The Scathing Atheist - 593: Off Brand Edition

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

In this week’s episode, the British government will tell us the right amount to segregate children, the swamp crotch of America known as Louisiana does another theocracy, and Marsh will teach us about the worst kind of Brand loyalty. --- 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/ --- Guest Links: Learn more about Skepti-Cal here: https://www.skepticalcon.com/ --- Headlines: Extreme heat turns Hajj into death march: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/23/world/middleeast/hajj-pilgrim-deaths-saudi-arabia.html Breaking: UK Government plans for 100% religious discrimination in all state-funded faith schools https://humanists.uk/2024/05/01/breaking-uk-government-plans-for-100-religious-discrimination-in-new-state-funded-faith-schools/  Louisiana sued over new law forcing Ten Commandments display in classrooms: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/louisiana-sued-over-new-law-forcing Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Law Signals a Broader Christian Agenda: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/us/louisiana-ten-commandments-landry.html Malicious compliance GoFundMe for Chaz Stevens: https://www.gofundme.com/f/messin-w-louisianas-10-commandments Oklahoma Supreme Court blocks taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/oklahoma-supreme-court-blocks-taxpayer Class Action Suit: Nation’s largest Christian college’s tuition fees are a racketeering scheme: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/christian-university-faces-class Vatican Library to Reward Supporters and Donors with NFTs in New Experimental Project https://www.coinspeaker.com/vatican-library-nfts-project/  Vatican comms chief defends Rupnik art remaining on website https://catholicherald.co.uk/vatican-comms-chief-defends-rupnik-art-remaining-on-website/ Michigan GOP lawmaker asks for prayers after arrest for assaulting exotic dancer with his gun: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/21/neil-friske-arrested-gun-michigan/

Warning, most of the words in this podcast aren't fuck, but some of them are. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Factor and by the new debate enhancing drug, Claritin. Claritin, that is too what it does, Donald. It clarifies what you're saying. That's why they call it that. Nobody tell them. Stop laughing.

You're fucking it up. And now, The Scathing atheist. I am Megatron, leader of the Decepticons and future Republican presidential nominee. And you humans did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's June 27th. And it's sunglasses day. If you're wearing them backwards behind your head, just know everybody hates you. And you might be prosecuted for January 6th. Yes, I have no illusions. I'm Michael Marshall. I'm Heath Henwright. And from Trent Alexander, Arnall's Liverpool,

and over in Michigan and Waycross, Georgia, this is the Skating East. On this week's episode, the British government will tell us the right amount to segregate children, the swamp crotch of America, known as Louisiana, does another theocracy, and Marsh will teach us about the worst kind of brand loyalty. But first, the diatribe. I was talking the other day with our favorite listener April Poff about the recent anti-IVF moves by the Southern Baptist Convention in the Alabama Supreme Court, and she made a comment that stuck with me. She said something about being tempted to unblock a bunch of people just long enough

to deliver an I told you so. And of course, that led me to reflect on all the fucking arguments that I've had over the years against people whose entire point was, well, it's not like they're actually going to come after contraception or in vitro fertilization. How many people tried to tell me that they wanted sexist outcomes for non sexist reasons? How many people told me that I was being unreasonable for assuming that they were doing the thing that they've always done? was being unreasonable for assuming that they were doing the thing that they've always done.

And look, playing the part of Cassandra has been an ongoing theme for this show and the atheist movement in general for the last decade, right? We've been detailing their playbook all along the way and every time we do we're told some variation of, well, they couldn't possibly be about to do that and then they'll do. And somehow no amount of that happening over and over and over again, seems to change the ease with which we are dismissed. So with that in mind, let's go back in time, shall we? So the good old days of early 2022, when pregnant people still had a constitutional guarantee that they got a say in how pregnant they wanted to be. When we were still being told that the abortion thing wasn't about sexism, we

were told over and over again that we should be sympathetic to these assholes because for them, abortion was murder. Right? So we should temper our criticisms by trying to remember that they weren't, at least in their own mind, they weren't subjugating women. They were saving unborn babies. Now that was bullshit. Right? It was always bullshit. I mean, some people on their side might have thought that, but it's not remotely exculpatory, especially since proof that they're wrong is there for the taking, and they had to actively avoid it not to have it. To be clear, abortion is not murder. Both of those words have meanings, and there's no crossover

on the Venn diagram between them and there were no shortage of people willing and even eager to share the contradictory information with them and prove that abortion wasn't murder the whole fucking time and not just scientifically right they could have proved it philosophically and even theologically using their fucking Bible after all only the Catholics thought abortion was murder until it became politically advantageous to believe otherwise in the 1970s. So the fact that they chose to keep believing this shit

despite the evidence should elicit zero sympathy. It's also worth noting how transient this murder accusation is, right? Even before they won on abortion, they'd already tried it out on a bunch of other shit they didn't like. When the Hobby Lobby decision exempted religious employers from paying for birth control, they got there by arguing that Hobby Lobby's owners believed that some form of birth control was murder.

Right? Again, this was demonstrably untrue. I know, because the fucking untruth of it was demonstrated in goddamn court, but the courts argued that that didn't matter, because these people believed it was murder, and therefore we should be sympathetic about it and now they got abortion and they're well on their way to get in contraception what's murder now well the fucking where they do your now is in vitro fertilization they're trotting out this same tired bullshit argument that clump of 16 cells as a human being with hopes dreams and a favorite ninja turtle and they're using

it once again to ruin people's lives. Meanwhile, they've been following exactly the anti-woman playbook that we've been warning about since the very beginning, because in her trajectory, they will tell you, as coincidental with a straight fucking face, this ever-shifting definition of murder always serves to disempower women, always.

They might sweep some other people up along the way, but the target has been subjugating women the entire time. Now I'm gonna be honest, I don't know what the next murder will be, right, but I'm sure that when it comes, I'll be asked to sympathize with this newfound belief that fucking tampons are human beings or women's suffrage is a form of genocide or whatever the fuck they're going to say next. And I'm just as sure that it'll be something that disempowers women even more. If I had to guess, I'd say the next bullseye is painted around divorce.

I'm not sure how they're going to pretend that divorce is murder, but this is a group of people that made drag queens read in Dr. Seuss into grooming and you go into the bathroom into me having my religious rights violated. So I don't doubt that they can, and they will. And yet, the same people that April has tempted to unblock over the IVF ruling will still bury their heads in the fucking sand. They'll still say that we're being paranoid or alarmist

when we point out that they're not actually trying to outlaw divorce because they think marital bonds deserve personhood. That is, once again, we're gonna find ourselves in a position where our opponents are pretending some innocent practices murder and then we're going to get accused of hyperbole. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Rollo and Mane to my aquatain, Heath Enright and Michael Marshall. Fellas, are you ready for some lion hunting?

Nice. Okay, well given that that's a reference to the England football logo, yeah sure I'm ready to start the show reasonably well and then do literally nothing for the rest of the fucking 90 minutes. Hey, you got through the group stage like three out of five lions making a sad limpy Voltron. Yeah right. You're on though. You're on to the next round. Who needs goals? Yeah, who needs excitement? So weird how our national soccer team has the same number of goals in its continental

competition as yours, even though we've only played one game and you've played three, huh, Marsh? So weird. And while we reflect on that, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Factor. Hey, Noah. Hey, Marsh. What are you doing here?

Well, Lucinda's out of town this week, so she asked me to pop in and make sure you're eating alright. How? You came all the way from England? None of the podcast-averse logistics make any sense if you recognize distances, Noah. Touche. Anyway, I brought along some traditional British cuisine for you to make sure that you're eating well while Lucinda's gone.

So let me tell you, these boiled rabbit livers, they are perfectly chewy. Your teeth just bounce right off them. Oh, okay. Well, that's nice of you, Marsh, but I'm actually eating great with Factor. What's Factor? Factor's the best way to fuel up for the summer. With Factor, there's no prep and no mess, and you can have a delicious, never frozen meal ready to eat in just two minutes. Okay, but do they have the kind of heart healthy stuff that you have to eat now?

They sure do. They've got calorie smart, protein plus, keto, vegetarian, and with 35 different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week, you'll always have new flavors to explore. Okay, but do they have traditional eel mucus pie? Well, that's the best part. No, they don't. So make your day delicious. From breakfast to dessert, stay filled with easy nutritious options. All right, Noah. Well, I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Head to factormeals.com slash scaling 50 and use the code scaling50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month. That's code scaling50 at factormeals.com slash scaling50

for 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. That sounds great Noah. But what am I going to do with all of this food? Oh, no worries. It's the podcast of first Heath lives here. Hey, you going to finish that eel meal kiss? See? Are you?

And now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight. It's really fucking hot outside. Like really fucking hot. My wife took her sister and her niece to Vegas this week and everybody's like, oh, that's crazy. It's gonna be like 108 degrees there this week. And I was like, oh wow, well it'll have felt five fucking degrees warmer than it would have been if they'd been in Caribou, Maine last week. Jesus Christ, it's 108 degrees every goddamn where except where it's hotter. And that brings us to Saudi Arabia, where the extreme heat has turned the annual pilgrimage to Mecca into a goddamn death march with the deaths all climbing into the quadruple digits.

At this point, the heat deaths associated with the pilgrimage are approximately in line with the number of people who died in Hurricane Katrina. So, you know, just imagine if instead of the city getting flooded all those people had just walked into the sea. Okay, but I think that was George Bush's original evacuation plan for Katrina. Oh, yeah. Also Trump's plan for immigration just yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So now of course the Hajj is an annual pilgrimage that every devout Muslim is required to make at least once in their lifetime. It takes place in the final month of the Islamic calendar, but that's a lunar calendar, so it takes place at different times of the year on the solar calendar. And this historically hot year, those days fall smack in the middle of June, where high temperatures soared to above 120 degrees, or fucking 49 degrees if you're Marsh. Yeah, or 322 Kelvin if you're a node. Or 2.27 times 10 to the negative 30th in Planck scale if you're super cool and use the Planck

scale and you care about quantum gravity maybe. That's all of us. Yeah. It's useful. And look, and needless to say, a lot of people died. People died by the hundreds. The pilgrimage ended several days ago, but the death toll may still climb because so damn many people remain in the hospital over it, but already the number is over 1,300 dead. Geez. To be clear, we don't actually know if that's a higher than average death toll

for the pilgrimage since Saudi Arabia doesn't exactly publish statistics on this shit Right and we also don't know how many of those Saudi Arabia was just planning to kill anyway, but for other stuff Yeah, right now that's fair and if a journalist did report the deaths They'd end up one of the deaths and then us would pretend it was a mystery for a while And then we just forget about the whole thing and buy more oil. It'd be great. Wouldn't we? Wouldn't we though? Yeah.

So the pilgrimage, which takes five to six days, is always deadly. It's not always heat, but whenever you've got two million people all going the same way for most of a week with religious fervor, death is bound to follow. All right? Whether it's through disease or exhaustion or just good old-fashioned trampling. We do know that last year, for example, 774 pilgrims died just from Indonesia. And we know that from a decade-old study, 1,700 died from heat stress during the pilgrimage in 1985.

So, this isn't exactly a new problem. Yeah, it started around 628 CE, I think. Yeah, you had to put a date to it, yeah. So now to their credit, the Saudi Arabian government does provide air conditioned tents and buses for pilgrims along the way, as well as ample access to water. Finally some credit on this show for Saudi Arabia. You know, a bit of balance. Long overdue.

You know, and I get it, it's hard to do the on the other hand with a country that chops off the other hand. So it is difficult to do. That's right. Exactly. Fair and balanced. Fuck you chart that puts scepticrad all the way on the left of the bottom. Fuck you. But now that air conditioning and water, that's just for pilgrims who have a license, like who are permitted to do this.

And since there are always more hopeful pilgrims than there are licenses, a huge percentage, some estimates say about 40% of the people who are undertaking this holiest journey of sin removal are doing it illegally. There's a Hajj license? Yeah, yeah, right. Because there's just too many people doing it for it to be done safely. Now again, there's... Sure. Well, yeah, right. See? Now again, no official numbers on what percent here, but there are

no shortage of unofficial black market tours that also take you to Mecca Right, but I bet they also build in like a really long stop outside of a gift shop on the way to Mecca That just happens to be owned by the black market to guides brother-in-law. I Died at hodge 24 and Honestly, we should do a whole bit on the cuz like that's actually the the official ones, right? I died at Hodge 24 and all I got was this lousy picture. Honestly, we should do a whole bit on that because that's actually the official ones, right? That's how the ones with the permits go too.

It's amazing how commercialized this shit is. Oh yeah. But yeah, so but after days of silence on the matter, the Saudi government is now trying to hide behind the fact that the vast majority of people who died didn't have the proper permits, so you know. Fuck them, yeah. Yeah, right. Now, to be clear here, they're saying that 83% of the deaths were for unlicensed pilgrims and the death toll was sitting at 1,301 when they said that. Which means, you

know, 169 people with permits also died. Right, but they died with the correct paperwork. So it's totally different. They have a little stamp and everything. Trying to have a nice, organized, magical stampede. People need to follow the rules. This is serious. This is why we can't have nice things. And look, you might be tempted to brush off all of this, given the sheer scale of the hajj, right?

It's almost two million people taking the pilgrimage every year. And if you, like any group of two million people, 169 of them are going to die over the course of five days, right? That's true. Way more people, in fact, are going to die than that. But they're not going to die of heat exhaustion, right? Hundred percent of the people who died of that would have survived that week if they'd spend it binging ice road truckers or something.

And even if that excuse held water, I feel like sure those people died, but they didn't have the proper permits is still pretty fucking weak. Stop having magical stampedes. Just don't do those. There you go. Yep. And in Armour, Matter of Faith News, here in the UK, we don't have such a thing as separation of church and state.

Like, I know, neither do you in America, but at least you guys are meant to have it. Like, it's written down somewhere, I think. It's on a list and everything like that. Yeah, I think it's called, what, the Ten Commandments or Bill of Rights? I forget what it was. It's a number of things, yeah. But there's no such luck here in the UK where our head of state was appointed by one flavor of the Christian God, and where religious leaders of various denominations get a say on which laws we live under. Which goes some way to explaining why roughly a third of all taxpayer-funded state schools are explicitly faith schools here.

Yeah, and don't get too excited, American Theocrats, that includes Muslim schools. Sure does. So practically, that means that the pupils at those schools are mandated by law to take part in a daily act of worship, or at least a daily act of pretending, you know, while moving their lips and trying not to let on how obviously ridiculous they find this whole charade. Yeah, no, we've got a pledge of allegiance too. Yeah. But on top of that state prescribed pretending, it also causes issues for parents trying to

find a school for their kid, because with one in three schools being run by a specific faith, it can be really hard to find a school that won't push their religious beliefs onto your kid. And it can be especially hard to do that if you're not part of that faith, or at least you're not willing to pretend to be part of that faith, which is what most parents actually do here. Because state-funded faith schools are explicitly allowed to select which kids they accept based on faith alone. Not to brag, but ours are allowed to choose based on who their parents fuck. Yep. So by law, faith schools are allowed to select 50% of their intake based on their faith,

with the other 50% being children from the surrounding area. Now obviously, this gives religious parents a huge advantage when it comes to choosing a good school, because they've got access to all the regular schools, plus the one that agrees with their religion. Plus all the taxpayers in the UK then actually end up funding that advantage for the religious. Which is why organizations like Humanist UK have been opposing faith schools for pretty much as long as organizations like Humanist UK have existed. Okay, so kids have to show up for like, faith screening at these things and put on little

sketches to fake it? Like, what up my Jewish brethren? Bacon? No thank you. Le shame, right? Yeah, I mean, this sucks in terms of fairness, but in terms of sitcom potential, it's golden. Oh, fair, yeah. So as it turns out, the Tory government earlier this year agreed that it was completely unfair

for faith schools to select half of their pupils based on religious affiliation. But because they are the worst possible version of a Tory government, their objection was that 50% was too restrictive. And so they propose to abolish the cap altogether and allow faith schools to refuse access to any pupil who doesn't profess a belief in the right kind of God. Okay, I feel like these schools should have to pass a test of their own. Like you do a police lineup, but with kids of different religions and they have to pick out the one that's really the Catholic.

Otherwise no doing that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well look, they can force these kids to listen to their religious bullshit once they're in the schools, right? I feel like they would want kids that they haven't roped in yet. No? You'd think so. You'd think so.

But the thing is, not only would this step bake religious discrimination into the educational system, but given that some religions have a geographical, and you know, in some cases, racial correlation, it would also bake in a level of racial segregation too. Right. Most of the people who come to the UK from the Middle East or South Asia tend not to be Catholics. Right. Well, sorry, to be clear, this would bake it in more. It's already 50% there. Extra, yeah. And plus, given that all around a third of schools are faith schools, it would also result in potential

school deserts where parents can't find a decent school near where they live that's willing to take their child. And of particular interest to our listeners, non isn't one of the face that the government lets you build a school around. So atheist parents would be particularly fucked by this. Yeah, to be fair though, everyone has the option of have way more money and go to Eaton, right? Yeah, right. Well, right, which is exactly why nobody's fixed this yet, right? Because the people who can fix it can send their kids to Eaton.

Well, they can at least until they bring in a VAT on private schools and then they'll be too poor to be able to afford their parents. Oh, right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So thankfully on just so many levels, we're having an election. Pretty soon in fact. So these plans have been put on hold.

But if the Tories get in, they've already promised they intend to push these plans through, while the other parties definitely won't. So while I don't imagine there's any listeners here who still are under the misapprehension that the Tories have some great ideas and will be a viable choice next week, this should add one more reason to show them the door on Friday. Oh god, Friday? Yeah. It is inconceivable to me that the election you just found out about last month is on Friday. I have never been more jealous of your country and you have socialized medicine and I have a bad heart.

Holy shit. I'm lucky. It's amazing, but I'll be honest, I could take a month more of this election campaign. I could really do it. This one's a fun one. And in Decaloggerhead's news. Oh, bravo, sir. Amazing. Louisiana became a white Christian ethno-state theocracy last week.

So that was fun. Nice little Wednesday for Governor Jeff Landry, who spent the day signing HB 71 into law, a bill that mandates a poster of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. He also signed a bill that requires all teachers and staff members to address every student using the pronouns for the gender on their birth certificate. You have to misgender trans kids.

That's a law now in Louisiana. Yeah, plus you have to be really mean to the pansexual kids, but that's more of a bylaw. A bylaw. Also chaplains are allowed in public schools now. That's a law. And Mifepristone is classified as a dangerous controlled substance, just like heroin or enriched uranium.

Yep. Also a law. Oh, books. Yeah, books. Right, yeah. Yeah. So that's the official state of affairs in Louisiana. It's like he was trying to hide one of those shitty things and all the other shitty things, Yeah, so that's the official state of affairs in Louisiana.

It's like he was trying to hide one of those shitty things and all the other shitty things, but you can't tell which one he's trying to hide because they're all so fucking shitty. Okay, so you might be thinking at this point, hold on, don't we have a rule that says you can't become a white Christian ethnostate theocracy? And yes, we do. We have several, one of which is the very first amendment. That's the one. I said there was a list somewhere. I knew it.

That's alright, mister. I swear we have a constitution but it's in some dead guy's head somewhere. Yeah, well apparently Jeff Landry was at least vaguely aware of that rule too, and during a speech last week he said, I can't wait to be sued. Well, yes, you can. And you're going to have to wait because you're not getting sued. He's not the official martyr and he's definitely mad. Instead, a long list of Louisiana public education officials are getting sued. A coalition of religious and non-religious plaintiffs,

filed a lawsuit in federal court, and they're being backed by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the law firms Simpson, Thatcher, and Bartlett. Rather than just saying, because fucking duh, like I suggested Jeff Blackwell, the official complaint explains that HB 71 is a violation of their client's religious freedom under the First amendment. And it says, quote, permanently posting the 10 commandments in every Louisiana public school classroom,

rendering them unavoidable, unconstitutionally pressure students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state's favored religious scripture. It also sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments, or more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments that HB 71 requires schools to display, do not belong in their school

community and should refrain from expressing any faith practices or beliefs that are not aligned with the state's religious preferences. You know, remember when you have an undeniable fact and hundreds of years of legal precedent on your side mattered in a case like this? That was fun. Wasn't that long ago? So the important piece of context here is that Governor Landry and the Christian right Republicans of Louisiana are fully aware that HB 71 is completely unconstitutional, but they're also aware

that our current theocratic zealot majority on the Supreme Court called a timeout on constitution stuff that selectively if it means that Christianity has laws. So you actually can create a white Christian ethnostate if you sincerely hold it religiously. Right, yeah. It's like the Purge, but where only the white Christians get to break the laws. So, it's like America basically any other time in its history. Yeah, it is. So, with full knowledge, the case ends up at the Supreme Court. The main angle taken by the plaintiffs is to use the idea of religious freedom against the idiots who forgot about every other religion existing. That includes plaintiffs who are Christian pastors and don't want their kids

learning the wrong version of the 11 or 12 Ten Commandments from the magical Jewish guy in the mountain. And that would apply directly to Sam Alito, a Catholic who uses a different version of the commandments. Yeah, pretty sure by this point Alito also uses a different version of the Constitution. So that point might be slightly missed. Well, he definitely uses a different version of the flag. So there are two tiny little bits of good news in here, I guess. First of all, the federal judge who who got randomly assigned to the case,

is a non-lunatic who was appointed by Obama. So the chances of sending a win to the Supreme Court for appeal is much better, whatever good that does. I guess like in the short term, it would stop Louisiana from doing this. The other good news is the delightful work of professional religion wrangler Chas Stevens. You might remember him as the guy who installed butt plug Jesus on public property to protest

this type of theocratic law in Florida. And thanks to Hemet Mehta's excellent article about the lawsuit, I learned about the latest project from Chas. Hemet's article ends by saying, if the lawsuit fails, there's always malicious compliance. Yeah, which by this point, that would be a way better motto for America than e pluribus unum. Right? It would. And where it says malicious compliance there, Hemant put a link to a GoFundMe to support

Chaz in producing posters that technically satisfy the law. One of them has the commandments with a big pentagram as the background. Another has the commandments written from bottom to top and right to left, which was fun. Oh, suddenly that's a problem, Alito? You're not allowed to do that? And yet another has everything in normal font

except for kill, adultery, and steal in giant letters in a splashy, colorful font. Also, as we mentioned a few weeks ago, there's nothing that says you can't have an even bigger poster next to the Ten Commandments, and it can say whatever you want. Maybe another Bible verse, like the one about, I don't know, smashing babies on rocks,

or the come of stallions, or whatever it said. Or maybe a poster of the First Amendment that comes off the wall and curls over the commandments. Just to get me to... Alright, well now that you've got homework, I suppose we should take a break for a word from our other sponsor this week. Us. Hey there, podcast listener.

It's me, Marky Mark, here to tell you about God Awful Movies Live Show on September 7th. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, Marky Mark, why are you fucking telling us about a live show? Well, I'll fucking tell you why. Because this one's in Boston. That's right, Bean Town. The boys are headed to Boston, Saturday, September 7th, and you're not going to want to miss it. So head to GodAwfulMoviesLive.com right now to get your fucking tickets.

But don't fucking wait, because our VIP platinum tickets always sell out in less than a fucking week, you hear me? So one more time, that's GodawfulMoviesLive.com for your fucking tickets to the live show. And now back to the fucking podcast. And in all my papes are gone news, never one to be accused of being behind the times. The Vatican has announced that it's embracing the blockchain and that for the next month it's going to be rewarding

followers in Italy with a special Catholic NFT. No. It's about time. So a system whose only claim to credibility is entirely intangible and relies entirely on the delusional belief of its adherents, Catholicism is now embracing NFTs. And honestly, I could have written that joke the other way around and it would have been just as wrong. I didn't know which way you were going. Yes.

Whoa, Marsh. Not cool. At least the NFTs were, you know, mostly fucking adults. I feel like that's a big difference. Yeah, no, one's built on the financial atrocities of the present and the other is built on the financial atrocities of the past and the present. It's totally different. Different thing. So yeah, as part of a new experimental project from the Vatican Library, users who promote this new digital project on social media will receive a silver NFT, which will grant them

access to a high-res collection of 15 library manuscripts, while those who financially support the Vatican will get a gold NFT, allowing them access to 21 of the library's manuscripts. Nazi gold NFT. So there's no clear word on what those manuscripts are, but my money is on a series of monkeys dressed in pope outfits. Aka the Bord Papyot Club. Oh nice.

Okay, if evolution is real, why are there still monkey pictures? That doesn't make sense. Alright, so this feels like a victory for us, no? I feel like the child rape verdicts must be having an impact for the papacy to essentially be starting their own fucking Patreon account and trying to sell NFTs here. Yeah, fair. Well, if you're wondering why the Catholics have got into the NFT game now, apparently it's because they're raising funds for the digitization and restoration of their library.

So then they can have all of their manuscripts indexed and publicly searchable. No word on whether the database will be written in holy C++. Okay, but it's a database. So I'm thinking holy sequel, right? Oh my god, that's so much better. Oh god. I'm just going to stand very quietly in the corner for this portion of the jokes. So that said, they may want to be selective over which bits of their collection they make

publicly available. Given that in the same week that they announced this, the Vatican had to defend their continued use of art by Marko Rupnik, a former Jesuit who was disrobed for sexually abusing scores of victims at his art institution since the 1990s. I'm sorry, is disrobed the term they want to go with there? Apparently so. Oof. So, defending the sex offender, Paolo Ruffini, who's the head of the Vatican's communications

department, told a room full of 150 journalists, quote, We're not talking about the abuse of minors. Who am I to judge the Rupnik stories? Pay no attention to the man behind Smoke Bomb. Doodle-y-doo. Did that work? Everybody's still looking at me. What's going on? Damn it. When the Pope used this who am I to judge line, I really fucking loved it.

Why is it different? So it is worth pointing out. Nobody was asking Ruffini to judge the validity of the many, many victims testimonies because Jesuit investigators have already deemed them to be credible and they've expelled him from the Jesuit order. Right. People were, they were only asking Ruffini to stop using digital reproductions of Rupnik's work. A request that the Vatican has flat

out ignored. Okay, as much as I dislike blockchain bros, horrible, I do like the idea of the Catholic Church having all their transactions recorded on a permanent distributed ledger. Like, nobody tells them how this thing actually works. So that is the kind of art that the new gold NFTs are raising funds for, and the digitalization of the Vatican Library is going to secure, and via the blockchain no less. Because if there's anything the Catholic Church has demonstrated, it's that even online, their first priority is to protect the sexual abusers.

Ain't it though. And finally tonight, in delusions of mischiegran-joures. Despite having a lifetime of devout practice and detailed knowledge of the perfect source of absolute morality, we got some bad behavior by a Christian person last week. Get the fuck out of here. And this is quite the scoop. You heard it right here at The scathing atheist. Michigan GOP state legislator and Christian Wright lunatic Cornelius Frisk was arrested last Friday at 2 45 a.m. after the Lansing police department responded to reports of a guy chasing a woman down the street and possibly gun

shots being fired near the Deja Vu gentlemen's club. And after investigating, it got even worse. Nobody was shot, as far as we know, but the police department requested felony charges of sexual assault, assault, and a weapons-related offense. Frisk and his team are asking for prayers in response. Okay, what exactly are they asking people to pray? Yeah. Dear God, please turn back time to stop Mr. Frisk from assaulting that lady. You've just got to like fly around the earth real quick.

I saw it in a movie once. Amen. Yeah, right. So, no, this is America. They're probably praying for him to get his swim times up enough for leniency. All right. A big thanks to Annabel Falula for the story, scathingnews at gmail.com. So according to local news reports, we elected a guy named Cornelius Frisk here in Michigan. So much like a supervillain. Yeah.

He likes when people call him Neil. So Cornelius was chasing a woman down the street and she happens to be a dancer at Deja Vu. It appears he hired the woman for a private dance, either at the club or his nearby condo, and that was followed by a sexual assault and then possibly another assault when the 62-year-old elected official started running through the streets with his gun and possibly firing that gun. Cornelius was taken into custody, likely while yelling with no shirt and being told, yes, you are being detained. Stop asking. You are being detained. Then he got booked at the station

and he was released later that day. And with a primary coming up in August, he's up for reelection. His campaign, believing they still exist, I guess, put out a statement very clearly written by Frisk himself. In addition to those prayers they asked for, it also said, quote, as many of us know, Representative Frisk is always exercising his Second Amendment right. Oh, it makes showering difficult. He's mostly a bad guy. Yeah. So his right to bear arms never atrophied thanks to his constant exercise.

Good to know. Yeah. Always exercising it. Like he's going to strain something. He needs to vary it up, you know, alternate. Right. Spend a little time exercising his non-quartering of soldiers. Yeah, there you go.

Don't skip right to Bear Legs Day. That said, it does sound like he's going to get the chance to exercise amendments 6 through 8 pretty soon. So that's pretty good. You're just doing the vanity rights. Whatever. So from there, the official statement escalates from basic stupid all the way to deep state conspiracy within a couple of sentences. Here's the beginning of the escalation. The statement continued, We do not have any details, besides what the media has sourced,

oddly, before any one of us knew anything. Okay, so they went with, Our candidate didn't give us advance notice that he was going to sexually assault a dancer and threaten her with a weapon. And therefore this didn't happen. give us advance notice that he was going to sexually assault a dancer and threaten her with a weapon. Yeah. Therefore this didn't happen. Clearly. Yeah, right. Right.

He pulls out his calendar, a la Brett Kavanaugh, right? There's nothing in here about it. Not assaulting dancer right here on that day. Yeah. So that was their transition moment. And I guess credit where credit's due, I think they actually nailed it. If you're crafting a smooth halfway point between basic stupid and sinister plot by global elites to rig the GOP primary of district 107 in upper Michigan, well, first of all,

your life has gone horribly awry if you're doing that. But within that context, I think they did well. The local media of Lansing, Michigan is part of the plot. Perfect. And here's the ramp to full on crazy. The statement added, quote, it is highly suspect considering the timing of the situation right before absentee ballots are released and the day after an unknown phone number conducted polling on the District 107 race between Representative Frisk and our opponent with deep state ties." Okay, so they went with, our candidate would have to be especially fucking stupid to do

this so close to an election and therefore this didn't happen. I love how they've recast experience doing the job as deep state ties though. So yeah, that's on you Cornelius. If you're worried about the deep state, you got to time your felonies better. Also maybe time your insane ranting about the Illuminati a little bit better. Like I don't know, top of my head, any day that you weren't specifically arrested for sexual assault, probably a better pay. But most importantly, most importantly, who the fuck answers a phone call

that says unknown phone number? Are you serious? That's insane. All right, well, I think the most important aspect of this story is that a guy named Cornelius went with Neil as a nickname when corn was right there. So Heath and I have to like descend into a screaming argument over which is more important. But first, we'll close out the headlines.

Heath, Marsh thanks as always and sometimes. Too modgy. And when we come back Marsh will try on a new arch nemesis. Respect pronouns and I'll call you fucking Neil or whatever you want. arch nemesis. There's an old saying in American football, it's not the X's and the O's, it's the Jimmy's and the Joe's. And that's important to remember in skepticism too, if you can make any damn sense of it, because the ideas behind Wu are almost interchangeable. And it's hard to say that one is more or less dangerous than another, but the people who

promote those ideas like to form themselves into a tidy hierarchy. Well, when it comes to hating the person not the idea, we have a resident expert for that, so march! Who's Wu? Okay, so with many entrants to Who's Wu, our pseudoscience hall of famer arrived onto the scene fully formed with their ideas, their ideologies, their identities and their idiocy already kind of locked in. So understanding who they are and how they ended up so deep in their woo in those cases,

it's something of a retrospective exercise. We've got access to their current position and their trajectory, and from there we need to infer their point of origin and the forces that acted upon them. So it's very rare to come across a prominent Wu whose journey into pseudoscience played out entirely in the public eye, whose point of ignition is well documented and for whom we have multiple independent angles on the exact moment they left our stratosphere of sanity. Case in point, today's entry to the Hall of Arseholes, Russell Brand. Oh, I'm so glad that you didn't mean Randy Quaid.

Although he's a piece of shit. Oh no, absolutely. Yeah. He did a bunch of weird housing fraud in California and he tried to get political asylum from Canada, claiming he was a refugee and feared for his life in the United States. Canada was like, no, absolutely not. Now he lives in Vermont, presumably fearing for his life at every single moment. Oh yeah, no, obviously. Obviously. All right, so who is Russell Brand? Russell Edward Brand was born June 4th, 1975 in Essex, England. He left home at 16 and via a detour through as many illegal substances as you can name, he became a stand-up comedian and prime time TV presenter.

Those last two facts were far from unrelated given that his addiction, mixed with lurid tales about the many wondrous temptations of illicit chemicals, that was a major theme of pretty much all of his work. And if he wasn't talking about his love of drugs, he was talking about sex. Oh, I'm sorry, which chemicals was he fucking? Like in a pile? Yeah. So genuinely, it's hard to overstate the amount of Brand's career that was about him describing how often he fucks with how many people and the mechanisms by which he persuades them into bed.

But this was the early 2000s, so none of that held him back from becoming the biggest star in the UK. Fronting major TV shows, selling out packed theatres, writing for The Guardian, and hosting mainstream BBC radio shows. Okay, it's not often that I'm happy to be American while talking to a British person, but for me he's just the annoying woo-wee guy from Forgetting the Sarah Marshall and that's kind of nice. Marsh, this is very serious. I love that movie and Inside of You is a beautiful song. Do not ruin this for me! that movie and Inside of You is a beautiful song. Do not ruin this for me. Jason Vale Bad news, bad news. So in all of those different

areas, he would be constantly bringing up his sex life. And he would proposition female celebrities live on air. Or he would belittle and sexualize female employees for laughs. And he'd boast about how he'd coerce women into sex. But he was eloquent and charismatic and cheeky, so it was probably all just jokes. It was probably entirely harmless and not at all the kind of thing that would look like in retrospect like the obvious red flags that nobody should have ignored. Well, to be fair though, the early 2000s were pretty much just one big red flag. Except the Boondocks Saints. That's a great movie and it's going to hold up forever. Are we sure?

And it's from 1999. Oh, well there you go. So Russell Brand actually got fired from that BBC radio show after calling up an elderly actor on air to boast about how he'd slept with the actor's 23 year old granddaughter. That incident resulted in 18,000 complaints from listeners, the third most in the entire history of the BBC. Although it later transpired that bragging about a consensual relationship was probably the least problematic thing he was doing at the time. But rather than this denting his career, Brand went from strength

to strength. He began to speak out politically, calling for a left-wing socialist revolution. He was invited onto BBC political programs like Newsnight and Question Time. He just edited the New Statesman magazine. And his big, big political idea at the time was that young people should upset the status quo by not voting. Oh. Fuck you. Yeah, no, I should call him live on the air and tell him he's fucked his own granddaughter with that one. And so he maintained that do not vote stance right up until three days before the 2015

election, at which point he published a video on his YouTube channel titled, Emergency Vote to Start Revolution, in which he urged everybody to vote to get the Tories out of power. The voter registration deadline had passed two weeks earlier. Okay, but maybe he was right about the initial instinct. Did all the young people, uh, Brexit-ing the voting pool help with British politics in the coming years? Does that go really good? So this incredibly uninformed and infantile position on politics wasn't enough to deter

Brand from considering himself a great political thinker. And so he released a documentary about his journey from comedian to political activist, and it was called Brand, A Second Coming. And the very subtle poster for it depicted him crucified across a microphone stand. Mm-hmm. It's nice that he saved me the trouble of just trying to imagine what that would look like though. Okay, but that's not how the second coming works. If you're going to be crucified, that's the end of the first coming, and now you go in a cave and disappear for at least 2000 years. Commit to the bit, you fucking coward. I'll provide the cave.

So as YouTube is just filled with the kind of soft-mourish takes on spirituality that you might expect from a major celebrity, he was Buddhist, and he r filled with the kind of soft-morish takes on spirituality that you might expect from a major celebrity. He was Buddhist and he raved about the benefits of transcendental meditation. Then he flirted with the Hare Krishna movement and he put out videos explaining why he wore a crucifix and why the teachings of Jesus are more relevant now than they've ever been before. I'm so glad there wasn't a YouTube when I was 27. I'm so glad I sold bags of sand when I was 27 and stayed in my lane.

Yikes. There was YouTube. I was already podcasting at 27. Don't go back and listen. Don't go back and listen. It's fine. Anyway, Brand, he saw himself as a teller of uncomfortable truths. Oh, nobody ever thought that wasn't an asshole.

So he renamed his YouTube channel, The Trues, for The True News. And he published daily superficial critiques of politics and the media from a left-wing perspective, complete with garish branding, sensationalist titles, and click-bit thumbnails. By this time, his TV work had mysteriously dried up and Hollywood had stopped calling, possibly because the whisper network had risen to a deafening volume. After all, if you're the source of true news about how the media can't be trusted, maybe they can't be trusted when they write about you. Okay, pretty much every sentence where the entire subject is

the media, if you start like that, it's going to be a stupid sentence. I've got an idiot friend from high school, he does this all the time. I just stop him now. He'll start saying like, the media. Nope. Which one? Name a singular piece of medium that you're talking about. So, Brand then started interviewing people he considered to be big thinkers, by which I mean Rupert Sheldrake, Jordan Peterson, Marianne Williamson, and Tony Robbins. He listened to Candice Owen explain populism to him. He had Wim Hof teaching the healing power of putting yourself into cold water.

He was led on a meditation session by Deepak Chopra. Oh, God. So one batch of anthrax would have gone a long way is what you're saying. Well, Marsh is in the UK, so he's saying nothing technically. I can hear him smiling and nodding but no way to tell what he's... they could be mildred. It's an ambiguous message. Could mean anything. Doing a silly cat thing. And so in January 2020, Brand posted what in retrospect looks like a pretty significant video titled, I'm Sorry. And it was all about how important it is to

forgive all the people who've ever wronged you. Even people who might have abused you. Because you know, hey, after all, aren't we always changing? You know, life is in flux. You can never swim in the same river twice. And I guess you can never get abused by the same abuser twice either. You are ruining forgetting Sarah Marshall for Heath Marsh. What did he just say? Come on. Next you're going to tell me Mila Kunis and her idiot husband stuck up for a convicted rapist from a cult based on volcano demons. I won't have it Marsh. And don't bathe.

Everything from my youth is still amazing. If by this point Brand's career trajectory had switched tracks, that train would be supercharged by the pandemic. By June 2020 he was explaining why the left wing just can't cope with Donald Trump. He was calling face masks a political symbol. He explained that quantum physics proves the existence of a panpsychist god. And he was increasingly looking like the alternate reality where Osama Bin Laden became a yogurt instructor. Which is also proven by quantum physics in the same way.

To the same degree, yeah. Yeah. That's another one where you got to stop people if they start with quantum physics. Oh, 100%. Describe quantum physics before you move on. What is that? One quanta. So his videos typically got around 100,000 views each.

But his December 2020 video, COVID Vaccine Skepticism or Trust, got over a million. In that video, he suggested that the vaccine was forced onto us by corporate interests. And then a week later, he put out, is the pandemic being used to mask a wealth and power transfer to 1.5 million views? For which he was transferred both wealth and power. Yeah, what are you fucking talking about? Then he put out, is the pandemic being used to create a surveillance state? Three quarters of a million views.

And the great reset, conspiracy or fact? 1.1 million views. And then next month, you will own nothing and you will be happy? The great reset. 2.7 million views. Oh god, why is the most dangerous woo always also the most popular woo, right? It doesn't have to be this way. Could have been fucking ear-candling that got all everybody excited. Right?

What about some alkaline water, huh? Sure, yeah. Some alkaline water. Get that good soapy blood going. Clean yourself out. Right? So to an egotist, lusting for attention, and incentivized to paint himself as a teller of truths that the media won't tell you, the lore of this attention was irresistible. And the pivot was well underway by this point.

How Vaccine Makers Caused the Opioid Crisis, it was one title. Another, how the super rich elites plan to live forever. And the great reset is Bill Gates too powerful. And then his video, Vaccine Passports This Is Where It Leads, got 4.7 million views. And in the middle of this run of videos, coincidentally, he launched his new book, Revelation, which he made sure to remind people about in every one of his videos. And look, I don't want to make everything a fucking Patreon pitch, but people, imagine Eli but turned to the dark side.

Right? You're just like, you Patreon our shows for your own protection to a certain degree. We're doing whack-a-mole with that shit like every day. Right? And the video titles by this point were just pure clickbait. Thunnailed with photos of an increasingly wide-eyed brand. Looking more and more like that time they found Saddam Hussein in a hole. How do you get marooned on a new island before every video that you do?

Right? The pirates don't like you. Stop hanging out with the pirates. It's not going well. It was titles like, Leaked UFO Videos Are Real, Why's the Pentagon Admitting It Now? and New Dark Matter Discovery, Einstein Was Wrong, Does This Change Everything? and Arsenic in Baby Food, What the Hell is Going On? Jesus fucking Christ. Oh, and by the way, this has random capitalization as well.

He's going full Donald. Yeah. This is like, this is your future PM right there, or your future King even. Oh God, it could be, could be. So in most of the videos, Brand actually avoided offering his own answers, instead just inviting the viewer to share their thoughts, though they were pretty clear signs of what he wanted you to think he thought. Titles like, So Trump was right about Clinton and Russia Collusion got 2.8 million views.

And Thought Biden Couldn't Sink Any Lower? Think again! One million views. And Was Trump Right About the COVID Pill All Along? 1.6 million views. No, that pill was hydroxychloroquine and he was clearly wrong the whole time. Yeah. So by the end of 2021, the transformation was complete. And now every new video pushed

conspiracist narratives and right-wing talking points on COVID, vaccines, the Great Reset, climate change, and Donald Trump. And despite all the hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin that I'm sure he was taking, he somehow kept looking more and more like he had really bad malaria and horse worms. I don't know how he did it. It's like Dorian Gray forgot to do the pact with the Devil Furby. Jason Vale So by this point, he's accumulated like around 6.8 million YouTube subscribers and was estimated to be making around 4,000 pounds for each of his daily videos.

But there was still a sense that he was leaving money on the table, which is why he launched his membership program, The Awakened Wonders, where he had more than a hundred thousand subscribers give him around about sixty dollars a year. So maybe we don't need to shit on subscriber based membership programs for online content march. Maybe we can do it differently. Okay, but now that we're on the subject, for as little as a cup of coffee a day, we'll do the opposite of Russell Brand.

Make sure Eli keeps doing that too. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. And of course, he started to take sponsorship. The sponsors are exactly the kind of businesses willing to associate with a right-wing grifter with a credible history of sexual assault allegations. Like, for example, you can use his offer code to buy gold from American Hartford Gold, a company that still to this day proudly displays an endorsement from Bill O'Reilly.

Oh Jesus. A paid one, no less. A paid endorsement. Yeah, man. Keep rolling with that Rudy Giuliani business model, Russ. It's going to look out. You can't lose. He's also sponsored by a supplement company aimed at men called Brickhouse Nutrition. And they sell a sexual wellness booster called Force.

Okay, now I know a lot of content creators advertise products they don't really use, but by this point I think we can confidently say that Russell Brand uses Force. Oh God. Oh, chill. Brand is currently promoting dubious looking financial companies called Zero Debt USA and Tax Network USA Inc. plus a luxury skincare product called Charlize and a diet program fronted by Chuck Norris. It's called Roundhouse Provisions Morning Kick. Is it really?

I saw that and I was like, alright, I'm going to do a joke about Roundhouse. Oh my god, it's called Roundhouse Kick. It's called that. He's also promoting the quote, unapologetically anti-woke 1775 coffee. What is 1770? Is that a fucking pro colonialism British coffee? What are they going for with the year there? You brew it by throwing it in Boston Harbor on a hot day.

Oh, alright, yeah. Got it. Now, Brand's YouTube accounts were actually, it was demonetized in September last year when The Times and Channel 4 published a lengthy investigation outlining his string of sexual assaults stretching back all the way through his Hollywood days to his early days on British television and throughout. That investigation had taken more than three years. Which means it's been running in parallel to Bran's entire reinvention as a conscious

wellness guru who wanted to stress to his audience that they can't trust the media and that they must above all else practice the art of forgiveness. Yeah, no be leery of anybody selling you forgiveness, but be extra leery of anybody selling you their forgiveness. Yeah. And it's not the only place that Brand has been turning to for forgiveness because in April, Brand announced his membership of the Catholic Church after sharing images of his baptism on Instagram. And obviously, because this is Russell Brand, the baptism took place in the River Thames. Gross. Meaning on that day it was unusually full of human waste even for the River Thames.

And the baptism was conducted by the extreme survivalist turned Christian influencer, Bear Grills, aka the only bear women wouldn't prefer to meet in the woods. And it's hard to know what it was about the global organization known for offering safe haven to sexual abusers that appealed so strongly to Russell Brent. Yeah! Much! You are rooting my favorite 2008 movie by naming fucking facts. This is ridiculous.

Next you're going to tell me Jimmy Savile is no good. And that Russell Brand literally offered to bring his young assistant to give Savile a massage. Yeah, no, that literally did happen on his radio show. Come on! Yeah, no, it did. Marsh! Maybe you can do a segment called Cheese Did the Holocaust, man.

Come on! I think none of this has slowed him down though. And most recently, he interviewed Alex Jones to sympathize about the oncoming one world government and the shutdown of info wars. And he's recently pushed videos in support of far right politician Nigel Farage, who's a man that brand once called out as racist on national television and is now on the same side as. And he recently said, if you care about democracy, I don't know how you could do anything other

than vote for Donald Trump. So we've come quite far from his no vote idea to bring about a left wing socialist utopia. Well, and that's something because there are many positions that are dumber than that, right? There's just a limited few ways you can turn to be dumber than that. And he found all of them. 100%.

And so, for giving us this perfect illustration of radicalization in plain sight, and how egotism, narcissism, and self-interest can drive even huge mainstream figures fully down the rabbit hole, Russell Brand has well and truly earned his entry in Who's Who. Alright, well my hope that someday Aaron Rodgers will make his way into this segment seems closer today than it was yesterday. And that's a happy note to end on by the standards of this show, so Marsh, thanks again, I can't wait for the next installment. Before we bring up the house lights tonight, I want to tease an upcoming appearance at

the Skeptic Hell Online Conference. It's a two-day online event coming up July 20th and 21st. It features a host of great speakers and panels, and it includes me facing off in skeptical jeopardy or skeperty against much smarter people. Michael Marshall and host of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Dr. Steven Novella. We already recorded it. I'm not allowed to tell you how it went, but you can surmise from this notice that at least I didn't humiliate myself so much that I'm not telling you about it. Be sure to check the show notes for more info on Skeptical if you're interested. Anyway, that's all the

blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skepticrad, debuting at 7 Eastern on Monday and an even new episode of our sister show, Hot Friend God, awful movies, debuting at 7 Eastern on Monday and an even newer episode of our sister show Hot Friend God of a Movie debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half sister show Citation D debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously this show wouldn't be episodic enough if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for being my bestie, Eli Bozic for being my worstie which is also a term of endearment, I looked it up, Michael Marshall for always helping out, Lucinda Lushans for pre-recording a warning for us while she's partying in Vegas, I want

to thank Megatron for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, and honestly, if you, a talking gun with xenocidal ambitions, primaried Trump, it would have filled us all with hope. Let's be honest about this. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's far more manageable list of best people, Catherine, Tom, Rusty, Audio, Emo, Lars, and Donnie. Catherine, Tom, and Rusty are so hot, Celsius has to borrow some degrees from Fahrenheit just to measure them, and Audio, Emo, Lars, and Donnie are Catherine, Tom and Rusty are so hot Celsius has to borrow some degrees from Fahrenheit just to measure them and audio emo Lars and Donnie are so smart they would have destroyed Mars, Steve and me at Skeperty. Together these six sexy secularists succumb to the sacrilegious sacrifice of species to

secure our screens this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give money to us, but if you do, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com skating atheist, whereby you'll only access to an extended ad free version of every episode. Or you can make a one time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathing atheist.com. And if you'd like to help but not in a money sort of way you can also help a ton by leaving a five star view telling a friend about the show and following us on social media and speaking to social media Tim Robson handles that for us and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingadius.com. Have you all heard about this? That he's accusing Biden of taking debate enhancing drugs and they want him to do a drug test beforehand. Yeah. Trump's just famously an adderall abuser.

100%. Yep. Well, I just, I love the whole like, he's not going to seem like a feeble person who's insane like we keep saying that says Alzheimer's can. He's not going to seem like that, but that's the drug stock. Didn't he even say at a rally something like, you wonder where all that cocaine that was in the White House went? He's like, well, Joe Biden's not taking it. Look at the man. There is no way he's taking cocaine.