The Scathing Atheist - Scathing Atheist 96: Bar Room Atheist Edition

Episode Date: December 18, 2014

In this week's episode, the Mormons will get their magic underwear twisted over a statue, Ann Coulter will hit good taste in the head with a brick and Bill and Suzy from Bar Room Atheists will join us to pre-congratulate Noah on his pending Fantasy Football Championsihip victory.

Warning, no disrespect to George Carlin, but this show uses a lot more than seven words you can't say on television. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by Vatican City's newest cash crop, Pope Franibus Sativa. Now that Pope Francis said it's okay to be gay and let atheists into heaven, it's only a matter of time before he starts personally selling drugs. We're already test marketing in Colorado with highly successful results. Original syndica coming soon. Pope Franibus Sativa.

Get up with Pope, he's down with dope. And now the skating atheist. Hi ho, Kermit the Frog here. I just wanted to let you all know that we did in fact evolve from filthy amphibians. Well, most of us.

I was created when a lesbian desired to scissor some felt. It's the Creepy Flash Clippers Thursday. It's December 18th. And a fictional character didn't die next week. Everybody spend money. I'm no illusion. I'm Heath Enright. And from cattle, Russell and Flo, Podunk, Georgia, this is the Skating Atheist.

In this week's episode, Mormons will get their magical panties in a bunch about a statue. Australian priests offer to try out consensual. And Bill and Susie from Barroom Atheists will be here. So if George Wendt comes in, everybody yell Norm! But first, the diatribe. You know, it's starting to look like Ken Ham might just be as impotent as the God that he worships. You might have seen it on the news last week, but if you didn't, we have a long-delayed victory to celebrate. Last week, the state of Kentucky withdrew the $18 million in tax breaks they'd offered Ken Ham in his effort to build a creationist theme park right smack dab in the part of the country that can least afford to get dumber.

With the funding pulled, it looks like everybody who isn't Ken Ham or a member of the Kentucky legislature was right all along the Arc Park will never happen. Now, there are plenty of good reasons why Kentucky tax dollars shouldn't go to Ken Ham in his testament to stupidity, not the least of which is the fact that his brand of Christianity is stupid even for a brand of Christianity. You know, I'd like to think that even most of the Christian parents in Kentucky would be hesitant to take their kids to a theme park that pretends the earth is 6,000 years old and that humans coexisted with dinosaurs. But look, you're in Kentucky, your kids are bored, they want to ride the scream in Jesus. What the fuck are you going to do, right? Now, I guess it's

easy to overestimate the intelligence of a state that walks around wearing t-shirts that say, I heart KY without getting the joke. So sure, maybe the majority of Kentuckians want their tax dollars to go to this dumbass theme park. That doesn't matter from a constitutional perspective. But Ken Ham's lawyers told him all the right shit to say and he insisted that this would somehow be like, you know, I don't know, a secular Christian creationist theme park. Now whether or not they believed it didn't matter, it was enough for plenty of municipal and state representatives to sign off on one tax-subsidized anal penetration of the first men, men after another. So sure, there were plenty of time bombs that were eventually going to derail this tax subsidy, but in the end, the one that got them was their discriminatory hiring practices.

Now, as many of you know, religious institutions are exempted from a lot of the non-discrimination laws, and as bad as that sounds, I sympathize with the idea that you have to allow churches to restrict their new priest hires to people who share their religion, right? I mean, there's a substantive difference between refusing to hire a Jew as your accountant and refusing to hire one as your bishop. So, sure, these exemptions are largely motivated by common sense, and they may not have been designed to allow preferential treatment to Christians. But if, in the end, the result is preferential treatment for Christians, that doesn't matter. Case in point, consider the hiring practices that cost Ken Ham his tax breaks. Yes, this company won't hire you if you're not Christian, but it goes a hell of a lot further than that. You also have to submit a statement of creation belief and agree with the answers in Genesis mission statement. Basically, you have to testify that you agree that the earth is 6,000 years old, dinosaurs and man coexisted,

Jesus is the only means to salvation, Satan's a real guy, and you oppose abortion, gay rights, and trans rights. Now take a long look at that list. Some of it's doctrinal, sure. Some of it's just a particular breed of pseudoscience that that park is selling. But some of it is also just Ken Ham's political opinion. And the way our laws are interpreted now, it doesn't matter if his requirements are religious or political, because the only legal standard for what counts as religious opinion

is the majority rule within that branch of the religion. And since all you need to do to get a majority rule is start a new church, any political opinion can ultimately be disguised for legal purposes as a sincerely held religious belief. You know, not that it matters, of course, but as of now, Ken Ham is getting around this bullshit by calling his theme park a ministry. A ministry that's also a theme park. That's no less bizarre than a ministry that's also a laundromat or a sandwich shop.

It's a for-profit fucking business. And if he can get away with this, eventually anybody can. Keep in mind that all the state's doing is taking away tax subsidies that were probably illegal anyway. Nobody's trying to shut him down here, or nobody from within the state legislator anyway. They're not out there saying, you can't refuse to hire a ticket taker just because she doesn't agree with you about gay rights. They're just saying you can't do that and receive tax subsidies it's perfectly legal for him to refuse to hire people who disagree with him about abortion apparently now while you're reflecting on the fact that your future employment might eventually be contingent on you professing

to agree with your potential employers religious and political beliefs let me add an even more disturbing wrinkle this only goes one way you know sure but you know secular theme parks don't refuse to hire theists of course so clearly it only goes one way. Sure, secular theme parks don't refuse to hire theists, of course, so clearly it only goes one way on the religious spectrum, but the same is also true of the political spectrum. There's no liberal equivalent of this, so what we've done is created a way to legally discriminate against hiring liberals. And I know that some of our listeners are conservative, but I hope we can all agree that this is pretty fucked up. Think about it. In the unlikely event that Canaham ever gets his dumbass park off the ground, it will almost immediately be the biggest employer in the city. But if you want to get a job there, you have to at least pretend to agree with both their religious and political beliefs. As bad as the Hobby Lobby thing was, this is a huge step beyond that. The Hobby Lobby

decision said it was legal for your employer to force you to abide by the rules of their church, but they didn't make you go. But with the system that we're concocting right now, every privately held business is a couple of legal terms away from being a for-profit ministry, and our courts seem hell-bent on making sure that this happens. Look, I'm not warning you about some vague potentiality that might be lurking in the near future. Right now, there are more jobs available to a Christian than a non-Christian in this country. We're already there. And of course, the bizarre spate of decisions that we saw out of the Supreme Court over the last couple of years is only going to exacerbate the problem. Look, I don't mean to depress you

here, but we are the closest thing we have to a solution. Organized atheism, this community, that is the only check against their power. In fact, it was freelance atheist writer Dan Arrow that not only broke this story, but held Ken Ham's feet to the fire long enough that he had to answer for it publicly. It is only through our continued

vigilance that these violations are going to get uncovered. And not to put too much weight on your shoulder right around the holidays or anything, but we cannot afford to lose sight of this. You are the only thing standing between them and the theocracy that they want. They're talking about you, Jesus.

We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is first runner-up in our recent fantasy football semifinal matchup, Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready for me to shut the fuck up? The stat corrections still have not come out. We don't even know for sure. And apparently the Eagles rented out Jordan Matthews to the Canadian League for the weekend so he could win the Grey Cup. I should still get those points, I think, because as I'm sitting here with a guy who got infinitely less than his projection.

Yes, he would have scored the exact same number of fantasy points from Canada. Anyway, in our lead story tonight, Ohio Governor John Kasich never said the car had an engine, and you never asked. Regardless, secular voters in Ohio are experiencing a bit of buyer's remorse after a proposal that the government championed suddenly grew a constitutionally dubious religious clause after it was passed by the state legislature. You can't just change it. Well, apparently he can. The proposal was supposed to grant tax money to schools that were partnering with local businesses, nonprofits, or religious organizations to mentor disadvantaged students, but apparently

in the fine print somewhere, it said the schools wouldn't be eligible for these funds unless a faith-based group was involved. All right, well then just skip the schools wouldn't be eligible for these funds unless a faith-based group was involved. All right, well, then just skip the schools and the churches. Just give the money straight to the rape victims if you're going to... Well, you know, I don't want my tax dollars going there either, but that would be better. Now, Buddy Harris, who acts as senior policy analyst for the Ohio Department of Education when he's not being the preppy antagonist in a raunchy ski movie, explained that we atheists shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about this at all.

He explained that, quote, the faith-based organization is clearly at the heart of the vision of the governor, end quote. And then followed that biologically perplexing platitude by saying that, quote, we do not foresee any proselytizing happening between mentors and students, end quote. Of course not. Well, to be fair, it's easy to fail to foresee things, I guess, when your vision has a heart in it, apparently. If there won't be any proselytizing, then why does a church have to be involved?

Why does that have to be in the rule? Faith by osmosis as a scheme? Exactly, yeah. I mean, there's no purpose to this clause. It's just very important to us, and we're not going to take it out. Now, let's be clear here. What we've created is a way to funnel tax money to churches, and since they can't just hand money to the churches,

they've laundered it through the schools. And from the fucking duh, or when I was a kid, a doy file tonight, the Catholic Church of Australia's Internal Affairs Department that they have to have, it's called the Truth, Justice, and Healing Council, they just concluded a study about the effects of forced celibacy on priests. And

guess what? Their groundbreaking research has revealed that yes, running daycare facilities with pent-up adult virgins did indeed contribute to all the rapings. Well, no, it may have contributed to all the rapings. That's all they were willing to say. You know how religious leaders are about not...

Yeah, exactly. They don't want to jump to conclusions before all the evidence is in. Otherwise, they wouldn't be religious leaders. So here's the church apologizing for having a rule that leads to kids getting raped quote yada yada yada obligatory celibacy may also have contributed to abuse in some circumstances end quote and we really feel terrible like like terrible enough to change things no no no but like terrible still i feel pretty bad look if the aids in the inquisition't going to motivate them, I don't think a couple of innocent rectums is going to move the needle. Clearly not.

Let's not hold our breath. So when asked in an interview if this means they're going to stop with the rape contributing policy, council head Francis Sullivan explained, Who do you think you're talking to? This is the Catholic fucking church. Who do you think you're talking to? This is the Catholic fucking church. So no, we won't be changing our policies because of scientific evidence. That's ridiculous.

Made you ask the question. No, I'm joking. But then he literally laughed off the question when asked if the Vatican had anything to say about the findings. Adding literally drying tears from his eyes. Quote, no, not at all. End quote. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Vatican absolutely had nothing okay so everyone in the world outside the church has obviously been saying this for centuries the catholic system is clearly broken but even if you forget about all the raping just ignore all that for a moment

and a hard to possibly can 40 year old virgins that don't jerk off i already don't trust you they should absolutely not be giving life advice to anyone. They should be getting life advice that says, masturbate now before you rape and murder someone, because that's likely to happen. And in UFOMG news tonight, several residents of Salt Lake City are livid over a temporary display in that city that perfectly captures the wacky breed of insanity that is Mormonism.

The display, one of many in the local Flying Objects Festival, shows two Mormon missionaries in a spaceship. One is a human, the other a bright blue alien. And somehow this made it past the Citizens Review Board that was almost certainly entirely comprised of Mormons. I didn't realize that somebody was making fun of them. Which means the board thought this was relatively normal. What's that one called?

Missionary to Mars? I like it. I like it. If anybody's going to convert the aliens, it's us Mormons, right? We're good at that sort of thing. Maybe this guy already did. I don't know. I'd be all right launching some Mormons into space, and that's it exactly.

Believing Mormon missionaries fly in spaceships when aliens were instituted as Mormon dogma would be the least insane thing that these people believed. By a pretty good margin, right. Right. So why is this a problem then? I mean, are they mad because the alien's not green like in reality? How does this make Mormonism look worse, though? If anybody should be pissed, it should be the aliens. But no, Nathan Zogg, who is apparently a Mormon with an alien name, complained that the piece reinforced the notion that Mormonism is an alien culture,

saying, quote, some confuse Latter-day Saints with other religions like Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidian, Scientology, or others, end quote. Those crazy ones. Yeah, right, the weird ones. Come on, like, save your aliens behind comments. That's ridiculous. We believe in reasonable stuff like Native Americans being accursed Jews, moral black people turning white, a race of people living on the sun,

and our underwear protecting us from evil spirits. Come on, let's not get carried away with this shit. And then I'm praying I'm finishing my coffee news tonight. You may remember a story we covered earlier this year in which the ffrf politely informed mary's gourmet diner of north carolina that offering a 15 prayer discount it may sound innocuous but that's actually illegal discrimination and yes even if you let atheists fake it and still get the discount with a little fake head bob. Well, the guys over at The Daily Show recently ran a segment about this. And basically they made the point that FFRF co-president Dan Barker is just being a dick.

Well, not even basically. They said that. Literally, he's just being a dick. You know, look, I guess as an uppity atheist, my opinion is suspect here. But what the FFRF actually did was send a very polite letter that said, hey know you're just trying to be nice and everything but this is actually a first amendment violation so you might want to you know rethink the policy so it isn't discriminatory and no they didn't like wrap this letter in a dog turd and light it on fire on her fucking porch they mailed it what's how are you being a dick here okay granted it's all part of a joke in a comedic segment, but you won't hear the same flippant message even in a joke about, say, Jewish people being dicks about the Nazi restaurant and their touch the swastika discount.

Just touch the swastika. You get a discount. 15%. Just touch it for a second. You don't have to mean it. Caress it for 20. Just a tiny little swastika. Don't be such a dick.

Just touch it. Hard to imagine. Nobody's making jokes about how Rosa Parks was just being a bitch. Just walk the 20 feet. How big of a deal is that? Or pretend to be white. Just wear some white. Just don't be a cunt

about it. I have to correct you. Until this show, nobody was making jokes about how Rosa Parks was just being a bitch. no but i have to say honestly if i was judging it by just this segment i would have no idea that the daily show was supposed to be a comedy show like honestly unless you start from a position of atheists don't deserve equality i don't even know which parts are supposed to be funny except for he said fart was yeah well okay all right well fart is always funny and in who's a good little dogma

news tonight, a recent article in the New York Times tells the delightful story of Pope Frankl Biter comforting a young boy in St. Peter's Square who recently lost his favorite dog by assuring him that he would meet his dog again someday in heaven. Aw. Well, as it happens, the story has precisely the same veracity as the Catholic religion. As it turns out, it wasn't so much a kid with a dead dog as no one at all, and the Pope

didn't so much comfort him by overturning Catholic dogma as much as just gave a speech in St. Peter's Square like he always does that wasn't about dogs or anything. So nothing. That was the story, yes. So he gave this confused, muddled speech about

I guess how he thinks he's a Buddhist now, how he thinks he's a Buddhist now. Apparently. Weird. And some journalists, I guess they got bored and wrote about a former pope who did the dog thing. What exactly happened? But didn't actually even do that. So as near as I can figure it out, this all stems from a confluence of, like, journalistic fuck-ups, not the least of which is the mainstream media's credulous obsession with painting Pope Francis and furry friends as

everybody's beloved uncle. Apparently, there was a mistranslation of an Italian article that already had some apocryphal quotes that got telephoned game to New York via a couple of unsourced blogs, which is really just a generous way of saying it was conjured up out of a whole cloth based on nothing but a biblical passage that has nothing to do with animals

whatsoever. So yes, we've actually reached the point now where the Pope doesn't even have to utter heartwarming departures from Catholic doctrine for the media to praise him for doing so. Okay, so the story was based on, I guess, idiot journalists forgetting to read all that fine print after the headline in their source material. But now we're on the subject, why won't the Pope just say it at this point? Yes, every kid's dead dog goes to heaven just say i mean all of a sudden every catholic kid they're driving home from the fake farm upstate they're gonna feel a little bit better just call it make dogs go to heaven for

them don't be an asshole right an ex-pope already did it what are you right i mean you're just making shit up anyway you might as well make up a heaven with dogs in it, but no, as my wife will attest, they would rather tell a seven-year-old girl whose dog just died that dogs have no souls and don't go to heaven. I mean, okay, don't get me wrong. That's also what I would say because it's true, but I would say it because it's true. If you're not

doing it out of the principle of honesty, you're just deliberately being more of a douche than you have to be. The kids are already getting raped and you can't even give them imaginary sky puppies? You've got a whole bunch of damaging lies. You won't tell one white lie in this useful situation. Unbelievable. Thanks.

And from the red, white, and I'll get back to your file tonight. Failed GOP presidential candidate, lame duck Texas governor under double felony indictment, presidential candidate, lame duck Texas governor under double felony indictment, and guy who has trouble with lists larger than two items, Rick Perry, recently explained why Texans don't care about income inequality.

And it's because the Bible has poor people, so, you know, fuck poor people. That doesn't sound quite right. I don't know if his Bible reading is correct here, but i'm not up to the jesus part yet so yeah i guess jesus must have done a bunch of mean shit to poor people in the sequel right you know he was probably doing that when he wasn't talking about abortion

and gun rights i'm pretty sure those were his main issues from what i've heard okay so not that i would agree with this but if he was making the argument that the Bible is a book of moral allegories, and he showed me a lesson about, I don't know, this invisible valley of rich people in Colorado with Jesus and his cold fusion machine, and how that means poor people all deserve it. If he did that, at least I'd understand how he formulated the stance. But Rick Perry's not presenting an ethics lesson from the Bible. He's an evangelical Christian who thinks the Bible is a history book. So he's

pointing to a history book and saying, all this stuff has to keep happening exactly forever or else we're in huge trouble. Christians are damn loyal to their arguments, aren't they? You know, this one failed when they used it against slavery, but that's no reason to shelf it. You can bring it back out against gay marriage, income inequality.

It would be no less ridiculous if he'd said, well, if income inequality is an issue, then why are there still monkeys? All right, so trying to wade through all this bullshit, Perry's theory goes something like this. During the 6,000 years of recorded history, poverty existed. During the 6,000 years of recorded history, poverty existed. Therefore, we have to make sure everyone has different amounts of money or else God gets mad. And just to be safe, we'll need some extra, extra poor people at all times. Apparently, yeah. Because if history teaches us nothing, we should keep doing the same stuff over and over. That's a true statement.

Also, not that this relates to anything I just said, but any legislation whatsoever that addresses still having rich people but differently, that's not even worth considering. Awesome. I'm running for president. Yeah, right. Very interesting. Which won't be the least viable GOP candidacy that we discuss tonight. Not even close. And in unawares the beef news tonight,

the Iowa-based food supplier Minimar Corp. is under federal indictment for selling dead cows to Muslims that didn't actually have the Allah magic in them. How do you get caught on that? Yeah, right. What does that mean? According to Islamic dietary laws, beef can only be consumed if it's slaughtered in a special and far less humane than normal way.

Well, a fellow Muslim recites a magic spell. But according to the USDA, these guys were often using regular non-magic cows. Or unqualified magicians. That too, yes. Either way, that's lazy. Now, the pseudo-legislative company went as far as removing federally required labels with acetone when purchasing meat from non-halal-approved slaughterhouses, though the document doesn't make it clear whether or not the employees uttered Muslim prayers while removing these labels, so it could have still been halal label removal.

Now, in their defense, the company alleges that this suit crosses church-state boundaries by allowing the government to determine what is and isn't halal or fraud. Or illegal. Yeah, exactly. And as paper-thin as that defense is, I kind of agree with him just because I don't want my tax dollars spent determining if beef is magic enough for Muslim consumption. Obviously, that's absurd. But even if we did allow that gross waste of tax revenue,

how do they suggest the halal stamping system would work? What does that look like? I don't even know. Does the beef company take pictures of every cow next to the wizard with the machete and that day's new york times what does that mean it's like a proof of death there and in whose genocide are you on news tonight the senate intelligence committee just released the mildest 9% that we can palette of their report on CIA torture policy. And Brian Fisher can't understand why everyone is getting mad about all the gross atrocities in that mild 9%.

Speaking on his show Focal Point, his rationale for righteous waterboarding and rectal feeding went something like this. You guys are mad about a little torture? Is nobody reading the Bible? Right. The Canaanites wish they were at Kittmoor. That's actually his argument. That's his argument. If liberals would just desensitize themselves to extremely awful shit like this by reading the Bible once in a while,

maybe they'd relax and learn that good guys are supposed to be doing terrible shit like this. In fact, that's how we know we're the good guys. We keep doing terrible stuff to bad guys, obviously. Right. Exactly. Pay attention. They're not just out there anal feeding just anybody.

They're only doing it to brown people. And guilty brown people. Yeah, and we know they're guilty because they told us they were guilty so that we would stop food raping them. Food raping. Give me a more accurate way to describe anal feeding. I guess there's no other way to interpret it. And just what I thought, it couldn't possibly get any worse

than the anal feeding we were just talking about. It got worse. Yeah, it got worse. Fisher bungled a Holocaust analogy so badly, he ended up on the guilty Nazi side of it, trying to argue against the Nuremberg trials. That happened. So after describing a few genocidal Old Testament characters

and dubbing them heroes, he has this to say, quote, perhaps this is all we need to know about today's left. They likely would drag the Bible's heroes. That's the genocidal people I was just talking about. They'd likely drag the Bible's genocidal people before the courts at Nuremberg and charge them with crimes against humanity. End quote. Yes!

Of course we could. How is that? How are we bad? Yes, we think that sort of thing should be punished. The genocide. Yeah. And the trial. A genocide? Hell, I'd send them to Git of thing should be punished. The genocide. Yeah. And the trial. A genocide?

Hell, I'd send them to Gitmo just for writing such a shitty book. Actually, you know what, though? A bunch of biblical heroes at Gitmo getting food raped, that would be a great idea for a skit sometime. I'll have to give that some thought. And while I do, I guess we'll hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she wants.

If it's a legitimate rape. You're a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man! This Week in Misogyny. Okay, so here's my guess. Somebody turned Ann Coulter onto this show, and when she heard me do a segment on female misogynists last week,

without mentioning her, she said, aw, hell nah, and set out to do something sexist as fast as she could. And no surprise, this didn't take her long. A couple of days ago, she appeared on a conservative radio program, The Lars Larson Show, to let everyone know that the media was misrepresenting the real threat of rape on campus. And to make that argument tautological, she then went on to misrepresent the real threat of rape on campus.

After explaining that real rapes only happen when someone is violently assaulted, for example, quote, being hit on the head with a brick, end quote, she explained the victims of non-brick-to-the-head rape are only trying to get attention. But she wasn't the only woman jumping on the pro getting raped at college bandwagon. Raw Story also had an article about author Susan Patton, who bumbled through a Todd Akin level parsing of legitimate versus illegitimate rape during a CNN interview last week. Like Coulter, Patton believes there are no

shades of gray between consensual and at gunpoint. She explained that most rapes happen in a victim's home and it seems to imply that it's their own damn fault for letting a rapist into their house. Afraid she hadn't trivialized sexual assault enough, she added, quote, it makes one wonder, why do you not just get up and leave? End quote. How about because you're getting raped, you demented bitch? Pardon me, sir, but I really don't quite enjoy this raping. Perhaps a brain check?

Something tells me that doesn't work in most circumstances. And I know that after those two stories and the fact that last week's segment was comprised entirely of misogynistic women, a lot of you are wondering if I'm sticking with the girl-on-girl theme. Well, I'm not really sure, because the person I'm going to talk about in the next story is usually referred to as a he, but he wears a dress, he doesn't have a girlfriend, and his name is Francis. So I'm not sure if this week's segment is bisexual or not. I'm talking, of course, about this wonderful pope who sounds really good because the media pretty much

only reports on the stuff he says that sounds good. Atheists going to heaven? Who am I to judge? Slap that on the front page. Mentally ill people are possessed by demons? Condoms are still evil? Bury that on some atheist blog. Which is why I was so happy to see a couple of examples of what I'm talking about conveniently compiled in a recent story I saw in

the Huffington Post. The article detailed a few of Pope Francis's choice pearls of misogyny, like warning that a Europe that doesn't produce great ideas would be as useless as an infertile woman, likening promoting a woman to the head of the Vatican Department to taking orders from your housekeeper and dismissing a question about his misogyny by telling the reporter that he couldn't be expected to take a person that came from a rib seriously. We'll put a link to the full article in the show notes for this episode in case you ever need to counterbalance the bullshit media narrative about good old Uncle Pope. That's all I've got for you this week, but I'm sure that even as I speak, Pat Robertson or Steven Anderson is talking, so I'm sure I'll have more to report on next week. Until next time, Merry Festivus, Happy Saturnalia, and Hail Santa. And now, back to Noah and Heath.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in Somali Disneyland sucks anyway news tonight, a horribly depressing report by the International Humanist and Ethical Union seeks to shine a light on the state-sanctioned mistreatment of atheists worldwide. The 500-page report includes ratings for every sovereign nation recognized by the UN, assigning each one a rating from GRAVE VIOLATIONS, in all caps, red font, to FREE AND EQUAL, in appropriately capitalized black font. It bills itself as the first global report on the mistreatment of atheists and agnostics, though to be fair, they said the same thing about the very similar report that they released in 2013. I gotta say, it sounds like the international atheist squad needs to step it up. Here in the States, we've been persecuting Christians for decades now. Right. We've come down to isthmus this year.

Just ask the fair and balanced guys over there. Among the report's disturbing details is the fact that there are currently 19 countries where you can be charged criminally for apostasy. And in the majority of those countries, the punishment is death. Quick, Ben Affleck, guess which majority religion all of those countries share? Exactly. All right, so everyone, picture the world map, the grave violations portion you were just talking about. That's just about exactly equal to all the world's Muslim majority nations plus China. Pretty much.

That's pretty much it. And the free and equal, the reasonable places to live, that's just about exactly equal to Belgium and Holland. And that's a tiny little, maybe Sierra Leone, another tiny, if you want to get fancy. But, you know, you'll be surrounded by a lot more craziness and more Ebola. Well, definitely more Ebola. And in Jesus Saves by the Bell news tonight, Ohio high school freshman Anthony Miller has decided to go on a very appropriate knowledge strike in support of Christianity. That's the only way of saying it. After his public school removed an illegal Ten Commandments plaque from the building.

Public school removed an illegal Ten Commandments plaque from the building. Although he's still attending classes as legally required, Miller's refusing to actively participate in any sort of secular learning activities until things change, I guess. Not exactly sure how this is any different from normal Christian willful ignorance, but the kid seems to think he's making some sort of point. Or, more realistically, he's full of shit and he's a lazy 14-year-old that doesn't feel like doing homework. Right. It's one or the other. That's also a possibility. And I think we learn everything we need to know about this kid by the order he chose

when he was listing the extent of his strike. He said, quote, until there's an agreement reached, I will not participate in any school-related activities. Sports, choir, classes, whatever. And then, to let everybody know just how serious he was, he added, quote, I won't even wear my harding marching band shirt end quote so he's not fucking around i mean this guy's this is the type

of kid who was wearing that six days a week so this is a big deal exactly now apparently his logic goes like this i guess christian students can't be held responsible for stuff like murder coveting and whatnot unless they get constant visual reminders about the god rules apparently and i guess it absolutely has to be in black form too has to be they can't get the decalogue app for their vote so it's instead of just dealing with this miller's taking his own brain hostage like blazing saddles until high school agrees to violate the rules of all the other religions, including Judaism, the actual source of the commandments in question, and promote just Jesus only for him. And sticking with the, but we spelled the Ten Commandments with secular letters file here,

a junior high school in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, has offered a novel defense of the Ten Commandment monument that illegally sits on their lawn. After a promise to donate the monument to a local church was met with civic backlash, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the FFRF involved the courts, at which time the school filed a brief with the court explaining that the Ten Commandment statue wasn't religious because there's an eagle on it for all the people that hate God. For them, it's just a picture of an eagle. Well, is it an atheist eagle?

I guess. An atheist eagle shitting on the monument? I'm okay with that. If it's a clearly atheist-colored eagle, and it's shitting on the Ten Commandments to make it even, then I'm okay with this. Then we can find somebody who's willing to shit on those Ten Commandments. The decalogue, they argue, which comprises approximately 75% of the monument's visible surface, is just one of the many features of the display that you see.

Of course, one could just as easily argue that that Ten Commandments plaque in the last story is just a small part of a very large, otherwise secular wall. And I have no doubt that the dorky kid from the last one eventually will when this knowledge strike doesn't work out. My hope, though, honestly, on this one is that the court accepts the school's argument and this thing eventually ends when the Satanic Temple erects a statue of Jesus getting butt-fucked by the Virgin Mary with a strap on holding an eagle. With the eagle. Yeah, to make it secular. If it's got an eagle on it, there's no reason to get pissed. And in campaignal leakage news tonight, Rick Santorum is running for president. Makes our job easier.

In case you're not familiar, we'll do a quick review of some bullet points on the Rick Santorum political resume for you. Please do. Here we go. Thinks the First Amendment is communist. Doesn't know what communist means. Believes contraception should be illegal.

Insists black people should be pro-life because they're all former slaves and of course his last name means post-butt sex frothy mixture of shit blood sperm and lube so pretty much the perfect republican candidate now not that he's going to need any of our help but i say we put 30 seconds on the clock anyway rick santorum campaign slogans from the scathing atheist straight to you. Go. Oh, I thought you'd never ask. How about Rick Santorum for president? Yes, I'm dead

serious. Dick Santorum, some of my best friends were gay. Dick Santorum, I'm relatively unlikely to be indicted for anything during the campaign when you compare me to the other GOP contenders. Dick Santorum! Building a bridge

back to the 20th century. Via the 17th. How about Dick Santorum? Because me constantly losing is making Jesus look bad. Stick with Dick. The frothy mixture who's a household fixture. Nice, multiple rhymes there.

How about Dick Santorum? Because we still had leftover bumper stickers. We had to do something with these fucking things. We didn't put a year on them, we were smart. Richard Sanatorium. You're probably better off than you were four years ago, but for me anyway. I like Dick, because the way the GOP is going now, by 2016, I'll be a centrist. Dickie Sands. He's ready for the cleanup after America took one right in the yes we can. Dick, my name's not Dick Santorum.

According to Pastor Steve Anderson, my platform will cure AIDS. Let that one sink in. Dick Santorum, please don't Google me. Please do not Google me. Google myself, it's always a mess. How about Dick Santorum, I told you not to Google me. The fuck did I just say? Dick Santorum, I like right.

Or just Heil Froth. Dick Santorum, his ideas have legs to drip down maybe we close it yeah no we always like to close the headlines with a wonderful mental image like that so Heath well done as always Santorum drip it down your leg and when we come back Susie and Bill from

Barroom Atheist will be here to pre-congratulate me for beating them in this week's fantasy championship matchup. The Scathing Atheist now proudly presents Micah in Rhyme. It's been a couple thousand years since Micah made his predictions, and I think in the time that elapsed, it's clear that his book is a bad work of fiction. He promised the mountains would melt, and he said that the Savior would render the Gentiles dead, but these terrible days that he claims are ahead are the result of a mental affliction. Consider the psychotic way he prepared to receive all his holy instructions. He rolled in the dust and he shaved off his hair, then opined about death and

destruction. He stripped off his clothes and went on the prowl, not sure what this means, but he mourned like an owl while attempting to mimic a basilisk's growl, and all that's just in the book's introduction. He goes on to complain that the whores and the pervs will bring about Judah's demise, and in his estimation, it's what they deserve, just because a couple of hornier guys paid a few harlots to dance on their laps with a happy beginning or ending, perhaps, and for that, the whole kingdom is doomed to collapse from stones God rains down from the skies. But in a couple millennia, nothing he claimed was predestined to happen occurred. The Gentiles haven't been murdered or maimed, and if we took this book at its word,

we'd be lapping up dust and drowning in tears, and God would have deafened the Gentiles' ears and left us, quote, crawling like worms from our fear. So unless I missed all that, this book's just absurd. I'm very excited to finally welcome our next two guests to the show. In addition to being the hosts and producers of the most excellent Barroom Atheist, Bill and Susie are active humanist volunteers and two of my favorite people in the atheist movement. Susie, Bill, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having us. It's been way too long. I'm glad to finally get you guys on.

Now, before we actually talk about your podcast, I'd like to talk a bit about how it came to be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you two got married, you were both Bible-believing Christians. Is that right? Well, I was a Bible-believing Christian. Bill was less. I was what you might call an apathist. Okay. I mean, I didn't really give a shit gotcha gotcha so you were a lapsed catholic would be the term that's a good term i like that one but were you raised uh catholic oh yeah catholic school and everything oh wow discipline

yeah yeah no i get that uh my mother shows me that you can always tell a person who went to catholic school because they're not Catholic. But now, Susie, for you, was religion like a really important part of your life? It was a constant part of my life. I can't say really important because I was indoctrinated and knew it and it was just normal. But I was a kid and I was enjoying all the kid stuff about church. You were like a Sunday-Wednesday kind of person, though, right? Every Sunday, every Sunday night, every Wednesday.

Wow. Yeah. Wow, that sucks so much more than football. All right, so now I have to imagine that that leads to all kinds of conflict. Was there ever a point where you thought that Bill's atheism was going to threaten your marriage? Yes, there was. It was actually just a couple years ago, probably 2012, early 2012. It was the Reason Rally. Yeah. He had come to such a point where he was annoying me, and he was doing what I call kicking my puppy. Wait a minute,

we're an X-rated podcast, but we're not that X-rated. No, I'm sorry. Kicking your puppy? Didn't we do a puppy rape analogy segment like three weeks ago? Okay. I'm kicking. It was way worse than kicking. Anyway.

Yeah, okay. All right, all right. So yeah, yeah. Talk all about your puppy on this show. We want to hear. We were anti in the segment, just to be clear, everybody. Go ahead. Sorry. Well, I. We were anti in the segment, just to be clear. Go ahead. Sorry. Well, I remember Noah being anti in that segment.

So anyhow, Bill had come home from the Reason Rally and he had become very much more outspoken in his atheism. And I felt like he was shoving it down my throat. I'm going to leave that one alone as well.

That's the atheism. Oh, oh, okay. All right. The royal throat. I just walk into those kind of things, don't I? Yeah, because the other isn't a felt like. You know. Oh, well, that's not what I've heard.

But you know, you know. You can't really trust anything Adam Rieks says anyway. I told him that he couldn't talk to me that way about atheism. I didn't like it. It was like kicking my puppy. Like I believed in this way and this is what I believed and you can't shake that. I like what I believe. All right.

So now let me ask you, when you talk about kicking the puppy, to just kind of work around the euphemism, was it that he was challenging you logically? Or was it more like the stuff we do on this show where we call Jesus a bitch and stuff like that? Oh, no. He was somewhere in between. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was more he was challenging me logically because I had decided. Centrist puppy kicking.

Mild, you know, middle of the road puppy kicking. We're still fucking married, dude. It was perfectly fine to have my head in the sand, and I didn't want anybody teaching me. Gotcha. I dropped the imaginary friend crack now and again. Yeah, he did that too. Or, you know, how's your superhero? What's his superpower?

Getting his ass kicked. That's right. Yeah. He's so good at What's his superpower? Getting his ass kicked. That's right. Yeah. He's so good at that. He did do that. Okay, so tell me, how did your atheism come about? And by all means, guys, feel free to do the cute married couple thing where you finish each other's sentences and correct each other on trivial points. Single people love it when we do that.

Yeah? Oh, yeah. Please do that some more. Well, after Bill came back from the Reason Rally, I had decided, I don't know, that since he was inundating me with all of this actual thinking knowledge, you know, he was making me think about things. That's your face, right? Yeah. And I would listen to, like, he always had a podcast on in the car because it's his car and he was driving so I had to listen

to what was on in his car so I heard these things like the skating atheist and I have to tell you it was my least favorite podcast I'm so proud of that I was like you can't listen to that

that's like raunchy that's like bad. And I would tell him. Atheist ear porn. And cognitive dissonance was another one. Those guys are pretty bad too. I'm like, that's just awful stuff. She tolerated Seth.

Yes, I tolerated Seth. I think she listened to about four seconds of you guys. She's like, no, you got to change that. You can't not like Seth. That's his superpower, I think. Yeah, I agree. And it's funny because now I find myself more like him. Eventually, one day, no, one day, she just kind of goes, I'm an atheist.

I think episode two, we have the entire story in nauseating detail. But we decided to start a podcast. And then I got her to listen to like an entire episode of yours because we did episode one. And she made me cut out the word about. I did. Forty times, fifty times where I said in the episode. He was saying you're too dirty. You can't do this.

And I made her listen to one of your guys. Yeah. Higher episodes. And she said, you're fine, Bill. Leave it, babe. You're not dirty at all. Way more mild than I thought you were. You know what? I'll tell you what. If you go back and listen to episode one

of our show, there are no f***s in that episode. Really? Yeah. For the very first episode, I was thinking like, we don't want to go too far. And by the second episode, I was like, ah, f*** it. You didn't want to go too far. You did a second episode, I was like, ah, fuck it. You don't want to go too far. You did a shit porn montage. That was in the second episode.

That wasn't until episode two. That was in episode two. Oh, I think I listened. I, you know, I binge listened to the first three or four. Right on, right on. And then I was butt up. All right. Now, obviously, this whole there's no God thing, it's interesting and everything.

But let's turn to a more pressing topic here. In addition to being my friends and colleagues, you two also co-manage the fantasy football team that I'm going to be facing off against in this week's championship game, which means that this time... Pending stat corrections that have not come time next week, I will either be basking in the blinding reflection of the glorious sunlight beaming up from a pool of your tears, or I will be making tongue-in-cheek accusations about you two cheating. So let's get a prediction. Which do you think it'll be? I think luck is on my side. I've been saying it all season, and I think you're in trouble. Now, of course, unlike me, you guys kind of, let's say, backed into the playoffs.

You had the three-game losing streak going into it after surrendering first place to Heath in embarrassing fashion. Now, do you feel like that diminishes your confidence at all going into our matchup? And if so, would you like to simply concede victory now and save yourself the heartbreak? I have to dispute the embarrassing fashion of surrendering to Heath. We took first place from Heath by beating him. That's true. We had the

clincher there. We were already clinched in the playoffs, so we were arresting our people. I gotcha. And of course, the rest really showed last weekend when you defeated Paul from Corona-Fi-Me by-thin, atomically thin margin. Do you fear at all that the narrowness of that victory will lead you to overanalyze your matchup this week, maybe make some mistakes, put in the wrong guy, anything like that?

No. No. I think we're just going to let you out of the water. Don't think about it. I did hear you guys talk in your last episode about this, about how the two of you had met up last year and then Noah had gone on. I kept picturing Jim Kelly saying, we're back, America. Go with it. How come nobody's talking about these 14-game stretches called the regular season

when I was successful? I don't know. We're talking about these one-game stretches called the playoffs. I'm just saying I would be perfectly happy to be the Buffalo Bills of the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists. I did the playoffs. I'm just saying I would be perfectly happy to be the Buffalo Bills of the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists. I did the math. I figure if you guys did win this year, you would be

finishing... Remind me, where did you guys finish last year? We had a losing record. It was almost last year. Was it alive? It might have been dead. Yeah, I believe when you figure in the... When you figure in the consolation bracket, I believe it was dead last. But who's keeping track of that other than me and ESPN Fantasy Sports?

But, of course, this led to a big shakeup into management. And, Bill, I believe you're the first person that I've ever met that was fired as the general manager of a fantasy football team. Yeah, yeah, that's true. It was a solid move by the front office. That's what I thought. It was a solid move by the front office. That's what I thought. It was a huge turnaround. You went from 10th place to possibly first place, which would be an average of 5.5th place.

And if you went on to win for seven consecutive championships, that would be an average of second place, which is where I would be if you guys win this year. So that's attainable. Yeah, it is. The thing is, I drafted last year. I didn't do so well.

You did badly. So I said, Susie, you know. So he was replaced. Go ahead. Take it. And, of course, I have a team of advisors. You picked us. You had a hell of a team that I will give credit where credit is due.

You absolutely killed it in the draft. You guys got the number one quarterback. But in addition to that, you wound up with three top ten receivers and a pretty decent running game. I, on the other hand, fucked the draft like a Korean hooker. And I think if – assuming DeMarco Murray is healthy. I guess you mean in a bad way. Well, I definitely fucked it. I don't know if it was a good way or a bad way.

But I believe if DeMarco Murray is healthy, I'll be starting three people that I drafted on my championship team. Well, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. And my potential championship team. Potential championship team. Yeah, wait until these stat corrections happen before we announce all these things. Really. You know, honestly, I know it's too much trash talk, but I have to compliment you on your strategy of dropping way to the bottom of the roster so you can get all the good waiver picks. Yeah, we had that nice communist

waiver system. That was sweet how I never got a single waiver pick all year. Neither did you guys I'm sure. Club zero. Yes, we definitely felt that. Neither of us got anything out of that. That was strategic I suppose. Yeah, it worked out well for me. Odell Beckham has been a rather nice one.

I'm sure since this is a rematch of an earlier game in the season that you probably threw that match up, too. Well, I would have had to. Otherwise, I wouldn't have got Odell Beckham. And, of course, I think it's also worth mentioning that when I made my, let's say, heroic underdog charge to the postseason, I believe it was your son that I knocked out of the playoffs to get there. So do you fear that should you fail to avenge his defeat he will love you less because of it? This is

so hard for me to do, guys, because I love you guys and I don't really want to talk all this shit, but it's my job. This is my job. You have to understand. He will not love me less. I stopped the motherfucker car. He still lives at home. You want to talk trash talk? He can't love me less. I stopped all the motherfuckers at home. You want to talk trash talk?

He can't do trash talk. I paid a fucking mortgage here. You know what I'm saying? Well, there you go. Now, I feel really bad for you if you lose, no, and I think that's what's going to happen. You could be like the Susan Lucci. Always right there. Always nominated.

Always a bridesmaid. Never a bride. Now, I do want to say, as the only person to make the championship game two years in a row, I feel it would be only fair to offer you guys some expert advice going into the big game that you've never been to before, and I have. So, first and foremost, okay okay fantasy football is about loyalty so injured reserve or not i think you guys should start ahmad bradshaw this week we're talking about a guy he did so much to get you to the championship game i think he has earned a place on your roster oh yeah he's gonna play next week i. Yeah. And you're still rostering him for some reason.

And Jared McKinnon as well. And finally, this is my most important piece of advice, and it's going to sound like I know I have an ulterior motive to say this and everything, so it's going to sound like bullshit advice, but this is very honest advice. Whatever you do, don't win. All right? Now, look, seriously, you saw what happened to Cecil

when he won the championship last year, right? Ended up with a bunch of fucking convicts on his team this year. Finished in the bottom three. Now he's stuck smelling Tom in a little room in the basement once a week. And don't tell me about how they usually record over Skype because you can smell Tom over Skype. I've Skyped with him. You guys have Skyped with him. You know.

I'd say the average fantasy team had some convicts this year. Right. Whether they liked it or not. It wasn't just him. No, we didn't have anybody who was uh arrested or yeah cecil had them all really yeah cecil really kind of hogged all of the uh all of the potential felons in the nfl in rounds one told him he should rename he should have renamed his team uh domestic abuse no more that's not – it's too soon. Too soon, Bill.

No more. Apparently. No more. You've seen the – Again. Also, since we do have Heath on the line here, and he did recently lose to me on fantasy football, I was wondering, Heath, have you had any advice on them for a gracious defeat? I don't remember.

I'm right in the middle of a fantasy baseball draft. I don't remember playing any fantasy football leagues. I'm kind of busy. I don't really have time to talk about this. All right. Well, setting aside all the shit-talking stuff for a minute, I want to say, honestly, easy football league. I'm kind of busy. I don't really have time to talk about this. All right. Well, setting aside all the shit-talking stuff for a minute, I want to say, honestly, and this is true, there is nobody in the league that I would rather lose a championship game. I like you guys so much that it pained me to talk all this shit.

Good luck this weekend and in everything that you do going forward. You too, man. Good luck. It's been a blast. It's been a great season, however it turns out. It really has. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

and the skies are not cloudy all day. We got a mountain of feedback this week. Lots of it about how we just hit our latest Patreon goal That's right Which means we'll be starting a second weekly podcast in the coming weeks Got a lot of congratulations about that For which we thank you And we also got a lot of questions about the new show So start off by answering a few of those questions

Alright, so the first one is whether we're talking about doubling the number of episodes of this show And the answer is no. No, not at all. We will be starting a separate second show. Precise. Similar formula, similar erudition and excretory whimsy, perhaps, but different topics. The focus will be more on politics and public policy, mostly from the angle of science and skepticism. Right.

We may still need to point out that the Bible is blatantly incorrect sometimes, but only to the extent that religion is stupid and stands in the way of intelligent public policy. Granted, this extent can be extraordinarily large sometimes, but atheism won't be the theme of the new show. Yeah, exactly. Just an undercurrent. And then, of course, the follow-up is an obvious one that deserves a good answer and won't get one. What will the new show be called? Haven't decided yet. We're still open to suggestions. We're kicking a few around.

If you do send us one, keep in mind it has to be Google-able, and it also has to be at least somewhat conveying our message of bureaucratic politics in general. Yeah, and not knowing what it's going to be called will make the next question at least seem tricky. A lot of people have been asking how they'll be able to find the new show. But luckily, we're going to make this extremely easy for you. If you're a subscriber, you're automatically getting the first few episodes on your Scathing Atheist feed.

And included in those episodes will be the details on how to keep getting new ones as they come out. Right. So the way it's going to work is the first three episodes will only be available to our Patreon donors while we're still ironing out all the kinks and all of that kind of stuff. And then episodes four through six will appear on your Scathing Atheist feed. So as soon as they're available, you're going to have them without doing anything. At which point you're all going to send us a bunch of extremely constructive criticism and new ideas and stuff to make the show a whole lot better. And it's going to be awesome.

Yeah. And you're probably going to couch it in a lot of praise and florid language. And that's awfully nice of you. Because we talk about yours all the time. We do. We do. Then when we reach episode seven, we're going to move the show to its very own feed,

and then those first three episodes that were previously unavailable will be released at the same time. That way, everybody is going to download four episodes, and iTunes will think four times as many people are listening to our show. That's way better. You get the idea.

And finally tonight, possibly the most common question we've had, when will the new show be available? Really soon, depending on scale. We're probably going to start recording episodes right after the new year, which means it'll be available to everybody probably beginning of February. That's when it's going to be available to all of our listeners. We'll definitely keep you posted if anything changes that timeline at all.

Anyway, we also got some feedback that wasn't about the new show. For example, we got a Facebook message from Dee. She said a bunch of people at work were going to see Saving Christmas and tried to talk her into joining. She begged out, and then, because she's extraordinarily awesome, she donated the money that she would have spent to our show. Even more well-played. We love this idea. So for all of you out there that didn't see Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas, feel free to send us all the money you didn't spend not seeing it, just like Dee did. Yeah, Dee could be a trendsetter.

And don't forget that you also didn't buy overpriced popcorn when you were there. Great idea, Dee. And finally, we have a message from Sandy who mentioned a story out of Australia where a group of gamers are pissed off about Target banning the new Grand Theft Auto game because it's violent and misogynistic. To which they responded, Well, if you're banning things that are violent and misogynistic to which they responded well if you're banning things that are violent and misogynistic why do we still see bibles on the shelf at target yeah excellent point excellent point it's all about consistency so i guess what the gamers

are going to do is boycott target until they either start carrying gta or stop carrying bibles and well i'm sure this isn't going to change anything it's still a pretty funny way to make your point i guess but of course if you funny way to make your point, I guess. But of course, if you really wanted to underscore the point, you could just make some video games based on the Bible that Target could go ahead and ban. There you go. Make a test case out of it. So with that in mind, here's our top 10 violent, misogynistic, biblical video games.

All right, number 10, Vaginal Fantasy, The Tightening Returns. Number 9. Never happens. What about Ray Rice on the Punch-Out cover for the next one? J'Nai on the Madden cover? She might have been on this year. Number 8, how about Donkey Members Kong? It'd be the same as the original, except he wouldn't throw barrels,

and instead of a hammer, you would get a squeegee and some Windex. Yeah, exactly. Number 7, Woom Raiders of the Lost Arcade. Don't mess with God's triple Xbox. Number six, Band Cleft Auto, Vatican City. I'd play it just to pull him out of the Popemobile.

Number five, Area 51 Shekels, the alien cooter first person shooter. Number four, that would actually, that would sell. Number four, Call of Deuteronomy.

Canaan Night Ops. Number three. Implied Consentipede. Game stop means go. Number two. I hate to pun the same video game franchise twice in the same top ten, but how can I not add Donkey Concubine Country? I love that. We really would love that game you're considering.

And the number one misogynistic, violent, biblical video game, Personal Space Invaders. What's a gala got to do to protect her asteroid around here? Now you're making me all weepy and nostalgic. For 80s video games, not right. Personal Space? No. 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 ScathingAtheist.com. Before we reduce heat and let simmer, tonight I wanted to thank the atheist Redditors that managed to convince a Georgia Public Broadcasting producer that I would be a good person to interview about the atheist perspective on Christmas. So we'll be talking a little bit more about that next week. But if you want to hear it between now and then, I'll have a link to it on the show notes for this episode, if and when it's available. I was on with a Muslim and a Jew, though I couldn't talk them into walking into a bar with me later.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, you can hear our guest appearance I did on Jake Far Wharton's Imaginary Friends show, which you'll also find linked in the show notes. And who knows? Maybe there's a copy of Diatribes, Volume 1, 50 Essays from a Godless Misanthrope, sitting under a tree somewhere to keep you satiated until next week's episode. And I know we already discussed it at length in the feedback, but once more, a huge thanks to everybody who helped us reach our Patreon goal

and allowed us the opportunity to do this thing full-time. Very excited about what we've got in store for 2015. And it's all because of you. So huge sloppy kisses all around. Obviously, I want to thank Susie and Bill one more time for popping in tonight. I wasn't just blowing smoke when I said they were two of my favorite people in the atheist movement. Bill takes his counter-apologetics damn seriously. They put together a really funny, familiar, and always entertaining show, which, of course, you'll find linked on the show notes as well.

Of course, I can't close things out without wishing Heath luck against Paul from Coronify Me in the bronze medal match this weekend, and I'm not just bringing that up to have yet another opportunity to remind everybody that I beat him last week in the semifinals. And while we're on the subject, I'll take my tongue out of my cheek long enough to thank him for all the hard work that he puts into this show every week, as well as all the new burdens he's agreed to take on to make the second show possible. I need to thank the beautiful and talented Lucinda Lusions for lending her wit and wisdom to the show once again this week.

I also want to thank Kermit the Frog for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. He always struck me as an atheist, and it's nice to finally have some confirmation. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most distinguished disbelievers, Alexander, Wayne, Corey, Bob, Tyler, Stephen, David, Lawrence, Steve, Daryl, Nate, Dustin, Sarah, Randall, 601, D, Dan, Ian, and Allie, Mark, and Phillip. Alexander, Wayne, Corey, Bob, and Tyler, who don't need a lance when they joust. Steve and David Lawrence, Steve and Daryl, whose members are so legendary that some roosters have been known to say Steve and David Lawrence, Steve and Daryl, a doodle-do.

Nate, Dustin, Sarah, Randall, and 601, who are so bright their acquaintances need UV protection. And Dee, Dan, Ian, and Allie, Mark, and Phillip, whose ferocious kung fu is the reason all those ninjas got so good at hiding in the first place. Together, these 21 men, women, couples, and prime numbers have helped in our effort to make 2015 the most dick-and-fart joke-filled year in human history

by giving us money. Not everyone gives us money without expecting sexual favors in return, but if you think you've got what it takes, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist and at the same time earn bonus content, longer episodes, sooner episodes, and possibly other stuff. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking the Donate button on the right side of our homepage. And, of course, if you'd like to help but you've invested all your disposable income

on whatever worthless shit the TV told your kids they want, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a glowing review on iTunes. It only takes a minute. And if you don't leave a review and just give us five stars, it only takes a second. It also really helps us grow our audience and keep this venture viable. 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. I thought clergy don't shit. I didn't think they had parts. Do they have parts? Hey, dude, I was raised Catholic. They have parts. They have exits and entries? Okay.