The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 114: International Guerillas Edition

Episode Date: April 23, 2015

In this week's episode we'll learn what James Dobson thinks bisexual means, Dominique Strauss-Kahn gets passed over for a French ambassador job, and Eli Bosnick joins us in learning that there's always a worse movie.

Warning, this might be the episode that finally earns us that fatwa. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new skin care product for Scientologist teens. Going Clearasil. Are you an underage child laborer on a fugitive yacht? Is one of your much smaller problems related to acne? Are thousands of disembodied alien virgins inside your brain causing you to break out? Well don't worry, we've got you covered. Going Clearasil. We keep you clean, clear, and under mind control.

And now, the Scathing Atheist. Hello. This is Sir David Attenborough. And I have for you, dear listener, a limerick, told to me by an old school chum from the south of Wales. There once was a woman from Blorringe, who, when frigging, her fanny turned orange. Who, when frigging, her fanny turned orange. She was caught in the act by a thirsty tomcat, and cried,

Bugger, I aren't all that door-inge! And she, like I, almost surely evolved from the most filthy of monkey men. It's Thursday. It's April 23rd. And the Mets have the best record in the league. The end is nigh. Right. I have no illusions. I'm

Heath Enright. And from boiled peanut Mecca, Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll learn what James Dobson thinks bisexual means. Dominic Strauss-Kahn gets passed over for a French ambassador job. And Eli Bosnick

will join us in learning that there's always a worse movie. But first, the diatribe. Let me tell you about my walk. I got this walk. I take it pretty much every day. It's about two and a half miles, my house to the store and back. And I guess maybe it's just an after effect of living in New York for five years. But I just don't feel right unless I've walked a couple of miles by the end of the day. But obviously walking in Valdosta, Georgia is a lot different than walking in New York City. You know, the weather's usually better, but I miss having sidewalks and interesting destinations, but I also miss being able to walk a whole fucking mile

without being passively proselytized to a dozen times. See, along my way, I pass two churches within 300 yards of one another. Both have reader boards out front about my soul. There's also a Christian daycare along the way. It actually says that, Christian daycare, so take your heathen Muslim toddlers somewhere else. But I don't get a break in the residential areas either. I shit you not, I pass 11 houses every day with identical lawn signs that read,

Pray for our nation! 2 Corinthians 7.14. 11 of them. Oh, I also pass a little manger scene that apparently stays up year-round, and depending on what time I leave, my neighbor that owns a lawn service might have his giant trailer out front with the words JESUS IS LORD emblazoned across it in two-foot-tall letters. Every day, on my way to the store, I see a minimum of 14 messages

to remind me that a lot of people around here love them some Jesus. 28 on the round trip. Minimum. Now, I'm not counting all the bumper stickers and the ProJesus t-shirts and the pamphlets and the VBS advertisement and the fact that if I walked a little further along, I'd come across a whole Christian store. So if I averaged it out, I'd say I'd come across something like 45 Jesus messages basically every time I leave my house. Now imagine, if you will, that I put a sign up on my lawn that said, I don't believe in God. Or, how about that evolution, huh?

Or imagine I took this walk wearing a scathing atheist t-shirt every day, or I just painted, Jesus was just some dude if he existed at all, across the side of my car. What kind of asshole am I, right? What kind of son-of-a-bitch, firebrand, shit-slinging, fight-picking, counterproductive, persecutorial asshole am I? I am so sick of this double standard. Even in the most secular place on earth, you're not going to come across a dozen don't-bother-praying lawn signs in a mile-long walk. Even the most stereotypically snarky atheist in the universe isn't going to greet everybody who walks through the door of their convenience store

with, Morning, there is no God! There is no secular equivalent to this nonsense anywhere on earth. And yet, when we want to do something as benign as put up a billboard that says you're not the only atheist, we get lawsuits and complaints and vandalism and Bill O'Reilly's forehead veins. And sure, the religious people get pissy about this kind of stuff. I can understand that. You know, they're the ones that are under threat when the secular world flexes

its muscles. So whether or not they actually think they're being persecuted when we do 0.04% of the crap they do, it serves their purposes to pretend like they are. They're clinging to power, so I can't exactly expect them to be logical. They're also religious, so I can't expect them to be logical. But what I can't get my head around are the atheists who get pissy about this stuff. See, every time we pick up a surge of new listeners, there's also this new influx of emails of a bunch of atheists telling us to tone it down. Now, some of them are talking about the puppy rape jokes, and I get that. I might ignore it, but I understand that. But a lot of these people are talking about the tone of the show.

Some of them are lecturing us about how counterproductive it is to be so rude. They tell us that we don't need to treat religious ideas with reverence, but we should at least treat them with respect. Otherwise, we're just alienating the religious people and making them more intractable. And I've addressed this exact complaint a number of times on the show, I know, but I'm starting to shift my stance a bit. See, in the past, I said that we needed both. You know, we need the people who are respectful so they can help convert the theists, and then we need the firebrands to keep everybody excited and engaged. But I'm starting to really question whether we even need the respectful folks at all.

Now, hear me out on this, because I'm not suggesting that everybody take after me and do things my way. I do think that we need to keep an intellectual dialogue going, so I'm not suggesting that everybody calls Jesus a fucktard. But I don't think even the nicest, most accommodating, most approachable atheist in the world should ever treat religious ideas with respect or even tolerance. You know, we should treat them with disdain or irreverence and not just because that's what they deserve. Just think of the scale we're working with here. Religious people are told not to question. From the time they can comprehend, they're told to treat these ideas with absolute reverence.

In fact, even if you think that you're questioning them, you're wrong. That's not actually you. That's an evil spirit from the underworld that snuck into your brain while you weren't looking and thought those evil thoughts for you. They're taught that they could be burned in hell for eternity just for pursuing the question of what was up God's ass during the whole Tower of Babel thing. So how do you counteract that upbringing? With respect?

By reinforcing the notion that these ideas are respectable? Think about it like a seesaw. Since this person was born into a religious family, all the weight has been put on the reverence end. So now we're supposed to stand somewhere in the middle and think we're going to move anything? Hell no! We need to be as far out on the other end of the

scale as possible. We should be treating with exactly as much mockery as they're giving at solemnity. We need to counteract reverence with irreverence. That's how it worked for me. I was raised in a nominally religious household, and even the non-religious influences early in my life still threw a bone to faith. You know, it wasn't until I started reading Douglas Adams and watching Monty Python that I was able to put religious belief in its proper context. I needed to see somebody mock it before I felt like I had intellectual permission to even question it. Now, if you disagree with me and you think there's some intellectual justification in not labeling a stupid idea as stupid, feel free to reach out.

Feel free to tell me what you think, but don't pretend that you're on the intellectual high ground here, and don't be surprised when I dismiss your objection. You're asking me to respect racism, misogyny, and anti-scientific fairy tales. That in itself is a stupid idea, and you already knew how much respect I had for stupid ideas when you sent the email. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is Jesus' roast master, Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to nail a savior?

Yeah, absolutely. I was afraid for a second you were going to say roasted Jew. I was sure you were going to say that, and that would have been awkward. That would have been mean. It's a good thing that neither of us said that. It's cool, though. I'm half Jewish, so I'm allowed to tell Holocaust jokes all I want, but just the punchline. Right.

Yeah, keep it there. Exactly. In our lead story tonight, the Vatican has their collective panties in a wad over France's decision to nominate an openly gay ambassador to their micro-theocracy. France proposed senior diplomat Laurent Stefanini back in January, and normally the Vatican responds within six weeks to ambassador appointments. But with more than double that time having elapsed, France hasn't budged and maintains that if the Vatican wants diplomatic ties with France, it's the gay dude or nothing. This is great. I'm guessing at first the Vatican guy was a little confused. Oh, is he a secretly gay sexual deviant?

No, he's just a normal gay man. Oh, no, absolutely not. And that first thing I said. Don't tell anybody about it. Now, the move is widely seen as an effort to force the Vatican's hand a bit here. So Pope Franticoid has made a lot of media savvy liberal statements about accepting gay rights. But the pre-enlightenment policies of the church haven't changed at all under his tenure. So basically, the French are pointing out to the world that it's all fucking talk.

It's good work. Way to use your national assholery for the powers of good, France. Absolutely. I approve. Yeah, this is a fun new way to embarrass shitty little countries. Yeah, exactly. This is great. Exactly.

Let's all do that. Now, for their part, the Vatican has remained silent on the issue. Traditionally, they don't formally turn down ambassadors. They just don't respond. But even without formally addressing the appointment, the Church's message is clear. clear it's okay to be gay but not openly and certainly not with consenting adults and in eat shit and dianetics news tonight acting on advice from their lawyers british television channel sky atlantic has canceled the planned airing of hbo's scientology documentary going clear the legal team was likely just passing along a message from nearly all the rest of the

lawyers in the world who are currently on retainer with the cult of the atomic volcano demons. And that message says, Scientology has done nothing wrong, and that's why we hired 8,000 lawyers. Right. Yeah, exactly. But to be honest, in this particular case, we're dealing with UK libel laws, which means at least 7,999 of those lawyers were superfluous.

Basically, if you've got my cousin Vinny, you're good to go. So yeah, the legal issue in question relates to the UK rules about libel, which are notoriously asinine and make it grossly easy to pursue lawsuits against anyone that makes fun of you, basically. Fortunately for people that like having free speech, recent legislation, such as the 2013 Defamation Act, makes the law a bit more reasonable. But unfortunately, this act doesn't apply to the and Northern Ireland part of the country. And since Sky Atlantic doesn't have a way to broadcast by region for some reason, they'd have to air the documentary nationwide nationwide which would open them up to libel claims in the belfast jurisdiction yeah exactly so you're closer to allowed to talk than you used to be so long as not everyone's listening way to go uk i'm sure simon singh is very proud so i'm not exactly sure how eyewitness testimony by large numbers of former church members about abuse in the church would count as libel.

Right. Because that would make journalism functionally illegal. Yet somehow even just the risk of bullshit litigation is prohibitively expensive enough to scare publishers and broadcasters. All that being said, the theory is obviously stupid, yes, but how does this even matter in practice? Who the fuck watches broadcast television? Northern Irish people don't have HBO Go there? I mean, if you want to find out if L. Ron's a fucking lunatic, it's really not that hard.

Right. No matter where you live. Or, you know what? I could just tell you, he is. There you go. Hear that, Northern Ireland? They're all listening. Come at me, archaic UK libel laws.

And in what the huck news tonight, perennial technical presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has found a creative new way to offend the vast majority of people standing between him and the highest office in the land last week during an interview with Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson. of Obama hating Christians so much, Huckabee advised that anyone considering signing up to serve our country hold off until we get this Muslim jihadi out of the Oval Office. Yeah. Everybody stop enlisting and you'll fuck up Obama's sinister plot to scale back military operations and reduce defense spending. Great plan, Mike Huckabee. That's fantastic.

By his standards, it is. During a tirade in which he anally extricated accusations that the obama administration doesn't let chaplains use bibles and doesn't allow soldiers to pray in jesus's name he can right he concluded that people of faith should quote wait a couple of years until we get a new commander-in-chief that will once again believe one nation under God, end quote. Yeah, so apparently one nation under God is a thing that can be believed or something. Or maybe that's just his way of saying um.

You know, instead of um, he just says one nation under God. And grits and guns and gravy. Yeah. Okay, so everyone that wants to join the military, you know, just hold off for another forever or two, and homophobic Jared from Subway will be president, and he'll have a much better deal for you. We'll be attacking people all over the place. That's what you have to look forward to, Jared. You're going to look like that.

I think it's also worth talking about the article that got the hucksters so riled up in the first place. In a nutshell, it's a bunch of bitching about how not letting chaplains proselytize to atheists creates a hostile work environment for the ones that sincerely believe in breaking the law. Their examples of this hostile work environment, by the way, were a Navy chaplain who lost his job after saying that homosexuality is evil during a private counseling session with a gay private, and another who got in trouble for holding a suicide prevention seminar to explain that the only thing a suicidal person needs to do is, quote, invite Jesus into whatever you're feeling end quote so yes if you believe punishing those folks

is persecution i agree with huckabee stay the fuck out of the military and while you're at it all the other jobs where you carry a gun and in murder by the book of numbers news tonight evangelical author and radio host james dobson brought an expert panel of professional homophobes onto his show Family Talk last week to discuss the upcoming Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriage. Naturally, they addressed two important related issues. First, they talked about the fine line between Christianity and causing murder. And they also briefly touched on how sex works. Neither topic went well for them. Didn't think they would, but I am dying to know where they think the penis goes.

Please, please, continue. They might think it's bifurcated and goes multiple directions, but we'll get there. We'll get there. Spoiler. First, the murdering thing. So one of his guests was a guy with a personal section at Right Wing Watch, Rick Scarborough, who argued that new laws against suicide-inducing gay conversion therapy is going to lead to pastors getting arrested. He also mentioned that laws against inciting hate

crimes could lead to the same thing. So yes, Rick Scarborough, there are laws against causing the deaths of people and pastors, and yeah, they can get arrested for breaking those laws. But just to be clear, these laws also apply to everyone who tells a room full of people to kill gay people with rocks or kill anyone with anything. All that stuff I was just talking about is illegal in general. Inclusive. I mean, how did they ever trot out this excuse? That's Scarborough's go-to excuse. I just don't get this.

He basically always comes out and says, well, this thing that the majority of the country agrees is immoral to the point that we should put people in jail for doing it. That's something that pastors do all the time. How do you think that makes your site look better? Are you going to bring that up? Unbelievable. So they spent a while longer coming

up with new interpretations of the constitution that allow for murderous free exercise and then dobson decided the conversation was getting a little too intelligent so he turned the talk to his problem with all these progressive clergy they're being nice to the gay people and kind of messing with his stanza and here's what he had to say quote i would like them to think just for a moment about lgbt the b stands for bisexual that's orgies are you really gonna support this no is is that how that works? Dude, I had to listen to it twice. I swear I was just waiting for him to say,

and what's this T doing here too? Who the hell's trying to marry alien robots that turn into trucks? This is just perverse. That's against God. So just a quick wrap up for these very confused gentlemen. No, you can't be involved in any stage of murder, no matter who you are.

And no, the bi in bisexual doesn't mean fucking two or more people at a time, no matter what. That's not what the bi means. It doesn't mean bifurcated penis in two directions either. So as everybody reflects on how much more fun NBC's The More You Know segments would have been if they'd hired Heath, we'll hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate rape.

It's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man! This week in Massage. Wouldn't it be nice if one week I had to come on and say, you know what, guys? I got nothing. Or at least if I was just barely able to scrape together three or four stories

at the last minute after digging deep into the news cycle. As opposed to digging through the 50 worthy stories and trying to decide which three or four are the worst. Well, we sure as hell didn't manage that this week. We'll start off in metropolitan Milledgeville, Georgia, at that city's most prestigious upscale retail outlet, Walmart. Local resident and Walmart shopper Brittany Cartrett is accusing the store of abusing state law

after the pharmacist-slash-moral philosopher-slash-medical appellate on duty refused to fill her prescription for misoprostol, citing what's known as the conscience clause. Now, for the record, misoprostol can be used in conjunction with another drug to induce an abortion, but that wasn't why Cartret was getting it. She'd had a miscarriage and it was prescribed to help her avoid a more invasive procedure to remove tissue in the future. Of course, that shouldn't matter because some judgmental Jesus freak behind the counter

at a Walmart shouldn't be the supreme arbiter of a woman's personal medical choices and or needs but according to the dumbass laws in this state it does matter so here's my advice as both a georgian and a woman if you have that problem again come back to the same register with a six-pack of wire hangers and say looks like i'll have to settle for plan C. Trust me, they'll get you your fucking medicine. And from Georgia, we'll move to the progressive bastion of Tennessee where state representative and woman who Bart Simpson probably asked for at Moe's Tavern, Sheila Butt, moved to table the rape and incest exemption from a new abortion law because rape and incest are, quote, not verifiable, end quote.

The law itself is already plenty fucked up and would require a woman to wait 48 hours and get psychological counseling before the state would allow her to terminate a pregnancy. So basically, they're saying that the desire to exercise biological autonomy is a mental disorder. And these feticidal maniacs need help, even the ones who are carrying inbred rape babies. Her justification, of course, is that women evil enough to murder babies are certainly evil enough to pretend they were raped by their uncle to satiate their bloodlust. And, of course, it just wouldn't be this week in misogyny if we didn't talk about some Asperbrains host on Fox News.

This week, the honor goes to Rachel Campos Duffy, who explained that the only way to counteract Muslim terrorism is with a manlier version of Christianity. That's right, the sausage fest of Christianity, the religion with three god figures that all have dicks, needs to be more manly. Part of her tirade consisted of a convoluted and tortured analogy about young Catholic men going to Rome to join an anti-Muslim crusade that was presented in such a way that you really couldn't tell if she was for or against. She then went on to demonstrate that she only kind of knows what the term root cause means.

Quote, the root cause is reforming Islam, and it's also that Christianity needs to offer a more robust, manly, not feminized version of Christianity. End quote. Way to tongue-rape the English language, lady. And finally, a quick note on a Hasidic website whose blatant sexism actually did the world a favor this week. While I don't agree with the motivations that inspired the ultra-Orthodox news site

Kekar HaShabbat to airbrush Kim Kardashian out of a picture of her husband and the mayor, I'm still kind of hoping the idea of airbrushing Kim Kardashian out of photos catches on. And until next week, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in maybe the concussions made him say it news tonight, Republican pundit and former significant human Allen West spoke to a Texas conservative group this week about the importance of pre-football game prayers. This comes in response to recent FFRF efforts to force a few coaches to

abide by the law. The problem, as West explains, is that if you don't pray before games, God won't use his magical protection powers to keep the kids from getting injured, you see. Well, but even if we brought back the prayer thing adrian peterson's still going to beat the shit out of some kids after the game they get uppity well

give me a switch they're not my kids but i'm gonna beat the shit out of these kids with a switch that's in the bible though as evidence of his claims of course west submitted the fact that when he played football as a kid they always prayed and he never got injured. So QE, whatever that other letter is. Of course, as many have pointed out, he's making a testable claim here. And there's no fucking question that high school football injuries are on the declines since we stopped praying before games. But set that aside for a second and consider that if West was right, it would mean that when people fail to remind God how awesome he is, he throws a temper tantrum by breaking the legs and spines of children.

That's what's happening. Yeah, that's what he wants to be true. Crazy world. activist group called American Renewal Project, which means his job is to go around the country reminding pastors to ignore Jesus and focus on hijacking the Republican Party. That's the new project. Specifically, he wants them to activate their evangelical spy network and start digging up dirt on presidential candidates about their secret, nefarious connections to gay people and scientists and stuff.

And abortionists. yes, yes. They want to make sure that the evangelicals nominate the most homophobic, far-right Christian conservative on the ballot. But other than that, they don't share much in common with the Democrats. That's pretty much it. They don't agree on anything else. Apparently Mr. Lane got pissed after he kept hearing about politicians having, you know, plenty of gay friends.

And even if they're lying, this is a big problem for him. So in response to all this, he's working with about 100,000 clergymen, urging them to involve their congregations in his latest McCarthyism plot. He wants to know exact numbers of gay friends and exactly how gay they are. And how friends they are. So obviously this guy's a crazy person. That's been established. But he's accidentally doing his best to make the GOP presidential candidate unelectable. So I think Hillary should continue secretly funding him.

I think it's working. Yeah, no kidding. And from the fall from the Garden State file tonight, Church Elder Freddie Alexander of the New Life in Christ Ministry in New Jersey took to the pulpit in defense of his alleged rapist pastor on Sunday. Pastor James E. Simmons Jr. turned himself into authorities last week after being charged with sexual assault, criminal sexual contact, and endangering the welfare of a child.

But according to his congregation, the real culprit is Satan, who, for obviously racist reasons, hasn't even been questioned in conjunction with the investigation. I don't know. I satan has an alibi pretty sure he was chasing anthony and scalia around his backyard with a pitchfork at the time of the incident supreme court justice could back him up he's used that one before though now after explaining that satan's transparent efforts to break apart their congregation by making their pastor rape a teenager repeatedly over a four-year period had backfired and would only bring the church closer together alexander said quote we love our pastor they can say what they want and

prepare for my favorite seven words in the history of spoken quotes on this show i hope i can get on youtube to say i love my pastor end quote quote. Dude has big dreams. Yes, yes. He called Monday to YouTube and he asked for an audition, but he hasn't heard back yet. I'm confident, though. He wants it bad enough. It's all about how bad you want it. Freddie, you better follow up on that.

They don't just give away slots that easy. They're pretty selective. Yeah, they won't just let any old buddy on YouTube. Now, in a demonstration that his knowledge of the inner workings of the justice system and YouTube video submissions are approximately equal, Alexander claimed that Pastor Simmons had nobody to answer to but God. He went on to explain that Simmons had a, quote, godly heart and that if he was guilty of anything, it was loving people.

Sounds pretty godly. Which, I mean, if he'd added violently, non-consensually, and starting while they're still teenagers, he might have managed something that he and I can agree on. We've been a lot closer. We were close. And finally tonight, in below-the-waist Watergate news, Christians in California apparently felt like the proposed Sodomite Suppression Act

wouldn't be enough to protect straight people from LGBT sexual predators. Sure, yeah, it would have all the gay people shot in the face by a government firing squad, but it wouldn't do anything to protect against transsexual ladies' room serial rapists. Oh, well. So, yeah, they hadn't considered that part. So, they recently filed a new initiative called the Personal Privacy Protection Act, which would ban transgender people from using public restrooms that reflect their identified gender. What kind of balderdash newspeak privacy? Right.

Yes. Because if everybody's genitals aren't publicly inspected by a government appointed official on the way into the restroom, somebody's privacy might be violated. Yes. So if the initiative eventually made it to the 2016 ballot and passed, it absolutely will not. But if it did, people could follow around transgender people, suing them for $4,000 plus legal fees at a time, every time they use the facility without proving their naked crotch

looks appropriate for the room they choose. Not sure how these people think logistics are going to work. Are we going to hire and train police officers in sexing humans? And they're going to stand in front of the door of every public restroom in California with a really weird table? I have no idea what they're planning. Regardless, we have managed to land on the subject of manual human sexing. Surprise, surprise.

And that means we're going to need 30 seconds on the clock. No surprise. Names and slogans for the public restroom gender enforcement team go. All right, how about the trans informers? More than meets the eye, but only if you look under the stall. So you can use a mirror if you don't want to crane your neck. It's more comfortable that way. What about the squat team?

Special Queer Washroom Tactics. Right, yes. S-Q-W-A-T. Of course, working under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, I'm sure. Right. What about the External Affairs Department? Flushing trannies out of the water closet. Or maybe the drag queen net?

Like, just cupping crotches at the men's room door saying sorry just the sax man old school nick at night nice um all right what about a slogan for these guys um we gave you gay wedding cakes we draw the line at tranny urinal cakes not happening doesn't matter what you're planning on writing on the P. Maybe, stall wars, revenge of the cis. I just learned that word. Cis-gen. Just learned that. What about snatch and grab squad?

If you see a suspicious package, notify a police officer immediately. And have them grope it. Right. Yeah, exactly. Part B is important. Or we could just do a reality show about them and call it Car 54, Which Are You? Talk about some Nick at Night shit. What about The Unflushables? Snaking everyone's plumbing at the front door. I didn't realize until you mentioned it just how Nick at Night my last three were. How about Magnum ISP? To shame us that shames them.

All right. What about the Twerk Gently Glory Holistic Detective Agency? Nice, dude. Step up to the hole. Whip it out. Shake. Turn and cough. Men's room next.

Perfect. It's a good Men's room. Next. Perfect. It's a good system for California. I'm sure it'll work out fine. All right, all right. Well, anybody who mentions Dirk gently wins. So it's another lovely mental image to close the headlines on once again. Heath, thanks as always. You, Monty!

And when we come back, Eli's going to join us to discuss one of the strangest things that ever fucking happened. Now, I should mention at the outset that we're going to be devoting a bit more time than we normally do to the review this week. Now, part of that is just because Heath and I have a shitload of work to do. But yes, part of it is also because this movie was so fucking weird. It deserves some extra attention. Enjoy. We got a message a while back from a listener that loves our movie reviews, but felt like our focus might be too narrow.

After all, so far we've only reviewed Christian movies. So to help counterbalance that, he recommended a Muslim film that he felt could use the scathing atheist treatment. And I'm sorry that I couldn't find the message and thank this listener by name, because that suggestion led to the most bizarre movie experience I have ever had without a bubble gum machine and a robotic waffle iron silhouetted in the foreground. This movie was equal parts bad action flick, Bollywood musical, jihadi propaganda, and magnum PI b-roll. It's called International Gorillas. It's a 1990 Pakistani film that probably defies description, but we're going to try anyway. And of course, joining us in that effort is our good friend Eli Bosnick. Eli, welcome back to the show.

Oh, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me on your podcast award winning podcast. Thank you, sir. Thank you. We haven't mentioned that enough times in the last couple episodes. Podcast award. What did you like better about this movie, Eli? Was it the six musical numbers or was it the three-hour runtime, which was more appealing to you? Definitely the three-hour runtime because that was really a chance for me to realize that this movie had spiritually, spiritually changed me. Like, you know, you have a friend who goes abroad, and they come back, and they're like, I'm just totally different.

I'm totally different after I saw, there's an Eli before I saw International Gorillas, and there's this shell of a man that I am now. That's how I feel about this movie. This movie looks like it was shot approximately six minutes after cameras were invented that's that is the film that is the film acumen that is behind the shooting and editing if aliens from the future came back and gave cavemen a camera and they just tried it for the first time and they produced

international gorillas i'd be like oh come on caveman. You can do better. Just pointed at the people. This is like, you put it on at a party where no one needs to pay attention to it. Cause I guarantee you every time you look at this movie, one of your friends will be like, what the fuck is happening? And the answer is nothing. There's no answer to that question.

It's a fun mystery. It's like, Oh, is Schroeder's cat dead? Or is he? What the fuck is happening in this movie? Oh, there's some more anti-Semitism. Surprise!

Yeah, there was quite a bit. That was the only maybe like the only solid thing you could grab a hold of in this film was the anti-Semitism. So tell me, how long did it take you to figure out how bad this movie was? I literally, when the movie movie started because it's just people pouring alcohol into glasses for i would say 48 minutes um i was just like is this a beer commercial and then i was like oh i get it because alcohol is bad muslims don't like alcohol well and i mean just to the point like just again to give everybody an idea how bad this was in this montage of alcohol pouring you would occasionally get get champagne being poured into the glass

from the left side of the screen, and then that same image obviously flips, so the champagne is coming from the right side. By the way, champagne on the rocks in tall highball glasses. Right. They have no idea what criminal lair looks like when they have their champagne parties. That's ridiculous. This is a consistent note for me throughout this movie nobody who made this movie knows how the world at all works no like not just like i think champagne is served in a bucket filled with sin but it's also just like this thing like whenever anyone's tied up they're tied to a ladder with

duct tape no one's ever just like no one's ever got a rope behind their back no it's just like oh we gotta tie him up let's let's put his foot with handcuffs attached to his neck and then we're gonna sew his eyelids to his dick hole i don't know it's it's this movie is like someone described an action movie. Someone wall high described an action movie to someone else, but then got fired out of a cannon. Because it's like, well, what are action movies like? Well, you know, there's explosions and gunfire. Don't worry, we got everything we need.

Don't worry, we got it. Movie set. Explosions and gunfire. Okay, am I the only one who felt the need to write down the opening line of this film? What do we need? Don't worry. We got it. Movie's set. Explosions and gunfire. Okay. Am I the only one who felt the need to write down the opening line of this film? I absolutely wrote down the first line of the movie. If you would, give us the actual first spoken line in this film. All right.

It was, all the biggest crooks in the world have gathered here today to destroy Islam. Yes. First line of the movie. They call themselves crooks. Yes, it's the top guy explaining how it's happening. And he has a secretary taking notes. These are crooks who have a woman who's just like, All the biggest crooks in the world.

What is it? What later on is going to happen at that meeting? I forget. When we were talking about destroying Islam, we said there was going to be a fire, a fire that burned so bright that it burned away all of Islam. Yeah, yeah. That's what you said. Okay, good. Because, you know, when I get in front of the guys, I get so excited and I don't want to be the guy who talks over everyone at the meeting, you know?

Everyone in this movie is – again, no one in this movie's outfit makes sense. No one's body makes sense. Everyone in this movie is dressed like a cowboy. Or... A little bit Miami Vice, maybe. Right, a Miami Vice pimp. Michael Jackson circa 1987. A little bit of thriller, maybe.

Right. So they have this meeting. The first meeting is all the cro Right. So they have this meeting. The first meeting is all the crooks in the world have this meeting because they need to destroy Islam. Because if they don't destroy Islam, all of the small Muslim nations in the world will band together. Yeah, that's going to happen any, as you can see in Yemen. So he then turns to his friend, or his commandant, and he goes, I'm glad I have chosen you, Commander Jason, nicknamed JC. The bad guy. He looks at the camera like, JC, you get it?

Like Jesus Christ, the Christians. They're on our side as well. Because we are the bad guys. We all on the same page? Good. We're going to do that a lot. And then we go from meeting that group of crooks. We have another group of crooks.

But wait. First, there's the meeting in the police commissioner's office. Where they don't move any of the furniture out of the way. No. Literally lamps. the meeting in the police commissioner's office where they don't move any of the furniture out of the way of the fucking literally lamps and desks you cannot see this character he's being shot through like the holes in a desk and i was just i was sitting there i was like why wouldn't they move the lamps this can't possibly be a choice no one looked at that and was like oh that's really good no one's like yeah i don't want to see his face it's just desks and lamps blocking this character

at one point he stands up out of shot you know so now you're looking at like his nose down it's it's fucking yeah it's absolutely it's like their cameraman died and they didn't want anyone to know about it so they were like just leave the camera where it. No one needs to know this day went wrong. So then they jump to a disco. Yes. Where the head crook is having a meeting with all of his other crooks. So he then

he introduces the first musical number of this movie and hey spoiler alert if you want a spoiler for all of the music numbers except for one, two, sorry, two insane fucking exceptions to this rule, all music numbers in this movie are just a strong four in a slightly revealing outfit, singing a song about how attractive she is,

and staring at the camera while it cuts in the most insane way possible. I wrote down in my notes here, oh, I get it, the TV's off and I'm on acid. While it cuts in the most insane way possible. I wrote down in my notes here, Oh, I get it. The TV's off and I'm on acid. So she dances and sings about how attractive she is. And then, busting out of the corner, comes our heroes.

Whose names we learn a mere two hours later. He sprays some smoke. Some Aquanet or something. Right? And then starts to rob the bad guy. And then the bad guy's like, oh, there are many ways in, but only one way out. All of the lights, I know which lights here are killer and which are safe. And then instead of being like, yeah, man, trying to walk out of the club because I've got killer disco lights, he calls one of his assistants to prove it.

He's just like, hey, Haji, come here. And then the guy gets zapped to death by lights. He's like, see? See what I did there? I mean, now you know that that one's killer, so don't step on the beach. There's probably more. I feel like I spoiled it. I should have just let you.

And his response, our other protagonist, his brother, jumps through the ceiling onto his shoulder. Yes. At which point, they do a song and dance number together. The brothers and the woman from before muslim tina fey she looks just like tina fey with the scar and everything setting so they then they go back to their house which is the crazy he basically he's like you guys are robbers you've been wasting your youth and they're like how can you expect us to be businessmen when all that matters is connections? And we do not have any connections.

And he's like, yeah, that's a really good point. Let's go kill Solomon Rushdie. That's really the conversation. They jump right into killing Solomon Rushdie. And not a single word that comes out of their mouths for the rest of the movie is something a protagonist in any movie ever should say. Right. So then they go to the protest and the younger brother and sister get murdered. They get killed by the cops because the cops just start shooting the pro-

They massacre everybody. Yes. They massacre everybody. They go to massacre, they get massacred. And the sister says, what I believe means my favorite line in the movie. It's my second favorite. She says, brother, I have

never asked you anything before, but may I make a request of you now? And he says, yes. And she says, kill Solomon Rusty. Which is so unrelated. He'd be like, hey man, what do you want for lunch? I don't know.

To kill Solomon Rushdie. Everyone at every point in this movie, when something else is going on, reminds us what this movie is about. Because they'll just be like, oh, and by the way, kill Solomon Rushdie. Yeah. So we are then introduced to Solomon Rushdie in the best way I could ever want Solomon Rushdie to be introduced in a movie, which is him cutting off the heads of three Muslims with a sword. Yes. And then wiping the sword clean and sniffing the Muslim blood like panties. Yep.

And I wrote, if I had a nickel for every time I've watched Solomon Rushdie cut off someone's head, I'd be a rich man. So he then congratulates JC and this is the beginning of the casual anti-Semitism we see throughout this movie. He turns to JC and he goes good job. I had my

doubts about hiring someone from a Jewish army, but I can see that I wasn't mistaken. Yes. So then we have, and this is the first of what I like to call the Solomon Rushdie smack talk sections, where just everyone takes turns saying crazy things to Solomon Rushdie. For example, we will treat your body so badly, your own grave will not accept it. Yes.

And just in my head, everyone in the theater was like, oh! Oh, he got you, Solomon Rushdie. He got you so good. Oh! Your mama's so dead, she's dead.

Oh! So then they corner Solomon Rushdie, and they shoot him. Oh, they stab him. They stab him in the short. Yeah, they stab him. they stab him. They stab him in the shorts. They stab him. That's right. They stab him in the same motion a million times. They stab him a million times and his

assistant says, oh, Solomon Rushdie is immortal. He cannot die. And then the real Solomon Rushdie comes out from behind a tree to which I say, that is not being immortal. That just means you stabbed the wrong person. I'm not immortal because someone shot the lady in front of me.

Oh my God, I have superpowers. Nope, that person missed. They are different. So then they capture them again. Again, they capture them. And Solomon Rushdie gives a little Oscar speech just like thanking all of his cronies. Like, well, Batu Batu, I'd like to thank you and the Academy, my agent, the Native American people.

He's doing like the Marlon Brando thing. He just gives a little lonely speech. And then, again, he's like, I'm going to kill you now. And everyone's escape plan is just like, run away. And there's dust on the ground and everyone just runs away. And they have this crazy moment with the diva where he's like, I will trust you because I love you. And his brother says, you cannot trust her. She's a Jew.

A Jew. And again, I wrote, said one of the good guys in this story. You cannot trust her. She's a Jew. A Jew. And again, I wrote, said one of the good guys in this story. You cannot trust her. She's a Jew. Ellipses. A Jew! Exclamation mark. Which is followed by their meet cute, which is a song about him shooting her.

It was. It's a song about him shooting her with love. And the refrain is him firing a gun at her while she's having orgasm sounds and her going and listen I've heard that sound I watch a lot of hentai

I've heard that sound many a time my friends but this is the weirdest context it means a lot when I say I could not jerk off to that song. Eventually, it reaches a point where they're rolling on the ground together. Not even

downhill. They're just on flat ground rolling next to each other. Yep, just rolling. Again, it's very meet-cute. Yeah. And then she's like, great, now you trust me. Let's go take a boat. And of course, it's an ambush. Because she's a Jew.

She's a Jew. To which the brother responds, hey, you Jew, and starts shooting all the bad guys. Heath had that one written down, too. I had it in bold, too. Yeah. Hey, you Jew.

A lot of hard J-bombs all over the place. A lot of dropping some serious J-bombs on this set. So they escape in the way that everyone escapes, which is just, we're going to shoot you. No, you're not. Run, run, run, run. Just again. Run away.

And they cut back to Solomon Rushy sitting in his lair and he's like we will set a trap for them at and i wrote this down casino come disco now listen i own all five movies of casino come disco and i hope that there's a lawsuit pending as the art and artistry of casino-cum-disco is not served in International Gorillas. Not at all. But, of course, if there's a disco, there's a dance scene. So I believe we get our fifth musical number at this point. And it's another one about a girl singing about how attractive she is. And she is wrong.

Let me point out, at this point, no one who has sung about how attractive they is. And she is wrong. Let me point out, at this point, no one who has sung about how attractive they is has been telling the truth. They do not have the admirers they claim to have in every lyric. This is a lie. I mean, I don't know what's going on wherever this movie was shot, but I've got the internet, so you're

a strong four. So then, without explanation, the same seven seconds of this movie repeats three times in a row. Now, we later learn that it's because there are multiple body doubles for Solomon Rushdie in the Casino Com Disco. But for a second there, when watching this movie, I was just like, Oh God, I'm in the Christian hell. I just have to watch. I died. My heart gave out while watching this movie.

And now I just have to watch this same Solomon Rushdie walks up the stairs sequence forever and ever. And then my ex is going to come in and she's going to talk to me about, you know, how much weight she thinks she's gained. And that's it. I'm here now. And then the protagonists of this movie burst through the window dressed.

They got new outfits this time. And what are they dressed as? Batman. Batman. All dressed up like Batman. Three different Batmen. And it never gets explained. I feel like a fucking crazy person.

They never explain why they're dressed like Batman and the movie continues. And I'm just sitting on my couch screaming. Because I just never. Why are you Batman? And this was, I thought, one of my very favorite lines. Why are you Batman? And this was, I thought, one of my very favorite lines. When they saw that there were four different Salman Rushdies and the good Pakistani cheech says, If everyone in the world looked like you, we would just kill everyone in the world.

I love that so much. I wrote that down as well. This is the second smack talk session where they just all take turns. They also said, we'll mutilate your evil face so bad that even Satan won't be able to recognize you. Yes. And we will not only destroy you, but everyone who comes to see you. And I was just like, I'm keeping these. I wrote these down.

I'm just going to send these to people when I play League of Legends. This is just my new thing. If anyone kills me, I'm going to be like, if everyone in the world looked like you, I would kill everyone in the world. What? Nailed it. And again, everyone has disguises except for sunglasses. He tricks them to come to the airport

because they think he's going to be there. They kidnap mom. I don't know why he invited them to come watch him kidnap sister mom. But he did. So they kidnap sister mom but he did so they kidnapped sister mom and he takes her there and he says play her my book the satanic verses on tape and i was just like this movie sponsored by audible and she's yelling all sorts of titles for when you're torturing people. We've got the satanic verses.

We have the screenplay to You've Got Mail. Lots of things you can play for people when torturing them. I'm Solomon Rushdie, and you know after a long day of cutting off people's heads, you need to play a book on tape that will make a Muslim wish they went deaf. It's nothing quite like the satanic verses read by the author. Go to audible.com forward slash

Rushdie. That's R-U-S H-T audible.com. Start here, go everywhere. I love the mix of podcast ads that you have in there. At which point, every bad character in the movie turns Muslim. Dobby, Derry, Donna Queen.

Dolly. Dolly. But she changes. She has a Muslim name by the end. Yeah, Al Shabazz, something at the end. And then JC turns Muslim, only to be instantly shot. He's like, she is not just my muse sister. She is also my guide.

So I'm a Muslim now. And then he's like, oh, and a person gets shot for the first time ever in this movie. Exciting. But it's him. Yeah, it's the Jew. But now I should say we're skipping over my favorite moment in this movie, which was the moment that led to everyone's spontaneous conversion to Islam, which was the final song. Yeah. Where they're all crucified and they're singing and there's like jihadi propaganda written in the sky during this shit.

Yeah. It's like a North Korean propaganda film. I was just like, man, there's man just like oh famous leader will come it's just like takes this weird right turn into crazy land as these guys strapped to crucifixes not crucifixes sing sing the summon the captain planet song but they're hoping for ally instead of captain planet when our song powers combined. Who, by the way, does not come. And then immediately after lightning comes

out of the sky and breaks their bonds and a veil covers a woman's head, Solomon Rushdie goes, your god did not come. And I'm like, hey man. That was Thor. Their god totally came through. At which point, the Koran from the beginning, three Korans from the beginning come floating out of the distance.

This all actually happens. And then shoot lightning, the weirdest lightning. The only way I can describe it is this. When I was a kid, I had a thing on my computer, on my Windows 98 computer called the Spider-Man Movie Maker. And you could just like take various animated elements and it would just – but there was a thing where you could be like a ray gun and it would just like – And you could just put it anywhere you wanted on the picture and you could press play. That's what they – if they were like, this movie was made in Spider-Man Movie Maker, I'd be like, oh yeah.

Totally. 76.8. .5. 52. I'd be like, oh yeah, I get it. I get it. These lightnings come and like, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. And then he burns and honestly, if you were to tell me

in the same sentence, like, oh, I've never seen season four of The Wire, and they really if you were to tell me in the same sentence, like, oh, I've never seen season four of The Wire, and they really burned the guy to make this movie, I'd be like, you've never seen The Wire? Oh, it's so good. That's how not surprised I would be that they had actually burned a human being. Oh, okay, you got to see that. Yeah, no, they burned the guy.

Sure, why not? It wouldn't even be second guess they could do that on dailies they'd be like okay great so again just reminding we need daylight when we burn steve thank you again steve no problem i'm a team player uh daylight during that so craft needs to work fast. You hear me, Hottie? Oh, and then this movie instantly ends. It's burnt. It's like, Allah is great. Boom. No credits. No, the end. Just

movies off. I literally think they ran out of film to shoot on in this country. I mean, whatever this country is, they were just like, that's it. That's the last six inches of film there is. Well, fine. Fuck it. It's over. Put it in this country. I mean, whatever this country is, they were just like, that's it. That's the last six inches of film there is. Well, fine, fuck it. It's over.

Put it in the can. We're done. Now let's go make a movie about how gobstoppers rape you. All right. Do either of you guys feel like there's any lessons that we can take away

from international gorillas? Absolutely. I'll tell you the very important lesson I've learned, because there's always this thing, this conversation that we have with people, right? And you have it every time we talk about Islam, especially in the secular community. You'll say, yeah, this

terrible thing. And they'll go, well, Christians are crazy too. You know, you can't pick it. You're just picking on Muslims because you're a racist. But there are crazy Christians. And it's even in the movies, the Christian movies are crazy. No one's saying they're not, but they're in the movies, the Christian movies are crazy. No one's saying they're not.

But they're way less crazy than the Muslim movies. Firestarter doesn't end with him, like, punching Rabbi Ben Wilson in the dick. And then being like, I melt you with my laser Jesus powers. Because that's what happens in this movie. Islam takes everything to fucking 11. So that's what happens in this movie. Islam takes everything to fucking 11. So that's what I took away. Islam takes everything to 11. I think you're right because, you know, like, look, obviously the movie wasn't taking itself seriously.

So we can't, like, act like, you know, we can pick out really serious bits of it. But we can still kind of learn a lot about the culture based on the kind of things that the heroes said, that the heroes did. What the filmmakers assumed that the audience would find heroic things like forming a lynch mob killing all the humans if that's what it takes to get to the one that salman rushdie martyrdom killing infidels the preference of deafness over hearing the satanic versus audiobook those are all the kind of things that were supposed to be like the raw rock get the audience fired up moments in this film yeah it's it's fucking bonkers there was one point in the middle of the song uh the the final song where they just started rolling b-roll of mecca yep yeah during the final song they were like hey guys we are we are seven minutes short

do you have anything it's like well you know we did a vacation. We did like a family thing to Mecca. It's funny. We used the same camera. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be praised. We used the same camera. Do you just want people crowding around a big square?

We can do that. Just want seven minutes of people running around in a circle around a big black square. Yeah, let's do that. Because they're powering the engine of Allah's love. Apparently. This fucking movie. Oh my God. And even after all of that,

I just, I can't imagine anyone listening even has the vaguest clue just how bad this thing really is. No, and do not watch it. This is, again, I have made, I said, I have made it through all of our movies on a single watching. I watched Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas twice.

No sweat. I had to bribe myself to watch this movie. Every time I would watch 20 minutes, I'd be like, Okay, you did good, Eli. You get an episode of Scrubs. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. We're going to watch the early seasons when everyone was funny.

Come on. 30 more minutes and you can jerk off to porn. No, no, no. Don't you look at your phone. Because when you look up, they'll be in a different place. Yes. And time. And dressed like Batman.

And someone will be singing again. Well, Eli, once again, dude, cannot thank you enough for your masochism. Oh, thanks for having me, guys. Before we fly the coop tonight, I wanted to throw a shout out to a friend of the show, Don, the Statesboro Atheist. He's taking an 8,000-mile bike ride for charity this summer to benefit his local food bank. And if you'd like to help him help them, be sure to check out his Facebook page for details. You'll find a link on the show notes for this episode and also on the show's Facebook page,

which you should have already liked by now. Good luck, Don. And while I'm shouting out anyway, friend of the show and celebrity impersonating Farnsworth, quote her, extraordinaire Kevin as one of those big multiple of 10 birthdays coming up on Sunday. So an early happy 30th from all of us

at the Scathing Atheist, sir. May you live to see the cure for death, or barring that, have a lot of good sex between now and the grave. And speaking of Farnsworth quotes, apologies to Twitter's very own working class skeptic who provided last week's Farnsworth quote. I had to swap out quotes at the last minute and thus didn't have a chance to thank him last week, but that's not because we don't love you, bro. It's just that we're a bit overworked. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you this week. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more, but if you can't wait that long, be sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and be on the lookout

for our roast of God, hopefully coming soon to a video-sharing site near you. Obviously, I can't cue the music before I thank Heath Enright for never settling for a second-rate dick joke. I need to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for settling for a second-rate dick. I need to thank Eli for never backing down from a challenge, and I also want to thank the International

Guerrilla Action Trio of Ghulam Muheddin, Mustafa Qures challenge, and I also want to thank the international guerrilla action trio of Gula Muheddin, Mustafa Qureshi, and Javad Sheikh, all of whom gave better Batman performances than I'm expecting out of Affleck. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most venerable vertebrates, Robert, Roger, Michael, Marty, Philip, Chad, Mike, Abraham, Amy, Randy, Janet, Frank, and Derek. Robert, Roger, Michael, and Marty, whose ejaculations are the backup plan if the Large Hadron Collider ever loses a stream. Philip, Chad, Mike, and Abraham,

who make Atlas look like a pansy for using both arms. And Amy, Randy, Janet, Frank, and Derek, who have so much gravitas they form accretion disks. Together, this baker's dozen of bold, beautiful, brilliant blasphemers have bravely bestowed a bounty of benevolence upon us this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the enviable genetics it takes to give us money, but if you think your DNA is up for the challenge, We'll see you next time. or an oath on your grandfather's deathbed to never donate to a podcast until his kingdom was restored. You can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, or telling a friend about the show who won't try to throw holy water on you for bringing it up.

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. he's got a tickle in his tummy i don't know what to do on this i don't have a lot of notes