The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 117: My Chemical Bromance Edition

Episode Date: May 14, 2015

In this week's episode CNN pretends that coded biblical cancer cures are inherently less plausible than a Mike Huckabee presidency, we learn that Satan has a lot of black friends so he can use that word, and Professor Stephen from Atheists on Air teaches Noah how to go Smurf himself.

Warning, explicit content doesn't even begin to describe it. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new police procedural from the makers of Sharia Law and Order Sinful Victims Unit. Tune in next week for the premiere of Miami Vices, starring Ramadan Johnson and that vaguely ethnic brownish guy. Miami Vices, tubs, crockets,'s, and Insurgent Pockets, and now, the Skating Atheist. This is Princess Kay from the Transgender and Atheist in the South podcast reminding you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy trans monkey men.

Seriously, 5,000 year old transgender skeleton. Google it. It's Thursday! It's May 14th! And the capital-forming effects of military mobilization aren't really doing it for me anymore. I have no illusions.

I'm Heath Enright, and from agrarian economic modality, Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, CNN pretends that coded biblical cancer cures are inherently less plausible than a Mike Huckabee presidency. We learn that Satan has plenty of black friends, so he can use that word. And Professor Steven from Atheist On Air teaches me how to go smurf myself. But first, the diatribe. I already knew I was an asshole. So it was no surprise when Todd, the Don't Get Me Wrong, I'm an Atheist Too, confirmed it on our Facebook page. Sent me a long tirade about what a waste of time everything we do is, how we'll never get rid of religion, and how we movement atheists are a bunch of privileged jerks

who piss away our time barking at the imagined specters of persecution. And in evidence of what an asshole I am, he pointed to other more persecuted groups, both present day and historical, that were really persecuted. I mean, how can we bitch about somebody giving religious person-only discounts when other people are burned alive and or denied the right to vote? He then goes on to answer his rhetorical question, and it turns out that the reason we're able to bitch about that kind of stuff is because we're assholes. Now, I hear this a lot, even from prominent atheists and those that professionally plagiarize from prominent atheists. I saw David Silverman being demonized on Twitter for saying that atheists are, quote, the most hated group in America, end quote. Now, never mind that Silverman was pointing to a survey

that asked people what group they hated most. Never mind the fact that atheists consistently top the list when people are asked which groups they trust the least, which they like the least, which they're least likely to vote for, which they would least likely to see their family member marry. Apparently none of that matters to some folks because other groups have it way worse than we do. And look, that's as true as it is irrelevant. Atheists are, on the average, wealthier and more educated than their theistic counterpart. I think most of us would agree that we're way better off in American society than any number of other minority groups. Hell, that's

probably why atheist groups consistently dedicate so much of their effort towards gay rights and women's rights and transgender rights and the rights of racial minorities and the rights of minority religions. We know that there's a marked and qualitative difference in the type of discrimination we face and the type many other people face. But does that mean that we're not allowed to bitch about the inequities that we do encounter? Are we earning social justice one demographic at a time? Only the most persecuted group gets to complain? So all the rest of us have to wait for the disabled, black, Latina, lesbian, vegetarian,

Muslim with AIDS to get equality before anybody else gets to go? for the disabled, black, Latino, lesbian, vegetarian, Muslim with AIDS to get equality before anybody else gets to go? These Uncle Thomas Aquinas types will point out that the survey might not reflect reality. You know, after all, a person in our society isn't as likely to be honest with some random pollster about their racial prejudice.

So even if they secretly hate black people way more than they hate atheists, they're not going to say that. And you know what? There's probably some truth to that, but doesn't the fact that people don't mind telling random pollsters that they hate atheists support silverman's point and this paradoxical confluence of delusion just amazes me because at the same time that i'm inundated with unholier than thou atheist telling me that the pledge of allegiance and the religion on the money and the prayer discounts and the christian flags and national

days of prayer and the ten commandments monuments and the manger scenes on the courthouse lawn and the exclusively Christian public meeting prayers and the crosses on public property and the de facto exclusion from higher public office doesn't amount to persecution. I'm also listening to a bunch of paranoid Christians screaming that Chile is encouraging their employees to say happy holidays does. Ah, the status quo. What amazing powers you wield. Because that's all this is. It's a failure

to measure by an objective standard. You know, you get a 40-year-old atheist looks 20 years in the past and sees a lot of progress. We're more able to openly discuss our ideas. You know, being openly secular doesn't carry the same stigma it used to in most of the country. And the president even remembers to throw us a bone while he blurs the line of church-state separation at the National Prayer Breakfast. They see what they had, they see what they have, and they don't bother measuring either of those things against what they should have. Now, at the same time, 40-year-old Christian looks 20 years in the past and sees that they've lost a bit of their preferential status, right? They don't have the same power that they used to. They can't

get away with the same violations they used to. They don't have quite as much augmented equality as they once had. So they see persecution. Because, again, they're not comparing it to fair. They're comparing it to the status quo. But, you know, look, all of us are looking at the world from the perspective of the world. So it's easy to look at the progress and lose sight of the fact that social change doesn't just happen on its own. You know, it's kind of like how it's easier to convince naive parents to avoid vaccinations when they're not seeing measles and rubella everywhere.

Atheists see things getting better. They extrapolate ahead. They don't feel like we really need to keep vaccinating against fundamentalism so often. They think that the religious people will just take the nibble and not go after the bite. Or even worse, they think we've gone as far as we can go. See, the most insidious way that the status quo snuck into Todd's tirade had nothing to do with equality. It was more about inevitability. Now, usually I write off the you'll never get rid of religion altogether argument by pointing out that we'll also never get rid of murder entirely. It doesn't exactly excuse us from overlooking it now, does it?

But the more I gain perspective on it, the more misguided I think this argument really is. Because I believe that we can get rid of religion altogether, and in a sense, I think we already have. I believe that we can get rid of religion altogether, and in a sense, I think we already have. You know, imagine that you could take a Christian religious leader from 500 years ago and transport him to today. You know, you got some important European cardinal or something, gets into the DeLorean, comes to the present day, wherever he was from in the first place, and you show him today's religion, find out what he thinks of it.

Let him compare the power the church had in his day with the impotence that it has today. I mean, sure, the word religion is still there. The word God, the word church, but the concepts and institutions that those words represented five centuries ago are gone. You know, you might find something kind of like them in some parts of the world, but by and large, they're nowhere to be found. See, imagine that the Christian religion loses as much of their strength over the next 500 years as they lost over the last 500 years. You get so close to zero, you might as well call it gone. There is progress. There is change. This is the only time in human history when the majority of people were governed by secular institutions.

The secular world has already replaced almost every important function that the church served 500 years ago. They're still clinging to a couple of things, sure, but we're encroaching on them as well, and if history's any guide, the secular version is going to be way better than the religious one ever was. So stop telling me that we're never going to get rid of religion just because we've always had it. Everything that ever went extinct only did it once.

They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is perpetual adult film understudy Heath Enright. Heath, good luck someday making the main stage. I'm sure you got it in you. Well, actually, I believe the industry term is breaking a third leg. Oh, of course. Of course it is.

Well, the good news is that there's no such thing as a wasted flower. Always a worthwhile investment right there. Absolutely no such thing. In our lead story Always a worthwhile investment right there. Absolutely no such thing. In our lead story tonight, from the wrong cap and gown file, TNT Academy, a private high school in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, had a graduation ceremony last week that turned out to be way more racist than anyone expected. This was made possible by the school's founder and director, Nancy Gordick, whose remarks included a reference to the cultural stereotype she invented that day that

black people always leave events when they're over. Oh, would you like to hear how she got there? You know, honestly, I'm just dying to know how a suburban Georgia graduation ceremony ends up being racist. I just can't puzzle this out on my own. Please, details. This lady's the emcee of the commencement, and she forgets to include the valedictorian speech and accidentally tells everybody the ceremony's over. Whoops. Then when a bunch of people get up and start walking out because she told them to do that, she realized the mistake, and she gets back on the mic to get everybody to come back.

But it was a little too late. People were up, and she couldn't get everybody's attention of course that stopped being a problem when she finally yelled out quote look who's leaving all the black people end quote what yeah so that got their attention back i definitely had the floor once again absolutely but it's kind of relevant at that point what a bafflingly random bit of racism. What the fuck did she think was going to happen there? She's standing there ready to follow up with, am I right, the white people? And she just can't figure out what the collective gasp is all about.

She's expecting all the black people to say, well, we do believe in all the times. How is that supposed to go? Act like we don't leave events when they're over. So that was racist and awful absolutely um so it's that bit that i just and mine as well sorry everybody and despite white people in georgia being known for their graceful contrition in situations like this it actually gets even worse believe it or not but first the good news following the incident ms gorduck started with the right

idea i guess she decided to write an email to the school community to apologize for her terribly bigoted statement. Seems like that plan went awry when she didn't write an apology and instead blamed Satan for the racism. Oh. Yeah. So the message

she eventually sent included the phrase quote, the devil was in the house and came out from my mouth, end quote. The insanity plea. Gotcha, gotcha. Something about the devil coming in her mouth. But to be fair, she did say that she was sorry that the devil forced her to be a raging bigot against her will.

She did apologize for the devil coming out of her mouth. So the only way this gets any worse, if she uses the N-word, thankfully, she did not. No. But don't worry, her son took care of that for her. Yeah. This asshole went on Facebook

and posted a bunch of angry, racist responses to the situation, including, you guessed it, use of the N-word. Well, to be fair, it's actually the N-word with an A. So what? But he used the plural,

which is two or more times as racist. Exactly. I can't imagine where the kid gets that from. The devil. And from the Bible Chode file tonight, Mike Huckabee came under fire on a recent CNN interview for selling the email addresses of his supporters to a snake oil company, pitching a cure for cancer that Jesus hid in the Bible. So we'll get to Huckabee in a second, but first I want to explore this sales pitch we're talking about, because this is the concept your task was selling, right?

God made cancer, but he hid the cure in the Bible in such a way that almost nobody could find it, but we finally found it and have the ability to cure all the cancer based on the information that God coded for us free of charge. However. And we'd be happy to sell that to you. Right. How the fuck do you formulate that pitch? I guess God forgot to put anything about diabetes in there, because Huckster's still got a pretty foot-melting case of the sugars going on. Well, I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

They have to keep looking. Now, when asked about this spam-abetting misappropriation of his email list, Huckabee defended himself by calling into question Jake Tapper's epistemic certainty about the existence of catheters in adult diapers. I'm going to let that sink in for a second before I back it up with a quote. He has a quote. Here's Huckabee. Quote, do you personally agree with all the ads that run on CNN?

I doubt you do. I'm sure there are some for catheters or adult diapers. They're not products that you use or that you necessarily believe in. I don't hold you responsible for that. End quote. Okay, but when you buy, say, adult diapers from Depends, they don't send you, like, a coffee filter, some cryptography software,

and a copy of Rhyme and the Ancient Mariner. You figure it out. It'll work. Do a little math. That's why I stopped buying Depends. But yes, two of the many levels that analogy breaks down on. Number one, if Jake Tapper said he didn't believe in catheters or adult diapers, either as

medically useful devices or things that exist in the world, one could, should, and would hold him responsible for that. But number two, if CNN ran ads for a goddamn cure for cancer that was word-searched into the Old Testament, we should definitely give them massive amounts of shit for that and not make them the president. Be a reasonable decision, absolutely. And in just repair the right side of the road, that's where everybody drives, news tonight.

During an appearance on Fox News last Sunday, GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson explained his plan to cut government revenue in half by abolishing the progressive tax system and switching over to a flat tax of 10%. That's a great idea. Because that's how they did it in the Bible, is what he said.

Now, you might be thinking, no it isn't. That's what I was thinking., you might be thinking, no, it isn't. That's what I was thinking. And you'd be correct. You'd be absolutely correct. Tithing and federal income tax are two separate things, have been and continue to be separate things. Different words for them. You might also be wondering, though, which half of society he intends to shut down to pay for a giant tax cut for rich people.

Carson's still wondering about that, too. Has not decided yet, but it looks like he's leaning toward the poor half. Shutting down all the stuff for the poor half. That's more than half. And if he wants to stay biblical on this, I believe that he now has to let all the poor people have his unharvested wheat, and if any of them show up in the middle of the night to blow him, he has to send them away with enough food for them and their lesbian mother-in-law. And he doesn't get to get blown.

I've read the fucking book. I know how this shit works. So, here's the reasoning on this one from Carson. Oh, good. Quote, poor people have pride, too, and they don't want to be just taken care of. That's all they can afford. So this guy thinks that poor people are, I guess, super embarrassed about all the awesome stuff they buy with their untaxed money. And they all secretly wish they were being charged that 10%, at least subconsciously. So it's all about maintaining good self-esteem among the masses. That's why the flat.

And the rich people have all this extra self-esteem from being rich, presumably, so they don't mind taking the extra charity. They can afford to do that. It's all about taking pride from those who can afford it, just like Jesus. So how does this even... Good model.

Do you get rid of food stamps so that poor people look better in their bathing suits? Is that the plan here? That's pretty much the plan. You shut down public transit so they can't go to the places where people might mock their worn-out clothes? Is that how we're going to build their self-esteem? I'm not sure I understand how this all works out.

The poverty pride argument he's putting out here didn't sound quite right to me. So I decided to check on it. I've actually got all the poor people on the line right now. I'm just going to do a quick vote. So do you guys want more taxes, less and no health care or the opposite now hold on hold on don't forget the first thing comes with extra pride oh still no okay they voted it down they voted down what are you gonna do so yeah not sure where carson got his stats on all the poor people and their flat tax pride but i I just talk to them, so...

Yeah, well, and I just talked to Jesus, and his dad's still pissed that Ben fucked up that two-bodied head he was so proud of, so Dr. Carson doesn't represent them either. That shit was impressive. He just cut it right in half. What an asshole. Yeah.

And in the gaffe that keeps on giving news tonight, we have another stupid religious thing that Dr. Carson word-farted into existence last week, this time at the National Day of Prayer breakfast. Careful to come across as humble in front of the crowd of potential voters, the accomplished neurosurgeon made a point of reminding everyone who gets the credit for all of his successes, that would be the voices in his head. That's what happens when you do neurosurgery on yourself.

That would explain a lot, yes. It's like that M.C. Escher hand being drawn by the hand it's drawing thing. Except one of the hands is stabbing the other person in the brain with a scalpel off of the frame. Pretty much what he does. Not working out. Now, after explaining how he was so bad at chemistry, he probably shouldn't have been allowed to receive his degree, Carson told the audience that he prayed to God, and sure enough, that night God appeared in nebulous form and put all the answers for his final into his head like Neo-learning Kung Fu.

Oh, he's smart like Keanu. Good. Exactly. So here's a story that a presidential hopeful told a crowd of people that weren't his psychiatric team. So now there are, of course, two equally terrifying possible explanations for this. Either A, he thinks that prophetic dream delusions are just what voters want in a president, or B, he thinks that's what really happened. Good luck deciding which of those

two is scarier. And either way, he's got a staff full of people that didn't tell him it's definitely stupid to give a speech about that time God helped you cheat on that test. Whether he thought that really happened or not, not a good... Wow.

And in solemn remembrance news tonight, we have a sad story to report. At 7.24 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on May 6th of 2015, the scathing atheist had to bid farewell to a recent but much beloved friend of the show when federal judge John Gerard dismissed Sylvia Driscoll's lawsuit against all the homosexuals. Very sad moment for us. It was very depressing around here for really the rest of the day. Explaining that the plaintiff didn't have standing factual basis, legal basis, a named defendant, or the blindest fucking clue what she was talking about,

the much-anticipated trial was aborted before it could ever attach to the ovarian wall. Murder, by the way. I gotta say, though, it sounds like the judge might have left the door open for an appeal here, because if I remember correctly, Ms. Driscoll identified herself as the Plintiff, not the Plaintiff. And also, she did give an example

of a homosexual name to be her fake defendant. I think it was Alice Gay. Yes, A-L-I-S Gay. Yeah, that's correct. She's gonna get off on a technicality. Now, this is hilarious because he had to treat it like it was an insane decision was great. Gerard not only dismissed the suit, but also declined to allow Driscoll a chance to amend her complaint. So basically it was the legal equivalent of saying, you are currently so full of shit that we cannot imagine a scenario in which you cease to be full of shit.

All right. So I guess he pre-canceled the appeal. Unfortunately, yeah. Probably a smart move by the judge. He's really fucking us on material, I got to say. Wow. Maybe we can help all the gay people mount a countersuit or something. There you go.

P and the V is sinful. We don't know. Defendant there. Now, I do also want to reiterate my offer to fully fund the proceedings if Driscoll wants to continue to pursue the matter, though since she's now more desperate, I've added a few stipulations. So if we're going to do it now, we have to do it in Australia, and we have to have a real kangaroo

as the judge, and the decision will be based on whichever bucket of kibble that the kangaroo goes to in the end of the trial. Okay, then if she agrees to all that, I'm still in. And while Sylvia mulls over my offer, we'll hand things over

to the lovely Lucinda Lusions. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she wants. If it's a legitimate rape. If it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man!

This Week in Massage. Somehow I've managed to scrape together yet another international tour of increasingly horrible manifestations of male privilege for you. If you listened to the last installment, you'll recall that I promised something exceedingly horrible this week, and surprise, surprise, I found something. But before we get into that, we'll start with some good news. Good old Pope I-don't-do-the-nickname-bit Francis is continuing his commitment to meaningless gestures of goodwill to distract the media from his glaring lack of actual reform. This week he's doing it by sending out emissaries to forgive all those sinful women who murdered their 16-celled pre-children.

That's right, the Vatican is sending out what they're calling missionaries of mercy to remind women who have had abortions, as well as doctors and nurses that have assisted in the procedure, that God still thinks you're evil, but he's willing to forgive them. And if that sounds suspiciously like not changing their policy at all, congratulations, you're starting to catch on to the Pope's MO. And as patronizing as that little backhanded photo op is, the segment is going to get a lot worse from here on out, because the next subject is rape, and the story comes to us from that progressive Mecca, Malaysia. And it turns out that according to Parekh Mufti Tan Sri Harasani Sakaria, who is a person

apparently and not a hockey team, there's no such thing as marital rape, because wives don't have the right to refuse their husband to begin with. He even backs that up with verse by pointing out that his perverted child-fucking prophet once said that even when you're riding on the back of the camel, when the husband asks her, she must give. So yes, part of being a proper Muslim wife is the occasional camel handy. That's giving a guy on a camel a handy, by the way, not beating off the camel. As misogynistic as their culture is, I felt like that needed to be clarified. So, one story about abortion, another about rape.

How do we make this all worse? How about we combine those topics in a 10-year-old? This one comes to us from Paraguay, not 1826 like I first suspected. This absolute horror of a story starts when a 10-year-old girl is raped by her stepfather, then takes a turn for the worse, yes, for the worse, when her government refused to allow her to abort the resulting fetus. It seems that in Paraguay, abortion is only legal if the life of the mother is in danger, and apparently only when it's really in danger.

The likelihood that she'll make it through this pregnancy without serious damage to either herself or the fetus is vanishingly small but that doesn't matter because health minister antonio barrios can think of another time a 10 year old got raped and had a baby without dying i'm vexed this vexes me so sorry but it looks like i'm gonna have to leave you on yet another horrible note. I've got my fingers crossed that nothing in next week's news cycle is going to be worse than that one, but if past performance is any indicator, I'll be closing on a similar apology next week. And with that, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in wait-till-they-get-alone-of-me news tonight, a commonly held suspicion in the atheist movement gained a bit of academic credit last week when newly published research supported the notion that theists' antagonism towards atheists is largely based in the defense mechanism that surrounds their fear of death. In other words, atheism poses what lead research Corey Cook described as a fundamental threat to the belief systems that mitigate the believer's fear of death. Yeah, this is so ridiculous.

Basically, religious people see someone walking down the street wearing a lab coat, and they're thinking to themselves, fuck you, scientist, I'm immortal. That's what's occurring to you people. That's crazy, statistically. Now, the study, which was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, demonstrated a marked increase on hostility and mistrust towards atheists when subjects were primed with thoughts about death. So they used people's feelings towards Quakers as a control and noticed no difference in negative attitudes towards them after similar priming.

So perhaps the most depressing finding of this study is that in all groups, control and otherwise, people thought we were significantly worse than Quakers. It didn't work out well. Otherwise, people thought we were significantly worse than Quakers. It didn't work out well. Ed, just for the record, if religious people truly believed what they claim they believe, then they shouldn't feel any resentment toward atheists. Right. The nice religious people should feel bad for us that we're going to hell,

and the shitty religious people should be happily mocking us because we're going to hell. But there's no reason to be mad at us if you're certain we're wrong about the God thing. Now, perhaps even more interesting were the findings from the second study, happily mocking us because we're going to hell. But there's no reason to be mad at us if you're certain we're wrong about the God thing. Exactly. Now, perhaps even more interesting were the findings from the second study, which suggested that asking participants to write about atheism was actually a more effective priming for fears about mortality than asking them to write about death. Really? So the conclusion is that atheism is kind of like a flanking maneuver around the fear of death barricade that religion builds for them.

So they've been taught to withstand the frontal assault, but atheism undermines the entire defense. And throughout most of history, the strategy was kill the flankers, and it was fine. But I guess now several countries have laws against murdering heretics. So I guess they've resorted to unfulfilled murderous rage in those countries. It's got to be tough. Not as many nations as I'd like, but several, yeah. And as useful as this data is, they really fuck the puppy at the end when they advise atheists to avoid, quote, militant denunciation of theistic conceptions of reality and those who adhere to them, end quote.

So what am I supposed to do, deliver fucking pizzas? That's what I do. That's all I got. You got a damn fancy way of saying sit down and shut up and they'll like you more, don't you? Now, my conclusion, based on the same data, is that there are way too many grown-ups that haven't come to grips with the fact that there isn't really a farm-up state where Sparky lives.

I can't help but feel that that's the more important sociological takeaway here. And in different hoax for different folks news tonight, faith healer Adam Miller has been embroiled in an online feud with skeptical YouTube vlogger Stephanie Gatormsen ever since last December when she posted a video that explained how his business is based on a whole bunch of fraudulent claims, which it is. Nonetheless, Miller filed a lawsuit against her last week, seemingly unaware that there's nothing illegal called formation of character. That's if you're allowed to just say things about people that are true. True. Yeah, that's probably not the best strategy when you're a mewling quack. I wonder if this guy realizes what he's doing here. You know, if things go the way he seems to want them to go, he's going to have to go in front of a court of law and defend the following statement as legitimate medical advice. Quote, it is in the return to the knowing and learning the guidelines and in seeing one's circumstances for what they allow that creates miraculous transformations.

End quote. That's an explanation of his business. You couldn't get that by a fourth grade English teacher. You think you're going to get it through a judge? So did not take much digging to get an idea why one might be skeptical of Miller's operation. Here's a quick review of some key areas on his website. Let's start with his superhero origin story on the bio page. Oh, please.

Miller claims he got his powers in 1977 by dying as a professional figure skater and then coming back to life as a faith-healing zombie warlock. Oh, of course. He had a death experience from double pneumonia at 109 degree temperature. He died for four and a half minutes. He left his body and had a magnificent experience outside of the realm of Earth. End quote. Yeah, but after that bit, it starts getting hokey.

Yeah, now, all right, here's the crazy part that I found on his FAQ page. First question, by the way, on the FAQ page. What form of payments are accepted? So not a great sign. First answer. Cash, PayPal,pal gold or silver which i'm pretty sure is the same rules as when you buy black market uranium from a super villain so yeah it is possibly a red flag there too i'm just saying page also claims he can, take out any illness at the cellular level, regardless of severity or cause, end quote. So if you have any atomic or subatomic illnesses, you're kind of fucked.

Oh, clearly. It's not so versatile when you read the fine print, is it? That's why you check. And in case you're still wondering how much you should hate this fraudulent asshole, I should point out that among the myriad miraculous abilities he's willing to charge you for is curing you of poisoning. That's actually on his fuck. It's hard to imagine

a benign use of spiritual antidotes for poisoning. Awful. Now, here's a few of my favorites from the rest of the list of things Mr. Miller claims he can heal. Very first one, by the way. First one on the page. Cancer of any kind and any stage. Of course. Very first one, by the way. First one on the page. Cancer of any kind and any stage.

Of course. Very next one. Tumors. Well, are... Also, he can cure injuries of any kind. Also a separate category called car accidents and head injuries. Doesn't he know how Venn... He has no idea how Venn diagrams work.

Also diabetes, gout, AIDS, skin issues. That's important. Removal of spells, hexes, and effects of witchcraft. Also, undiagnosed diseases, and of course, incurable diseases. That's right. This guy claims he can heal someone of their incurable disease that they don't even know they have. And he's filing lawsuits against other people. Un-fucking-real.

And in airbag saves windbag news tonight, evangelist Dr. Phil Kidd is clearly liked by God more than the 35,000 people God will kill on American interstates this year, which God demonstrated by protecting him from harm when he quadruple-rolled his new Jaguar at 65 miles per hour. After the accident, he bragged about how much God favored him by pointing out that he walked away unscathed, his hair wasn't messed up, and the $900 ink pen never even came out of his shirt pocket. Yeah, the Mont Blanc. Yes, so if your family member was one of the 96 or so people that died on American highways last Tuesday and you've been wondering where God was in your time of need, at least now we have an answer. He was looking out for Pastor Kidd's ink pen. They're really nice pens though. They really are great. You can even write upside down with them, which can be useful if you ever

find yourself trapped upside down inside your mangled luxury car after an accident. You need to, I don't know, exchange insurance information with somebody. Right, right. If that ever happened. Write something about how awesome God is. Now, among the many people that God cares for less than Dr. Kidd, apparently, is Dr. Kidd's wife, who was also in the car at the time. So while God was force-fielding Phil's hair, his wife was busy getting a couple of vertebrae fractured and will need to spend the next six months in a neck brace. So yes, in the wake of the accident that broke his wife's neck,

this asshole sent out a Facebook message about how nice his hair looked after the accident, but actually lamented the fact that the car didn't make it. No mention of his wife on the status. Wow. Thought about his hair, his sports coat, and his ink pen. Not so much the lady in the passenger seat. Mysterious ways. Yeah, right.

And finally tonight, from the Gay Bashar file, we have an unconfirmed story from British tabloid The Daily Star reporting that ISIS is attempting to seek out and murder closet homosexuals in their population by employing so-called flirting squads of undercover agents. Oh, sounds legit. genocide is no doubt a subset of everyone that's not fundamentalist sunni muslim genocide granted i'm still inclined to believe this specific claim is based on nothing of substance so that's why we're not going to report on it oh but now that we're on the subject of unvetted stories about jihadist spooks infiltrating iraq's underground secretly gay juice bar scene we'll need 30 seconds on the clock ideas for the homosexual mole hunt spy movie go

obviously Richard Gere shows up this isn't the kind of homosexual mole hunt I had in mind guys what if it's a female hamster just saying alright how about three gays of the condom I have to pronounce it all British

condom three gays of the condom what about twinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy? I'd be surprised if that movie didn't already exist. All right. How about we move to a little 00 semen here? Maybe Pussy Deplore? What about Block the Pussy Beaver Dammers?

Experts in lesbian trap. Of course. More James Bondage. How about The Bi Who Loved Me? Perhaps. What about Men in Black in Black Men? Again, probably already out there.

Maybe A Mission Impossible? Ghost Booty Call? I'm sorry, that's terrible. I withdraw. I pass. What about National Glandestine Servicers? Knox, Block, and Cox. Nice. Taking it like a man from Uncle.

Jesus, just to underscore how crappy mine was. Okay, how about Jack Reach Around? Never go back to mouth. The big Wee Child fans like that. One more, one more. How about Jerk Gently's Detective Agency? Of course. The honey dicks for British guys only.

And while we brainstorm some fun new functions for the electric monk in that story, we'll bring the headlines to a close. Heath, thanks as always. Jumanji! And when we come back, Professor Stephen will be here because you can never have too many chemist friends. Professor Stephen will be here because you can never have too many chemist friends. I recall a talk I once heard from Matt Dillahunty of Atheist Experience fame where he lamented the failure of the skeptical movement to fully embrace atheism

and, at the same time, lamented the failure of the atheist movement to fully embrace skepticism. Well, our guest tonight might just be the skeptical atheist synthesis that Dillahunty had in mind. You might know Professor Stephen from his snake oil woo-woo busting on Atheists on Air, and you may also remember him from possibly the greatest Farnsworth quote of all time. Professor, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you very much for having me. I am so glad to finally have you. Now, I should also mention that many of our listeners might also know Professor Stephen from his guest appearance on Cognitive Dissonance just a couple of days ago. And knowing that we share a lot of listeners, normally we try to avoid having a guest on that those guys just interviewed. But luckily for us, Professor Stephen has promised to be far more interesting and engaging tonight than he was on their show, so it'll be a whole different experience. Really appreciate that, sir.

Yeah, no problem. Now, for the record record are you a real professor or do you just play one on a podcast i just play one on a podcast it was a it was sort of a joke you know like uh the professor character on sid caesar's you know show of shows that kind of thing i was going to sort of play a character like that and then i didn't i just was myself and so i kept the name uh although technically I was an adjunct professor. I taught chemistry labs at a local college for a while, and they called me professor. So it's not completely misappropriation of credentials.

So are you a chemist? That's what you do now? Yes, I am a chemist. Yes, I have a master's degree in chemistry. Awesome, awesome. There are some compounds that might not be legal that we can talk about later that I wouldn't mind you popping up for me. But, you know, like I said, we'll discuss that off the air. But this is what I find very interesting. I didn't realize this until I heard you on Cognitive Dissonance, but you were a fundamentalist Christian until very recently, correct? That is correct, yeah, until about three years ago.

Okay, so now that overlaps with the chemist thing? You were a fundamentalist Christian chemist? Yes, I was. Okay, so that seems worth exploring to me. Did you ever see a contradiction between what you were learning in school and what you'd learned in church? I tried to avoid taking things that would contradict what I learned in church. Well, I would think all of the scientists would do that to something. Yeah, exactly.

Skip the chemistry part, yeah. Yeah, you know, I thought chemistry was a safe one because, you know, what did it have to do with the Bible? But then whenever you study chemistry, you study kinetics, and then you study mass spectrometry, and then you can study dating the Earth, for instance, isotopic abundances and kinetic times. So even then then there were things that you know i just like well i won't i don't want to study that part because i i the scientists must have it wrong because it disagrees with the bible so i won't study it i just compartmentalized things so you you like majored in cognitive dissonance that was great that they had yes i

did i did i majored in cognitive dissonance, exactly. Okay, so now if all of this actual book learning and whatnot wasn't enough to crack your fundamentalist show, what was? That's a good question. Well, the book learning did help. It did help because when I was working on my master's degree, I really got into sort of the philosophy of science, how we do it using inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, that kind of thing, plus experimentation and that sort of thing. And I realized that I hadn't really applied that. I'd applied that to most things. Like I was already an anti-snake oil person at that point.

I already advocated against a lot of myths and bad science out there, but I had never applied it to my personal belief system, my faith. Right. I just sort of made that separate. It had to be true, you know, for various non-rational reasons, like, well, if it isn't true, then I don't know anything really about how the universe works. I don't know what happens after you die. There's a good chance nothing does.

My parents and I and everyone I love have been wrong all our lives. I dedicated my life to a series of myths. All those reasons. I was finally, I guess you could say, brave enough to sit down one day on the toilet, as I talked about on Cognitive Dissonance,

and start thinking of... Where all the great thoughts come from. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I sat down in the toilet and thought about I applied the logic that I'd learned to what I believed about God and

realized, wait a minute. This doesn't make any sense. I shouldn't believe in something until I have evidence for it. And the evidence I thought I had wasn't really evidence. It was just emotions. You can induce emotions in a person with electrodes or drugs. It doesn't prove anything.

Well, I think we should try with the drugs anyway. I don't care if it proves anything anyway. So now I'm afraid we've gotten so in the weeds on all of this weird being a Christian and a chemist at the same time concept that I'm afraid we're going to end up skipping over my favorite thing that you do. A lot of people will know you from Atheists on Air for all of the snake oil woo-woo segment stuff. It's a wonderful little exploration into cognitive dissonance and insanity.

Now, before we actually get into that, I want to kind of define our terms. What is snake oil woo-woo? Well, I would define that – those are two separate terms, of course. Snake oil being the term for just fake medicine coming from the era of the snake oil salesman where there was even someone who literally sold snake oil. Well, I say literally, not really literally. Literally claimed to sell snake oil. It wasn't actually snake oil salesman where there was even someone who literally sold snake oil. Well, I say literally, not really literally. Literally claimed to sell snake oil. It wasn't actually snake oil.

Wow. He was lying squared too. Awesome. Yeah. And of course, woo-woo, meaning the bullshit sort of spooky explanations people give for various things they claim are true. or various things they claim are true. So snake oil woo-woo would be the bullshit pseudoscience explanations for fake medicine.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Now I know that you talked at length about one of your least favorite pseudosciences with Tom and Cecil, so rather than going back over that discussion of homeopathy, I want to present our listeners with a homeopathic dilution of the explanation that you gave on their show. This doesn't make any sense. So could you give us like a non-homeopathic example of something else that you might highlight on the Snake Oil Woo Woo segment? Oh, absolutely. One of my favorites that I've done before is colloidal silver.

Okay. That doesn't sound real. It's a thing. Okay. That doesn't sound real. It's a thing. It's silver particles dispersed in a liquid through a colloidal suspension. And because silver is known as an antibacterial agent, somehow drinking this shit or rubbing it on your skin will cure you of all things.

What's drinking silver? Drinking silver, yes. Vampirism. Yeah, no, that's useful stuff. Yeah, it's good if you're aware of it. Right. Okay, so now, that strikes me as a bad thing. Is that dangerous as ever, love and hell, or

is silver inert? Not specifically dangerous. It's fairly inert. I mean, it can cause large quantities of it can cause problems with your kidneys and liver and things. But in general, it's pretty innocuous, especially at the levels that most of these people are selling it at, which are near homeopathic anyway. But the reason it's one of my favorites is because some people really get into it and either manufacture their own, which is much more concentrated, or years ago, they had much more concentrated solutions before the FDA stepped in and sort of cracked down on it.

And if you take lots and lots of silver into your body, it goes to your skin. It preferentially comes out into your skin. And then it develops like a black and white photograph. Really? And you turn blue. This is a real thing? You can smurf yourself by ingesting silver yes correct there's a fellow named paul uh carison who blew himself he blew himself he looks like he looks like papa smurf

if you look him up he looks like papa smurf all right i feel bad laughing at the guy but uh i'm sure once i see the picture i won't um oh yeah that's why it's one of my favorites because it's just so ridiculous. So would you say that that's – I mean, I guess at a certain point, this is like asking you to pick the ugliest toenail fungus. But would you say that that's the wackiest form of woo that you've come across so far? Not really, no, because that's just based on a misunderstanding of how silver on the outside of your body can be antibacterial while it's inside your body. It's not really going to do anything. At least it's something that isn't completely out there. I think the thing that I think is the most wooey

is magic words on water. Oh, yes. The angry and happy words. Yes. There's an entire company called Aquamantra. Oh, God. Of course there is.. Of course there is. Of fucking course there is.

Premium natural spring water is simply water that resonates with the energy and frequency of your well-being. What? It's premium. The quality of your thoughts determine the quality of your life, and now you're water. We deliver powerful messages to you through the mantras, I am grateful, I am healthy, I am loved, or I am lucky. So they talk to the water and then sell it to you? Yeah. This is the kind of thing that Gwyneth Paltrow raises an eyebrow at, I do believe.

Exactly. I wouldn't put that in my vaginal steamer. That sounds ridiculous. Wouldn't even work, I would imagine. Water's bullshit. Exactly. I want to know who the I am grateful water is for. Does anyone just buy that?

Or do you buy that for your, like, ungrateful little prick of a nephew that's sneaking into his coffee or something? Okay, so let me ask you this, man. Are we doomed? I mean, like, if somebody out there is buying the mantra water, is there any hope for the human race, you think? Oh, it does make one kind of depressed, doesn't it? I think so. I think what I'm doing here, and I think what you're doing on your show with your – is it called the Is This Bullshit segment? How bullshit is it? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me give it with the echo. Do you want to do the echo yourself?

There you go. How bullshit is it? Right. That's it. That's awesome. Maybe we can educate some people. Unfortunately, we're only educating atheists, but – and maybe a few Christians who listen to our program. Yeah, probably not ours.

Maybe yours. Maybe yours. You guys are – you take some calls and stuff like that, and like you're – I wouldn't say you're friendly to them, but you're not like us. It's good that we don't take calls. Yeah. That's probably a good thing. Oh my god. I couldn't even imagine the shit people would say on your show if they could call in.

I wouldn't be worried about what they would say. No. I wasn't either. I wasn't either. Just be death threats. I have a clean mouth, but this guy is ridiculous. I say fuck sometimes. I refer to Irromancio here and there.

So, like, but in your opinion, though, I mean, because I know it's not just idiots who are buying this stuff. Maybe the mantra water, but, like, you see very intelligent people who buy, you know, you see Fortune 500 companies, you know, paying feng shui consultants and blood typing perspective in place. So why do intelligent people buy into this shit? That's a good question. I think it's because of a lack of education on certain topics. There are a lot of intelligent people who don't know the first thing about science because it's not prioritized. And they're not taught critical thinking. They're taught superstitions.

A lot of intelligent people are religious. And whenever you're taught religious myths are true, it's not a hard leap to start believing all kinds of crazy things. Well, you come back to education several times. So let me dig into that just a little bit because, like you said, we educate ourselves. And very much we're kind of talking into an echo chamber with a lot of this stuff. I would imagine most of our listeners already know colloidal silver is something that you should avoid. So how do we bring this message to the rest of the world? Because what I see – okay, I got a buddy who's a rational guy.

I see some Zycam on his counter or whatever. And if I try to engage him about that, what I usually find is, okay, they've already bought into the bullshit here. They're already invested in the Zycam or the airborne or whatever. And so when I bring it to them, like I get a lot of anger and resistance. Is there, in your experience, a best way to approach this subject with people? That's a good question because for a lot of people, it's very much like talking about religious concepts or the supernatural.

They've already sort of invested themselves into it. And so they're, as Mark Twain said, it's easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they've been fooled. And so it's difficult because it hurts their ego. I know it hurt my ego whenever I realized that I was full of shit when it came to God. But I was a scientist so I was used to feeling like I'm full of shit. Because in science, you're usually wrong

and you do experiments and say, damn it, I'm wrong again. But a lot of people don't like that feeling. I think maybe the best thing to do is to sort of be gentle about it. Because what happens if you're too strong in your attack on the snake or what have you, it makes them sort of double down and want to defend it even more and really start believing

it even more. So I'm thinking the only thing I can think of is just present them with the evidence and leave it at that. Yeah. No, I'm with you. It's just so frustrating sometimes when you see somebody that you care about, somebody that you love getting ripped off, and there's just nothing that you can do about it. Exactly. It is frustrating.

And I think another thing, though, I think that we have a problem in this country with a lack of regulation. There's a lot of skepticism of science. So they don't want to, you know, we have this on the right. We have skepticism of science because of their Bible disagreeing with reality and scientists arguing for reality. So they're skeptical. So they say we come from monkeys and they say there's millions of years old. So I can't trust them when they say that I shouldn't be taking collodial silver for my boner problems, you know?

And then on the left, we have this, oh, well, all the mainstream medicine, that's all from big corporations that have a vested interest in keeping us sick. And so what you've got to find is some non-mainstream cure that actually works. It's almost like hipster medicine. Right. Like I don't take medicine that actually works. I take medicine no one's ever heard of.

It's insane. It's insane. And I honestly don't know how to solve this problem. It seems like literally mental illness to me. Right. I think that you actually may have hit on it, though, because I think that the only real way to solve this problem is preemptively, and that's by teaching people critical thinking. And that's where I think the atheist skeptical movement really needs to convene, because the reason that we don teaching people critical thinking. And that's where I think the atheist skeptical movement really needs to convene because the reason that we don't get critical thinking in schools I think is because of what it would do to religious belief. Right, exactly. So the one set of bullshit is in synergy with the other set of bullshit. Yeah.

Right, and these people who are religious are willing to take the bullshit, you know, homeopathy and mantra water if that's what it takes to get to keep their religion as well a lot of the times. Right, exactly. We'll let you have the, you can massage their aura as long as they don't question there were all the animals on an ark. Exactly. I'll buy your shit if you buy my shit. Exactly. Right, exactly. We've got to protect the bullshit it's important support all right so let's say i get into an argument about this i want to be ready maybe you could walk us through some good counter arguments to for example i can imagine somebody arguing in favor of the placebo effect you know maybe if you buy something called the

holistic pathic herbal health supplement, it can help you believe that something's happening. So the question is, how do we get the placebo effect ethically? That's a good one because you can actually get a little bit of the placebo effect if you give yourself a sugar pill knowing full well that it is a sugar pill. You can get part of it even knowing that it's completely useless. Exactly. But the theatrics of, say, acupuncture make it an even more potent placebo.

But the other thing is that you get the placebo effect anyway, even if you take medicine that works. So if you have medicine that actually will treat what's wrong with you, you get the actual chemical medicinal properties of that medicine plus the placebo effect. Wow. Okay. Well, that's a great answer. Okay. Right. So there's no reason to use placebos if we have good medicine there.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I got to say, you know, I could probably talk to you all night and keep getting interesting information out of you. Unfortunately, the show has a limit. talk to you all night and keep getting interesting information out of you. Unfortunately, the show has a limit, so if you want to hear more of this fine southern gentleman, you can find him on Atheist On Air podcast with our good friend Cash.

You can find them at AOA.FM or by following the link you'll find on the show notes for this week's episode. Professor Stephen, thanks again for your time, sir. Oh, thank you. It was great. Run grab the young'uns, folks. It's time for Lucinda Lusion's Bible Stories for Kids. Gather round, boys and girls. Today we're opening our Bibles back up to 1 Samuel

and learn how David went from a lowly liar, plucking shepherd, to king of all of Israel. Last week we learned how David, Dennis the Menace, Goliath, to death from a distance and got mistaken for brave. Well, after that, everybody and all of Israel loved him. But nobody loved him more than Saul's son, Jonathan, who was probably gargling his man gravy. But don't worry, boys and girls. As we'll learn later on, David wasn't all the way gay,

and he was a top, so God didn't hate him. In fact, quite the opposite. God loved him even more than all the citizens of Israel. All of that made Saul pretty jealous. After all, he was the king, so the people should love him the most. But what could he do? Everybody thought David's shit didn't stink, so if Saul had him killed or something, the people would like him even less. So instead of getting rid of David, Saul decided to show everyone that he wasn't as tough as they thought. So Saul offered David his beautiful daughter Michal for a wife, but only if David could collect 100 Philistine foreskins.

Do you know what a foreskin is, boys and girls? It's a retractable flap of skin on the end of a penis. Now if any of you boys are thinking, hey, I don't have one of those, don't worry. That's because your parents paid somebody to chop it off while you were fully conscious as a baby. So anyway, David set out to collect 100 chunks of Philistine dick. But as you can imagine, the Philistines didn't want to give David any of their dick. So he had to kill them, cut off their members, toss them in a bag, and carry them around until the end of the day when he had time to slice off just the foreskin.

Now, most people would hate running around and randomly killing people just to slice pieces of their dicks off, but David was having so much fun with it that instead of bringing Saul 100 foreskins, he brought 200 and traded the giant bag of necrotic dick flesh for Saul's daughter. Well, that sure didn't make Saul any less suspicious. Now, all the people were singing songs about David being 10 times more of a badass than Saul. So the king decided to kill his young rival. But wouldn't you know it? Jonathan warned him.

So he was able to escape before Saul showed up. So Jonathan took David to the edge of the kingdom, gave him some food and a rusty trombone, and said goodbye. Well, David decided to hide in a cave, but pretty soon Saul heard a rumor that he was there, so he took a group of people out to murder him for daring to be more beloved. So they set out into the mountainous regions to find David, and while they were looking, Saul had to stop and take his shit. Well, wouldn't you know it, he stepped into David's cave to do his business.

So while he was straining, David snuck up on him and cut off a piece of the king's cloak. But Saul was apparently taking such a loud, raunchy shit that he didn't even notice. Then, once he left, David climbed high enough where Saul's whole army could see him, held up the piece of Saul's cloak and yelled, I could have killed you while you were taking a dump, and compared to the way I killed Goliath, that would have been valiant,

but I didn't, so please leave me alone. Well, Saul did leave David alone, but not because he wanted to. With the war going strong back home, he had to abandon his plans to murder David and go back and be king some more. So David left to live a life of endless wandering like the Hulk, afraid he might never see his homeland again. Will David ever inherit his throne? Whatever happened to David's wife? And what the hell did King Saul do with the couple hundred wrinkly fetid rings of Philistine dick? Find out the answer to one of these questions, but not the others,

next week on the exciting conclusion of the story of David. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show that could care less about people using meaningless turns of phrase. Our first message comes from Don in Chicago, writing in response to a bit on our sister show, The Skeptocrat, about his hometown and his pride therein. Don writes, quote, Hey, hey, hey, talk about our racist cops, our stinky neighborhoods, but do not, I repeat, do not talk shit about our pizza, goddammit. End quote.

Even had a recommendation for the best place to go called Lou Malnati's, I think. And I'm actually told they make a mean bread loaf parmesan over there. So thanks, Don. Appreciate it. If I ever want hot gazpacho in a gluten diaper, I'll go check out Lou Malnati's in Chicago. Sounds fantastic. We also got a message from everyone not in Chicago agreeing that you guys need to come up with just a different name for your breaded tomato product, which I'm sure is fine. Just don't besmirch the good name.

Anything else. Anything but pizza would be fine. Anything but pizza would be fine. We also had an email from Ben, who writes, quote, love the show, guys and gal, and hope you could offer some advice on a problem with a proselytizing prick at my place of employment. He's a Mormon and wants to argue religion constantly, but we just keep having the same damn conversation. And even when I point out exactly where his logic breaks down, he carries on and then wants to have the same damn conversation later. Imagine that. Weird. He's the one guy like that.

I can't imagine that ever happening. Continuing, I've lost my patience. I don't want to keep engaging him, but I also don't want him to think he won the ongoing argument. I can appreciate that. Any advice on an argument or veiled insult that can end this nonsense without getting me reported to HR? End quote. Great question.

I'd say, first, off the top of my head, fill up a water pistol with some iced coffee and shoot it at him like you're training a cat when he does stupid shit. Off on it. Get off the table. Yeah, and if that doesn't work, then you upgrade from iced coffee to just regular coffee. And use a firm tone with him.

Like when you spray the cat. And finally, we got a Facebook message from Christopher who asks, quote, do the cognitive dissonance guys smell like cheese in real life? Because I feel like they might. Well, Chris, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. But I really got in there a couple of times when I met him. And it was more than just cheese, if I'm being fair.

Also hints of Polish sausage, and a Soussaint of terra firma, which is dirt. I don't know, I think Polish sausage is a little generous. Maybe Vienna sausage, but... That's all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep sending us those emails, tweets,

and Facebook messages. You'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. Before we bring out the closure tonight, I want to remind everybody that as of this recording, we're only a couple of dollars away from our next Patreon goal, at which point we're going to be upgrading our equipment. A few people got in touch to very politely suggest a few potential upgrades, so that should be happening in the very near future, but if you'd like to help speed it up, you can make a per-episode donation

at patreon.com slash skatingatheist and possibly live the rest of your life knowing that you're the one who pushed us over the goal. But enough about giving us money for the moment anyway. I'd be in dereliction of duty if I didn't thank the Renaissance reprobate he then, right, for his multifaceted powers of sarcastic vulgarity. I also want to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for all her

wonderful details about David's bag of dicks. Of course, I want to toss one more thanks to Professor Stephen for lending us his wit and wisdom tonight. You should definitely check him out on Atheists On Air if you haven't already done so. The dude's fucking hilarious, especially when he gets worked up about something. He's also more comfortable in his own skin than just about any person I've ever

met in my life. Awesome guy. Also want to offer a big thanks to Princess Kay of the Transgendered and Atheist in the South podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote and a damn interesting Google hole to fall into if you're so inclined. You'll find a link to her podcast on the show notes for this episode right alongside the one for AOA, but most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most marvelous

mammals, Robert, Michael, Joshua, other Robert, Josh, Richard, Gregory, Emily, Joe, Jason, Aunt Dan, and Wally. Robert, Michael, Joshua, and other Robert, whose mighty erections have created new schools of thought about how the pyramids were built. Josh, Richard, and Gregory, who can't safely use the pull-out method without a rear-view mirror.

Emily, Joe, and Jason Ott, who are so bright they're immune to silhouettes. And Dan, and, quote, semicolon, Wally, and, quote, semicolon, Sempec, who can use ampersands wherever the fuck they want. Together, these 11, 12, or possibly 13 cunning individuals have brought our world one step closer to secular heel in this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the generosity, discerning taste, and irresistible

genitals it takes to give us money, but if your junk is up for the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation that I was telling you about 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 that gold-hoarding leprechaun still eludes you, you can also help us a ton by telling your hell brown heathen friends about the show

or giving us a stellar review on iTunes. 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. In our lead penis tonight... Oh, Freudian slip. You'd be amazed how much that happens when we record together.