The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 160: Answers in Criminogenesis Edition

Episode Date: March 10, 2016

In this week's episode, Ray Comfort admits that if it weren't for Jesus, he would feast on the flesh of the weak; we learn that Japanese ceremonial penises are traditionally circumcised, and we find out that the 17th century version of the flying nun was way less of a FNILF.

Warning, the profanity doesn't even make the top 10 of the most offensive things about this podcast. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new on-demand car service for Gentiles that need the assistance of a good Jewish man on short notice. Ubermensch delivery. Are the costs of owning an entire Jewish man getting way too crazy? Wondering if there's a way just to have him when you need him, like for taxes and diamond appraisals, but then he goes away. Well, look no further.

Ubermensch delivery. What can brown shirts do for you? And now, the skating atheist. Hi, this is DP from the Golden Age of Grappling podcast, and although religion doesn't really come up a whole lot when talking about old wrestling pay-per-views, I do have to say this. So whatcha gonna do and although religion doesn't really come up a whole lot when talking about old wrestling pay-per-views, I do have to say this.

So whatcha gonna do when Heath, Noah, and Lucinda and the rest of the scathing atheist crew run wild on you? Cause it's a fact, Jack. We did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's March 10th. And Hillary Clinton should start consulting with NFL coaches about trap games. Yes, she should. I'm no illusions. I'm Heath Enright. And from Trump Loves a Wintersville,

Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Ray Comfort admits that if it weren't for Jesus, he would feast on the flesh of the weak. We learn that Japanese ceremonial metal penises are traditionally circumcised. And we find out that the 17th century version of the Flying Nun was way less fuckable.

But first, the diatribe. You know, I love me some Stephen Jay Gould and all, but the idea that we're going to solve the conflicts between religion and science the way that two hostile roommates in an 80s sitcom would divide up the apartment is, at the very least, a bit naive. And yet for decades, we've labored under the weight of this nonsensical concept of NOMA or non-overlapping magisteria. Now, even if you're not familiar with the terminology, I'm sure you're familiar with the concept, right? Science has its realm over here that deals with the material world, and religion has its realm over here that deals with the spiritual world, and never the twain shall meet. So, no need for conflict. Now, if all you're hoping to do with this thing is pat some

Christians on the head and make them feel like the kid's table is way more awesome than the grown-up table, maybe there's some value to this. I after all in a sense it's true right I mean science and religion explore non-overlapping magisteria in the same way that science and Harry Potter fan fiction do right one deals with stuff that happens in the real world and the other is purely imaginary and if a bunch of Harry Potter fan fiction writers started asserting that Hogwarts was a real place and flu powder was a legitimate means of locomotion, we would have to smack them down with a Noma-like argument. But in order for it to be effective, we have to point out that the reason the two magisteria never overlap is because one of them is complete bullshit. And of course,

in the Gouldian Compromise, we're trying to avoid pointing that out, which renders it worse than useless. That makes it a liability. It legitimizes their magisteria. I know, of course, I'm hardly the first atheist to take issue with this argument. It's been pointed out plenty that if it was true, Gould never would have had to propose it. After all, we don't waste our time developing vaccines for cooties or the Mondays. Gould was responding to conflicts that were clearly visible between these two fields and politely asking religion to go back to their department so that science cooties or the Mondays, Gould was responding to conflicts that were clearly visible between these two fields and politely asking religion to go back to their department so that science could worry about all the biology and shit. And as I'm sure you noticed, they didn't. Now, others have pointed out, of course, that at best, religion treats this like it's a one-way street. They love

to invoke their safe space whenever science challenges one of their sacred beliefs, but not so much when it's time to research stem cells or teach kids about evolution. So the extent to which theology will accept this concept is always going to line up exactly with the extent to which science is willing to voluntarily hamstring itself. Still worse is the fact that the very methods that theology use are still subject to scientific inquiry. I mean, if you're looking for answers in the Bible and archaeologists prove that camels weren't domesticated until long after domesticated camels show up in the Bible, science just took a huge steaming shit right in the middle of your magisterium. If your discipline relies on attributing certain ecstatic mental states to a divine source,

and then science recreates those same mental states using electromagnetism, science just whittled down your magisterium a little more, didn't it? And if one discipline can reduce the scope of the other, you can't honestly argue that the two don't overlap, can you? But perhaps most damning of all, the concept contradicts the very nature of science. You know, unless you reduce religious claims to deism, the two magisteria must overlap. If God answers prayers, that can be tested by science. If God has a son, that can be tested by science. If the cracker turns into divine dead guy, that can be tested by science. There is no way to have a consequential God without consequences, and science can test the consequences. And when you think about it, all of these objections are really just subheadings to the primary issue with NOMA,

which is the fact that it grants religion a magisteria in the first place. In practice, what we're saying is, when careful observation, peer review, meticulous testing, and data-driven analysis fails, it's time to turn to the men in chess piece costumes that interrogate all of their information out of a magical ghost Jew. I mean, do we want to leave any questions in the hand of a discipline that has no methodology? And if we're going to,

would we want to do it with vitally important shit like ethics? I mean, look, I'll freely admit that there are plenty of questions that science can't answer now and never will. But that's because those questions don't have answers. They're not good questions. But that's not where theologies plant its flag. Instead, they go to the very threshold of human understanding, imagine their way four steps further, and stake their claim on that.

Why is there something instead of nothing? How did the first living thing come into being? What happened before the bang? And sure, science can't answer any of those questions now, but if you think science can never answer those questions, I'd invite you to revisit the perpetually receding list of historical shit that scientists were sure that science would never figure out in the past. It could very well be that some future Einstein will figure out a way

to definitively prove that time began with the Big Bang, and any theological claims about what happened before that are going to be wiped away with a single equation. I mean, look, the more we learn, the more clear it becomes that science may one day find a true cure for mortality. And if and when they do, I certainly hope that nobody in the scientific realm decides that they should shelf that cure since immortality isn't really in their magisteria. See, ultimately, that's the biggest problem with the Noma olive branch. It's disingenuous. Even if religion accepted it, the end result would be science herding them into ever smaller reservations as their previously unanswerable questions fell victim to the relentless crusade of curiosity. We would constantly be at their borders, ask them to move back a couple hundred

more paces while we filled in the latest unknown nugget that they had elected to cling to. Because despite Gould's conciliatory language, the real difference between the questions that science asks and the questions that theology asks is that the former get answered. And if we allow the light of science to shine bright enough, there will be nowhere left for God to hide. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. God to hide. Joining me for headlines tonight is my youthful, tender-footed, budding, burgeoning, whippersnapper of a co-host, Heath Enright.

Heath, are you ready to get off my lawn? Come on, man. Don't be so hard on yourself, old-timer. It's the new 39 and a half. Might as well be six months ago. My dick still works. I didn't ask. I wanted to volunteer that. It's the new 39 and a half. Might as well be six months ago. My dick still works, by the way. I didn't ask.

I know. I wanted to volunteer that. All right. Like a fucking noisemaker on New Year's Eve. Just straight up, fully functional penis of mine. Yeah. Congratulations. You're still using it annually.

Yeah. That's good. Thank you. In our story tonight, according to a new book by Appalachian State criminology professor Ellica Peterson-Sparks, the fact that America leads the industrial world in both fundamentalist Christians and violent crime might not be a coincidence. Really? In her new book, The Devil You Know, The Surprising Link Between Conservative Christianity and Crime, she argues that Christianity's emphasis on vengeance, promises of immortality, and

core belief in humanity's sinful nature makes it criminogenic, particularly in terms of violent crime. In other words, the fact that extreme religiosity is so grossly overrepresented in American prisons might not just be correlational after all. Right, right. But in fairness to the Christians, though, nobody else has a source of absolute immorality. Oh, right. uh nobody else has a source of absolute immorality oh right these criminals are just kind of you know like guessing what bad things to do so it's not really fair it's funny how the debaters never go that direction with it now in the interest of full disclosure i should note that i haven't read the book and what i was able to find in the media didn't really dive into any of the numbers so

i'm not exactly sure how rigorous the research that supports these findings are but the theory that people who venerate a god who repeatedly condones violent retribution will thus have a favorable view of violent retribution doesn't exactly strain credulity. And to all the Christians that might instinctively argue that their religion is all about forgiveness, I'd simply point to the fact that Ted Cruz is courting the evangelical vote by promising to turn ISIS into live-action X-rays of themselves. I'd also point out that if forgiveness is a big priority over genocide, the Bible should have talked a little bit more about forgiveness and a little bit less about genocide. You think?

Even just one extra sentence at the end, like, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. P.S. Forgiveness outranks genocide. That's all. That's all it takes all we would need yeah exactly make the book a hell of a lot more moral in summary though i should know that this is my summary rather than the author's america sucks precisely to the extent that it is christian science it's not helping and in government overreach around news tonight despite all the wonderful progress we've made as a country with legislation like RFRA,

the state of Arizona seems determined to undermine religious liberty and prosecute people who were merely acting on their sincerely held beliefs. Those bastards. Most recently, this came in the form of a guilty verdict last week for Tracy Elise of the Phoenix Goddess Temple, who now faces jail time for operating a prostitution business simply because people were paying to have orgasms in her sex church. And it's wrong. It's wrong. When Moses founded the United States, he did not intend for priestess hookers to be told

what they can and can't do by big bloated government. But that's what we got. They fucked my temple of opium, exorbitant short-term interest rates and unregulated nuclear waste disposal church with the same bullshit. What we need are some armed patriots brave enough to yell about gummy dicks in an off-season birding pavilion. Without that, this country's fucked. Maybe there's more.

We need more of those type of patriots. We need more of those type of patriots So yeah just to be clear This lady was absolutely running a prostitution facility Like full blown whorehouse without question They just happened to have a mystical goddess theme And they organized the payments to be suggested donations Rather than you know here's your fuck money So it's kind of like a typical catholic church

Except the sex is for adults only, and it's consensual. Yeah, well, big difference. And instead of tithing every week, you pay a la carte. So it's a little more efficient that way. Oh, and it's illegal. The adult consensual pro-business one that provides an actual tangible service, that one is illegal. Right. That's the other difference.

Unless you film it. Remember that, Raul, as long as we keep filming it, you're earning your way through law school legally. And with dignity. Well, legally. You're legally. For sure. So in all seriousness, though, religion should have nothing to do with it either way. But laws against prostitution are stupid.

Yes. If you're allowed to have sex and you're allowed to give people money, then you're allowed to do both in the same room, if you feel like. What do you think? How long do you have to wait after the orgasm before you can conduct different types of transactions? What if you don't? It's absolutely ridiculous. Unenforceable.

So I might have sounded sarcastic earlier, but the libertarian stance on this one is absolutely right. And it seems like more conservative Christians should be up in arms about this big RFRA violation. Yeah, I haven't heard that they're not. Yeah. And an exploit us interrupt us news tonight. A teacher at Paul Lawrence Dunbar Middle School in Lynchburg, Virginia, came under fire last week for leading students away from a Black History Month assembly. According to a letter sent home to parents, he, quote, interrupted the program by going to the microphone to express

his offense with this portion of the program and offered the students an opportunity to leave the auditorium with him end quote now this has led to charges of racism and calls for his termination primarily because the letter doesn't mention that the part of the program he was objecting to was the part where they started singing about how awesome jesus was in a public fucking school yeah that's like saying he was interrupting a lesson about the Holocaust without mentioning that it was really just the part when the Jewish historian guy broke into song and started doing springtime for Hitler in front of a middle school. It's like that, except way, way worse, actually.

Well, I don't know about way, way, but way, definitely. So according to a number of students that were present at the assembly, the Liberty University praise group, who nobody disputes was putting on this performance, started singing Christian music in clear violation of church-state separation. Recognizing that fact, teacher Jason Tyree took to the stage and tried to save the school lawsuit by offering cost of the lawsuit if they actually fire the dude, which is what everybody seems to be calling for, including former Lynchburg Mayor Carl Hutcherson Jr. Yeah, it seems like there's no way this was a racist thing. No. Even if the guy was racist, we're supposed to believe his master racist plan was to interrupt one assembly about black history. Right. master racist plan was to interrupt one assembly about black history right also um unrelated side

note former mayor hutcherson looks like della reese just finished eating al sharp exactly like she just finished doing that well i was gonna go with charlie wrangle three days after swallowing a donut factory but yeah pretty much the same and in crazy religious people with assault rifles news tonight uh this next story is not about last week's Donald Trump rally in Valdosta, Georgia. Believe it or not. Speaking of racism. It's actually a little bit of good news instead. According to recent reports out of Nigeria,

the Boko Haram terrorist group is running out of food, which is great by itself already. But the reason is the best part. The terrorists are running out of food because they scared away or killed all the farmers and also didn't start farming anything. Well, that's how they get you. And yeah, since everyone dies when you do that,

this may cause their operation to start dismantling. Huh. It's like Hitler trying to find a good agent, you know? I mean, genocide comes back to bite you in the ass it always does yeah so apparently the nigerian military is already seeing groups of like malnourished terrorist soldiers surrendering all at once and they expect this to keep happening which has to be a lot of fun for these authorities you're right watching your stupid little kid come back after running away with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in their pocket 45 minutes later except

it wasn't 45 minutes it was like a whole campaign of terror for a whole bunch of years right your kid yeah again is a terrorist soldier right and you execute him for treason right fun like that this is what i mean that would be by far the best excuse i'd ever have had for executing a kid. And the most fun. And the most fun. Yeah. So one other detail worth mentioning. Even if the no more food thing hadn't become a problem, it looks like Boko Haram was already having issues with running out of people to murder as well.

Oh, that's a bitch. Apparently, like, suicide bombers were just showing up at public markets and nobody was there except for a few other suicide bombers and having these awkward moments. Are you good? Are you? Should we just hang out

or what do you want to do? Yeah. So I don't think they thought this all the way through. Now they're starting to realize that killing everyone

kind of takes the wind out of those terrorism sails. Yeah. Fun while it lasts, but all of a sudden you're just a bunch of dudes in outer Nigeria with nothing to do

and no food. I mean, I'd suggest a book like Western Farming for Dummies, but they hate that stuff. Yeah, right, right. Electrolytes, guys. It's what plants crave. Just start there. And in comfort food news tonight, amateur banana apologist and first runner-up in the

New Zealand Bob Vila lookalike championships, Ray Comfort took to the interwebs this week to remind his flock that atheists are all just cannibals in waiting. That's fair. Seriously. In a post about how awesome Christians are compared to non-Christians, something of a running theme on the website, actually, Comfort poses the following dilemma. Quote,

If you find yourself in a lifeboat with no food and a group of very hungry people who are checking you out for lunch, who would you rather be sharing the lifeboat with? A group of starving evolutionists who believe in survival of the fittest and have no moral absolutes, or a group of Christians who love their neighbor as themselves and fear God, end quote. Okay quote okay well i don't think ray comfort thought this one all the way through because the real question is why is one christian dude going on a darwinist cruise ship that's that's weird that makes no sense the fuck were you doing in the galapagos dude and and well i'm somewhat comforted by the knowledge that christians are

going to let me eat them if i ever find myself on a lightboat with them. Even that silver lining was somewhat dampened by a possibly even more offensive portion of the post where Comfort wondered why he never sees atheists helping the homeless or feeding the poor. In fact, he claims in the piece that he Googled atheists feed the poor and atheists helping the homeless and got zero search results. So, OK, you can't. Well, right, right. There is absolutely no combination of characters that got zero search results so okay you can't well right right there is absolutely no combination of characters that returns zero search results you can get an mp3 of one hand clapping so several i'm sure yeah and secondly as hemet meta points out on his

friendly atheist blog atheists helping the homeless is literally the name of a group. It's called Atheists Helping the Homeless. They're one of the 169,000 results I got in.045 seconds or whatever when I typed that phrase into secular Google. Yeah, actually, you know what? I mean, I bet I know what the problem is here. I worked in IT for a little bit. I think he needs to unplug the router for 10 seconds and then plug it back in, and he'll be all set.

Honestly, with Ray Comfort, I'd rather he just takes the first half of that advice. But even if you set aside the claim that atheists have no moral absolutes, aren't charitable, don't exist on Google, and eat people, I would still be offended by this blog post. Because if there's one thing that riles me up more than being accused of opportunistic cannibalism. It's lack of internal consistency. And either we're eating the Christians on the lifeboat or we're not feeding the hungry. You can't have it both ways, bro. Draw you the diagram. Right.

Exactly. Non-overlapping magisteria. So while I try to calm my rumbling tummy down from the thought of a delicious strip of dehydrated people bacon, we'll take a quick break from the headlines 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 race. You're a slut, right?

Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. I get emails from time to time accusing me of shying away from the story or that topic or such and such controversy. Some people say I focus too much on the big shit overseas and others say I focus too much on the little shit nearby. And I take all those criticisms to heart because my goal is to present as broad a swath as I can in a couple of minutes a week. I try to hit stories from all over the world and I try to highlight both the extremes of misogyny and the more familiar examples we see every day. Because the truth is, if we want to truly combat sexism, we have to focus on it in all its forms.

And the relatively small abuses lead directly to the big ones. That's why I picked three stories this week that I think perfectly illustrate three stages of misogyny, each caused by the former. Paternalism, dehumanization, and violence. We'll start this week with a demeaning excerpt that Christianity Today is feverishly apologizing for. Last week, they ran a job listing in which a proud father attempted to pawn off his daughter's mint condition still in the original package vagina for the low, low price of putting up with the kind of asshole father-in-law that would do something like that. According to the ad, a Chicago area church elder was looking for a husband for his daughter who he described as, quote, godly,

gorgeous, athletic, educated, careered, humorous, traveled, bilingual, 26-year-old virgin, end quote. Now, set aside the false premise that godly is something to brag about, but the notion that a woman's virginity is a selling point is almost as offensive as the overall idea of selling humans. And of course, as soon as you start thinking of women as property, you wind up with dehumanizing shit like the story that astute listener Alan sent me from biblicalgenderroles.com. Sure, we've talked about these

assholes before, what with their propensity for spousal rape apologetics. So I guess by their standards, this piece about women learning their place is pretty tame. I'm not going to bother going into the details of how they suggest women learn their place because it's not stupid in a particularly funny way. But the gist of the article is obey the nearest voice that's attached to a set of testicles. Also vacuum a lot and suckle a litter of babies. And if you must talk, do it quietly. And I'd like to think that he added that last one because his wife was screaming at him for being such an asshole while he was writing this. And of course, once any group of people is thoroughly dehumanized, violence is inevitable. Dehumanization serves to shut down a person's empathic impulse.

And if your culture reinforces that shit long enough, you wind up with Pakistan. And admit it, as soon as I told you we were ending on violence, you were assuming we'd end up in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, weren't you? Well, two points, I guess. Two points, I guess. So this particularly terrible story comes at the end of a long, noble, and presently fruitless effort to put at least the barest legal protections on the books for Pakistani women. The Women's Protection Act is a long overdue bill that would provide protection for women suffering from domestic abuse and sexual violence. Among other things, it would set up a toll-free abuse hotline

and provide funding for the establishment of women's shelters throughout the nation's largest province. Now, the good news is that the law passed. The bad news is that that doesn't fucking matter, because a few days later, the religious zealots that actually run the country called it un-Islamic, which means it almost certainly won't go into effect. And to be fair to the Islamic clerics here, from what I've read of the Quran so far, they're right. Protecting battered women is definitely un-Islamic. But that would prompt a sane country to ditch the religion,

not the law. So yeah, fresh off vacation, and I'm going to lay that depressing shit on your lap. And as much as I'd love to finish this off with a positive twist that puts a silver lining on it all, the best I can come up with this week is at least I passed on both the rape stories I considered. And with that paltry excuse for good news, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in rising from the ashes news tonight, we have a quick update on the suddenly re-ongoing tale of Phoenix City Council v. Satan Roaring Lion of the Abyss. Now, if you recall, we thought we wrapped up this story in early February when the Phoenix City Council voted to replace their religious invocations with a moment of silence, which came, of course, in response to the looming threat of the Satanic Temple doing a devil invocation and the inevitable brimstone and street sodomy that that would lead to.

And while we thought this was the end of the story, apparently the Phoenix City Council figured four whole weeks was plenty of time for all of us secularists to forget about them, because last week they voted 7-2 to reinstate the religious invocation, but this time only city chaplains are allowed to do it. Well, hold on. I thought they were going to allow the satanic invocation, but also build a force field. With prayer, yeah. Did they scrap the force field?

It was like halfway built. I mean, that's crazy. It seems like a good infrastructure project either way. Why would you not want the force field? was like halfway built i mean that's crazy it seems like a good infrastructure project either way why would you not want the floor yeah right now to be clear they went from quasi-legal to definitely very very illegal here the new ordinance would restrict invocations to chaplains from the police and fire departments which would effectively restrict it to christians which was the problem in the first place illegal Illegal, right. Of course, according to city attorney Brad Holm, the new language is perfectly constitutional, so, quote, the probabilities are

that it would be upheld by a court, end quote. Now, according to all the attorneys that aren't Brad Holm, bull-fucking-shit, dude. The whole Greece versus Galloway thing is an overreach to begin with, but you definitely have to let all the religions play. Not even Scalia would have granted you this kind of bullshit.

Yeah. And in getting away with martyr news tonight, more than 100,000 people showed up at a funeral in Pakistan last week to honor the country's favorite homicidal maniac. There's a lot of competition. I can't think of how else to describe this guy. homicidal maniac? There's a lot of competition. I can't think of how to describe this guy. His name was Malik Mumtaz Hussein Qadri, and he received the death penalty last month after being convicted of murder for his role in shooting a guy 25 times with a submachine gun. That's murder. But since the guy he shot was a provincial governor named Salman Taseer, who was against executing people for blasphemy. Because of that, Mr. Khadri became a fucking hero for way too many people,

which, by the way, I'm defining as one or more people. Right. Yeah, exactly. And quick, before we get any motivated equivocists trying to use something the Christians did in 1438 to make it seem like everybody's just as bad, I want to offer a quote from a lawyer who spoke at Qadri's Martyrpalooza. Quote, Islam is a religion of peace and harmony, but it does not allow anybody to use wrong words against the prophet, end quote. But. Yeah, right. Sorry, brother. It's one or the other. Those are contradictory clauses. Either you're peaceful or you murder people because of phonemes. Those two can't both coexist. Again, we'll draw you a little.

We can draw the thing. It's like boobs, but they're separate. So here's what happened. Mr. Kadri managed to get a job as the bodyguard for this governor, despite being a lunatic who was arguably the worst bodyguard ever. And we know this because he then proceeded to murder the guy. And he did it because Taseer opposed blasphemy laws and specifically suggested that the government of Pakistan should not execute a woman named Aziah Bibi, the Christian lady currently on

death row for allegedly insulting Muhammadhammad during a water cooler argument at work and by the way there's been a ten thousand dollar bounty on this lady's head since 2010 she's been on death row this apparently a muslim cleric wants somebody to sneak into death row and kill her before like the state gets all the god points for her. Oh, I see. Anyway, point being, what the fuck are you guys doing over there? Musliming. They're Musliming. Because here's your chain of events, right?

Lady Stubbs or Doe. Oh, God damn it. Kill her. Maybe we shouldn't kill her, guys. Kill him. Blam, blam. And they're fighting to keep it that way. So a few quick notes for Pakistan, if you guys are listening.

First of all, you're not supposed to have bounties. No. Not supposed to have those. Also, not supposed to hang people for words. And you're not supposed to have big blowout parties to celebrate assassins. At this point, honestly, Pakistan shouldn't be allowed to... Actually, that's the end of my thought. Pakistan shouldn't be allowed. Right.

No shit. And in drivel disobedience news tonight, the Chino Valley School Board voted to continue actively not getting it this week after a judge ordered them to stop turning their school board meetings into bi-weekly tent revivals. After the unambiguous February ruling demanded the school board put an immediate stop to their blatantly illegal christian prayer services the board decided to vote on whether or not to abide by the ruling because that's how they think democracy works apparently and of course they voted to continue to risk tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer

money fucking publicly sucking jesus's dick on the public dime yeah even though they could continue doing the exact same thing they're doing right now just after the meeting right like yes all the christian people that want to could hang out afterward and hope for stuff real hard together what the fuck they do talk about jesus i don't know but apparently it's no fun unless they waste everyone's time right because these people are toddlers. Yeah, well, I mean, why not just go to the goddamn megachurch a mile and a half away when you're done? So anyway, the toddler-in-chief on all of this is one Andrew Cruz,

who currently serves as the board's president. And if you want a good reason to hate this guy, go with him. Last July, he made headlines after interrupting a school board meeting to bitch about gay marriage and warn everybody about the dangers of mandatory vaccination. So according to the complaint from the FFRF and the judge who already ruled on this shit, Cruz also has a habit of breaking into explicitly Christian prayers,

reading from the Bible, and inviting the pastor from his megachurch to open every meeting. That guy would pull classes out of a Black History Month thing. That guy would do that. That guy would pull classes out of a Black History Month thing. That guy would do that. Okay. I think it's finally time, by the way, to pull the trigger on the anti-vaxxer quarantine town we were talking about. It's been a good idea for a long time. They all moved to Chino Valley.

Chino Valley's perfect. Now we've got a place for it. And they get their little outbreak village. Yeah. As long as nobody runs, we don't nuke it. It's all good. Or they could all wear a little collar like in The Running Man. Exactly. long as nobody runs we don't nuke it it's all good or they could all wear a little collar like in the running man exactly now among the groups expressing outrage at the board's decision were

local parents who would much rather their tax money be spent educating their children rather than reimbursing the ffrf's legal fees even before electing to appeal this latest ruling the school district is already on the hook for almost two hundred thousand dollars in legal fees an amount likely to more than double on appeal it's also worth noting that unlike city councils even non-sectarian prayers are illegal at a school board meeting and these prayers aren't even pretending to be non-sectarian so the only way they can win is if ted cruz wins in the general murders at least four supreme court justices gets a filibuster proof majority in the senate and all of that happens before the appeals process

runs its course fucking idiots god jesus that's a ton of money-proof majority in the Senate, and all of that happens before the appeals process runs its course. Fucking idiots. God, Jesus, that's a ton of money to just piss away because you love Jesus so damn much. If it only was their fucking money. Public schools have plenty of money. It's not a big deal. Right. Moving on.

In Amish Wolverine news tonight, drawing upon his expertiseentucky's number one partial yacht builder answers in genesis ceo ken ham announced a brand new simile that he came up with last week oh that's who doesn't enjoy a good simile or metaphor so uh nobody here after spending several hours in front of a snowmaker while wearing an opera mask. He fired up his Facebook page and posted the sweet new apt comparison he came up with. According to Ken Ham, teaching evolution in science class is like intellectual child abuse. Oh.

Yeah. It's just like regular child abuse, except it's kind of thinkier. Right, right. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same thing. Yeah, like hitting your kid with Tolstoy instead of James Patterson. I get it. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same thing. Yeah, like hitting your kid with Tolstoy instead of James Patterson. I get it.

I get it. It's just like that. Like if Adrian Peterson had used a slide rule, that would have been intellectual child abuse. Allegedly would have been intellectual child abuse. Yes. So my first reaction to this was, oh, you know, he's just confused

because it's the opposite. He's switched, you know, teaching creation's just confused because it's the opposite he's he's switched you know teaching creationism as legitimate science would be intellectually abusive right but as it turns out um pretty much nobody had even considered this turns out that creationism is uh rubber and evolution is glue oh so whatever atheists, that bounces off the rubber. It reverses it. Yes, exactly. So science is bad creationism now.

I see. You're allowed to switch all the stuff now. Oh, okay. But it sounded crazy to me too. So I thought about it a little bit more. I thought about it a little more. And, I mean, when you throw glue at rubber, there's no way that's bouncing off the rubber and flying right back at you. Right, right.

I mean, unless you throw a whole container of glue, but that's silly. It's ridiculous. It wouldn't stick to you at that point anyway. It would just bounce off of you. The whole thing unravels. Well, it always confused me anyway, because if one of us is rubber and the other is glue, and I'm still able to tell you to fuck off, we should really set aside our petty differences and team up to fight crime together or something, you know?

Get a blue monkey for comic relief. This is something that has to happen now. Yeah, so just to review, first of all, the evangelical Christian guy decided to bring up child abuse, which was a bold new tack. I don't know if it's going to work. That got my attention. And then he did the opposite day thing, which was a great move.

It makes all of their arguments make sense. But I felt like he really lost steam when he found the unifying thread between child rape and finches with different beaks. So that's classic wonder. Straight downhill from there. And in spectacularly useless shit news tonight, according to a press release that religion news services ran as though it was a story, Israeli entrepreneur Ami Bentov has employed

nanotechnology to solve the age old conundrum of not being able to hide three complete Bibles in a coffee bean. Finally, according to Bentov, quote, for a long time, I felt the need to create something that would help fight the evil and ugliness I witnessed all around me, end quote. So apparently he's put that on hold for a while while he misappropriated some finite technological resources to create something impossibly useless and stupid, namely the Jerusalem Nano Bible. He's like the worst Steve Jobs ever. No shit. What if you could fit a thousand Psalms in your pocket?

Nobody cares. Now, of course, theologists admit the existence of this 5x5mm Bible will wreak havoc with all their previous calculations about how many angels can get gang raped on the head of a pin. But beyond that, even the inventor admits that his nanobibles have no practical use unless you're evangelizing to Ant-Man. Instead, he intends to sell them embedded in jewelry and accessories for the affluent evangelist who recognizes that the best Bible is one that's impossible to read. I'm picturing this rabbi out in the woods. He's cutting his arm open like Jason Bourne, pulling out a Bible and a magnifying glass. I'm usually picturing that. If you just get me on an average day when I'm awake,

that's probably what I'll be picturing. Now, Jerusalem Nano Bibles currently offer an Old Testament written in the original Hebrew and a New Testament in Greek, though an English version is under development because if you're going to buy a Bible with letters one-tenth the size of a red blood cell, it damn well better be in a language you can read when you bust out your electron tunneling microscope, which begs the question of why these guys would bother printing anything on that little silicon

chip in the first place. How would you know? Pardon me, but this one seems to be short a few epistles, sir. Double checked. And finally tonight, from the Donald Trump Shintoist penis monument file It seems events have conspired To bring about the type of story that goes in that file It was getting cobwebby

That we have That's good Which is always exciting And it all starts with everyone's favorite lawn penis erector Chaz Stevens And his church of satanic activism Love that guy Listeners might remember Mr. Stevens for his campaign favorite lawn penis erector, Chaz Stevens, and his church of satanic activism. Love that guy.

Listeners might remember Mr. Stevens for his campaign to put up Festivus poles next to public nativity scenes, or for a secular invocation that involved a mariachi band and twerking. We all remember that. Or most recently, for installing an upside-down, crucified, butt-plugged ass Jesus at two different government buildings. We'll never forget that one. Well, he's already working hard on his next project. In celebration of the penis-themed Shinto holiday called Kanamara Matsuri,

he's planning to build a dick statue for the Florida Capitol building with Donald Trump's face on it. Oh, please tell me it'll double as a drinking fountain. I am willing to donate a large portion of this month's patreon to make that upgrade you know we'll move the plumbing whatever we got to do so yeah i love a good donald trump penis monument as much as the next guy but i think my favorite part of this story is the japanese penis holiday that finally got the international

attention it really deserves. Right. It's about time. It's crazy that we don't have this everywhere. So I looked into this a little bit, and here's how the holiday works. Again, it's called Kanamara Matsuri, which basically means Festival of the Big Metal Dick. So already fantastic. They have that.

Japan has that. Nothing could be more Japanese than celebrating giant robot dicks. If I was making fun of Japanese culture and god-awful movies and I had to come up with a holiday on the spot, this is the holiday I would have come up with. I would have said exactly that. I would have said, yeah, well, all the Japanese guys were off celebrating the festival of the big metal dick or whatever. Holy shit. That's awesome. And it gets even better.

No way. The holiday is based on a legend about a vagina dentata situation. Oh, nice. Which is a lot like it sounds. It's that old folklore trope involving a woman who has a vagina with very sharp teeth. Huh. Apparently this type of story spans multiple cultures. Pussy trolls.

Yeah, pussy trolls. Anyway, in this case, the story is about a vagina demon that possesses a Japanese lady. And she has two husbands in a row have their dicks bitten off on their wedding night by the demon. So after the second guy, she was kind of a bitch about it, after the second guy, she goes to a blacksmith who makes her a big stainless steel dildo, which breaks all the vagina demon's teeth and it flies away and saves the day.

Awesome. Well, and you've got to consider, this means that some woman in ancient Japan or whatever came up with an excuse for asking a blacksmith to make her a metal dildo that he bought. And she was penis idle. So I love this lady so much. Kudos. And by the way, how do you celebrate a legend about a big metal strap-on that vanquished

a vagina-dwelling magical starlack? I'm amazed you have to ask. With a big family festival where everything's a dick. Yes. And I'm very serious. Google it. Look at the pictures. It's kids everywhere and it's all dicks.

Also everywhere. They have candy dicks, big posters of dicks, vegetables carved into dicks, and of course, a big pink dick as the main float for a dick parade. It's lots of dicks. It's not just Marco Rubio's bedroom, but a whole town with a parade. Yeah. So getting back to Chaz Stevens, the paperwork he filed is currently being reviewed by Florida officials, but I'd be very surprised if he manages to actually get this one approved.

I mean, Trump's wall. Yeah, like an outdoor ass Jesus. That's one thing, but this would be a full-on dick inside the building. Right, yeah. Nonetheless, it's a great idea either way, you know, just to be producing Donald Trump cock art. And I'm thinking we could come up with

a fun catchphrase for the display. I think we could help. I think we can. We'll need 30 seconds on the clock. There it is. Slogans for the placard on the Donald Trump dick statue. Go go all right how about what when i ask people to salute with their hands they compare me to hitler so so i got left what about happily paid for by the government of mexico donald trump a big enough dick to fuck 200 Polish immigrants at the same time.

That's true. What about Donald Trump? If you're here for Trump University, go ahead and have a seat. Right. Here's the business tip, just for a second, just to see how it deals. How about, if you count my inches like I count my fortune, this statue is life-sized. Four billion my inches. Trump inches. sized four billion my trump inches what about as you can see i like dicks who don't lose their foreskin oh wow i'm still pro-israel i'm pro-israel still running gotta add the election

yeah um well we've been focused entirely on the head and the shaft at this point so i feel like we should work the sack a little how about it's call. I like my balls like I like my walls. Worked on by Mexicans. What about every time a Mexican president talks to me, it gets 10 feet tall? Trump feet, of course. Trump feet. He's not just a ball man. That's the shaft, too.

Well, assuming that it has a giant llama hair pubic tube to wipe your feet on as you come up to it, and why wouldn't it? The placard kind of has to read, Merkin America great again. Damn, does he just set me up for that one, doesn't he? With his stem cell fucking cubes, weird. All right. How about, speaking of Bush, now that I got rid of Bush, my poll numbers look even bigger. No, that's three levels of brilliance right there. That's good shit.

And now that we've made it clear where Rubio's handlers can go if they want high class Donald Trump dick jokes for the next debate, I suppose our work here is done. Heath, thanks as always. Canasta! And when we come back, we'll dig into Miracle Form once more. I was just thinking, man, I would love to play Canasta. I haven't played Canasta in the longest time. Oh, shit.

Run, grab the youngins, folks. It's time for Lucinda Lusion's Korans Stories for Kids. Gather around, boys and girls. Today we're going to open up our Korans to the second surah and learn all about Adam. Now, you may remember Adam and Eve from the Bible. The Bible is complete bullshit now because we're reading the Koran. And even though the Koran assumes that the Bible is true to lend itself legitimacy, that doesn't stop it from contradicting the Bible whenever it cares to. So forget about the Bible story that you know and get ready for something completely different. So once upon a time, God was wandering around heaven, but it was Muslim God. So he was named Allah, and heaven was named Jannah. So Allah was walking around Jannah one day feeling really bored. After all, hanging out with a bunch of dickless angels was

fun for a while, but angels live forever, and if Muslim God was ever going to have any real fun, he was going to have to make things that he could kill. So he decided to make man. Of course, the angels didn't like the idea of man. They preferred a heaven where everyone lived forever. There was no strife, no disease, no starvation, no misery, no war, and no death. Those silly angels. So they came to Muslim God and said, hey Allah, maybe you should think about not making human beings. Did you ever think of that? And Allah said, Fuck off, angels. I make whatever the hell I want.

Needless to say, the angels were very disappointed. And the more Allah thought about it, the more of a pain in the ass this whole human project was going to be if the angels all hated them. After all, it's not like he was going to talk to these grubby bastards himself. I mean, what if they got all rapey on him? So he would definitely need to send angels when he had stuff to tell him. So if he wanted this humanity thing to work, he'd need their support. So Allah devised a cunning plan.

First, he made a bunch of animals. Then he made Adam. But before the angels could see Adam, Allah took him to the side and taught him the names of all the animals. Then he took Adam to meet the angels. The angels, as you would expect, weren't very impressed. It's so scrawny, one of them yelled. Oh, gross, yelled another.

What the fuck is going on between his legs? Another cried out. And to that last one, God cringed a bit. He definitely messed up on the dick a little, and he was hoping that nobody would notice. He'd probably have to make them chop off a part of it or something, but he didn't really have time to worry about that. The first order of business was proving to these angels that making man was a good idea. Oh, you don't like it? God asked. No, they all shuddered. It does tricks, God promised. At this, they all grew curious. Uh, what kind of tricks? One of the angels asked timidly. Here, take a look,

God said, pointing down to the earth. An antelope was grazing on the field below them. Do you know what that thing is called? He asked the angels. Um, G-Hobble Snarf. Is it G-Hobble Snarf? One angel answered. God just shook his head. What about the one over here? He asked, pointing to a hawk that was nesting in a nearby tree. Is it a furball herzle? I feel like it's a furball, Herzl, the angel guessed. But again, God shook his head. And once God was sure that none of the angels had any more guesses, he turned to Adam and pointed to the earth. Hey, Adam, do you know what that thing is called? That's an antelope, Adam answered confidently. That's correct, God said. And the angels all gasped with amazement. And that one over there? That's a Hulk, he beamed pridefully.

Correct again, God said to more flabbergasted sounds of angelic amazement. Now that the angels were thoroughly amazed, God told them all to bow down to Adam, but one angel refused. It was Satan. He was always such a pain in the ass. God turned to him angrily. Satan, why aren't you bowing down to Adam? Satan rolled his eyes.

Because I'm not an idiot. If none of us know what the animals are called, how can we know if your pet human is right or not? And besides, you're the one who decided what they were called. I don't know about you, but I like furball hurls way more than hawk. I mean, hawk? It sounds like you're trying to get snot out of your throat. Muslim God was very angry, but he couldn't afford to lose his cool around all the angels, so he decided to up the ante. Adam, what does a cow say? He asked quickly. Moo, Adam answered.

Again, all the angels gasped, but Satan was still unimpressed. He turned to his fellow angels. Guys, that doesn't mean anything. See, like, he could have just said any words there. We don't even know what they mean. Besides, for all we know, God told Adam all the answers beforehand. God did his best to look offended by the allegation. How dare you, he puffed.

But Satan ignored him and kept talking to the angels. And besides, who gives a shit of what the animals are called? If God didn't decide this one was called this and that one was called that, we could have come up with our own names, our own way cooler names. At that, there was a murmur from the audience. The angels were starting to see things Satan's way, and that simply wouldn't do. God acted quickly. He turned to the whole crowd and said very loudly, I just decided that we need somebody to man hell for all eternity, and I think Satan would be the perfect guy for the job. Anybody else want to talk shit about my humans? And none of them did. The end. Again and again, the outspoken atheist is thrust into

the role of impromptu myth-buster when we confront a theist armed with their favorite historical miracle claim. After all, they'll say, what's more likely, a loving God created the universe and watches over us every day of our lives, or five whole people in the pre-scientific days of rickets and ergot poisoning were mistaken. And as weak as these miracle claims generally are, they can still be a bitch to refute if you've never heard of them before, so it's time once again for the part of the show where we put the evidence for these miracles under the microscope, because it would be way too small to see with the naked eye. The Devil's Advocate.

So tell us, Heath, what dubious claims do you have for us this week? Well, I brought a couple of the church's best documented miracles for you this week. Oh, awesome. But I'll give you your choice of where to start. Do you want the 1,300-year-old chunk-of-dead human or the flying retarded person?

Oh, dude, I don't think that's very uh pc no no it wasn't i you know i mean well no i mean we'll get a bunch of emails oh okay sorry the uh the levitating retarded person okay yeah appreciate it all right well i guess we can start there then all right the guy with up syndrome it is so this is the story of joseph of cupertino a simple-minded 17th century franciscan friar in italy and according to the wording in multiple sources he was prone to miraculous levitation prone to it prone to it like a like a habit well i read it more like uh like an infection it would flare up now like every time levitation goes around, Joey would get it. He was prone to it.

I got you. I got you. And you say this is documented? As in there are documents that say it's true. Yes. Okay. I don't know if that's the same thing exactly. Well, to be fair, Joseph of Cupertino died in 1663, and the camera wasn't invented until 1814.

Oh, all right. Well, what kind of documents do we have? Records from the Spanish Inquisition, mostly. Really? I was not expecting that. Nobody ever is. But look, when a monk that has seizures starts, like, supermanning around town during mass in 17th century Italy, somebody's bound to call Satan on him. Okay, but I mean, but he wasn't actually flying, I'm guessing.

Well, as it turns out, the Inquisition wasn't really known for sound jurisprudence. Oh, I see. All we know is that they were convinced that he flew, which probably means he was accused of it by somebody. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so what did they do? They imprisoned him and fed him starvation rations for about 18 years.

Oh, well, that was nice of them. Yeah, even nicer, 100 years later, the Catholic Church beatified him. And then 10 years after that, he was declared a saint. In fact, he's currently the patron saint of air travelers, aviators, astronauts, mentally disabled people, people taking tests, and underperforming students. Patron saint of all those things. I'm very uncomfortable with airline pilots and underperforming students sharing the same patron saint.

I think they'd have enough to... Glad to see you got over the part of the story where they tortured a flying retarded person for two decades. I told you it's very un-PC. Oh, sorry. Ups and downs. Okay. So now the evidence that this guy levitated is just the fact that the Catholics imprisoned him for it? Yeah.

That's it. That's it. That's it. Okay. So this is a real miracle just like all those screaming medieval bonfires were real witches then? Yep, pretty much. So why even bring this one up? All right.

Well, three reasons actually. First of all, it was the third miracle that was listed on two separate best documented miracle lists that I found online. Really? Really. Wow. Yeah. The second is that I wanted to mention that people with Down syndrome should all get flying. That should be way more.

That would only be fair. Yeah. Yeah. And the third reason I chose this one is for the meta layer of bullshit it provides for us. I mean, imagine if there was irrefutable evidence that Joseph of Cupertino actually did levitate. It's hard to imagine what that evidence would look like, but okay, sure.

Right, right. But imagine it was something he could do at will. And they took him on the road and he did levitation shows for millions of people. And even today's magicians were completely unable to explain how he did the trick without actually levitating. And imagine that it happened after cameras and even video cameras were invented.

So there's plenty of tangible video evidence. Lots of levitating. Seems like we're being a lot more generous than necessary, but okay. But even if we grant all of that, it doesn't prove anything except that there was a retarded monk that could fly. Dude. Levitate, sorry. I mean, think about it. Even at the time, nobody was saying, oh, this monk is hopping around like Iron Man. Must be that Christian God decided to miracle with him. So even if you trusted the contemporary theology, this would mean that Joseph's levitation was evidence that the witches were right. So not only do you have to retroactively apply facts, you have to retroactively apply motivations, too.

facts you have to retroactively apply motivations too oh okay well that brings up an interesting question though then if they thought that he was possessed of the devil why did they eventually make him into a saint i can't say for sure but the way i see it they only had three choices option a was to say that the guy never floated which would mean they tortured a mentally disabled person for decades for no reason option b was to say that he did float and it was because he was a witch and not only does that require doubling down on the horrible shit they did to an innocent simpleton it also makes being a witch sound really cool oh right yeah yeah and then uh option c of course was to say that he did fly and that they were keeping him in a small room because they didn't have helmets back then. You couldn't trust a guy like him to not fly headfirst into a wall or something for safety.

Okay, so now they were actually in a position where like the sensible thing to do from a PR perspective was admit they starved and imprisoned a disabled guy. It's a remarkably familiar spot for the Catholic Church to find itself, actually. Yeah, I guess it is. Okay, so didn't you also promise us some centuries-rotting human flesh? I did. All right. Okay, so does that float too, or what? No, it just sits there and rots.

All right, so what makes it miraculous? The fact that it used to be a cracker. Oh, I think I see where we're going here, but why don't you get us there anyway, if you don't mind. All right, but for this one, we're going to have to reach all the way back to the 8th century for the miracle of Lanciano. According to the legend, a monk who doubted the true bodily presence of Jesus in the Eucharist was assigned to a church in Lanciano, Italy. During Mass, just as he uttered the words of consecration, this is my body, this is my blood, the cracker suddenly changed into living flesh and the wine turned into five globules of blood. Ew. He was about to eat that.

That's so fucking gross. Yeah. Kind of like the Kiefer Sutherland thing with the Chinese food in Lost Boys. Right. Except it's God instead of the vampire with the mullet. Right. Right. Yeah.

So now should I assume that this miracle is documented in the same fashion as the last one? Well, sort of. But in this instance, we have direct physical evidence, actually. Well, what kind of evidence? We have the actual flesh and blood they preserved it okay but but i mean but like if if if i say that aliens landed on my front yard and gave me a pack of big league chew i'm not going to prove much by showing you the big league chew i mean okay i didn't say good evidence i said evidence okay gotcha so love big league what do we know about the flesh and blood here, then?

A number of investigations have been done on these holy relics, and the last of which was conducted in 1971. According to those findings, the flesh is probably a piece of human heart, approximately the same size and shape as a Eucharist. Wow, so they cut a Eucharist out of a dead guy's heart? That's so funny. Until you said that, it didn't occur to me that you could, you're just using already dead guy.

I don't know. It's so much easier. Well, you mean would have been. Look, Lanciano Italy has been milking this cracker-sized chunk of heart for tourist dollars for like 1,300 years. I mean, forgive me for wanting to get in on this action. Oh, shit. Wow.

Okay. Pretend I never asked. Will do. All right. Would you like to wrap up the segment there quick before you say anything else incriminating? I plead the fifth. Good call.

So we'll close it there. And assuming Heath remembered to weigh down the bag this time, we'll join you for more Miracle Talk on the next edition of The Devil's Advocate. Before we relinquish your ear holes tonight, I wanted to let you know that the long-awaited episode of Incredulous that Heath and I recorded the month before last with Andy

is finally available for your oral pleasure. You'll find a link on the show notes. And while you're there, you can also check out the link to an episode of Naked Mormonism that I guested on while I was on vacation. First time I'd ever recorded a guest appearance in person. Very cool.

It was a really fun discussion about the life and times of Dr. Philastus Hurlbutt. And by the way, doctor is not an honorific there. That's the dude's first name. So Philastus was the third weirdest name he had. Anyway, there's also some really interesting stuff in there about who maybe really wrote the Book of Mormon and, of course, an endless stream of Hurlbutt jokes. 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, debuting Monday at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, and an even newer episode of our other sister show, Godawful Movies, debuting 24 hours after that. Obviously, the show isn't a show until I thank Heath for managing to physically contain himself upon learning that we had a Donald Trump dick statue story this week, among other things. I also need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, both for her contributions to making the show great and her contributions to making the last 20 years of my life great. I also want to thank DP from the Golden Age Grappling Podcast for providing this

week's nostalgia-inducing Farnsworth quote. If you're a fan of the wrestling and you want to give his show a listen, we'll have that linked on the show notes too. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's and last week's best people, Benjamin, Pete, Gary, Michael, Ernest, Aborgnine, Hertz, Hehertz, Aurelius, Mad Cyclist, J613, Tiffany, Julie, Sarah, Melissa, Cindy, Jessica, Dana, Anne, Alex, Teresa, Cameron, Warwick, Carter, Paul, L, Paul, Curtis, and Travis. Benjamin, Pete, Gary, Michael, and Ernest of Borgnine,

whose erections would be called into duty as temporary wall supports if Trump wins the election, assuming he needed it 10 feet higher. Hertz, he hurts, Aurelius, Mad Cyclist, J613, and Tiffany, whose IQs have caused cutting-edge computer science assuming you need it 10 feet higher. Hertzie Hertz, Aurelius, Mad Cyclist, J613, and Tiffany, whose IQs have caused cutting-edge computer science to rebrand their efforts as artificial stupidity in comparison. Julie, Sarah, Melissa, Cindy, Jessica, and Dana, whose vaginal floor muscles would have been happy to smash together some protons if CERN had just asked.

And Alex, Teresa, Cameron, and Warwick, whose IQs are so high even Colorado has a law against it. And Carter, Paul, Elle, Paul, Curtis, and Travis, whose erections are so hard that Japanese lady with a demon badge wouldn't have needed a blacksmith. Together, these 26 salaciously sexy, strikingly stylish, surpassingly savvy,

sincerely sympathetic, superlatively skillful, severely sacrilegious skeptics have subsidized our scurrility this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the unique blend of sibilant qualities it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation on 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. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingatheist.com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly, and yes, I did have my permission. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly.

And yes, I did have my permission. It's not that we didn't fuck anything up in this episode. It's just that we didn't fuck anything up in a humorous way. So, no outtakes. Sorry.