The Scathing Atheist - Scathing Atheist 88: Oh Danny Boy Edition

Episode Date: October 23, 2014

On this week's episode, we wonder who Houston radios when they have a problem, we'll meet literature's lamest dragon, and Lucinda will join us to inch ever closer to the Jesus parts of the bible.

Warning, this podcast contains language that would make a Care Bear vomit. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by another new after-school animated series for young Muslims, Iranomaniacs. And yes, there's another racist theme song. We're Iranomaniacs. Comani to the max. We blew up Goldman Sachs, but the blame was all our acts.

We're Iranomaniacs. And now, The Scathing all Iraq's. We're Iranomaniacs. And now, The Skating Atheist. All right, perfect. So, hey, John, you know The Skating Atheist? Oh, you mean the podcast? That's Tom and Cecil, right? No, dude, that's Cognitive Dissonance. Is it the one with the guys from Michigan, the doctor, professor, whatever guy?

No, that's Reasonable Doubt. Seriously? Oh, okay. It's got to be the one with the Italian philosopher dude and the chick from professor, whatever guy? No, that's reasonable doubt. Seriously? Oh, okay. It's gotta be the one with the Italian philosopher dude and the chick from New York, right? That's rationally speaking. What the hell? I got it, I got it. It's that one with the guys that all met online, have the Google Plus hangout full of dick jokes.

You know, the one that reeks of unprofessionalism? God damn it, John, that's us. The Irreverent Skeptics podcast. Wait, wait. Is this the one with no illusions and Heath Enright? Obviously. Huh. Well, if anyone's proof that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men, it's those two. But that was Zinda. Yowza!

It's Thursday. It's October 23rd. And I could lease a Walmart in Georgia with a security deposit I just got back. I'm Noah Lucian. I'm Heath Enright. And from paleozoically-insected Podunk, Georgia, where I just moved on purpose. This is the Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll wonder who Houston radios when they have a problem.

DC female temple goers vertical smile for the ass-candid camera. And Lucinda will join us to inch ever closer to the Jesus-y parts of the Bible. But first, the diatribe. So I got the whole, you atheists are as bad as religious people speech the other day. That's not the first time I've encountered it, of course. And I'll admit that many moons ago, I fell for that same intellectual seduction. It's so tempting to just, you know, wipe away the whole debate with the same, they're all full of shit dismissal that we use for politicians. You got Group A saying that there's a god in some other dimension that made the universe.

You got Group B saying there isn't. Neither of them can prove it, so fuck it, I'm agnostic. And sometimes, especially in politics, that's a completely justifiable position. You got Group A saying that raising the minimum wage will destroy the economy and leave our nation a zombie-ridden shell of its former self, and Group B saying that raising the minimum wage will eliminate poverty and cure puppy cancer. Probably you're better off planting your flag somewhere in the middle. But when Group A is saying God exists and Group B is saying God doesn't exist,

there is no middle. One group is, in accordance with logic, wrong. Now, let me clarify two points, because I feel like I just pissed off everybody that identifies themselves as either atheist or agnostic. So first of all, I know that the agnostic position isn't that God is somewhere in between existing and non-existing, but rather the answer is unknowable. We'll get back to why that's a stupid position in just a second. But I also get the feeling that the formal logic is standing up on the back of the necks of the atheists, too. So secondly, let me address the whole agnostic atheist thing. Now, I'm not going to dive too deep into this because I've talked about it before and so have plenty of other people.

But yes, if I was in a formal debate, the position that I would be defending would be the burden of proof required to believe in God has not yet been met. It'd be the same way if I'd phrase things if I was in a formal debate with somebody who said that Bigfoot or Atlantis existed. But if I'm just chatting with a group of people about Bigfoot, I'm going to assert that Bigfoot does not exist, and then I'll offer the logical reasons why the evidence is insufficient to sway me. I'll tell them about the evidence that should be there and isn't.

In other words, I'm not going to introduce myself as a Bigfoot agnostic with a tendency towards a Sasquatchism. In so much as a thing can be proven not to exist, this thing has been proven not to exist. Now, I'm not trying to downplay the importance of burden of proof here. That's how thinking works, after all. But the basic atheist instinct here, you know, you hear, you're just as bad as the theist,

your instinct is to dive into that distinction between agnostic and gnostic atheism. I'm not saying that I know there's no God. I'm saying that I don't believe there's a God based on the evidence that I've seen so far. And like I said, that is correct. But in most circumstances, I feel like we can defend a position that's way higher up the chain of knowledge. I'm unable to refute the claim of God to precisely the extent to which God is undefined. As soon as you attribute a property to God, I can show you why that's at least logically unnecessary and at most logically

impossible. Any claim that you make about a God can, if not be refuted, at least be dismissed with Occam's razor. Or hell, Occam's butter knife. So sure, it's not incorrect to offer these militant agnostics a quick lesson on burden of proof, but I also don't think it's the most effective direction to take most of the time. When you're dealing with a believer, sure, maybe, but generally that noncommittal agnostic holds their position because they think it's the most logically tenable one, and that is incorrect. So when I was accused of being as intellectually inflexible as a theist, I pointed out the accuser was every bit as inflexible on the subject of gravity.

If we're applying the same standard to all claims, the spoon fall in the last six billion times doesn't tell us anything about the spoon fall in this time I drop it, does it? Now, his first attempt to escape this was through a meaningless distinction. He says gravity, unlike God, can be directly tested. And as tempting as it is to point out that that's probably because gravity, unlike God, exists, I instead pointed to the fact that gravity cannot, in fact, be directly tested. We can test the effects because gravity, unlike God, exists, I instead pointed to the fact

that gravity cannot, in fact, be directly tested. We can test the effects of gravity on an object, but we don't even know how the spoon knows that there's an earth below it. We can detect gravity in a number of ways, but we can't look at a gravity. If God existed, we should be able to test his effects on the world in the same way. Now, apparently, I was prepared to dive a lot deeper into this argument than my opponent, because the only effort at refutation I encountered from that point on was of the, I know you are, but what am I variety. He said, and I believe this is verbatim, forgive me if I withhold judgment on one of the most difficult questions in the universe.

So I forgave him. But then I asked for some clarification. What question exactly are you calling one of the most difficult in the universe? Is it, does God exist question? Or which is the right God? clarification. What question exactly are you calling one of the most difficult in the universe? Is it, does God exist question? Or which is the right God? Or where does the universe come from? Because none of those are very hard. No, none, and insufficient information. There you go, done. But particularly, what question are you withholding judgment on? And of course, the real question was the same question that's always the real question. Is an afterlife the fear of death is almost certainly the primary driver when it comes to religious belief as all of us are tempted to believe in

our own immortality but that doesn't make the question difficult is there an afterlife no there's no reason to think there is there's a pretty damn easy question there's absolutely no evidence to support the notion of an afterlife an afterlife would be fundamentally unlike anything ever observed in nature, and even the most desperate and well-funded attempts to provide a shred of evidence for life after death have consistently failed. But not wanting the obvious answer to be true doesn't

make the question difficult to answer. What happens to barns when they rot? What happens to computers when they break down? What happens to leaves when they crumble? They break down to their constituent parts and cease to exist as a whole. There's nothing at all challenging about that question. Believing in an afterlife for leaves and barns would strike us all as silly, but it's actually less silly than saying that there's only an afterlife for the one thing that you happen to be.

When it comes to the afterlife, or any God question really, it's not the question that's hard, it's the answer. Agnosticism, when used in the sense of withholding judgment on the God question, is not the intellectually honest position. It's just the nominally less cowardly answer than the religious one. Rejecting an unprovable hypothesis in the absence of evidence isn't rash or intellectually inflexible, but failing to reject an implausible, unevidence hypothesis because you don't want to rule it out is. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight in the flesh is Yankee transplant Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to... Put down the fleshlight and start recording? Yes, I am ready. Now. Wait, wait, wait. Now. Okay.

I think I like this better when we record it over chat roulette. Anyway, in our lead story tonight, the desperate Christian oppression narrative got another 16 years worth of fuel last week when the city of Houston subpoenaed the sermons of five local pastors. Now, this story begins in 1837 when the city of Houston should have passed a law making it illegal to discriminate against gays in hiring or housing, and then really doesn't get going again until last May when such a law actually was passed. To be fair, Texas never figured gay people would show up in their state,

and thanks to the miracles of federalism, that was basically the law until quite recently. Yes, of course, gay personhood has long been a delicate issue down south. So the local pastors came out in force against the new Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO, by urging local parishioners to sign a petition demanding the act's repeal. They turned in a petition of more than 50,000 signatures, but the city pointed out that it doesn't count unless the signatures are legally obtained from real people. Sorry, but half the so-called people on your petition are named Smith and live on Main Street.

Right. Fly better next time, that's not... A lot of them seem to be rooming together at 1234 as well. But what the city is alleging here, actually, is that the pastors illegally urged parishioners to sign anti-hero petitions and even instructed them on how to do so. Now, if the city is accusing you

of illegally urging political action from the pulpit, you'd think turning over the sermons would be a damn quick way to exonerate yourself. Unless, of course, you're guilty as fuck and think you're above the law. But, honestly, this shouldn't even be a problem. Pastors can do all the fruitless petitioning they want, and

now we get property tax from those churches. Win-win. I'm fine with this. Yeah, that sounds fair to me, but surprise, surprise, that ain't how it played out. After issuing a subpoena for any recent sermons that discussed the legislation in question, furious pastors took to the airwaves to decry this overreach, or regular reach, and successfully pressured the city to narrow the scope of the subpoenas, an act which, of course, hasn't done a damn thing to dampen the outrage of the local pastors at the mere suggestion that they should be held to the same laws as the vulgar proletariat.

Unbelievable. And in anti-establishmentarianism news, the FFRF was recently tipped off that Texas Justice of the Peace Wayne Mack has been starting his courtroom proceedings with Bible readings and Christian prayer. Wait, wait. Wayne Mack? That's right. I am sorry, but that's at least three syllables shy of a judge name. That's like a trucker

ex-boyfriend that's nothing but trouble. Definitely questionable. So realizing not every justice of the peace is a legal scholar, the Foundation decided to send the judge a courtesy letter, complete with cliff notes on the Bill of Rights, just in case he wanted to keep his job instead of being ousted in embarrassment by

a godless commie Jew lawyer from Wisconsin. In response, Mac decided to begin an infinite loop of stupidity by hosting a prayer breakfast to deal with this, where he will address the issue of establishment clause violations besides today, starting now. Not counting this prayer breakfast. Go. Now that we're all here together at the KKK rally, I'd like to address these baseless allegations of racism. Exactly. So, according to a witness in the courtroom, Mack began the day by announcing, quote,

We are going to say a prayer. If any of you are offended by that, you can leave into the hallway and your case will not be affected, end quote. Oh, of course. No, sure it won't. So, one more time, all the filthy heathens that want to be treated the same but refuse to hear the divine words of God from me right now, please smile for the camera and turn left and smile again and go wait outside in your shackles.

In other words, go voluntarily fuck yourself. For the record, Your Honor, the Establishment Clause is not the one that's making a list and checking it twice. That's a different one. Right. So the defendant in question didn't just volunteer to leave because he wasn't quite that stupid. Instead, he opted to stay for the unconstitutional prayer portion. Here's what he said about it.

Quote, I certainly felt that I was being coerced into following this ritual and that the outcome of my case depended upon my body language end quote so even if anybody tried to bluff and stay inside so they wouldn't get sent to gitmo figure to await separate but equal secular trials the judge and the court officers were scrutinizing every move during the prayers checking for atheist tics and Jew-tells, I guess. Listening for bad amen timing and uncoordinated Trinity gestures. Left, right. He goes, wait a minute. Spectacles, testicles, watch wallet. Everybody knows.

How have you ever heard? Get him. Get him. And in synodinal wink news tonight, the Vatican has released a new statement on the morality of homosexuality that is being hailed as revolutionary and a total reversal by people who are under the mistaken impression that it's revolutionary and a total reversal. Despite the laudations the report generated, the document itself is an impressive exercise in not actually saying anything at all.

So the closest it ever comes to endorsement of homosexuality is a bit that reads, quote, Are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? End quote. They don't say yes. They just ask that question. At the next Catholic Synod, should gays be allowed on elevators? And if so, where should they have to stand?

These are the important new questions to which expert Vatican theologians will approach considering adjacency to thinking about continuing to ask. Depends on if they're a top or a bottom. Small steps. No, no, no, no. Smaller. Smaller than that. Half as small as that. Every time. Every time. Half as small. Even smaller. The report also dealt with other controversial questions like whether divorced people are fit to nibble on the Holy Nilla wafer in the same noncommittal rhetorical question kind of way.

And despite its tepid nature and the fact that it doesn't actually represent the slightest change to church teachings or doctrines, conservative Catholics are up in arms about the almost kind of perfunctory admission that gays exist. That never happened. And of course, as soon as conservative Catholics accused them of getting soft on the gay issue, Vatican spokesmen insisted loudly and publicly that they were as erect as ever over it. Well, maybe not as ever, but at least they hardened back up about ten minutes later,

like you'd expect. Right. Walked back their statements to the bigoted side of the line pretty quickly. Right, so they issued another statement that clarified slash retracted the previous document explaining that the report on gays and lesbians was only a a working document scrimmage scrimmage i call scrimmage that was just we weren't even done i mean come on they also said that they want to quote welcome gays and lesbians in the church but not create the impression of a positive evaluation of same-sex relationships.

Which we absolutely did not just do, to be clear. So what they're saying here, I guess, is they still want the gays to give them money, even though they're gross and sinful. And in snip-tuck news, 93-year-old televangelist Ernest Angley has been accused of coercing his parishioners into vasectomies and abortions, allegedly to prevent them from wasting potential tithing money on more kids. Even more, wow. Holy shit. So I'm reading this story, and at first, yeah, even though he's being a selfish asshole, that obviously is egregious, I am encouraged to hear about a Christian preacher even mentioning the idea of socially responsible family planning. That is kind of nice. Right, right.

And if there's one group we want to forcibly sterilize, it's the Mexicans. Well, I wasn't going to. And then the Armenians. And then people who said texts like, you're welcome. And then get the fucking form of you're wrong. And then evangelical Ohioans. Swing states. Pay attention.

Yeah. Big deal. And then the story, almost as if this second angle was too cliche to include in the headline, they quickly segue to the actual story about how this guy is also a brutal child molester. Brutal, yes. This isn't some little mom-and-pop child molesting operation. The known exploits of Reverend Ernest Angley required

a six-part series in the Akron Beacon Journal. That's a newspaper. You know how many pedophile allegations you can fit into a single column of a newspaper? They had to run a six-piece segment on six days in a row on this guy. I find it hard to believe that

there is a newspaper anywhere in this country That's the end of that. That was the whole sentence. Yeah, with like real analog dead trees and everything. This place is for real out there. I remember that when I was a kid. So part one of the series included a recording

of a recent service during which Angley attempted to explain the whole misunderstanding to his congregation. Instead of saying absolutely nothing, which is what his lawyer would have advised. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely nothing. He decided to go with the Pennsylvania Dutch rudder defense, which is quite rare. Essentially, it says it's not gay pedophilia if we're on a farm and we're not touching dicks. That's actually what the dude said.

Quote. More or less. Quote, sure, I'd have them uncover themselves, but I did not handle them at all. I would look at them, their privates, so I could tell how they were swelling. I was a farm boy. We didn't know about homosexuals. We talked about women. End quote.

That's all real. So, yes, he did abuse little boys, but all they talked about was P and the V the whole time. And he wasn't touching their dicks. He was touching his dick. They were touching their dicks. So we're talking about a guy who actually went with the, maybe if I explain the molestation in his inducingly vivid detail, they'll understand defense. Honest. It's bold.

Brash, yeah. Yeah, definitely brash. Wow. Andy and I have no idea what's going on news tonight. Pat Robertson successfully trolled our show once again by setting me up for some Douglas Adams jokes on a recent episode of The 700 Club. setting me up for some Douglas Adams jokes on a recent episode of The 700 Club. A woman called into the show to ask Pat Robertson how she could avoid Ebola while traveling in Kenya next month. Uh-oh.

Right? Soliciting an infectious disease consultation from Pat Robertson in addition to acting as a formal application for Darwin Awards is generally a pretty good invitation to show up on this show as well, I'd say. Well, I don't think she needs to worry. I mean, honestly, if Obama kept the Ebola stash in Kenya, that'd be way too obvious. That's stupid. He'd get caught right away, wouldn't he?

That's why he staged the decoy outbreak in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. And that's the key here. Okay. Africa is really fucking big. And for like a brief shining moment, it actually looked like Robertson was going to offer good advice when he pointed out that Kenya is as hell and gone from the Ebola outbreak as you can be if you're an African nation. Just to put this in perspective, avoiding Kenya because of Ebola is like avoiding Bolivia by canceling your trip to Oklahoma. canceling your trip to Oklahoma. But now, in danger here of being over-sane, Robertson added that the thing that she really had to worry about as she was going to Kenya was catching the AIDS.

The AIDS? Yes. Honestly, it seems like there are doctors all over. This must be happening because we hear about the 700 clip crap all the time. There must be doctors all over the South referring people to Pat Robertson when their expertise runs out. All right, Kenyan HIV demons? That's out of my league. Here's the number of a specialist you can call at the 700 club and speak to on the air about it.

We got to tie for that. Expert advice on the AIDS in Kenya. Now, if you're wondering who all she plans on blowing during this mission trip, you misunderstand the extent of Pat Robertson's misunderstanding. According to Pat Robertson in Kenya, quote, the people have AIDS. You got to be careful. I mean, the towels can have AIDS. What? End quote.

End real, genuine, actual quote of words that the dude fucking said. AIDS towel. Not that this should ever need to be expressed, but no, you can't get AIDS from a towel. In fact, if an army of AIDS patients took turns ejaculating on a towel and then made you eat it, you wouldn't get AIDS. Unless they made you eat it right away, in which case I'm not really sure, honestly, but I'd still encourage Pat Robertson to try it. It's like a Nazi army attempted

biological warfare. It's so funny. Wow. AIDS towels in Kenya. I don't know. I think he might be thinking of Hotel Rwanda. Well, maybe if he did smallpox, that would make sense. Anyway, quick, while we still have the mental image of Pat Robertson being force-fed a cum-stained AIDS towel, we'll take a quick break from headlines for a word from Lucinda Lusions, the lovely, beautiful...

This is what she's introduced by. She should be ashamed of me. With that AIDS towel segue, Lucinda, take it away. A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what she wants. If it's a legitimate rape. It's what, right? Cooking can be fun.

Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. When things work out well for me on this segment, I like to tie a running theme through all of the news stories that we cover. But this week, it's a bit more hodgepodge than usual. If there's any kind of theme going on here, it's pure, unadulterated insanity. We're going to start off in the Vegas 6 to 1 favorite for places to start a segment about misogyny, the United Arab Emirates, where a Sharia court in Dubai recently granted a man a divorce

on the grounds that his wife was in fact possessed by a genie that wouldn't fuck him. Now, for those of you old enough to have once wondered why Larry Hagman ever asked Barbara Eden for a zero-gravity rim job with a beaded tongue, this probably doesn't sound so bad. But in Arabic mythology, a genie or djinn is a demon that can possess people and shapeshift. Emphasis, of course, on the word mythology. But the fact that its existence is as believable as C.J. Werleman's byline didn't stop the following words from actually being spoken in an actual court of law. The lawyer for the husband said, quote,

The woman and her family cheated my client. They should have been honest and clear about the fact that the wife was possessed by a djinn. End quote. Even more fucked up is the fact that the court agreed, withholding alimony payments from the genie incubator because she failed to disclose her demonic possession in the prenups. So yes, what we have here is a story where the woman who thinks she's possessed by an imaginary monster is the least insane person involved. But insane court rulings aren't exclusive to the Middle East, of course. Our next story takes us to another haven for sexism, Kentucky, where former prison guard James Johnson pled guilty last week to sexually assaulting female inmates on at least 25 occasions. And also smuggling drugs into the prison and a metric shit ton of official misconduct, whatever the fuck that is.

And what does he get for all this rampant exploitation of the powerless? Seven years of probation and a class on how not to sexually abuse the inmates you sell drugs to. That's right, no prison time. No getting his balls worked by a Puerto Rican pugilist like a speed bag. Nothing. His lawyer said after the feather touch of a sentence, quote, he's really eager to put this behind him, end quote. Well, I've got something I'm eager to put behind him, too.

A pissed-off team of gang-banging prison-hard bitches with sharpened strap-ons. But I guess that's why I'm not a judge. And in other insane news, Oklahoma resident Christy Rines was mentally ill in an extremely entertaining way this week. And normally we avoid stories that are just regular people doing crazy shit, but this one has Jesus in it, too. After ordering dinner and several drinks at a local Mexican restaurant in Lawton, Oklahoma, Rines eventually admitted that she had no way

of paying her tab, but not to worry that her husband would be along shortly to take care of it, which probably sounded implausible even before she explained that her husband was in fact Jesus of Nazareth. But don't worry, he'll be bringing cash, not shekels. The restaurant owners certainly weren't the first people to be disappointed when Christ failed to arrive. Rines is now in a local prison awaiting charges on fraud, confident that her uncle Osiris will be along shortly to post the bell. And really quickly, before I hand it back to Noah and Heath, I wanted to thank all the listeners who send me links to stories for this segment.

It really helps a lot, and I appreciate everyone who does it. And while I can't thank everyone by name, I do want to throw a special shout out to atworkmx on Twitter for always coming through for me. Thanks, dude. That's all I've got for you this week, but I'm sure there'll be plenty more to sift through next week. Back to you, Noah. Thank you, Lucinda.

And now back to you, Heath. And in Bath-Sheba Gate news, Rabbi Barry Frandle has been arrested on voyeurism charges after authorities discovered a hidden camera inside a clock radio planted by the peeping cleric in the ritual bathing area, or mikvah, of his Washington, D.C. synagogue. Yeah, a clock that looked like it was from like 1983. And apparently he had taken to reminding women not to place their clothes in front of the clock, which he wouldn't know anyone was doing if he wasn't watching from a hidden camera.

Come on, people. Just let the one or two go where they don't want to. Whatever, they miss one or two naked women. So as per the loosely translated hygiene requirements of ancient Persia, many Orthodox Jewish practitioners use this life-size petri dish to officially cleanse themselves for entry into the temple. This is especially tedious and yeasty and terrifying for women who are required to soak in the communal douche tub once a month.

Sadly, adherence to these customs allowed the creepy rabbi's shower cam to spend years regularly spying on over 200 victims, according to police estimates. It's a shame, too, because he had finally cracked the code of how to make naked women appear on your computer at no cost. For this, you need a criminal plot? You need Google. So easy. So the rabbi's business plan was almost there, I guess. I mean, he was going for

the Bates Motel thing, pretty creepy, but I'm thinking he should have been thinking bigger. I mean, you widen that peephole to a glory hole, tell the naked people they're in a porn, and you've got a pretty profitable and legal operation going. Obviously, this leaves us no choice but to put 30 seconds on

the clock. Ideas for the Creepy Rabbis Porn Enterprise. It's about damn time. We've done Christian fundamentalist porn. We've done Muslim porn. We've done Canadian Muslim porn, Catholic bird porn, but we've never done Jewish porn. I was starting to think you were anti-Semitic. All right, so how about Moses proposes he blows us in kneel down and Sukkot. I can see choking a chicken to that.

Yeah, exactly. Sukkot, bitches, we're celebrating. Line up some quails. Let's kill some birds. I'm psyched. All right, what about Crimson Tide, parting the Red Seaward? I don't get it. When I was here earlier this month, it was pink, and now it's... Maybe we could do one about the wandering Jew praying with yourself, microwaved bagels and lox. The Happy Slot Mitzvahs. Blasting pouch on the casting couch.

Nice. Jericho Rehabilitating. Blowing more than trumpets. Golden showers from the piddler on the roof Eight really crazy nights with Dora the Whore, a human menorah The trick is figuring out Where to put that ninth candle

She must have Tora knew one Yeah I was trying to show myself out The holiest of hol's never sounded so dramatic. About womb raiders of the lost ark. Log jamming at the temple of flume. Maybe something for the hossies.

Two girls shutting the fuck up and not learning. Wow, that's mean and accurate. From the interracial tranny section of JewPorn.com, Shixas with Dixas. Nice. And how about like... A Playboy Channel production. And like in honor of... Starring Semite Hermaphrodite.

I'm finished. No, it was worth the wait. That's worth starting three times. I was thinking about that diner from episode 85 in Mississippi. We could do something about tossing my Jewish salad. Oh, you want a perim job. Exactly. Part Jewish salad, part Greek salad.

All right, what about Dr. Brown Eyes Wide Shut? You'll have the bloody sheets for weeks. Oh, wow. Because you can't get the stain out of them. Maybe the speaking of the stained sheets, how about the long, brisk good night? Next on for Skinamax. Schlong of Solomon, shul of cock. Only the finest members of the tribe.

It's too obvious. Dong of Dong. Which reminds me, how about circumcised matters? Oiled up and moiled up. Yet another pleasant mental image to close on, so we'll close the headlines there. Noah, thanks as always. Kind of the opposite of always there, but yeah, you're welcome, I guess.

And when we come back, we'll still be here. The Holy Bible. Daniel is the classic story of boy meets autocratic psychopath, interprets his dreams, manages not to get beheaded. The book itself is a slim 12 chapters, but even it often reads like an eighth grader trying to fill the second page. Which is all about the two and a half spacing, you know, the big margins, plenty of footnotes. Yeah, a list. CJ Whirlman. Oh, God, you guys are awful. Maybe he was making air quotes. You can't tell.

Like on a pocket. Right now, you don't know if I'm making air quotes. I could be. I'm not playing. Let the record show he was making air quotes. And, of course, no biblical dick joke expedition would be complete without the lovely Lucinda Lutions. Lucinda, welcome back. Glad to be here.

So, other than arriving tonight on a plane, what's old Danny boy up to? Well, we start the book off with Daniel being carted off along with a bunch of other, quote, young men without physical defect and handsome, end quote, to be trained as royal wise men. Because the Babylonians like their wise men chiseled, apparently. Yes, yes. And among the crowd were Daniel, Hananiah, M, and Azaria, who were renamed by their captors as, I believe, Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Menshach, and Toby. Respectively. So mean, that's a roots joke.

All right, so Daniel uses the old kosher vegan cleanse trick to help the Jewish team win the swimsuit portion of the competition. They all move on to the trivia round. And then God granted them the superpower to know all things. Except God might have left out the math lesson about how the number zero works in multiplication. Daniel 1, verse 20, quote, And in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king inquired of them,

he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in Israel. As it turns out, they actually still accidentally got that one right. Yeah, exactly. So once these handsome chiseled wise men are all trained up, Nebuchadnezzar has a weird dream, and he

calls in all the wise men to interpret it. But here's the rub. Old Nebi is wise to their bullshit and ways, so he refuses to even tell them what the dream was about. He's like, if you're so wise, tell me what I dreamed about. Yeah, and the wise men unwisely, of course, tell him that it's impossible. So he orders all the smart people in town to be killed. Yeah, great idea, Nebby.

But luckily, Daniel saves the day and tells the king that he dreamed about a hodgepodge statue of whatever precious metals and shit the sculptor had laying around and how it all represented the apocalypse. And Nebby is so excited, he gives Daniel and his band of merry misfits good postings and gifts and shit. He starts getting favors by cold-reading the name of Nebuchadnezzar's dead relatives, planting the ace of spades, and as you'll find out, Daniel pretty much keeps up the parlor tricks and the prop magic for the whole rest of the book.

And that's always kind of the main theme. So Nebuchadnezzar builds a giant statue and orders all his subjects to bow to it. But those stubborn Jews refuse. So the king calls Daniel's sidekicks to the court to answer for their refusal to show obeisance. And they basically say, fuck you and your gods, dude. Really? And if you don't believe us that our God is the real one, toss us into that furnace sitting

above the innocuous stage we built. Right. And then have us bound with these perfectly the innocuous stage we built. Right. And then have us bound with these perfectly normal shackles that we brought with us. Someone from the audience, please come up and shackle me. So Nevi decides to toss him into that furnace, but melting isn't good enough for these Jews, so he orders the furnace turned up seven times higher than normal. That's like cranking it to 11, I guess.

And he orders his strongest guards to bind him. Not only are you going to melt, but you're going to melt really bad and be really tied up. So the king turns the machine from the pit of despair all the way up to ludicrous speed just to be sure that they die. Also to guarantee that we get pedantic feedback about how I just conflated two different movie references.

I'm fully aware of that. Thank you. They've gone to plaid. Yeah, but wouldn't you know it, it's just not hot enough to burn God. So the three Jews come out of the fire unscathed, and Nebby's so impressed that he decrees that anyone who talks shit about Jew God will be torn limb from limb. Hooray. Yeah. And that, kids, is how pre-Jesus and the fire demons scared the heathen king into starting

the first Jewish anti-defamation war. Exactly. Important part of the Bible. Then Nebuchadnezzar has another dream, but this time Daniel doesn't even want to tell him what it means. Hold on, let me call my boss. Really? Can't you just do like skywriting or something?

You tell him. He's right here. I'm not telling him. You tell him. I'll hand him the phone. I have the worst job ever. It's like C-3PO for Java. But the king presses him, so eventually he says, yeah, this dream means you'll be I'll tell you that. You don't. I'll hand him the phone. I have the worst job ever. It's like C-3PO for Jabba. But the king presses him, so eventually he says, yeah, this dream means you'll be driven from humanity and have to graze for a while until you learn that God could fuck you up in a fair fight. Yeah, God also gives him a multi-year golden shower. Or jerks off on him one.

I'm not sure. I don't remember that part. No, seriously, it says, quote, his body was covered with the dew of heaven until his hair grew as long as an eagle's feather. End quote. There's no other way to interpret that. Yeah, I don't know how else to take it. Exactly.

And then we skip way ahead with no warning at all that Nebuchadnezzar's gone and his son's in charge. So, of course, the new king pisses off Jew God by worshiping pagan gods while drinking from Jew cups. So he sends some disembodied hands to scroll a cryptic message on his wall. Like the ones in Zelda that would grab you and take you to the beginning of the dungeon. Fucking bane of my existence as a child. At this point, the new king, he's just showing off. Hey, Yahweh, remember

when I murdered my dad, who we were friends with, erased it from the history books, and then I ate a ham and cheese sandwich on top of a 60-foot golden calf while drinking out of cups we stole from your temple. You had to know Eve and Adam's family would send thing to mass media. Yeah, right. No way around it.

Right. And apparently it says, them cups is mine, you dick. Right. Remember when the Nazis tried to steal the wrong grail? How'd that work out for them? Yeah. Think about it. And Daniel was so good at presiding that all the other presidents got jealous and tried to find a way to get rid of him.

So they tricked Darius with a cunning plot. I don't know if I'd say cunning, but basically they came to him and said, We just had this great idea, King. What if you decreed that everybody who is Jewish gets thrown in a lion den for a month? Great idea, huh? And Darius apparently said, Well, you know, now that you guys mention it, that sounds like a... It's really specific.

Can't argue with the overarching premise of persecuting the Jews, though. I like your initiative. Done. Done. I'll draft up the paperwork and we'll get this going. And then as soon as it's signed, they said, ha ha, stupid king, your beloved Daniel is Jewish. And the king regretted what he'd done, but by a custom devised by a prehistorical sitcom writer, once the king signs a paper, he's not allowed to change his mind, apparently.

So they chase down the mailman. Wacky hijinks abound, but it just barely gets away with a legally binding letter that even an emperor can't get around his own legally binding letter. I don't have keys to these handcuffs. So they throw Daniel to the lions, but the lions don't eat him because God. Obviously. Dares is so impressed that he throws all the people who tricked him into signing the execution order to the lions, but the lions don't eat him because God. Dares is so impressed that he throws all the people who tricked him into signing the execution order to the lions, along with, of course, their wife and children, because it's probably God.

Standard. Despite all the hackneyed magician stuff, I'm joking about this all the time, I've got to admit, he's better than Siegfried and Roy here. At least better than Roy. Pretty solid. And then in chapter 7, Daniel eats some mushrooms. Yeah, it's like the fucking pink elephant scene from Dumbo or that fucked up boat scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Out of nowhere, this thing turns crazy and horrible all at the same time.

It's insane. Compared to the part where they were just throwing wives and children to the lion. Right. It gets bad. Seems like Disney definitely stole a bunch of story ideas from the Bible. Yeah. Also a bunch of the racism. Yeah. So yeah, Daniel's having a hallucination about four beasts rising from the seas, and one is a winged lion with no wings,

one's a bear with three walrus tusks, one was a four-headed leopard with wings, bear with three walrus tusks, one was a four-headed leopard with wings, and one had ten horns, and then eleven, and then eight in rapid succession. And cellophane flowers of yellow and green,

and shit, all I'm doing is sitting myself in the desert playing with Mr. Potato Head. It's like the courtroom scene in The Wall, except with ancient Jewish mythology instead of fucking Pink Floyd. Oh my god, it's so weird. A little bit of Carl Hungus trying to circumcise you with giant scissors. Scary shit.

And then you've got another acid trip where he's watching one goat prison rape another one, and their horns are all fucked up again, and it's all uninspiredly allegorical. It's all uninspiredly allegorical. And someone should point out to God or his ghostwriter that allegory doesn't even count if you immediately explain what exactly happened. Right, what everything means afterwards. And then chapter 10 is like some video game cut scene where a giant angel shows up. He's taking a break from fighting the Prince of Persia. Actually says at the end, like, I got to go back and fight the Prince of Persia.

And then gives Daniel like an apocalyptic pep talk. Okay, Daniel, you all set? Because I really do have to go back to bouncing off apple barrels, swinging my balls, and jumping on this guy's head three times, because it's kind of hard. I gotta get from left to right, bro. Look at this list of old, perfectly accurate future predictions that have been sealed in this time capsule for centuries that we just

found and then transcribed in our own writing and then threw away the originals. This was supposed to be in the Bible. We're putting this right here. Obviously, this was meant to be right here.

And you know what? They did such a horrible job with it that they actually show what a load of shit all the other prophecies are because the prophecies here are so damn specific it really looks like

a shitty history report. Instead of, the waters will rise and blot out the whole empire, it's stuff like, so-and-so's daughter will marry so-and-so and they'll sign a treaty and it'll be ratified.

We used the 1.21 gigawatts from that lightning strike to power up the lizard alien DeLorean. Look at how sad. And then in chapter 12, 1256 pages into the book in my Bible, we get our first mention of the concept of an afterlife. Right, and even then, it's just like a brief mention about dead people rising to eternal life after Michael arises to defeat the Dark Lord

Skynet. It's not like they don't even... Now, as haphazard as and all around weird as Daniel was, I would actually say it was probably one of the most entertaining books of the Bible so far. Yeah, because one of the books had to be at least boring. Right, right, yeah, like by necessity. But there's a self-contained

story here and there. There's some concept of story arc. All right, well, Heath, Lucinda, thanks as always. Mm-hmm. And we may or may not be back to do more. We'll never know. When the ultimate judicial authority in one's nation consists of people like Antonin, the devil is a real guy and he walks among us, Scalia, Samuel,

when did we start letting the broads in Alito, and Clarence, back that ass up, Thomas, it should come as no surprise when they rule that corporations are people and people aren't. So after a decision this year that allows corporations to cite sluttiness as a reason for restricting their employees' access to health care, following a decision which held that invoking God to watch over secular meetings wasn't religious, it's impossible not to ask, with a slight echo, what will the Supreme Court fuck up next? There are three pending religious cases on the high court's docket, so with the help of our senior SCOTUS divinationist specialist, Heath Enright, we're going to break down those cases and figure out which way they're likely to land.

Yeah, wherever Scalia and Thomas land, I will be sure to get out of the way. Figuratively and literally. All right, we'll start off with one that's already been argued. This is the case of Holt v. Dollar Shave Club. This is the case brought by Arkansas inmate Gregory Holt, whose superhero Muslim name is Abdul Malik Mohammed, against a correctional facility that refuses to acknowledge the spiritual importance of facial hair.

Well, Holt sincerely believes that if his face doesn't look like a 70s porn bush, God's going to send a demon to poke his spirit in the eye with a fork. That's what he believes. Which sounds perfectly reasonable, I guess. So what's the state's argument against that? So the prison cites general safety as the concern here, obviously, explaining that an inmate could hide a weapon in his beard. Same reason we sew their asses

shut. They didn't mention this, but the Rapunzel beard escape ladder is also a concern. Of course. Didn't the prison also cite a case where an inmate killed himself by smuggling a razor in his beard? They did, but unfortunately for their credibility, they later had to admit that the story was bullshit. As it turns out, the razor was supplied by the prison, which is kind of necessary when you have a no-beard policy. Your fault. Yeah, we need them to shave so they won't get razors.

So before we get to our Supreme Court predictions, how would you rule in this case, Heath? Well, Mr. Holt is in jail for domestic violence because he slit his girlfriend's throat and stabbed her in the chest. In most religions, he'd be penciled in for hell already and facial hair violations would kind of be a moot point. But we're talking about Islam, so the rules on stabbing women aren't so clear cut. Ultimately, I'd say my ruling, despite this gray area, if you want to practice Islam or any other religion, don't stab anyone.

No beards in jail gavel. All right, okay, but the Supreme Court has already indicated that they're not going to exactly be going that way, correct? Yes, but what's a few dead corrections officers when we're talking about sending a convicted attempted murderer to Muslim heaven? Let's get our priorities in line. Right, exactly. Well, let's move on to the case of Zivotosky versus somebody with a much lower Scrabble value.

This one actually doesn't have much to do with religion per se. In fact, it doesn't actually have much to do with anything per se, and yet it's damn contentious. Right. This one revolves around America's warranted trepidation about what to call Jerusalem. So a kid was born in Jerusalem, and his parents want Jerusalem, Israel on his passport, but by national policy it just says Jerusalem. I see. And what are the implications of this one? There are no implications.

Then why is the Supreme Court hearing it? Maybe senility? I don't know. If you average out the ages of the nine justices, on average, they're all dead. So maybe it's senility. So I guess we should cross our T's and dot our I's anyway. How would you rule on this one? I would invoke a little-known judiciary principle called Latin for who gives a shit.

Quaid, won't,don't give a shit. And where do you think the SCOTUS will come down? I'm guessing the child is declared not to exist, at which time he will be taken into custody and exsanguinated so that his blood can be pumped into Scalia to keep him alive until the Republicans in the White House sneak him to retire. I was wondering how they were weakens Bernie's-ing him. All right, and finally we've got the case of Good News Presbyterian Church versus Five Man Electrical Band, which revolves around the sign ordinances in Gilbert, Arizona. That's right. The local code says that directional signs pointing out how to get to some event

can only stay up for 12 hours. The church argues that if political signs can stay up for months at a time, why can't signs about religious services placed at no cost on public property be treated the same? Because that's the same. All right. Well, I guess this kind of does make sense from a technical, free-speechy point of view. So what's the city's response?

They swatted the church on the nose with a newspaper and said, no, no, bad church. They also pointed out this would allow mosques to advertise their existence and location, which many local Christians would not be happy about. Although this was seen as tactically useful to other local Christians. I see. Now, the appeals court sided with the city on this one, correct? In a divided decision, yes. The majority ruled that signs giving directions serve a much different purpose than signs telling people how to vote.

Also, lifting the restrictions would obviously be providing free advertising for churches. How many times do we have to explain that you can't? Right. Okay, so what was the dissenting view? That a 12-hour restriction on a thing that happens at 9 in the morning

doesn't leave a lot of daylight hours for people to see it. Well, right, but if the purpose of the sign is just to tell people who are headed there at 9 in the morning to do this thing where to go, why should it matter if it's dark out most of the sign is just to tell people who are headed there at nine in the morning to do this thing where to go why should it matter if it's dark out most of the time when nobody's going

there exactly but that's not as self-evident as it would seem to be to these people i guess they must have been expecting random wandering backstreet drivers to write a bunch of extra walk-in traffic so the signs were gonna be for for them. All right. So, again, how would you rule on this one? I'd rule that from now on, political signs only get 12 hours, too. Real simple. Nice. I like that. And I'm guessing that you're not predicting that ruling from the court?

Not at all. I'm guessing they rule that advertising for one's church is the same as free speech, since churches are people, too, thus allowing churches to advertise for free in all places at all times, including forcing sandwich boards onto local atheists. Because that's, you know... I wish that that theoretical outcome would at least represent the worst decision that this Supreme Court has made. He thinks a ton.

Probably not even close. SCOTUS! The Holy Babble Supplement. We haven't talked much about the deleted scenes of the Bible, but since Daniel was short and relatively uneventful, we thought we'd delve into the Apocrypha, or biblical bonus content. You see, the book of Daniel is much longer in Greek and Orthodox Bibles and includes a really long stupid prayer,

an elaborate gang rape gone wrong, and a dragon with indigestion. You were thinking, you know, the Bible's a little shorter than I'd like. What other ancient Jewish ramblings can we suffer through? You're the sadist. We like to be thorough about our sadism. Yeah, right. Just ask Eli. Thanks for being thorough. Now, the first apocryphal nugget of Daniel is called Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews. This one actually fits into

chapter three of Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar tosses the three Jews into the fire and they don't die. What I love here, too, is that supposedly Azariah's prayer caused God to save them from the fire, but they were already in the fire when he started his, like, 900 stanzel audition.

But of all the things to cut, why would they leave out the magic spell that turns you fireproof? It's an important thing not to leave out the book, obviously. No, I also love, you get about a page and a half through the prayer, and the Babylonians are like, fuck these obsequious Jews. Go get more brushwood and kerosene. Light that shit up. And you know what?

Fuck it. Use the Chaldeans as fuel to throw them right in there. They got serious fire. Like 40 cubits of fire I want. But of course God's angels show up and turns the fire to blowjobs or something and sings the last bit of the prayer with three condemned Jews. Which means they practiced their please don't burn off our flesh song before some time. Like they were ready for...

Okay, if we ever get thrown into a furnace, I'll do the first 20 ring verses on my own, but everyone count the rests. This is serious, because I'll need a harmony for the last 38. Seriously. Do not... Do not... I'll play it right here. And then you get the story of Susanna,

which originally showed up, I guess, in the montage of Daniel's scenes at the beginning, but got cut, possibly because the hero was a woman who didn't fuck who she was told to fuck. Yeah, so this starts out as an enchanting tale about the beautiful Susanna who liked to wander in her husband's garden. And the two judges who desperately wanted to fuck her. Right.

Yeah, they did. And then we get this Judd Apatow moment where they're both like, hey, let's knock off early today and go home. And then they run into each other a few minutes later. It's like, I thought you were going home. I thought you were going home. What are you doing here? Well, you know, I was actually going to try to fuck Susanna. Get out of here! I was going to try to fuck Susanna. Maybe we should

both fuck Susanna. Maybe we could share intel. What do you know about her Tuesday afternoons? Oh, you're the other guy in the tree with the monocular. So should we do consensual or blackmail rape? Blackmail rape. Yes, definitely. So they break in on her in the bath and say, hey, let us lock you in like a tight pair of Chinese finger cuffs. We'll have you put to death.

And she's all like, I'll take the death. Thank you very much. My girl's smart. So the two judges drag her into court and they say, we saw a fucking some dude. And the crowd says,

off with her head. Right. She's like, was not. Obviously, nobody listened to her. And then a kid pops up and says, what if maybe the people who said, what if they're full of shit? And everybody says,

well, yeah. I mean, maybe. I guess the kid makes a good point. Think about it. So testimony of the accused woman? Worthless. Testimony of some local kid with a hunch? Yeah.

You know, let's pause and think about this for a minute. Right, right. We should consider this. Daniel separates the two judges, and he's like, what kind of tree were they fucking under? And he asks the other guy, what kind of tree? And they give different answers, so everybody knows they're full of shit. And hooray. Yeah, everybody knows you're full of shit. And hooray. Yeah, everybody knows you're supposed to use separate interrogation rooms.

It doesn't require an elaborate allegory to explain a section of a book. And then finally, we get a couple of quick stories to round things out. Belle and the dragon. Yeah, it sounds so much better than it was. The first one starts with Daniel throwing down a little Nancy Drew on the Babylonian priests. Yes. Apparently, they were leaving a feast out every day for their bullshit god Bel, and Daniel cleverly

scattered some ashes on the floor so the king could see it was human footprints, not god footprints, I guess, that came up and ate the food every night. And I have to admit that when I saw End of the Dragon, I started to get excited. Right? Yeah, I'm like, a dragon? Fuck yeah, I was waiting for this.

But then he shows up and it's like, oh, and there was this dragon and Daniel poisoned it with pitch and hair and it died. And that's it. Right. Worst dragon ever. Side character dragon. Daniel's like, oh, what, this little dragon? Watch me kill it without sword or club.

And at first I'm thinking, oh, shit. He's about to bust out the nunchucks. No, he kills it with a high cholesterol diet, apparently. Lamest dragon weakness ever. Feed him pizza after 10 p.m. Slain by mild indigestion. You're all set. And then, of course, all the Babylonians are pissed.

They're like, how dare you kill our dragon? And they demand that Daniel be put on a sharpened stick or something. But once again, he's the black jelly bean of lion kibble because they toss him into the lion's den. And the lions don't eat him for seven days. Ridiculous. And for no reason whatsoever, some dude shows up to give Daniel some soup after God picks him up by the hair and flies him a couple towns over with a bowl of soup and says, you don't pick up the fucking soup

and bring that over. He picks the dude up by the hair, carrying the soup. It's like Ray Rice smuggling a corpse off an elevator. Weird visual. I think he was about to hammer her on that one and spin around. Went out to a little busboy cart. That's the worst thing on that one. Like, he spin around. Boom. Went under a little bus boy cart.

That's the worst thing about that video. Oh, shit. And then the lions hate Daniel's enemies, and all the lions live happily ever after. Yep, and from this one brief detour into the apographer, we learn what you learn from watching the deleted scenes from a movie. They were deleted for a fucking reason. And from here, it's a steep downhill coast to the end of the Old Testament. Twelve minor prophets to go, all of them crazy short, and then it's on to Jesus.

After more than a year and a half of reading this motherfucker, we're a couple months from wrapping it up. How does it feel? Yeah, but we still have to read the entire new test. Damn it, let me have my moment. All right, well, we'll start tackling the minor prophets in three weeks. Until now and then, I fart in the Bible's general direction. Heath, Lucinda, thanks as always, again. Good to be here.

Good night, everybody. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is part of the show that we set aside to open up the mailbag, realize that mail was obsolete 14 years ago, and check our email list out. Our first email comes from Gilbert, who writes to say, quote, Hey, Noah, how's that fantasy team of yours doing? Remember, you're talking a lot about how dominant it was going to be this year before the season started.

That is not a real email. Yes, it is. It's from Gilbert. No, it's a real name. We didn't get any emails from Gilbert. You're making that shit up. You don't know. There's not a real email. Yes, it is. It's from Gilbert. No, it's a real name. We didn't get any emails from Gilbert. You're making that shit up. You don't know. There's not a...

There could be... Check your email right now. I will have you know, by the way, that my team last week posted the highest score that any team has posted this entire season. Yeah. So if there was an award for best single week score by week seven, you'd have that award. I would. I would have that award. I would. I would have that award.

I would have the very best score that anyone has had. By the way, Gilbert, he's in sixth place out of 12. That's not bad. That's above mediocre. That's three games behind the leader who is shit. Wait, did you check this week? Have you looked at the website? Who's in the lead right now in the whole league?

You are in the lead. Are you sure? You're not just thinking of last week or the week before or the week before that? Because you might have been thinking of one of those other. Because I was in the lead the week before last week. We also got an email from, actually Facebook message from, we got a Facebook message

from Preston. Maybe it was me. Who enjoys Heath's repeated offers to ejaculate Broncos tight end and fantasy football demigod Julius Thomas, who you'll remember from Heath's stated desire to pull a downhill skier on along with Salmon Rushdie, or perhaps from playing football really good. Preston writes, Julius Thomas is my boy's older brother. I can put in a good word for you if you can get a hold of Rushdie.

So if any of our listeners know Salmon Rushdie's little brother, perhaps. Or Demarius Thomas' little brother. Shane Vereen. Or just an attractive woman with two or more hands, honestly. That would be ideal. Whatever. Yeah, more would definitely be ideal, yes. So our next email comes from Sandy, who wants to know if either of us say bless you when people sneeze.

That's actually an interesting question. Look, okay, my mama taught me that the polite thing to do when somebody sneezes is to say, bless you, and I don't know that I could stop myself from doing that if I tried. I'm perfectly aware that there are secular alternatives, but look, when religious people say bless you to somebody after they sneeze, it's not because they actually think that their soul

is in mortal peril. It's an expression, and while I've seen plenty of people way smarter than me disagree with me here. And for that and a lot of other reasons, we're going to do our part to help retire these religious sayings by offering our top ten secular replacements for common religiously inspired phrases. Excellent. Doing a public service here. All right, so number ten, I want to start off with one that I've used on the show before. Google only knows.

I think that could catch on if cool people started saying it. Nice. Cool, say it. Number nine, in pod we trust. Nice. A little nod to us. Number eight, maybe we could inject a little logic into the bedtime prayer. So how about, if I die before I wake, retroactively pretend I prayed not to die of whatever killed me in my sleep.

A little less depressing. Number seven, all gods go to heaven. That's nice. Like a nice way of what you just said. Yeah, exactly. Number six. All gods go to heaven. That's nice. Like a nice way of what Nietzsche said. Yeah, exactly. Number six. One nation under surveillance. We can all agree on that one.

Number five. Thrust in the Lord and do good. Similar to the Tony Award winning hit song, Hasadiga Iboai, or Ugandan for Fuck You God. Great song. Great show as well. Number four. How about The Lord Helps Those Who Talk Like Gangsters from Bugs Bunny cartoons? Just to see if they would start doing it, if enough people said that.

That would be fun. Number three. Yeast Infections. The Bear Way to Leaven. I've traveled so far afield. It was worth the diversion, though. I'm off track. I'm off track.

Sorry. Everybody, sorry. Number two, how about the Lord fails in mysterious ways? Or maybe it works in deleterious ways. Either way, we could rewrite that either way, and I'd be happy. Number one, as I understand it, when we orgasm, atheist comedian Bill Hicks and I both yell, Big bang! Nice.

Well, not together in unison, like everybody's picturing. I'm just told we just both happen to do that separately from each other. Sitting back to back, so it's not gay at all. Or necrophilia. And that's all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep sending us those tweets, emails, and Facebook messages. You'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. Before we power down for the night, I wanted to offer a quick programming note on the upcoming Holy Babble segments.

We're facing 12 tiny little books to close out the Old Testament. And at first we were going to take them all at once, but then we started running low on lubrication. So our plan now is to parcel them out four books at a time. So we're going to do Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah on episode 91. We'll do Jonah, Micah, Nahum, and Habakkuk on 94, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi on 97, and that lines us up perfectly for an Old Testament wrap-up show on episode 100. It's almost like we planned that. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you this week, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, don't worry, as I've been a podcast whore. And once again, be sure to check me out on an upcoming episode

of The Imaginary Friends Show with Jake Farr Wharton in the next couple of days. I'll have links to that at skatingatheist.com as soon as they're available. Of course, I need to thank Heath Enright, who seems to be adjusting nicely and is impressed enough with how warm it is and how cheap everything is to not yet notice how boring everything is. He's uprooted his entire life for this podcast, and that deserves a hell of a lot more than a thanks, but unfortunately, that's all I've got to give him at the moment. Obviously, I need to thank Lucinda, whose life I uprooted over this podcast and who continues to take it like a champ. I also need to offer a big thanks to John

and Mike from the Irreverent Skeptics podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. If you're skeptical about their irreverence, I invite you to find out for yourself by following the handy link I've provided on the show notes for this week's episode. If nothing else, we know they've got excellent taste in scathing atheist hosts. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most notable non-believers, Rex, Paul, Magnus, Matthew, Michelle, Jimmy, John, Hamish, Sean, Grant, Matt, David, Greg, Julie, and Claire, Chris, Smittypap, and Rachel. Rex, Paul, Magnus, Matthew, and Michelle, who have special permission to cross the streams, Jimmy, John, Hamish, and Sean, whose testicles have greater claim to planethood than Pluto.

Grant, Matt, David, Greg, and Julian, who are so persuasive they once convinced a computer that it was Alan Turing. And Claire, Chris, Smittypap, and Rachel are so awesome that historians were forced to downgrade that Macedonian conqueror to Alexander the Pretty Good. Together, these 18 bold and titillating bastions of rationality have helped offset the

what-the-fuck-did-I-just-do jitters that are bound to set in on Heath pretty soon by giving us money. Not everybody who listens to this show has the philanthropic chops required to give us money, but some of them do, and for that, we are grateful to a degree beyond lexical illustration. If you'd like to join their ranks, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, and for what it's worth, we're only about $170 shy of starting a second podcast, so there's an ulterior motive there if you needed one. Of course, if you want to help but you need all your expendable cash

to keep those pictures from Indonesia from going public, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes or talking the show up on your various social media platforms. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly, and yes, I did have my permission. by yours truly, and yes, I did have my permission.