. Yeah, it's definitely not as dangerous as the holy books, but I'm going to put it fourth most dangerous behind all of them because like, honestly,

the last decade and a half in American politics has just been an object lesson in the dangers of conspiracy thinking. And I was going to go second most unreadable after Book of Mormon.

What? Yeah, because like as bad as the Quran is, it's really short compared to this in the Book of Mormon. That's fair. It was shorter. We spent a lot less time. But we had Mormon Peace Theater,

the Gaul voice. You know, I only remember the good things. I don't think I actually remember the Book of Mormon. I remember us doing bits about the Book of Mormon, and that was fun. You remember the tight as a dish bit. That's really everything you need to remember. Alright, well I'll tell you what. That does it.

The book is closed. It shall never be opened again, but that does leave me with one final dilemma and that is what should I do with my copy? Because I don't want it to fall into the wrong hands. I can't abide the idea of destroying a book, even this book, but I'm afraid if I

keep it, my heirs are going to find it after I die and be like, you know what? I don't want Uncle Noah's Nintendos that bad. That's fair. That's fair. So listeners, I leave it to you. Post your suggestions on our Facebook page or email me at noillusionsatyahoo.com and put need to nope in the subject line so I can find them. If I get any suggestions I like, I'll let you know in the future. Charity auction. Okay, that's actually not a bad idea. But I'm the charity. There's the bad idea. But yes, but barring

that, this will be the last you hear of everything you need to nope. Charity auction, my copy. It's a PDF I stole. Before we drop our ball this week, I want to thank all the listeners

that made 2023 such a great year for us. I never have wanted to push the snooze button on a year more than I wanted to with this one. Anyway, that's all the blast 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 Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half-sister show Citation Needed

debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'd fucking suck if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for another year of hilarious insights.

I want to thank Eli Bosnick for another year of insightful hilarity. I want to thank the captivating and brilliant Lucinda Lusions for too many things to fit into this show. I also want to thank Michael Marshall from Skeptics with a K and Be Reasonable for helping us with these get ahead headlines. I also want to thank Seamus for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. And if

you're interested in Philly sports, be sure to check out the show notes for a link to his podcast, Philly Sports Spotlight. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most marvelous mammals, but I can't do it by name because i'm recording this a week in advance like i mentioned earlier but don't worry i promise i will compliment the ever-loving fuck out of you next week the point is though is that together this indeterminate number of people helped keep the show going for another year by giving us money not everybody has the money it takes to give some to us for a thing you already have but if you do you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com skating atheist where you'll learn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode.

I can speak the English words. 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 spent all your money on God of Film Movies live tickets, 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. Additional writing for this episode was provided by Mike Schuster and Andrea Romano 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 ScalingAlias.com the preceding podcast was a production of puzzle in a thunderstorm llc copyright 2022 all rights reserved