The Scathing Atheist - 587: Graham Cracker Edition

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

In this week’s episode, Father McHale commits a real boner, a German church tries to party like it's 1989 (Taylor's version), and we’ll marvel once more at how bad the world’s most popular apologetics book is. --- 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/ --- Headlines: Statue of Billy Graham to go up at US Capitol: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/a-statue-of-disgraced-evangelist Priest says christ died with an erection: https://www.thedailybeast.com/parishioners-report-father-thomas-mchale-for-saying-jesus-died-with-erection A Louisiana school gave kids a biblical advice book comparing sex to slavery: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/a-louisiana-school-gave-kids-a-biblical Joking Pope refers to prayers against him inside the Vatican: https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2024/05/joking-pope-refers-to-prayers-against-him-inside-the-vatican Taylor Swift themed church service attracts thousands: https://archive.is/Licrl

Warning, by the time I finish this sentence, this podcast will already have started using words like fuck. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by My Sheets Rock, Factor, Stamps.com and by all the patrons that help make it happen. And if you're thinking about joining them, May is the best month to do it. Madriana is still going strong and we're on pace to have to get coffee enemas. Learn more at Mayytren.com. And now, the scathing atheist.

Hello, this is Bane Shakes Charlie. Anytime one of my YouTube videos mentions LGBTQ plus rights, or determinism, or any degree of political literacy, or even just that video game women aren't required to be pornographic, the comments section quickly reminds me that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men, women, and inbees. It's Thursday. It's May 16th. And it's the International Day of Light.

All days are days of of light, stupid holiday. Yeah right, I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. Fuck you and your holiday dub. I'm Heath Enright, and from Samuel Alitos, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is the Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, Father Michael commits a real... boner. A German church tries to party like it's 1989, Taylor's version.

And we'll marvel once more at how bad the world's most popular apologetics book is. But first, the diatribe. Yo, those motherfuckers came from my library and I wasn't even there. So here's the story from the Okefenokee Regional Library in Waycross, Georgia. In 2022, the library decided to put out a string of rainbow flags for Pride Month, and they got such a positive response from the LGBTQ community, who, let's face it, they're not super used to feeling welcome in Waycross, Georgia, that they decided to just leave those up year round. And so predictably, a couple of fundamentalist Christian assholes freaked the hell out about it, and in rural South Georgia fundamentalist Christian assholes have a lot of dick to swing,

so pretty soon a coalition of churches started a campaign to get them removed. They'd be damned if their library was going be welcoming and inclusive and the library wasn't looking to pick a fight so ultimately they decided to remove the flags and not put them out again until Pride Month. But they still wanted to send that message of inclusiveness that was so important to their LGBTQ patrons so they put up a mural that says libraries are for everyone. And below that there's these little stick figures representing different identities. There's a figure in a wheelchair, a figure in a hijab, there's white figures, black figures, brown figures.

And one of them is a figure holding a rainbow striped heart. Well, the local bigots took that as a poke in the eye and they redoubled their efforts. They demanded that A, that mural be taken down, B, that mural not be replaced with some other gay shit again, we already fell for that one, and C, that, and yes, this was included in their fucking petition, the library's policies be changed so that trans people have to pee in the wrong bathroom. And there was a huge fucking fight about this for over a year.

Lawsuits were threatened, Christians protested. People showed up at the library in goddamn Proud Boys T-shirts to intimidate the librarians. Funding was withheld from the library for reasons the city's commissioners swear have nothing to do with the mural. That would be a clear and obvious violation of free speech, so it couldn't be that. Anyway, like so many stories about prejudice

in the state of fucking Georgia, the bigots won. Last week, the board voted to take down the mural. Local churches had successfully bullied the library into rescinding their everyone is welcome here message. And LGBTQ people in this city were reminded of their place. Now you might be wondering why you're just hearing about this now. Right? Like after all the scathing community could have probably lent meaningful support to this

effort. There was a legal defense fund for the library that you could have contributed to. There was a petition to save the mural that you could have signed. And to the very least, we could have overwhelmed the bigots in their online arguments about this. And here I am just telling you about it after the fact. Why? Because I'm also just learning about it.

Religious bigots have been fighting social justice in my hometown, and the epicenter is less than a mile from my fucking house, and I didn't hear about it until it was over. And believe me, I've been kicking myself hard over that. You know, there was a public comments period. There was a meeting where they invited members of the community to come speak for or against the mural. I could have diatribed right in those homophobic Jesus Freaks fucking faces on the record and

they'd have had no choice but to take it. And I missed my fucking window. I missed it because I know more about anti-trans legislation in Tennessee and anti-gay legislation in Florida and anti-atheist legislation in Washington, DC than I do about what's going on in the town I live in. And since I learned about that the other day, I've been asking myself a lot of whys. Like most towns, ours doesn't really have a local paper that you can subscribe to anymore. And sure, there are Facebook community groups that I could belong to and local meetups that I could attend, but I don't.

And it's because, get this, I don't feel welcome at them. There's always a bunch of Christian bullshit. I can't join a local Facebook group without being inundated with God. Help me so much today and my church is seeking funds and Jesus loves you. Bullshit. The constant stream of Christianity bigotry and Christian bigotry has driven me out of every local group I've ever joined in this area. But that's the point, isn't it? The whole idea is to be exclusionary. That's why they want to put the Ten Commandments out in front of the fucking courthouse and in God we trust on the wall

and have a prayer before the meeting. These are all different ways of telling the non-Christians that we are unwelcome in our hometowns, that we have no role to play in the city's governance, that we are forever outsiders. The whole reason people take to these Facebook groups to profess their love of Jesus is to push out the non-Christians. And even for a person like me, it worked. When the LGBTQ community in my town needed my voice, I was home hiding from all their Jesus shit. Look, as I'm coming to realize, for a lot of us,

we're all the watchdog our towns have. With the death of local papers, if you live in a town of less than 40, 50,000 people, you might well represent the entirety of that town's available secular activism. And that's why Christians are working really hard to keep you away from the city's meetings and friends at the library groups

and every other civic organization that might help you keep abreast of all the fucked up shit their theology is doing. You know, online organization is great. It offers a like-minded community in places where geography would never allow for that. But we do still have to be active on a local level, even if that means seething our way through the occasional invocation or opening prayer, and even if you have to

be the only atheist in the room. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Wheel and Pully to My Incline Plane, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnik. Fellas, are you ready to be a bunch of tools? I wrote wheel noise to myself here and I don't know what a wheel noise is. Okay, but this does bring up something important to me emotionally. I do think it's weird that wheel and pulley made the same list of simple tools as wedge, right? Like wedge. Right. Plus wheel obviously gets two turns. Yeah, because the wheel and axle and pulley.

There's the pulley. Yeah, it's actually the wheel and axle. Right. Thank you. All right. Well, I need to a quick break now to write a formal apology to all the big wedge fans that are bound to write in. So we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, My Sheets Rock. And so when I say go, you're just going to punch it. Okay, are you going to count?

I don't know. I was thinking I'd sort of feel it out. What? Don't feel it out. Do a count. It's like Top Gun. Hey guys. Wait, is that a jet engine?

Sure is Noah. At last I'm going to sleep better than ever. Sleep better than ever? Yeah, me and Eli are warm sleepers, but with the wind, this baby will kick up. We're going to be sleeping cool all summer long. Guys, if you're warm sleepers, why don't you just try the regulator sheets from My Sheets Rock? What are the regulator sheets from-

From My Sheets Rock. What? No, he can't interrupt- I claim the midnight accord. No, absolutely. Get out of here. Get out of here. No, he's right. The clock just struck in the fey mood. Come on!. Get out of here. Get out of here. No, that's right.

The clock just struck in the fey mood. Come on! Point. Eat it. Thank you. How did I not know that? Thank you, Dasher. Anyway, uh, no, talk about the sheets or whatever.

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our favorite sheets. We've bought four new pairs since then. That's why I, Eli Bosnik, personally endorse My Sheets Rock. But I don't know, what if I don't believe you? Don't believe me? Because you're a liar. Don't. Who I hate. Sorry, I don't know, I got into a weird character. Don't believe me?

Their 2,200 five-star customer reviews speak for themselves. Plus, they offer a 90-day risk-free trial and free shipping and returns. Check out My Sheets Rock at mysheetsrock.com slash scathing and enter our code scathing for 10% off and free shipping. That's mysheetsrock.com slash scathing, code scathing. All right, Noah, thanks. You guys know that the air that comes out of a jet engine

is like hot, right? What? No, it's not. Google it not google it oh huh would you look at that thousand degrees yeah we almost died again yeah and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight on the day this episode releases they're going to be unveiling a new seven foot statue of billy fucking graham in the US Capitol. And if you're thinking to yourself, wait, is that the same Billy Graham that said AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality,

told Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders to pump the brakes in 1963 and urge Nixon to do something about the stranglehold the Jews have over our country? I want to assure you that yes, that is the bigot in question. He is being honored with a bronze fucking sculpture in the very heart of our democracy. Okay, I know this isn't the point.

You said seven feet tall for the statue, but Graham was like 6'2". They're making him a little bit bigger for a step, like hundred and fourteen percent scale. It's weird. Well, they're they're accounting for all the dead bodies he's standing on Heath. No, they're not. No. My story. So yeah, so one of the perks of statehood in the U.S. is that each state gets two statues in the Capitol building of prominent people from their state. And if you look through the list, it's really a weird mixture of who's who and who's that. So anyway, up until 2018, North Carolina's honorees were Charles Brantley Acock and Zebulon

Baird Vance, both avowed white supremacists. But in 2018, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper decided it was time to highlight some of North Carolina's other bigotries. So they voted to have the statue of Acock removed and replaced with the aforementioned anti-Semitic homophobe. Okay, which bigotries are okay, Noah? You're making this impossible. I checked and New Jersey state statues are a traffic jam and snooky.

Yeah, no, not a lot of people know that. Go New Jersey. I like that Ohio stole Thomas Edison from Jersey because he was born there. Fuck yeah. Now I should be clear that this isn't really a church state separation issue. The $650,000 price tag for the statue

came from the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, not the state, and Billy Graham is hardly the first religious figure to be honored with a statue in the Capitol building. He's not even the worst. Utah devoted one of its statues to Brigham fucking Young, whose order to exterminate the Timpanogos tribe in the Utah Valley might not even have been the worst thing he ever did.

But the whole idea that North Carolina is going to finally get around to replacing their egregious bigot with a different egregious bigot is plenty enough to earn our ire without a constitutional violation. OK, there's got to be a more woke answer than Billy Graham. Like they don't have a moderate Confederate general from North Carolina to use? Yes. Okay, but Georgia should put their Martin Luther King Jr.

statue like a foot behind him, just glaring at him, right? Sort of turn it into a living diorama. Right, the fun fact actually, despite being the state that gave us MLK and Jimmy Carter, Georgia used their statues to honor the vice president of the Confederacy and the guy who first thought to use ether as anesthesia. Anyway, not great. Yep.

And they wouldn't do they wouldn't do Rosa Parks. We like the Congress had to do that separately and just be like, we're putting Rosa Parks in their assholes. Yep. Speaking of which, in case you're thinking this is a situation of who the fuck else are they gonna honor, I wanna remind you that North Carolina is the state that gave us both John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk,

not to mention Maya Angelou. And yeah, I mean, Maya's still alive and they only do dead people statues, but. Free them. Right? But Maya, she's fucking 86. How much longer can the living thing possibly last? Exactly.

If she's willing to get into a tub of shellac, we won't even need to make a statue, Maya. And honestly, look, if the alternative is Billy fucking Graham, he put it like a statue of Zach Galifianakis or Mr. Beast would be better. So I feel like they could have found a more worthy recipient. Love a Mr. Beast statue. Hehehehe. And in his risen news, sometimes here on The Scaling Atheist, a news item comes across our desk that just feels made for our program.

Mm-hmm. Ben Shapiro announcing to the world that his wife told him a wet vagina is a disease. Four seasons total landscaping. And now, a priest in England who was reprimanded for announcing to the parish that Jesus died with a boner. Okay, weird, but it's either that or the Son of God died flaccid or he died half chubbed. Those are the options.

Like what do Christian people want the answer to be? I feel like, I feel like half ch half chop, right? It still looks bigger. But one way or the other, they're getting back to talking about Jesus's dick. And that's a good thing. I recently learned that 17th century Vatican librarian Leo Alasius theorized that the rings of Saturn were actually Jesus's foreskin risen into the heavens. And we need more of that in our theology, damn it. We need more dick stuff in our theology.

Exactly. Right. So first off, big thanks to Patrick, who was the first of many, many listeners to send us this story to scathingnews at gmail.com. You are all correct. Usually I promise podcast listeners like a reward for sending us atheist news to scalingnews.gmail.com, but this week you get to hear about Jesus's boner. So, you know, sometimes the labor and the reward are one in the same. You know what I'm saying? Now, to be fair to Father Thomas McHale, the priest at Our Blessed Lady Immaculate in Black Hill Concert, County Durham, he was not going for a roast when he took to the pulpit for Good Friday. He was hoping to imbue the sermon with seriousness and gravitas by graphically describing the

crucifixion. And one of those graphic details is that when crucified people sag under their own weight, all the blood rushes to the bottom of their body, which can result in an involuntary erection, which led Father Michael to solemnly intone to a church full of families on Good Friday, apparently, quote, Yes, Jesus died with an erection. But it wasn't voluntary. And that's important. I don't understand the point he's making.

I want to know how it sounded to him in his head before he said it, right? It's a great question. It is a great question. Maybe he worked out these servants, man. That's what I was going to say! Who is he not bouncing these off of? So yeah, obviously families at the service were not pleased with this announcement and a complaint was filed. A spokesman for the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle told the Times quote, a complaint was received and has been investigated in keeping with our diocesan complaints

policy. The investigation has been very recently completed and the complaint is upheld. End quote. It's upheld. So now Father Mikael gives a sermon with like a correction about the penal state? What happens now? What does that mean? Right. How many Hail Marys even? And what the fuck did they investigate? Right. Thank you. Right? With the good, hey, crucify me and check my dick, guys. Honestly, I bet they were just relieved. This was like their easiest priest talks about a boner case they've had in years. So good news, Father McHale has not lost his position, though he has gained a dedicated

fan in our podcast. One last thing about this story, if you don't know, it's matriot and we're hitting you pretty hard this month to join or upgrade your pledges. But if you needed one last push to give us your hard earned cash, let it be the site of this week's podcast script, which patrons can do over at patreon.com forward slash scathing atheist, because the photo, every single news outlet has run of Father McHale,

which I have included in our notes, is so fucking funny. It's like you asked AI to generate a grainy photo of a guy who just told a congregation that Jesus died with a boner. It's like they took the photo right after he said Jesus died with a boner. It's incredible. Boner, classic.

That's him, absolutely. That's him, absolutely. That's him, 100%. And in missionary composition news, a public school in Louisiana led a local church group into the building, already a huge problem. And that group passed out a biblical propaganda book to all the kids that compares premarital sex to slavery. Ah!

I hate to see it. And unless they're talking about a very advanced role-playing scenario in which everyone involved is super cool with it, that's a bad lesson for the sex ed curriculum. Also, this was in elementary school, so it was a bad lesson. So bad. Yeah. The truly fucked up thing here is that the aspect they're most likely to get in trouble for is teaching Louisiana schoolchildren about slavery God that's actually me

a big thanks to one of our intrepid listeners for sending us the story at skating news at gmail.com But more importantly for helping expose the insanity just in case there's any need for anonymity We'll call that listener see money the school in question is see money Lessie Moore Elementary in Pineville and see money has a kid who goes there and when that kid came home with a book of Christian fuck propaganda from elementary school see money Immediately contacted the FFRF and also Hemant Mehta, who wrote an excellent article about it. So here's what happened. Members of Journey Church came into the school and gave out copies of something called The Life Book. It's made by Gideon's International, the hotel

bible people, and it presents biblical lessons, but it's very intentionally crafted to appeal to a teenage audience by giving those terrible morality lessons a youthful twist of hip, dope, fat, raw, whatever. It's so stupid. All right, so a C segment waiting to happen. Thank you. Put them on the list. I mean, I was gonna read it just to find out

how much Riz this Jesus fellow had anyway But it's good that we'll get to talk about it on the show Yeah So Hemet's article which is linked in the notes mentions a few examples from the life book to give us an idea Of what we're dealing with and it's dumber than whatever you're picturing Instead of showing entire sections of the Bible. They have little summaries along with handwritten annotations in the margins from

HEPCATS that are just like you as a teenager by which I mean printed annotations in scripty fonts from fictional kids that say super rad stuff as understood by old Christian white guys who wrote this propaganda book for sure. Yeah, exactly. For example, in the story of Adam and Eve and the snake, it starts by saying, snakes can't be trusted. And then there's a margin note that says, totally hate snakes, Tay. Then it says, Adam and Eve thought it over and trashed their trust of God and chose to trust the snake Satan and took a bite of the apple.

And the margin there says, I know what it's like to make bad choices when it comes to trust V. Okay, V got molested by his pastor now. Yeah, exactly. This is going to be used as evidence. Also, are they hoping kids will think Taylor Swift contributed to their youth Bible? Like, what's that?

For sure, they're trying to hack that a little bit. And here's the section about premarital sex. It starts with a mention of Romans 6.16, which says approximately, "'If you present yourselves as obedient slaves, "'you are slaves of the one you obey either of sin Which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness? so

So there's bad slavery and good slavery So I'm lesson good work and then we get a relatable story from the made-up Tay character pretty sure from before says quote I have a really good friend who thought she and her boyfriend were ready for sex, so they went ahead and had it. They had it is the exact phrasing. She thought it was love, but found out pretty fast that it wasn't. She gave up her heart to a guy who didn't really care and dumped her a few weeks later, but then she figured that since she had already had sex once, it wasn't a big deal to do it again and again and again. This is what being a slave means. Is it?

No, I don't think that's what being a slave means. Nope. But it says that's what being a slave means. She couldn't stop herself even though she hated herself more and more every time she had sex with another guy. That's why I think God saves sex for marriage. Tay." End quote.

It sounds like Tay's friend is getting some really good dick and love in it. I just said, good on her, right? Just use protection no matter what Eli says, but good on you. Raw dogs only. Condoms are slavery. No. So. Condoms are slavery.

In response. They held me back from the microphone in response to all this the FFRF sent a letter to the school explaining What the fuck is wrong with you or something? Hopefully there's a voice of reason at the administration level. We'll see how it goes Regardless some amount of damage is already done the absurd age inappropriate propaganda is terrible But also this is some other damage, based on the photos posted by the school, we know that they made the kids listen to a terrifying Christian guy sing and play the guitar.

So it's a Geneva Convention issue as well. Thank you. Yeah. Podcast listener Heath has put a picture of this guitarist in our notes And if ever a haircut said I'm against premarital sex, it's this gentleman's He has predator bangs, right? Yeah. Those are And on that note, we're gonna pause for a word from this week's second sponsor factor And voila Duck a little home

That's pretty awesome, dude. Right? Hey guys, whatcha doin'? Eli showed me his private chef in a box. Oh, you talking about Factor? No, what's Factor? Great question. Factor's fresh, never-frozen meals are dietitian-approved and ready to eat in just two minutes.

So no matter how busy you are, you'll always have time to enjoy nutritious, great tasting meals. Wow, that sounds great, but do they have variety? Sure do. With 35 different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week, you'll always have new flavors to explore. It's true.

Factor sent us a box to try when they first became a sponsor. I love the food and the fact that it's ready in two minutes means I'll still eat great on a busy day All right, Heath. I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Head to factor meals dot com slash scathing 50 and use the code scathing 50 scathing 5-0 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month That's code scathing 50 at factor meals dot com slash scathing 50 to get 50% off your first box Plus 20% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active nice thanks heath

so wait if you didn't mean factor what's what's a chef in a box well didn't have Cecil again kidnapped is such a strong word it's the one the cops use, man. Yeah, we do. And in Predators and Prayer News, Prayer, we have a story about the Vatican. During a speech in Rome last week, Pope Ruby Soho, by the punk band called Francis, Pope Francis, decided to... It's getting long, it's getting long. He decided to go off script and tell a story and I'm pretty sure he

ended the story with a vague book style accusation that people inside the Vatican are trying to kill him with the magic of negative prayer. It does seem that way. Well good good we're running out of nicknames over here. Move on to a new old guy. It's been like 10 fucking years of this. Sure. Yeah. And a big thanks to Stormy Decisive for sending the link to scathingnews at gmail.com.

So let's start with a discussion of the Pope's comedy style. Apparently he has one go-to joke and he fucking loves it. And he usually finds a way to work it in when he's talking to someone. When he meets a follower, at some point they usually say something like, I'm praying for you. And that's when he says for or against. The joke being like, I'm such a rogue of a pope. I'm super divisive by not having all

the old bigotry, just most of it. So maybe you prayed for me, or maybe you prayed against me. That's what he thinks the joke is. Obviously the joke doesn't work though, because the setup includes, I'm praying for you. So when he says for or against, lots of people must be like, for what? I said, for.

But regardless, the power of prayer is the context here. We have billions of religious people across the world who think there's an epic cosmic tug of war based on wishing magic. Yeah. Yeah. Hey Pope, by the way, if a person is known for the one joke, it's either cause that person isn't funny or it's because that person was counting on me to edit that joke out of the show But didn't explicitly tell me that he was it's fair. Yeah, sometimes it's both

To be fair that bitch bureau's wife told him Now to be fair it is a better bit than the Dalai Lama's suck my tongue thing that he does for the kids. No, you're right. That's true Okay, so here's what happened during the speech He was addressing a conference that was organized in hopes of getting the birth rate in Italy back up Apparently a big problem in the world is not enough Italian babies So they had a conference weird job to get to a celibate guy though. Okay. Yeah. So he finished up his prepared remarks and then he launched into a personal story while his handlers started panicking, I'm sure.

According to Frankie, he met a wise old lady after a recent speech and they had a conversation. She gave him her recipe for age-defying ravioli and as usual he did his little joke at the end. It's genetics. And after he said, yeah, pray for me, not against, at the end she responded by saying, be careful, Father. They're praying against you inside there. And Francis pointed over his shoulder toward the Vatican as he told that part of the story. Then he said, Clever, huh? About this wise old woman.

So, I'm so curious, like, What the fuck is happening in the Vatican? Do you think he thinks he's being murdered? Well, what I really hope it is, is just rooms full of old men going Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, But with like homicidal theory. There's definitely some of that going. Also, don't you talk directly to God, man? Is he telling you about this behind your back homicidal praying? Hey man, I don't want to make things weird between you and Giuseppe, but this is what he had to say about you the other day.

It's a HIPAA violation for you to ask about his homicidal praying to me. I think you deserve to know. So yeah, he kind of framed it like a joke, what Francis did, but I don't think he was entirely joking. I really don't. I feel like he's walking around the Vatican very carefully,

like head on a swivel. At the very least, he's worried. Also, separately, I must admit, his go-to joke is actually funnier than I would have guessed from, you know, an 87-year-old Valsel dressed like an uncut penis. Funnier than I expected. It shows that he's at least a little bit self-aware about his absurd position as the conduit of the God of the universe. Now, just sell the Nazi gold and pay the victims also. There you go, yeah.

If your God's not telling you what I just said, you're talking to the other guy. Right. Or you're lying. Ooh, there's a chance. And finally tonight in theological Swift news, one of the weirder challenges you get as an atheist activist is what you would replace religion

with. And first off, that's a weird question. Like I feel like maybe we don't need to replace our child molesting tax free institutions of Bronze Age morality at all. But what the asker usually means is what we'll do to replace the community, how we'll replace a sense of belonging and an excuse to gather. And while the answer for me is fucking board game night, it could be a lot like the church service, which drew thousands of first time parishioners of a variety of faiths last week in Heidelberg, Germany, a church service themed after pop superstar Taylor Swift. Okay. Ooh, also for Tay Tay. But lose the church service.

Like they're so close to getting the point. Just do event themed after music. It's called concert. And we've had this technology for a while. Yeah, right. No, church plus X is always worse than just X. That's a universal truth. Yeah, exactly.

So first of all, I want to thank the Religion Media Center for bringing this to our attention If you like atheist news and you're here, so I know you do you should check them out They're especially good for international and UK based stories and you can learn more at religionmediacenter.org.uk That's a center spelled like you're a communist though though, RE. Exactly. Yeah, they're not perfect So I want to say at the outset that any religious service that starts with a priest solemnly intoning, sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby, is automatically my favorite religious service that's ever taken place.

But that doesn't necessarily make it a good thing, right? The service is an attempt to appeal to young people as priest of the service and self-proclaimed hobbyist DJ Vincenzo Petreca put it, quote, I think the church still has good answers to the important questions of life, but they are often packaged in a way that younger generations do not understand. It is not their language, end quote. Yeah, for example, young people bristle at slurs. Yeah, exactly.

And this is not Petreka's first jukebox service. Previous services have been themed after Michael Jackson, apropos, Madonna, and Bob Dylan. But none have been as popular as this one, which drew 1,200 attendees from all over Germany and sold out within a matter of hours. Okay, good work. I actually checked for Tay-Tay conspiracies in Germany based on this, and I didn't find anything. I guess I'll give it a couple of weeks. Something's going to pop up. She's a Psy-op against idiots without even trying. Just by existing, it's amazing. Right?

Exactly. But if the hope was that the church would become the new vaping your jewel, it doesn't seem to have stuck with young people. When asked if they would come back, two 13-year-olds who were attending church for the first time at the service said, quote, if there's another Taylor Swift service, yes, but we wouldn't go to a normal service. We're both not very religious. We're actually doing the paying attention version of just pressing the X button real fast during all the religious bullshit, but you have your fun.

So yeah, probably not the revival Father Patrika was hoping for. But the most important thing about this story is that it leaves us here at the scathing atheist with no choice but to put 10 seconds on the clock. Hymns at the Taylor Swift themed church service. Go! Okay, I don't know that many hymns. Um, Agnus Dei Tei. Boo!

Where is thy taefulness? There we go! Okay, I'll take the easy one. Amazing. Amazing taste. Do we all three just make the same fucking joke? Alright, well with apologies for not coming up with more shit for him and Taylor Swift, both of which I literally know less about than organic fucking chemistry, we'll wrap

the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Taylor's version. And when we come back, we'll hate read a little more CS Lewis. Can I have some more, Star? In a second, be patient. Dude, you have to put him away, come on. Hey guys, whatcha doin'? Eli's doing body horror again.

Keith, Kevin is right here. Look man, I'm right here. Okay Eli, what's with the human head sticking out of your pocket? Come on, guys, his name is Kevin. And for your information, I was jealous of the Stamps.com mobile app. What is the Stamps.com mobile app? It's like having the post office in your pocket wherever you are. Take care of mailing and shipping wherever you are, even on the go with Stamps.com mobile

app. All you need is a computer and printer. They even send you a free scale. And you can easily schedule package pickups through your Stamps.com dashboard. Automatically see your cheapest and fastest shipping options from different carriers. I mean, that does sound great. Exactly! That's why I shrunk down Kevin from the post office and put him in my pocket.

But does it save you money? Oh no, it was a painful and expensive process. No, I mean the stamps.com app. Oh yeah, the stamps.com app, yes, the app does. You can get rates that you can't find anywhere else, like up to 89% off USPS and UPS. Plus, you can order shipping and mailing supplies, labels, and even printers from the supply store when you run low. All right, Eli.

I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Make the same no-brainer decision as over one million other businesses with Stamps.com. Sign up with promo code SKAVING for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page and enter code scathing. All right Eli, thanks. So Kevin, how'd he even get you in there? I was forced into what are kind of a tube,

asked and answered, got it. I'm in a lot of pain. Sure. Yeah, I know that makes sense. I said a tube. Right. of the truth. Right. For years we resisted a breakdown of C.S. Lewis' mere Christianity because many believers and ex-believers warned us that it was actually pretty good. Well, 90 pages in, I'm comfortable saying those people were full of shit, which we learned yet again in this installment of God Awful Books. So in book one, Lewis proved to his own satisfaction and nobody else's that there had to be a

God. Now in book two, he's trying to establish that it's specifically the Christian one. We spent the first three chapters pointing out all the other gods don't make any sense. And now he's going to try to bring it home by pretending that Jesus does. So we're going to pick up the just who is this God person anyway conversation with Book 2, Chapter 4, the perfect penitent. So he opens up, he's like, okay, so either Jesus, this is a quote, either Jesus was what he said he was, a lunatic or something even worse.

Oh, even worse than a lunatic. something even worse. Oh, even worse than a lunatic. Oh my god. Also, I've seen a lot of dishonest appraisals of the liar lunatic or Lord apologetic, but it takes a genius like C.S. Lewis to come up with and also not a trickster demon. Well, this whole thing is just to establish that Jesus Christ wasn't, you know, like a normal human good teacher is what he says right at the end of the last chapter. Who are you arguing with though? And whoever it is, stop talking to them. They're going to sell you raw milk in like five seconds.

They are going to sell you raw milk. It's true. So yes. And CS Lewis is like, you know, before I was a Christian, I thought redemption on the cross was silly, but now I think it's less silly. And I'm like, oh, way to commit Clive. Okay, to be clear, an abusive alcoholic created humans with flaws and then decided to do a genocide.

But his son was like, hey dad, you wanna torture murder me instead, huh? And it worked. If that's the story you're going with, you can't medium believe it. Yeah, you gotta need to push all your chips in there, bud. C.S. Lewis is either a crazy person or a demon, according to his own bunch. Right, yeah, or Lord. Yeah, so he's like, you know, look, we don't know how or why Christ's death redeemed us. We just know that it did. And I'm like, how can you know it did if you don't know how or why Christ's death redeemed us. We just know that it did. And I'm like, how can you know it did if you don't know how or why?

Yeah, he dedicates this whole paragraph to explain it. I don't understand how salvation works on the subatomic level. I leave that up to the scientists, but I know it's true. And that's all that matters. Get me. Yeah, yeah. No, it's OK that they don't know what the fuck they're talking about, because people, you know, people had to eat

before they understood what vitamins were, right? It's like that. And that's why every single person is Christian, even though we haven't figured out like Christoflaven vitamin theory, right? Right, yeah, right. Just like how everyone eats food. But he's like, Christianity though,

it's like scientific formulae. And I'm like, in what ways? He's like, in that I don't understand them. Truly. Yeah, I think the point he's trying to make here is that like, look, scientists don't count the quirks to know how a specific scientific principle works. They use math and logic.

But to be clear, they counted the quirks first, right? And it's not like Lewis is gonna be using math or logic. Well, right, exactly, yeah. Yeah, he's trying to set up an analogy. The analogy is formula is to scientist, as Christianity is to, I was told there wouldn't be math, is what he likes. Yeah, exactly. So yes, you gotta have two things on each side, bud. If you start with two, the other side has to have two.

You went for a really stupid analogy, but didn't quite rise to that level. You missed. No, you didn't get it. Because you didn't get an analogy to happen. Right, yeah. But his theory of the case is that he actually doesn't need a theory of the case. He's just right. Damn it.

Yeah. Real quote. Any theories we build up as to how Christ dead did this are, in my view, quite secondary. Mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us. And even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself. End quote. And I wrote, are we sure C.S. Lewis wrote this and not Lewis Carroll. I'm getting real Lewis Carroll vibes. Snicker snack. Unicorns are actually made of leprechaun cum. Or not leprechaun cum. Either way, unicorns are God. Stop questioning the cum.

Right. That's an analogy, actually. So I actually got it all. Yeah, no, actually you did better than he did. So he's like, look, if God made sense, that would actually disprove his existence. Yes, he keeps saying that. Reminder, CS Lewis thinks a coherent God is exactly what Satan would do. Yes.

And that's how they get you. So the Christian God had to be absurd instead so you know he's real. Right, so okay, so but after three pages of saying, Christianity stays true, even if the underlying theories are proven false he offers up those underlying theories Right. So the theory of course is that Christ offered to bear all of the punishment that we sinners deserve for us and Actual quote of the book quote on its face. This is a very silly theory and I mean, that's how we know Satan didn't make it up though

Important yeah, you gotta check but he so he points out the like who would God be paying the debt to contradiction He doesn't answer he just points it out. He's like, okay Well, maybe it would make more sense if you think about it like paying a bill and I'm like But not really though because again, who would he be paying the bill to? a bill and I'm like but not really though because again who would he be paying the bill to? Right. He says quote, if you take paying the penalty not in the sense of being punished but in the more general sense of standing the racket or footing the bill then of course it is a matter of common experience that when one person has gotten himself into a hole the trouble

of getting him out usually falls on a kind friend." End quote. But that's not true if the person they owe is you. Right. You know what? I'm a good guy. I'm going to break Steve's knees instead. All right?

Don't go telling people. Don't think of it like some kind of evil, vindictive penalty. It's more like somebody owes me one genocide. And then Jesus apparently like folded himself in half and slid himself across the table at his dad to negotiate that down or whatever. Weirdest refi of all time. Well, but so he explains the need for Jesus. See, the catch is that only good people can repent really well and only bad people need to repent really well. So Jesus was the good person repenting for all the bad people.

And I'm like, oh, well, now it makes sense. Thank you. See, I nailed it all checks out now. Sorry. You said you paid my bar tab from 2000 years ago when I wasn't. And now you want to call in that favor? Yes, exactly. Well, then he addresses, but if it's God, then dying isn't dying question.

And his answer, as far as I can parse, is, hey, look, just because he has plenty of money doesn't mean a PlayStation 5 isn't still an awesome gift. Yes! Just to be clear, the all-knowing God came up with a workaround for the problem that he created. He was like, I'm going to die for these idiots to teach him a lesson. Wait, I can't, I can't die. Gabriel, find me a 12 year old girl. I'm doing a thing. Tell her you've got good news. This is going to be funny. Tell her you've got good news. But his analogy misses the objection. Tell her you've got good news. But his analogy misses the objection entirely, right? He says, like, you know, the fact that

dying was easy for God doesn't matter because everything is easy for God or whatever. But it's, it, the point isn't that it's not easy. It's that it's not dying. Right. Right. If you know you're coming back, you're not actually without the suffering, the cross is just unconventional furniture, dude. Yeah. Also, it's not like you stopped being God while you were Jesus dying, right? You just like triumvirate did yourself and then that part of you kind of died and got to keep it's nothing. It's not right. It's right. But having established that Jesus works, even if we don't know how, he moves on to chapter five, the practical conclusion. Fuck off. His editor told him he couldn't name the chapter Common Sense Rightness.

Yeah, right. Right. God pones atheists with that. Yeah, right. Using this one simple trick. He starts off like he's like, so I think we can all agree Jesus died to atone for our sins moving on. And I wrote in my notes here, I'm like, well I think we can all agree Jesus died to atone for our sins moving on and I wrote In my notes here. I'm like well to be fair if he had to actually prove something to move on he'd never get to move on That's true. He'd still be in the intro being like people liked my radio show He actually says the perfect surrender and the perfect humiliation were undergone by Christ

but I feel like even Jesus himself would admit the crucifixion boner made it a little confusing to call that, you know, in terms of humiliation points. But then he has this unusual and inexplicable, fucking is weird if you think about it, paragraph in here. It's an entire paragraph by a British theologian trying not to say booby or whatever and start giggling his hair away. It's so weird. Yes.

You know how sex makes you kind of, you know that? It's like that. That's how God is. It also sounds like he's very much never had sex or even seen it, right? 100%. Yeah, this is a big bag of sand vibe right now. Absolutely bag of sand, but he's trying to play along, you know, like with the kids on the bus just repeating the last word they say while they're talking about sex, but it's like it's him saying stuff in his book being like

Yeah, he's got no one to agree with. Sex is weird. Weird. Weird, exactly. Weird weird exactly weird yeah right feels like a bad he's like you know God's hard to puzzle out but if you think about it he made sex and if you had to guess you would have never guessed that your dad came into your mom and then she pushed you out of her vajoo and I'm like no that's that's that's true I guess he needed an example of a thing that God made that was weird, and the example he landed on was fucking... For instance, why does one always think about the strapping farm lads down in the market

just before they come? Mysterious ways, my friends. Mysterious ways. The point is, God made sex, sex is weird. God made Jesus. Ergo, making Jesus' is probably weird too. Loving Jesus is like jamming my soul in the couch. So he explains here that there are three things that, quote, spread the Christ life to us, end quote, baptism, belief, end quote, that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names, holy communion,

the mass, the Lord's Supper, end quote. And I have to ask, how long do you think he's strained to try to come up with a category name for that shit that started with a B? Yeah, exactly, a big old Jesus dinner? Fuck, why isn't Heath born yet? Heath would have one. Yeah, right. Big old Jesus dinner? Fuck! Why isn't Heath born yet? Aw, Heath would have one. God damn it. Biscuits! Biscuits! Idiot!

Aw, the biscuits of salvation! He's like, you know, none of this makes any sense to me at all. And I'm like, why are you writing a fucking book about it then? And he goes, then again, I don't understand coming and I have kids. So it all works. Well, he's got step kids. Did I say come right before I said step kids? No. It's like baby clay. Right? Yeah. Okay because this is my question. How much does C.S. Lewis not understand coming?

Because the way he has written about it in this chapter, like he has no idea how coming works and I worry for him. Right. He says, so now I've explained why I have to believe that Jesus was and is God and I'm like, I don't think you were talking about sex. Most of you just talked about how you don't know how sex is. He's doing that liar thing where they try to keep slipping in weird lies to rewrite reality so they weren't wrong or shitty or whatever.

And if you don't grind the conversation to a halt every time and correct their delusion they think it's become established fact now but yeah they don't usually do that in a book where we can see it all happen. It's tough to slip anything into conversation in a book. You can flip back, you know about that right CS? He's like I believe all of this stuff that Jesus said on Jesus's authority and I know I know, oh, you're taking it on authority, but trust me, that's okay. And I'm like, believing on authority is fine, trust me, is one hell of a statement. Yeah. It feels like an Orwell quote a Republican would use wrong. Yeah, right.

Trust, but don't verify. It's Ronald Reagan who said that. Or like Stalin doing an old proverb, it doesn't matter, Christ is God. Moving on. No, but he explains that in addition to baptism, belief, and communion, you have to still be Christ-like. I'm not spending another long weekend trying to think of a B-word. This is just another thing also.

It's a different list, new list. Do christening, conviction, and communion communion you could do any letter you want I have to have a whole lot of so mad disease. Oh, he's rolling over in his grave right now, man You just don't know his generations feel the pain from that he the very next letter man So he's like but he's like but much like you can't fuck yourself into existence You can't be Jesus see without Jesus's help And we're like, fucking what? Dude.

Sorry, what my friend? This book is a sexual journey that I was not expecting about C.S. Lewis. Now it feels like he heard about masturbation and he's trying to find out if it's actually real without asking directly. So he's like, okay, obviously you can't make like a little homunculus of yourself in your hand.

You need your parents help with that. My cost is not in, yeah. Anyways, same with knowing Christ. Is that what I was gonna say? Guys, this is held up as a masterwork of apologetics, guys. Of course. It is literally worse than case for Christ. and I never thought I would say that about anything.

Right? Yeah, honestly. He goes, but this is why Christians are better at goodness than other people. I'm like, woof. But the Christians are better because they're being good in hopes of getting a reward, and other people are doing it just for the sake of not being assholes. Yes! Real quote. Again, because I want to be clear, Noah is not exaggerating.

That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one, or, if they think there is not, at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us." End quote. Yeah, and then he continues, almost exact words. Sorry, was that insane and impossible to follow? Christians, I'll give you an example, Christians are like the roof of a greenhouse. We just sit there and the sun makes us better.

Maybe the sun is God. Yeah, right. Yeah. I did a full analogy. Fuck you Heathenright. He goes, when Christians say the Christ life is in them, they don't mean, and I'm like, do Christians say that? I don't think they do.

Yes. You know, everyone uses my great catchphrase boyoyoyoyoying. So you could check it out at boyoyoyoyoyoying? It's like that. So you can check it out at boyoyoyoyoyoyoying.com. But he says when we say Christ is in us, we don't mean he's teaching us, we mean he's a literal magical ghost that remote controls our soul to some degree. Sorry, was that insane? Again, humans are a swarm of nanobots that make up the physical body of Christ.

Like Christ fingers and Christ muscles and Christ cells were the three body things I could think of. Again, almost exact words. And then he explains how the nanobot thing is the reason that bodily acts like baptism and communion aren't silly and stupid It's not just spreading an idea with the belief part and then again, this is a quote. It's quote more like evolution a biological or

super biological facts super biological Christ is like gremlins and also zombie cordyceps is the theory here. Right, right. He's like, it's not just that Christians learned new shit from the Bible, it's that we're actually better people than other religions. Like in an evolutionary sense, he actually says in an evolutionary sense, like, man,

this is pretty fucking ubermensch for being during the Holocaust that you wrote it man. Yeah, it's got real I'd like to point out I was on your side all along five. Yeah, I'm saying. Yep He goes no look communion makes sense because God invented eating So he can really do whatever he wants with it now. Yep. That's a real argument in the fucking book It is seriously he says quote, God invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it. So like anything with matter is a point for my team from now on. That's the actual argument from C.S. Lewis here. Oh yeah. Under the assumption that if God made something, he must love it. Okay. That creates some problems for you. He does

tackle the do people who've never heard of Jesus go to hell question. His answer seems to be, we don't know moving on. Yeah, I feel like that would bother me more. Right? Yeah. Before I wrote my apologetics book. You'd hope. Yeah, and so there's another objection he has to address, which is why wouldn't God just use his infinity powers

to defeat Satan and rescue us? And his answer to that is he's totally gonna do that any minute now actually. He's warming up for it. Okay, I laughed at that for a while when I read that part, right? Because usually the answer to that question is fallen world or free will. And C.S. Lewis's answer is that God's gonna get to it like a basket of unfolded laundry, just as sure. Seeing you grab your socks out of there. See, as well as no, but see, God wants to check and see if we really side with him over the literal Prince of evil before he rescues us. His analogy is insane, too.

He's like, well, think about it. We wouldn't think much of a Frenchman who waited until the end of the war to declare which side he was on. And I'm like, OK, man, how much would we think of the Allies if they'd waited to invade the mainland just to see which Frenchies were really on our side? Exactly. Right. And then burned all the Frenchmen who died before they were on our side in fire forever?

Yeah, right. Maybe analogies aren't your thing, bud. Maybe you just shouldn't do those. Just to be clear, God's the allies and God's watching the Holocaust in this analogy. And now he's looking at one French atheist and tapping his foot being like, I can do this all day, French atheist. Also, I created the Holocaust because I'm God. That's you making an argument for your things. Yep.

Yes, Lewis. That's insane. Sure the fuck is. Yeah, well, and then he's like, well, you know, look, God doesn't want to invade early because when God invades the earth, the whole world's going to be destroyed, right? So you'd want to save that for the last thing that you did. And I'm like, but it's going to be replaced with eternal paradise. What are you waiting? No, guys, there's this show called Mad Men that's going to come out. And you do not want to miss that. I like to just pull the socks out as I go. All right, we'll do it.

That ends book two. And as far as C.S. Lewis is concerned, we have proven that Christian God is real at this point. And now we get to move on from there, which we'll follow along with in the next installment of God Awful Books. Before we power it down tonight, I want to remind you once again that it's May, that makes it Matreon, and that makes it a great time to become a sponsor to up your pledge to the show.

Our patron-only Pajama Party stream is coming up on June 8th. Will we have to get coffee enemas for that? Well, that's up to you. Be sure to check out matrion.com to learn more. That's May with a Y because we're always adding new goals. Anyway, that's all the blessed food 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, The Skeptical Guide to being at seven Eastern on Monday. And even new episode of our sister show, Hot Friend God of War movies, to being at seven Eastern on Tuesday. And even new episode of our halfills Hot Friend got off of movies to being at 7 Eastern on Tuesday and even new episode of our half Sister Stills Citation needed to be at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously I can't convert this file before I thank Heath Enright for always bringing his A-game, Eli for always bringing the board games, and Lucinda

Lusions for always bringing just game. I also want to thank Bane Shakes Charlie for writing this week's Farnsworth quote. I'd love to offer a link to his YouTube channel on the show notes but he didn't send me one so hopefully I can add that next week or you can find him the old fashioned way. Speaking of which, last week I misidentified the Farnsworth providers Instagram. It should have been at Rich Roll, R-A-W-L, not Richard. So that's at R-I-C-H-R-A-W-L,

and no, I promise I am not trying to Rick Roll you. But most of all, of course, I wanna thank this week's most marvelous matrions Will jet Robert the wooden doodus William David talking about the big stuff other Robert wonderful Pretty sure the Beatles song fixing a hole is about Thomas dog read David George Bartlett Bambi votes for positive change while embracing menopause with catatude Yes, I'm allowed to take a breath when a bunch of people just start doing whole sentences instead of names I think I don't have to do it in one breath at this point Andy Tony a cry 13 Melissa Nigel Zhang she princess of power Chelsea Ashley Joseph Peyton be Duns Michael plaid Jason

Jim Sparrow Tony D actual Tony D Andy Dainey Matthew Do you have data but want a dashboard and said parzival Shay and Evan Laura DJA and portly Montau Who are so hot, Mercury gives up. Together these 41 people, sentences, and direct challenges to my autocorrect helped inch that coffee a little closer to our asses this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some to us, but if you do, you can make a per episode donation to patreon.com slash skatingadios, where you'll earn access to an extended ad for every episode, or you can make a one time donation by clicking on the

donate button on the right side of the homepage at skatingadios.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a money giving kind of way, you can also help a ton Don't worry, Heath. I checked. It's not like a holiday for children who died. I was about to ask you exactly that. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC copyright 2024 all rights reserved.