The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 134: Story of God Edition

Episode Date: September 10, 2015

In this week's episode, we'll try to figure out why they would name the city "More Head" if they didn't want gay guys there; an ex-girlfriend tells Heath he should probably get tested for spirituality; and author and screenwriter Chris Matheson joins us to point out that the bible just might not be the perfect word of god after all.

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about defying the creator of the universe? Wish you could get some fresh semen back inside you without involving the father whose child you just killed? Don't worry, we've got the vaginal suppository for you. Plan C is for Christ, because reversing an abortion takes a lot of spunk. And now, the skating atheist. Hi, I'm Dan Errol, author of Parenting Without God, and I can assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. Evolve from Filthy Monkey Man. It's Thursday. It's September 10th.

And it's officially Wabbit season, Duck season, and Stat Tracker season. Hell yeah, I'm no illusions. I'm Heath Enright. And from Blazer Nation, Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll wonder why a city would call itself Moorhead if they didn't want gay dudes there. An ex-girlfriend tells me I should probably get tested for spirituality. And author and screenwriter Chris Matheson will be here to point out that the Bible just might not be the perfect word of God after all. But first, the diatribe. I've been thinking a lot about the fire analogy that Ryan Bell used on the show last week,

and not just because I'm getting six emails a day chastising me for not taking him to task on it a bit more. So for those of you who didn't hear that interview, my guest was a former pastor turned atheist who likened religion to fire in that it can warm your house, but it can also burn your house down. Basically, it's a tool that can be used for good or bad. Now, I pointed out at the time that my biggest issue with that analogy is that unlike religion, fire is a necessary thing. I mean, we actually need fire to accomplish many of the things that make our society function. But there's nothing that religion can do that humanism, philosophy, and science can't do without the inherent risk of burning down your house. inherent risk of burning down your house. So it's less like using fire and more like using a hammer that may or may not explode at any moment when there are other non-exploding hammers in the

toolbox. Now, to his credit, Ryan agreed with that, but he elaborated a bit and that's where the impetus for all these emails came from. So a quick point of etiquette, it's crazy rude to have a guest on one week and then spend a monologue the following week arguing with what he said when he's not there to defend himself. So for the record, I'm going to be passing along a transcript of this diatribe to Ryan, and if he feels the need to clarify or rebut anything I've said, I'm going to give him a chance to do so on the show, because there are limits to my assholery. And now that I have all of that out of the way, let me argue with somebody who isn't here to defend himself. Actually, you know what? First, let me start by defending my guest, okay? Because

several emailers took him to task for what I consider the wrong reason. They argued that unlike fire, there are no benefits to religion. So it's less like using fire and more like just telling yourself you're warm over and over again. And that's clever, but I think it's a bridge too far. It's unrealistic to say that there are no benefits of religion. You know, I mean, I'll agree with you if you say that the benefits are always outweighed by the costs. Sure. Hell, I'll start a podcast to argue that point on a weekly basis. But it's hard to deny that some people take some benefits away from religion at some times.

You know, I don't want to overstate the case, of course, because the same can be said of basically everything. You know, meth addiction sucks, but in the long term, it'll probably save you some money on dental cleanings. Technically, that's a benefit. You know, but when people say there are no benefits to religion, I bristle a bit because not only is it technically incorrect, but it's damn easy for even a dull theist to disprove that through personal experience, right? So in that sense, I agree with what Ryan was saying. Religion is a tool that can be used for good and bad.

Now, I don't think it's possible to use the good parts and not the bad parts, and I think that he was implying that with his argument, but that's way too minor to spend a whole diatribe going back to. My real point of contention comes from his historical perspective. And even if you didn't hear the interview, I'm sure you've heard this point made before. Yes, religion is an overall negative influence on today's society, but at a certain point in history, it served an overall positive function. And of course, the segment of human evolution religion most often gets credited with in this analogy is morality. I have no idea why, to be honest.

I think it's much easier to make the case that religion served an overall positive historical role in terms of, you know, like formalizing education or universalizing writing or improving international diplomacy. You know, don't get me wrong. I still think that those are all wrong. They're just easier to argue in favor of. But the idea that religion served an overall positive function in the development of morality is, not to put too fine a point on it, absurd. I mean, sure, if you segment the chunks of time just right, there are bound to be points you can look at, you know, where the graph is moving up because that's true of all graphs pretty much.

But, you know, look, if I exclude all the points where Bill Cosby was raping somebody, he's not a rapist either. You know, you're not allowed to do that. The fact of the matter is that religion has been and continues to be an overwhelmingly negative drag on moral development. The very idea of codifying moral dictates

in such a way that renders them static is a definitional impediment to moral development. And almost all religions do that. Look, I mean, you know, I don't even care how good your rules are. You know, if I wrote down 10 rules right now and convinced everyone that they were divinely mandated by God, and if you didn't follow them, you were going to go to hell, you know, I might ameliorate some moral quandaries in the moment,

but the fact that they're immutable makes them an impediment to progress at some point. Divine moral dictates might help in enforcing the moral code of today, but they do so at the expense of the moral code of tomorrow. And if history has shown us anything, it's that tomorrow's moral code is almost always more appealing than yesterday's. Unless, of course, a whole bunch of people just got more religious. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is the Ted Theodore logan to my bill s preston esquire

heathen right he are you ready to sound extremely confused like like a really good actor at least i gave you the one that had a career after that anyway in our lead story tonight kentucky's homophobe in chief, Kim Davis, was released from jail on Tuesday after accomplishing nothing except achieving international notoriety as an ignominious bitch. Davis, who served as Rowan County's clerk in the sense that she showed up to the office

and collected a paycheck, had been held in contempt of court for refusing to do her job because she hates gay people so much. A lot. She vowed over the weekend to stay in jail, quote, as long as it takes, end quote, though she never said what the it referred to, so I'm thinking she meant as long as it takes

to get the fuck out of jail. Yeah, as long as it takes to prevent zero gay people from getting married. Right. Mission accomplished. Just like a rock. Great job. Not so Lil' Kim.

Doing fantastic work. Oh, come on. The fat jokes were gonna make it in. That was an ugly joke. That was an ugly joke. It had nothing to do with the weight. Of course, by the time this is released, she might be back in jail once again, since the only reason she wasn't breaking any laws while she was in jail is because she was in jail.

The judge that freed her made it clear that the release was contingent on her no longer prohibiting her employees from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, which she vowed to keep doing. So, according to her attorney, Matt Staver, she won't be satisfied until the state laws are changed to remove her name from the certificate so that God won't think she's okay with the butt stuff. That's how it works, yeah.

Yeah, because apparently God knows less about what's going on on Earth than the guy from Duck Dynasty. So, she's asking for some other Christian person to get stuck going to hell because of their name on the gay paperwork apparently this all makes sense yeah upon release davis took time away from breaking james khan's ankles with a sledgehammer to attend a rally on her own behalf president the rally was deluded presidential hopeful mike huckabee who seemed downright

pissed that nobody was putting him in jail as well, seeing as how he hates gay people and loves God way more than this bumpkin, Huckabee said, quote, If you have to put someone in jail, I volunteer to go. Let me go. Lock me up if you think that's how freedom is best served. Lock me up. Tie me down. Spank me like a naughty little schoolboy.

Slap a saddle on me and ride me around the living room. Oil me up and force me to lick ranch dressing off your balls. Just please, somebody persecute my ass already. And I don't know how much, some of that wasn't to quote, but most of it was. Christians are so jealous of that Holocaust. Mike Huckabee wants the Holocaust inside of him. He is loving it. Of course, Huckabee as far from the only public figure

celebrating the equality america has achieved now that a woman can be george wallace too among the many christian intellectuals rallying to her defense was youtube preacher and man who can't pronounce a three-syllable word without breaking into a sweat josh fierst in a video released immediately after davis was into custody, fat guy in a red hat claimed that her arrest was a clear sign that, quote, the Christian Holocaust has officially begun, end quote. You're going to have a kickoff. Yeah, well, right, yeah, because as I'm sure you recall, the Holocaust began when the Jews decided to ignore the laws

that said they couldn't stone non-virginal brides to death on their father's doorstep, and mostly consisted of putting extremely fat people in jail and then releasing them four days later still just as fat. That was how the Holocaust worked. That was a fat joke, I think. Yeah, it was. It was.

And believe it or not, fat guy in a red hat wasn't the only person to mention that Kim Davis is exactly like a Jewish prisoner in Nazi Germany. No, he wasn't. Among others, her lawyer, Matt Staver of the Liberty Council, had a similar astute comparison. According to Staver, quote, back in the 1930s, it began with the Jews where they were evicted from public employment, then boycotted in their private employment, then stigmatized. And that led to the gas chambers. This is the new persecution of Christians here in this country. End quote.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I think it's clear from the Davis case here that we're on the verge of excluding the 71% of Americans that identify as Christian from all public employment, which means, among other things, we're going to need 86 new senators, 491 new congressmen, a new president, a new veep, new secretaries of state, the treasury, defense, the interior and all the other stuff we have secretaries for. And a new age just for starters. So I wasn't aware of this critical detail, but I guess the Jewish people were allowed to leave Auschwitz whenever they wanted, as long as they agreed to serve gay Nazis at their places of business. Yes. Which, of course, the Jewish people were unwilling to do because of the butt sex. And that's why millions of them died in the gas chambers, just like Kim Davis will if she continues refusing to let the six gay couples in Rowan County, Kentucky, have a marriage license from her office. Right. Good thing we have lawyers like Matt Staver around to explain stuff you can't find in history books. Yeah, I learned something today.

I learned something today. But no scramble for exaggerated delusions of persecution is complete until End Times pastor and post-chemotherapy version of Conan O'Brien Rick Wiles chimes in. On his radio program on Thursday, Wiles warned that Davis's incarceration was an unmistakable sign that the last days are upon us. Quote, Kim Davis's imprisonment is only the beginning of the reign of terror by the obamanista communist regime's gay stoppo end quote which officially marks the 5 000 thing that wiles has identified as the first step of the fucking apocalypse all right but here's the thing listen obama's not just gonna sit there as a gay communist atheist muslim and do nothing so either he forces all the christians to have butt sex or he dismantles capitalism. It's one or the other. So you guys choose.

Can't have your cake and eat it, too. Kim Davis with a penis. Mike Huckabee also had some words of wisdom for us. As often he does. Including a fresh new analogy. Awesome. Fearing the Holocaust comparison would be a little vague, you know, especially considering all the disagreement over the severity of that thing among his constituents. Huckabee instead referenced the treatment of Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Apparently, those people were given prayer mats, halal meals, and prison cells with an arrow pointing toward Mecca. Therefore, they received better accommodation of their religion than Miss Davis, who was never told, I guess, what direction the sky was relative to her jail and therefore couldn't contact jesus directly and it was probably why she was in jail for so long but of course not all the crazy christians were rallying to davis's defense the westboro baptist church perhaps pissed off that people were throwing rallies for this johnny come lately when they were hating fags way before it was cool, launched an online campaign suggesting that gay marriage was,

if you really think about it, Kim Davis' fault. Well, if I was about to get gay married, I definitely want to fly to Kentucky so I can get an official Kim Davis signed marriage license for spite. Like, have it framed, tweet her pictures of it constantly. Enjoy eternal damnation, bitch. Hashtag butt sex and tax benefits. Suck it.

Yeah. And of course, a quick gaze into her eyes would make fucking dudes look a lot better too. But the WBC centered their argument around the fact that Davis is an adulteress who has been married four times and had children on a wedlock or rather had children in wedlock to people she wasn't wedlocked to. Of course, Davis would defend herself by pointing out that she didn't drink the magic Jesus potion until her most recent marriage, so all the stuff before that never actually happened.

But in an accidental demonstration of the value of standards of evidence, the WBC pointed out that the whole reason that God cursed America with marriage equality in the first place is because of all the sinful whores like her, which is no more or less true than any other religious argument. Sure, why not? God made gays to get back at Kim Davis, and now he's going to smite us with hurricanes for having the gays that he cursed us with. Sounds like the guy from the book I'm reading, honestly.

Yeah, I think they may have nailed that. And in cruise control news tonight, GOP presidential candidate, U.S. senator, and guy whose immigration policy would have people like Ted Cruz deported, Ted Cruz, decided to help thousands of churches violate federal tax law by sending them a sermon he wrote calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, requesting they read the statement to their congregations. In case anyone isn't familiar with the law I'm talking about, it's illegal for a tax-exempt organization to engage in political speech or interaction with legislative bodies. Right. And Ted Cruz, of the nation's highest legislative body, literally just sent them a political speech.

Right. Yeah. Pretty much textbook illegal. Upon hearing about this clear violation of the Constitution, the people who shelter and enable child rapists with impunity said, quote, Yeah, sure wouldn't want to break any of your silly little laws. So looks like Cruz might be doing some early prep work for this year's upcoming Pulpit Freedom Sunday. Right. Which is an illegal tax evasion holiday that Christians invented in 2008, in which preachers send the IRS video evidence

of themselves giving illegal political speeches. And here's a snippet from what Cruz wants them to say this time. According to his sermon, quote, when an individual or a nation stiff arms the character of God and embraces an abomination as the law of the land it ends in disaster it is a very short step to dismembering the bodies of the most vulnerable end quote and from there it's straight to raping puppies while lubricating with the blood of panda babies and and then when you move on to butt hamstring old ladies to death while shitting on disabled veterans and then listening to mumford and sons it just gets worse and worse as you go on the docket yeah absolutely sounds like a fucking mongolian throat singer at karaoke

night i'm sorry my wife loves this shit i just i don't get it so it was two nice visual images we got from teddy fuckspin over there right first i pictured nfl running back marshawn lynch aka beast mode possessed by satan running down the field and stiff-arming God about 10 yards backwards before trampling over the creator of the universe for a baby-killing touchdown. With a spike, of course. Obviously. And, of course, the other image would be an eight-month-old fetus getting pulled from

a uterus with a fisherman's gaff and then getting drawn and quartered by four midget ponies. Because that's what Planned Parenthood does. I'm sorry. Very similar. Little person ponies, please. That headline was in danger of being distasteful. Yeah, no, good.

You saved it. And of course, normally we would kick things over to Lucinda at this point, but she's been down and out for the last couple of days with a nasty cold and she just couldn't make it tonight. She did, however, ask me to make sure everyone knew that the insanely disgusting story that she covered last week about the two sisters in India getting sentenced to being raped for their brother's affair has been called into question over the last week, and it now looks like it may never have happened. So it's good to know that the world's rape capital can knock two off of their list. Great job.

We did learn an important lesson, though. Fellas, if you get accused of raping a lot, India is the place to go. World leader in the rights of the accused male. That's where you want to go. You hear us, Mr. Cosby? And in the other kind of fantasy football news tonight, a pastor from First Baptist Church in Villarica, Georgia, performed a mass farcical aquatic ceremony

in an effort to wash the demons off of that city's high school football players. The group baptism took place on school property before a practice, and among the participants was the team's head coach. Because, I guess, First Amendment violations are like syphilis. You know, once you got one, there's no reason to avoid getting more. And, you know what, they're kind of like AIDS, too. You know, engineered by God as a solution to the gay problem. Useful.

Luckily, the atheist bat signal was raised and the FFRF stepped in and reminded the coach that dunking your players into Christianity doesn't fall within the bounds of his job description and demanded that the practice end immediately. Now, for its part, the district has promised to investigate the claims and agrees that they're not allowed to do that shit. But despite the clear and unambiguous 239 years of consistent jurisprudence on this matter, the pastor involved couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't the same as being fed to a lion. Well, I think it's about time for the local Satanist chapter to show up and insist on dousing all the players with milk so they can put those demons back. Right, yeah, we don't need homeless demons. Ridiculous.

Now, in a statement where each sentence seemed to be competing for stupidest, Pastor Kevin Williams pointed out that in a free country, all people should be allowed to do all things. Quote, what? We live in a free country. These people that are trying to say you can't do that. Well, they're taking away freedom. And after indignantly explaining how laws work, he went on to ask, quote, when did it become illegal to bow your head and pray? When did it become illegal to say I'm a Christian? End quote. When it was explained to him, of course, that neither of those things have ever been illegal.

He nodded and said, yeah, I know. But if I actually say the thing I'm pissed off about, it's really obvious how wrong I am. So that makes it tricky. If you don't mind, I'm just going to pretend I'm religious. That's what we do. That's that's kind of my specialty. And finally, tonight from the STD ism file. Blue Mountain Community Church of Walla Walla, Washington, recently sent out some analog spam in the form of postcards advertising a series of lectures on the topic of spirituality and when it becomes toxic.

The mailings were printed with an image of the radioactivity symbol, along with the question, Do you have a spiritually transmitted disease? Which is exactly how I keep telling the Pew Forum to phrase the Are You Religious question on the Religious Landscape Survey. It's good to see that somebody's finally taken my advice on that one. Now, at first glance, I was thinking to myself, okay, you know, too much spirituality can definitely be toxic. Sounds like a good topic. This, you know, progressive self-effacing church decided to discuss the idea that certain people might be getting a little carried away with the

whole religion thing. Good stuff. But then I checked the church's website, and based on the information they provided there, I cannot imagine that's what happened. Instead, I'm pretty sure the so-called lecture series was actually a bunch of cautionary sermons warning against all those soft-ass Spinozan believers and the evils of non-fundamentalism. Now that sounds more like Christianity to me. That sounds more like Christianity to me. Well, either way, regardless of their intention, the Blue Mountain Community Church made it sound like they invited some expert theologians to debate the question, what debilitating diseases did the Virgin Mary contract besides Christianity when God raped her that time? Right.

Which, of course, means we're going to need 30 seconds on the clock. Spiritually transmitted diseases. Obviously. Mad kowtow disease. Nice. About colon cancers in Genesis. Oh, nice, nice. Let's just hope.

The human poploma virus? That was Adam Rees gave me that one. Thanks, Adam. But in honor of our next Holy Babble segment, actually. What about hepatitis and cephalomon? Amyotrophic liturgical sclerosis or Pugh-Garig's disease? That was kind of lame, sorry. All right, well,

lots of Westboro Baptist church people suffer from this next one. Picket rickets. Problem for Fred Phelps later in life. How about acquired imam deficiency syndrome? How about pentagonorrhea? How about... Beast infection.

Oh, nice. Similar to a urinary chick tract infection. It's a slow burner. I like it. I like it. How about sudden infant depth syndrome? That's a child raping joke there. If you rape a little slower, it's grids. Gradual infant depth.. That's a child raping joke there. If you rape a little slower,

it's grids, gradual infant depth syndrome. All right, one more. I heard this is a problem for Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson, actually. Irritable jowl syndrome. Oh, nice. A lot of shit flying right out of that area. Now that we've made fun of Pat,

the human pitch drop experiment Roberts, I guess we can officially close out the headlines. Heath, thanks as always. Battleship! And when we come back, Chris Matheson will be here to help me speculate on God's sexual orientation. I'm thrilled to welcome our next guest to the show.

Chris Matheson is an author and screenwriter whose screenwriting credits include Rapture Palooza, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and, of course, their subsequent Bogus Journey. He's also an accomplished director and the author of a new book titled The Story of God, a biblical comedy about love and hate. Chris, welcome to The Scathing Atheist. Thanks. Nice to be here. So I have to warn you at first that I am a big fan of your work. Bill & Ted came out when I was about 12 or 13, saw it with my best friend who was in the band that I was in that was going to

be famous as soon as we learned to play our instruments. This is the movie that introduced me to my single greatest comedy influence in George Carlin. I had a ton of reasons to love that flick. Now, obviously, I brought you on to talk about your new book, but I don't think I can make it all the way through the interview without at least one Bill and Ted fanboy question. So do you mind if we just get that out of the way first? Not at all. Okay, so this question is actually about the sequel, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Now, this was a movie that came along at about the same time in my life as I was being introduced

to Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Monty Python, comedy that treated religion with irreverence, if not downright mockery. And of course, in Bogus Journey, you have your characters going to hell, going to heaven, beating the Grim Reaper at Battleship. It's at the very least lightly lampooning a lot of Christian mythology in a PG franchise. So especially after reading The Story of God, I'm curious if there was any pushback from the studio on that, anything that you wanted to include in those parts of the movie but weren't allowed to?

The movie was originally titled Bill and Ted Go to Hell. That was what Ed and I wanted it to be called. And that's what it was called, I think, even through production. And they backed off from that. And originally we had a lot more in Hell. that and originally we had a lot more in hell they there was a their adventure in in hell which they liked which was frustrating to the demons um and the devil because they're bill and ted and they're just getting excited and upbeat no matter where they are and they they were excited about the big rocks that they were sentenced to pound away at eternally um so they were in hell

more and they were in heaven more and um originally they were gonna the characters that were gonna come back you know it ended up in a sort of out of left field comedic fashion that a martian scientist is their accomplice in act three, which is, you know, bizarre. Even when I think back on it, it's kind of funny, but it's bizarre. Originally it was going to be biblical figures. There's a draft somewhere where basically Moses and,

and Noah and, uh, I don't know who else, uh, you know, Abraham are, are there, they're the ones who come back in act three and are, them on their whole – doing whatever Moses parting cars on a freeway or something like that.

And maybe that was a little bit too irreverent for the studio. I don't know. I don't know why we ended up changing that. I don't know. I don't know why we ended up changing that. Or it might have just been, honestly, that they felt just like – it felt like a repeat, that they were historical figures again. Because they kind of are. They kind of just feel like historical figures. So, you know, let's throw Martian in instead, I guess.

But, yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of the same interests go that far back. Sure. All right. So let's turn to your new book, which, which by the way i'm also at risk of being pretty damn fanboy about um now this is going to sound like bullshit to everybody who hasn't read the book but i very literally laughed out loud before page one in this book and i would challenge any of our listeners to make it further than that without at least a chuckle um to be honest i don't think that i could do the premise justice so i'm just going to leave that to you what is

the story of god i wanted to tell the story of this character from genesis to revelation i wanted to follow him on his whole emotional journey and see if i could piece together a character who made sense to me i was for a variety of reasons sort of drawn to the bible from a comedic standpoint that there's a lot of really great found comedy in the Bible. It's quite funny to me. As long as you don't take it seriously. Yeah, right. I mean, if you take it seriously, I don't understand that. I find that kind of hard to grasp myself, but I, at a certain point thought, I want to try to get inside this guy's head, or at least be on his shoulder, and make sense of him. His behavior is so bizarre.

He's so volatile. He's so horrible and destructive and strange and hard to understand. He's just kind of all over the map. He seems deranged. And then he gets a little bit nicer at times. And I wanted to try to find a coherence to it. What is the deal with this guy? What is wrong with this guy?

What is motivating this guy? Why does he do the stuff that he does? So that was the impetus for writing the book. And so what did you learn about God? What are the threads that tie him together? Well, I think that there's an underlying, I think there's three ways of looking at him. And one of them is he's just kind of a fraud. He's kind of the Wizard of Oz. He doesn't really have all the power that he says he does. He's just kind of a big fake. And that's kind of funny. And there is certainly evidence in the book to back that up. The second is he's kind of a fool. He does have all the power, but he's really

not that bright. It's sort of a universe created by a guy who has an IQ of 98. He just makes a variety of boneheaded decisions. And then he gets mad at himself and frustrated and basically kicking the ground and tries again and makes another stupid mistake. And then the third one, which I think is the most compelling and the most deeply rooted in the text, is that he's a freak. There's something deeply self-hating about this character uh he hates us we're made in his image he pretty much hates all of us and we're even the ones he likes yeah yeah even the ones he likes he hates he hates i mean arguably given the way he punishes them you'd say he hates them most of all i think i think there's a deep uh-hatred. And I ended up feeling a weird kind of sympathy for this character at a certain point because I thought, what a horrible reality that is. If you play it out, what a really excruciating loneliness there is to this job, right?

I mean, you're all alone. You have no friends. You have no mother. You have no father. You have no siblings. You have, you know, your son. You never even really meet him until you've basically murdered him. You know, that's like, hey, son, nice to meet you.

You know, I just tortured and killed you basically. A rough icebreaker, yeah. Yeah, and so you're never touched. You can't be touched. You can't have any contact. And you have no friends, but you have an enemy. You have one enemy. That's it. That's all you've got. And I think that it sort of drives him mad. I think there's a sort of an incipient mental illness almost from the beginning. And it comes to full fruition in Revelation where you just think, wow, this guy's gone, man. This guy's gone. This guy's blown out.

He's a complete James Bond villain at this point. Right, right. Now, one of the things that I loved about it is just by making God into a repressed, self-loathing homosexual, you explain so much about the book. Yeah. You know, to the degree that God has a sexuality. And of course he does. Right. I mean, he's a male. We know he's a male. I mean, that's that's stated. And he's very interested in sex. It's not like he never talks about it. Well, you know, it's not like, no, that's that's beneath him. Now he talks about sex a lot. He's very, very interested in sex. It's not like he never talks about it. It's not like, you know, it's not like, no, that's beneath him. No, he talks about sex a lot.

He's very, very interested in sex. And balls in particular. Yeah. Yeah. Penises and balls. He's very particular about how he wants them to look. And he's very particular about perfect balls. Perfect balls.

Balls have to be just absolutely perfect and he's got a very specific idea of how penises should look and you know he's all he's all over that stuff and and no interest in women right women are just kind of gross you know like women are just sort of they're icky and he you know that's just they're unclean they're and and then when you get into sort of his his taste it's really queeny i mean he really does have kind of queeny taste when he starts talking about what he wants his temple to be all the little cherubs in the purple fabric that he wants everywhere yeah pomegranate blue fabric and gold balls and it's just like wow man you're you get really really taste. And then as any really deeply repressed homosexual does, I think, he hates homosexuals.

He hates homosexuals. Oh, my God, he hates homosexuality. I mean, the whole Sodom thing is just craziness because he never even said homosexuality was wrong up to that point. He never said a word. Right. He just nukes them. And the women too yeah like what's the deal man what are you doing they're like are the women all lesbians i mean he doesn't

give a shit if they are or not he doesn't care right he doesn't even bother to know their names of the uh of the women that play pivotal parts in his story no never no i mean so few women even get i mean even eve even eve god doesn, God doesn't give a name to. Fucking Eve, you know? Adam has to name her. He just calls her woman. Noah's wife doesn't have a name. Of course Noah's sons have names.

Noah's wife, she's kind of an important character, right? No, I guess not. She doesn't get a name. I thought one of my favorite moments in the book was a very subtle bit in there where when he goes to visit Abraham and forgets his wife's name, starts calling her Rachel, even though her name is clearly Sarah elsewhere in the book. Yeah. That's one of those things that I guess if you know the Bible well enough is really going to hit you a lot. And I guess that leads me right into my next question. How familiar were you with the Bible going into this?

That leads me right into my next question. How familiar were you with the Bible going into this? Well, I read it, I think, in my late 20s because I just wanted to, because I was curious. And it definitely struck me. I thought it was pretty interesting. And then I picked it up again probably about five years ago. And this time it hit me hard. And I thought, wow. Wow.

This is incredible. This is an amazing book. And if you like comedy, man, you have just stumbled onto the ultimate goldmine because it takes itself so seriously, right? That's what makes it really funny. Like, this isn't funny. This isn't funny.

You shouldn't laugh at this. This is dead serious. This is truth, capital T, truth. Of course, that's what makes it really funny. And it's filled with utterly ridiculous, unfathomable behavior by God and some funny human characters too. But I wasn't that familiar with it up until about five years ago.

Now, I might be cheating a bit here because I might already know the answer to this, but was there one particular part of the Bible that you were most looking forward to reinterpreting? Yeah, definitely. I adore the book of Job because it's – well, it's a theodicy, and it's like, why do bad things happen to good people? And, of course, none of that's true. The Book of Job is absurd. I mean, he's the god of the Book of Job. He's a character really worthy of Swift or Voltaire.

I mean, they could not have written this guy better, because he's a bully, he's guy better because he's he's a bully he's a braggart he's a lightweight he's incredibly shallow and mean the whole thing is just basically a party bet with satan why do evil things happen to good people well because god makes a party bet that's why and and then most fascinatingly and hilariously, he has a complete nervous breakdown at the end. Like somehow the knowledge that he's lost this bet, because he clearly does lose the bet, makes him flip out. And he just starts talking a bunch of crazy shit in the end about his pet sea monster and unicorns and how lightning talks to him. You know, it's just beautiful.

It's absolutely beautiful. My co-host describes that as God's drunken stepfather rant. And yeah, absolutely bizarre. Now, one of the things that I love the most about the book was that the narrative didn't just incorporate the contradictions and moral atrocities of the Bible. In a lot of ways, the narrative actually rose out of those things. That actually informed it. And I thought you did a brilliant job weaving together some of the most absurd passages,

but it also left me wondering if there was anything that you wanted to squeeze in from the Bible, but it just wouldn't fit into your narrative. Good question. Good question. I wanted to get all of the stuff that I thought was the funniest. That's kind of what I went for uh and everybody cherry you know the bible everybody who reads it because it's such a massive book depending on what they're looking for they cherry pick right that's that's what you do you cherry pick and the cherries that i was

picking were the funniest bits so did i have to leave out any really you know maybe early on um genesis has been gone over i wrote a lot about the garden of eden uh the garden of eden and then the serpent and how ludicrous that is and and to some degree that's ground that's been gone over a decent amount because it's so early in the book i think and so i trimmed that way back i mean i could have gone on for 15 pages about that thing because it's because it is sort of the beginning of the weirdness like why what kind of freak has a big plan a beautiful perfect plan and then right at the very beginning introduces their own worst enemy into it and lets them fuck it up like what is what what is wrong with you now yeah i did notice that it seemed like on those those those parts of the bible that had

really been picked over by comedians before you you you just kind of did a very little on like things like noah's ark and the ten commandments and how bizarre those are of course you obviously brought those up in the book but didn't dwell on those as much and i assume that that was why because so many other comedians had been to that ground before yeah that was why that was why because i thought well you know this has been these bits have been looked at quite a lot. And, you know, Ricky Gervais has – he's fantastically funny. And his bits about Noah's Ark and the garden are spectacularly funny. Like, they'll make you cry with laughter.

They're so funny. But, you know, people have done that. So, yeah, so I went a little bit lighter on that stuff. I could have done a lot more on that stuff, because I think they're really funny bits. Right. Now, I do want to say, if anybody's curious just how absurd the Bible is, Chris was looking for the funniest moments in the Bible to create his book

and didn't even have to use the talking donkey from numbers so if that's any indication uh so what would you say is your was your biggest challenge in writing this book i think the challenge is uh making his emotional journey uh a journey uh creating a narrative that's not monotonous, that's not super repetitive, like he just does the same shit over and over and over again. He kind of does, but trying to find the arc of it, trying to find the evolution of the story of his character, that took some time because looked at a certain way it's like he just does mean shit from beginning to end you know he's just constantly punishing people that's that's it he just wants to punish so that that took a little bit of of thought yeah i was really impressed with the way because you know obviously like you said the bible just offers you up so much humor on a silver platter, but I think you took a lot more than is just there easily for the taking. I was really impressed with the way that the story did become a story, because that's one thing that you absolutely can't say about the Bible. There's nothing cohesive about that at all, and trying to weave all that together in one story arc is a very impressive feat. It's not – no, it's not cohesive. And he – that was kind of the challenge. Like how does – how to take this character – and it's his book.

I mean clearly he's the star. Of course he's the star. He's God. It's his story. But he's – it's not obviously coherent. And I wanted it to be. I wanted it to track. I wanted it to feel like, right, this makes sense that he would go from point A to point B to point C and get more and more upset, more and more troubled, more and more his sort of mental illness kind of spinning out and the story of Job kind of haunting him because he knows what a complete idiot he made of himself and his sort of deterioration culminating in basically the end of the Old Testament,

basically ending with Babylon getting burned to the ground and him sitting up in the sky and blustering, I'm just about to do my thing. Get out of the way. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And then he does nothing.

He does nothing. That's an amazing moment. I mean, the ending of Jeremiah is not necessarily the funniest thing in the book, but it is the most stark kind of abrupt gut punch in the whole book, I think, because it's just all talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And then suddenly it ends. It's just all talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And then suddenly it ends. And you get this kind of cold clinical finale where some other writer steps in in place of Jeremiah and says, effectively, none of this happened. Like a psychiatrist talking about a mentally ill patient.

None of this happened. Yeah. And so that's the end. That's the end of the Old Testament story. And then I thought, okay, so now it's plan B. I got to try something else. I got to pull back and heal for a while. That didn't work. I'm going to try plan B with my son. And of course, plan B doesn't work either. And none of it's going to work. If plan C is Islam, talking to Muhammad, well, that's not going to work either. And if plan D is talking to Joseph Smith, well, that's not going to work either and if plan d is talking to joseph smith well that's not going to work either none of them are going to work right it's

never going to work now i i have to say i you know as i was going through the book because of the way that you built the narrative you actually skipped over job and sort of went back to it at the end there i was i was terrified we were going to miss out on his on that that speech no never so happy when we uh when we came back for that one But I wonder if you think that a religious person can read this book and still find all the humor in it. Could a Christian read this book and find it funny? I don't know. I would like to think so. I think it would depend on the Christian.

I mean, some of them would be very presumably angry and upset and want to send me a death threat or something. But it is their book. I mean, that's why I'm citing passages so frequently, because I did want to kind of make it clear, like, this is your book. I'm not making up most of this stuff. This is in the Bible. I'm making up very, very little here. I'm connecting the dots, but I'm not making up very

many things at all. And I'm not making up any of the really truly ludicrous things. I don't know. Maybe a certain kind of Christian, what my fantasy would be, a certain kind of Christian who's young could read it and go, oh my God, I've had these doubts and these feelings before, and I couldn't admit them to myself. But it is ridiculous. It is absurd. It is a ridiculous book. It is a ridiculous story. Come on. Now, it's possible that my own personal biblical lampooning experience is coloring my assumptions here, but would you care to preemptively respond to the people who will say that you just shouldn't make fun of people's faith, that that's sacrosanct and off the table? Well, I mean, number one, obviously nothing's off the table at any time. Nothing's off the table. And the more that you position yourself as something that cannot be made fun of, the more you are drawing the attention

of those who want to make fun of things. The more you forbid any mockery of your belief system, the more you're effectively demonstrating the necessity of making fun of your belief system, I would say. Yeah, that's a silly argument. What does that mean to us? We don't agree with them. We're not being blasphemous. We don't believe in their story. We think their story is ridiculous.

We're totally free to make fun of it as much as we want. And obviously, as you prove in the book over and over again, there's a lot to make fun of. There's a lot to make fun of. Yeah, there absolutely is. Well, I'll tell you what, Ben, I got to thank you for a really great read. And it's going to sound like I'm blowing smoke up your ass when I say this, but I honestly have not laughed that much at a book since we lost Douglas Adams. I was literally reading this book through tears of laughter. Really appreciate it. Phenomenally funny. That's great to hear. Thank you very much. And of course, if you'd like to pick up a copy of Chris's book, and trust me,

you would. Again, the title is The Story of God, a comedy about love and hate. It's available as an e-book, a hardcover, or as an audio book, and we'll have links to all three formats in the show notes for this episode. That's episode 134 at skatingatheist.com. Chris, thanks again for joining us tonight. My pleasure. After God's drunken stepfather rant from Job came up multiple times in our conversation, I asked Chris if he'd allow me to share a quick excerpt from that portion of his new book, to which he graciously agreed. Now, if you'll recall, after Job had been raked over the coals repeatedly and then bitched out mercilessly by his friends,

God appears to the assembled crowd of Job and his buddies ostensibly to explain himself. But what transpires instead is a tirade so insane it would make Ezekiel blush. instead is a tirade so insane it would make Ezekiel blush. So the following selection corresponds to Job 39.22 through Job 41.14 and comes from chapter 20 of the story of God, where we join God's schizophrenic harangue already in progress. To say this was going badly would have been a colossal understatement. It was a disaster. The five men were staring up at the sky with baffled and, to be totally honest, vaguely concerned looks on their faces. God had lost the wager with Satan badly. Now he was losing a lot more. He knew that, but he couldn't seem to stop it from happening. Don't get started about ostriches and horses, God, he warned himself, but it was no good. Ostriches are idiots, he yelled.

They're so stupid they don't even fly. No, ostriches don't fly because they can't fly. I know that. Horses cannot be frightened, God thundered. The men looked up at him confused. Horses love battle. They say aha because they love it so much. Job 39, 22 to 25. I know nothing about horses. That's completely wrong. Job gave him an opportunity to escape this mess. He groveled on the ground and begged for mercy. I am nothing, God, he whimpered. Job 44. Good. I can stop now, God thought to himself. Job has been chastised. This can and should end now. God paused for a moment, then realized he wasn't through talking. He had more to say. So Job had more or less begged for mercy.

Well, his answer was no. No mercy. How dare you question me? He found himself screaming again. How dare you question my justice? Have you a thundery voice like God's? Job 49. The third person thing sounded ridiculous, he suddenly realized.

Who talks about themselves in the third person? Pretentious idiots. God's mind was spinning. He thought he was about to pass out. He was talking really fast. He thought his voice sounded high and shrill and panicky. God wanted to stop talking. He really did, but the words continued to pour out of him, loud and frantic. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror. He had a mad feverish glitter in his eyes. Some angels were backing away from him. a mirror. He had a mad feverish glitter in his eyes. Some angels were backing away from him. Now, oh no, God started to talk about Behemoth, the sea monster, and instantly, instantly he knew this was a terrible idea. He found himself talking about Behemoth on occasion before,

usually after too much wine, and thinking back, he felt he'd always sounded too excited and emotional. God had given Behemoth a name, Leviathan. Does Leviathan talk to you? Could you eat him if you wanted to? Could you stuff him with metal if you wanted to? Could you catch him and make him your pet? Could you tie him up so your little girls could play with him? Job 40, 15 to 31. What am I saying? What does any of that even mean? Though he wasn't sure why, God suddenly felt extremely protective of Leviathan. Touch him and I'll kill you, he screamed. Job 40, 32. I'm not making any sense. I'm flailing. This is excruciating, yet I cannot stop. God was sweating profusely now, trembling. His mouth was dry, yet spittle was flying as he yelled. He wondered if he was losing

his mind, if somehow this tiny little wager with Satan was going to undo him completely. I'm a fraud, screamed his mind. I'm a bully and a coward and a weakling. I'm a sexually confused and frightened little man desperate to cover that up by threatening and berating, but they see what I am. They always have.

That's why they don't like me, not even the ones who do. God's mind searched frantically for a way out of this awfulness. Should he stop talking? No. Impossible. He was in too deep. Now he had to continue. I can still win this bet, he told himself. It's not too late. I'm God. I can do anything. I'll pull myself out of this by continuing to talk about Leviviathan who can remove his clothes god howled who can pry the folds of his jowls apart who can open the doors in his face joe 41 5 and 6 the five men stared upward clearly befuddled those were odd questions god knew that the point he was trying to make was

i can handle leviathan can you but But the doors in his face thing sounded bizarre. Also, Leviathan didn't wear clothes, obviously. He's a whale dragon. I must scare the humans, God thought. I can still do that, and I will. Leviathan can breathe fire, Job 41.13. He sneezes lightning, Job 41.10. He has a big neck, Job 41.14. God stopped, suddenly exhausted. The men were staring at the ground, now clearly embarrassed. God noticed a group of angels nearby, looking at him worriedly, and then something caught his eye behind them. A flash of black. 50 feet away, near a tree, Satan looked at him. He didn't smile. He didn't do anything. He just looked at God, who knew at that moment that something important had changed between them. We weren't testing Job, suddenly crossed his mind.

We were testing me. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show that we've kind of been meaning to catch up for for the last couple of weeks, and we really haven't had a chance. And here we go. Our first message comes from Mark with a C, who writes, quote, First, god-awful movies, thanks. Second, also thanks.

Third, fuck you. Not sure where he was going with that, but he explains, I didn't want it to go to your head speaking of which i didn't use enough big words diffeomorphism bitch it's actually quite interesting the morphism and such end quote i like some of their early stuff they kind of fell he makes a good love me some isomorphic smooth manifolds i was fuck yeah just about to say that too we also got a message from john who wanted to kind of come to Josh Duggar's defense. It was a pretty long email, but basically he asks if we're not missing the larger point

when we make jokes about Duggar being an ancestral pedophile. He points out that Josh Duggar is a victim of an insane and sexually repressive upbringing, that his molestation days are behind him as far as we know, and that he shouldn't be tarred and feathered today for something he did when he was 14 and i'm leaving a lot of the nuance out here but suffice to say john was very clear that he wasn't trying to excuse josh's actions so much as question our decision to publicly demonize him over it he concludes the email quote i'm not as clever as you guys but i think throwing this dude under the bus for his actions is too easy and really misses a bigger issue. Well, I agree that throwing Josh Duggar under the bus is extremely easy.

No question. But so is making myself orgasm. I mean, easy can be fun and productive. Right. Who wants high-hanging fruit? The low-hanging stuff, it tastes the same. Now, there is a really good point underlying this email because all religious people are, to one degree or another, victims of their faith. You know, when they grow up and pass it along to the next generation, they're expressing that victimhood.

So if the enemy is religion, why pick on the victims, right? But look, a person who grew up getting beaten by their father is much more likely to beat their children, but we can still demonize the actions of that person and make adrian peterson jokes for example and we should because part of what informs the actions of people raised in these religious circumstances are the social norms that we as members of their society enforce through shame okay well listen i'm with you on most of the stuff you just said but you do not you do not demonize a first round fantasy pick mere days after drafting him i'm quite certain those kids were being uppity and deserved this guy this guy rushed for almost 2 000 yards his last season they must have been kind of uppity we've got the child beater and the rapist on that team now look if you dig down deep enough into determinism it gets

really hard to blame anyone for anything so you know look we make fun of religious people for a living so when a guy who literally earns his paycheck by telling other people that he's more sexually moral than them and then he gets caught fondling his sisters cheating on his wife and paying porn stars for rough sex the guy deserves to be shamed you know if if bill nye was on ashley madison and fucked porn stars for money, I'd have no issue

with that at all. Hell, I'd watch the video, but that's because Bill Nye isn't going around telling everybody who they can and can't fuck. And that's right,

we're talking to you, Mia Khalifa. Threesome with Bill Nye and Salman Rushdie. Make it happen. I think Valerie Dodds is still the official porn actress

of The Skating Atheist because, if I'm not mistaken, she still comes up as a suggested Google search when you check out our show. But the issue that I really take with this email isn't the notion that throwing Duggar under the bus is too easy. He's right. Acting like Josh Duggar is some kind of anomaly in the Christian universe is complete bullshit. They watch porn and cheat on their spouses and sexually abuse the women in their family way more than the average non-religious person. The disagreement I have with John is that by so doing, we're missing the larger issue.

I mean, I think we're highlighting the larger issue through one of that issue's most visible poster children. And more generally, the Duggar story was surrounded by an entire podcast about that bigger issue he's talking about. Well, yeah, right, right. Now, I should also note that John specifically asked at the end of the email that we not make fun of him, which comes on the heels of a listener asking us not to yell at him on the last feedback we do. So I'm afraid we might be set in the wrong tone with his feedback. John's father smelt of elderberries.

I'm sorry. I'm just kidding. I didn't mean elderberries. I'm sorry. I'm just kidding. I didn't mean to yell. I don't. He might have. I'm not putting my check down either way. Quite certain your mother's not a hamster. And finally, we got a message from Rick, who actually sent his commentary in the form of an audio clip.

So let's give him a quick listen. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Terrible thing to do to the people who pay my bills. But we missed a story a couple of weeks ago about the Foo Fighters Rickrolling the Westboro Baptist Church, and a listener named Tom thought that we deserved a Rickroll for that, so I'm just passing it along. Yeah, this was a fantastic story.

It really was, yeah. A bunch of WBC protesters came out for a recent show in Kansas City to remind concert goers which people God hates. Evidently, it's still the gays and the Jews. Yeah, oh yeah. So in response to these assholes, the band pulled up in front of the bigot party with a truck full of speakers and gave them a good assly blasting. They love that. So in honor of the Foo Fighters and their award-winning Rick Roll, we'd like to present this week's top ten. Ideas for the Westboro Baptist Church theme song.

All right, all right. So I guess we've got to start with a Foo Fighters remake. So how about number 10, Incest of You. At number nine, You're a Grand Old Fag and God Hates You. Yes, he does. Number eight, Lady in Red State. Number seven, The Birth of a National Anthem. Uh, number six, You Gotta Pick It When They Dick It.

That's not based on anything. I just, that would be a good song. At number five, Sweet Child O' Mine Comf. Nice. Uh, number four, Uh, I Get By With a Little Phelps From My Fred. Maybe. At number three, Ain't no mountain hile enough. Nice.

To keep us from getting to Jew babies. Damn. Crack them eggs. You killed it. That's way better than my number two. I just had a highway to hile, and now that's no good. Yours was way better. And at number one, turkey hotline in the straw.

And by the way, that number for the turkey safety hotline is not 785-273-0325 no it is actually you know what fuck it that's their theme song 2730325 well played and that's all the feedback you get if you want more keep sending us those emails tweets and facebook messages you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. Before we hop back into the phone booth tonight, I wanted to offer a quick shout-out to Jeremy Behan, Dave Fletcher, Justin Schieber, and Dr. Professor Luke Galen, formerly of the Reasonable Doubts podcast. They recorded their final episode a few days ago after years of well-researched, well-edited,

and well-presented counter-apologetics, and on behalf of myself and the many other atheist podcasters that they've inspired along the way, I want to thank them for all the work that they've done. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you today. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be sure to check me out on not one but two episodes of The Imaginary Friend Show, number 285 and 286, I do believe. Of course, it's just not an episode until I thank Heath Enright for bringing his A game so often

that I don't even know if he has a B game. I want to thank Lucinda Lusions because even when she doesn't appear on the show, she's always a huge part of putting it together. I also want to thank Dan Arrow for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. I should mention that his book, Parenting Without God, has just been re-released by a new publisher. It's been expanded and prettied up quite a bit. So if you meant to pick up a copy when he was on our show before, your procrastination might just pay off for you this time if you pick up a copy now.

And speaking of picking up copies, I honestly can't recommend Chris Matheson's new book highly enough. Really enjoyed it, and if you too would like to enjoy it, I encourage you to follow the links in the show notes for this episode, if for no other reason than I want that dude writing more books. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's hottest hominids, Brad Lloyd, Caleb, Danny, Rebecca, Nathaniel, of course, I need to thank this week's hottest hominids, Brad, Lloyd, Caleb, Danny, Rebecca, Nathaniel, Helga, Chris, David, Mike, Lisa, and Milton Machine Repair.

Brad, Lloyd, Caleb, and Danny, who could only wear a cock ring if you count Einstein rings. Rebecca, Nathaniel, Helga, and Chris, who definitely would have figured out that both cups had Iocane powder in them. I mean, come on. And David, Mike, Lisa, and Milton Machine Repair, who are so classy, their whoop-ass has to be uncorked. Together, these 12 selfless, hellbound heathens have helped us hold the holy homophobes accountable for their heinous and hateful haranguing this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the impeccable taste in fine wines and cheeses

that it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, and if you'd like to help what the Illuminati might find you if you make an online financial transaction, you can also help us a ton by leaving a five-star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or anywhere if you'd like to help with the illuminating might find you if you make an online financial transaction you can also help us a ton by leaving a five star

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Twitter just to be on the safe side too if you have questions comments or death threats you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skating atheist

dot com all the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly and yes I did have my permission in this episode was written and performed by yours truly, and yes, I did have my permission. There once was this fellow named Astley, who peopled my inbox steadfastly. He won't give me up, let me down, say goodbye, or run around, which is a shame, as his music is ghastly.

You see what happened there? You stuck around too long and you done got limerick rolled. Ah! Limerick rolled! Oh, shit. Changing a light bulb should be simple. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa!

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