The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 133: Life After God Edition

Episode Date: September 3, 2015

In this week's episode, Lucinda does this week in misogyny and the New Testament equivalent, rednecks in Louisiana discover a rare species of local jew during a vigilante cryptography patrol, and former pastor Ryan Bell from the Life After God podcast joins us to tell us if he misses pasting.

Warning, this podcast contains words that some people have arbitrarily chosen to be offended by. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new chain of barbershops for almost Amish dudes, Hair Club for Mennonites. Is your chinstrapped neckbeard making you feel ridiculous? Of course it isn't. You're not Amish. You're a hip, forward-thinking Anabaptist. You like your house heated, your scotch neat, and your hair trimmed like an employable adult.

Hair club for Mennonites. Like Amish with cuts. And now, the skating atheist. This is Dan, Matt, and Ryan from the Godless Revolution podcast. Wait, wait, wait. Revolution? Like, with a B? Yeah, revolution. It's a portmanteau combining rebel.

A rise in opposition. And revolution. To overthrow a social order. Making revolution. Oh, all right. I get it. That's cool. All right. Should we do this then? Yeah. Yeah.

An atheist podcast. In the heart of Utah, in the middle of Mormondom. Is proof that we did, in fact, evolve. Wait, wait. Evolve? I thought we were created by jesus and ronald really what i it's filthy monkey men right right okay all right we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men It's Thursday It's September 3rd

And despite what they say about birthday candles Antonin Scalia did not resign in disgrace last week And now that you told us your wish, he never will I'm Noah Lusians I'm Heath Enright And from Pork Belly, Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, Lucinda joins us for this week in misogyny and its New Testament equivalent. Rednecks in Louisiana discover a rare species of local Jew during a vigilante cryptography patrol.

And former pastor Ryan Bell will be here to tell us if he missed pasting. But first, the diatribe. When I was a kid, we used to make a weekly family trip to the library. I bet those don't happen anymore. But but you know, my little sister would get a book about cats, my older sister would get one about horses, my brother would get a sci-fi fantasy, and then I would grab the weirdest shit I could find just to fuck with my mom. I wasn't going to read it anyway. You know, if they made me stare at the pages, I would just

imagine little cartoon characters running across the top of the letters, so it didn't matter what the book was about. I might as well root through until I found something about badger taxonomy or the history of the loom, just to keep her guessing. So one day I picked up a book on druidic history, and on the way out, my mom catches a glimpse of the back cover, which has runes in it, right? And as soon as she sees this, she freaks the fuck out and demands that I hand the book over, looks at the title, she says, oh, okay, and hands it back to me. Of course, I'm wondering what the fuck she

thought it was, so I asked, and she answers back, I thought it was something occult. fuck she thought it was, so I asked. And she answers back, I thought it was something occult. Well, that's where my love of reading was born, folks, because if anything was going to freak my mom out to that degree, it was plenty enough to pique my curiosity. So I started gobbling up everything I could find on the occult. You know, I knew in advance that I was going to have to sneak this stuff around my mom, but that was the only reason I was interested in it to begin with. You know, look, my mom was a rational person as far as I knew, and these books were about how to wield magical powers. So it stood to reason she was afraid I would learn to throw magical fireballs. Now, keep in mind, this is the mid-80s, right? This is

basically the apex of the satanic panic. There were specials on TV about secret satanic black markets and child flesh, and there were lawsuits alleging that daycares had secret satanic baby stealing tunnels that ran all over the country. There were postcards showing up in our mailbox about the dangers of Satanism. My teachers were warning us to be leery of the devil worshippers. Irrational fear was a national pastime at that point. I mean, it still is, but back then it was Satanists and commies instead of Muslims. And my mom probably thought, you know, that the Satanists had just snuck a book into the children's section of the Belleville Public Library in hopes of luring me away from the light of Jesus. Logical conclusion, I guess.

And of course, if there's anything that irrational fear is good for, it's breeding more irrational fear, right? Because from that point on, I entered into this dark and fearful chapter of my life. I was scared of all kinds of shit that doesn't even exist. I was terrified that I'd be abducted by aliens or visited by ghosts in the night or victimized by black magic. After all, my mom thought this stuff was real. My dad thought this stuff was real. My teachers seemed to think this was real. The authors of these books seemed to think it was real. The people on TV seemed to think it was real. Why the hell would I doubt it? I saw TV shows like Unsolved Mysteries that would present the story of people who claimed they were shanghaied by little gray humanoids and subjected to violent medical examinations

without bothering to mention that the people making these claims were crazy enough to bite rabbits to death. You know, I didn't grow up with a fear of hell, but I was afraid of shit that was just as imaginary, and I stayed there for a really long time. I eventually traded my fears of malevolent spirits and extraterrestrial anal probes for fears of secret world-ruling cabals that would soon enslave the free people of Earth as soon as they got done hiding symbols in corporate logos and music videos, but I just kept on being afraid. Now, I bring this all up because I want to make it clear that I do empathize with people who are swallowed up by these imaginary fears. You know, when I see these assholes that we cover every week are screaming

about how all the gays and the butt sex are going to make God send earthquakes or whatever, I pity them. You know, I make fun of them. Sure, that's my job. But first, I pity them. I try to put myself in their shoes and I try to think about what it must be like to wake up every morning and feel like you need to check to make sure the sky is still there now that the queers can get married. You know, what must it be like to walk through life animated by a fear of the devil or hell or God's holy retribution? I mean, look, of all the wonderful things that a scientific worldview has to offer, a life free of irrational fear is probably the most appealing. Rationality cuts through fear like a double-edged sword because not only does it alleviate all the silly alien abduction and hell shit,

but it also informs you about the real dangers you might realistically face and shows you the way to mitigate them. But you need the rationality because how are you supposed to concern yourself with petty shit like your tire pressure when you're worried about truly important stuff like the fate of your immortal soul?

Religions deal in fear, all of them to one degree or another, even the silly hippie ones. And atheism is no panacea. You know, I know plenty of atheists that are terrified of GMOs and black holes popping out of the LHC. The cure for irrational fear, obviously, is rationality. Atheism is more like a side effect. is more like a side effect. They're talking about your Jesus. They interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight is the winningest team owner in the history of the Fantasy Football League of Sinister Secularists, Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to draft already or what? I am. But you know, it's less for me and it's more for all those European listeners out there

who cannot wait to hear updates about our fantasy teams throughout the season. They do love it when we do that in our lead story tonight from the jade double murder file demonstrating one of the ways to use a legally purchased firearm last week disgruntled former employee of a virginia tv station vester lee flanagan walked up to the filming of a live segment on the street and murdered reporter all Parker and cameraman Adam Ward on live television. Yeah. And this part wasn't reported by plenty of major news sources, but Flanagan was a Jehovah's Witness who believed that God told him to commit double homicide.

That happened. Right. And I mean, it's easy to look at this as some sort of double standard just because if the guy had had a brown people religion, that religion would have been the first word in every headline. But the key difference is that Muslim God is fake. So when Muslims say God told him to kill people, we know it's bullshit. But Christian God, I mean, he might have told this dude to kill these. He couldn't be reached for comment.

So you don't report the rumor. That's just journalistic integrity. I'll come to their defense on that one. So apparently Flanagan sent ABC News a 23-page fax just before his suicide explaining his motivation for the shootings. Among other things, the manifesto included grievances about racism and homophobia. Quick detail, despite Vester Lee Flanagan sounding like a KKK presidential assassin, he's actually a gay black man and went by the name Bryce Williams as a news reporter. Despite also very clearly citing his Christian god Jehovah as the divine inspiration for the murdering, this entire angle of the story was systematically ignored by the very same news sources that often carry headlines like Muslim jaywalkers ruining America. Right. And in Koran so far away news tonight, Islam got just that much harder to believe this week when radiocarbon dating suggested that the world's oldest Koran may very well predate the birth of Muhammad himself.

That's the manuscript, isn't it? The manuscript was recently discovered in a collection at the University of Oxford. Isn't it? The manuscript was recently discovered in a collection at the University of Oxford, and even before the radiocarbon dating, it was already fucking up Islamic history by probably existing while Muhammad was alive, despite the doctrinal belief that the work wasn't codified until after his death. And while the radiocarbon dating does provide just enough wiggle room to fit into this story, the book definitely predates the accepted year when the Quran was first compiled. So an older testament of some sort. Yes, yes. Fascinating. It's almost like the entire religion was plagiarized from existing material in order to control large groups of people. Yeah, that's almost...

Plagiarized from existing materials to control large groups of people. Right, yeah. Exactly. It's bullshit to the fourth power now. Of course, if you assume that the true date of the manuscript isn't at the very far reaches of the margin of error, it means that the book was compiled when Muhammad was a baby at the latest.

And that assumes that this manuscript was the first Quran ever written, which is astonishingly unlikely. So while it would be premature to say this is proven, the current evidence strongly suggests that Muhammad received the Quran in much the same way that Kim Jong-il invented the helicopter. Just like transformers are a gift from God. We made a flowchart. Has Reza Aslan denounced radiocarbon dating as Western imperialism yet?

Sure, he'll be on the show soon. Well, he can just copy off of Ken Ham's notes, I'm sure. And in ass transportation news tonight, Canadian bus driver Jesse Rau announced his refusal to perform his job last week after finding out that the transit authority for the city of Calgary, Alberta, might ask him to operate a vehicle painted with several colors of the visible light spectrum. How dare they? Mr. Rau seems to think the Bible says something about refusing to perform labor that involves the display of homosexual colors, I guess. And since all the colors are officially gay now,

I guess he's divinely required to avoid tasks that involve physical objects, unless, of course, they're invisible. Right, right. Yeah, because I guess if he goes through a tunnel while he's driving this thing, God's going to mistake that for butt sex. Religion has actually given this guy enough cover to personally justify quitting his job over something like well i ain't driving a fag bus people yeah honk at me and think i'm gay it's great work they're doing over there

at religion so here's what happened calgary is set to host their annual pride festival later this week and therefore decided to make one of their buses rainbow colored for several days. Awesome. And as we all know, if you step inside a rainbow colored enclosure of any kind, a gay dude puts his penis inside you, which is unacceptable to Mr. Rapp. Never works for me, by the way. I've tried. So upon hearing about the driver's protest, the city's response went something like this.

Uh, great. We accept your resignation. Nobody hates you anyway. hearing about the driver's protest, the city's response went something like this. Great. We accept your resignation. Nobody hates you anyway. You should go move to Montana and get shot by a gun. Lots of points for Calgary. Good stuff, guys. Oklahoma would love to have you. And in pre-terrorized news tonight, residents of a small town in Louisiana reminded us where

all the stereotypes of residents of small towns in Louisiana come from last week when multiple sources contacted the Sheriff's Department over what they believed to be a terrorist threat written in Arabic. The sign that caused the kerfuffle was later identified as a welcome sign written in Hebrew, though to the credit of the concerned citizens, both Arabic and Hebrew are languages. I'm sorry. They got multiple reports. Yes.

Captain, the switchboard's blown up somebody wrote something in jew downtown we're in iceland we're not sure dispatch dispatch red team go red team go send out the tanks motherfuckers now before we dig any deeper i want you to take a second and picture these two languages side by side arabic on the one side, Hebrew on the other. Not similar. No, Hebrew is as easy to mistake for Arabic as Chinese or Egyptian hieroglyphs. So the actual series of events is,

what's that there sign about? No idea. You reckon it's terrorists? Reckon it could be. Reckon we should call the law? Reckon we should. That happened multiple times in a morning from different fucking people. What's worse, it was such big news that a local NBC affiliate almost ran with the story

before an astute Facebook follower pointed out that the sign actually says, Welcome home, Yemmett. Okay, this is actually less reasonable than the London reporter that confused dildos for Arabic at a parade. Yes, yes. Dicks and butt plugs look more like Arabic than this welcome home sign did. Binary code looks closer to Arabic than that welcome home sign. No, okay, so let's set aside that part for a second. Confusing Arabic and Hebrew is like confusing Japanese and emojis.

And instead, let's examine the underlying stupidity of the narrative they're assuming here. Okay, so residents of Gardner, Louisiana, an unincorporated community with a population of under 2,000 that's nowhere near anything. So like all of them called that day. Naturally assumed that ISIS is going to attack the Exxon station on 121 or Levine's General Store over by Brown's Creek Road, which as near as I can tell, by the way, are the only businesses operating in this fucking community. And what's more, they further assume that the terrorists would want to forewarn the thriving Muslim community in the area with a get the fuck out of town sign that the white people couldn't read because that's how terrorism works. What did they think it said? UPS, deliver plutonium round back.

If you can read this, don't call the police. Seriously, don't. And in shilling for the mensch news tonight. ESPN baseball analyst and retired pitcher who occasionally menstruates from his ankle, Kurt Schilling, is still allowed to use Twitter like a full-grown adult despite repeated incidents that suggest he's not yet mature enough to handle this big boy responsibility. The most recent such example came last week when he tweeted an image of Adolf Hitler, complete with some stats he made up, that suggest Muslims are just like Nazis. Hmm.

Which in turn led ESPN to suspend Schilling from his current assignment at the Little League World Series. Finally. So here's the exact words from the image he sent out. Keeping in mind, the most evil man in history is in the background, wearing a swastika on his sleeve, doing a heil. Quote, it's said that only 5 to 10 percent of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7 percent of Germans were Nazis. How did that go?

End quote. What? Is that how statistics? Hey, Kurt, about 51 percent of Christians? Fuck dudes. Huh? Bet that'll keep you up tonight. Fucking dudes.

So, a couple of things. First of all, it's said isn't the source of a statistic. That's nothing. That's nothing. But more importantly, it's wildly inaccurate. Still, not quite as stupid as trying to debunk the entire field of evolutionary biology with 140 characters. A hobby of Schilling's, but pretty close. Almost that stupid. And with that, I guess we'll cover this show in a little sock blood and pitch it over to my lovely wife, Lucinda.

A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. Then it's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny.

You know, I have to walk a pretty fine line with this segment. I come on every week to talk about stuff like forced birthing of incest babies and women being punished for getting raped. And I have to do it without bringing the comedy aspect of the show to a screeching halt. So when I look at all the stories I might include in this segment, I have to wait each one to see if I can possibly talk about it without leaving you too enraged to chill out and enjoy the 30 seconds on the clock a bit. And I'll admit that sometimes I come across stories that are just too horrible to talk about.

But once in a while, I also come across stories that are too horrible not to talk about. So I apologize if the story fucks up your ability to sleep as much as it did mine, but I think we all need to stop for a second and reflect on the fact that this is happening on the same planet and in the same century that you currently occupy. So this story comes to us from rural India, and that's a pretty bad sign right off the bat. Not exactly known for the progressive politics and sensible methods of jurisprudence to begin with. But the only silver lining on this story is the fact that everything else the Indian justice system has ever done just got bumped down one spot on the most misogynistic ruling list.

Because as near as I can tell, none of those other rulings involve sentencing women to be raped. Yeah, you heard me right. Two women in India were sentenced by a local council to be raped, then paraded through town naked with their faces covered in soot. And if you can believe this, the story gets even worse. Because if you're asking what these women did to earn such barbaric retribution, you're asking the wrong question. Because they weren't sentenced to rape because of anything they did at all. This was their brother's punishment for having an affair with a woman of a higher caste.

at all. This was their brother's punishment for having an affair with a woman of a higher caste. Yes, a man was convicted of having an affair, and as punishment, his sisters are going to be raped and tortured. Oh, did I mention that one of them is a 15-year-old kid? The only shred of good news is that the two girls escaped before the punishment could be carried out and are currently on the run. But even if they manage to avoid this disgusting fate, the fact that anyone thinks this is okay is enough to make me physically sick. But if you're pissed at me for fucking up your mood, I want to demonstrate the upshot here by adding one other story to the segment this week. A Catholic priest was sentenced to six months in jail this week for groping some lady's tits while she was asleep on an airplane. This conviction came despite his rock-solid excuse he offered in court.

The sleeping woman never resisted. Now, as fucked up as that would normally be, it kind of just rolls off you after that last nightmare of a story, doesn't it? So with a quick, you're welcome, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in WTFFRF news tonight, we have the latest, but hopefully not the last, on the ongoing saga of a blatantly illegal Ten Commandments monument that sits in front of a public junior high school in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. Now, this story began in 1957,

when the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the monument and didn't really get going again until the year before last, when the FFRF noticed the monument. Now, to their credit, the district tried to do the legal thing by boarding the monument up and seeking a local church that would take it as a donation, but a public backlash reversed their decision and the Constitution, and the monument wound up back where it started. While it was boarded up, did the kids start, like, stealing stuff, murdering people, worshipping Baal? Was that a big issue?

Middle school kids just, like, masturbating all over the lady next door for several months until they reined it in with properly displayed instructions about that stuff. Is that a big issue that middle school kids just like masturbating all over the lady next door for several months? And so they reined it in with properly displayed instructions about that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Because if not, how the fuck is this an issue? So after a couple of years of legal wrangling that included the downright comical claim that the monument was secular because of the 4% of it that had an eagle on it, somehow balancing out the 78% that had the Ten Commandments on it, the FRRF asked for and received a summary judgment from U.S. District Judge Terrence F. McVeary. And while McVeary isn't buying the secular argument and wasn't even buying the it-doesn't-violate-the-Constitution argument,

he somehow stopped short of actually ordering the monument to be removed. Yeah, and the school district literally argued that the monument has an overall secular message. Yes. A large engraved list of ten things that starts with, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. That plus a bird equals secular. Yes, exactly, exactly. So now this stay of execution apparently comes from a technicality involving standing

because the original suit was brought in 2012 by the family of a student who has since graduated. So basically the courts are saying that they need at least one more victim before they're going to do anything about this. And finally tonight from the female Jewish Kirk Cameron file, TV actor, anti-vaxxer, and neuroscientist with severe cognitive dissonance Mayim Bialik made headlines last week after whining about the lack of religiosity in the entertainment business during an interview with Fox News. According to Bialik, quote, it's never going to be trendy to be observant or religious in Hollywood circles, end quote. And loosely translated, that means I have no friends out here because I'm awful.

Yeah, yeah. Insufferable. Keep at it, Mayim. I'm sure somebody will eventually be the first successful Jew in Hollywood, and it might as well be you. So despite having a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, and presumably the type of high IQ that often goes with that, this woman's opinions on just about every other subject she talks about are stupid and dangerous. Unfortunately for people that don't want diseases, Bialik earned

celebrity status as the title character of Blossom in the early 90s and maintained that status more recently as a cast member on The Big Bang Theory. And this level of moderate fame has allowed her to become a somewhat influential voice in the fight against empirical medicine. So just to be clear, she's not a real scientist who insists on reliable evidence to inform her opinions. No. But she plays one on TV. So not a method actress.

Or a method thinker. No. Neither. And if we have any listeners out there who are hoping to murder several hundred children at Disneyland, check out Mayim's misinformed celebrity lifestyle blog, Grok Nation. It's like Gwyneth Paltrow's goop, but with less vaginal laser beams and more Old Testament. And now that we're on the subject of disease-spreading TV actresses, who are probably going to need more work soon.

That's right, Gwyneth, you're a TV actress now. Eat it. We'll need 30 seconds on the clock. Extremely dangerous pseudoscience TV shows. Go. I like it. I like it. Dr. Oz could use some competition.

So how about the Morgellon Degeneres show? You'll get a delusional affliction and you'll get a delusional affliction. I know that's not Ellen Degeneres, by the way. What about the Typhoid Mary Tyler Moore show? Oh, nice. Nice. How about Mad About Eugenics? Anti-Vax of Life.

Nice. Muppet Rabies. Everyone loves rabies. How about Curb Your Anthroposophy? Unscripted, that. How about Philicide? Death on the Streets. How I'd Vet Your Mother Now.

Yeah, there you go, there you go. Intelligent designing women It would be just like the original But they'd all just be doing whatever the hell their husbands told them to The entire time How about schoolhouse pox Poliokemon Oh, nice

Ricket fences Alright, I got a good one How about thimerosal in the family It's the story of the Mercury family As told through their matriarch, Ethel. Well done. Thank you. All right, I got one more. How about Outbreaking Bad?

19 dead kids and counting. I guess now that we've reached our quota of dead kid jokes, I guess we can close out the headlines. Heath, thanks as always. Boggle! And when we come back, former Seventh-day Adventist pastor Ryan Bell will be here to tell us what the fuck he was thinking for all those years. A few years ago, Ryan Bell was just your ordinary run-of-the-mill Seventh-day Adventist pastor, but he made waves in the atheist community in January of 2014 when he embarked on A Year Without God, which he documented on his blog.

Now, since announcing this decision, he's become a sought-after speaker at atheist and secular conventions. His journey is the subject of an upcoming documentary. He's the host of the brand-new Life After God And he's also our guest tonight Ryan, welcome to The Scathing Atheist It's a pleasure to be here Well, before we get to the interview proper I have a bit of a mea culpa So the listeners that have been with us for a while

Might recall hearing your name around episode 48 Would have been January of 2014 You were actually the lead story in our one year anniversary episode And I hope you're flattered by that because the rest of this isn't as flattering. Okay. I'm super flattered. All right. Good, good. Glad to know it. It hit me with the rest of it. All right. So now I should say in advance that when I read your initial blog post and the

coverage about it, I got the impression that this was less about reexamining your own faith and more about trying to see how the other half lived. And I should also warn you that when I got into this business, Hemant already had the friendly angle covered, so I had to go a different way. So with all of that in mind, I want to read you a quick excerpt from episode 48, where I referred to your efforts as, quote, well-intentioned but silly, since the only prerequisite and in fact the only feature of atheism is not believing in God. And if he isn't going to do that, then

this is largely an exercise in celibate masturbation. My slightly less reserved co-host Heath compared it to, quote, a white person trying out being black for a year by dancing better. So. But now you're here to defend yourself. So tell me, what did we get wrong? What did it mean to you to go a year without God? Oh my gosh, that's so great. First of all, congratulations. That was a brilliant critique. Well, thank you. And when I started out, I really didn't have a clue what I was doing.

So I didn't know that there was an atheist community per se or that there were blogs and podcasts and all the rest. I was really just at the end of my rope in a way. I had been a pastor, as you said, for nearly 20 years, and I was let go from my position as a pastor because I had become little by little too liberal for that denomination, which was Seventh-day Adventist Church. And then I basically came to the end of 2013 and thought, I don't know which way to go here, and I think maybe there's not a God. And I've sort of had intuitions about that in the past, but kind of put them on the top shelf so I didn't have to worry about them. And now I feel like I need to worry about them. So I really started that year in an effort to try to examine my own faith, but also to really figure out what is atheism. Now, I guess I already dropped the title of your new podcast, so that spoils the suspense.

But your year without God was over nine months ago. So where are you now in terms of the big G.O.D.? I feel like I'm an atheist. I would also consider myself a humanist because I think that's what's left from being – after being a conscientious Christian and losing the supernatural part, I think what's left at the end is humanism, is really caring about people, caring about the earth and all living things and trying our best to live as good, ethical human beings. So that's kind of where I'm at now. Now, it sounds to me like, and I might just be misinterpreting this, but it sounds to me like you were almost afraid going into this that you were going to lose that humanism, that you were going to lose that desire to help other people, almost like you felt that that came from your religion. Is that an accurate assessment, or am I just reading that in no i think that's right i i don't know that i would have said

it quite that clearly at the time but i did learn my ethical viewpoints from christianity and i don't think it's necessary to learn them from christianity but that's how i learned mine i i i learned to be honest and fair and kind and loving and compassionate from being a Christian. Not everyone learns that from being a Christian, by the way, as you well know, but I did learn my ethics from being a Christian. And so I think I probably assumed that religion was in some sense essential or necessary for being an ethical person, although I did know people, plenty of people, who were good ethical people without being Christian.

So that was the beginning of the cognitive dissonance, maybe, is knowing that not everyone who is a good person in the world is necessarily a person of faith. And so, you know, what do we do about that? How do we, you know, account for that? Right. And then, of course, on the flip side, as you already mentioned, not person of faith. And so, you know, what do we do about that? How do we, you know, account for that? Right. And then, of course, on the flip side, as you already mentioned, not everyone of faith is a good person either. Correct. Yeah, that's right. Now, obviously, I've already admitted that Heath and I were more than a little skeptical when we first heard about this. But setting us aside, what kind of reaction did you get from the atheist

community at large? I mean, it was mixed. I mean, I think Hemet Mehta sort of almost epitomizes the reaction because the first day his blog post was, to the former pastor who's trying on atheism, you're doing it wrong. I think that was the title of his blog post. Two days later, he was raising money for me. So it was like, okay, I guess. And see, my reaction to Hemet was to say, I wrote a blog post and said, well, this guy says I'm doing it wrong. So I'm starting this effort to learn. So please tell me how am I doing it wrong? And I didn't mean that sarcastically at all. I really meant like, well, apparently I'm doing it wrong. I've been told by the Christians

that I've been doing Christianity wrong all of my life. So apparently now I'm doing atheism wrong. So please somebody help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. And again, I didn't mean that in a kind of a fuck you kind of way. I really meant it in a like, okay, so maybe I am. I mean I'm new to this. I'm doing it wrong. So please tell me what I'm doing wrong. And people have been super awesome about it.

doing wrong. And people have been super awesome about it. I mean, I think some people rightly corrected some things that I had probably started with some wrong assumptions and premises that weren't necessarily factual or accurate and helped me straighten that out. I think the most common one that I continue to encounter in my own life now is this idea that to be an atheist, you have to know that God doesn't exist. You have to have been able to prove it, that God doesn't exist, that the burden of proof rests on atheists rather than on Christians who are making the claim that God does exist. And I think I inadvertently sort of fell into that. I don't know that I have enough confidence to be an atheist. And people fairly kindly and quickly said to me, you don't need to have that kind of confidence to be an atheist. All you need to do is really say to yourself, I don't have enough evidence to believe that there is a God, and that's all it really is.

Yeah, actually, I have yet to encounter a non-agnostic atheist in my life. Actually, I have yet to encounter a non-agnostic atheist in my life. So now, obviously, the question that everybody wants to know is, what did you learn from all of this? And I'm sure that is an enormous question, but I kind of want to break it down into three parts, and one of them we've already touched on. So first, what did your year without God teach you about atheism? That's a really good question. One thing I think I learned is that it's as diverse as any other group of people.

So if anybody thinks that there are atheists, and by atheists, you know, we all sort of march to some similar kind of drum, you know, that that's simply not true. But at the bottom of it all, we all want to know, if we're honest with ourselves, we want to know the truth. And that quest for the truth is something that I find really appealing about atheists. So I don't know. I was surprised at how many internal fights atheists have, which reminded me a great deal of the church, actually, and the way that we have fights over what the Eucharist means. Right.

You know, like, no. Oh, wow. Are we that bad? I mean, we haven't started any wars over our struggles as far as I know. No, not quite. No, it's mostly just, you know, Twitter wars, you know. It's not actual wars. Over whether or not that Down syndrome baby should be born at all.

Yeah, I got you. Right, right, right. So now the obvious part, second part to that question is what did going a year without God teach you about religion? Boy, you know, it is hard to say. And I feel like religion is a powerful tool which can be put to good and bad uses. And I just know too many Christians, some very, very personal friends, close friends of mine who put their religion to good uses. And I realize that means that they're being highly selective about the Bible and they're being highly selective about their theology. And yet they draw a great deal of good out of their religious convictions.

And then there are, of course, without even needing to explain it, plenty of people who use their religion for horrible ends from ISIS on down. It's sort of like I've likened it to fire. You know, fire can warm you and cook your food and keep you alive in a storm. And it can also burn your house down and burn you. So it's dangerous. You know, it's dangerous. And even when I was a pastor, I said, you know, religion is dangerous. It's not to be treated lightly. It certainly has been used for horrible ends. So I guess I'm a bit agnostic about the virtues or not of religion. Well, no, I will say that's a great analogy, but where the analogy breaks down is that fire is necessary. way of achieving sometimes the warming of the house other than fire, whereas most of the benefits, or I would argue all of the benefits of religion, can be achieved through humanism, through philosophy, through other means.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll still keep your house warm, but there are, I think, these other methods of doing the same thing that don't lend themselves to burning the house down. I agree. I think, for me, I tend to think contextually, and I guess another way of saying that is historically about most things. And if we look at the history of morality and religion, we find that ethics evolved religiously. And then in recent times, we've sort of not needed the supernatural

stick or carrot i suppose um and we've just sort of understood in more humanistic and rational terms what is you know for the greater good and what is not and of course we have still have robust debates about you know what really is best but you right. I don't think we need religion to be good moral people. So now just kind of bring this all around to a close. And again, I apologize because these are huge questions that I'm asking and we don't have a whole lot of time left, but we've already asked what you learned about atheism and what you learned about religion. I guess most importantly, what did the year without God teach you about Ryan Bell? Importantly, what did The Year Without God teach you about Ryan Bell?

Oh, boy. These are great questions. I think I learned a lot about the capacity that people have to hold contradictory evidence, intention, and not feel the need to resolve it. evidence, intention, and not feel the need to resolve it. Because what struck me was that for years I suspected that evolution was the explanation for how we arrived in our current state. But I was not allowed to say that from the pulpit. Other colleagues of mine in science departments and Adventist colleges had been fired for even suggesting that evolution might be true or that they were rumored to be teaching evolution to their students. And in my mind, I thought, well, you know, every time I'd watch Jon Stewart and he would make fun of some, you know, creationist, whatever, or, you know, it would

come up in the cult, what do I know? And I would just sort of put it on the back burner, you know, evolutionist, creationist, whatever, or, you know, it would come up in the cult of what do I know? And I would just sort of put it on the back burner, you know? And what I learned about myself is that I have a remarkable capacity, probably like most people, to compartmentalize my thinking and to hold contradictory evidence and not feel a particular burden to resolve it all the time. And that eventually leads to cognitive dissonance that's unbearable. And then people begin to say, now hold on a second, I can't anymore live with these two ideas in my head at the same time. I have to let one go. That's a remarkably honest introspection it's one of those things that's very easy to see in other people yeah you know it takes a lot more to see it in yourself what we need is that electronic monk from dirk gently celestic detective agency if you just had

that so now i've only got you for a few more minutes here we haven't talked about your new podcast yet uh life after god so my first question, obviously, is why you got to be stepping on our turf, man? Me and Heath have been here in the podcasting thing for years. We don't need any help. Respect, respect to you guys. Oh, okay. All right. Well, in that case, no, I'm obviously, I'm kidding. I'm always happy to see new podcasts popping up, but there are quite a few atheist podcasts now. So what did you think that you could offer the podcast listening world that wasn't already out there? The goal in Life After God is a podcast, but it's also more than that.

I mean what we're trying to do, and I have a few friends that are helping me with this, notably Greta Vosper, the United Church of Canada minister who has been an atheist for over 10 years, and her congregation is sort of theism optional. What we're trying to do is hold a space. It's sort of like, I've been trying to think of the appropriate analogy for this. It's sort of like a decompression chamber. So it's a space between belief and unbelief. And I know that atheists would probably say, you either believe or you don't. There's no in between. But – and I sort of – I understand what they mean, people mean when they say that. But I would also argue that there is this space where people are like, I don't know what to call myself. I don't feel comfortable thinking of saying I'm an atheist because I have all these questions about how does it all fit? Why is there something and not nothing? And why is the universe seems so perfectly fine-tuned?

And I need to explore all these things. And yet I know the Bible can't be perfectly true either. And I'm just in this middle of this space of unknowing. And Life After God, the goal is to hold that space for people. We're offering coaching for individuals who need or want someone to just kind of walk with them through that process and give them some critical thinking tools and some just guidance in terms of maybe what to read or how to think about a certain kind of problem without an agenda for their life. Because the church has an agenda for your life. They say, God has a plan for your life, and so do we.

So the last thing I want to do is to say, I have a plan for somebody's life. But sometimes people would like a companion to walk with on that deconversion thing. So my podcast is designed to bring people to the microphone who are either on one side or the other of that sort of middle ground, but who are keenly sensitive to that middle space that are saying like, this is the complexity. This is what it's like to deconvert. I anticipate sharing lots of stories of deconversion and what it was like for people. Because I find that people that are deconverting, when they hear stories of deconversion, they go, oh, yes, that's exactly how I feel. Well, and I think too, like, you know, for people like myself that never

had religion, it's super useful to have an opportunity. You know, it's very hard for me to step into the shoes of a believer because like you say, for me, it's a binary thing. Either you believe in God or you don't. This middle ground doesn't make any sense to me. And I know that through reading your blog and now hopefully through listening to your podcast as well, that's afforded me an opportunity to understand these people that I meet every day in a way that I never was able to before. So I thank you for that. Well, and I actually think – I was thinking about this just this evening on my drive home. I thought, I really believe that critical thinking will lead people the right way, whatever the right way is. I think if you think critically

about things and you're deeply honest and courageous, I don't have to manipulate anyone into believing something. It's not a sales job. It's simply providing a safe space for people to ask the questions that they already have in their minds. I don't have to give them the questions. People that are honestly questioning the world, they have the questions already. It's almost like what I needed was permission to ask those questions. And for years I had been told by my church and my denomination and my employer, you're not allowed to ask those questions. You're not allowed to go – you can't go there. And the minute I wasn't employed by them anymore, I thought, well, damn it.

I can go there. Like I can ask those questions now. And when I started asking those questions, the rest sort of took care of itself. And I really feel like people will find freedom, whatever freedom looks like for them, if they just have that space. And so that's the kind of thing I'm trying to do. Awesome. Well, for whatever it's worth, I want you to know that I am on my 39th consecutive year without God.

And in my experience, it just gets better as you go. So you've got a lot to look forward to, sir. That's incredible, man. I'm working on year two, so I got a little catching up to do, but I think it's been great. Right on. And of course, if you want to check out Ryan's new show, you can check out lifeaftergod.org. You can find it on iTunes, or you can follow the handy link on the show notes for this episode at skatingatheist.com. We will also have a link to his blog there as well. Ryan, thanks again for joining us tonight. Thanks, Noah. I appreciate it so much.

You bet, man. Good luck going forward. The Holy Bible. When I glanced ahead in my Bible and I saw that the Pauline epistles were coming to an end and the pastoral epistles were starting, I made an ass out of me and umption and thought we were done reading letters from Paul. And we are in a sense because these are fake letters from Paul, but so was the last one. So nothing has changed. Apparently we're still reading fucking letters from fucking people pretending they're fucking pop fucking old. But at least this one addresses an important societal issue. And of course I'm talking about how bitches need to be quiet in public or go wait in the truck.

Wow. God, yeah, there's plenty of that. So we're going to be knocking out 1 and 2 Timothy this week, also known as the pinnacle of New Testament vagina loathing. And despite biblical proclamations to the contrary, speaking in public alongside us this week will be the lovely Lucinda Lusions. Lucinda, welcome back. You know, as short as this book was, I probably would have made it my way through it in about 15 minutes if I didn't have to keep going across the room and picking up my damn Bible. Yeah, no shit. There was some Chuck-worthy shit in this one. I will give you that. So go ahead and start us off if you would. Well, we can start with a positive note. Unlike

all of the other letters from Paul and letters from fake Paul, this one doesn't start out with eight pages of God thinking. He basically says, I'm Paul, Jesus, Jesus, grace, peace. Now let's get on with it. Right. And right away, it's suspect because this letter writer, who's allegedly Paul, never says anything like, you know, I'm Paul. Yes, the real Paul who sounds just like this when he's not lying. And I'm real Paul. And as we all know, that's the signature phrasing of real Paul's writing.

So I'm skeptical right away. Usually gets to that pretty quick. And in case you're wondering, the it in Let's Get On With It refers to everyone except Paul being full of shit. And it doesn't take long to get there. By chapter 1, verse 3, he's talking about false prophets and fools and people teaching the wrong version of Christianity. Which is kind of interesting to reflect.

And I mean, we know that this was actually written about a hundred years after Paul's first ministries. But if you take this at face value, you have to assume that nine minutes after Jesus rose from the dead, people started arguing about church doctrine. And even if it took them a hundred years, that's a pretty clear sign that Jesus was a shitty teacher. Exactly. Yes. And I think this book demonstrates why right away.

After spouting some Deepak Chopra shit about how true understanding comes from a pure heart and sincere faith, he then warns the reader off of people who have, quote, turned to meaningless talk, end quote. Oh. This whole fucking turned to meaningless talk, end quote. Oh. This whole fucking book is meaningless talk. I thought that the lead-in sentence was meaningless. Well, there were clearly a bunch of Jewish holdouts back then, and they're, you know, still talking about real estate semantics. I'm pretty sure we get all this land from God pretty soon.

It's great that you guys are on board with his son like that. Love it. But the title deed is still Jews only. Right. Yes. I need to tell you. And because Christians are insane, this loophole probably actually worried them. And they tried to ban genealogy in the problem areas.

Yes. Right. Galatia. And then he starts talking about the law and how it's really there for liars and patricidal fornicators, which sounds suspiciously like he's saying good folks like you, me, and Josh Duggar don't need to worry about these rules. They're for bad people. Right.

Yeah. According to the Bible, the world would be a happy, peaceful place if it weren't for the following groups of people. In order of appearance, atheists, obviously. People who murder their parents, besides the atheists, I guess. Right. Also, the Menendez brothers. They're bad at lists and Venn diagrams.

Also homosexuals, clearly, and slave traders. Not owners, just traders. Right. Yeah, and also liars. Yeah, they get around to that eventually, too. Then in chapter two, he goes on to start detailing the specific things that he wants everybody to know about, just in case this letter is dug up 100 years later, when all of these exact issues are at the forefront of disagreements in the church. Right. Yes. Number one is that priests are superior to kings. And just to be sure everyone knows he's not lying about this one, he points

out that he's not lying about this one. Finally got to it. Chapter two, verse seven. For this, I was appointed a herald and an apostle. I am telling the truth. I'm not lying. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith. All right. Maybe it is real fake Paul. Sounds pretty okay. Now it does.

Yeah. And then we get to the misogyny. And boy, do we. Okay. Kind of a long quote here, but I don't think analogy can do this justice. So bear with me here. 1 Timothy 2, verses 9 through 15. Also that women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing,

not with their hair braided or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. How do you wear a work? Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. Yes. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She is to keep silent.

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, providing they continue in faith and love and holiness with modesty. Wow. The misogyny per word ratio there is staggering.

Yeah. Don't forget Christianity. This is the New Testament. You can't wave this away with your magical. The Jew parts don't count. Right. So if I'm understanding this correctly, women are treated like low output oxen for two reasons. First of all, God made Adam a stem cell incestuous fuck doll named Eve and all the world's problems

started happening since then. Strike one and two on the women. But more importantly, whenever there's a question of authority between two things, the younger one has to be, I guess, a silent rape slave for the older one. So I'm not sure they thought this one all the way through. No. No, it doesn't quite add up. And to rape you. Add up And then we move right along

To who can and can't be a bishop As though none of that women need to fuck off And make me a sandwich stuff needed any more detail That's all we're done with that And the qualifications for bishopdom Are a bizarre combination of Legitimate gauges of moral character And random bullshit

He has to be temperate, hospitable Gentle, sensible And also he can't have bitchy kids Or an ex-wife He has to be temperate, hospitable, gentle, sensible I like it And also he can't have bitchy kids or an ex-wife Ridiculous He has to tie a sheep shank Bring you a mid-market shrubbery Four, five, forty times or better

Beats his wife the right amount Obviously 90 percentile or better In midichlorian count No juice spies If you put a cat next to him he won't kick it right away It's a weird list. Who's running these job interviews? Yeah, the same also goes for people

who want to be deacons or women. Yeah. And this was almost a big problem because a bunch of women realized this passage makes it sound like women are allowed to be church officials. But it turns out that women weren't allowed to read that in the first place, so it became a moot point.

And I love the notion that Timothy, Paul's most trusted student, needs to be told stuff like bishops shouldn't be violent drunkards through a letter. So Paul, A, didn't trust him to figure this out on his own, and B, never thought to bring it up in the years they wandered around together. I should have said this before. Sorry, I noticed a lot of violent, drunkard bishops coming about. Staggering along, yeah. Then the author just goes ahead and tips his hand all the way by saying,

Now, as to stuff the Spirit has told me will happen 100 years from now or so. Exactly. But apparently whenever they had an issue, the church would just happen to find an extra century-old letter from Paul. Exactly. Yes. Look, it says, open now. How would he have known that?

Magical. Okay, I'm opening. Whoever opens this letter was right about whatever they were just saying. I am real Paul the truth teller. All right. He says, all right. A hundred years ago. It's real.

He also includes the naturalistic fallacy here when he says that everything God made is safe to eat. So here's a little irradiated cow dung for all my Christian friends. It says in your Bible. You need this. He also warns Timothy not to follow profane myths that old wives tell, urging him instead to follow polite myths that new wives tell. And then we learn that children should take care of their mothers when their dads die, but only, and this part is important,

only if she never fucks anyone again. Yeah, because if a widow has an orgasm, she apparently turns into an undead fuck zombie. Didn't make that up, by the way. That's in the Bible. 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 6. Check it out. That's in your book.

We wouldn't lie to you about this. Also, people who don't give money to their family are even worse than atheists. Oh, Lord. Well, and they keep making this distinction between real widows and fake ones. Yeah, right? And apparently, even though women should let their girly bits dry up when their husbands die, Paul reluctantly says that young widows can remarry because apparently without a dick to slap them around, they'll start following the devil and gossiping. Bitches be following Satan, you know.

But if they're busy sucking dick and making hoagies, they got no time for Satan. Right. They try to gossip. It just sounds like humming. You're only as godly as the dick in your mouth. Message I got from that. You're only as godly as the dick in your mouth. Message I got from that.

And just in case this book wasn't already the worst one in the Bible, chapter 6 opens up with a ringing endorsement of slave masters and how damn worthy they are. Yes, it does. By the way, their reasoning is that uppity Christian slaves make the whole religion look bad. Seriously, that's the reason. First verse of chapter 6, look this up. This book was so fucking bad. But in chapter six, verse nine, we learned that at least the Bible agrees with us that Creflo Dollar is an asshole.

Yes, it does. Yes, they do. Quick note about the Bible for all the televangelists out there that I'm sure are listening. First of all, great read. You're going to love it. Fantastic book. Check it out. But keep in mind that it specifically says in 1 Timothy 6 that people who think godliness is a means to financial gain are giant heathenous assholes.

Yeah. Be ready for that, Parker. That it does. Now, I'd have to say, honestly, I think you would have to go all the way back to the Pentateuch to find something more horrible than 1 Timothy. I mean, there were bits in Jud joshua that had more horrible imagery and whatnot but as far as like actually telling people to do immoral shit it hasn't been this bad since we were learning to stone non-virgin wives and saturday stick gatherers to death and they're so specific about the terrible stuff now at least in the old testament there's more of an implied

lesson you know like and the submissive woman lived happily ever after. Right, yeah. Get it? Get it? But now it's just, rape that black woman right now. And then rape your wife. Right after that. Fuck this fucking book, y'all. But unfortunately, we're not quite done Timothying yet,

as there's a whole second book to knock out before it's over. Awesome. Yeah, that's right. I haven't got those loose ends yet. Yeah, exactly. This one starts off with a return to Paul's long, boring openings. But this one is tended with a little more butthurt and arrogance than we're used to getting from him. Yeah.

Okay, so he's in prison because Jesus and boo-fucking-hoo and everybody's abandoned him and boo-fucking-hoo some more. That's this whole fucking book. Right. Then he implores Timothy to do all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff. And that's about as specific as it gets on matters of ethics. Then he names a couple more people that are definitely full of shit. And then we get a quick reminder that atheism and heathenism spread like a gangrenous herpetic sore. And everybody understood that because, you know, that was pretty standard.

Right. There's also more shit about gossip in this one. I'd love to see a side-by-side comparison of how many times gossip and sodomy came up. I guarantee gossip wins out by at least double. God hates gossipers. Then he tries for analogy and fails biblically. He basically says, people are like spoons.

And some spoons are gold, some are silver, some are wooden, but you're a special spoon. That's it. That's it. That's the actual analogy that he uses in the fucking Bible. I guess the way I read it, I think they were saying that if you wash your ass with the wooden spoon, then you're ready to have Jesus inside you.

I see. But that makes absolutely no sense. So I really have no idea what the fuck that means. Me either. And then there was a few lines of humble brags about how persecuted Paul's been. Keep in mind, once again, that if you take this at face value, this is a letter where Paul

is telling Timothy about shit that happened while Timothy was there. Like Paul's turned into Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney. He's like, remember when we got persecuted in Iconium and listed? That was awesome. Remember

when we got prison raped on three different continents together? Yeah, you probably do. I don't know. I don't know why I brought that up. Such an idiot. I'm so stupid. I don't know why I brought that up. Sorry. And then we wrap it all up with some I'm Awesome. God has a special crown for me. Come see me sometime. Alexander

is still a dick. And don't forget to bring my coat and my copy of Punisher War Journal number six. Copy of Fletch? Yeah, exactly. Now, I will say, as far as Paul Forgery's go, this one was pretty good. It had the same boring, pointless, rambling open, middle, and close that we've really come

to expect from him. I mean, hell, the author even refrained from reminding us that he wasn't lying in this book. Yeah, well, and to be refrained from reminding us that he wasn't lying. Yeah. Well, and to be honest, we probably should have rolled Titus and Philemon into this segment since they're only like nine words long combined, but fuck it. You know, we deserve an easy assignment now and again. So the babble will be back in three weeks to polish off those two, and then we'll move on to Hebrews. All right.

I mean, I'll try to hold out until then, but I'll be damned if these pages don't turn themselves. I'll try. Well, I'm not allowed to talk in public, so I won't be here for the next one, I guess. Oh, nice try, but no dice. If you're going to use those rules, you also have to submit to your husband, and you definitely trust me. You don't want that. We can talk about that if I don't, well.

The good news, though, is that there are only five babbles to go, guys. Five more to go. That's still too many. Yeah. Before we wrangle out the door tonight, I want to throw a quick shout-out to our friends at Red Bank Humanists in Jersey. I meant to mention it in the last calendar, but they're bringing FFRF co-founder Dan Barker in for a talk on Sunday, September 13th. So if you're not planning on spending that whole day watching Opening Day of Football and Fantasy Stat Tracker like a normal person,

this would be a very solid option if you were anywhere near Red Bank. If you're interested, we'll have a link with more information on the show notes for this episode. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting on Monday at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, and a new episode of our sister show, Sister Show, Godawful Movies, debuting 24 hours later.

Obviously, I can't let the music roll until I thank Heath for relinquishing it as though it contained an uncomfortable level of thermal activity. I need to thank the lovely Lucinda for somehow maintaining an iota of faith in humanity despite the stories she covers every week. Obviously I want to thank Dan, Matt, and Ryan from the Godless Revolution podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. If you want to give their show a day in court, you'll find that linked on the show notes for this episode. Also want to thank Ryan Bell

one more time for joining us. Super nice guy. I was really happy to finally have a chance to chat with him on the air. One more quick reminder that you'll find his blog and podcast linked on the show notes for this episode at ScathingAtheist.com But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's best people, Brad, Hugh, Brian, Rick, Matt, Steven, Willem, Jen, Chris, Jennifer, Jay, Russell, Robert, Mark, Dave, Chad, Jeremy, and James. Brad, Hugh, Brian, Rick, Matt, and Steven, who wish they'd hang those damn urinals a little lower. Willem, Jen, Chris, Jennifer, Jay, and Russell, whose IQs

have more digits in decimal than binary. And Robert, Mark, Dave, Jennifer, Jay, and Russell whose IQs have more digits and decimal than binary and Robert, Mark, Dave, Chad, Jeremy, and James whose dicks would make a black hole reach for the lube. Together these 18 amiable anthropoids have helped us flood the manger with baby Jesus tears once again this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the power, keen detection skills, and ability to banter well with supervillains that it takes to give us money

but if you think you're up for the challenge you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash skatingatheist where you'll earn early access to an extended version of every episode, 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 giving money to a podcast killed your

paw and you're still not quite ready to forgive, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever five-star reviews for podcasts are found. 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.

We're going to segue away from finger-blasting for the first time in the history of this show. Good.