Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 129: The Herd Mentality

Episode Date: December 16, 2013

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Hi, Tom and Cecil. This is Jason. I'd like to bring your attention to the movie God's Not Dead. I know you guys do movie reviews sometimes and this one's not out yet, but it looks incredibly funny already. So I'd love to hear you guys

rip it apart when it's finally released. Thanks for the great show and glory hole. There was a French priest named Jean-Claude Who stabbed altar boys with his pork sword They'd scream and they'd shout As he trussed in and out In the back of a rusty old Ford

Glory hole. Hey, guys. In the back of a rusty old Ford. Glory now. Hey, guys. This is Amanda in Lynchburg, Virginia again. You know, just calling with my life under the Liberty update. We've got a – right now we've got, you know, that Liberty security guard that shot and killed that student for some reason or another, which is, you know, kind of unsurprising because the entire campus is open carry for anyone who's over the age of 21, which, you know, makes sense because I remember when I was in college, I was like, you know, I really love all these facts and shit that I'm learning and all this knowledge

I'm gaining, but what I really need right now is to just fucking shoot something. knowledge I'm gaining, but what I really need right now is to just fucking shoot something. So, yeah, that was the obvious conclusion to that story. So I don't even know, you know, all the details because whatever. But the real reason I called is because where I work, there is, next to my place of employment, there is a church that says, and it has a sign in the driveway that says, Enter here to come to Jesus. And I wish I was good at being funny or good at Photoshop, because there is a glory hole joke in there somewhere, I'm sure. But anyways, every Monday, y'all make my ears the glory holes, and I thank you.

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 128.

No. Yes, it says. No. Motherfucker, I will stab you. Motherfucker, look it right here. It says fucking on this part of the computer. No, there's fucking 128. It's already posted, you dumb motherfucker.

Look at it. Notes, episode 128. Yeah, you fucking change something for once. Do a thing. I'll be given no fuck. You suck. Episode 128, part two, motherfucker. This is the goddamn sequel oh you suck so bad at this you're so bad at this you are so bad i'm quite terrible that is the end

of all my talking and we have adam uh on our show adam from the herd mentality from twitter fame you like got like a 70 jillion member Twitter following as opposed to the fucking seven people who are unfortunate enough to follow this show. Adam, welcome to Cognitive Distance. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, this man clearly does not know us. This is great.

Like, there's a level of disconnect here. We're still in the honeymoon phase with Adam. Right. That doesn't last long. No, it doesn't now. That's my wife's shit. The honeymoon phase lasted about an hour and a half. And then it was the annulment phase.

And then the desperate scan of the prenup phase. And then the sad resignation phase that I've been milking for 13 years. Oh. Oh, shit. Oh, that's depressing. Gosh. How does anyone get a word in on your show? No one does.

Why wouldn't they? No one does. I don't even get a word in, Adam. I don't even get a word in. I'll show myself out. It does not help that I've been drinking all afternoon. And by afternoon, I mean morning. So the first story we're going to cover comes from the Raw story.

Talk into your mic. Jesus fucking Christ. I'm going to fucking stab your heart. Fucking, my God. I'm going to give these. No, no, what? Fuck you. You take these.

You listen to yourself. I probably sound good. You don't. Let me hear this. Hold on a minute. Every time you turn away from the fucking mic. God damn it. Shit. Minnesota pastor told girls

he could, quote, take the demons out and rape them for years. From years? Four years. Four years. Come on. A 61 year old. 61 year old? What is this picture of, then? It's like from him 40 years ago.

Why is there a picture on the raw? Hold on a minute. I'll pause for just a second. Look at this picture. This guy looks 35, 40. He looks pretty young, admittedly. He's had some work done. He's got the Nicole Kidman forehead installed.

He put that fucking shit on layaway look at that shit I mean the jacket is 61 years old look at that fucking bronze alligator skin I'll tell you

if you stuffed that jacket I would sit on it I would absolutely sit on that jacket where do they grow bronze alligators this is Australia

are you kidding me it's from Australia oh I love it I love it. I love it. It's a 61-year-old Minnesota pastor who was charged this week with raping two girls for nearly a decade. Ah, just a decade? That's one way to get the demons out. The thing is, you've got to flush them out of there.

Because they'll lodge way up, you know? When the demons get up there, they get... I mean, they really get like a fucking toehold in there. So it's like an ejaculate power washer? Exactly. Like, you set that fucking shit to stun. To stun! And blast them on there.

I'm not wearing these headsets anymore. They're hurting my ears. Fuck that. Listeners can eat my dick. You suck. So, Adam, this story, pretty great. I mean, it's pretty great. You got to admit, you love this story. pretty great. I mean, it's pretty great, you've got to admit.

You love this story. Big fan of the pump-action pastor. He's a busy boy. So what's he been up to? The girls are now aged 14 and 16, and they told their mother about the relationship, which is probably the first step towards healing. It says in the story that the younger of the two girls

told the Midwest Children's Resource Center that this gentleman began digitally penetrating her at the age of six. So I'm guessing that that's not via the digital means of binary. More. 0011, 0011, 0011, 0011. And pregnant. Oh. Oh. Right.

That's a sad story. Yeah, but look, if the, I mean, in his defense, like, let's do point counterpens. Oh, this will be good. Right? I mean, he did tell her that, I mean, there's two, there's really two points he's got working in his favor. First of all, the devil was inside of her. He said so himself. And as a man who. Wasn't he inside of her. He said so himself. And as a man who...

Wait, hold on. Wasn't he inside of her? Well, shush. I mean, you know... You can't get hung up on the semantics. As a man who goes by Jacobi Preacher Man on his Facebook page, this is a man with a claim to legitimacy.

Hell yeah. He started off in a pretty friendly sort of touchy feely fingery sort of way. Fingery? But then as the demons became more potent, I would think he began working up to, you know,

playing hide the penis in the underage young lady. Eventually you've got to work your way up to the fist, I think. You know, that's the only thing the demons understand, really, is the fist. They do, and they're terrified of pasta penises. This is the only way to frighten them out of people. You know, I hate to say this, but it kind of looks like Wayne Brady from Who's Lying in the New Age. He kind of does. He kind of actually does.

He's sort of got this, like, predatory, creepy, like, I'd fuck a six-year-old sort of Wayne Brady thing going on. This is like your child molester's,ester's holiday photo is what that looks like. It totally is, dude. It's a six-year-old rapey girl glamour shot. Oh, no. They call that the money shot, Tom. He got this done at the mall. He's like, I'm thinking of something like I have hobbies.

I fuck children, and I wear a lot of rings so oh also alligators have a little he does yeah when he fists i mean i bet you that's painful okay so adam lots of people especially on twitter when you confront people etc will say things like hey why do you care so much what other people believe why do you care so much what happens in religious life why do you even if i if there was something that I didn't believe in, I wouldn't even pay attention to it. Do you think this story kind of makes you focused a little bit on what

people believe? But then you get the no Scotsman argument straight away. You say, okay, well look, this is one of the reasons I get quite upset about the way religious thinking teaches us to just accept what's coming, so to speak. It's absolutely abhorrent, the things that people in positions of power are able to do to young kids

just by saying, oh, there's this non-specific, ill-defined demon within you, and this is the only way we can get it out of you. But it's not just this story. These stories happen every day. And you guys have now 128.2 podcasts as testament to this. And the people who we're discussing this with on Twitter and debating on the internet and Reddit and so forth, they just don't, this stuff just washes off their back. It's not something that, okay, it didn't affect me. And therefore, oh, you know, he wasn't acting in the way of a proper Christian. Well, and do they pass it off too as saying like, okay, well, yeah, but he's like a Pentecostal and I'm a Christian or, you know, or something, you know what I mean?

Like, do they pass it off into another sect of Christianity and say, well, I'm a Catholic and he's a Pentecostal. So that doesn't really apply to me. Look, it's hit and miss. Sometimes you get that. Sometimes you don't. But typically it's, they'll do whatever they have to do to absolve themselves of the situation because they, I think everyone has enough rational thought within them to understand that this is something that's real. It's taking place. I've been in the same position as perhaps these victims were in terms of what I'm prepared to accept. Perhaps what I'm trying to say is because it's so ill-defined overall, it's very easy to cherry pick as to what you believe and what you're prepared to accept. What occurs to me is there's

no secular analog to this, right? You know, you look at a power structure like a priest or a pastor, and they are the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. And there's no secular equivalent to the ultimate arbiter of right or wrong, right? I mean, there's certainly there's other power dynamics that are abused in the secular world, right? Teachers get accused of this all the time. There are other power dynamics where grown ass men and women take advantage of children for certain. I mean, that's just the thing, right? Because power dynamics are a tricky, they're a tricky business and they're often exploited. But there is no secular power dynamic that says I am the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong.

I am the keeper of moral aptitude and ineptitude. I am – there's no moral equivalent to this. So it occurs to me that that's why this is the easiest power dynamic to exploit. You know, if I'm a history teacher and I want to exploit my power dynamic over my student, I can't really say, well, you know, fucking let's talk about Napoleon and the battle of Waterloo. Also, I'd kind of like you to suck my dick. But also in teaching, you don't have institutionalized cover-ups.

Right. You know, I wouldn't imagine somebody else in your history department's prepared to step up and say, oh, look, minor indiscretion. Fair enough. You're trying to hose the spirit of Napoleon out of this poor child. It's your own little

Waterloo. Let me move you to a different school you know yeah this is a private education that you're getting um you know but i mean it's serious seriously like because because the secular the only secular equivalents are much more uh shoehorned They're much more specific. They don't have this sort of broad, overreaching, overarching kind of moral equivalency that pastors and priests sort of have. They can say, you know, hey, this is a thing. You've got a devil. The devil's bad. I've got to get it out of you.

Here's how we do it. So not only am I an authority figure, but I'm an authority figure that gets to speak to a part of you which is fundamental to your identity. Your closest secular comparison to, say, the church would have to be government. But it's not a single decision maker. There's no one person at the top apart from your – okay, so you've got your pope. Your equivalent would be your prime minister or president or whatever. But even those people are held accountable by common law. Yeah, and also, I'm sorry for interrupting, but also another stark difference is they're not the arbiter of the will of that supreme being, right?

So when I go to like the president is interpreting a constitution, a bunch of people can have a different opinion on it. But if you're a priest and you're saying to someone who is clearly looking to you for guidance of what some imaginary being is saying, you're basically saying, well, I have to trust what this priest has to say because he's the arbiter of what that God wants. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's a free pass to do and say whatever you will. And you're speaking on behalf of a divine third party i put up a tweet yesterday about this uh to a gentleman who goes by the twitter handle mr i was atheist and said that he because we've got this big issue with gay marriage in australia and it's the religious parties that are holding us back in the 18th century here and not allowing people equality and i said that uh how did i how did i put it you know if god wanted to

have his say on gay marriage and for to not allow it then why doesn't he tell everybody in exactly the same fashion rather than through a third party who has an agenda well i mean that's why we've cleared up the issue here in the States. I mean, we don't have that problem. Yeah. In America, we've got the homosexual issue.

I mean, it's pretty clearly decided. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we don't have, we hate them. I mean,

that's pretty much it. We just hate all of them. And you know, I do want to point out, this is from the raw story. This is an accusation only. He did have some things to say in his defense and i think oh they're good they're good too right i i believe i want to because

look look i'm a fair god it's fucking embarrassing for a united states we're on the fucking phone with somebody who is just right now smirking evilly at us i could tell well no see maybe we should do this as a little bit of role play. Oh, I like that. Yeah, oh yeah. You gonna spank me during this? Because I'm kind of interested in... Adam, I'm willing to do this with you. My safe word is tangerine, okay?

Well, uh, okay. Cecil, could you be the young victim in this instance? Fuck it, hey, I can. Yeah, oh goodness, yes. Tom, I'd like you to play a 61-year-old who looks like a 35-year-old rapist. Done and done, my friend. It's not an issue for Tom either, so.

Let me get the keys to my van. And I'll just be the cold touch of the law. Now, word for word. I'm so uncomfortable with this. Oh, no. So, Cecil, I'd like you to come to me and just explain what's happening. That's how it starts. Just use a lot of lube.

That's all I'm saying. Just use a lot of lube. That's all I'm saying. Just use a lot of lube. Wait, he put his penis in me, is essentially what I'm going to tell you right now. He put his penis in me. Minnesota is a ladies' state! What does that even mean? Is that like ladies' night? What does that even mean?

Ladies and gentlemen, that is word for word what he said. You weren't there. Nobody was there. He reportedly said. Get your wards. Do what you got to do. No DNA. None of that.

What does that even mean? No DNA. What does ladies state mean? Like ladies are half price in the state? What does that mean? Well, listen. In my defense, they're not really kids. They have the mind of the adult.

Now, all a woman has to do in Minnesota is make an accusation. True or false, the man's going to get in trouble. What the fuck? I hate Minnesota so much. But it's a lady state. I don't even understand. What does that mean? You're a victim.

Why are you trying to justify this? No, I'm not even justifying. What do you mean by lady state? It means Minnesota wears a dress. Because you're the law, goddammit. That's what you said you're playing. Minnesota wears a dress. Okay, fair enough.

It is kind of shaped like a lady, too. No, it's not. Guys, the one revealing line there. It's like a box. That really gives away the position of the 61-year-old kitty fiddler. Is where he says that they have the mind of the adult sure six year old sure six year olds yeah all right i i have a six year old he has the mind of a four year old the girls the girls are now 14 and 16 people you know kids in that position if he's saying saying they've got the mind of an adult, it's because they were forced to have the mind of an adult.

Kids shouldn't have to think about this sort of stuff. Right. Well, they also have the sexual organs of an adult because he's sticking the sexual organs of an adult inside of them. Well, newborns do too. Yeah. So there's a – And I dug inside. So there we go.

That's the end of that. And I dug inside. So there we go. That's the end of that. But he has put them in a position where they've had to mature more rapidly than they otherwise would have. They've had to come to terms with things that otherwise would. So, yeah, that's his justification. They had the mind of an adult, Your Honor.

It was fine. It's okay. They can fend for themselves like they have been for the last 10 years. I'm quite confident that defense is going to fall apart. I'm no legal expert, you know. I'm a fat guy in Illinois with a degree in English lit. So, I mean, I'm unqualified to speak on all subjects. But I'm quite certain that that argument is going to fall on deaf ears.

Here's to hoping, right? Goodness gracious. Just to the very end of the article, because he hasn't been arrested yet. He's not behind bars. No, a warrant's been issued for his arrest. He faces 30 years in prison for each count, but he's out of town for a funeral. I'm sure he'll come back.

He's out of town. Yeah, I'll be back. So if you want to hear more about Adam from Twitter, questionable Adam or Adam Reeks on Twitter, we're going to have him on at the end of the show we're gonna have a few minutes i would say maybe 40 or so minutes depending on how long we run here without adam but uh but don't worry if you came here listening for him he's gonna be on near the end of the show when we do an interview with him so see so i want to talk about this story this comes from the raw story christian talker i love that by the way just a talker

he's a talker talker a talker talker yeah rape and incest exceptions are like allowing unfettered muslim abortions um this is a guy who's like he's legitimately a fucking all or nothing guy right like at some point i just have to say like okay you've taken a stance right like you believe a hundred percent that this is a bad and you're buying into your own bullshit in a way that nobody else is buying into your bullshit and his argument is basically saying like hey look if you're going to give an exception to rape and incest survivors then you should give exceptions to other minor you know other groups of people like muslim people, for example.

Okay, even when you explain it like that. Yeah. Did I do a good job? I still don't even understand the argument. No, no. Okay, wait. I can help you. No, you can't. See, so I fucking anticipated this.

God damn it. All right. All right. So find a heavy blunt object and cave in the front of your skull. Just like a tire iron or a Buick. I mean, a Buick. The one thing I do kind of agree with on this, okay, and I will admit, he says, if you are pro-life with exceptions, you are just pro-choice with fewer choices. Right.

And I agree with that statement. You are pro-choice with fewer choices. And I think that there's no reason to be pro-choice with fewer choices. Like, there's, I mean, you're actually singing the song I'm singing. I mean, this is a song of my people. I'm okay with what you're saying. This is a song of my people. Like, I am fine with it like fucking i like really

that you what you want as a woman is the opportunity not to be treated like a goddamn baby factory right like you know what you want as a woman is to be able to be like look i have rights to and this tiny clump of cells with no fucking autonomy is going to get excised from my body because i don't want to have to be stuck with another human being once this grows to its full size once it gets to a point where it's viable outside my body i'm gonna have weird issues about you know whether or not it gets terminated so i'm not gonna let it get to that point it's just a tiny fucking blot of fucking blood and fucking goo right now. So I'm going to get it out of my body just like as if I were peeling a scab or whatever it is that you're doing.

I'm not saying the fucking miracle of goddamn life is a scab. So don't send us emails about you fucking called my baby a scab. Babies are warts. Babies are actually warts. They're warts. They're not scabs. No, but i mean i just seriously like it's just it's just a clump of cells at that point like and it's just a clump

of cells for a really long time i know it's not like it's a clump of cells for like a magical six and a half moments you know what i mean it's like oh well we fucking we missed the window where it was four and a half hours that it was fucking just cells no it sells for a really long time i know dude look my wife is pregnant now like right now right now actively yeah in the middle of fucking being a pregnant person right just like it doesn't have a brain yet right you know it just doesn't it's like as far as i'm concerned i mean different people have different take on it and that's okay that's part of why this is a gray area issue but for me i'm like well it has it developed a brain yet no okay well you know until it develops a brain it is the idea of a life it is the potential for a person it's not the same thing as like if i walked up to my six-year-old and was like well i'm just gonna kill my six-year-old like it's not the

same you can't say that like this thing the size of a fucking grape tomato at this point yeah that has like fucking limb buds and a tail yeah no brain is not the same thing as my six-year-old who can read a little right like it's not the same well for one thing there's life insurance on the six so no but but someone in the house has to read a little none of these guys have fucking vaginas you know i mean none of these guys have a there's not an issue if this guy fucks around and his wife there's not an issue that's going to keep him with that baby you know what i mean like because guys in our society leave babies behind constantly sure there's bastards all over our society.

So, you know, we just leave them just like fucking it's leaving on the plate. It's the gravy that's left over after we're done. So so don't start like being like, oh, well, you know, I care about every human life. Bullshit. So this story also comes from. No, this one doesn't come. This comes from right wing watch. See, so I can't read words.

Good. South Carolina Senate candidate itching to refight the Civil War. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Again, I want to point out. Senator? Yeah. What? So is the top Tea Party primary challenger State Senator Lee Bright, who thinks the income tax is something out of Nazi Germany, Cecil.

The income tax, Nazi Germany. Yep. Concern about women with nice nails and pocketbooks. This is just crazy. I don't even know how to read this. I don't even know how to read this. I like women with nice nails, though, too. Right? And a nice pocketbook. A nice pocketbook is

even better. Someone's got to pay for my fucking double stack habit. You know? Like, fucking hell, it's not going to be me. Someone's got to pay the trainer to come by and spray me down with a power washer and scrub me with a giant broom. That has to happen. And I need my outside time, too. Those defibrillators, they don't charge themselves. Yeah, they don't buy themselves.

That's for sure. I've got that permanently installed at this point. In a series of speeches to Republican and Tea Party gatherings, Bright has riled up crowds, Cecil. Riled. Riled. They're super entranced. They are totally riled.

And by crowds, they mean his mom. Like, I don't know, is your mom a crowd? His mom, his sister, and his cousin. Right. Depends on her size, really. I'm fucking all of them. Yeah, I know. So he's a big state rights guy like he's talking to his yammer jammer is that what they call that right yeah something why don't you take your second amendment look the second amendment is

good for fucking hunting pheasants yeah really good for that it's good for it's good for shooting burglars burglars deer deer brown people right Deer? Deer. Brown people in general. Oh, no. Oh, no. But it is. I mean, we're a terrible country. No, I mean, they exercise their Second Amendment rights on the west side of Chicago nearly every day. I mean, those people, they love their Second Amendment rights. That's just quite terrible.

It really is. Okay, so I just want to read a little bit about what this guy said. You were saying about the Nazi Germany thing, but this is where he gets into that. He says at a gun rights rally in front of the South Carolina State House in January. Bright, bright. I like that his name is bright. Stood before two Confederate flags to offer his view. Well, there you go. morally reprehensible, unquote, President Lincoln's Revenue Act of 1862, which introduced progressive income tax in order to fund the Union Army, quote, was when government started

becoming God and taking over this country, unquote. So that's where I think the evil comes in. He doesn't look. He likes Lincoln. He loves that he freed all those brown people. He's totally down with all that. Sure. Yeah, he's a progressive guy. Look, it's just the income tax thing. Yeah loves that he freed all those brown people. He's totally down with all that. Sure. Yeah, he's a progressive guy.

Look, it's just the income tax thing that's bothering. As he stood between two Confederates. Right, right. And they weren't offensive Confederate flags, Tom. Yeah, no. No, this is not a white pride. This is a state pride thing. Right.

It's very different. You know, when Lincoln forced the war of northern aggression on the southern states in order to force an income tax right on the people sure that's when the government started becoming god yes before that god actually got the income so i was just so sick of getting every little check I just told the government. Send them all to the government. They'll send me one big check. You know, like those big checks you get on the game shows?

They send one of those up every month, and it's very nice to get. I like those because I take it to my very big bank. And the thing is, God actually is a flat taxer. Right. Yeah. He's a flat earther, too. I don't lie. I believe in a flat tax

i'm uh i voted for ron paul ron paul okay and also by the way these people don't like obama because i'm saying then he accused president obama of wanting to be quote unquote king i'll say what my forefathers said he He added, no king but Jesus. Well, there you go. What about forefathers? I like that he's like nondescript forefathers said no king but Jesus. Which one? I'm not telling you which one. It's a secret. It's a secret Jesus. Fuck you.

It's like a secret Santa. He even offers to die. But he just nails you to a cross. He's like, you know, he says something, I can't find the quote and I this here? He's like, you know, it's, I mean, he says something. I can't find the quote. And I'd look for it, but I've been drinking that. He says something like, you know, I'm not going to live long enough. He says, you know, my people wonder, like, what am I going to tell my children?

What am I going to tell my grandchildren? He had children? And his response is, I know, right? Like, that's a guy whose fucking sperm factory needs to be fucking bankrupt. No kidding, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm for abortion in this guy's case, for sure. Somebody should go back and abort him. Right now.

But he says, like, that's not going to be a problem for me because I'm going to basically, he says, you know, my goal is to die fighting the government. Yeah. Okay. What? You know, good for you. That's ineffective.

I like this. I'm going to finish with this here. It says, one audience member responded to the criticism of llama by shouting vote him out another can be heard responding vote with guns that's not how you vote that's not how you vote hanging chads indeed oh my goodness you just gotta shoot the you gotta shoot the correct spot on the ballot is what you gotta you basically you you pin your ballot like 50 feet away from you. And if you can hit who you want in an office, then you get to vote.

But if you can't, then evidently your vote is forfeit. That's how Yosemite Sam votes. He just walked in. He's like, we're going to start fucking shooting up. That's a pressing ballot box. So in Slate, they have a piece on.com. Santa Claus should not be a white man anymore. And when I saw this headline, I kind of laughed.

And I said, oh, this is so ridiculous. Yet another person claiming it's racist to have a white Santa. And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white. But this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa. But Santa is what he is. And just so you know, we're just debating this because someone wrote about it, kids. This story comes from crooksandliars.com. I saw this fucking everywhere, by the way.

Fox News host Megyn Kelly assures children Jesus and Santa are both white men. Well, then now we can all fucking rest easy she says for all you kids watching at home santa just is white but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black santa but santa is what he is she says and for all you and then she says just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change you know i mean jesus was a white man too he was a historical figure that's a verifiable fact as is santa i just want the kids watching to know that and cecil the first thing i thought was what fucking kids are watching this shit like what kids like oh hold on a minute mom mom can you turn on fucking spongebob i gotta put

on megan kelly she's on fox and friends right i can't miss this i want to hear what she's like this is the worst episode of transformers ever right like mom hang on can we watch fox news the fed might be uh reducing its bond buying program and that affects fucking i rates might go up bitch turn the goddamn channel off you know i mean you could when you watch this video there's clearly a play you got a you're coughing there again i was trying to sneak that one jesus christ i'll kill you fucking cough we're in the same room by the way so i'm gonna get the fucking plague that gives him the cough you love everybody loves the play the boobos are good everybody loves the cough too it turns out it's not contract no it's not anyway so uh here's here's the thing like there's a clear moment in this where she's you

know she's doing the wink and the nudge to the audience like oh hey kids if you're listening this is santa's for real but this person said yada, yada, whatever. Okay. I get that. I understand that she's not calling Santa a real person when she's talking about this, right? She's clearly making a point about whether or not we should have a black Santa or a white Santa and how Santa is always white and why shouldn't it be white? And it's like, of course, lady, you're white. You never grew up under privilege. You don't know what it's like to walk in and be like, I just don't know what it's like to walk in and be like, I just don't know what this tradition means because evidently only white people can give gifts. You know what I mean? Like I understand where they come from. I mean, if you imagine growing up Hispanic, imagine growing up black. And I'm not saying like, you know, I know people

are like, oh man, well don't be a bleeding heart or whatever, but look, look, there's, there's an image related to poverty. You have your own image. You have your own ideas about who's around you and what your life is like. And when you see the idyllic world and you see everybody sitting around drinking Coca-Cola with fucking polar bears with fucking hats on,

and you're just like, okay, well, this isn't my life. This isn't the life that I lead. I live in a fucking, I live in a terrible part of town. I have to fucking look over my shoulder every moment that I'm walking home, et cetera, et cetera. This is a very different life that these people lead but the problem is is that the commentators have grown up in these fucking these these these places that are so far removed from real life that they would make a statement like this and be like i don't care that it's insensitive

my kid's white therefore santa's white exactly dude and you know you look at this and it's like you know and i have to say it i know that it's i know it's beating a dead horse at this point i know everybody in the audience knows but like there's no way jesus was white i know come on like if there wasn't jesus he would be the only fucking 2000 year old aramaic speaking middle eastern fucking jewish white guy right you know it's it's a ridiculous idea but the the point is and the reason that that white people think Jesus was white is the same people that brown is the same reason that brown people want there to be a brown Santa. Right. Is because if you're going to imagine a mythical character in whom you place tremendous emotional stock, you want a way to identify with that character.

And the way to identify with the character is to make that character fucking like you right you want that person to be like me i need right this person to be like me because it's validation right if they're like me then i can identify and i can say you know there's something about this this hero myth that i can identify with and i can someday aspire to heroism myself and if i'm unable to do this fucking basic joseph campbell shit like if i'm unable to do this then then i have a and i experience a tremendous disconnect with my ability to to be a part of the larger cultural narrative would you experience cognitive dissonance you may indeed we need to record in the same room more often oh god no we don't you don't have to smell you i showered three weeks ago i will say i totally agree with you time fucking 100 i mean

like like you know the thing is is is you know that there's people when they go to the mall right and they're from that affluent neighborhood and they grew up and you know they they all they do is surround themselves around with with you know people of the same color they're all white or whatever and then they you know they love how diverse their neighborhood is because it has like one hispanic kid in it you know what i mean like and they're just like oh well isn't it nice how they can come over and like have buy a house now over by us or whatever you know what i mean like there's tamales for christmas we're like just like them we're like them but you know that they're saying under their breath when they go to the mall if there's a black santa they're just like oh what is it black santa

what's with the black santa and the thing is is like here's the thing when there's a black santa and you're a white person and you go up and you go and there's a black santa maybe your kid asks you a question like mommy why, why is Santa black? Well, guess what? That's the same question all the fucking black people have to fucking field. I know, right? You're all dead. Oh, be nice.

Oh, my son doesn't stand a chance. The whole world's gone gay. Oh, my God. What's happening now? We work hard. We play hard. Oh, my God. You're all dead now. happening now we work hard we play hard so this next story is from right wing watch conservative catholic group ties illinois tornadoes to gay marriage i'm fucking sick of gay tornadoes cecil

you have any idea how exhausting man first of all i kind of like him i watch a lot of gay tornado porn to be honest with you i mean it's it's like it's like on my favorite bar at home i just watch i constantly watch tornadoes fucking it's like hey man it's look they're deep you can fit a lot in them you know what i mean that's absolutely it's a funnel for a reason it's that's a twister hey yo the yo. The American Needs Fatima? What? I don't know. That's what it says.

A project of the right-wing American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property. Wow. Or you can also abbreviate that as the acronym ASDIFTFFL. It's linking the tornadoes that hit Illinois to the state's recent approval of a marriage equality bill. And he's just asking the question, Cecil. He's just chucking it out there.

Do you think the massive Illinois tornadoes are linked to the passing of the same-sex marriage bill? The massive tornadoes that hit Illinois after the passing of the same-sex marriage bill has stimulated many people to reflection. I know it's stimulating. Yeah, me too.

Close the door when I'm watching those videos. See, so there's got to be something to this. Well, I mean, of course there is because I'm going to give you two reasons. One, of course that these two things are connected because the moment the legislation was passed, the very second the legislation was passed, the tornadoes hit the very second. I mean, it was like as soon as the gavel came down in the state Senate, the tornadoes hit. I mean, it was it was almost like it was fucking on geological time or whatever, like atomic time where boom, boom. And it happened right away. And Tom, let me add that it happened the tornadoes happened to touch down in the epicenter of illinois politics washington illinois so those are the two

reasons that i am saying it's not called washington illinois for nothing tom it's washington illinois i just got confused i thought it was washington washington dc i didn't know i thought i was gonna send it all the way over to the District of Columbia. Did I send the tornado to the wrong place again? Oh, man. There's an easy way to test this theory, right? All you have to do is have a tornado that strikes immediately when something happens at an actual significant moment, number one, and number two, in a place that it's actually significant. In this case, neither fucking happened no i mean look it definitely how many i mean i don't know much about this tornado cecil so you'll have to fill me in how many state senators were

hit by that tornado i assume it was most of them how do you know how many state senators were hit by that tornado uh let me kind of one zero how many governors hold on no hold on a second there's like four or seven is there seven governors in illinois has a seven seven governor system none of the none of the governors yeah and then we only have one governor and he was not hit right i do because if you didn't say that we would get fucking emails People are like, hey, guys, have a governor's. Y'all don't know anything about governorship. I got nothing like that, man. He would say exactly that, too. It's a joke. It's hard to type that.

What they're saying is I read every email in that voice. It doesn't matter what the email says. I just read it in that voice. So we're taking a break. Fuck, I got to put up with Cecil. No, I got to go do a thing. I'm going to take a smash real quick. Cecil has to put up with me. So it's pooping time.

We'll return in a minute with Adam from the herd mentality and from the Twitters. If you haven't heard, Cognitive Dissonance is now part of the Secular Programming Network. Secular Programming Network has several different facets. One of them is launching. It actually launched yesterday. It is the Secularite magazine. Now that's an app on the iTunes store. It's available on Apple newsstand. The Secularite magazine is going to cost $2.99 an issue. It's $29 a year. They got some really high profile writers that work for

them. They also have other writers that are not as well known, but really good writers there that work for secular white.com. So all those people are going to be, uh, producing a, uh, a magazine, an iPad magazine, iPhone magazine, uh, for the secular community. If you want to support secular news and, uh, and that sort of thing, this is a great way to do it. It's relatively inexpensive, $2.99 an issue. And that's per month. It comes out on the 15th of every month. The link's going to be available in this episode of the show notes. So go to dissidentspod.com, show 129, no matter what Tom says, and it's 129. And you'll be able to click the link to go to iTunes to download it, to pay for it. It's supporting the secular community. And if that's something you're interested in doing, this is something that you should probably look into.

So this comes from the raw story. You see where I was trolling from this week, this guy, Republican official Silver McGray hair. What's up? Never trust a person with their hand on their with their chin on their hand. Never trust them there because they're always either going to lie to you or seduce you those are the two things that are going to happen i kind of want to have sex with this man right now who wouldn't look at this guy wow he's a silver hair fox he is a silver hair fox look at that i'd love to rub my hand through that giant mane of hair republican national committee official said last week that same-sex couples shouldn't receive partner health care benefits because gay men die young and only game the system to receive care. Ah, yes, the old gaming the system where people want medicine. Remember that time you were like, oh, fuck, I'm really'm really really ill with a virus i'd like a medicine

for that oh are you trying to game the system i don't know is the system a system where you give me medicine because i'm sick because if so i'm gaming the system oh man they just stand outside of like an emergency room and yell at people coming in for stitches because they're gaming the system. Oh, man. They just stand outside of like an emergency room and yell at people coming in for stitches because they're gaming the system. Yeah, that's awesome. And also this is rehashing the old narrative like gay people are unhealthy, right? I mean like what you're saying is you're saying, look, if you're gay, you're susceptible to these nasty, icky cootie diseases. That's what it is, right? I mean it's all it is, right?

You're just like they have cooties and they're going to die. It's a cootie argument. It is. It's the cootie diseases that's what it is i mean it's all it is right you're just like they have cooties and they're gonna die yes it is it's the cooties holy shit dude i never thought of it that way but it's totally a fucking cooties it is it absolutely is and that's i mean it's pathetic it's what it is you know like we talk about those guys all the time that demonize other groups right well this is a demonizing you're just doing it in a different way you're like well these people these nasty, weird germs that you don't, you would never get unless you gay it up. Like, that's the only way you get the fucking gay germs if you're gay. Right.

And then if you're gay and you get the gay germs, then you want to get, you know, well, then you're gaming the system by, you know, being gay. And he does have, you know, he does have a point. By, you know, being gay. And he does have, you know, he does have a point. He says, folks, they want free medical because they're dying between 30 and 44 years old. There's no gay people over 44. It's like Logan Rowe. They're all their fucking hands start blinking at a certain point.

They're like, yeah, their heads blow up like scanners. They have to fly around in a big area and get shot. And this is the part that kills me. Says to me, it's a moral issue. And here we have to agree. I agree. It's a moral issue. I think it is immoral to withhold medical care to people that need it.

Yeah. Regardless of sexual fucking whatever sex. What do you call that nowadays? What's the sexual sexual preference? Preference. It's not preference, though. It's sexual. Just orientation.

Orientation is what you say. Because preference implies. Yeah. And there's a choice there there's no choice but here's the thing i think it would be immoral to deny health care to a murderer i think it would be immoral to deny health care to a rapist sure i just think it's immoral and that's why we don't do that yeah right not to say that that that homosexuals are are rapists or murderers yeah but i mean they may be i mean it's not like they are not they can't be but they might not not necessarily rapists and murderers right i yeah please i'm not making that and i'm just saying

like on the on the total end of the spectrum like i just think we shouldn't deny medical care no to people to humans people to dogs right like i think that's the thing like if my dog was sick you know my dog okay my dog is legit he's 17 years old he's the oldest fucking dog i don't know where he's what he's doing right now but it guarantees it's from like the fucking paleolithic era i know right and he got like an ear infection i could have just shot him right like i could have just shot him or been like looks like he's gonna but instead i spent several hundred dollars getting him well because you know i'm not a bad person that fucking dog is always gaming the system tom he's gaming the system constantly gaming the system because you throw the system and then he comes back with it and then you throw it and he keeps coming back

with it one popular thing to do in american politics is to note that the summers in the united states over the past few years have been very warm. As a result, global warming must be real. What's wrong with this reasoning? It's only gone up 0.6 degrees. Yeah, it's not really a big problem, is it? No, I don't think that it's going to hurt us. So Cecil, this story comes from the raw story. Creationist's homeschool curriculum isn't just inaccurate. It's really, really dumb. I loved this article because this shows some popular curriculum questions

which pop up within the homeschool curriculum. And I happen to have a first grader right now. Let me fucking tell you, first grade now is harder than first grade when i was a kid first grade now is fucking and that's and that's weird because don't you always see like the fucking the memes are not memes i guess they're just like internet rumors that go around where they're like this was a second grade test and they're like doing fucking like calculus on it and they're like this is from 1841 and they're like have to figure out like the circumference of the earth and they give them like a they give them like a four inch piece of string and they're

just like go for it wait that's it but there was like i mean i'm sure that tons of people thought i mean if you look on the internet that happens all the time that you know you're familiar right yeah like now there's like they they simultaneously try to sell you on the dumbing down of america um but school curriculums have gotten much harder like much harder like the kid i got a fucking first graders halfway through first grade he's doing not just addition and subtraction but he's doing some basic algebraic concepts really yeah it's it's actually kind of cool like they're teaching them you know sort of the fundamentals of algebraic concepts at this age and like you know like we'll talk like he and I'll talk about like, we'll be playing Legos and he'll be like, tell me a story. And I'll be like,

okay. And he'll be like, well, let me set the setting. And he like uses words like, you know, setting character narrative, like he's in first grade and he's just a kid in first grade. But if you get homeschooled, you know, if you're away from the fucking atheist utopia that is the public school system you get questions cecil like this one children played happily in the water spout they are then asked to define a water spout from three examples this is for nine or ten year old kids a water spout being quote a stream of water or two dry ducks or playground the thing is is if you use the okay like let's just say let's say first okay i know well i mean not only is water used in the actual thing okay so but no but that might be a trick right maybe a trick and the reason why it may be a trick remember the i

don't know if you when you took the standardized test they say to replace the thing with the thing so you're supposed to replace the like you're supposed to place water spot with the thing. So you're supposed to replace the, like you're supposed to place water spout with the answer. So you say the children happily played in the, a stream of water. Well, that doesn't fit. So he's like the children happily played in the playground. That fits. So water spout has to be a playground.

You can't play into dry ducks. So that one's straight out, but you cannot play in a, it says in the stream of water the stream of water doesn't work it's yeah no even when you get the right answer it's weird it's not the right answer just like church yeah right it's just like church i don't like how weird and awkward the priest is touching me right now you're like yeah um i got the answer to my question but it makes me feel weird and

awkward well i think really tom what this really points out is that there is this sort of insular um it's like an insular i think is a great way to put it right it's you're insulating your children from the world around you in such a way when you take these uh these children and you take them out of the class setting and you give them homeschooling i understand that there are i'm sure some plenty of people out there that homeschool their children just fine and do a great job of it etc etc etc but if you are a person who believes in this stuff and wants to shelter your child from other thoughts and other beliefs you are raising an idiot i am am not. I'm not. And I'm not. I'm not trying to be mean here.

But you literally are raising an idiot person. You're raising a person who has no contact with other people's ideas. You are strictly stuck in your little place. I mean, as your child goes up, Tom, your child's going to be confronted with religious views, with political views, with all these other different viewpoints that differ from your own and differ from your wife's and are going to differ from his his own social circle. And he's going to have to contend with those things. He's going to have to think about them.

And he's going to have to be like, well, what the fuck? These people believe in a Jesus and these people believe in a fucking multi armed God. And these people believed in a, you know, in a fat guy who gives you fucking like after life, after death, et cetera. So there's going to be all these different things that he's going to have to think about as he grows up and he's going to have to contend with them and that's going to make his arguments in his own mind stronger because he actually has to defend them to himself then but when you're stuck in this little

little fucking tiny bubble and that's what it is it's basically the boy in a bubble you don't have any other germs that come around you you're, you're not inoculated against any other kind of thinking. All you're just going to be like, well, mom didn't tell me that, you know, mom said that fucking a water spot was two dried ducks. I mean, like, what the fuck? You know, I like the idea of building an intellectual immune system. I think that that's, you know, like you're kind of alluding to that. I like that idea of building an intellectual immune system that lets you fend off bad ideas by questioning whether those ideas sort of fit. Sure.

I'm of your worldview. You were talking about the flying spaghetti monster earlier today. Right. Yeah. Like I have on my Christmas tree. We, Finn, my son, and I, we built flying spaghetti monster Christmas ornaments. He has no idea what the flying spaghetti monster is. He's six.

But we do joke a little bit like we'll make little jokes you know i'll be like a flying spaghetti monster that's ridiculous who would believe that and he thinks it's silly and i think it's silly we both laugh at it um but there's something there yeah there's something there it's a fucking lot better than answering a question like um asking a 10-year-old boy whether an envelope is, quote, a letter holder or donkey supplies. Well. Which is in the donkey. See, so what is a donkey supply? What even is a donkey supply? Well, it's like duck galoshes.

It's the same. Hey, I need some donkey supplies. Oh, here's two dry ducks. thanks bro i'm gonna put them in the saddlebags on the donkey super useful you know the thing is like why even bother if you're gonna homeschool your kids just just don't even just don't just don't just be like go play legos for like nine hours then we'll go to bed yeah like it's fine why would you even this is actually worse than nothing it really is i mean you could you you would seriously learn more just by watching commercials on television

you'd at least learn how the language works you would at least know how to use a slap job you're gonna love my nuts so we're back with adam from twitter adam it's adam it's at adam reeks right is that how you say it yes unfortunately yeah no that's no it I mean, I'm not making funny or anything. I'm just saying. Yeah, that's it. Bring it on. Okay. Right?

This is a man who doesn't strike me as fearful. Yeah, he runs a show called The Herd Mentality Podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us a little bit about the podcast. A little bit about me. I'm not an expert on really anything. Welcome to the club. Basically, I... You and I are going to get along.

Well, clearly we have. For the last hour and a half off air while you two tried to sort out your levels. Hey, now. Loads of fun. Be nice to Tom. Should release that one as an episode. Yeah, so short story, 25 words or less.

Had some changes in my life. Decided that I wanted to take a little bit of a different tact and begin speaking up about this. But rather than going and holding up placards and yelling at people, I thought I'd do some sort of thoughtful show where I get people on who I've met, complete strangers, and interview them because they're much smarter than me. I'm more interested in what they have to say than I have to think. So effectively, there's no way we can be on your show because you introduce everything

as these are people I've never talked to. We've never talked, never talked to them. They never talked to me. And we're just going to fucking wing it. Now we've we've we've we've essentially fucking wrote ourself off your show. Well, see, I cherry pick. I do the same thing that the believers do with the Bible. And I just go, OK, well, they're actually quite good fun.

How can I get around this? I haven't met them in real life. Right, well, there you go. That's because we haven't been poisoned by anything from Australia yet. Not yet. That's how you know you haven't met an American. It's like, is he still standing? Does he still

have all his fucking limbs? Is part of him swollen up past where his clothing will allow he hasn't touched a fucking plant that makes him ache for fucking centuries yeah that's not he's never been to australia you live in a fucking comical land my friend that's all we're saying so this you basically get people that you've never met to talk how the fuck does that even i mean you must really edit pretty well in order to make those conversations sound like they flow, right? Yes and no. Sometimes it's hit and miss.

You listened to one of my very early shows and pointed out it's hit and miss. Sometimes there's people who come on, they've really got something important to say, and they're very eloquent in how they do it. They're very effective. I'm able to just ask a really simple question and get a long-winded response out of them. It does take a lot of editing. You know, most instances, most episodes take me, or the better part of a day in editing, to try and get and uh cut out all the ums and ahs because i try to make everyone sound smart do you really man i would make i'd make people sound like fucking goobers if i didn't like i mean i'm gonna make you sound terrible when we're done with this

just so you know don't edit it at all don't worry i'm recording on my end so i'll edit here you're gonna edit before then it's not gonna match up man oh don't do that to recording on my end so i'll let it here you're gonna edit before then it's not gonna match up man oh don't do that to me you're gonna kill me he'll release the unedited fucking director's cut version of the program oh gosh it'll basically just be me burping that'll be the whole thing so you you've had some fun on there. The most recent one that you had, or maybe it was the second most recent, there was a group of guys, three different people from Twitter that were all believers. And you kind of just handled all three people coming at you with all these different questions about why you were an atheist. How did that go for you? Well, badly.

Actually, to be honest, as an outside observer, I did not think it went badly. I think it went pretty well, actually. For handling three people, I thought it went pretty well. It all came about as a result of one tweet. Pastor Mark, I don't know if you've heard of him or if he has any. I don't follow religious people, so I wouldn't know. Well, I thought you guys would be sort of better versed on the topic than most, but, you know, moving right along. No.

We are generally worse versed on all of the things. There's a tough opinion. Yeah, oh, God, yeah. Or if not the biggest, the loudest. Yeah, loudest is a thing. Can we just go loudest? Yeah, let's go with loudest. Yeah, that's got to is a thing. Can we just go loudest? Yeah, let's go with loudest. Yeah, that's got to be a thing. Anyway, Pastor Mark put up this tweet and said,

why do you give your sin to Jesus but not your money? What? Yeah. True story. And, of course, the hairs on the back of my neck went up and I got a little bit aggravated. And I put something up, one of my terrible witty one-liner responses and he he had a whole bunch of people jump to his defense and say oh but this but this and justified it and

justified it and rep you know did the mental gymnastics I've discovered as I've been doing this because it's all a learning experience for me this podcast I'm learning as I go I'm right right better at debating I'm getting better at spotting flawed arguments and i said to a whole bunch of these people look rather than do this over twitter come on my show and ask me the questions because i think you misinterpreted what atheism is and they did to their credit and one of them was a pastor which was interesting yeah so they all came on asked me all these questions about you know how do you how do you know what's morally right and wrong if you don't have a god telling you i said well in the same way that you do because you don't take the bible as

the literal word of god because you wear mixed fibers you eat shellfish etc etc and yeah explained it to them but in such a way that i tried not to attack their egos because i had one of the things i've learned as i've going as i've been going along is i had a guest on called michael sherlock who's an author and he explained to me that the area of the brain where religious belief lies is also the same region of the brain as the ego. So they're intertwined. Now, if you go and attack somebody's beliefs, then that's why they take it personally.

So rather than going in there and telling them where they were wrong, I found it more effective to have them come on and ask me more about it. And then I was able to explain more why perhaps it's right. And they went away happy people. They probably didn't change their minds. No, probably not. But a lot of people would have heard the exchange and hopefully they took something away from it. That's really my contribution to this community. Right. Well, it's a good contribution though because it reminds me of, we just had a guy on our show by the name of Peter Boghossian. I don't want to call him Boghossian, but it's Boghossian.

He talked about his book, Manual for Creating Atheists. And one of the things he says in that book is where he talks about how you're taking it away from religion. You're taking it away from the ritual of religion, and you're putting it into how do i understand the world and i think how do i understand the world like you said before it comes from a different region of the brain it's just a different part of you that's like okay well i understand the world in this particular way and that doesn't have anything to do with the ritual of religion or the people the connections that i have in that religious world i just have this uh i just have i, now I'm thinking about how the world works and how the universe works

and how I think about how that stuff interacts with each other. And I think that that's the smart way to do it. And in a lot of ways, I felt like what you were doing to them was getting them to think about those ways in which we understand the world rather than how this is how an atheist thinks.

Instead, it's just like, well, how do you think? How do you think about this stuff? And you're turning it back on them. It's almost like a jujitsu sort of thing where you're like, okay, well, I'm just going to let that power use that power against you. It really worked out pretty well. I thought, you know, you're maybe down on yourself, but I thought you did a very good job handling three people at the same time. I would probably crumble and just start screaming after about 30 seconds.

See, one of the things about Twitter is people are inherently lazy. We, as atheists, have probably become atheists or become more outspoken about atheism, having listened to your Hitchens, your Dawkins, and listening to the way that they destroy arguments. And it's done in an aggressive way. I mean, Hitchens particularly just went all out. He wasn't afraid of offending anybody. And that's okay when you're on a big stage because you're going to get your message heard by a lot of people.

And that's inspired a lot of people. So, as I say, all the people who are new to this and trying their hand at debating go down the path of least resistance. They take the easiest route to getting to the core of the argument, which, you know, in 140 characters is often just, you're wrong, you're an idiot. And that does nothing. Right. It does nothing. Right, right.

To change anybody's views. And all it does is continue the divide. And all it does is continue the divide. So changing the way that people approach the arguments I think is important. I think the more that people can have polite and respectful discourse about a subject and just keep asking people good questions. To me, like I read the Bogosian book again. I hate to go back to that, but it just strikes me as apropos to the subject. And, you know, the more you could just turn it back around on people and just sort of ask them, like, well, you know, how do you how do you know that's true? Where do you come at this? You know, and start. I mean, genuinely and and with with real sincerity, asking people good questions that are in good faith, questions that are in good faith.

You know, I think you're right. Like, Hitchens was a one-off. He was a one-of-a-kind guy. But everyone wants to be like him. Yeah, and nobody's like Hitchens, right? I mean, everybody's like Hitchens fucking diet-light-watered-down junior Hitchens, you know? It's not the fucking same thing you're not that guy like you're just fucking not that guy that guy died he's just not you're not that guy

so what you can do is just ask great questions i mean learning to ask really great questions is the first step toward refining your thinking i think and you know holding a quality interview and also engaging somebody on a subject that's deeply, deeply sensitive. So to that end, I guess I want to ask you, like, who's been your favorite guest? Like, who's been the guest that you've had on that you've said, man, that was beside us. So we'll take us out of the equation because I know that that was going to be. It's going to be in the future. Having you guys.

Right. So after that, I'll almost certainly say that it's you um but there's i like the way this man lies i do this man lies he's a fucking spectacular quality he's amazing bravo bravo this is me clapping bravo i work in sales and marketing so i'm getting pretty good at it. Look, the best guest. The most emotional response I've had as a result of an interview is I had a Saudi sex assault survivor, a rape victim on my show in episode 10. And she explained to me the story, a bit about how religion impacts.

It was a one-on-one interview. And I hung up the phone from that and cried. That one left a really lasting impact on me. That made me want to do something else. And subsequently, she's moved to Canada. She was seeking to raise some money in order to prosecute the rapist from Saudi Arabia and have him extradited to Canada. When she came on the show, did a little plug for it,

and she then went on to achieve her fundraising goals. So we find out in January about that one. Favourite guests. There's a few recurring people who come on. One would be at Franco Soup. We do little skits where she I play Ray Comfort and she plays Ray Comfort's assistant and they hate each other and there's plenty of references to eight horsepower solid gold plug

eight horse what I love the specificity of the horse that she said on eight I like that I mean you don't want to go 10 Ten is a little too much. It's, you know, like, oh, my gosh. At that point, at that point, you know, basically, you're going to need corrective surgery. You know what I mean? Like, it's just. Ten would be ridiculous. You don't want to get crazy.

Goodness. You back a truck up in there after a ten. Well, in episode 33, at the end of the show, Noah Lusions comes on to play Joel Osteen. And yeah, we crank it up to the full eight horsepowers. Oh, nice. And hit the turbo button. And yeah, he doesn't survive the entire time.

It's tragic. We hardly knew you. Who else have I had on? I've had Ricky Gervais I think you guys know I don't know Isn't he the guy who plays Michael Scott in The British Office?

Isn't that who he is? Yes That'd be him He's never coming on our show So I can say I can say whatever I want Probably the favorite ones Would be the science-y ones where I have scientists come on.

I love science. Okay. Are you good at it or do you just like it? I just like it. Yeah. See, like me. Because I'm not good at it either. I'm terrible at it.

But I like it. I feel the same way about podcasts. Yeah. You're not good at that, though. I know. Like I said, I'm not good at it, but I kind of like it. Yeah. Well, nobody likes you

i don't like it nobody likes you so yeah the the scientists come on i ask them questions about debating creationists and so forth uh about what's happening in their research fields same hiv research and so forth and get into some nitty-gritty and i always walk away learning something they're probably my favorite ones you ever ever had Ray Comfort on your show? No. Well, I'm tempted to say yes, but it wasn't really Ray. Oh, I see what you're saying. No, but have you ever asked him to come? Oh, you probably wouldn't, though, because you're making fun of the guy weekly on your show about him getting a butt plug. I'm sure that there's not.

Every day I send a message on Twitter to Ray Comfort, and it just says, Hi, Ray! With an exclamation mark. That's it. I've never had a response. So I would say that the chances of Ray coming on in person are unlikely. However, his likeness, which I extracted from an interview, and perhaps cut and paste a little bit out of context. No, I'm sure it's just exactly what you got.

You're welcome to chuck it in as a sample of what's on the herd mentality have a listen to it uh i quite enjoyed doing that it was four hours well spent in the editing room great comfort thanks for coming on the herd mentality it's okay now you wanted to come on and clarify a few points so let's start with our credentials you are an expert on evolution. An expert? I've never said I'm an expert. But you just said you were. But I've never really found an expert. Ah, well, I interview them all the time. I wasn't a whisper of scientific evidence. So you listened to the episodes. Can I ask what you thought of chymati? A tool. God-free world? Sinful lifestyle. Dr.

Dave Hawks? Bittersweet. What about atheist male? This is a really funny joke. I'm considering inviting Blessed Teen on the show. Raging hormone. Yeah, that's the guy. Fornication's okay. Matt Dillahunty. I don't want anything to do with him. Didn't you go on his show, though? I don't believe in your God.

Well, I respect the guy, but I wouldn't put him on a pedestal like that. He's a figment of imagination. I can assure you he's real. That's why so many atheists are so irate. Probably not the main reason, but you're not even making much sense here. That's what atheism does. So you've changed your position. God doesn't exist. What are you going to do? Gotta toss out the whole Bible.

Seems a bit extreme, Ray. I accept Darwinian evolution. Have you considered joining a secular group? There's no room for wimps. Pretty sure they'll accept anyone. Okay, let's talk about you. Recently, your Twitter handle was borrowed by someone else. We're aware of that. It wasn't long ago. What are you doing to get it back? Absolutely

nothing. Your thoughts on the new account? It's intellectual suicide. Why do you say that? The new account is promoting financial donations over prayer. I think I go hand in hand. But aren't you an atheist now? I've never said I'm an expert. You don't have to be. So why is it a bad thing though? Because of the implication that comes with it.

One final question. Rumour has it that you're working on an 8-horsepower solid gold butt plug. Yeah. Prototype working yet? Yeah, it's up and running. Your first impression? Salvation. Great comfort. Thanks for coming on the show. Boy, that's a good question. So, if people were going to find your podcast,

where would they go? Well, I'd recommend they don't, for a start. We have the same recommendation for our show! Great, great! If they had to, they could head to hurtmentalitypodcast.com and they can see some of the Don't, for a start. We have the same recommendation for our show. If they had to, they could head to herdmentalitypodcast.com and they can see some of the terrible artwork I did drawing some silly-looking cows. Or you can jump onto iTunes or Stitcher and just search for Herd Mentality

and you'll find me there amongst other podcasts that are also called Herd Mentality, but they discuss finance and stuff, so it's quite boring. They're not nearly as important or cool as your podcast. I also want to point out that on your site, the cows blink and that just adds... And chew.

They chew too. They're chewing things, which is probably their cud. I'm not an expert on art. Hey, now. But I feel like these are photorealistic. Skinny fucking Auschwitz cows, man. Oh, no.

They're runway ready. They are. My goodness. Well, it was great having you on our show, Adam. Thank you so much for joining us today. Yes, thank you. Oh, thank you for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I'd just like to give you an Allah Akbar.

Oh, you can? Yeah, we'll be quiet even for it. Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Bravo. Well done. Well done.

You got the vibrato going on. That's good stuff. I broke into an improvisational jazz hands. I couldn't control it at the end of that. Hey, Glory Hole. This is Victoria. I'm from Canada and I'm freezing my ass off right now. This is Victoria.

I'm from Canada, and I'm freezing my ass off right now. I have a story to tell you guys about my brief brush with Jesus. When I was a kid, I was about 12 years old, and I went off to a Bible camp with my best friend, and she was an apostolic Christian. And we would go, and we'd pray all morning, all night, and then I think we'd play some water sports in the afternoon, but most of it was singing and dancing with what appeared to be really good-looking hip-cap counselors. And I remember one night after about three hours of singing, you know, to Christian rock music, I'd gotten kind of pulled out, and I said I was ready to be saved,

and I didn't really know what that meant. But I just said, what do I do? And they said, just say these words, I accept Jesus in my heart. And I said, okay. So I said that. I said, I accept Jesus in my heart. And then I said, now what? And they said, that's it.

You're saved. And I said, what does that mean? Well, now you're going to go to heaven. And so I was thinking, that's it you're saved and I said what does that mean well now you're going to go to heaven and so I was thinking that's pretty cool and then the first thought that came to my mind was with my mom and dad who I love very much and uh who had never mentioned any sort of uh saving with me and I asked them point blank I said what about my and dad? I don't think they've accepted Jesus in their heart. And this really cool hip counselor just looked at me, and I asked her, and I said, does that mean they're going to hell? And she just, you know, smiled and said, yeah, yeah, they are. And that was a real moment where I was a little bit confused.

And that was a real moment where I was a little bit confused. So I wasn't sure if I really had accepted Jesus in my heart or if that's just all a bunch of bullshit. So, yeah, pretty cool stuff. Thank you, Glory Hole. I love this podcast. I can't get enough of it. I listen to it like every single day. Thank you.

Bye. We got some email this week. We want to first let Tom cough. If he needs to go ahead and cough, Tom. There we go, buddy. Got that.

Now sniff afterwards. You got to get a good sniff. There you go. Good job. Okay. So, um, so, uh,

we got some email this time. We want to thank, by the way, uh, Scott, Jacqueline, Daniel, and John for their generous donations. Uh, money that you give us goes a long way to thank by the way uh scott jacklin daniel and john for their generous

donations uh money that you give us goes a long way to making sure the podcast is possible and we want to thank you very much uh this year though and from hopefully monday on i'm going to be taking down the donate button on our site and i'm going to be replacing that donate button with a link to the Chicago Food Depository. Now, Tom and I are going to be running a small donation drive this year for local food depositories. So how this is going to work, and I'm going to let Tom explain it in a second, but we are going to be urging you to donate to your local food depository, whatever that is, and sending us a confirmation of you donating. When we reach $3,000, and last year we raised almost $9,000 for Doctors Without Borders,

so $3,000, we should be able to chip that shit out of the park within a week, we hope. Yeah, we should. But we're running it until the end of the year. If you guys can raise $3,000 between now and the end of the year, Tom and I are going to donate 10% of that. We're going to donate $300 between the two of us to the local food depository here in Chicago, the Chicago Greater Chicago Food Depository. And that money will go directly to them. Like we said, we're encouraging people to donate locally. Now, Tom has an idea on how much you should donate.

You know, we've talked in the past about the Snap Challenge. I know there's been – we talked about the Panera CEO who did the Snap Challenge and some other high-profile figures that have done the Snap Challenge. And what I'm going to do and what I encourage other people to do, is take a look at your grocery budget. Take a look at what you guys spend in one week in groceries. Per person. Per person, yeah. You don't have to do this for everybody. I wouldn't do this for my child, for example.

But I'm going to do this personally. I'm going to say, okay, I spend X dollars. Maybe I spend $90 a week. I don't know what my dollar amount is, in groceries for myself, for my funds. And I'm going to say, okay, well, the Snap Challenge means I have to live on $32. It's $32, right? $32. $32.

I'm going to live on $32. I'm going to allot myself $32, and I'm going to take the Snap Challenge. And the difference between what I would normally spend on my food for that week and the Snap Challenge gets donated to the food depository. And that, to my mind, does two things. One, it raises money without affecting my pocketbook, which is a win for everybody, right? I mean, I normally spend more than $32 a week on food. I can donate the difference without feeling any difference, without feeling any effect on my pocketbook. But it also makes me conscious

of what it's like to be a family in need, what it's like to be a person in need during the holidays or any time of the year, when you're forced to live on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, when you're forced to live on $32 a week to eat, to survive, to gain your nutrition. I'm going to do that for at least one week. I might do that for more than one week. We'll see how much buy-in I can get from my wife and family on doing it. But I'm definitely going to do it for one week. I might do that for more than one week. We'll see how much buy-in I can get from my wife and family on doing it, but I'm definitely going to do it for a week. And I'm going to donate outside of the $300. I'm going to donate the difference

because I just feel like that's a good idea. It's a good way for you to get conscious of what you're spending on groceries, what you're spending on food, what people in need spend on food, and that difference can go pretty readily to a food depository. Just send us the receipt. That's all we ask.

Yeah, just a confirmation receipt. Because what we want to do with this is when we collect these confirmations and receipts, and you guys can block out your own vital information. That's totally fine. We don't need any of that stuff. All we need to do is see the amount and possibly your name. And that's it. We won't mention anybody's name on the show. We're not going to be mentioning people's names. We just

want to see that you donated it. We're going to add it up ourselves, send it to dissonance.podcast at gmail.com and we will tally up this total. And if you guys can get to $3,000 before the end of the month and a bigger donations, if somebody's just like, well, I i donated three thousand dollars and they made something in photoshop you know like look what we'd really like to do is make sure that people get this money now we understand we would like the people in chicago to get this money which is why we're urging you to but again this is local so this is this is people you're going to be affecting people that live in your area this isn't doctors without borders where you know you're giving money to an entity that is going to try to help people in faraway lands which is also very good way to spend your your your charity dollars and we're

totally down with that but this has an effect and an impact right now right near you and so we're hoping that this christmas season or holiday season or fucking whatever season that you want to call it um we uh do some sort of effect you guys do some sort of effect in your local area. So donate that money. Send us the message if by the end of the year. And as soon as it happens, as soon as somebody breaks that $3,000 mark, we are going to donate each $150. So it's 10% goes locally here. But we hope that you guys will take the challenge.

And as Tom said, I mean, that's a great way to pay attention to how hard it is to live on a tiny amount of money seven dollars and fifty or no it's four dollars and fifty cents a day is what they expect people to live on um that's an i mean that's a tiny tiny amount for food uh so go ahead and donate and send us your send us your receipts now we got a long long voicemail tom super long super long 10 like 10 minute voicemail, Tom. Super long. Super long. Like 10-minute voicemail from Tom from Western New York. We want to talk a little bit about what Tom – Tom was initially talking. He spent a lot of time on his voicemail talking about several things. I'm going to try to condense his argument down. I can't play – Tom, I apologize, but I can't play seven minutes long worth of voicemail on our show. But I will say that Tom said that, one, he didn't think that,

he was disagreeing with Tom's position that people in the hard sciences should be in politics. He's saying that Neil deGrasse Tyson is a perfect example of that. He doesn't think Neil deGrasse Tyson would make a very good politician. People don't like science is another thing that he said, and they would not be convinced by a scientist.

They wouldn't vote for a scientist. People in hard scientists may not have good public service behind them or be good at public service. And he also, he ended with, we should get money out of politics. That's the most important thing. Tom, I'm going to let you go on this. I don't really have a lot to say about it. So I disagree on all points.

I think Neil deGrasse Tyson is an example of somebody that you wouldn't vote for. That's great. There's a lot of people I wouldn't vote for, too. It's just one example. I know you're using it as a representative example, but I'm not sure that it's necessarily representative. My point isn't that existing scientists should enter politics. That's not the idea. The idea is that if you want to be in politics, you must also get a degree in a hard science. So you can

get a double major, a triple major. I don't fucking care. Quadruple major. But if you are going to dedicate your life to public service and you are going to be making decisions, you need to make decisions with some respect for science and scientific processes. Um, and you're not going to do that without a background in a hard science. Um, so I'm not suggesting that existing scientists become politicians. I'm suggesting that politicians become better scientists. We're thinking about it from two different angles. Um, people don't like science. They like rhetoric. I agree. But if you're only options, right? Like it's don't like science they like rhetoric i agree but if you're only options right like yeah it's don't blame me i voted for kodos right if your only option is this guy who's a got a degree

in biology and that guy who's got a degree in chemistry and they have different ideas on economics well okay who cares they both at least have some fucking idea about the basic processes of the scientific method. So, again, it's not a mutual exclusivity argument. Hard scientists don't make good public servants. Maybe not. So maybe good public servants need to become better scientists. That's just easy. I mean, I'm turning it on its head here a little bit. But, you know, again, I'm not suggesting that scientists enter the political arena. I'm suggesting that the people in the political arena enter the scientific arena.

Yeah, because you said, as you said earlier, when we were talking about this, you had said, well, you know, once I get into office, I no longer need permission from my constituents to vote on things. So if people aren't convinced – one of the things that you were saying, Tom, was that people aren't convinced by the data of global warming, that's fine. If you have hard scientists in there who are convinced by it, they can do that voting for all the people, the constituents that are out in the open. do that voting for all the people, the constituents that are out in the open. Right. And if they get voted out, the next guy who gets voted in, also with the respect for science and scientific processes, is just more likely. It's not necessarily, and in your voicemail you mentioned several times, necessarily, necessarily. I agree. Not necessarily going to be better off, but we're talking about stacking the deck in the favor of, you know, good policy decision making and good scientific decision making. It won't work every time. It will fail. It will fail spectacularly on occasion.

But it's about upping your average. That's it's really about playing a game of averages at this point. And then, you know, you suggested that the real solution was to get money out of politics. Rokidoki, dude. I agree. Get some money out of politics. Not mutually exclusive with getting science in politics. So you can do both at the same time. You know, we can walk and chew gum. These ideas are not exclusive of one another. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I'd go as far as Tom would with saying that it's required, a required degree. But I think that a certain level of scientific knowledge is absolutely necessary when you have people on science boards that don't even know science. I mean, you have people that are just on there.

You can't believe that they're on a board part of a committee that is involving science and i mean you gotta have people who understand the subject at least that guy with a fucking internet guy who's on like the internet committee and he's like fucking the internet's not a truck that dude shouldn't be a politician he shouldn't be a breather good lord go lay down not a good truck fucking truck are you kidding me bad old man oh go lay down. Not a good truck. A fucking truck. Are you kidding me? Bad old man. Oh. Go lay down. Ray Stevens, was that his name?

I don't know. Oh, gosh. It's a series of tubes. A series of tubes. You're a series of tubes. I got a series of tubes for you. So we got a few emails we want to burn through. Amber mentions at the bottom of hers time,

we want to read the last paragraph of Amber's. Yeah. She says, my last, my ambers yeah um she says my blast my last blurtation is about my dad my dad is the best yay he was uh she didn't write yay i've seen that's editorialized it's editorialized why would i edit you gotta be like sick yay you gotta put that in there or whatever he was brought up in a strict jehovah's witness family and he left the indoctrination behind my life has been so much better than it could have ended up in fact as the recipient of a blood transfusion,

my life just wouldn't even be happening. You have periodically mentioned the converts that have emailed you and listened to your show and your part in that terrifying and wonderful journey that they have gone through. As a second generation run away from an intense organized religion, I fucking thank you for helping people through this. They and you

rock and their children will thank them. The cognitive dissonance, listenership, and yourselves are one by one changing the lives of generations to come just by laughing in the face of Middle Ages tradition and morons who think there is an invisible man who made all humans from an incest fest 5,000 years ago. Keep it up, chaps. That's awesome.

That's fantastic. That's great. She also threatens to buy us a pint of good british ale if you find a good british ale i encourage you to send it to us and i will say if you find a deep fried mars bar i'd eat the shit out of that we got a message from from jacob uh jacob was talking here a little bit about Columbine. Was this Columbine shooting? Yeah, he's talking about a visitor from a traveling anti-bully program called Rachel's Challenge, which is centered around the family of a student killed in the Columbine shooting.

And he had a question about whether or not – because I guess the Rachel's Challenge talkie folks had a Christian subtext to their message. And there's some confusion there about whether or not, you know, that should be acceptable, whether or not this Christian subtext should be acceptable. You know, my feeling, and I think Cecil and I differ a little bit, but my feeling is if the Christian subtext is not overt, you know, in other words, as long as you're not coming in and saying like, you shouldn't Jesusesus because of you shouldn't bully because of jesus um then fine um if the subtext is overt um then it has no place in my feeling in a public school yeah i agree actually i agree with that i think in a public school setting i don't care i will say however that um if it's outside of school period um i don't care what the subtext is as

long as they're not saying it's okay to bully gay people or something like i don't care what the subtext is at all outside of a public setting if it's a public setting then yes you can't do the you know love on jesus here's jesus is nuts and then also here's this you know anti-bullying message but if it's i mean i i really don't care about uh i i care more about the the product you know the in my opinion the ends do justify the means here you know we got an email from alan it talks about the founder steen and i thought this was interesting um alan says uh basically that uh there is a book uh written by michael austin called that's not what they meant and the thesis of the book basically says that the right wing and the left wing have this horrible habit

of creating a creature called the Founderstein, which is the conglomeration of all the American founding fathers into one big founding fathers. As in, the founding fathers meant so-and-so and whatever. But this does a huge disservice to them as individuals and how the country was made. And I think that's a great point point and i appreciate you bringing that up because the that that's often thrown around like well the founding fathers really said oh that everybody should drink pepsi and not coke yeah you're like well fucking i'll slap my dick in their face who cares what the founding fine that's not a one person there's not a one founding fathers this happened recently we're talking about

the second amendment last week tom and one of the things that came up was uh people were talking about how somebody had sent an email and said the second amendment was written so that people could overthrow the government a couple people said oh no that's not why it was and we got big long emails about like like here's what the second amendment is blah blah i'll be honest with people i really don't care what the mindset of the Second Amendment when it was wrote was. I don't care what when they sat down to write that thing out. I don't care what they thought. I don't care what their intentions were. They don't have to live now. They don't have to deal with guns and assault weapons and people possibly owning an F-16.

They don't have to deal with that. They're fucking dead. So we need to take a look at that document and say, well, what does it mean to us today? I personally don't care what the founding fathers thought at all. I don't think that it's relevant to what's happening in our country right now. We are smart people. We can figure this out. We look to them and say, hey, you guys wrote something really cool. Well, you know what? That's before there was

an internet. That's before there was a microwave. That's before we had an interstate system that spanned the entire country. That's before we had income tax. That's before, you know, you wrote this stuff down before a lot of the changes in our country even came about. So that's when we had people who were enslaved to us fucking farming for a century. There's so much different then than there is now that we I almost think that, you know, it's a disservice to them to say, well, what did they think about this? What did they think? They didn't live when we live. And I think that we need to look at the way in which things are written today and say, OK, well, what does it mean for us? What does the Second Amendment mean for us?

It says we should be able to have a well-armed militia. OK, well, do we need a well-armed militia? Is that a thing? Do I need – am I worried about roving bands of people coming in or is there some sort of weird little tiny country that's going to try to invade the United States that the United States government can be like, well, it's just a really small country. So we'll just let them invade. You know, nobody's going to. I mean, it's like, oh, well, it's just, you know, look, it's just Cancun or whatever, you know, whatever it is that came over. It's a city, isn't it?

It's not a state. But let's just say like fucking Grand Cayman got in their boats. Cubauba came over we'd be like oh well we'll just let him invade because they're small we don't really care it's like look we have to think about these things in a context that is today so when people send these messages in and they're like oh you guys got it wrong about the second amendment it's like well i really don't care what the founding fathers thought of the second amendment i care what we think of the second amendment we gotta oh my god this picture scott sent in a picture and this is this is something i'm gonna post this i'm not gonna spoil the joke i'm not gonna mention the joke you want to see this image go to episode 129 cognitive dissonance on uh dissonancepod.com and you'll see this image

it is something to behold wow Wow. Wow. You know, that's something when they can have us speechless for a moment, it's like, wow, that's a thing. So thank you for sending that in. We want to end this email section, Tom,

with you coughing and with us talking about this, this kid who was driving. I know I forget exactly where he's driving, but he kills four people when he was drunk. And they're all talking about his defense was and he got off with 10 years probation here. His defense was he had, quote, affluenza, meaning he had never really had any his whole life. He's had everything he wanted. So that's why he didn't understand that running into people was bad? Yeah, this is such complete horseshit.

There were a million articles about it. I read this throughout the course of the week. It reminded me, the first thing I thought of was, what is it, a year or so back when a group of Muslim girls, I think it was, got drunk and they beat up some dude and his girlfriend. And they got away with it because they were able to sell the judge the idea that, well, you know, culturally we don't drink. So when we all got drunk, we had no idea how to handle it. And so we just went fucking batshit crazy. And somehow that mitigated their responsibility. And this idea here is that, you know, this, these, these young people who are from extremely affluent families,

they don't have any controls on their behaviors because they're able to act with relative impunity everywhere they go. So why wouldn't driving a car translate to the same level of impunity? And so this person got drunk and killed people with their automobile. They somehow are that somehow served to mitigate the damage that was caused. And it's it's such bullshit because if you can turn that argument and just say, well, what about somebody who's poor? Because if you can turn that argument and just say, well, what about somebody who's poor? What about if somebody said, well, your honor, you know, my family has always been poor. We've never had a car before. We've never had enough money for alcohol. We've only eaten, you know, we only live on fucking $4 a day. So it's beans and rice and water for us. So, you know, snap. So we're really hurting. I finally got a hold of some alcohol and I got behind the wheel of this car. I got drunk and I killed, you know, that nice white family over there. But, you know, it's not my fault.

I have poverty influenza. You know, I never had an opportunity to get behind the wheel of an H2 before. So I ran him over. I mean, it wouldn't fucking fly. No. It just wouldn't fly um and it just seems to me cecil just proof that uh rich people just get away with shit man there was a guy a couple years ago maybe a year ago in florida dude just ran people over just ran people

over and it's like oh yeah well that guy got off he got a couple points on his license and had to pay a civil suit uh but he got out of jail and it's like there's people who drunk drink and drive and they're poor and they get fucking sent up the river for years and years and years and there's people who are drink and drive and they're rich and they get fucking a slap on the wrist the people who get who are rich in this country there is a disparity in justice in the justice system that needs to be fixed there needs to be i mean i don't understand how these judges i mean maybe these judges are seeing these kids and thinking well well, that could be my kid. Maybe they're having less, I don't know. Maybe these are large donors to their fucking,

you know, to their cause. Cause judges have to run as, as you know, politicians too. So maybe there's something there. I don't know what it is to make these people get less of a sentence, but they get less of a sentence way more often. And I think that's sad. I think we need to change that. That's just, I mean, look, you're okay with the punitive justice system that we have, the system that fucks people in the ass for fucking having a dime bag of weed three times. But we're okay with this guy getting 10 years worth of probation. Look, I'm down with, you know if if everyone was getting the same level

of justice i'm okay with people not going to jail and getting help that they need i'm okay with that because i'm more for a rehabilitative system anyway right but i'm not i'm i certainly don't think that uh that 10 years justifies killing four people i think you know you've got to spend there's got to be some sort of punishment there. It doesn't feel like there's any punishment there at all. So we're going to wrap this up here. We want to thank Adam from the Herd Mentality Podcast. You can go to herdmentalitypodcast.com to catch his show.

He does a show with people that are just on Twitter that he meets. And there's some really great episodes in there. So take a listen to his show. We're hopefully going to be on Skeptically Challenged this week with Gio and Tom and I as well as Ross. So we're hoping that's going to be a thing. We'll let you know.

Hopefully we're going to be on the Herd Mentality podcast in the future. We'll see when that sort of shakes itself out. But until 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, doublespeak, stigmata, 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. Doubt even this. We'll be right back. Okay. Hello. Hey. Welcome to Cognitive Dissonance.

You can't say that. That's a... Well, actually, you'd probably say it better than Tom, actually. Anybody could. Christ. Yeah. To be honest with you. All right. Look, guys, thanks for getting me on, and I'm really sorry for stuffing everyone around. Tom actually anybody could Christ yeah be honest with you all right so guys thanks for getting me on and I'm really

sorry for stuffing everyone around no no it's good you know like the thing is is well you know we'll get to it on when we get you on the show but it's not you know it's not a big deal it's it's this is actually this is actually really good for us to get somebody on who's who's funnier and better looking than us so

takes not a lot of effort I'm just throwing that out I mean yeah I mean pretty much we could just do man on the street and that would be funnier and better looking than us. That takes not a lot of effort. I'm just throwing that out. I mean, yeah. Pretty much, we could just do Man on the Street and that would be funnier and better looking. Why is my microphone fucking wiggle-waggling like a fucking loose dick? Jesus. Settle down. There we go. Christ.

Tom, you've got to caress it. I was giving it a little love, but I guess I had to get a tighter grip on this fucking thing. You get the benefit of listening to us while we're in the same fucking room together. This never happens. Which never happens. Oh, wow. So, yeah.

Cecil Drove, let me explain to you something, Adam. Not that you'll care, because I wouldn't in your shoes. I'm struggling to care as we speak. Right, I know. Hang up. I hate this guy already. I'm right. Fuck this.

Cancel this interview. It snowed, what, six, eight inches? It's about eight inches. Yeah. Cecil drove out in the snow like 30-some miles to get to my house this morning while it was still actively coming down. The roads were not plowed. It took well over an hour. Hold on.

Now, 30 miles in kilometers is like 100,000 kilometers. Oh, right. I should have gone kilometers. I think that translates into like 2.6 million koalas. You didn't carry the safe. And again, I just want to point out I did nothing. I woke up late and I went to Starbucks. It was awesome. They don't have Starbucks. Do they have Starbucks? Is that a thing? No, I did nothing. I woke up late and I went to Starbucks. Yeah.

It was awesome. They don't have Starbucks. Do they have Starbucks? Is that a thing? No, they don't. What do you guys do? No, we've got Starbucks. Oh, you do?

Who are you kidding? Yeah. Look, we're the only people. We drink coffee in Australia to support your economy. All right. So you read the story. We're going to jump. I'm going to have Tom.

Tom's going to do a little. Here's what's going to happen. Tom's going to do a little thing that he does at the beginning of every show he's gonna introduce you font oh yeah he's gonna fart and cough that's not a little same time and then um when he does that he's gonna do like you don't have to record anything tom i'm recording it all for you what tom is going into garage band right now but he doesn't need to i don't know i'm just a dude yeah well it's your fucking mic is even hooked up to your computer right now what does my mic hook up to it's hooked up to this why is it hooked i don't know where i'm at god damn my house this is my office dude anyway so adam you um this is not we've been drinking so just so you know one we've

been drinking two what we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna actually i'm gonna steal your bourbon no you are no i know he got serious there for a second all right so here's the deal tom's gonna do it this is cognitive distance yada yada yada he's adam actually wants to talk about the story where the guy diddled the kids which is yeah told girls you can take any one of the thousands that are out there right told girls that there's demons inside of them. Look at that jacket. He could ejaculate them out of them. So basically what we're going to do is we're going to talk about that.

Tom's going to talk about that story. He's probably going to talk about it for maybe 20 seconds, and he's going to toss it over to you. You are recording this whole time your own end, right? Yes. Okay. And then we're going to jibber-jab about that story for maybe 10 minutes or so. Then we're going to stop. I'm going to going to say okay we're back under the show with Adam

and then we're going to talk about your show and we're going to talk about you and we're going to probably talk about your penis for a little while and then we're going to end the show it's on everyone's lips this guy is great quick man he's quick I know he's funnier than we are

I'm afraid actually to be honest everybody who comes on our show is funnier than we are. I'm afraid, actually, to be honest. Everybody who comes on our show is funnier than we are. I'm grateful. It's like, are you kidding me? It doesn't matter at all. This is fantastic. God, you have like no one on this show. This is an opportunity for me to be funny. I don't have to hold you up for a whole hour.

Which I couldn't do anyway. I'm really looking forward to this. This is going to be good fun. Yeah, wellwell We'll see So much better than Jake's show