The Scathing Atheist - ScathingAtheist 220: Pro-Truth Edition

Episode Date: May 4, 2017

In this week’s episode, Andrew Torrez joins us to explain children shouldn’t have a playground, Skynet finally launches their baby genocide (slash) snack cake project, and Gleb Tsipursky will be here to discuss truth in politics and other popular fantasies. 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 To learn more about our upcoming podcast, Citation Needed, click here: https://www.patreon.com/citationpod Guest Links: If you want to learn more about the Pro-Truth Pledge, or Gleb’s work in general, you can find it here: https://www.protruthpledge.org/ http://intentionalinsights.org/ http://glebtsipursky.com/ To check out Andrew’s podcast, Opening Arguments, click here: http://openargs.com/ Headlines: SCOTUS hears oral arguments in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/04/19/after-oral-arguments-the-supreme-court-seems-poised-to-strike-a-blow-to-churchstate-separation/ Alex Jones loses custody of his children because he's an insane person: http://www.alexjonespersonarapedakidatcometpingpong.com Appeals Court: Selling heroin can’t be part of your religion: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/04/29/appeals-court-rules-against-inmate-who-said-selling-heroin-was-part-of-his-religion/ San Antonio’s “apology” to atheists worse than statement she was apologizing for: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/04/24/san-antonio-mayor-issues-non-apology-after-blaming-poverty-on-broken-people-who-arent-christian/ Christians pissed about Plan-B in vending machines at UC Davis: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/04/25/conservative-christians-are-furious-that-uc-davis-is-selling-plan-b-in-a-vending-machine/

Warning, I'm sick, so pretty much nobody's keeping these vulgar fucks in line this week. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Blue Apron, a better way to cook. And by our Alex Jones in five words or less contest. Today's winner is at Dirty Irish Tactics, kind of spelled different, who had Insane Clown Posse's political correspondent. Well played. Picture a juggalo at a custody hearing trying to explain the word persona to a judge. Anyway, this is a fun one, so we're going to keep it going.

Keep tweeting us your best five words or less on Alex Jones using the hashtag ScathingAlexJones, and you could be the next winner. And now, Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Rizdan Bonnell from Panama City, Florida, the largest party town in the Bible Belt, and I just wanted to say that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's Star Wars Day. And I don't stand by anything either. I'm no illusions.

I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from New York, New York, and Secret Lair, Pennsylvania, this is Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Andrew Torres joins us to explain why children shouldn't have a playground. Skynet finally launches their baby genocide slash snack cake project. And Gleb Teporsky will be here to discuss truth in politics

and other popular fantasies. But first, the diatribe. It's amazing to me the kind of semantic webs people are willing to weave in order to not blame religion for shit. And some are so pervasive that you really have to step back to realize just how absurd they are. Let me give you a perfect example. How many times have you heard someone suggest that the problem is organized religion right as though the fault somehow also lies with organization i mean quick name one of those other things that's perfectly okay until it's organized i'll wait calvin ball maybe eli's sense of humor i don't know seems to

me that if you pile something together and you end up with a big pile of giant societal ills the things you are piling together by logical necessity were smaller societal ills. And yet intelligent, educated people will spout this nonsense as though it makes perfect sense to blame the bullet but forgive the gun. I mean, yes, organized religion is generally speaking worse than non-organized religion, but that's true of all the bad shit. unorganized religion but that's true of all the bad shit and as much as these people want to hide behind this nonsensical assertion that the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts it's really just an egocentric way of divorcing themselves or their loved ones from the blame they rightly deserve you know it's like my mom's religious and she's not part of the problem well of fucking course she is she's lending credibility and probably giving money to a corrupt institution

that takes credit for her altruism and adds nothing of value to the world. That theoretical mom is empowering bigots, homophobes, warmongers, and child rapists. But even if you set all that aside, the very fact that she adds to this bullshit notion that reliable knowledge can be gained in the absence of reliable sources is plenty detrimental all by itself. I mean, we're going to talk a lot more later in this episode about our world's increasingly strained relationship with the truth. And given the climate climate of global politics I don't think it's an exaggeration to call that an existential threat and yet as a society we're still on board with

grandfathering in specific pieces of bullshit but but only if they're really antiquated you know we as a species cannot simultaneously have a commitment to truth and a tolerance of lies. And let's call it what it is. God exists is a fucking lie. It's not a mistake. It's not a mystery. It's a fucking lie. Even if it eventually turned out to be true, it'd still be a fucking lie because the person that was telling you didn't know that at the time. And sure, the person saying it may not know it's a lie, but look, the person parroting Donald Trump on my Facebook page probably suffers from delusions of honesty, too. Doesn't change the veracity of their claims.

They're still fucking lies. But, of course, we're too worried about pissing off grandma, so we construct these elaborate rhetorical contortions to try to avoid the elephant in the room. And, of course, I'm using we in a collective sense here. I'm not talking about you and me because we know grandma can go fuck herself. Well, my grandma can't because she's dead and there's no such thing as an afterlife but grandmas in general can go fuck themselves but as a whole as a society we seem to be perfectly willing to placate the root of the problem with bullshit modifiers like organized of course the end result is that we can blame institutions as though they had some conscious force of their own and of course when individuals

do a horrible shit in the name of religion, we're told that we'd be bigots if we acted like that somehow represents their whole religion. So now nobody's to blame ever. Under this paradoxical system, no individual can ever be made to feel guilty no matter what horrible shit their beliefs condemn the world to. I even see this caveat offered by prominent atheists drawn some fine distinction between personal religion and organized religion. After all, it's not personal football causing all those concussions. It's organized football. So that's where the blame belongs, right? That distinction is unassailably absurd if you try to attach it to any other problem.

And yet we all here are constantly drawn with religion. And most of us never call out how profoundly disingenuous it is. I mean, we couldn't exactly have organized religion if we didn't have religious people, could we? And while we're at it, we couldn't exactly have religious people if we didn't have organized religion either. I mean, what's the alternative? Religion is just popping up spontaneously with a congregation of one every time? As impossible as that is to even imagine. I can't imagine anybody

arguing that that would be a good thing. What if we all just believe completely different and discordant shit about how the world worked and none of us ever agreed on any of it? Wouldn't that be grand? Forgive me if I remain unconvinced. I've said this before and I'll keep saying it until I'm dead or some religious zealot cuts out my tongue. The problem isn't organized religion. It isn't fundamentalist religion. It isn't this religion or that religion. The problem is religion. There's no version of it that doesn't require a suspension of logic. And that all by itself is a huge fucking problem. This is not a spigot you can open up just a little, just this one time when you tell people, well, the logic and evidence don't matter in this particular instance, what you're telling them is that logic and evidence don't matter.

And the fact that great societal ills arise from this isn't a bug, it's a feature. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are two grown men who fight over the lucky shorts heath enright and eli bosnick fellas are you ready to meet in the cage of death now or what i don't know there's no need for that no i don't think so they are rightfully mine and eli will never be able to truly wield them and they will fail him when he least expects it. Okay, just to be clear, everyone is cool with me wearing these claws to a fist fight. Like, there's no objections to that.

No Vega moves. Yeah, I was going to say, you've got to listen to all the shows and the Patreon bonuses to get all the jokes. Yeah. All right. Well, obviously, this is going to get bloody before it's over. So we're going to take a quick break to hear from this week's sponsor, Blue Apron. Hi, welcome to Generic Food Co-op. My name is Ridiculous.

How can I help you? I love your hair. Thanks. I'm just looking to get some sustainably sourced food, and every time I go to a restaurant or a grocery store... They tell you to order Blue Apron? Oh, again? Okay, first of all,

please don't use angry tones around the plants. It frightens them. But yes, because Blue Apron? Oh, again? Okay, first of all, please don't use angry tones around the plants. It frightens them. But yes, because Blue Apron has established partnerships with over 150 local farms, fisheries, and ranchers across the United States, and as a result, seafood is sourced sustainably under standards developed in partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. Beef, chicken, and pork come from responsibly raised animals. Produce is sourced from farms that practice regenerative farming.

And because Blue Apron ships the exact amount of each ingredient required for a recipe, they are reducing food waste. Yeah, no, no, I know. Okay, so what about you? Oh, we're a bunch of baby boomers who don't understand specialization. I see. Okay, well, what about price? I mean, you know, the whole point of a co-op is super inexpensive, cheap food, right?

You'd think that, wouldn't you? That would seem logical. No. Turns out 14 app developers and someone who makes their own jewelry don't really nail the farming industry in the way we'd hoped. And sure, Blue Apron is just $10 a meal. Well, but you have... A monthly subscription for way too much kale. Okay, well, I mean, Blue Apron delivers to 99% of the continental United States.

Well, we have one location, and we don't use the D word here. It reminds people of the S word. Right. Okay, look, there must be something a food co-op can offer that Blue Apron can't. Oh, now you're talking. We sure can. All right, finally. Here we go. You get to pay to work for us.

What? That's right. Unlike Blue Apron, at a food co-op, when you sign up today, you can pay us a monthly fee to be ordered around by teenagers once a month. This is Kyler. Whatever, you're not my real dad. That's because we're all Kyler's dad here. Sounds way better than checking out this week's menu and getting your first three meals free with free shipping by going to blueapron.com slash scathing, right? I mean, sure, you'll love how good it feels and tastes to create incredible home-cooked meals with Blue Apron, but Kyler here will yell at you about how

much to water tomatoes for negative dollars. My name is Night Sparrow now. Night Sparrow. I respect that, Night Sparrow. Again, that's blueapron.com slash scathing. Blue Apron. A better way to cook. You want to buy some drugs? That's tomato,

Kyler. No, it's not. Hate you. Respect him. drugs that's tomato kyler no it's not hate you respect him and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight the supreme court recently heard oral arguments in the case of trinity lutheran church versus comer in which a missouri church has challenged the law that keeps the state treasury from just handing them money because this is the 18 fucking hundreds now and we might as well get used to it so to get us all up to speed on the case we're joined by the host of the opening arguments podcast dear friend of the show and proud classmate of Ted Cruz Andrew Torres Andrew welcome back well Noah thanks for having me on the show it's always fun to be here have you have you caught up with Teddy recently? Oh, yeah. We are going to win back his seat in 2018.

I've sketched out how we're going to do it. D plus 10 year, baby. Sorry. So if you could, can you give us a brief sketch of the Trinity Lutheran Church case? What is this all about? Sure. So first, Missouri has a law that is it's a state run program by their Department of Natural Resources that provides a grant to schools and playgrounds and preschools to resurface their playgrounds with that kind of mulched up tire stuff, right? So, and the idea behind that is to encourage the recycling of tires and also it's a little bit safer because it's, you know, rubber and kind of bouncy and it's better than the like gravel playgrounds that you and I used to play on as kids.

Right. And what that runs smack into conflict with is a provision of the Missouri state constitution. Right. Article one, section seven of their constitution says that no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church sect or denomination of religion or in aid of any priest, preacher, minister, teacher thereof. Okay, so what happened was Trinity Lutheran Church runs a preschool. They applied to get this grant to resurface their playground, and the state said, went through the application process, said, yep, you would be a qualified applicant on the merits, but you're a church and we have a constitution, so that's it. Okay.

So now I kind of see where we're going, but I want to point out that atheists aren't in favor of kids getting injured from falling off playground equipment here. Speak for yourself. Speaking for myself here. I mean, but this isn't like motivated by social Darwinism or anything. So is there something here that atheists and church state separation enthusiasts should be worried about? Absolutely, because this would wind up being another form of right wing judicial activism of the kind that I rail about

all the time. OK, so in order to understand why this would be a significant case, you have to look back to a 2004 case called Locke versus Davey. And in that case, Washington State had a policy that said, look, we only have a certain amount of money to spend on scholarships for students.

And so we are going to exclude from our scholarship program, students who are pursuing a degree in devotional theology, right? Like that is to become a pastor. And that made it all the way up to the Supreme Court. That was just 13 years ago. And the Supreme Court said, yeah, right. That's totally fine.

Makes total sense. Limited funds. A state can rationally say we don't want those funds going to directly advance religion. And that's really the key point here, right? Like, this is not a classic, you know, Lemon versus Kurtzman establishment clause case. This is not, if the state wins, it doesn't mean that all other states must prohibit churches from receiving public funds to resurface their playgrounds, right? What it means is that they have the ability to do that, right? And on the other hand, if Trinity Lutheran wins,

it means no state will ever be allowed to draw that line, right? And that's really a radical expansion of First Amendment law in the direction of the overwhelming majority religion in this country. Well, right, right. Yeah. Kind of the opposite of what you sort of want out of that to begin with, if you want anything out of it. Yeah. And in particular, if you look to the court's 1990 decision in Employment Division versus

Smith, right, that was the peyote case in which Antonin Scalia basically said, if you're a member of a crazy, you know, mushroom-eating minority religion, then you have no rights. I mean, the holding of Employment Division v. Smith is, if a law is of neutral applicability on its face, then you have no claim under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment for an exception to that law. And actually, you and I have talked about this before. You know, you could debate the wisdom of that either way. But it would certainly be a miscarriage of justice to say minority religious groups have essentially no recompense under the First Amendment. But if you're a Christian, like, sure, we're going to build in some special protection into a reading of the First Amendment that's never been endorsed by the Supreme Court before.

Well, OK. And so that's why I wanted you here to talk to us about this, because, you know, my amateur opinion is fucking duh. Of course, you can't just hand money to a church. You're the government. So why is this case even being heard at the Supreme Court? Yeah, well, so there are a couple of reasons, right? Like the first is, like I said, this this case comes up in sort of a unique question, right? Like it's not an establishment clause argument. that says the state-run fire department is going to drive by a burning building because it's a church, right? Like you could stop and spend government funds on putting out the fire. So this is one of those cases where like if you just read the petitioner's brief, right, you can kind of see where they're coming from. And this is actually, I mean, you know, if you sort of forgive the plug, like on episode 14 of Opening Arg point. You're discriminating against me because it's a church. But once you delve into the other side's argument, there's really not much of a case here. Okay. So with the obvious caveat that

you're a lawyer and not a Ouija board, what do you think we're looking at here? How do you think the Supreme Court's going to rule? So, yeah, thank you for the caveat. Let me explain first, right? The Trinity Lutheran Church, they lost at trial. They lost on appeal to the Eighth Circuit. If you listened to the opening arguments episodes, you know there's controlling law the other way in Locke versus Davey. So their argument is really, really terrible.

And when you're dealing with an argument that's really, really terrible, right, the only people you're going to pick up are the hardcore political right-wing activists who want to rule that way, regardless of how terrible your argument is. And right now, I count three hardcore accommodationists on the Supreme Court. You can probably guess who they are. Clarence? I can. Okay, please, go ahead. No guess. Well, I'm assuming our new guys in there, of course, are just going to be one of them. And Samuel Alito and the mute black guy. Exactly. And look, it's entirely possible that that includes Roberts as well. But Roberts just does not have a long history either way of writing on church-state issues, whereas the other three have a very long history of saying

essentially that their imaginary view of what they think the Founding Fathers wanted was for church and state to be commingled all the time. How you get to that, well, you're a right-wing judicial activist and you use the founding fathers as a ventriloquist dummy. So I am hoping, as an optimist, I am hoping for a 6-3 decision affirming the Eighth Circuit. But it could very easily be 5-4 the other way. Okay, but one way or the other, you think that church-state separation is going to win here? Oh, no, no. I'm saying it could, it would not surprise me. We don't have a lot on the line from Kennedy, and we have not a lot and not encouraging news from Roberts. So, the optimist says 6-3 because the arguments are terrible. The pessimist says 5-4 for Trinity Lutheran.

Okay, all right, gotcha. So what you're really saying is that you need to find yourself a good source of, you know, topical, legal, interesting entertainment on a twice-weekly basis and just, you know, keep your ear to the ground and find out how this goes. Well, I'm not saying that, but I'm not preventing you from saying that all right well i'll probably say it a couple more times before the show's out now i have one more kind of obvious question before i let you go would your assessment of the outcome of this case be any different if that ninth seat had merrick garland's ass in it yeah and and obviously i mean the risk would would drop considerably because Merrick Garland, like Anthony Kennedy, right, it has a view of the law that is consistent with the overwhelming mainstream of the liberal outcome more often, but it means that you care about precedent, right? You care about what the court has done to build up a body of law over time.

And I think Merrick Garland would look at it and be like, yeah, well, 2004, Locke v. Davy, perfectly okay to deny discretionary benefits on the basis of you're a church because limited public funds and there are all those sorts of questions about how those things get commingled. That's really the danger when you start sticking people like Gorsuch on the Supreme Court who are originalists, who don't care how many millennia, well, you know, centuries in this case, of jurisprudence that they can ignore to sort of go back to put imaginary words in the mouths of the founding fathers, which just so happened to coincide with what the Tea Party in 2017 wants as an outcome. So, yeah, I mean, Garland's not an activist, and Gorsuch is. So that's where we are. Yeah, I guess that's really all you need to know.

Exactly. All right. And of course, if you'd like to hear more of Andrew's expert legal analysis and make yourself smarter about the law in the process, be sure to check out the Opening Arguments podcast, which you'll find linked on the show notes for this episode. Andrew, thanks so much for lending us your expertise once again. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And I am really sad that I'm not going to be on in 12 seconds for the MC Hammer joke. And apparently I was supposed to wait 10 seconds for this, but and in too legit to acquit news tonight, brilliant performance artist and decades long Bill Hicks prank Alex Jones wants us to know, hey, he's actually fucking nuts and means everything he says, despite his lawyer's protestations. And I've never felt closer to him.

Is it too late to get Andrew back on the line to refute that? I feel like we can. I think Andrew's busy with a custody battle about an invisible Indian baby. Which Eli crime seems more important right now? We need a rubric for this. Yeah, right. Like a top 20 list or something.

This is why I want to play black guy, black guy fan Indian baby. But you guys are like, no. Anyways, for those of you who don't follow along with the battle against the New World Order quite as closely as we do. First of all, congratulations. That sounds really nice. What are trees like? But let me fill you in.

Jones, like so many men who hate feminism and rail against it for a living, just lost a messy custody battle during the course of which his ex-wife has brought up that he's a fucking crazy person who thinks secret lizards are using gay bombs on the frogs to which his lawyer responded, Eli is just kidding. Guys, I'm tired of having to field these emails. I'll have six more jizz. Oh, no, sorry. I gotta start

marking these differently. Anyways, so Alexones's lawyers replied things he says on air can't be taken seriously because he's just a character and performance artist well but but in his wife's defense i don't think she was accusing anyone of taking him seriously but if your performance art consists of throwing poop at the voices in your head you're still fucking crazy. Getting paid for it doesn't change the clinical diagnosis. But still, Patreon.com slash Eli Bosnick.

It's a great blog. Wait, did we switch back to Alex Jones again? I'm not. This story is super confusing. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm defending. I'm attacking. And look, I got to say, there's a part of me that's actually weirdly sympathetic here. not the story is super confusing i don't know right i'm defending i'm attacking and look i

gotta say there's a part of me that's actually weirdly sympathetic here i mean i'm not pretending the illuminati are putting forward demon presidential candidates and that does make a difference but if things ever go south my wife could just play anything we do and I'm kind of fucked. Like a child. I want to fuck. See stuff like that in the story. I'm giving an example and it still didn't stop. It's a whole thing. You could have not said that. Yeah, right.

I feel like, just as an aside, Eli, you are radically underestimating the number of people that can use this against you. Wait, so you're saying it's kind of like a race that is exactly what i'm saying yes that's not what i was saying but there's more in the tradition of all great intellectuals jones responded to some of the heat he got based on his lawyer's statements by filming a video in his car. Like intellectuals do. Why do they keep doing this?

Not effective. You know how you get a great idea when you're driving? These guys haven't done that, but they think they have. Plus, most of them live in their cars at that point, so it's a win-win is what I'm saying. It's a win-win for everybody. There is nothing about his visager physique

that doesn't scream down by the river. Alex Jones is who we're talking about right now. I'm lost again. Right now. Guys, this story is falling apart. I blame Noah. What? Anyway, in the video during which Jones takes his hands off the wheel almost as much as me on the trip to ReasonCon.

You wanted to play charades. And would it have killed you to guess a movie? Maybe. yeah. I'm not having this fight again. Anyway, in his video, Jones insists that his lawyer meant it in the everyone is an actor, all the world's a stage sense of please don't take my client seriously. Using the examples, by the way, without a transition or any self-awareness at all of playing pirate with your children and role-playing with your wife.

Which is similar. You know. I wonder if he role-plays with his wife as a pirate. I feel like he does. You're gay frogs. But Jones insists that he means what he stands for on his show. He also mentions that several big liberals have come to his house and seen his oil paintings and poetry and were no longer able to believe he is right wing because of the poetry he wrote. They found lying around his house that contained the clues they would need to get out. Oh, undoubtedly.

He goes on to insist that all of this is, you guessed it, followers of a fake corporate conspiracy trying to bring down the real truth teller. So just remember, just because someone is a character doesn't mean you can lick them without asking. I do not think that's the lesson of this story. Well, it's the lesson now, story well it's the lesson now heath it's the lesson now and in junk bonds news tonight the eighth circuit court of appeals complicated

the shit out of andrew's assertion that reasonable people can disagree about religious exemptions in the law when said court had to uphold a decision that heroin dealing isn't a protected religious freedom without admitting that our current laws are stupid and unworkable so instead of being able to say dude dealing heroin is illegal regardless of your religion the court actually had to pretend that the real problem was that the assailant wasn't slinging smack in a sacred enough way yeah i mean you have to sell the heroin while you're part of a drum circle next to an oil pipeline. Were they not? That's apparently not. Oh, sure.

Now you want to protect the sacred. Aaron Raw was right about you. He was right all along. So this is the case of Timothy Anderson, who describes himself as, quote, a student of esoteric and mysticism studies, end quote, and who the police describe as, quote, a heroin dealer, end quote. And I'm guessing who everyone else describes as oh fuck not this guy again end quote you and i move in very different circles vis-a-vis the heroin guy now anderson does admit that he sold heroin but insists that such action was permitted under rifra since he created a religious non-profit to distribute heroin to quote the sick lost blind lame deaf and dead members of god's kingdom what

end quote yeah no the article didn't go into any detail about how he sold heroin to dead people but i've tried heroin and i can kind of see how that would happen yeah i think that's just called poisoning a person and then taking their money i am entitled to a fee hey spoilers for the future of citation needed heath spoilers i'm gonna kill those guys and steal their podcast so he tries to use this excuse in court judge tells him to fuck off and based on that he appeals and since we've all apparently agreed to play along with this bullshit notion that there's such a thing as a reasonable religious belief so that grandma won't get all shaky i mean grandma could just be jonesing just want to pop in there that's entirely possible yeah but based on that

the appellate court can't just say fuck off and instead upholds his conviction because he failed to convince the court that he and his customers were sufficiently religious about it as though this would have been okay if he turned the heroin into the body of Jesus first. Okay, but to be fair, if you want to sell heroin to kids, that's like the only way it makes sense. How else is society supposed to have kids buying heroin in a reasonable way if we don't have RFRA for like, you know, the Sunday exception? I think we can test this theory. No, we can't. You guys never let me do any fundraising. I know we do.

And in three broke guys news tonight, I wanted to offer a quick update on the story that we covered last week about how we atheists are broken and the cause of all of society's ills. I don't think this week's scam was that bad. I feel like that's an overstatement. Yeah, well, my inbox disagrees.

Approved officially by an African-American gentleman. It was on Twitter. Yeah, exactly. Two of them. Oh, well, there there you go that's like no reason cons that's not that's only like six-fifths of a white guy now i i want to be clear that what i'm now we've got to go back to zero sorry guys so now i want to be very clear here. I'm staying objective here, so I'm not going to suggest that we aren't the cause of all of society's ills. And in her ostensible apology for saying that we were, neither is that bitch that runs San Antonio. Yeah, her apology was basically, I'm sorry everyone didn't focus on a different part of my statement that didn't sound quite as bad. And she elbowed a jukebox and started working again so ridiculous quick reminder last week we talked about a video

that surfaced of san antonio mayor ivy taylor wherein she was asked about the root causes of systemic generational poverty and her answer was not christian enough of course there are few correlations stronger than the ones between poverty and religiosity. They hold among individuals, cities, states, nations, historical eras. And while correlation doesn't equal causation, it can sure as fuck rule it out. So she's definitely wrong. It would be difficult to be wrong. Her answer would have been equally correct if she blamed the GDP. But you would never have known that based on

her apology yeah willie wonka gave a better eulogy for augustus gloop right that movie's about kids who die for being curious it really is that's what that movie's about it's about children who get tortured in a candy factory also it's about how once in a while it's okay to punch a fat nazi child it's okay it's not okay it's okay it's not okay it's just not okay by case base so shortly after that episode aired taylor released a statement in response that started by saying that her words were taken out of context and it doesn't represent her true feelings and then she spent two paragraphs doubling down on it. Right.

I mean, the closest she ever came to backing away from the statement is when she says she thinks, quote, we're all broken from the richest among us to the poorest until we forge a relationship with our maker. In other words, all the atheists are broken. That's what we're pissed about. You say you stupid bitch. And then and then she goes on to lament the fact that she didn't express herself more clearly. No, that's what we got from it. bitch and then and then she goes on to lament the fact that she didn't express herself more clearly no that's what we got from it yeah imagine if there's anything but atheists she said like we're all broken not just jewish people like i originally said all of us well but it's even worse

because it would be like we're all broken just like jewish people until we stop being jewish and i just want to add to this my favorite piece of feedback we got to this story last week, which was someone who pointed out entirely unironically an atheist in an email that not everyone who, quote, doesn't have a relationship with God was an atheist. So we shouldn't be mad and take that personally. Not all dark skinnedinned people are african-americans all right so mayor it's not that we didn't understand your answer it's that it's bigoted as fuck and you shouldn't be allowed to run a city your actual answer is i'm not saying atheists are broken i'm saying all non-christians are broken you expanded your bigotry from 4% to 30%. And then she goes on to point out that there was also more to her answer.

So it's not just that people have the wrong religion. Education and teen pregnancy are subordinate problems that she eventually also got around to addressing. Basically, she's saying it can't be racist if you modify Mexicans with lazy, since then you're talking about sloth and Mexicans as equal problems. Okay, but what if you just talk about the hard, undeniable facts of Mexican IQs? Calm down, Sam. Slow it down. Chuckie Murray.

All right. Finally, tonight from the Plan B.A. file, religious people are panicking in response to recent headlines about a new vending machine at the University of California, Davis, that sells the morning after pill. You got to shake it. You shake it enough, you don't need the morning after pill. So, obviously, these evangelicals don't want globs of cum, also known as living babies, getting murdered by this thing. And to paraphrase the great philosopher Louis C.K.,

thing and uh to paraphrase the great philosopher louis ck yes this is killing babies but vending machines should be allowed to kill babies whoa 2.18 deaths a year heath not cool oh oh that you know yeah i mean everyone look if we want to be totally fair the baby should be allowed to fight the vending machine in single combat but i I mean, I agree with you on principle. I just think we should keep it fair. Okay, so I think we can all agree that we should be killing most babies most of the time. They're gross. They're gross. And we have plenty of people on the

planet. Anything from age negative .75 to 3, I feel like it's better if you never happen. We need poison spatula. Unless your parents are intelligent liberal atheists. But now we're getting to eugenics and I feel like I'm better if you never happen. We need poison spatula. Unless your parents are intelligent, liberal atheists. But now we're getting to eugenics, and I feel like I'm, you know, belaboring the point. Laboring. See? That's why we don't let Heath talk about eugenics on the show.

Bad puns. Whatever. That pun delivered. I mean, plus other podcasts really seem to be covering that subject lately. Don't want to seem bandwagoning. Exactly. Citation needed. Point being, it just seems silly to be eradicating babies without the help of convenient technology like vending machines.

Yeah. In fact, for every Planned Parenthood that gets shut down by asshole politicians, I think we should install a bunch of those Plan B dispensers. Or, you know, maybe jazz it up a little with bunch of those plan B dispensers or, you know, maybe, maybe jazz it up a little with some of those, uh, those skill crane machines. Fun. Just some teenager edit for hours,

man. She must really want that stuff. Penguin. Okay. So yeah, these vending machines are great. And I think the cranes would be fun for the whole family. But I feel like we're going to need to get a little more aggressive if we really want to kill lots of babies.

Hell yeah. We do. And by a little more aggressive, I obviously mean abortion cyborgs or terminatals. We will need 30 seconds on the clock. Ideas for the future of baby-killing robots, go. Okay, okay all right i'm rolling with your idea about making automated abortion more fun so how about ovum sockum robots uh c3p ovum yeah kind of like plan b b8 or plan c3po yeah basically ovarian wall e nice and maybe spermacylons

Blade-cunner What about like a Like a flying drone bot That enforces social responsibility The Decepticondom There you go And I feel like RU486 already sounds like a bit player In Star Wars Revenge of the Blasto-Sith

Or something so I'm just going to go with that How about the Mike Dyson he punched his pregnant girlfriend that's a he punched his pregnant girlfriend joke alright well speaking of vacuums and vacuum bots what about the

Wumba and maybe a DJ Wumba like remember Aziz and Parks and Rec had the DJ Wumba what's a good song for during an abortion what's a fun one And maybe a DJ Wumba. Like, remember Aziz and Parks and Rec had the DJ Wumba? No, I don't. What's a good song for during an abortion? What's a fun one?

And since there's no better visual image we can leave you on than a Wumba repeatedly... Baby, come back. And since there's no better visual image we can leave you on than a Wumba repeatedly bumping into a vag, I suppose we might as well close the headlines there. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Baby, come back. And when we come back, Gleb Teporsky will be here so that I don't get lazy in my surname pronunciation. If there's one thing that the 2016 election taught us, it's the answer to we can't possibly be that stupid, can we, is always yes. And while many of us are tempted to throw our hands up in the air and give up on the very notion that the American electorate is capable of rationality,

my next guest is redoubling his efforts to do something about it. Gleb Ziporsky is an activist, an author, and an educator. He's an assistant professor of history at Ohio State University, so nobody tell him I grew up in Ann Arbor. You may also have seen Gleb on ABC or Fox, you may have heard him on NPR, or you may have read his work in Psychology Today, Salon, The Skeptical Inquirer, or Time Magazine, and he joins me today to talk about something called the Rational Politics Project. Gleb, welcome to The Scathing Atheist. Thank you so much. Good to be on The Skating Atheist. Great to have you. So we're going to be talking a lot about combating post-truth politics today, and as much as that seems like a self-descriptive

term, just to be clear, I thought it might be useful to define our terms in advance. So what are post-truth politics? So Oxford Dictionary defines post-truth politics as the word of the year in 2016, and it defines post-truth Politics as its word of the year in 2016. And it defines Post-Truth Politics as politics that appeal to emotions and personal beliefs over truth. So politicians win in a Post-Truth Politics environment when appeals to emotions and personal beliefs win over facts and truth. All right. Now, you know, I know that Oxford chose that as their word of the year for 2016. But is this a new thing? I mean, I'm a fan of history. I know America survived the yellow journalism era. So is this just a new label for an existing phenomenon that's been with us all along?

It hasn't been with us in the modern environment. It's been the case in other countries that post politics has dominated, but not so much the United States, where politicians have doubled down on lies, even when they're caught lying, and they have really strongly attacked the media when they were caught lying by the media. So in those ways, those are new phenomenon. And that's not something that has happened in the past. Now, politicians lying has happened in the past, ways of times. I mean, Republicans and Democrats, you know, if you remember Democrats, things like you can keep your health care plan. Yeah, right. Barack Obama or George Bush, you know, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Sure it does. So all presidents

have lied in some ways, maybe not all presidents, but many, many presidents have lied in some ways. Maybe not all presidents, but many, many presidents have lied in some ways. But doubling down on their lies when they're caught and attacking the media for catching them is something unprecedented. Okay. And I want to be clear on this, too, because this is, you know, obviously, if you're following world news, this is not just a U.S. phenomenon. This seems to be growing throughout Western democracies. Absolutely. And we can trace its roots to some extent to actually Russia. This is quite interesting. Russia was a democratic country in the 1990s. And then Putin came into power. He started tactics like attacking the media for lying, and well, himself extensively lying, and then also attacking the election process,

saying the election is corrupt, the election is unfair, and taking over through these techniques and making the country into an authoritarian country, which it is right now. We see it happening right now in Turkey, where Erdogan is doing the same things. He started a few years ago attacking the media, and now he's corrupting the election process to give himself authoritarian power. So it's definitely happening elsewhere as well. We have, of course, Brexit was the other big example where the lead side of the Brexit campaign used a lot of lies and deceptions and won because of them. Well, yeah, and we're not sure how things are going to shake out in France, but they may be going that way too. Okay, so in your estimation, like worst case

scenario, where does this lead us? Well, it leads us to the same area where Russia is right now and where Turkey is clearly going, which is an authoritarian corrupt country. So with a leader who can take power and hold power through lies and deceptions, the future is an authoritarian one and a corrupt one, because the leader can maintain power. He, or if it happened to be she, can simply say, oh, my opponent got millions of illegal votes at the ballot box, and if they happen to lose, they can say, my opponent got thousands, millions of illegal votes in the ballot box, and I won't give up power. And what will happen then?

A constitutional crisis. And if the person happens to be in power currently, he or she can use that power to make sure they maintain power. So that's what happened with Putin. That looks like what's happening in Erdogan, and that's the worst case scenario in the United States, no question. Yeah, well, if we were talking a year ago, I would say, oh, an American president pretending there were millions of votes.

Yeah, no, it's all too real. Okay, so let's talk about the Rational Politics Project. Is that a realistic goal or a contradiction in terms? It actually is a realistic goal. So I'm a behavioral scientist, I've been doing research. I lead a nonprofit called Intentional Insights at intentionalinsights.org that actually promotes rational thinking. I've been doing that for over three years. And right now we're turning our attention to politics. Well, not right now, but a year ago,

because of all of the deceptions and lies in politics. And so we've decided to really focus on politics and see how we can actually introduce rational thinking into the political sphere. And there are ways to do it that, unfortunately, many people in the secular community don't use. And it's very sad to see people having the same arguments over and over again and thinking that arguments will change people's minds. They won't that's not what the research says there are a number of techniques that you can use to change people's minds but arguments will not change people's minds if those people are not already reason oriented now the vast majority of your listeners are reason oriented

and i happen to be and you are as, and they're oriented toward truth and reason. But when you speak to people who aren't, you can't use the same techniques. You can't use the same rhetorical strategies that you would use when talking to another reason-oriented person. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense, and that's what's so frustrating about those of us in the atheist and skeptical movements is that, you know, we know, hey, this is a lockdown, dead-on argument here. This is absolutely logically sound.

Why is it not convincing you? So give me some examples of what other methods one might employ. Sure. So I'll talk about two things. One is effective communication strategy, and the second is the pro-truth pledge. The first, I'll give you an example of a conversation I had with Scott Sloan, who's a well-known conservative media commentator, talk show host. He debated with Aaron Ra and plenty of other secular activists, and secular activists can know him from those sorts of debates. after a terrorist attack here in Columbus, where I am. There was a terrorist attack at Ohio State.

Somebody drove their car into a crowd of students. And, you know, naturally, Scott Sloan was down on Muslims and criticizing them. And I said, hey, it's okay to have fears and anger around Muslims. These are natural emotions. So I validated his emotions. That's the first thing. Echoing and empathizing. Not making yourself be a hostile, you know, seem like a bad guy.

Then align yourself with him. I said, we both want safety and security. These are things we care about both, Scott, right? So put yourself on the same side, not an opposing side. Then I said, well, how do we get safety and security? There are something like 1.8 million adult Muslims in the U.S. And in 2015, there were six of them who committed terrorist attacks. That's a 1 in 300,000 chance of finding a terrorist among Muslims. That's like picking up a terrorist from several football stadiums in France.

So statistically, if you focus on Muslims, you're not going to find an actual terrorist and you're going to waste your resources of safety and security. And also, how likely are Muslim communities going to be to give up potential terrorists in their midst if you start persecuting them? Not very likely. Finally, if you start persecuting Muslims, ISIS is already using Donald Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric in recruiting terrorists in the United States. So that's going to be bad.

And as a result of this transition, I said, well, for the sake of safety and security, even if our gut reactions don't feel like being nice to Muslims, we need to be nice toward Muslims against our intuitions in order to have safety and security. As a result of that conversation, Scott Sloan updated and he was like, yes, OK, I can see that we should be nice and generous toward Muslims, even if it doesn't intuitively feel like that's the right thing to do. Okay, so now it sounds like you're still using reason, you're still using rational arguments here, but you're softening them up through effective communication strategies sort of on the front end. That makes a lot of sense. Absolutely. You want to start with emotions and you want to put yourself on the same side as that person. Well, and it's valid anyway because I think obviously, look, which other side you're on,

I think that's the correct approach. I've said for years that the real problem we have in climate change policy, for example, is that we don't have the conservative solutions on the table, right? Because the conservative party is by and large just pretending it doesn't exist. So we're ending with, we have obviously one side with their fingers in their ears, and the other side is obviously attacking this from the left. So we can't really get to a centrist solution. But that brings me to my next question, which is sort of an inherent problem in any effort like this. I feel like everybody's the hero of their own story.

Everybody thinks their side is the one with all the facts on their side, of course. So how do we overcome that with people who have shown a willingness to reject things like fact-checking and verifiable science? So this is a very important question, and this is why we have the Pro-Truth Pledge at protruthpledge.org. And this is an instrument to get people to essentially agree about truth-oriented behaviors, not to agree about the outcome, not to agree necessarily about climate change or vaccinations. You know, we have some Democrats. We talked about Republicans. We have a bunch of Democrats who think that vaccines cause autism. And that's a problem, too.

That's not what the science says. So we have a number of problems on both sides, of the more problems with Republicans, I agree. So the Pro-Truth Pledge at protruthpledge.org is 13 behaviors that science has shown are associated with the truth. For example, striving to avoid sharing misinformation, including things that go against reliable fact-checkers in the scientific consensus, sharing my sources, providing a way for others to verify

my information, and so on. 13 behaviors that we are trying to get everyone to agree constitute what we want to be the truth. So focusing on the process, agreeing on the process, and then distancing ourselves from outcome. Because people tend to argue about outcomes, but if we create a process where everyone can agree, politicians and public figures, people like you, I'm a public figure, people like me, people like you know, to get them to sign the pro-truth pledge and commit to abide by these 13 true, foreign behaviors, we can have a society that's going to be much better than it currently is. Yeah, I think that's exactly right, that we need to focus on the actual process.

And I've read through, I actually took the pledge this morning before we got on the line, and I think it's super reasonable to approach it in that way. But again, we've got a political party. Now, like you said, there are problems on the right, there are problems on the left, but I don't want to make the mistake of equating them, right? We know that the right side tends to use a lot more of the the fake news. Yeah. And also, like, you know, you talk about Democrats being anti vaccine. There are quite a few of them, but they're not in leadership positions the way the anti or the global global warming denialists are in power in the Republican Party. But I do see a sort of a creeping, at least especially on social media, where more and more my left wing friends are sharing very questionable news sources, verifiably false things, etc. But how do we get to a point where

we can actually hold people's feet to the fire with this? I mean, it's great for people to take the pledge. Obviously, you know, I'm on your side to begin with. So I took the pledge. That's easy. How do we get, you know, in half to take this pledge? So this is a great question. And this is why the pro-truth pledge is designed in such a way as to shift incentives for public figures, including politicians to take this. So why, why, let's say, would a conservative, you a conservative Republican want to take the pledge? Or a Republican in general, like you said. So a politician, why would a politician want to take the pledge? The politicians need to be perceived as credible and honest.

And if their opponent takes the pledge and they don't take the pledge, that will cost them a lot of political points. That will cost them a lot of political points. So if we get people, let's say we're faced, you know, there's a race between a conservative Republican who's holding office and who doesn't align with truth-oriented things. And you have a Democrat who's challenging the conservative Republican. So what happens now when the Democrat took the pledge and the Republican didn't take the pledge? Well, now the Republican looks bad because the Democrat took the pledge to orient toward the truth and there's clear incentives. There's a monitoring mechanism

which very clearly lines out what are the penalties for not abiding by the pledge. And they are pretty harsh. So if you don't abide by the pledge and you are lying, there are media advisories sent to all the media in your area

who are relevant to you. Let's say it's the mayor of New York. So all the people in the central New York area, media figures, get media advisories that the mayor is in contempt of the pledge. And then all the people who signed the pledge and are in the New York area who signed up for updates get an update about that as well. So

encouraging them to tweet the mayor, email the mayor, write letters to the editor, and so on. So they get a heavy reputational punishment. So this conservative Republican can't just go and take the pledge and say, haha, I took the pledge, now everything's fine. So now you have this pledge as an instrument that weighs in favor of the truth. So if one candidate does take it and the other doesn't, that's a clear benefit for the person who takes it. So we're tilting the scale, essentially, in favor of the truth. Excellent. And I really encourage our listeners to go check it out at protruthpledge.org,

and you'll see that it's incredibly reasonable. There's virtually nothing in there that even the most ardent science denialist can look at and say, well, I disagree with, you know, verifying my sources. I disagree with clarifying what I mean. So now I have to say I'm not going to ask any of my listeners to spell Sapersky. So I'm going to have all of this information on the show notes for the episode. You can check out Gleb's website. You can check out protruthpledge.org. And I'm sorry, what was the other website that you mentioned there?

Intentionalinsights.org, which is the nonprofit where I serve as the volunteer president. And it runs the Pro-Truth Pledge Project, the Rational Politics Project, and in general promotes rational thinking in the public sphere. Okay, excellent. So now I know obviously with an effort like this, you're going to need help. And I have a sneaking suspicion that our listeners, a number of our listeners would really like to help out. So what kind of help are you looking for on this? All sorts of help. So for people who sign the pledge, they can sign to help with the pledge. If they help with the pledge, they can help coordinate other people in their local area.

So we're looking for organizers pretty much across the country to organize for the pledge, which means going to rallies and getting people signed up for the pledge. We had a lot of success actually going to a whole bunch of tabling events, political rallies, and so on. Go to secular conventions and table for the pledge and get your local secular group members to sign the pledge and a whole variety of other venues where you can get people to sign up for the pledge then as you get signatures for the pledge you get those and you go to political officials and other public figures and say hey we have a bunch of your constituents here who signed documents saying they want you to sign the pledge.

How about signing the pledge? Now, if you go to them and they won't sign the pledge after a while, you go to the media and say, hey, you have a whole bunch of this person's constituents who signed the pro-truth pledge and signed the document asking them to sign the pledge, the political official. Why doesn't she sign the pledge? And get them to play off against each other. Let's say, you know, you have an honest Republican and, you know, a not very honest Democrat. That happens as well, absolutely. So you get them to play off against each other and get the honest Republican to pressure

the not so honest Democrat or vice versa, whatever the case may be. So we want people to do that and then to evaluate and monitor people who took the pro-truth pledge, make sure they're abiding by their agreement. And finally, we want them to donate and finance this effort. It's a non-profit, you know, nobody's paying us to do this. So we need money to finance this effort for doing things like marketing, promotion, printing these materials, and so on. So all of these are ways people can help. Excellent. Well, I've got to say, since the election,

I've just been inundated with emails from listeners asking, what can I do? And I think this is a great thing. Not only can you do it via social media and things like that, but also you can do it locally with your municipal government. Remember, today's mayors are tomorrow's senators, so if we get them on board early, this pledge is not going to go away if they advance in the political spectrum.

Absolutely. All right. Well, I got to say, Gleb, I really appreciate the work that you're doing. I think this is probably the most important problem that this country needs to tackle right now. So I'd love to have you back on sometime to kind of update us on how it's going. I would love to do that. Thank you so much. Yeah, you bet. Thanks for your time tonight. And again, check the show notes for links to everything we just talked about. Before we descend once more

into the underworld, I wanted to thank everybody who's already chipped in to make our new podcast, Citation Needed, a reality. Within less than a day of announcing it, we were fully funded. So if you were really excited about getting more of us in your life you got that look forward to the new

show will debut on wednesday may 17th at which time you should all race to see who can give it a five-star review quickest also if even that doesn't satisfy your me needs be sure to check me out on the by any means podcast with trav mamone i believe that interview airs today and you'll find links to it on our various social media platforms sounds Sounds fancier than saying our Facebook page, doesn't it? Anyway, that's all the blast 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 shows, Hot Friend Godawful Movies debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern time or shoot Heath a message on Facebook that just says, what's up?

Seriously, he loves it when people do that. And speaking of Heath, I can't wrap this up until I thank him for hopefully not killing me over that previous statement. I need to thank the lovely Lucinda Lusions who promises to be sufficiently decongested by next week. I need to thank Eli for the hours of entertainment he's provided me just by stealing Heath's shorts. Obviously, I need to offer another huge thanks to Andrew for helping educate us tonight and equally huge thanks to Gleb Ziporsky for all the work he's doing. Again, if you want to take the pro-truth pledge or just learn more about it, you'll find it linked on the show notes for this episode. And while you're at it, check out the link to Andrew's podcast, Opening Arguments, wherein he talks with a footless person about the law. Also, big thanks to RISDN for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. But most

of all, I need to thank this week's and last week's best people. Whose collective IQs have taken up all the available numerals, so it's back to X-V-I-I-I-I type shit for the rest of us. Together, these 52 fantastically formidable fans of factuality facilitated the furtherance of our flourishing fight for freedom from the failings of faith this week by giving us money. Not everybody has what it takes to give us money, but if your bank account, internet connection, and ninja-like dexterity are up to the challenge, you can make a

per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free 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 scathingadius.com. 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 all the music used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingatheist.com. so i always get these emails from people saying hey if you're looking for a great idea for a diatribe i've got one my cousin dave what a dick right so i get that constantly and last night or

yesterday when i was actually sitting there going what should i write a diatribe about somebody actually sent me a uh a message saying hey i got a great idea for a diatribe and sent me a great idea for a diatribe i was like oh wow this is awesome finally out this way yeah and i just like kind of finished settling on this diatribe and i was like oh that's way better this dave is the worst this is perfect yeah exactly my name is ridiculous almost ruined me at the very fucking beginning. Holy shit. Let's do a quick hang up and call. I'm hanging up on you.

Rude. Didn't even ask if I was ready for you to call me back yet. What the fuck was that? Maybe I wasn't prepared for a callback. But that's fine. Just call back. What I want doesn't matter. We should start doing ads for companies we don't like. Hostage ads.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Like we should do ads for Skype. Yeah, yeah, we should think about that. That could be a lot of fun. Skype. Skype. You can... Skype! She's also 95 other people's girlfriend.

Yeah. I think we'll hold on to that as a as a Patreon I would take for scathing. Sure. That's what I figured. And when it was happening I was like, well outtake for scathing. Sure. Uh, I figured, but,

uh, and when it was happening, I was like, well, this will be a good page. And I'll take this. This will be nice for them. The preceding podcast was a production of puzzle and a thunderstorm LLC copyright 2017.

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