The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 156: Heifer-vescent Edition

Episode Date: February 11, 2016

In this week's episode, Cardinal George Pell will Ferris Bueller his way out of accountability for child sex abuse, Ted Cruz gets plenty of exorcise while also-ranning in the GOP primaries, and Eli shows up to try to convince us that Ready Player One is the Muslim Holy Book.

Warning, if the Super Bowl didn't have enough offense for you, we're going to try to make up for it with our language this week. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new anti-porn video series for religious people that can't handle seeing a boobie. RepentHouse, Girls Gone Mild. Do you like to watch retired porn stars performing ordinary household tasks as they slowly dress themselves more and more appropriately? Are you sporting a half-chub at this very moment?

Then you'll probably enjoy the Godawful Movies podcast. And you'll definitely like our videos. Repent House, Girls Gone Mild. Because you never know when the president of Iran is going to show up for a jerk party. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Matt from the planet Earth, and if we didn't evolve

from filthy monkey men, then why am I flinging my feces? Oh, sorry. It's Thursday. It's February 11th. And New Hampshire is feeling the burn. I'm no illusions. I'm Heath Enright. And from caught in the crossfire of Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist.

One of the KKK jokes snuck in there. I like it. On this week's episode, Cardinal George Pell will Ferris Bueller his way out of accountability for child sex abuse. Ted Cruz gets plenty of exercise while also running in the GOP primaries. And Eli will be here to try to convince us that Ready Player One is the Muslim holy book. But first, the diribe. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if American Christians know what it's like to believe in God. I know that's going to sound weirdly dismissive to a lot of people, but I'm guessing some of you know exactly what I mean. It's actually something that's been chewing at my brainstem ever since I read David Silverman's new book, Fighting God. He has a chapter towards the

end where he tries to calculate how many atheists there actually are in this country, and after he pulls together all of the agnostics and the secular humanists and the secular Jews and the nuns that don't believe in a higher power, he turns to the atheists in the pews. Now, obviously, we all know that they're there. Hell, a lot of you used to be one. These are the people that don't actually buy into the God exists portion of the religion, but still believe in the community building and the moral structures, or they just like the tradition, or they don't want to piss off their Catholic wife or their in-laws or for whatever reason. Now, obviously, there's no way to directly count these people, but Silverman used an interesting metric to get started. He cited a Pew survey that asked believers how they defined God. Because let's face it,

do you believe in God is damn near a meaningless question. Now, of course, you had on this survey, a lot of people given the textbook divine creator who loves us and answers our prayers type of responses. But you also had a lot of the God is love or God is the sum total of our moral intuition type stuff. And I think it's safe to say that anybody who defines God and Chopri and Jabberwocky is at least leaning towards an atheist in the pews, right? If anything, this number probably gives us something like the floor, and my guess is that the ceiling is a lot higher than that. Like, for example, according to an article I read in Christianity Today, less than 20% of churchgoers regularly read the Bible. More than half of the people who

do read from it do so less than twice a year. Hardly the kind of behavior you'd expect out of, you know, people who truly thought that all the secrets to living a full life were encoded within that thing. And of course, that's just among regular churchgoers. According to the most recent Gallup poll, more than half of American Christians don't regularly attend church. Again, hardly the kind of thing you'd expect out of somebody who thought heaven and hell were lying in the balance here. Or I'll tell you what,

let's take a specific teaching, right? The Catholics are against birth control. They're pretty clear about that one. No beating around the bush here. Fucking is for baby-making purposes only. And despite their unambiguous condemnation, despite the people who formally interpret the will of God Almighty explicitly teaching to the contrary, fucking is for baby-making purposes only. And despite their unambiguous condemnation, despite the people who formally interpret the will of God Almighty explicitly teaching to the contrary, 98% of Catholic women in America have used it anyway. I mean, you know, kudos to American

Catholic women and all, but again, that's hard to reconcile with a person who actually thinks there's some kind of divine authority behind their church's dictates. Now, I don't want to fall into a false dichotomy here or anything, because I think it's fair to say that there are varying levels of belief, and in a sense, even that aforementioned fallen woman who felt the touch of Satan's latex largely has a thing called God and largely believes in that thing. And there are certainly still Americans that believe every fucking letter of the Bible and only refrain from stoning their disobedient children to death because they'd get caught. So it's not like we can say, oh, well, according to this statistic, 98% of American Catholic women know that God is bullshit or

anything like that. But we can say that believing in God for those people is a fundamentally different concept than believing in God for that Pakistani kid who chopped his hand off with an industrial lawnmower when he thought it offended Allah. And that brings me back around to the original point. Do these people even know what it's like to truly believe in God? You know, the way you believe in the sun or horses, to truly believe without doubt that there is a heaven waiting for you and it's all lubricated with virgins, to truly believe without doubt that the scorpion locusts are a real thing that's going to really happen, to truly believe without doubt that there is a God in heaven that loves you and the people of your faith to the exclusion of the rest of humanity.

I mean, honestly, when these people, these toe-in-the-water, ooh, I believe in God too, wink-wink Christians, hear about the religious people motivated by their religion to do shit, what do they think? That's a fair question. Are they automatically colored by their own tepid conviction and assume that those people are just like them? It would certainly explain why so many Americans see a jihadist saying, I'm going to murder these people because of my religion and then wonder why they murdered those people. It must be all that Western imperialism. That really would explain the rise of Boko Haram.

Now, obviously, I'm not going to pretend like I know what it's like to believe in God. Yeah, I mean, even the quasi-religious God is love American spiritualists can probably get closer to that mindset than I can, but I'm under no paradigmatic obligation to pretend like believing in God isn't terrifying, and they are. You know, it's got to be hard to look at a world where the more devout you are, the more frighteningly unhinged you are, and still tell yourself that this believing in God thing is a net good. So American Christians are inclined to blot out all the horrors of religion and excuse them under any heading that they can pigeonhole them into other than religion. After all, I wink believe in God too, but I wouldn't strap a bomb to my chest to meet him. But why wouldn't you?

If you honestly believed it was true, what possible excuse could you have for not martyring yourself? The fact that a significant percentage of humans walk around thinking that this is just a practice existence that doesn't really matter in the long term is diabolical, especially when you consider that the two biggest religions are apocalyptic. But if you're a religious person in a secular country where believing in God just means putting he has risen on your Facebook once a year and agreeing with Todd Starnes about the gay wedding cakes, you can't readily harmonize what you're doing with what they're doing. And since you can't admit that you don't really believe in God without risking your share of the sky cake,

your brain has to exclude any explanation that relies on the idea that the more adamantly one believes in God, the more dangerous to society one becomes. In other words, you have to exclude the truth. They're talking about you, Jesus. One becomes in other words, you have to exclude the truth Joining me for headlines tonight is a man who beats up on Jesus so often they made him an honorary Jew Heath then right Heath Are you ready to kvetch? It's warm in here. Is it warm in here to you? I'm warm. I like a 72.5. It feels like a 73 in here. Take it down a click. In our lead story tonight. No, not that much.

Just like a click. Just like a click. Is there half a? There's not half a click. Anyway, in our lead story tonight, we have yet another victory to chalk up for Satan after the city of Phoenix elected to discontinue the practice of opening public meetings with religious invocations rather than risk inviting the desolate one to crush their city beneath his cloven hoof. Proving once more that fighting superstition with superstition is a viable strategy,

the city council voted 5-4 in favor of a provision that would replace the contentious invocation with a moment of silence. So, I know that we're not into almighty fictional characters here in atheism, but Satan just actually made Christians shut the fuck up. If that's not omnipotent, though, it's very close. He's at least pretty close. Yeah, but I think they're misunderstanding these city council people. I think they're misunderstanding the lesson from King Solomon here, because now nobody gets to talk and we kill a baby with a sword. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.

It's how Planned Parenthood does it. But it is exactly the solution we wanted yeah yeah it got us to the right place it's a really weird route it's a weird way to get there yes so the vote came at the end of an open forum where the public comments ranged from representatives of local secular groups to preachers reading from the craziest parts of isaiah tears were shed slanders were slung the first amendment was booed at one point but perhaps my favorite nugget of hyperbole from the peanut gallery anyway came from a woman who said that allowing the satanists to do an invocation would be the same as letting your children play with el chapo or jack the ripper which i mean which honestly probably wouldn't be that bad unless your kids were east end prostitutes or tended to stiff their babysitters

in cocaine deals. I mean, I'm sure these people had kids and shit. Yeah, and honestly, if I'm picking babysitters, those two guys get called way before the priest. Yeah, they're higher on the list. Exactly. And in hijack of all trades news tonight, looks like we have a lock for the top winner at this year's Darwin Awards. We might, yeah. And it's only February.

for the top winner at this year's Darwin Awards. We made, yeah. And it's only February. According to authorities in Somalia, an unnamed man boarded a flight from Mogadishu last week and then proceeded to blow a small hole in the side of the airplane. And as it turned out, the gap was exactly the right size for just him

to get sucked out and fall to his death while personally engulfed in flames from his bomb. All by himself. Although those may have gone out before he landed, so it's not clear how many extra points he gets. But either way, the plane managed to make a successful emergency landing and nobody died except the maniac. So it's the Darwin Award.

That's fucking amazing. He's on a plane from Mogadishu to Djibouti and he actually found a worse outcome than landing in djibouti yeah or maybe he didn't honestly you put me in that fucking same position i'd be like what where are we going oh fuck it i'm blowing up this it's just my window though right so obviously this is great news well as suicide bombing news goes yeah but one thing that has me confused is the official police reaction to this. Apparently, they don't feel like they have enough information to declare this a terrorist attack at this point.

They have a smoldering corpse, traces of explosive residue, and an airplane with a that-guy-shaped hole in it, but they're still not sure about it. Still haven't ruled out a run-of-the-mill accidental airplane bombing. Yeah. Well, and that's all very nice, but what worries me here is that apparently the terrorist,

or I'm sorry, the alleged terrorist, but possible Thai food enthusiast, snuck his bomb on the airplane in a wheelchair. And I just, I don't want the fucking TSA to hear about this because let's face it, we've already established that basic concern for human dignity isn't enough to keep the tsa from installing like a crippled dragging system of pulleys so look for that coming

soon wonderful and uh if you're wondering about who might have orchestrated something like this so far no ties to atheism terrorist groups have been uncovered. Huh. And I guess they're still checking on the other types of terrorist groups. Now, normally in these circumstances, someone just comes out and claims responsibility for the attack. But in this case, we're seeing quite the opposite. According to a statement from Boko Haram, no comment.

Ask Al-Shabaab. And according to Al-Shabaab, fuck you, that's your boy. And there was also an official press release from Acme Dynamite denying any involvement, but still reminding customers to read the instructions carefully. If the plunger doesn't work, don't go over and look. Don't go over and look. Just don't stand on the X no matter what. Classic blunder.

And in Cardinals against humanity news tonight, retired child rape abettor George Pellis called in sick to the Australian Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse or arc it. Short of the name, guys. Sick days? Really? Apparently, he cited high blood pressure and being too pretty for prison. He did, however, volunteer to testify by by video preferably via chat roulette or live jasmine.com ultimately the commission elected to delay the testimony scheduled for last week by a full year at which time i'm sure the 75 year old will be in better health yeah um if you're in

court about child sex abuse and your erection lasts more than four hours, I think a physician can wait until you arrive in jail, which should be immediately right after this. Yeah, it should just be attached to the gavel. Interestingly enough, Pell elected not to release his medical records to back up the claims of ill health. There are, of course, three possible explanations for this decision. One, of course, is that he's completely full of shit

and nothing prevents him from returning to Australia save a sense a sense of self-preservation a i pick a the second is that there's an embarrassing colonoscopy video involving a gerbil oh okay i like the third and most likely in my opinion is some combination of the two even better goodbye yeah perfect but uh i think that's for the better honestly i mean nobody wants to see a gerbil have its good name dragged through the mud. It's not fair. It would not be the worst thing that had been drugged through. And just a quick reminder, in case you're losing track of which Bond villain is which, when Pell served as the Archbishop of Sydney, he definitely had absolutely nothing to do

with the destruction of records of child sex abuse allegations. That was the last guy. Also, he had nothing to do with moving the known pedophiles to new parishes. That also was the last guy. Yeah, exactly. Also, the 55 priests that were accused of child sex abuse under his tenure and never brought to justice, those guys were already fucking kids way before he got there.

And that one time when he offered a bribe to a rape victim so that the priest who was then eventually convicted of dozens of child rapes with victims as young as four could remain free. Well, that was blown way out of proportion. Oh, was it? Also, he definitely did not rape that kid that was under his care at youth camp back in 1961, despite what that kid said later in sworn depositions. And quick before Pell commits another fucking heinous felony I have to make an excuse for, we'll pause for a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she wants.

If it's a legitimate rape. It's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man! This week in Misogyny. Well, I apologize if I caught you hungry today, because I'm going to be whetting your appetite with a bunch of stories about dead fetuses this week. And obviously, I have to start your tummy a-rumbling with a few comments about Marco Rubio's

You Best Birth That Rape Baby Bitch policy. Of course, that's not how it's officially stated, because in the Rubio campaign, you have to say everything three times like you're trying to ruby-slipper your way back to Kansas or call upon Candyman or something. But essentially, that's his position. He said as much on ABC News last Sunday after George Stephanopoulos hammered him about his repeated claims that abortion is immoral, even in the case of rape and incest. And while he did timidly admit that he would allow for a rape exception, he tempered that opinion by pointing out that he hoped women would have the sense not to use it.

he tempered that opinion by pointing out that he hoped women would have the sense not to use it. But, of course, Rubio isn't exactly wandering into uncharted waters by suggesting that Jesus loves the rape embryos. In fact, last Friday, his fellow GOP nominee wannabes Jeb Bush and Chris Christie came under fire from anti-abortion activist Marjorie Dannenfelser for even mentioning rape and incest exceptions. And according to her angry letter, the chief mistake these candidates made was publicly acknowledging that rape even exists. In fact, in the wake of Todd Akin's legitimate rape disaster, Dannenfelser actually held workshops to teach Republican candidates how to avoid the topic. After all, when it comes to violence against women, when has the not talking about it in public strategy ever failed?

But don't worry, I'm not going to close on a bummer of a story like that tonight. In fact, I think there's some celebrating to do, because since the last time we spoke, women got raped and murdered by jihadists. And according to InfoWars host and professional coincidence cataloger Alex Jones, liberals love it when that happens. or Alex Jones, liberals love it when that happens. Like, for example, have you ever noticed how news of a German or a French woman being stabbed by an immigrant always brings an instinctive smile to your face? That's because the left teaches self-loathing in the schools. Actually, he described it as, quote, self-loathing, self-hating, where your identity is hating yourself, end quote.

So clearly, he's trying out for press secretary in the Rubio administration. But the point is that if you liberals out there ever wondered why you smile when jihadists murder German ladies, take it from Alex. It's because you have a mental illness and you hate Jesus. And yes, those are actually things he said. The hating Jesus thing is a direct quote. So with a quick toast to all the jihadists and all their noble French ladies stabbing, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in still better than a Zima epidemic news tonight, amid growing fears over the Zika virus outbreak, Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga is warning women against taking drastic measures like abortion should they contract the disease. After all, if God didn't want a generation of South Americans with little tiny heads, he wouldn't have created those disease mosquitoes in the first place, now would he? When you see tragic birth defects, it's hard not to wonder, who is this magical watchman? It's beautiful.

God. Wonderful message. So, quick bit of background for anybody who hasn't been following the whole Zika outbreak. Basically, all of Latin America is now peopled by ravenous undead cadavers feasting insatiably on the brains of the uninfected

and, rumor has it, they're finally going to introduce Negan in this season and if they straighten it out of the comic, that dude is going to fucking, he's going to make the governor

look like Mary motherfucking Poppins. So, I've got that to look forward. Also, what happenedie what's gonna happen i like maggie she's in danger guys i'm sorry what were we yeah what were we talking about um zika virus oh right yeah oh okay so it's a mosquito-borne virus generally results in a asymptomatic infection or maybe a rash in the shits but it poses significant risk to pregnant women specifically an increased risk in microcephaly or being born with a really little head that just never gets full-sized as well as a bunch of other birth defects and this asshole cardinal is telling women who have the disease that they better birth them to defective babies damn it even if they can confirm fetal abnormalities

i because you know with all the government support and infrastructure you have to take care of developmentally disabled children in the second poorest country in Latin America, why would you not? Why? What would be your excuse? Okay, when do we get to draw a line on this stuff? It's got to be somewhere. Meanwhile, this guy's yelling at Sigourney Weaver, homicidal alien life. You cannot. Really? And finally tonight in consent of a woman news, men's rights advocates around the world had their meetings canceled last weekend

after chauvinist activist and self-proclaimed pickup artist Dariush Valhazeda, a.k.a. Roosh V, decided he couldn't guarantee the safety of his neo-masculine constituents in a fun twist of irony the misogyny troop leader called off a planned series of coordinated bro power events and seemed to be suggesting the need to have safe spaces for downtrodden groups like men white men specifically straight ones yeah You can't hear that weepy melody in the background. That's because it's the world's smallest violin playing sad music for the victims of vaginal oppression, very softly. Yeah, there's a tiny bit of echo, but only a little.

And also, I don't think I need to point out how this definitely had nothing to do with the fact that nobody actually wanted to show up to his legalized rape galas but for the record it's very definitely that's how definitely it is very yeah for those of you who aren't familiar mr valizetta is the founder of a website called return of kings.com where men get together and discuss important topics about modern society, like rape law. For example, one of his posts from last year suggested that sexual assault of women should no longer be a crime as long as it happens on private property. He argued, quote, consent is now achieved when she passes underneath the room's doorframe. Oh, because magic. She knows that a man can legally do anything he wants to her

when it comes to sex, end quote, after they pass that door frame. So as long as you're under my roof, you'll live by my penis placement except for a law. But a law, correct. Or does he mean any private property? Like not just yours, but like the mall or whatever. Because if that's what

he means i say we enact that law just long enough for us to all meet at russia's house and rape him and then we'll have a sunset clause yeah well uh for some weird reason this libertarian rape stance didn't go over well with a good chunk of the world population and valisata now claims it was satire although that's kind of hard to believe considering the website's general theme of rapiness and also that's not what satire means right if you're a professional misogyny communicator satire means saying something less rapey well yeah i am about done with these hollow provocateurs trying to hide behind the word satire like it's a goddamn panacea for assholery saying the thing you think really hard cannot be satire that doesn't make

any fucking sense and while we're on the subject satire also has to be funny as a prerequisite if it's not funny unfunny satire is just being Exactly. We already have a term for that. Yeah, so that guy got embarrassed, which was certainly nice to hear. Apparently the backlash against these creepy fucks having a bunch of gatherings was large enough to get them canceled. And perhaps my favorite protest against the hetero dick party idea happened in Toronto, Canada. In response to the proposed event, a local group of female boxers decided to show up just in case anyone wanted to spar.

Or if any eligible bachelors wanted to find some private property and give that proposed policy a test run. The female boxers. Well, turns out they did not. Oh, really? Weird. You know, I'm sure this would now turn into a 30-second spit about girl-on-guy strap-on-pugilist-grudge-fuck-porn

if you didn't know that I would just start reading titles off my hard drive. I mean, no challenge at all. Too easy. I did like the one with the puppy. What was it? Happy, strappy, hero pup. We felt kind of bad for these fine gentlemen who merely wanted to exercise their right to assemble. A rape mob.

So we started thinking about better ways they could get their message out. And it seemed like a public service announcement might be the move for these guys. And we'd like to help out. Let's go ahead and put those 30 seconds on the clock. Ideas for the men's rights PSA about rape law. Go. I'm being made to do that. I just want to put that on record.

Okay. How about rape? Where do you think Jesus came came from like a bumper sticker ease the term in about um if women like consensual so much why are they always walking around on public and private property that's like a hundred percent of the property so you do the math the more you bro oh i like that yeah that's great that's great um sure one could just as easily be falsely accused of any other crime it's just random chance we decided to obsess over this one first not because we're rapists it's nothing to do with that all right what about uh david hyde pierce

walks out and he says what happens between consenting adult is nobody's business but his own i don't know why it was david hyde pierce i don't know he was in one of the real ones Because what happens between consenting adult is nobody's business but his own. I don't know why it was David Hyde Pierce. I don't know. He was in one of the real ones. Yeah, just for the record. Okay, more on the softening strategy. How about rape?

Think of it like noogies for the vagina. What's the big deal? Yeah, exactly. Just joshing around with you, right? All right. What about rape is like a vampire. Probably just a myth. But if you invite him in, that's your fault.

The more you bro, the less you know. Yeah, no shit. Okay. How about no is also a form of traditional Japanese dance. So remember, she could have meant that. The less you pretend to have known. If she laughs when you say zoop-zop, it doesn't count. Also, if you're good at sports. You had to know Roethlisberger and Cosby were going to make it in here somewhere.

How about when ethics in gaming journalism is on the line, think of them as civil disobedience rape threats. Doing your duty to society. All right, I got one more. What about consent is like it used to be with gays in the military. Don't ask. Either way, nobody needs to hear about it. Plus, where do you think we should put all these unwanted penises? The more you know means maybe.

The more you know means maybe. Wow. know means maybe the more you know means maybe wow i died this the comments just made do not necessarily represent the feelings of scathing atheist productions or whatever the hell we're calling you do not actually think the less you know means yes no no exactly this this is satire and confident that we've increased heath's odds of finally living out that getting the shit beat out of him by 11 Canadian boxer chicks fantasy, we can close out the headlines for the night. Heath, thanks as always.

Christian movie bingo. And when we come back, Eli and Lucinda will join us in learning that the Quran can definitely vouch for itself on that perfect word of God thing. It might be a little too early for this analogy, but in a lot of ways, the Abrahamic holy books are like Star Wars trilogies. The Hebrew Bible is like the original. It was awesome when you were a kid, but when you look back on it now, it doesn't make any sense. It's racist, it's sexist, and the dialogue is ridiculous. The New Testament, of course, was like the prequels. It fucking sucked from start to finish, though the end was significantly better than the rest of it.

Also, Jar Jar Christ was a mistake all the way around. And, of course, the Quran is like the new trilogy. It's too early to say if it's any good, but if you aren't familiar with the originals, you're going to be completely fucking lost the whole time the opening of this book is so unoriginal you would think that cj whirlman wrote it and yet here we are committed to reading the whole damn thing okay i feel like you keep saying that word committed you feel like you keep saying committed there i can't we just like clap three times and shut this down or something? Click our heels together. Something along those lines. I think there's a rule about this.

And of course, since even shitty trilogies somehow always sucker in for the third one, we're going to be joined in this effort by the lovely Lucinda Lusions. Lucinda, welcome back. Hello there. Hello there. And of course, nothing says self-loathing like stage-performing atheist Jew, except maybe the job description over at Godawful Movies.

So the one and only Eli Bosnick is along for the ride as well. Eli, welcome back, sir. You just read that off my business card. Come on now. What we need to do is we need to set a crazy high Patreon goal for the next segment. We need to be like, oh, man, $85,000 an episode and we just can't afford to do it.

We need a spaceship to see the Koran. I'm so sorry. Give what you can. In the meantime, we won't read this fucking book anymore. Now, when it comes to opening holy books, I feel like only the Jews got it right so far. The Koran basically starts with, hey, Allah, I appreciate you not searing my flesh off, and great job with the trees, which is better than Christianity's 17 verses of genealogy. But still, it's no let there be light.

And then we're six verses in and we get the following. It says, guide us to the straight way, the way of those on whom you have bestowed your grace, not the way of those who earned your anger, such as the Jews, nor of those who went astray, such as the Christians, end quote. I love my copy, by the way. It does not say that at all. It doesn't say such as the Jews in all the copies I checked. So just to remind everyone, I'm using the official Quran of the Saudi Arabian government. And yeah, basically the thesis statement, the last sentence of the very first chapter

says basically, yeah, the Jews and the Christians are wrong, but especially the Jews. Especially. And we're about to tell you why in this book starting now. So, yeah, I'm on board. The Bible was crazy. This book is very reasonable so far in that sense. It's weird. I've never read a book where such as the Jews is a good thing for the Jews.

No one ever uses us as a good example in books. You know who's got great food? Such as the Jews. No. ever uses us as a good example in books. You know who's got great food? Such as the Jews. No, it's always blood rights and secret meetings. I just wanted to point out that this opening, this religion of peace sounds an awful lot like someone introducing you to their abusive boyfriend. There's just a lot of like, this is Brian. Don't make him mad.

Do not. Don't talk about my eye. It was my fault. Don't look directly at. Do not. Don't talk about my eye. It was my fault. Don't look directly at him. I drove the car to regular. I don't know. It's just you're automatically like, oh, wow. All right.

Here we go. This is going to be a fun one. Hide the PBR. Oh, shit. Jeez. And then we get to the second surah, theifer in which Muhammad Said stop making fun of me for like 286 verses or something Pretty much yes

We also learn again in my copy Anyway that God has this Adorable OCD thing going on With Muhammad's name so he has to say peace Be upon him every time the name comes up So this should be fun But it also says that the reason people Don't believe in the Quran

is because God sealed their heart and their ears and pulled a cover over their eyes. Right before it says they'll get a terrible punishment for God having done that to them at all. Being the victim of that. Also, I just wanted to point out, I'm getting a lot more jabberwocky than prophet

here. I challenge anyone to read this book and not hear shouting like it just seems like someone's always doing that this is not there are parts of ecclesiastes that could be spoken in speaking voice none of the quran is anything except shouted at you from the front of a car so far i just keep hearing like, you are the ones who are the ball lickers. All you heathens are going to pay. That's the tone for sure. Also, at verse 13 in my version, he has this great moment where he's like, and you know what else?

When they're not around, they're like totally making fun of you guys. So like, fuck them. And then he don't protest too much for a few more chapters before reminding everybody that God could poke their eyes out any time he felt like it. Lucky he hasn't done it already. Honestly, it felt like that, you know, that annoying martial arts guy who was doing demos for you. Like, oh, put up your hands like this. And now I'm controlling the wrist and I poke, I poke, I poke, I poke into your eyes. Ear bite, ear bite, ear bite. I'm biting your ear off. You can't do anything. No, come at me. Come at me. Come at me full force.

No, I'm not going to come at you full force at your sister's birthday. And then we doubters are issued a challenge. God says, and if you think I'm not God writing this, I dare you to write a chapter as good as this. Can't be done because this is the best chapter ever. Ever. You can't do it. I'm sorry. I am so offended as a fucking writer yeah honestly to be like this is the best writing ever when you're writing sounds like you're being shouted at by the marley brothers from the muppets christmas

carol but like tenacious d should come out and start singing the greatest chapter in the world. Or a tribute to the greatest chapter in the world, I guess. Dude, it didn't sound anything like this chapter, though. And then in verse 25, I'm loving this Saudi translation, by the way. I cannot say this enough. I checked a few others. And in those others, verse 25 basically says says if you believe in Allah and you be nice

you'll go to heaven with some pure virgin wives. That's basically all it says. But in the Saudi version they get way more specific. Apparently these women don't menstruate, urinate or shit. It really says that. So if you're worried about

heaven shitting female yeah. I'm in. Allah Akbar. Where do I join? Where do I sign up? Fuck you guys. Also, it's probably not a good sign in your holy book if we're 26 verses into the first chapter and it's saying,

now a lot of people are going to read through this thing and say, this shit doesn't make any sense. Those are the evil people who got hates. Don't listen to them. They don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Yeah, this is a really weird passage. It says basically, mosquitoes are small, and there's also bigger things.

Does this verse sound meaningless and stupid so far? Well, that's probably because you're an evil Jew-atheist. And then we move on to the story of Adam. So suddenly. So suddenly. Like when Gollum gets his turn to talk.

Mine literally begins with the word and. That's how crazy this book is. And another thing. And it's like, oh, did the other voice get its turn? I get it. Mo, you got to take those pills every day, buddy. Every single day. Just take them with breakfast, bro.

What a bizarre story it is, too. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Adam story is way crazier in the crown. Right, so God tells the angels, he's like, hey, I'm gonna make humans, and they're like, are you sure? Because those things are gonna shit everywhere. There's gonna be evil.

But then God convinces them that humans are okay by giving Adam the answers to the quiz beforehand. Kiss him a cheat sheet. The angels are like, okay, fine. Do the humans thing. But just do us a favor. Don't make him Jewish. All right? God's like, all right.

I got good news and bad news. Bad news. I am starting them out as Jewish. Oh, second warning. Okay, really just bad news. Bad news, I am starting them out as Jewish. Oh, second warning. Okay, really just bad news at the moment from your – but you'll see. You'll see what happens. Hold on. I got plans.

It does not work out for them. Right? Right. He secretly tells Adam the names of all the animals, then asks angels to tell him the names of all the animals. And when they can't do it, he says, oh, Adam. And they're all like, how the fuck did he know that was dog? Amazing.

Meanwhile, cut to Herb Stemfel going, oh, oh, it's fine when God does it. It's no big fucking deal. He converts to Islam like Cat Stevens, but just for a very different reason. And then all the angels bowed to Adam because of his amazing speaking spell skills. Except Satan, who was too proud. Remember that. It'll come back later. No, I'm just picturing Adam going, the cow says moo.

Holy shit. Stop putting animals on our bodies, Muhammad, Adam, whatever it is. I'm a circle under the bunny rabbit. Everybody kneel down. You too, Satan. My version, Satan, is called Elvis. But they also have the word Satan in the book. And it says, except for Elvis, and he became an unbeliever.

And I just want to say, that's fucking impressive. To be an angel and have met God like 20 minutes ago is some Victor Stanger surity right there. Nope. I don't know what I saw. Dude, you have wings. You have wings. All right, Elvis. Elvis has left the building.

He'll be back. He'll be back. And it's somewhere in here that you get the titular heifer, which refers, I guess, to a heifer that Moses told the Israelites they were supposed to sacrifice. Also, when they're negotiating about the cow, there's this quote. It says, she is a cow, not old or young, but of middle age and i wanted it to be like like winona rider you know like definitely switch which part she plays in a mother-daughter threesome porn but like you'd totally still do it

also i want to point in my version it says uncircumcise our hearts and good goddamn, I'm glad that's the one part Muslims haven't taken literally yet. What do I cut off? It doesn't matter. Just start cutting. It's cultural. It's racist for everyone to condemn us. Be a good emo song. Uncircumcise our hearts.

Oh, yeah. And then the TLDR tour through the Bible continues in verse 87 when Jesus earns a name drop. Yeah, quick one. Yeah, they mention Jesus, but really only within the context of pointing out that, you know, the Jews are batting a thousand on killing divine messengers

and the Christians are batting zero on not having their divine messenger killed by the Jews. It's like passive-aggressive sports center, you know? This section gets very the Jews. It's like passive aggressive sports center. This section gets very bitchy. It's very like, I told you not to expel people from their houses and kill each other.

And I totally proved that I was the real Jesus. Come on guys, I tell you what, I'm going to turn around and when the murderer of Jesus is on my desk, no questions asked. I think verse 96 is probably worth a mention too. It's all about how disbelievers never want to die and strongly implies that anybody who wants to live a long life must have some kind of ulterior motive. Just thought it was a little suicide bomb-y there.

Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. And yet abortions are frowned upon. It's one or the other. It's one or the other. Suicide bombs or pro-life. You can't have it both ways. Come on, guys. it's one or the other it's one or the other suicide bombs or pro-life you can't have it both ways come on guys just saying uh if anybody gives you shit about like not wanting to die

remember they're probably the bad guy that's gonna come up later like maybe a whole bunch and over and over in this thing it says like god has sent down clear signs so that you'll know he's god but then the examples are like, remember when some anonymous author wrote down that he saw God moon him once over a mountain? Clear like that. That kind of clear. How much clearer can I be? I sent hundreds of people

with entirely conflicting messages to the last few parts of the earth. Pay up, James Randi. You had sex with this. Don't Google that. Just a joke. This is a funny joke. Then you get my early running for favorite verse.

This is number 111. It says, and I'm paraphrasing here, it says, well, sure, Jews and Christians say they can get you into heaven, but ask to see proof.

Which, again, I agree, but that's kind of like the chemical weapon of theology, isn't it? Wind blows all kind of ways, guys. I'm just saying. It might come this way. It might go that way.

You've got to be careful with that kind of shit. Right. And then two verses later, it basically says, you know how the Jews think Christianity is stupid and vice versa, and they're based on the same book, and how pagans read the Bible and think they're both stupid. Well, how stupid are all three of those groups, right? No way. They each get punished different amounts, the right different amount. Also, why is he railing against the Jews and the Christians for not liking a book he's reading?

This is the Koran. Was there another book before that they called bullshit on, like the before-an that we missed out on? Apparently. Well, now, of course, this is written over a 23-year period, and this is one of the later surahs to be written. So, yes, they were definitely already saying he was full of shit by the time he penned this one. So this was his response to, like, notes.

Exactly, yeah, exactly. I don't fucking need studio notes. This is how Don made it into Buffy. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I don't fucking need studio notes. This is how Don made it into Buffy. It also brings up how Christians and Jews suck because they want you to be Christians and Jews. I think Muslim God is the kettle version of the blind black racist from the Dave Chappelle show.

Right? Is it just me? It might just be me. I like how everyone's getting a pep talk here. He's like, hey, hey, look, they're going to say this, but then you'll say this and everyone will be like super impressed. It's like the bullied kid at school who buys a book of comebacks and he comes to school and opens up the page

and the bully just makes him eat it. Now, this is also where we meet the Kabbalah without much fanfare. That's, of course, the magic rocks that sucks your sins out when you walk around. It's like the geological equivalent of a Jewish chicken. And apparently it was built by Abraham and Ishmael.

Yeah. I did not know that. I was not aware of that. What? I did not know that. And man, is the Islamic infuriated complex out in full force. Oh, yes.

There's so much. Oh, yeah? Jews and Christians say they're the older religions well nah because our religion is actually abraham's religion and he was whacking off foreskins before it was cool so we're actually even older than them well nana boo boo and that elucidates so much because they're clearly the little brother that christianity had to take along if you wanted to go to the park i mean mean, obviously they only want Jerusalem because the Jews already have it. It basically explains the whole fucking religion

if you just look at them as the whiny little brother of the Abrahamic trilogy. We just need to Tom Sawyer them to a different fence somewhere, we all said. He strikes me as the kind of guy who would introduce himself by the kind of karate he does. Yeah, Shotokan, man, Shotokan.

Yeah, I had to ask how you were doing. Shodacon. And then in verse 138, Allah brags about his coloring skills. Yeah, no one can color like Allah.

And then we get an extended treatise on facing the magic chicken rock when you pray. Right, the world's oldest living version of you do the hokey pokey

and you turn it off. Okay, so this part means Muslims are supposed to face the magical cube when they pray, no matter where they are. And the controversy about this is hilarious. So from the United States, for example, some Muslim groups face southeast toward Mecca, as you would guess based on looking at a map. But some of them face northeast because they realize the prayers get there faster on the Great Circle. They've actually calculated.

They have scientists working. I'm not sure why nobody just like kind of angles themselves into the ground and shoots the prayers. That's right. That's the shortest distance, idiots. Prayers are like neutrinos. They go right through. And also, by the way, I think this is,

maybe I'm getting a little ahead of the game here, but originally it was Jerusalem they were supposed to pray to until Muhammad moved to Mecca, in which case he's like, I meant this box that's here. I meant the big box that was already here when I got here. You didn't listen. We get another beauty in 164. God's bragging about

all the cool stuff he made, and he starts listing off the stuff. He's like, you know, I made the heavens. Those were pretty cool. I made the earth, the day, the night. And then he mentions the boats. The ship that God made. It says, the ship's on the sea that bear cargo beneficial to me. I said, like, did Muhammad think that the boats of spice and shit were just naturally occurring?

Third day. Puffing out of nowhere. Mohammed, are you just saying things you see in the room or do you actually love boats full of spice? I love boats full of spice. I do. And then, of course, we get around to hating on pigs. God reminds everybody that fuck bacon. Yeah, right, right.

Unfortunately. Right, but it's okay if you eat it under constraint because God is super cool about that, guys. Just in case you have a bacon-eating battle to the death. That's okay. It's hard to imagine how that comes up. There's an exception. And by the way, in my copy, the exception on the bacon rule was kind of like abortion, actually. It's cool if it's bacon rape or bacon incest.

But you can't enjoy it. Yeah, exactly. Because then it's not legitimate bacon rape. This week on Godawful Movies, loving the bad pig. At verse 170, my translation says, this shall be their doom. And I thought to myself, it's always good when your God talks like he's petting a white cat. At verse 170, my translation says, this shall be their doom. And I thought to myself, it's always good when your God talks like he's petting a white cat. I'll tell you what, Jews and Christians, I will leave you in the lava chamber. And if you escape.

Yeah, I loved verse 177, though. It says, look, getting to heaven isn't about which religion you have. It's about whether you are good to people and pay your alms and believe in God and believe in this book and do everything it says and bow to Mecca when you pray and identify yourself as a Muslim. But it has nothing to do with your religion. Stop being Jewish. Yeah. And then we get instructions on what to do with murderers. It's murder them, by the way.

Yeah. Unless they murder a slave or a woman, in which case you just murder one of their slaves. That's perfect. One of their women. That makes perfect sense. This verse is literally, quote, a free man for a free, a slave for a slave, a woman for a woman. And I feel like this guy read the first half of An Eye for an Eye and was like Fantastic! Print it! He's the Christina Hoff Summers Revenge. He was like

I don't need to read the second half of that sentence. It probably agrees with the first half. Just do it. Yeah. And there's also a fun exception to this infinite murdering rule too. If the dead guy's family decides

they don't want to murder you back, they get to give you one dare and you have to do it. There should be a reality show about this. People coming up with dares. When people stop murdering and start getting real.

What about a shit sandwich? Once a day for... No, no, no. Let's make him our ass butler for a year. Murder dare. Coming on CBS. And then we get the rules about fasting. Also, this is the third time in the book where God makes a rule, then realizes it will kill someone, and he's like, I mean, until nighttime. And then you can fuck anyone you want.

But the moment you can tell a white and black thread apart, this fasting shit gets serious again. Like, what? Which begs the question, do blind people have to fast? Or blind people? Yeah, right. Or people who aren't holding a spool of black and white thread at all times. Yeah. Also, I can tell the difference between black and white after dusk.

There's still photons. It's not. It's ridiculous. I know it wasn't supposed to be taken literally, but still. At some point, someone got murdered about whether or not they could see the difference between two threads. We know this now. This is in this book. At some point, some guy's

been like, I fucking can't see it, Slice! Chop! And I bet it wasn't just once. And of course, we're all at 20 pages into this thing before God starts telling you who you can fuck when and everything. Yeah. And this got creepy real quick. Oh, yeah.

It says, wear your wives like a garment. What? And it doesn't specify, but I'm assuming it also puts the lotion in the basket. I'm very excited for Glenn Greenwald's defense article of Buffalo Bill. Cultural guy. Also, I'm dying for a second opinion on this one. In verse 189, it says, piety does not consist in entering your house from the rear. Is that butt sex?

Are we talking about butt sex now? I think we were talking about i'm pretty sure we're talking about now yeah now and then of course we get the most famous passage in this book or at least in this country where god tells the muslims to murder the fuck out of everyone now i'll admit it's kind of weird because the line immediately before that is about never being aggressive but then it's followed by an unmistakable exhortation to kill anyone you think might persecute your religion because religious persecution is worse than murder. Yeah, basically it says murder everybody on earth until they all agree to be Muslims. But once they do that, stop murdering everyone because, you know, peace and all.

Dial it back up. Exactly. Well, just murder everyone indefinitely. That's crazy. That would never work. That's crazy. You know, just until the Jews and Christians like you, and then stop. Don't go overboard.

Use your best judgment. Use your best judgment. So, for the record, when the Muslims or Muslim apologists want to pull the context card, the context is God telling Muslims to kill people who tempt them anywhere they find them, except at the sacred mosque, unless they want to start some shit there, in which case murder them there, too. Yeah, so take that, Sam Harris. Yeah, religion of peace, man. Come on.

Yeah, it may say mercy at the end of the verse, but if you stop ethnic cleansing because you ran out of that ethnicity, it doesn't count as mercy anymore. I have a ton of self-control. Once they forcibly remove me from the old country buffet, I stop eating. It's not like that. No, man, the cop had his knee in my back and I was like, you know what?

Enough is enough. I don't need any more mashed potatoes. And then a few verses later, we learn that when there's aggression against Muslims, they're supposed to retaliate in equal measure. So that was good to hear. For example, if a French guy draws Mohammed, you murder him in a bunch of stories. Equal. Equal measure.

Sounds about right. Yeah. I think it's very clear that you're supposed to stop murdering people when everyone who disagrees with you is dead. It's the Robert Durst School of Criminal Defense. Exactly. It's like he wrote a holy book. It's like Robert Durst wrote a holy book.

Including the part at the end where he says it to his mic in the bathroom like, oh, I did it. I did a whole bunch of murdering. Oh boy, I did a whole bunch of murdering. Are my levels good? No, I'm sorry did it. I did a whole bunch of murdering. Oh, boy, I did a whole bunch of murdering. Are my levels good? No, I'm sorry about it. Murdering.

Right on. And this is also where Muhammad explains that murder is kind of like eating vegan. You know, nobody enjoys it, but it's healthy. It's the responsible thing to do. Also, and apparently like being vegan, you need to tell all your friends about it. It's like, oh my God, I'm actually murdering someone. Oh, you got to make another video? Yeah, it's just like super fun.

Sorry, like I need you to read this blog that I wrote. It's actually really important to me. I'm about to murder. And then God lays down some facts about menstruation. Now, I'm in no position to judge. So Lucinda, did he totally nail it or what? Okay. Quote, it is an impurity, so keep away from women during it and do not approach them.

End quote. So his advice is maybe a week late, but yeah, pretty much. He nailed it. And yeah, once they're done menstruating, it explains to approach them slowly, kind of like a rabid raccoon. Right. Wait for the projectile bleeding to subside

and then move into the blast radius very calmly. It's good to mark off the circle with chalk. Bring some chalk. I think it's just nice sudden emotions. It's good to mark off the circle with chalk. Bring some chalk. I think it's just nice to know that God thinks period sex is gross across all cultures and languages. If this were written today, it would be like,

and if the game is really good, God totally says your wife can wait for you to shovel the snow. You're snowing, and you salted this afternoon. You can just wait a minute. But luckily, the misogyny dries up after that. Does it? Very next sentence.

Your wives are your fields. Go then into your fields as you will. And maybe pissing them a little, shit on them. It doesn't matter. They're fields. They're just fields. Yeah, just fields. Don't feel like there has to be a full covering of grass on the field.

Oh, God. Lots of younger fields have just a small tuft, but that's fine. Yeah. We haven't gotten there yet, but we're getting there. I turned to Anna when I read this passage, and I said, See, it says you're my field, and her answer was, you're a field, so. Just saying. Now you can piss on each other.

It'll be great. Oh, now we can do that, sure Way ahead of you I got it Who's the king of the Muslims? This guy She sounds pretty uppity, by the way You could divorce her for that

I think so Well, we're about to get to that Yeah, because if you were afraid All the he-man-woman-hating Was going to dry up No, we're going to move on To the subject of divorce now In verse 226.

And honestly, as bad as it is for the 7th century, it's downright progressive. I'll give them credit for that. I mean, it says shit like men still rank above women, but I'm guessing the rules you get here were a step forward from what was going on at the time. Yeah, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting after the menstruation. Basically, he's like three periods and she's good, right?

Like, you really just want to make sure nobody else is still swimming around down there. It really says that. They have like a dishonorable discharge clause. Yeah, they do. For women, it's like getting a divorce is like trying to quit Verizon while you're on a contract. It's nearly impossible. Early termination fees. Big hassle.

And that kind of goes on forever, but as soon as he gets divorce and widows out of the way, God starts hitting people up for money in verse 245. Yeah, the whole seed money concept is laid down in there in a way that would make Jim Baker proud. Who will give God a generous loan? He will multiply it many times

over. Seriously, guys, you know I'm good for it. When have I ever let you down? Come on. Want to buy some buckets of freeze-dried hummus? Yeah, right. Got him. And then he tells the story of David and Goliath, but he fucks it up like a six-year-old telling a joke. Yeah, it's, there was a battle and we won, so God is real.

The end. I have a bike. Yes, exactly. Too much. Almost verbatim. We get another great proof of God's power in verse 258 too, by the way. Abraham is bragging about his God and some other guy says, well, my God is all powerful too. So Abe says, okay, let's find out.

I'll ask my God to make the sun come up in the east. You ask yours to make it come up in the west. Go. And it actually presents that as though that should convince us that God is... Abraham is like the Buggles Bunny of apologetics apparently. And I feel like his writer's notes should have been like, shouldn't your

God be able to do the hard one? You know that anything you want to happen can happen in this book, right? It's all made up. You can just write whatever you want. Your God makes the song and then everyone's like, oh, I get it. You did the hard one. But no. I'm going to wait until you get home.

I'll always shoot him now. Gollum's riddle approach to theology. What do I have in my pocket? Yeah, but coming up next, we actually get a major spell, which I wasn't expecting. We get reminded about that time Allah told Abraham how to revive the dead. And in case you don't remember, you just take four birds, hack them up into little pieces, and put small amounts of them on each of all the mountains. Of course you did. Of which there are four.

There are four mountains. There's four mountains in the universe. You put a little bit of the chopped up birds on each one. And if you call them, they reform like a liquid metal guy and they fly back to you it's fascinating fun fact that also happens to be the kfc secret recipe so that's about right yeah we also get the two witnesses rule here and it's fucking hilarious in its misogyny too so it says that when you do business, you need to find two men to witnesses. Right. But if two men aren't available, you can use one man and two women. And why do you need two women instead of one?

Because women are stupid. Of course. Quote. It's a five-tenths compromise. Quote, so if that if one of the two women forget, the other can remind. Yeah, what? End quote. Those slippery damn woman brains, you know?

Can't hold on to anything. Yeah, exactly, exactly. What if, why would you just get the one with the good memory? In Muhammad's defense, men don't take pictures of their food. Okay, so I'm just... Is it because you don't remember

what we had for brunch? Is that what it is? Also, he killed with this set at the Apollo, by the way He did the whole thing, fucked the stool It was fantastic And then we close with a little more Dear God, thanks for not gouging out our eyes And filling the sockets with acid scorpions

And the whole thing wraps up And that's why it's called the heifer What? So with that, we'll very respectfully toss this book in the back of the toilet tank or whatever for a couple more weeks and reconvene here in three weeks. Time for sure is three and four, which will be the most

we'll have to read in a single segment, I believe, as we've got it divided out. Until then, Eli, Lucinda, Heath, thanks again. Fantastic. Hit the Patreon goal. Can't do it otherwise. $85,000 an episode patreon.com before we knock over our king tonight

I wanted to remind you that if you can't get enough Eli in your life and really who can you can check him out on the most recent episode of dogma debate radio or whichever episode will be the most recent when the one with Eli on it comes out. Not sure exactly when that'll be, but we will certainly be sharing links as soon as they're available. 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, be on the lookout for a new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, on Monday at 8 a.m. Eastern Time. Also, check out a brand new episode

of our sister-in-law show, Godawful Movies, debuting precisely 24 hours later. And if even that doesn't satisfy your cravings, you can also find an ever-so-occasional bonus nugget of scatheism or two on our Facebook page or by following me on Twitter at Noah underscore illusions, L-U-G-E-O-N-S. Obviously, the show can't really end before I thank Heath Enright once more for always keeping the low brow so high brow.

I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for not just sticking a comic book between the pages of her Quran or telling me to go fuck myself when I brought up reading it. And a huge thanks to the lovely in his own way, Eli Bosnick for his boundless well of masochism. Also need to offer a big thanks to Matt of Earth for providing this week's Farnsworth quote and for getting the poop jokes off to an early start and a good start. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's best people, Richard, Tim, Jasonimus, Jordan, Rachel, Claudia, Jonah, Julian, Slardabart, FastWest, and Stacey, Stephen, Nick, Patrick, Gunner,

and the Waiting for Wrath podcast. Richard, Tim, Jasonimus, and Jordan, whose opinions carry so much weight, Jillian Michaels acts like a bitch towards them, Rachel, Claudia, and Jonah, whose pelvic floor muscles are strong enough to make tectonic plates jealous, Julian, Slardabart, FastWest, and Stacey, whose IQs can't be expressed in a single tweet. Steven, Nick, Patrick, and Gunner, whose ejaculations give the Colorado River erosion envy. And the Waiting for Wrath podcast, which is spelled with the numeral four. Very important if you're looking for it. Waiting for wrath.

Anyway, together these 16 people, demigods, and podcasts have helped us harness our hysterical hemorrhaging of home-cooked hatred for the heaven-hocking holy men this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the vast intellectual capacity and the exquisitely dexterous fingers it takes to give us money, but if your brain and fingers are up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation by visiting patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended edition of every episode and get us closer to the $80 billion goal Eli was talking about. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the homepage at skatingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but donating to podcasts might cue the authorities in on your current whereabouts, you can also help us a ton

by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes or by sharing the show with all the godless people you know that like dick jokes. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly. And yes, I did have my permission. Faith Satan. Faith Satan.