Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 121: Burn Spotify

Episode Date: October 21, 2013

- Sam Harris

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. Aye, aye, aye, aye The horny old priest had a stiffy His one biggest joy was to pull off a boy.

The thought made him come in a jiffy. Hey, this is Keith Lundholm, Glory Hole. This is James Marcusoff. I really enjoyed the segment with Pat Robertson and the clinkers. I thought I'd clue you guys in in case you were

curious as to what precisely clinkers are and no it's not a medical condition it comes from the days whenever we burned most everything uh for most of all of our energy we burned coal now when coal uh incompletely combusts it leaves behind a residue that forms into these tiny little rocks. And they're called clinkers. Now, so while, you know, this is somewhat less entertaining than the prospect of Pat Robertson just making up words, it is somewhat more disturbing that Pat Robertson seems to think that human beings have a boiler inside of them, and that's how they metabolize food. Anyway, keep up the good work, and did I say glory hole?

I think I said glory hole. Well, either way, glory hole. One more can't hurt. Hey, Cecil and Tom, it's Miranda from South Louisiana. I was just listening to episode 120 at the very end where the guy had the funny story about the long black cough. I have a similar one, actually. I was driving to work the other morning listening to your podcast and had it blasting and all my windows open.

I was driving through the ghetto, incidentally, and a black gentleman was walking past my car while I was stopped at the red light just as a long black pop song was on. We exchanged looks. He kind of gave me a what-the-fuck kind of look. And luckily, the light turned green before anything else happened. Hey, guys. Just wanted to congratulate you on all of your great work, and episode 120 was hilarious. And, oh, God, hold on.

Oh, God, hold on. Oh, God, hold on. I got a real bad case of the clinkers. I'm really sorry about that. That was very rude. Anyway, again, great show. Love it. And keep up the good work. And, oh, God, make sure to eat your vegetables and your meat and everything.

You'll get the clinkers. Bye-bye. 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. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat.

This is episode 121. And I do want to say, Cecil, that earlier today I just had the little intro like, this is cognitive distance running through my head. But it was running through my head wrong. So in my head I was thinking, we bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irrelevance. Irrelevance is even better! Why didn't we think of that? And I kept telling myself, like, I don't think that's right, dumbass. Irrelevance is way better, I think. We didn't think of it because I guess we thought of it 121 repetitions.

It only took 121 times. I was afraid I was going to say it wrong. So, again, I'm back to reading it. I took a break from reading it for one or two episodes yeah oh you're gonna have to start reading because you don't sabotage yourself with your own misremembering of it it's three fucking lines i would be the worst actor ever they'd give me my lines yeah uh i'm gonna have to just read all these you're like a cue card queen like it's like you just stand there and they just keep on pulling those cue cards. Just like constantly teleprompter.

You're like Obama. You have one strapped to your chest where you just walk around like. This man is operated by a series of monitors. Yeah. How is this happening? So some of our listeners may have been expecting a guest of this show because we said there was going to be a guest on this show i messed up the dates um but there is not going to be a guest on the show no it should have happened here's what should have happened here's

why so cecil's on vacation for like two weeks right and during that time all i had to do was post the show and probably maybe consider the show once or twice and had i done that i would have contacted our guest and confirmed but instead i fucking lollygagged around like i was on fucking vacation not doing jack shit and uh it fell through so we're a week off we are a week off it's not a big deal he was immediately like like, yeah, come on, next week. Because I had thought for some reason before I left that I had hammered out the day with him. I was like, oh, we're going to have Blazkowicz on first. Then we'll have Grothian next. And then we'll try to get on Bogajian later on in the month.

And then I'm just like, oh, when I go to read the email, I'm just like, yeah, we'll hammer it out when I come back. I'm like, I've already been back for a week. We have not hammered it out bad at this we're bad at this 121 and we're bad at this we're gonna hit our stride though we're gonna actually yeah we're on 560 we'll be banging it out of the park we'll have one listener left at that point like i don I don't know, I can't turn them off. I thought that the point of the church was to worship God, and the boy-fucking was just incidental. No, it's just the other way around. The point of the church is the boy-fucking. All the other stuff is just busy work.

So this story comes from the Sydney Morning Herald. Filthy little liar, nuns abused abused child sex victim court hears this is so bad yeah it is if you if you were like the kind of person that was thinking you know i still have a shred of fucking faith in humanity what can i do to destroy that i don't know turn to the fucking sydney morning herald i'll just tune in i'll just tune in cognitive dissonance that'll What can I do to destroy that? I don't know. Turn to the fucking Sydney Morning Herald and read this story. I'll just tune in cognitive dissonance. That'll destroy any bit I have. It's destroyed before they get past the intro.

I can't fucking remember. It really is. It's true. Are you kidding me? So this is basically a court testimony of a child sex abuse victim who was abused by this priest. Okay. It's not even a story. We don't even report those anymore.

It happens so frequently when I read them. Yeah. But then the worst part, the story part, is she goes to a nun and is like, Hey, so one of these priests is, you know, screwing around with me. They call her a filthy little liar and they make her drink a bottle of castor oil because that's how you handle that situation. That's how you cure rape. I don't know if you knew that. Oh, God.

Jesus. It's the cure for rape. I'll just make you vomit repeatedly. Right. When in doubt, blame the child. Yeah, exactly. Like you aren't already vomiting when you've been raped, right? Right.

Like this guy. This guy. What a scumbag this guy is. But there's a part here where it's sort of detailed, and we got yelled at for being detailed last time. So we're not going to be as detailed. If you want to read the article, I will say they used the word erection in the article. So if you're interested, go find the article. But it says here underneath erection,

it says the jury heard that Egan abused the woman on at least three other occasions, including placing his penis in her mouth during preparations for Palm Sunday. And immediately I thought, is it in the mouth or is it in the palm? And I thought, well, probably, you know, it's one of those moments where it melts in your mouth

not in your hand sort of thing. I don't know if that's a good joke to tell here. I don't know if it is either, but I like that you told it. Yeah, you know, initially what this woman went to go talk to somebody, though, about this. Like you said, like a nun to talk about this. And they just called her a liar about this. And there's like, isn't there

a whole movie about this? Like that doubt? Yeah. Isn't that right? It's very similar. Except for in that, they believed the girl. You know what I mean? Like in that, they believed that the guy was actually diddling kids. That's what the nun believed. You know, she actually got the guy was actually diddling kids that's what the nun believed you know she actually got the guy fired here here's the thing cecil it's a very believable claim right this is not an extraordinary claim that it's not aliens at this point exactly we are we are at a point in history where it's like the priest i mean if you were to like fucking play Mad Libs and the words you have are the priest blank me, right?

And it's asking for a verb. Blessed. Blessed is not going to be – it would actually be funny to play, like to take a survey. Yeah, it would be like Family Feud where you're like survey says and blessed is like number three. It would all be filthy because like at this point it's a fucking joke. Like priests are fucking like the kitty-diddling masters of the universe. They're like holding up their dick in front of the church. They're like, by the power of Catholicism, I am Bill Mann.

By the power of my balls. Yeah, you know, the thing is, is that you said it's not an extraordinary claim. It's sex abuse is not an extraordinary claim ever. You know what I mean? Like that's the thing is like it's never an extraordinary claim. It's like we shouldn't be looking to the person who says that they're a victim and say, OK, well, you know, you're, you're obviously telling a lie. Like we need to, you know, I mean, obviously you need checks and balances there to make sure that people don't make false claims. That's, that's, you know, that's a no brainer. But the very fact,

when somebody comes to you and says this, the first thing you have to do is be sympathetic because the, you know, if they're, if they're lying, you can find that out through channels, but if they're not lying, you're fucking ruining them because they're the ones who are the victims. So they're going to come to you with this, you know, very vulnerable and they're going to be in a very vulnerable state. And if you treat them like shit and be like, oh, fuck you, drink this castor oil because that seems like the thing you should do. Well, that's just going to ruin them. You know, that's just going to that's going to make them never want to tell anyone this stuff. So, you know, you're handling it completely the wrong way.

But I think that this is, this is one of those things that churches do. Most churches, I'm not going to say all churches, but most churches do is they try to cover that shit up as fast as they possibly can to make sure that they're, you know, that that way of life is not ruined at all. You know, your humanity is broken when it doesn't occur to you to err on the side of compassion first. Right, no. When you're like, how should we handle this? Well, we definitely need to humiliate her in front of a classroom full of people. Even if she was lying, what do you accomplish by making somebody forcibly vomit

and humiliating them in front of a classroom full of people. What's the end game there? Like I said earlier, you shouldn't be treating her like she's a liar when you first start. At least do a little bit of investigation, not immediately grab the castor oil. Let's fuck! I'll fuck anything that moves! I'll fuck anything that moves! I think even having child brides lets them down. It's not like they're being let down in the sense like, oh, we didn't get all the gifts on our child bride registry. I didn't get my... I didn't go where I wanted to go on my child wedding for my child honeymoon.

Disneyland. SeaWorld. Santa's Village. Is my bride tall enough to ride this ride? Oh, no. No, it turns out she is not tall enough to ride this ride. The country refused to sign the first ever... I can't read.

I'm not reading. You're not very good at that. I'm fucking starting that shit over. The country has refused to sign the first ever global resolution on early enforced marriage of children. If ever there was a fucking

no-brainer to sign, like, mmm, yeah, that is a head-scratcher. It's not a head-scratcher. You like it? It's like signing a document to be like, you know, we're not just going to genocide the Jews.

I know, right? Who decided not to sign this? And I've got to read this appalling fucking statistic. India has the record for the highest absolute number of child brides, around 24 million. This represents 40 percent of the 60 million world child marriages. What?

And I also got to point out, too, that the numbers here, they're saying like married before 18 is child bride. too, that the numbers here, they're saying like married before 18 is child bride. So all the people who get mad when we say that you're too young to make decisions before you're 18, you guys can get mad at the United Nations, too, because that's how they measure their statistics. I'm mad at the United Nations. I'm furious. I hope they sanction me. Yeah, no, I mean, really, like it like, it really, it really makes sense to keep that age at 18.

Because there, because there are so many, yeah, could you be a child at 16? Or, you know, an adult at 16? Yeah, you could be both, I think, I think that there's, there's room for you to be both. But that doesn't mean that we should say that, you know, you got to go with the lowest common denominator. I think at 18, everybody should be, you know, you should be like, okay, you should be able to make your decisions. But, you know, when you're, I mean, they to go with the lowest common denominator. I think at 18, everybody should be – you should be like, OK, you should be able to make your decisions. But when you're – I mean in 1920 – I was reading this article in 19 – the 1920-something. It was 1929. They set 12 years as the legal age for marriage in India.

So for a long time, they've been like fucking you know, fucking marrying fucking middle schoolers. I know. Twelve. Twelve years old. Who wants to take a 12-year-old bride? He's like, hmm, 13. A little long in the tooth. Yeah, I don't know.

Old maid, that one. I'm not looking for a cougar here. Come on now. Yeah, but, you know, and the other thing too before you start time i just want to say that that fucking 12 year old thing was in place until fucking 1978 so under 40 years ago it was fucking you know 12 years 12 year old grass on the field play ball jesus i'm just trying to remember back to when i was 12 like what are the things i was doing when i was in sixth fucking grade i wasn't

fucking getting married to anybody that's for goddamn sure i don't even know that i love i think i liked girls back then i think i i was like oh yeah girls that's awesome yeah i think i was vaguely aware that girls were a thing but but I was busy playing G.I. Joe. I was too. Yeah, absolutely. I remember in sixth grade, I was running around the neighborhood shooting fucking cap guns at people. I was a kid. I was a fucking child.

I was riding around with a bunch of other kids on a a BMX bike back then. Like that's what I that's how my evenings played out. Yeah. Yeah, it's video games. I wasn't thinking about budgeting for like my financial future or something, you know? You're like, oh, I gotta make the, I gotta get the groceries,

I gotta carry the fucking water from the well because I live in a fucking backward nation that marries children. Well, you're unfairly characterizing our country. If you won't sign the agreement that says don't marry children. Yeah, and also you have 40% of the children that are married in the world. Right. And it's like, well, yeah, we got a lot of the population.

No excuse. Yeah. You know, just sign the thing that says this is a social ill. married in the world right and it's like well yeah we got a lot of the population no excuse yeah you know just sign the thing that says this is a social ill like that's all you have to because the thing is that it says in the same article in 1978 the the legal age for marriage in india was raised to 218 so it is already illegal in your own country to have child brides. Right, right. Yet for some reason, you won't sign the UN resolution. It's just a UN resolution. They're meaningless anyways. I know.

You're not going to fucking bomb India because some 13-year-old got married in some rural backwater of your nation. Right. It's a symbolic gesture. You're not even willing to make a symbolic gesture that is already in accord with your actual laws fucking a un resolution is about as binding as a fucking putting up a flyer in boise you know i mean just like yeah okay yeah there's a fucking i don't know you see next week fucking that band's gonna play here oh and you know you can't marry child brides in fucking india anymore like that's seriously like that's as fucking binding as it is.

And you're not going to do that. You're not even going to do like. And you know, they didn't do it because there's going to be some sort of weird backlash. Right. Right. And we've seen how many times have we seen where that backlash comes from? Comes from weird religious communities, man. Like how many secular humanists are calling for, like,

the marriage of children? Like, how many secular humanists are like, you know what would be really good? More children getting married. Never happened. You could lower that down to nine, like those Muslims have it. Because they got it good.

Oh, God. Those fourth graders, right for the picking. Oh, shit. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ. As I look at the end time scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry. We are to understand where we are in God's end time history. This isn't to cause us fear.

This is to cause us, I believe, as believers in Jesus Christ, to grow up and mature in our faith and embrace the prophets said they long to look to this time. The prophets long to look into the future to see these days of his coming and herald his coming.

And we're privileged to live in them. Yes, we are privileged. Rather than seeing this as a negative, Jan, we need to rejoice. Mar. Yes, we are privileged. Rather than seeing this as a negative, Jan, we need to rejoice. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. His day is at hand. And so when we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this, that these days would be as the days of Noah.

We are seeing that in our time. Yes, it gives us fear in some respects because we want the retirement that our parents enjoyed. We want our children and grandchildren to have wonderful, positive lives. Well, they will if they know Jesus Christ and if they know the glorious future that is set out for all of mankind,

not just Americans, not just conservatives, but every human being that God ever created, that should give us and impel us on into the gospel. This story comes from right wing watch Bachman. Who's still interviewing Bachman? Obama is supporting Al Qaeda, proving that we are in the end times. that we are in the end times um well cecil the uh leaf is on the fig tree as she says so we are in the end times that's how you know that we are in the end times that's it's a quote what quote from what does it even mean it means that when you see a leaf on a fig tree then end time fucking fig trees not have leaves don't talk to me like that how dare you sir they're like the only leafless tree that has fruit they're just like how the fuck do they get

any sunlight how are they even contributed a tree it's like a weird like it's like the spindly ass thing that just shitting out figs. What is going on in your brain? It's trying desperately to produce figs, but it's like, but first I have to flower. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I'm just a tree. Yeah.

I, you know, that the arming terrorist thing is awesome. Cause she, I mean, it's completely fabrication. Um, it's, It's not that. It's – and she says waived a ban on selling arms to terrorists and it's only non-lethal defensive and protective aid to vetted Syrian rebels. That's the same thing. Yeah, not affiliated with terrorist organizations. I mean it's awesome because it's just like I'm just going to say some things that aren't even true. What do you think?

Sounds good. Go ahead and say them. I have a platform for you to say them on. You know, the only comforting thing is that if you read this whole article, she does the Bachman, right? Like, it's the fucking Bachman two-step where it's like left foot left and she just says something super fucking crazy apropos of nothing that is totally unsupported by reality. And then she shifts again and it's like, what? Right foot right. And then she just says, like she changes gears and it's like, also we should fucking stop immigration.

And wait, what? Where did that come from? Like every, she just vomits things out. Like all, that's all she does she's just she's just her mind only has seven things in it and they're rattling around at fucking incredible speeds up there and when she opens her mouth they just accidentally fucking fall out of her yeah it's just and they make such a cacophony of sound too when they come out of her i like this this is when she's talking about the end time.

She says, rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice. Maranatha, whatever the fuck that is, come Lord Jesus. His day is at hand. When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we are told that these are the end days. And it's the days of Noah, basically, is what she's saying. So it's like these are people. This isn't just a person. This is a person with power who thinks that it's cool and awesome that we're moving toward the end times.

Let that shit sink in. She's a fucking voting member of the fucking House of Representatives. She can fucking call bills into question. She could be appointed to committees. She's one of 435 people in the United States that get to vote on things in the House of Representatives. 435. Right. That's a big fucking vote, man.

It's bigger than my vote. It's bigger than your vote. It's bigger than probably our collective audience's vote put together so you know when people are like oh man you know just a fucking few people believe in that bullshit no no these are these are people in power and this is not a she's not a fucking isolated case either right there's a lot of people in power that believe this stuff that are that are fucking ecstatic that the end times are coming. So these are people who don't have a long outlook. She talks in this about like – she's like, oh, it's sad that we don't get a chance to retire like our mothers and fathers did, but it's okay because we're going to heaven.

Like these are people who do not have a long outlook on the fucking earth, man. They don't look in the fucking 20 years into the future and think, man, we need to be like actually fucking sustainable 20 years in the future. I mean this is a fucking short amount of time they're thinking. They're not thinking like we need to be sustainable looking into like hundreds of years into the future because of what we're doing to this planet. Instead, it's like, oh, yeah, whatever, 20 years. As long as we fucking last the next 20 years, coast that shit out, we're good. And that's an important – that's a really important point because we've taken some slack about our mocking of Revelation. And we're going to get into that a little later too.

But people have given us a hard time that we treat it as if it's a fundamentalist text. Well, let's not forget that there are a lot of fundamentalists out there. That is a significant number of people and that that is a – if I'm – I mean how am I to decide which is the legitimate way to – is there a legitimate way to read a nonsense book first of all? Yeah. Like what's the best interpretation of the cat in the hat? I don't fucking know. Am I supposed to believe there's really a cat in the hat or is this a metaphor? It's fucking nonsense either way.

But here you've got somebody who, like you said, whoever you are listening, this woman is more important than you. Like she has more power than you do, whoever you are listening right now. Let that sink in for a second. That sucks so bad. And she, like you said, she's not planning. Why would you plan? If somebody said tom you know are you gonna pay your mortgage by the way your house is on fire i'd be like well i'm not gonna

run to get my checkbook what the fuck look at how many people look at how many people in the fucking in when they did that at fucking harold camping right saying his fucking song a couple years ago and all those fucking people sold their houses, cut, fucking cut people out of their lives, fucking quit their jobs, started traveling all over the world, fucking racked up huge bills in hotels the night of. Are you telling me for sure? Like, I mean, that's an outlook where you're like, I don't think that there's going to be a future. Right. That's this lady, except for, you know, on a little longer scale. Exactly. Yeah. A little longer, not even a lot longer. Not even a future. Right. Well, that's this lady, except for, you know, on a little longer scale. Exactly.

Yeah, a little longer. Not even a lot longer. Not even a lot. Like, this is an end. Like, you really think that there is such a thing as the end times. That's like a recipe

for I'm done with this conversation. This story comes from a website. Uh, you just have to go to the notes. Come on. Vossisnalas. That's not bad. Com.

Oh, and it automatically plays ads at you. I had to pause that shit, too. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Why do you never shut up? There we go all right um new york fbi lead raid on moncey yeshiva prominent brooklyn rabbi arrested whatever that all means listen this story's awesome because it basically involves a bunch of rabbis who were working with Orthodox Jewish fucking thugs to beat people up in exchange for money to pressure them for an Orthodox Jew divorce. I don't even know. I mean, like, it's fucking awesome. It's awesome.

Yeah, I just love the idea that they're just walking and be like, hey, that's an awfully nice marriage you got there. Are you ashamed of something? You know what I mean? Like that's awesome that they're just like – they're like walking up. And as they walk up, they're like walking to the guy's office and they like knock the marriage certificate off the wall. Like sternly knock it off the wall. Yeah, you're going to – they're forcing people. I'm actually really surprised that these orthodox people are actually helping women.

Yeah, what they're doing is helping line their pockets, right? Well, yeah. But even peripherally helping women is sort of weird. I did think it would go the other way. When I read it, I was surprised that it wasn't dudes. But then I thought, well, like – but yeah, in that culture, if you're a dude and you want to divorce your wife, you probably just divorce your wife. It doesn't matter whether she wants to divorce or not. It's like, fuck you.

You have no power. I've fucking divorced you. There's no money in that end. Right. Yeah. But, yeah, if you have the money and you want to divorce your husband but he won't take the divorce, you can go to a rabbi and get a higher Jew thug. That's just a Jew thug cost. I don't know, but it's the craziest thing ever.

It says in some cases it was $100,000. Man, you got a one out of that marriage. Yeah, really. For $100,000, he gets beat up, and you get a divorce. For $100,000, can't beat up and you get a divorce. For $100,000, can't you just have him killed and take the life insurance money? Can't you just escalate this shit to the next level for $100,000? And don't I get like a free bouquet afterwards too? You give me like a fucking tote bag if I do this?

Like is there a way? It's like the NPR donation. Like, if for $100,000, we'll give you the tote bag and the This American Life CD. Yeah, This American Life CD. And you can divorce your husband. And we'll beat him up. Awesome. You can't forget the beating.

And you've got to wonder like how that plays out. Like, you're walking out of work and there's just like two dudes with like huge sideburns and the crazy hat standing by your car, arms folded, looking menacing and hairy at you. And you're just like, oh, I should have said yes to that divorce. I am about to get an old school rabbi ass whooping. They're going to beat my ass Yiddish style. It's going to be great. So we're going to wind up taking a break here and giving you some stuff to listen to for a few moments. And then we're going to come back and finish the show.

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That's 740-743-6828. Visit DissonancePod.com to see the news stories featured in the show, 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. So this next story isn't really a story. It's an essay or a blog post or what have you from SamHarris.org. It's called No Ordinary Violence. And this is a really insightful and interesting article, I thought, or essay or blog post or whatever the fuck it is. And it basically, it discusses the motivations for violence. So, you know, there's been a string of and forever have been and will be violent acts,

from school shootings to the mall shooting that took place. And Sam Harris tries to identify in this blog some of the causes. What are the types of people? What are the types of people that shoot up a Navy yard or that shoot up a school full of children or that raid a mall in Kenya and murder people there? What are the motivations? And then how are those people dealt with culturally? And why is that problematic sometimes?

And I thought this was a really interesting and really insightful article, Cecil. Yeah, I thought it was great too. I think while Sam is spending his time going through talking about – I think most of his writing has that let's throw cultural relativism out the window sort of bent to it. It feels like this is leading the same way and I totally agree with him. I think cultural relativ you know, if you listen to this show for any length of time, we will point out that we don't think it's right that, you know, Muslims are able to to, you know, hurt people in their population that have less power like women and children. We don't think it's right that they're that, you know, that they whip women when they've been raped, you know, things like that. I mean, we talk about different stories every week that deal with this stuff. But I think one of the things that, that is, uh, probably, uh, more important in this is that, uh, Sam is pointing out that this isn't, you know, we can't

start passing this off as it's just alone crazy in certain cases. And especially in the case of, uh, of Malala, who is, uh, who is – I don't know her last name. I do know her last name and I'm looking at it, but I'm not even going to try to pronounce it. Malala is the young lady from Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban for being a student, for just being someone who was reading and on a bus and speaking out that women should be educated. And they shot her. And then they said again, and this is where he quotes a Taliban spokesman, says, Malala targeted and criticized Islam. She was against Islam, and we tried to kill her.

And if we get the chance again, we will definitely try to kill her, and we will feel proud killing her. We talked about this last week on the show, and that's abhorrent. And the thing is, is you can't pass that off as this is just a dude. This is just one guy. This is just, you know, just one of these random crazies. Just one of the, you know, there's crazy people going to do crazy stuff. It's like, no, there is something to, uh, his fourth point here where he says those who are moved by ideology to waste their lives in extraordinary ways while doing an intolerable harm to others in the process, that is a separate type of evil. And that is something we need to look at and say, okay, screw cultural relativism, screw this privileged look that we get at this world and say,

who is harming other people through basically, you know, through their holy books, through their culture? And we've got to stop it. We've got to figure out a way to stop it. And I think that, you know, he hits the nail right on the head there. Well, you know, and he identifies, so he identifies four types of people in this article that commit, you know, these sort of violent acts. You know, and the first one is those who are suffering from some form of mental illness, right? And that's sort of self-explanatory.

The second one is prototypically evil psychopaths. And that one is also reasonably self-explanatory. The third one is normal men and women who cause immense harm while believing they are doing the right thing or while neglecting to notice the consequences of their actions. And his example is of a soldier fighting in a war that's an ill-conceived or unjust war. The fourth one, the one that obviously meshes with this show, the one that you just talked about, Cecil, is the one where people are motivated by an ideology. And he identifies that an ideology can be political, it can be secular, but so many of them are religious. So many of these things are religious.

And one thing that the left does wrong is the left often leads the apology. The left is so quick to make sure that it is not offending anybody, that it's defending in you know, in its efforts to be multicultural, it ends up being relativistic. And that is a fault of the secular left. It is a fault of secular liberals. And he attacks it in this article. And he's right to do it. And I would identify myself typically as a secular liberal. But I hope that I don't, and I don't think that I do, fall into this category. There's some shit that's fucking wrong. And there's some shit that's motivated

by wrong-headed ideas. And this isn't a matter of like, well, you know, you can't really say that. How do you know what's right and wrong? Well, I know that it's wrong to kill and maim and torture people. And it doesn't matter what your justification for that is. It matters particularly when your justification is an overarching belief system

that's shared by millions or billions of other people on the planet. It matters a fucking lot to the well-being of others. And this idea that we are constantly worried about who we offend rather than worrying about who we defend. We should be defending victims of these crimes aggressively. And if people get offended and their belief systems are offended in the process, well, then go eat a bag of dicks. Who cares? Who did you offend? You offended a bad person. Yeah, and there was a part earlier where Tom, before Tom and I started

recording, Tom, you mentioned that secular liberal thing. We're looking at right wing watch earlier and Michelle Bachman is quoted as saying earlier in the interview, this is the previous story that we just did, right? We just did a story about Michelle Bachman. It says earlier in the interview, Bachman claimed that Islam is a violent religion and motivated the Nairobi mall terrorists. And she says the motivation is inspired from religion. It's their religion of Islam. I don't disagree with that statement. Like I see that and I'm like, okay, but I'm a liberal, you know what I mean? Like, and I think most of what Bachman says is babble, but you know, like, here's the thing. I think that, you know, they're falling on the wrong side here. The reason why I think Bachman hates them is because she wants to – she likes the idea of I think scaring the American people. I don't think that there's any reason to scare the American people. What I think we need to do is just denounce the religious thinking and religious ideology that hurts other people. I think that we need to do that not just as a secular group, like, you know, as secular people. I think religious people need

to do that. They need to look and be like, we're going to denounce any religious activity that hurts other people, that is damaging to other people, that, you know, keeps other people down, that forces other people to live a life that they don't want to live. Like most of the people, forces other people to live a life that they don't want to live. Like most of the people, most of the women in Muslim countries, you know, they've got to step up and do it on their own because no matter how much the atheists shout, nobody's going to listen to us. It's the, you got to convince the religious people that it's wrong. You got to convince the Muslims that it's wrong, that what they're doing is wrong.

And it's great that, you know, somebody who's inside the religion, you know, this, this young girl is able to come out and be like, yeah, I think that's just wrong. And here's why, you know, there needs to be, there needs to be a hundred thousand more Malala's secular humanism is the pagan God. It has filled our drug rehab centers. It has filled our divorce courts. It has filled our shelter for battered wives. Secular humanism has filled our rape crisis centers, our mental hospitals, our singles bars, our penitentiaries, our roster of guests

for the brain-dead television talk shows you see. America is becoming a pagan society. We are in a moral free fall when a school teacher cannot refer to the Ten Commandments but is approved of teaching the principles of witchcraft. Our country is going in the wrong direction. When the Boy Scouts of America are censored and penalized for refusing to accept homosexual scout leaders, we are a pagan nation without shame. When we bow down to worship movie stars and rock stars

whose moral code would make a sow blush, we have become a pagan nation. We have worsh a pagan nation. We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed sodomy and called it an alternative lifestyle. It's not an alternative lifestyle. It was, is, and always shall be

an abomination unto the Lord. So our next two stories are both from right wing watch and they're both about fucking john haggie this dude cecil was on fucking fire on fire with the crazy he was on fire he was seriously inspired with the crazy um we are a pagan nation without shame. The topic of John Hagee's Sunday sermon was faith under fire. And he just goes on a fucking rant and rave

about how secular humanism is a pagan god. Those words don't even make any sense. Secular humanism, let me rephrase this for you. Secular humanism is a chicken burrito. Chicken burrito? It's just as much a chicken burrito as it is a god.

I mean really that line just makes so little sense when you say secular humanism is a pagan god. But one of the things that kind of makes me mad about this is he starts talking in this clip, and we just played it for you. But he starts talking in this clip where he's like, yeah, they've taken the god out of this. They've taken god out of this. They've taken god out of the rape crisis centers. I'm thinking, you know, there are people in the religious groups that are raping people. You know, maybe being secular in that sense might be a good thing.

You know, maybe, just maybe. And he's talking about all these other places where, you know, where the secular is taking over. And I'm thinking some of those places are really good that secular is taking over because religion has fucked it up. You know, he's talking about like addiction. We talk about that all the time with, you know, like there's no, uh, there's no root for people who don't want to do a, don't want to do AA because they don't believe in a God or

whatever. And we get male about this all the time, but you know, I mean, there's no root for those people. So it's like, okay, well, you know, maybe God should be removed from that. So there's so many things that he's saying. It's like, Oh, God's been removed. It's like, yeah, that's cool. That's actually okay. Jolly McJollerson. When he says secular humanism is filling up our rape crisis centers, my first thought was, yes, with volunteers, not with victims. It's filling up the rape crisis centers with people who want to help. We just covered a story about kosher phones last week that don't call rape crisis centers specifically so that these religious people can make sure that women don't get the help that they need.

Like what are you talking about? What are you talking about how a teacher can't look at the Ten Commandments but can teach like witchcraft in class. Like what the fuck does that even mean? Right. Witchcraft? Witchcraft is she teaching? Because I don't mean to, seriously, what is the thing that she's teaching in class that you could consider witchcraft? Leather work.

Witchcraft. Witchcraft. Leather work. Leather working. Yeah. Anytime somebody is like, well, they're teaching witchcraft. It's like, oh, right. You believe in magic.

Yeah. He doesn't believe in – he's just living in another world. I know. If he thinks that that's the case, he's like, oh, they're teaching witchcraft. No, they're not. Not anywhere they're teaching. They're never like fucking walking in and opening a spell book, you dumb fuck. That doesn't happen.

Here's the thing. If there was a way to learn witchcraft, fucking teach me witchcraft. I want magic. If fucking magic is real, I want it. it i want it right now i want all of it i want all the magic i can learn i will take the fucking online courses at fucking phoenix university i don't give no fucks i'll take out you can turn into an actual phoenix i'll be awesome i can't why would you do any work yourself? I would be like fucking Mickey Mouse and the Sorcerer's Apprentice. I would have nothing but fucking brooms by the hundreds carrying pails.

There's brooms answering calls about mortgages. They're all depressed. They are all very depressed. Very fat. This fucking guy. They can't get out of their chairs anymore why do we do like if there's really fucking magic why are we still doing manual labor why do we still have people in coal mines if there's magic are you kidding me there's magic yeah man well that's because there's no magic i know like it's the weakest magic ever because no one's ever seen it.

No, like, it is the weakest magic. The worst thing that happens is, like, you fly a little too high as a witch in Zimbabwe or whatever. Like, that's the worst thing that happens. Wouldn't it be great if magic, like, you could just, like, magic an airplane before it takes off? Like, we're going to use the the fuel but just in case it runs out we've got like the magic parachute as the secondary source what where's your magic dude it's if it's a fucking harry potter book i've read all seven i still don't know any actual magic how to say shit backwards or whatever it's, it's like fake Latin-y sounding words.

You just don't recognize Latin-y sounding words, dude. Because when the prince of darkness gets in here, he'll destroy everything in your life. The first step away from Christ is your first step toward the prince of darkness. When you reject the truth. All that's left is a lie. When you reject love. All that's left is hate. When you reject light.

You have embraced darkness. When you reject fear. You have already embraced. When you reject faith. You have already embraced fear. When you reject heaven. All that's left is hell itself. When you read books about witchcraft, throw Harry Potter in that. The occult, horoscopes, Ouija boards. You're opening the gates of your mind to the prince of darkness and he will invade.

And once he gets invited in, he doesn't go out until he's cast out. I've had parents explain to me, well, I let my teenager listen to rock music because that's all he'll listen to. Let me tell you, so the lyrics to real rock music is nothing more than satanic cyanide. Get it out of your house, throw it out, and burn it.

It has no place in the house of the righteous. And this next story is also, uh, Hagee. Uh, what? Um, he says... He's awesome. This one's great, because this one, he just goes on this, like, if you don't like potatoes, you eat potatoes sort of a rant i totally does doesn't he's just like and if it's not dark it's light and if it's not good it's evil if it's not

burnt sienna it's taupe but if it's not like fucking what you like this dude is fucking like the dichotomy central station like he just just looks at – he really is a fucking – If it's not oil, it's butter. It's not live, it's Memorex. What's going on? And he's going on a fucking rant about the rock and rolls musics. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Because they're going to be smoking the reef first.

You've got to watch out. These kids these days with their brain thinking and their rock and roll musics. You are a little out of touch, sir. Yeah. And the horoscopes, Cecil, the horror scopes? They are horror scopes. They are. I don't know what that is.

I think that's a movie that's coming out. Horror scopes. Yeah, Robert Englund's in it. It's a Wes Carpenter movie. Because it's that outdated. Right, right. Because it's that outdated. It's 35 fucking years old.

Yeah. It's that outdated. It's 35 fucking years old. Yeah. The thing he talks about when he's talking about, like, you got to get that rock and roll music out of your house or whatever. It needs to be taken outside your house and burned or whatever. I'm thinking, like, really? We're talking about rock and roll music?

It's fucking 2013, bro. Like, it's a long time from when rock was, like was originated in the, I don't know, late 50s. We're talking late 50s. You gotta get your kids' chubby checker records out of the house.

Gotta get those Beatles records out of there. They talk backwards on those records. It's like attacking judas priest or something oh man they use back masking on their records like really you're going after fucking rock music dude really that's what you're going after there's no there's nothing better to go after than and it's not even like the thing is like rock music really isn't even a thing anymore cecil how would you burn all of my – okay.

If you were to come to my house and burn all of my music, how does that work? It's 2013. I don't have a shelf full of my music anymore. That's awesome. You have to burn your laptop. Somebody would have to burn the internet. Like, I'm going to come to your house and burn Spotify. internet like i'm gonna come to your house and burn spotify yeah i don't sir i don't think you understand how any of this works and then he flashes and the reason seesaw you know the reason

for all of this is when they show the audience that's when you know because the audience is all a thousand years old like the audience is all a bunch of fucking people with fucking neck waddles. Yeah, sure. It's terrible. Like the audience is a bunch of people with like fucking soft upper arms and neck waddles. And walkers. And that's okay. Fine.

You're older. But like that's the only time you're going to be like, I'm worried about the rock and rolls. And I think I can burn a record. Like that's not how music works anymore. And also it's not what anybody is listening to. And also you're just wrong about everything. Yeah. It's like having like a crusade against bikinis or something.

You know when a bikini is coming, you know, talking like I don't even know like how long ago, like in the 30s or something you know when a bikini is coming you know talking like i don't even know like how long ago like in the 30s or something be like all these new campfangled kids in their bikinis or whatever you're like okay well you're completely out of touch with all of the things right all of them see if there's nothing he's in touch with the only thing he can touch is his belly and his cheeks like that, that's all he can touch. And you know what's awesome is that that thing that's sort of like, there's like a logo that's like in front of his crystal podium in front of him. It looks like a WWF

belt that's around his waist. He's like, he's like fucking Gene Okerlund or something. Well, Hulk, what are you going to do next week? Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! All right, so we got... I'm going to play a voicemail from Esme here,

and this is sort of what other people have been asking, too, but I'm going to play Esme's voicemail right now. Hi, guys. This is as may a quick technical question. I just wanted to know what, I love the quality of your show. The production is so amazing considering that you guys do it yourself every week.

And I wanted to know what likes do you use and what, um, software do you use to record over skype thank you bye so esme is asking sort of some podcast questions and some other people had some podcast questions so i'm going to briefly go over some podcast questions remember that you can email me if you email me at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com i'll send you a message back on sort of what you know if you have questions about podcasting in general. But really, she's asking sort of what mics we use.

Tom uses a Blue Snowball mic, and the Blue Snowball mic is a USB mic. It plugs directly into his computer, and he records off of GarageBand locally on his computer. And then I record through a Shure SM7B on my end. It goes into a mixer and then into a Marantz recorder. And that's a solid state recorder on my end. And then what happens is Tom uploads his audio to a place on the web, which is our Google Drive box. And then I download it and then I mix both of those tracks together. And I normally mix the show and GarageBand.

So that's how the show comes together. We don't record Skype unless we're recording a guest. That's the only time we ever record a Skype call is when we record a guest. And even then, I still take Tom's audio and I try to replace it with the Skype audio that I get. So it sounds better because we think that the blue snowball sounds better than just recording off Skype. So if you're looking for a Skype recorder, which is what sounds like you're looking for, there's plenty of free Skype recorders out there. Skype on PC will have their, and on Mac, both have free recorders that are available to you. I would just do a search for Skype recorder. And then if you look it up, some of them will record on separate tracks, which is probably

what you want. You want to record on separate tracks and then split those out to mono tracks so that it sounds like it's full. And so you're not talking in one ear and then the other person's talking in the other. But when it splits the tracks for you, it allows you to edit out coughs and things from one end to the other. So that's what you're going to be looking for. You're going to be looking for something that records on two tracks. And then you could probably run a podcast that way. There's lots of cheap ways to set up a podcast too. So again, if anybody's interested in starting a podcast

or has questions about podcasts, you can email me directly. I don't want to bore the whole audience who doesn't give two fucks how we record the show. But I just wanted to get that question out there because there's a bunch of people asking sort of what the best equipment is. And there's a million pieces of equipment you can buy.

Best is really just sort of what does your pocket afford, really. That's what the best is. And then just send me an email and we'll see if we can work it out. Bored the audience. You're bored the co-host. I don't know what that means. I don't care about you at all. I don't care about me either.

Have you seen the way I treat myself? You're like an amusement park ride that nobody rides anymore. That looks unsafe. That's clearly not well maintained. So we got some email this time. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the email that we got. We got an email

from Phil and Phil says he's happy that he said we're his favorite, you know, he's like happy that, uh, you know, he said he's, we're his favorite podcasters and he's got a bunch of stuff about Pat. He thinks Pat Robertson's hilarious. So he made us an image and Pat Robertson is hilarious.

And he made an alien Pat Robertson. That's terrifying. This thing, this is like, this is like Pat Robertson's head on like some kind of weird spider mech body. It's just, yeah, it's awesome. It's super awesome. The future of Pat Robertson, head on like some kind of weird spider mech body. It's just, yeah, it's awesome.

It's super awesome. The future of Pat Robertson, you realize it really is like the 700 club is 700 years long. I mean, it's, yeah, it's a Futurama picture. So we're going to post this as one of the images for this show.

So thanks Phil, for sending in the image of Pat Robertson. Thanks man. Cameron says, uh, hello to Cecil and tiger So thanks, Phil, for sending in the image of Pat Robertson. Thanks, man. Cameron says hello to Cecil and Tiger. Nice. And he says that he went to Strasbourg. It's in France by, I think it's by the German border, Strasbourg is. He went to France and he laughed out loud when he read this. And basically, we're going to put this as an image too. So this was actually, it was in a church there.

So if you get a chance, I'm not going to read it. You should take a look at it. It's hilarious. It made Tom laugh out loud. So go check it out. It's one of the images on the show this time. It's really, really funny. They're very funny.

We got an email from Larry, Tom, and he's sort of taking pictures all over with his shirt on. Yeah, I love this. Which is better than his shirt off, just so you know. Damn it, you stole my thunder. Oh, did I? Yeah, this is great. Larry just went places

wearing his Cognitive Dissonance shirt, including the Kentucky Derby. He went to Sonoma during the harvest season. Anyhow, we appreciate the shirts a lot. Like if you have, if you're wearing your cognitive dissonance shirt somewhere awesome, take a picture of yourself doing that for no other reason than I want to see it. And I've demanded it.

Chop, chop. We got an email from Donna and Donna says that she found us through the Scathing Atheist podcast. And Scathing Atheist is a very funny podcast. You should listen to it if you get a chance. And she asked, she says, I was wondering, do you or have you been a member and posted on any religious forums? I actually used to argue with people on forums a long time ago.

It was actually, I think it was a gaming forum that I was on, but there happened to be like sort of just this board that was off to the side that was like just miscellaneous stuff. And this guy and I used to get into these arguments all the time about religion and things. And I remember arguing like – it would be like these long threads where we'd be quoting each other and back and forth and you quote this guy and you go back and forth. And I just found that I just don't have enough time for that anymore. Like I just, I kind of really enjoy, and I know Tom, you really enjoy that sort of back and forth that you get on, uh, uh, that you get a chance to sort of flex your argumentative muscles. I just don't have time for it anymore. I'm always busy doing other things, so I never do it. But I think that those are fun to do. I don't know that I would go on a

religious forum though. I mean, that seems like, that seems like – it seems like either you're just going to be like blowing shit out of the water or you're just going to be like trolled until you just leave. Yeah, I've never actually – I've certainly engaged in online debates for fun. I do, Cecil. I fucking love it. I know you do. I really love it. I think it's a fucking total hoot to do. But I've never gone trolling.

I love when it finds me naturally, though. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a day maker for me. Yeah. You're kind of a wordsmith, so it's really funny to read some of the responses that you put together. I mean, it's pretty amusing. But I remember many times being in that sort of back and forth with people where I'm quoting and then I'm saying this and this and this and this and then just sort of refuting all their points. But yeah, that's fun.

So I hope you enjoy it, Donna. We got an email from Dawn, Tom. And Dawn had this, I mean, I think this really great point. She's talking about bad funerals and how lots of times people just don't pay attention. And there was a really bad experience. One of her friend's mothers died, and it was just an awful experience with the priest there. But one of the things in note that she says here that I want to read to the audience says, I've also been to several funerals with altar calls, and I vowed it would not happen when my father passed away. So my mom and I agreed to on a lay minister, not a professional one who had known my father for decades. He read the script we wrote with mineral minimal editorializing and sang along

with the music selections ending with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing happy trails. Please remind my fellow atheists that unlike a wedding preaching and a funeral requires no license. So be creative. And I think that's super important to remind people that if you, you know, if it is something and you know, the one, the stories that we're getting from most people are, you know, my family's religious and they just had this religious thing and it sucked and these people were jerks. Um, but if, if you do come into, you know, if there is some sort of secular, you know,

person in your life that didn't want a religious funeral, you don't have to go to a church. You can just have a funeral. You know what I mean? Like you can go to the funeral parlor and have, you know, you don't have to go through the church option there. So, um, I know that when my family, when my dad passed away, uh, all we, we had no service at all whatsoever, except for I read a eulogy. That was the only thing that happened was I stood up and read a eulogy. And my brothers – I think my brothers said a few words too. So it was really just that was it. Like we just – a few of our brothers said something.

My mom just sat there and like that was it. And then we talked to a small room of people and then the funeral was over and we all went home. And that was the end of the day. So you can do whatever you want. There's no script and there's no – like the other thing too is there's laws governing religious – when you get married, there's – most of the time it's the only way to get married outside of a church is mostly religious unless you hire somebody to come there. So it's great that she points that out. Yeah, I appreciate that. that out. Yeah, I appreciate that. And customizing an occasion that important is, I mean, hell,

it's one of the most meaningful things you're going to do in your life. You know, funerals of important family members and friends, you know, make them meaningful. So that's great advice. Thank you. We got an email from Tony and Tony asked us a couple of questions. And one of the things he says at the bottom, he says, I'm surprised you've never addressed the topic of Christian music growing up in the church. I feel the most egregious crime of religion is the modern Christian music genre. The mix of homoerotic Jesus love and overproduced ballads making, make listening to Kenny G while sipping eggnog seemed delightful. That's a great, that's a great visual. Um, I just threw up in my mouth, but no, I, you know, the thing about Christian music is I never listened to it.

Like I, I was never like super religious when I was growing up. I was religious, but I wasn't super religious. So I never, I always kind of thought like when I, when I saw it, I was always thinking to myself, I was like, I just don't want to, I just never really want to listen to that sort of thing. I remember I was into heavy metal and I remember Striper was really big, like with the certain people. And I listened to it a couple of times. I'm like, this is terrible music. This is really, because you know, when you got to fit Jesus in every song, he just dominates the song and you're just like, okay, well, I really don't want to be thinking about Jesus the whole time. I kind of want to think about, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll.

You know, what's funny is like a lot of that, like I've listened to a lot of that crap just by accident, by just fucking accidental exposure. And it all sounds like a diet, vanilla, watered down, light version of Creed. It's absolutely, it's atrociously bad music but lyrically it is an affront to the use of words like it is it is an absolute fucking crime against humanity it's it's it's so offensively bad and it is incredibly homoerotic see so like when you said like it wants to be sex drugs and rock and roll they they the drug is jesus the sex is jesus's cock rammed down their fucking throat the whole time that they're fucking gargle singing around that goddamn flesh stick and there is no rock and roll involved at all it's like all fucking major chords and happy fucking shiny. And it's like, we're all fucking happy.

I don't understand how anybody can listen to one fucking banal, bland, uninteresting chord with the most god awful lyrics behind it for hour after endless hour. But my wife put up with that shit at a place of employment that she had. 40 hours a week she'd listen to that shit. Oh, goodness gracious. I'd go visit her and like 10 minutes in I'm like, I can't do this. I've got to sacrifice a baby or something. I've got to like, I wanted to fucking just have an abortion. Like just for no reason.

Just to piss them off. Just for no reason. Oh, that's awesome. Thanks, Tony. Thanks for no reason. Just to piss them off. Just for no reason. Oh, that's awesome. Thanks, Tony. Thanks for sending an email. So we got an email. This is from John, and John says, talking about Revelation here. Tom, why don't you read his email?

We'll let his words speak for him. Hi, Tom Cecil. First off, love the show. I've been listening for a while and never felt the need to chime in on anything, but I do have to say that the revelation show is unlistenable as someone who thinks apocalyptic literature is badass and also historically interesting in painting a picture of second temple judaism and politics in the outskirts of the roman world i think the interpretation you guys took was way too obtuse i mean obviously the numbers are not meant to be taken literally

and clearly have a symbolic basis. You don't have to know Hebrew numerology to understand that 10, 3, 7, etc. meant something to the reader back then that is meaningless now. The problem with your uneducated and completely non-contextual reading is that it is exactly how fundamentalists read that book. It is about as silly as mocking ancient cultures for their allegories and fables and assuming that they held a literal interpretation of those stories. Apocalyptic literature is widely understood by scholars to be political in nature and was used by Jews to describe political struggle against their enemies, which in most cases would be the Romans. That said, I'm kind of sad that you chose that book to mock, since even as an atheist, the three books of the Bible I like are Job, Revelation, and Ecclesiastes.

Are there any religious texts you guys appreciate, even aesthetically or historically? Do you find any bit of religious text fascinating, just from an anthropological point of view? Or is it all an abhorrent and worthy of ridicule in your eyes? Don't mean to be a big fucking nerd about all this, but I'd love to hear back. Glory Hole, John. So I guess I want to start out by saying, um, a Gallup poll recently said that, uh, 33% of people in the United States consider the Bible, uh, literally true, literally true. So that means that they think every single thing in that Bible is 100 percent true. Not that it's an allegory, not that it's political struggle against enemies in the century, you know, centuries gone.

They think that that there was a fucking boat and they stuffed a bunch of fucking animals on it and they floated in the ocean made by God's tears or whatever. And then they also think that there was several creation times that God tried to create. Man, I just can't create stuff today. I keep messing up. There's like all different kinds of creation stories. And they also think that if they think that stuff is literally true, they also think that revelation is literally true. That I think is a low number considering Revelation. I think that there are people outside of the religious fundamentalists that you mentioned that also consider Revelation a book that should be read in such a way that it is a blueprint for the apocalypse.

And those are the people who talk about, you know, the number of the beast, the number of the beast, the very fact, the idea that we even have that saying that is from revelation. That's where it comes. That's where it's birthed. So there's, you know, when we're talking about, you know, that, that sort of idea about like people getting stamps and, you know, the left behind series, look, think about that. Think about how many people have read that or saw that that's all based off the blueprint that is Revelation. So when you say we have an obtuse view, abso-fucking-lutely, we did not go into depth and go look up all the different meanings that could be Revelation. We went with the meaning that is the most damaging to our culture,

and we mocked it because it's worthy of derision. That's why we mocked it, because it's a 2000 year old book, like you say, that describes a political struggle that is specifically people are using now to scare other look at this in some way special and look at it as some sort of religious text and spend a lot of time on. So those shows, when you're like, you know, the show you're getting, you're complaining about the revelation show, like that's a free show. You're basically saying, Hey, that, that free show that you guys put out is substandard to the other free show you put out. Well, that's too bad, man. Like, I'm sorry. They were half an hour, 45 minute shows that we just cobbled together. Cause we didn't want people to be bored, uh, or miss us while we were gone. So we wanted to make sure that we put together something. But, you know, those were bonus shows that we didn't spend a lot of time on. We didn't we didn't read it. We only just read something and then talked about it.

And and I think that, you know, like when you say, you know, we are being obtuse, I think that the people that are reading that book and interpreting it that way are being obtuse. And I think that's a very that's a very great way to say it. But that's the dominant view that we're trying to attack. And I want to dismiss this idea that the only way to approach the Bible is to approach it as a biblical scholar because there are many, many more lay people than there are biblical scholars, right? So most people who crack open the Bible, um, crack open the Bible and just fucking read it.

They just fucking read parts of the Bible. Now, granted, most people don't even read their Bible, right? Most Christians, of course, we know they haven't read that fucking thing. Um, and a lot of people get guidance from ministers, many of whom have no formal training whatsoever or minimal formal training or whose formal training doesn't agree with the formal training of the next guy. So this idea that we should have found the true biblically accurate way to have discussed you know discussed revelation before we open our mouths to discuss it um i think that um is dishonest in in that it is not how the bible is approached the bible is approached as the inerrant word of god that's what it is that's what it's sold as right that's like saying like well you know you bought this car and you try to drive it too fast.

Well, if they fucking sold it to me that it could go 200 miles an hour and I hop in and I put the pedal to the metal and it goes 147 and I bitch about it and you say, well, any engineer will tell you it doesn't do that. We didn't fucking talk to the engineers. I talked to the people who sell it. The people who sell it. The people who sell it, sell it as the inerrant word of God. It is divinely inspired to lead me to the promise of heaven. And if I crack that book open and it's full of fucking locusts with helmets, I'm sorry. It's fucking jib jab.

And I will treat that shit as jib jab now if you want to have a discussion about its its place in the historical canon as literature that's a different conversation and we didn't even attempt to have that conversation but i want to say too like when you you did ask at the end you say are there religious texts you guys appreciate even aesthetically and historically when i was sort of searching i was digging around through a bunch of different religions and I found some really good stuff. Buddhist stuff that I read that I thought was really good. Some Confucian, Confucius works. I don't even know what that is, if that's even a religion, but I read some of it. And it actually got me sort of tuned into some philosophy. So I, I mean, I read some of that stuff and I thought some of it was pretty good. I remember, you know, writing down like quotes from different things. Cause I thought that they had some good, good stuff in there. So I, I mean, I read some of that stuff and I thought some of it was pretty good. Um, I remember, you know, writing down like quotes from different things. Cause I thought

that they had some good, good stuff in there. I mean, there's some good stuff in the Bible too, you know, like fucking love your neighbor as yourself. That's some good stuff. I don't even know if that actually appears. It could just be fucking people just talking or whatever, but you know, like, like that, that notion, I'm sure that notion is somewhere in there or whatever. And the idea is, you know, like, like I think those sorts of things are good. Um, I, I personally don't appreciate it as, as like literature though. I've read through a goodly portion of the Bible. I remember reading it when I was, you know, sort of searching and being like, this is fucking bogus and just throwing it down. But I've read, I have read all of the new Testament. So I've read, I've read all the new Testament. This was

my second time actually reading revelations. I was, I've read all the New Testament. This was my second time actually reading Revelations. I was, I was recalling that I had it in a class in college. I, so I've read the New Testament before. We also read, I also had a class that read selections from the Old Testament too. And then we talked about them as historical, whatever. And I've never found that the readings in the Bible were all that interesting. I just didn't, I mean, it's just not, it's just not interesting to me. Tom, I know that you're more interested in like literature and stuff. I mean it's probably not all that interesting to you either. Yeah.

I've read less of the Bible than you have, but I've perused it here and there. I don't think it's very good. I just don't. I don't think most of the writing is very good. I don't think it's very interesting writing. Most of the writing is very good. I don't think it's very interesting writing. I think it's pretty banal, pretty boring, pretty repetitive.

I don't like most, but there's some okay stuff in there. There's some okay parables. There's some okay. Okay is the best I can do on it, though. There's no point where I'm like, my gosh, that's... All right, some of the psalms are sort of pretty. Some of the psalms are real pretty. I'll give psalms for literature. I'll say, okay, psalms is –

I know that I've read psalms. But beyond that, whatever. Other religious texts, I don't know. I've perused like the – I can't even pronounce it. The Bhagavad Gita, probably horribly mispronouncing it. It's sort of interesting, I guess. No. In a nutshell, no.

Like, there's nothing that really grabs my attention and says, man, this is just sort of beautiful. No, I think most of it, no. Uninteresting at best. But that's a personal opinion. It's okay. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I don't like impressionist that's a personal opinion. It's okay. Sure. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I don't like impressionist paintings either.

You can. It's okay. We can disagree about that. And you're not wrong and I'm not wrong. So we're hoping to have DJ Glothy on next week. That's awesome. I'm going to be in contact with Peter Boghagian, I hope. And it's my hope that not just, like next week we'll have DJ on,

and then after that, I'm going to try to get a hold of Peter and we'll see if we can get Peter on. And that'll be cool because we'll have two shows like boom, boom, right in a row with two awesome guests. So we're hoping to have DJ on. Great guy, really cool guy. We met him at TAM and he was super awesome. So we're hoping that he'll come on

and be ultra awesome on our show. So that's it for this week. Come back next week to hear DJ, and 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, 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, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your 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. Outro Music