The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 159: G-Spotlight Edition

Episode Date: March 3, 2016

On episode 159: We'll ignore Noah's mom's suggested response to having nothing nice to say, the Bible appears to converge with science once every twelve hours, and Lucinda and Eli will be here to marvel at how much job security Quranic apologists have.

Warning, the following podcast contains profanity, but to be fair, the cuss words are vastly outnumbered by the conjunctions and pronouns and stuff. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by the newspaper for moderate jihadists in the Middle East, Paper Covers Iraq. With all the partisan media sources out there always taking sides when it comes to ISIS, we decided to give you just the facts, right down the middle, and let you decide. Paper Covers Iraq, the hometown Iraq beat paper. And now, the Scathing Atheist. This is Zach Law, host, creator, and thought leader from the Zachrelidge cast.

I interview atheists, skeptics, and generally cool people every week. Try my Scathing Atheist drinking game. Every time they don't laugh, drink. And by the way, we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's March 3rd. And I learned a lot about the upkeep and maintenance of females from the Muslim Owner's Guide. I'm Noah Lusions.

I'm Heath Enright. And from Trump rally-capped Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll ignore my mother's suggested response to having nothing nice to say. The Bible appears to converge with science once every 12 hours or so. And Lucinda and Eli will be here to marvel at just how much job security Quranic apologists have. But first, the diatribe. Can you even imagine a political party putting together a pizza and Xbox night to draw in more kids to their ideology? You think about it. Your kid comes home, tells you that Tommy's parents are Republicans, and they invited him to kids night at the Rubio campaign headquarters. and they invited him to kids night at the Rubio campaign headquarters.

You know, there's a bus that's going to pick him up and all the boys and girls will sing songs about lower corporate tax rates along the way. You know, they got to sit through a quick boring lecture about trickle-down economics, but after that it's video games and ping-pong all night long and everybody takes home a Ronald Reagan coloring book. Is there anybody who wouldn't think that was creepy as fuck? I mean, I know there's been plenty of shit like that in totalitarian governments, and I'm sure they have something just like that for the kiddies in North Korea, except there's no food and they all just play stick. But when we see that, we still all agree it's creepy as fuck. That's why we don't have

libertarian teen dances or a democratic socialist summer camp. Now, of course, I need to give you some credit because I'm sure you also recognize that it's creepy when religious people do this. But why isn't that obvious to everyone? You know, any other ideological position would be all but nationally reviled if they started targeting children that were too young to understand the shit they were saying. And yet most of our fellow Americans see nothing at all wrong with Kiwanis Club or the Boy Scouts or the extra homophobic counter Boy Scouts the Mormons made up. For some reason, there is virtually nothing that religion can do in its effort to recruit children that will earn them the kind of public condemnation they deserve. I used to work at

Universal Studios in Orlando, and once a year they'd have this massive late-night evangelical rock concert. Rock the universe, they called it, so it doesn't even sound remotely Jesus-y. A bunch of churches and their auxiliaries would pool together piles of money to rent out the amusement park for the night. They'd bring in a bunch of shitty Christian bands, and then they'd bus kids in from 30 states to fill it up. And when you're 13, how awesome is that? Right, you go to an amusement park after dark, you see a rock concert, and you don't have to worry about your parents being there to embarrass you. I mean, sure, the music's gonna suck suck and there's going to be a bunch of God shit,

but there's also going to be roller coasters and boys or girls or whatever it is you're into. I mean, look, I talked to these kids. I attended these things. By and large, these kids aren't zealots or the children of zealots. Most of them couldn't have cared less about the religious part of this. It was just a big party to them, and nodding along with a Jesus shit was a small price to pay to get there. And of course, the organizers know this. That's the whole point. You know, it wouldn't be worth all this money if they were only drawing in kids that were already hopelessly infected with the Jesus. The idea is you bring in kids that are wavering in their faith or don't care about religion or starting

to doubt God. You show them a good time. Maybe they meet a cute girl or a cute boy. They stay up way later than usual. And in the middle of the high-dollar, low-talent rock show that caps the night off, they lay on the Jesus thick. They put you in as euphorical mood as they're legally allowed to. And then just then, when you're at your most accepting, they give you the hard sell or the altar call, whatever they call it. And if you're like most kids, you get caught up in the chanting and the singing. You get caught up in the mob intoxication.

You're desperate to belong to something. And you do feel the Holy Spirit. You do feel the power of Christ, or at least you feel the thing, and everybody's calling that thing the Holy Spirit. So if it all goes as planned, the kid gets excited as fuck and then associates that religion with one of the best nights of their short life. I mean, look, a couple of months ago I saw a sign for Christian wrestling at a local church. You know, like shoestring WWE shit, but with a sermon in the middle and an altar call at the end.

And when you live in rural Podunk, how often are you going to get a chance to take your kid to a live wrestling event, right? If they like wrestling, they're going to see the sign. They're not going to put together the significance of the big giant cross on it. And they're going to beg you to take them. And, of course, you would say no. Or at least you'd get them properly prepared for all the evangelism they were about to see. But what about a nominally Christian, non-church going parent, right? They're not going to have your savvy. So they sucker a kid in with wrestling and sell him Jesus instead. And for some reason, that is perfectly okay. I mean, look, I remember

this shit from my childhood. My mom was pretty enlightened about this kind of shit and outright forbade me from going to any of these prepubescent indoctrination seminars. And in retrospect, I thank her for that, but I remember plenty of nights as a kid, angry to the point of tears because I couldn't go to Kiwanis with David or movie night with Justin. Hell, I had to miss out on a party

that featured multiple Pac-Man arcade games set on free play in 1983. Took me years to get over that shit. Now, obviously, the ethical depravity of this shit becomes really obvious as soon as you plug in anything other than religion, right? I mean, even if it's the political party you agree with or the economic system you support. But if you think about it, it's actually way worse than that, because we truly analogous. We'd have to imagine that once the kids got to Republican pizza night, they were told that they would burn in hell for

eternity if they ever disagreed with Grover Norquist. So even if every type of ideology went after children with pizza-infused propaganda rallies, Christians would still be immoral in comparison. But of course, the evolution of religion has left them with a perfect excuse slash marketing ploy to get around what otherwise would seem so blatantly unscrupulous. They'll say, well, we have to target the children because their souls lie in the balance. You know, so the fact that we're indoctrinating them long before they have the mental capacity to separate fact from fiction and question authority, that's just a necessary byproduct. That's not the reason we're doing it. After all, they'll ask, what if you're wrong and that child was condemned to hell for

eternity because the gospel of Christ was withheld from them. And honestly, if you want to point out how insane that statement is, all you have to do is agree with it. All you got to do is turn to him and say, yeah, well, I guess if I find out that there's a magical deity that eternally tortures children for not going to the right wrestling events, I'll sure regret that I never worshipped him. They're talking about you, Jesus. May the Lord of this broadcast bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is the rugged yet still refined presidential hopeful, Eli Bosnick. Eli, welcome back to the show. Oh, thanks for having me.

I want to say I'm very proud to have won more states than Ben Carson. Yeah. So I was about to say, I mean, Super Tuesday, it wasn't great for you. I guess it wasn't great for Ben Carson either, but yeah, you pretty much held even with most of the field. Do you consider that a, like a mandate from the people to continue campaigning? Yeah. Yeah. I'm standing with Bernie fans here and that, you know, it's not over till it's over, you know, I mean, literally until November 9th. That is when I will stop my presidential campaign. November 8th, I'm still in the race.

Excellent. Excellent. All right, let's get going with headlines. In our lead story tonight from the Oscar grouch file, black people are not the only ones angry about the Academy Awards last week. awards last week after a best picture win for spotlight and a best documentary short win for a girl in the river the price of forgiveness religion was shown to be a great inspiration for you know high quality cinema but they're not very happy about the attention apparently there is such thing as bad pr when it comes in the form of award-winning films about pedophile priest cover-ups and faith-based honor killings

now is this this is the randy documentary the thing with the pool i thought we agreed we weren't going to talk about that should uh should listeners google that or don't no no don't google don't i feel like he's giving us advice don't google don't he says i only get to come on once every 40 years so for uh for those of you who aren't familiar spotlight is the story of the reporters from the boston globe who uncovered the catholic church sex abuse scandal and despite some fairly widespread dissemination of this information ever since and now an academy award for best picture going to a movie on the topic not only is the church still allowed to continue operating and protecting child rapists but people keep giving money to the church every

sunday it's crazy this is like when schindler's list came out except the nazis still exist and people still like them and give them kickstarter donations every week to help them pay off the jewish people what the fuck is happening yeah Yeah, I gotta admit, for atheists, this is a little bit of a bitter win. It's like if Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close had won, but only because people thought it was the first time someone mentioned 9-11. Oh, the towers

went down? Which towers? In New York City? Here in this country? Oh, goodness. So brave. Brave country. Oh, goodness. So brave. Brave filmmakers. Meanwhile, Dilla Hunty's just at home going, you know, actually, for years, it's fine. Don't worry about it.

It's a good movie. I'm going to keep giving money to those Jews. I don't care. They're fine. They're cool. All right. So one more thing before we close out this story. I just want to mention this.

It's easy for this to get lost in the shuffle when you start talking about all the prejudice in the academy. But movies about atheist groups committing atrocities just don't get chosen. And it's not fair. I mean, where's the movie about that atheist parking spot guy in North Carolina? Never even gets made. Racist. I mean, I can't help but notice none of us have apologized for that how do we know he wasn't a listener i'm just saying you put 30 seconds on the clock people get killed

take responsibility for what you say where's no illusions really come on some uh some good words of wisdom we'll try to be more responsible for what we say that's all i'm asking all right next up we've got a story about gop presidential hopeful donald trump who did an interview with cnn's jake tapper on sunday oh this should be good yeah this is this is a good one he discussed the recent string of endorsements from hate groups that that keeps happening and uh most notably he got a big thumbs up from former kkk grand wizard david duke who said last week that it would be quote treason against your ancestors for white christian people to vote for anyone other than donald trump now uh obviously you can't control who supports you

but uh here's what you can do you can answer answer yes, absolutely, when a news reporter asks you if you'd like to distance yourself from white supremacists. But Donald chose not to because he's a maverick. Never know what he's going to do. It's very exciting. I think we're being a little too hard on Donald. I mean, what happened to asking for some skepticism from our political candidates? You don't want to judge anyone too harshly too quickly. No, of course not.

Of course not. Yeah. Donald Trump's very cerebral that way. It's important. So the exchange went something like this. Tapper says, all right, Donald, I'm going to start you off with a softball, real easy. Is the KKK bad? Yes or no?

Trump basically pleaded the fifth. Trick question. Yeah. Not realizing that it's extremely incriminating to not incriminate yourself when you get a question about neo-Nazis. Yeah. If someone asks you if you beat your wife and you want to talk about snooker scoring, you are definitely beating your wife. My gosh, what lovely weather we're having. So yeah, after being asked to take a firm stance on David Duke and the KKK, you know,

pro or anti, Trump answered, see, none of the above. And he explained that it would be politically incorrect to denounce these people without doing some more thorough research because he's classy like that. Yeah. Like you said, Donald Trump doesn't like to say negative things about an entire group without getting to know them first. And, you know, of course, that's why he has so many Muslim and Mexican friends for research. Yeah. What did Jake Tapper expect for Donald to just want to kick them all

out of the country? Come on, nobody deserves that. Exactly. And now this is kind of fun. The Republican National Committee is scrambling to smooth this over. It's like that mom who has to wrestle their shitty kid into the car

and then apologize to the restaurant full of people. He's not a neo-Nazi, I swear. He just needs a timeout. He's had a lot of sugar today. Yeah, well, I mean, half the Republican Party is like that. The other half is just letting him scream so they can write about how brave they are on their mommy blog. I didn't have your baby. Take it outside.

No, you don't get nice things for a little while. You foot pooped a baby. I'm going to take that strong anti-mother stance here on my first and last appearance of the hook. Firm stake in the ground. That's good. That's good. Plan a flag. This is the hill I die on.

Fuck you, moms. So, yeah, that was fun. The front runner for the GOP nomination needs a timeout so he can think about what he said, which was, just to recap, no Jake Tapper. I'm not going to be lured into your trap questions about the pros and cons of the KKK. He's not going to be tricked. And just for the record, he then went on to sweep Super Tuesday. It's not like this is some crazy guy in Lethfield. This is the guy who crushed it on Super Tuesday. It's not like this is some crazy guy in Lethfield.

This is the guy who crushed it on Super Tuesday. Going to get the GOP nomination in all likelihood. Yeah, terrifying. So let's just move right along. Next up, we got a story about Islamic oncology, actually, which you don't hear enough about. Saudi cleric Sheikh Saad al-Atik did a TV appearance earlier this month, during which he announced a surprising new way to prevent a whole bunch of cancer,

apparently. According to the Sheikh, here's the problem. People are posting food pictures on social media hubs like Snapchat. That's the root cause. cause don't forget he has to get to cancer so food pictures on snapchat which in turn causes people to become envious of the food and that in turn causes cancer oh malignant envy cancer so there was a bacon to cancer in three steps very impressive so yeah he's saying yeah shut down the internet probably no more cancer yeah i mean i think he's more worried about uh gaining some shake weight shake this is fantastic because like i've always had this theory that like there are parts of religion that just some dude clearly excusing his behavior like ruth rolled over next to abraham one night started to touch his thigh when she was on her period and he was like oh i totally would but um god says you're gross right now so you should leave for like four days

that's what god said like i totally would be like oh god and this is just the modern version of that he's just sitting at brunch with his manic pixie dream child bride while she posts pictures of it on instagram and he's like fucking you know what this causes colon cancer that's i changed i just spoke to allah yeah definitely definitely seems uh like a little vestigial thing like that for sure and uh by the way uh when you actually get into the details of this it it gets even dumber than it sounds, believe it or not. That's impressive. This guy managed to find one of the stupid reasons to claim that envy of food causes cancer. According to Mr. Al-Atik, it's all the women's fault, actually. Apparently, all these over-empowered bitches in Saudi Arabia are dressing up their food

all slutty without any regard for their husbands. And he says all this. The husbands are being cuckolded by all these other people eye-fucking their wife's cooking. This is a big problem for him. And, of course, not to mention all the kids getting the magical face cancer from the food porn that results. Really, honey? Do you have to put so much garnish on?

My parents are coming over. But here's my question if if i fucking envy causes cancer does this make like guy fieri the dr brzezinski of the united states no no no you need salt pills it's eventually gonna have a nuremberg style hearing flavor town did you or did you not stick your finger in that sauce? Yeah. Guy Fieri and Dr. Brzezinski, the Dr. Brzezinski's of the United States.

I mean, they are the two worst humans in the United States. The relationship goes farther. And by the way, just so you don't think I'm paraphrasing badly, here's what this guy actually said. Quote, Just so you don't think I'm paraphrasing badly, here's what this guy actually said. Quote, by Allah, I have encountered cases of children getting cancer caused directly by pictures posted on social media accounts. A picture might transmit sorcery. The proof, he has proof.

The proof is that if I took your picture and applied sorcery to it, you will be afflicted accordingly. So why do we find it difficult to believe that a sorcerer might take your picture from a social media account, print it, and cast sorcery upon it? End quote. Exactly. Ah, the fat guy in a red hat method of determining witchcraft from the Deepak Chopra school of theology. And he's right. We can't prove that he wouldn't print out a picture of our social media and cast the stuff on it. He's got it. Yeah. Checkmate us. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure though, during that quote, did he not just claim that he's a wizard who can give

you cancer using your picture? I'm pretty sure he said that. And it seems like you could heal cancer with that sort of magic. But also, one other thing. Why does the sorcerer have to print it? I was confused by the printing. I'm picturing Gandalf just frustrated, yelling at a printer, banging a PC load letter. The fuck is that? How am I going to give this kid cancer without a printout? He spends two and a half hours trying to fix it before he just calls some eagles and they fix it for him.

Caw-caw! Oh, I just need eyes that just means new paper perfect all right now the kid's got cancer all right so uh just one last point um this isn't just some random dude who happened to be on tv one time it's not even like pat robertson level he's a religious official with actual power. It's illegal to disagree with this guy out loud over there. And he thinks that fucking grilled cheese needs a burqa before you take a picture of it. And if Mohammed's face shows up on the bread, you're really, you get your hands chopped off or something.

It's almost 30 million people living in Saudi Arabia. That must be terrifying. Some guy's just sitting there. You know, he's on a business trip and this stuff gets and he's like this must be like a calm everyone's like no dude be cool be cool cover up your salad those shrimps look fantastic so next up uh we've got a story about the crafty southern damsel of the GOP presidential field, Ben Carson. Oh, I'm so glad. Ben Carson.

Very exciting. Yeah. During a recent event at Regent University, Carson took the stage to discuss his thoughts on America's education system, along with host of the 700 Club, Pat Robertson, who you may also know as Live Action Brain from Pinky and the Brain. Robertson, who you may also know as Live Action Brain from Pinky and the Brain. Basically, they gave a TED Talk on how Christian kids are being horribly persecuted. And that's why Ben Carson, when he's elected president, is going to finally get rid of that, quote, ban on Christianity in our public schools.

Oh, it's good to hear. For those who want to not have to watch the video or read the article, I'll give you an image. The Dormouse from Alice in Wonderland promises the Leprechaun from the Leprechaun movies that unicorns are going to stop shitting everywhere when he's elected president. There you go. I just helped you out. If you need a slightly less silly image. TLDR. Just refer to Eli.

There you go. Some football players huddled in the corner. Do you guys mind if I say a quick prayer? No! Get the fuck out there! Sacrifice this goat and then let's get back on the field. And finally tonight, in broke-down phallus news, according to a new report from the Daily Star, According to a new report from the Daily Star, an Irish playwright named Ian Begley is planning to stage a production about a man who gets caught smuggling drugs into Syria, at which point he falls in love and has a relationship with the ISIS commander who captures and jails him.

Isn't that what this season of Serial is about? I haven't been listening. Like everyone else in America, I don't care because it's not about that Muslim kid who killed his girlfriend. I really got to get to that show. That sounds like a fun season. By the way, if anyone's interested in helping turn this dream into a reality for Mr. Begley, he's currently seeking donations at his Kickstarter page. That will not be linked in the show notes for the episode. No, probably not. But either way, he's hoping to premiere the show at the Dublin Fringe Festival later this year if he makes his donation level. And he's also considering a Kickstarter to have someone just, you know, stab him in the chest directly without the whole blasphemous play as a middleman. Make it a lot simpler.

That will be linked to the show notes for this episode. You got it middle of the road we're muslim friendly ish from the far center on that one yeah you got it and uh also uh one other small detail mr begley was originally planning to make this an all singing all dancing musical musical, which I think is fantastic. But he's since abandoned this idea, which, you know, obviously very disappointing. But regardless, this is a fantastic plot for a play. Now, in situations like these, I often find myself thinking, you know, what would Noah do when a news story pops up with phrases like gay isis drug mule love story musical what would no illusions do and um um smoke reference a movie that nobody but him and ebert had seen is it fuck lucinda because he left a very firm note on the fridge about that and i just i just

want to say like i read it and i'm not gonna not gonna try all good answers but um i think uh i think if no we're here right now specifically about this story he'd say we should at least help out this playwright a little if not make a sizable donation either way though he'd be thoroughly disappointed if we didn't also put 30 seconds on the clock and come up with some ideas for the uh pretty much writes itself for the gay love story about the drug mule and the isis commander go oh uh how about uh heartfelt or frottage by the lake sandra puller everybody google frottage because that's awesome. Don't Google it.

Google the Randy Fink person. The second definition. The second definition. Yeah. All right. So what about in terms of like casting? I was thinking maybe Daniel Radcliffe and Sacha Baron Cohen, something like that. Or maybe like Nathan Lane and Hank Azaria, the burn cage, something like that.

How about Jim Caviezel and Jared Leto in Between Iraq and a Hard Place? How about, I was also picturing like a figure skating version to go with the musical theme, like a figure skating version of Walter White in Iraq, like Breaking Baghdad, Miracle on ISIS, that sort of thing. Oh, all right. If we're going musical, I'm going to go with a Peter Gabriel jukebox musical, The Burka of Love, featuring Acid in Your Eyes and Don't Tense Up. Oh, another musical. Let's go classic.

West Bank Story with hits like Sharia. I just found a law called Sharia. Come on. Songs write themselves. When you're a drone, you're a drone all the way. All right. What about Scarface 2, the acid smuggler? Bet Pacino does a good Arab accent.

That'd be fun. No question. Maybe the scent of a man without a face. Something like that. That'd be fun. It smells like Bernie. And I think that's going to wrap it up on the

acid face jokes. We always try to make a reference to that. Check. And we can close out the headlines. Eli, thanks as always. Alright, I will see you in 2058. Jumanji! Excellent. And when we come back, it'll be time for Quranomaniacs.

So just sit back and relax. Quranomaniacs. One of the common defenses Muslims use to bolster the Quran's divine credentials is what beautiful poetry it is. After all, they say, Muhammad was illiterate, so what are the odds that a person could produce such fluid and artful text without the benefit of being able to write it down, revise it, and reconsider it. But of course, upon examination, either there's a form of Arabic poetry that relies on rambling about random shit, remembering pages later what you were talking about, repeating yourself, and then realizing midway through a sentence that it doesn't make sense only to desperately backtrack, or this thing reads exactly like it was written by a fucking illiterate person. Yeah, and for example, the very first thing we read is a nonsense word.

It's alif-la-meem. And according to my translation, these letters can't be translated because they're miracle letters, and only Allah knows what they mean. I see. It's like an eight-year-old boy trying to keep girls out of his tree fort. And he's illiterate, like you said. Yeah, right, right. And, of course, a holy book breakdown would only be a partially book breakdown

if we didn't have the input of the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions. Lucinda, welcome back. I'd feel a lot more welcome if you didn't keep making me read all this shit. Wouldn't we all. And, of course, here to balance out all the loveliness is the one and only eli bosnick eli glad you could join us once more oh thanks for having me i have a meatball stuck inside me glad you shared all right so we've got two more stories to knock out this week so we're gonna get right to it starting with a chapter titled the family of imran so yeah we start off

with a bunch of reminders about how awesome god is and how he definitely wrote the shit out of this book. Oh, yeah. And then it brags about how little sense it makes. It does. Yeah. Yeah. We also learn early on a little bit about God's resume. Turns out he had a brief career as a fiction writer before he started writing science books like the Quran.

Yeah. Like L. Ron Hubbard in that way. Apparently. God's on a boat somewhere. Fucking kids. My translation says that God is, quote, the Avenger. Look, I know I'm not caught up on every issue, but

I feel like I would have heard about them adding Allah to the roster. I mean, everyone freaks out when they added a black kid, so I don't know what to say. Spider-Man, what? And then in verse 6, it says that Allah, quote, shapes you in the wombs as he pleases. And in context, I guess the message is supposed to be, you know, God, the creator is everywhere. But they chose the creepiest fucking way you could have possibly said that.

He's basically 3D printing every fetus with his magical hentai dick tentacles. There is no other way to interpret that. Hentai dick tentacles, by the way, is a fantastic film, if anyone wants to read it. Yes, it is. He also points out about

how half the passages are allegorical and that nobody but God will ever know what the fuck God was talking about. It brags about, like, it's proud of that, like it's a good thing. Yeah, God's basically the dad from Big Fish. Now, not all the stories I tell you are true, but kill all the Jews anyway.

That's a deleted scene. Right. And as for the non-believers God will set their children on fire Well that part was allegorical Only God understands it Oh gotcha Right

Of course it was And I guess A lot of people I didn't think this all the way through Because according to this verse I can be an atheist With absolutely no consequences As long as I remain poor and childless

That's fine Oh good call That's my vision board right there. There's a fantastic quote in this section where he says, it's basically, and you shall say to the unbeliever, when my dad gets back, he's totally going to kick your ass. He knows karate.

There's a lot of that. This is also where we get the first of what I'm sure will be many references to the Battle of Bader, where the Muslims defeated a much larger army of heathens. And it makes no sense to bring it up here. So keep in mind that as he's dictating, Muhammad just cut into the middle of his own story to say, You guys remember when I kicked those motherfuckers' asses at Bader?

That was awesome. My copy is so anti-Semitic. Oh, I'm so excited. You ready for the Saudi translation? Oh, please, please. It says, there has already been a sign for you, oh Jews, in the two armies that met at the Battle of Bain. Oh, really?

Oh, Jews. Also, a quick tip for anyone reading along with a digital copy, learning that if you do a control F and search for Jew, especially oh Jews, takes you to the best parts of the Quran right away. It's a good to know. It's a really easy way to skip around. Yeah, basically this is Muhammad's section of being that friend. If you've ever been in a fight with a friend,

like you both fought at the same time, and every time you get drunk from then on, they're like, you remember that guy we fucked up at Bennigan's? You got him good, huh? It's like, stop trying to kiss me, man. We both fought a guy outside of bennegan's there's also a crazy section i just have to point out where the quote in my translation is quote fair seeming to men is the love of pleasures from women and children oh really yeah so i'm guessing

reza missed that part there's a lot of parts that I think Reza missed. Also, just one other note. I think Christian's dicks would fall off if they read all of the... If someone says you're wrong, just tell them you're saved and smugly walk away. They'd be like, that's our thing, motherfucker! Don't you do that to us! We were there first! My book came second.

Oh, that's what we say to people. You crazy Muslims. Look out for my Dennis the Menace remake, by the way. Alright, then in verse 28, we learn that Muslims aren't allowed to be friends with us. Not at all. So I can stop saying, don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are Muslims. Because they know I'm full of shit anyway.

Right. Well, I just want to say I have a very close friend who's Muslim. Terrible health, though. I told him we were reading the Koran and he just kept yelling, I'm Sikh. I'm Sikh. Poor guy. Nice turban, though. I like his hat.

I don't have a Muslim hat. Just randomly in the book uh mom had remembered he was supposed to be talking about the family of imran so we finally get to that my version is so crazy so she's talking this is the lady who's about to give birth to mary and she literally goes hey god i'm having a baby. It's a girl. And God knew it was a girl. He totally knew that. And then she says, I quote, give her and her offspring refuge from Satan the stoned. Satan the stoned? Satan's just sitting there. You guys ever like watch the Mighty Boosh?

It's really, really funny. Watch the mighty bush. It's really, really funny. So, yeah, so we meet Mary, and she gets passed off to Zechariah, I guess. Okay, so she apparently magically makes food appear every day by praying really hard. No, just for herself, mind you. She just makes herself food. She doesn't use her magical food-making powers to feed the hungry or anything. Kind of a bitch about it.

Yeah. Right, right. Well, and we're just taking her word on that. The other possibility is that she's a kleptomaniac that had to explain where the hell that new purse came from every day. Yeah, true that. This is very clearly just the Bible's version of the telephone game. Like, Mary was a version, got turned

into, there was a liar named Mary who blamed God. Strange for the telephone game to get truer and truer as you go. And then, of course, she had Jesus. Yes, it's that Mary. And when we introduce Jesus, we're once again reminded that this is being dictated by a goddamn drunkard because the sentence starts off with, when Jesus is born, he will. And then it goes on so long that by the end of the sentence, the book forgot that we were in the future tense.

And now all of a sudden Jesus is alive and talking to people and shit in that sentence. Well, it's poetry. You got to understand. Oh, I see. It's like bell hooks. Also, there's another amazing quote in this section. Quote, and the Jews plotted and God plotted. But of those who plot, God is best.

Like Dr. Seuss got drunk and yelled a book at a synagogue he was peeing on. Say fuck me over at the shop. I'll fuck you all. Hop, hop, hop. I think you may have just described the entire Quran right there. Exactly. One fish, two fish. It even made more sense when you said it.

And then the ranting drunkard shows up again here to remind us that we can't trust Jews with our there. Exactly. One fish, Jew fish. It even made more sense when you said it. And then the ranting drunkard shows up again here to remind us that we can't trust Jews with our gold. No. He's right, honestly. I would have no idea

what to do with their gold. Stop sending me your gold. Also, I love the moment in this section where he's like, quote, all food was allowed to the children of Israel

except for the food that Jacob forbade them. It's like, oh, all the food except for the stuff you said I couldn't? Amazing. It's like, think of the nine of spades. Any nine of spades in the text of Romans. I shall pluck the thought from your mind.

Trying to pluck meaning out of this book is like waiting for Walter Subcheck to finish a sentence. Isn't it, though? It's always just trailing off and winding up. He never cuts out of this book is like waiting for Walter Subcheck to finish his sentence. Isn't it, though? It's always just trailing off and winding up. He never cuts out of a sentence through the same fucking sentence he went in through. And by now, he's given up on any pretense that he's actually making a point about something. So he babbles about Abraham not being Jewish

and then reminds everybody that they have to visit his meteor or God will hate them. And then we get a little section that seems like it's supposed to be advice for, I guess, Muslim subway preachers about what to say to Jews and Christians when they argue with you. It's kind of like a telemarketing flowchart type of thing. Like, fuck me at 7 a.m. Funny that you mentioned that. But did you know that praying to Allah at 7 a.m. prevents autism? Check it out. Interesting. We also learned that Muslims to Allah at 7 a.m. prevents autism? Check it out.

Interesting. We also learned that Muslims are the best people ever. Oh, yeah. You guys are great, honestly. You're my best friends, and I love you, and we don't say it enough. We don't say it. We totally go through all the stages of drunkenness in this. We get the anger, and we get the, I love you guys so much.

It's awesome. And I don't know that we've gone a dozen consecutive verses in this book at any point without coming across more hell threats. So we're going to get some more of those. And then we also learned that when God burns people in hell for eternity, it isn't that he's being a dick. It's that they're being dicks to themselves by sending themselves to hell. They didn't want that eternal torment. They shouldn't have undercooked the steak. Yeah, the stop hitting yourself school of theology.

Right. Honestly, it's fine. I fell down the stairs into hell. It's no big deal. It's my fault. I wasn't looking. I wasn't looking in front of him. And I really think we need to talk about verse 118.

Because it might be the single worst passage in any of these books so far that I've read. It's not the most violent or anything. Don't get me wrong. But it tells the readers, fear outsiders. Don't make friends with them. All they want to do is make you suffer. All outsiders. This is why we need Donald Trump in America.

Apparently, when an outsider tries to make friends with you, as a good Muslim, you're supposed to scream at the top of your lungs, die of rage. God is aware of what your heart contains. That's its advice upon meeting new people. And that is their Tinder profile picture for years. They always swipe left.

It's like, you seem nice now, but you bite your fingers at me when I'm not looking. I know. It says that. Bite your fingers. And then we get Battle of Bader name drop number two. And apparently God is promising to send angels if they're ever in trouble. He says he'll send 5,000 of them to be exact. But at least he had the foresight to point out that the angels would be clearly marked oh

okay right so if your skins they're not going to show up in shirts i guess god thought of everything yeah they only get 3 000 in my translation to start but then if you bitch enough you get 5 000 oh really john meadows rodwell jew and people out of their angels also this section explains Why the Muslim world has been so militarily triumphant Honestly it's like This part of the bible is they were like And lo white Christians you will have the biggest dicks

And win the civil war We also get some evidence In verse 137 Of how awesome Muslim God is It challenges us to go through the land and find one single example of a non-Muslim city that doesn't suck.

Compared to life in good old Arabia. Bayonne, New Jersey. Didn't have to go that high up the list. Let me tell you, this white man's burden is the worst you don't even want to know you guys have no idea it's exhausting how come we don't have a non-muslim history month am i right every month is non-muslim history month he also makes a strange point about

how war isn't really a big deal because people who die in wars would have died at the same time anyway. And it's better to die in a war than getting raped to death by a lion or whatever. Right. Yeah. So all the people who were going to die in war, all those people in World War I would have just got the plague. So, okay. It does. A little historical context here.

They're now talking about the Battle of Uhud. I think that's how it's pronounced. Uhud. This is the army where Muhammad and his army got their asses whipped by the army that they beat in the Battle of Uhud. I think that's how it's pronounced, Uhud. This is the army where Muhammad and his army got their asses whipped by the army that they beat in the battle of Bader. So when they won the battle of Bader, that was a clear sign that God was on their side.

And when they lost the battle of Uhud, that was also it just meant God was whittling down the army a bit, but definitely not on the other guy's side. You don't want that bi-week. You're just staying loose. You're just side you don't want that bye week no you're just staying loose you're just staying loose we did that on purpose we were just we let him in for that last guys out uh jets there's also a fantastic part where he's like comforting people about their

loss he says i quote fear not for those who have joined with gods without warranty end quote and i wanted to be like and look allah knows you want to leave best buy right away but honestly don't come back with a receipt now it's like the girl with the name tag didn't try to face fuck you with a two-year warranty come back now and act like you didn't know that you couldn't put your dick in a washing machine all right it's for soap i swear i spent the whole surah loading excedrin and migraine into a pez dispenser at the realization that the whole fucking book is gonna read just like this yeah just random hell threats and misogyny from an author that can't hold his train of thought any longer than the duda memento right it's it sounds like muhammad would just keep saying things and then he'd get mad at that scribe because he didn't seem to be writing as much as Muhammad said.

Like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. Is that all he said? I'd love to be a fly on the wall. I got lost so many times reading these two fucking chapters. I just kept jumping around the page being like, I've already read this. Why are we saying this again? Eyes left to right, top to bottom. We've been doing this for years.

Keep it together. Well, I mean, yeah, because it introduced characters early. And it talked about Mary and Zechariah. And I thought we introduced John the Baptist. Jesus was there for a second. So I thought for sure eventually we were going to get back to them. And there would be some reason why we introduced him in the first place. But no.

Absolutely not. Nothing. To be fair, though, I did find one good sentence. He says, quote, be not chagrined at your loss of booty that was that was the highlight of this reading experience to me i was like booty all right back to the fucking crazy screen yeah uh but other than that it's just oh and you know what else non-Muslims are full of shit about? That for 200 verses. Yeah, right. But I will say I got my hopes up when I saw the title of the next surah was women.

Yeah, surah number four. This ought to be good. So first of all, don't steal shit from orphans. We need to be very clear about that right up front. That is the first thing you need to know about women. Obviously. Yeah, this is the don't shit in the pool of religious rules. It's like, why did someone have to write this down?

Were they shitting in the pool before? Well, also, it's about not swindling orphans, too. So, in fairness, I think this is one of those, you know, cultural things we need to be a little more open-minded about. Here in the Western world, we just go right up to orphans and trick them into bad trades. That's capitalism. But, you know, they don't understand that in the Islamic world, so they have a ban on it. I get that. I get that.

Well, also, we learned right away that you should try to keep yourself to four wives or fewer. But the way that phrase fucked me all kinds of up. Oh, yes. In my translation, it says in verse three, quote, fucked me all kinds of. Oh, yes. In my translation, it says in verse three, quote, if you fear that you cannot deal fairly with the orphan girls, you may marry women of your choice, two or three or four, end quote.

So what does cheating orphan girls have to do with getting married? And if you can deal fairly with orphan girls, should you just, you know, fuck them instead? What the hell is going on here? I don't understand this fucking thing. Okay, so yeah, I had to look this one up, and I found a huge well of apologetics about it. Surah 4, verse 3. So for the record, a lot of the translations say something like, with respect to marrying widows, if you are afraid of not being able to maintain justice with her children,

marry another woman of your choice, or two or three or four who have no children. That's from the Sarwar translation, by the way, and that is complete bullshit. Nothing like the Arabic. That's a translator trying to make it seem like this is not about fucking orphan girls. The entire passage in the original Arabic makes no mention of widows, mothers, no mention of others, no mention of her children. And I don't even think the Muslim scholars can make heads or tails of what the fuck he was talking about there, but it is almost certainly about fucking

orphan girls that are in your care yeah it's like when someone has to go up after deepak chopra in one of those intelligence square debates okay so what deepak meant all right he didn't say these words but it was a test god damn it i gotta stop going second also can we talk about for a second about limiting yourself to four wives i mean who wants to come home to three people crying because there's a cute dog on facebook just sitting there getting out voted because quote he has ears all right i mean i guess you guys are all right. And then Muhammad tries his hand at math, and that's fun. Five or six verses of him spouting off fractions that don't add up to explain who gets what when it comes to divvying up dead people's money.

And of course, women are worth about half as much as men. Unless there's more than two sisters, in which case the sisters should get two-thirds, and then the other half gets divided among the brothers, and the remaining one-sixth goes to your parents if they're still alive. Yeah, the remaining negative 33% goes to the orphan slave prostitutes. They actually owe you money when you die. It's like a goddamn SAT question. You didn't say there'd be math, right?

The one good thing I could say about the Koran ruined. There's math now. Bring it for me. And there's no way I can do this one justice without just reading it verbatim here. Verse 15 of Surah 4, quote, if any of your women commit fornication, call in four male witnesses from among yourselves against them. If they testify to their guilt, confine them to the house until death releases them or until God gives them another way out.

End quote. See, my translation says, quote, and watch out for Lady MacGyver. She can be tricky. Using only a burka and a safety pin. So I guess the takeaway here is whenever your wife does a gang bang, make sure you get sworn statements from at least four of the dudes. Otherwise, you don't get to watch her die in a cage legally. Apparently. And then we get God's thoughts on gays for a minute.

And no, it's not murdering them yet. Right now, it's just punishing them until they promise to stop being gags. Yeah, which makes you wonder, do they maybe just not promise fast enough on the way down when they get thrown off of roofs? Must be it. Must be it, yeah. Then we get the list of people you aren't allowed

to marry. This includes your mom, your sisters, your aunts, your uncles, your nieces, etc. But one that it leaves out and actually specifically points out is okay, is if you marry a woman and her daughter, but you marry both of

them before you fuck them, either of them, that's okay. It's alright. And I mean, that's more Quranic prophecy. I think it's pretty clear that Muhammad had just a vision of MILF three-way porn, and you know, we need to respect that. He nailed it.

All that scientific accuracy that he wove in there. I love it. Also, one other rule in here in my copy anyway. You can't fuck your wet nurse or any woman that suckled the same teat as you as a child. It really says that. That ruins so many of my fantasies. teat as you as a child. It really says that.

That ruins so many of my fantasies. Also, no married women unless, of course, you stole them as war slaves, in which case, obviously, you can marry them. Clearly. It's just at a certain point, I feel like he's reading my internet history. I'm very uncomfortable. We also get a flow chart on how to deal with disobedient women. First, you admonish them. Then you kick them out of bed. no dick, and then you hit them.

Yep. It says that. You fucking hit them. You hit them. See, and I don't understand why Dawkins is so hard on the Muslims. They agree on so much. Oh, shit. It's worse to get hit with a bat than it is with a stick.

That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Well, that's the thing. I mean, it's not like it sounds. You hit her with like a newspaper. No. Dignified. Stern dignified.

On the nose. Well, see, it's so funny because when I was Googling verse three of Surah 4, the search bar kept being like, are you sure you weren't looking for verse 34? So I was looking forward to this verse

and it did not disappoint. Fuck, if Ray Rice was a a Muslim Riffra would have protected him holy shit but from the tape though it was hard to tell if he admonished her first and then withheld some dick so I can understand why Goodell was a little confused at first

it's not clear at all and then of course that part ends with but I mean if they aren't bitches don't hit them isn't God great right we got a part where it says you shouldn't but I mean, if they aren't bitches, don't hit them. Isn't God great? Right? We got a part where it says you shouldn't hit them. I mean, if they're not bitches about it. But yeah. So, you know.

We also learn in verse 46 that Jews would be much better off, of course, not being Jews. As though we didn't already know this. And remember that Muhammad was illiterate. This thing was dictated. So I guarantee you that in verse 46, when says like some jews take the words out of context and say we have heard but we disobey or hear without listening you know muhammad was doing that part in his jew voice some jews take the word out of context and say we have heard but we disobey oh muhammad you got him you got was just like it. But my Muslim brothers be taking words in context like a baller. And then the religion of peace reminds us in verse 56 that when God gets done melting the skin off of Jews, he's going to put new skin on them so that he can melt that skin off of them too.

And so on and so forth for eternity. I was picturing like Jewish Bugs Bunny just unzipping his skin over it. I was getting so mad. I love the idea of Jewish Bugs Bunny. Right, and in verse 69, we have a moment where he basically is like, look, this book is super easy to follow.

So easy to follow that, spoiler alert, if we told you to like kill yourself, the truly faithful would. Just saying, again, it's just testing the waters for butt sex I hear some women really like it that's just crazy my friend's wife

suicide is an erogenous song so more Jew hate more Jew hate more Jew hate and then we're reminded that the truly pious Muslims should be jumping at a chance to die for their religion. Once more, that's in 74. Yeah.

And actually, you don't even have to die. You get the same reward if you kill all the not Muslim people. All of them. So, yeah, you can win at genocide or die trying. Right. Same amount of points. Seems unfair to the guy that wins, but it keeps the staff on their toes. So I understand the politics. of points. Seems unfair to the guy that wins, but it keeps the staff on their toes. So I understand the politics.

That's the important part, yeah. And let's be super clear about this little jihad subsection here. It says very clearly, if you're not a Muslim, you're a follower of Satan, and it's their duty to kill you. In no uncertain terms. For the sake of themselves, God, the world, and your women and children who are being led astray by your satanic ways. Right. Right after the boy should you want to die for this book verse. Yes.

Yes, exactly. And then it spends about three verses saying, and look, this is definitely not figurative. You should definitely go out and murder people and tell you die that aren't Muslim because God was going to kill you at that exact time anyway when you were going to. There is no fucking way to read this section as peaceful or even tolerant of peacefulness so out of curiosity i actually went looking for an apologetic for this first and it's basically yeah but then like the next verse says to answer the call of the oppressed which is a little like saying when you're done murdering all the stupid atheists and Jews and fatties, realize that everyone will be a Muslim and you did a good thing.

That's what it says. Yeah. When you think about it, Liam Neeson is the good guy in Taken. I mean, yeah. But what if he killed everybody, like the people? Okay, then not someone. No, no, no, no. You like Taken.

Hold on. Hold on. Not so fast. not someone no no no you like take it hold on hold on not so fast and just in case you didn't take it literally enough we're reminded in verse 89 that if anybody ever backslides in their faith we should quote seize them and kill them end of quote yeah but only if those people oppress muslims god well I think it is worth pointing out that at least in that verse, the

Bible gives you the same advice. The Quran and the Bible are tied. They're both super shitty books. I love how everyone has to point that out. I should just point out, they're both shitty books. Yeah, man, they're both shitty books. You shouldn't believe in any of these things. The message is, as long as people acquiesce, lay down their arms, and do whatever you tell them to do,

including leaving their homes and finding somewhere else to live, you're not allowed to harm them anymore. Unless, of course, you count stealing their children as harm. And really, is that so much to ask? No, I don't think so. Also, if you accidentally murder a Muslim, you have to give his family some money and free a Muslim slave. So that's why you should always have Muslim slaves on hand. Eskimo Joe for $12,000. And then in verse 101, it says, this was an interesting part, it says, you can shorten your prayers down if Jews are chasing you.

It's like a hurry up offense type of deal. Like Akbar, Akbar, Omaha, Omaha, hot rap. By the way, Eli, have you noticed that? Like when you chase Muslims around, do they shorten it up? They do. It's true. They stop right away. I run out when they're doing their little rug prayers and they scamper.

Scamper. And in case you're wondering what the very worst thing a human being can possibly do it's idolatry yeah that's the one thing muslim god will absolutely not forgive serial murder rape you just have to ask movie the golden calf there isn't enough sorry in the world motherfucker and a couple verses later we get a really weird warning for all the dudes it says uh listen we know what's going to happen. You're going to try to fuck your wives and your slaves and your local orphan girls all equally. Everybody tries to do that.

You're going to have fucking rotation systems and spreadsheets. It's not going to matter. You're going to fuck it up. So just stay focused on marrying the right homeless child. Like that's the good Muslims think big picture. So yeah, that was a verse in a holy book. I also want to linger on verse 150 for a second, because I think it's worth citing all the people who says,

you know, Islam just needs reform, because this part basically says, if anyone ever says that Islam needs reform, it's because Satan, so kill them! It's not quite that explicit, but that's basically the gist of it. Yeah, and this is some grade-A quality prophecy. I mean, it doesn't mention Ian Hersey Lee by name, but it's pretty great.

It's pretty close. And then we learned that God swapped Jesus out at the last second. Yes. He never got crucified, y'all. Never, ever. Or maybe God just came down and used the men in black flashy thing for the Jews. Oh, you crucified the fuck out of that guy. But Jesus definitely didn't crucify y'all.

Even though the people who crucified him thought he did. It's very clear on that. Right. And if you don't believe that, you're murderable. Yeah. And I mean, this is hard to read. I mean, no matter who the magician is, you hate to see someone get called out on their tricks. You know, how to hate Allah more.

He's the guy that ruins the magic show for everybody. It's a magnet. It's a magnet. All right, fine. There's just a string on it. There's just a string and you can't for everybody. It's a magnet. It's a magnet. All right, fine. There's just a string on it. There's just a string and you can't see it because it's a black background, guys. It's just contact juggling. It's a fake thumb. This was actually impressive, this

section, in a weird way. The verse manages to clear the Jews of murdering Jesus but still do that with an anti-Semitic message somehow. I said, look, they can't even murder a heretic probably, idiots. Oh my God, this book is so good at Jew hate. Also, a cherry-picking apologist might toss verse 171 at you where it reminds Muslims

not to go to extremes in their religion, which is true. It does say that, but earlier in the same chapter, it reminded us that the guy who's saying that doesn't think murder, martyrdom, rape, or slavery are extreme. Yeah, it's basically like, well, kill everybody that's not a Muslim. But don't go crazy, guys. Don't go crazy. Right. I was happy to see him call bullshit on the Holy Trinity in there, though.

Yeah. Because that's some wacky shit. That was nice. We'll see. We found something nice to say. That makes this whole segment a compliment sandwich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll close it there.

That's four surahs down and only 110 to go. But don't worry, as bad as that sounds, we're actually already more than 15% of the way through this thing. So we'll take a three-week hiatus, then we'll return for surahs five and six, which will include our first Meccan surah. I hear those are supposed to be the less evil ones. So we've got that to look forward to.

I love Meccan food. And until then, all I can say is this book is incredibly fucked up. Hallelujah. Mechons are all rapists. We're going to make them pay for the wall. We're going to blow it down with a trumpet. out with the trumpet before we crawl back into our dens tonight i wanted to thank he for doing my job and his this week so that lucinda and i could have our first vacation in years kind of hard to do when you have three shows due out but impossible if you have three shows due out and you

don't have as dedicated and selfless a partner in crime as heath so for that i thank him profusely also need to thank eli for stepping up and helping out a ton over the last couple weeks. Needed to juggle a ton of shit on a recording schedule, and Eli moved planets to make that happen. So huge thanks for that. And obviously, while I'm at it, I should thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions for patiently waiting years for a vacation under the excuse that I had very important dick jokes to write.

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, God Awful Movies, debuting on Tuesday at 8 a.m. Eastern Time. Kind of got saddled with an unexpectedly not-all-that-bad movie last week, but we are damn sure making up for it this week. Definitely looking forward to that one. I also need to thank Zach from the Zachrelidge cast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote.

If you're interested in checking out his show, you'll find links to his YouTube channel and the podcast version on the show notes for this episode. And I just want to say, in my defense, you try working around Heath, Eli, and Lucinda every day and see if you don't laugh constantly. I fucking dare you. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's best people.

But unfortunately, I don't know who they are yet because I had to record this outro in advance. But I'm sure their genitals are super impressive. And I promise to tell you all about them by name when I get back next week. And if your genitals, too, are in need of compliments, you can help support the show by making a recurring donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended edition of every episode,

or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help but you can't find a buyer for all your aborted fetus tissue, you can also help us a ton for free by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or your podcast rating vehicle of choice. Thank you. 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. Yeah, I got to say Jumanji. And we're out with Jumanji. Fantastic. I thought for a second you were going to throw Jumanji in as another movie too

that'd be great did you just do a drug run for your birthday? nah I mean it's a road trip I did hardly any editing while I was in the car hardly any