The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 111: Sixth of the Devil Edition

Episode Date: April 2, 2015

In this week's episode, Islam will cede their claim to the holy land now that the state of Arizona has weighed in, Bill Cosby will consider donating ticket revenue to abused women quick while it's still a tax write off, and we'll invite an extra helping of angry email.

Warning, if you took out the offensive parts, this podcast would be 8 minutes long and consists mostly of propositions and pronouns. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Israel's new drone-based military evangelism program designed to convert Iraqi Muslims to Judaism. Psalms over Baghdad. We put our crack team of researchers to work, and their results clearly show that Muslims enjoy Jewish books way more when RC murder bots are blasting it from their speakers and pointing a deadly weapon at their face. So that's what we built. Psalms over Baghdad. Hell evangelists for

the 21st century. And now, the Scathing Atheist. Hi, my name is Arun Ra. I'm Texas State Director of American Atheists. I run a YouTube channel of 121,000 subscribers. I advocate reason and science education. And I can guarantee and even prove that we not only descended from monkeys, but we are still filthy monkey men right now. It's Thursday. It's April 2nd. And I'm feeling fucking maundy. Let's wash some feet.

Yes, let's. I'm no illusions. I'm Heath Enright. And from seasoned wabbit Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Islam will cede their claim to the Holy Land now that the state of Arizona is weighed in. Bill Cosby considers donating ticket proceeds to victims of sexual assault while it still counts as a tax deduction. We'll make at least one too many math jokes. But first, the diatribe.

I've been looking forward to the new HBO documentary about Scientology for a while now. And I never got around to reading the book it's based on, but I've been following the run-up to the debut in the religious news ever since HBO announced that they'd basically retained all the lawyers in advance of releasing it. And I gotta say, it was pretty good. And from a filmmaking perspective, I guess I could nitpick a few bits and pieces, but by and large, they did a great job of detailing the history of corruption and abuses that have permeated the Church of Scientology since its conception.

They talk about the psychological abuse, the physical abuse, the fleecing of their followers, the harassment of former members, the deranged dogma, the tax evasion, and the heinous dehumanization of the adherents. And the whole time, the big question I'm asking myself is, why are you picking on Scientology, though? I mean, honestly, not that I don't admire the filmmakers for taking on this subject,

but if you really want to tell a horrible story, why don't you do the same documentary but use the Mormons? You want some insane cult intrigue and violent retribution? They got you covered for a fucking trilogy. Why not make an expose on the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Seventh-day Adventists or those crazy snake masturbators in West Virginia? Look, every single religion that was started after we have good documentary evidence has just as fucked up a story to tell as Scientology, so why single them out? You know, I'm not saying they're not batshit, crazy, corrupt, violent, brainwashing zealots.

Of course they are. They're a religion. But is there anything about Scientology that makes it especially damaging, uniquely damaging? They point out repeatedly how they have a special group called the Sea Org that gets paid 40 cents an hour to work for the church, and I'm thinking, shit, that's 40 cents an hour more than the Mormons pay all the people that do their work, right? They harp on Scientology charging people to clear them of engrams as though asking for 10% of your income in exchange for eternal hamburgers on Wednesday

is somehow less egregious. Look, two hours of documentary, I didn't see a single fucking charge leveled against the Scientologists that you couldn't just as easily have applied to all the other religions. Unless suddenly the rest of the world agrees with the anti-theistic position that taking money in exchange

for unverifiable promises is immoral, I don't really see what the issue is. And religion, of course, loves this kind of shit because it allows them to step back and the Baptists can point and laugh and they can say, alien overlords dumping frozen prisoners into volcanoes

and then nuking their souls. That's just silly. Everybody knows the earth was first. People would win a talking snake, convince the person made from a rib to eat the wrong magic apple. Your stuff is weird. And then at the same time, I guess the Catholics are pointing and saying, oh my God, those horrible people, they abused children

and they used their church to cover it up. Oh, that's so, so, so terrible. And the evangelicals are pointing at them and saying, oh my God, those horrible people, they abused children and they used their church to cover it up. Oh, that's so terrible. And the evangelicals are pointing at them and saying, look at how they've abused the tax laws to shelter their ill-begotten gains. It's awful. And the Mormons point and say, look at how they blindly were willing to follow a known fraud who was wanted by virtually every government that was aware of his existence.

Those idiots. And the Jehovah's Witnesses point and they say, look at how they shun the people that leave their church and take notes because they seem to be pretty good at it. And yet, I don't even know how you pretend that this is bad compared to other religions. Switch the timelines. Imagine that Catholics started in 1953 and Scientology sprang up back in the first century. Now, my guess is that if we had video of the dude that started Catholicism,

he would be exactly as impressive as the fat version of the scientist from Howard the Duck that started Scientology. But even if we had videos of the oceanic moonwalk and the police records from his donkey heist i kind of doubt we'd be as quick to overlook all the child rape and accessory to child rape that they're getting away with but somehow all the various flavors of christianity can crank the cognitive dissonance up to 11 and cringe when they see what a religion looks like when you take away the you believing in it part because honestly what are the worst sins of Scientology? That they physically abused members who expressed doubt? Christians burned those motherfuckers alive! And the Christians, and probably some non-Christians, would stop me here and say,

well, it's not like they're burning people alive today, Noah. To find an Abrahamic religion doing that, you've got to go all the way back to the 17th century or Afghanistan. Look, religions are scary. The very fact that a person can be sucked into something as plainly preposterous as Scientology is scary. You know, the fact that sane, rational people can be tricked out of their doubt and hand themselves over to such a transparent charlatan is terrifying. And of course, we all like to think that we're too smart to get roped into something like that. And you know what? If you're listening to this show, maybe you are too smart to get roped into it. But that doesn't stop it from being scary, because as many religions would be happy to show you, you don't have to believe in them to be harmed by them. And that's the thing.

If you want to rank the world's religions by most damaging to least damaging, where does Scientology fall on that list? Is it really the most deserving of theological ridicule? When's the last time a Scientologist bombed an abortion clinic or a market square? When's the last time a Scientologist passed a law against gayness or tried to teach the Xeno-Volcano theory of human origins in the public schools? Of course, I'm not pointing out any of this to defend Scientology, but rather to indict all the other religions. This is what religion looks like when you strip away the cultural familiarity. It looks like blatant, rapacious manipulation painted with a thin veneer of schizophrenic buffoonery.

And I'm also not saying any of this because I want to disparage the documentary. I would highly recommend it. It's a great couple of hours. If you get a chance to watch it, you should watch it. You know, I don't know that I learned anything new about Scientology, but I probably knew a little bit more about it going in

than the average person. That being said, even knowing all their dark secrets that were going to be revealed, there was an undeniable value in actually seeing the people, you know, like putting faces to the abusers of this insidious cult and seeing that they looked like kind of normal people. But there's more value to the documentary than just that, because it also presents religion in a way that even religious people will recoil at. So the next time when people ask you why you speak up against religion, why you can't just leave Christianity alone, why you care so much about people not believing in God, just ask them to watch Going Clear. And then when it's over, you ask them if they feel a moral obligation to do something to protect the future victims of that cult. And then remind them that that's what all the religions look like

when you're not indoctrinated into them. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is current resident Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to save big on your next new vehicle purchase? Why is there still mail? Seriously? Mail?

At this point, they just don't want to piss off my mom. In our lead story tonight from the Don't Forget to Service the Revenue file, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent a letter to the IRS asking them to do their one job, which would be taxing everyone that's not tax-exempt. Liberty University is not tax-exempt. They think they are, but nonprofits lose their exemption if they endorse a political candidate. And technically, technically, Ted Cruz counts as a political candidate. So when they hosted Cruz's presidential campaign announcement last week, they chose to forfeit the exemption.

But based on decades of the IRS ignoring this law completely, Americans United decided to send them a kindly reminder. Well, but see, breaking the law doesn't count if you're religious. Just ask Indiana. And plus, if you're counting Ted Cruz as a presidential candidate, you kind of have to count everybody as a presidential candidate. You and me are just as likely. Just to clear up any confusion, most colleges and universities have the same exemption liberty used to have, and it's perfectly acceptable for members of any campus community to get involved in the political process, including campaigning for particular candidates.

This happens all the time, often on campus property. But the school itself isn't allowed to directly get involved with any particular contender. When Liberty University held a campus-wide mandatory Ted Cruz campaign kickoff event with a $10 absence penalty. I think it's safe to say they got directly involved. And by the way, almost unrelated, but $10 to not listen to Ted Cruz give a speech? Talk about lowballing. Holy shit. You're talking about people, first of all, that are willing to piss away $30,000 a year

on a Liberty University degree. So obviously they got money to burn. Man, make it 100. They'll pay. Now, I wish I could say we were talking about tax evasion here. In that case, at least the IRS could claim the perps were somehow being evasive. Right. But what's happening here is the opposite of evasion.

This is tax. Here's a check for $0 and a flaming bag of shit. Evasion. And Liberty University is just one little example of a much larger problem here. Perhaps some of the audience already knows about something called Pulpit Freedom Sunday. This is the annual religious crime holiday during which preachers all over the country send the IRS a recording of their sermon about the godly wonder that is Rick Santorum. that is Rick Santorum. But despite the You Got Served videos and the kindly reminder from Americans United,

the IRS seems to have no intention of properly S-ing the R, like their title would suggest. They didn't even dance back. And in son-of-mandatory news tonight, an Arizona state senator, young Earth creationist, and lady who believes that

if she keeps spray-painting her head, we'll never know she's old, Sylvia Allen explained during a legislative debate that if we really wanted America to be moral again, we could just force everybody to go to church every week. Quote, probably we should be debating a bill requiring every American to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth. End quote. And then adding at least the barest hint that she understood how law and rights work, she

added, quote, that would never be allowed. Okay, so if we were to summarize Ms. Allen's consecutive sentences on this topic, public servants in Arizona should be debating a bill that would never be allowed. I think she's ready for U.S. Congress. Move her up to the big league. She's ready for a stupid-ass filibuster. Shut down the government. Fit right in. Now, this absurd nugget of theocracy

came during a debate about a bill that would allow Arizona citizens to carry concealed weapons in public buildings. Likely, this was an effort to wash her hands of the statistically inevitable rise in violence that comes when an increasingly armed populace is roaming around. It's not that people who have guns are more likely to shoot people

than people who don't have guns. You see, the only way to get rid of the violence would be to make people go to church, and the devil worshippers at the ACLU won't let her do that, so her conscience is clean. She did what she could. Nothing. Nothing diffuses a dangerous situation in a public building

better than 30 different untrained civilians whipping out concealed weapons from 30 different angles so everyone calms the fuck down. Nothing works like that except maybe mandatory church. Great ideas. Yes. Both of those things would be about as sensible in an effort to reduce violence. Now, this story has gotten a lot of play on atheist social media. So I think it's important we keep this in perspective because it's just like a random comment from one 90th of one 50th of our state legislators.

It's not like she actually introduced a bill calling for mandatory church attendance. And even in her fanatical musing, she seemed to recognize that she's not allowed to do that. But on the other hand, there are actual people, herself included, in the halls of power who genuinely believe that the thing standing between us and utopia is declining church attendance. So, you know, how can you expect them to solve real problems when they won't even admit that they exist? Makes it a little more difficult. And from the military theocracy file tonight, we have more news from the Grand Canyon State.

It looks like the Arizona Senate finally realized that the majority of whitish people in the Middle East are from Israel, so they passed a new resolution last week officially praising our Judeo-Jewish ally. And I guess that's a nice gesture. Sure, the majority of Americans certainly have a pro-Israel stance, myself included. So in honor of Judea 2.0, a handful of state senators wrote up a nice little letter called SCR 1019 commending Israel for being a badass. And probably for also having the only head of state in the region that'd be able to walk around Arizona without getting harassed for paperwork by local law enforcement.

Yeah, unless he was carrying around one of his patented Wile E. Coyote bombs that he likes so much. They might fucking win for that, but other than that, he'd be okay. So this is kind of a weird thing to spend time on, but again, good intentions, I guess, which is a big step forward for lawmakers in a state with modern-day Jim Crow laws on the books. Right, yeah.

However, the reasoning for their commendation of Israel remained vintage Arizona. Here's the very first sentence of the resolution explaining why they support Israel. Quote, Whereas Israel has been granted her land under and through the oldest recorded deed Explaining why they support Israel. Quote, Not sure if that was the whole sentence, but that was what they went with. Yeah, it didn't make any sense if you tried to put all the clauses clauses together but basically it's it said if i'm getting this right they have dips they have god dibs like that's right the state of arizona thinks the number one reason we should

support the existence of israel is because they have a 4 000 year old title deed from god and that's by the way this is nitpicky, I guess, but even if this was somehow a valid deed, I'm sorry, but it still wouldn't even be remotely the oldest recorded deed. The fucking Sumerians, the guys that invented writing, the majority of what we have of their shit is deeds. They got more deeds than rich Uncle Pennybags,

so fuck you. Even if I grant your mythology to be true, you're still wrong. Ed, not to Gaza-strip anything away from the Sumerians, but single-celled precariotes left plenty of evidence that they owned all this shit about three billion years ago. Yeah, true, if anybody's got a claim. And in number of the fleeced news tonight, perpetual futile Dallas mayoral candidate, anti-gay activist, and man with a soul-piercing gaze that can only be described as diuretic, Richard Sheridan, was recently arrested on vandalism charges after he allegedly painted 666 on at least a dozen different city landmarks. Police say that Sheridan was not only the prime suspect in this felonious use of triangular rep digits, but also the only suspect in the numerologic crime spree.

I just came on my TI-82. Sounds like this case is open and shut, though. Open and shut. Simple sequence of events. Cases like this don't have too many factors, so I'd say everything adds up, wouldn't you? And the jokes are just going to get geekier from here. Apparently, Sheridan is a well-known anti-LGBT activist known to frequent public spaces to hand out pamphlets that explain how the gays don't just want equal rights.

They want misspelled vengeance. Yes, they do. In an open letter to the police, Sheridan explained that it isn't all the gays, of course, just the ones with rabies. Quote, there are some in the gay capitalized community, the rabid faction, that wants vengeance with just one E at the beginning and one at the end and none in the middle. They want a scalp. They want to send a message across the nation, end quote. And hydrophobia beats homophobia all day. So it's probably not going to end well for Mr. Sheridan.

One way or another, he's going to be Santorum-ing at the mouth at some point. Is that what that is? And Sheridan went on to explain, presumably, how summing up the squares of the first seven primes on municipal buildings was intended to thwart this inevitable scalping. If I had to guess, I would say it was that the gays were so busy verifying that the sum of its digits are equal to the sum of the digits in its prime factorization to have butt sex or something like that. But if that's the case, don't worry the gays. I checked and they do. So you can go back to your

regularly scheduled sodomy. But real quick, before we move on to the next headline, I just want to point out that at least right now, for this moment, I hold the record for the most jokes ever to include references to both Smith numbers and buttfucking one the record is one and it's all yours absolutely and in smoking the chronicles news tonight the first church of cannabis just got approved by indiana for official status as a religious organization whoops and according to local attorney and political commentator Abdul Hakim Shabazz, thanks to their newly minted

extra stupid version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, according to him, the state will likely be required to allow marijuana use by members of the new bongregation,

whether they like it or not. Hallelujah. Cannabis and amen. So the new law really just makes it more difficult for the state to enforce laws, especially when crime was faith-related. In order for Indiana to prosecute a religion-inspired crime, they'd have to prove a compelling state interest in banning the crime and also prove they were pursuing the state interest in the least restrictive way possible. Now, obviously a bunch of hippies getting stoned in a church causes far less damage than lots of legal stuff religious idiots are already doing in more traditional groups. So they got a decent argument in favor of an exemption.

All that being said, and as much as I believe marijuana legalization is very logical, there have to be laws and everyone has to follow them. In what sense does the state not have a compelling interest in a law they've already enacted? And if we decide to change the law because that interest goes away for some people, it clearly has to go away for all people. But interesting to note, though, that all this RFRA shit back in the 90s originally started because some Native American dude got fired from his federal job for testing positive for mescaline, okay? Right.

So they've actually managed to pervert the original intent of this law so much that the fact that it does what it was originally intended to do is now a problematic technicality they have to work out. They've put it around horribly for them. So this marijuana loophole is actually just an unintended consequence of the law. The major intended purpose, as far as I can tell, is to allow Christians to discriminate against an LGBT community they feel to be subhuman. allow Christians to discriminate against an LGBT community they feel to be subhuman. Of course, advocates of RFRA will claim that's a terribly unfair characterization and tell you it's all about protecting religious freedom, but they already had that. Right. Existing laws at the federal and state level already allowed for religious legal exemptions. The only significant

change in the law is that now businesses can more easily refuse service to people they're supposed to shun because of the bible if the bill wasn't intended to allow discrimination like that why weren't lawmakers willing to add any language to the bill that said anti-discrimination laws still trump this one or just legally recognize the lgbt community as a group of humans that deserve rights that's the other potential fix that they're so far refusing to do. And in drat, spoiled-again news tonight, crazy brunette lady on a couch Cindy Jacobs took to the airwaves to interview crazy blonde lady

on a couch Rebecca Greenwood on the subject of psychic god powers last week. And it just went downhill from there. Among the social media mockery-ripe spatterings was Greenwood's claim that her psychic powers allowed her to accurately predict that at the end of the movie, the two cops will wind up friends. Despite having drastically different skin color and hair length, I call bullshit. There's no way they end up friends. One's a family man, the other a dejected loner.

It just wouldn't make any sense. Anyway, Greenwood heeded the call by atheists to finally provide some evidence of God's powers and presented it in the form of spoilers. Quote, I'm really good at going to the movies. So it already sounds like we're just being polite to someone with Down syndrome. But she continues, quote, lots of times we would be sitting watching a movie, and I'd look at Greg even before I understood I was a prophet, and I would say

this is going to happen this is going to happen this is going to be the outcome end quote okay well if it was lots of times that's pretty hard to argue with she got it wrong on titanic and the passion lots of other times she nailed it yeah she was uh i believe confirmation bias out of 10 now not wanting to be out mundane on her own show host own show, host Cindy Jacobs added that her husband also has the power of Jesus-inspired foreknowledge that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, too. Quote, my gift doesn't work like that at movies, and I don't go to that many, but Mike's does, end quote. And then sensing that her psychic powers were starting to seem lame compared to everybody else's plot predicting powers, she added, quote, you know, I deal with nations. Well, I don't doubt for a second that this woman sees dead people in her crazy hallucinations. I don't think that really counts as an actual sixth sense, the way she's claiming.

And by the way, if you were starting to get the feeling that we were about to kick things over to the lovely Lucinda Lusions for a couple of minutes, congratulations, you're a prophet. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. A religious slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny.

One of the most common manifestations of misogyny is the attempt by men to control what women can and cannot wear. And it seems to me that at least one of these religions would be trying to force women to wear less. But it invariably goes the other way. Start with a bunch of sexually frustrated clerics sick and tired of being reminded of all the sex they won't have. Toss in a bunch of chauvinistic followers who can't get over the fact that nobody gets to fuck all of us. And before you know it, women are mandated to wear a hefty bag with an eye slit. tossing a bunch of chauvinistic followers who can't get over the fact that nobody gets to fuck all of us. And before you know it, women are mandated to wear a hefty bag with an eye slit. The burqa is probably the most egregious example of this brand of sexism that most of us are all familiar with,

but it rears its ugly head in all the religions from time to time. Just look at Catholicism. Sure, all the nuns are basically two cheeks and a chin away from a burqa anyway, but their attempt to control how much ankle is showing goes way beyond that. For example, the Delon Catholic High School in Pennsylvania is taking a bold stand against visible flesh by requiring all prom goers to send pictures of their prom dress for pre-approval. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say all the prom goers? I just meant the ones in the dresses. A number of parents and students have pushed back against this move, which they describe as outdated and unrealistic, especially since they announced this policy

well after many of the girls would have purchased their prom dresses anyway. The school brushed off their objections by reminding them that it's a religious school, so outdated and unrealistic is kind of their mission statement. Of course, not all attempts to control what women wear come from the same place. Most of the time it's an effort to overcome sexual inadequacy through shame. But there are also times that it's just because you're a raging asshole. And playing the part of the raging asshole this week is the clerk at a children's clothing store in Texas who publicly accused a mother of child abuse when she let her five-year-old daughter try on a boy's suit.

According to the mother, her daughter doesn't care for frilly dresses and prefers to wear a suit and tie for Easter. But apparently that wasn't cutting it with the clerk at Martha's Miniatures, who lost her shit to such a degree that the little girl was crying when they left the store. And in case you're wondering, this isn't exactly a he-said-she-said situation either. After the incident, a friend of the mother posted about it on the store's Facebook page, and the clerk defended her actions by saying, quote, either. After the incident, a friend of the mother posted about it on the store's Facebook page, and the clerk defended her actions by saying, quote, I was shocked she asked for a boy's suit for the

child. I asked her why she was encouraging this. This is child abuse from the mother, end quote. It's a good thing that states like Indiana and Arkansas are moving to make sure that stores that do stuff like this won't get punished, huh? I've got a lot of other stories I could cover this week, of course, but sadly, they're all even more depressing than a five-year-old getting publicly shamed for wanting to wear a vest. So I guess we'll wrap it up here. But I do want to thank all of the people who send me stories for this segment one more time. Even if I don't use the stories that you send, I really appreciate your help.

Please keep them coming. And with that, I'll hand things back to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda, I really appreciate your help. Please keep them coming. And with that, I'll hand things back to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in who-wants-Chile-on-their-sea-bass-anyway news tonight, Pope Frank and File is under fire this week for his decision to promote one Juan Barros, a Chilean bishop who was repeatedly accused of covering up for child rapists. Sounds about right. For his part, Barros insists that he's not criminally responsible,

he's just criminally negligent, as he didn't know about any of this sex abuse stuff until he read it about in the papers in 2010. What? So, yeah, apparently he learned about this stuff after the Mongolian shepherds in the remotest parts of the Altai Mountains. Okay, but this is pretty standard practice in a lot of businesses. Rape abettors get promoted until they rise to the level of their incompetence. It's called the St. Peter principle. Right, I've heard of that.

Vatican spokesman Reverend Ciro Benedettini, that's fun to say, I like that, Benedettini, defended the appointment by saying that the congregation for bishops, quote, carefully examined the prelate's candidature and didn't find objective reasons to preclude the appointment, end quote. Further explaining, look, if we can't promote the people that cover up for the child fuckers, we can't promote the people, now can we? That's all we got in here. I gotta do something with these guys. And in power bottoms up news tonight, gay equality was getting out of control in Ohio, so State Attorney General Mike DeWine filed a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court explaining how his state's refusal to

allow same-sex marriage is just a way to make sure that gays don't become equaler than everyone else, which was definitely becoming a problem. Well, obviously. I mean, think about it. Like, heterosexuals don't generally have the right to choose whether to pitch or catch, for example. I mean, you know, there are bullshit like civil union compromises like strap-ons, but that's just not the same.

No, it's not. Not equality. Right, so just in case anyone was wondering how to best justify Bible-inspired hatred while hiding behind the Constitution, Ohio's top legal mind has you covered. And it goes something like this. First of all, the slave owners that founded this country were very clear on their stance regarding equal rights. And they wrote the thing also if you check around the world today you'll find governments that hate gays all over the place homophobia is an important facet of international culture and ohio considers

themselves to be a cosmopolitan state yeah so in in legalese you can kind of make anything sound sensible can you so let me let me translate that really quickly. The fact that such a wide swath of people want to discriminate against gays is clear proof that gays are in no danger of being discriminated against. That's the reasoning. Yes. And finally, this one's my favorite. DeWine also pointed out that the gays just recently got several rights, which means they're obviously way too powerful to be considered a protected class of minority that deserves anti-discrimination protection under federal law.

So if the gays wanted more rights, they shouldn't have gone and won themselves those rights. And just in case this ends up being useful, we can use this argument to overturn the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Nobody? Okay, just the gay thing. We'll just use it for the gay thing. And again, stripping away the legalese, what he just said at the end was that the fact that such a wide swath of people don't want to discriminate against gays is also clear

proof that gays are in no danger of being discriminated against. The two completely antipodal points that he made back to back there. And from the I was hoping for more Of an instruction manual file tonight Bill O'Reilly provided yet more documentary Evidence of the rampant persecution Of Christians in America on Monday This time in the form of shitty reviews for the Documentary based on his book Killing Jesus

Arguing That disputing the historical accuracy Artistic merit or competent storytelling In the documentary could only be motivated By a deep-seated hatred of Christ, O'Reilly explained that non-bigoted reviewers would have at least been satisfied by the fact that he clearly intended to make a good movie. Don't feel bad, white Tyler Perry. It's okay. Not everyone has the writing talent of a Kirk Cameron. It's a competitive genre. You're not going to be the best right away.

Kirk Cameron. O'Reilly further milked the dry tit of Christian persecution by pointing out that attacks against his artistic acumen are tantamount to attacks on his faith, adding that, quote, faith is not held in high esteem in the halls of Manhattan media operations, end quote. Of course not. Which means that either he thinks that the 1200 block of 6th Avenue has seceded from the nation to create Republicstan, or maybe he thinks he's in the Falklands again. Actually, I think I read something in one of his books about that. Didn't O'Reilly and Brian Williams and Dr. Manhattan take over Argentina

for a few years? So it was something like that. It was something like that. Now, O'Reilly also pointed out that Christians are often, quote, portrayed as bigots and human rights abusers, end quote, adding that it was time to push back against this stereotype, but not by no longer being bigots and human rights abusers, but by making mythological documentaries that apparently suck. I would know. I didn't watch it. There are more headlines to come, of course, but before we get to those, we want to take

a quick minute to update you on a big live event that we've got coming up at the end of the month. So with more on that, we're going to turn to us with our voices slightly altered in post. Uh, God? Damn it, Gabriel. Can't you see I'm in the middle of starving African children to death? I'm really busy right now. I know, I know.

I'm sorry, but you've kind of been doing that all week, and we've got messages piling up. It's not a bunch of that whiny wow wow wow please don't let my baby die of leukemia it's always what we get no no of course not i've been throwing away all the depressing prayers for centuries just like you asked all right fine make it quick okay so we got one from lucifer wants to know if you're still mad yes yes i'm still mad at lucifer uh also ganesha wanted to remind you that you still have his weed eater and it's okay that if you want to keep it for a little longer, but he just wanted to make sure that you remember that you had it

and that he still does want it back. He's a fucking guy. I'll give it back when I'm done with it. Okay, got it. Also, I have one here from Jesus. He wanted me to remind you that his flag football team is in the playoffs. So if you ever wanted to see him play live, this would be a really good chance. Flag football.

If he wants me to watch, he could stop playing a pussy sport. Anything else? I'll let him know. I got one more here. You were invited to be roasted by the Scathing Atheist guys? A roast? Like, I would be getting roasted? Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.

Well, hell yeah. They just did that to Justin Bieber, right? That's awesome. Well, not these same guys, but somebody did that to Justin Bieber, yes. So I'm like, Bieber, big. Sure's awesome. Well, not these same guys, but somebody did that to Justin Bieber, yes. So I'm like Bieber, big. Sure, yes, of course. Is anybody famous going to be there?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Tracy Harris and Beth Presswood from The Atheist Experience, David Smalley from Dogma Debate Radio, David Fitzgerald, author of Nailed, 10 Christian Myths that Show Jesus Never Existed at All. Hell of a lineup they've got. Well, this doesn't sound like a very friendly crowd. I'll be able to kill a lot of these people.

That's good. Tom and Cecil are going to be there. Who? The guys from Cognitive Dissonance. They do that impression of Hillbilly You that you like so much. Oh, yeah, those guys. So when is this thing? It'll be...

Let's see. It's during the VIP dinner at ReasonCon in Hickory, North Carolina on April 24th. It's the kickoff for a whole big convention they're doing on the 25th. North Carolina? They love me in North Carolina. Sounds good. Well, not everybody in North Carolina, but mostly, yeah. You almost never have to smite them there.

Okay, I'm in. But tell them I've got a few riders. I'm definitely... Oh, of course. Of course, sure. What will you need? All right, well, first of all, I'm going to need some foreskins. Well, obviously.

I always need more foreskins. Anything else? Alright, um, I want all the TVs tuned to Fox News at all times. Um, I want clear Pepsi and Bendy straws in my dressing room, and I want blood of a goat splashed on an altar. Uh, blemished

or unblemished on the goat? Is, is that a serious question? Unblemished it is. And, uh, I want all the fatty parts. Iished it is. And I want all the fatty parts. I didn't say that. I want all the fatty parts. All the fatty parts. Got it. Anything else?

They have to let me give a shitty apology speech at the end for being a fuck-up that pisses on everything, just like Bieber got. Okay, okay. Is that it? Yeah, I guess. Just tell me the date again. It's April 24th at the VIP dinner the night before ReasonCon.

Tickets are available at ReasonNC.com. Why would I give a shit where tickets are? I'm not going to need a ticket. Oh, right. No, I just... It just seemed like the right thing to say. Are we done? Yeah, yeah.

No, you can go back to starving African kids. Dude, you really fucked up the mood, though. I don't want to play starve the African anymore. I'm going to play with my leukemia instead. Whatever you want, sir. And returning to headlines. In plunder the influence news tonight. For most of the last decade, Mississippi Judge Albert Fountain has been offering reduced sentences and extra leniency to underage drinkers in his court if they write him an essay.

Defendants have two choices. They can either write a thousand words on the effects of alcohol, or they can write 500 words on this topic and 500 more words on the Bible's apocalyptic horrorscape that is the book of Revelation. What? But don't worry. According to the judge, he consulted with an ethics expert who assured him this was in no way a blatant use of coercive state power to promote religious propaganda. Not even slightly, said the expert.

My essay on the effects of alcohol. If you drink too much you might start thinking that you can get away with shit like sentencing kids to read the bible from a judge's bench fucking idiot also it messes up your liver the end so in response to what i hope was a question about the very much apparent first amendment violation from a local reporter judge fountain responded quote i don't force them to do it. It's their choice. Oh, except that it's very literally his choice that he set up.

And he freely admits that his coercion is successful about 95 percent of the time in getting defendants to read the Bible. And obviously, there'd be an enormous panic if we're talking about the Koran instead. Obviously, yes. Bottom line, though, at the very least, there should be a third option for an essay about how the effects of alcohol are way milder

than the effects of whatever fantastic fucking drugs they were taking when they wrote the book of Revelation. Right. Yeah, something tells me that my essay on Revelations

would not reduce my sentence. Wouldn't that be an interesting test case? I kind of wish I could go to his district and underage drink just to find out. You know, I present him with the advanced script for the Holy Babble segment that we're going to do on Revelations.

That's a thousand words, motherfucker. Knock some time off. And in Birkin for a living news tonight, decreasingly influential cardinal and man who goes to work dressed like an 18th century gay Turkish street magician, Raymond Burke admitted last week that he can't really tell the difference between gays and murderers unless he lifts them up. His grossly offensive comments came during a recent interview with LifeSite News, where he explained that even if gay and or remarried couples live pious lives, they are still like, quote, the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people, end quote. Yeah, he was actually asked if being kind, generous, and dedicated was really the whole point with religion, and he responded, of fucking course it's not.

It's about P and the V. What have we been taught? Then he added the adjacent to murder thing. Yes, he did. And just in case he hadn't made the being gay is unforgivable point perfectly clear here, he added that, quote, if you are living publicly in a state of mortal sin, there isn't any good act that you can perform that justifies the situation, end quote.

So good news, gays and remarried Catholics, you might as well murder the people that piss you off now because you're going to hell anyway. No reason to study for the test if you already failed the class. And by the way, he also mentioned that the church has been feminized by having altar girls around for the last 20 years. Right. Which in turn caused all those normal hetero molesters to turn gay and start abusing the boys. And the ones before that weren't true Scottish Catholics.

So that's the whole problem is 20 years of altar girls. No problem. It's 20 years of all three girls. Now, he's really gained notoriety from his very public opposition to Pope Frabulous's modest to the point of illusory efforts to reform the church and bring it into the 17th century, with an eye on reaching the 18th century by 2025. It's good to have goals. And his spat effectively got him demoted last year, but far from being sidelined, now the 66-year-old cardinal on the back end of his career has absolutely nothing to lose, as evidenced by the abominable effort to equate being gay with being a murderer. Wow. And from the Huxtable Resident Evil file tonight, hilarious comedian and accused serial rapist Bill Cosby continues his national comedy tour as he saves up cash for whatever it is he might need to spend money on in the near future.

During a recent gig at the Baltimore Performing Arts Center, Cosby told jokes for a half-filled house of loyal fans that don't mind their money going into that pile I just mentioned. About ten minutes into his act, one of the audience members stood up and shouted a reminder to everyone that Cosby has about 38 more rape accusers than the world average. Which is really just a true fact, if we're being fair. But nonetheless, the heckler was removed and the show continued.

Isn't it funny to reflect on how the whole Cosby rape thing was just flying under the radar for that whole year that the mainstream media spent bitching at Daniel Tosh and Louis C.K. for making jokes about rape? The jokes were the problem. Oh, what's more offensive here, guys? jokes about rape. The jokes were the problem. Oh, what's more offensive here, guys? Bill Cosby goes out there and makes family-friendly jokes about zips and zops and the occasional zoop, and then he goes to his dressing room and forces his pudding pop into a comatose teenager, but we're giving shit to Louis C.K. for being fucking hilarious.

Give me a break. So you remember how God hired George Zimmerman to be a Christian spokesman last week? Yeah. Well, apparently he realized that was a little racially insensitive. So he added Bill Cosby to the roster, too, to be fair. And the comedian's first task was constructing a Christian-themed response to a rape-alleging heckler during a comedy show. And he succeeded.

Well, maybe that's not the best word, but he did that. He actually managed to use Jesus in response to the rape-alleging heckler. Here's how it went. Cosby told a story about how he stole from the church collection plate as a kid and then decided he'd rather confess at church than confess to his really angry dad. And then came the line of the night. Keeping in mind the general context of rape allegation. Quote, Jesus would give you a little wiggle room, end quote.

Wiggle room. Because it depends on what you slipped him. Doesn't it? Yeah, a little bit. So, to be fair, Cosby hasn't been charged with any crime yet and has only received a trial in the court of public opinion so far. public opinion so far. Now, granted, that opinion says at least one of the 38 accusers isn't lying,

but until he receives his due process, Cosby should be presumed not yet proven guilty. While we're busy presuming that, let's go ahead and put 30 seconds

on the clock. Religious excuses for raping people. Go! This is going to be the easiest one we've ever done, I think. All right, how about

Genesis 1 through Revelations 22, including the Apocrypha? That would be a good essay for a judge. All right, what about consent works in mysterious ways? Don't question us. That argument kind of works for everything. How about I wanted to drop a load and masturbation is a sin? It says specifically not to do that. It doesn't say that about the raping.

What about, uh, sometimes a transfiguration makes it hard to finger the culprit. Wow. Doesn't get reported. How about, uh, let me just talk to her dad. I'm sure he'll settle out of court. About, sure, I wanted to rape her, but I know the rules.

Inferno means inferno. Very clear. Or how about I just cast some doubt on him. Sure, you have DNA evidence, but you got that from the same guys that say we came from monkeys. So come on. You're going to trust them now? All of a sudden they're right now? How about

when you're a man of the Bible, there's no such thing as the wrong holy. Be fair. How about rape, immaculate conception Tomato, tomato Splitting hairs What about

Didn't Jesus die for my rapes I thought this was like a prepaid phone card type thing Sounds supposed to work How about what's the point of earning the shackles If you can't have a little fun spending them Am I right This guy knows And last one I promise What about if you can't have a little fun spending them. Am I right? Am I right? This guy knows.

And last one, last one, I promise. What about, um... I was fucking the married lady next door. Consensual felt like it would have been coveting. And I know you don't like coveting in that situation. And while we all reflect on the fact that by biblical standards of morality, the adultery would have been the sinful part of that confession, we're going to close out the headlines. Heath, thanks as always.

Zoop! Zop, jumanji. And when we come back, you'll have missed us, but you'll act all cool like it was no big deal. We know. With more than 45,000 chiropractors currently operating in the United States and chiropractic covered by the majority of American insurance plans, many people never stop to wonder if something so ubiquitous could be complete bullshit. After all, an institution based entirely on a fictitious notion that can be proven false could never get away with fleecing the American populace for generations

while maintaining a protected status by the government, could it? Well, hopefully we can find out today when we ask... How Bullshit Is It? So tell us, Heath, what is chiropractic? It's bullshit. Yeah, no, I know, but we've got like seven and a half minutes to fill here, so just give me the same answer but the long version. All right, um, chiropractic was founded in 1895 by Daniel David Palmer.

Utilizing his expertise in metaphysics, phrenology, magnetic healing, and arranging vegetables at a grocery store, he developed a revolutionary theory of human biology that directly conflicted with everything that was known about medicine at the time. And this time. Basically, it conflicted with all the known things at all the times. Okay, so what was this revolutionary theory? That all of human disease was caused by bone misalignments that disrupt the innate intelligence that flows through your body. I see. And what kind of research did he do to confirm his theory?

That would be none whatsoever. Uh-huh. So what is innate intelligence? That's Palmer's term for spiritual life force. Okay, so wait. So chiropractic, the thing that 45,000 certified doctors do in this country and that is covered by the majority of insurance companies is based on the untested claims about manipulating spiritual life force? Exactly. Uh-huh. So what kind of conditions might a chiropractor treat? Well, all of them, up to including the most expensive ailment you can afford to treat. That seems a little harsh.

Look, even the FAQ on the American Chiropractic Association's website treats that question with vague, sweeping statements like they care for patients with a wide range of injuries and disorders, or the benefits of chiropractic extend to general health issues, since our body structure

affects our overall function. And, of course, they also counsel patients on diet, nutrition, exercise, healthy habits, and occupational modification. So, basically, they're omnipotent. So, no, I thought it was, like, mostly for back pain and stuff. Again, it depends entirely on what they think they can convince you of. Palmer claimed he discovered chiropractic after accidentally using it to heal a person of deafness. Deafness? Deafness.

As in the inability to hear. The same. Despite the fact that nothing involved in hearing even touches the spine, tangentially. A fact that he didn't know at the time, and many chiropractors continue to actively not know today. Okay, but chiropractic manipulation has been shown to be effective for some ailments, right? Like lower back pain? Uh, no. Spinal manipulation has been shown to be mildly effective for non-specific acute lower back pain, but chiropractic manipulation has never been demonstrated to be effective for anything.

Okay, but that seems almost like you're splitting hairs, right? So chiropractors do perform spinal manipulation, and that's effective. Right. So when they're not doing chiropractic stuff, they might do something that works, yes. But look, when a shaman uses an iPhone, it still works. That doesn't legitimize shamanic magic in any way. Okay, so what's the difference between spinal manipulation and chiropractic manipulation? Well, by definition, chiropractic manipulation refers to a realignment of the spine or skeletal system intended to remove a vertebral subluxation.

Oh, well, that sounds science-y. Does it? Maybe the definition will help. It actually means spinal blockage of your body's innate intelligence that causes all disease and can't be detected by any means, invasive or otherwise. Okay. That's what that means. Yeah, sounds significantly less science-y now. Yeah.

And continues to sound progressively less legit the more you learn about it. Okay, now, I have a hard time believing, though, that something that contrary to our scientific understanding of medicine would achieve so much acceptance in the medical community. Well, that's because you're under the mistaken assumption that medical licensure is controlled by science when in reality it's controlled by government. Chiropractors have lobbyists and money, and when it comes to medical regulation, that generally trumps laughable implausibility by a good amount. But real medicine also has money and lobbyists.

And I mean, it would seem like, you know, even just from a financial point of view, it would be in their best interest to shed some light on the fraudulent nature of this practice. So why don't you hear groups like the American Medical Association actively campaigning against chiropractors? Well, that's because when they did, chiropractors sued them and won. I see. But chiropractors are state licensed as doctors, right? I mean, they still have to pass the same state test that MDs have to pass, right? They used to, but as of 1979, no state requires chiropractors to actually know real medicine. They're even licensed and can build themselves as primary care physicians,

but they get tested more on their knowledge of antiquated pre-scientific magic than they do on medicine. But I read somewhere that chiropractors had to spend more hours in training than any other general medical profession. Okay, but concert violinists spend a lot of time practicing too. It really doesn't make them doctors now, does it? No. Okay, but do all chiropractors believe in all the spiritual energy forces and vertebral subluxation stuff?

Well, to be fair, nowadays not all chiropractors limit themselves to just the treatment of subluxation stuff? Well, to be fair, nowadays not all chiropractors limit themselves to just the treatment of subluxations. Many of them branch out into more practices like therapeutic massage, Reiki, acupuncture, and other forms of pre-scientific nonsense. But there is a small movement within the practice to reform and give up on all the non-evidence-based stuff, which... What stuff would that be? The chiropractor part. Oh, right. Okay. All right. Well, so let's talk safety now. How safe is chiropractic? Well, the odds that it'll hurt you are low, and they're almost as low as the odds that it'll help you.

Okay, but I mean, it's relatively safe, correct? Well, relative to what is the question? If you compare it to real medical procedures, sure, it probably fares pretty well. If you compare it to doing absolutely nothing, which would net you the same result, it's pretty dangerous. To properly evaluate the safety of a medical intervention, you have to weigh both risk and benefit. If there

is no benefit, any risk is unacceptably high. Well, okay, but I mean, it's basically a souped-up massage, right? What's the worst that could happen? You could die from a stroke caused by a vertebral artery dissection. Can that really happen? That does really happen. Wow. All right. So what is a chiropractic visit likely to cost? Generally ranges between 40 and a hundred dollars. Okay. Well, in the grand scheme of medical bills, at least that's not too bad.

Well, that's if they let you get away with one dose of the snake oil, sure. But chiropractors generally work on the predatory loan business model of pseudoscientific refinancing. Virtually any ailment that a chiropractor treats will require a series of procedures often lasting for eternity under the guise of preventative treatment or maintenance therapy. Well, you make them sound like con artists. They're like doctors, except they don't improve your health, except when they stop chiropractic. If that sounds like con artistry, not exactly my fault. Okay, but what about the more evidence-based chiropractors that just do the spinal manipulation for lower back pain? I mean, if they reformed the profession and just focused on that, that would be all right, wouldn't it? Yes, if you want to maintain an entire

system of regulation and licensure for a practice that deals with a single non-threatening ailment by using a therapy that other doctors already use just as effectively, I guess that sliver of chiropractic is fine, sure. So I guess the only question left is... Yeah, you don't have to do the echoey thing, you really... Yeah, but I'm going to do it anyway. How bullshit is this? how bullshit is this? Well, that's actually tough to say because there's so many practices that end up falling under the chiropractic umbrella

and they range from pre-scientific to unscientific and all the way to anti-scientific. But in the end, the best you can hope for when you go to a chiropractor is that they bullshit you about doing chiropractic and then do real stuff instead. So I'm going to go with large bull, projectile defecating to death after overdosing on industrial strength laxatives in a shag carpet factory.

Oh, wow. And with that lovely image swirling in your head, the music fades in. Run, grab the youngins, folks. It's time for Lucinda Lusion's Bible Stories for Kids. Gather round, boys and girls. Today we're going to open up our Bibles to Genesis and learn all about Jacob, the father of Israel, and Esau, the hairy uncle of Israel. But to understand them, first we'll have to learn about their mom and dad.

So once upon a time there lived a husband and wife named Isaac and Rebecca and they hated each other's guts. Isaac spent his whole life suffering from PTSD after his dad tied him up on a mountain and threatened to kill him until he started hallucinating and got distracted. So Isaac was never able to relate to his wife and Rebecca was never able to relate to him either because all of the women in the Bible are cold-hearted bitches. Now, in modern times, when a husband and wife hate each other, they get divorced and burn in hell for eternity in accordance with God's commands later. But back in the days of the Bible,

you stayed with your husband no matter how many of your sisters he was tricked into marrying first. So they lived miserably ever after. And along the way, they had twin sons, Jacob and Asal. The two brothers started fighting in the womb and basically never stopped. In fact, when Asal was first born, Jacob reached out, grabbed him by the heel, and tried to pull him back into Rebecca's vag just so that he could cut in line. And their fighting basically just got worse and worse from there. The two boys were as different as night and day. Jacob was thin and lean. Asau was big and fat. Jacob was smooth-skinned

and attractive. Asau was hairy and ugly. Jacob was clever and cunning. Asau was a big, dumb idiot. But because Asau was a few seconds older, it didn't matter how dumb he was. He got to inherit all of his dad's stuff when his dad died. Well, Jacob didn't care much for that idea, so he set about tricking his brother out of his birthright. And because Asau was really stupid, he didn't have to try very hard. All he did was wait until one day when Asau was really hungry. Jacob said, hey, I'll give you a bowl of soup if you promise to give me your birthright. And Esau said yes. Now, sure, that's not very fair or very nice. And today, nobody would ever enforce a verbal contract that forfeited inheritance for a bowl of soup. But back in the Bible days,

God made the mentally challenged stand by whatever you could trick them into saying. But tricking a sow out of all of his money and land wasn't enough for Jacob. He also wanted his dad to give him the blessing that a sow was supposed to get. Now that would be a little tougher since Isaac hated Jacob's guts, but luckily Isaac was also blind. So with his mother's help, Jacob wrapped himself in some hairy, stinky animal skins so that he would smell dumb enough to be mistaken for Esau, then tricked his dad into blessing him. Now, I know that it seems like Jacob is the bad guy in this story,

and Esau is the innocent victim of his relentless conniving, but that's only because I left out one important detail. Esau married a foreigner, and God hates foreigners. detail. Esau married a foreigner. And God hates foreigners. So as far as God was concerned, he deserved everything he got. So Esau and all of his descendants

were miserable, and Jacob basically spent the rest of the Bible fucking everybody he could hold down, except God, who he did manage to hold down, but didn't fuck. The end. It's time for the part of the show to hold down, but didn't fuck. The end. Adam Rieks of the Herd Mentality podcast. Yeah, it would appear that he too caught HBO's new Scientology expose and posed a tough question for us. So if you haven't seen the doc yet, spoiler alert,

those motherfuckers are crazy. And apparently they keep very detailed files on all their members. And brutally detailed too, since they offer pseudo-psychiatry and keep a record of everything you say when you're being audited, which is Scientology speak for being relentlessly probed for potential blackmail material. Pretty much. That's what they do. Exactly.

So during the documentary, they point out that these detailed records of people revealing their darkest secrets might be the kind of thing that encourages them not to speak out against the church, which, of course, might explain why prominent folks like Tom Cruise and John Travolta remain such willing shills for him. It might also have something to do with being terrified by an enormous cult that thinks primordial atomic volcano demons are haunting their brain. Either way, that brings us to this week's top ten items from the Church of Scientology's classified blackmail files on Tom Cruise and John Travolta. classified blackmail files on Tom Cruise and John Travolta. All right, number ten. X-ray evidence that the gerbil they found in Richard Gere's ass was actually Tom Cruise.

Number nine. Similar evidence on Vinnie Barbarino's lesser-known locations for rubber hoses. The nose is just going to lube it up. Number eight. If Quentin Tarantino's fidgety cocaine fingers hadn't accidentally scrolled up one click too far, John Turturro would have been Samuel L. Jackson's partner in Pulp Fiction. It was just a fuck-up. He didn't want to be rude after he had him on the phone.

Number seven, footage of Travolta's ass chin losing its anal virginity to Elrond's swinging testicles. Number six, that isn't a turtleneck. That's actually Tom Cruise's foreskin. Number five. Unreleased cuts from the scene right before Top Gun's post-gay orgy beach volleyball game. That would explain why everybody's hair is sticking up. Number four. It turned out the kid just couldn't handle the thought of going through life named Jet. Too soon?

Too soon on that one? Child suicide? Yeah, a little bit. Number three. This one's also in his secret Wikipedia file. Travolta lives in a place called, no bullshit, Jumbo Lair Estates. Seriously, Jumbo Lair Estates. Jumbo Lair.

And number two, of course, is that it turns out Saturday Night Fever is an STD. Number one, speaking of VD, they've got all sorts of proof that what happens in Vincent Vegas doesn't stay in Vincent Vegas. And just in case they had some lawyers that they weren't using on HBO, we figured we would step into the line. We're over here, guys. That's all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep sending us those emails, tweets, and Facebook messages. You'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScalingAtheist.com. Before we quietly return to ourselves tonight, I wanted to remind you that if you want more information about ReasonCon, you can go to ReasonNC.com or just look for the link on the show notes for this episode.

Heath, Lucinda, and I would love a chance to meet you in person, so if there's any way that you can make it out, I know that the organizers are working overtime to make it worth the price of entry. Awesome lineup this year, and they're really going out of their way to make it personal. It's not just going to be a bunch of brilliant people that you admire giving talks, although, yes, there will be some of that, but there's also a bunch of opportunities to meet and interact

with those people. They've got a Skeptical Jeopardy planned, a Cards Against Humanity tournament, all with some of your favorite atheist luminaries and podcasters. Anyway, we'd really love it if you found a chance to make it out. If you do, please come by and say hello. Podcasting is usually a one-way conversation, of course, and I really look forward to those few opportunities we get to change that. Heath and I will be roasting God on Friday night at the VIP dinner, but if you can't make it out for that, come by Saturday. We'll be there all day. We'll be there well into the night, and there'll also be more interesting, smarter

people as well. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we have for you tonight, but 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 every Monday morning at 8 a.m. Eastern. You can find that on iTunes, Stitcher, or you can follow the link on our homepage at skatingatheist.com. Obviously, the show can't end until I've once more expressed my deep and abiding appreciation for everything Heath does to keep the Enterprise chugging along. I need to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for everything she contributes, both on the air and off. Also wanted to extend a huge thanks to our Ron Roth for providing this week's Farnsworth quote.

You might know him from his popular atheism videos on YouTube, but if not, look him up. That's A-R-O-N-R-A, or look for a link on the show notes for this episode. And while you're there, you'll also find a link to his podcast, the cleverly triple entendred Raw Men podcast. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's primary primates, Donovan, Jeffrey, spelled the cool way, Bruce, Margaret, Mike, Stephen, Glenn, Wren, Other Mike, David, Chris, Marcus,

Hawker, Josh, the Atheism 101 podcast, Jason, Sean, and Robert. Donovan, Jeffrey, spelled the cool way, Bruce, Margaret, Mike, and Stephen, whose IQs take fewer digits to express in binary than decimal, Glenn, Wren, Other Mike, David, Chris, and Marcus, who are so bright the flashlight is afraid to go into the basement without them, and Hawker Josh, the Atheism 101 podcast,

Jason, Sean, and Robert, whose balls only know about the tip of their dick by reputation, and yes, podcasts can have big dicks too. Together, these dozen and a half dazzlingly dapper disbelievers have dutifully donated desperately desired dollars to the dissemination of our diabolical directive this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the intelligence, dashing good looks, and lethal nunchuck skills 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, whereby you'll get a slightly longer version of every episode slightly earlier, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at skatingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but you don't want our whole audience knowing how impressive your genitals really are, you can also help us a ton by giving us a five-star review on iTunes or any other place that would allow you to give us five stars. Also, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff. 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 super time