The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 161: Never Ghana Give You Up Edition

Episode Date: March 17, 2016

On this week's episode, Conor Robinson of the Humanist Service Corps joins us to talk about the deplorable fate of women in Ghana accused of witchcraft, and tells us how we can all pitch in to help. ��There's also the normal fart jokes and stuff.If you'd like to learn more about how you can help the HSC's partner organization reach their goal on Global Giving, click here to learn more.

Warning, this podcast contains profanity and flagellant spaced humor, but in our defense, our fart jokes are profane in a very intellectual way. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new educational cartoon for skeptical preschoolers, Dora the Tora Explorer. Travel back in time with a delightful Mexican girl and her primate friend to see if all that creationism stuff really happened. And then travel back even further to see what happened before the beginning. Dora the Tora Explorer. This is why there are still monkey sidekicks. And now, the Scathing Atheist. I'm coming to you live from Melbourne. We're here with Isabel. Isabel has an

important public service announcement for all heathens out there. We did in fact involve some filthy monkey men. There you have it folks. Coming up after the break more torture. It's Thursday It's March 17th

And it's ridiculous Irish stereotype day It is So don't forget to wear some green And shoot a black guy who's running away No illusions I'm Heath Enright And from I'm Irish so I was allowed to say that, Valdosta, Georgia, this is

The Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, human pez dispenser Kevin Swanson will word vomit again. Dinesh D'Souza will be extremely sensitive to sunlight. And Connor Robinson from the Humanist Service Corps will be here to remind us that indoor plumbing is fucking awesome. But first, the

diatribe. We got an email from John last week asking about our thoughts on progressive theism. Now, normally we address stuff like this at the end of the show, but I think it represents such a divisive point amongst some atheists that it deserves special attention. And I'm going to go through the email in a bit of detail here because I think it allows me to make an important point from a number of different directions. So first, for background, John is a relatively new listener,

and that'll be obvious fairly early in the email. He found us through Gone Awful Movies, and he just started listening to some of the archived episodes of the show. He writes in part, quote, as easy targets as the more orthodox and conservative religious nut balls are for you guys, I don't think I've ever picked up on your thoughts on more progressive sex and movements. Are organizations like the Unitarian Universalists and Episcopalians, quote unquote, better in your opinion because they promote equality and social justice in contrast to their conservative counterparts, or does the fact that they buy into the existence of sky people still bother you? Now, I want to cut in and point out the obvious false dichotomy

here. Clearly, one can answer yes to both of those questions, so there's really no need for an or there. So, yes, people who actively promote bigotry are worse than people who don't, and yes, the people who believe in sky people bother me one way or the other. Anyway, back to the email. I guess what I'm asking is, if there were people who agreed with you on all the other things except the existence of God, would you still berate them for it, or is it more important for atheists to fight against the backwards words and actions of the religious right? And I need to cut in once more to flag John for another false dichotomy. Again, no need for an aura there. So yes, I would still berate them for that,

and yes, it's more important to fight against the more actively bigoted and society-impairing aspects of religion. Now, we're going to come back to this, but obviously we can all agree that one's ire shouldn't be reserved for, like, only the most problematic issue in society, but rather one's ire should be proportional to those issues. So yes, if theists were just bigfoot hunters, I would spend significantly less of my time and energy pushing back against them.

Bigfoot hunters are basically harmless, but I'd still berate them. Again, we're going to circle back to all of this, but I want to finish John's email here, so he continues. I bring this up because I was raised Catholic, but my pastor growing up always preached about the loving nature of Jesus and how we should care about one another more than strictly adhering to the letter of the Bible and hating fags and going to hell and whatnot. And then he sent a portion of the money that he collected to silence child rape victims and shield their abusers from justice. John didn't point that out. I just

thought it was worth adding. Anyway, he continues. Plus, my mom was very adamant about science and religion not being mutually exclusive, that evolution and the Big Bang don't disprove the existence of God, and one can adhere to both. Okay, so your mom's wrong, but that's cool. She probably didn't know it. Sorry that I'm not willing to grant her too many points for admitting that demonstrably true stuff happened and then falsely claiming that it didn't conflict with bullshit stories about angels and dragons. Again, we'll circle back. And finally, John adds, at this point, I tend to call myself an agnostic, but mainly because I don't give a shit about whether or not there is a god or many gods or flying spaghetti monsters or Cthulhu or anything.

I also don't really care what other people believe as long as it's not hurtful to anyone else. And then he goes on to say some very nice stuff about the work we do, which was very nice of him, but not really germane to the discussion at hand. And I should note that I get an email asking some variation of this question at least once a week at this point. John's was just a little better thought out than many versions of it. But the question always boils down to this.

If religion was harmless, would it still bother you? Of course, the problem with this question is that we've moved so far into hypothetical land that I can't even imagine what that world would look like, right? I mean, as near as I can tell, the only way a religion can be harmless is if it's true. And obviously, I wouldn't berate the Catholics for their beliefs if those beliefs were correct, but promoting an untrue worldview is never harmless, and suggesting that faith is a reasonable means of obtaining truth cannot be constrained. Let's look a little deeper at John's example about his mom, right? His mom told him that you can believe in God and evolution, and while that might be conciliatory, it's incorrect. And if you understand evolution, you already know why. There's simply no room for God. To say that God guided evolution is

to completely misunderstand the entire concept of natural selection, or else to put humankind outside of it altogether. So at best, if you want to cling to your concept of God, you can only dig so deep into evolution before you have to start compartmentalizing. Is this as bad as promoting bigotry? Of course not. But promoting bigotry isn't as bad as raping puppies, and nobody would ever ask me to back off the bigots because of that. But the real problem I have with this notion of benign religion is that it belies the actual problem. The actual problem isn't the bigotry, or the sexism, or the anti-intellectualism, or even the child rape. The problem is religion. The problem is codifying a separate set of viewpoints that aren't subject to empirical disconfirmation. And there's no way

to do that without inviting in the crazy people. I mean, if all you ever did with your gun is open stubborn ketchup bottles, that doesn't make guns any less dangerous. In fact, in many ways, the liberal theologist is actually more dangerous because they provide the fundamentalists with the cover funding and social clout that they would never be able to achieve if we just had the wackos. And without that, the wackos would be essentially powerless, right? The massive number of people who turn a blind eye to the weaponized institution is the only reason the worst among the religionists are able to find any traction at all. The vast majority of Christians aren't racist or misogynist or homophobic or anti-intellectual, and They're not fully convinced that Jesus Christ is going to return to earth

to save the good guys in the next couple of years. And yet the clout that the majority lends to the fundamentalists ends up allowing those fundies to draft policy, to take over school boards, to lobby Congress, to influence foreign policy. So, you know, you give your money to your liberal Catholic let's all just get along priest. It goes up the chain of command.

And before you know it, you're directly funding anti-marriage equality legislation in slovenia or something so with apologies for oversimplifying your point a bit john but all religion and all institutionalized bullshit for that matter is fully deserving of our ire our vitriol and our vehement objection because in the real world there is no right way to be wrong. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is a guy who was Irish before it was cool, Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to drink and not have enough potatoes?

Oh, wonderful, yeah. Is that your full knowledge of Irish culture right there? I left out Lucky Charm cereal and the car bombs. Oh, good. Yeah, you got the other half too. Well done. In our lead story tonight, the liberal and conservative media conspiracies are both working hard these days to trick Donald Trump into accidentally saying something sensible, but he will not do it. It will never work. He will not be fooled into alienating his voters with reason no matter

what you ask him and this policy really got put to the test over the last few weeks there's got to be some kind of bet going on between like all the national news people about who can get him to say an entire unbigoted sentence you're right and nobody is winning by the way he is bulletproof like donald what do you think about women's suffrage? Meh, they probably deserve it. You can't stump him. You cannot. It's like the Alex Trebek of Offensive Answer. Right, yeah, exactly. And the latest example, as you might have guessed,

if you were guessing, involves hating Muslims, but only because they hated us first. It's fair. You know, the thing is, he's going to get the nomination now, so this is going to go all the way to November. This game of trying, I mean, you can just imagine how bad it's going to get. You know, the thing is, is he's going to get the nomination now. So this is going to go all the way to November. This game of trying. I mean, you can just imagine how bad it's going to get. You know, how about Armenians, Donald?

Do you maybe not hate them? After Turks were more efficient, we wouldn't even be talking about that. Oh, fuck. Montenegrins, perhaps. I prefer regions in a former Roman province of Dalmatia that don't get invaded by the Ottoman Empire. Thank you. Fuck it. Dude, I give up.

I'm going to just go farm. Yes. Here's a quick review of the actual series of questions that Trump's been asked recently leading up to this Islam example. All of which he got wrong. Yes. Despite how difficult that was in each case. First, he was asked if he has an opinion one way or the other on the KKK. He does not.

Not yet. Then he was asked about his thoughts on protesters getting beat up at his campaign events. His answer was, yes, they are. Yes. And then last week during the debate in Miami, he was asked if he sticks by his previous claim that all 1.6 billion Muslims in the entire world hate America. And his answer was, yes, almost all. Call it like 1.5 billion. And then after the event was over, he was asked by a different reporter.

Really? To which he responded, yes, really. Can't trick me. Still win. Well, but now in his defense i mean i think that's probably how many of them hate donald trump but that percentage basically holds over all demographics doesn't it except for duck dynasty fans and uh by the way donald trump is still winning so after doing all this during the past week since the debate trump won another big handful

of primaries and has the nomination pretty much locked up on the strength of millions of angry Christian people. So there's a message in all of this. I guess I'm saying that America needs to learn how to dislike Islam properly. Right. And I'm confident we can do this. I mean, we did it just fine with Judaism over the years. There's a roadmap right there. Right. still allowed catholics and everything doing great and in philly's fully feely phallus follies news tonight the altuna johnstown diocese in pennsylvania is clearly doing their part to ensure that spotlight gets a sequel as evidenced by charges filed this week against three of their priests for tax evasion just kidding just kidding

it was oh kid rape again. Specifically, these three were charged with enabling a known serial predator for decades, up to and including interfering with police investigations into the abuse. Based on the findings of a Pennsylvania grand jury, the three were charged with conspiring to enable a serial predator to sexually assault more than 100 Catholic high school

students. Yeah, and here's where it starts getting tricky from a legal standpoint apparently because uh pennsylvania's version of riffra can be interpreted in lots of different ways so it's gonna be a it's gonna be a battle really believe that you can get away with this shit we did we did they did indeed so the three priests charged were the consecutive office holders of the position of minister provincial in the diocese over a period spanning from 1986 to 2010 during which one stephen baker

a known pedophile was repeatedly transferred to new schools every time allegations of abuse would re-emerge during this multiple decades span no one within the diocese ever contacted law enforcement about the felonies and even actively obstructed investigations once law enforcement did find out so hold on you're saying these three guys besides baker um they didn't rape any kids i'm i'm confused can can you legally blame the guys playing the shell games just because the red balls are rapists i mean they don't well so far no they did apparently we can't and that's the saddest thing about this case it's being hailed as the broadest effort by any american court to hold the Roman Catholic hierarchy accountable for the enabling child sex abuse thing that they're known for.

It's also worth noting, by the way, that 47 of the 50 priests and church leaders the same grand jury found liable for abuse were not charged. And apparently that's because there's still a fucking statute of limitations on this stuff. How the fuck can there be a statute of limitation on child rape yeah when you become an adult you can't be the victim of child rape anymore but that doesn't apply retroactively right statute of limitations like you raped me when i was a kid yeah in the 80s yeah in the 80s why are we dwelling on the decade i feel like we're dwelling on the decade kid guys the issue. Now, for his part, the alleged rapist in question committed suicide a couple years ago when people started to piece together his interstate rape trail.

But according to the grand jury, he was only one of at least eight friars who sexually assaulted children as far back as the 60s, but also as recently as 2011, which is as far forward as the records that they had went. So and I can't say this often or clearly enough, this is not a thing that used to happen. This is not in the past. There is a pedophile fingering some unsuspecting kid's asshole right now and the Catholic Church is protecting him. Or vice versa. Right, yeah, exactly. Now keep in mind, all of this came from shit that the state seized through search warrants

so it's not like the church ever came clean here they still haven't for fuck's sake they attached a non-disclosure agreement to the paltry eight million dollar settlement they divided among the 88 victims of this one guy in 2013 here's 90 grand guys now don't show anybody on the doll where we touched you have a good life awful and in mo funny in mo' funny mo' problems news tonight. According to reports out of Egypt, Justice Minister Ahmed Al Zind was fired from his job last week after referencing the Prophet Muhammad in a joke. Sounds like a bad idea. And not even a joke, really. It was more like a very small hyperbolic phrase.

And he didn't even use the name Muhammad. But nonetheless, he's unemployed now and nationally reviled. So that's what Egypt's been working on. Yeah. Otherwise, they're doing great. Right. I mean, guys, you've kind of been resting on those sphinx laurels for about 45 centuries. Time to think about maybe, I don't know, contributing to humanity again in a positive

way. It's not a big deal. Just a thought. No hurry. Take your time. Here's what happened. During a recent interview, Mr. Al Zind was making the point that all criminals would be treated equally by his team of prosecutors, which sounds pretty reasonable. And he was asked, does that mean you'd even put a journalist in jail? Which is a really stupid question, just like it sounds. But he was fairly nice about it, said something like, yes, obviously, if the journalist broke the law, then yes. And then he added, quote, even if he was a prophet, peace and blessing be upon him, end quote. And those are the words that apparently got him fired. Well, duh. But I mean, for all these idiots know, Allah's plan is for Muhammad to get ass raped in prison for our sins.

So in which case they would have just fucked the whole thing up. This is basic theology, guys. This is 101 shit. So, yeah, when you hear a story like this about a place like Egypt, it's easy to think you know well that's just crazy muslim politicians in a crazy part of the world and it is that's all true right and granted you probably won't see lots of people getting fired in the u.s for being uh to flip with their jesus analogies but we definitely still have some sacred cows over here too yeah and if jesus was fucking a nine-year-old like muhammad you can be certain we'd have Christian lawyers

making sure that that's protected by RIFRA too. Right. Yeah. Instead of just protected by a church hierarchy that doesn't give a shit about your kid's asshole and whose finger was in it, it would be that and child fucker protecting lawyers. Another layer.

Oh, I'm sorry. More child fucker protecting. Different ones on top of the ones that we already have. Yeah. So I think there's a couple good takeaway lessons here first of all uh don't move to egypt already probably not the greatest place to live and uh if you do don't forget you can't even draw comparisons to muhammad without serious consequences it's a very pedantic legal system right it's like scalia with a quran terrifying and in who would jesus drown news tonight christian fought to a tear and man scrawny

enough to exhibit both particle and wave-like properties kevin swanson is back in the news this week calling for more righteous murderings now of course we first started covering swanson way back in episode 32 when he warned america that satanic gay abortion spells were causing record flooding in colorado yeah and it uh it turns out they were not. No, it was inaccurate. Gay abortion spells are more for droughts. That's what happened in California. Obviously, yeah, we've got empirical evidence here. But of course, you may also remember him from episode 152 when he warned that a Hillary Clinton victory would turn the vast majority of little girls into lesbians, or episode 144 when we discussed his claims that the Disney movie Frozen was produced by Satan to turn little girls into lesbians, or episode 142

when Lucinda highlighted his claims that a successful U.S. women's soccer team was a plot to turn little girls into lesbians, or perhaps in episode 143 when he earned a 30 seconds on the clock bit by promising to smear shit all over himself if his little girl ever turned out to be a lesbian. And if you notice some of a pattern pattern here you won't be surprised to learn that his latest newsworthy escapade involved the calling for the execution of girl scout leaders for the crime of wait for it turning little girls into lesbians here's the thing though i mean if kevin swanson's so worried about girls realizing they're lesbians he should be warning them not to date me for several years because that keeps happening it's probably in the fine prints somewhere so during his radio program last week he launched into what turned out to be an episode-long tirade about the evils

of the girl scouts for the crimes of both turning little girls into lesbians and promoting communism so during his demagoguery he reminded his listeners that girl scout leaders have quote violated jesus's teaching end quote and that, it would be better for someone to have a millstone hung around their neck and thrown into the sea rather than cause a child to sin, end quote. And lest you accuse me of hyperbole by classifying that as a call for execution, he followed that up by pointing out that this instruction should be taken literally. Immediately after the bit about murdering Girl Scout leaders, he added, quote, you've got to take what he says. And that's the bullshit capitalized God.

He and you have to apply it. End quote. And communism, though. I mean, come on. Thin mints are a huge part of this economy. That's nuts. Obviously. And in hell to pay fallacy news tonight, according to professional crazy things sayer and Chris Christie teacup version Glenn Beck, if you vote for Donald Trump, you're going to hell.

Also, same thing if you vote for Hillary Clinton. Oh, and yeah, he's probably just another shill for Jill Stein in the Green Party at this point. But that's probably how I'm voting just to be safe. Even if I am falling right into Glenn Beck's trap. Well, I mean, but to be fair to Beck, though, if enough people vote for Trump, hell may very well come to you. You know, just see by the third year of his presidency, people will die showing up at the Abandon All Ye Hope sign saying, oh, thank God, if I had to listen to that steel wool headed jackass pronounce China one more time. I was going to bury myself alive.

Hello, guys. Got an asshole here. Where's the red hot poker already? Haven't got all eternity. So, yeah, just for context, Glenn Beck has been supporting Ted Cruz for president thus far. But despite Beck's hunger strike to benefit Cruz, which lasted about the length of an afternoon,

like half an afternoon, it's almost certainly not going to work out for him so assuming trump wins the nomination here's how the numbers break down on this out of about 130 million voters that probably going to turn out glenn beck figures we're looking at something like say 127 million people maybe 127.5 going to hell for eternity because of their vote this year right so apparently this is where we separate the wheat from the chaff and send the chaff to a rapey fire pit forever and the chaff is people yes of course unless of course leatherface manages a miracle comeback and then it's only like 65 million at that point well yeah but i mean but to be fair many of us were already going to hell.

But I guess with that joyous assurance that I won't have to spend the afterlife with Glenn Beck, we'll pause for a quick celebration and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. It's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man.

This week in Massage. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This Week in Massage. One of the most visible manifestations of patriarchy is the obsession religious people have with how women dress. And I've been on both sides of this. I had a grandmother that accused me of sluttery for wearing shorts that stopped above the knee. And I've also been to Wiccan communes that link spiritual enlightenment in women to their propensity for showing strangers their tits. The more enlightened, the more tits, of course.

And it used to surprise me that more of these patriarchal societies weren't encouraging women to wear less. After all, it seems to go against my experience with men that they'd prefer all women dress like upright body bags. But that's because my experience with men largely comes from a much less misogynistic culture, and most of the guys I know don't get angry that women have the power to not fuck them. And ultimately, that's what the beekeeper fashion statement is all about. It's about teaching women their bodies belong to their husbands, and insulating sexually frustrated religious leaders from the humility of knowing that nobody was lining up to fuck them before that vow of celibacy either. And the lengths that sexist cultures will go to to protect this demeaning bullshit is insane. Take, for example, the New Jersey's, the Afghan women's soccer team unveiled last week. And you've already probably

guessed what makes this uniform unique. But in case you either haven't or you haven't convinced yourself to believe it, I'll save you the suspense. It has a fucking hijab. Also, an underlayer that goes beneath the traditional shorts and shirt and covers every inch of flesh that isn't face. You know, because when you're sprinting down the pitch in the world's most exhausting sport in a country with an average temperature of sweltering,

you really want to be wearing a ninja outfit. Of course, things are much better for female athletes in the U.S., but it's important to keep in mind that we haven't exactly solved this problem either. I mean, I won't get arrested for showing ankle, but slut-shaming is still one of the Bible Belt's chief exports. And this was on full display in an article that comes to us from the Secret Keeper Girl Facebook page via the Friendly Atheist blog via astute listener Carla. Basically, they posted this strained dialogue between a daughter and her dad about her new iPad, where the iPad cover is a stand-in for dressing modestly. So the dad asked, why did you buy a cover for your new iPad? Is it because the

iPad was ugly and you were ashamed of it? And the daughter says, no, it's because I wanted to protect it and maintain its resale value. And the dad says, see, just like your boobs. Now, apparently this was too offensive even for people who would voluntarily join a women best be covering up that cleavage Facebook page. So the administrators ran an apology where they changed the wording just a bit. Now, they didn't change the message about women in short shorts not maintaining their resale value, but instead of closing it on the line, parents, teacher, daughters, their value, they changed it to parents, teacher, daughters, and sons, their value. See, if you slut shame boys too, it's not sexist anymore. And for our final dollop of prudery this week, we'll turn to one of

America's most prolific misogynists, Pastor Stephen Cooking Can Be Fun Anderson, who also elected to chime in on the issue of women's bodies and what they should be completely covered up by. In fact, he went so far as busting out a whiteboard so he could diagram all the various reasons that Christian women shouldn't wear pants. Now, I'll save you the trouble of listening to his mid-pubescent rant. It's because pants are men's clothing and dresses are women's clothing, which in my opinion makes Jesus a chick, but whatever. According to the 22nd chapter of Deuteronomy, we should dress like the ladies room sign. Of course, that's also the chapter about not wearing mixed fabrics or clothes

with no tassels, the different rape victim obligations in the city versus the country, and murdering your bride on her father's doorstep if she doesn't bleed on her honeymoon sheets. So I guess it could have been worse. And with no more of an effort to put a positive spin on it than that, I'll bid you farewell for the week and hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And if you can't beat her, join her news tonight. Christian Jabberwockateer and drugless, brainless, talentless Kenny Rogers, Rick Joyner, showed up on the Jim Baker show last week just in case Heath and I didn't have enough dumb shit to talk about tonight. Yeah, and we did, but we're going to talk about them anyway.

Oh, yeah, because, I mean, I swear this whole interview sounded like an audition to make 30 seconds this week which he failed by the way i work out i should you know the interview netted him no less than five separate articles on right wing watch including but not limited to mathematical proof that earth is 6 000 years old and we're living in the end times a quick reminder that hurricane katrina was god's indiscriminate means of punishing the gays and of course blaming course, blaming the popularity of Bernie Sanders on the fact that the Communist Party secretly controls the schools. Oh, well, I mean, I guess it's a good thing the Hillary Clinton Party still controls the ballot boxes.

Yeah, right, right. And the secret cold fusion machine, of course. And the media, apparently. But chief among his derision-deserving delirium was his claim that Donald Trump and Jesus Christ are more or less the same dude. According to Joyner, quote, you look at the type of leaders that Jesus chose, and they were more like Donald Trump's. So apparently they made yarmulkes out of yak hair back then. Anyway, he blabbers for a minute about a bunch of glass chewing biker gang hard asses the apostles were, and then he points out that they were all too timid and afraid to ask Jesus basic questions.

He concludes from this, quote, think about it. Jesus was a tough character. These are tough guys, and they're intimidated by him after three and a half years of living with him, end quote. Okay, yeah, so I don't doubt that Jesus would have been the alpha dog of that gypsy bare knuckle boxing gay orgy club they had going. But I'm not sure how that relates to Donald Trump. Exactly. Well, okay. So the key is that the guy who spends his campaign speeches talking about feeding the hungry and curing the sick, that guy's a mole planted by foot men with communist accents. The guy who spends the same speeches talking about how he wants to punch people who disagree with him. That guy's a mole planted by footmen with communist accents. The guy who spends the same speeches

talking about how he wants to punch people who disagree with him, that's Christ. So basically. Also, Mary Magdalene would fuck you up in a fair fight. That was just sort of an undercurrent of the whole thing.

And in god-awful movies news tonight, someone finally had the artistic vision to ask the question, if footmen tire you, what will Hillary Clinton do? And that person is none other than Christian apologist and conservative political commentator Dinesh D'Souza. Would have been my guess. Who took some time away from forecasting spring with his shadow last week

to release the trailer for his upcoming anti-democrat propaganda film called Hillary's America, which will open in theaters this summer. Critics are already describing it as a perfect movie to watch in small clips on your religious uncle's Facebook page. Book your seats now on Fandango. You want to see it on the big screen. Hey guys, remember that movie I made about how America would be eaten by dragons and we'd all be enslaved by the blacks now if we reelected Obama? Remember all those chillingly accurate predictions I made about how now wouldn't even exist by now? Well, it's sequel time! So fucking asshats.

So according to Dinesh D'Souza, this movie is going to drop some serious, serious bombshells about Hillary and the Democrats. Oh, shit. During an appearance on Newsmax TV last week. Where all the big producers go. Where all the big producers go. You got it. But Sousa described it as follows. Quote, it's about this whole sordid history of a party that has, from the beginning, been defined by subjugation, exploitation, and theft.

Not just slavery, but continuing with segregation, Jim Crow, the Black Codes, opposing voting rights for blacks, opposing the 13th Amendment, emancipation, the KKK, forced sterilization, support for fascism, and Japanese internment during World War II. End quote. All the Democrats. Okay, so. Sounds like a modern liberal. To all the people who ask me why Hillary,

there's your answer right there, right? Some number of billions of dollars has been spent trying to assassinate her character and the best the escaped whack-a-mole can come up with is a list of all the bad historical shit the Democratic Party has done in the last, like, you know, 200 years or whatever. During the 1800s.

Well, right, what's his message? Like guys 100 years ago your party was racist your party is voting for donald trump as we speak checkmate i think it's i think it's mate i think that's me just tip it over go ahead yeah there you go so uh de souza also tried out some trash talk on the show i guess we'll call it um he warned that Democrats are going to get served so hard, they'll need professional counselors outside the theater. They're going to be in tears. All the Democrats that are going to go watch the Dinesh D'Souza movie. Exactly right.

Except here's the thing. He's a very small rodent man. So any sort of threatening language he uses, it just comes off as, you know, kind of cute and funny. You just want to feed him a carrot. Can't really hold it very well with his tiny little hands. He's all squinty. It's adorable.

Anyway, the entire movie idea feels like it clearly popped up when somebody told D'Souza that Abe Lincoln was a Republican. Yeah, right. And therefore, Hillary Clinton is a plantation owner, and therefore liberals are all racist. Credits. Now you don't have to spend the money on the tickets. And of course, we'll probably be reviewing that fucker when it gets to YouTube three months from now. And in what the fuck news tonight, batshit crazy woman and person who still owes Cate

Blanchett and Oscar Gwyneth Paltrow reminded the Internet of her insanity last week when she sent out a newsletter promoting a new line of magical skincare products. Now, unlike normal skincare products that already contain dubious amounts of pseudoscientific bullshit ingredients to balance out scary sounding stuff like sodium hydroxide, these products offer extra bullshit in the form of having been meditated over. That's right. She's increasing the perceived value of a lotion by telling people it's been thunk near.

Sat next to. Right. By a person who was thinking. So I'm a little skeptical, to be honest. You don't say. I mean, I have a container of lotion that I've sat next to for hours and hours

while I cleared my head. Never seemed to develop any magical healing properties whatsoever, other than than you know its primary use now that you mention it mine neither yeah so according to the head bullshit ologist annie de memiel quote we put crystals around the oils as we macerate the herbs we play music and macerate every morning as we add the base oils we use more music crystals and meditation and as if that's not enough to sell a rational skeptic on the process,

she adds, quote, then when we add the flower essences, they sit out with music too, end quote. More music? They play music to your butt cream. But if you're still skeptical, that's probably only because I didn't mention that in the blending room they say blessings of love and gratitude to your butt cream. Well, as dumb as this all sounds, I've got to give Gwyneth Paltrow some credit here. If only because these lotions don't involve shooting yourself in the vagina with a laser

beam. Right. Yes. He's just stepped up to safety. Still peddling complete nonsense, but slightly safer in terms of vaginal laser beams. I mean, when the bar is steamed vagina low, sure. But just to give you an idea of the scope of the bullshit parfait that we've got going here, when I googled the founder's name, the first thing I saw was an advertisement for altitude oil.

Wait, did you say altitude? Yes, it's an oil that cures having been on a plane apparently. High places. Well, right, but you can also use it for all non-high place circumstances as well if you read the whole thing. Oh, good. And for a whopping 10 milliliters, you'll drop about 45 bucks because of all the music and the wishing. Shit ain't free.

Right. And finally tonight, in Game the Hate News, if you follow ISIS on Instagram, you may have noticed that their propaganda department is making recruiting videos that resemble scenes from popular American movies, TV shows, and video games. Well, Professor Javier Levara of Navarro University in Spain has been noticing the same pattern. And based on his research, he has two pieces of advice. First of all, you should stop following ISIS on Instagram. It's weird that you were doing that. But more importantly, he thinks the world needs to fight fire with fire and make similar videos that are anti-extremist with heroes that fight against terrorism, which we're obviously already doing.

Yeah. Because that's what the ISIS videos are based on. Right. And he knows this because he just said that because that's his whole thesis. So I'm glad Mr. Levara is against ISIS. Me too. But he seemed a little confused. Yeah, I mean, is he proposing we need more video games about murdering brown people?

All right. Gotcha. Did he offer any advice on the optimal level of raping Native American video games? Because I think we're still stuck on one, if I'm not mistaken on that. So Professor Levara is probably not going to Oslo this year for the Peace Prize, but the story did lead to an important moment for the show. Yes, it did. Let's go back in time about four days.

There we were, feeling confident that if someone named a random religion and a random nerd thing, we have a list already compiled of terrible puns about the two things together. So when we saw this story, we obviously went through our really weird files to locate our handy list of Muslim-themed video games made ahead of time for exactly this sort of scenario. But we were shocked to find out that no such list had ever been created, which is irresponsible. Unbelievable, yeah.

And that's why we're going to need 30 seconds on the clock. Ideas for the Islamic Fundamentalist Video Game Company. Go. All right. I can't believe we haven't done this before. It's shocking. How about A La Duty? Iraq Ops.

What about The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mosque? That's an awesome fucking game. Starring Link, the Keebler elf. How about something for the Syrian refugees to play on the boat on their phones? Maybe Thrace Invaders? What about Sitar Hero? Or a rock band? Something like that?

Or maybe Coran Turismo? Or Coranic the Hedgehog? Nice. Or what about Iran Contismo? Or Caranic the Hedgehog? Nice. Or what about Iran Contra? Oh, there you go. By Ayatollah Konami. Oh, of course. Or Angry Kurds?

Nice. I like that one. I was going to say Fatwario Kart, but that's already the name of a taxi service for women in Saudi Arabia. Oh, I see. What about Sling Blades of Steel by Decapcom? Oh, there you go. Kind of like ISIS hockey.

Right, right. Maybe Suicide Bomber Man? No, Mecha Man. No, no, wait, wait, wait. Opec Man, since their wives are already dressed like the ghosts. It'll all work out. Ms. Opec, man. Yeah, there you go.

What about Sharia 51? Sharia? Dead Sea Side Scroller. Oh, there you go. Dead Sea Side Scroller. Oh, no, no, hold on. What about Veggie Burger Time? Going Veggie Burger Time.

Oh, yeah, there you go. There you go. How about Vaginal Fantasy Severed? Severed. Kind of like Hyman's Quest. Yeah, exactly. I've got that on FGMulator. All right, I got one more.

What about Assassin's Creed? I have no follow-up. That's my name. That's it? Assassin's Creed, pretty much as is. Well, I don't know. I might move that possessive ass over to the beginning of the next word, but I think you pretty much nailed it there.

I guess we can close the headlines there. Heath, thanks as always. Grand Theft Oil. When we come back, Connor Robinson will join us from Ghana to help us keep shitty commutes and all that kind of shit in perspective. And before we hop into that interview, I want to emphasize from Ghana as there were a couple of times when the

connection was subpar and also there was a dog, but it mostly left us alone. Very excited to welcome my next guest to the show. Connor Robinson graduated from Yale University where he launched the Yale Humanist Society and currently serves as the project director of the Humanist Service Corps, an international volunteer effort run by the Foundation Beyond Belief. He was the recipient of Foundation Beyond Belief's 2014 Humanist Visionary Award, and as near as I can tell from his online profile pics, he rocks a spectacular beard. Connor, welcome to The Scathing Atheist.

Oh, thanks. It's good to be here. Now, you're joining us from Ghana, correct? Yeah, I'm up in the rural northern reaches of the northern region of Ghana. So sorry for any lag that appears in the show. Yeah, no problem. No problem. We'll fix all of that and editing. None will be the wiser. So you're not just in Ghana, you're in the backwoods parts of Ghana. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're in the region that has, you know, triple the rates of poverty and a fraction of the population. It's very rural here.

We actually just got through there. There's an entire season here. It's called the Harmatan season when the winds from the Sahara Desert just bring dust and heat. So you can imagine, you know, it's backwoods in a different sense of the word up here. Yeah, right. Right. As I'm sure our audience is already noticing a bit from the Skype connection, you're getting not the greatest Wi-Fi there in Ghana as well, I'm sure. Now, has the beard still made it?

Has it been sacrificed to the equatorial heat or uh are you still rocking it well actually it wasn't because of heat that i i sacrificed it uh it's not i'm not rocking the full beard at the moment i ended up growing it for a year and a half and it got all the way down to the bottom of my chest and then i i shaved it actually as a fundraising uh stunt for this this program to raise money for this program. Right on, dude. Right on. That's how altruistic this guy is. Even when he shaves, it's for somebody else. That's awesome.

So now I should admit up front that you and I were thrown together a bit last minute, so I'm not quite as prepared as I normally would be for an interview, which means that I'm going to have to leave a lot of the heavy lifting in your hands. So can you tell the audience what the Humanist Service Corps is and how you got involved with it? Absolutely. So simply put, the Humanist Service Corps is the first and right now really the only international volunteering opportunity explicitly for nonbelievers.

Now, obviously, it's called the Humanist Service Corps, and there are some in the wider free thought community who might have preferred a different name. I don't think we have to go into the politics of why we picked the name, but really, the intention is to shine a spotlight on service-oriented atheism. We think that it's important. That's an important example for believers and non-believers alike. But then, of course, we also just want to do good service. So the Humanist Service Corps, it is that sort of beacon of ethical atheism for the world. But at the same time, it's also very careful, culturally responsible service. We think it embodies the values of humanism and ultimately we picked the location we are now for the launch of the humanist service corps and

that's in the northern region of ghana working with a women's rights organization that is trying to stop the gender-based violence of witch hunting in the northern region of ghana now i should also explain to the audience that we've got a massive time zone difference here too. Where I am, it's like just after 3 p.m. and where Connor is, it's 1586. I'm sorry, did you say which accusations, witch hunting? Yeah, witch hunting. Oh my God. Wow. Okay. So before we get into that, and I do want to dwell on that quite a bit, I want to go back to something you said a minute ago. You said that you're dedicated to culturally responsible service. So what does that mean to you? Yeah, so it means not imposing any sort of outside ideas on local activists. It means basically putting the local leaders and the local organizations in the driver's seat.

So what you see a lot of times with international service, and even in the U.S., it doesn't have to be international service for volunteers to enter into communities that aren't their communities. What you see is a lot of times people bringing in rather condescending attitudes. And they don't recognize that a lot of the situation is circumstantial, and that the best way to change the situation is to elevate leaders from within. So what we mean by culturally responsible service is we mean that our volunteers are helping move forward a movement that already exists. So we've identified a grassroots organization and we are trying to lift that organization up. We're not trying to supplant that organization. We're not trying to steal their thunder. In fact,

we, we ask our volunteers to take a backseat role because we want the face of change to be a local face. We want the faces that are giving direct services to these women we're supporting to be the faces of Northern Ghanaians, not the faces of a volunteer from California or from wherever they might be. And so that's what we think culturally responsible service means. It means oftentimes as well, delaying judgment or suspending judgment on certain things. Because if you think about what we're trying to do here, in order to get people to stop making witchcraft accusations, it's not primarily about helping the people who have already been victims of witchcraft accusations. It's actually helping the people who are making the accusations because they're making these accusations out of ignorance and out of, you know, very poor standards of living.

So that means in order for our volunteers to be effective, they actually have to work side by side with people who have done things that, you know, you and I and they find highly morally reprehensible. So that's also part of the culturally responsible service. It's about suspending our cultural judgments, even if, you know, we think they're not just subjective in this case, but actually objective. It's a rather utilitarian thing here. Right. But I think the science really backs up that approach because, you know, we've seen time and time again that if you want to lift people out of superstition and fundamentalist religiosity, the best way to do that is to give them control over their own lives, to give them

access to education, and coming in there and being super judgmental is not a way to get there. That's awesome. So you guys are not like going out and preaching the word of atheism and giving them a translated copy of Dawkins. You're just going out there actually doing humanism. Exactly. I mean, we like to let the work speak for us and people are naturally curious so they certainly ask us what we believe or don't believe. But really it's the work that speaks first and no, there are no tracts we're bringing, no texts or anything like that. It's actually always been kind of funny. People expect that we're coming here with an ulterior motive. So oftentimes we'll finish a project with people

and they'll sit down almost expecting that we're about to give them the spiel. Right. And then we say, what are you doing? Get up. Let's go grab a beer. And even though they themselves are most often religious, they really seem to appreciate that. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. That's so awesome.

And not only are you helping to break the stereotypes globally and in America about atheists and their dedication to service, but you're also helping to break the stereotypes of what people who are trying to volunteer in places like Ghana are trying to do at the same time. That's really awesome. All right, so let's turn back to these accused witches. That's what you're focusing on right now in Ghana? Well, the truth is that that is one aspect of the work that our partner organization does in the northern region. It's the most sensational aspect, and it certainly grabs the most attention, but it's not the only form of gender-based discrimination that we're working on.

There are other really concerning issues related to access to education, especially for younger women. There are concerning issues about access to jobs. In addition to, you know, raising the standard of living for these women who have been banished for witchcraft accusations and then also trying to decrease accusations, we're also supporting entrepreneurship programs for women smallholder farmers and other small business owners. We're supporting a program that provides remedial instruction to children who have fallen out of the education system for any number of reasons and want to get back in. And so this is something that is aimed at getting, you know, gender equity in the classroom. I got to say, every detail that you add makes me like this organization or your organization even more, because everything that you're saying is this is sustainable. This is long-term. This is not we're going to come in and we're going to help you build a well

and then we're going to get the hell out of here and feel like we've done our duty to the third world, but rather that you're looking for sustainable long-term solutions. That's great. Exactly. That's the idea. By keeping all of this in the hands of this partner organization that is here and will always be here. That's part of our approach to sustainability. Right on, right on. So like what other specific projects do you have going on in the area or is it all just partnering with this partner organization?

Well, so this is the launch year and the focus right now is definitely on this partner organization. But I can mention one project in particular that's really sort of like the, I guess, I don't know if this is the right analogy, the jewel in our crown this year. It's a medical project in one of the communities where women are exiled. And this community, to be clear, is not just of alleged witches. There are their families and a full vibrant community has sprung up around here. But the truth is that it's a community where people have to walk kilometers to water. It's a community where the access to health care is minimal. And so those are really our two primary focuses in this community. But I'm going to talk about the medical issue. We've put together a project whereby we're providing free health

screenings to the entire community. And that in and of itself is great. I mean, we've already identified nearly 30 cases of malaria. And as most people know, of course, early identification of malaria saves lives. And in fact, of course, early identification of malaria saves lives. And in fact, malaria is one of the medical or health issues connected to witchcraft accusations because people who get malaria have fever and then fever causes fever dreams and dreams are considered evidence here for witch hauntings, basically. So that's an issue. But anyway, I'm getting off the path for a minute. So let me get myself back. One of the really cool things Oh, wow. dog bondly and patches one of the flaws, one of the fatal. And I mean that literally flaws of the Ghana health services record system,

which really, uh, inhibits impedes access for most people to, uh, their own records, their own medical records, which of course is not what you want to do when you're trying to get people to maintain their health,

to keep track and to come in, uh, for regular checkups. So, I mean, that to me is, it just embodies what we're trying to do here. And it was a project that was designed in concert with the locals and our partner organization, and even the medical officials and the authorities from the Ghana Health Service. So, I mean, it was a really collaborative effort. And like I said, you know, we're going to leave it in the hands of the medical professionals when we leave. And that's going to be something that they can carry on and they can use for forever,

you know, if they maintain it. Right on, right on. Now, okay, so you actually brought me around to a question I had earlier, and that's about the Ghanaian government. Are they supporting this effort in any way? Well, so the Ghanaian government would – they wish so much that they could just make these witch camps disappear. I mean it's an embarrassment that these are here. But at the same time, these witch camps actually do provide sanctuary for women, many of whom would otherwise be lynched by mobs of angry accusers. So the solution is not to just shut down these camps immediately without actually remedying all the circumstances that are leading to accusations and making it safe for these women, obviously. accusations and making it safe for these women, obviously. So the government does have some investment in getting the rates of accusation to go down and in reintegrating the women from the camps as quickly as possible. And they've partnered with some major grant-giving organizations like USAID to make that happen. We don't directly receive any support from the government.

They're not impeding anything. Our partner organization, Songthaba, does get some funding from the government for programs like its education program, that remedial education program I mentioned, but not for reintegration itself, not for this witchcraft accusations issue. Now, it remains to be seen. We're not engaged in this work yet because it's very sensitive and we're only in our first year, although we probably want to get there at some point. It remains to be seen what the government will do when we actually start putting legal pressure, when we actually start diverting these women who have had their human rights taken away from them to the legal resources that are available to them. And we educate them about all

of, you know, all of the treaties that Ghana has signed, all of the UN declarations, and all of these NGOs that are available that exist simply to help them access the court system. So I don't know if when we do that and we're putting pressure in ways the government doesn't like that that might change things. But for now, we're definitely on the same side and we'd like to keep it that way without sacrificing our integrity on this issue. So then, of course, obviously the next question, if it's not being funded by the local government, how exactly is your project being funded? Yeah, so right now, it's basically funded by individual donors who are following what we're doing and support what we're doing,

and by Foundation Beyond Belief. And we're constantly raising money for our specific projects. And yeah, so that's basically what it is at the moment. Right on. Well, now I've got to say, and I don't mean to brag here, but we've discovered again and again that we have an incredibly charitable audience. So if they wanted to get involved and wanted to help you out, what can they do? Where can they go? Well, there are, that's fantastic to hear. There are two really big opportunities right now for donors, large and small, and we need them all, honestly. And the first one is related to that medical project I was just describing. Because Foundation Beyond Belief and HSC has put a trained nurse with years of experience in place to organize this project, we've been able to do it aside from that initial investment in the volunteer for very, very little cost. We're actually providing

all of those health screenings and the implementation of that new record system for only $5,000. And that's for about how many people? Yeah, that's for 1,200 screenings. Oh, wow. And for an entirely new system, record system. So, I mean, we think that's a pretty high standard for, for financial efficiency there. Um, and right now we've, uh, we've raised, uh, nearly $1,400 of our $5,000 goal. So if anyone can chip in there, that would be greatly appreciated. And every donation, I mean, it's literally, we're talking about every donation being malaria tests and we's literally, we're talking about every donation

being malaria tests and we are going through those malaria tests or, you know, lancets for, for diabetes and high, high blood pressure testing. You know, that's what we're looking at. So, I mean, every, every donation is impactful. Now the other one, the other donation opportunity is a pretty cool one and it's very limited time-wise. We've finally succeeded in getting our partner organization, Songtaba, online to receive donations. And they're on Global Giving, which is a major philanthropic platform. And they're on Global Giving with a campaign that's part of Global Giving's March Open Challenge. Now, in the Open Challenge, what happens is campaigns or organizations running campaigns are given only two weeks

to raise $5,000 for that campaign from 40 unique donors. Now, that's a big challenge. But if they do it, then they become a permanent cause on global giving. Now, our partner organization, Songtaba, although they do fantastic work, they're not well recognized by the international community, and $5,000 for this campaign. The campaign we're running is specifically about ending witchcraft accusations and reintegrating women who have been accused of witchcraft. That would be a major coup for Song Tha Ba, who would then have the opportunity to raise awareness with a large international audience and to raise funds from them as well. For us, that would be evidence of what the Humanist Service Corps can do for partner organizations. But then most important, of

course, for these women and for this situation in the northern region of Ghana to be able to raise awareness long term and bring in funds long term to fight against, I mean, what we're fighting against really is entrenched, entrenched. And we, I think it would be a major step forward for us, for Songthaba, for the women in this region, if we were able to get that sort of recognition on global giving. So that's another opportunity to donate that, um, that I am very excited about. And I think we can do it. I think we can do it. Well, I'll tell you what, again, I don't mean to brag, but our audience raised $7,000 in

an hour. The last time we, we, uh, rocked it out for a charity. I have a sneaking suspicion that they can really help out. And obviously, we'll have links on how to donate on the show notes for this episode. We'll also be sharing them on our social media, and we'll be keeping you up to date. Now, you said they had two weeks. This is going to air on Thursday at 8 a.m. So how much time will we have left by then? So this ends on the 25th, have left by then so this ends on the 25th march 25th so i don't have the dates in my head straight but that'll still leave a few days yeah well that's that's easy that's easy so we're gonna get that taken care of for you man i really appreciate the work that you're doing and i

want to give you a big thanks for taking a break for uh for a few minutes to chat with me today oh i sincerely appreciate your help thanks noah yeah you bet before we clear out the stragglers tonight i wanted to sweeten the donating to songtaba pot a little bit so i wanted to assure you that if you donate to their fundraiser in the next nine days and send me a screen grab or some other proof of your donation i would be happy to compliment your very deserving genitals and or intellect in next week's show or the one after that, depending on when you donate. And if you donate more than $20, Eli will insult a person of your choice also on the show. I'm confident that we can help push him over the edge. And remember, you might only be making a one-time donation, but if we can get them past their goal, that donation is going to reverberate for a really long time.

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 brand new episode of our sister show, Godawful Movies, debuting Tuesday at 8 a.m. Eastern, or get your fix of mid-not-Thursday scatheism by following us on Twitter or liking us on Facebook. Obviously, it's not a show until I thank the lovely and talented Heath Enright, whose loveliness and talent gets overlooked far too often in these outros. I also need to thank the bold and beautiful Lucinda Lusions

for giving up her lovely and talented tag for the week. Another big thanks to Connor for rigging a sat phone to a smartphone to a dumb phone to a tablet to a stationary bicycle or whatever he had to do to get the word out tonight. And I also want to thank Isabella for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. It probably would have been plenty cute if she hadn't said involved, but she did, so it's even cuter. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's best filthy monkey descendants,

Jonathan, Tim, Adam, Eric, Jacques, Al, Aslak, Alex, Ricky, Glenn, Sean, and Darren. Jonathan, Tim, Adam, and Eric, whose condoms can be used to trap submarines in wartime, Jacques, Al, Aslak, and Alex, who are so bright the sun can't stare directly into them, and Ricky, Glenn, Sean, and Darren, who are so rational the ratio of the circumference of their balls to their diameter is an even 3.14. Together these 12 selfless helpful, helpful heathens made our resentful potential less stressful this week by giving

us money. Not everybody has the money to give us money and if you do this week you should probably give it to accused witches that have to walk miles to get drinking water instead of giving it to us. Again, links to that's going to be on the show notes and all our various social media platforms as well as in the description box for this episode. So if you're on your phone, you might just be a tap away from a donation as we speak.

If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. All the music used in this episode was written and performed by yours truly. And yes, I did have my permission. They need to fix Explorer. That doesn't rhyme with Dora. No, not unless you're a fucking Kennedy. Explorer! Or maybe Donald Trump.

Dora was an explorer. Teddy goes, yeah, Dora the Explorer. Providence, all right.