The Scathing Atheist - Scathing Atheist 91: Hosea Before Brosea Edition

Episode Date: November 13, 2014

In this week's episode, we learn the best way to not drink bleach, we'll wonder why there aren't any bukkake slapstick scenes, and Lucinda will join us in learning that four little books of the bible can easily suck as much as one big one.

Warning, this podcast is NSF-GDWMFers. This week's episode of the Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new homeopathic painkiller, hydrogen hydroxycontin. We start with laboratory-grade distilled hydrogen hydroxide, then we filter it through reverse-sublimated steam, and in the presence of a dihydrogen monoxide catalyst, we're able to synthesize a refreshing pain reliever. Hydrogen hydroxycontin.

Just add placebo effect. We already added water. And now, the skating atheist. We need to turn to God. Pie holes should be quiet. We need to turn to God before it's too late. The rich man didn't turn to God, and it was too late for him when he stood before God in heaven. Nobody wants to hear you. And in hell, he lift up his eyes. Jesus, blah, blah, Jesus, blah, blah, blah. This is Bryce Blankenegel from the Naked Mormonism podcast. Filthy monkey men liked to fuck a lot of filthy monkey women at one time. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the first two prophets of the Mormon church, collectively had 89 wives,

proving that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday! It's November 13th. And we should be grading candidates from 1 to 10 on election day. It makes so much more sense. No kidding. I'm no illusions. I'm Heath Enright. And from polydactyl podunk Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll learn the best way to not drink bleach. We'll wonder why there aren't more slapstick bukkake scenes. That's a great question.

You'll wonder too. And Lucinda will join us in learning that the authors of the Bible just assumed that nobody was going to make it this far. But first, the diatribe. I got an interesting and somewhat humbling email from a listener in Canada last week, right before episode 90 went to air. It was disappointed that we never talked about the Ottawa shooting and felt like our neighbors to the north were being laughed at. And that is a legitimate critique. You know, this obviously relates a lot to the major themes that we talk about on this show,

and it's pretty damn newsworthy, obviously. And it's clearly more newsworthy than a porn star turned preacher or an ice sculpture made of vagina sweat. And it's not like I didn't know about this story. It's all over the news media. Well, they sing their That's Not Real Islam song and dance their little He Was Just Some Crazy Dude dance. So I thought it was fair to ask why we didn't cover it. So I started to write them back. But then when I looked back at my answer, I was almost too embarrassed to send it. Now, the first part of

the answer is legit. A lot of the time we skip over big news stories because they're just too fucked up to talk about on a comedy show. You know, we never talked about all those kidnapped Nigerian girls, but that's not because it's not profoundly newsworthy. It's just so fucking depressing and awful that I don't want to talk about that and then try to transition straight into fart puns. You know, I'm hopeful that nobody's using our show as their primary news source. So when it comes to these big stories that are all over the media, I trust that you've probably already heard about as much about them as I have. But the second half of my answer was something that I should be ashamed of, and I am. I had to admit that I had done a couple of recent news stories and diatribes about Islamic violence,

and I didn't want to overplay the subject, because every time I do, I get a bunch of emails from people who want to take me to task for my soft bigotry. Now look, I would say I'm not a bigot, but nothing makes a person sound more like a bigot than saying I'm not a bigot. And I know there's like bigotry hidden in your psychology, whether you like it or not on some level. But with all that in mind, I'm going to see that there are a lot of the criticisms that I've received that, you know, they're legitimate in a sense. You know, people will point out, for example, that even if my criticisms aren't motivated by prejudice, they could still be used to fuel prejudice.

You know, they point out that a lot of media personalities are quick to blame Islam for the treatment of gays in Gaza, but they won't blame Christianity for the treatment of gays in Uganda. You know, they point to Indonesia. They always point to Indonesia. And they say, hey, look, there's very little violence there. You know, sure, there's practically nobody who isn't a Muslim and there are no bordering nations and they're still misogynistic as fuck and pretty backwards when it comes to justice, but they hardly ever kill each other.

And I don't want to make too much light of this because there's at least a shred of legitimacy and all of that and more than a shred in some of it. You know, whenever shit like this happens, like the Ottawa shooting, there's always an increase in hate crimes and bigotry-inspired vandalism, and I don't want to exacerbate that. And there are plenty of jackass conservative politicians trying to use ISIS and Islamic fundamentalism as a boogeyman to scare old people and rednecks into voting for them, and I don't want to be a party to that either. people in rednecks and to vote for him, and I don't want to be a party to that either. But at a certain point, I can't justify censoring myself for the fear that somebody who is 98.5% of the way to throwing a brick through some storefront is going to get the extra percent and a half of justification he needs from me pointing out that the Islamic religion is kind of rapey.

Regardless of which side of this argument you're on, I'm sure you'd rather the conversation be peppered with sensible people you disagree with rather than being seated entirely to wingnuts and racists. So let's talk about that shooting in Ottawa, shall we? That lone gunman who self-radicalized? There's a bullshit term if I ever heard one. Self-radicalized? Really? Are you sure about that?

Nobody else helped out? Nobody else influenced him? Just all by himself. He came up with some religion that happened to be Islam. And he happened to start believing some shit that just coincidentally lined up with the stuff that a lot of radical Muslims publicly espouse. Just all by himself. Fuck off. You know, look.

Yes, the dude was almost certainly mentally ill. You don't go around shooting innocent people in a craze if you're not mentally ill. It's a prerequisite. But even if he is, behind him, there's this global effort trying to recruit the mentally ill and convince them to murder innocent people. And it's not all of Muslims, and it's not, you know, most of Muslims, but the religion itself is obviously a tool being used by the murderous fucks that assist crazy people in self-radicalizing themselves. You know, and we should talk about that.

We should be able to talk about that. And quite frankly, I'm sick and fucking tired of pointing out that, yes, other religions could be used to do the same stuff. When we cover a story about a rabbi giving some baby dick lesions from sucking his mutilated cock, I don't feel any obligation to say, and yes, Hinduism could be used to justify giving baby fellatio herpes, because Hinduism isn't being used to do that. And I don't feel obligated to point out that not all Jews give babies herpes because you'd have to be a fucking idiot to think that that's what I was implying that they do.

And I don't feel obligated to point out that babies with dick herpes aren't a justification to go around pogroming because of fucking course it isn't. But look, I saw a story in the news the other day about a suicide bomber walking into a primary school and blowing the place up. He killed at least 48 people, the youngest of them 11. I don't give a fuck who you are. You're the most liberal, politically correct, multicultural,

open-minded, progressive person in the world. You already know what his religion was. You know that he was a Muslim acting as he saw it in the interest of his Muslimness. Now how could that be unless, A, you're secretly a raging bigot, or B, there's only one religion out there, suicide bombing schools full of preteens. So to Andy and to all my Canadian listeners, I want to offer a probably meaningless apology for leaving you out and for missing a perfectly legitimate opportunity to talk about why everyone in the world, especially Muslims, should be scared shitless by Islamic fundamentalism. They're talking about your Jesus.

We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is America's most eligible hundred-air Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to add up both those zeros? All about the Washingtons, baby. Make it rain. I burned through those a lot quicker when I was a single man as well. My friend Abe Lincoln tells me you guys are desegregated down here in Georgia now. What do you think?

And then a lead story tonight. Despite what you may have heard, the United States holds an erection every year. And even though about 63% of eligible voters had nothing to do with it, this year's results are in and they still count. As usual, in order to hold elected office in this country, it's best to be a mildly ignorant white Christian man who's unwilling to change his father's opinion on anything regardless of logic and evidence. And if that doesn't sound like you, it's best to lie about it. Yep. Not believing in imaginary creatures disqualifies you from exactly three jobs. Ghostbuster, ticket taker at Ken Ham's Arc Park, and American politician. Three jobs, and two of them don't exist.

be better represented in politics than atheists. And this year's election was no different. For the most part, it was another week showing for the observable reality crowd, including a defeat for Arizona Democrat James Woods, who was the only openly atheist candidate running for Congress at all, which brings our total representation in Congress up to exactly zero, which is nice. I was hoping we wouldn't lose any seats. That's good. We're not the Democrats.

We're like idiots. It could kind of be worse, in a sense. Quick refresher, by the way, on Woods. That was the guy Lucinda talked about that sent condoms to the group that asked what he planned to do to limit abortions. Clearly way too awesome for American politics. Right, so pretty much nothing worked out for us. The only real silver lining for atheists this year is the fact that several grossly offensive candidates lost. For example, Rhode Island voters ousted incumbent Peter Palumbo from the state legislature.

Nice. He's the wordsmith who labeled Jessica Alquist an evil little thing for her role in getting a religious banner removed from her high school two years ago. We also got a little good news when crazy person Susan Atanis lost her congressional race in Illinois, hopefully resulting from her recent unmedicated outburst during which she announced that homosexuals are causing tornadoes and autism. outburst during which she announced that homosexuals are causing tornadoes and autism. Well, I mean, it's good that she didn't get elected, but it also brings the total number of insane elected officials with the word anus in their name down to like below one. So that's bad for our show. It's good for America, but bad for us. I think we're going to be okay.

Shit jokes happen. Right. Especially here. Anyway, the moral of the story for atheists on election day, Americans don't want no science in their public policy. Oh, God god that's sad and as if that isn't bad enough we saved the worst for last when it comes to election news and follicle extrication news tonight the single craziest fuck that graced an election ballot

anywhere in his country also won his race last tuesday you'll recall gordon dr chaps clinging schmidt maybe from episode 83 when we covered a story about him actually sending out campaign material that claimed that Christians in New York were being forced to participate in sodomy in order to legally bake wedding cakes. Or perhaps you remember him from episode 76 when he promised that, if elected, he would propose a law making it illegal for transsexuals to shit in public restrooms. I'd love him in Houston. and sexuals to shit in public restrooms. I'd love him in Houston. Or maybe you remember from way back in episode 27 when he claimed that Obama was trying to make an all-atheist military so that he could round up the Christians.

Or maybe you remember him from the stories we didn't cover, like the time he said gay rights would result in us teaching school students that, quote, every child has the right to be raped, end quote. Or when he said that gays were incubating inhuman monsters within their bodies. Or when he claimed that Obama was possessed by demons and needed an exorcism. Or when he warned that gay soldiers would have to wear diapers because they would be constantly shitting themselves with fear. Or when he

said that Obamacare caused cancer. Or when he said that gay animals were possessed by the devil. Or when he said that Madonna was trying to seduce him from afar through secret codes in her song lyrics. Which he actually said. The point is, this guy has been a non-stop fount of crazy for years,

and yet somehow the good people of Colorado's 15th district decided to elect him as their state senator. What is he doing over there? Now, obviously, in the grand scheme of things, a member of the minority party in the state senate of Colorado is only slightly more powerful than his previous office of crazy guy on YouTube, but it's still a damn terrifying development. And Republicans are already scrambling to disarm. Aren't they?

This guy's giving vitriolic hate speech a bad name. He's making us look like idiots. Yeah. And look, there's a lot of movement atheists who look down their noses at what we do on this show. And not just because of the puppy rape analogies. You'll recall a story a few weeks ago about some dude proposing the Atheist Civility Pledge or whatever. Where he was asking us to not talk about the batshit crazy Christian leaders for a while. After all, he said, they're not truly representative of the Christians, right?

Well, yeah, while you were being civil, this motherfucker actually got elected to literally represent the Christians. It says representative on his business card now. A guy I wouldn't hire to scrape roadkill off the fucking street for fear he'd fuck it. And yet this guy is now paid by the state to offer his clinically insane opinion on legislation. Great job. Gotta be kidding me. God damn it. And in got bleach mustache news tonight, snake oil cult Genesis 2 Church of Health and Healing

is selling industrial disinfectant bleach as miracle tonic to sick people. And with client retention falling well below expectations, leader guy James Humble is going on an international tour, charging $500 a head for seminars on why people shouldn't let science doctors and common fucking sense dictate their stance on drinking toxic amounts of bleach. Now, to their credit, though,

they claim that their magic bleach potion will kill the Ebola virus as well as HIV and malaria. And in the sense that it will eventually deprive those viruses of their hosts, they're probably right. Plus, plus, you have to admit, their website looks legit. Oh, you mean the website that includes the graphic of bleach in a glass with part of a, I guess, a DNA strand coming out the top like a curly straw. Not a good start. It also has a disclaimer that basically says, we're legally banned from telling you this cures anything.

For example, we would not be allowed to tell you that our poison will cure the flu, Ebola, malaria, asthma, hep C, cancer, AIDS, autism, and acne. It definitely does not cure those things. Well, it does, we think, but we're not allowed to tell you it cures any of that. I love on the upper right here, there's a diagram of chlorine dioxide. It's just a purple circle that says chlorine

and two little red ones that say oxygen. So if you were doubting their pharmacological credentials, it's only fair to point out they definitely have real pictures of science right there on a website. Ooh, bent lineal. You're right.

Diatonic molecules. And in hard-for-the-semen-to-swallow news tonight, the U.S. Navy is facing a lawsuit for their stubborn refusal to accept the incredibly overqualified chaplaincy of Dr. Justin Heap on the basis that he's a humanist and humanists can go fuck themselves.

Whatever we want. Only one of the many perks. Anyway, the Oxford-educated applicant was clearly denied the position based on nothing but his lack of theism. Though, to be fair, he denies that allegation and claims that it was really because of, you know, other stuff. Because he went to a safety school? Oxford wasn't... And before any pissed-off Oxford alums write in, I should point out that despite what he just said there, he vehemently defends your common. Of course, it's worth pointing out that in light of the court ruling in Oregon that we discussed last week,

it's very likely that the Navy is going to lose this suit, so there's a few more dollars of your tax money dedicated to the stubborn refusal to recognize your full citizenship. Good to see we're investing in that. Wonderful. And in We're Stupid, here's your sign news tonight. An organization called In God We Trust, Tilde America Inc.

is going around to redneck towns giving away unconstitutional plaques with their titular slogan and talking these ignorant people into adopting illegal local resolutions in support of Christian propaganda on public property. And they'd have to be pretty damn ignorant. I mean, not only is this blatantly unconstitutional, but a tilde? Really? have to be pretty damn Adrian I mean not only is this blatantly unconstitutional but a tilde really I mean look when not used as a diacritical mark it denotes approximation so like while I'm sure they chose it because of their appreciation of squiggly lines the name of your company is basically in god we trust kind of like America but definitely not exactly ink or or if you want to be super generous and overly mathematical it's In God We Trust of the same order of magnitude as America

you don't just get to pick the punctuation you think is pretty they all mean something or they wouldn't be there shift pinky all the way over to those ridiculous button anyway in an article for LostCoastOutpost.com Hank Sims looked at the demographics of the 77 counties that have already placed the In God We Trust plaques in government buildings. He calls this swath of flyover land God Country.

And I was not at all surprised to learn that the typical God-Cuntian citizen is a white Christian unemployed high school dropout living below the poverty line, hoping his house won't roll away in a tornado. Right. In other words, perfectly qualified to win a midterm election. And just a quick reflection on this. perfectly qualified to win a midterm election. And just a quick reflection on this. I get that we need a system for challenging existing laws, but should you really be allowed to exist as an organization whose sole purpose is performing unconstitutional acts? We're canvassing the area trying to find counties willing to disenfranchise blacks and women.

Would you like a plot? Vote no's on hoes and bros. Really? Should you be allowed to do that? So what do you do for a living? I violate the Constitution. Not a conversation that should ever take place. Absolutely not.

And in Oman's best friend news tonight, it seems Iran's publicists have launched their latest public image campaign, making sure the world knows how much Muslims hate dogs. This went so well that Iran's farcical theocratic parliament even proposed an anti-dog law. It reads, quote, walking dogs, trading them or keeping them at home will be punished by 74 lashes or a large fine, end quote. I'll give you two shih tzus for a puff and a sharp egg. Who's trading dogs? Yeah, what is that?

Anyway, considering the parliament consists of 276 Muslims and 14 terrified minority tokens, it shouldn't be too difficult to legislate canines out of existence entirely, so that's probably going to happen in Iran. As if the bacon thing wasn't enough reason to hate this fucking religion. Dogs? As in, I love you so much I can barely contain my bladder when I see you, dogs? And where the fuck are they getting this 74 lashes? How arbitrary is that?

74? I know it. I mean, you know, if it was like with a rolled up newspaper or something, at least I could appreciate the sardonicism. But this is just a matter of I don't think we seem evil enough. One other thing that everybody loves can we hate. Dancing, singing, music, party, sex, bacon, dogs. Fuck all of it. So they're proposing legislation that would make it illegal to have a dog in public or to have one in your home or trade them.

Right. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that everywhere? Right. So public places and private places is all the places. So this means they're planning to murder or deport every single dog, which means they're going to murder every single dog. Well, right, yeah. I've not seen the whole – I mean, don't get me wrong, it would be adorable,

but I don't see Turkmenistan setting up a little doggy refugee camp with invisible fence all along the northern border there. The border collie regions. Right. And because I've seen where our conversations about dogs often wind up, I'm going to quickly hand things over to the beautiful and slightly under the weather Lucinda. Quickly, Lucinda!

A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. Then it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man! This week in Masaga. I want to start off tonight with a tip of my hat to Australia and all their humans. I hate always leading off with bad news, so it's a relief to talk about a country that's doing it right. If you've never heard of Julian Blanc, that's because he's really easy to have never heard of.

Blanc calls himself a dating coach and seems to belong to the if-you-can't-beat-them-rape-them school of courtship. He's in the middle of a worldwide tour basically promoting the idea that the best way to get a girl of your dreams is to overlook the whole consensual thing. But his tour got a little less worldwide last week when Australia revoked his visa for being a douche. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for free speech, and I firmly believe that the best way to counter bad ideas is to give them more exposure rather than less. But all bets are off when you're in the business of promoting violence, irrespective of gender. And when you promote your tour by tweeting out a series of pictures

of you choking women all over the world, you can't really make the argument that you're not promoting violence. Well, you can, because this asshole did. But you can't make the argument in such a way that the Australians will buy it. So, go Australia. Alright, now on to a country that's doing it wrong. In fact, a country that majors in doing it wrong. A country that is the metric by which other wrong nations measure themselves. And if you guessed Saudi Arabia, congratulations and everything, but it was pretty obvious. As I'm sure you know, one of the many ways in which Saudi Arabia expresses its prehistoric backwardness is through a ban on women driving. Even other Muslim nations recognize that they're being

assholes on this one. So from time to time, they have to come out and defend themselves. Well, Mary Batchelor and Islamic researcher Hussein Al-Nuami sought to do exactly that during a debate with Saudi journalist Daham Al-Ans. Al-Nuami explained that women can't drive because they bleed from the vagina and have babies. When his opponent pointed out that was, at best, only half a thought, he went on to cite a study that showed that in countries that allow women to drive, cases of rape, fornication, and divorce were much higher. And to be honest, I don't doubt the study here. Seeing as how Saudi Arabia is the only country in the goddamn world

that doesn't allow women to drive, and seeing as how it's also one that will kill you for fornicating and divorce, and it's one that doesn't count rape unless there are several eyewitnesses, the numbers in his study are probably more or less true by the definitions he's using. But when Al-Ans asked what possible mechanisms could link driving to fornication, Al-Nuami responded, quote, It's because women leave the house, end quote. And again, there's probably at least a little truth to that,

since I'm sure that if his wife ever left the house, he'd never see her again. And I wanted to close tonight with a quick thanks to an awesome atheist actress on behalf of small-booged women everywhere. Keira Knightley apparently motivated by seeing one too many movie posters where our tits were inflated to D-cups through Photoshop, recently did a topless photo shoot with Interview Magazine to remind people that human-sized boobs can also be damn sexy. And while you're googling those pics, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Until next time. Thank you, Lucinda. And in diocesan desist news tonight,

the Chicago Archdiocese was recently compelled to release thousands of pages detailing the criminal conspiracy to cover up and perpetuate child rape by officials at every level of their leadership again! And, of course, nobody was, is, or ever will be punished in the slightest for this crime against humanity, those

wacky Catholics and their butt rape. It really stops being cute when the kids turn eight or nine. Now, I want to qualify the punishment angle here quick before Heath's last joke settles, and I'm not a fan of vengeance-based justice as a concept. But when it comes to these child rapists, obviously there's something wrong with these people. They're miswired. I want them institutionalized and kept segregated from society for the sake of any kids that are on their menu.

And I want that done as soon as humanly possible upon learning that they have this mental miswiring. But I'm not out for blood. But for the hundreds of church officials that absolutely had to be involved in decades of cover-up that kept known child rapists at large, they get pound you in the ass prison. Why is that not happening? There I'm out for blood. known child rapists at large, they get pound you in the ass prison. That is a fucking lie. There, I'm out for blood. Yeah, somehow, not one single church official has been punished for enabling, aiding, abetting, or covering up anything.

What the fuck? Do we need to start suing district attorneys? How hard is it to prosecute something this blatant? Especially when you have proof, like thousands of pages of proof, which is what we have here. Now, this particular batch of 36 child rapists adds to the 30 child rapists

that the same archdiocese disclosed about in January. Now, Cardinal Francis George insisted that these represented all the cases that the diocese substantiated that didn't die before their accuser came forward and that didn't serve in a religious order. But other than that... I was worried they wouldn't be thorough with their... Right, but even with all of the outs they gave themselves, an astute reporter pointed out that former priest Daniel McCormack,

who pled guilty to sexually abusing children while a priest in this archdiocese back in 2007, wasn't listed on these documents anywhere. That's weird. To which they responded, we meant all the known sexually abusive priests except him. Oh. In fact, they actually used the excuse later that those files were sealed by the court

without volunteering the information that they were sealed at the request of themselves. Why would any of this be sealed, though? To protect the guilty? What are we even doing? New rule, the church is a glass house from now on. Every dollar and every virgin ass accounted for at all times. But everywhere else, that's already the rule.

Right, yeah. Every other enormous tax-exempt group is very happy to show off their clean money and lack of raping. Right. Yes, exactly. And I think it's also worth noting that while many of these cases stretch all the way back to the 50s before priests knew that butt-raping children was wrong, a lot of them also don't. Some of these documents show the same three pedophile Monty schemes going on as recently as last decade, long after the Vatican assured us that they'd put procedures in place that would guarantee that nothing like this could ever happen again,

so we don't have anything to worry about at all. You've got to be kidding me. And in Could It Be Satan? News tonight, a viral video is making the rounds featuring a Christian woman doing what Christians do best, demonstrating how stupid their religion is without realizing it. That's the thing. In the video, she claims that the popular caffeine-infused, melted, Jolly Rancher-tasting beverage monster has secretly encoded a 666 into its logo at the behest of the devil himself.

And then she offers her evidence. Oh, she had evidence? Yeah, like things that unfolded in charts and stuff. As though there were some PowerPoint presentation she could have that would convince me that a fallen angel is sneaking into my home through beverage logos.

And why is the desolate woman sneaking into homes at all? She doesn't even tackle that. What's the endgame there for the devil? If having evil sixes in homes is useful, why doesn't Satan own a clock company or a calendar? Drywall, you know, something. Now, instead of addressing that or voluntarily

committing herself, she goes on to point out that there's also a cross in the O on the word monster, which seems Christian until you consider that when you drink from the can, you're turning that cross upside down. Witchcraft. But then the M is just a 999.

That's useless to the devil. It doesn't make any sense. You know what's fucked up, though? That's the kind of thing that would have stopped her in her tracks. You could have given her all the demons don't own beverage companies or exist type of evidence in the world, and that

would have never fazed her. But you bring up that 999 thing. She would have been scratching her head on that one. Shit, yeah. Upside down. That fucks up all my calculations. Damn it. I'm going to multiply by 1.5. I'm going to be back in a year with all my new calculations.

Shit. And in putting the dicks in Dixie News tonight, a group of idiots in Mississippi are working to get an amendment placed on the 2016 ballot that would establish Christianity as the official state religion, along with less harmful things like an affirmation of which compass direction they're best associated with down there. And when it was pointed out that this was flagrantly unconstitutional to a slobberingly stupid degree, supporters pointed to the final sentence of their proposed amendment, which states by illogical fiat, quote, the acknowledgements hereby secured shall not be construed to transgress either the national or state constitution's bill of rights, end quote. Oh, good.

I was hoping we'd get a negative First Amendment. Right. Important. And its square root would be God. Anyway, after patting themselves on the back for finding a way to say no, they used words like transgress and construe. A representative of the group added, quote, I belong to a certain state heritage society. I don't believe I have to mention the name. End quote.

By the way, nerd cred for imaginary numbers. Thank you. And finally, in Fomophobia News tonight, Pastor James David Manning of Atla Worldwide Missionary Church in New York. Yes, he's back. He thinks that all those affluent homosexuals who sodomize each other at Starbucks are a public health hazard. Especially, especially now that the national chain decided to serve the diseased male ejaculate right in the coffee. That's their new thing.

This completely explains why it takes so long to make a fucking iced coffee. And before you go on with any of the details of this story or anything, I just wanted to thank everybody who sent us a link to this story, which was everybody who listens to this fucking show. Never have we received more links to the same story. And that means that when people think about disease, sodomize, jacking off in coffee, they think of us. And that's, we'll say, flattering. That's what flattering means, correct? So you may remember Manning as the pastor we've covered who announced that Obama decided to release the homo demons on the black man. Yes.

By the way, quick follow-up on that story. I've been checking with our field black guy, and as of his last report, still no sign of any gay demons chasing black dudes around Harlem yet. More to come as events unfold there. He's also the guy that put up the sign about stoning lesbians and then wouldn't make with the rocks when a real lesbian... You know, look, we could honestly do this list like we did with Dr. Chaps here, but suffice to say, he's been a regular fixture in our headlines before. So that guy is back, and he announced last week that Starbucks is, quote, ground zero for spreading Ebola and other diseases, where, quote,

generally upscale sodomites exchange a lot of body fluids, end quote. And now Manning thinks they're putting semen right in the coffee after he read about a fake news story originally from the satire site Hustlers.com. And just to be clear on the level of satire in this article, Manning thought it was real despite a customer in the fake story enjoying the jizz coffee so much that he, quote, might just try semen alone to see if it's that good, end quote. It isn't. And here's Pastor Manning's response after hearing there's semen in Starbucks coffee.

You guys ready? Quote, he just found out there's semen in Starbucks coffee. Quote, my question is, where are they getting all this semen from? My suspicion is they're getting it from sodomites, end quote. So he finds out there's an enormous national coffee chain that's putting jizz in the coffee. His first concern is where the jizz comes from. Whose jizz is it? And his first guess is they probably, you know, filched Santorum from gay dudes' asses post-sodomite.

That's the most reasonable place where you would get a big stock of jizz like that. Right, right. That's the most reasonable place where you would get a big stock of jizz like that. And somehow, after he speculates on which orifices the sperm donors generally prefer when they're not flavoring coffee, it goes off the rails. Like, you thought that he had found the solid floor of insanity with the filtering semen from post-coital rectums, but it turned out that that was the setup for the crazy part. Right, so here for the crazy part. Right. So here's the crazy part. Realizing he needed, you know, to throw in some science to back up these claims he had just made, Manning added, quote, My suspicion is that semen, like cord blood, has millions and millions of little zygotes in it.

Zygotes. And it flavors up the coffee. End quote. So. Zygotes. one more thing he said. I would love to be a fly on the wall when this motherfucker's writing a sermon because you know

that he talks to the flies on his wall. Gotta assume. So, while Manning figures out how dudes having butt sex leads to fertilized eggs inside male ejaculate, let's put 30 seconds on the clock. He'll probably need a lot more than that, but we'll take 30 seconds

and help out Starbucks with their new spinoff, Ideas for the Sodomite Sperm Coffee Chain. Obviously, thanks to popular demand. Go. The most requested 30 seconds bit of all time. Here we go. How about Duncan Donors, America Runs on Spunkin'?

How about Spunky Brewsters, Chock Full of Robusta Nut. See, I was going to go with Chock Full of Nut Butter eventually, but you got it first. How about Gaping Starbucks? Given your barista blister since 1971. Got a Stroke-a-chino, a Fat-a-chino, and a Premature Ejaculate with two pumps. Ready to go. Okay.

What about, let's get serious here. What about Brood Awakening? The best part of waking up is two girls in one cup. Check. I mean, it's coffee. How are we not going to do the two girls one cup reference? Oh, I thought you were checking the erudite dick joke. How about a treat from Spawn Veldaz?

How about twerklating at the coffee grinder? Dip it, drip it, and rip it. Nice. I was thinking jerk it, perk it, and work it, but it rhymes either way. It all works. Oh, and speaking of rhymes, I know that the barista boys like their sugar with bukkake and cream. The rumor that I heard. Good job.

All right. How about welcome to the Mung Beanery aka the mung hole home of the g.i. joe mung food trip no mung references for like 89 episodes in the like five and everybody forgot make sure you google mung all right let's see um damn this would have been so much easier if he hadn't left out lesbian squirters the bean jokes would have just written themselves about wanks and beans. Oh, nice! Try our new stadium location, New York Yankee Beans.

Yanks a latte. Come again. But wait about, like, ten minutes. Yeah, at least. Maybe Gloria Jean Stain? Or, no, Glory Hole Jeans, because that's also a good pant style for the sodomite on the go. People will know if you're a bottom or a top depending

on which way you wear them. Versatile. How about Harvey Milk's non-dairy creamery? San Francisco skeet skeet skeet.

I like the drenched vanilla but the glazed nut is too strong. Way too strong for me. All right. What about

Seattle's Breast? Cream me up biscotti. Nice. And for the older sodomites, it could be Seattle's Best. It's basically the same thing. About Sodomisto. We always go demi-taste to mouth.

You never go demi-taste. All right. How about... Oh, I like this one. How about Fairy, Pearly, and Joe? That's the three splooges. I can't believe we haven't made that joke already. It's got the

cum in there and the coffee. Yeah, yeah, and the gay and everything. Fairy, pearly, and Joe. It's a splooge. Maybe one more. The LGBT bag? Learn to chode in Java. Alright, I'm done. And with the satisfaction that we've now balanced last week's cold excretion beverages

with this week's hot excretion beverages, I guess we can close out the headlines for the week. Heath, thanks as always. Cheers, coffee! And when we come back, Lucinda will join us to prove that four short books of the Bible suck as bad as one long one. Figure I'll get my last chance at that. I bet you'd use it again.

Alright, so this is the latest I've ever gotten a poem to you, so sorry about that. But I'm still going to get it in under the wire if the deadline is before the next Holy Babble segment. By like two seconds. So without further ado, Daniel in iambic hand decameter. Let's take, for example, the first of the stories, a tale of Nebuchadnezzar, where Daniel arrives to interpret his dreams and wins favor because he's a good guesser. And Daniel had friends, a trio of Jews, Abednego, Masach, and Shadrach, who were ordered to bow but refused and suggested the king bow and gobble their cocks. The king was enraged, so he ordered those Jews that defied him to burn in a furnace, so they fired it up and they tossed the Jews in, but their prayers were all humble and earnest, so the good Lord decided to keep the three safe by sending an angelic choir.

The moral, I guess, is the most pious Jews are immune when folks set them on fire. And Daniel was summoned again by the king, who considered his powers amazing, until he explained that the nightmare he had meant he'd spend some time naked and grazing. Nebuchadnezzar, it seems, grew so mighty that he'd run the envious side of the Lord, so Yahweh condemned him to spend seven times eating shit till his kingdom's restored. Any ethical laws we can draw from this tale? Any meaningful maxims to glean? Perhaps it's that people who subjugate Jews should eat a ruminant's favorite cuisine. But wait, maybe there are some morals to find in the next literary excursion, where God sends some bodiless hands to the king that sign his fortunes away to the Persians. I mean, sure, it's a pretty good tale from the crypt, as it's creepy, it's fresh, it's

suspenseful, but the morals enslave all the Jews that you want, but don't fuck with their holy utensils. This seems like a lesson one couldn't imply unless their bizarre form of anti-Semitic included the habit of wrestling sporks from the hands of the passing Hasidics. But I know what you're thinking, and freely admit that the likeliest place to find virtue is the part where the satraps grab Daniel and say, you brown-nosing Jew, we will hurt you. They wanted him dead, so they thought up a plan to hoodwink the noble King Darius into signing an edict to kill all the Jews and away both inept and nefarious. With haste, he was thrown to the lions, but they didn't eat him because God had a plan. You'll notice God didn't like Christians in Rome under Nero the way he liked Daniel. As the lions

apparently know who is saintly and won't eat who Yahweh forbids, so Darius gives them the satraps instead, right along with their wives and their kids. So I guess if you're righteous and meet up with lions, God won't let you be molested, and unless you don't think that the Bible is true, I'd think you'd be willing to test it. I have to admit that we spent a bit of time scratching our heads about how to deal with the dozen rapid-fire mini-books that make up the final leg of the Old Testament. Called the Minor Prophets, these 12 books are mercifully short, but in terms of content, they're basically short versions of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. So after much discussion, we ultimately elected to tackle them four at a time over the next three Holy Babel segments, culminating in an Old Testament wrap-up show on episode 100. Jesus is coming! I don't know, I've heard that one before.

Now, this week we're going to be tackling the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah, but of course the Babel just wouldn't be the Babel without my lovely wife Lucinda. Lucinda, welcome back. I think I'm allergic to the minor prophets. Yeah, clearly battling a bit of a cold to be with us tonight, so we'll try to get you back to your NyQuil and do slumber as quickly as possible. So without further ado, why don't you start us off with Hosea? Awesome. Yeah, so first Hosea hears from God, and God says,

I've got a weird request. Go find the hoariest wife in all of Israel. Then have three kids. It's a symbolic thing. Right, right. God's logic at its finest. See, Hosea, I just don't think people will get it if I just say, I'll show you no pity and I have forsaken you. So I need you to have two daughters and then name them. I will show you no pity and I have forsaken you. In my copy, they were called Not My Kid and there does not exist in this project.

No sense. Yeah, meet my kids, fuck off and eat shit and die yeah right right you had the son too anyway so hosanna says i don't know if that's necessary dude but god cuts him off he's like i wasn't finished after they're all the kids are born and you name them fuck off eat shit and die you need to strip your wife naked and send her out in the woods with the kids and no food and water for a couple of years to represent what i'm going to do to you ungrateful Jews. And as if that's not enough, the third phase in God's plan is that Hosea goes out and pays a married prostitute to not fuck him for a few months. Right.

So you remember your wife, the one I made you send away naked with no money? Maybe two years ago. It doesn't matter. Well, somehow she's a hooker now. So I guess you're going to have to go and buy her back. And I guess that's my fault. But silver lining, my analogy couldn't be more clear now. I mean, shit's not going to work out for the Jews for a while.

You guys get that now, right? It would be a shame if you didn't. And I'd like to point out that his first three revelations all involve Hosea hanging around with prostitutes. You know, because God commanded it, of course, just by coincidence. And then Hosea spends the last nine chapters bitching about all the foreigners taking our jobs and list off all the horrible shit God's going to do because of it. Yeah, basically it's the same shit we've been reading for the last four prophets.

But there are a few interesting new ones here and there, like chapter 4, verse 10, where God curses the Jews to fuck constantly without procreating. And then, just when temple attendance is at an all-time high, God makes a rule against shrine whores. And that's ridiculous. That was the best idea in the book so far. Yeah, the attendance and everything.

Right, and the horrible thing Judea did apparently was be accepting of other humans. How dare they? You know, that is the one overriding message of the Bible. It's don't be accepting of other humans. How dare they? You know, that is the one overriding message of the Bible. It's don't be accepting of other humans. In fact, fuck other humans and their sheep. If I had to condense the Bible into a tweet, that would be it. God's a petty asshole.

Donate foreskin. No bacon. Consent costs 50 shekels. Don't fuck collards. And the Jews had dibs. Hashtag shotgun Palestine. Well done, sir. And it's clear that Hosea struggles with analogies that don't involve whores.

All right, so in chapter four, he says whore like 80 times. And then chapter eight, he makes this conscious effort that is completely futile to move along to something else. Because he's talking about the Judeans. This really happens. He's like, they're like a wild ass wandering alone that pays other donkeys to fuck it. Damn it. That's a whore donkey. The knight was human. Wild ass wandering alone that pays other donkeys to fuck it. Damn it! Jim! That's a war donkey.

The knight was human. Then in chapter 9 we get a detailed rundown of God's baby murdering itinerary. Right. And also a brand new twist in which everyone's being Jewish wrong. Weird. And God decides to use pre-Muslims to punish them. Again. In many places. to use pre-Muslims to punish them. Again. And is it just me, or

does God saving the Jews from Egypt come off as Al Bundy's four-touchdown game by the end of this game? Every time he gets pissed about anything, he says, hey, who parted the fucking sea? I was a you? No? Was that me? Four touchdowns in one fucking game? Then fuck off. I created the light and the

dark, bitches. You don't talk to me like that. I drive a Dodge Stratus. You don't talk to me like that. I drive a Dodge Stratus. You don't talk to me like that. And when you hear him bring up the Exodus, you know the threats to rip babies out of their mother's wombs can't be far off. You do? Well, in fairness, if you're reading the Bible, you know the threats to rip babies out of their mother's wombs can't be all that far off. It's in there somewhere. But in the end, Hosea puts a positive spin on it by promising that God will be really nice again as soon as he gets done ripping out the fetuses.

Right, after that. And the pile of ripped fetuses image is especially difficult to shake when reading the final line. Quote, the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein. Ew. No fun. Girl, that's just nasty. Like a ball pit at McDonald's. Oh.

They're in. Ew. No fun. Girl, that's just nasty. Like a ball pit at McDonald's. Which brings us to the much shorter book of Joel, who apparently bought the Wonka Bar with the get-your-own-book-of-the-Bible ticket and decided to write a schizophrenic horror story. It's ridiculous.

So basically Joel launches into a three-chapter tirade about how horrible eventually will be. He starts off with four waves of locusts coming in, all of them devouring all the crops, by the way, subsequently. And then there's like a booze shortage, and then there's a drought, and then there's a city council meeting of some sort, and then there's a bunch of stone sheep. So shit just escalates quick in this one.

Right. There's a terrible locust plague and he decides to take credit on God's behalf. So basically it's like those shitty little terrorist groups that all claim they caused the earthquake the next day. Yeah, I'm sure you guys know. And then it'll be cloudy, and oh yeah, an infinite army of superhuman zombie charioteers will attack and kill everybody. Or leave cookies and milk.

Right, one or the other, yeah. Kind of vague. He points out that he's pretty sure the army is coming to kill everyone, but it's also possible God will change his mind and just have them march up and leave cookies and milk. Right. I mean, in King James, it was corn, wine, and oil. So, yeah. I mean, cookies and milk for desert tribes with no Santa.

Yeah. Anyway, then you get this weird and very blatant addition to the book. Like, obviously, the thing originally ended at chapter 2, verse 27, which reads, And my people shall never again be put to shame. And then the first verse of 28 starts with, Then afterwards, like, in case you were curious what happens after never again, we added this little postscript. Which is basically, by the way, P.S. Kill Philistines.

Right. So God promises nothing bad will ever happen to the Jews at the hands of a foreign nation ever again, but make sure you keep genociding other tribes just to be extra careful. Exactly, exactly. Nothing can go wrong with the genocide. And after this brief diversion, we get to Amos, which is actually, I guess, the first of the prophetic books, chronologically speaking, and after reading this one, it's pretty clear why all those other prophets thought to themselves, well, I can at least do better than that. So this one starts off with a two-chapter list of people Amos wants to watch burn to

death, which is basically every nation he would know about at this point in history, including his own. Yeah. And I think this is where God coins the now-classic adage, persecute the Jews three times, shame on me, but you're not going to pull four transgressions against Israel and you're out of strikes. But you can tell pretty quickly who he's really pissed at, because

for the Syrians, it's, you guys fucked with the Gileads, so I'm going to kill you. For Gazits, you enslaved too many people. For Moabites, you didn't respect the assassinated king's body. It's all dispatched with two sentences. Then he gets to Israel. And it's like, you're mean to poor people. You don't let prophets like me prophecy, and your mother's a bunch of whores, and I don's like you're mean to poor people you don't have problems like me prophecy and your mother's a bunch of whores and i don't want to go to your party anyway

and then god proves he exists by explaining lions don't growl when there's nothing there and you can't catch birds without baiting the bird trap therefore when something bad happens to a city that was obviously me and i exist Also, I'm setting up a stadium seating type of situation for all the bad guy tribes so they can watch me slaughter and exile you guys again. And yet, thousands of years hence, the apologists haven't come up with anything better. It's amazing. Some great imagery in chapter four, though. When he warns all the rich people that God's going to stick fish hooks in their skin and then drag them through a crack in the wall.

Yeah, that was... Which sounds icky. Wonderful. And we also learn in this chapter that the real problem is that God has communication issues. See, he spent most of the chapter saying stuff like, I just don't get it, Jews. I sent a drought and you didn't get the message. And then I sent rain to only some cities and not others. You still didn't get the message.

And then I made a fungus grow on some shit, and you still didn't realize that was my way of saying stop fucking foreigners and shitting on poor people? What's a deity got to do? Some fungus. Yeah. Right? Exactly.

Right? He says, have you guys seen stars? I made stars. How can you possibly think the guy who made stars is fucking around about exiling you? Are you going to need to have a flood again? I'll do it. Now, there is a pretty cool kind of like fuck the establishment,

eat the rich thing going on underneath this whole one. He still has a bunch of tsk tsk you made high places nonsense, but I can actually empathize with Amos a little more than any of the other prophets. Most of what he has to say is like, how about kicking an apple down to the poor here and there? And in a book as devoid of morality as the Bible, that's refreshing.

Yeah, even though it's motivated by the claim that we need crazy homeless street preachers to exist. Right. It is nice to see them accidentally stumble onto some ethics once in a while. It's good stuff. But there's definitely some weird shit there, too. Like in Chapter 7 where Amos is chatting with God while God makes locusts. And God, he holds out a plumb line and he says, what's this? And Amos says, it's a plumb line.

And God says, exactly. And that's an analogy or something for me killing a bunch of Jews. And Amos says, how so? And God says, fuck off. I got locusts to make. It was like, hold on, hold on. This plumb line thing is almost a real analogy. Maybe we should think about it.

We're past that. We're past that. We've clearly moved on to locusts. Pass me the locust mold. We're busy. Yeah, and then Amaziah makes a cameo. You'll probably not remember him from Kings and Chronicles, by the way.

Very forgettable. Anyway, he shows up and tries to shoo Amos away, so Amos tells him his wife's a whore and his kids are gonna die. Everybody is a whore in this book. Then God tries the analogy thing again, and he fails miserably again. He shows Amos a basket of fruit, and he says, the basket of fruit is, you know, one of those analogy things

for how there will be piles of dead people in Israel, because they piss me off, like fruit. See these apples? Well, I'm killing a bunch of Jews again. How do you like them apples? That's what's happening. Exactly. And then he threatens Israel with the silent treatment.

If you're not careful, I'll shut the fuck up. And God is worse at fractions than analogies, right? He has no clue what all means. He keeps saying, I will kill them all with an earthquake. And those that are left, I will kill with the sword. No! When you kill all of something, there's nobody left, you fucking dork. Put the sword away.

Cutting locusts ate everything. And then the swarming locusts ate all of that. Earth, wind, and fire locusts ate all that. There was nothing left. And then the swarming locusts ate all that. Earth, wind, and fire locusts ate all that. And then the Samoans ate all that. Making shit up. And finally, we'll close

with the shortest book in the Old Testament weighing in on a whopping page. The book of Obadiah still manages to be verbose. Oh, yeah, because it

could have just as easily been two words. Fuck Edomites. Right. Done. Fuck Edomites because they didn't prevent God from having the Jews get enslaved by foreigners againomites because they didn't prevent God from having the Jews

get enslaved by foreigners again. Sorry, we didn't prevent that. Yeah, exactly. Right, the whole thing is just a breathless screed about what a bunch of assholes Edomites were when the Babylonians sacked Judah. Although, I'd have to say I'd love to be in the car when Obadiah gets caught off in traffic.

You just see him, like, yelling out the window, The day of reckoning is near upon you, for as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, your generations will be smited upon the stones in your house and set on fire out of fury of the Lord, for you have chosen to be consumed by the holy fire rather than use your fucking turn signal, you dick! There's no way that guy has a car.

No, no. And that's it. Now, if you want some good news, Obadiah was the shortest book of the Old Testament, but only the fourth shortest book of the Bible. So something tells me that these Jesus bits are going to be a cakewalk compared to the shit we've been through so far. Reading the Latin dictionary out loud would be a cakewalk at this point. No kidding.

Honestly, as I'm reading the stories of all these stupid prophets, I just kept picturing them yelling in the street and then all of a sudden getting violently tackled from the side, like mid-apocalypse claim. YouTube would have been great back in the day if then all of a sudden getting violently tackled from the side, like mid-apocalypse claim. YouTube would have been great back in the day if people could have had some shots of these. I still honestly haven't shaken the image of the Three Stooges Bukkake scene that you brought up in the intro. We've got three

Bible-less weeks on the docket, and then it's on to the dude that lived in a fish. With the hand on the nose. Curly's doing the face slap thing. It's not his face. Anyway, so we've got the guy and the fish. We've got Mike and the whom. Habakkuk, all of that.

But between now and then, I'll see if I can formulate enough phlegm to pronounce Habakkuk. I could do it for you. Yeah, right, right. Well done. Until next time. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show we only rarely dedicate to jokes about raping puppies. Our first email comes from Joshua in Louisiana.

He was hoping we could offer him some advice on starting a skeptical group in his area. So, got any advice for him? No, unfortunately. But my guess is that some of our listeners have done stuff like this before. So what I'll do is I'll start a thread on our Facebook page about it. So if you have any advice for Joshua, you can leave it there or just email me and I'll pass it along. Our next message comes from Steven via our Patreon page. So opening this can of worms.

We recorded a bit in the feedback last week where we briefly touched on the Oxford comma. And that segment actually got cut from last week's show to make time. But we did include it in the extended patron-only Patreon cut that you can only get by becoming a per-episode patron at patreon.com slash skatingatheist. Anyway, as we were discussing it, I made the point that technically speaking, the Oxford comma is a style choice, and there's no one acceptable right way to do it, to which Heath responded with the following. Perhaps a questionable style choice. Well, sure, I'm not going to say it. Away from a superior alternative, But still technically not incorrect, unless absolutely fits into segment.

At least if you don't feel bound by the conventions of Strunk and White, APA style, the U.S. Printing Office manual style, the Chicago manual style, the MLA handbook, Weird Al Yankovic, comma, and nearly every professor I've had. And that prompted Stephen to write the following. Quote,

Puppy rape and religion are one thing, but some subjects just shouldn't be discussed in public, end quote. Great email. And of course, he's talking about the roe v. Wade of writing style, the Oxford comma issue. So,

he went into a bunch of minutiae about subordinate appositives, offering an example in which both comma systems could have trouble with ambiguity, and he finishes by saying, quote, regardless of your choice, a writer has to take some care when ordering a list so as not to create unnecessary confusion. In light of that, I submit that the system which requires the fewest additional punctuations is the superior system, end quote.

Oh, it's on now! Indeed it is. So the subordinate positive situation, a small subset of lists with commas, requires both systems to take some care, absolutely. However, consistent omission of the Oxford comma brings up potential ambiguity in every single general case list. Unless it's contextually impossible, the connection, or lack thereof, between the final two items of the list is not clear without an Oxford comma, or omission of said comma by someone using consistently the Oxford comma system. If Stephen is suggesting that he would divert from his system when necessary,

that'd be another discussion, a little hybrid discussion, sure. But if we're weighing always Oxford comma versus never Oxford comma, the ambiguity advantage is clear. However, if you don't trust me on this, at least as far as scholarly writing in the United States goes, nearly every single expert source agrees on mandating the Oxford comma, as per last week's comments. Nothing is as simultaneously contentious and boring as the Oxford comma.

Absolutely not. Give me more of that Stevie subordinate of positive talk. Maybe it's not exactly like Roe v. Wade. I'm not a perfect analogy. On a lighter note, I also wanted to mention an email from Mike who suggested that Heath, quote, should tell those rednecks that he's a New York Jew. That way when he meets strangers, they can brag that they met a Jew. I'm pretty close. As far as George is concerned, just being from New York is already a New York Jew. That way, when he meets strangers, they can brag that they met a Jew. I'm pretty close.

As far as George is concerned, just being from New York is already a little bit Jewish. Yeah, right. Pretty on the way. Now, we also have a quick correction from Terry regarding the I stand Sunday thing, where Phil Robertson implied that nine-year-old girls would piss at urinals if we couldn't discriminate against gays. She wanted to point out that as a long-distance bicyclist, she often has to piss standing up, what she deemed a pedantic correction.

Well done, Terry. Nice, nice. She also sent along a link that details how that works. I didn't have the guts to check it out. And finally tonight, we got an email from Ray in New Zealand, who is terrified by the educational standards in America. Fair enough. Keeping in mind, though, he's from the country we featured earlier on the show

for having a bleach drinker convention coming up. I'm sure we beat them out in bleach drinkers. But he really has legitimate concern here. He was talking about some American dude he met that didn't know which side the USSR was on in World War II. He didn't know what the Cold War was. He didn't know what appendage the pants go on. And he wanted to know if this was typical of Americans

or if he just met a really stupid one. And the answer is yes. Right. But that did get us thinking about how we would fix it if they'd let us. And that got us thinking about this week's top ten. So here are the top ten things that Noah and I would change about the American educational system if we could. All right, number ten.

The first 45 minutes of every Monday, we send all the religious kids to church detox class to scrape off all the anti-evolution, anti-Big Bang barnacles their pastor stuck in over the weekend. The power washer. Yeah, exactly. Number nine. New rule. The math teacher budget is too small as long as people continue playing the lottery. That's clearly too small.

That's true whether you like it or not. Number eight, how about at least one required class on critical thinking? Just one. Or maybe even 12 years of that in every fucking class, but at least we can start with one stuck in a curriculum somewhere. Number seven, now I realize we already struggle with the English fluency thing, but if everyone also learned, say, French, Spanish, music notation, and Python programming language, maybe language wouldn't seem so difficult.

Yeah, or Chinese quick before they own us. Number six. I'd make everybody go to school naked just to see if they started having weird dreams about showing up dressed. You know? Number five. English teachers need to be bigger sticklers about grammar punctuation and the oxford yeah i knew i was gonna make it in here somewhere number four

i'd get rid of that vestigial h in the word school you know are we just intentionally fucking with these kids of all the words to not spell phonetically i guess phonetically would be the first one but school would be the second. Number three, more female pedophile teachers. You know, you don't get too many lawsuits from those. You'd be amazed, actually. There's quite a few of them going on right now. None for me.

Not at 13. Number two, I'd offer an elective in fighting teams of ninjas. That'd get the kids fired. Look, this is going to come in as handy as diagramming sentences. It's way more fun. Intramural nunchuck fights? Who wouldn't get fired up for that? The pep rallies would be awesome. And the one time it pays off

and you beat up those ninjas, I'd rather have ninja fighting skills in no need than no ninja fighting skills in a need. Exactly. And the number one change I would make to the U.S. educational system. I'd return maybe a 12-pack of drones to Boeing and solve the entire school budget crisis

that we're talking about. That'd do it. Pretty much. I like that one. And that's all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep sending us those emails, tweets, and Facebook messages. You'll find all the contact info on the contact page

at ScalingAtheist.com. Before we sign for the tip tonight, I wanted to throw a quick heads up to any of our listeners in or near the Atlanta area. Richard Dawkins is going to be appearing at Kennesaw State University for a Q&A on November 21st. If that sounds like exactly your kind of thing, check the show notes for episode 91 on ScathingAtheist.com for a link to pick up tickets, which I am sure are going fast. I also wanted to mention a really cool fundraiser that David Smalley from Dogma Debate Radio is doing next month. He's going to be live streaming audio for a solid 24 hours to raise money for one of our favorite charities, the Foundation Beyond Belief. He's pulling out all the stops for this thing. He has a hell of a schedule of guests lined up.

Should be a lot of fun. That all gets started Saturday, December 6th. That runs through Sunday. And if you're an early riser or an Australian, I'm going to be popping in Sunday morning at, I'm pretty sure, 8 a.m. Eastern time. That's late evening or early night for our Australian listeners. So if you're conscious, anywhere in the world, you'll get a chance to call in with questions.

And by then, David should all be, like, fucked up and sleep deprived. So it should be a lot of fun. I'm not sure what he has planned, but if I get a chance, I'm going to do some biblical trivia with him, maybe a Sunday sermon. Who knows? I'll tell you who. People who wake up at 8 a.m. on Sunday, that's who. But even if you can't catch my guest spot, be sure to check it out.

It's for a great organization, and it'll give us a really good chance to remind the world that the Christians aren't the only ones being generous in December. I'll have a link for more information on the show notes, and as everything gets finalized, I'll fill you in on some of the details. Of course, we can't close out the show before I thank Heath for his boundless well of sperm jokes and smart stuff, too. I need to thank the lovely Lucinda for powering through a nasty head cold to join us tonight. Obviously, I need to thank Bryce from the Naked Mormon podcast for providing this week's incendiary Farnsworth quote.

Haven't had a chance to check his show out yet, but all I'm going to say is that if your starting point is wacky shit about the Mormons, you've already got a head start. If you'd like to hear how he's doing, you're going to find a link for his show on the show notes for this episode as well. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's sexiest simians, Simon, Alistair, Doug, James, Bill, Jeremy, Roger, Andre, Derek, Brad, Bryce, Stephen, Tim, Deb, Zilla, and family of Oz. Simon, Alistair, Doug, and James, whose combination of genetic perfection and enormous members have created selective pressures that will eventually lead to disarticulatable jaws in humans. Bill, Jeremy, Roger, Andre, and Brad, who could supply an entire metropolitan Starbucks franchise with a single load. Derek, in whose general direction I offer a toast, slant you. And Bryce, Steven, Tim, Debzilla, and family of Oz,

who are so bright the sun has to wear them glasses. Together, these bastions of rationality have helped ensure that the social discourse on religion isn't wanting for dick jokes this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the keen detection skills and ability to banter well with supervillains that it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash skatingatheist, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking the donate button on the right side of our homepage. And remember, our Patreon donors get longer episodes, they get them sooner, and depending on your level of support, you can get extra gifts

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and Facebook and all that shit. 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. The mic drop is so much less impressive when you're wearing a headset mic. You just have to, like, fall over. Nowhere near as effective. No, no.

It doesn't make you look cool at all. It makes you look epileptic. Thank you, Cleveland! No good.