The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 210: Ejukashunal Edishun

Episode Date: February 23, 2017

In this week’s episode, we act out more of the Book of Mormon because reading’s for nerds, we learn to never gamble with a South African pastor when rat poison is on the line, and Trump bans immigration from those seven earth-like planets just in case. 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 Guest Links: To donate to Eli’s blog and get a sneak peek, click here: https://www.patreon.com/elibosnick To check out Naked Mormonism, click here: http://nakedmormonismpodcast.com/index.html Headlines: New “Education Reform Bill” would Jesus-ify schools: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2017/02/report-plan-force-god-public-schools-released/ Church wants to make it’s own police force: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/02/18/an-alabama-churchs-desire-to-create-its-own-police-force-raises-a-lot-of-constitutional-concerns/ Donald Trump refuses to disavow anti-Semitism (again): http://religionnews.com/2017/02/15/jewish-groups-dismayed-by-trumps-response-to-anti-semitism-question/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/21/vandals-damage-dozens-of-headstones-in-jewish-cemetery-in-missouri NC Minister furious that American Girl now has a boy doll: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/02/16/this-north-carolina-minister-is-furious-that-american-girl-just-came-out-with-a-boy-doll/ Kyrie Irving: “This is not even a conspiracy theory… the earth is flat.” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/02/18/nba-superstar-kyrie-irving-this-is-not-even-a-conspiracy-theory-the-earth-is-flat/ B-Fish to republicans: “True conservatives oppose sexual behavior that leads to anal cancer” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/02/15/bryan-fischer-to-gay-gopers-true-conservatives-oppose-sexual-behavior-that-leads-to-anal-cancer/ Christian mom group pissed at Taco Bell for using the word “hell” in an ad: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/02/17/christian-moms-are-mad-at-taco-bell-for-saying-hell-in-an-ad-wait-till-they-hear-about-church/ US report critical of religious freedom in India dismissed as “hinduphobia” http://religionnews.com/2017/02/17/us-religious-freedom-report-on-india-rejected-as-hinduphobia/ African priest tells congregants to eat rat poison to prove they won’t die: http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/09/preacher-asked-his-followers-to-prove-their-faith-by-drinking-rat-poison-6438897/ This Week in Misogyny: GOPer: Women shouldn’t get equal pay for equal work: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2017/02/gop-official-women-not-get-equal-pay-equal-work/ IKEA under fire for man-only catalogues in Israel: http://religionnews.com/2017/02/16/ikea-under-fire-for-male-only-catalog-in-israel/

Warning, we're going to use words that would make your grandma blush. Unless your grandma is cool like that. Or dead. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Blue Apron, a better way to cook. And by our Donald Trump nickname contest. Today's winner is Mara S., who had, among others, Cheeto Benito, Fanta Claus, and Bigly Smalls.

Well played, Mara. Tweet us your favorites using the hashtag ScathingPotus nickname, and you could be the next winner. And now, Scathing Atheist. Yeah, g'day there, guys. This is Greg here from Bertrand Russell's cat radio show here in beautiful McLaren Vale, South Australia where the sky is blue,

the blossoms are blooming and we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. And by the way, Eli, that's the fucking crappiest Australian accent I've ever fucking heard, mate. Get a dog up you, will ya? Fuck!

It's Thursday. It's February 23rd. And Simon and Schuster won't publish my book either. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. From New York, New York, Secret Lair, Pennsylvania, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, we act out more of the Book of Mormon because reading is for nerds.

We learn to never gamble with a South African pastor when rat poison is on the line. And Trump bans immigrants from those seven Earth-like planets just in case. First, the diatribe. In 1545, the Catholic church looked around and they said holy fuck we got to do something about this and they were right they did now the the this in question of course was the protestant reformation and while we tend to think about this as a religious debate writ large if you were alive at the time you'd probably think of it more as like a bunch of people killing the fuck out of each other i mean sure there was a cracker argument buried in there somewhere but by and large it was a revolt against the tyrannical rule of the Roman Catholic Church and, by extension, the systems of government it endorsed. So all over Europe, you have these peasant uprisings, religious persecution, and just like a Russian nesting doll of schisms within schisms.

So as that ramped up and near total social breakdown, the Catholics set out to figure out what the hell happened so they could make sure it never happened again and that makes sense right widespread social upheaval kind of sucks for everyone and they were the folks in charge though they were morally obligated to get to the bottom it's basically the same thing we do now we'd impanel a commission to look into the problem and come back with potential fixes that could help us avoid a similar problem in the future now this commission was the council of trent which began in 1545 and met periodically over the next 18 years they were tasked with figuring out what instigated this uprising and of course they could have found a list on the door at the wittenberg castle church but they can't come back and say to the pope yeah it turns out uh it's because you're a money-grubbing indulgent slinging theologically dubious

lethargo so they had to come up with other stuff so what they came back with was a series of recommendations and they include some of the most ridiculous shit you can imagine after 18 years of convening ultimately the council decided that the real culprits here were things like naked paintings and instrumental music seriously i mean they had a few useful things in there like yeah we should probably educate these priests or something. But they also had a bunch of dumb shit. So instead of tackling the serious social issues that were at the heart of this insurrection, they banned green sleeves and painted Levi's onto the Sistine Chapel cherubs. And needless to say, Catholicism didn't stop sucking. Now, think about that for a second.

We got a couple dozen really smart people like highly educated by the standards of their day tasked with figuring out what went wrong with their culture and they land on the fact that the julian calendar is out of sync so everybody's celebrating easter on the wrong day right that you can see the dicks on the cherubs in the sistine chapel that's their conclusion not peasants don't like being taken advantage of by aristocrats not people are sick of being burned at the stake for thinkingats not people are sick of being burned at the stake for thinking incorrectly not our rampant and unchecked profiteering is pretty obvious to everybody they ignored a ton of very conspicuous real world problems instead they bitched about those kids with their loud music and their naked angel paintings of course it would be

easy to assume that they knew they were full of shit since an honest assessment would admit what a bunch of unethical pricks they were but i feel like the real answer is more complex and far scarier i think these bishops actually thought those were the problems they weren't people trying to obfuscate they were people trying to think and failing i mean you know we like to act like logical thinking as some kind of innate function of the human brain but it very much isn't you know for most of human history almost nobody was doing it. And even today, with compulsory education throughout our country and virtually all the human knowledge, a smartphone away, rational thinkers are still depressingly hard to find. I mean, it's not like I had to go back to the 16th century to find an example.

I could have just used Pat Robertson blaming hurricanes on butt sex or something like that. The point is that it doesn't matter how many smart people you put in a room or how long you give them. If you abandon rational thought, you'll get the right answer about as often as those Simeon stenographers get Hamlet. In other words, this isn't a problem with a 1500s and it's not a problem with a Roman Catholic church. It's a problem with religion. And we see this every day. I mean, how many times have you been winning a religious debate with someone just to see them retreat to the safety of illogical bullshit? You think you're getting somewhere, but all of a sudden they throw out some mysterious ways bullshit and you realize this was never a logical conversation to begin with.

Of course, this isn't unique to religion as Gwyneth Paltrow exists to demonstrate, but it is universal in religion. It has to be, since no objective assessment of the world could lead you to conclude that Jesus died for your sins or whatever. Of course, people have gotten a lot better at turning logic on and off over the centuries, so it's nowhere near as pervasive as it was half a millennia ago. But as any six minute clip from CPAC will show you, it's still pretty fucking extensive. I mean, if you carve out an exception to logic, you can toss anything you want in there, right? And that's exactly what we see people doing.

Anytime people want to believe X and they can't get there logically, they invoke God. There's no logical argument against gay marriage, so they wave around a Bible. There's no logical justification for sexism, so they cite scripture. There's no ethical ground to oppose birth control, so they stick their fingers in their ear and yell Jesus. And since there's no logic to begin with, there's no inherent limit of so they stick their fingers in their ear and yell Jesus. And since there's no logic to begin with, there's no inherent limit of what they can cram in there. Bigotry, rape, slavery, murder, child molestation, we've seen all of them fit comfortably within that spacious confine of irrational rationale. And because God can only exist in a logic-free zone, there's no way to have religion without also having a sanctuary for every other form of

detrimental stupidity. Religion has never solved anything. It's never cured a disease. It's never invented a labor-saving device. It's never answered a fucking question. But that's not to say it can't solve a problem. In fact, I hold out hope that one day religion will solve the biggest problem in the world, and it can do so just by dying. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Athos and Porthos to my What's-His-Name, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to musketeer?

Um, what? What? I've come up with a new intro every week for four years. They can't all be winners. So while I pay penance for that one, we'll take a quick break for a word from this week's sponsor, Blue Apron. Hey, Noah. What's up, guys?

Nothing much. What you doing? Oh, you know, I'm just updating the list of people who have wronged me and earned my undying vengeance. I think you do. You're on volume three already, I see. Yeah, I'm all the way up to the Ds. Huh.

Andre Hopkins. Well, we wanted to talk to you about something important. Limpies employees. What? Debbie Gibson. It's about your diet. What about my diet? Well, we were thinking maybe you could try the number one fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country.

Blue Apron. Huh. I feel like I already get calories. So. All right. I'm going to leave the Dewey Decimal System alone. Let's try it like this. What did you have for breakfast today?

Mountain Dew. Okay. And lunch? Dr. Pepper. Right. Right. And dinner? Soylent something or another.

Okay. Noah, do you ever cook? Yeah. I nuked that Chinese food from Monday. This Monday? A Monday. See, this is what we were talking about. Instead of that, you could be eating delicious

home-cooked meals for less than $10 per person per meal. Blue Apron will send you the recipes along with pre-portioned ingredients and easy step-by-step instructions. You're going to love how good it feels and tastes to create these incredible home-cooked meals, Noah. Really, you will. Absolutely. And Blue Apron has established partnerships with over 150 local farms, fisheries and ranchers across the U.S. So when you order Blue Apron, you know, you're getting sustainably sourced seafood, beef, chicken and pork from responsibly raised animals. Yeah, no, I mean, I get that. And that's important. But I still have like like three frostbitten hot pockets so i feel like okay yeah that's valid but wouldn't you rather be eating like delicious meals from blue aprons upcoming menu listen to a few of these cashew chicken stir fry with tango mandarins and jasmine rice huh i mean that that does sound

delicious but this this tube of calorie paste is still mostly full. Okay, pin in that. What about roasted pork with apple, walnut, and farro salad? Yeah, no, I mean, I guess that sounds good, but what if I have to lock myself in a volcano for a few weeks to plot stuff? That's not a problem. That's not a problem at all. With Blue Apron, there's no weekly commitment, so you only get deliveries when you want them.

Oh, okay, so what do I have to do? Well do well all you got to do check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free with free shipping by going to blueapron.com slash scathing that's blueapron.com slash scathing cool i'll give that a try so what what did Denzel Washington do to you? Yeah, great question. What didn't he do, Eli? What didn't he do? That's your one? He'll never go back.

And now back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, we got a peek into the pending horror scope of theocratically prescribed ignorance that awaits America's youth under a Betsy DeVos Department of Education last week. And this came in the form of a five-page policy manifesto from the Council for National Policy. That's a conservative group with strong ties to DeVos and the Trump administration at large. So let's dig into the report a little. First of all, they list four assumptions that they say all efforts at educational reform should be based on. And you know what they say about assuming. I do.

It dumbs down the masses and enables the proletariat. You almost got that right. All right. So first of all, these are the four. And I want to point out, I am not making any of these up. All right. Number one, all knowledge and facts have a source, a creator. Fuck you.

That are not self-existent. God damn it. Yeah, and translation, it's a priori knowledge that a priori knowledge doesn't exist. Yeah, right! God fucking says so. It's like Yosemite Sam tried to plagiarize Immanuel Kant. Not great. Not a great start. Also, if they're not

self-existent, how do they explain knowledge that the creator didn't reveal like i get that we learn that bats are birds and that rabbits chew their own cud from god but i missed his work on cell wall formation where was it it's implied when he said it was good how the fuck can something be good without a cell wall think it through all right moving right along here number two religious neutrality is a myth perpetrated by secularists who destroy their own claim the moment they attempt to enforce it uh translation equality is persecution ignorance is strength war is peace freedom of slavery great communism is goodism is good. Religion is stupid.

All right, number three. Parents and guardians bear final responsibility for their children's education with the inherent right to teach or to choose teachers in schools, whether institutional or not. Still, again, extra, what? Even more now. Yeah.

Number four. No civil government possesses the right to overrule the educational choices of parents. You do not talk about Fight Club. Yeah, exactly. Read this as, ain't nobody going to tell me how to raise my child. Now, the report then goes on to specifically cite the Judeo-Christian principles that America was founded on. cite the judeo-christian principles that america was founded on calls the education department quote unconstitutional illegal and contrary to america's education practice for 300 years end quote now then they also call for k through 12 schools to display 10 commandments posters

celebrate only the christian holidays add bible classes teach history classes from a judeo-christian perspective and get rid of sex ed. I guarantee you in the first draft, they had like kill gay kids with rocks and anti-bear grenades and then they combined those for a few drafts after that, I'm sure. Probably, yeah. They were like, okay,

who had the best education system in history? 18th century Americans! Nailed it. Yeah, let's get working on this thing. Now, it's worth noting that these are recommendations rather than statements of intent about the administration. But when I say this group has ties to the administration, we're talking about like Steve Bannon being a member of their board and Kellyanne Conway serving on their executive committee. Also, Betsy DeVos's mom is on their board of governors and her father-in-law served as its president twice so yeah safe to say

they have the education department's ear I mean at least at Thanksgiving if nothing else yeah exactly and in what you're gonna do when they come for Jews news tonight bad guys bad guys in the grand tradition of religious people having armed enforcement of their beliefs always being an awesome idea, a church in Alabama has requested permission from its legislature to form its own police force. Well, because if anybody needs additional police protection in Alabama, it's all them white, straight, non-Muslim, non-Jews. Am I right? right you damn straight the church briarwood presbyterian is calling their quest a quote way to make a safer campus in a fallen world end quote but i think i'm just gonna translate that to giant red flag giant red flag shit to be fair though people are constantly trampling all over their venerated observances and rituals.

I understand it. Inseginated people. This is Birmingham, Alabama, which is without question a veritable hellscape of unchecked hooliganism. I mean, this is a city that's consistently one of the top ten most crime-riddled cities in America. But the way to deal with shit like that is to send in the feds. I read that on a very reliable Twitter account. It's not all some church police bullshit. I'm sorry.

Does your town have a Mercedes Benz Visitor Center and a Railroad Park? No? Bammer Strong. It took me so long to Google anything in Alabama. Seriously. Get your shit together, people. Get a Wendy's or something. Get all your money together

and buy a dot of work. Anyways, according to former police chief and representative Connie Rowe, quote, they will conduct their own investigations, they will conduct their own security, they will make their own arrests, They will conduct their own security. They will make their own arrests. And instead of calling on law enforcement agencies to take over the particular situation they're trying to control, they will do that themselves.

And all they will utilize from their other law enforcement agencies is their lockup facilities. Or they could just borrow Eli's. Honestly, I'm just impressed that Roy Moore is still having wet dreams at his agency. I can't promise much, but I can promise there is nothing wet about Roy Moore. His home has no shower. However, this brings up the question,

are they going to make up their own laws as well i mean don't get me wrong i'm excited for an episode of cops where they stone a woman to death on her father's doorstep for not being a virgin i just want to set my tivo yeah right no that makes sense some guy with no shirt and three cigarettes burning at the same time yelling at the camera i was minding my own business picking up sticks sticks in my yard. I started throwing rocks. Ow! Ow! Fucking stop! Just surrounded by guys calling him sir. Sir! Sir!

I love cops. I love cops. Now, to be fair, it is highly unlikely that this will go through, but if it does, and I win my ongoing argument with Noah Heath, Andrew Lucinda, and our accountant about becoming a church, you can be damn sure I will be renaming the well in my basement a jail and start wearing a badge when I abduct kids from now on.

Gonna deputize Andy Wilson, too. And in Ich bin ein beginner news tonight. Took him about a dozen tries, but looks like the president of the United States finally responded correctly this week to the subject of hating the Jews, good or bad. The right answer is bad, by the way. Hating Jewish people is bad. Unless you play video games on YouTube,

then it's satire. I see, I see. Well, during a speech on tuesday following a major act of vandalism against a jewish cemetery trump finally got it right and condemned anti-semitism so mazel tov i guess well now i feel like you're being a little one-sided here on the jew question whether or not it's okay to hate him bill maher would present both sides of this is what i'm saying sure would liberal stop letting this adolf guy bother you he's harmless now let's go to a panel where i agree trans people are a danger to children

okay so i am glad somebody finally distracted steve bannon with a shiny swastika toy threw it in the other room and explained this to trump alone that's definitely it's really good but we're still going to talk about a few of trump's recent failed attempts at addressing this topic because that's terrifying alone regardless of eventually coming around on this so first there was his speech on international holocaust remembrance day from last month during which he mentioned mentioned anti-Semitism exactly zero times. And it wasn't like a, I mean, it was a mistake, but they acted like it wasn't, right? Not only did he not mention Jews during his Holocaust Remembrance speech,

but then when they asked his press office about it later, he said, no, that was on purpose. Kind of rude to the gypsies and cripples to always harp on a Jew angle. Do you guys think there was like one all lives matter jew who just like got it that afternoon i like the picture just one guy takes all his blue lives matter shirts and throws them in a trash can to burn him oh okay that's why i get it all right uh up, there was his press conference with Netanyahu last week. Trump got a question about a spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes.

And his answer about that literally included, I have lots of Jewish friends. It did. Really? Yes. Just for the record, the only one he could name was his daughter who converted. Take her back. I don't care that she's the hottest female Jew. Of course, he also pointed out that he got 306 electoral votes that relates this.

I guess that means that as many as 36 of those votes could have been directly from his neo-Nazi voting base and he still would have won. Even without that. Well, and that's even with all of those people that died in the holocaust voting for hillary his power will not be questioned i want to be perfectly clear judaism is stupid i mean hey hey hey what dude we read their entire testament. It's fucking maniacal. Oh, you meant the religion. Yeah. I thought you meant the media. We're much more dedicated to one rather than the other.

Here's the thing, though. You're not supposed to hate the entire group of Jewish people just because of the crazy book. I mean, if you want to hate all the Jewish people, what you need to do is find solid reasons to hate each one individually. To be fair. And to be fair, we do our best to provide those. I mean, we really do. Well, the thing is, it's just not feasible. There's a lot of you people left. Bottom line,

the President of the United States needs to already know all this before he takes office. He can't, like, show up at a press conference, get asked to say, just say, I don't hate jews and think that's a trap question where the fuck are we i mean to be fair nobody ever asked obama if he hated the jews that's true that's true we're asking if he hated the whites and in show me where the doll touched you news tonight north carolina reverend and michael wilbon and festa with spider

mites keith ogden took time away from cinching his belt around his man tits this week condescending to fire off an angry email to his congregants about the dangers of dolls without vaginas uh chafing thank you keith ogden no i feel like you're being super negative about this guy so this all started when the uh when ogden saw a news story about American Girl offering a boy version of their iconic dolls, finally. And the Reverend responded with a message tactfully titled, in all caps, KILLING THE MINDS OF MALE BABIES. The XYZika dolls. Killing the minds of male babies. Little tiny ones.

Tay, Sax, I mean bundles of love. Killing the minds of male babies. Little tiny ones. Tay-Sax, I mean, bundles of love. Killing the minds of babies. Microcephaly middle-tiny dogs. So in the email, Ogden rages against the company's efforts to, quote, emasculate little boys and confuse their roles to become men, end quote. Of course, to be fair, that quote wasn't about the company so much as Satan, Lord of this

world, who apparently sits on their board of directors. Just Satan at a board meeting. Honestly, guys, I need to be seeing a better quarter than this. We're going to have to make cutbacks at this rate. So he goes on to explain their motivations, which are, of course, to, quote, kill, steal and destroy the minds of children. I feel like that's out of order. Other way, other way around.

I guess by definition. Also, he goes on. To kill, steal, and destroy the minds of children by perverting, distorting, and twisting the truth of who God created them to be, end quote. And there's plenty to be pissed off about in that sentence. But the thing that really got me was the list of three that were all synonyms at the end there fuck you sounds like johnny cochran talking about a mark firman doll right but the truly fucked up thing is that he completely fucked up his gay hate here right he's like the brian of homophobia i mean boy dolls aren't new that those date back to the 21st century bce at least and it's not it's not like this is a gay boy doll

he doesn't come with a pair of tiny rubber gloves and a collection of Lady Gaga albums well they just lost a customer well it's also it's like it's not like this is only on sale to boys or like you have to suck a dick to unlock the coupon code or anything. Not funny, Eli. Got him. Not a funny prank war. And in White Man Can't Escape Earth's Gravitational Poll News tonight. I don't know about you guys, but it's the simple pleasures in life that get me through the day.

A cup of hot tea, a sunrise, or every time the press asks non-sciencey celebrities whether or not they think we live on a ball or disc. And luckily, I was all out of tea this week. Well, for me, those simple pleasures include listening to

Eli name professional athletes. Before we start, can you just give us a few random ones? Creshawn Mankin. MJ. Well done. Keyshawn Mankin. MJ. Well done. Keyshawn Keepanon. Habanero Peppers.

He plays baseball. That's your two. Excellent. Now that I have given people enough for my eventual takedown when I get invited to see Pac-Man. Point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers Kyrie Irving, a name I did not make up, appeared on the podcast Road Trippin' with RJ and Channing,

where he revealed that he joins the rapper B.O.B., unless that's pronounced Bob, I've been burned before, and the crazy people who make Marsh go, well, don't you think think in believing that the earth is flat oh but damn is nasa committed to the lie i mean okay most of these conspiracy theories at least have plausible motives right like i could see china wanting to hamstring our energy production i could see monsanto wanting to turn us all into tomato zombies. But who the fuck is better at fitting from the round earth conspiracy? Big longitude?

Ah, see, you haven't been listening to Be Reasonable. See, if we all knew we were on a disc, we'd know there was a god and we'd stop murdering each other. Uh, that's fucking nonsense. Exactly. We agree. Exactly. Yeah. Wait, wait, what?

Seamarsh, let me on your show. Let's fucking nonsense. Exactly. We agree. Exactly. Yeah. Wait. Wait, what? See, Marsh? Let me on your show. Apparently, you just need to agree with him and Marsh becomes paralyzed. Anyway, Kyrie, who attended Duke University because the NCAA is all about providing education opportunities to young people. Duke must be so proud. Yeah. Blamed. It's one of the good ones.

He blamed particular groups, which I'm going to go out on a limb and guess I was born a member of, for holding the truth back from us, saying, quote, if you really think about it from a landscape of the way we travel, the way we move, and the fact that can you really think of us rotating around the sun and all planets aligned rotating in specific dates being perpendicular with what's going on with these planets and quote sick sick perpendicular well i don't know kairi what about the concentric equilibriums of the solo kaopectations i know those could denominate the parabolic asymmetry long enough to outrun the romulans what the fuck are you talking about should be president with a goddamn vocabulary

like that yeah but noah how's your three-pointer you know what i'm saying the point is look we all know what happens next and i just want to wish neil degrasse tyson the best in his one-on-one against kairi uh fun fact he tends to get out of control when attacking the basket neil so keep that in mind also toe injury last season kept him out for a while so well though why does it have to be neil degrasse tyson why can't it be phil plate who gets an argument yeah because i don't know who that is. Is that Cybabe's real name? Alright, next up in bizarro Phil Donahue news, Brian Fisher gave us all some insightful analysis about gay Republicans last week

during his Focal Point radio show for the American Family Association. According to Fisher, gay people can't be real conservatives. Would you like to know why? I think I know why. It's because of ass cancer. I was going to say ass cancer. It's ass cancer. Yeah, but to be fair, you were going to say it for different reasons,

and I feel like this isn't the time to tell him. Fair enough. Yeah, so I really wasn't exaggerating. Here's an actual sentence from brian fisher quote to put it bluntly sexual behavior that leads to anal cancer may represent a libertarian value what does it but it cannot possibly represent a conservative one end quote and if you're not picturing ron paul mid butt sex yelling am i being detained as a giant tumor grows out of his ass visibly you should be picturing that go ahead and start picturing that

now all right first of all if sperm was carcinogenic eli would look like the toxic waste guy at the end of robocop by now i mean have you seen me but secondly and more importantly i feel like heath's ability to reduce complex social issues to mental images of ron paul having butt sex is being underutilized thank you seems like there's a pop-up book there somewhere at least he does use that metaphor a lot talk to simon and schuster they're looking for a new author so uh yeah that was a fun image but here's my favorite part fisher's trying to roll with his ridiculous ass cancer analogy and he says that if homosexuality starts becoming more accepted in the conservative movement quote its cancerous cells will multiply and metastasize until it has fatally weakened its host oh well done big And now, everyone should be picturing a super flamboyant gay tumor,

like dominating the conversation at Fox and Friends. Overtalking. And if you're having trouble with that, just imagine Steve Doocy was gay. So, Ann Coulter. Yeah. Yeah, so, this doesn't happen very often, but I think i actually agree with brian fisher it does cause ass cancer it is stupid for a gay person to be republican and it does cause it might cause now i'm not clear again why the ass cancer is involved in his calculus but i do agree in general

absolutely i'm no i get it that's true i think it's for when you're so self-hating you just need other people's help. Go to a meeting. Either way, it's kind of random, isn't it? Just this whole commentary. I can't imagine why conservatives are trying to distance themselves from gay people all of a sudden. Like, I'm trying to think of a gay person, like a gay Republican in the news who made the party look bad recently. But no, nothing rings a bell. Pretty sure we de-platform people like that in this country. Yeah.

Shouldn't be an issue. We'll be like fighting over the definition of kid fucking on Twitter, at Heath Enright. What? Is there a dispute about what that would mean? On that note... Oh, yes, there is! Really?

Oh, enjoy. Explain it to him, people who've been explaining it to me for a week and on that note i believe eli's gonna need some time to play gonna fly now on kazoo again so while he takes care of that we're gonna hand things over to my lovely wife lucinda a man wrote the bible a horse which one if it's a legitimate rate cooking can be fun hey i'm proud of a man this week in massage Okay, pop quiz for you. What do Alabama, Utah, Mississippi, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and South Carolina all have in common? If you answered miserable shitholes where no sane person would want to live,

or they all share one communal toothbrush, I'll give you a pass even though that's not the answer I was looking for. As it happens, those are the six states in the country that still don't have a law against gender discrimination in employee compensation. In other words, in those states, it is legal to pay someone less due to a lack of a penis. Now, to Utah's credit, legislators there are trying to do something about it with SB 210, a proposed law that would require employers to adopt a uniform criteria to determine whether someone should get a raise that doesn't include genitalia. And that's something that even the wage gap denialists who are already composing an angry email to me can get behind, right? I mean, we should all be able to get behind a uniform criteria for pay raises, can't we?

I mean, we should all be able to get behind a uniform criteria for pay raises, can't we? Well, of fucking course we can't, which was best demonstrated by a letter to the editor of two local publications penned by former vice chair of Wasatch County Republican Party, James Green. Well, he was current vice chair when he wrote this thing, but we'll get to that part later. So in the letter, Green explains the inherent problem with equal pay, which is apparently the part where women earn as much money as men. After all, men are, in Green's words, the primary breadwinners of their families and thus deserve more money for all the bread. Now, this ignores the 25% of children in this country who are being raised by a single mom, but this wouldn't exactly be the first time Utah Republicans ignored that. From the letter, quote, if businesses are

forced to pay women the same as male earnings, that means they will have to reduce the pay for the men they employ. If that happens, the men will have an even more difficult time earning enough to support their families, which will mean more mothers will be forced to leave the home where they may prefer to be to join the workforce, end quote. He went on to lament the fact that more working women would make it harder for men to find jobs too, concluding with these actual words, quote, it's a vicious cycle that only gets worse

the more equality of pay is forced upon us, end quote. And I honestly wish this was the stupidest argument against equal pay I've ever heard, but there is a silver lining on this one though. Remember how I said he was the former vice chair of the county's Republican party? Looks like the backlash from his letter left him looking for a job.

Good thing he has a penis, huh? Of course, there's a simpler solution to Greene's problem here. Just get rid of all the women. And that idea comes to us from the fine folks over at IKEA, who are under fire this week after it came to light that the version of the catalog they sent to Israel depicts exactly zero women. Seriously, every photo shows only men. This is, of course, an effort to appeal to the same dipshit fundies that demand new seats on airplanes so they don't catch menstruation. But it's crazy disappointing seeing as how IKEA has a reputation

for inclusion in their catalogs. Hell, back in the early 90s, Christians were boycotting them for including gay couples in their ads. And to their credit, IKEA has apologized for the penis-centric brochure and promises to do better next time. The connective thread of these stories, centric brochure and promises to do better next time. The connective thread of these stories, by the way, other than the misogyny, of course, is that in both instances, outrage won the day. And I only point that out because when you do this week after week, it often feels like you're just fighting windmills. And something tells me the resistance movement in the U.S. is going to need a few reminders that sometimes getting pissed off works. And with that, I'll hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli.

Thank you, Lucinda. And in Taco B-E double hockey sticks news tonight, political activist group and best place to find a woman with a TJ Maxx credit card, One Million Moms is once again enraged this week that a recently aired Taco Bell ad included the phrase, when your morning is hell, just go to Taco Bell. Okay, well, I'm going to be super happy if you're telling me that Taco Bell started doing commercials about funerals. Just like a big line of people in all black weeping into their AM crunch wraps.

A bunch of Jewish people inside a taco bell covering up the mirrors sit shiva went through the drive-through super slow their hazards on everybody's pulling over on the side and and what's so fucked up about this is that the offensive part of this message to these people is the word hell right i mean if a million people were bitching about the social irresponsibility of breakfast from taco bell i'd head over to change.org on their behalf right now what's that well three-day- old fetid bean dip and some ground squirrel buried under a handful of viscous lettuce phlegm gonna jump start your digestive tract with that and then hop on the subway huh no no no problem at all i just wanted to thank you for putting the

silver lining around the pending repeal of obamacare fat ass i guess what we're saying here at the skating atheist is there's no reason to eat breakfast at taco bell unless you're still drunk and sleep won't matter exactly anyway one million moms which by the way has about as many likes as us on facebook and 5 000 less twitter followers than noah just saying we might want to change our name to One Million Atheists. We might as well. Anyway, they released a statement saying, quote, Taco Bell's Morning is Hell ad is irresponsible and offensive. This inappropriate advertisement is aired during prime time when children are likely watching. It is extremely destructive and damaging to impressionable young children viewing the commercial, end quote. and damaging to impressionable young children viewing the commercial, end quote.

Not adding, I mean, look, if they said go to Taco Bell or you'll go to hell, that's just the game plan. But let's not get around here. Seder run punishment dimensions are no joke. I think the most like the most disconnected thing here is the idea that children watch TV. I mean, come on, that's just old people now. And in Hind don't news tonight, a recent report sponsored by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is raising hackles with political and religious leaders in India this week. The report criticized the deterioration of religious freedom under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist government and said that despite India's constitutional guarantees of religious equality, quote, minorities face discrimination and persecution due to a combination of overly broad or ill-defined laws an inefficient justice system and a lack of

jurisprudential consistency end quote yeah it's a nice way of saying brave new world isn't supposed to be a model for successful government you shouldn't right stop being old-timey gattaca the country that's not a good plan now the report specifically cites a number of failures of the country that's not a good plan now the report specifically cites a number of failures of the ruling party to live up to its own constitution including but not limited to anti-conversion laws the fact that cows are specially protected by the laws in most states and the fact that people born into the dalit caste aren't i mean if you're gonna choose big friendly cow and a fucking dalit we're right that's your really that's your hindu one but but more than specific legal transgression the report focused on selective prosecution that carves out

extra legal protection for hindus and while the indian government doesn't exactly dispute any of the claims or the fact that they violate their own laws, they still dismiss the report as Hindu phobia. Can you imagine that? National leaders who dismiss verifiable shit as fake news. India must suck. It's just like a little kid trying to blame their brother for being worse here. That's what it feels like. Bangladesh stabs people.

Okay, we're not talking about Bangladesh right now. We're talking to you about your behavior, whatever. Tell Pakistan to stay on its side i'm not encroaching on you i'm not encroaching so indian external affairs ministry spokesman vika swarup said of the commission quote we have serious doubts on their credibility end quote and back home the hindu american foundation accused them of a quote egregious display of hindu phobia in linking caste-based discrimination to the hindu religion end quote a claim approximately as controversial as linking christianity to crucifixes other national leaders disregard the report as an effort to christianize

india while still others claim it was a pakistani conspiracy so glad to see u.s exports are up yeah they've got our bigotry now Now they just need our crazy, depressing, rascal-bound fat people and we're all set. We could spare those. And finally tonight, from the ignorance is cyanide and happiness file.

It looks like another African pastor is giving out poison to his parishioners as a demonstration of magical faith powers. And this time it's rat poison. Now, let's just think about that for a second. I had to say another African pastor, and I had to say this time it's rat poison.

You're right. I don't want to get this confused with very similar recent stories about motor oil and insect repellent. And by the way, I believe that this headline put stories about African pastors poisoning their congregants to death ahead of the stories we've covered about African pastors crushing their congregants to death by one. So still pretty neck and neck,

but the poisoning is pulling ahead. Guys, if the next one puts a hose up a lady's butt and fills her with water till she pops, he throws me $9. Nine. Shouldn't have taken those odds. Now now i want to throw out a quick disclaimer we saw this in multiple sources but lots of them are unreliable tabloid type stuff so just keep that in mind but here's the thing even if this turns out to be a fake story just the fact that we couldn't be sure it feels like a newsworthy thing to mention, doesn't it?

Or at least a racist one. Well, at least, at the very least. Lunatics trying to prove magical nonsense by giving people poison is totally plausible thanks to religion. That's the headline here. Right. If this was like David Silverman gives out arsenic martinis at Reasoner, everybody would know that was fake. But a Christian pastor, it's very hard to say. Yeah.

Yeah. Everyone knows Silverman ain't buying drinks for nobody. Because he's Jewish. Yeah. He's Jewish. Okay. So, you know how it's illegal to pay someone for sex, but it's fine if you film it? There's little I know more securely in my heart and mind.

Okay, well, those are very similar when it comes to tricking people into drinking rat poison. It's fine if you do it during porn. Can confirm. Good, good. Again, now, I checked with Andrew and he made it very clear that we're wrong about that.

He was very adamant but I feel like I was picking up on lots of nonverbal communication at the same time. For sure it was one of those times when his words say no, but his eyes, I think they said yes. So we're going to help out with some marketing

as we like to do. Get ready for ReasonCon. Let's put 30 seconds on the clock. Poison-themed porn titles. Go. All right. We're going to start with les lesbians which is where i always start my porns how about when bella met donna who uh the pebble and mrs jones um about kool-aids and the gang bang in diana jones town and the people's temple of doom how about mustard gas to ass taking it in the arsenic uh rue barbarella um mine kumpf the climax of adolf and ava um epilogue jamming i guess that's just kind of

a generic snuff film title but you know good work for this one uh easy prussic acid that's a porn deep cut one guy right now feels very uncomfortable all right i got one more how about uh iocane powder bottoms two girls one cup in front of me all right well i guess it's time for me to jump on porn hub and look up easy prussic acid so i get the joke i guess we can close out the headlines while i do that for the night heath eli thanks as always eli Eli's plan for ReasonCon. You said we couldn't do crime. And when we come back, we'll check back in with Mormonism and see if it stopped being crazy as fuck since the last time we looked.

Well, now we have to change that. Hey, hey you. You like blogs? Well, don't tell Noah and Heath, but I'm starting a blog slash YouTube channel producing regular content, and I've just launched the Patreon. If you'd like, you can check it out. Head over to patreon.com slash Eli Bosnick

to read the very first blog on how to prevent Milo from speaking at your school. But don't tell Noah and Heath. We're sitting right here. I helped you set up the Patreon. No, they didn't. Patreon.com forward slash Eli Bosnick. New blog.

Super cool. Super secret. Tell everybody except Noah and Heath. What? Why are we letting him do this? I don't know. The views expressed in Eli's thingy do not represent the views of scathing atheists, skeptic rats, God of movies, or his parent companies.

We have to, he knows we're going to edit it. Please put it in our show. Due to the popularity of last month's Mormon Peace Theater, we felt like we couldn't help but continue the tradition. So for those of you who would rather jump off a cliff than read the cliff's notes, we present one more edition of... Mormon Peace Theater. Last time on Mormon Peace Theater. I am Nephi, the best of the brothers.

The lesser ones are Laman, Lemuel, and Sam. Hi. Whoa, I sound different. Yeah, well, we figured since you're the one with the lame, shitty, stupid, lame name, maybe we'd give you a voice to fit, so.

I fucking hate you guys so much. I live in ancient Israel with my father. Hello! Who's a prophet of God. Go ye and wander the desert and then come back and then go and come back again like a bunch of times. Brothers, we must get the plates. I vote we kill you. Seconded.

Okay, well, it's a good thing that'll never happen again. We're back with the plates. I dreamed your brothers were dicks. Gee, uh, thanks, Dad. That's awesome, thanks. I have a vision for you. Yay! Love visions. And now, this week's installment of Mormon Peace Theater.

And lo, much was shown to me in my vision. Nephi, look at your seed. Ew, gross. No. No, I meant your kids. Oh, oh, um, yeah, me too. That's what I meant. Do you see this book? but books don't exist yet right right totally i mean plates do you see these plates seriously joe didn't have a fucking eraser i just i guess not i don't yep okay i i see i see the plates all right listen closely i don't like

jews catholics indians jews again america is yours the world is gonna end and joseph smith All right, listen closely. I don't like Jews, Catholics, Indians, Jews again. America is yours, the world is gonna end, and Joseph Smith is a fuck machine, you dig? I dig. Brothers, I have returned from my vision. No, I'm telling you it's bullshit. Come now, brothers, don't say such things. Oh, go fuck a rock. Well, maybe I will.

Brothers, brothers, why do you quarrel? Because Dad's last 19 dreams have been about what a bunch of dicks we are. Yeah. But, brothers, don't you see? All he's telling you is that you can't accept God's love, and the price you'll pay will be the blackening of your evil skin, and you'll be lazy devils with evil in your hearts, and

you're black. Whoa. Nephi. It's about ethics in gaming journalism. Let's transition before Layman tells us not to punch him. And it came to pass that my brothers and I married the daughters of Ishmael.

All at once? Yes, more efficient that way. Do we have names? No. I wanted one book that didn't hate women. One. Nope. What a beautiful morning. What's this? Father, what is it?

It's a ball made of solid brass, and it's of curious workmanship. Wow, it is of curious workmanship. I guess if I had to describe this ball, which is made of brass, the things I would say about it would be that it's workmanship. You know, how it's made is curious, you know, odd. Okay. Worksmanship. Okay, we get it.

Do we? All right. It's a liahona. With it, we can receive messages from God, and one hand points in the direction we must go. Okay, and the other hand? The other hand points at Dix, who asked too many questions. How's that?

Got him. Shut up, Sam. And it came to pass that we did wander the desert until one day my bow, which was made of steel, got broken. Your steel bow? Why don't your fucking Colt.45? Your machine gun. I left those at home with my iPad.

I'm an ancient Israelite. And it came to pass, since my bow was broken and we had no food, that my brothers and the sons of Ishmael began to murmur greatly. Wait, sons? Why did we bring the sons of Ishmael? Probably for Sam. Yeah, you game-o. I fucking hate you guys so much.

But I did chastise my brothers, and their murmuring ceased. I will turn this pilgrimage around right now, and nobody will get to see the new Holy Land. I'll do it. Fine. I have to pee. Just pee anywhere in the desert. It's okay to pee anywhere in the desert. Or in my mouth.

Shut up, Sam. And it came to pass that I made a new bow out of wood and an arrow. And I asked God to tell me where to hunt for food so that we would not die. Oh, God says to go to the top of the mountain. Uh, really? Nope, no idea. Joe never says what the ball says, but that's where you go next. This fucking book.

Hi, I'm Ishmael. And it came to pass that Ishmael died. Wait, seriously? God, I fucking hate you guys so much. Got him. And his daughters did mourn him. Wait, seriously? God, I fucking hate you guys so much. Rawr! Got him. And his daughters did mourn him. Sure does suck my dad is dead.

You know what might have helped with that? What? Not wander in the desert without food at his age. You know what we should do? We should kill Nephi. Jinx, buy me a Coke. Fuck. Ooh, you talked. You're gonna turn black now. That's your one.

And it came to pass that my brothers rose up against me. Nephi, we're going to try to kill me. Yeah, it's been like 10 minutes. Sounds about right. But the Lord intervened. Seriously, you guys have got to stop trying to kill Nephi. We're sorry. Okay, here's some toaster strudhi. We're sorry. Okay, here's some toaster strudels.

Thanks, God. Alright, see you later. Let's try to kill Nephi. Yeah! And it came to pass that we had children. Wah! Wah! Wah! Strong children.

Where? Where? Where? And we came upon a land of much bounty, with much wild fruit and honey. And we called it... Bountiful. Really? Bountiful? That's all you... You sure you don't want to just call it Fruit and Honeyvania? Do you want to call this Fruit and Honeyvania? See, this is why everyone tries to kill you. Yeah.

Nephi. Nephi. Go to the mountain. Okay, are you going to tell me a thing that I need to do here? Is this something you could just tell me here and that I could get started on without going to the mountain? No, no. Go to the mountain. It's important. Okay, now go back down the mountain and build a giant boat. Oh, fuck you! This took

like four hours. I got a rock in my sandal. Got him. Hurts. And it came to pass that the Lord did provide me with sheepskin for my bellows and told me where the oar was so I could make tools. And I did begin to build a boat.

You're building a boat. Yeah, it's going to be great. We're all going to go to America on it. Seriously? Yep. Name one thing about a boat. Tell me anything about a boat right now and I'll never try to kill you again.

It's sheep skin. Yeah, we're gonna try to kill you again. Seriously? An angel was here like four minutes ago. They said don't do... Who wants to hear the story of Moses? Not so much.

Fine. Yeah, well, everybody back off. I have a super cool force field, and if you touch me, you'll die. Fine. Fine. Good thing that'll never happen again. And it came to pass that I used the timbers to build a boat.

Wait, I'm sorry, what? Timbers? You're in an Arabian desert, bro. Arabian desert? That's you. That's what you sound like. And the Lord showed how to make a boat, not in the ways of men, but in the ways of God. Okay, now put your finger through here and grab this loop,

and now you turn your hand around. Okay. See? Kind of looks like the Eiffel Tower. It does look like the Eiffel Tower. And now it's a boat. And it is a boat. And it came to pass that my brothers and their wives became exceedingly rude. Sexy dance, sexy dance.

Woo woo! Yeah! You, you must stop. Gee, I wonder how we'll solve this difference of opinion we have with Nephi. What? I'm getting ready for ReasonCon. Lucinda. Not cool.

We are invited guests at ReasonCon. Why would you even joke about that? We need people to feel safe around us. Are you kidding? Are you fucking serious right now? Next scene. Next scene. Shame on you.

Shame. Oh, you guys can go fuck yourselves. Come on. Okay, Nephi is all tied up on the boat. Can't foresee anything going badly here. Hey, bro, this compass ball thing just broke. Hey, do you guys see those clouds? They look kind of weird to you.

Fuck. And it came to pass, though we were many days in the storm, my brothers would not let me go until they did let me go. Fine. Fine. Fine. And we did land safely in the promised land, where we did plant the seeds we had brought with us.

From ancient Israel. Yes, and they did flourish. That's why there's so many free-growing dates in America. There are, and we did see animals of every kind as well. Horse, oxen, and cow. None of those existed here yet. And men's rights activists who aren't just trying to distract from women's issues. Ah, I get it. And it came to pass that I did gather ore and did set down the story of my people. I thought this was the story of your people. It is.

Glad we cleared that up. And by the way, even though I wrote this, if there's any mistakes, that's me, Nephi, and not anyone who might be reading this. Say, out of a hat. It would be me, not them. You know, the hat is actually in a couple of the tellings. That, for example.

Fun fact, however. Do we ever kill Sam? Fine. Fuck you. I won't tell my stories. Jesus. Fuck you. I won't tell my stories. Jesus. Oh no, he won't tell his stories. And it came to pass that I did have many

original thoughts. Joe. It's Nephi. Nephi, it's literally just two chapters of Isaiah. With some mistakes. Oh, uh, fuck the Catholics? I'm sorry, what? And also anyone who disagrees with this book.

Fine. You guys are going to try to kill me again next time, aren't you? We sure are, buddy. Don't. Please don't. Sure are. Before we get the hook tonight i wanted to thank bryce blankenagle from the serial mormon history podcast naked mormonism for helping us out with mormon peace theater tonight if we've piqued your curiosity about america's second wackiest faith i highly recommend you check out his show and get the whole story of how it came to be you'll find it linked in the show notes of course anyway that's

all the blasphemy 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 brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend god awful movies debuting at 7 a.m eastern time on tuesday or give yourself a head injury and listen to this podcast again like it was brand new also do not take head injury advice from a podcast of course the show would fall to pieces at the end if i neglected to thank heath enright for being the thread that holds this thing together i need to thank the lovely lucinda illusions for being the glue that binds us and i need to thank eli for being the adhesive that makes the pages hard to turn i also want to thank greg from birch and russell's cat radio show for providing this week's farsworth quote i also want to point

out in eli's defense he's doing ray comfort that's not an australian that's a kiwi so i'm pretty sure eli's accent is spot on but most of all of course i need to thank this week's most nubile nullifitians carlos chuck aaron philip marissa alexa mccool and her fabulous snarky publishing stuff other on. But most of all, of course, I need to thank this week's most nubile nullifidians Carlos, Chuck, Aaron, Phillip, Marissa, Alexa, Mukul, and her fabulous snarky publishing stuff, other Aaron, Jennifer, Keisha, Matthew, Kristen, Josh, Fuckstain, Brandon, Chris, Jesus, Crotch, and Dylan. Carlos, Chuck, Aaron, Phillip, and Marissa, whose

kung fu is so fierce their lips don't match their words, other Aaron, Jennifer, Keisha, Matthew, and Kristen, whose IQ would be mistaken for a phone number if you dial international a lot, and Josh, Fuckstain, Brandon, Chris, Jesus, Crotch, and Dylan, whose cocks would have been happy to tell NASA about those seven planets if they just asked. Together, these 15 ferociously fuckable freethinkers further the fullness of our fastidious fight for freedom from faith this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the aforementioned ferocity or fuckability it takes to give us money,

but if you're looking for a worthwhile test to your F-attributes, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an ad-free extended edition of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but you're allergic to podcast donations, you can also help us a ton by leaving us a five-star review on iTunes, following us on the various social medias, and telling a friend about the show. Legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of P. Andrew Torres and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also

wrote and performed all the music used in this episode. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at SkatingAdias.com I got it. I got it. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.