The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 109: This Lukes Familiar Edition

Episode Date: March 19, 2015

In this week's episode, Ken Ham will tell us who would win if Jesus fought an asteroid, we'll learn that CNN replacing Larry King with Piers Morgan didn't count as the first penis transplant, and Lucinda will join us for another damnable gospel.

Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Uh-oh, that's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct. Insurance simplified. Warning, this podcast is not safe for work, but only because your boss is an asshole. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new online gambling site for jihadist speculators, Pascalfateswager.com.

Place your bets now on which extremists will reign supreme quick before one wins and decapitates those who failed to pledge allegiance fast enough. Go all-in at Pascalfateswager.com, the only gamble you're allowed to make if you're a Muslim. And now, the skating atheist. I'm not going to say it, you guys. I'm not going to say it. Me, me. You didn't know I'm making me say something I don't want to say. Just say it, sweetie.

can make yourself out of one, see? Just saying, sweetie. Ah, well, anyway, we did in fact get far from 50 monkey men. All right, screw you guys. I got to go. Ah, it's Thursday. It's March 19th. And how they get to Krzyzewski, I have no idea.

I have no illusions. I'm Heath Enright. And from top of the syphilis to Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, Ken Hamill tells us who would win if Jesus got into a fight with an asteroid. The Lord taketh away a penis, but science gives it back. And Lucinda will join us for another fucking gospel. But first, the diatribe. So last week I agreed with an intellectual malfeasant that embodies everything I hate about motivated reasoning,

and this week I'm going to bitch about an intellectual heavyweight that I absolutely fucking love. And it didn't have to be this way, guys. I was going to do this whole diatribe about the fuckwit preacher at my niece's wedding that hijacked the captive audience to tell us all about how Jesus Jesus was, had it all worked out in my head, that's what I plan to do all week, and then this shit with Patton Oswalt hit my radar. Now, full disclosure here, I am a huge Patton Oswalt fan.

Hell, he almost made Young Adult watchable. He's one of those guys that knows all the words, but he still says fuck a lot. He's hilarious. He's an atheist. He did this Sky Cake bit for fuck's sake. And so with years of slobbering fandom under my belt, all of a sudden here's this clickbaity headline about him comparing Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins to Fred Phelps. Surely it was taken out of context, right? After all, this was a raw story headline I was looking at. They're just one step up from tabloids most of the time, so they probably just cherry-picked a few words out of context, riled up a bunch of

atheists, tried to drive some traffic their way, right? So I went to the original interview on Salon and I read the whole thing. And at first, I'm just reinforcing this feeling that the Raw Story headline was unjustified. At the beginning, Oswald is just, you know, he's talking about how people should be allowed to joke about whatever they want. He's justifying rape jokes. He's justifying racist jokes. He's making the point that seems absolutely contradictory to the context that Raw Story would have left me expecting, right? And then, about two-thirds of the way into the interview, the dude from Salon ropes him in. Now, up until now, he's essentially been making the point that people should be allowed to make jokes about whatever they want to joke about, and news sites like Salon shouldn't be able to get pissy about them.

The editor that's interviewing him, David Daly, is arguing that comedy might be a great place to start the conversation, but outrage does the grunt work. Now, the problem arises, though, when Oswald gets so married to his point that he starts defending it even when it becomes absurd. So Daly asks him about Bill Maher and how he feels about Bill Maher's approach to Islam, and then he says it, quote, I feel about Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins the way that most Christians feel about Fred Phelps, end quote. So it wasn't enough to just throw the subject of the question under the bus. He had to make an unscheduled, unprovoked stop so he could drag one of our generation's greatest science communicators onto this bus so that he could then toss him under, too. He goes on, quote, Look, being an atheist means you don't give a fuck about what anyone believes in.

I don't think any of it's real, but you can go ahead and do it. I'm not trying to destroy religion, end quote. Now, he actually goes on to say even more dumb shit on this subject, but let's just start with this Fred Phelps comparison, since it was so pivotal to all the click-baity headlines. I assume what he means here is that he's ashamed of the way that Dawkins and Marr present the message that he agrees with. After all, about half of American Christians agree with Phelps' basic premise about God hating fags. They just don't like the way he delivers that message.

So the qualitative part of this comparison, I guess, is to suggest that Marr pointing out on his show that Muslims are responsible for way more than their fair share of religious violence is approximately as inappropriate as it would have been if he showed up at a religious funeral service with a giant Nietzsche quote on a board with a bigoted slur on it somewhere, too. Those two things are about equally deserving of shame in Oswald's mind, apparently. Also, Dawkins did some unspecified thing that's also that bad. Look, I disagree with Oswald's placating we-can-all-just-get-along demonstrably ineffective take on the promotion of rationalism. I disagree with the insinuation he's making that there's no real harm in religion or that institutionally indoctrinating children to believe that science is their enemy

is just a matter of personal preference. I disagree with the blanket get-out-of-jail-free card he waves over every manner of religious violence later in the interview by suggesting that religion can never have anything to do with it. I don't agree with the way he's defending Charlie Hebdo out of one chin and then lambasting Bill Maher out of the other.

But it would be the height of bombastic bullshit to compare him to Fred Phelps because of it, no matter how much I disagree with his approach. And as to this absurd notion that proper atheism requires complete apathy towards what other people believe, that's even more insulting. What, I don't care if you don't believe that gay people should have equal rights? I don't care if you believe that transgendered people aren't really people. I don't care if you finance a worldwide child rape amnesty campaign. I don't care if you carve out exemptions in American laws that allow you to implement misogynistic policies in the workplace. I don't care if you restrict access to contraception. I don't care if you convince mentally ill people that they're filled with demons that you can exercise. Well, fuck you and your dispassionate cowardice.

I do care. And I care enough to be outraged. But to hear Oswald say, it's all right to not believe all that stuff, as long as you're not a jerk about it. You know, this half-assed effort to reach across the aisle is predicated on the preposterous idea that somehow we can look at God belief in a vacuum, as though religion can be divorced from all the consequences of religion. As though there was some innocuous way to base one's entire worldview on a self-contradicting lie

that takes moral authority out of your own hands and places it in the hands of an unvetted steward, as though there was a harmless way to believe in God. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is the man with the magic tongue, Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to give the listeners a little oral pleasure? All right, well, do you guys think you can finish in like 53 minutes? You think you can manage that?

I'm out of here whether you're done or not in 53 minutes. Sounds more than fair. In our lead story tonight from the Defaulter Boys file, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled last week that there's officially no such thing as the religious liberty to refuse paying millions of dollars in damages to rape victims. You have to pay them even if you're a church. Now, you might be thinking, doesn't that mean we had that liberty for a while? Yes, it does. It really, really does.

And as crazy as this might sound, the new decision is actually a reversal of the 2013 ruling that somehow existed and said the opposite. Yeah, no doubt part of the lower court's concerted effort to make the judicial guano coming from the Roberts court seem moderate in comparison. And it might have worked. moderate in comparison. And it might have worked. So, the case applies to the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee who've managed to employ at least 45 priests accused of sexual abuse. When it

became clear to them that pedophile staffers represented a financial risk, then Archbishop of Milwaukee, Timothy Dolan, tried to hide about $55 million in a secret trust account. He even wrote a letter to the Vatican explaining the evil plan, calling the trust, quote, an improved protection of those funds from any legal claim and liability, end quote.

Admit it. And Dolan has since been promoted to Cardinal and Archbishop of New York for his business savvy, I guess. Yeah. So for those of you keeping score at home, they signed a settlement, then they hit a shitload of money, then they declared bankruptcy so they wouldn't have to pay the settlement,

then they denied the money was there at first, then they admitted it was there, but they said they needed that money for other stuff that was more important than the raped kids. And at least temporarily, the court said, yeah, you know what, that sounds reasonable.

You guys seem like stand-up rape abettors. That sounds reasonable. Yeah, so all the lawsuitsup rape abettors. That sounds reasonable. Yeah, so all the lawsuits kept piling up, and eventually it caused the Milwaukee Archdiocese to declare bankruptcy in 2011. And just to be perfectly clear, that means they owed shitloads of money to a whole bunch of different rape victims, and they found a way to legally default on a bunch of that debt. Yes. And then they claimed that religious liberty allowed them to refuse paying whatever reduced amount was left.

And that was actually working for them until last week. Successfully. And what they were trying to argue, I mean, sorry, what they were formally successful in arguing is insane. Okay, so they moved this money

into a previously non-existent fund to care for the archdiocese cemeteries and mausoleums. Then they declared the bankruptcy, and then they argued that that money should be exempt from the bankruptcy settlement because they have the religious obligation to maintain those cemeteries, and making them pay out that money that they were going to use for that would violate their religious freedom. Cemetery was the thing they thought of that was going to be more important than the rape. Right.

But, I mean,ically, this would be basically the same as saying, well, I couldn't pay my taxes because God wanted me to buy a yacht and then it's protected by religious liberty because God wanted it. Actually, it's worse than that because that example doesn't involve any fucking children being raped,

but it's the same basic category of insanity. Sorry, this pile of money is for future rape. Yeah. It would be irresponsible to deplete that fund now. What if we rape more kids? I can't promise that won't happen again tomorrow. Odds are against it, in fact. And in Jesus Can't Be My Co-Pilot If My Plane's Busted news tonight,

megachurch pastor and guy who actually has the name I probably would have made up if I needed a sleazy televangelist in a novel, Creflo Dollar, decided that he didn't need his parishioners to buy him a $65 million Gulfstream jet after all, once it came to his detention that people who weren't blinded by his silky smooth Jesus spiel were also paying attention. Earlier this week, Creflo Dollar Ministries posted an online fundraiser asking that 200,000 of his followers each toss in $300 so that he could ditch his old hoopty private jet and upgrade the one that would make Jesus proud. But after a swift social media backlash, the page was either removed or raptured up to heaven. Well, I know a guy in Malaysia that can get him a much better deal than the $60 million. I like that idea. Now, Dollar, whose prosperity gospel essentially says that the more money he has, the more you love Jesus, has a net worth of at least $27 million, owns two Rolls Royces, a million-dollar mansion in Atlanta,

and a spare $2.5 million mansion in New Jersey. His lavish lifestyle and refusal to disclose how much of the ministry's money he actually pockets has led to widespread criticism, some of it in the form of congressional investigations. Oh, oh, and he also hits his kids. But apparently in a way that's legal enough for the county solicitor general to drop charges after he went through an anger management program. So in a good way.

It's like all the suspended NFL players teamed up with Bernie Madoff to create one big super criminal. Right. And became a Christian pastor. Well, quite naturally. Now, Creflo's jet-setting, child-whacking lifestyle has drawn condemnation from both inside and outside the Christian community, as his assertion that his name was never Michael Smith.

When the antithetical nature of his behavior and the teachings of Christ are pointed out to him, Dollar assures his followers that if the jet sort of turns on one side, it can probably barrel roll through the eye of a needle, if need be. Just kind of on the wings up. And in Jesus Saved by the Bellum news tonight, the town of Leesburg, Virginia, held a public hearing last week to discuss the formation of a diversity commission that will, among other things,

attempt to foster a local government that better represents the various minority groups living in the area. Needless to say, white people in Virginia with names ending in Roman numerals weren't very happy about this, and it was argued that the government shouldn't get involved in things like civil rights. Was that really argued? Yeah, that was really argued. Town council member Thomas S. Dunn, I.I.

was one of those white people who disagrees with it. He claims the government had nothing to do with ending slavery and bigotry. That was actually God. So that's why we shouldn't have a diversity control. This dude, this elected official is arguing against civil rights on the ground that it would step on God's toes?

Yeah, basically. So here's the chain of events that led to Roman numeral II's remarks. Speaking in favor of creating the commission was president of the Loudoun County NAACP chapter, Philip Thompson, who suggested that slavery might be a good example to help understand why civil rights is exactly the sort of thing that governments should be protecting. In response, Mr. Dunn, too, had this to say, quote, Shame on you, Mr. Thompson, for throwing slavery into this discussion. I don't believe that government freed our slaves. It was the hand of God.

End quote. He also pointed out that Jesus had pretty much an entire testament to work with, but never said anything about a diversity commission. So that's not in there either. Ending slavery. But that's just a minor detail in the argument look the very fact that somebody is against diversity precludes them being right so like basically by the time the chairman is done saying and speaking against diversity is well you can just call him an asshole you can gavel it have the vote so mr thompson from the naacp has since responded publicly with a quick reminder to Mr. Dunn that it was the 13th Amendment that ended slavery.

That's pretty official. He likes Roman numerals. He went on to explain that while racial injustice is certainly less of a problem now, creating a diversity commission is probably a better strategy than God will eventually fix it just like slavery, which exposes the craziest parts of this religious logic. If you're going to claim that God's involved with ending slavery, then he was also preventing the 13th Amendment that whole time until it did happen. Yes. And he's got to be blamed, too.

And his book works for both sides. If abolitionists and slave owners were both using the Bible to justify their thing, why would you think that's a good thing about the Bible? Yeah, hard to believe anything good would come out of that book. And in derp impact news tonight, Ken Ham assured his flock this week that they wouldn't need Bruce Willis and his ragtag team of actors that owed Michael Bay a favor, because if any asteroid ever thought about destroying the Earth, Jesus would fuck that space rock up. Citing the fact that there's this book, Ham explained

in a recent blog post that, quote, the Bible has already told us how things will end with judgment from God when Jesus Christ returns to the Earth, end quote. But then, why wouldn't Jesus block the asteroid that killed his pet Velociraptor way back when? That would have made sense.

There was no way back when. Adding yet another notch to his lifelong effort to provide examples of why religion is a bad thing, even if you subtract out all the violence, Ham is discouraging humankind from mitigating real threats in an effort to focus on pretend ones. And granted, being destroyed by an asteroid isn't at the top of the list of things that rational people should fear. That would be religious people, but it's still a very real risk and tainting the minds of American

voters into thinking that researching this risk is anti-Christian will no doubt have real world consequences. Okay, forget the asteroid then. Being destroyed by a nuclear holocaust is at the top of that list. Don't care what a pre-fission book says about it we're probably gonna want to avoid that and look into it well right and he

kind of addressed that too because while the article focused on the asteroid scenario ham was careful to point out that all scientifically plausible scenarios about the end of life on earth are fanciful ivory tower evolutionist mumbo jumbo so don't worry about that majority of participants in American democracy. All realistic disaster mitigation strategies are a waste of money and the work of the devil. And quick, before one of us makes a terrible ass asteroid pun, we'll take a quick break and toss things over to the lovely Lucinda Lucius.

Yeah, quick. A man wrote the Bible? A horse, which one? 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.

The biggest challenge in putting together this segment every week is that if you want to talk about misogyny, you're going to find yourself talking about violence against women, which is hard to talk about for most people one way or the other. But it's especially hard to talk about in the context of a comedy show because let's face it, violence against women is never funny even when the violence comes in the form of duct taping a woman up and drawing penises on her which is definitely not funny

unfortunately for the idiot that did it that didn't stop him from citing the hilarity of the whole thing as defense against accusations of battery according to police, Zachary Shelton tried to excuse himself from kidnapping, domestic abuse, unlawful transaction with a minor, and harassment with physical contact by explaining that it was all in good fun. This story pisses me off on so many levels, obviously, and while the physical and psychological trauma the victim went through is at the top of the list, I'm also pissed off on a professional level that someone would use dick jokes for the powers of evil. I guess all we can do is hope that Zach winds up in a prison full of inmates

with a sense of humor similar to his own. So for the record, in case I didn't make this perfectly clear before, I'm 100% against duct taping people and drawing dicks on them. Although I have to admit that if there was an exception, and there's not, but if there was, it might just be Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who explained that denying women access to contraceptive care was all part of his recipe for economic growth in Kansas. Still angry over having a surname that arose due to his family's genetic propensity for spastic ass-wiping techniques, Brownback explained that banning abortions after 20 weeks just made good economic sense, damn it.

Quote, one of the big problems we have in this country is that we're not forming enough families, and that is hurting our economic work, end quote. So yeah, the big problem in America is the underpopulation. Got it. Must be why Brownback is so pro-immigration, huh? And finally, tonight I want to nominate Lebanese TV host Rima Karaki as my ovarian badass of the week. I wanted to talk about this story last week, but we had the whole International Women's Day thing going, and I figured one way or the other, Karaki would still be a badass this week. So what earned her the honor? Well, while conducting an interview on Lebanon's Al-Jadeed TV,

she got fed up with her guests rambling like a drunken uncle's family reunion confessional and politely asked him to hurry it along and get to the point. At which point he completely lost his shit and acted like she just demanded a fucking testicle. After telling her to shut up, demanding that he be respected, and telling her that it was beneath him to be interviewed by a woman, he told her in no uncertain terms that he would talk about whatever the hell he wanted to talk about, and he'd talk about it as slowly as he cared to. And while she had to admit she couldn't stop him from babbling, she could damn sure stop broadcasting it. After trying fruitlessly to get him to shut up long enough for her to explain that the commercial break is a couple minutes away,

rather than the person who tells him that has a penis, she cut his mic and quite badassedly ended the segment by explaining that there was going to be mutual respect, or there wasn't going to be an interview. Go Rima. So, with a rare chance to end this segment on a high note, until next time, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in Mo Lama Mo drama news tonight, in an effort to usurp the influence

of his office after he dies, the People's Republic of China has ordered the Dalai Lama to reincarnate. Do it now! That's right. The secular government of the world's technically least religious nation has issued an official state declaration demanding that the Dalai

Lama be reborn in accordance with Tibetan custom. Which is the Chinese government's really nice way of saying, kill yourself and come back like you promised, or we will do it for you. Pretty much. Now, a quick bit of background here. New Dalai Lamas are chosen, or found if you believe in bullshit, by a team of high Lamas in a ceremony that includes consulting an oracle, noting which direction the smoke of cremated ashes blows, and meditating by a sacred lake.

So yes, at times, it's literally a farcical aquatic ceremony. Prospective Dalai Lamas are then asked to identify personal articles that were used in a previous life, and if they pass that extraordinarily easy-to-randomly-ace test, in a previous life, and if they pass that extraordinarily easy-to-randomly-ace test, people that knew the previous Dalai Lama are then asked to determine if the candidate is a legit reincarnation based on no established criteria whatsoever. So, in summary, a bunch of zealots go pick a random three-year-old and make him their supreme spiritual leader. How do you even parent a three-year-old reincarnation of an enlightened Buddha?

Go to your room and sit quietly in the... Wait a minute. That's what he wants us to tell him. Stand right here and throw a loud tantrum this minute. It's really confusing. Now, Tenzin Gyatso, the reigning Dalai Lama who has held the office since he was able to shit on the big boy potty, isn't a complete fucking idiot

and thus likely recognizes the absurdity of such a system. Also, he undoubtedly realizes how easy it would be for a government like china's to corrupt it which has led him to make repeated public proclamations that if he does reincarnate it won't be anywhere near china tibet or any other totalitarian state honestly i'm hoping he reincarnates as a kid with Tourette's just to mess with everybody so fun to watch this has led to something of a shit fit amongst chinese officials that have just been waiting for a chance to install their own llama who can embrace their government and convince the superstitious Tibetans to just calm the fuck down and be oppressed already. And that led to last week's absurd and wonderful assertion by Chinese party official Zhu Weikun, who was tasked with explaining the legislative process by which the government officially usurped the authority of the Dalai Lama to control his reincarnation.

And in Lord E. Vader news tonight, the government of Panama City Beach, Florida has removed the tax-exempt status from a so-called church after investigations revealed the property owner, Marcus Bishop, was clearly moonlighting the venue as a nightclub in the popular spring break destination. By day, the building is purportedly a house of worship called the Life Center, a spiritual community. But they were also hosting rave parties seven nights a week under the name Amnesia the Tabernacle. Apparently, their enormous banner and neon-lit ATM installed out front weren't as inconspicuous

as they hoped, and the authorities caught on taking away tax privilege. I'm not sure how this is any less useful than their daytime activity, but at least they're paying taxes now. Yeah, so a quick sample of some of the ecclesiastic activities the church offered. Raves, anything-but-clothes paint parties, wet-and-wild twerking parties, and lingerie sleepovers. The interior of the building is also apparently covered in pictures of stick figures getting their knobs polished.

So yes, unless you count, oh God, oh God, oh God as a prayer, probably not a church. So that should put a nice little dent in the $85 billion in annual lost revenue due to religious exceptions. Yeah, I pretty much do not represent. A problem Mr. Bishop's been helping cause for a while now. For example, when he was sent a property tax bill for his 10,000-square-foot house in 2004, Yeah, I pretty much do. actually a donation that went to support church activities. Of course, there's no record of what those activities might be, because the law doesn't require religious non-profits to have a transparent documentation of their finances, or how they actually help society in a way that justifies their tax subsidy. Right, and I mean, as much as I'd like to accuse Bishop of unfairly taking advantage

of these exemptions, the worst I can honestly accuse him of is just taking advantage of these exemptions. There's no one fair about it. I don't see how this is any worse than what Creflo does, regardless of whether his jet has a stripper pole in it. Much smaller scale, right. Okay, well, if you want to accuse Mr. Bishop of something else, you'd be very similar to the people of the state of Florida. Oh, really?

One last piece of background on him I didn't mention. Turns out Bishop recently pled guilty to misdemeanor assault charges in connection with charges of attempted sexual assault on a 16-year-old girl. So, just to review, that's tax evasion check, benefit to society unclear check, underage sex scandal check. Sounds like a church to me. Definitely got grounds for an appeal there. And in nuns- blazing news tonight according

to the latest findings of the general social survey the dramatic rise of the nuns continues with nearly one quarter of americans now choosing none as their religious preference the 2014 data which was released earlier this week suggests that the nuns now make up 23 percent of americans up three percent since we started doing this show worth keeping in mind that one percent growth here means about two and a half million people that's a big fucking number watch out idiots pretty soon we're going to start imposing nothing on you yeah just as you always feared of course every time we talk about the nuns i feel obligated to point out that we're not talking about atheists here these are just people who don't identify with any particular

religious label though the atheists are mixed in with just people who don't identify with any particular religious label, though the atheists are mixed in with that number. But while we at The Scathing Atheist oppose superstitious thinking in all forms, even we have to admit that organized kinds are way more dangerous. And if nothing major changes in the trends, by the way, the nuns will be the largest religious preference in the nation in another two years. Which would only put us about a century behind just about all the other developed nations in the world, so we're getting there.

And in bubble stubble, moil and trouble news tonight. It's time for another good idea, bad idea. Good idea, don't mutilate genitals. Bad idea, all the other choices. Despite this seemingly

obvious policy, several of the world's religious traditions insist on ritual removal of certain pieces of certain genitals including but not limited to penis foreskins and also something called the female cali tourist never heard of it doesn't matter it's a Well, okay, but what if an old bearded man in a silly hat sucks on it afterwards? Because that seems like that would cancel out the creepiness at least to some extent, right? A little bit. So these rituals are especially problematic when they're conducted in unsterile environments, like herpetic rabbi mouths, without real doctors around.

And many would argue they're kind of crazy with doctors too, regardless of the location, honestly. Either way, as a result of these barbaric practices, hundreds of botched circumcisions happen every year, with some of those requiring entire genital amputations. This is depressingly prevalent

among certain groups in South Africa, where tradition dictates that 18-year-old males get their penis mutilated by not a doctor as a passage to manhood. However, there is a little bit of good news. Thanks to some uncutting-edge research by a surgical team in Cape Town, an unnamed South African man has recently been hailed as the first successful recipient of a corpse penis transplant to correct a circumcision-related amputation. has recently been hailed as the first successful recipient of a corpse penis transplant to correct a circumcision-related amputation.

And just for the record, the new penis comes complete with foreskin. Does that mean they have to do it again? See, no, I thought, I was reading this headline, I thought that when CNN replaced Larry King with Piers Morgan, that was the world's first successful penis transplant, but I guess that doesn't count. Maybe it wasn't successful. You'd still be rejected. I'd feel a lot better if these doctors didn't need to exist at all.

And Dr. Dimitri Erasmus, chief executive of Cape Town's Tigerburg Hospital, agrees with me on that. According to Erasmus, quote, I think people mustn't lose sight of the fact that this particular problem should actually not be addressed through such a procedure. It should actually be prevented in the first instance. Exactly. Kind of better way. But the work they've done is fantastic nonetheless. So we'd like to help them out with some names and slogans for their new business.

We'll need 30 seconds on the clock. Ideas for the Botched Circumcision Medical Center. Go. All right. All right. on the clock, ideas for the Botched Circumcision Medical Center. Go. Alright, alright. We could call it the That's Not Mayo Clinic, home of the world's finest spermatologists.

What about Dickery Trickery Doc? Spare the rod, spoil the child, foil the moil. Or maybe Peter Sinai? Getting you back into the members only club in no time. What about Labia of Arabia, Sooniversal Pooniversal Swellfcare?

Like a good tarp, we've got your stitcher's mound covered. Oh, wow. Maybe John Chopkins? You bob it, we swab it? How about the Chub Nub Flub Stub Hub Subway, home of the Five Baller Footlong? Nice. I had a rhyme you went to.

I was going to go with Taint Mary's, where a load flowed through a well-sewed chode node. Maybe FG Emblem Health, FGHMO. We'll sew your clit back on, but you'll probably have to tell us where it goes. A little to the left. How about the Sartorial Bone Federing Answer Research Center? Got it all in there. The penis mightier than the sword? Think again.

All right. What about $6 million manhood? We can rebuild it. Better. Longer. Laster. We have the technology. And comforted, I guess, by the fact that medical technology has taken us one step closer to an automated go-go hard-on inspector gadget penis.

We'll close the headlines for the night. Heath, thanks as always. And when we come back, Lucinda will join us in learning that at this point, the Bible is clearly just fucking with us. As you know from last week's episode, Heath, Lucinda, and I have pledged to run a clean podcast award campaign against our esteemed puppy-kicking, sex-slave-owning, child-genital-steaming opponents in the 10th Annual People's Choice Podcast Awards. Unfortunately, not everyone involved was willing to make that same promise. Take a quick listen to what David from the My Book of Mormon podcast has to say. Hello, everyone. This is David Michael from the award-winning My Book of Mormon podcast.

It's come to my attention that some of you may still be torn on which show to vote for in the 2015 Podcast Awards Religion Inspiration category. So I've decided to create this public service announcement to help clear up any confusion. Thank you. or B, a show whose only game is top ten lists about pedophiles, racists, homophobes, etc. If you chose option A, then a vote for the My Book of Mormon podcast might be for you. Next, ask yourself if you'd rather listen to a show whose host has a voice which has been described as sultry, seductive, which has been known to cause spontaneous orgasms or B, a show with the voices of Mickey Mouse's older brother and his stoner friend. If you chose option A, then a vote for the My Book of Mormon podcast might be for you.

And lastly, if you'd prefer to vote for a show that A, wins awards just by putting out great content, or B, a show that has to pull out all the stops, all the gimmicks, and beg and plead for your vote to finally just win that one. If you chose option A, then once again, a vote for the My Book of Mormon podcast might be for you. And to Noah, Heath, and Lucinda, if you're wondering what it's like to be the host of an award-winning show like mine, I'm afraid I have to be honest with you. It's fucking awesome. So I wish you good luck, because you're going to need it.

And lastly, before I go, to help clear up any confusion on who to vote for in the news and politics category, let me make that very easy for you. Vote for Cognitive Dissidence. If you don't, you're just an asshole. Happy voting, everyone. Goodbye. Now, I'm not sure if I'm Mickey Mouse's older brother or the stoner friend, but for the record, Heath and I have volunteered to be tested for voice-enhancing steroids

as a condition of our eligibility for this award, and despite repeated requests, David still refuses to mail us a jar of his pee. I think that's one of the only piss tests I'd possibly pass right now. Anyway, well, I'm sure that by the sixth beer, his show seems very attractive to everybody. You know who else wants you to drink at least six beers? Date rapists. That's who. Exactly.

I'm not saying it. Also worth pointing out that the award David is so stoked about his podcast winning is called the Brody Award, which is so prestigious that when you look it up online, Google assumes you're looking for the Good Sportsmanship Award for Women's Curling. Seriously, I didn't make that up. When you Google Brody Award, it gives you the good sportsmanship for women's curling. So either his podcast won that, or it won something that Google considers to be even less significant.

Did you mean the less manly version of the Lady Bing trophy? And you'd be forced to say, no, I actually meant something far less significant than that that was mistaken for that by Google. We're all very proud of you, though, David. But he's not the only one who's cast aside cordiality in favor of a cutthroat campaign. Here's what Seth Andrews, host of the Thinking Atheist podcast, is telling the world. Would you entrust your children's future in third-rate, poor-taste podcasts? In third-rate, poor-taste podcasts.

What would the future look like if Heath were to continue on his march of destruction unhindered? Can anything good come of a podcast where the host, no illusions, can't even afford a haircut? I deplore you, dear voters, boycott this scathing atheist podcast, and under no circumstances cast your vote for them at podcastawards.com. Please, someone, think of the children. More thinking, less scathing. This political style attack ad was written, paid for, and endorsed by Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist. Vote for The Thinking Atheist at podcastawards.com.

Obviously, there's a lot to unpack there, but I'd like to answer a few of the allegations leveled against myself and Noah's self. First of all, it's not that Noah can't afford a haircut. It's that he chooses to afford drugs like crystal meth instead or whatever. Exactly. Very active choice on his part. And as to Heath's so-called march of destruction, I think it's clear to anyone paying attention that he's never going to get enough Energon cubes to complete his master plan. So I don't even know why Seth would bring it up.

Yeah, everybody go on thinking that. But we'd like to draw your attention to what you might have thought was a simple error in word choice. I deplore you, dear voters. I'm sorry, Seth. What was that? What'd you say? I deplore you, dear voters.

I deplore you. I deplore you. Deplore you. I deplore you, dear voters. I'm sorry, Seth, what was that? What'd you say? I deplore you, dear voters. I deplore you. I deplore you. I deplore you, dear voters. Now, sure, it's possible that he meant to say implore you. Hell, it's possible that Adam Rieks of the Herd Mentality podcast wrote a hurried script that Seth graciously agreed to record at the last second during a Mad Dash Australian tour whilst jet-lagged and hungover. court at the last second during a mad-australian tour whilst jet-lagged and hung over but it's also possible that it was a freudian slip and seth is accidentally admitting that he hates you and do you really want to vote for somebody that hates you we at the scathing atheist don't hate you which is only one of the many reasons you should vote for us every day at podcastawards.com and now

back to your regularly scheduled dick chokes. The Holy Bible. Ah, Luke. Just as similar enough from the first two Gospels to provide a completely irreconcilable account of Jesus' life, yet just similar enough to the first two Gospels to provide a completely irreconcilable account of Jesus' life, yet just similar enough to the first two Gospels to maximize the repetitive tedium. But if you just can't get enough of Jesus misidentifying the properties of a mustard seed or eating dinner with a week's worth of shit on his hands, this is the Gospel for you.

As are the other three, because they're all the exact same stupid story. Pretty much, except, again, irreconcilably different. And joining us once more to try to squeeze yet more dick jokes out of the material we've already been through twice and still have to go through once again is my lovely wife, Lucinda. Lucinda, thanks for not divorcing me yet over this segment. Oh, don't worry. It'd take at least 33% more Gospels than this to get my lawyer involved here. This is getting scary. So before we go any further down that road of thought, let's dive right into the Gospel of Anakin's kid.

So first of all, we learn right away that Luke is a much better writer than these other folks. For a minute, it's almost like you're reading a book that was put together intentionally. Yes, but only for a minute. Right, right. Because after that, it's just clear that whatever person wrote the opening verse in a radically different style than every other part of the book was a better writer. Yeah, exactly. So we start off with some John the Baptist origin story. And that was kind of nice because I felt like he was the Boba Fett of the first two Gospels. It was nice to get a little more flashback with him.

Yeah, kind of like that, but instead of an episodic storyline, imagine if George Lucas had three of his friends all write the same book, and they released them all as sequels of each other. Yeah, and they were all approximately as good at writing as George Lucas. So anyway, John the Baptist's dad goes in, and he offers some incense, and he prays that his barren wife can have a kid. We've seen this before. So Gabriel appears to him, and he says,

Man, do I have a kid for you this kid is going to be fucking awesome it's not weird at all but dad makes the mistake of saying now are you are you sure about that so gabriel strikes a mute for like nine months reasonable lesson i think you're right right then gabe shoots over to warn mary that god will be spritzing a little man juice on her in the near future. Gabriel has the worst job ever here. He's employed by an invisible date rapist that wants him to go admit what happened and get retroactive consent from this woman. So Gabe starts trying to explain what happened. Mary gets all confused.

I'm a virgin, so I have no idea what you're talking about, man. Gabriel says, listen, lady, I hate to burst your bubble, but I was right there watching when you... Wait, you know what? You know what? That works. Yeah, you just keep telling everyone you're a virgin. I am a virgin. Exactly.

You are a virgin. Why are you saying it weird like that? I'm not saying it weird like that. You're saying it weird like that. You're a virgin. Then Mary goes to John's pregnant mom's house, and they squeal and praise the Lord. And then John the Baptist is circumcised, and at that point, suddenly his dad becomes unmute, and all the neighbors are amazed and excited.

And then he starts praising God, and about nine paragraphs into that, they're not as excited anymore. They're saying, we let you better mute. Really. And in chapter two, we get the big census by caesar so mary and joseph head over to bethlehem to scratch their initials into a rock or whatever and the whole time joseph's taking shit from everyone it's super awkward oh hey there joe you're gonna you're gonna introduce us to your virginal fiancee who in no way has a visibly glowing baby shape inside her belly at this exact moment.

I'd like to meet your virginal fiancé. And then, of course, Jesus' birth has to out-awesome John, so we get that story again. Only this time around, the angel of the Lord shows up with a hundred backup singers. That's how they describe him. And goes to the farmers that are sleeping in their fields to go praise the little hymen buster quick while they still can. Then they take him to the temple and kill some birds, just the way God likes it. And conspicuously absent from Luke's account of the birth, by the way,

is the whole Herod trying to kill him, fleeing to Egypt, all that shit. Gone. Not even there. All right. We go straight from birth, penis alteration, and dove sacrificing to him being 12 years old and having a combination home alone searching for Bobby Fisher moment. Right.

It's ridiculous. I know. And then we get this crazy huge inconsistency where John the Baptist gets thrown in jail before Jesus gets baptized. So according to Luke, he's just John the. Right. Yeah. Nothing about eating locusts or wearing the hair shirt

or baptizing the Son of God. No. We do learn that John was a fiscal moderate when it came to tax policy. It's like the C-SPAN version of math. Fascinating. And speaking of internal inconsistencies, then we get a genealogy of Jesus

that conflicts with the one of Matthew on almost every single name. Pretty much, yeah. Hell, they don't even have the same number of generations in Luke. I think that's part wrong. And then Satan appears to give Jesus his three riddles or whatever,

and he goes on to tell all the people in his hometown that he's God. For which they run him out of town and try to throw him off a cliff. However, he's able to roadrunner himself out of it with an anti-gravity sign, and he gets away. He wasn't entirely clear on what was going on there. Yeah, for some reason, I guess demon wrestling

isn't as impressive when it's done by somebody you know. Everybody's sitting around going, yeah, we'll yank those demons out of that dude. But when you talk about Jesus, the dude pissed his bed until he was like 13. I mean, we know this guy. Then we get the same leper-hilling, fish-catching shit we got in both of the last two, except Luke's Jesus is less of a dick about it than the prior.

Yeah, a little bit. So John the Baptist hears about this stuff, and he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he's the Messiah, and Jesus is like, you see me curing these fucking lepers, right? Who the hell else would I be? What am I doing here? Right. Then Jesus goes to eat at some dude's house, and some chick starts working his feet like she was trying to suck stardom. So he forgives her sins.

Yeah, I would too. And in Luke's Gospel, Jesus and his apostles have groupies, apparently. This is the, I believe, the first time Mary Magdalene even gets a mention. And apparently her and several other women, quote, provide for them out of their resources, end quote. So just take that however you want it. And then it's on to rebuking wind, parables, and demon pigs once again. I just can't get enough of the demon pig story. No sense!

That's the weirdest shit! A legion of demons is possessing this dude. Jesus is about to kill the demons, but then one of the demons says, hey, Jesus, do you mind if we become a herd of the minus pigs instead? And Jesus does it. Yeah, let's see what happens with

2,000 pig demons. Worst case scenario, they all commit suicide so we can watch it. Wait, is that the best case scenario? It doesn't matter. Pig demon starting now. Now. Then we get the story of the Good Samaritan.

And I guess back in Jesus' day, all you needed to do to qualify as a good was not leave a naked, beaten, half-dead person on the side of the road. Not just qualify as good, but like legendarily good. So Jesus is much more of a ladies' man in this one, too, as we learn when he goes to Martha's house and her sister gets on her knees in front of Jesus and stays there all night long. And Martha gets kind of mad about it. Jesus, I'm getting all this shit ready for you over here.

I'm making food. Make my lazy slut of a sister help out. And Jesus says, well, she's blowing me right now, so that's obviously not going to happen. If anything, you should have been helping her this whole time. If I'm making a call on this. And is it just me, or is

Jesus the world's shittiest house guest? Constantly insulting his host, won't wash his hands, hogs up all the nard cream. Come on. I keep it to somebody that invited him to dinner to say, all right, put down the goat

and get the fuck out of here, you pretentious douche. I wish someone would, yeah. And so anyway, blah, blah, blah, you're God's slave. You deserve a light beating. Blah, blah, blah.

I've come not to bring peace, but to make everybody get pissed at each other. Blah, blah, blah. And don't get all rich and happy. Don't think that's what you... No, whatever you you my dad could show up any minute and we're all supposed to look poor and pissed off that's his plan and for some reason

in luke waiting for jesus to finish a parable is like waiting for the dude to finish a sentence like in chapter 13 he starts telling a story about there's a farmer and he's got a fig tree and it won't bloom so he wants to cut it down, but his servant stops him and he says, let me rub some bullshit around it, and I am dying for that to be an analogy of how to make good Christians. Rub more bullshit around it, but then some crippled lady shows up and he goes all squirrel right in the middle of it. Never get back to it. Then we get one of the Pharisee guys very clearly trying to entrap Jesus and catch him violating the Sabbath on

I guess a hidden recording device that he had. Hey, Jesus of Nazareth, why don't you, Jesus of Nazareth, expend several jewels of work healing this guy with the awkwardly large face goiter on this fine Saturday afternoon well before Sunday, Jesus of Nazareth.

And then we get the bit with Lazarus and the rich man. So we haven't heard this one yet. So Lazarus is some bum living outside a rich dude's house with dogs licking the pus out of his festering source. So he goes to heaven, and the rich person who wouldn't feed his dogs anything but bum pus goes to hell. And while he's burning in hell, he says, hey, guys, any chance I could go back to earth for a minute, warn everybody about this hell stuff? And God says, fuck off. I already did Moses.

I'm not doing that shit again. Right, and the rich guy says, but the Moses thing, I feel like it was kind of vague. I feel like if you just have somebody, you know, rise from the dead, it'll really get your point across a lot better. And God says, absolutely not, that's stupid. Nobody's going to get involved in religion based on people rising from the dead. That's crazy talk. Right?

I mean, what a bullshit way to brush off this incredibly reasonable request. If the stakes of the game are burn in hell versus eternity in heaven, the least you could do is make sure everyone knows they're playing. Right. And what to expect. Also, there was a lot more tacit approval of slavery in Luke than Matthew or Mark. Like in chapter 17, Jesus is trying to make a point, and he basically says,

that would be stupider than letting your slave eat before they cooked your dinner, or thanking them for doing it. And yes, that's all meant to remind us that, as God slaves, he doesn't owe us shit, bitches. Hey, Christians, not sure if you guys are still reading, but if you are, maybe check out Luke 18. Jesus says right here that it's better to be a humble sinner than a self-righteous Bible-humping asshole.

True story, right there. He mentions that several times, in fact. He mentions everything several times. And then in chapter 19, we get the parable about the slaves that are each given a couple of bucks, and one invests it wisely, gives his master back ten times the money, another gives him five times the money, and the other one just buried the money and dug it up later.

And apparently there was a risk-free interest rate in ancient Israel that all slaves are supposed to know about. Get me some points on that? Watching the market or something. Now, we've heard this one before, but I bring it up now because in Luke, it ends a little different with Jesus clearly endorsing killing the people that don't like you he's telling this parable

where the king here clearly represents god and it closes with the king saying quote but as for those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them bring them here and slaughter them in my presence end quote luke 1927. That's Jesus talking. And by the way that's the end of the parable. Let's go. That's it. After that Jesus packs up his shit and heads to Jerusalem. And this is by the way where he's supposed to steal a donkey

but he steals a horse instead. You know you just imagine like the guy's over at Ken Ham's thing arguing that maybe he stole both and he's hopping back and forth between rodeo style on the way in or maybe well, maybe he stole both, and he's hopping back and forth between a rodeo style on the way in, or maybe he's got one foot on each, and he's like riding it like the two sharks, you know?

Actually, in my copy, I think he flew into Jerusalem on a turducken. Oh, I see. Oh, okay. I'm sure that's how it goes in King James. You might want to check the different translations. Then we find out a couple more things that Matthew and Mark forgot to mention, apparently. First of all, kind of a big deal, Judas was possessed by Satan right before he became the biggest traitor in history.

I didn't mention that until now. I can't imagine how Luke verified that. I have no idea, but it's a big deal. And when they're about to arrest Jesus and one of the disciples cuts some dude's ear off to stop that happening, Jesus magically heals the dude's ear on the spot. Regrows an entire fucking ear. But only one of the biographers has that detail, really? The ear regrowing? Everyone talked about the ear, but no one else remembered that it was...

Whatever, you didn't highlight that part? Also, enjoy being given a specific example of the taunting Jesus got from the guards who arrested him. It says they blindfolded him, started hitting him with sticks, and then saying, Prophecy now! Prophecy, who hit you that time, Messiah? Who's hitting you? It's the funniest thing anyone said in the Bible. It was awesome. Yeah. And then we get to the snuff film portion. Yeah.

But now this time around, Pontius Pilate is less of an evil bastard and more of like an impotent wimp. But he seems like dead set against crucifying Jesus at first, but then he does it anyway because he can't handle all the yelling, I guess. Pilate actually says, no, I'm not executing this guy. I've seen no evidence that would justify – crucify him! Right. No, no. You think? I feel like I'm going to get blamed for this if we crucify him! Right. No, no. You think? I feel like I'm going to get blamed for this

if we crucify him! Maybe I'm just being bad. All right, good point, good point. Yeah, nail him up. I'm just being bad. Just do it. I didn't think about it that way. So they crucify him again.

Joey buys his corpse for what he swears are moral reasons again. They stick him in a tomb. Again. Then Jesus rises, but this time he keeps popping in and out of crowds like a ghostly Waldo. Right. And then he rises to heaven and everybody goes to the temple and prays happily ever after. No, it's really interesting to kind of watch the post-crucifixion part of this narrative develop within the Gospels.

I mean, we start with Mark where Jesus never reappears at all, or at least they don't feel that's worth mentioning. All you get is the empty tomb. Then in Matthew, there's like a little hint of a risen Jesus. Now in Luke, he's eating a fish with them. He's hanging out. He's walking to different towns. It's like listening to a friend tell an ever more elaborate version of the car accident he was in. It's like, I jumped over four buses, and then I went to the—yeah.

Sure you did. I'm kind of pissed off, though. Three Gospels in and nobody stuck their fingers into Jesus' crucifixion wound yet. I'm starting to feel cheated here. Come on. I'm pissed off. It's got extra holes and everything.

It's going to happen eventually, and I'm looking forward to a good stigmata thinker band just as much as the next guy, but I am still happy to go a couple of Bible-less weeks before we get there. So, Lucinda Heath, thanks as always. Sure hope the next book retells the exact same story without changing anything. Because I can't get enough of this story that we've read three times now. I'm going to read it again and again and again.

It's fan-fucking-tastic. A-fucking-man. Maybe it'll be the same. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, the listener feedback. This is the part of the show that really ties the room together, does it not? Our first message comes from Chris, who sent us an email about correct pluralization with a subject line that includes the phrase, so many clitorises. Chris writes, quote, I'm sure you guys know this and we're just too polite to correct a guest, but clitori is not the historically correct plural of clitoris. Clitoris, a third declension feminine noun, is made plural as clitorides. In Latin, as a Greek loanword,

clitoris is coincidentally declined in the third declension, giving a Latin plural very much like the Greek clitorides. I think the more common word for clit in Latin anyway is crista, which is also the broomy bit on top of a centurion's helmet, end quote. Fantastic little bit of history there. It's so awesome that we have a listener that A could and B would send that email, and I never realized until just now how sexy a word declension really is. Declension, yeah.

Latin would be so much more fun if the lesson plans were more oral sex based. Blow home Romans, and A you soon. Damn it! We also got an email from our undercover agent in the Muslim world who heard us talking about the Costco employee suing after his refusal to touch pork got him removed from the pork handling job in episode 107. And he wanted to let us know how they handle that shit in Indonesia. And they do. They have a way to handle it.

Apparently, this is a real problem. Quote, in Jakarta, what few grocery stores did sell pork kept Christian employees in the bullpen to try it out when some non-believer bought pork or pork pie products. When said Christians were unavailable, the women working the register, and they were always women, would put on multiple pairs of gloves

to handle the devil meat before excusing themselves after the transaction presumably to run off in private and savor the sweet smoky smell of sin. End quote. So, yeah, about taking religious people seriously, I think. We also got a message from at Amanda Glow on Twitter, who wanted us to upgrade Lucinda's warning at the beginning of the show.

Quote, Christ, guys, your podcasts really need some notification that my headphones aren't properly plugged in. Extremely important. Sorry if we accidentally crowdsourced that one for you. And finally, we got more than a dozen emails, Facebook messages, tweets, etc., asking us how soon we were going to have Eli on to review Do You Believe?, the new film by the makers of God's Not Dead, which debuts the day after this episode.

And the answer is, as soon as humanly possible. Again, we're seeing the premiere. Eli has assured us that he purchased advance tickets more than a week ago, so he's definitely seeing it too. So, barring an unforeseeable natural disaster, that review will be featured on next week's show, no doubt about it. Heath and I, of course, will be catching it on opening night with the mullet crowd here in lovely Valdosta, Georgia

and knowing that several of you have also wished us good luck and a safe return we appreciate that and we want to assure you that we're taking every possible precaution to avoid a righteous lynching which brings us to our top 10 safety tips for atheists

attending opening night of Do You Believe in the South like we are. All right, number 10. Make damn sure your headphones are properly plugged in. Very important. Oh, man. Number nine. If you're gay, make sure you wear a Confederate flag over it so nobody can tell.

Number eight. Drape it right over the gay. You can tell which parts you're supposed to laugh at as all the other parts will be funny. Number seven. Something I've learned along the way. Do not refer to other audience members as your Judeo-Christian friends loudly and repeatedly. They'll catch on. Number six.

If anyone asks what church you go to, just say anything with tabernacle or hill. That'll satisfy them. That'll shut them up. That'll do it. Number five, leave your ironic hipster turban at home that night. Not as funny as you think. If I have to. Number four, they really are gonna

say grace over their popcorn. Be ready to not laugh. Be prepared to take that seriously. Number three, do not picture Eli Bosnick taking over for the lead actor. Do not do that. Also, don't admit you know anyone named Eli Bosnick. Pretend the name doesn't even ring a bell.

Number two, know your rights. They can't kick you out just for laughing at inappropriate parts. We found that out for sure. They'll try, but they cannot do it legally. And number one, don't take that call from Planned Parenthood. And if you do, don't sound excited. And if you sound excited, don't also make dinner reservations on the same call. Whatever you do, don't ring the coat hanger.

We call it Billy. Billy on the end there. Absolutely do not have a name for it. 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 skatingatheist.com. Before we burn the bridge behind us tonight, I wanted to beg you to vote for us again. I promise, this is the last time I'll end an episode of this show asking you to vote for us in the podcast wards for at least another 48 weeks.

But we're in the crunch now, so if you haven't taken the time to vote for us yet, please go to podcastawards.com and cast your vote right away. And if you have voted for us, please do so again, since you can vote up to once a day through Tuesday the 24th at 9 p.m. Eastern. And remember, they'll email you a verification, but you have to click on the link in the verification email or your vote won't count. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a new episode of our sister podcast,

The Skeptocrats, debuting at 8 a.m. Eastern every Monday morning. And don't forget to pick up a little bonus nugget of scatheism or two that you can find by liking our Facebook page and following us on Twitter. Obviously, I need to thank Heath once again for being Mickey Mouse's older brother to my stoner friend. I also want to thank Lucinda for suffering through both the Bible and my insane work schedule for the sake of this show.

I want to thank David Michael from My Book of Mormon for hopping on board with our skit despite me reaching out to him at the last second. Awesome guy. I wish him all the luck in all the non-podcast award-related parts of his life. I also wanted to extend a huge thanks to Seth Andrews of the Thinking Atheist podcast for being a part of the show tonight as well. Very awesome of him to do it despite being insanely busy touring Australia at the exact time I asked him for the sound clip there.

If by some strange oversight you haven't checked out his podcast yet, of course we'll have links for it on the show notes for this episode. And if you'd like to see him live along with Aran Ra and Matt Dillahunty and you happen to be near Melbourne or Perth, I believe there are still a few tickets remaining for the Unholy Trinity Tour Down Under. We'll have more information about those stops on the show notes as well. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most goodest people, James, Robert, Orm, Tim, Mark, Bo, Doug, Neil, Jeffrey, Joe, Elsa, Other Tim, and Randall.

James, Robert, Orm, and Tim are so sharp they make an X-Acto knife look like a wiffle ball bat. Mark, Bo, Doug, and Neil, who are so well endowed, they make a wiffle ball sharp they make an X-Acto knife look like a wiffle ball bat. Mark, Bo, Doug, and Neil, who are so well endowed they make a wiffle ball bat look like an X-Acto knife. Jeffrey, Joe, Elsa, and other Tim who are so bright they've been named honorary globular clusters. And Randall, whose cock is so massive that it took me several weeks to compliment it, as I've been searching for the other end of it this whole time. Together, this baker's dozen of sugar-coated, deep-fried badasses have helped us put a down payment on the years of therapy we'll need to overcome the psychological torment of suffering through this dumbass Jesus book, whilst simultaneously getting me ever closer to being able to afford a haircut. If you'd like to contribute to our well-kempt and relatively sane fun, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking the donate button on the right side of our homepage at scathingatheist.com.

or you can make a one-time donation by clicking the Donate button on the right side of our homepage at skatingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help but the damn ball just won't land on red, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or your podcast rating vehicle of choice. 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. Is it illusions? No illusions. No illusions, thank you.