Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 131: A Giant Circle Jerk of Prophecy

Episode Date: December 30, 2013

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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 131. This is the post Christmas food coma episode. I'm still recovering from the food coma episode for us. Because if I'm not eating, I'm in a food coma. If you're not eating, it's only because at the moment your esophagus will not take anymore. Like you've packed your stomach to the point where you've got that horrifying like, uh-oh, I filled my actual esophagus with food. That's not – It's like when you used to fill up your gas tank and you used to click, click, click,

click, click until it got all the way up to the top. That's what I do with food every time I eat it. Your body's like, do not top off, do not top off. Like, fuck it. God damn it, I said $20 when I went in there. I'm getting all $20 into this tank. Not 1993.

That's awesome. Howdy, folks. This is your conservative candidate, Sid Miller, running for Texas Ag Culture Commissioner. To all my Christian brothers and sisters out there, I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas. To all my Jewish friends, I hope you had a happy Hanukkah. To all the folks out there that are atheists, good luck. Merry Christmas and have a happy, happy, happy new year. So Cecil this first story comes from the Friendly Atheist blog.

This guy's running for elected office in Texas. So he just trashed atheists in his latest campaign ad. Texas Republican Sid Miller is running to become the state's agricultural commissioner. It's a big race down in Texas. Big deal, I'm guessing. So I like the the wording here he has to beef up his conservative credentials i think he beefs him up just with the hat and the shit-eating grin he's got in that photo oh yeah look at that guy look at that

i would hire this man boss hog doesn't he look like he totally does like i saw this and i immediately jumped into a charger through the window like i don't even own one so they were a little surprised when I jumped in there. But I just flashed a picture of this guy, and they're like, understood. And we jumped over a crick. It was great. Yeah.

There's like a Yahoo. Some girl wore short pants. It was great. It was awesome. It was a lifetime experience. I do like in the video that he's he's being sincere and you can tell that he's sincere because he's flashing his shiny ass dome and holding his fucking 37 gallon hat to his chest respectfully that's how you know a man from texas is being

sincere right when you take off the hat and you hold it to your chest. That's a symbol that your heart is about to explode and you're going to catch it in your hat. That's how sincere you're being right now. Right. You're just keeping it in there. You're making sure. It's like sincerity like a fucking chestburster. That's what it is. Why do atheists need luck?

Are atheists more likely to gamble? Is that whyists need luck? Are atheists more likely to gamble? Is that why we need luck? I don't understand why we need luck. Is he going to give us a head start before he pulls his sidearm? What's the luck for? That's a good question, right? Because it's like, to my atheist friends, good luck. Well, wait a minute.

If you're right, I don't think this is determined by luck right there's no luck involved if there is luck involved then i guess i'll just turn the table back on you you're like good luck to you too 10 gallon no kidding right what he's saying you know what he's really saying right i mean like let's cut the bullshit what he's saying is is to all the folks out there that are Christian, Merry Christmas to all my Jewish friends, happy Hanukkah, and to all the atheists, enjoy hell. That's what he's really saying. He's not saying good luck, ha ha ha, good luck. He's saying enjoy hell because you don't believe in something and therefore you're going to go to hell. And it's like, okay, cool. I don't care when people tell me I'm going to go to hell. Like, it doesn't bother me at all when somebody's like, you're going to go to hell. And it's like, okay, cool. I don't care when people tell me I'm going to go to hell.

It doesn't bother me at all when somebody's like, you're going to go to hell. I'll be like, awesome. Well, you're going to go to Santa's workshop. I know, right? Good. Enjoy it. Fuck, I hope you like candy canes because you're going to get a lot of them. You're going to have to stand at the glory hole and suck a candy cane all day.

It would be more of a threat if somebody was like, you're going to go to Cincinnati. Be like, yeah, more likely. Right. You'd be like, OK, that's at least possible. And it's equally horrible. Like I've been there. I mean, it's just sort of. Oh, when do I get to leave?

Never. Yeah. Never. No, I'm stuck in Cincy. I swing over to Dayton for a day trip. No, nothing. I get Cincy forever. Can I swing over to Dayton for a day trip? No? Nothing? I get nothing.

Fuck. God. Indianapolis is a short trip. No? I can't swing over the river to Louisville or something? No? No. No, sorry.

You know, there's a church right down the street from me that says something like, Atheists, you better pray you're right. And I'm always like, you don't understand how this works all right no kidding right it's like yeah and you better evidence you're right so get on that it's and it's funny because it's actually like um uh all things considered it's a reasonably uh liberal church like they have like the right yeah the sign that has you know the rainbow flag and it says like all people are welcome here and you know yeah yeah so all things considered it's not they're just like making a tongue-in-cheek joke right like sure you know

and i think that's aimed at people who are on the fence you know that's the only way that that because these are directed messages these are these are messages for people who are like oh man maybe i do believe because i'm scared of going to hell. Because that's why you should believe in something. That's why my child loves me. That's how you know love is worth having, Cecil. Well, I'll tell you. That's why he's probably good around Christmas, though.

Right? You know what I mean? Like, let's look at the Santa myth, and you could see some clear evidence for that. I mean, it's just just like better be good or santa's gonna not bring you fucking a million things but okay i guess i'll be good you know what i mean like it's just right it's it's it's what it's a way in which to coerce someone to to do something by telling them a myth and we have millions of those things and christianity just happens to be one we didn't drop i don don't know why. But I think it's a reasonable thing to do to withhold your love

until somebody loves you more first. That's definitely the way to do it. Isn't that what you're doing? By saying, like, if you don't love me, you'll go to hell? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to withhold my love

until you love me first more. But then I'll squeeze you super tight. It'll be awesome. It is awesome. It's like a five-year-old logic. I mean, it really is like five-year-old logic. I'm Raymond Massey, and I have a special message for senior citizens. Today's doctors, drugs, and medical devices

truly work medical miracles for young and old alike. But there are some as phony as a $3 bill. Investigate before you invest in health services or products. Help stamp out quackery. So this story comes from NiagaraFallsReview.ca. I'll stick to muggle science, thanks. This is an editorial piece by Grant LaFleche from The Standard. And this story is about how naturopaths are fighting to try to get the ability to order medical tests and prescribe powerful medicines.

Despite their total inability to do so. I actually am going to fight the same fight for people in real estate. I want to be able to order medical tests. Real estate? Well, I just want to be able to order MRIs. Like somebody comes in for a closing and I want to be like, oh, I'm going to have to do an MRI. Maybe a CAT scan. Let me see what kind of insurance you have.

I don't know that real estate is as good an analogy. I think what we could say is, let's say, engineers. Because according to this article, the people do go through hours and hours, thousands of hours of training is what they said, thousands of hours of training. And that seems like a lot of training. It's like, okay, that seems like a lot of training. But they're learning how to do things that are either just complete bunk, because they're learning how to do homeopathy, which is what you're learning how to do what. But I'm sure they're learning other things that are total bunk, right?

Right. Necessarily, they don't have anything to do with medicine. So you're basically learning something that doesn't have anything to do with the thing that you want the power to give to other people. That doesn't – I mean it really makes so little sense that they would even want this power that I just don't understand. I mean, they clearly want it so that they can, they can, you know, break into, you know, giving people prescription drugs so that they can make money. They're clearly want to make money. They want to be the only provider. They don't want to just be an alternative provider. They want to be the only provider of things.

provider they want to be the only provider of things well isn't it funny because for such a long time you know the two like the two scopes of practice i don't even like using that terminology because you know this is not even practicing medicine you're giving it a legitimacy it doesn't deserve but you know the one has been diametrically opposed to the other right so the the uh alternative medicine people are always telling you about how you know oh my god you took uh you know prednisone you're gonna you know your balls are gonna fall off and your eyeballs will explode you're gonna forget everything tomorrow and it's not even once come on it's like you may as well fucking drink crocodile straight like it's that bad like just they're a bitch to get down you gotta you gotta really but you know what i mean like they're

always telling you like this crazy shit and then they'll tell you that they've got like the magic cure of like vibrational spooky water or whatever you know like at some point this water you know had a are you familiar with with homeopathy uh yeah yeah where they have like the vibrations like the it's like you take the the water right and then you play the beach boys good vibrations very loudly but it's got to be through good speakers so that's that's an important key and then the good vibrations get stuck in the water and then but they're diluted. Right. Because otherwise that shit would be too much to handle.

Come on now. Nobody can drink that. You'd basically take that glass of water and turn it into a big tall glass of Sunkist if you did that. It's like a fucking nuclear reaction in there. You got to be careful, which is why you have to put it in Pyrex. So any other kind of glass. It's got to be that borosilicate glass yeah very specific yeah so i mean it's a science i mean this is like a legit science there's even a test tube uh like in the background of some of the images so that's how you know sure maybe like pipettes are involved so they what they what they literally do is they put a drop of something in of it, right?

And then they add like the entire ocean worth of water. How do they keep – they basically take a drop of it, put it in a container of water. Then they take a drop of that and put it in a container or a different container of water, and they keep doing that over and over, right? Yeah, because they have to dilute it until there's no more of the thing left and all there is is like the energy of the thing ah the energy and the theory is like an energon cube from transformers or something dude it's just it's just fucking total bullshit you know what i mean it's like i mean at some point what are you not ingesting? If you're ingesting everything that was once nearish, the water that you're close to maybe drinking at some point. I mean, it's like then it has the all of it in it.

It just has the fucking all of it. Like on a fucking atom by atom level, like this atom has probably been at some point fucking breathed out by Napoleon. Like am I now going to be cured of napoleon disease or something like it's just crazy like it's just it'd be like it'd be like being an alchemist right when you're like i can turn lead to gold and then later you're like but also i would like to buy your gold you're like well what do you want to buy my gold for you can just make gold right like you have the cure. Very true.

You have homeopathy. You've got the cure for all of it. Yeah. So why do you want to sell me medicine that's not this? Like if this medicine is the cure for everything, what in the world do you want to have a test? Why would you even do tests? What would you test for?

Just have a glass of water. Like that's the medicine for all of it. Yeah, no, that's a really good point because, you know, like you said earlier, they have been diametrically opposed to these other doctors for years and years and years. They've been – that's what they do. They just – they demonize regular tradition. I don't even know what you call it, just medicine. Let's just call it medicine. Medicine. They demonize medicine and they praise alternative therapies

and alternative ways in which to distribute medicine. So they love the homeopathy. They talk about chiropractors. They talk about fucking acupuncture, Reiki, all that stuff. All that stuff is legitimate. And the regular medicine is not legitimate it's big pharma or whatever they want to you know whatever they're however they're going to demonize it is what they're going to demonize it but what you know it it makes it makes no sense that they

would want to because now it seems like you're basically giving credence to the thing that you've been fighting against for so long and you're're basically saying, yeah, well, that works and I'm going to prescribe it to you. Well, why do you want to? That's, that's a totally valid point. Um, I, you know, a homeopathy is just one thing that a naturopath does. They do all kinds of other stuff. I don't know what the depth of their knowledge is, but you know, I think it's, it's never a good idea to let someone, you know someone in a field that should be so highly regulated like medicine, to let them in just like with a fucking prescription book in their hand and just be like, I can fucking do whatever I want. Like that seems like a really bad idea. so since the list next story comes from appropriately enough cairo tv.com chiropractors head to haiti dominican republic a team of 68 chiropractors from around the world

is headed to haiti in the dominican Republic for 10 days to provide humanitarian relief. No actual relief to be provided. Oh my god. They're chiropractors. Can you imagine showing up in Haiti and like somebody's like, I need a food and a medicine. You're like, oh yeah. But maybe it's subluxations

from the earthquake that shook your spine out of joint. No. Maybe it's i'm hungry no that's not a thing yeah right that's not a thing that happened yeah they were doing with this homeopathy too there was like homeopathy people that were going to go over there a while back and now they're sending chiropractors over you know just take the weight of the chiropractors and give them tools be like here's hammers here's a bag of fucking hammers that is so much more useful and it's rare that somebody says you're less useful than a bag of hammers you know what i mean right yeah and not be ironic or like

fucking with you it's like it's actually no it's actually better just to have a bag of hammers. No, it'd be fucking super, super useful. You know, that place is still devastated. You know, there's a lot of earthquake stuff that is still not done. You know what needs to happen over there? There's a bunch of different places that you can microloan to Haiti and to like, you know, that's what needs to happen.

That's a great way to help bring that economy up is to microloan over there. I know that there's a couple of ones that are specific to Haiti, but also Kiva, I'm sure, works over there. There are some ways in which you can get those people funds to do good work over there, and then they pay back. And one of those best parts about that, like Kiva and stuff, is they pay it back. And then it's 25 bucks or whatever that you donate. And then you're like, okay, well I'm going to loan it to somebody else now because it's paid back. I could take it out if I wanted. I could just put my money in there and be like,

I'm going to take it out. I'm just going to take it back. No, you don't have to. You can, you know, keep on giving it out and giving it out and giving it out. And then more and more people get a chance to utilize those funds. That's a good way in which to, you know, grow a place that's been devastated like that, where people want to work, et cetera, instead of sending these people over there. Cause chiropractic does nothing. It's like, I mean, it literally does nothing. It may actually harm you. There's people who've been injured by chiropractors, had their necks broken, have had their, you know, I mean, and I'm not like DJ growthy, right. I'm, I'm covering my tracks here by saying, I'm not saying a chiropractor did it. I'm saying there are

chiropractors that have done it. Right. So I just, I feel like, you know, this is a bad call. It's, it's, you know, you're not doing any kind of like help at all. And instead you're just, you're sending over somebody who's just going to be like, okay, lay down for a little bit. I'm going to touch your back. Okay. Now squeeze your now squeeze your legs cracky cracky time to go back to work and shovel up some rubble rubble rubble the um you know i will say that this group is bringing food assistance sure just bring the food which is great like that's great and the group that's going also sponsors an orphanage um for for children of parents who died in the earthquake. That's also good work.

Like that's great work. But don't go. Like every dollar you spend on yourself to get on the plane, to fly to Haiti, to get off the plane, to eat a food, to put yourself up, like that's money that could be spent helping people. I appreciate that they're bringing food over there. I do. I appreciate that they're setting up an orphanage. But just don't waste your fucking limited resources on nonsense. That's the thing.

I mean like I'm sure that's the issue you've got. I mean just stop doing that. These people don't need your pet projects. I'm so sick of when like some some tragedy occurs somewhere in the world you know like a fucking typhoon or a hurricane or a tsunami or an earthquake or whatever it is and everybody fucking dusts off their pet projects so they can polish their dick in some you know part of the world that needs the help so they can fly back and and tout what a good fucking person they are.

It's just garbage. It's nonsense. It's fucking mean-spirited. You're doing it, you know, maybe I'm being a total dick, but I can't help but think that there is at least a significant portion of this is ego-based. Sure, it's all PR and ego. That's it. Yeah, you know, you want to go so you can and you know part of me also thinks it's a little bit of fucking inferiority complex because you know every

every fucking chiropractor i've ever met calls themselves doctor and they would not be welcome at doctors without borders no so part of me thinks that they're just like well then i'll be a chiropractor without borders you know we'll go do some good and it's like yeah you know what the doctors without borders fucking reject your application for a reason yeah well and you know the other thing too is like how are you going to get these guys to come back for a second visit to pay for your boat payment there's no way you're going to be able to you're not going to be able to string these people along these are not people you're going to be able to get any money out of chiropractors just stay in the really rich neighborhoods with people with excess money and not enough brains.

That's where you need to stay. So we're going to take a short break, give you some information, some valuable, valuable information, and then we're going to come back and talk about some really hilarious stuff. No actual value to the information implied. No hilarity implied.

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Elf Highway Blockade. The fuck. The actual fuck, Cecil. The fuck. Actual fuck, Cecil. The fuck. Evidently, if you're trying to build a fucking highway in Iceland, you can be stopped by elves. Elves.

Now, here in the States, we had a similar problem with the Ents, but we just cut them down because those are trees and not actual walking about magic creatures. With the Ents. But we just cut them down. Because those are trees. And not actual walking about magic creatures. Right. So until Legolas shows up and starts fucking arrowing a few construction workers. That would be awesome if he did. I think we have very little to worry. You know, I've seen a lot of Lord of the Rings movies.

The elves can fucking take care of themselves like can you imagine if you try to build if you like try to pull some fucking eminent domain shit unlike legolas's house like what they'd be like really i'm fucking 600 years old super fast and kind of like made of knives. Made of knives. Are you kidding me? Whenever I hear elves, though, I don't think of like the Lord of the Rings elves. I think of like Will Ferrell in that movie where he's dressed like an elf. Like, that's what I think of.

Elf. It's like a Christmas elf. Like, that's an elf. Like, the elves from the other movies or whatever, it's like, oh, that's too new. That's like, you know, this's like, oh, that's too new. That's like this last century, somebody thought that shit up. This is like old-timey, weird Christmas.

Actually, they thought the same thing up last century with Santa Claus or whatever, but who cares? Just bear with me on this. No, I just think of old, like the fucking Christmas elves. At some point, when you said the elf from Will Ferrell,

I'm just picturing how friendly he was. He'd be like hey are you guys destroying my home yeah cool can i help he'd be like riding the bulldozer with a fucking shit-eating grin on his face like oh yeah i fucking trashed my family home i don't understand how a civilized people can actually look at this and be like, well, we do need the highway. Gosh. Ooh, but there is the problem of the magic creatures no one can see. But I want to point out that brings me to my favorite paragraph from this article. So the project is, some feel that the elf thing is a bit annoying, said Andre Schneer Magnensen, a prominent...

Schneer! I think I nailed that, by the way. I love it. Schneer! I don't know, it's an A and an E. There's an A and an E together. They probably make an F sound. I don't know what the snuggle letters do.

Snuggle letters? I'm not sure why there's no space between them. Well, that's awesome. You need another fucking thing. Don't we have enough things? What the fuck is wrong with you? Anyway. A prominent Icelandic environmentalist says this is the best part.

However, I got married in a church with a god just as invisible as the elves yeah so what might seem irrational is actually quite common and i i like that he points out that the elves are as irrational as god but then i also sort of like that he's saying like hey if it's common then it must be rational that's totally true like wait a minute you guy yeah that's not how that works this is this is weird because it's like you know what's what's probably going to happen is is i don't know if we have an icelandic listener okay maybe we do but um if they if if somebody sends us an email they might say something like that this group, this Friends of Lava, which is what they're called, is a tiny little group

that somehow convinced the government not to build this road. Sure. I'm sure they are. That's, because probably, like, if you go through and, like, ask all the people in Iceland if they give a shit about an elf, whether or not, you know, like, it's like either put them to work or get

them off my road. Those are your two fucking options. You options you know what i mean like that's what would happen over here hell people would be out hunting them over here are you kidding me i'd get a fucking elf license you get it like an elf tag you go out with antlers without well it's not antlers it's it's how big their ears are so you want to get like a you know you get the buck and he's got like a six inch ears and you're just like, man, I got these six inch ears last year. Hang them on your wall, open letters with them. You know, a lot of times we look overseas and we're all like, man, they're awesome. Good ideas about all these different things.

Then you're like, wait, you're not building a road because of elves? What? You're supposed to be more progressive. Progress past the elves. You can't build quarries because of the dwarves. There's so many things you can't do. You can't build. You can't fly

because of the dragons. I like that they're friends of the lava. I bet that was a real popular group after the fucking volcanoes. Oh, I know. Like, super popular group. Everyone's looking over at the friends of the lavaava. I bet that was a real popular group after the fucking volcanoes. Oh, I know. Like, super popular group. Everyone's looking over at the Friends of the Lava like, really? You couldn't tell them not to do that? Maybe you could fucking call your friends and tell them to settle the fuck down.

Do you ever see the name of that fucking volcano? Oh, it's awesome. You ever hear the NPR stories where they pronounce it? Uh-uh. It's fucking awesome. Because you know that they practice that in the mirror the morning before like girflaggafnigibjibaggabig like whatever the fuck that thing is called that's what it's called no you nailed it that's it i think i did that's exactly yeah i'm gonna

look that up real quick because it's like 77 letters long and like they're all consonants you totally need to buy a vowel you gotta call pat sajak iceland volcano name oh no it's full of vowels oh my god oh there's a listen to it i think i got it it's yokel isn't it yokel at the end isn't that how you say yokel he basically he sounds like he's like he's fucking it sounds like he has to puke a little in your mouth it sounds like he has to like his tonsils are fighting when he's saying it yeah man that's just fucking crazy like that's like the name of a sword in a fucking fantasy novel right where your brain won't even try to like when i see words like that my brain just

like i'm gonna recognize the basic shape of that word. Yeah, me too. When I'm reading a book, and it's like, oh, and the name of the sword was King of Burgers. And you're like, yeah, whatever, dude. That's great. I'm not even going to pay. I'm not even going to try to pronounce it. When people's names are longer than, like, eight characters, I'm just like, that's P.

You know what I mean? Yeah, right. Fucking go get them, P. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. you know right uh fucking go get them p yeah that sounds like a good plan what up dog volcano in iceland yeah it's actually shorter just to say that iceland volcano that blew up a while ago in 2010 according to the islam quran i think there's a rule in there that if you are a Muslim and you switch to another religion, there is some kind of punishment that's done to you, like beheading or some other type of death. Is this correct? And if so, how does this apply to Obama? And if

so, what should we do about it? What should we do about it? Look, obviously the situation of Barack Obama's religion is much vexed and very murky, probably intentionally so. There are several things about it. His father and his stepfather were Muslims, so yes, according to Islamic law, he's a Muslim. And he identifies himself as a Christian now, which would technically make him an apostate. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, said anybody changes his religion, that is, leaves Islam, kill him. And so the death penalty for apostasy from Islam is also

something that's taught by all the sects and all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. There's not one that doesn't teach it. and yet nobody in the muslim world you notice is ever calling for barack obama to be executed as an apostate now with so many hotheads and firebrands and uh hard liners you would think that somebody would say that unless maybe they know something. This story comes from Right Wing Watch. Trent Frank agrees, and so it must be settled, that Obama is either a secret Muslim or just acting like one. Well, then there you go, Cecil. Trent Frank agrees. And a man with two first names agreeing on such an important topic lends tremendous credibility

right and his name his last name is frank that means he's telling the truth right yeah being honest giving it to you straight trent frank with a tough sounding name like trent frank i mean come on that's like hard streets of Arizona. Would Max Power lie to you? Yeah. Max Power. What is the secret, like, is it like a secret society that he belongs to? Like a secret society of Muslims that are like, shh, we're Muslims, but we're not telling anybody we're Muslims. Shh. But we're not telling anybody that we're Muslims. But we are telling the one billion Muslims that we're Muslim.

So we didn't say anything to all the Christians. There's no way that they could get that message to just – I mean that they could broadcast the message to everybody. They have to just tell – there's only a special – there's a special way that you get that message only to the one billion people that are Muslims. Because they all have like those earpieces in from like – they're like secret service people. They all have like the earpieces in and they just touch their ear real quick. With the curly wire behind the ear. They're like agents from the Matrix. Yeah, they're like agents from the Matrix. They touch their ear a little bit and they're like, oh, got a message from Obama.

Hold on. Oh, okay. He's Muslim. Hey, guys. Yeah, that one's cool he's in yeah well well you know the problem is cecil that they started off having a secret handshake uh but they cut off so many hands that ended up just being a stump bump right that's what you gotta to do. It was. Yeah. Yeah.

Fucking sure. A stump bump. Sure. Although in some Muslim countries, you could get your head cut off for that. You just want to be careful. Well, that's a stump bump of a different kind. It is. It is.

It's different. And it happens in the men's bathroom. One, you know, the argument here is as crazy as possible. The argument here is that Obama's father was a Muslim, which technically makes Obama a Muslim. Which may or may not be true. I don't know if that's true or not. But that's – Obama says he's a Christian. says he's a christian but that doesn't rule out him being a muslim because the muslims believe that christianity is like enfolded within the faith tradition of islam so he can tell you that he's a christian this is this is their logic he can tell you that he's a christian without lying

because i think he's trying to say that all Muslims are Christians, but they're just like in that Venn diagram, you know, like the circle is just eating the other, you know, so it's, they're all sort of, but then I don't know what the purpose of making that distinction then would be and why you would even. I think, I think what he's saying, Tom, let me see if I can parse it out. I don't that i can but um and i'm you know i may actually be you know partially insane after i'm done your brain yeah i just like like part of my brain just leaves it's just like i'm not here anymore you just can't use me i'm not letting you not like it yields me use use it anyway but um the i think what he's saying is is that because uh islam has roots in both judaism and christianity they can say something like i'm a christian but what they're really

saying is i i'm a christian i understand the christian principles through the Muslim religion is what he said. I gotcha. Does that make sense? I mean, I don't know if it does. It doesn't really make sense. But I mean, if I were religious, maybe it would, I guess. I don't know. But I just, I mean, I just, I just, I think it's ridiculous to think like, you know, you

take, you're, you're taking other people on their word of what they say they are, right? When nobody's asking Pat Robertson, nobody's saying on their side, like, yeah, well, Pat Robertson says he's a Christian, but is he a Christian? Is he really a Christian? It's like, you take his word for it. He says, I'm a Christian. And you say, okay, good, you're a Christian. Nobody's saying, is Richard Dawkins really an atheist? Is he really an atheist? No, you're like, Richard Dawkins says he's an atheist. He's an atheist. But for some reason, for at this point now, in 2013, we've been hearing President Obama for, what, five years say, I am a Christian.

And we still don't believe him, why don't we believe him? Because it's convenient and it's a good way to demonize him because there's obviously, there's a tie with Muslims and terrorism in our country, but also there's, you know, there's been, you know, problems with us attacking them and back and forth. so it's a great way to demonize him it's a great way to say he's in cahoots well doesn't explain all the drone strikes he's the worst fucking friend of the muslim ever like he's just a terrible friend of the muslims like just just awful he's just terrible at it you're really not good at being part of this you know the the funny thing to me though is that he's using the logic

like this is like a christian guy right who's saying because his argument is that because obama's father was a muslim and in the islamic tradition that makes the children Muslim, then that makes Obama Muslim, right? But in order to adhere to that, I have to believe in the Islamic faith traditions practices. So he's using the faith of the enemy, of his enemy, of something that he perceives in a threatening way obviously the speaker is so he's saying like yes if you are an are you you know you are muslim and this is what you believe and he's using that and saying like so then it must be true but that's the only part of it that he'll admit to being true you know what i mean he's not he's not saying like all of islam is true he's just saying like

this part is true because it's rhetorically convenient to me to twist this logic around and create like definition where definition doesn't exist if we don't get to define our own religious practices and religious beliefs then there is simply no point in having them. Like there's no point in even having a conversation about religion. If religion isn't – if religion is just a cultural heritage, then I'm Methodist, Cecil. Right. I'm Catholic Lutheran. Right. Because I have to be both evidently.

Well, does it come from your dad or does it come from your mom? Well, I don't know. I mean, that's the thing, right? Because if you're Jewish, it comes from mom. Because if it's Obama, right, wasn't his mom Christian or whatever? Like, his mom wasn't. So, you know, which one is it? Do you have to Thunderdome the books and see which one comes out ahead? No, you have to Thunderdome your parents. What, are you kidding me? Well, maybe you just, maybe we should just internationally outlaw interfaith marriage. Yeah. And that way—

That's true. That's true. We won't have to wrestle with these thorny issues of bullshit. I think if we Thunderdome my parents, my mom would totally win. All she has to do is sneeze, and my dad would just be blown away. No. Because he's ashes. See, that's the joke.

It's funny because he's dead. That's terrible. That's ashes. See, that's the joke. It's funny because he's dead. That's terrible. That's terrible. 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. So as we approach the end of the 2013 calendar year, it's only right, Cecil, that we take a moment and look back and reflect on the kind of year that it has been. And thankfully, the folks at Right Wing Watch are going to help us with this. There are two lists that we have to talk about. We would be terribly remiss to miss. The first one is This Year in Homophobia, the 10 worst anti-LGBT stories of 2013.

So 2013 was actually a pretty good year for progress in the LGBT community and across the United States. Illinois, Cecil, our home state. Yes, our home state. Finally got on board after its fucking limp dick flaccid attempt to, you know, got the civil union bullshit a few years back you remember that and then uh finally went you know all the way penetration with the uh same-sex marriage so fucking about time right right um but not everybody's on the bandwagon and uh there's 10 of them here see so some of these we've talked about yeah some of them we talked about and i i mean i'm going to talk about my favorite one that we talked about and that's pat of them here, Cecil. Some of these we've talked about. Yeah, some of them we talked about. And I mean, I'm going to talk about my favorite one

that we talked about, and that's Pat Robertson, who lives in fear of getting AIDS from rings. Evidently, these gay people have these rings that have a little bit of blood, I guess, dried blood, or maybe just some of their own blood or something, where they prick you with the ring and they give you aids when they shake your hand because nobody noticed when they're being stabbed by like a thumbtack nobody notices how would you notice that right yeah and these rings are for gay

people they're like green lanterns rings but they can't really create anything green out and you know forget it actually come to think of it they're not like green lantern rings at all they are more like those secret society rings you remember those secret society rings that these to poison people what they open like the top oh yeah right but instead they just hold anti-retrovirals like that's that's all they hold inside of there you know some of these are just so absurd that that reading through them like your my mind just shudders. It's just like my brain actually shakes within its case. Like I'm just, it's horrifying.

One of the ones that I want to talk about is the Boy Scouts. This is just awesome. So the Boy Scouts of America, you know, revised its long-standing ban on openly gay uh members so you know finally it's okay to be a gay boy scout it only took like 60 fucking years or something to be on board um and of course everybody exploded on the right that was you know this was like this was like their their like bastion of uh wholesome goodness this was like their bastion of wholesome goodness. This was like fucking apple pie and Pinewood Derby. You cannot touch this. And they thought on the anti-religious right, they said this would,

the Boy Scouts of America's new policy would lead people to Satan and the end times, while others compared gay rights advocates to terrorists, serial killers, and cannibals. The head of the Southern Baptist Convention even suggested that openly gay scouts could trigger a nuclear, and this is my favorite, attack by North Korea because of the Boy Scouts. Well, yeah. Come on. Don't be ridiculous.

What the actual fuck like kim jong-un's like oh don't tell me did the americans allow gay boy scout members oh shit wipe them off the like fucking start launching our nuclear weapons but sir we're grossly mismatched in a nuclear confrontation we're gonna get annihilated fucking immediately if we were to do i don't care it's worth it if there's one gay boy scout several thousand miles away in a foreign country that's enough for me to just one i will not allow this well we will slaughter every man woman and child to prevent this what the fuck what are you talking about i want to talk quickly i know we're going to move past this relatively quickly just so the

listeners can go and read this on their own but um that woman that cindy jacobs woman the one's like i'll just make it spaghetti one day like that lady um she's talking in here and then we played this on the show this year but it was talking about blaming gay people for natural disasters or whatever. And she's talking about where she got a message from God where he just said, duck your head, duck your head. Evidently, that's exactly what he said. But, you know, what I wonder first, why isn't God more specific when he calls up and says, duck your head? Why doesn't he be like, duck your head on Tuesday in New York? You know what I mean?

Like, why isn't he more specific? But also, it seems like she's on a panel of people who all are like prophecy people that are all talking to God. And it boggles my mind that all these people can kind of get along. And I, I, I feel the exact same way about alt medicine, right? Like you get the homeopathy guy who's like totally cool with the chiropractor, who's totally cool with the, um, the guy who does Reiki therapy, who's totally, you know what I mean? Like, it seems like you should be at odds because you're basically saying the stuff I do works.

I don't know about any of that other shit is what they need to say, or I don't believe in any of that other shit and you shouldn't believe in it either. But instead they're not doing that. They're like, only stuff that actually works doesn't work, but stuff that doesn't work, ah, well, that's good stuff. That's okay.

We're all in the same camp. And I feel the same way here. I'm just like, what if one of these people says something and then this Cindy Jacobs lady who's so busy making fucking print spaghetti on Wednesday night is like, well, I disagree and I think this other thing. And I talk to God too. this other thing and i i talk to god too like how do they fucking do they have like a fucking secret message board where they all get together and they're just like look i want to make sure that everybody goes to my website to donate this weekend so make sure i get you know what you mean like it just feels weird when you're all saying i have a direct line to this imaginary being you know i but but part of me says like all their rhymes anyway. You know what I mean?

It doesn't – because there's no – I mean there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. There's no evidence. It's not like they're actually talking to God and coming back and being sincere about it and saying, oh, well, God told me that the cure for cancer was X. No, fuck that. No, God would never say that. No, God instead says, you know, duck, but not on Thursday. You know, like it's all this nonspecific fucking jargon. It's why, you know, it's sort of like why you can tell a Pisces and an Aries

who live in the same house and fucking travel together two totally different pieces of travel news, and they'll both decide they were right. You know what I mean? Like, now is a great time for travel you should fucking stay home more oh we went on a staycation it was great oh yeah we went to the museum that was some traveling you know what i mean like yeah it like all their bullshit is so non-specific yeah and open to interpretation it's like who fucking cares like they're all on a panel like supporting each other it's a giant fucking circle jerk of prophecy it's a giant circle jerk of prophecy you just

name this episode just so you know you just named this episode awesome and you know there doesn't mean that there aren't groups of people in this country that uh you know that i have sympathy for i do and there are kids that were brought into this country by I have sympathy for. I do. And there are kids that were brought into this country by their parents unknowing that they were breaking the law. And they will say to me and others who defend the rule of law, we have to do something about the 11 million. And some of them are valedictorians. Well, my answer to that is, and by the way, their parents brought them in. It wasn't their fault. It's true in some cases, but they aren't all valedictorians.

They weren't all brought in by their parents. For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another hundred out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. So Cecil, this next list comes from eight of 2013's worst xenophobic leaders. 2013 was not such a bang-up year for immigration. Immigration really didn't take off. Immigration bills were proposed to actually work on some of the immigration issues in this country.

Nothing fucking happened, of course, because we couldn't pass fucking legislation if it was gas in this country. It's ridiculous. But there's some nativists, I think they're calling them here. Some of the worst xenophobic leaders identified for us on this list. Cecil, what was your favorite? My favorite is number five, Phyllis.

To hear Phyllis talk, she sounds like an angry fucking grandma who hates everything that isn't white. And when you listen to her talk, and I'm not saying that's how Phyllis is. Maybe she is. Maybe she isn't. But she certainly sounds like it when she talks. And I'm going to play a clip of Phyllis right now, because you just, I mean, you just can't not listen to what this woman has to say. One of the big issues here is the Republicans trying to figure out a way to connect with Hispanics. And President Bush did it. But what is your suggestion for them? Well, I think that's a great myth, because the Hispanics who come in like this are going to vote Democrat. And there is not a slightest bit of evidence that they're going to vote Republican.

And the people the Republicans should reach out to are the white votes that they white voters who didn't vote in the last election. And there are millions of them. You know, when she's saying like, you know, that's a myth, it's not a myth, lady. Like, it's not a myth. There's plenty of Latino voters that vote conservative. Well, at least there was until you opened your mouth. George Bush did very well.

George W. did very well among Hispanic voters. And really, if you look at a lot of the social issues, like Hispanic voters are really primed in a lot of ways to move to the right. If the right would take a more reasonable stance on immigration, I think they would have a significant voting block within the Hispanic community. This is a primarily conservative catholic community that is a that is a group of people um now granted there's other issues that might lean them democrats so maybe they'd split at the very least because they're also they also tend to be pretty urban um and you know reasonably lower income um so that they're willing to vote for george bush right but i mean like exactly like so some things are going to trump other things

and they're just going to have to because you have a shitty system in our country. We're just like, I'm going to fucking take a dump on two plates and you got to eat one of them. It's like,

well, great. This is the worst. I'm not having dinner at your house ever again. I hope you like corn yesterday. At least there'll be something edible in that. Corn and peanuts.

Corn and peanuts. Crappy in a salad. Oh. Oh oh no i'm in for it better than cheese because cheese is hard to eat you have a high protein diet i'm just saying packed you might want some densely packed fiber in there yeah a little yard cigar for a horror show yeah so yeah i just i feel like you know like okay they're gonna have to pick something so when they pick something they're gonna be like okay well pick something. So when they pick something, they're going to be like, okay, well, pick something. It's – I got to go somewhere. And some issues are going to resonate with them over other issues.

The longer you stand in the way of the Hispanic voting bloc in this country and wave your arms and say, get fucking back where you belong. Right. You're losing more and more and more and more voters. back where you belong, you're losing more and more and more and more voters. So you're fucking burying yourself with that demographic every time you get out there and fucking wave your hate flag. So, you know, this dummy clearly doesn't care. What she wants to do is she wants to go knock on the doors of the people who would have vote conservative and wake them up so that they actually and like fucking bus them to the voting station or whatever right like that's her fucking grand plan is to get new voters not appeal to people differently or change your stance at all you know not we wouldn't want to do that instead we're gonna go fucking rouse

people out of bed well you know that but you you seriously i mean look at this woman and just pause for a moment like this is i mean mean, she is a very old lady. Like, this is like a 35-mile- That's an understatement. I know, right? Like, this is a 35-mile-an-hour drive in blue hair. You know, this is not the future of America. Like, this is barely the future of 2014.

I know. She's not going to have a long future at all. So, I mean, the idea that somebody would turn to this to this woman and say like well you know what's your plan it's like well fucking who cares what your plan is like her plan is buggy whips and model a's that's what her plan oh my gosh she's not she's not really uh in tune with the people uh yeah that's because she's not sure where she's at so yeah she doesn't she still thinks the ice fucking needs to go onto the ice right yeah that's what she thinks yeah that's go get another block of ice from the store from the corner store and while you're there pick me up a pack of cigarettes

i'm seven i don't care get out of you know bang zoom right in the kiss the horse fucking ridiculous my favorite in this one was mark kirkhorian um and because he says that nativists are waging a heroic struggle against ethnic chauvinist groups and their allies in this i love in big business big labor all the big donors big government big education big media big philanthropy big big big big big religion big big big big big religion big big big big big big big big big it's all about big so yeah like all those uh fucking big education those fucking rich fat cat teachers and their powerful lobby and i hate those goddamn philanthropists always going around spending their money to make the world better who the fuck do they think they are big philanthropy

big religion what is big religion religion it's it's just fat religious i heard a bad religion but i've never heard a big religion they must open yeah no it's just fat religious guys that's all it's pretty much just fat religious guys that's all it's pretty much just fat religious people uh i well we're halfway there tom yeah i know halfway there fucking i may as well fucking come to jesus why not here we go i'll be coming to him anyway i we got a special mention um two special mentions michelle b Bachman saying that, uh, that basically Obama won the reelection in part because he gave some undocumented immigrants right to vote. And he totally didn't. It's awesome. Cause you click on the, he didn't. And it goes to Polifact and it's like pants on

fire. Like she's just, she's just sitting there just lying. Like that's what drives me crazy is like, there's no check. There's no balance in the system. She can just be interviewed somewhere and then she could say a blatant fucking lie. And it's always on the last page, the fucking correction. It's never nobody comes out and is like, fucking that was just a lie. She just said a lie. That's not a real thing. I know.

I know, man, but it almost doesn't even matter, you know, because the trick is the game is just say it loud enough and often enough. Yeah. And somebody's going to believe that that's true. And then they're going to repeat it at fucking dinner, and they're going to pass it around the water cooler. Yep. And it's going to go on an email blast, and someone's going to make it to the church bulletin. And soon enough, it's going to be true enough for a lot of people.

going to be true enough for sure for a lot of people um and it's fucking depressing that this is like this should be a responsible citizen of the world michelle bachman yeah shouldn't i mean she should fucking know better this other one too the steve king guy the guy who says that they're going to be walking through the desert with the grapefruit candle he's got like that calf fetish he's like oh man i wish i could lick a sweaty Latino's calves. The drug mules with cantaloupe calves. Cantaloupe calves. Oh man, I love a good drug mule with big calves. Come over here, let me see your melon balls.

Oh man, I'm going to put you in my fruit salad. put you in my fruit sauce. So we're going to play a few voicemails quickly just so we could get some of these out of the way. Most of these had questions, so we wanted to talk a little bit about some of the questions, and one of these is actually from another podcaster he sent us, and

we're going to play his last, but we're going to talk about these other voicemails here real quick. So the first one I'm going to play for you is Esme. Hi, Tom and Cecil. This is Esme. I'm calling because I live in LA, and I just drove past Church of Latter-day Saints compound, which is just this massive massive piece of property when I realized that not only did I not have to pay property tax on that piece of property uh they also they they they don't even have to let it they don't know, Mormons that have special access. Los Angeles could be making thousands and thousands of dollars each year on the property taxes for this property, and instead it's just being used by a few elite Mormons.

I just think it's criminal. The reason I'm calling is I want to know if you guys can tell me of any organization that is working towards taking away tax- tax exempt status from churches. Okay. I hope it's not too long of a message. Love you guys. Bye. So Esme wants to know if there's someone right now who's basically trying to stop churches from getting tax exempt status. And the answer to that is yes. And we had him on the show. His name's David Silverman. He works with the American atheists, and they are currently with a bunch of other secular groups are trying to claim that the Internal Revenue Service gives preferential treatment to churches and religious organizations who have the 501c3.

So he's trying to – yeah, that's currently, I guess they brought that lawsuit together when we had him on last, and this was last year, I want to say he was on our show. So if you're interested, the American Atheist is a great way to, you could donate to them and this would help them because it also adds to their legal fund. Another group that also does legal work is the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They have tons of lawsuits in place all the time. You might want to check them out as well. I'm going to play the next one here.

This one is from Casey. Hey, guys. This is Casey from New Mexico. I was listening to your last show, and you had a story about Gordon Klingenschmidt. I know you guys love to talk about him a lot. I just wanted to let you know that he is currently running for, I believe, State House of Representatives in Colorado. So he's representing District 15, which is Colorado Springs, so a very, I guess, conservative area of Colorado. I guess, conservative area of Colorado.

But, yeah, just wanted to let you guys know. And if you're interested in looking at his website, it's gordon4colorado.com. I already went there. And, yeah, some pretty funny stuff. All right. Thanks, guys. Love the show. Bye.

Well, it's interesting that Klingenschmitt is running for office there. Take that, Colorado Springs. Like, that's who you're going to have possibly representing you? Klingerschmitt? Really? That sucks, man. This guy in public office would just be a fucking criminal. Just an absolute fucking criminal. I had no idea that he was running.

That's scary as hell that he's running. You know, the thing is, I don't know what kind of, if it's a conservative area or not or whatever, if there's a chance he's going to get elected, but what a terrifying thing if he gets elected because that guy is clearly a fucking crazy person. The only hope is that his name won't fit on any of the buttons.

Right. You know, it's like vote Kling fucking adventure just vote cling on i'm not gonna vote for a cling on what are you kidding me ah i'm romulan all the way so uh we also got a voicemail from eden prime i'm gonna play that for you hey what's up guys guys? This is Eden Prime. I just wanted to see what you guys thought about something. So I'm as skeptical as the next guy, right? And this is one thing that just really bothers me. It's called sodium fluoride. I'm sure you guys have heard all this stuff and all these conspiracies about fluoride and this and that. But as far as, like, what it does and the stuff that it's in, to me, it just doesn't add up at all.

Fluoride, we know that it's in our tap water. When you start to see what else it's in, then that's when it starts to get a little weird. Like, say, it's an active ingredient in, like, poison for, like, pesticides for rats and what have you. They also fumigate houses with aerosol form of fluoride. So I was like, huh, interesting. And the EPA, you look at the Environmental Protection Agency, they label it as toxic waste. So like, huh, that's interesting again. And then also you find out that it's an active ingredient or a prominent ingredient in antidepressants like Prozac. So Eden Prime is asking about fluoride. And, you know, is fluoride a thing that we should be worried about? Cause there's,

you know, the thing you can find in Prozac, you know, is it a rat poison? What's going on? Um, I, I did a little bit of research on this and what I found very quickly, um, was that, uh, what's in Prozac is a substance called fluxotine. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. Fluxotine, it doesn't sound like that. It's not ovaltine, it's fluxaltine. And I'm probably totally mispronouncing that. In any case, it is not fluoride.

There are some fluorine like molecules in it, but it's not fluoride. What you get on your teeth is sodium fluoride, which is toxic in large doses, just like lots of things we consume is toxic in large doses. But first off, you're not probably supposed to, with the stuff we get in the water

is a very, very, very trace amount. And the stuff you put on your teeth when you brush your teeth, you're supposed to spit it out anyway. So it's not harmful to humans. The other fluoride you were your teeth, you're supposed to spit it out anyway, so it's not harmful to humans. The other fluoride you were talking about, sulfuric fluoride, and there are fluorine. There's a part of that is fluorine, but there's also oxygen and sulfur in it, and that's different than just sodium fluoride, which has different atoms in it. It's a different molecule.

So it's like, well, one can be poisonous. One is not poisonous. One is not poisonous. One is, are less poisonous. Cause I, I mean, let's be honest, sodium fluoride, if you take enough of it, it is poisonous, but it's not in the thing that they poison rats with. That's a different thing. So when somebody, the places that I did find, and I don't know, Tom, if you, if you experienced this, cause I know you did a little search, the places that I did find, and I don't know, Tom, if you experienced this because I know you did a little search. The places that I did find that were talking about this stuff being bad for you was all natural news sites. Right. I didn't find anything credible at all indicating that fluoride was bad.

What I think is important to note here is toxicity is always about dosage. It's always about amount. Sure. Vitamin A, right? Vitamin A. Vitamin A in large doses can and has killed people. There's stories. I remember reading stories about people exploring the Arctic eating bear livers.

Bear livers are extremely high in vitamin A, and they died incredibly horrible deaths as a result of eating bear livers. They had vitamin A is, of course, not toxic to you. It's beneficial to you if you have a little bit, and it is toxic to you if you have a lot of bit. So this idea that people will throw the word poison out, like it's poison. Well, how much is poison? A little bit might be beneficial. A little bit might prevent you from getting cavities, which is no small thing. I think we live in an age now where we take dental hygiene largely for granted, particularly those of us who are fortunate enough

to be middle class or above, people who don't have dental insurance and access to dental care, and people in the developing world, that's a big fucking deal. Like, tooth decay is a big fucking deal. It's not, we have, we take dental hygiene and good dental health in large part for granted. Most of us have that luxury. So, you know, fluoride, as I was able to

determine from poking around online, I didn't find one thing that looked even remotely credible or had us link to a study that suggested that sodium fluoride, as it's used in municipal water supplies and in toothpastes, has any kind of detrimental effect. I did find a lot of stuff about how it's fucking awesome for your teeth, though. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, those sites that I saw that were against it and that said that it was bad were all like natural news sites.

Those were all the ones that were saying, it's in Prozac. Well, it's not in Prozac. It's a different thing that's that were saying, it's in Prozac. Well, it's not in Prozac. It's a different thing that's in Prozac. It's in rat poison. No, it's not. It's a different thing that's in rat poison. And I'm sure there's a chemist out there who could make an analogy,

but it'd be saying something like, well, there's oxygen and ozone, and that's bad. Ozone's bad for you. It's like, yeah, well, there's oxygen and ozone, you know, and that's bad. And ozone's bad for you. It's like, yeah, well, there's oxygen and ozone, but it's, you know, it's got an extra molecule of, or an atom of oxygen, or I don't know how to, I don't know what the specificity is.

But, you know, it has a, it's an O3 instead of an O2. Well, you can't breathe O3. You would die if you breathe just straight O3, but it's all oxygen atoms in there. So there's, I'm sure there's better, more better examples out there that someone could come up with, but that's just right off the top of my head.

So, you know, it's really important to pay attention to exactly what's in those things. But it's a good question. And, you know, it's good to question that stuff and be like, man, I heard this thing. Be like, okay, well, do a little research. Go talk to somebody. Great place. One of the best places I've seen to debunk stuff like this, Reddit has

a skeptic board. And that skeptic board has a really good core of people. And I've seen that all the time. People will just put, debunk this, colon, and they'll put a line of something. And someone will put something on there. And in fact, one of the things I found about Prozac that you talked about came from Reddit. So somebody on there said, no, it's a different thing. But thank you for the voicemail. And I think that's great that you're questioning. Absolutely. Thank you.

We got the last voicemail. This is from Mike Marsh. This is Mike is one of the people who does skeptics with a k and he also does a podcast called be reasonable uh and he left us a message this isn't for us though i think more this is more for tyler hi guys it's marsh here you might remember me i was was the funny, clever one that you had on the show that time. Yeah. Anyway, I just thought I'd call to talk about that email you got from a guy called Tyler. I'm not calling up to defend an English degree as a fellow English graduate because essentially, fuck that.

No, instead, what I did want to do is critically appraise his email, given that that's all my English degree is potentially good for, really. So I thought I'd highlight two of the main themes that came through in his email. So theme one appeared to be that it is wrong to disparage someone else's education because you think it isn't as good as your own. That was theme one. Whereas theme two was Tyler disparaging your education because he didn't think it was as good as his own. Now as you correctly pointed out in your show Tyler doesn't tell you what degree he did do but we can safely assume it wasn't an English degree because if he'd done an English degree he'd understand the meanings of the words irony, humility and hubris. That's all I wanted to share catch you guys in the new year.

Have a great one. Bye now. I'm not going to say anything. No. All done. That's it. That's it. All done.

We lost that guy. That was lost. Fucking. So we're up to about $800 in our challenge. We want to make sure that people recognize that we gave it a couple extra weeks here, but we'd love it if you guys would take a moment between now and the end of January and donate to your local food depository and send us the receipt. We are going to try to get $300 for the local food depository here, the Greater Chicago Food Depository, of our own money. We're matching people. If you go $3,000, all of you, all of our listeners, if you go $3,000 total, by that time,

we're going to donate $150 a piece, $300 of our own money. And this is going to help people locally to you. So you're going to want to get involved in this and just give a little bit of money, $5, $10. Send us the receipt, and we're going to add it all up at the end. We hope that we can motivate you to donate $3,000 amongst you. Yeah, it's a good cause. Donating local goes a long way toward impacting people in your community. So rather than doing a drive with Doctors Without Borders, which is what we did last year, we decided to do something that's local to you

so you can see the impact on your own community of your own dollars. We're just the aggregator to see kind of how much our listeners were kind enough to generate. So please do make that donation. You know, this is one of those things, too, that people always bag on atheists about. They're like, oh, you atheists don't ever give any money. You guys don't do any charity.

Well, this is your opportunity to prove those people wrong. I mean, last year we raised almost $9,000 for Doctors Without Borders. You can raise, I mean, just a little bit of your money goes a long way at those places. It really does. And those people will be thankful for it. And you're going to be feeding people who really need it. So go out of your way. Make a little donation.

A little goes a long way. So go out of your way, make a little donation. A little goes a long way. We got an email from Stu, and Stu sent us this crazy-ass story from Emirates247, a maid accused of casting magic spell on the family. And essentially, this woman, who's the wife, has a vision. I'm going to read directly from the article. The wife had a vision. She saw in her directly from the article. The wife had a vision. She saw in her dream that the maid had hidden magical items

in an attempt to split her from her husband, and she also saw where the items were hidden. And then later on, the man searched where the place, the place where the wife had found, the wife, pardon me, I searched in the place seen by the wife and found magic items placed by the maid. They included amulets, a talisman, blood,

ew, blood, and other items. I managed to dismantle the magic work, but I continued to suffer from the allergy in my hands for two days after I touched those items. That's clearly not translated correctly, but the items are awesome. Cause one's like a, like scribble paper.

Yeah. The, um, the, whatever picture this is of the items. Um, I like the idea that he dismantled. I'm just picturing him like,

like with like a pair of like magic wire cutters. That's exactly did i take it from you no no it's i was just gonna say cut the blue yeah exactly right like he's like he's like got the chain of the amulet in his hand and he's shaking and sweats poor he got a guy on the phone from like the magical his own brow with his sleeve cut the blue wire you've only got seconds so i don't know which one is blue. One's teal. I don't know.

Fuck. And then trying to, like, his hand is shaking. And then he cuts the wrong wire. There shouldn't be a teal wire. A ghost appears, like, whoo. Yeah. Idiot. Yeah, that shit is crazy.

And it totally looks like, what it looks like to me is that the wife planted some fucking crazy shit around the house to get the, and you know,, like you really got to fucking hate somebody in that culture. Fucking accuse them of witchcraft because they're fucked. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If you get caught by the fucking Hogwarts police or whatever they have over there, they are going to fuck you up. Yeah, man. They will fuck you up.

Can you imagine going to like Saudi prison for witchcraft? I mean, it's like, it's seriously like be hopping into a goddamn time machine. I mean, you may as well just, I mean, you're going to seriously be in a dungeon at that point. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, you're probably in like chained to the wall. It's just a horror show. They slide a bowl of gruel and a piece of moldy bread under the door. You got to fight the cockroaches off to eat it off there's like chained up

skeletons next to you it's like fucking a set of goodies one-eyed willy so uh we got an email from alexi and alexi was talking about some uh ideas one of the things that he had a couple of different ideas for were ways to find atheist resources. He calls it an atheist ecosystem guide. He says a way for interested people to understand what is out there and to find resources, history, people, organizations, websites, communities, shows, arguments, et cetera. A few years ago, I would have found something like this very helpful. After getting through the big names, it took me a while to realize that there is a vibrant ecosystem of podcasts, blogs, et cetera, communities out there. There are a few places right now that are starting to aggregate big groups of things. Secular programming is one of those places.

I know Free Thought Blogs brings a bunch of people together. So there are some aggregators out there, but you're right, there isn't just one big. There's been a couple blog posts here and there where people post a bunch of stuff, but it really is about reaching out and finding that community. And it's hard. It's really hard to reach out as an atheist. I mean, the best thing you can do is Google. Yeah. The one thing I'll say is two things really is first, thankfully, we're in an age where we have the internet. Imagine being in the same position even 10, 15 years ago. It would have been, you know, trying to find written newsletters and, you know, finding people. I don't even know what you would do. I mean, just hope. I think you just have to hope that you ran into somebody

that you could have a conversation with at university or something. I don't know what you would do 10 or 15 years ago. And then I would point out one of the advantages to the church system is that you can take ideas like this, Alexi, which are good ideas, and in a church system, you can run them up to your, I don't know, council of elders or whatever you fucking have, your trustees or whatever, and you can mobilize a huge group of people relatively easily. You've got resources. As atheists, we don't have that. So I would say, you know, Lexi, if you've got good ideas that you're interested in, you're the guy to do it. You're the guy,

whoever you are listening. If there's something that you think is needed in the community, and you know what it is, then you're the guy to do it. It's very much like a Lorax moment for you. It's not going to get better if you're not active. There's not a council of elders to run this up to. So if you've got a good idea, act on it and then share it and we'll promote it. So let us know if you make any progress with these ideas. Speaking of promoting good ideas, there's someone sent us a message and said, hey, can you promote our Facebook page? There's not many members right now, but this is a Facebook page that we're going to put a link to. It's Opinionated Atheists New Zealand, The Opinionated Atheists New Zealand. The Opinionated Atheist New Zealand. So it's basically, I don't know

that there's a lot of members in it right now, but New Zealand, what? You got like 15, 20 people there. So I mean, it seems like half of you are already signed up. So we need to get the other half. And also, I think they might let some people that are from Australia in if they wanted. If they live close

enough to New Zealand, I guess if you could skip that rock across the pond there. Take a break from australia and if they wanted if they live close enough to new zealand i guess if you could skip that rock across the pond there take a break from the other side and yeah already but we'll put a link to this so um so we're going to put this up on our website somebody had asked us to plug this so we're going to do it the last thing we want to talk about is we were sent this by dust. The missionaries in Uganda, there's a thing, a documentary trailer called,

it's called God Loves Uganda. And he sent this to us. This is a great, amazing, powerful clip. It's not a clip, it's a trailer for this movie. And Tom and I are going to try to find a

way to watch this. There's a local place in Chicago at the University of Chicago where it might be playing in May. So Tom and I are looking at maybe going to that. But wow, it looks super powerful. And we are both really kind of, I mean, I'm kind of dreading seeing it, but I would love to see it. And, you know, it's those douchebags angle eyes in it. And it's the international, it's the IHOP people, the pancake prayer people that are over there

basically ruining the fucking world for other people because they're so fucking self-righteous. And this is a movie all about that. It looks sad as shit. Oh, it does, man. But it looks great. Thank you for sending this in. I saw this trailer and I was flabbergasted.

I mean, I really was left. If the movie is a third as powerful as this trailer, it will be a tour de force. I was kind of speechless watching it. I really was. I was too of speechless watching it. Yeah. I really was. I was too. It really is.

It really looked powerful. We're going to put a, we're actually going to put the video, we're going to embed the video in this week's episode. So if you're interested, go to episode 131 of Cognitive Dissonance at dissonancepod.com and watch the trailer. It'll be embedded into this episode.

This week, we had such a good week here at Cognitive Dissonance. I just have to mention that we won the Final Fantasy Football League. We won the Football League this week. It was Noah. Noah had created a football fantasy football league um and people all around the world who are listening have no fucking idea what that is but uh the people who know what it is noah created one for podcasters for secular podcasters and uh we came out on top uh beating noah by four points this week and therefore winning the championship. It sucks because the trophy is just a used condom. So it's really kind of just a shitty trophy.

But we did win and we did beat the scathing atheist. So there is some rejoicing here in cognitive dissonance land. And by we, I want to point out, I'm vaguely aware of the words fantasy football. As with all things on this show cecil did all the work yeah i did do all the work this time but tom said he's gonna play i am i'm gonna pick so um i'm just gonna just randomly pick people and just see how it works what i told what i told them i should have done was just pick all the people who are super hyper religious because they can't fail.

There you go. They always thank God. I actually think that would be an awesome strategy to pick them. It would have kind of failed because Tim Tebow is out of football now, and he was a huge, huge, huge God supporter, that guy. Was he in the league in 2013? Did he kick out midseason? He trained with a camp this year year and then they brought him on for a game or two and then they just let him go.

Is he just not good? No, he's terrible. He's awful. I'll take that. No, he's really bad. As you're listening to this, just think in the back of your head that Queen song, We Are The Champions. Just play that over and over and over again in your head because we are

at cognitive dissonance. We're winners here. All right. I've rubbed it in. There you go. That's it for this week's show. We'll see you next week. Leave you as always with the skeptics creed.

Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative acupunctuating, pressurized stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward

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