The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 105: Fireproof Edition

Episode Date: February 19, 2015

In this week's episode we learn that either god is real or there's a giant ball of plasma at the center of our solar system, Jesus gets whipped at the box office by some domanatrices, and Eli will join us with some Christian marital advice.

Warning, Eli's on this one reviewing another Kirk Cameron movie, so you might want to pause this and pee first. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new non-perishable communion option for Catholics, Spiced Christ Absolution Meat, or SCAM. Do you have trouble finding the time to go hunt yourself a fresh savior? Are you anticipating a long stretch in your underground doomsday bunker? Are you anticipating a long stretch in your underground doomsday bunker? Does your church have NFC security devices to prevent people taking home leftovers from the Jesus buffet? Well, all that can be fixed if you buy our scam. Spiced Christ Absolution Meat.

Get some cannibalism in the can. And now, the Scathing Atheist. This is Callie Wright from the Gaytheist Manifesto, and we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's February 19th. And there's nothing in the Bible that says gay people can't fuck standing up. Or even donkey style, really. I'm no illusions.

I'm Ethan Wright. And from affluent suburb of Podunk, Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll learn that either God exists or there's a giant ball of plasma in the center of the solar system. Jesus gets outperformed at the box office by dominatrices. And Eli Bosnick will be here to offer some Christian marital advice. But first, the diatribe. I find myself in a bit of a quandary here. Because I need to talk about the Chapel Hill shooting, and I don't do treading lightly well. So let me preempt everything I'm about to say by pointing out that in no way am I trying to minimize the tragedy of that incident.

I'm going to heavily criticize this shit out of all kinds of ancillary issues that have grown up around it, but I hope to do so without completely losing sight of the fact that at the heart of this is a very real hardship for the families of the victims, for their entire community. I guess when you live in a country with an average of almost 40 murders a day, it's easy to get lost in the statistics and completely lose track of the singular catastrophes. The lives that are ruined and the futures that are stolen by violent crime kind of just drift away in the numbers. And that's probably why, as a culture, we tend to latch on to certain crimes, usually directed by our national media, as representations of the others. By personalizing one murder, we try to put a human face on that statistic and force ourselves

to face the horrors of violence. No matter how many homicides take place, once in a while we have to stop as a society, gasp in horror, and ask what the hell is wrong with us. But of course, the media isn't picking the murders that best represent the trends in crime. More often than not, they're picking the ones that are either particularly grisly or the ones that reinforce a larger narrative. And as Machiavellian as that might sound, it's not necessarily immoral. You know, publicizing a murder often shines a light on some social inequity or some larger societal problem that we might not address if we're not shocked out of our apathy.

The problem then is in what narrative one is attempting to reinforce. So with all that in mind, let me back up and tell all the people in archive what the hell I'm talking about. Last Tuesday at an apartment complex in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, three students were gunned down by a neighbor in what appears to be an ongoing dispute over a parking space. The victims were Muslim. The assailant was an atheist. There is, according to police and all the evidence that's been released up to the point that I'm recording this, absolutely no reason to believe that the theological leanings of anyone involved had anything whatsoever to do with these murders. By all accounts, this stemmed from the killer's psychotic obsession with parking spaces. A number of his neighbors of various religious and ethnic persuasions reported that

the same guy had confronted them about parking, often with a gun visible on his hip. A local towing company had a standing order to ignore calls from this guy. The victims themselves had told their family about their repeated run-ins with him and their fears that he might become violent over this parking thing. The police have publicly stated that they have no evidence at this time that this was anything other than a violent escalation about something as stupid as parking. So why do we all know that the killer was an atheist? Quick, what religion was the Sandy Hook shooter?

Any of the headlines read, Catholic man guns down kindergarten? What about the dude that shot up the Dark Knight premiere? Anybody remember the talking heads identifying him as the Presbyterian gunman? I'm relatively sure that no Muslims are listening to the show, but if they were, they'd probably be muttering, welcome to our world. And while that's true to some degree, let's be fair. At least there's ample precedent for Muslims killing in the name of Islam. That's a thing that really happens in nonfiction. To my knowledge, there has never in all of human history been a murder in the name of atheism. Now, don't get me wrong. I will freely admit that there's crime in this country against

Muslims that is motivated entirely by bigotry. And if I had to guess, I'd say there are atheists perpetrating some of that crime. Of course they are. Because atheism has bigots, just like every other self-selecting group of humans. But let's try to keep things in perspective. America fucks a lot of things up, but one thing America has almost never do is kill people over religion. There aren't definitive statistics for 2014, but in 2013, according to the FBI, the number of people killed in the U.S. because of their religion was zero. It's extraordinarily rare in this country, even as much as we love killing one another. And yet I've seen multiple editorials like the one in the New Republic talking about how this is a – it should serve as a wake-up call to atheists.

A wake-up call about what? Let's say that all the evidence and investigators and police officers and neighbors are wrong, and this really was about his atheism. The guy just hated religion so much that he had to go out and kill religious people. What lesson is the atheist community supposed to take away from this? That that's bad? That rejecting religion doesn't insulate one against bigotry or psychosis? Well, newsflash, guys, we already knew that. We're not the ones that say when you join our group,

it makes you morally superior to everyone else. That was you you were thinking of. Of fucking course, atheists can also be violent, but I feel more obligated to condemn this act as a person that bitches about bad parking than I do as an atheist. And yet nowhere could I find an op-ed urging comedians that complain about how people park to tone down their rhetoric. So why do we know that the killer was an atheist?

Why must every news agency have to devote some amount of ink to the what-if-he-killed-him-because-he-hates-religion-so-much angle? Again, no evidence, pure speculation, but shucks, what if? Wouldn't that just fit right into our tidy little narrative about how everybody's just as bad as everybody else? Wouldn't it be nice if we had that story that showed that everybody killed over their beliefs, it's not just a religious thing? Wouldn't it just put a cherry on the top of our culturally relativistic mantra about how all the groups are equally bad? After all, it's more important to be fair than accurate, isn't it? And meanwhile, the media is getting all introspective about whether they're treating the Muslims with a double standard here.

And again, I'm not trying to minimize this, but if the victims weren't Muslim, if the same dude gunned down three Christians in that parking lot, we probably wouldn't know about it if we didn't live nearby. And if he'd killed three black Christians, we might not even know about it then. Again, not trying to minimize. I'm trying to put this in perspective. And in order to do so, I'd like to point to another of the 35 or so murders that took place in this country on February 10th of 2015. This one happened in New Orleans at about

1.30 a.m. The victim's name was Penny Proud, and she was the fifth young black trans woman to be gunned down in the streets of New Orleans in the past six weeks. She was also the fifth to be all but ignored by the mainstream media. There is plenty of very real and very deadly bigotry in this world. We don't need to speculate about where it might be when we have so many ready examples of where it is. They're talking about your Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is a podcaster with 33% less fat than the leading brand, Heath Enright. Heath, are you in fact part of this nutritious breakfast?

It all depends on what time of day I get that blowjob. Exactly. So remember, ladies and gentlemen of the gay persuasion, Heath's dick is cheaper than a power bar in our lead story tonight from the christopher christoria file new jersey superior court judge peter f barriso jr ruled last week that all those de-gayification conversion therapy centers are committing consumer fraud if they claim to offer treatments that cure the so-called psychological disorder of homosexuality. Bravo, sir. Which is generally their exact business model.

Yeah, pretty much. The judge ruled that their entire concept is blatantly illegal because you can't treat nothing, nor can you have or advertise a success rate at treating nothing. So go New Jersey, and then meanwhile you've got Oklahoma-phobia down there trying to enshrine these psychological abuse farms in their state constitution. Why are all the states without eight feet of

snow right now the ones with all the biggest? Come here, people that don't suck. It's supposed to be 78 on Sunday for fuck's sake. By the way, that's square root of negative 4 Celsius for our international listeners, if I'm doing my math right. Our temperatures are imaginary here.

So according to Judge Briso, quote, it is a misrepresentation in violation of the Consumer Fraud Act in advertising or selling conversion therapy services to describe homosexuality not as being a normal variation of human sexuality, but as a mental illness, disease, or disorder.

End quote. He also specifically forbids any claims of a gay reversal batting average because, quote, there is no factual basis for calculating these statistics. End quote. So that's official. No more talking about MOPS, no more sins above replacement, no more gay-ber-met metrics of any kind on your advertising. Excellent. So a slow clap here for all the people involved in bringing this to court, seeing it through, making this happen.

This is a huge deal to people who don't think that gays should be tortured with pseudo-psychology preposterous enough to make Tom Cruise blush. So congratulations to the people doing all the hard work that we actually just make dick jokes about, basically. to the people doing all the hard work that we actually just make dick jokes about, basically. So the case was brought to Judge Pariseau after six people filed suit against a Jersey City organization called Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, or Jonah.

Swallow. Jonah. Apparently the victims realized they could go after the fraudulent business on fraud charges, which sounds quite reasonable on the surface. But if you think about it a little longer, it becomes even more reasonable and it sets a fun new precedent. I'm certainly interested to hear the getting to heaven success rate that Mormons pay 10 percent of their income to gamble on.

Yes. And in this guy's name doesn't quite rhyme with anus dammit news tonight. This guy's name doesn't quite rhyme with anus dammit news tonight. Tennessee State Representative James Van Hus has become the latest in a funerally long list of elected officials who don't get the whole not being a Christian theocracy concept and propose legislation accordingly. House Joint Resolution 71 seeks to add the following sentence to Article I of the state's constitution. Quote, we recognize that our liberties do not come from governments, but from Almighty God, our Creator and Savior. And just to be extra prickish, he capitalized not only God, but also Almighty Creator and Savior.

Yeah, you know who else capitalized improper nouns? Who's that? The Nazis. Take that, Godwin. So yes, just to review, he wants to add language into the supreme governing document of the state that says that the government isn't in the supreme governing business. He wants the great state of Tennessee to hand over all the liberty-insuring responsibilities

to the guy in the clouds who Christians have to pretend they don't think is a guy in the clouds when the atheists are around, basically. Well, I'm a pretty staunch God-truther. So before we let this guy take over governing power in this country, I'm going to need to see his birth certificate. Sounds like some bullshit. Or at least a memorized foreskin, maybe. And in accidentally justifying atheist eugenics news tonight. In a piece by Anthony Rivas, writing for Medical Daily, the author tried to take a balanced look, I guess,

at recent studies that contrast religious people and skeptics. And despite this attempted balance, it was impossible to ignore the findings of the atheist propaganda machine known as Big Science, which says non-religious people are better. We tend to be better people with better brains, so we do all the thought-related stuff a bit better on average. Besides being more

intelligent, we're also more generous, more compassionate, and less bigoted when it comes to societal interaction. Especially if you count members of other religions as part of society. Yes, but did he take into account the fireproof underwear? I mean, it seems unfair to focus

on little shit like generosity, intelligence, and shit like that when one side has magic onesies and retroactive snake bite juice. You didn't even bring that up in the article. Well, the data's not all bad for religion. For example, recent studies have shown religious people to report higher happiness levels compared to non-believers. Like drunks. However, when compared to non-believers who are involved in community organizations or drunks, this happiness advantage goes away.

So, scratch the happiness thing, I guess. But there was one other promising trend for them, showing certain health advantages to having religious and spiritual support in coping with illness. However, this edge is once again lost when religious people are compared to secular humanists, so I guess it was all bad for religion except to the extent that ignorance is bliss, or, you know, you should just be drunk.

Basically, in this desperate attempt to make it seem like both sides had good shit going for them, the only positive that this dude could come up with for their group were the positives that are conferred upon it necessarily by the simple act of being a group. That was it. Like a particularly active chapter of the monkey-raping, white supremacist,

kitten-stompers of America would have conferred all the same positives as religion. As long as you go on Sunday morning. Exactly, as long as you go. And now a quick roundup of where secular values prevailed. I'll start with a 2010 study from Duke University, which found that non-religious people are far more tolerant of other groups, especially considering we use a version of the golden rule that doesn't require a secret club password.

So the whole do unto others thing, you have to include all the people as others or it fucks up the rule. When your golden rule only applies to your in-group, that makes you a bad person. Yes, necessarily. And religious groups tend to have more bad people than non-religious groups. So if it wasn't clear already, you guys lost the game. But second place, read last, is not that bad. That's something.

Yes. That's a silver. But please, quit running. The race is over. Play it that way. And it was an auto race and then i do not like them ham i am news tonight ken ham knows you are but what is he his elasticity as it relates to your adhesiveness was on full display last thursday while all us

godless jesus haters were off celebrating the birthday of our boyfriend who we want to have a million babies with charles darwin because while we were having our stupid Darwin Day, he was getting together with his own friends that are from a different town. You don't know, but they're way cooler than all the people you do know. And celebrating his own holiday that's even more awesome than ours called Darwin Was Wrong Day.

And he lost his virginity to one of the girls in that other town. And it doesn't seem like he really thought this through. He's going to need to set up lots of new holidays, but there are way more than 365 scientists in history. A lot of people contradicting the Bible. Yeah, observational and otherwise. But perhaps most striking about this story is that a guy who can readily imagine

a heptacontagionarian drunkard felling 40,000 trees to build the largest wooden construction ever created before or since, without even enlisting the help of the magical rock monsters, can't come up with a better name for his anti-Darwin harumph than Darwin was wrong day? Right? I mean, we didn't call the National Day of Reason the National

Day of Prayers for stupid poo-poo heads. Step it up, Hambone. What about, all Finch beaks are identical day. They're the same. They're all the same day. All the beaks are the same. Don't even look at those turtles. And obviously, we're not the only people

that noticed Ken Ham was out mouth-farting once again as the Twitter trolls were quick to adopt his asinine protest against reason and repurpose it for something constructive, like pointing out that Ken Ham is an asshole. But of course, this is just what God wanted them to do, because in Ken Ham's words, quote, even if they're mocking us, they're helping to spread the message that there are people who are speaking against the religion of naturalism, end quote.

So he secretly wanted us to draw a dick on his backpack. That's why he left it there. And as we reflect on precisely how many mid-pubescent wedgies it took to formulate Ken Ham's present-day personality, we'll toss things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. It's a slut, right?

Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man! This Week in Misogyny. This Week in Misogyny. Sometimes a GOP's institutional sexism comes forward when a slip of the tongue subtly betrays an ingrained belief that women are some lesser form of being. And sometimes they just say that women are some lesser form of being. Or, sorry, just to be a little more dehumanizing, a lesser cut of meat. This pearl of wisdom was offered to us by South Carolina State Senator Thomas Corbin

during a legislative dinner to discuss domestic violence legislation. According to the right-wing blog Fitz News, the comment came in response to the sole female legislator present whom Corbin had apparently told before that she should be at home baking cookies and or barefoot and pregnant. After his blatant chauvinism was challenged by state senator Katrina Scheele, Corbyn reportedly explained that God made man first, end quote, then he took the rib out to make woman. And you know, a rib is a lesser cut of meat, end quote. Of course, rumor has it that his experience with lesser in terms of meat is

long-standing, so I might have to defer to his expertise on this one. Indeed, sometimes when I comb through the emails I get for this segment, it can be easy to start losing faith in humanity. But luckily, amid all the belittling, degrading, and rape baby man dating, I occasionally come across a nugget of hope. One person rising above the sea of misogyny to help lift women out of the perennial morass of institutionalized sexism. A lone voice of assistance whispering beneath the deafening chorus of sandwich request. And this week, that voice belonged, of course, to Pat Robertson. The 700 Club host and Alfred E. Newman's grandfather took to airwaves hoping to reach out to the vulnerable women at the fringes of society last week.

More specifically, the ones that are at high risk of having their unborn children Satan-cursed by witches through Facebook. In what one would have hoped would have been an email too meaningless and bizarre to answer, a woman wrote in to ask Robertson what the spiritual ramifications of posting ultrasound images on social media might be. Never one to miss an opportunity to be audibly insane, Robertson explained that covens of evil people and or demons might misappropriate the image and mutter curses against the unborn child. And we all know what that means. Or that's what Pat Robertson thinks,

because he just pinched off the crazy stream of consciousness mid-defecation at that point. And with no better glimmer of hope to offer you tonight, I'll wrap up. Thanks, Lucinda. And putting the Allah in fallacy news tonight, Saudi cleric Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari ramped up the absurdity of the asinine thing to be pissed about arms race of Muslim outrage last week when he effectively declared a fatwa against the sun for having the audacity to be in the center of the solar system when that's clearly where Allah goes. Fatwa against intergalactic empty spaces to come. Yes, fuck vacuums. In an explanation that manages to misconstrue

not only complex concepts like angular momentum, gravity, and astrodynamics, but also simple ones like variable speed and height, he explained that if the Earth rotated, a plane could never reach China, since China would always be rotating away from it, apparently regardless of which way the plane's going, even.

He also suggested that if we jump high enough, China should just rotate right under us, which it never does, so the Earth must not be moving. Yes. And as if that wasn't enough proof, he went on to cite Muhammad, or illiterate pederast Muslim Jesus, who talked about the sun and moon following one another in an orbit around the Earth several times in that infallible book of his. And in Earth Already Has Too Many Wannabe Clever Fifty Shades of Grey puns for me to add one here in news tonight, it looks like Pontius Pilate and the Beatles will be welcoming Fifty Shades of Grey into the Bigger Than Jesus Club

after the new erotic testament to physical and psychological abuse bested the US record for a February cinematic debut overtaking Mel Gibson's pogrom-inducing snuff film Passions of the Christ. Screen treatments for a crossover film featuring a billionaire grudge-fucking Jesus are no doubt already being accepted.

And I'm looking forward to it. If they slap a Beatles soundtrack on that and make it into a Cirque du Soleil, I would definitely go to Vegas just for that. I want to scold your gland. I would go just for that show. All you need is a glove. February release, which is basically the big screen version of On Across from the Super Bowl, is generally where films that probably never should have been made go to demonstrate that fact.

But spurred on in part by extraordinary ticket sales in the southern states, this homage to bondage and discipline beat that other homage to bondage and discipline by more than a million dollars in box office gross, proving once again that Christians love watching people get the shit whipped out of them. And finally tonight, from the mocking J-dubs file, a new animated short from industry leader JW.org Studios hit the internets recently, and it warns Jehovah's Witness children about the potentially lethal consequences of not paying attention at church and meeting, and second church and second and third meeting, and on Sunday at church. It was quite something. The time-honored tradition of threatening to kill your children with God has apparently now moved to 1996 quality CGI. Lovely to see. that if Noah hadn't been paying close attention to God when he told him about the cubit specs for his impossible boat,

then he would have built it wrong, and the whole family would have immediately suffocated to death when the flood came, because everyone was made of metal back then. And if those kids are anything like me, they just learned that it's okay to sleep at church, except on the weeks when the creator of the universe shows up with yachting advice, which is almost never, so...

Almost, almost. It's kind of irrelevant. And I love that according to the even crappier animation that's embedded within this crappy animation, failure to recall the proper number of qubits leads to the entire arc exploding two-dimensionally. Oh, shit, wrong number of qubits. Sealants and nails cease to adhere.

Fuck. So, with audiences already clamoring for the next installment from J-Dub Studios, it seems like they could use a few more ideas for short features with stupid lessons from the Bible. All right. We only need 30 seconds on the clock. Biblical public service announcements. Go. I bet we go long.

How about don't forget to hit your children with a stick, the less you know. When in Rome, crucify a Jew, the less you know. How about, when someone cuts their hair off with a sword and lays catatonic for weeks, he's probably communicating directly with the Lord. Be sure to do whatever he says. How about, you can't make an omelet without murdering some foreigners to work up your appetite. The less you know. Or maybe just women.

The less they know. Right. How about a shekel saved is 2% consensual earned. Stay frugal, Israel. The less you know. Remember, stone chips. So be sure to wear safety goggles when smashing babies against rocks. The less you know. Remember, stone chips, so be sure to wear safety goggles when smashing babies against rocks. The less you know.

Be safe. How about, don't count your chickens until you've strangled them to death on Capra. The less you know. Or let's keep it simple. God will fuck your shit up. The less you know. Definitely going to happen. How about, you can't judge a book by its cover unless it says Bible or it doesn't say Bible.

The less you know. Or, and this is an important one, how about, mental illness is caused by demons that live in your kidneys. Seriously, if you take out that card, the whole religion collapses. The less you know. Just vote Republican and ignore the book. The less you know. Just vote Republican and ignore the book. The less you know, the better. God couldn't think of a non-leukemia way to make this all work.

Get off his ass about it. The less you know. About, uh, if you enslave some foreigners, don't beat them up so hard. You'll thank us at harvest time. The less you know. Well, as they used to say in Vaudeville, once you hit them with the slave-beaten joke, it's time to get the fuck off the stage.

So we're going to close the headlines there. Heath thanks us always. To Monji! And when we come back, Eli Bosnick will be here to move distressingly close to having seen Kirk Cameron's entire filmography. When I told Eli that I was leaving the choice for our next film review entirely in his hands,

I assumed that some amount of vengeance would enter into his decision-making process. And it did. But I could not have imagined what kind of horrible crucible of passive entertainment he had unearthed with Kirk Cameron's 2008 masterwork of scenery-chewing fireproof. Now, for the last 24 hours or so, I've been struggling to formulate an introduction that would do justice to the absolute horror that was this film, and the best I can come up with in a sentence is that it was like

two hours of watching the non- fucking parts of porn. Just for the acting. The dude's face, the expressions, how... And of course, to help guide us through this cinematic shard is my good friend Eli Bosnick. Eli, welcome back.

Hey, Noah. Thanks for having me. Anytime, sir. So after having watched this movie, do you think this was a good decision on your part or a bad decision? This is the best decision I have ever, ever made. Let me tell you, I have turned down meth, and I have not fucked a girl who it turned out was HIV positive, and watching this movie is the best decision.

I don't know. This is the best decision right here. Wow, despite sidestepping AIDS, just barely. Even better. It's really horrifying to me that we can actually all three make sort of a qualified judgment here. But where would you guys rank Fireproof compared to Kirk Cameron's other cinematic offerings?

It's not as good as Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas because there's a plot and more than two characters. But it's good in other ways. It's like, you know, you can't compare like Sunset Boulevard and Raging Bull. You know, it's like, oh, they're different films. That's what it's like. That's exactly what it's like.

That's what it's like for me. It's like a different, it's like, oh, do I want to eat dog shit or do I want to eat human shit? I don't know. Kind of mood in my hand a little closer the first 10 minutes of this movie people speak entirely in exposition like they were tortured like they were homeland style tortured to only speak in exposition just like well you know as my friend of 10 years, that I enjoy salt baked potatoes.

I do. Please don't shock my balls again. I would have taken a shock in the balls over that. So, yeah, we meet him. He's a fireman. And then, of course, we switch over to meet his career oriented wife. It was too busy to shop, apparently. And she, of course, meets Dr. McSexy.

And you could tell, again, these movies, the crazy thing about this is every time I review one of these movies, I'm like, and then the black people! And I'm like, someone is going to listen to this and be like, oh, Eli's a racist. These movies are so fucking racist that when I describe the actions, I feel like I should be wearing a hood because it's just like, all the black characters do this.

So she's talking to the other doctor and he's like, you can call me Gabriel, which by the way, is totally fine and appropriate in the workplace. And all of the black nurses look at each other like, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. And I wrote down, sassy black nurses do not approve of first and also this woman this white woman who is staring into the middle distance as though she ate a bucket of chalk has nothing but sassy black friends then she goes and visits stroke mom i was so stupid stroke mom is sitting in her chair. She's now mute, I assume, from the stroke. And she turns to her and she goes, I miss you.

And this mute person, who has apparently just lost the ability to speak, is like, that's the meanest thing in the world. Someone's mute and you're like, man, I wish you were alive. Your mom had a stroke. She's not dead. But all she wants... She just rose for Emily. Does dad just have her propped in the chair? Taxidermied or something like that, yeah.

No, but all... But we learned very early on, because there is nothing subtle in this movie, that all she really wants is a hospital bed and a wheelchair for her mom that'll cost about $24,000. $24,000.

It's a nice-ass wheelchair. That wheelchair better bring her back to life. You can get a transformer for less. Is she riding around in Optimus Prime? Oh, sorry, Karen, you're gonna have to well, we can go to bath time later. Transformer for us. Is she riding around in Optimus Prime? Autobots.

Oh, sorry, Karen, you're going to have to. Well, we can go to bath time later. Well, I've got to assemble the Autobots. That would have been such a better movie. Oh, an 80-year-old stroke victim as one of the Autobots in the crew. I would watch that cartoon. Not in a, now not in a Transformer. Just like, Autobots assemble.

And she's like like Karen pooped again well no Bumblebee you're gonna do it cause I did it last I'm a mega truck and you're just like a car thing you change her

it's gross it's gross I wanna give up on humans and then so they finally finally we see the husband and wife together and they have the world's weirdest fight instantly over nothing and ends with him screaming in her face. It's literally, I've had, I mean, that's, that's a common occurrence.

She like puts the milk away because he left it out while he's getting the cereal and he turns back. And instead of being like, actually, I was going to use the milk. He's like, you fucking bitch. And doesn't eat cereal. He's like, well, she put the milk away. I'm having a power bar.

There was a definite, until we get to the porn later, which I'll come to, the idea that like things that destroy marriages are the fact that people want boats. Right. That was a bad thing. Everyone in this movie, if the reality of this movie is true, it is a selfish, bad thing to want to have your own activities and life. He didn't even buy the boat yet.

I thought I'd have a boat. You selfish son of a bitch. But now you've already brought up the porn, which was an amazingly large part of this movie that was devoted to, like, I could not possibly imagine that we were going to spend this much time on the story arc of Kirk Cameron's character's internet porn addiction.

And I wanted it. And it was out of nowhere. Yeah. It was out of nowhere. I didn't, because she was like, you're always looking at boats. And he was, by the way. Every shot of him not talking to someone already, he's looking at a giant children's book about boats. It's newspaper-sized, giant book that says boats across the front.

Lest our audience forget, he's into boats. But the internet poor comes out of nowhere. He's on the computer, which, by the way, I don't know what this movie was made. That movie is the computer takes up half the room. It's got to put punch cards into it. And he's on a website about boats, and he gets a porn pop-up that just says, Wanna see? That's the porn pop-up.

It's not like, It's wanna see. I'd be like, I don't have any idea. Boats? Do I wanna see boats? It's just a fully dressed woman looking at the screen. It's not an attractive one or anything. It is not an attractive one. anything it is not an attractive one

there is no point I mean there I have been deep into the world of internet porn and that woman would not be allowed would not be allowed you have to go on red tube like the rest of the world you do not get a pop up he's got the liar liar moment of like

fighting his hair exactly but we're getting way ahead of ourselves in the plot here we haven't even You get the liar, liar moment of like, they're fighting his hair. Yeah. Exactly. It was the most awkward shit. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves in the plot here. We haven't even met Smiley Black best friend guy. Michael. Michael, yes. Michael, who speaks entirely in platitudes.

And, fun fact, I went over the movie again to make sure this is true. Kirk Cameron's character at no point responds to anything that comes out of Michael's mouth. He talks. They take turn talking. But Michael will be like, you know, I think I'd like some raspberry juice. She just doesn't respect me. I kept waiting for Michael to be like, hey, man, you're listening to what the fuck I'm saying. Because he just declares statements that are in no way listening to what the fuck I'm saying? Because he just declares

statements that are in no way related to what Michael just said. If Michael had spoken entirely in scat, her camera slides would have changed not at all. And then they go back and they fight again. This is now a second fight where she calls him selfish

and he makes the very valid point of he's like really i save lives for myself i pull children out of a lake for myself at which point i stood up and said i pull children out of a lake for myself the other thing too is like these people all of their fights are about like missed timing or not understanding it's like fucking text like this is not a problem of the marriage this is just like hey ordering pizza want some no thanks but that's it that's that's that's how they solve their marriage it's all of their problems but instead he comes home he's like you fucking whore how didn't you save me half a pizza the boat gets mentioned twice in the fight

by the way the internet porn comes up again. And by the way, they were fighting over Georgia pizza. I'm having that right now. It's ridiculous that they're fighting over Georgia pizza. Anyway, moving on. Basically a Triscuit with cheese sauce. Yes, exactly. But it's here in 30 minutes or less or it's free.

No, just take your time and make it better. Just please. So they have the fight. He goes outside and then we have the beginning of our first running joke because he's picking up the trash can and the neighbor's outside. Mr. Rudolph.

Mr. Rudolph. All right. More than anything in the world, if I had three wishes, three of them would be a spin off movie about the Rudolphs who are an atheist couple who fucking hate each other but they hate their neighbors more

and it's just we see the scenes and then he goes inside and he's like that motherfucker next door you know the crazy one the one who's always jerking off to boats he's got this shit out of his off to boats his wife's like really what the fuck's the matter with him oh god knows so then we cut to the firehouse um because we're about to have the grease summer loving moment where they're talking to their respective friends where he's, she doesn't think I listen.

And she's like, he doesn't listen. And he's like, I'm the bitch. And she says whatever he just said. And then her friends are like, mm-hmm. I noticed they went with the three-fifths compromise on the breakdown of the white and the black friends on that one. And then the white, there's the one white friend that she has at the brunch scene. But she's acting black, which is really offensive and upsetting.

Because all the black nurses are like, mm, girl. And so her white friend is like, mm, girl. Why am I in this movie? Oh, God. Oh, God, they're all around me. Just take it. Take it. Every time her co-stars walked on set, she would just

throw their purse at them and start blowing her whistle. All right. Now, I believe we've reached the first time we get to see Kirk Cameron be a hero in the film. It's terrifying. And one car has been mangled beyond belief. And the other car is on the tracks with a girl, quote unquote, trapped in it. The car is ripped wide open for the shot.

She can very clearly get out of that car. Yes. She has a single droplet of blood on her forehead. And she's like, I can't get out of the car. I can't get out of the car. Please let me. I can't get out of the car. And I would just be like, ma'am, there's a large hole here.

If you simply crawl out of the here if you simply crawl all the directions literally any way except backwards into your seat and down which is the direction and so so then two firemen come forward and single-handedly try to lift the car which by the way is not a thing doesn Nobody helps. Nobody helps because a train is coming. Nobody helps. And then finally a soldier stepped forward and we could tell he's a soldier because he's dressed.

He has everything except the rifle and like an American flag and like a line of like, I just came from my fallen brother's funeral. I'll help you. Then two more men help, which allows them to move the car off of the tracks which is the craziest way to try to get one person out of a car that's

gonna get hit by a train i've ever seen so they move it and then the black guy prays because he because everyone was safe and wrote, thank you, Lord, for putting those children in front of that train. Which is always... He turns to a guy and he goes, I broke my record for how close I can come to death and still live. And I wrote, that's a weird

record. Look at this. I'm going to put my face real close to this Wolverine. Okay, two inches. So they get back to the house and then the other black guy goes, I don't believe in God! And then just wanders off into the sunset.

You don't come back for that. That's not a thing. He's talking about it. And it's just like, they're just talking. And then he's like, are you a Christian? And he's like, I'm an atheist. Or he's like, I think we go into the ground. Goop, scoopity, doop, doop.

And just poofs away like a Blatheist genie. genie so then kirk cameron calls his dad to say that his marriage is falling apart and kirk cameron's dad brings his mom and this is a theme throughout this movie it's such a heavy-handed theme that so doesn't pay off but it's why did you bring mom i fucking hate you no matter what this mom does kirk hates his mom and his mom does not do anything crazy no she's like she's like hey kirk you know we really hope your marriage makes it and he's like fuck off mom through every moment of this movie so then he and his dad he screams at his mom and then he and his dad take a walk to Giant Crucifix Hill. He's like, what is this place? No, no, no.

It used to be a summer camp. For what? For the KKK? The weirdest. It's just logs gathered around a giant crucifix. Dad's like, well, you know, I'm a Christian. And Kirk's like, Dad, fuck off. And he's like, man, I'm going to mail you somethingirk's like dad fuck off and he's like man i'm

gonna mail you something which is weird because he could have brought it with him so his dad mails him the book which is based on the christian book the love dare but he has handwritten it into a notebook for his son which is crazy and the book, I want to take a moment to talk about this book. Oh, please. The only advice that this book has on marriage is do nice things. Yes. If you bring them a cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory,

it'll solve the fact that you don't communicate and you don't eat pussy. Don't worry about it. Try not to say anything mean for 24 hours that's the first thing is like try not to say cunt for four hours you can do it man through 12 14 and he almost does it right away after that he comes so close yeah he comes out and they're not talking because they're mad at each other which is a healthy like i mean communication is better, communication is better, but like, it's not unhealthy to be like, hey, I need some time. Let's not talk. And so he comes out and he's like, hey, and she says something that makes him mad.

And he goes through like a weird, like, why I got a moment behind her back. But it's impossible not to be like, fuck you. And then go beat up my garbage cans in front of my neighbor. And then the nurses so she's like well he's being really nice to me now all of a sudden like she's like oh he's being really nice to me and the nurses are like he's buttering you up for a divorce yeah how does that help what does that mean that's that's a crazy thing to say it's like my friend her husband was sweet as sugar and then she didn't get nothing. And it's like, that has nothing to do with divorce papers.

That's not how it works. Editor divorce papers that were like, by the way, I get to keep everything. And she was like, well, he has been real nice. Factor into anything. What laws are on the book? Like, well, can you tell me, ma'am, how nice has he been over the last three weeks i don't know pretty nice no contest she made you coffee did he make you coffee oh that counts even if you didn't drink it i wrote during this scene about three times how do people think divorce works

and then we come to and we've already we've already kind of hinted on this one, but what I consider to be the greatest scene ever created where he has to struggle with his porn addiction. Now, she's caught him watching porn at one point in this movie. She came in and he's looking at porn on the thing. He doesn't even have his dick out. So he's just looking at the porn. It's like he's got an addiction to cooking heroin

and leaving it on the spoon. Right, exactly. Which is weird, but not that destructive, ultimately. If his porn is just clicking on Wanna See, and then that strong six shows you her thigh. I don't think I could bring myself to jerk off to that either. If you're halfway through boats, and then someone's just like, I don't know, wanna see my tits? I'd be like, eh, sure.

But I'm not pulling my dick out for that. I don't burn calories. But now they had to find a way, these clever filmmakers, to represent the moment where he overcomes his porn addiction. His finger hovers over the want to see ad, and he doesn't just X out of it and get some pop-up blocker software to add to his computer, he goes to full regalia, takes his Commodore 128 out into the yard with the baseball bat and goes all office space

on it. And wouldn't you know it, Mr. Rudolph is out there to see the whole thing again. It's also not self-control if you destroy the object. Not helping your neighbor's wife doesn't count if you kill your neighbor's wife. Don't worry, honey.

I overcame my addiction to porn. I killed all the actresses in Los Angeles because I choose you. Look, I got you nice flowers. And again, she turns to him and I just wrote all of my notes for this scene where you really should get a divorce. They should get a divorce. Yes. Get a divorce and find people they like. Because she turns to him and she's like, Kurt, or whatever his real name is, in the movie.

She's like, I want you to know I don't love you. And I'm like, wow, you should get a divorce. Yes. But the whole fucking message of this movie is no matter how miserable, the conversation he has with his dad is all about how miserable his mom and dad were all throughout Kirk's upbringing or whatever, and the message of this movie very clearly is no matter

how miserable you are, do not get divorced. Except for the, like, good black guy who did get divorced and then wound up with a better woman. Yeah. And he's like, I got divorced. And better woman yeah he's still living and he's like i got divorced and he's like you did and he's like yes and now i'm very happy back to how you shouldn't get a yeah right and so he calls his dad and this is again magical dad calls his dad

and he's like dad and he goes this is when it gets hard it It's like, how? How did you know? How do you know that this is the day? There's just every day 20 in the love air. She turns to you and she's like, go fuck yourself. Which I wouldn't blame her for. If I did the love dare on my girlfriend, I'd make it to day three and she'd be like, what are you doing? You're doing something weird. Are you mad?

Stop pouring coffee i'm not notice i'm not saying anything about what a cunt you are 23 hours and 12 minutes i'm not calling you a bitch so they so he and his dad meet up and dad lays in with the jesus talk and this is just again a moment of where a character expresses reasoned beliefs about salvation and the other character is just like nope not listening so he's like dad i save people i'm a fireman and he's like god doesn't judge by our standards. He uses his standards. Crazy standards. Standards about

who you think is magic and who you think is not magic. Not whether or not you save children from a burning building. But whether or not you think the right name in your head before you go night-night. Of course, any reasonable person would have been like, don't you see

you're rejecting God? That's not what we're talking about. Alright. Did you notice how big this lowercase T is? So, I wrote down, people are acting like marriage is a baby. A baby that could die.

This entire movie is just one being like, oh no, the marriage! The marriage! We gotta save the marriage! It's like, no, no! Not to mention, she goes to the hospital the first time. We have to touch on the doctor-her relationship. Yes, of course. She goes to the hospital and she finds out that

someone has bought a fancy Megatron wheelchair and a fancy bed for her stroke mom. And she walks away mid-sentence from this woman. This woman's like, yeah, someone already paid. And she just wanders away, which she does again later in the movie. Later on, she finds out that it was Kirk Cameron who gave the money, not the doctor she's been flirting with. And she's like, oh, no, it was your husband. And she just, again, turns around.

And I wanted that character so badly to be like, hey, ma'am, fuck you. Right. So she thinks that it's Dr. McHandsome who turns out to be married, but that never culminates in anything. No, uh-uh. But it's actually Kirk used his boat money to buy her mom a magic chair yes oh and then he takes her they're they're made up and he takes her to crystal lake to introduce her to jesus he takes her to big cross circle plates and it's oh it's so fucking oh dude it was like it was really it was like unless i find out later that at some point

nazis like actually bludgeon jews to death with cameras this is the worst thing ever done with a camera yeah unless they were actually used physically as weapons in the holocaust this is the worst thing that a camera's ever been used for. And then we got the final revelation after they're all happy and made up and he's talking to his dad about Jesus and his dad is like, son, even though I write the book in my handwriting, which brings back the handwriting, why he copied an entire book

like a crazy person. I wrote it in my handwriting because you wouldn't believe that I used a book unless it was written in my handwriting. Wait a minute. You didn't read this book. You didn't copy it out into my notebook separately. Shenanigans, Dad.

But it was actually. It was actually your mother did the love dare to me. At which point, Kirk Cameron sprints back to his mom. I did it. No. And she's like, it's okay, honey. It's okay. And I'm just like, I don't get it.

I don't understand. Okay. I think I can elucidate this one for you because when he walks into the door to stop being a bitch to mom, because like you said, it was just completely out of fucking left field every time he was a bitch to his mom for no reason in the movie. And then he comes in at the end and he's got the – I shit you not. He's got the shoulder slump. I just skinned my knee walking to mom to apologize thing.

And as he embraces her, I realized that we were watching old lady porn and this was the money shot. Because it all makes – it is old lady porn because even the love dare is made for old women. It's not made for human beings who still have sexual lives. It's just like, well, what would I like in my marriage? I don't know.

Maybe he could stop saying mean shit for 24 hours. Maybe do something nice for me. I don't know. Maybe not hit me in the face. Just go for a tummy tuck every now and then. You know, just a nice little rib shot there. It's so old lady porn.

This is a revelation. Even the things that like, yeah, because they don't know what porn is. I bet porn is when you stare at the computer and there's a vixen staring out at you with a bedroom eyes and you're just like, yeah. at the computer and there's a vixen staring out at you with a bedroom eyes and you're just like yeah. And of course the old ladies think it's perfectly natural that the way to overcome that is to destroy the computer because they don't know that there are other things

you can do other than stare at boats. They don't know what the off button is. They have to call some Indian guy I would like to destroy my devil computer. I'm sorry ma'am. I've been on hold for 20 minutes trying to destroy my devil computer. I am sorry, ma'am. I've been on hold for 20 minutes trying to destroy this devil computer. There's a woman popping out at me from this boat site. I don't know what you want me to see.

But I know it's not the light of the Lord. So now, other than not calling your lady friend a cunt for 24 hours, are there any other life lessons that you feel like we should take away from this partial birth abortion of a movie? Yes. One very important one. He says it. He says, it's not about your feelings.

I have a section of my notes called Christian marriage advice. Christian marriage advice. Doing nice things in silence makes everyone forgive everyone. Christian marriage advice. Doing nice things in silence makes everyone forgive everyone. Christian marriage advice. Ignore your feelings and don't communicate. Oh, Christian marriage advice. The only person you should love more than your spouse is an imaginary wizard in the sky. Yes.

Very important. Important stuff. All right, now I believe we are about a month away from the theatrical release of Do You Believe brought to you from the makers of God's Not Dead. Eli, are you ready for this one? I'm so excited. I've just been tweeting the do you believe people dick pics. The slow growing harder. Until just the day of do you believe. Just me and 500 Mexicans in that movie theater. Just them clapping at all the wrong moments.

I'm so excited. Just a large popcorn all by myself. Excellent, sir. Well, until then, thank you for your humorous masochism, sir. Oh, I can't wait. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, the listener feedback. This is the part of the show that probably should have started with the echoey thing, honestly, because then I wouldn't have to keep coming up with a new intro every fucking week.

Our first message comes from Bartholomew, who is a Trinity College alum and a lifelong fan of the Bantams, or Very Small Chickens, basically the Trinity Cornish Gamehens. Anyway, Bartholomew chimed in on our Facebook page to dispute my remarks during last week's show that suggested Trinity is a safety school for lots of smart people. Now, I'll start by saying that I was really just fulfilling my NESCAC rivalry responsibilities as a Williams College alum myself. I'll also add that I'm fully aware our non-existent purple cow called the ETH is also a ridiculous mascot. All that being said, though, my statement was still certainly accurate. Trinity is absolutely a safety school for lots of smart people.

Now, it's an excellent school. It's almost as good as Williams. So I'm sure it's also the first choice for plenty of smart people, too. I don't doubt that. And also for Tucker Carlson. Yeah, you have that to be proud of. If I had to guess, Bartholomew's been to a sporting event between the two schools maybe once or twice and probably didn't enjoy hearing the safety school chant that always pops up

at those, which is clearly mean. I went to college with a bunch of assholes and I learned a lot while I was there. Clearly. We also got several messages from people who wanted to argue with some of the specifics of last week's diatribe. You'll recall I talked about the psychological evidence regarding which approach to religion is more effective and argued that the dismissive disdain approach is generally more productive than the respectful and emphatic approach. Right, but it's infinitely more productive when you're personally incapable of the nicer version. Well, yes, yes, exactly. We didn't discuss that, but also a very valid point.

Now, there were several listeners that wrote in to argue with one of the main points i made but perhaps their sentiment was best summarized by john on our facebook page who writes quote noah i've posted a couple of times how uncanny it is to me that i agreed with you a hundred percent of the time well no longer and i cannot stand mute on this optimus prime would absolutely kick voltron's ass for fuck's sake man lock one of those pussy lions up in a trailer and the battle is already done. Please think about this rationally. Is he serious, though? And this turned into the longest discussion on our Facebook

page ever. John, dude. John, I do understand your concern here and while we strive for accuracy here on The Scathing Atheist, I've taken a long look at the evidence and I stand by my original opinion. And John, it's not even close. No, it isn't. And I'm guessing you're about to hear exactly why it's not even close from Noah in detail. Now, first of all, each of the five Voltron Lions was larger than a semi-truck sans trailer,

so the fully formed robot would utterly dwarf Optimus Prime, should they choose to attack as a unified whole. Which they don't have to. Of course, attacking as five autonomous fighting units would be tactically superior in almost all circumstances. Now, both fully formed robots are adept at swordplay, but only one has robotic lion heads for fists, and ultimately as cool as turning into a tractor trailer

is, it's ultimately useless in battle against a giant robot, unless you're running away, and even then it would suck balls because it would take forever to get up to speed, you couldn't use the far left lane, you'd have to go into the weigh stations. Which brings us to our top ten reasons why Voltron is clearly superior to Optimus Prime.

All right, numbers ten through one. Voltron has never appeared in a movie directed by Michael Bay. Before we lay us down to sleep tonight, I wanted to urge you to be on the lookout for the next episode of the Merseyside Skeptics' most excellent podcast, Incredulous, on which Heath and I recently faced off against Tom and Cecil from cognitive dissonance in what might have just been the most snort-inducing Skype call of my entire life. We had a ton of fun, and you're invited to listen in on that fun as soon as the episode is available. Keep an eye on our Facebook page and Twitter feed for a link as soon as that show airs.

That's all the blasphemy we've got for you this week, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. But fear not, as between now and then we'll be debuting the first five episodes of The Skeptocrat. So come Monday, there will be two and a half hours of entertainment waiting for you. Again, links will be smeared all over our social media as soon as they're available. Once more, I need to thank Eli for being self-loathing in such an entertaining way. Every time I think we've reached the absolute bottom of Christian cinema, he sometimes manages to scrape away one more layer and find something worse. Bravo, sir.

Obviously, I need to thank Heath for a lot more than suffering through this shit movie with us, but even if that's all I needed to thank him for, I'd owe him a huge thanks. I can't close it down without thanking the lovely Lucinda Lusions for lending us her wit and hilarity once more. I need to thank Callie from the brand-anking new Gatheist Manifesto podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote on extremely short notice. As you might have guessed from the title, it's a show that deals with the issues of LGBT equality as they relate to atheism.

Definitely a niche that needs to be filled. If you'd like to check it out, we'll have a link on the show notes for this episode. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's best humans, Brian, Michael, Paul, Ryan, Jamie, Dan, John, Zach, Scott, Jaded, Michael, and Guineera. Brian, Michael, Paul, and Ryan, whose oral sex acumen is so legendary it got promoted to Lieutenant Cunnell. Jamie, Dan, John, and Zach were bright enough to cause retinal damage. And Scott, Jaded, Michael, and Guineera, who are so renowned that the Tootsie Roll Center of a Tootsie Pop comes to them. Together, these 12 top-shelf, selfless, helpful, hellbound heathens have helped us keep the boat afloat for yet another

week by giving us money. Not everyone 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 on the donate button on the right side of our homepage at skatingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but money makes

you break out in financial obligations, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes or your podcast aggregator of choice. Remember, every time someone leaves us a five-star review, an angel gets its wings ripped off by Voltron. 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 make sure you don't call her a cunt for 24 hours I love