The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 166: Sobering Back Up Edition

Episode Date: April 21, 2016

In this week's episode “No Jews or Catholics Need Apply” makes a comeback; god will consume the sodomites with fireballs from their mouths, and bolts of lightning from their arses; and we’ll learn that New Jersey’s reputation for substandard-ness pervades even their folklore.

Warning, this podcast contains explicit language, so if that kind of stuff offends you, turn this off quick before fuck. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by the new snack food delivery service for gay conversion therapists to keep in their office, NurtureBox Hetero Treats. Trust us, we know how hard it is. You've tried showering off the gay from your clients. You've tried bleaching the gay out of their rectum. You even helped them get their blood pH out of the homo range.

But that's all useless if they're eating gay food. NurtureBox. You are what you eat. Not gay stuff. And now, the Scathing Atheist. I'm Robert. And I'm Amy. From Secular Yacking.

And we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men. And women. It's Thursday. It's April 21st. And this morning I shat out approximately three ounces of pot. No illusions. I'm Heath Enright, and from Bunker Hillbilly, Valdosta, Georgia, this is The Skating Atheist.

On this week's episode, no Jews or Catholics need a ply makes a comeback. God will consume the sodomites with fireballs from their mouths and bolts of lightning from their arses. And we'll learn that New Jersey's reputation for substandardness pervades even their folklore. But first, the diatribe. I bet religious debates seem especially stupid if you're a vampire or a highlander. I mean, maybe not vampires, because if the holy water and cross thing works,

I guess that's pretty good evidence for the other guys, and I don't know. But it just seems to me that it would be impossible to take these assholes seriously if you live for a couple of centuries. I've only been around for four decades and I can't take them seriously. But when you look at these arguments over the long term, it starts looking like a reporter arguing with Donald Trump. I never claimed that. We have the transcript right here. I don't see no transcript. You know, I was overwhelmed by this thought the other day when I was listening to a biology lecture on Audible.

So the dude's talking about the clay life hypothesis, which is this awesome concept on how RNA might have arisen on the early Earth. It's one of those things, if I try to explain it in any detail, I'm just going to make all the biologists in the audience cringe. But the basic concept is that certain types of layered clays attract different nucleotides to various layers, which could have acted as a template for the earliest forms of proto-RNA. And I almost certainly fucked up that sentence, but as near as I can tell, the gist of it is that if this hypothesis proves correct, it means the first self-replicating thing on the planet

might have been clay, and that played a key role in abiogenesis. Now again, I know nothing about this. I have no idea how seriously modern biologists are taking this idea, but my first thought upon hearing it was, if this ever becomes the accepted theory, we're all going to be deafened by religious apologists screaming, Genesis 2-7 to Job 10-9,

motherfuckers, God told you it was clay all along. And then a bunch of atheists will line up to say, well, no, it says there that humans are made of clay, not that clay helped polymerize RNA so that it could evolve into humans billions of years later. And then there's going to be a big debate about it, and there'll be a whole display at Ken Ham's museums about how God used a clay to line up nucleotides, since that was way easier than just doing it himself. And the Muslim apologists will finally be able to upgrade their waves beneath the waves bullshit. And a whole new category of asininity is going to arise that we reluctant atheist debaters are going to have to familiarize ourselves with. Now think about this. Today, their favorite argument is a vague appeal

to abiogenesis. You know they love to trot out the various unanswered questions between non-organic and bacteria like that's our Achilles heel and this could be one of the key insights that definitively solves that puzzle. So if we were in a sincere debate finding a new piece of information like that would be a powerful argument in our favor but we know that if and when we come to that answer the goalposts are just going to move to some other field and some other sport or something, and the potent argument we lack today is going to be the potent argument that they're using tomorrow. But of course, if you're a vampire or a highlander, you already know this shit, unless you're a relatively new one, because any effort to pull back the historical lens

beyond a lifetime or two reveals just what disingenuous bullshit we're up against. Over and over again, you see the religious side of the debate hang their entire argument on thing X, and then scientists definitively prove them wrong, and then they fight the proven science as long as they can, and then they act like X never really mattered, and it was always about Y. And even though you may not be able to see the whole thing play out in any one lifetime, you can see it in all its various stages in a snapshot. You know, on one end of the scale, you got the present-day go-to bullshit from the well-informed Christian apologist. Most of these today are the how-do-you-explain type arguments because they've basically learned their lesson about making actual assertions. So they try to hide their God in the gap between organic matter and reproduction,

or they try to squeeze him into that microsecond before the Big Bang or something like that. And of course, at the opposite of the scale, you've got these long discarded arguments like, well, who made this lightning then? Or, you know, who just rustled those leaves over there on a tree? But you can also find everything in between. Evolution is the obvious example. You've got half of them trying to disprove it and the other half arguing that it doesn't matter. Now, the existence of the people trying to disprove it undercuts the idea that it doesn't matter

almost as much as a thorough understanding of evolution. But more and more, the forward edge of religious debate is abandoning anti-evolution arguments. And of course, if you'd been alive and following these debates in the 1800s, it would seem insane to argue that religion gets to still be true if evolution is true. It directly contradicts the most important concepts of not only Christianity, but virtually all religions. So these people saying, well, maybe God just guided evolution would look exactly like Trump going, I never said Mexico was sending us their rapists. And if you back up a little further, it gets even more ridiculous. If you'd been around for 300 years, you'd still remember when the cutting edge arguments for religion were like, well, how else do those demons get into your bio?

If you were 500 years old, you still remember Descartes arguing the ability to think about God made him exist. And if you were a 500 years old, you'd still remember Descartes arguing the ability to think about God made him exist. And if you were 1,000 years old, you'd still remember when Aquinas proved God with the same strategies as a four-year-old repeatedly asking why. You know, that's one of the main reasons I push back so hard against this focus on agnosticism. It's as though religion hadn't been making all these predictions that have been universally disproven for centuries and centuries. Look,

religion makes a claim, science proves them wrong, religion ignores that claim and makes another. There is no end to that cycle unless the rest of us simply say, enough! You've made a million predictions and all of them were wrong, which means you are wrong, which means the fundamental way you're making your predictions is wrong, which means your predictions don't get to be taken seriously anymore. And of course, the shorthand version of that sentiment is, fuck off, I'm an atheist. They're talking about you, Jesus. Interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight is 108 pounds of raw muscle,

30 pounds of raw bones, 21 pounds of raw skin, 7.5 pounds of raw intestines, and 30 pounds of raw assorted organs, lipids, and fluids. Heath Enright. Heath, are you ready to be greater than the sum of your parts? Yeah, sure. But I am starting to worry about your obsession with my hole. I can't get enough of the homophone humor. Yeah, it works best on an audio medium well when you say it like that it does yeah in our lead story tonight brits received a

new non-racist reason to be scared shitless of their swelling muslim population last week after a survey of british muslims revealed that about two-thirds of them would not inform authorities if someone they knew had terrorist ties in addition addition, about 4% of British Muslims say they sympathize with suicide bombers and Islamic terrorists in general. Let that one sink in. About 4% of British Muslims, about 100,000 citizens, were willing to admit to a pollster sitting across from them that they sympathize with anti-government terrorists. Okay, I mean, in fairness, all these people are probably being spied on regardless of their answers.

So I'm completely surprised that a few people were just like, you know what? Fuck you guys. I wouldn't report. What are you going to do? Spy on me more? Sponsor some terrorists to take over Palestine again? From the terrorists? Okay.

Just to be clear, though, I do disagree with the terrorist sympathizers. But, you know, I'm not surprised they exist. Well, right, and I'd love to see a follow-up question on how much they trust the British police to treat a Muslim terror suspect fairly, right? That would be relevant. Well, and to be perfectly honest, I'd also love to see some kind of control number here. For example, what percent of American evangelicals would tell the cops if they knew somebody was about to bomb an abortion clinic, right? of evangelicals would tell the cops if they knew somebody was about to bomb an abortion clinic right what percent of white brits would tell the cops if they knew somebody was about to commit an anti-muslim hate crime you know i have no way of knowing whether two-thirds is high or low but like

you say one way or the other it's fucking terrifying uh yeah i'm gonna go ahead and call that high and uh i'm basing that on my common sense control number that says approximately 0% of people should advocate helping out terrorists, given what terrorist and zero mean. Well, when you put it definitionally like that, yeah. But in my opinion, the more telling part of this survey was the part where they delved into the social issues in order to get a snapshot of how well Muslims were integrating into the larger population. And the answer is a resounding meh. into the larger population and the answer is a resounding meh on the one hand they did report a slightly higher sense of a strong belonging to the country than the general population 86 versus 83 and 88 said that they thought britain was a good place for muslims to live on the other hand two-fifths of muslims reported that women should always obey their husbands

compared to five percent of the general population and 26 said that the jews were responsible for all the wars compared with six percent of the general population most and keep in mind though with these control numbers the muslims are about five percent of the population so they're counted in those ones too that means apparently they're okay with stuff like the union jack and the bland watery ketchup not so much with the western values that go with them. We're getting there. And in Posticon news tonight, according to last week's ruling by U.S. District Judge John M. Girard, the Nebraska State Penitentiary can continue denying privileges to Pastafarian prisoner Stephen Kavanaugh,

who brought the lawsuit, as well as any other inmates whose religion isn't one of the real ones. And it's not clear what the fuck that would even mean, real ones, but one way or another, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not count. Well, obviously, because, I mean, we know where that one comes from and we can prove that it was disingenuous. Mormonism?

I mean, because it was made up by a prankster. Scientology? Because they don't believe in God. Buddhism. Because it started as a practical joke. Seventh-day Adventism. Because they worship food? Catholicism?

Okay, yeah, that's a total load of shit. Fuck that joke. So, the decision is obviously unconstitutional, and it also directly contradicts a ruling from last summer obtained by the american humanist association about this exact issue way back in yeah way back in last summer right but uh if there's a silver lining here i guess it's the fact that we got to watch a judge beautifully illustrate the point being made by pastafarianism by showing us just how thoroughly he does not get it and as far as i can tell his

reasoning went something like this he's saying that believers in the flying spaghetti monster don't get equal rights because they wouldn't want those equal rights really so the judge thinks we're like proud black people who feel like the 14th amendment was a little too patronizing right that's what he thinks and how do you know that we didn't want to own us too you never even asked did you and uh just so nobody thinks i'm putting words into this judge's mouth here's a piece of the official ruling from gerard and uh keep in mind he's too embarrassed to say flying spaghetti monster all the way out so he says fsm instead oh okay, it is not clear from Kavanaugh's complaint whether his professed adherence to FSM-ism is grounded in that humanistic argument or in a literal reading of the FSM gospel.

But to read the FSM gospel literally would be to misrepresent it and indeed to do it a disservice in the process that would present the fsm gospel as precisely the sort of fundamentalist dogma that it was meant to rebut and don't get it at all quote well i mean that's that's that would be like pointing to isaiah 14 21 and deuteronomy 24 16 and saying yeah i mean it says that the children both should and shouldn't suffer for the sins of the father. So it's literally impossible to take this seriously. No crackers for you.

And again, and again, if the law also said that, we'd have no issues here. Nor would Kavanaugh. Okay, so my question is, are we listening to the point that Pastafarianism is making or not? I mean, it sounds like this judge thinks we should maybe well but that would mean everyone should get the same treatment regardless of religion or non-religion exactly except his ruling said the exact opposite uh also bigger picture we have a high-ranking federal judge who thinks there's a difference between pirate grog and sacramental wine in terms of like actual magical ability.

Several, I think. He thinks like an eye patch is stupid, but you know, if you remove the elastic band and wear the exact same piece of fabric on your head and say Jewish stuff, that's a real mystical item at that point. Yeah. And we pay this person to judge things. Cannot be overemphasized. And in papal bull news tonight, we have a follow-up on last week's thrashing of pontifical gas factory Pope Fraxinella's declaration of occasional reluctant limited tolerance towards gays, the amorous laetitia.

Apparently, we were so focused on his bigoted conditional quasi-acceptance of L's, G's, and B's that we completely missed all the potent assholery that he reserved for the T's. Oh, good. So, yeah, by way of apology, I should point out that in addition to saying that same-sex couples aren't legitimate families and they shouldn't get to adopt children or be married, he also reserved a couple of sentences to tell transgender teens to quit all their bitchin'.

Which is honestly weird, because gender transition seems like a really simple way to solve this whole same-sex couple problem. Don't say that too loud. They took you seriously in a round. So according to Pope Unfortunate Circumfrances, the real problem transgender teens face is that they're too self-centered and self-absorbed to be happy with the way God made them. And he does not mean transgender when he says that. He means the opposite of that, straight from the horse's ass. Quote, an appreciation of our body as male or female is also necessary for our own self-awareness.

In this way, we can joyfully accept the specific gift of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. End quote. the work of God the creator and find mutual enrichment, end quote. If the Pope is concerned with dudes joyfully accepting their maleness, maybe he should consider not dressing like little white riding hood every day. Or keep doing whatever he wants and stop being an asshole. Either way.

Yeah, there you go. But actually, scratch that, just the second way. Yeah, right, right, exactly. Because if I could get away with dressing like that, I would totally rock the cape anyway. The cape at least. Yeah. And just to make sure that we don't have to revisit the same bigotry manifesto again next week, I should point out that Pope Frangible Ammo also doubled down on the church's anti-condom stance by lamenting the use of the term safe sex because it makes it sound like, quote,

an eventual child is an enemy to be protected against, end quote. Plus, maybe there's good AIDS, too, and we just don't know because we keep using all the condoms. So same-sex unions are illegitimate. Transgender teens just need to get over themselves, and birth control is evil. Once again, all together, guys, he's no better than Palpatine. He's just more photogenic. And who wouldn't be? Come on.

And in debating furiously news tonight, Ted Cruz may have a big masturbation problem on his hands. Or a little one. And it's actually worse than it sounds. conspiracy there's been a recent wave of reports about that time back in 2007 when ted cruz wrote a 76 page legal argument against the right to have orgasms unless of course you have a spotter to help you out right yeah exactly also you or the spotter has to get pregnant or at least try really hard honestly to do that yeah it's a lot of legalese like that, but you get the general idea. Right, right. And while this doesn't tell us much about sound jurisprudence,

it does go a long way towards confirming my Ted Cruz is so ugly he won't even fuck himself hypothesis. I mean, could you keep hard when you knew that was just a mirror OS? I have, but that's not the point. So amidst his busy schedule of rescuing stem cells from super villains and competing really hard versus that other spy cruz held the post of texas he looks just like spy yes he does yeah yeah so back in the day cruz held the post of texas solicitor general from 2003 until 2008 and that meant ted cruz had the very important job of defending a legal ban on sex toys in all of Texas by submitting a brief to the U.S. conviction against some lady that got arrested by undercover texas police for selling dildos at a tupperware party that all happened i love that some cop drew

that straw it should come as no surprise though that when it came time for somebody in the office to write the nobody should have sexual gratification brief they went straight to old teddy and a whole room full of lawyers they go hey cruz your wife needs intravenous absinthe to copulate with you this should be right up your alley got one for you and uh here's a few of the words that a u.s senator and presidential candidate actually wrote down on purpose. First, he argued that Texas had police power interests in, quote, discouraging prurient interests in sexual gratification, end quote. So, first of all, you're a douchebag for using the word prurient. Also, that's redundant, you pseudo-intellectual platypus. Yeah, that's the problem.

Prurient means having interest in sexual gratification. Anyway, moving on. Cruz also added, quote, there is no substantive due process right to stimulate one's genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship. End quote. or outside of an interpersonal relationship. End quote. You know, I have a hard time believing Jefferson meant anything other than whacking off when he said pursuit of happiness. I guess it could have been a euphemism for slave rape.

You've got to consider the source. But at the very least, the signers thought that's what he was talking about. Perhaps my favorite part of the story came from Addicting Info, who reported on the following tweet from a guy named Craig Mazin, who was a classmate of Cruz's at Princeton. According to Mr. Mazin, quote, Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a right to stimulate their genitals. I was his college roommate. This would be a new belief of his. And the other sock drops. Oh, yeah.

So with that new addition to your nightmare fodder, we're going to take a quick break 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.

I bet Muslim Footloose they'd just execute Laurie Singer and chop Kevin Bacon's feet off. Something tells me that Muslim audiences would eat that shit up with a spoon. Because even though their methods are Bond villain at best and horror movie villain at worst, their motivations are, as often as not, Disney villain. I mean, for fuck's sakes, they hate music. Now, obviously, not all Muslims hate music, but enough of them do for there to be laws against it in some Muslim countries. And of course, if music is bad, lady music must be downright evil. And that brings us to a Reuters story that astute listener Elena sent me about an all-female orchestra in Afghanistan. It's largely the story of Negan Iqbalwak, a 19-year-old Eastern Afghani native who had to play piano in secret

lest the conservative Muslims nearby got wind of a person profaning their prudish patriarch by making sounds well. Anyway, I'll fast forward to the good part, where Negan starts a 35-piece all-woman ensemble in Kabul, and now when she goes home, her brothers threaten to beat her to death for playing music on television. And yes, that's all the uplift you're going to get out of this one. But if those Afghans think women playing music is scurrilous, just imagine how they'd have reacted to the scandal that's rocking Iran this week.

According to a report in The Guardian, a female member of parliament in Iran is at risk of losing her seat after publicly grabbing a man she hardly knew right in the hand. That's right. She shook a dude's hand. That wasn't related to her in a country other than Iran. And for that, she may be booted out of parliament. Now, in her defense, she denies these allegations because there's actually a law against that. So she has to go out and say, these reports that I found with that man's open palm are slanderous,

as though being outraged over this isn't the height of stupidity. And just to underscore exactly how silly this is, a fellow MP came to her defense, sort of, by pointing out that, quote, it's not wrong to shake an unrelated man's hand with gloves on, end quote. Or maybe a hand condom or maybe you cover it with a protective coating of vaginal slime. What the fuck is wrong with these people? And quick while the gals in the audience comfort themselves by saying something like, I'm glad I'm not there.

I should remind them that we're only not there because we're actively pushing back against it. The theocrats are nibbling at the edges of our political system right now, and they're a hell of a lot closer to the levers of power than anybody should be comfortable with. I mean, just look at John Kasich, you know, the moderate GOP candidate, the guy who the Republicans decided was way too progressive to represent them in the general. Yeah, well, it looks like he made the classic GOP blunder by bringing up rape the other day, complete with a bit of advice. It started at a town hall event in Watertown, New York, where a first-year law student in the audience posed a question about her personal safety.

Specifically, she asked what a President Kasich would do to help her feel safer and more secure regarding sexual violence, harassment, and rape. And he started off kind of okay by pointing out all the resources the school already had if she was the victim of harassment or assault. And I mean, basically, this part of the answer amounted to, don't worry your pretty little head off, nun miss, we already done took care of that. But that seems way less offensive when you compare it to how he finished. When the law student pressed the question a bit and pointed out that despite the existing safeguards, she still felt unsafe,

Kasich answered, quote, well, I'd also give you one bit of advice. Don't go to parties where there's a lot of alcohol, end quote. And as bad as that is, I guess when you consider it came from the guy who attributed a political victory to women coming out of the kitchens to support him, I guess I should be happy he didn't add, and try not to dress too slutty. And with that testament to my perpetual optimism, I'll hand things back over to Noah and Heath. Thank you, Lucinda. And in resume or may not news tonight, we've got another update on the pre-lawsuit portion of the Arc Park's hiring practices. With a new Arc Encounter theme park scheduled to open this summer it's time for the dunderhead from down under head to put his constitutionally dubious hiring practices to the test and i should note that when i say dubious i mean ass fucked i mean that they somehow found

the constitution's asshole probably in the due process clause and gave it an unwelcome sodomizing okay so i'm i'm confused they're they're only going to be hiring sodomizing. Okay, so I'm confused. They're only going to be hiring sodomites? I think this politically correct stuff is getting out of hand. Prove it. Prove it. No, don't get ahead of me here. Now, to be honest, I've been waiting for this like it was opening day. Ever since a judge ruled that answers in Genesis would be allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices

while still receiving $18 million in taxpayer-funded incentives, the First Amendment enthusiasts in the country have been waiting with bated breath to see just how much ammunition Amish Wolverine was going to give the appeals court, and it looks like it's about nine yards worth because apparently they're actually going to refuse to hire janitors who won't sign a statement of theological submission. From what the Associated Press says, the park won't be hiring anyone for any position that can't produce a note from a religious leader testifying as to their religiosity. Note? Can't provide an adequate statement of faith that they've written themselves. And won't sign a contract promising to think that the earth is 6,000 years old and was created by real Christian God.

Yeah, it also helps to have a bill of sale that proves you're a genuine freeman. No kidding. And by the way, as if the no Jews, Arabs, or Satanic atheists hiring policy wasn't already bad enough, the AIG statement of faith that you have to sign your name to also has a minimum bigotry requirement.

According to the statement... Yeah, well, okay. Up to this point, the thing is only mentioned, you know, agreeing with biblical creationism kind of shit that relates to the statement yeah well okay up to this point the thing is only mentioned you know agreeing with biblical creationism kind of shit that relates to the park in a sense you also apparently they'll have to agree quote the only legitimate marriage sanctioned by god is the joining of one naturally born man and one naturally born woman in a single exclusive union as delineated by scripture wait there's more worried about loophole yeah right oh no you wait till you hear the rest of this god intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a

man and a woman who are married to each other and has commanded that no intimate sexual immorality such as this is an amazing list adultery fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography, or any attempt to change one's gender or disagreement with one's biological gender is sinful and offensive to God. You have to agree with that before they will let you mop up the monkey shit when the art closes. before they will let you mop up the monkey shit when the art closes. And in hand-to-gland combat news tonight, we have another growing front in the war on tugs. This latest conflict arose in Utah when the state legislature passed a bill last month aimed at fighting back against the so-called pornography epidemic.

Which is apparently a pubic health crisis, according to the overwhelming minority of experts. And since that's how the law generally works in Utah, Governor Gary Herbert signed the resolution this week. So congratulations to Utah. They now hold the proud honor of being the first state to officially recognize the medical danger of dicks and boobies on video. Good job, guys. Well, to be fair, though, married people in Utah can get on-demand, barely legal,

and girl-on-girl way easier than the rest of us. So they don't need it as much, what with the binders. A lot of options. So one of the major players behind this latest push is anti-porn activist Gail Dines, who, apropos of nothing, looks like Babe Ruth in drag hosting a Wiccan seance. Anyway, thanks to her lobbying at an anti-porn summit on Capitol Hill that we apparently fucking had, Utah State Senator Todd Weiler decided to sponsor the bill in question. And he believes there's a scientific basis for this whole anti-porn movement. Is there now? Yeah.

According to research conducted by some creepy fucking Mormon dudes at a group called Fight the New Drug. And yes, they mean porn. Sounds objective. That fight the new drug and yes they mean porn that's the new drug according to their scientific findings quote porn hates families oh i had no idea very specific their data also strongly suggested that quote porn kills love end quote so a lot to think about guys not that nine inches isn't impressive but that that's not what p-value means at all. Oh, sorry.

That's combined. So regression analysis joke right there. Remind me of the impressiveness then. All right. So one last thing. Quick note on the actual science about this. According to numerous studies and also common fucking sense more available porn in a society means less sexual violence so you can literally porn the rape out of people right right at least

some of them yeah exactly we should definitely do that the the thing that reduces raping and causes orgasms which are literally made of happiness. Porn should be mandatory at this point. At this point, yeah, knowing what we know now. Anti-rape made of happiness. Can there be a better thing? Come on. We'll find out later in the headlines that there can be. And in Noah's archaeology news tonight,

convicted felon turned totally legitimate retailer of scorpion locust-proof apocalypse kibble buckets, Jim Baker managed to look less stupid than the person next to him last week when he invited Dr. Dennis Lindsay on his show for a discussion of precisely which mythical creatures built Stonehenge. Oh. About time that was answered. Turns out it was giants.

My money was on manticores. I know Heath had everybody's favorite long-necked Japanese trickster demons, the Rokurokubi, in the pool. Fucking lost that one. According to Dr. Lindsay, it was giants. It was giants. Well, I mean, I'm not sure how he can prove that, but it would certainly reconcile lots of contradictions in the Bible. Wouldn't it now?

I understand what they're getting at. So during a break from the Soylent Orange sales pitch, Baker brings this asshat on. And I apologize to all the real doctors for attaching the pitch baker brings this ass hat on and i apologize to all the real doctors for attaching the honorific to the this academic paraquat but apparently he has one of those self-contradictoring doctorates in practical theology from oral roberts university anyway he did his alma mater proud when he announced the latest discovery of creation of science that discovery being of course the aforementioned giants that built stonehenge and if you're asking yourself what kind of giants i was lindsey had you in mind when he clarified that these were satanic giants okay so we've got

satanic giants playing with fucking giant legos in england back in the day. But why am I ordering the food buckets again? This proves the apocalypse. I feel like he needs to work on a more straight line sales pitch. Whatever. We're going around the bend there a little bit. So apparently this discovery comes from reading the parts of the Bible that talk about giants roaming the earth and thinking to yourself, I bet that's who bid them big rock benches in England.

And of course, according to Lindsay, Stonehenge is, quote, just one of hundreds and hundreds of gigantic places around the world that testify that some sort of supernatural power or giants were involved in its construction, end quote. Like the Great Pyramid, that huge fucking giant suppository. That corn silo, yeah. So he's hedging his bets, though. I love that he's hedging his bets as to whether or not these were magical Satan giants. You know, we don't know what kind of Satan giants they were. Don't overstate shit. That's just good science there.

And finally tonight, in hate balls of fire news, thanks to Pastor James David Manning of the Atla Worldwide Hate Church in Harlem, New York, we have our first ever story that involves gay sex and flamethrowers. This is our first? It is our first, believe it or not. And I gotta say he really upped his game since we got him on the payroll. We might as

well have. In his online sermon last week, Manning announced that God has a new curse for all the sodomites. And it's a good one. And also any sodomite sympathizers, too. Right. Apparently, Manning talked with God, and from now on, receiving butt sex will cause balls of fire to spring forth from one's colon when it's over. I see.

of fire to spring forth from one's colon when it's over. I see. Also, anyone who agrees with equal rights for gay people will have the same thing with their vagina and also apparently grow a vagina. So he's pro-trans at least, but still. I mean, I don't want to overstate things here, but this is great news. If we could harness the powers of these anal hadoukens, West Palm Beach alone could solve the looming energy crisis. Awesome. Just when you think butt sex can't get any better.

So, yeah, this was kind of like trying to cut down Hamlet into a paragraph. So I couldn't capture all the nuance of his argument. Here's a small sample of Manning's actual Chosen words Quote The next time you get poked in the butt A flame When that man pulls that penis out of you A flame will shoot out of you

I got the word in my mouth Fantastic Continuing You think AIDS was bad You ain't seen nothing yet I got the word in my mouth. Fantastic. Continuing. You think AIDS was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. For fuck's sake. I'm the Lord's servant. I'm the sodomite slayer.

Either they get out of town, all the gay people out of New York City, I guess is the word. Right, right. Or flame and fire going to come out of their butthole. And anybody that sympathizes with them, they going to have a flame shooting out of their butthole. And anybody that sympathizes with them, they gonna have a flame shooting out of their vagina. You gonna need asbestos panties. God will destroy you. End quote.

That's so great. And fucking fantastic. Where do you even start? I mean, I mean... Asbestos panties? No, you take it as that. He knows that people with vaginas also have assholes, right? You could just use that across the board.

That would be. But more importantly, he does not know that. How is God going to destroy you with fire that comes out of your own asshole after you just had butt sex or your vagina? I mean, if you're dressed at the time, sure, but you wouldn't have just been having butt sex. I dare say, and I know I'm arguing with a self-appointed doctor here, but I dare say this makes no sense. Okay, well, just to review, get you caught up. Please catch me up here. Pastor Manning thinks that God created AIDS to kill gay people, and then God realized the plan wasn't working. The plan that he, the omnipotent creator of the universe, came up with wasn't working.

And then he decided to switch over to ass torches and vagina torches, which should do the trick unless, of course, he gets foiled by asbestos panties and asbestos butt plugs, which we have. Or, you know, if all the sodomites get special glasses like cyclops in which case you could say uh the whole plan backfired i was waiting for the backfired yeah yeah no why would you put one of the fucking foils for the fucking plan right in your warning it's so stupid well and also if i'm reading this correctly i mean catchers just got superpowers so i mean yeah you you might take care of a few pitchers early on but i mean they're gonna learn to pull out in time or wear a welder's apron or something and meanwhile you've got asshole kamehamehas to watch out for when you're when you're out sodomite slaying god really didn't think this one through i don't mind saying yeah however uh all that being said if manning is indeed

correct about god's new curse the gay porn industry is going to have a lot of adjusting to do i think they will and uh the least of their worries at that point is going to be new titles well with all the uh insurance stuff it's mostly insurance stuff i would imagine but uh there's no need to worry this is why we do this segment exactly for moments like this getting ahead yeah we will need 30 seconds on the clock fire sodomy porn titles or well i guess just sodomy porn titles which naturally involve fire by definition at this point all right how about a soda mighty win what about uh smoke back mountain okay all right how about the flaming of the shrew sorry apparently they didn't use hamsters back in shakespeare's day it doesn't exactly match up but

same idea what about uh back that draft up or that ash the bugger games part number two catching fire a little bit of a stretch there uh blazing straddles? Maybe polyp friction? I mean, if the Santorum was flammable, that could do it. Burn after bleeding? How about fairy bits of fire? He promised to chase gay people around Manhattan on chariots anyway. He did. That's true.

Actually, I think he said. Funny because it's true uh what about american pyro oh porno for warm apple pyro there you go uh how about fire starter three sinternal combustion what about in the line of fire in the glory hole you never go ash to mouth in case you never Tom and Cecil needed to adjust under this new apparent flame. I'm sure they'll get an asbestos glory hole. All right. I got one more. How about cock, cock, and two smoking barrels? All right.

All right. Last one for me, too. How about the extinguished gentleman? Pop, drop, and roll. In the jizz puddle that's all you really have to do and I guess at this point we should take a quick break

so the folks at home can find somebody to butt fuck and see if all of this stuff works so we'll close the headlines here Heath thanks as always

dig dug and when we come I think you already used dig dug it's a sweet game I'm using it again and when we come back dig dug

we'll try to scrape a little more bullshit out of the soul of society's shoe. Every country contains its cornucopia of cryptids that credulous cockworts are convinced they coexist with. And while the Sasquatch gets the lion's share of the media coverage in America, there are

no end of non-existent regional cryptids for local assets to drunkenly stumble through the darkened woods in search of. So we're going to take a look at one of our personal favorites, the Jersey Devil, and yet another alphabetical installment of How Wulsh It Is. So tell us, Heath, what is the Jersey Devil? Well, according to legend, an old witch once lived in the Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey. Already the mother of twelve, she became pregnant again, this time by the devil himself. The pregnancy was normal, and the delivery was quick, and for a moment, she and the midwife thought she'd birthed a healthy baby boy. midwife thought she'd birthed a healthy baby boy. But minutes later, the baby transformed into a hideous beast with the head of a goat, the wings of a bat, and a forked tail. The creature attacked and killed the midwife, let out a blood-curdling scream, and escaped through the chimney.

And some say this demonic chimera still roams the Pine Barrens to this day. But it doesn't. I know, but some still say it does. No, no, no, no. Yeah! I get it, but I mean, I would imagine there are a lot of listeners thinking, okay, but none of that shit happened.

Seems like an odd choice for a how bullshit is it segment. So why did you elect to go with the Jersey devil? All right. Three reasons. Back to the normal voice. First of all, it's a great stand in for the regional folklore at the heart of so much of the lesser known bullshit. Secondly, no good pseudosciences start with J.

And trying to go alphabetical is really hard. But third, and perhaps most importantly, the story includes Quakers arguing, which is hilarious already, accusations of witchcraft, Benjamin Franklin, and a look inside the cutthroat competition of the early American almanac industry. All right. Well, fuck it. I'm in. Excellent. So it starts way back in the early 17th century when a bunch of dejected English Quakers decided to settle in the region that would later become New Jersey. Well, there's your problem right there.

Mostly downhill from here, yeah. So our main character is a Christian occultist and father of 12 named Daniel Leeds, who was eventually declared a heretic by the local Quakers. Also, he was an aspiring almanac tycoon. And those last two things are actually related. Guy sounds fun. Okay. Yeah, if he existed in modern times, he would have a scathing atheist nickname. So Leeds arrived in New Jersey along with the colony's first royal governor,

Edward Hyde, Lord of Cornbury, as one of the governor's counselors. And when he first got there, he was a devout Quaker. But that wouldn't last long, because one day, he decided he wanted to get into the almanacking business. And Quakers don't like almanacs? Not like as a general rule or anything, but they definitely did not like this one, specifically the horoscopes. And not because they were useless mystical bullshit, of course, but because they were the wrong useless mystical bullshit. Right. Yeah, obviously.

Okay. So, I mean, they're Quakers. They didn't burn them at the stake or anything, I guess. Well, at first he tried to calm everybody down by apologizing at the local quakers meeting but when it became clear that they wouldn't be satisfied until he rounded up every copy of his almanac and had them all destroyed at that point he switched over to uh more of a fuck the quakers strategy i i see stuck with me i mean what are they going to do they're quakers an angry mob of Quakers is just crowded. Yeah, and menacingly quiet. Okay, so as part of this ongoing feud, Leeds started to publish a series of fuck-the-Quakers pamphlets that he distributed throughout the region.

There's a genre of literature that just doesn't get enough play these days. It does not indeed. Not indeed. So what followed was the 17th century version of a, like a flame war or rap battle with Leeds and the Quakers releasing an escalating series of pamphlet smears and accusations against each other. Leeds accused the Quakers of being insufficiently Christian. The Quakers would accuse Leeds of blasphemy. Leeds would accuse the Quakers of being politically subversive.

He also accused them of being, you know, a bunch of fags, LOL, that kind of stuff. And by the end of it, the Quakers, as an organization, were publicly accusing Leeds of working under the direct supervision of Satan. Ah, the pre-Holocaust Godwin's Law. Rats shitting it up, yeah. So from here, we skip ahead a generation. Daniel Leeds has died and left the almanac business to his son, Titan. Yes, Titan. That's his name.

And apparently Titan was every bit the wacky jackass that his father was. He continued loading the almanac with no end of mysticism and astrology and otherwise dubious bullshit. Kind of like the Eric Hovind of his day. Okay. That's probably what caught the interest of the clear scathing atheist of his day, Benjamin Franklin. Well, that and the fact that Franklin just got into the almanac business too and Leeds was a direct competitor. Oh, awesome. Tell me Franklin started fucking with him.

To historical degrees. It's fantastic. Awesome. So it starts out with a little bit of sniping at the love for astrology um in an early edition of the poor richard's almanac franklin actually printed a spoof where he used astrology to predict that leads would die later that year based on wow fucking let's say a dark way to open up a flame war. I like this shit. Well, not many people had a sense of humor to match Ben Franklin back in the day. But judging by Leeds retaliations, it's easy to conclude that he had no sense of humor at all.

Did not get it. Oh, really? He basically printed all the entries under the fuck that guy heading in the thesaurus. A response that we would call in modern parlance, taking the troll bait. Book, line, and sinker. I wish we had Ben Franklin's tweets. That would be awesome. All right.

Well, this is the next best thing, I guess. Okay. All right. So the ball is in Benji's court. Right. So Franklin responded by basically accusing Titan of being an evil universe version of himself sent from the spirit world to ruin his own reputation. That's awesome.

sent from the spirit world to ruin his own reputation and again judging by the reaction titan went to his grave in 1738 never realizing franklin was fucking i am not oh that's awesome no i but okay so now wait the the the guy that we started with is dead to the second generation and there's still no bipedal horse demon in this story. Ben Franklin wasn't the type to let the death of his opponent ruin a really good feud. Oh, I see. So for years afterwards, he continued to publish stories about the ghost of Titan Leeds haunting him and trying to undermine his success. I fucking love that guy. Fantastic.

Nobody's portrait I'd rather snort cocaine through, I guess. Anyway, by the time this all fades into the background, you have a family in southern Jersey that was hated by the local churches and distrusted by the burgeoning independence movement. Two of whose patriarchs had been publicly accused of working directly for Satan and being a resurrected evil ghost, respectively. Oh, and they have a really creepy wyvern on their family crest too. So it's easy to see how the gossip mill was primed by all that, including fucking dragon thing and family crest. All right. Okay.

So that, so that's where the folklore starts as near as anyone can tell. Yes. There's actually no mention in writing of the Jersey devil or anything like the modern myth until the early 20th century. So there's no way to tell what the story looked like in the first iteration. All we can say with any certainty is what actually happened and what people were saying about it after a 171-year game of Chinese whisper telephone. Okay, so then what reignited the legend? Well, if you believe any stupid thing people say, the sightings started around 1820, after a hundred-year Quaker exorcism expired, apparently, with reported witnesses like Commodore Stephen Decatur and also Napoleon's brother Joe.

But since none of the pre-20th century sightings include any kind of historical documentation, and since Quakers don't actually do exorcisms, you can pretty much ignore everything up until 1909 when something actually kind of big happened. More than 100 people reported seeing the creature within a one-week period. Okay. 1909. That's not insignificant. No, it isn't not. The sighting started with reports of strange footprints in the snow that was followed up by vague sightings. And before the hysteria reached its zenith, the Jersey Devil had attacked a trolley car in Haddon Heights and also terrorized a social club in Camden.

Who hasn't? The latter incident, there are even reports that local police fired on the creature but to no effect wow okay so what you're saying is that people in new jersey have just always been like this basically yeah it's even rumored that during the devil scare the philadelphia zoo offered up a ten thousand dollar reward for a sample of the jersey devil's dung so somebody had to sort through piles of shit to see which one looked like the mythical devil shit love to see that one ad and by the way i also saw a story about a guy who tried to sell the the same zoo a kangaroo with fake wings glued onto it oh i want to see a picture yeah there's

no picture sorry australian listeners help us out here this can be recreated uh believe it or not that's not the only wings glued to a kangaroo hoax that i found related you're shitting me apparently philadelphia's arch street museum exhibited exactly such a kangaroo and called it the Jersey Devil immediately after the sighting started to die down in 1909. The museum's publicist confessed to the hoax a couple of decades later. That is so stupidly awesome. Okay, so now are there any explanations for the sightings themselves, like the original sightings? Well, obviously some amount of it is just mob paranoia. Right.

If you start seeing stories on Monday about people seeing strange demons in your area, and then you see a relatively normal thing on Tuesday, you're a whole lot more likely to think, I wonder if that's a demon. But that being said, something had to kick the whole ordeal off, and my favorite explanation for that is the sandhill crane a bird uh yeah oh i see no does this particular bird have a goat's head no but it is bipedal it has wings it has a pretty bizarre call that could be mistaken for a blood curdling scream like yeah and they're an infinitely more likely suspect

than an actual horse demon bat, I would say. Well, and also, it's fun to imagine a bunch of New Jerseyites getting all worked up over a fucking bird. So I guess we're going to wrap it up with a predictable finale, as I ask you. How bullshit is it? There are almost certainly

no accursed, sat satanic bipedal Pegasus human hybrids in Newark. I can say that confidently. Seems like you're kind of soft peddling it. All right. It's Chris Christie talking about Bridges level of bullshit. There you go. Plus any piece of shit right there. Okay.

One last thing, by the way, before we go. I wanted to offer a shout-out to Brian Regal. He has an excellent article on this story at Psycop's website, and we leaned on it pretty heavily when researching the spit. If you want to know more, we'll have it linked on the show notes. Check it out. Alright, well, thanks again for lending us

your fecal expertise, and I guess the important takeaway here is that New Jersey's hockey team is named after a bunch of dumbasses pissing themselves over a bird. It's time for the part of the show that comes next, the listener feedback. This is the part of the show that always thanks you for holding the door for it. Our first message comes from Celine, who writes, quote, My housemate and I discovered that the number one selling Bible on Amazon has a four and a half star rating and only 301 reviews. Had an idea.

So did I. Perhaps the listeners of your show could band together and leave some scathing reviews, bringing this complete pile of bullshit down to the rating it deserves. One star. Well, not even, but zero stars does not appear to be an option. And she included a link, which we'll have in the show notes if you'd care to play along. Yeah. Fun game. I went to the link, and apparently they also have it available on audiobook on cassette. What? Like tape cassette?

Yeah, like an audio Bible on cassette on Amazon amazon it's like an anachronism squared and also allegedly according to amazon people who bought the king james bible also bought the quran and the jewish bible just got the whole the whole trilogy anyway we love celine's idea and thought we'd give you a few ideas to get you started. So we both decided to leave our own one-star reviews of the Bible. Mine read, imagine if the whole Harry Potter series was the story of a young wizard boy reading the results from Ancestry.com aloud and then Voldemort wins. And I wrote a gripping murder mystery, kind of like the Stephen Avery story. Spoiler alert,

the Jews did it. And finally, we also got a message from Samantha. Not her real name, but she's in one of those rare positions where the fewer people that know she's an atheist lesbian, the better. Must be what all those Christians in God's Not Dead 2 world feel like. Anyway, Samantha wrote us a really

long email where she basically said, when you guys make jokes about lesbians, I laugh along. And when you guys make jokes about women, I laugh along. Because in her words, we, quote, generally lampoon the bigoted and anti-scientific views held by the religious folks, end quote. But then she takes us to task for not following that same principle when we make jokes involving people with Down syndrome. And to be perfectly honest, I've been wrestling over my response to her email for like almost a month now i do believe yeah um i'll start by saying samantha gave us a very well thought out message full of valid points absolutely um totally get where she's coming from the the only defense i'll offer um in terms of the targeting societal ignorance idea is that you don't hear too many stories about christians

making bible inspired laws that are bigoted against people with intellectual disabilities i mean i don't doubt that discrimination exists oh surely yeah we don't really have a centralized you know bad guy to fight against admittedly still not a good excuse for horribly tasteless jokes but but worth noting well right and here's the thing and and there's no way to defend your down syndrome jokes without sounding like at least an asshole. I did sound like an asshole just now. I did. But to some degree, I do want to defend them in this venue because I get a lot of emails from people who say, you know, I don't mind the jokes about X or Y, but the jokes about Z are in poor taste.

And a lot of times those Xs and Zs are the same things. And I mean all the jokes we do are in poor taste. I'm not going to argue about that, but that's not the point. That's not your thing. And I mean, all the jokes we do are in poor taste. I'm not going to argue about that, but that's not the point. It's like a thing. The point is that Z in this situation is almost always going to be something that the person emailing is very connected to, has a very close personal experience with. Like, you know, when we make a joke that like so-and-so looks like a person with the touch of the downs, if you work with people who have Down syndrome, that's going to seem especially out of bounds.

Just like I'm sure if we said so-and-so looks like so-and-so with AIDS, that sounds especially out of bounds if you i'm sure if we said so and so looks like so and so with aids that sounds especially out of bounds if you work with aids patients yeah and there's certainly plenty of unfair stigma associated with being an aids patient and also plenty of other groups that face similar issues but i don't think it's reasonable to create a no referencing list based on like you know fluctuations and stigma it just right so the argument that we're offering basically boils down to if we stop making fun of people with down syndrome we can't make fun of people with aids so i did but that's not exactly yeah right say differently say differently well okay so i'm not trying to hide behind satire here or anything i do want pretend samantha to

know that i took every word of her email to heart she included a lot of details about the plight that people with down syndrome face a lot of shit about the plight that people with Down syndrome face, a lot of shit that I'd never really thought about before, about the levels of sexual molestation they endure, about how hard it is to fight against the stigma of infantilization, and a lot of other very valid points. But unless I'm mistaken, our jokes never make light of that kind of stuff.

I mean, I could be wrong. And if I am, I apologize. But like on this week's GAM, Eli said something about how David A.R. White looked about as intimidating as, quote, an infant with Down syndrome with down syndrome end quote and yes that joke is in horrible taste but that's kind of what we do um and i don't know that a joke like that adds to or makes light of the types of social stigma uh that pretend samantha was talking about in the email yeah i mean that sort of remark certainly does make people with down syndrome the secondary butt of that joke, granted.

But when we describe the physical appearance of something, for example, we use all kinds of references to groupsoking the actor the sexual orientation and the animal all in somewhat bad ways for that moment and i'm not lampooning any ignorant people who hate lesbians or turtles or friends or rocks or whatever but i'm also not at least in my opinion i'm not expressing a negative opinion of lesbians as a whole or schwimmer or turtles i'm okay with schwimmer and turtles really'm okay with schwimmer and turtles really when you get down to it okay so no look one thing i'll certainly cop to is that we have gone back to that well too often right when i did a search through our notes for down syndrome i'm sure we have i got a tellingly robust result so i don't want to try to absolve myself

from any wrongdoing and i will try to be more sensitive to the particular challenges of people with down syndrome both on the show and in my day-to-day life but it would would be disingenuous to say at this point, okay, here's this one group of people that we're never going to include in our jokes. Right, right. All that being said, though, I do sincerely apologize if anyone was personally offended or further stigmatized. That would be terrible. Yeah.

And whether or not we agree on drawing a line or where it should go, if we did draw it, I will certainly take Samantha's overall message to heart going forward. And that's all the feedback you get. If you want more, keep sending us those emails, tweets, and Facebook messages. You'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. Before we retract our claws tonight, I wanted to let you know that you're awesome and we love you. Alright, enough of that sappy shit. 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, The Skeptocrat, at 8 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, and an even newer episode of our brother show, Godawful Movies, 1,440 minutes after that. And if you can't get enough me, you can catch more me on back-to-back episodes of The Ingenious Friends Show, I think is what it's called now, with Jake Farwharton, at least half of which are available now. Also hung out with Jonathan over at Secular Stories a little while back. That interview is now available for your auditory consumption.

We'll have links to all of the above on the show notes for this episode. Obviously, it'd be a sad excuse for an episode if I didn't take a second to thank Heath for his uncanny ability to lampoon Pastor Manning even harder than he lampoons himself. I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda for all kinds of stuff, much of it also related to hardness. I want to thank Robert and Amy from the Secular Yacking Podcast for their more gender-inclusive Farnsworth quote this week. Of course, if you'd like to hear more from them, you'll find their show linked on the show notes as well. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most eupeptic eukaryotes, Griselda, Susanna, Quincy, Marty, Richo, Edward, Matt, Jacob, Richard, Stuart, Steve, Lucas, Matthew, Greg, Albert, Alex, Jessica, Cody, Pascal's, Razor,

and Sheena. Griselda, Susanna, Quincy, Marty, and Richo, who are so bright their intelligence is measured in lumens, Edward, Matt, Jacob, Richard, and Stuart, who can only skinny dip comfortably if they're over the Marianas Trench, Steve, Lucas, Matthew, Greg, and Albert, whose ejaculations give the shining elevator maximum flow envy, and Alex, Jessica, Cody, Pascal's Razor, and Sheena, who are so sexy the moon tidily locked just to get a better view. Together, this score of scrappy skeptics scraped together some scarce script to secure our scheduled schemes of scornful skullduggery against the scourge of scriptural scams this week

by giving us money. Not everybody has the Washingtons, Lincolns, and Hamiltons it takes to give us money, but if your dead presidents are starting to stink up the place, we'd be happy to take them via our per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended edition of every episode. Or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but the 166th time I asked you for money wasn't quite the charm, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or your podcast rating vehicle of choice.

We'd also appreciate it if you liked us on Facebook and told a friend about the show, or your mom's pastor. 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. I almost blew Noah. But I didn't.

All right. Now that's all I'm using. All right. I'm all cleaned up.