Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 130: Discern the Unhuman Nonhuman

Episode Date: December 23, 2013

Do you want to get cognitive dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at Stitcher.com. Hi Tom and Cecil. I just had to tell you guys this story. So I just left a Christmas party for my work and I overheard a conversation with two older ladies talking about the Bible, and it was the craziest conversation I've ever heard.

So the one older lady said, did you know that people live to be 900 years old in the Bible? That doesn't happen anymore because of Cain and Abel and sin entering into the garden of Eden. And then the other lady says, yeah, I know. And, like, there used to be people who were half man, half horse. Like, I know people like that exist. And I know that people do believe everything that the Bible says to be true.

But it was just so weird to hear two women, probably in their 70s, saying that they think centaurs used to exist before sin enters the world. Anyway, I had to share that with you guys. Okay, bye. Hey guys, this is Gabe. I real quickly wanted to share my cognitive dissonance show that with you guys. Okay, bye. Hey, guys. This is Gabe. I real quickly wanted to share my cognitive dissonance work story with you. I'm sure that most stories that mix your podcast and work just end in utter disaster and unemployment, but mine doesn't, and I thought you might enjoy hearing it.

So my team and I have been putting in some late hours at work lately, and after everyone else in the office leaves, people usually pull out the iPods and play some music out loud and stuff. So, the guy in the cubicle next to me puts his on and it's right in the middle of Cognitive Dissonance episode. Not gonna fence through anything, but, you know, it's definitely you guys, and I can hear him immediately fumbling to

turn it off, literally thinking to himself, Jesus, what am I doing? So, a few minutes go by, and I hear him get back to work, and I shout, dolphins! The sound from his keyboard stops, and there's a long pause, and he shouts back, foot massage! So, there's some back and forth with this, until finally someone else in the office shouts, are you guys okay? But anyway, now, I have a fun new friend at work, thanks to you guys, that was Lori Holt.

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 at. This is episode five actually tom it's episode negative five negative this is episode 128.3.3 good those keeping track or episode 130 it could go almost any direction i want to point out cecil that you you had me here you know you had me here with the

what fucking episode is it tom huh what episode those are all in caps you know what it needs it needs a couple of exclamation points that go into ones so for our listeners benefit cecil compiles the notes so and if he didn't i would we would have, and if he didn't, I would, we would have, I mean, if he didn't do all of the work, I would, we would have no show. So, you know, I find- That's not true. Tom sleeps and farts. That's true.

So those are things that Tom does on occasion. So I find the stories and I tweet them and Facebook them or whatever. Right, right. Google plus them. And then Cecil compiles all of that into notes that we use to put the show together. And he fucks with me.

He's absolutely fucking with me on the show numbers at this point. No, I'm not. Maybe you should just fucking know what number it is. I don't know. Without me having to prompt you. Let's be realistic here. If we were realistic, Tom, we wouldn't have a podcast. That's true, right?

So this last week, we did a release of a video. Tom and I got together at Tom's house last time when we recorded with Adam from The Herd Mentality. So if you haven't heard that show, that's episode 129. And Adam was on our show from The Herd Mentality. So if you haven't heard that show, that's episode 129. And Adam was on our show from The Herd Mentality. And we recorded at Tom's house. And during the day, we got together and we recorded ourselves drinking eggnog. So that's on our website.

It's going to be on this episode 130, dissonancepod.com. So we're going to embed that video in this episode so you can see it if you didn't see it yet. But the reaction is what you would expect tom and i also we got together and we made eggnog from scratch too because we had heard you know we bought that store-bought garbage and you know you can understand what our reaction was was not good but then we we decided because we you know tom that fucking bunch of people were always just like oh well you just, you just are doing it wrong. You're just doing it wrong. You've got to make it. So we made it.

Yes, we did. I will admit, the homemade eggnog was better. Yeah. In the sense that, like, it would be, like, the comparable, right, would be hitting yourself in the face with a sledgehammer is store-bought eggnog. Yeah. Like, it's that bad it's it's it blots out all memory in fact i actually couldn't remember that i i when cecil posted the video i couldn't remember having done the video because it was i was fucking

traumatically blocked from the memory i had to watch it and i had fucking flashbacks like i was in fucking having like crazy ptsd i was huddled in a corner shaking and sucking my thumb my wife had i was rocking back and forth rhythmically to soothe myself the whole day was terrible and your wife didn't notice any difference really yeah she was like oh he's getting better yeah so if if store-bought eggnog is hitting yourself in the face with a sledgehammer, homemade eggnog is hitting yourself in the face with a ball-peen hammer. You're still hitting the face with a hammer. Or, Tom, it's like the difference between licking a relatively clean ashtray and a dirty ashtray. You're just like, yeah, well, they're both really bad.

They're both really not tasty and the fucking eggnog that we made was thick gloopy shit and it just it didn't taste good anyway and we made it with quality ingredients like we made it with quality we made it with all the ingredients that they look for we fucking cut open a goddamn vanilla bean and put it in there and worked its way i mean mean, we did all the stuff that you're supposed to do, but it's just not good. And this week when we posted this video, we got a ton of different remarks, a bunch of people. Somebody's like, you guys are wussies. And I'm like, I'm a wussy because I don't take my fucking bourbon with cream and sugar. Like, are you kidding me?

How dare you drink that straight up? I just like bourbon you know the thing is that it has the consistency of congealing melted ice cream right it really does like it's like ice cream that has melted and then you left it out overnight so it has that funky fucking skin across the top of it when you're going to pour it down the drain. It's like a weird ice cream skin gravy thing. It's fucking horrible. It's more gravy than anything else. Yeah, it's awful. It's disgusting.

It is so much worse than I remembered. Just the first whiff of it, Cecil, and I'm not fucking around. When we opened that thing up, the whiff of it was genuinely appalling it was and my first thought was fuck the listeners i don't want to do this i can't do this yeah it's bad it's a board a board like i was considering like like slitting my achilles tendon and hobbling away just anything anything whatever you do not have to make that video to get out of i mean it's just so it was so bad but you know even the stuff you made like that we made together was not a tasty food it's not and the thing is like okay look i understand there's people out there like oh

you're crazy it's delicious okay great you like it good that's awesome i'm happy for you that you like it. It is just repulsive to me. It is altogether right to discriminate against homosexual behavior. I'm arguing that it's time that we as conservatives, that we rehabilitate the word discriminate, that we reclaim it, that we dust it off and that we use it and that we use it unapologetically. And I believe we need to begin to say, look, it is altogether right for a rational culture to discriminate against homosexual behavior. So our first story comes from BBC.com or.co actually, because they're not cool enough to have a.com. BBC.co.uk. Ugandan MPs pass life in jail anti-homosexuality

law. Way to go, Uganda. Way to be there. Uganda, and we've covered this before, Uganda is sort of like the next frontier, Cecil, for Christian missionaries who are getting edged out of

the civilized world and don't have anywhere left to spread their message of hate. And so they're turning to the developing world to help the developing world develop into a bigger shithole than it is now. They make a lot of different weird connections here in this, where they're talking about a miniskirt ban and a homosexuality ban and now we had talked about all this stuff before but they were just that was just when they were thinking about it now it's actually been passed and somebody posted on our on our facebook page and said you know look you guys should really talk about this because you guys

reach more people than i can obviously but also it's just it's just one of those things that people need to know about and it's it's a sad day in the world when not only is this stuff banned but people from other countries that find like there was a guy on here who somebody found some uh gay porn that he had and and and he he can possibly get several years in jail and then at one point it says, I'm gonna read directly the article, it says, meanwhile, a local newspaper has been condemned for publishing the names and addresses

of people it said were gay. That's probably not gonna go over very well. I mean, like, you know what? And I hate to fucking Godwin myself, but I'm listening to like the rise and fall of the Third Reich right now is in our audio book. And they're talking about all the different tactics that they did to get rid of like the Jews and things like that.

And I mean, that's like right out of their, their playbook, you know what I mean? Like publishing these people's names in the, in the paper, you know what I mean? It's like right out of there,

but it's awful. That's a terrible thing to do. Yeah. I mean, what it's, it's, this is, this is the,

um, you know, what, what, what I was immediately reminded of was the sort of indiscriminate roundups when the U.S. went over to Afghanistan after 9-11. And people would get rounded up because they owe their neighbors some money and their neighbors mad. And the American troops kick down the door and say, do you know you know taliban or whatever right and then they go to go to guantanamo yeah my neighbor fucking whatever uh yeah he's he's he fucking shoots three americans a week you know and then that guy next thing you know he's got a hood on his head and he's sitting in gitmo for the next six years you know um these things are rife for abuse. How do you define, I mean, really, like, I mean, let's talk about, like, how do you define somebody who's homo, like, how do you criminalize homosexuality?

Do you have to catch somebody engaging in a sexual act? Do you have to just kind of think that they probably do it? Do they have to admit to it? You know, what if they have a close friend? You know, what if they're asexual and they have a same-sex roommate? You know, I mean, how do you legislate what happens behind closed doors between consenting adults? You don't. What you do instead is you develop a system that's built around human rights abuses. That's what this is built around. And life in prison? Yeah. Well, look at this image

of Africa, the bottom here, Tom, the image of Africa that has all those red areas. I know. They're all places where consensual same-sex relationships are illegal. And I'm just going to – I'm going to quickly try to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. I would say maybe between 26 and 30 countries that have this – that are red here. I mean that's a sad state of affairs. Yeah, it is. It really is. It's, you know, and this is a direct result of Christian missionary work. Right, right. That's what this is. Uganda in particular has been singled out by fundamentalist Christian missionaries

who helped to sponsor and even write the legislation. And this legislation, life in prison, is a step down from the Kill the Gays bill that was originally proposed. So this is actually a moderated bill. So being stuck in a Ugandan jail for the entirety of your life for the crime of loving someone the government doesn't want you to love.

How much more Orwellian can we get, right? This is actually a moderated bill. And who bans a miniskirt? I don't know. And then has the nerve to call it evil in here. Like somebody says, this is a victory from Uganda. I'm glad parliament has voted against evil. I i mean first they came for miniskirts and i said nothing no because i would have said something but when they come for yoga pants oh forget it then the blood will run in the

streets let me tell you they will not get the nod out of my cold dead camel toe when they pull the yoga pants away from me. It'll be the Lululemon riots of 014. So it wouldn't be a week on cognitive dissonance lately without a good Klingerschmitt story. This one comes from Right Wing Watch, as I think they all do

and all will because he's fucking with them. A little feud going on between the two of them. It's a Hatfield-McCoy situation. It's kind of great. Klingerschmitt. Gays have something unhuman, not inhuman, unhuman inside of them. This is spectacular. I just got a quote real quick.

When they manifest sexual immorality, Klingerschmitt declared, there's something inside of them that is manifesting. Well done. And on this show, we like to discern the spirits. And I would say... Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before we move on. Before we move on.

That's like when there's a rapper who sings a rap song and they rhyme the same word with the same word in the same next sentence and you're just like, that's the same word. That's not a rhyme. That's the same word. It's like when you say, get out my face bitch. I'm gonna fuck you up bitch. Be like, bitch does not rhyme with bitch. It's the same word, dude. It's the laziest

rhyming possible. It's so lame and it's so lazy. You're just like, God, you couldn't think of another word? You couldn't think of another way to structure that sentence so you could actually have a rhyme? No. God. There's a Beyonce song that Sarah listens to.

I think it's Beyonce. I can't remember. But it's one of Rihanna or one of, it's the same, it's interchangeable woman, you know, singer or whatever. Somebody Chris Brown hit. Yeah.

But she essentially, she's like, she says something, she's talking about like getting rid of a guy essentially she's like she says something she's talking about like getting rid of a guy and she's like uh i'm gonna be i want you gone in a minute my other boyfriend's gonna be here in a minute i'm like minute doesn't rhyme with minute the fuck is wrong with you you know but you you can't even blame them for it, because they certainly didn't write it. Right. It's true. It's not like they wrote that thing. They're just fucking playing karaoke. Anyway, so manifest, manifest, manifest, manifest.

Manifesting. And on this show, as opposed to others, we like to discern the spirits. And I would say, that's a demonic spirit that is manifesting inside of them. Another manifest. And sinning by an act of their consent of their free will he's so redundant it's awesome they're cooperating with the devil and there is something unhuman inside of them there is something non-human inside of them and that should be discerned as not human i love this guy what this reminds me of like like a really bad interpretation of that heidegger the being of the being of the being of the being like it's just it's it's it's it's not

even that you know of course it's not even remotely that smart but it's just it's a pale comparison because it's all this manifest is the manifest of the manifest of the free will is the free will of the free will. Non-human is the non-human of the not human. It's, you know, I'm reminded there's this book I listen to occasionally, like when we're trying to fall asleep, David Rakoff book called Fraud. And there's he's trying to he's trying to fill out this application to become a U.S. citizen. trying to fill out this application to become a u.s citizen and the questions are worded in that like ridiculously over complex legalese bullshit that like tax forms and government forms are sort of notorious for and he stops at one point he says something like i make my living with words and i cannot begin to parse the double meanings and negative – the double negatives and like strained syntax and impossible grammar of this sentence.

And I look at this and I just hear that sentence like repeated. It's like I cannot begin to parse what you're trying to say here. Why are you saying it seven times? Like he's got – like every clause that he starts has got a subordinate clause that's like the same thing that he was saying before like it doesn't offer any additional i'm not a huge fan of subordinate clause he doesn't bring good gifts it's terrible smaller gifts they're not as yeah they have to lean on the other gifts so you necessarily less than the other oh how's your gift subordinate it's very subordinate i don't know every week when we talk about

klingerschmidt i just think you're a little klinger smitten is more what you are you caught me you got your klinger smitten this guy when he talks about martin luther king at a certain point as martin luther king said and you're just like yeah yeah, what, what that doesn't, that's like, not, it's, it's not like when you mention a civil rights leader, you're standing on bigot glue or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, I'm on glue, you can't tag me, you can't, you know what I mean? Like, that's what it feels like to me. It's like, I'm mentioning a civil rights leader, therefore. Base.

Yeah, base. It's base. It's base. I also like when he calls them unhuman he says you know he says there's something non-human inside of them and that should be discerned as something not human i'm thinking non-human like what are we making gay cyborgs like what the fuck is happening we're making them better stronger more fabulous is that what we're doing i don't like fucking it's i i i love this guy more than anything else he just he can he just spews out just garbage this would be awesome to actually

have uh a point counterpoint with this guy and rob zombie and rob's home is just singing more human than a human and this guy not human, more human than human. It's just back and forth. So we're going to take a break and then later we're going to come back because that's the kind of thing that we do. And if you want to get a hold of us, here's how you do it. Want to get in touch with the show? Send an email to dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

Be sure to follow the show on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at dissonance underscore pod. Like the podcast page on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash dissonance pod, or just type cognitive dissonance into the Facebook search bar. Want your voice featured on our show? Leave a short message on our Google Voice at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Visit DissonancePod.com to see the news stories featured in the show, buy apps and merchandise, or just leave a comment. And to everyone who helps spread

the word about the show by sharing it, tweeting it, and rating it on iTunes. Glory hole. You fucking rock. So this story comes from the raw story. Russian actor who ran for president wants to put all gay people in the oven. So basically Russia's version of our former Ronald Reagan decides that he's going gonna spew some fucking crazy shit about putting the gays in the oven i would put all the gays alive into an oven he says so it's not like he's misquoted here well maybe this is out of context now hold on hold on now i actually i think maybe maybe maybe there's a translation problem. Don't like don't they call like bundles of sticks faggots? They do.

I mean, maybe what he's saying is in Russia, we don't have a gas technology. We have to use wood stoves and we should shove faggots in the ovens. And he's being misquoted. faggots in the ovens and he's being misquoted the fucking arrogant west i know and our inability to sympathize and i mean i can't believe that here i was judging this man right uh how dare i how dare i shame time right shame shame sure sure i can't believe it uh he does say burned alive so that would presume that the that the sticks you put in the oven would be alive yeah they scream yeah they scream they make a nice sound particularly when the sticks are made out of homosexual people human people yeah he's particularly aggressive about didn't we learn not to put people in ovens like isn't that a thing

we learned from like hansel and gretel yeah isn't that a thing we learned from like the holocaust like can't we just say hey you know what nobody thought was a good idea like you know can't we just all if we can't if we as a fucking world as we as a the earth cannot look back at the holocaust and all kind of say hey we may differ on a lot of things you believe in trickle-down economics and i don't you know you believe in uh global warming and i'm i'm an idiot you know but like we can disagree and agree on a lot you know this world we can have a lot of different viewpoints. But when the Holocaust is controversial and at some point you're like, well, maybe we should revisit that. That struck me as a good plan.

Then you just give up your human card. You're not even a human being anymore. You're not human. You have something unhuman inside of you. I can discern it. Can you discern it really quick for me let me discerning like like an mc breaking it down is that what that is on this show we like to discern what i like you know okay i don't like anything about this, but really what I think this and that first story we talked about, people are having these really strong reactions Russia is acting towards homosexuals and the way in which they're treating some of that population, they are not being, I think, you know, I don't think this guy is

probably in the minority over there. He's definitely not in the minority in the sense that he doesn't like homosexuals. But I think that, you know, there's probably a large following of people that think that it's a good idea to, you know, injure them. Same thing goes for Uganda. So we have this, you know, we have this moment where I look around the United States and I think, man, we kind of got it pretty good. Like, what's the worst that's happening here right now? I mean, obviously there's still people that get gay bashed and things like that. I understand that there's still some crimes that are committed against homosexuals,

but we don't have somebody saying, let's put them in an oven. Like later on today, we're going to talk about a guy with a really long beard who thinks that he doesn't like him. But that's the worst thing. You know, I mean, like, that's the worst that he says. Yeah, well, you know, we we have made tremendous progress in the States. We really have in a really relatively short period of time, all things considered, for a social movement. I think the states have made tremendous progress and the

momentum is definitely on the side of tolerance and reason, for sure, right now, where it's no longer acceptable in most decent parts of the country to be a terrible fucking human being out loud, right? I mean, there's still plenty of people who think it, but in most parts of the country, you don't know what company you're in. And so even a lot of hate-filled bigot idiots will keep their mouths shut because they're afraid to,

like the Duck dynasty guy lose his job um you know good idiot but this guy is like he this is somebody who ran for president over there um and he tweeted just to make sure that nobody would misunderstand him he later tweeted to confirm the meaning was rendered correctly and i had to applaud his use of render after suggesting putting people in the oven everyone has the right to express their opinions he said unless your opinion is i love that dude and i'm also a dude hey guys it's paully here from Richmond, Virginia. Is anybody else wondering what the

fuck when this fucking Louisiana sasswash came out of the fucking woodwork? I just had to spring to a free speech. Now all these bigoted fucks just come out of the woodwork. I never fucking knew. Holy fucking shit. Who knew that Westboro Baptist Church had such a huge fucking following?

I mean, holy shit. Fucking social media blowing the fuck up. God hates fags. Kill the fucking fags. Let the fags die. What the fuck is wrong with you? This is about the whole Duck Dynasty fucking free speech controversy, I guess is what you want to call it.

Phil Robertson was completely within his rights to say the piece of lying filth that he did. A&E was within their right to ban his sorry ass. The right to free speech does not make you immune from repercussions. It just means the government can't put you in prison for being a dick. The same Christian groups who are advocating the banning of propaganda by law in countries like Russia are crying foul when A&E bans Phil Robertson from being on a TV show. It's a fucking TV show, people. So Cecil, this comes from Suntimes.com.

This is local to you and I, Cecil. This comes from Chicago Suntimes. Aurora political candidate Ian Bain stuffs himself into this suit in order to make this comment. Look at him in that thing. He looks great. Yeah. He's like the Grinch. But instead of his heart was being two sizes too small, it's like, and his suit coat was two sizes too small.

He's about to burst out of that thing. He's the Hulk. That's why. He's hulking out. Yeah, I don't think so. Which chin? The bulk. I meant the bulk.

Did I say the bulk? The bulking out. He called Phil Robertson, that's the Duck Dynasty guy, the Rosa Parks of our generation. So if anybody was not following Robertson, put the Duck Dynasty show. Not Pat Robertson. Phil Robertson. No, no, show pat robertson his brother his younger brother phil yeah his younger brother who's also a thousand years old yeah okay he

you know it's funny because it says he's only 67 that's the hardest 67 yeah that dude looks he looks like a fucking he looks like a billy goat is what he looks like he does he does like he could definitely fight a troll yeah i'm just saying like if ever there was somebody to go over a bridge and not pay the toll phil robertson is your guy um but he he disparaged gays in an interview uh with gq magazine um and he also said hilariously growing up growing up in Louisiana before the civil rights movement, he never saw any mistreatment of blacks in Louisiana. Right. Prior to the civil rights movement.

It was a mecca for black America back then. Right. I'm sure. They all went to go make sure they weren't mistreated. Good for them. Yeah. But to compare, didn't we just talk about this the other day?

Fucking leave Rosa Parks out of it. If you are a white Republican, stop talking about civil rights leaders. You cannot do it. You will fail. You will become a news item for the stupid shit that you've said when you compare

a hate-filled bigot with a woman who courageously stood up on the bus and became a symbol of the civil rights movement a symbol of courage how is it a symbol of courage to be like i don't like gay people hey where's my duck call like how is that the same thing let's talk about this guy for a second first off how does a guy that looks like that get interviewed for gq in the first place i have no idea what did he did he wear a suit for the like did they put him in like the suit and take pictures of him in a suit and was it their irony episode it must have been irony edition of must have been yeah was it like the what not to wear i saw because i don't know shit about that i don't know shit about this show i

would never fucking watch this show it's like fucking i mean these are these people are direct descendants of fucking hillbilly god i mean look at these people and and sarah palin's on one of the shows i saw or at least she's like shaking the guy's hand or whatever and like like kind of like hanging out with him at one point. I'm like, why would anybody, you know, when people are saying, oh my God, I can't believe he said this. I can't believe he said this or whatever. And they're getting our undies in a bunch. I'm like, of course this dude is anti-gay. I'm like, of course he's look at him, you know, look at where he comes from. Look at the kind of backward fucking life he leads. You know, this guy, this guy doesn't fucking, this guy's a fucking hillbilly. And you know, that's another conflicting thing too because i thought in deliverance they like

to have anal sex well not anal but uh you sure do got a pretty mouth this guy i mean you hit the nail on the head he certainly got a hillbilly god thing going on yeah um absolutely and is it a surprise you know that sarah palin would be jumping to this guy's defense no not at all she'll she'll jump to any like if she sees anything that uh enjoys killing stuff and is hateful and says incredibly stupid shit she's gonna immediately pounce on that as you know like one of her brethren she's spotted it's like one of her own this guy this guy is is you know multi-million dollar guy he's got a fucking i don't know from like the duck calls or whatever he does

um that's fucking weird anyway he's got a you know multi-million dollar business or whatever i mean i don't even know anything about him i just know like from the from like a commercial i saw one time that they're they like drive around on atvs like that's all i know about the whole show is that they have a camo colored all-terrain vehicles that they drive around on and they have really long like zz top beards like that's all i know about the entire show but the guy is you know the guy's a multi-millionaire already and he might lose his job although i don't know this could be a publicity stunt through a and e you know what i mean like it could be that he'll come back and because they did the same thing when um dog the bounty hunter said some disparaging remarks about i think it was black people or something like that yeah and

he's back like you know he's back he'll too. He quietly comes back because they sell ad time with him on there. And it'll be a big thing if this guy comes back, too. So it's just, I mean, it's all about selling ad time. They don't give a shit whether this guy hates gays, loves gays, bangs gays, whatever. As long as it sells ad time. You know, this guy, incidentally, you know he's got a master's degree in education? But, you know, that's interesting. Okay, so you're saying he has a master's degree or whatever, you know,

and I'm not going to say that a degree makes somebody smarter or not or whatever because I don't think degrees matter really. But it's interesting that he would have been, you know, educated or at least been exposed to, you know, some sort of liberal arts education and come away with that mindset. What it says to me more is that the self-alienation of being in that sort of insular community will breed ideas of hate no matter what, and you're never going to be able to pop that bubble. That bubble is always going to be there. That's what it says to me.

able to pop that bubble that that bubble is always going to be there that's what it says to me yeah it's just it's it's just an interesting sort of aside because you see him and it's and and he sort of presents this image and i didn't realize this until i don't know a day or two ago like he presents this image it's just this backwoods hillbilly sort of a guy and then you know you read a story or two about him and you realize like wow okay this guy's had he's had opportunities in his life um and he walked away from a lot of opportunity he walked away from the opportunity to play football he walked away from uh his master's degree in education he didn't see stop teaching after only a few years and like he became like an alcoholic and was abusive to his family and got into crime and he's like hide in

the woods to get away from authority figures and like he's just he's just kind of a fucking nut is what he is like he strikes me as a guy who's just kind of crazy but he made a lot of money so instead of being crazy now we call him eccentric right you know and is it a surprise that he's like spewing this sort of like anachronistic, hate filled bullshit? No, not really. It doesn't I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all. The producers like at A&E that have his show shouldn't be surprised by this either. I mean, they they couldn't have been taken aback. It's not like they give you a show without vetting who you are a little bit first. So Cecil, what's got no thumbs? It hates stealing. The guy in our next story this story is from al gemni beta beta com beta org radical islamist amputates hands in accordance with sharia law um to some dude an egyptian guy uh was kind of he was a thief uh he's kind of addicted to thieving right so in order to prevent himself in order to properly punish himself for stealing he asked uh the like sharia court or what have

you they you know he got caught stealing and he said, you've got to cut off my hands. And they refused to cut off his hands. So he did the only logical thing. He cut off his one hand by laying it on the train tracks and waiting for a train to go by. That seems like a bad way to do it. Yeah.

Because upon reviving himself, after being, you know, mauled by a train and losing a lot of blood. He went to the townspeople to show the stump of his bloodied arm while yelling at the top of his lungs, People, I was a thief, and praise Allah, he has forgiven me. And actually, that was met with a round of applause. But it was only one hand clapping,

so it was really almost very silent. It was a cone. Well, then it wasn't enough, Cecil, because he kept stealing. No, no, no. Sure. Yeah. I mean. Yeah.

So he had to do it again. Yeah. Same method. So at least, at least he liked the method. So he went to the train tracks again. Although I guess your options for cutting off your other hand are sort of limited at that point i would just i would just go steal something and i ran and ask him to use that hand chopper off her machine they got a nifty machine yeah

well what if they only take the fingers and you can still sort of grasp with your nubs when is this guy gonna pluck out his eye because isn't that the next bit that you're supposed to do? I don't know. He's going to systematically dismantle himself. Yeah. He's going to be nothing left. He's just going to be like a torso. No disassemble Johnny.

The guy's clearly crazy, though. I mean, like this guy is fucking totally nutty does this come from anything but like the religious nonsense though you know what i mean like this can't you know i mean like is there a secular analog to this where we could say yeah that guy did something and thought he should cut his own hand off to please something, nothing. Nothing. I mean, like, there's nothing, there's no secular analog. No, because the thing is, like, if you go crazy and you latch on to, as part of your delusional belief system, you latch on to a hyper-religiosity focus, and then you start reading through this thing that's full of violent imagery

and um you know terrible uh repercussions for minor actions you know and stealing is minor by comparison to maiming for example right um you know you're you're bound to do terrible harm to yourself or to other people you know What are you going to do? I mean like what would be the secular analog? Like you go crazy. You have a delusion. And instead of becoming hyper-religious, let's say you become hyper-lawful. If government is the secular analog to religious authority.

So you become hyper-lawful and you start reading books. And you're like, ah, should uh turn myself in and then you turn yourself in and that's the end of it right i mean like nothing happens you still at least have all your fucking limbs even if you end up in jail yeah you still have all your bits and bobs like you're not right you you didn't like undergo a dramatic weight loss as a result. You didn't think you were Voltron taking out parts of your body. That'd be funny, though, if he had, like, a cat strapped to his arm and that was his arm. Oh, my God.

Two cats. And he's walking around with two cats strapped to his arm. Or those little meerkats that are out there. Those little tiny little things. That'd be good, sure. He needs a helper monkey is what he needs now. But then what do you do if the fucking cats steal stuff? Oh, man.

They gotta cut off their little cat hands with like a toy train. It's like a Russian nesting doll of amputation. It's an endless regression of tidier hands so we want to thank all the people who have donated so far to their food banks their local food banks Tom we've gotten almost I want to say $650 so far that have been donated on other people's

behalf so we're inching closer to a $3,000 goal, but we kind of messed up on the date. We really shouldn't be going, we shouldn't be trying to finish this by the end of December. We should be trying to finish it by the end of January so more people can do the Snap Challenge. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I was going to do the Snap challenge, but then I realized that it was going to conflict with the holidays and it just wasn't practical. You know, we want it to be something that's practical. So the idea of the snap challenge is if you're thinking about donating to the food bank and you just want to donate, just donate. But if you're thinking, well, you know,

I don't know how much to donate or maybe you don't have the perceived room in your budget. One of the things that you can do and it's something that I'm going to do is I'm going to take a week and I'm going to live on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program funds. So that's $32. That's how much you get if you were on SNAP. So it's $32 American. I'm going to live on that for one week as far as my food. So that's everything I eat, everything I drink, breakfast, lunch, and dinner for seven days. I'm going to take the difference between what I would normally spend. So I'll have to keep some track beforehand.

The difference between what I would normally spend on those 21 meals, three meals times seven, 21 meals, and the $32. So if I normally spend, you know, $90 on food in a week, say, and I don't know what that number will be until I do it. But let's say I spend $90 in food in a week, and I, you know, have the $32 snap challenge, I'm going to donate then $68, you know, the difference, I did my math wrong. $58, I'm sorry, to the food depository. And that would give me money that I can donate that I don't really have to even see. I don't have to budget for it. It doesn't have to. It's money I was going to spend anyway. I normally spend $90. I'm going to spend $32 this week. I'm going to get some understanding of what it is to live on that

budget, gain some appreciation for that, and then donate the difference to people who really need it. Yeah. And so far, it's great to see different people given to different places. And this is affecting, like we said last time, this is affecting you locally. So it's not a global challenge. It's just a local challenge so it's to give give to give to people that are nearby that are looking for food that don't have money this this holiday season and pass the holiday season to feed themselves adequately and these there's there's tons of these uh food pantries all over the world just give to your local one send us the receipt you can cross out all the stuff on there. So you cross

out the, you know, the, the name, everything. All we need to do is see the amount and your email address and that's it. And we'll, we'll, once we reach 3000, Tom and I are going to give $300 between the two of us to the local food depository here, the greater Chicago food depository. So please consider giving to your local food depository and sending us the receipt. We got an interesting email from Alexi here, Tom. Alexi says, this is talking about last week with the guy who, the judge who said the teen had affluenza and should not have been, doesn't need to go through all the prison time, should just get probation, and that's what they sentenced him to. And Tom and I were sort of lamenting that fact, and he said,

There's another possible contributing factor to the way poor people are treated in our justice system. It is less sinister than other ones. Judges likely see protection of people from criminals as a critical part of their mission. They may perceive poor people to be more of a threat to society than rich people. This could result in the judges giving different sentences for similar crimes. And I think that's a great point. Yeah, I think it's an interesting point. I think it's unfortunate that we see poor people as a threat, but I think it's probably a reality. I think that that's a very astute observation.

It's an unfortunate observation, but it's a very astute observation. And thank you for sending the email. We got an interesting email from Zach. Zach said that he came up with, he was challenged, he was recently challenged by someone during a conversation about morality to come up with a better list of the Ten Commandments. He came up with three on the spot, and he figured he could do better with some thought. He made the list over lunch, and he wanted us to read it. So this is his version, what would be a version of rules for morality. I love, too, that you can build this over lunch. It's not so difficult. Also, the Ten Commandments are pretty shit. So the first one, his.

Act in the spirit, not merely the letter. Critically examine your beliefs and actions. Treat others as they would have you treat them. Reduce suffering. Do not engage in predatory practices. Do not demonize others. Promote progress. After you think act encourage others to follow these recommendations i think that's a pretty reasonable list yeah yeah very reasonable i like that you

don't even have to go to 10 yeah you know you don't have to go to 10 and you're right about the 10 commandments i think the 10 commandments are just stupid i mean just because everybody always everybody always kind of quotes them and they want to post them every goddamn place in the United States. You know, you want to every fucking urinal is going to have them over the fucking, you know what I mean? Like where you have to stare at them when you piss or whatever. That's what they would love to have. But you're just like the Ten Commandments are dumb. There's like half of them are just throw out commandments. They're just like Bronze Age stupid.

Throw me out. And a couple of them are just so simple commandments. They're just like bronze age stupid throw me out. And a couple of them are just so simple. Just like don't kill people. Okay. Thanks for telling me, dude. Hold on a minute. I had this knife poised over the heart of my youngest son, but I didn't know that it was wrong. it's such a fucking ridiculous idea that we don't have any way to understand right and wrong without this silly ass fucking list and like you said it's a shit list it really is a stupid

fucking list that doesn't address any of the real moral issues that are relevant i mean like it's like they don't steal stuff don't lie don't steal stuff don't kill people fuck you what do you have that's past you know the now that we're out of kindergarten do you have anything to say to me no yeah oh right well take your book and spin it sideways who gives you we got an interesting email from josh josh says uh you know hey guys glory hole etc he was browsing kick was browsing Kickstarter and he said, here's a guy who's dedicated eight years of his life to a cross-shaped Christmas tree. And Tom and I looked at this tree

and it is the ugliest Christmas tree. It's so ugly. It is. I mean, I'm a fan of Christmas trees. I think they're awesome most of the time because they're decorated really nice. I know you think they're gaudy, Tom, but I like them. This is ugly. That is definitively a tree it's it's like a

garland fart yeah it's just absolutely horrible yeah it's it's not good no at all it's terrible and you said tom right after we watched it you're just like this proves that anybody could do anything on kickstarter anytime how does this take eight years that's the thing that that blows my mind he had to get an engineering degree first 15 minutes at home depot right it's it's a fucking cross that technology's been around for a while a little bit little vertical stick plus horizontal stick that's not hard it's not getting crazy there the what he what did he struggle with like wrapping it in fake tree stuffs yeah it's really stupid it's a stupid looking tree and i would link to it so you could see it but i refuse to don't don't i'm not gonna give this guy

more page views no so honestly like what took eight years i don't know i seriously couldn't travel to tibet and ask somebody if it was a good idea and then travel back you i don't see what would take you more than maybe seven or eight minutes on google sketch i know it'd be like he literally could do it with a staple gun two fucking two by fours and an old christmas tree that you don't use anymore right right it's the dumbest thing i've ever seen on kickstarter ever a real christmas tree in a sawzall yeah no kidding what i mean like you could just hedge trim that shit into a cross because guys it's exactly what it sounds like it's just a cross covered in fake christmas tree right it's it's like a yeah it's just a cross covered in fake Christmas tree. Right. It's like a pipe cleaner Christmas tree that looks like a cross.

Yeah. There's nothing. And he calls it a crossmas tree. It is a crossmas tree. Just so that it sounds ugly too. You know? Like just to make sure that nobody, now nobody wants to buy it.

We wanted to offend as many senses as we could. It probably even smells bad. It tastes terrible, too. So, Tom, we got an email from Anonymous Sex Portal about children and them being inquisitive. I'm super pissed right now. My son, who's five, likes to watch YouTube videos while I'm at work. Today, apparently, because he's never asked me this before, he asked me if I knew how Jesus Christ died.

And then he told me he died on the cross. Then he started asking questions about it that I felt very uncomfortable, unprepared, and unqualified to answer. Not the least of which was because I was trying to play Super Smash Brothers Brawl with him at the time. It's awesome. That is great. least of which was because I was trying to play Super Smash Brothers Brawl with him at the time. It's awesome. That is great.

So he says, I'm assuming you saw some kind of Christian advertisement or propaganda, either in the advertisements on YouTube or someone had a whole video devoted to the Jesus myth and he watched it. I'm an atheist slash Buddhist. My wife is agnostic. We joke about religion almost all the time. And now I'm not sure how to even breach the topic with my five-year-old son. Thanks a lot, Christians. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Obama. Right, right. Well, I just want to butt in because I don't have a son, so I don't know. But the first thing that comes to my mind is there's no reason to shelter him from this stuff. He's going to encounter, if you're in the United States, and you may be, I don't know if you are or not, but I'm presuming you are,

you're in the United States, 70% of the people here are Christian, so you're going to run in, and I want to say it's like 80% or 90% of the people in the United States are religious. You know what I mean? So if they're not Christian, they're something else. He's going to run into religious people. He's going to run into other ideas. He's going to, you know, turn on, you know, maybe one day when he's watching TV, he may watch, you know, maybe turn on TV and the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston comes on,

or he could see the, what is it, what do they call it, the Jesus Chainsaw Massacre, the Passion of the Christ, or was that what it was called, something like that? He could see something like that on television, or he could hear a Christian song. He's going to have to know what it is, you know? So I think the best bet is just to tell him, just be like, well, this is what some people believe. We don't believe that stuff because we require evidence. I think that's probably the best way to go about it. Yeah, that's almost exactly what I do with my kid. I mean, when he was real young, we would drive past buildings

and he would ask what they were. And we would drive past, there was a church near our house and he'd drive past the church. And when he was real little, he'd say, what's that? And I'd say, that's a church. And he'd say, well, it's a church. I'd say, well, it's a kind of business.

What do they sell? Nothing we're buying. And that was the end of that conversation. And that works, it's a church. I'd say, well, it's a kind of business. What do they sell? Nothing we're buying. And that was the end of that conversation. And that works when he's real little. But when he got a little older, the kids across the street that he plays with all the time, they come from a Catholic family, and they talk about Jesus, and they wear a cross, and they go to, I don't know if it's CCD at that age or some kind of religious education of some kind, and that's important to them, and they talk about it.

Like, kids talk, you know, and they're going to see videos on YouTube, and they're going to be exposed to these things. And we have very frank conversations about it. My son, he's very interested in God. He's very interested in God and Jesus, and I'm happy to talk to him about it. If he asks me, who is Jesus? I tell him. Some people believe in magic, is what I usually start out with. Some people believe in magic. In our family, we don't believe in magic. You're welcome to believe in magic if you think that it's real. If you see some reason to think it, we can certainly

talk about it, and you can always believe what you want to believe. But some people believe in magic if you think that it's real. If you see some reason to think it, we can certainly talk about it and you can always believe what you want to believe. But, you know, some people believe in magic and this is a kind of magic that they believe in and this is how they think the world works. It's just not how your mom and I think the world works. What do you think? And the conversations, you know, at five and six are, you can have those and they're not terribly intimidating. He's not going to suddenly, you know, switch over they're not terribly intimidating he's not going to suddenly uh you know switch over the dark side he's gonna sneak off in the middle of the night to church just because you chatted about it yeah no i think i think too we you know you've got to make sure that you're telling him about that sort of thing just so he's prepared for it yeah because

you'd much prefer you tell him that it's bullshit now on your own, or at least lead him in that direction, than have him get one of those flyers like your kid got for that party, that Christian party or whatever, and then be like, well, I'm going to go to this party. And then they go to a party, and then they're baptized when they come home or something. You know what I mean? So it could be a lot worse. So my suggestion to you, Anonymous Sex Portal, is just try to talk to him. I know it sucks, because you don't want to, but I would is just you know just try to talk to him i know it sucks

because you don't want to but uh but i would say just go for it tom we got a we got a an email from somebody who's mad at us because we homeschool bashed like dicks you know i can't believe we would do this let me read this uh this email um hey guys on your last podcast, you guys talked about how incompetent homeschooled children were compared to their superior publicly educated counterparts. Despite being raised in a Christian home in Texas, although I'm an atheist now, and being homeschooled until

university, I'm still a successful, intelligent person. The public education system in the majority of states is completely broken and, frankly, quite shitty. I would venture to say that the majority of states is completely broken and frankly quite shitty. I would venture to say that the level of education you received at your spectacular public school is nowhere near as great as the education I received in my own home. Judging by the fact that one of you has a degree in English lit and the other in philosophy and new media, your education could not have been that rigorous. So please, before claiming that the public education,

that the public education, okay, is so much better than a person can achieve on their own. That's not a complete thought. At least have a degree that means something. Does that work? Hold on, I want to read that again. So please, before claiming that the public education is so much better than a person can achieve on their own.

It doesn't sound like it works. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. It's probably just because I'm publicly educated. That's the case. That's probably why. At least have a degree that means something. At least have a degree that means something. Okay, fair enough.

Asshole. I normally enjoy your podcast. I normally enjoy your podcast. I normally enjoy your podcast, but disenfranchising the education that a person receives because it's not done in the traditional manner is closed-minded. It is closed-minded, Tom. I have personally witnessed the blue-jean, Bible-thumping dipshits that you guys like to talk about so much. While they do exist in the homeschool community, they are not nearly as prevalent as you would think. Right. For being so open-minded, you guys sure do latch onto the homeschool stereotype quite

strongly. I would urge you to rethink your stance and apply the same thought process to homeschoolers that you would to any other group of people. So I just want to say a couple things. First, I want to say that we disclaimed that this was not everybody's homeschool experience. I think I said something like, I'm sure there's people out there that everybody's homeschool experience. I think I said something like, I'm sure there's people out there that got good homeschool experiences. What we were talking about is a specific story. So we were talking about this story in particular, which is the people who had,

you know, what's a water spout. It's two dry ducks or a playground or whatever the fuck it was. Like it was like, and you know, like, I know you're, you're bagging on me for going to public school or whatever, but I will tell you right now, I never, ever, ever in my life had a, had a question that easy on anything I've ever done. There's never been a question. I mean, you could fall down and, you know, hit the right spot on the Scantron on that one. That's so easy.

So, you know, uh, those people were clearly being, uh, given a curriculum that was very substandard, and that's what we were talking about. So if we said – we didn't say the entirety of homeschooling. We specifically disclaimed it wasn't the entirety of homeschooling. But if you took offense, we did not mean to offend you because, like we said, there are some people out there that do have a good homeschooling experience and learn a lot. Because like we said, there are some people out there that do have a good homeschooling experience and learn a lot. I also just want to say that I did not decide my degree in philosophy or in new media when I got my bachelor's or my master's. Based on rigor, I did not walk in and think, this is going to be the most rigorous thing I can get. And I didn't pick the guy, the counselor up from behind the desk and be like, I need something really tough. What's the hardest thing you've done, man? I didn't do it. I didn't. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't do that. I basically said,

what am I interested in? And that's what I took. And that's, I think, what people do when they go to college. I don't think anybody goes to be find the most rigorous thing. I also note that you didn't mention what your degree was in. It was in rigor. No, it was just a fucking degree in rigor. That's great. Yeah, well, that's a good degree. That's a good degree. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, thanks for your email. I agree the public education system is, in many parts of the country, broken. You are right about that. It is not good in many parts of the country broken you are right about that it is not good in many parts of the country i would argue however that the public education system is at the very least a system yeah as opposed to homeschooling which is not in actuality a system but just a yeah i'm homeschooling them. Yep. And that's pretty much it.

That's so true. I know people that are being homeschooled. And as a kid, I was actually homeschooled for a year. And what happened when I went back to school was I was held back a year. So. Yeah, you can get a great education with the right parent homeschooling you and the right materials and the right resources and the right access to other specialists and experts. The problem with homeschooling isn't that it can't be done well. It's just that it's not a system. So it's piecemeal.

system. So it's piecemeal. Maybe it's done great in the house at 123 Main Street, and maybe it's done for shit at the house at 456 Elm Street. But there's nobody checking. There's nobody knocking on the door. Public school systems also are not very good sometimes, but there are a lot of people checking. You also have access in public school systems to special education resources. My son is being screened for speech deficits that he may have. I got an evaluation from his teacher just the other day, as a matter of fact. That's a special education resource that's available to me that is a resource I do not possess as a non-speech pathologist. So the public school system certainly has some things going for them. We could argue back and forth, but we're not going to. And again, we didn't say that every

homeschooler is for shit, but I'll tell you what, the homeschool curriculum we talked about from that story is certainly for shit. And it's actually probably worse than nothing. I do also want to address when you say before claiming the public education system is so much better than a person can achieve on their own, at least have a degree that means something. I think there are a lot of people with philosophy degrees, Peter Boghossian, for example, who would argue that his degree is meaningful. I think there are a lot of people with English degrees that would argue that their degrees were meaningful. I felt mine was very meaningful, which is why I got it. So not sure what the – do you only have to get a degree in what you approve of? What you have to do is you have to send this guy an email and what you, and if he approves your

degree, then he'll, he'll contact the registrar and then you can get into that school based on whether or not he thinks it's meaningful. Yeah. If Tyler likes it. It's got to be Tyler approved. And then if Tyler approves, then you can get it. So, yeah. Thanks for that. Cool email, though. I got to ask, are you mad, bro?

Also, I'm going to send this back corrected, by the way. I'm going to correct it. It would be awesome to red pen this thing. Yeah, I'm going to send this back corrected, by the way. I'm going to correct it. It would be awesome to red pen this thing and ship it back to him. Yeah, fucking red pen your email. We received a really nice email from Ian. Ian said that he got a $25 iTunes gift card last Christmas, but unfortunately, it's only redeemable in the U.S. And he's like, I don't know any Americans.

So you guys are it. So he sent the card code to us. So thank you very much, Ian. That's very nice of you to do. It was very nice of you. Thank you very much for doing that. And thanks for thinking of us as the only Americans on your list. I know. I feel special. I feel special. It's awesome. We got an interesting email from Henry. Henry sends an image. And I'm not going to spoil the image because it's funny. So you'll have to go to this episode, episode 130 of Cognitive Dissonance on DissonancePod.com, and you'll be able to see his image. His image will be gracing this episode.

So thank you, Henry, for sending it in. This last week, the reason why this show is relatively short is because this last week we recorded with Ross from Skeptically Challenged as well as Gio from Geologic. He's having a solstice episode that's coming out on the 24th that I think I'm going to be. I hope he edits it well because I tried to be funny in it and it didn't work at all. So I hope it's my sincere hope that he edits very well uh if not it's going to be absolutely cringe worthy uh but uh but it's going to be out there in the in the in the uh in the internet world and you'll be able to catch it next week you'll be able to catch it but we'll we'll have a short show this week for us and then you can listen to ross's

show with tom myself and, and Gio as the guests. We talked about a whole bunch of stuff and somebody was talking about Atheist Christmas to us, Tom. They said, you should probably try to do that. Well, we actually talked about Atheist Christmases and Christmassy stuff on this particular episode. So hopefully people will be able to tune it in. Yeah, it's worth your time. If you've not checked out his show, do so. Take a visit over there, support another podcast. Gio is his usual awesome, incredible erudite self. So if you don't go for us, go for Gio and Ross. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. So that wraps it up for this week. We will be back with another show before the new year. And we're hoping, you know,

there's a couple of people we're looking to have on in the future. One person we're looking to have on is no illusions in the future. We're also looking to have on if we can ever get the time to read his thing, we're going to have Sean Faircloth on. So there's a couple of people here and there that are going to be on in the future, but definitely check out Ross's show. And 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-qu, 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 our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives employers, friends, families

or of the local dairy council. He called Phil Robertson, that's the Duck Dynasty guy, the Rosa Parks of our generation. Keep going. That's going to go on the fucking reel at the end. I know it. 40 fucking sneezes in a row. I'm allergic to all the work of the podcast all the work holding you up

oh shitty