The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 137: We are the Papal Edition

Episode Date: October 1, 2015

In this week's episode, the pope will make a retarted baby still retarded; Pastor Manning and Fat Guy in a Red Hat both get a richly deserved public shaming; and we once more humorously register our displeasure with Chicago style pizza.

Warning, if you don't like profanity, it's not too late to back away. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new line of bed linens for Orthodox Jewish newlyweds, Glory Holy Sheets. Are you a Hasidic man who finally gets to put his P in a V? Want to make sure you don't have to see the rest of your wife's body? Are you more of a girth man than anything else? Then we've got the unmixed threads for you. Glory Holy Sheets.

Pre-bloodstained for the length impaired. And now, the Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Anna Finley. I don't have a book. I don't have a blog. And I literally record this down by a busy street. If you're hearing it, it means that Noah is completely out of Farnsworth goods. He needs your help to remind everyone that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men.

It's Thursday. It's October 1st. And the lunar eclipse-related nuclear apocalypse won't be happening right away. Huh. Who would have thought? Prophecy takes time. I'm no illusions. I'm Heath Enright. And from Barrel of Crackers, Valdosta, Georgia, this is the Skating Atheist.

On this week's episode, the Pope will use his magic powers to make a retarded kid stay retarded. Pastor James David Manning and Josh Forstein both get a public shaming. And a Chicagoan will do something almost as offensive as calling that lasagna loaf pizza. But first, the diatribe. Well, damn it all to hell, I wanted to do a diatribe about the Pope visiting America this week, but I just can't find a lick of coverage about it in the media. Keep doing searches for anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-abortion, anti-gender equality, anti-birth control, pro-exorcism, head of worldwide child rape cabal visits U.S., and I can't find a thing.

And then, you know, I started figuring, well, maybe it's just that the liberal sites aren't covering it. You know, they don't usually buy into the religious shit as much as the right-wing sites. So I started Googling pro-global warming, anti-gun, anti-death penalty, pro-immigration, anti-capitalist head of worldwide child rape cabal visits U.S., and still nothing. Now, eventually I figured out what the problem was. Apparently some moral icon that's a paragon of humanitarian virtue was also visiting the U.S. at the same time, and I guess he's also named Francis? So that's probably

why the media was ignoring the Pope. I mean, that must be what happened, because the only other alternative is that media groups left, right, and center collectively decided to completely ignore all the heinous, malevolent shit the Catholic Church actually does under this Pope's leadership, ignore all the heinous malevolent shit the catholic church actually does under this pope's leadership and instead focusing on a bunch of empty platitudes that in no way match the actual actions of said leadership you know meanwhile set bladders over somewhere saying hey guys i also believe in global warming am i forgiven now i mean you know when i looked the other way it didn't result in kids getting fucked over and over again and josh duggar's saying well yeah i mean some kids got fucked over and over again but i never actively campaigned to condemn any you know entire

continents to a continued aids epidemic can i be forgiven too you know the asshole hedge fund guy with the toxoplasmosis pill is saying you know i touched a deformed guy once hugged him and everything and i've never encouraged any mentally ill people to seek out witch doctors instead of psychiatrists. And the dentist that shot that line is saying, well, I also don't think that people should starve to death. Plus, I haven't personally funded any national anti-gay marriage referendums in the Balkans. Yet somehow this asshole drops in, he tosses out some of the most banal platitudes you can imagine, and all is forgiven. The U.S. media becomes a fucking special ed teacher praising him for thinking humans should live and refugees should have homes and hungry people should have food and political

parties should just work together. He has the exact same talking points as a fourth grader in a beauty pageant and yet even the progressive media is patting him on the back for using the potty like a big boy. How about one fucking reporter says, excuse me, you're popiness, but recent reports strongly suggest you guys are still transferring child rapists to third world countries and then shielding them from prosecution. Is there a more evil thing that an institution can do, or is that the most evil thing? And look, I understand the concept of the bar being lowered here. The last pope couldn't go three days without condemning the Armenians or something. So this is kind of like when Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush.

It's not unprecedented, but still, at a certain point, the honeymoon is supposed to end, right? At a certain point, we're supposed to look at what the pope's actually done about child rape and money laundering and equality within the church see that it's nothing and then stop licking his balls over choosing to have lunch with homeless people rather than congressmen i mean who the fuck would rather eat with congressmen than homeless people at least none of the homeless people stole his glass but consider this the pope has absolutely no ability to make a real difference in things like climate change world hunger and the syrian refugee crisis i mean you know okay maybe a little difference he can rally a few hearts to the cause or whatever but when it comes down to it the effect he can have on it is about

the same as the effect that angelina jolie could have but unlike angelina he has full autonomy to fix the problems in his own fucking church and And he's done nothing of substance, nothing on the child rape pandemic, the money laundering shit, the misogyny, the homophobia. The actual thing he's in charge of is a den of the worst kind of criminality imaginable. I mean, sure, they stopped torturing people to death a few centuries ago, and they stopped hiding Nazis once they ran out of Nazis that needed hiding. So this is probably the least immoral the Vatican has ever been, but that's a pretty easy bar to slither over. Meanwhile, the asshole who won't even turn child rapists over to the police is going to come lecture the U.S. Congress on how to govern?

Dude, fuck you. Your country is 1 230th the size of Disney World, and everyone has the same religion. What the fuck do you know about governance? Our Congress is dysfunctional, sure, but at least we arrest people who fuck children. So what we have here is yet another way that religion gets in the way of an honest national dialogue. If the Pope was a leader of like a real country, a real country that, you know, didn't allow women to govern, opposed the rights of gays, demonized birth control,

laundered money for mobsters, and kept sending out ambassadors that fucked kids and then holding them back and refusing to extradite them. No one in this country would give the slightest pity fuck about his views on climate change. This man is at the head of one of the most morally reprehensible international institutions in the world and has done nothing substantive to change that fact. You know what? He's impaneled people to offer recommendations to form committees to advise in cyclicals and shit.

But as the Joseph Wazlawski case proved, even now, their current policy on kid fuckers is to sneak them out of the countries they're accused of fucking kids in under the cover of darkness and then protect them from punishment until they die. That is their current active policy. And yet this motherfucker is trying to tell the rest of the world how to be ethical. But of course, the national media isn't even paying lip service to this hypocrisy because Jesus. You know, they must figure that these poor Catholics have had so much bad press and now it's their responsibility to balance that out with positive coverage

instead of dwelling on the present. But you take away the fact that they, you know, have to kiss religion's ass and stuff, and you realize that they're praising Nambla for the great job they're doing with the highway they adopted. It's like the media praising a company's environmental record based on nothing but the fact that they changed their logo to a green one. If you thought the Vatican was a corrupt institution in the 90s, you have no reason to think any differently now.

They haven't changed anything but the mascot they're talking about you jesus interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin joining me for headlines tonight is the other white meat heath and right heath are you ready to honk and or crack no but promise to be slightly off time all night oh terrible rhythm white and he's snapping so quick programming note before we get started um i'm No, but promised to be slightly off time all night. Oh. Terrible rhythm. White enough. Dinky snapping. So quick programming note before we get started. I'm playing through a bit of an injury this week. I cracked a rib a couple of days ago, and it hurts like fuck to take a deep breath or laugh. So if it seems like I'm talking a little slower this week, taking a lot more breath, that's why.

Also, Heath, do me a favor. Try not to be funny tonight. All right. Well, keep it dark. Exactly. Inevitably. Revocably. Happy birthday.

No such thing. It's funny. Never mind. Be funny. I just won't laugh. Just don't take it personally. That's all. In our lead story tonight, from the Walker Hooligans file, hundreds of faithful Muslims

dedicated to the religion of peace were killed last week, and hundreds more were injured when a human stampede erupted in MENA, Saudi Arabia, just outside of Mecca. Again. Yeah, right. Hundreds of people were killed in a human stampede in Saudi Arabia again. I think it's safe to say this is one of those rare times when a human centipede would have been a preferable type of human-pede. Well, I mean, that obviously depends on the length of the centipede. It gets to go to the front, right. And whether it's trampling people to death, too, now that you mention it. Predictable mass death happened last week during the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday.

At around 9 a.m. local time, during the throw rocks at demonic pillars portion of the event, it seems the crowd broke out into a frenzy of running and murder for some reason. According to the New York Times, 717 were killed and 863 were injured, which, sadly enough, is nothing close to a record-setting Hodge stampede. Really? Yeah. The stampede of 1990, for example, claimed 1,426 lives. And apparently local leaders see this as a victory of some sort. They kept that annual stampede fatality number

below 1990 levels ever since and they're damn proud of it wow great job and think about how much this doubly sucks for the people who would have gotten into muslim heaven if only the stampede happened on the way back right you know they're sitting up there like okay shahada check daily prayer check starting yourself all day for a month every year, check. Sharing is caring, check. Completing your... Oh, shit. Dude, so sorry.

So sorry. Proto-mortar for eternity for you. Worst case scenario, yeah. So you might be asking yourself, if this is a regular occurrence for them, why do they reschedule it every year? Well, great question. As it turns out, one of the big rules in Islam, the Hajj rule, actually requires that a religious stampede convention be held in Mecca annually. Yeah, it's a pillar.

And it further requires that every Muslim person in the world try to attend this bloodbath at least once. In other news, Saudi royalty continues to make about $8.5 billion a year thanks to their thriving mandatory tourism industry. Huh. Unrelated. What are the odds? And in water you thinkin' news tonight, Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Bob Brady showed his unqualified reverence for pope francipi cup last friday by stealing his shit in hopes that his pope magic was contagious i guess brady made a point of stealing the glass that the pope drank from during his congressional address when asked what he planned to do with the glass now that he had it brady answered quote definitely something less creepy than fucking it end quote

i don't get it is the pope's like leftover bus tub full of magic now is that a thing who i've never heard that so after swiping the holy receptacle the devout catholic and brain fucked zealot drank some of the water and its homeopathic levels of pope spit, before sharing the remaining few sips with his wife and several of his staff members. And I can only imagine how bizarre this game of nine staffers, one cup, must have seemed to any secular members of his staff, sitting around at this point, like, forced to starkly recognize the fact that they work for an insane person who gets a vote on whether or not we go to war. Terrifying, yeah.

So, pretty much the only way brady's day gets better is if he finds the pope's used condom in a trash can fucking weird he's passing around the office everybody swallow a sip oh god a sip karen a sip god damn i'm saving some for my wife jesus be an asshole and just in case this wasn't certifiable enough yet, I should also point out that Brady saved a bit of the remaining water so that he could, I shit you not, sprinkle some on his grandchildren. Maybe it's good he didn't find the condom.

When asked by the media if he thought that doing shit that teeny bopper Zayn Malik fans would find creepy and over the top should disqualify a person from high office, low office, and operating a fork without supervision. Everything. Brady grunted angrily at reporters, while his chief of staff desperately tried to convince him that getting bit by radioactive spiders isn't all it's cracked up to be. And from the real life Uncle Ruckus file tonight, according to my Google alert, we have a story about Pastor James David Manning. Hooray! You may remember him as the guy who had the scoop on Starbucks selling gay sperm lattes.

How could you forget? Or perhaps from his description of semen as the cream of the blood by which homo demons can be transmitted on restaurant upholstery. Again, how could you forget? Or perhaps from my favorite one, his vow to personally hunt down lesbians through the streets of Manhattan on a flaming chariot drawn by Pegasus ninjas. Yep. Well, that guy had to deal with a well-deserved protest outside his church last week, and he decided the best response would be to walk outside during it and deliver a five-minute hate speech meltdown rant. And it was glorious. For those who haven't already watched the video, here's a few highlights for you.

He starts out, quote, you are racist as well, end quote. So, yeah, weird way to lead off admitting you're a racist anyway from there he threw out several homophobic slurs and continued quote i declare the blood of jesus against you you are demon possessed you stop the demons now stop the demons now stop the demons now end quote and as he's you got to watch this video because as he's screaming about men's buttholes and lesbos and stuff. Literally those words. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm not paraphrasing or anything.

You can see that there's people who are just, you know, they're not part of the protest. They just have to get to the three train on MLK or whatever. And they are cracking the fuck up. Really made me miss New York. You don't see, because if this happened in Valdosta, you know, he'd be screaming this and all the audience would, all the protesters would be going, yeah, no, he's got a point. Lesbos and... Yeah. So then it went on like he forgot what was happening entirely.

And I think he just started listing titles from his secret porn collection. All you dung eaters, your breath stinks of another man's butthole. No salvation for butt lickersole No salvation for butt lickers No salvation for butt bangers Thy kingdom come clean Coming on Jews Coming in pews Coming in cars with boys

And of course all cups filled with Pearly white cum latte Happy scrappy And happy scrappy hero puff And then he closed it out by channeling that Famous Christian Boxer Muhammad Ali Quote scrappy hero pop of course and then he closed it out by channeling that famous christian boxer muhammad ali quote i am the champion i am the greatest preacher and defender of the word of god hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah now all of y'all go to hell. I am the greatest. That's really what he said.

Exactly. And the most incredible thing about the video is that Atla Ministries uploaded it. This is on Pastor Manning's channel. This was not like the protesters saying, hey, look what a crazy, ranting, homophobe this motherfucker is. This was Pastor Manning saying, watch me school these people and their homo butt demons. Winning. He was proud of this very proud and in surreality television news tonight television show whose name needs a citation

ecuador's got talent is under fire from atheist voices around the world after three or four hosts got all butt shitty with a contestant who dared to realize that god was bullshit after self-taught 16 year old vocalist car Pena finished her audition, she waited for the judges to critique her skills, and then continued to wait for that for five minutes while three ravenous bigots bitched at her for failing to credit the skills she worked so hard on all by herself to an imaginary sky emperor. This is unbelievable.

How the fuck is this relevant to a singing contest? It was a great song choice. Loved the way you broke it down during the bridge. Speaking of which, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagella. Might as well have been. So after Judge Maria Fernanda Rios asked Peña if she was religious, the wholly inappropriate sermon of bitchery was just unleashed. religious the holy inappropriate sermon of bitchery was just unleashed judge wendy vera offered what sounds to me like a thinly veiled threat of discrimination when she answered that pen you should believe in god because it's through god that you win contests like this she was also told that she was too young and spoiled to realize how important god is that she could never reach her

full potential without him and that eventually she'd grow up and realize that atheism is stupid and they were fucking dark about it they really were yeah ridiculous yeah good luck when you get face cancer in a few years you don't have any delusional defense mechanisms to fall back on i mean i'm not saying i hope you get terminal cancer when you're 19 but you probably will you probably will this is a kid show and i'm being appropriate apparently now in in penya defense, she actually did a great job confidently fielding their bullshit questions. When asked why she didn't believe in God, she answered, quote, because God hasn't given me a reason to believe in him, end quote.

She then went on to defend herself adequately from the incredulous, you mean you don't think we go to a magical post-mortem Disneyland when we die? And then finally she got a reprieve from the one judge willing to admit that one's willingness to worship dead Jews has nothing whatsoever to do with one's ability to sing. One out of four people recognize that fact. I'm hoping she comes back next round and sings like atheists don't have no songs or something. That's nice. Yeah.

I bet Tim Minchin would let her use the Pope song too. So in response to the broadcast, the Atheist Association of Ecuador is contemplating a religious discrimination suit against the show. And while I have no clue how Ecuadorian law works, I'd like to think that if 75% of their judges berated her for being Jewish, for example, they'd at the very least be replacing 75% of their judges the next day. And from the fat guy in a red hat file tonight. Man, that's a big file. Get excited. Facebook evangelist Josh Fowerstein appeared on the CBS show The Doctors last week to elaborate on his bigoted stance regarding proper gender roles. proper gender roles.

He was in the front row of the studio audience across the aisle from noted non-bigot father Mickey Willis, who got a bunch of media attention recently after his YouTube video about allowing his son to buy a little mermaid doll went viral. And since Forstein responded to Willis and his open-mindedness with a homophobic, literally gun-toting rant video on Facebook, as he is wont to do, this episode gave the two fathers an opportunity to continue that dialogue, I guess. During which time, Fowerstein got thoroughly embarrassed by the entire cast and crew and audience.

And it was fabulous. Oh, and by himself, too. Like, mostly they just sat back and let him have some rope. Mostly just him talking embarrassed him, yeah. Okay, okay. So there's no way to capture the complete meltdown he had without a quote. So here's the opening of an actual response from Fat Guy in a Red Hat. Now, I should point out, I have not scrambled these words.

This is the order they came out of his head in. Quote, I shit you not, I double-checked this. Quote, I believe that people were obviously created in the image of God, that obviously that through sin, yes, that we have a fallen sinful nature, but I do believe that we have an ability to come to a relationship with Jesus Christ in which we are now able to then the his goodness fill us. End quote. That was, by the way, in answer to the question, why shouldn't boys be allowed to play with dolls?

Wow. That was where he went with that. So, in case anyone's not familiar with Josh Forstein and the aforementioned anti-gay Facebook video, he was providing what he believes to be, I guess, common sense advice about how to fag-shame your son into becoming a heterosexual man later in life. Pretty much, yeah. Kind of like Ray Comfort meets Glenn Beck. Eats Glenn Beck.

And then they decide to stuff their faces together into a single red hat. Right, yes. And then yell hateful stuff at a $10 camera. If you saw two lesbians about to get into a deadly broken elevator, wouldn't you rather rape them and just assume they'll thank you later? It's the same with kids. It's about stewardship.

He also, at one point, kind of like just, he points out that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina and then he also just volunteers that he does not subjugate and or emotionally abuse his wife you don't what no i mean nobody asked him about that or anything he just wanted to point it out in case anyone was wondering and you know what i was so quick side note because the doctors isn't

filmed vertically with an ipod shuffle it was proven once and for all that i was wrong i'll admit it josh forstein is not constructed like krang from ninja turtles lesson learned i mean that's what i was clearly picturing outside of the frame of his yeah no shuffle that's because uh krang is made out of brain and in i'd sooner vote for donald duck news tonight gop presidential frontrunner man arrogant enough to use a definite article before his first name, and personification of Dick Cheney's id Donald Trump is hard at work shoring up the vote for the 14% of voters dumber than him. And what better way to do that than waving around a Bible that he's never read? Sounds about right. During a speech last Friday at the Values Voters Summit,

Trump sought to enhance his Jesus cred by showing the audience that he did indeed own a bible that his grandmother gave him when he was a kid which is true of almost every american that has a grandma i mean that's true of me and i ran out of grandmas years ago so yes donald trump you're at least as christian as the guys who say fuck christianity for a living well done well done it's like dan snyder going to a press conference yeah yeah my my nfl franchise is named after a horrible ethnic slur and yes i still completely refuse to change it but look at this dream catcher my dad yeah right yeah might as well be so using his characteristic free association speaking style trump rambled about a number of random topics before throwing

the value voters some red meat by suggesting he would enact a law forcing store owners to say Merry Christmas. According to the world's foremost cranial weasel balancer, quote, you go to stores, you don't see the word Christmas. It says happy holidays all over. I want to see Merry Christmas. Remember that expression? You don't see it anymore. You're going to see it if I get elected I can tell you that right now

End quote Okay scumbag up against the wall Did you sell this nice lady a bottle of water Yeah Do you wish her a delightful Arbor Day You bastard It's mid April you fucking savage Sorry ma'am you had to deal with that.

Get out of here, you thug. Later on, Trump was asked exactly how he intended to enforce the everyone has to say Merry Christmas all the time policy. And he assured reporters that he didn't intend to criminalize the failure to say Merry Christmas. Which, in my mind, can only mean that he intends to create a new branch of civil employees that just go around to stores telling people Merry Christmas two months a year. Which, when combined with the increased need for Mexican-hating Masons, also forms Trump's jobs platform. And with that, we'll take a quick break to hand things over to a person with precisely the same odds of winning the presidency in 2016, my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. A religious slut, right lovely wife, Lucinda. I realize that I've had a string of pretty

depressing segments over the last couple of months, so when I set out to collect stories for this week, I was determined to find a few good news pieces to balance things out. Unfortunately, good news stories and misogyny rarely mix, so eventually I had to give up on that and settle for finding a positive spin I could put on all of these negative stories. So, without further ado, I'd like to present all the secular ladies of the world a quick list of men we never have to worry about accidentally fucking. For our first example of fortuitous unfuckability, we have Pastor Douglas Wilson, who would look out of place anywhere but a windowless van. And if you want to get his plus-size mom jeans down any further than his perpetually visible ass crack,

the first person you need to get on your knees for is Jesus. Wilson blogged last Tuesday about how relatively hideous those Muslim, Jewish, and atheist bitches are in a blog titled On Why Christian Women Are Prettier. In the piece, he argues that nothing says sexy like a thoughtless, submissive, delusional automaton. After first explaining how the Bible isn't sexist because men are made of crappy old dirt and women are made of glorious and wonderful man ribs, he goes on to explain that seductive and sexually aggressive women are just plain ugly. So, for the record, the reason that Pastor Douglas Wilson doesn't get seduced by sexy women is because he doesn't want to, not because he can't. But let's face it, nobody was going to fuck a guy who looks like a genetic hybrid

of Bob Vila and Mr. Belvedere anyway. So let's move on to the kind of guy who might seem normal and even compatible at a blush. Because let's face it, we've all been in a position where we're thinking, this person seems normal, right before they say something like, well, you've got to admit, Glenn Beck makes some good points. But if you're ever worried that the cute guy you're flirting with might be a bitchy, misogynistic man-child, don't worry. There may be a foolproof plan to avoid him. Just don't arrive in the present day in a time machine from the 1920s. According to the half-hearted poets in the no hymen, no diamond community, the very fact that you've had sex is plenty enough to

disqualify you. So if you get soaking wet over pillow talk like the average American woman is an attention whore who rationalizes her promiscuous behavior with her other slutty friends, has no goals or ambitions, has no personality, and has her head stuck up her ass. Sorry, ladies. The Lothario who wrote that likes his vaginas like he likes his action figures, still in their original packaging. And last in our list of people everyone should be thankful they're not fucking is, of course, the Pope. Yes, I know. Noah did a whole diatribe about him and how the media should never go ass to mouth.

But I've seen way too many progressive people eager to embrace this societally sexist asshole. And I think it's worth remembering that when it comes to women, he's not just wrong. He's anachronistic. Birth control? No. Ordaining women? No. Abortion? Hell no. Acknow? No. Ordaining women? No. Abortion?

Hell no. Acknowledging that men and women are equals? Fuck off. We're talking about a man who brushed off his long history of misogynistic rhetoric by telling the female reporter asking him about it that she was, after all, made from a rib. And then he told her that it was a joke because women are too stupid to know stuff like that. So just a quick reminder, this pope does all the exact same shit as the last Pope.

He hasn't actually changed anything. So if you're inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, don't worry. You're not the first person to fall for a slick marketing campaign. But make no mistake, that's all that it is. Pope Francis talking up the Vatican stance on climate changes is no different than Michael Palin talking up the Norwegian blues' lovely plumage. And with that, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in active armed insurrection within our national borders that isn't being prosecuted news tonight, after their thinly veiled offer to murder government

appointed officials on behalf of Kim Davis was turned down, the Oath Keepers have elected to turn their persecution-fantasy-born anarchical vigilante bloodlust to the illegal Jesus sign that greets visitors to Hawkins, Texas. Or, rather, will greet such visitors as soon as somebody comes up with a good reason to visit Hawkins, Texas. Yeah, I think they're overestimating the importance of this information being displayed slightly yeah people drive through wood county texas unless otherwise posted i feel like drivers are probably assuming it's it's not a moses or muhammad type of town yeah right right should we set up new mecca right here i I haven't seen a Jesus sign for a mile.

Said nobody ever. So after a brief legal tussle that included the claim that Jesus can't count as a religious figure unless you also count Superman, Hawkins mayor and rope and fool Will Rogers announced that he would begrudgingly cede to the Constitution and take the sign down. But the adjuration maintainers aren't impressed with things like judicial precedent and Democratic votes by elected officials on the city council and have vowed to protect the sign with the unmistakable threat of violence. Yeah, they're also offering to provide security for Walmart cash registers during all of December. And if anyone says happy holidays, they get shot in the face. Part of the stand your ground law also part of a lot like florida trump's platform so oath keepers volunteer chaplain and man who looks like

wilford brimley auditioning for the cantina band in star wars is taking up guard over the sign with the stated goal of protecting it from vandalism with a gun you know like like sane people do the chaplain in question assured the local media that he's not trying to overthrow the city of Hawkins, which is the exact kind of thing that no well-intentioned person has ever had to assure anyone. I'm not overthrowing your town. Hi, Mayor of Hawkins. Yeah, me and a few friends, we're going to come down and visit your town. Okay, you really don't have to announce that.

Oh, good. It's not a military coup. What? It's not a military coup? I was asking you if anybody was doing that. Okay, nobody's doing that there. Good. Oh, and by the way, I should mention for the record that I know it's figuring down in the modal nodes. I just

figured more people would get the reference if I was less specific about the Cantina Band. So you don't need to send an email to me. We would have. You're going to anyway, but you don't need to. And finally tonight, from the Art Imitates Death file,

demonstrating the need for better versions of itself, the Passion for Freedom art exhibition in London, allegedly dedicated to freedom of expression, decided to censor itself before the opening last week and remove a piece that depicts Islamic fundamentalist rodents in a negative light. Somehow that's controversial, I guess. Apparently, yeah. Well, no, in their defense, they didn't have enough Ds for the muted passion for conditional freedom art exhibit. They had to shorten it.

It's like the tweet thing from before. So the piece in question is called ISIS Threatened Sylvania by an artist named Mimsy, and it shows squadrons of jihadist-looking mouse figurines holding assault rifles next to peaceful groups of rabbits and hedgehogs trying to mind their own business and hopefully not get murdered for being anything but sunni muslim or for being sunni muslim but doing it slightly right yeah exactly according to the artist's description the armed group is called quote mysis oh that's fundamentalist islamic terror group threatening to dominate Sylvania and impose their hardline version of Sharia law, end quote. So it's a perfectly accurate diorama of current events, except with rodents instead of people banned from the exhibit. Well, right. And it's also, by the way, a brilliant bit of artistic expression. I mean,

that's the real shame of this. This isn't like Pamela geller hates speeching her way into notoriety this is a piece of art that transposes sort of the you know the the idyllic ignorance of a western world that is relatively unthreatened and therefore tolerant of islamic extremism in other words the exact kind of thing that we want free speech protecting you know if mimsy had been one neuron more clever the seventh diorogram would have shown a bunch of rodent cops carrying an offensive diorama out of an exhibit. That would have been meta. So it appears the event organizers decided to abandon the entire purpose of their exhibition.

Apparently, yeah. After local police informed them that the price of security would be raised significantly from the original agreement if the so-called potentially inflammatory content wasn't pulled from the show. And of course, the police made the decision after realizing that Islamic fundamentalists are exactly crazy enough to show up at art shows with automatic weapons, just like the artwork often suggests. Yeah, exactly. And by the way, while we're saving syllables and stuff, how about you guys just say, caved to the demand of terrorists?

I would do this. Or maybe even pre-caved, if you want to be super specific. So for all the violent Islamic fundamentalists out there listening, we've got a friendly suggestion for you. Instead of trying to murder people at art shows that you find offensive, maybe you do nothing. Or maybe make some of your own artwork. There you go, fine.

In fact, a team of jihadist mice makes a great premise for children's TV shows that you can fill with radical Muslim propaganda. I wonder where we're going with this. Yeah. Where might we go? I don't know. Again, I prefer the do know Again I prefer they do nothing

I prefer the do nothing idea No that's a good one That would be ideal But peaceful brainwashing Would be a very small step In the right direction At the very least And we are here to help

Just for you guys We're gonna put 30 seconds On the clock That's what was about to happen I knew we would Ideas for the Islamic Fundamentalist Kids TV show Go Okay well I guess they could do like A reboot of the Flintstones But that's more of a Ideas for the Islamic Fundamentalist Kids TV Show Go

Okay, well, I guess they could do like a reboot of the Flintstones But that's more of a geopolitical goal than a TV show So how about Tala Bananas in Pajamas Be adorable Absolutely, alright What about the Anti-Semite Morphin Power Rangers? I kind of want to see that, actually.

The fight scenes would be awesome. Or maybe Fatwa Albert. Bill Cosby needs work. They love misogynists. It's a match made in heaven. Nice. What about the Sharia Ghostbusters? Oh, no, see, I was thinking Sharia the Teenage Witch.

Of course, that would only last one episode. They would kill her, but it could be a solid episode before the honor killing at the end. Hmm, maybe Boko Haramperum? they would kill her, but it could be a solid episode before the honor killing at the end. Maybe Boko Haramperum? Kind of like Illiterate Rainbow. Yeah.

No reading Rainbow. 3-2-1 Farrakhan-tact. Yeah, there you go. Maybe Bill Nye the Hellbound Infidel. Which is really a translation. What about SuniTunes, the Bugs and Gaddafi show? Which, by the way, led to former sponsors, the Palestine-y Tune Adventure Show, and also Iranomania. That's right. That's right.

I remember the songs. How about Where in the World is Malala Yousafzai? Seriously, we want to shoot her in the head again. Really, we're looking again. What about Schoolhouse Rocks? Co-ed Muslims. Oh, wow. It's their thing.

And quick before our more prudish listeners realize that was a stoning women to death joke. We're going to close out the headlines for the night. He thanks as always. Castlevania. And when we come back, we're going to make Tim Tebow jokes without talking about fantasy football. Wow. It's a thirsty workout here. Sure could use one of those magic water rocks. Remember?

I hit my stick against the rock and suddenly there's water. Magic thing. Yes, Moses. I remember. Because, you know, right now would be a great time. Here I am in the desert. I'm carving all this shit into all these tablets. It's exhausting.

Okay, maybe later. Too much work to do at the moment. Maybe later. Yeah, about that. What about that? Well, I was thinking about it last night. And, you know, you can create universes from the void and make complex biological life from dirt and stuff. You bet your ass I can.

Yeah. It just seems like there's probably a more efficient way of encoding your laws to humanity than me chipping them out on a giant stone tablet. I mean. What do you mean? Well, this is going to take, I don't know, like 40 days at this rate. It just seems like you could immaculately hand me some kind of scroll or something. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Are you saying that you don't like laboring for your Lord? No, no, no. It's not that. It just seems like we've got a four-decade journey ahead of us, and these Jews can't go a month without worshipping a golden calf or something. This just doesn't strike me as the most productive use of my time. Oh, I see, I see. You have

better things to do than transcribe the laws of God. Well, kind of, yeah. But also look, I'm a bit of a Butterfingers and if I drop these things, bam, million pieces. Whole thing was a bit of a Butterfingers, and if I drop these things, bam, million pieces. Whole thing was a waste of time.

I'm a scroll on the other hand. No, look, I want oversized stone tablets. I've thought this through. It's going to look awesome when you come down with one in each arm. Plus, I like to watch you get all wet and sweaty. What? I mean, because of your devotion. I like to watch you labor in service of your Lord.

Okay. Servicing your Lord. What? Nothing. All right. That was weird. Well, I've got the whole preface and everything ready. So how many commandments are we doing?

Ten. Oh. Oh, that shouldn't be too bad. Well, it's 613 altogether but we're gonna start with 10 all right so number one is that i'm god um i don't know if that's really a commandment bro that's just no of course i just commanded you to write it down so of course that's that's not how that works do i need to remind you that i'm god moses okay all right whatever so how do you want me to phrase it what do you mean i mean i'm wandering around

with a bunch of illiterate slave jews uh i'm gonna have to read these to them and if i read i am god they're gonna think i'm talking about me. Well, no, but that's definitely wrong. I'm God, not you. Yeah, right. So how do I phrase that so they'll understand what's happening? Well, maybe just like that. I'm God, not you. That's still not clear.

Same problem. Oh, yeah. No, right, right. I got you. How about I am the Lord thy God? That still doesn't – I mean, I'm basically writing God is God, and there's still 612 of these to go. Are you sure I need to carve that?

Yep, yep, I am sure. Fine, got it. Okay, so what's the second one? Also that I'm God. Look, I get where you're going with this, like a Fight Club homage, but seriously, I've actually got to carve this shit out of stone. Oh, right, right.

Okay, so how about I'm the only god? Well, that just seems like a weird thing to have to say if it's true. Write it. Fine. Number one and number two are the same thing, and they're not commandments, but fucking whatever. Let me guess. Number three is also that you're God? Yeah, I was thinking about that, though.

How about thou shalt not make any graven images? I thought a lot about that one. Okay, you want me to engrave that? Yeah. Why? No reason. What else you got? You know what?

I don't like people saying my name when they're pissy. So how about that? Don't say my name when they're pissy. So how about that? Don't say my name when you're pissy is the next one. That's the next most important thing you can think of for commandments. Yep. All right. Got it. Number five.

We're going for number five. Okay. I feel like every seventh day should be dedicated to me. Don't you? Like a me day every seventh day? Put that one down too. Fine. And then maybe something about how you should be nice to your mom and dad

because even when they kick you out of their garden and condemn your generations to an eternity of suffering, that's no reason to be all shitty with them. Right? Am I right? Are you sure you don't want to put, I don't know, some like moral stuff in there? Like moral codes of any kind just like like what do you mean i don't know um not killing people or not stealing stuff that oh yeah okay

sure that that could be number that could be number six and seven okay or actually you know what i have not mentioned anything about not fucking yet, and I hate it when you people fuck. So put that first, something about not fucking. First, put that before the murder thing. You want me to put not fucking before not murdering? Well, fine, whatever. You do the murder thing, then the not fucking, then the, you know, whatever the other one you said was. Not stealing.

Right, yeah, whatever. And then maybe not lying. Hey, hey, hey, dude, slow down. These are my commandments. Sorry, it just seemed like you could use some help brainstorming. No, no, I'm fine. I've got this. All right, fine.

What's the ninth one? Not lying. But that's already what I was going to say. I mean, I already thought of that, and I was going to say that before you mentioned it. Yeah, sure. I'm sure you thought of that already. Okay, so you've got one more in your top ten here. Three more.

Okay, I've already got nine. You said we were starting with ten. We have nine. No, you have seven by my count. I have them right here. I can read them back to you. Do you remember the locusts, Moses, and the boils in Egypt? Okay, so that's seven.

What else do you want? Not wanting other people's houses should probably be on there. That's pretty important. All right. I'm not sure it makes my top ten, but okay, whatever. And then maybe not wanting other people's wives, too. That's pretty good. You maybe want to roll those two into one?

We could just combine those. Can you do it kind of like so it seems like maybe it's one and maybe it's two different ones? Could you do it like kind of like so it like it seems like maybe it's one and maybe it's two different ones could you do it like that yeah that wouldn't be weird okay um so you have one left right we can read it yeah okay so what do you think for the last one last one already oh wow a lot of pressure to make this a good one huh yeah. We're going to fuck up this list. So how about not wanting other people's donkeys? You want a second to rethink that one? No, no. I'm pretty sure I nailed it.

You could like all of the stuff that other people might want. You could put all of that in there, but lead with donkeys. Okay. Like I was thinking not raping or something. We haven't covered that. You don't like raping? I do not. I feel like it's morally

reprehensible. Are we not? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we are. Of course. Oh, by the way, for entirely unrelated reasons, I'm going to have to

kill you before you reach the promised land and promote Joshua to your old job. What? What? Joshua? Seriously?'s seriously like complicated god reason stuff now let's get back to work we haven't even gotten to not grabbing people's nuts when they're fighting so uh a lot of important shit yeah it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago when i was researching a story about the bring your bible to school day that in a lot of ways all of of these right-wing Christian groups meld together in my mind.

I found myself thinking, focus on the family. That's not the Brian Fisher one. Is that the Josh Duggar one? No, wait a minute. Is that the Pat Robertson one? occur to me that if after nearly three years of closely following the religious news cycle, I can't keep all these constitutionally dubious tax-exempt right-wing Christian political lobbying organizations straight, it's got to be damn tricky for the casual consumer of the news. And with ambiguous and anodyne names like Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council,

the American Family Association, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Vague American Center for Vague Law and Vague Justice, and the Council for National Policy, one could be forgiven for thinking that the inability of the average American to distinguish between them or glean any knowledge whatsoever of what they do from their title is more of a feature than a bug. Clearly. So over the next couple of months heath and i will be highlighting a few of these organizations in an effort to shed some light on a bunch of assholes that would rather not be exposed and then dig deep into them to find out what kind of shit they're hiding deep within and as much as it sounds like i'm talking about anally raping

christians i'm not okay he's not he's not no so we'll start this off by asking, what the fuck is Focus on the Family? Oh, so now you're doing the echoey thing. And it feels good. No, yeah. Enjoyed it. That's good. I mean, you know, normally I do the echoey thing, but it's not like it's not like my thing.

Apology accepted. Focus on the Family was founded in 1977 by psychologist and evangelical lunatic James Dobson with the stated goal of promoting interdenominational cooperation towards socially conservative issues. Dobson would then go on to found the Family Research Council as well a mere four years later. Which is the Duggar one. That is the Duggar one. And that one also has the exact same stated goal. also has the exact same stated goal. Now, Focus on the Family dubs itself a parachurch organization,

which basically means an organization that gets all the tax-exempt benefits from churchdom without the bothersome encumbrance of actually having a church. Instead, they seek to organize within churches with the message that it doesn't matter if they can agree on basic fundamental doctrines

of their shared faith as long as they can agree that fags are bad and zygotes are good. So with an annual tax-exempt revenue of over $100 million a year, the group that exists almost entirely to organize people for political purposes is staunchly against premarital sex,

unless, of course, you're fucking the establishment class. Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways, Focus on the Family is like the bizarro scathing atheist. I mean, they promote Christianity. We promote reason. They have a they promote Christianity. We promote reason. They have a lot of money.

We do not. We pay taxes. They do not. They suck badger nuts. But we have no policy on that. No stated policy, no. And you could very literally swap out the for and against titles on their stated values, and you'd pretty much have my exact list of political priorities in order of importance. Right. Well, they never explicitly state that they're against

masturbation, but they say pornography is no good, and that's close enough. So yeah, right with you. Opposite. So according to their Wikipedia page, in the four column, we have God. Jesus is dead, by the way, to be clear. Yeah, that's that one. Yeah, exactly. Also, abstinence-only education, creationism, school prayer, traditional gender roles, whatever the fuck that means, corporal punishment and straight adoption. That's right. Straight adoption is one of the things they felt the need to come out in favor of as opposed to the people who are against straight couples adopting. We're against straight couples adopting. And in the against column, they have abortion, divorce, gambling, same-sex marriage, LGBT adoption.

Right, right. Because unambiguously implying it, that's just not enough. Of course not, right. Also pornography, premarital sex, and substance abuse. I agree with these people on absolutely no things. None of the things, yeah. No common ground here ground here and by the way I'm a huge fan of abortion maybe it's different for women but I have a great time hang out in the waiting room you crack a few beers dudes slapping five congratulating you passing out cigars it's great he's focused

on the family people have no idea what they're missing at least the men it's a terrible list right right and like honestly if they'd come out in favor of that's what she said jokes, this would be the exact reverse of my list. Now, while they dabble their fingers in a lot of pies, the group considers their primary mission disenfranchising the gays, obviously. While they couch this in a lot of double talk about biblical definitions, their continued silence on the issue of dowries, concubines and virgin stoning is more than enough to betray the homophobia agenda. Yeah, they're also the founders of the ex-gay ministry Love One Out, which was later sold to another Christian organization and then later disbanded by the new owners who then apologized for the four years of harm to the LGBT community that the group did under their stewardship. By the way, Focus on the Family has yet to apologize for the 11 years of harm the group did

before the other guys bought it. Right. If you're keeping score. Of course, Focus on the Family's 501c3 status prevents them from directly endorsing political candidates, but they're Christians, so they endorsed Huckabee anyway and told the irs to

go fuck itself and to their credit the irs went ahead and fucked itself rather enthusiastically yeah seem to enjoy it like they wanted to do that anyway now they're also notorious for misrepresenting the findings of social scientists in an effort to support their antiquated views on human sexuality while head of the group james dobson cited a study that he said proved that heterosexual couples make better parents without divulging the fact that the study he was talking about

was comparing heterosexual couples to single parents, not gay couples. Yeah, exactly. Now, this was by no means an isolated incident, by the way, as he went on later to support gay conversion therapy

by citing studies that showed increased risks of suicide in gay teens without divulging the fact that we're all pretty sure that's because of assholes like James Dobson. You did that. Exactly. Like, that's the reason they're committing suicide is because of assholes like you, bro. Right.

And you also may remember Focus on the Family as the negligent jackasses who bought ad time during Super Bowl 44 so that Tim Tebow's mom could encourage women to ignore the doctors who say they might die without an abortion. Right. Yes. The message here was that doctors recommended that she have an abortion and her baby came out just fine. So before you abort, consider that you might be killing the future fourth round Eagles quarterback who was cut in the preseason or Beethoven. You never know. And it's also worth noting, somewhat off subject, that Tim Tebow was born in the fucking Philippines

where abortion was and is illegal, making the story about doctors recommending that she abort complete, obvious, and verifiable bullshit. It's time to self-deport, bro. So, bottom line, this group is awful, illegal, destructive, and also terrifyingly large. Yes. Focus on the Family has affiliates in at least 13 countries a headquarters big enough to demand its own zip code a nine-figure annual operating budget an unconstitutional tax exemption a daily radio broadcast that airs in 44 countries and seven languages books videos websites and

teaching resources did i miss anything a lot of shit. I can't believe you forgot the magazine. And a fucking magazine. Fuck them and their magazine. So I guess the only major question about Focus on the Family that we left unanswered is... How bullshit is it? We're not doing that.

This is a different thing. I know. I just didn't get to do the echoey thing earlier. Run, grab the youngins, folks. It's time for Lucinda Lusion's Bible Stories for Kids. Gather round, boys and girls. Today we'll be opening our Bibles to Genesis

to talk about Earth's first pair of brothers, Cain and Abel. Now, once upon a time, there were two young boys named Cain and Abel. Now, once upon a time, there were two young boys named Cain and Abel. And since they were the only people on the entire planet other than their parents, they pretty much had run of the place. They didn't have to go to school, they never had to worry about getting picked last for dodgeball, and they never had to wait in lines. Of course, when they started getting older, they had nobody to think about when they masturbated other than their mom, since she was the only woman in the world. But they may do. So all their lives, they grew up listening to their parents tell them all about a beautiful garden that was always sunny

and warm, where there was always plenty to eat and nobody ever got a tummy ache, and how they would still live there if their mom wasn't an apple-thieving bitch. Now, Cain and Abel took very different paths in life once they got old enough to leave home. Cain became a crop farmer, which doesn't make any fucking sense because there were only five people on the entire planet at that point, so food scarcity wouldn't exactly be a problem. Abel, on the other hand, became a shepherd. That also didn't make any fucking sense Because herding sheep is mostly done to get wool And there were no people in the world to buy wool So one sheep would pretty much take care of her swole deeds

Two at the most And as bizarre as this setup is boys and girls Enjoy it while you can Because everything from this point on makes even less sense Anyway One day Cain and Abel decided that they should both give God a nice gift. So Cain brought some of the vegetables he'd grown and Abel brought some murdered baby sheep. Well, when God showed up, he went straight to the murdered baby sheep and he

loved them. He told Abel that those were the bestest murdered baby sheep he had ever seen and thanked him profusely for such a thoughtful gift. And then Cain said, well, what about my gift? But God completely ignored him because he liked Abel's gift so much more. Well, needless to say, Cain was pretty unhappy, so he went off somewhere to pout. But if there's one thing God likes less than vegetables, it's pouty, whiny bitches. So God asked Cain what was wrong. So Cain said, what the fuck do you think is wrong, dude? I mean, those were some pretty good squash back there. And God said, you've got no reason to be depressed.

And it's just that your gift sucked. Get a better gift next time and I'll like your gift too. And then God muttered some enigmatic shit about his sin crouching at Cain's door and he left. So Cain decided to invite his brother out into a field and brutally murder him because apparently five people on the planet was starting to seem crowded. Well, this made God very angry, even though he wouldn't tell anybody that murder was against the rules for a couple thousand years. So God went to Cain and said, where the hell is Abel, dude?

And Cain said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? Which you have to admit is a pretty ballsy thing to say to God. Well, God didn't care much for that response. So he cursed Cain and told him that from now on, when he tilled the ground, no crops would grow. And Cain said, well, now that you told me that, I'm just not going to till the ground. And after he thought about it for a second, God realized that, yeah, it probably would have been better not to tell him about the curse until he'd till some land. So he decided to also put a mark on Cain so that everybody in the world would always know that he was a murderer. And Cain said, well, the only other people in the world are my parents and my

little brother, so I'm not sure how much good the mark will do. And God said, well, sure, but someday there will be other people. And Cain said, well, how will they know the mark means I'm a murderer? And God said, I'll tell them. And Cain said, well, why don't you just tell them I'm a murderer instead? And God said, shut up, man. I'm still new at this. So Cain wandered off. And somehow there were other people whose existence completely contradicts everything that's happened in the Bible up to this point. So Cain decided to hang out with them.

And eventually they made him their leader. Of course, like all stories in the Bible, this one has a very important moral. In fact, it has three. Number one, vegetables aren't as good as murdered baby sheep. Number two, God is a pernicious, carnivorous asshole. And number three, and most importantly, your brother might murder you in a field for no reason at any time. Sleep tight, boys and girls. The end.

Before we walk into the light tonight, I wanted to give a quick shout out to the Central New York Humanist Association. They've got a screening of Chris Johnson's movie, A Better Life, coming up on Sunday, October 18th in Syracuse. And friend of the show, Chris Johnson, will actually be there for a meet and greet and a Q&A after the movie. So if you're in the area and you've been looking for an opportunity to meet up with some fellow godless heathens, this is a great opportunity. It's also a pretty damn good movie. So you've got that to look forward to as well. If you're interested, of course, I'll have a link on the

show notes for episode 137. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, that's okay, you don't have to. You can check out a new episode of our sister show, The Skeptic Crat, on Monday at 8 a.m. Eastern, and a new episode of our sister show's sister show,

God Awful Movies, on Tuesday at the same time. And of course, you can always pick up occasional nuggets of scatheism by following us on Twitter and or liking us on Facebook. You can also look for us on Instagram, but you won't find us there. So it's probably, you know, you don't want to waste your time with that. Obviously, I need to thank Heath for being the polar opposite of Ken Ham.

I need to thank my lovely wife, Lucinda, for being the antithesis of Kim Davis. I also want to thank the blogless, bookless Anna Finley for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. She's totally correct, by the way. I never have enough Farnsworth quotes. So if you'd like to promote your blog, your podcast, your YouTube channel, your Facebook page, or if you just get a guilty thrill from hearing your own voice on a podcast, you can always send me an MP3. You'll find all the contact info on that contact page I keep telling you about. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's best people, Adam, Matt, Nate,

Timothy, Elizabeth, Kimberly, Erica, and John. Adam, Matt, Nate, and Timothy, whose ejaculations are so powerful that NASA scientists had to rule them out before they announced the whole liquid water on Mars thing. And Elizabeth, Kimberly, Erica, and John, whose neuronal pathways are so busy their neurotransmitters have to carpool. Together, these eight great primates have helped accelerate the debates we create when

we state that religion should go procreate itself by giving us money. Not everybody has the solar radiation deflecting sexual magnetism it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash skatingatheist, where you can earn extended editions of every episode,

or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of our homepage at skatingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but you need all your money for alcohol and drugs, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes or wherever five-star podcast reviews are sold. Thank you. yours truly, and yes, I did have my permission.

We're not just gonna throw out are you a Jew that gets to fuck. We're gonna like actually sculpt that fucking sentence. Proper pronouns. Yeah, exactly, exactly.