The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 205: Golden Shower Edition

Episode Date: January 19, 2017

In this week’s episode, Robert makes us kind of wish one more Kennedy got shot, Ugandas new monetary policy controls inflation by sending cash to Heaven, and we’ll learn how to de-Christianize people through butt sex. If you want tickets to ReasonCon to see our live record of God Awful Movies, click here: http://reasonnc.com/store/ To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click there: http://www.amazon.com/Diatribes-Godless-Misanthrope-Scathing-Presents-ebook/dp/B00J53FZFI/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid=1396141562&sr=8-1 To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies Headlines: Donald trump appoints vaccine truther to head up medical safety thing http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/01/10/donald-trump-appoints-anti-vaxxer-robert-f-kennedy-jr-to-head-vaccine-safety-commission/ <> http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-donald-trump-vaccine-commission/index.html My kids shouldn't have to learn about gay people because it violates my faith http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/01/13/ca-school-board-member-kids-shouldnt-learn-about-lgbt-people-because-it-violates-my-faith/ Religious people aren’t gay http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/01/14/gallup-poll-1-9-of-highly-religious-americans-are-lgbt-but-the-number-jumps-to-7-among-nones/ Ugandan politician buried with 55k http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/01/13/ugandan-politician-allegedly-buried-with-55000-in-coffin-so-god-will-forgive-his-sins/ Terrible dad is selling holistic medicine again http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/convicted+using+natural+remedies+treat+dying+father+back/12687377/story.html Operation Rescue lobbies for Roy Moore to be appointed to the SCOTUS: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/operation-rescue-wants-trump-to-name-roy-moore-to-the-supreme-court/ Irish priests file complaint after comedian refers to communion wafer as “haunted bread” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/01/16/after-comedian-refers-to-communion-as-haunted-bread-priest-files-complaint-with-irish-government/ Mississippi bill would charge $1500 for not saying the pledge of allegiance http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/01/11/mississippi-bill-would-force-schools-to-pay-1500-for-not-saying-the-pledge-early-in-the-day/ Golden shower gate: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/israeli-spies-trump-golden-showers-dossier-only-one-of-many-troubling-reports-being-investigated/ This Week in Misogyny: Family leaders in Russia seek to decriminalize domestic abuse: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/13/europe/russia-domestic-violence/ Steve King introduces federal version of heartbeat bill: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rep-steve-king-introduces-federal-version-of-anti-choice-heartbeat-bill/ How BS is it resources: http://skepdic.com/nde.html http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neardeathexperience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience

Warning, the following podcast contains profanity, almost as often as non-profanity. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Blue Apron, a better way to cook. And by Pequod's Pizza of Chicago, 1700 minutes or it's... Nope, you still have to pay for it. And now, The Scathing Atheist. After the Guy Fawkes Day hack and doxing of many government agencies we assure you we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men It's Thursday. It's January 19th.

And you're in trouble now, Mr. Trump. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. New York, New York. Secret Lair, Pennsylvania. This is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode,

Robert makes us wish one more Kennedy had been shot. Uganda's new monetary policy controls inflation by sending cash to heaven. And we'll learn how to de-Christian people through butt sacks. First, the diatribe. You know what Jeff Sessions can go fuck himself with? Firewood. Like big-ass, dry-ass, splintery wedge of oak with the bark still on it.

And I don't mean before it's set on fire, by the way. So, for those of you who missed it, here's the question that Sessions fucked up at his confirmation hearing. I mean, this is not the only question he fucked up, but it's the one that most maybe want to shove a chunk of smoldering wood up his ass. So Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is following up on some bullshit Sessions had mouth farted about the dangers of secular judges during the Republican National Convention. He was bitching about Sonia Sotomayor, who he labeled non-religious despite the fact that she's a practicing Catholic. And he said, and I quote, if you have secularization in the world and don't believe in a higher being, maybe you don't believe there is any truth. Now, all by itself, that is flaming wood up the ass worthy. First of all, it's self-contradicting. One has to accept the concept of true in order to conclude that there is no higher being, right?

Sort of a prerequisite to concluding in general epistemologically speaking anyway but if i had to shove a log up his rectum every time session said something self-contradicting we'd have the amazon deforested by june so we'll set that aside and focus on the blithering bigotry that undergirds the sub thought which is of course the bit that senator whitehouse took issue with so the junior senator from rhode island started off by asking point blank if a secular attorney had anything to fear from a Justice Department headed by Jeff Sessions. And Sessions pussyfooted around about it, basically said he certainly was concerned about all that atheist baby eating and whatnot, but he eventually conceded that he didn't think there should be a religious test for holding office.

And since that's kind of like answering the did you sleep with her question by listing several women you didn't sleep with, White House asked a follow-up, quote, and a secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who's religious, correct? Now, before we dive into his answer, I want you to think about how teed the fuck up this question is. This is not even a softball. This is walking over from the pitcher's mound and just handing him the goddamn ball to hit at his leisure. This is like saying, but you would never kick a baby in the face, would you? It is so profoundly easy to get this answer right that one would expect even a vacuous bigot like Jeff Sessions to nail it with a quick mumbling concession. But no, apparently there is no question too easy for Jeff fucking Sessions.

So he says, well, I'm not sure. And then after a long fucking pause, he adds, quote, we're going to treat anybody with different views fairly and objectively. Now, I'm sure you probably noticed how the first part of his answer completely contradicts that second part, but I'm going to dwell on it anyway. I mean, for fuck's sake, consider what it means to understand truth, right? That is a five-syllable way of saying think. He wasn't even being asked if we could make moral decisions. He was just being asked if we could think, and he abstained. Then, after wondering out loud if atheists could puzzle out

shit like fact, he promised that he wouldn't treat us any different from those normal folks who believe in Jesus and veracity. Just to make the whole quote internally consistent, you'd have to add something like starting now, wouldn't you? I mean, consider what a savagely prejudicial worldview that answer betrays. Most of the people on earth disagree with Sessions' religious beliefs, and yet he thinks they are a prerequisite for proper evaluation. And what's more, he doesn't even think he's socially obligated to lie about it. You know, if Whitehouse had asked him if he thought that Jews were insufficiently sorry for killing Jesus, or if black people could make good quarterbacks, he'd have at least

pretended to being unbiased. But when it comes to atheists, he doesn't even feel duty bound to feign tolerance. And of course, look, this question kind of makes sense going the other way, right? I mean, if you say, do you believe that a person who looks at the mountains of incontrovertible evidence of evolution by natural selection and yet still concludes that humans were crafted by an invisible and corporeal floating dragon who spits heatless fire can determine what's true and false? The question at least has a basis. But even then, Sessions' answer is still incorrect. The correct answer in this instance, as we all know, is that people have a remarkable ability to compartmentalize and religious people

can just conveniently ignore logical contradictions when they think about God that they would never overlook if they were trying to figure out if Colonel Mustard did it in the library with the candlestick. In other words, even the side of the argument that has verifiably fucked up the evaluation of a truth claim would not have deserved Sessions' demurral. So, in a wildly unnecessary refutation of Sessions' indecisive bullshit, I offer the following statement. Jeff Sessions is a despicable, unapologetic racist who is less qualified to hold the position of Attorney General than I am to hold the position of Miss America, and I would challenge the soberest of philosophers to formulate a truer statement than that.

They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are two New Yorkers back on solid garbage, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, how's it feel to be back in a city that has buildings taller than two stories?

I just missed the multiple venues to purchase popcorn. This city's barbaric. It starts as corn. It changes to another thing. It's like a magic trick. And obviously, we've got a ton of really crazy shit to talk about in headlines. But before we do, a quick word from our sponsor this week, Blue Apron. Joining us to chat about this week's sponsor, Blue Apron, is returning guest Crunch Biggins.

Crunch, welcome back. Thanks, Noah. You have tremendous power inside you. Are you wearing dentures over your teeth? Yeah, they're teeth from my teeth. That's horrifying. Like you. Okay, so today we're talking about Blue Apron, the meal delivery service that delivers fresh, pre-portioned ingredients to your door, along with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions.

Sounds like a waste of time to me. Listen here, Noah. Can I call you Noah? Of course. Sure. Two words. Nutrient paste. Oh, boy. two words nutrient paste oh boy when i'm awoken in the morning i bite open a tube of nutrients and i don't stop biting until my body has all the nutrients it needs do you mean chewing yeah show me biting nar nar nar i they never sleep again yep all the nutrients none of the fuss okay well we'll see crunch blueon isn't just about the nutrients. It's also fun, simple, and most importantly, delicious.

You know what's delicious? Please. No. Smell of my own motivation. Watch me clap push-up. Hooray! Hooray! All right.

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You did two and very clearly passed out. I'm gonna break a border with my neck. Great visual. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, from the fuck a la range file,

Donald Trump met with a member of the Kennedy family last week, but it's not what it sounds like. Damn. It's not. Piss on him? He pissed on him. The Kennedy in question is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

And the meeting was not about something good, like bipartisan cooperation with Democrats or water conservation or stealing Larry David's wife, heroin, all of those would have been right. Instead, it appears the Donald wanted to learn about vaccines causing autism. And allegedly he wanted to put Kennedy,

an outspoken anti-vaxxer in charge of a new commission on vaccine safety and wait for it scientific integrity wow oh nice what's the phrase putting the fox among the chickens it's probably probably like putting the fox around the children's more accurate because you know the maiming and the killing of children's was pretty spot on it might actually be too spot on in that situation well right i mean i'm not sure what he was going for, but feeding kids to canines is definitely closer than scientific integrity. Yeah. So following the meeting, Kennedy told reporters he was offered the position and accepted. But almost immediately, perhaps realizing this was both murdery and bad for business, Trump's transition team announced that the new commission is not a sure thing according to spokeswoman hope hicks whose name

might as well be fuck you obama trump is thinking about forming the group in hopes of reducing autism and it looks like the strategy will involve either science or murdering children by bringing back measles. Diagnose less. But based on the meeting with Kennedy, it's probably leaning toward the latter. Yeah, that's the scary part. Yeah. Unless Trump's got like a miracle cure waiting in the wings. Autism isn't something you fucking reduce unless you think it can be cured by probiotics or letting measles come back.

Well, right, right. It's part of his ISIS plan, maybe. Yep. All right. Well, we might be saving about half a minute on Donald Trump for later. Not sure if anyone heard about any interesting rumors about how Trump likes to shower or anything like that? But it might be related to that subject. Nonetheless, we're still going to put 20 seconds on the clock right now. Putting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of vaccine safety is like putting blank in charge of blank.

Go. Oh, all right. Tom in charge of the Amtrak quiet car. Patreon in charge of the Amtrak quiet car. Patreon in charge of your money. Donald Trump in charge of leading the free world. Carly Fiorina in charge of a preschool. Eli in charge of the menu. And in gay minus news tonight,

Conejo Valley School Board President and time-traveling child molester from the 1940s, Mike Dunn, made his theocratic homophobia a matter of public record yet again last week when he responded to a statewide curriculum change by judging it too damn gay. In response to California's initiative to include more diverse stories in public school curriculum, including stories with LGBT families, Dunn said, quote, If I ignore my Christian beliefs, what happens to my soul when I die? Where I spend eternity is far more important to me than being a school board trustee, end quote. I feel like this is an easy problem to solve. Isn't this an easy problem to solve? Kind of put the solution right in there, yeah. So this quote came in response to a critical email from one of his constituents who

took done to task for the bigoted motivation behind his opposition to the more inclusive curriculum the original email took the form of like your religion shouldn't factor into my child's education and his response was so bullshit dismissive that it actually included the question quote is the apostle paul a homophobe or was he inspired by God? First one, I am nailing these today. I was actually going to say C, all of the above. And speaking of which, I don't think you get to be in charge of anything related to schools if you don't know how or works. It's fair.

work. It's fair. So afterwards, he goes on to explain that he doesn't think the community wants, quote, homosexuality, bisexual and transgender sick taught to seven-year-old children, end quote. As though a directive not to assume that students come from a particular

family structure necessarily includes a unit on scissoring. Hey, I wish. At the very least, it would have saved Kim Burrell some embarrassment. What the fuck kind of hetero children's books was this guy reading as a kid? Right? And then Charlotte's dad put his spider

penis in his wife's spider vagina. What? His spider god intended. You know that exists somewhere, right? On the internet. The internet's big enough at this point that that that's out there yeah but i used a pseudonym a different pseudonym now it's worth noting that this is by no means the first time dunn has chosen his mythology over rationality according to an article in the local thousand oaks acorn newspaper last august dunn voted

against state mandated sex education curriculum because catholic churches hate condoms more than aids their words not ours right also in november of 2015 he refused to vote on a policy that would allow trans students to play on the sports team that matched their gender identity because he considered it to be part of the lgbt agenda which well i mean it is yeah i I guess in as much as the LGBT community wants equality, that just doesn't strike me as an excuse for abstaining. Maybe it's because he believes in

abstinence-only education? Yeah! And in Fags Hate God News tonight, according to a new Gallup poll, believing in God prevents you from turning gay. What? Yeah, it's true.

Of the 10 million Americans, about 4.1% of the population considered highly religious, only 1.9% identify as LGBT. While among the nuns, it's 7%. So just know, if you don't believe in God, you are 368 percent more likely to turn gay that that or the way religion treats lgbt people keeps them away from the church or something but i'm pretty sure it's the first one pretty sure it's a it could be that it just makes

them so self-conscious they can't admit their sexual preferences to an anonymous pollster on the phone or or maybe highly religious people who are lgbt reduce their numbers through suicidal attrition but yeah you know what the first one's funnier so let's roll with that yeah i got a bunch of jokes about the first one yeah being a gay christian is like women voting for trump yeah right latinos voting for trump or people voting for stupid is what i'm saying on the plus side though it does mean that we now scientifically have a surefire way to stop getting hit on by a gay guy that ever happens just hand him a bible works every time hell works on me yeah i feel like both gay and guy are superfluous in that statement. Like, if you want someone to never want to fuck you, hand them a Bible.

Strong disagree. Those nuns in the subway station hand me a pamphlet. I'm rock hard. True. Muy caliente. You want to watch this tower? I do sound like that. Yeah.

And if that's true, that imposes some pretty heavy consequences on us. I mean, sure, we have some fun here on the show. We have some laughs. But have you ever considered that these jokes might be putting dicks up butts? And if so, what are we going to do about it? Well, I think the key is letting the ass joke come to you. The dick joke, and then you stay there, and the ass joke comes to you. Thank you for your suggestion, Heath.

But no, no, no. This is why we'd like to announce our new show, The Straightening Atheist. No. Where each week we offer a harsh look at religion, but an even harsher look at being gay. Absolutely not. With a special segment hosted by Heath this week in heterophobia. Ari hugged everyone but me in Chicago Heath stop

Sorry I get carried away And don't forget fan favorite segment 30 seconds on the cock Where we attempt to convince lesbians to switch back over Dicks never bleed Heath sorry You don't have to lie Go to the doctor

Now Dizzy And in Uganda be kidding me news tonight What? Go to the doctor. Now. What are you doing? Dizzy. And in Uganda be kidding me news tonight. Looks like somebody fucked God in Uganda recently. Or as they might say locally, somebody has a diga to Iboi. Ah. But before you get excited about the logistics of Ebony God porn.

Too late. Or after, I guess. the logistics of ebony god porn too late or after i guess just to be clear we're talking about financially fucked not sexually still aroused there um well according to africanews.com former ugandan official charles obong was buried last month with 200 million shillings in cash, which is equal to about 55,000 American dollars. But when they dug him back up last week to check the coffin, only about $5,700 were left. And generally, God doesn't take down payments like that, so something went wrong. Fucked up way of checking the balance I've ever heard of.

I mean come on people you have to put in traps. Have you learned nothing from one eyed Willie? I feel like you mean something very different by that sentence than what I'm taking away from it. I just want you to know. I feel that way most of the time. Alright so expecting that large

teach you something with one eyed Willie. Okay so because I'm a pedriot. Here's the thing. Expecting that large wads of cash are going to remain in your casket is pretty stupid. But possibly the dumbest part of the story here is Mr. Obong's reason for burying himself with like half of Uganda's GDP. Apparently he needed the cash in order to pay off god so so that god would overlook like 55 000 worth of sins that he apparently committed either that or he got an email from a dead nigerian prince who just needed a small cash advance in order to release several million dollars back to dead

Obong in his basket. That makes sense. Was he planning on doing like a drug dealer handshake with God with $55,000? I'm confused. What's up? Hey look, you can't even see it over all of these shillings over here. And what a

perfect exemplification of just what a horrible shithole of a country that is. Even God is poor in Uganda. He's negotiating indulgences like a crackhead trying to sell you an Xbox. Got any street chickens? Take three street chickens as envelopes. You got batteries too?

You want batteries? You just took those out of my shit, dude. I know you did. Yeah, and you can have them back. All right. So this is why the estate tax should be enormous. Because fuck this guy. Seriously.

And another reason for the econ nerds out there, taxes on free gifts have a deadweight loss of exactly zero. Think about it. Or don't. I'm right either way. It's mostly because fuck this guy is why the estate tax should be way higher. Yeah. Real problem in Uganda is state tax.

Exactly. It actually is. $55,000 in Uganda could buy most of the physical objects in uganda and this asshole decided now nobody gets it i i take my ball of money and i go home and die and he did it because he believes in a fictional fucking sky lovely i love that there's still less sane countries and speaking of that five more days for five more days yeah and in syrup to no good news tonight negligently homicidal canadian and clone of everybody at bonnaroo selling peyote david stefan who you'll remember from indifferently allowing his child to die of meningitis because he

was pretty sure big pharma was hiding the truth about the miraculous curative powers of maple syrup put in an appearance in an alternative health store last week to say something other than, stop telling people this shit is medicine. That kills babies. So after serving a dementedly inadequate four-month prison sentence, the ex-father was released back into the Canadian wild where apparently he immediately set about helping to neglectfully murder people

with pretend medicine some more. And for those of you keeping track, prison sentences in North America, three months for raping someone behind a dumpster if you can swim good, four months for killing your baby with Aunt Jemima, and six months for changing the Hollywood sign to Hollyweed. Yeah, sure hope Stephen Avery doesn't drown this dad in a bucket of maple syrup. That would not be my favorite Netflix original series. Not at all.

So your lips say one thing, but your constant stream of emails to Netflix says another. That's not true, Andrew. Trust me. So according to a story in the Calgary Herald, Stevan made a recent appearance at the Ave Maria specialty shop. A flyer promoting the event invited gullible people to, quote, listen to David Stefan talk about how his family members suffered from mental illness and were made well. And, quote, because it's dying of mental illness is probably way less actionable than meningitis. actionable than meningitis.

The store's owner defended the controversial decision to allow him the platform by pointing out that the unproven and implausible supplement he was promoting this time was a completely different, unproven and implausible supplement than one he used to kill his kid. Seriously. You guys think that there was like a Q and a, and so like, Hey, aren't you a good guy that just killed your kid?

And he was like, Hey, yes, but not a mental illness. Moving on. These goji berries are the shit, y'all. What do you think, Dad? There had to be one guy, sort of half

raised hand, unsure. I feel like... God damn it. Yeah, when your stupid thing could justify, like, torture at Gitmo, it's probably not the best idea. So, yeah, just like, pull the shroud over their head, start pouring the alkaline water on their face and yell, hold me up. Tell you anything.

Now they're in the ocean. And look, I don't feel like we can overemphasize how fucked up this is. This was an extraordinarily public case. despite the fact that a child died in the worst imaginable pain over this pseudoscientific bullshit, that does not stop the dude from promoting it, and it doesn't stop the alternative medicine industry from continuing to cash in on him. Right? Even when they know their actions will directly lead to the deaths of innocent people, they keep doing it. And it doesn't do much to dissuade him when the worst possible scenario

earns him a prison sentence shorter than the wait between hardcore history episodes. And then he's allowed to sell dangerous garbage again. And in god awful lawyers news tonight. Ha, take that. You like that? You like that? We steal your thing. We steal your thing.

Oh, take legal advice right now. Oh, you can take it. I got some legal advice for you. It's free. take legal advice right now oh you can take it i got some legal advice for you it's free anti-abortion group and official website of the family member you've blocked on facebook operation rescue has a suggestion for donald trump's first and hopefully only supreme court pick right yeah well considering the gambling odds of trump lasting his entire term at this point it seems like we should be waiting until 2020 to confirm a new justice,

especially with Hillary getting like 3 million more votes than him and like 65 million more votes than Mike Pence. So what happened? No more will the people talk? What happened, GOP? What happened? And actually, the guy that the Operation Rescue wants is judicial bad boy and man in possession of one solid giant tooth, Roy Moore. For those unaware, Moore is basically like the rogue cop of Alabama judges who keeps having to turn in his badge and gun.

Except if Mel Gibson kept refusing to do his fucking job, that's what Lethal Weapon was about instead. Twice. Yeah. It happened twice. And if Mel Gibson was a raging big... Never mind, just what he likes to say. It's sufficient. But this is still so much worse. It would be like if Riggs was wandering around

making up his own laws and arresting people for them. It's just been continued. I googled antonym of revoked for that joke first of all I figured out what antonym was then I googled antonym of revoked

continued not even my best joke you work hard you work hard Eli thank you so you know about dictionaries and thesauri interesting I mean I don't know about them. I Google things and then they come up.

The Thessalonians might be there, they might not. All the Thetans. Anyways, back to this letter. The letter, which I can only assume was written by me based on the eloquence of the prose and grammar, says, among other things, one might shout at a parked car, quote, if we're going to outlaw

late term abortions and save the unborn from the brutal hands of abortion murderers, we must take this opportunity, ensure Donald Trump nominates the most pro-life, outspoken, conservative judge in the nation. That man is Judge Roy Moore. End quote. So wait, I'm confused. Are they worrying about people who murder abortions? Like some dude stabbing the bag of a vacuum

cleaner? That's what I'm... All of a sudden, I'm picturing way different album covers for In Utero and Nevermind. Way different. Hey, if you say their studio albums backwards, it just describes a home abortion.

See, I was picturing stabbing Roy Moore. Am I doing this wrong? One of us is definitely doing this wrong. I think it's Eli. I'll stab Roy Moore. What are we talking about? No, you won't. It's a joke.

It's a funny, funny joke. The rest of the letter goes on to repeat nonsense like the cash for baby parts lie the cost of abortion to american taxpayer lie but my favorite is towards the end where it says quote the next supreme court justice will be on the bench for the next 20 30 or even 40 years end quote and roy mo Moore is 69 years old. Yeah, right. So apparently Operation Rescue thinks that one of his first acts will finally be teaming up with Alex Jones to get that life extension technology once and for all. He's going to lay off the juice boxes. Yeah, I think we've all given up on him appointing a sane person. So I suppose we should just root for the guy with the shortest telomeres.

Yeah. Everyone knows what that word means here. It's no borones. Best one. We want the guy that has the least triangle candy. And while Eli looks that up in the Thessalonians, I guess we'll take a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucinda. It's a germ that goes into your body.

Nope. Try again. looks like it from the picture it is in your body though you nailed that nailed it perfect score a man wrote the bible a horse which one if it's a legitimate race you're a slut right cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man this week in massage Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of my man. This Week in Massage. You know, some weeks it's hard to get back to work. I just got back from Chicago, got to eat some fancy food, got to meet some awesome listeners, get some hugs, watch a great show. And all of that had me feeling pretty good. And then I'm reminded just how shit-tastic other parts of the world are.

That said, I guess I can't have one without the other. So I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks to everyone who makes this part of the job worth it. First up this week, as has been expected, Steve, what have black people ever done King, introduced a federal version of the anti-choice heartbeat bill this week. Listen to this letter Steve King released accompanying his proposal of the bill. In it, he says that Roe versus Wade was unconstitutionally decided, which I'd love to hear his toolshed defense of, but he also added this alternate universe Johnny Cochran turn of phrase. Quote, my legislation will require all physicians before conducting an abortion to detect the heartbeat of the unborn child. If a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected, end quote. And I know I've been over

this already, but what he's talking about is a way to prevent abortion entirely because a heartbeat is almost always present before a woman even knows she's pregnant. He might as well propose the you have to go all the way around the world on a paddle boat before you can get an abortion bill. But if you need silver lining, just be thankful you don't live in Russia yet. Who knows what the hell Putin has planned. But for now, things could be worse.

Because in Russia this week, the news is about efforts to decriminalize domestic abuse. Yep, actually. The Duma has passed a bill in its first reading that has literally been called the slapping law, which would make assault an administrative rather than criminal offense, provided it's a first offense and doesn't cause serious bodily harm. So beating your wife would be like a fucking parking ticket. And as if that wasn't goddamn horrible enough, the proposed bill also applies to hitting your fucking kids. The bill's sponsor is Yelena Mazula, a bitch who I

would personally marry just to take advantage of her newly proposed law. She's called the existing law's anti-family because nothing strengthens a family like beating the shit out of your spouse, apparently. By the way, if Mazula sounds familiar, it's probably because this horrendous cunt is the one who brought us the Russian anti-gay propaganda bill. My point is, if there's any woman whose tits I'd like to see actually get caught in a paper shredder, it's probably hers. Of course, I don't want to leave you too bummed out, so on a lighter note, the Women's March on Washington is going on this weekend, and it's looking to be fucking huge. Right now, organizers are expecting something like 200,000 attendees.

And for contrast, Trump's inauguration is expecting 500 charter buses, while the Women's March already has 1,200. There are also companion protests in other cities with hundreds of thousands expected, and all I can say is if you can, get yourself to one. it's going to be really easy to get complacent, discouraged over the next four years. But shit like this really makes a difference. Just remember the vote. Remember that above everything else. And yes, I know there was an everything else. The reason we're staring down the barrel of a Trump inauguration is because people didn't show up. So if you can, show up, because never has an incoming president more needed to be reminded that half the votes in this country belong to women. And on that note, I'll turn you back over to Noah Heath and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in cracker attacker news tonight, Irish comedian David Chambers is under

fire after a late-night television appearance where he referred to the communion wafer as haunted bread. In a turn that makes me seriously consider the legal ramifications of the shit I was uttering at the airport security in Dublin, parish priest Kevin McNamara filed a complaint last week with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland under the nation's antiquated blasphemy laws claiming that it hurt him, quote, beyond words to see the eucharist ridiculed on rte's so-called flagship chat show end quote not adding honestly i feel violated

i feel violated and men like this are protected by a system that just doesn't care that actively covers up this behavior what what's everyone looking at? Yeah, right. Yeah. Next breath. Stupid fucking Greeks. They think Jesus contains yeast. Idiots. So, first the offending quote. Chambers was discussing the decreasing religiosity of Irish youth when he said, quote, anyone who I know who goes to midnight mass, they're not going there for the haunted bread.

They're going because their grandmother's making them go or their whole family is there. End quote. And rather than internalizing that and considering ways to make their institution more valuable to upcoming generations, Catholic authorities push back against it by trying to make people stop pointing out how fucking stupid they are. Yeah. It seems like there would be a super easy way to prove that that guy was wrong by finding a single young person who doesn't hate midnight mass. Seems like it'd be easy,

right? Oh, it doesn't exist. Doesn't exist. Cool. Let's sue then. Let's see. But then what?

They, they go to court and start like shooting crackers with protons. Yeah, right. Exactly. Larry brothers, McNamara announced this complaint in a newsletter to his congregants that opened up with this impossibly melodramatic sentence.

Quote, we live in an age where there is great emphasis on the need for clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment. But how much attention do we give to fostering a clean soul, heart, and mind? End quote. And to be fair, the first bit is meaningless and the second one is pretty much accomplished by statins. But only religion is fully capable of sterilizing our brains it's true it's very true and in this is iffy news tonight mississippi continues to vie for the title of most laws you can't believe are written by grown-ups this week by putting forward bill hb 205 that will levy a $1,500 fine on any school if they don't say the Pledge of Allegiance during the first hour of the day. So, like, there's going to be some asshole with a stopwatch doing compliance on this?

Right. Last minute, the principal dives for the PA. Mike, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the... Damn it. No soccer this year. Well, yeah, if there's one thing Mississippi schools have too little of, it's patriotism.

And if there's one thing they have too much of, it's money. So yeah, no, this makes perfect fucking sense. Yeah, and fun fact, it's already been the law that schools have to say the Pledge of Allegiance since 2002. But I guess people were worried

that they were, like, sneaking it in at lunch or something, not taking the weird flag worship seriously enough, I guess. So this is to correct that. Well, I mean, I get it. When I was in school, on days with a snow delay, we did usually end up, you know, burning flags and taking over burning stations.

It devolved quickly. Pretty sure that was Noah. After we invented fire, yeah. However, there's one last little bit that makes this story even worse. At the same time, a different state senator put forward HB 201,

which would require a time of reflection, air quotes, at the beginning of the day saying, quote, In each public classroom, the local school governing board shall designate a period of reflection at the opening of school upon every day in which non sectarian, non problematizing student initiated prayer shall be allowed in silence or audible communication through which those desiring may voluntarily participate. We shall be allowed in silence. We will allow a think time at school as a rule. What?

Because if all those things are true that I just said, it's definitely important to have a law mandate. What? Seriously, the only way there could be more dishonest language associated with this if they added just the tip at the end. Well, right.

I mean, because they're telling us that the promise not to come in our mouths is in the mail. And finally tonight, from the Ivana Tinkle file. Finally, yes. Finally, indeed. I've been waiting for this for so long. I'm so happy. It's just been a whole week of going Piss jokes, piss jokes, piss jokes We are ready

Thanks in large part to about 55 million Christians who voted for a twice divorced self-proclaimed hand rapist Donald Trump will become the only president of the United States who enters office despite maybe getting peed on by a team of Moscow whores.

Usually we get a strong yes or no on that, but not this time. Honestly, it's the thing I like best about him. He could have run on I like getting peed on and done substantially better with me as a candidate. Well, yeah, no, I mean, same here because I consider that a perfectly neutral proposition, right? And if he did anything morally neutral, that would be the best thing he'd ever done. Yep.

So welcome to 2017. It's going to be fucking great. As just about everyone already knows, BuzzFeed released a compilation of unverified intelligence reports last week, including allegations that Donald Trump has ties to the Russian government. Documents also suggest that Putin's administration may be in a position to blackmail Trump thanks to secret recordings of embarrassing sex acts like the golden shower. Point being, if Russia has a video of prostitutes peeing on Donald Trump's face, yeah, that would arguably be a bad thing for the United States. Right.

Great thing for this show. Yes, it would. And look, that is the real story here. Don't get me wrong. The moment this came out, I texted Noah and Heath, please let it be true. Please let it be true until my cell phone ran out of battery. But the real story here is that there was an intelligence report that the biggest danger to our country has complete control over our president. like bright barton info wars just making shit up it's not even as fake as like donald trump showing reporters blank files filled with blank paper it's an actual intelligence report that the media chose to talk about well and and the story here the one that cnn covered anyway is that president obama and president-elect trump were briefed on the existence of this report right this had at

least enough veracity to make it into the presidential daily intelligence briefings. Nazi submarines in Lake Michigan. Not so much. Now, just to be clear, Trump is calling it fake news. Loudly. Yellow journalism. And claims certainly haven't been verified, but they haven't been falsified either. I mean, maybe he's fucking kids in secret tunnels under a chucky cheese too we just don't know right inquiring minds want to

know well regardless he will get inaugurated on friday and uh also everyone's being super judgy about the golden shower thing, which seems unfair, although it does present an opportunity, the golden shower silver lining, if you will. Trump can't seem to book a decent musical act for his big day, but this might help him out, I think. Let's go ahead and put 30 seconds on the clock.

Ideas for the urine-themed band at the Donald Trump inauguration party. I love it. Go. Credence, not-so-clearwater revival. Three whores drowning in urine. Flusher? Usher? Flusher?

Grandmaster Flush? There you go. There you go. A Purvana? Maybe a Peetles cover band? Flush? Oh. Grandmaster Flush? There you go. There you go. A Pervana? Maybe a Peetles cover band? The shitty Peetles? No, that's a bronze shower band. Yeah, right. Google bronze shower.

What about Piddle Big Town? The PGs? Or Piss? Piss. Piss. Yeah. Like PP Top or Leakin Park. No no number one direction uh nickelback too far not funny all right how about uh the rolling kidney stones nice i guess now that uh defiled

horses is stuck in my head we can close out the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Question for Andrew. And when we come back, Lucinda will be thrilled to finally have a holy book with stories in it. Hi, President Trump. Hey, it's tall Tyler. Still five foot six, sir. First off, let me congratulate you on becoming president. Everybody keeps doing that.

You all got the flu? Yeah, sure. That's that's why. So here's the thing. Now that you're president, you need to stop attacking people on Twitter. What? I never attacked anyone. What about John Lewis, sir?

The boxer? No, no, the congressman. Oh, yeah, guy who said I was an immigrant. Ridiculous. Apologize. No, no, Mr. President, he called you an illegitimate president, and then you spent the day attacking him and calling him all talk. He is.

What's he ever done? Some black guy, full of crimes. Mr. President, he marched with Martin Luther King. He had his skull fractured during the civil rights thing. You know, when there's like 60 years ago, tall Tyler, what's he done lately? Nothing. Okay. Mr. President, once you're a civil rights leader, you pretty much aren't all talk forever.

And it would probably be best for everyone if you refrain from attacking civil rights leaders, especially right before Martin Luther King Day. Oh, okay, fine. Let's send this Martin guy a card. Make up for it. No, that guy's dead. Oh, problem solved. There are no words. Very sad. I agree.

Hey, Tall Tyler, quick question. No. Can I make it less legal No, you cannot. to buy a newspaper? No. Okay, well, think it over.

I'm the president. Sometimes the segments of this show are inspired by current events, sometimes by historical ones. Occasionally they grow out of emails or social media messages we've received from listeners. Other times they come from the dizzying intellects of religion's leading apologists. But sometimes they just show up because I want to talk in the echoey voice. So it's time for another installment of How Bullshit Is It? So tell us, Heath, what will we be fertilizing our brains with today today we'll be talking about ndes or near-death experiences all right okay and just to be clear

this conversation has nothing to do with eli's proximity to phyllis schlafly correct well that's why he's not here but other than that no gotcha good okay so for those who don't know what is a near-death experience it's an experience where you nearly die i see are we done then sadly no it's never that easy all. So in the context of this, how bullshit is it segment? What do we mean by near death experience? We mean, I guess, any number of incidents reported by people who reached near death states that have been used as evidence of life after death or mind body dualism. Like light at the end of the tunnel, out of body experiences, that kind of stuff. Exactly.

All right. Well, let's start off with the history. When does the concept of the NDE enter into the scientific and popular consciousness? Well, we can start off with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss psychologist who popularized the notion that the out-of-body experiences, often reported by people who came close to death, were evidence of afterlife i see and and who was this kubler ross a lunatic after a long career studying death and dying she ultimately concluded that death did not exist but rather it represented, one of several possible transitions through permeable boundaries, end quote. And what does that mean exactly? That means she was a lunatic. I see.

Also that she really wanted to use the word permeable, even though it was redundant. Obvious. Okay. But I mean, she was a scientist, correct? She was. She was even a respected scientist for some period of time. But that all fell apart when she started bringing in a medium to channel the dead husbands of grieving widows and fuck them. Wait, her or the medium?

Well, not that it really matters, but the medium. So did they come or what? There are some things you just don't talk about in public, but no, they didn't. Okay, so what happened? A number of the widows came down with vaginal infections. That's interesting, but I meant to Kubler-Ross. Oh, everybody stopped taking her seriously oh okay that makes sense well lucky for the nd movement though it really doesn't matter how

demonstrably insane the person who came up with the bullshit is pseudoscience is incredibly forgiving when it comes to shit like that yeah or killing your kid with meningitis no no we've seen it before uh so i guess the nd thing didn't die with her huh well she didn't so much die as pass through one of many permeable boundaries right i want to correct you but no uh it didn't die with her after people stopped listening to her american psychologist and parapsychologist raymond moody took up the mantle and became the world's leading expert in NDEs. In fact, it was Moody who coined the phrase near-death experience. Gotcha. Okay. So what did he contribute to the, let's call it, research? Sure. Well, research. Well, he interviewed a number of doctors, nurses, and patients

and compiled a list of common features typical of patients who experience cardiac arrest or radically decreased brain activity, which he then presented as evidence of mind-body dualism and the existence of an afterlife. Okay. Obviously. Well, before we dig into his conclusions, can you give us some examples of these common features? Conclusions. Can you give us some examples of these common features?

The most common were a ringing or buzzing sound, an overwhelming sense of bliss, the feeling of being detached from one's body, the perception of moving through a tunnel toward a bright light, random flashes of disjointed memories, and of course, meeting dead people. Gotcha. And these experiences are common among all the case studies that he looked into? No. Most of the case studies he looked into? Some of the case studies he looked into? Kind of.

What do you mean, kind of? Well, nobody reported all of those features, but some people reported some of them. Oh! There were also a number of idiosyncratic features in each case, but he ignored those and focused on things that multiple people reported. Like a good experiment. I mean, but if this is a real phenomenon, wouldn't one expect some kind of uniformity in the experience?

Yes. Yes. One would. Because what you've described so far sounds like like lsd or mushrooms yeah um all of the commonalities can definitely be recreated through drug use yep okay and and these people who came close to death and and these hospitals are generally speaking on drugs at the time correct they are okay okay so people who aren't anesthetics and painkillers have experiences are on anesthetics and painkillers have experiences typical of anesthetics and painkillers? Yeah, that's basically all he had to offer. How profoundly ignorable. Indeed. Well, a number of his patients also had religious

experiences. For example, meeting Jesus, Muhammad, angels, saints saints other spiritual entities i see um and do these experiences by any wild coincidence meet up with their preconceived religious notions no reports of like christians meeting muhammad no okay weird so inconsistent recollections from people who are mentally compromised at the time sounds like a pretty solid data set to me uh especially when you consider how reliable memories are in people whose brains are functioning at optimum level right yeah right right all right so like have any reputable scientists look into this phenomenon of course and they've noticed like you did that most of these experiences can be explained away by the use of anesthesia that often coincides with

whatever medical malady brought them close to death in the first place. It's also been noted that fighter pilots often report NDE-like phenomena when experiencing rapid acceleration. Meaning? That this is either

a brain state that can be triggered by physical means or that fighter pilots go so fast their souls have trouble keeping up gotcha okay i see a number of researchers have also seized on common reports of floating above one's body that nd ears have reported a few different experimenters actually placed cues in places within operating rooms that would only be visible if one were looking at the room from above. Oh, okay. For example, a card would be placed on the underside of a lighting fixture, something like that. And if the out-of-body experience were genuine, patients would be able to see these cues and

describe them after the NDE. But to date, nobody has been able to identify a single one of these cues. Okay. But if the actual data is so scant and so easily explainable by other means, why is the concept of NDE so persistent? Oh, that's because I went to heaven and came back is a much better story than I experienced decreased cerebral perfusion resulting in local cerebral hypoxia. That's yeah no it is it is yeah okay but some NDEs go far beyond the like floating above the body and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel type stuff right I mean some patients offer up prolonged stories of the afterlife that include hours or even days worth of experiences i mean that can't be dismissed as cerebral hypoxia can it no uh for those stories you also have to add both dreaming

and big fat lying to the list of potential culprits oh i see okay well i guess the only real question left to ask is how bullshit is it i'm gonna say somewhere between comet ping pong pizza gate and the female orgasm all right well thanks for dropping some more knowledge on us it's a fascinating nugget of nonsense that i'd love to spend more time exploring but we have to febreze the place pretty regularly when eli's got phyllis out of her box so that, we'll fade to the music. Run, grab the youngins, folks. It's time for Lucinda Lusion's Bible Stories for Kids. Gather around, boys and girls. We're finally done with the fucking Quran and on to a holy book with stories in it so we can start doing this segment again. And holy shit, this one is so chock full of stories that we can get started before we've even reached page one. So today, we're

going to open up our Books of Mormon, or Book of Mormons, or whatever, to page zero and learn all about how Joseph Smith found the golden plates. So once upon a time, there lived a man named Joseph Smith, who claimed he could use magic rocks to find buried treasure so that he wouldn't have to work. So he and his buddies would find farmers with large plots of land, tell them that Joe's magic rocks said that there was treasure buried in their fields, and then exploit that farmer's hospitality while they dug random holes until the farmer realized they were full of shit. But one day, Joseph decided that even watching his friends dig holes while he stared into his

hat with a rock in it was too hard. So he decided to start a religion. Either that or he elected to give up a well-documented life of fraudulent con artistry because God chose America's least trustworthy human to clarify all the shit the Bible forgot to mention. So he told his friends and family that an angel named Moroni visited him in the middle of the night and they either believed him or pretended to. So recognizing a solid con when they heard one, they told Joe to go forth and bring back those golden plates. So he went out while he was supposed to be working and stayed gone all day. But when he came back, he didn't have any golden plates. Where are the golden plates? They all asked. But Joe was prepared for that question.

Well, he said, the angel was pretty sure I was planning on making money with the plates and that's forbidden. So now I'll have to go back again some other time while I'm supposed to be working and try again. A whole year went by before Joe made a second attempt. But once again, he came home without any golden plates. Well, his family was pretty disappointed. So he made up some new bullshit, telling them that the angel would only let him take the plates if he went with the right person. But the angel wouldn't tell him who the right person was. So for a whole year, he tried to figure out who that was before eventually settling on the girl he most wanted to have sex with at that time. And again, he didn't come home with any plates

and Emma's clothes weren't buttoned right either. Another year went by and once again, he went out to the hill and came back empty-handed. And then he did it again. And his family was pretty gullible, but nobody's that gullible. So they told him that next time he went out, he better bring back some fucking plates. So before his annual visit to the hill, he got a really big lockable chest. And when he came home this time, the lockable chest was heavier. Are there golden plates inside? His friends and family asked. There sure are, Joe replied.

Let us gaze upon their glory, they all shouted. Yeah, about that, he replied, before explaining that the angel told him nobody was allowed to see the plates except for him. Joe spent the next several years living off the generosity of gullible people while he translated the plates from Reformed Egyptian, a language that all relevant scholars agree is some made-up bullshit. All the while, he never let anyone see the plates. And then after several people saw the plates in a spiritual vision or agreed not to call bullshit on him if he signed their name to something he wrote, he finished the Book of Mormon and told everyone that the angel Moroni had to take the plates back. And based on nothing but a box that was light later being heavier,

an entire religion was founded that now claims over 15 million members. And notice I said claims because that number is almost as laughable as the silly ass golden plate story. over 15 million members. And notice I said claims, because that number is almost as laughable as the silly-ass golden plate story. The end. Before we disappear over the horizon tonight, I want to remind everybody that even though it's too late to see us live in Chicago, it's not too late to see us live.

We're going to be recording an episode of Godawful Movies in Hickory, North Carolina at ReasonCon on Saturday, April 22nd. And if you don't come for us, come for Lawrence Krauss, Shelley Siegel, Matt Dillahunty, Aaron Roth, friends of the show, Callie Wright, and Bobby C., and more. Starts on Friday the 21st, goes for two days, and two of the three best conferences I've ever attended were the first two ReasonCons.

You'll find a link to buy tickets on the show notes for this episode. Anyway, that's all the Blast Movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a new episode of our sister show's hot friend Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, and don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube for shareable nuggets of scatheism throughout the week. Obviously, I need to thank Heath for always being infinitely more competent and reliable than the idiots that run Patreon. I need to thank Lucinda for keeping me from breaking anything important while I was raging against the spectacular ineptitude of the idiots that run Patreon.

And I need to thank Eli for all the illegal shit he offered to do to those idiots that run Patreon if it would make me feel better. But don't do it, Eli. Seriously. I mean that. No wink. I also need to thank an anonymous listener for this week's kind of creepy Farnsworth quote.

But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's best people. Kirby Joseph Smith, Fuck My Wife, Gordo, Andrew, Heather, Andreas, Nora, The Skeptopath, Jennifer, Tom, Ashley, Russell's Lonely Little Teapot, Laura, Adipose Rex, Ron, Matt, Brian, Joshua, Jacob, Evan, and Tim. Kirby, Joseph Smith, Fuck My Wife, Gordo, Andrew, Heather, Andreas, and Nora, whose sexual magnetism requires a court-ordered pacemaker warning. The Skeptopath, Jennifer, Tom, Ashley, Russell's lonely little teapot, Laura and Adipo's Rex, who are so bright they cast a shadow on light bulbs,

and Ron, Matt, Brian, Joshua, Jacob, Evan and Tim, who are so virile they have to wear condoms to send dick pics. Together, these 21 people, teapots, overweight dinosaurs, podcasts and statements of bitter cuckoldery have helped us maintain a healthy worldwide dick joke to zealot ratio this week

by giving us money. Not everybody has the spectacular and laudable genitals it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version 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, or you can make a new website that competes with Patreon except isn't staffed by unresponsive fuckholes and support us through that.

That would be nice, too. And if you'd like to help but you're still paying off the but-will-never-elect-him-president bets, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else they'll let you rate podcasts. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of P. Andrew Torres and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark. Our theme song was arranged and performed by Morgan Clark with Richard McNulty on guitar. All additional music was written and performed by Morgan Clark and was used with his permission.

If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at SkiddingAtheist.com. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.