Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 112: Here There Be Dragons

Episode Date: August 19, 2013

Geo's first 60 minutes of his CD: Geo's Latest podcast: Geo's DVD: Project for the homeless:

Want to stream Cognitive Dissonance to your Android or iPhone? Buy the app! Go to DissonancePod.com and click on the link on the right-hand side of the page. Each purchase helps support the show. Hey guys, this is Elliot from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm just calling in reference to your story about this Harvey lady with the gay marriage analogy or whatever. I'm a law student, not a very good one, but at least I have a very rudimentary

and basic understanding of constitutional law. There are three tiers of scrutiny that the Supreme Court and all federal courts look at when dealing with equal protection law and discrimination under the law. And her analogy was just, you have to at least, at least be rational basis. That's the very lowest of three tiers of scrutiny. And hers didn't do that.

And I understand you guys did a great job of destroying her analogy according to logic. But I just want to say, as a matter of law, and God knows I'm not a good law student, even I know that she's just wrong as a matter of law. Anyway, you guys are awesome. Keep up the great work. Glory to all. Thanks, guys. Hello, Cecil and Tom. This is Bill and Susie from Far Room Atheist.

Hi, guys. Listen, love the show. And we got confirmation just the other day that your listeners are exquisite podcast connoisseurs. Because one of our iTunes reviews said, glory hell. So we thought we'd give you a call and just give you from bar room atheist a resounding bar men men thanks guys love the show be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance.

Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. reverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome, Matt. This is episode 112, Redemption.

Redemption? I think we should give them UFC names. Actually, I think that's like a Bruce Willis film, isn't it? They're all Bruce. Is he going to make an appearance? Because I kind of hate him. This is episode 112. Die even more difficultly. Die quicklier.

But more aggression when you're dying. Die with aggression. That would be an awesome title. Vehemently dying. For any Bruce Willis movie. How are you doing that exactly? You're not dying with enough aggression.

That guy died, but he died so aggressively. Did you see that? It was fucking awesome. I mean, like a lot of guys just go gently into that good night, but he was fucking not him. He died. Did you see, speaking of dying with aggression, did you see some of the footage that's coming out of Egypt lately?

Oh, my God. Nice. That's some dying with aggression, my friend. Not yet. Did you see the guy who drove a fucking backwards off the fucking bridge? What? No. What?

Oh, there's like a fucking armored ATV or a fucking Humvee, right? And it's coming towards people and the people start rushing it. And he goes backwards and he rolls that thing right off the, it was like a police Humvee. He rolled it off. He had to fall, Tom, at least six or seven stories. It was that high up. That is bad for him. Oh, I don't know that he made it.

That is not good for your health. I've heard that zero out of 10 doctors recommend falling six stories. It's like the worst ride at Great Berk. The drop is awesome, but the landing sucks. The landing's a bit on the rough side yeah even if you're strapped in like that's not helpful that's not that didn't just cut you in half you know those are just now those are perma straps now they're just in yeah they become internal body you were using that to be alive that That's fucked up over there, though, man. And I got to tell you, like, and we've talked about this. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Like, on the one side, like, overthrowing, you know, the Muslim Brotherhood, a strictly Islamist government. It's hard for me not to be like, well, yay. But then the other side is like, but they were also democratically elected. So I'm like torn. Yeah, but then they're also, you know. But then they're also doing atrocities. You know what I mean? There's just no good way to do it. It's just going to be a mucky mess over there.

And then we're going to get an email from somebody. You have no idea what's going on in Egypt. You don't know what's going on in Egypt. Look, I watched a goddamn YouTube video taken in shaky video cam of a guy falling off a bridge. I know everything that's happening over there. No, you guys don't know. In Egypt, when guy falling off a bridge. I know everything that's happening over there. No, you guys don't know. In Egypt, when you fall off a bridge... No, fuck you. Okay, gravity still works. It's not. In Egypt?

You can fall off bridges in Egypt. You don't know anything about the Middle East. Fuck. That's awesome. We could even make comments about how we don't know anything about a thing, and then we'll get corrections about it. And you'll still get pedantic comments about how... Well, no. You really should. Well, actually, you do'll get corrections about it. And you'll still get pedantic comments about how, well, actually you do know a little about it.

Satan is like a dragon and so he is comparing the predator to us, Satan, as a dragon and he uses that imagery because the people 2,000 years ago would have understood the lethality that came with dragons. They understood that image. They understood how

dangerous they were and they were just And they were just their mortal enemies to just about everything. This story comes from the Huffington Post. Creationist Derek Isaacs, Isaacs? More than one Isaac, calls dragons real, says they lived in biblical times. You know, it's so funny because I just finished reading this book called Mistakes Were Made But Not By Us, or Not By Me, I don't remember which. And it's so funny because I just finished reading this book called Mistakes Were Made But Not By Us or Not By Me. I don't remember which. And it's all about the theory of cognitive distance and self-justification and sort of how we construct a narrative of the world that it doesn't necessarily match the actuality of the world.

And then we go through great pains to defend that narrative um cognitively and oftentimes subconsciously and so i've just finished reading this book and i find this fucking article and i'm like jumping up and down because that's exactly what this guy is doing he is such a biblical literalist that when he comes across dragons in the bible rather than saying like wow man the bible must have been metaphorically referring to something else or that's not a true instead. He's like, hmm, dragons must have been real then. What I love. You want to talk about cognitive dissonance.

Let me read what this guy said. If dragons, in fact, were entirely mythological, if they were a figment of the imagination and if they never did exist, then God compared our adversary and he's talking about satan to a make-believe creature that never existed he's pointing out how absurd the argument is for us i know he's he's basically saying like like first off you know it's like okay satan never did exist bro it's just like okay well let's just fucking bang that one right out of the way and and uh you know it's just this perfect cognitive dissonance that's exactly what it is the uh you know if dragons were entirely mythological what do you what do you mean if they were like show me a fucking ride into this interview on a fucking dragon's back and

then i will believe that your dragons exist like i'm looking at this and i was just like dude the pern books aren't real like they're just books dude dragon lance is not a real thing exactly it's you're i mean like shit doesn't breathe fire that's not something that is breathing fire are you dragons dragons dude and yeah you're such a literalist that you can't even accept the passing use of a metaphor like that is how language works like being a biblical literalist has to be the most fucking sad depressing way to wake up and live your life you get like oh i can't bend at all let me look at. Oh, it still doesn't make any sense. Oh, my God.

What do I have to believe in now? But I have to follow everything from it. Yeah. You know, the other thing that he's really sort of banging home here, and that's why I mentioned Satan with the dragon thing, is that what he's basically saying is that God warned us about Satan by comparing him to a dragon and like revelations and things. And I'm thinking, what the fuck? Doesn't everybody know that Satan is bad?

Like, why do you have to fucking compare him to a fucking like a like a world ending fucking asteroid or whatever? You know, I mean, like he's bad. It doesn't matter what you compare him to. Everybody know it's not a fucking newsflash. Not like the ticker tape is coming out and you're like, holy shit, Satan is bad? Story at nine. Fucking dragons. How do they work?

What the fuck? Isaacs and the insane clown posse explain the Bible. That would be actually really awesome if he had ICP paint on it. He's a fucking juggalo that would be truly spectacular to watch yeah that like assemblage of idiocy like on a stage on some like you because i don't want to be there in person so like a youtube video or something yeah just trying to i don't want to be

able to fast forward through it just desperately trying to wrap their heads around basic concepts you know like you could could hand them just like a Brussels sprout and be like, go! And they'd just be like, how does it work? After five minutes, they're like butting their heads into each other like rams on a mountainside. They have no idea. In the name of Jesus, we speak

that. So this story comes from BuzzFeed.com, but I also saw it fucking everywhere this week. I know. It's delicious. If you could fucking eat a story this week, it would taste like, well, aphid poop. People worship weeping tree in California. Tears are actually insect excrement. And then I love underneath it. That's not holy water.

The best part about this story for me, Cecil, is how I read two or three articles that covered the same thing. And so many of the people were told, like, that's aphids. Like, it's just fucking aphids. Like, the tree right down the street is doing the same thing. Like, it's just aphids. Right. And so many of them were like, hey, scientific explanation or spiritual?

I believe it's God. And you're just like, well, why? Why? Why? What? Well, because, I mean, really, that is what it is to be religious. I mean, you're confronted with facts and you deny them. Like, I think that's really the only way to be truly, you know, loyal to your religion.

I mean, you could, if you wanted to alter your view of religion to encompass actuality, right, to encompass reality, to say, you know, we're not a fucking geocentric orbit. We're not, you know, the only thing in the universe, et cetera, et cetera. You know, work your way up from there in the universe, et cetera, et cetera. You know, work your way up from there, cosmology wise, biology wise, et cetera. But if you do that, your version of God becomes less anthropomorphic, I think. I think you have to take your version of God and it gets shrunk down into something else every time. It becomes, God becomes the reason things exist, but not a cognitive reason things exist. You know what I mean? Like you start to pull all these little pieces

that we have used to make God into a human or anthropomorphize him. You pull all those things away then. I think that's the only way. And like when we're talking about Unitarians or whatever, like that's like the only way to have a reality view and to still latch onto that God view. Because if you, because I mean,

you're really just denying reality at this point. I mean, what does this person say? This person says, they can say this theory, that theory, the tree does this every year. It's odd when it happens when there are a bunch of people praying. When you are asking the Holy Spirit to reveal itself and this happens all of a sudden and it's still here. And I'm like, okay, that's a valid sentence if you fumigated the fucking tree. You know, if you fucking put a bug bomb next to the tree and it's still shitting fucking honeydew on your face.

By the way, I will say the aphids sap and it goes through the aphid. You pick a more delicious name for. I know. Right. Honeydew. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. I kind of like that idea.

That sounds pretty good. I'll stand my fucking mouth open underneath and just suck all of it in. No, but the idea here is like, you know, it's real simple. It's like if you were the person to fumigate the tree or spray some insecticide on it and it was still doing it, then I'm with you. Okay, now that's something that we can go, okay, well, what's the cause? Maybe we can find something in nature. Maybe it's fucking supernatural. But this is just a fucking tree.

The fucking aphids shit out and and cecil when he's saying like hey you know what's funny is that it happens when we pray so he's saying he's basically acknowledging like okay there's there's an earthly explanation but what you can't explain this is how i read his comment what you can't explain what's fucking tide goes in tide goes out out, inexplicable, right? Yeah. Is that when we all pray, that's when it starts. That's when they rain their delicious poop on our heads. So I'm thinking immediately, my first thought is, that's your God? Your God can make bugs go poo.

That is the extent of his bitey, bitey powers. Let's just pretend that there's no bugs going poo. Let's say that their fucking theory that the tree is fucking crying, whatever the fuck that is. First off, what a sad sack religion you have where everything has to be weeping, right?

It's like, why can't it be fucking uplifting? Why can't it be like fucking the tree is singing to you or whatever? Why isn't the tree doing jumping jacks? Yeah, you walk up and the tree's singing

fucking happy birthday or something. Like that's a fucking good thing. Not, oh, the tree's so sad it's gonna cry on us. But anyway, like, let's presume that's real. It's like, what, you made a tree cry? That's what you did? You drowned the entire population of the earth, you

fucker. It's like, you're, you are, you have less magical powers than David fucking Copperfield. No kidding. He can at least make the fucking Statue of Liberty fucking disappear. You can make a bug go poo. Like, that's it. You are X-lax.

Like, your god is bug X-lax. Right. That's it. Like, you're the Metamucil for bees. Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? It's Jesus. So this story is fucking

infuriating. This is from khou.com khou.com Houston pastor accused of molesting 8-year-old girl. I know, there's not even any news here. And the only reason that I even picked this story to send out in a tweet and in a Facebook

post is because this shithead basically is saying like, well I asked for forgiveness so it's all good. Like it's all. See so it's a done deal. He may have fucked an eight year old, but redemption is his.

Would people misunderstand, I think, about forgiveness, right? I don't think forgiveness is a bad thing. I actually think forgiveness is a helpful thing to people. And I don't think that the religious people should have a monopoly on forgiveness. have a monopoly on forgiveness. I think that we should, as a society, forgive people if they look for it after they've done something wrong. I think admitting your mistakes and coming forward and being, you know, an adult about it and say, hey, look, I'm, you know, I made a mistake. Please forgive me. I think that's a good thing. And I don't think that that's a religious thing that, you know, that they should have a, you know, some sort of fucking monopoly on it.

That being said, that doesn't mean you don't get to face justice. You know what I mean? Like, you can be sorry about it, but that doesn't mean that you could, everybody just forgets it. You have to, you know, in order to be forgiven, you know, people have to have, they have to mete out some sort of punishment on you. I don't think that that's, I don't think that's outrageous or unbelievable. I think, look, you fucking you diddled an eight year old.

What do you think would just be like, oh, you're sorry. Oh, sure. No problem. Hey, you want to go get some ice cream at the ice cream truck with us then? Right. You know, I actually I actually feel a little bit differently about this. I you know, I think I think honestly that forgiveness and redemption is a problem with religiosity. I don't think it's a positive feature because I think it comes too cheap and too easy often. Here you've got somebody who fucked an eight-year-old girl. That is monstrous.

That's an eight-year-old girl. Dude, that's a fucking second grader. That is a— Right, absolutely. It's a monster. And this idea that he can forgive himself because that's what repentance is, right? There's no outside force forgiving you. No, but I'm not talking about forgiveness of yourself. I'm talking about forgiveness. is a good thing is because forgiveness allows me as the person's victim's friend or mother or

father to to not carry around a big bag of hate for the rest of my life and be burdened by this hate this this because it's it's now my problem again it becomes it compounds the problem it doesn't help anyone if i carry around this level of vitriol for this person for the rest of my life. It helps me to forgive the people who have done wrong to me because it makes me a better person. That's the level. I don't care about this guy asking.

Okay, so I misunderstood what you were saying then because this guy is basically saying, well, he got caught. He didn't deny it. He didn't come forward and confess it. He got caught first. That's what happened. He he got caught he didn't deny it he didn't come forward and confess it you know he got caught first like that's what happened like he motherfucker got caught no yeah he wasn't no he wasn't asking for forgiveness while he was you know balls deep in this course right and that's how this always works it's like oh i got caught well you know i'd like to repent now really then

now is when you want to repent now you want to repent because it's cheap and easy now you want to repent because now it's it's the turning point where you're forced to make a choice and see yourself for the fucking horrifying monster that you are and if you can repent and if you think that there's a higher power you're repenting to then this motherfucker gets to forgive himself he gets gets, I agree with you actually about the idea of like the victim's family and what have you and the victim themselves being able to forgive. That actually hadn't occurred to me. And it's a good, that's a, that's a positive social benefit for forgiveness. But this idea that this guy gets to be absolved

in his own mind or in his emotional state, like he gets to be absolved for fucking an eight-year-old girl. Like you don't ever get to be absolved from that. He says like in this article, like he made a mistake. He made a bad, a poor decision. It's not a mistake. And this isn't even a poor decision. It's a malicious act. Yeah, it's a malicious act.

I mean, you can't take that away from that. A mistake would be like, you know what? It was two in the morning and, you know, I didn't see anybody. So I turned right on red't take that away from them. A mistake would be like, you know what? It was two in the morning and I didn't see anybody, so I turned right on red when I wasn't supposed to and I got pulled over. Bad call. You know? Probably stupid of me to do that. You know, it's like a meaning.

Like, fucking an eight-year-old girl? Like, are you kidding me? It's crazy. And this idea that he can repent, he shouldn't get that. Like, his religious structure should not give him an opportunity to repent. He should just look at him. So I'm fucked. Oh, man, because I'm terrible. And, you know, you're right. And this is part of the article here. It says on February 8th, a church member saw something that made her uneasy.

The woman told investigators that she saw the pastor coming out of the bathroom late one night and he, being stunned, acted rudely toward her. Then she saw a little girl in the bathroom with her pants and underwear down. The woman asked what he was doing to the girl and the pastor said he was just helping her go to the restroom. I thought to myself, I'm like, you know, these pastors

have such cute names for sex. They've got a euphemism for everything. They really do. I do think, you know, and I don't know if we're going to get male about the forgiveness thing, but I do think, you know, I think that, you know, as a human being, you've got to be able to forgive yourself. But I also agree with you that, you know, the idea of somebody doing this after the fact. It's like, I don't know if you remember the categorical imperative with Kant though.

You know what I mean? Like where you're talking about, you're talking about this, you know, you only do things moral if they benefit you. And the only way to tell if they don't benefit you is if you do something moral that does not benefit you. So him repenting before and making a public statement and coming out before anyone else caught him,

that may be something that you could say, okay, this guy obviously had some problems with his conscience. Now we try him and do all that stuff. He's still an awful monster, but we're going to do something to make sure. Then I might believe it. But at this point, I can't believe it because it's after the fact.

That's exactly right. It's not going to be humanly possible for anyone to commit fornication with my daughters. And you know what? You're laughing, but I'm not kidding. Because I'm not going to say, well, what about when they go get a job? They're not going to get a job. Why would my daughters go get a job? What do they need a job for?

You know what? I'm going to pay for them. I'm going to pay their bills. And you know what? When I'm done paying for them, their husband's going to pay for them. And I hope that he doesn't fail in his responsibility to provide and send them off to work or something. But you know what? At that point, it's none of my business.

At that point, it's not my responsibility. but you know what, at that point it's none of my business. At that point it's not my responsibility. But you know what, when I pass off my daughters unto their husband, I'm going to be able to guarantee that they're a virgin because I'm going to make it to where it's not even humanly possible because I'm not going to have them out gallivanting around town. I'm not going to have them going off to work. And you say, well why the double standard? Because everything in the Bible is a double standard? Because I'm not a feminist?

Because men and women are different? Because my sons are going to be taught to be independent. My daughters are going to be taught not to be independent. My sons are going to be taught to go out and work hard and make a living. My daughters are going to be taught to be a homemaker. Okay? You don't like that? Well, whatever. That's what the Bible teaches. Okay? The Bible

says that women should be keepers at home, obedient to their husbands, all that. You know, like it or lump it. That's what the Bible teaches. And I don't want my daughters going out and getting a career and going to college and hanging around with a bunch of guys. So this story comes from the Friendly Atheist blog

and I gotta say, I love Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona because he is so crazy all the time. And a lot of times I'll see stories where he's saying something or doing something and I'll just let him pass by because he's just

one guy, right? But sometimes he's so fucking delightfully left field that he simply has to make it to the show. In this case, he's saying that his sons will be taught to be independent. His daughters will be taught not to be independent. And he is just absolutely crazy. Like, he's got that, like, lock your daughters in a tower mindset. Yep. You know, and guard them against like he this motherfucker wants to fill the fucking moat with dragons that's what he wants

he wants to borrow some isaac's dragons and fill a moat full of them to stick his daughters in so that they can so that they can as he says like later on become their husband's problem later he's so awesomely crazy, Cecil. How shitty would it be? Because it's not just him, right? Because he has a group of people that are there. So people are listening to him. And they're agreeing with him.

If you listen to this, you can hear they're laughing and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, I agree with you or whatever. So there's people in the audience that agree with him. If they had daughters, they would do this too. Why would you give your daughter so little chance to succeed in life? You are basically carving out one thing that she can do. And that's it. Because your book written by people that were tribal nomadic people thousands of years ago, tells you that this is how things should be.

Where, you know, there's no way that the people who wrote that book or God that wrote that book even could take into account the level at which our society is, our technology is, et cetera. They're just, they're stuck in the bronze age and they're going to basically shoehorn their child into a life that they had choose for them. I mean, imagine if you spun this around and it was the boys he was talking about. It's like, my boys are going to be, uh, shoemakers and that's it. That's all they get to be.

They get to be one thing. They don't get a choice in anything else. And if they try to do anything else, that's just not going to happen. It's going to be physically impossible because I'm going to put them in shoemaking fucking school in eighth grade. And they're never going to leave shoemaking school. And they're going to be fucking cobblers. That's what they're going to be for the rest of their life. That's a ridiculous thing to say.

But the fact is he's saying the women will be homemakers. They are not going to have a career. He laughs out loud when he says they're not going to have any career, career. What's that? They're going to be homemakers. He's like, you don't like that? Well, that's, that's, you know, he's like, that's what the Bible teaches. And you're like, okay, well, your fucking Bible basically tells you to subjugate your own daughter into a thing, whether or not she likes it or not. That's not, I mean, what the fuck kind

of relationship is that with your own fucking flesh and blood? You know, and like, let's extrapolate that out to everybody. Like we're talking about, let's keep rolling. Like, you know, like let's imagine that everybody did the same thing. Like universal, is this a good thing? Is this something that is going to yield the highest net positive benefit. So if we said to all women across the entire world, half of our population gets to be homemakers. Right. Yeah, exactly, right? You, not me, because I'm a man, so I can do whatever the fuck I want, right?

Like I can go be a fucking astronaut or I can go to fucking shoemaking boarding school. I have options. Shoemaking boarding school? I have options. Shoemaking boarding school? I have options. You, however, fucking make me a casserole because there's nothing more 1950s than a casserole. So if we did that, we're basically taking the brain trust

of the entire world and cutting it in half. Like, let's take all the talents, like all the creative and intellectual energies of the entire world and divide them by two. Why would you want that? Like what possible world can you look at and say, you know what? We've got all the problems in the world licked. We don't have any energy problems.

We don't have any environmental concerns. We don't have geopolitical concerns. We don't have any production issues that we need to work on. All those fucking shit is solved. Every economy is perfect. Everyone lives in joy and harmony. And you know why? Because we get to take half our population and say, go make a baby

and a food. That's how you solve problems. That's not how you solve problems. That's how you exponentially create problems. This is not like... And everybody in the congregation laughs. They, like, this is not like, and everybody in the congregation, like, laughs. You know, they're like, you know, he says things like, and you say, what if you don't like the guy they're dating?

They're not going to be dating a guy I don't like. A guy I don't like is going to get his face punched in. Wow. It's so funny for a grown man to assault a teenager. That's hilarious. Hilarious. And he says right out loud, Tommy says, because my sons are going to be taught to be independent. My daughters are going to be taught not to be independent.

And I keep thinking, I'm like, what if one of his daughters is, you know, basically, I mean, you know, like one, a couple of women that I really respect, two women, I'm going to name them both. Condoleezza Rice and Elizabeth Warren. What if either one of his daughters was one of those people? You know, it's like, you know what? The fucking contribution you could have had to society, which could have been unbelievably immense. And you could have still had a kid and you could have still raised them as a Catholic or whatever. Whatever. It's not Catholic. It's fucking nututter. Whatever Nutter

fucking religion you are. You could have raised them as Nutterberry and everything would have been great and you still could have had this level of accomplishment that is practically unrivaled in our time. But you know what?

Sorry, I didn't teach them how to be independent. I didn't teach him to think I taught him how to fucking shit babies out of their vagina great that's fucking great you know you're fucking this guy's worthless he's basically fucking like you said he's fucking he's turning down the intelligence of half of the fucking people in the world he would do that in a second if he had the power to do it. He would do it in a second. So Cecil, this story comes from 9msn.com. A Muslim preacher is wanted in connection with acid attacks on two British teenagers in Zanzibar.

He was shot by the police but not captured. This story, you know, the thing I want to talk about with this story is nobody's going to come to your shitbag fucking mud hole countries and try to help people. If you keep throwing acid on them, like that's not, no one's going to want to do that. Like these are, these are girls who are giving up their time. They're there. These are girls that live in Colorado Springs. Like they live in a nicer fucking place than Zanzibar. They live in a nicer place.

They have a higher standard of living. They came over to your fucking country to try to help people. And your fucking religious text looks at those girls as, you know, temptress harlots or whatever fucking bullshit, and you throw fucking acid in their face. No one's going to want to help you.

Like, everybody's going to start, like, if you fucking keep doing this shit, no one's going there anymore. The U.S. just or Doctors Without Borders just pulled out of Somalia this week. Right. Yeah, I saw that. No one's going to help you. You fucking people need the help. All is not roses. I think I think, though, Tom, I think this is a this is a strategy on their part. This is a smart strategy because, one, they don't want the help because with the help comes – we talk about it all the time. With the help comes knowledge, right? They see Doctors Without Borders here.

They get a chance to talk to these doctors. They get a chance to see that there's women there. There's people there that have a life outside of fucking shit now kids, right? So that they get a chance to see, oh my gosh, this isn't all there is. This isn't the only life I have to live where I fucking dig a fucking mud hole every day or whatever. So they get to see this sort of thing.

They see these two young girls come in, intelligent young girls who are there to teach people. They don't want their fucking young girls to fucking emulate these other girls. They don't want that at all. They would much rather live in a fucking shitty shithole country, like you say, with no help whatsoever from the outside, as long as they could subjugate the people that they want

to subjugate. This is a perfectly calculated attack. What they need to do is fucking, I don't, you know, I don't really know what they need to do, but I'll tell you, this is, I totally agree with you about staying out of there because it's not worth a volunteer's life. It's not worth walking around the rest of your life with these fucking horrible scars on your neck and face because some jag off doesn't want, you know, his daughters. This is this guy is basically the guy we just talked about in the previous story. He is, man. He's exactly what he is.

guy we just talked about in the previous story. He is, man. He's exactly what he is. He's looking at these girls and he's fucking furious that they're not at home fucking being housewives. That they're walking around and that they're happy and that they are autonomous and that they have contributions to give to the world. And those contributions

are here of all fucking places in his country. Fucking like you say, like thumbing their fucking nose at this oppressive hierarchical religious bullshit system that they've put into place. Yeah. And so what better thing to do than to – and not even to kill them, but to disfigure and burn them. It's such a symbolic attack. The acid attack is violent and cruel, but it's such a symbolic attack.

It's such a sexist attack. And they do this shit. And it's like my very first thought is like, well, then fuck you. Like that's like somebody like coming to your house to help put your house out. Like your house is fucking on fire. And somebody's like, hey, I got some water. And you're like, fuck off. You stab him in the eye.

Like that's just a fucking it's just evil. It's just evil. Like you're just an evil fucking person. Like a beautiful woman comes over like out of her house and she's like running over. She's like, oh, your house looks like it's on fire. You're just an evil fucking person. A beautiful woman comes over out of her house and she's running over. She's like, oh, your house looks like it's on fire. Let me help you. You're like, you're not dressed conservatively, stab.

So we're going to take a break and then you're going to listen to some other stuff. And then we're going to come back and you'll listen to this again. I'm sorry. Want to get in touch with the show? Send an email to dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter.

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buy apps and merchandise, or just leave a comment. And to everyone who helps spread the word about the show by sharing it, tweeting it, and rating it on iTunes, glory hole. You fucking rock. Everyone who helps spread the word about the show by sharing it, tweeting it, and rating it on iTunes. Glory Hole. You fucking rock. So this story comes out of the BBC. HIV patients told by Pentecostal pastors to rely on God. Some young HIV patients are giving up their medicine after being told by Pentecostal church pastors to rely on faith in God instead of medicine.

Holy shit, is that evil. Isn't that a prosecutable offense, though? I can't understand how this isn't. It is so obviously directly harmful. Like, there's like this is this 2013. There are very good drugs now. Like, it's not 1986. There are very good drugs that help HIV-positive patients lead longer, much longer, much less sick, much more satisfying lives.

You know, the cure for AIDS is not here, but treatments for HIV are, they've, I I mean they've just exploded. There are ways that especially young HIV-positive people can expect to live long and reasonably healthy lives on some of these drugs. To turn all that away for a book? I personally think they should be held responsible mainly because what if they told people to murder someone else or if they told them to start cutting or if they told them to stop eating or something like that? I think there's blame there because you're coming from a position of authority, right? That authority of God told me this thing. And if you're coming from that position of authority, you know, your words carry weight. They carry weight and you need to take responsibility for that authority that you're wielding.

And, you know, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater because that's you know, it's a you fucking would get arrested for that. It's like criminal mischief or something. You know, this, I think, is the exact same thing. You're using an authority, and you're wielding it, and people are getting injured and hurt from it. It's the same thing. I feel the exact same way when fucking parents don't take care of their kids and they start praying over them when their fucking

limbs are falling off. You're just like, fucking, he's not a chameleon. He's not going to grow that shit back. He's a fucking human being. Stop. Fucking take him to the doctor. But instead, these people are like, oh, well, HIV, they'll be fine. You don't need your fucking medication for that. Without the medication, it's a death sentence.

That's what it is. There's nobody that's like fucking, yeah, man, I stopped taking my meds and I've been off them for like 25 years. That's a short conversation. They've been off them for a 25 years. That's a short conversation. They've been off him for a few months. You're exactly right. This should be the same as if somebody came to a doctor and said, I have a fucking bullet wound. And the doctor's like, rub some poop in it.

Right? And then the guy ends up septic and dies. And you're like, well, what happened? Well, I don't know. That authority figure told him to rub poop in it. That's a terrible. It's just the worst advice. It's the worst possible advice. It's just not like, it's not like writing in to Dear Abby.

Like, Dear Abby, you know, I have AIDS. What should I do? Stop taking your drugs and pray. Why can't you take the drugs and pray? I don't know why people can't do one or the other. Why do you need to like, why are you so insecure about your God? Because like, it's not that hard to develop a narrative where God helped people find those drugs, right? Like, if that's what you want to do, you know, let's go back to the cognitive dissonance

thing, like creating a narrative of self we can believe. So like, if you have this idea that you've got an interventionist God who's all knowing anding and all-powerful and all-loving and you also see that people have AIDS and HIV and there's some conflict there because that's a little awkward. And then you see that people have developed these antiretroviral drugs, which are tremendously successful in cocktail in helping people lead much better lives than they had ever been able to live in the 40 fucking years since this disease has come to the forefront. It's not that hard to develop a story where God fucking intervened to help those drugs get made. It's not that hard. Here, let me tell it to you. One time, there weren't these drugs. Then God said, now there's going to be these drugs.

And he fucking intervened. And now there's these drugs. It's a short story. It's got one chapter. and I just said it. You're an atheist. Give me a fucking break, Michael. All right, you know what? We need to start going to church every week. This story also comes from the Friendly Atheist blog. After getting rejected from a soup kitchen, the upstate atheists have found another way to help the homeless. That's great. But that they even had to find another way to help the

homeless kind of makes me sick, Cecil. Yeah, this is one of those stories that I read and I could not believe. I was like, wait a minute. So basically they go in, there's this soup kitchen down in Spartansburg, South Carolina. And the upstate atheists have been a very busy group there doing a lot of great charitable work. They adopted a highway. They do Habitat for Humanity. They do a garden project. And then they wanted to go to this soup kitchen. And they went in and they said, hey, can we wear our shirts?

Because they have atheists on there. And they said, no, you don't have permission to wear your shirts. And then they basically said, okay, fine, we won't wear our shirts. And then they asked the director, and the director said, we are not welcome to volunteer at the Spartanburg soup kitchen, because it is a place of God. And they knew our motivations. I'm paraphrasing there, but that's basically what she said. What fucking motivations? What, to help people out? What, is that a bad thing?

Isn't that what you're doing? Helping people out? So the fucking, they did an awesome thing. They decided, you know what, fine. How about we just make care packages that are about 15 bucks. They give socks, gloves, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, snacks, mini flashlights, lip balm, ponchos, etc. to the homeless people to prepare for winter. And they can use, they're going to be able to use these things.

They've already made about 30 packages right now. They want to make a lot more. So here's the thing. They have a, it's either a Kickstart Indiegogo. They have an Indiegogo campaign. What Tom and I are going to do, right now, they only have $473 of their total $2,000 goal, which is, I mean, gosh, this should be able to be taken care of no problem. I mean, $2,000 is not a lot of money when you come down to it, especially spreading this across an entire atheist community. across an entire atheist community. So what Tom and I are willing to do right now is we will match the first $50 any of our listeners contribute. So if people donate five bucks, 10 bucks, whatever

you want to donate, if you decide to donate to this, we're going to put a link on this episode 112. So you can go there to this Indiegogo campaign. You can donate. If you donate, send us proof that you donated. We will match up to $50 of our own money here to send to these people. We encourage you, if you were thinking about donating to the show this week, we encourage you not to donate to our show this week. Instead, we encourage you to donate to this instead. So let's all try to help the homeless out a little bit. Let's all try to send a little bit of money. Hopefully, these people are putting in the time. We're just putting in a little extra cash to help them out. So I think

that's not that hard of a thing to do. So let's see if we can come together and see if we can get that over up to close to that $2,000 mark. The military needs Christian chaplains and the military needs Christian high school kids to enlist and to go to college and be officers. And if the Christians are driven out of the military, I think that is one of the goals of the atheist left, is to get rid of all the Christians in the military so they can take over. Well, now we see the Obama administration is stockpiling armored personnel carriers in the Department of Homeland Security, billions of rounds of ammunition. Who are they going to use that against?

If there's no Christians serving in the government, eventually that's all going to be turned against us. So this story comes from Right Wing Watch. Klingerschmitt. That's a name you can trust. This guy is awesome. This isn't that guy who wears a—I love his outfits because it's that suit coat with a fucking T-shirt. It's awesome. That's the choice of trustworthy individuals

everywhere. Yeah. And Steve Jobs. Obama creating atheist military to attack Christians. The atheist left, Klingerschmitt, who I could say that fucking name all day long, claims wants to get rid of all the Christians in the military so they can take over.

Now we see the Obama administration is stockpiling armored personnel carriers and the... How do you stockpile those? And the Department of... Do you have to stack them on top of each other? Do you have a pantry full of armored personnel carriers? It's got a shelf.

We need to get one down off the top. Can you get that one down off the top? It's an armored personnel carrier. It's a little heavy. I got that grabby arm thing, but it doesn't... I break them all every time. It's not a stockpiling. I just collect them. I think they're beautiful. And the Department of Homeland Security

has billions of rounds of ammunition. Billions. Billions and billions. Who are they going to use that against? If there's no Christians serving in the government, eventually it's all going to be turned against us. Obama's a Christian. What is us? Who is the us?

I just want to know, like, in your fucking crazy worldview, how does this work? Like, from a practical, like, from a logistics perspective, how are we going to kill all the Christians? What? How would you do that? It's most everybody. logistics perspective, how are we going to kill all the Christians? Like, what? How would you do that? It's most everybody. That is a very unpopular thing to do in a democracy. Yeah, but you're forgetting about the very, very vocal and mobile atheist left, as he says.

So the atheist left will go out and persecute these Christians. I kept on wondering, like, what kind of persecution could you possibly face from the minority? Like, what is the, like, what are they going to be like your duty head? Okay. But there's like fucking 80% of the fucking population is not atheist. More than that. Let's, let's break this down to something people can, can relate to, right? Cause like 370 million people spread across 50 states is ridiculous. So let's think about this in terms of a high school. And the high school has, I don't know, 1,000 students, a nice round number. That's amazing. They stopped enrollment exactly at 1,000.

Sorry, you guys don't get educations. So 800 of them are Christians. 200 of them are not. Of the 200 that are not, not all of those are atheists. So let's say 120 of those, let's be generous, are atheists. 120 versus 800. Let me just check that out real quick. The 800 are going to kick their ass.

Like, if they have, like, a fucking like, if they fucking get together like, The Outsiders style and fucking Ponyboy and Buddies are there, and they're, like, going to rumble in the fucking park at night. It's 120 versus 800! The 120

never win! I just looked it up, so we're actually overestimating. As of 2012, a majority of Christians, 73 to 76 percent identify themselves as Christian. So a majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian. I don't know if I said Christians, but a majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian. And we're talking 76. So even if it's 73, that's still 730 of them which is still an immense amount like unless you're fucking i don't know trying to hold the hot gates at

thermopoly you're gonna get beat you know what i mean like that's the only way like you have shields and fucking spears maybe you could withstand but other than that i'm yeah right yeah well definitely yeah it's funny i i just think it's awesome that he's like obama and fucking spears, maybe you could withstand. But other than that, I'm... Yeah, right. Yeah, definitely, yeah. It's funny. I just think it's awesome that he's like, Obama. Somehow it's like Obama's going to do that. And it's like the atheist left. Like, what does he think we do?

Like, we get up every morning and, like, fucking pray to Obama. Like, we go to our Obamalisk and, like, we pray. If you pray at the Obamalisk, I think you have to pray at the Barack of Dawn, That's fucking awesome. The Barack. Come on. That was great. It's the Barack of Dawn.

I liked that. Yeah, you didn't think it was funny. Puns don't make me laugh out loud. You are an asshole is what you are. It was a good pun, though. It was a good pun. It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad.

But Obama's a Christian. I know. It was a good pun. It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. But Obama's a Christian. I know. That's the other thing. Why would. So even if the atheist left was enslaved to him in some way. Yeah. Then the right made such a big deal about his pastor during the election cycle. The first one.

They made such a big deal about his pastor at his Christian church. But now he's an atheist? Well, you know, the thing is, is he may be, but publicly he said he's a Christian. You know what I mean? So it's like he has declared he's a Christian. to your fucking crazy fucking not it rule or whatever the fuck. When you say, I am a Christian and I believe in God, you should fucking take people at their word for that. You know what's odd?

Because I do. Exactly. How else are you going to decide who to shoot with your armored personnel carrier? Well, yeah. Well, actually, what you do is you eject the armored personnel carrier out of an armored personnel gun. So just shoot up. Yeah, it's like, that's where the millions of bullets are. They're just giant personnel carriers that you shoot at people. personnel carrier out of an armor personnel gun. That's where the millions of bullets are. They're just giant

personnel carriers that you shoot at people. The only way for this to work is for all the Christians to get together in a big thing and just be like, we are all here to sing Kumbaya and then the evil atheists all line up with billions of rounds of ammunition from the Department of Homeland Security and just massacre

them. But they have to identify who they were and all be in one place and not resist. But the most heavily armed part of the United States are the fucking nutter Christians in the South that all have like 100 guns. Seriously, they have like 100 guns each. I checked. It's 100 each. Our esteemed Secretary of State said that climate change is our challenge, a challenge to our responsibilities as the safeguarders of God's creation. The safeguarders. It would obviously be the safe guardians.

The safe guarders. So John Kerry says that climate change is a challenge to our responsibility as the safe guarders of God's creation. What about God's creation called a fetus? So Rush Limbaugh is being awesome again because he's awesome. This is from the contributor dot com. Limbaugh, if you believe in God, you can't believe in climate change.

Well, fair enough. OK, fair enough. All right. You know, I like to that, like here I can, like, a Christian sitting there like, but wait a minute. Climate change is demonstrably real. So if I believe in climate change, then, like, you've shaken my faith. Yeah, no kidding, right? I love, too, what he says. He says you must be either agnostic or atheistic to believe that a man controls something he can't

create and I kept thinking I'm like isn't like cooking or brewing or farming or fucking animal fucking husbandry isn't that all controlling something we don't create I can train a dog fucking like yeah exactly right like it's like you control

it right the fucking cooking is a perfect example. Right. I am controlling things that I did not create. I didn't create the flour, the eggs, the milk, the melted butter, the sugar and the fucking baking powder to make pancakes. I didn't fucking make any of that, but I controlled it to make another thing. Yeah. Like, I mean, I control my wife, but hey, yes.

Well, you're talking about like animal husbandry even. Just like I fucking control this fucking hawk to go get me a food. Right, right. Or a fucking pack of dogs or whatever. It's like we've been doing it for, that's what humans do. That's what makes us different yeah it's this no no no set of words that he strings together to form a half-hearted sentence in this diatribe of idiocy makes sense for even one moment um i'm gonna read some of this to you because because you actually can't mock this better than he mocks this oh no

no what about god's creation called a fetus yeah what, what about that, Cecil? See, in my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God, then intellectually, you cannot believe in man-made global warming. You must be either agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something we can't create. The vanity! These people, on the one hand, we're no different than a mouse

or a rat. If you listen to the animal rights activists, we are the pollutants of the planet. If it weren't for humanity, the military environmentalist wackos, the earth would be pristine and wonderful and beautiful and nobody would see it. According to them, we are not as entitled to life on this planet as other

creatures because we are destroying it. But how can we destroy it when we're no different from the lowest life forms? What the fuck are you talking about? We can destroy it by, I don't know, the many ways we're currently destroying it. I don't know. Look around.

How can we destroy it? Well, let's see. How can a mouse destroy the planet? Well, let's see. Does a mouse burn hydrocarbons for fuel? No? Oh, mice don't burn hydrocarbons for fuel. No, mice just fucking eat grain shit and die young.

That's what they fucking do. Well, you know what? Guess what? Like, people would not be able to destroy the Earth if we lived in a hunter-gatherer society and our populations were kept in check by predators. That's something we wouldn't be able to fucking do. But when we build fucking power plants and cars and jet planes and shoot ourselves to the moon and land little buggies on Mars and roam around to see what's up,

the ball game fucking changes, fatty. A little bit. A little bit. And, you know, it's funny, too, because I've never seen, like, a mouse offshore drilling platform. I know, right? I've never...

Like, I mean, maybe it exists. Maybe, like, fucking Secret of NIMH is, like, a real thing, right? Where they have, like, underground societies. There's, like, Mouse Santa. And they, like, fight... Right? They have, like like a mouse EPA

where the mice come over like, wait a minute, you can't be doing that here. They're all mouse hard hats. They'd be so cute. So adorable. They're so cute. I mean, now and again, a bird eats one of them.

It's terrible. Like the president of Mouseville is making a speech and a hawk just eats him. We go through more presidents. Wait, when did we decide it of Mouseville is making a speech and a hawk just eats him. We got through more presidents. Wait, when did we decide it's Mouseville? So anyway, like I love this thing though because he's saying, you know, I'm going to repeat a little bit of what she said. But he said, according to them, we are not entitled to life on this planet as other creatures because we destroy it.

I'm thinking that's the biggest straw man I've ever heard. I've never heard anybody say that human beings shouldn't be here. Like I've never heard the environmental argument that's like, you know what we really need to do is just kill ourselves because that's the best thing for the planet. If I met that person, I would think they're just as crazy as you think they're crazy. Like I would be like, you are just as insane as anything like that I've ever heard from the other far side of this argument.

Right. So the people that are on the crazy end that are just basically like, yeah, you know what we need to do is we need to exterminate all human life and then the planet will be better. Those people are crazy too. Don't characterize every environmental argument as that argument because it's stupid to do that. That's like characterizing everybody who's kind of against global warming

as somebody who is as fucking stupid and crazy as Rush Limbaugh. Yeah, it's looking at an extreme. Like, it's denying the continuum, you know? Like, it's looking at it and being like, well, if you think human beings are going to destroy the environment, then there shouldn't be any human beings.

All right, Jerry Seinfeld, fucking settle down. Yeah, no kidding, right? What's the deal with human beings? You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth.

So this is the story of the fucking week. This might be the story of the fucking year. This is from the raw story. It's also from everywhere else. Fed up with homosexuality, religious family takes leap of faith and immediately gets lost at sea. I fucking love this. These dipshits from fucking Arizona. Ah, yes.

The great seafaring state of Arizona. Such a grand tradition. What port city did they come from? Such a grand tradition of mariners out of Arizona. They got so fed up with the state of things in this country, with abortion and homosexuality, taxes,

and the state-controlled church. They decided to just get on an island and go to Giribati, which is a series of small islands in Micronesia. I don't even, what? How do you get there?

And they packed up their fucking little kids, like little, little kids, like an infant, like a three-year-old and an infant. And they got on a boat that they don't know how to sail across the ocean. This was a good idea from step one. They ended up lost in the Pacific for 91 days. What is it? Is that, that's not a three hour tour.

That's a three month tour. I like this too. It's like during the voyage, their boat, their boat was damaged by squall after squall after squall. And I kept thinking, was the tiny ship tossed? We should have brought the professor.

Yeah, the professor and Mary Ann. We could have made a fucking telephone out of coconuts. I like this, too. It says an Arizona family was fed up with abortion, homosexuality taxes, and the state-controlled church. And they basically left. And I'm thinking, were they also fed up with navigation and food? I know, right? I can't take it anymore with this state-controlled church that isn't real.

I got to get out of here, get on the ocean, and well, I'm not sure what's going to happen next because I don't know how to sail across the ocean. You know, at one point, this story is so fraught with just hilarity. At one point, a Canadian cargo ship spotted them, offered them supplies, but instead it just bumped into them and fucked up their boat. That is fucking awesome. And I read, too, like I read other stories where they were like, yeah, well, we were never really nervous. We trusted God. Like, you trusted God?

You got lost for three months on the open ocean. The end result is that you had to hitch a ride from Chile back home. You failed. You trusted God, and God fucking ignored you. That is what happened. You were like, well, we'll just let God see us through. God didn't

see you through, stupid. Yeah, no kidding. God was gonna let you and your fucking baby die in the ocean. God rammed a fucking boat into you. I know. Like he was sitting in the goddamn bathtub, and he was playing with two little boats, and he slammed one into the other. That's what fucking happened. God hit you with squall after squall after squall.

God also hit you with incompetence. And then these guys, who are so fed up with all things U.S. government, right? Who do they hitch a ride home from? The U.S. Embassy gets called to arrange for them to be flown home. Yeah, but they have to. The thing is that they're not mentioning is that they have to swear allegiance to the state-controlled church before they're flying back. Oh, right. They have to put their hands on the state-controlled Bible.

And they have to say, I love homos. And I'll have an abortion. And I'm going to have an abortion right now. And if you can't have an abortion, just kill your baby. Yeah, no. The only way to appease the fucking atheist left is to kill your baby. Bwahaha. Bring me another baby, Hoagie.

Give her another 10 fucking days on the ocean, she would have killed her fucking baby. And eaten it. You know what I mean? Right. Give her another ten fucking days on the ocean, she would have killed her fucking baby. And eaten it. You know what I mean? Give me a break. That's the, I mean, that really is, you know, I get if somebody wants to do this on their own, right? There's that, isn't there a movie where a guy goes up into fucking Alaska in a fucking RV or something and he gets stuck and then he

fucking dies up there because he eats the wrong berry or something? Yeah, I think Into the Wild. Yeah, right? So, if you're a jag-off and you want to go do that, good for you. Go be a jagoff and be fucking bear food. I do not care one bit what you do, right? Right. You are by yourself. You are a fucking grown-ass person.

You can do whatever the fuck you want. The moment you take your fucking newborn and your two-year-old out on the fucking choppy seas, Gilligan, I'm going to have a fucking problem because these kids don't have a choice. They don't have a choice to fucking decide that they don't want to go with you. They're stuck fucking seasick for the next three months because you're an asshole. You don't get to do that to other people. They should be charged. I don't know why they're not being charged. And why would they think that the fucking the great nation of Kiribati would welcome them with open arms? Like, welcome.

What do you bring us? I don't know, four hungry mouths. What do you got? I'm fucking clearly incompetent. Like, why would you even be welcome? Like, you're a fucking illegal immigrant. Hey, guys. This is Chris from Milwaukee. Just calling to say congratulations on your 100th and L, I think we're up to, episode.

And I just wanted to say I had a little combination for the Muslim called a prayer. And it would be a long voicemail. A long voicemail. a long voicemail, a long voicemail. Thanks. So we got a little bit of email here and we want to talk about it. So Cameron sent an email and he said he likes that, you know, we laugh and talk and kid around and whatnot. And we like that we laugh and talk and kid around because this. And we like that we laugh and talk and kid around. Because this podcast wouldn't exist if Tom and I were not allowed to laugh and fucking be ourselves. But in any case, there is a joke that he told Tom, and we both thought it was hilarious.

How should the priest know the boy is too young when he has to make airplane sounds to get his cock in the mouth? That's the meanest shit ever. Oh, God. Oh, child molestation jokes. We don't go to any new lows, really. Into the hangar. That's it. That's awesome. Here comes the plane. So, more ways than one. So,

we also got an email from Matt, and Matt says, congratulations on reaching your 111th episode. I will draw one sixth of the devil and hopefully seeing the finished product will, will be enough of an incentive to encourage you to make another 505 episodes so we can reach our 666th. We just got this week,

our 666th review on iTunes. We want to thank everybody who rates us on iTunes. It's awesome that you do that. Thank you very much for rating us. It's great that you do it. It helps us get noticed, so we thank everybody who does it. We got an email in a hillbilly accent, so we could understand it here, Tom. Yeah, I appreciate any time somebody types with the hillbilly accent. It's great, because then otherwise I'm just struggling um yeah this is uh this is an email from ashley he says i want to thank you for giving my new sms tone um anytime someone says something stupid tom goes what um which i totally stole from some other dude yeah we both stole it

from some other guy it's fucking awesome um this makes me chuckle every time so i cut the audio and use it as my SMS, a text tone. Every time I get a text, Tom goes, what? Now for the funny part. I was on a bus in glorious London and someone started going on about Jesus and the end of the world, maybe even aliens. And with perfect timing, I received a text and Tom going, what? My phone was on loud and I must say you amused the rest of the bus. It was fucking awesome.

What? That's great. That's awesome. We're glad you enjoyed that. It sounds like a hilarious bus ride. We got another Matt. This one is from nearby Chicago who said that basically one of his friends said that they should read the Bible. Basically, one of his friends said that they should read the Bible, read the Bible daily, pray beforehand, try to get her perspective and starting to sort of start a conversation between the two.

And I want to read part of this email because, Tom, I think this is pretty this is actually poignant. Yeah. Says it pisses me off to think how many hours, days, years, lifetimes are wasted on studying the Bible. I feel like it's slowed down the progress of mankind because of this colossal amount of time wasted. I cannot agree more. I don't think there's much in the Bible that's worthwhile. I think, you know, if you recognize what it is and what it was made, that's all you need. You don't need, you don't need to spend hours and hours of your life. I know that people say, Tom, we hear that argument all the time.

Oh, you got to read it in order to argue with them correctly. It's like, no, no, I just dismiss it out of hand. That's all I do. Yeah, I don't need to read all of the literature about Norwegian elves to know that there's no elves in Norway, right? Wait, there's no elves in Norway? Shh, don't tell them.

I don't need to. Maybe it's not Norway. I don't fucking know. But one of the Scandinavian countries. They all kind of blend together. Like, there's a longstanding tradition of belief in elves. They even rerouted highways because they didn't want, like, elves to be around the highways. I don't want elves to be around the highways.

You don't need to read all the literature about that in order to know it's not true. Well, you don't need to, exactly. And there's a million things you don't need that for. The extraordinary evidence needs to come from their side, not ours. We don't need any evidence at all to refute it. We just need extraordinary evidence

from their side to prove it. So when they say, you know, I don't need to read every fucking, I don't need to look at every single Bigfoot, whatever, fucking paw print or whatever the fuck they have. You decide that there's no Bigfoot. Man, just fucking show me a goddamn Bigfoot. And I'm on fucking board.

Same thing with Jesus. Show me a Jesus. I'm fucking on board. That's awesome. Jesus gets fucking resurrected, comes down, fucking does a happy dance in his crown of thorns. I'm fucking down. That's awesome. Fucking life after death sounds cool.

Let's do it. But if it's fucking, if you don't have any proof, if it's just you saying it, who gives a shit what you say? We got an image this week, Tom. Somebody found our, listened to last week's show, was Lee, and said, after listening to last week's show show I had to draw this. Forgive the pixelation. I drew it at size instead of drawing it big and then shrinking it down. So we're going to put this with the show this week. It's a

comic that just says the Unitarians win. So you'll have to check it out. It's going to be on the show notes for this time, episode 112. We got an interesting comment about biometrics from Bill. We did. We talked about the Mark of the Beast shenanigans before and it's funny about biometrics from Bill. We did. You know, we talked about the Mark of the Beast shenanigans before. And it's funny because biometrics are stuff like fingerprints, retinal imprint, et cetera. It's not a microchip. Kathy Adams is a moron. That's awesome because it

totally is not a microchip. And it's also not a thing like like the one thing that pisses me off is there's a company. There's a million of these companies out there, right? Grocery stores that are local to their area, right? There's one by us called Jewel. And I don't know how far across the country. I think it's a Midwestern phenomenon. But Jewel is a place where you go to buy groceries, right? It's your basic supermarket.

They had installed, in my tiny town where I used to live before I lived in Chicago, they had installed this biometric scanner. So you'd walk up and you'd put a thumbprint on it. It would take your thumbprint and then you'd have to type in a four-digit number. And then it would know who you are and you didn't have to have any kind of payment, any kind of ID, or any, you didn't have to have, they have like a little savers card. You didn't have to have that either. So you could do it for any and all of the purchase. So you could decide, you know what, I want to pay for it this way, or I just want to use my little card, my little savers card, which they give you like little extra dollars off. They had it for about six months and it was

fucking glorious. I could get up, I could be on the way home. I could not have my wallet on me. I could be, you know, coming back from the gym or whatever and just be like, oh, I could just stop there and get whatever I wanted. It was fucking awesome. And then they took it out. They stopped doing it. And I wonder if it's this fucking these jag offs that are like, it's the mark of the beast. It's the mark of the beast. And they didn't let me fucking do the thing with the press into my thumb. It was the best thing ever. If I could do that for everything, I would do that for everything. Yeah, there's the mark of the beast. I'll believe the mark of the beast when it's like we said before the show, when it's a fucking hoof print being tattooed on my forehead by force. Right.

Yeah. Like when a bunch of like black clad dudes swoop down, hold me down and fucking tattoo a hoof print on my forehead. Then that will give me some pause. Until then, it's easier to buy avocado. You know, it's so funny, too, because there's no need for any kind of change in technology with a kind of mark of the beast. All you need is your fingerprint in order to, you know, identify different people. Right. That's all you need. And if you had good enough scanners and good enough technology, you could easily just that could be an international currency system.

Right. You could just be like, OK, here you go. You put your thing on here. Now I understand that there's a lot of problems with that because, you know, you'd still need regular currency. So you could pay people under the table and have illegal immigrants working and things like that. No, but in any case, I mean, I know that there's obviously going to be other issues with that, but really you don't need a mark. You could just use your thumbprint, unless you're saying the mark of the beast is a is your thumb and you're just like okay well then i was already marked wasn't i all of us all of us prehensile mammals are just we're just fucked we're all beasted we got an email from jimmy who says uh he he thanked us for being part of his deconversion

but he also says he was wondering if we saw Ray Comfort's new film, Evolution vs. God. It's quite awful, but I would love to listen to both of you tear it apart and laugh hysterically. We are actually planning two shows right now that are going to be put in the can before we actually – before I go on vacation. Because I'm leaving for vacation at the end of September, and I won't be back until near the middle of October. And so I'm going to be gone for two weeks. So if we don't get something done, there will not be a show for two weeks. So we're looking at some movies and this is a great suggestion. So we might actually look into this.

Yeah, I'd be more than happy to laugh at Ray Comfort. Like I'll let that all day, all day. I'd like to thank Will, Eric, Chad, Vincent and Mark for their generous donations. We always are very grateful for anyone who sends us money. We thank you very much. Your hard-earned money goes a long way to pay for our hosting costs and for our website, and so we thank you very much for that. We also want to remind people that we are going to be donating $50.

If we get people in our audience to donate $50, we will donate $50 to an Indiegogo campaign. It's going to be on this episode, show notes, episode 112. So you can find the link there. It's also going to be when this goes out as the Facebook message, it might be on there. I don't know. We'll see, but you'll just follow the link and you should be able to click on it. And then you can donate if you would like to this homeless campaign that atheists are putting together to make little care boxes, which we think is a great project. Yeah, I mean, really, anybody that was thinking about donating, and so many of you guys have been kind enough to do so, send your money there. Like, they need it. They do.

Like, I've got a home. Cecil, you've got a home. Yeah. And while we certainly are not poo-pooing the folks that have been generous with us, this is an opportunity to do some good. So let's do some good. Before we end, we want to talk about George Trab's latest DVD, 21812. He just came out with this DVD. It's releasing this week.

And George asked us if we wouldn't mind plugging it. We plugged it a little last week, but this week we're actually going to put a link to the audio. It turns out George has made half of this DVD, the first 60 minutes of this DVD, available as audio to his audience.

So we're actually going to link to his podcast for this week where he does this whole thing. We're also going to put a link where you can go and just download this audio if you don't want to go to his podcast for this week where he does this whole thing. We're also going to put a link where you can go and just download this audio if you don't want to go to his website. George makes his living as a musician. Tom and I both have day jobs. This is not a way in which for us to make money, but George is in a different boat. This is how George makes his living. He's a musician, he's a podcaster, And these sales help him.

So if you are a fan of George's and if you like his music, I watch the 21812 DVD. I think it's worth your money. I think it's a well-produced, well-made DVD. And if you like his music and you enjoy it, I would suggest picking one up. I think it's great. And it helps George out. Like I said, this is how George makes his living. So we're going to put a link in this episode, episode 112 to both George's latest podcast, which he gives you away this full 60 minutes of audio, and then

also a link so you could download it and go check it out. It's on his website, 21812, a nice night out. We hope George sells lots of DVDs. So that wraps it up for this week. We had a great time. We hope to see you back next time. We're going to leave you as always with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit.

Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating pressurized. Stereogram pyramidal free energy healing. Water downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch. Late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces cancer cures.

Detox reflex foot massage. Death in towers. Tarot cards. Psychic healing. Crystal balls. Bigfoot. Yeti. Aliens.

Churches. Mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. I'm going to sneeze though. Do it. Sneeze. Come on. How many? We got two, three, four, five,

six, seven? No? Seven? I think we're good. Seven is enough. Okay. What the fuck is wrong with me? I don't know. You're just a multiple sneezer.

Some women get multiple orgasms. You got lucky and get multiple sneezes. I don't even give multiple orgasms. Are you kidding? I just get that.