Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 154: Skeptically Challenged

Episode Date: May 29, 2014

  Special thanks to Ross for joining us.     Skeptically Challenged: Skepticamp Brisbane:  

Do you want to get cognitive dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at Stitcher.com. 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. recording from glory hole studios in chicago this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat. This is episode 155.

Four. Four. That's what I said. Jesus fucking Christ. Didn't I fucking say that? I thought I said 154. God damn it. Fucking hell.

God damn it, Tom. Episode 155. Oh my God. Four. So you gotta wait for it, Cecil. I'm just, here's the thing. Well, hold on, my God. Four. So you got to wait for it, Cecil. I'm just, here's the thing. Well, hold on. Hold on.

No, I don't even want to hear it. I'm so fucking far ahead of you. I'm so far ahead of you in this fucking show. That's the problem. You know, that you're still fucking recording 154. You're like a chess master. You're like seven moves ahead. I've already recorded episode 200 in my mind.

Think about it. We've got Ross from Skeptically Challenged on episode 154.5 of Cognitive Dissonance today. So, Ross, thank you very much for being here. Yeah, great to get up before 8 o'clock. As a student, that pains me immensely, I've got to say. We dragged you out of bed? Oh, man. I would say I feel sorry, but actually, I think it's kind of hilarious. So, I mean, no offense and all, but... Yeah, but the time zone, it's what, 8 a.m. on Christmas morning or something over there, right?

It's 8 a.m. apocalypse. Yeah, I'm sure if the sun explodes, we'll be the first to know. I mean, I imagine I think back in my homeland, the UK, we wouldn't even notice if the sun disappeared. But in Australia, you know, there'd be consequences. That's for sure. Were you brought to Australia as a prisoner? Yeah, you would think so. But I believe they did stop that practice uh a little while ago now

yeah whatever but they still mistreat the aborigines right i mean at least there's still that yeah there's still that that is that is still okay good i mean i wanted to make sure it was the land i know and love i'll tell you what though you you laugh you're like oh they wish they stopped doing that but there are people in this country that make statements like that all the time. With real sincerity, not just fucking mockery. We've stopped bringing the criminals in. We've started sort of exporting them now. So anyone who comes from a country that might be a little less runoff than our country is, if they arrive by boat, they're proposing sending them to Cambodia now, apparently. So, you know.

No matter where they come from? Well, wait a minute. They send them to Cambodia. So if somebody comes from not Cambodia, they just get sent to Cambodia? I kind of want to go to Cambodia. Can I just go to Australia and they'll ship me there for free? If you come by boat and without a visa, it's a free trip.

One way. Free trip one way. All right. Free trip to Cambodia. What's the meals like on that trip? I mean, I've been on a few cruises. I'm just curious. Is it full service?

They have an ice cream bar. I think you get the budget option. Let's put it that way. You know, what's going to be awesome is that when Cambodia starts the no-wait-fuck-em-send-em-to-Hong Kong, you know, and then Hong Kong says, nah, fuck it. So, like, the fucking people just get hopscotched all over the globe, you know, from country to country. Everybody's like, eh, I don't want these bald people. And then they essentially live in Waterworld from that point on. Yeah, exactly.

This is like living on fucking oil rigs. This first story comes from Jezebel.com and is fucking unbelievable. Duggars visit fertility doctor to see about having a 20th kid. And you heard that right. 20th kid. 20 kids. Like, hey, I got a dozen fucking kids. Plus eight more fucking kids.

I got eight spares. Yeah. And, you know, it's funny because you look at this and the first thing I think is like I don't think fertility is the problem I Think your uterus is just crying uncle at this point. I Think what she's trying to do here is she's trying to be like the ultimate soccer mom like 22 is pretty much like a squad I think I think that's what she's going for here that's awesome i love you know my favorite part of this whole story guys i have to admit is that the dude's name is jim bob jim bob

jim bob and he goes by Jim Bob? That is the best shit ever. That is really, seriously. And there's no better candidate to have 19 children than someone named Jim Bob. I didn't see where this story came out of. It didn't mention a location, but with a name like Jim Bob, there's probably not too many candidates. Yeah, no, it's certainly got some banjos. Unlikely to be north of the Mason-Dixon line, I'll tell you that. You know, what strikes me about this story is, you know,

there are whole fucking shenanigans before. It was like, yeah, we're going to have as many kids as God gives us. Like, well, it's not God giving it to your wife. I'm just throwing that out there, first of all. But then, you know, now it's like, yeah, well, now we just, I just really like being pregnant. So, you know, now it's like, yeah, well, now we just I just really like being pregnant. So, you know, now it's like, well, now we want to make sure that we do everything we can do health wise to be ready to catch a baby. If God saw fit to give us one.

What is she? You're not catching a baby. At 20 babies, God just throws him down from having a baby. Like, you only have half the components, lady. You're not catching a whole baby it's like a foul ball she just sitting there with her hips in the air just waiting for something to drop in uh she's like a fetus t-shirt cannon I wonder if her husband Jim Bob's there, you know. So strike one, strike two.

I shouldn't joke. I mean, this woman did have two miscarriages, it seems, in the past sort of five years. I mean, it sounds to me like she's addicted to being pregnant as well as a lot of of other things it would seem yeah you can work out for yourself what those other things are i think yeah i i you know i i feel like when she's sitting there talking to the guy she's talking to this you know either gynecologist or pregnancy doctor or something and she's having a conversation with him and she says that line she says, if there are things physically, I need to know that I need to do health wise, just to be ready to catch a baby.

If God saw fit to give us one, I'm thinking, what are they going to replace your uterus with a catcher's mitt? Like, what are they going to do? They're going to throw some fertilizer and they'll, you know, I mean like,

what exactly do you think that they're going to do? And you know, the thing is, is he starts going going on if you watch this video he starts going on and mentioning all the different like percentages that you have to actually get pregnant and then how likely a chance it is that the baby's gonna be fucked up when you're 47 48 and 49 and 50 years old having a kid and she just kind of like yeah we, we've heard all that before. That's fine. I've been hearing that since I'm 36 and I'm thinking, and you didn't stop.

He's like, yeah, I've, I've heard all that before, but you see, I'm really irresponsible and I don't care. I just don't care. Like I want to make sure that all of my kids spend the entirety of their childhood and adolescence basically parenting my other kids because there's no way that's not how that household fucking functions there's no fucking way look my wife is pregnant and i've got a seven-year-old and i'm already gonna make him do all the work like i'm already i've already told him like look i'm not parenting two kids

i barely half-assed it with one look you get to delegate as a parent that's how this works he's like you're think of it this way you're the colonel he's the drill sergeant yeah that's and i'm basically gonna make an infant do push-ups i'm just saying that's i yeah send them to boot camp early that's what i say seven year old is sort of promotion to man of the house i think in at this point i mean okay they probably have ten men of the house now, but, you know. They got a whole platoon. I mean, imagine if someone breaks into this house. There's just going to be, like, a massive pile-on of kids.

Like, you literally, I mean, you couldn't even steal something for trying to walk through the kids. It's like critical density of kids. Seriously, she's like a crazy cat lady with people. She is. Most, she's like a crazy cat lady with people. Most municipalities limit the number of dogs or cats you can have

to a rational number because they recognize that at some point you can't take care of any more animals. 20 kids! You cannot even buy a consumer-made vehicle to drive your family i was gonna say back of their bus they can't actually put all the decals that

you normally see on the hands because it just covers that's right too much of the back window i don't know if you guys read the comments here but my favorite one is um oh my god these people are fucking insane a vagina is not a clown car. That was the best. That was the best. Yeah, when you squeeze your boob, it goes, honk, honk. So this story comes from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Chaplaincy program leaves secular workers with no more than a prayer, says very clever headline writer. At least it's not the Daily Mail. You'd be reading that headline for a week. And then the fucking bullet points. I actually like it, Ross, when we find a story from the Daily Mail.

It takes all the pressure off of explaining the story. Right. You know, all the bullet points will be laid out in excruciating detail to get you through that. So this is kind of an interesting story. But this is a Sydney story. It's from the Sydney Morning Herald. I think this is near and dear to your heart, Ross.

So why don't you do the honor of introducing this story? Yeah, well, it's – so there are so many things wrong with this. So firstly, the new... And make sure to explain it to people who don't understand anything about Australia. Not that we don't, but just, you know, maybe there's someone in the audience who doesn't know everything there is to know about Australia or anything about Australia. Enlighten us about the peninsula. Yeah, right.

So in 1700, a group of English sailors discovered a country. They called it the Southland originally. So we've had a new government in the past sort of six months, and the first budget basically got handed down. And we did have a somewhat substantial deficit after a couple of disasters and just general spending. But the government's essentially spun it as this massive sort of crisis, this debt crisis, which is interesting because by a lot of metrics, Australia's debt is about third lowest in the developed world. So, you know, take that for

what you will. Now, interestingly, even though we have this supposed debt crisis, we do have $245 million in the back pocket to be able to pay for chaplains to come into schools, essentially to counsel kids. Now, initially, this bill was called the school, like the chaplaincy program. And then under the previous government, it was also renewed, which in of itself was a bit of a problem. But it was renewed to be called the school chaplaincy and student welfare program. Now, what this meant is that schools could essentially choose between a chaplain or a secular youth worker. So someone who doesn't have any particular faith or religious training, but just has some kind of counseling training. And essentially in Mr. Abbott's bid to turn Australia into a theocracy

and essentially become the United States. Not so subtle jab there, Ross. Wow. Well, the thing is the student welfare program has been removed. So now it's just the school chaplaincy welfare program. And in fact, any secular worker who was previously at a school as of December is actually going to be fired, essentially. And unless you are religiously inclined, if you're a chaplain, as long as you have a faith, it's fine. But only chaplains will

be allowed um and the the issue is that they're not supposed to they're not supposed to prophetize and things like that but there's already a lot of reports of um that kind of thing happening and you know children these days you know that they might be coming to terms with being gay or being into drugs and all sorts of stuff which you know religions just don't want to deal with and um it's a big problem really um and probably this will go through the senate we have a somewhat similar system to you guys where you can't just you know you have to propose something and then you know a whole other group of people also have to vote for it as well as the first group of guys oh in our system it's somebody proposes it and then we don't do it that's how it works here i don't know if that's how it works it works pretty well by not working at all i mean

yeah essentially nothing happens is mostly what happens that happened so i don't know if that's yeah that's pretty much what happens here it's just this time that's preferable so i see so are they changing now they're changing the chaplaincy programs to be religious are they changing the school lunch program or like wafers and wine? Is that their next plan? I'm sure that will probably be somewhere along the line if Mr. Abbott gets in again. What's his religion? Do you know? He's a Christian.

Just like generic Christian? I'm not sure what type. I think he went to a Catholic school, so he's probably a Catholic. A better atheist might know, but I'm... He doesn't come out and be like, tell you exactly, because I could tell He doesn't come out and be like, tell you exactly... Because I could tell you exactly what church many of our politicians come from because they go out of their fucking way to tell you every church they go to, right?

Well, I thought that was a criteria of public office. There's a section for church on the form. That's actually the whole front page. And then the rest of it is all just other things. Ross, how the hell did you guys swing so far from the previous prime minister who was, you know, an atheist woman to this guy? Well, what the fuck? I mean, this seems out of character for the great nation of Australia. Well, interestingly, Australia is a fairly secular nation. The problem is that the previous government started off with a guy called Kevin Rudd.

The union people decided they didn't like him. So they essentially voted him out and put Julia Gillard in. And then the polls weren't going that good because of a carbon tax and things. So they kicked her out and put Rudd back in again. And it turned out people didn't think that really indicated much governmental stability for some reason. Yeah, I don't know. Why would that be? I mean, I'm sure you guys know. It's that classic thing where it's like, oh, well, it's just time for a change.

And I think people fail to realize that change doesn't necessarily mean better. That's what happened here. And, you know, the fact is that people voted for this government without them really promising to do anything. They didn't really give any policies before the election. But, you know, time for a change. So we got to change.

So I'm going to stand on one side of this a little bit and say, you know, I don't think that having somebody around that is religious especially if you're a religious person to talk to you know when it comes down to some sort of big life crisis type thing is a bad thing i think that you know very often uh people have some sort of you know uh ability to deal with that uh that maybe that deal with that crisis give you some uh some some advice that sort of thing um but to mandate it seems really really i mean that's something that i don't even know would go would fly here in the states i think that that would be something that would be fought here even and and if you say you know mostly australia is

secular then you know why in the fuck would you even bother with religious religious uh chaplaincy if you know most of the people that show up aren't even going to be religious in the first place yeah it's it's it's an interesting thing i think it's to do with cost i mean chaplains are cheaper than qualified people and unfortunately we don't have a lot of money right like the therapists and things yeah and uh the thing is this is actually going to the high court of australia which is is like the supreme court in the state so it is actually being challenged but interestingly it's not being challenged on the sort of separation um part of the constitution it's actually being challenged on the fact that the funding for this actually wasn't voted for, which is against the constitution,

with a whole bunch of policies. But this has become the focal point of that, especially to the religious groups who obviously want this to continue. I mean, we even have religious instruction in Australia. This is in public schools, by the way, these so called secular public schools. And it's not comparative religion, it's religious instruction so there's they have the same thing in britain too that they have religious stuff i mean nothing's got an excuse they don't have a constitution in britain um they don't actually you know they i mean they have an official state religion you know it's the church of england yeah yeah you know i think it's i think it's funny that like, you know, Australia has religious instruction. Australia has the school chaplaincy program. We don't have either of those things.

And yet we still manage to fucking go crazy with the religious nonsense. Like we're still we're still teetering constantly in certain areas of the country on the edge of, you know, madness. And still, you know, and here. So clearly education is not the problem, right? Education is, you guys have religious instruction. You still manage to be a secular nation. So I think that's kind of interesting. You know, when you're talking about the high court,

I'm struggling desperately here to make a kangaroo court joke, but nothing is, I'm just, I i'm not getting to it i'm just i think that's it that was it i just wanted i just wanted to bring up that i cannot make that joke also kangaroo court oh yeah i mean how are people going to give you the credit for it well that's what i'm looking for it's just a point you know just notched one up just like a dugger you know just i mean interestingly um a lot of the private schools in Australia are also sort of denominational Catholic or Lutheran. And they they have just as many atheists at the end of it as any other school.

I think it's because religion is not taken seriously from childhood. I think you have to have that sort of home part of it. And that just doesn't exist. So, you know, kids don't take anything seriously that they come come to at school So I you know, I think it's up to the parents to be religious and Australian parents for the most part just aren't They don't push it even if they are religious themselves. They don't really so you're your Kings term When is it up? When do you guys go like the new prince or whatever? czar or emperor get reappointed and can he shoot electricity out of his hands or i don't know

i think he'd like to be able to um across the across the bench in parliament just yeah we've got about um another two years i think I think, before we have to call a general election. But he's threatened to dissolve the government if the Senate doesn't pass the budget measures, which is a real possibility. That's the fucking nuclear option. So I kind of hope he keeps his word. Dissolve the government. How's he going to dissolve the government? Does he have a dissolved ray, like a gun hidden somewhere that's in a volcano?

Buckets of acid over their chairs. It's just buckets of acid over every legislator's chairs, just poised precariously. So you just get it like what we do here, which is the shutdown, right? Like that's what we do here is the big thing is the shutdown. If you don't sign the budget, we're just going to shut down the government. And they essentially just there's no government services for those days. Is that what he's planning on doing? government and they essentially just there's no government services for those days is that what he's planning on doing no it's it's i mean literally what happens is that there's a new

election is called and the current government is is gone essentially so we actually get a whole new government if that happens the fuck one dude can do that fucking bonus though i mean this guy sounds like a dick so yeah it's essentially a vote of no confidence. And then the government has to be reelected. Has that ever happened before? I'm not sure. I'm not really that interested in Australian history, unfortunately. He hadn't come over on his boat yet.

Yeah, that's right. He had been shipped over there as an indentured servant. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. I'm hooked on a feeling. I'm high on believing. So this next story comes from The State. Bond set at $250,000 for president of Cathedral Bible College with Myrtle Beach Campus. Why do they point out that it has a Myrtle Beach Campus in the headline?

Of all the things in this story to point out in the headline, it strikes me that the location, like, hey, but, you know, they do have a campus right on Myrtle Beach. So, yeah, I think it's the only campus, too, which is what makes it even more sort of ridiculous. It's so very strange. Anyway, Reginald Wayne Miller, the president and founder of Cathedral Bible College, is not allowed to set foot on the college campus in Marion or communicate with any of the school's

current or former foreign students as an investigation continues into allegations that Miller threatened to cancel foreign students visas if they did not work long hours for little pay. He basically was running like a fucking indentured servitude fucking scam on these foreign students. Like, I mean, this is some old school, like Grapes of Wrath style migrant worker take advantage of bullshit. I'm just glad that my employers didn't have that option because, you know, I was sort of already working for a questionable amount of pay. Although I've got to say, in comparison to the wages in the States, I mean, I was kind of Rush Limbaugh. But, you know, it's...

I mean, I read somewhere here some of them were working sort of 20, 30 hours a week for $25. Is that right? You know, to be fair, he is... I mean, let's be really, really fair about what's happening here, right? So he is the president of Cathedral Bible College. And Leviticus 2544 does say that your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you. From them you may buy slaves. So he's just being a good Christian.

He's just following the dictates of his faith. He's just following the dictates of his faith. And, you know, and we've seen we've seen politicians who have said that, you know, they don't think that you should be able to even be prosecuted if you're following the dictates of your faith of a sincerely held belief. Then, you know, you can definitely have foreign slaves. So he's just he's just rolling with the biblical punches. I want to read just real quick from Cathedral Bible College's front page. And I would have thought their webmaster might have taken this down, you know, considering the scandal and all. But the very first page, I wish I could make this shit up. It's a giant fucking sign on the very front. They got like a sort of a flashing thing going on. But I'm a read Cathedral Bible college is the college where you not only learn in the classroom but experience what you are learning through the variation of programs of student ministry the key to producing servants meat for the master's use is the training

that comes with the teaching i fucking knew it. They knew it when they saw it. Like, if I see this, I'm like, I am running the other way. I mean, interestingly, you know, they've got Princess Leia, you know, on the diplomatic mission here to prosecute this guy. So, I mean, what could go wrong there? I hope she has a thermal detonator. He's going to need it. Oh, that's awesome yeah the same and they still have the dude's picture up the dude who's you know the our wayne miller founder is sitting right there

there's a picture of him so they still have him with the greetings from the president i mean he's not allowed to set foot on there but he can still have a fucking web presence. So that's all good, you know. Yeah. The thing is that, like, if I'm a young, aspiring slave master, where am I? You don't have a lot of choices. And, you know, these schools, these namby-pamby other schools don't really teach the biblical principles like this guy does. Right. When you're poking around, you're like, I'm looking for a school with a good accounting program.

You know, I'm looking for something with like a like a feeds into the medical school system. I'm really looking. You know, I'm really looking for something as a slave master where I can. Right. I need a good whipping 102. Is there a whipping 102 somewhere that I can take? You know, they do mention the campus, but they mention its location, strangely, very specifically. But what they don't mention are the beautiful cotton fields that they have. Holy shit. We should go check it out sometime.

It's just awesome. I found it interesting here that Miller had a past running with law enforcement in 2006 in the Horry County Police Department, charged him with lewdness and prostitution after exposing himself to an undercover police officer at a bath in Myrtle House Skate Park. I really thought that said Horney County Police Department. I mean, you know, this guy, obviously, I don't know how sincere he is as a Christian. He might be very sincere in his faith, but he's obviously seen an opportunity here and,

you know, decided to go biblical with it. So, you know, it's yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I wonder what these people were promised, you know, before they sort of came to the country. And I mean, to come all that way just to learn about the Bible. I mean, that's probably the real punishment. So we're going to take a short break. We're going to be back with Ross from Skeptically Challenged after we give you some information on how to contact the show and how to become a patron of the show. And we're going to be finishing up with a short interview with Ross later on.

So stick around for that. If you would like to contact the show, visit the website DissidencePod.com for the links to the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and email accounts. You can also call and leave a message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Did you know that you can become a patron of the show? Go to Patreon.com. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com forward slash DissonancePod. And you can donate to the production of Cognitive Dissonance on a per episode basis.

If you don't want to donate money, please take a moment to give us a good review on iTunes or Stitcher. Or tell a like-minded friend about the show. So to everyone who supports the show, glory hole. You fucking rock. So Cecil, this story comes from right wing watch rafael cruz blames end of school sponsored prayer for crime and teen pregnancy uh prior to the end of school prayer of course there was no crime uh which is great right uh it was a it was a fucking utopia that we all lived in there was no crime in uh the 1960s yeah al capone jesse james neither those people those people are just fictional they're like fables they're like a fucking

they're like an egg that fell off a wall was it a crime to lynch black people no no no well that's that's the thing is there's no crime okay fine then maybe you've got a point yeah yeah maybe it's like autism where it's like, ah, there's more autism. Yeah. You're just finding. Yeah. You're just finding new crimes these days. It's like maybe it's like, ah, there was no crime. Well, that's because, you know, that shit should have been illegal. Right. And now it fucking is. But yeah, Cecil, it's all to blame on the media and the church's silence. The church's reticence to interfere in public life. The church, as we will find out when we listen to this,

will remain silent very often. So we should listen to them. I want to point out to the listeners, listen to the amount of applause. This is a packed house. This Raphael Cruz guy has a slight accent, one would say, and the people in the audience, there's like four of them and they're like,

so give this a listen. You can also hear the clinking of dishes as people are clearly preferring to eat over listen to this guy. And they're the eating hummers. I don't know if you remember those people where they're like eating like, nom, nom, nom.

All right, so here we go. Here's Raphael Cruz. It is absolutely obvious that Jefferson was talking about a one way wall. Lucy. I know, man. Every time I hear one way wall, too, I try to think of any one way walls at all. Name a one way wall. I can. I can. It's the one-way wall around

the egg that the sperm goes in. To prevent government from interfering with the free exercise of religion. In no way, shape, or form can we surmise that that is preventing the

church from having an influence upon every area of society as we should. Yay. Yay, you six people agree with me. The church should be influencing, the media should be influencing arts and entertainment, sports, education, business, and yes, government. What's arts and entertainment, Tom? Arson entertainment, that's awesome. Yeah, it's where you burn down a house,

but you sing while you're doing it. Yeah, what you do is you light it on fire and then you bring the whole group in front and you watch it like a drive-in fucking movie. That's what you do. It's like American Idol, but just, you know, more vandalize-y than that. Yeah, it's pretty great.

If you really like the way that Johnson's house burned, dial 1-888. You know, when he was naming those off, the only thing I could think is, like, he got all the pies in Trivia Pursuit. He did. He totally filled up the whole little thing. Maybe he put one in upside down, too, because at this point in the video, he's kind of looking at his hand. So maybe he's got one of those little fuckers in the wrong way.

You ever turn it, like, just a little bit to the side? I fucking do that all the time. I'll put it in wonky, and I'm like, I just ruined this game. I need a paper clip. Yeah, exactly. It's like I'm playing a game that basically is constructed out of cardboard, like a few hundred cards and a little tiny disc. And I break it. Like there's nothing there for me to break.

And I still break it every time. You know the best way to get those out of there? Just from now on, Tom, just put the piece in the oven. That's the best way to get those out. What, guys? I thought it was like a shrinky dick. It's like a shrinky. It is now, motherfucker.

It's a shrinky dick now, bitches. Now, let's just see what has happened in the last 40 years. 1962 and 1963, prayer and Bible study were taken out of schools and the church remained silent. Their excuse, it's a political issue. How can you infer that prayer and Bible study are a political issue? I don't know, but that's what the church did. The consequence of their silence was after 1963, teen pregnancy skyrocketed and violent crime skyrocketed. I don't know that that's true. Yeah, that's not an accurate statement, actually.

Like if you look at, yeah, like if you look at a really short term graph, like teen pregnancy and violent crime both had some upswings in the 1970s, 1980s. And violent crime both had some upswings in the 1970s, 1980s. But they've dropped dramatically. And teen pregnancy levels have never been as low as they are now. And violent crime rates have declined dramatically. Dramatically, Cecil. Right. The number of murders in the last two years have gone down by 100 in Chicago. And they were at 500.

And they dropped to, like, four. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Like that's a good, but you know, we still are going to just look at the statistics, but that's 400. Like that's a lot. I wasn't alive in 1963, but my suspicion is, is that when they took Bible reading and prayer out of public schools, the church did not remain silent. I'm just guessing. Oh, I have no facts to back that up but i guarantee the church wasn't like oh yeah sure just pull that shit right out of there just take yeah take it right out of there church doesn't exactly have a long history of just keeping mama on these issues

1973 nine unelected supreme court justices decided that a baby in the womb did not have the right to life as stated as an unalienable right in the Declaration of Independence. And they made abortion legal. And again, the church remained silent. 55 million babies have been murdered because of abortion. God help us. We need to corporately repent for the sin of abortion. God help us. We need to corporately repent for the sin of abortion. Corporately repent? I don't know. We need to corporately repent? Do we have to get

a special meeting of the shareholders together? Are we going to... How does that work? I don't know. Hold on a second. I want to play for you this guy. This guy actually appeared in a movie. I don't know if you heard. Let me explain no there is too much let me sum up buttercup is mary humperdinkel in the last half an hour so all we have to do is get in break up the wedding steal the process make our escape after i kill count roger that i don't know if you knew but that was yeah it's also not left-handed

just recently the supreme court struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act. Again, the church remains silent. Same excuse. It's a political issue. Consequence, the erosion of the traditional family. The question is, how long are we going to remain silent? But the more important question is will god hold us accountable for our silence i like that he says that the church remains silent on the defense of marriage act no there was nobody not a single person said anything at all not a church no church goers especially said anything about someone speak for the church. Can somebody, I mean, cause they're like, they're like in a silent scream right now.

It's, it's a shame that the only people that care about this all took simultaneous vows of silence. Right. I, you know, this comes from this, this comes like Tom said,

it comes from right wing watch, but what they were speaking at was the Family Research Council's Watchmen on the Wall conference. What the fuck does that even mean? Well, you know, the hard part is to scale the ice after you park your car. So when you show up to the Watchmen on the Wall, it's like, that's not a big deal. But, you know, to get up that little elevator. know just a little tiny elevator yeah with the you know john snow standing there right takes a long fucking time yeah there's that fat kid and i was gonna get all the pastries and i actually tried to attend that meeting without an invitation but they rained arrows upon me they

actually turned the sky to take a bow of celibacy to actually well you know the thing the thing is is like they're making up he's made first he's making up the idea that the church is remaining silent right like that's one of the main things that he's making up but then he's also making up the just the numbers as he goes through you know like like the he's saying that it's with gay marriage comes the destruction of the traditional marriage. And that's not, I mean, I fucking,

where's your facts. It's just, I have a PowerPoint and that's in green lettering. So therefore it's true. You know, it's like, well, what's,

what destruction of the family have we witnessed since gay marriage has been, been a thing? Nothing. We haven't, there's been nothing, no data whatsoever that points to you know gays getting married i wonder if there's going to be a ton of publicity during the first gay divorce though yeah i bet there will be actually i bet i actually bet that'll be a big deal people will point to it

like the opponents will point to it and be like ah see these marriages can't last right exactly you know what what you'll see, Cecil, I think you bring up a good point. I think what you'll see a lot is comparisons of hetero to homosexual marriage divorce rates, you know, so they'll be able to, if they're not favorable,

they'll be able to point out like, yeah, these are obviously not relationships meant to last. They're not blessed by God. They fall apart, like all that shit. And if they are favorable, then they won't say fucking boo about them. But I goddamn guarantee they're tracking them.

I abso-fucking-lutely guarantee that they're tracking them. Yeah, for sure. Because they know it's a talking point, you know, even if it's only a percentage or two different. Even if it's not statistically terribly meaningful. I'm sure they'll make a big deal about it. You know, the erosion of the traditional family isn't a fucking thing you have metrics for, obviously, but it's also not a thing that's happened. Like you have a family Cecil, right?

I mean, you're a married man. I am a family. I'm a married man with kids. Like my fucking family did not disintegrate. I didn't wake up one morning and like fucking rub the fucking sleep from my eyes and like stretch my arms over my head and be like wait, did somebody sign something fucking repealing

DOMA? Because now I don't love my wife. Wake up. Fuck. My wife suddenly has a beard. She's like a dude. Sorry, I'm a replacement. Came from the Defense of Marriage Act board. When you making breakfast, Cecil?

I like my eggs over hard, if you know what I mean. You like wake up, and sometimes you wake up, you're like, oh, man, I got some cotton milk. Oh, no. What if the Ten Commandments were reinforced? Thou shalt not murder. What if that had been his daily dose of moral instruction and spiritual instruction? Now, who knows if things could have been different, but we've tried it the other way. This is the point of my column.

We've tried it the liberals' way for 60 years now. What have we got? We have massacres in Aurora. 12 people shot dead while they're watching a movie at midnight. So this story comes from 14news.com 14. Owensboro

service held to pray the heroin away. Owensboro, Kentucky. Police and sheriff's deputies say heroin is making its way into the Owensboro area. Owensboro is probably how it's pronounced. And they're hoping a prayer service held on Sunday will help to pray the gay away. I want to point out a few key words. They're hoping a prayer service.

They're basically doubling down on hope. That's the strategy here. They're going to hope to pray and that that will help what a strategy yeah this guy deserves a fucking raise can you imagine if you went into fucking work and you're like hey listen uh we got a bit of a problem but uh i am hoping to pray for help so strategy So, strategy. I hope he kind of sings song strategy to me, too. That would be awesome. You know, I think that this is great, and I think they should really sort of utilize this in lots of other places.

I think Syria really needs to take a hard look at this. They're not praying enough. That's the problem. That's the problem. If you could pray away the barrel bombs, then everything's going to be fine. I'm sure they weren't praying any of that sarin gas away when that was fucking deployed on them. They totally should. I mean, gosh, that fucking missing jet did not pray hard enough, clearly. I'm sure none of those people were praying.

Nor any of those kids in Nigeria. Well, you know, we know they're praying because they got forced converted to Islam. Well, yeah. That's a now. Well, now they're fine. Right. Checkmate. Now they're praying to the right God.

Right. Now they're finally fucking converted. And they'll be married to proper people. Right. Twelve dollars. And I think that that's a solid way to go. And that brings us back to Kentucky. It does.

It really does. Marrying kids for twelve dollars. Yeah. It does. It really does. Marrying kids for $12? Yeah. At a young age, yeah. I think that this is one of those stories that they spend some time in this story talking about. They say several officers, including the Davies County Sheriff and the jailer, took time to discuss the dangers of heroin to the community. And I think, great. Maybe that's effective.

Maybe that's not. That's actually doing a thing like that's partaking in an action that may or may not dissuade someone from doing heroin. I think there's perfectly valid ways to find people a way to dissuade heroin use and drug use. And there are there's examples of it overseas. We talked about a story a while back when they basically institutionalized heroin use. The government said, we'll give it away for free. No problem. If you want to do heroin, you can come to these government facilities and we'll shoot you up. We'll have a trained professional shoot you up with a clean needle.

You don't have to worry about anything. And you're going to get high and you get, you know, you get a really good high for no money. And essentially everybody's just like, well, that fucking totally sucks. Like that sucks because it's like drinking a beer with your dad. You're just like, great. I can't really get any. I get one beer, right? Dad beer.

And, you know, I can't really swear. You know what I mean? Like, it's just this, it's just this, you know, sort of weird. It's like, you know, in fact, it's more like drinking a beer with your uncle because I think you could probably, you know, get by drinking with drinking with your dad and you know have a good time or whatever but you know it's that sort of that infamiliarity where you know you've got to act in a certain way and i think that they've they've figured it out i mean we could easily do this but there's a lot of money to be made in the drug uh not prevention but drug busting and drug law enforcement area. There's a lot of money to be

made from a lot of different places. And there's a lot of tax dollars that can be spent in there and a lot of salaries that are paid for from it. And I think that, you know, the reason why there's so much pushback in this country about drugs is because there's a lot of money to be paid. And I also feel like, too, the other thing is that there really is this level of prudeness in our country. We're talking in the previous one about gay marriage. Well, this in particular feels like we're also prudish about our altered states. We're okay with one. The one is alcohol.

And that's sort of like, okay, well, that's just generic, you know, regular missionary position, man on girl sex. That we're okay with. But the moment you start getting into anything else, we're not really interested in any of that happening. And I feel like we're super prudish when it comes to our altered states as well as our sex. Well, you know, I do want to point out, Cecil, from this article, though, is that they knew there was a problem, right? They knew that heroin was becoming a threat in Davies County because in the last six months there have been three cases of attempted smuggling of the drug into the jail. But the jail was also dedicated as a place where God can work in the lives of the inmates.

So we have a little bit of hope there again. Hope that God will work in the lives of the inmates because he was too much of a lazy fuck to work in the lives of the people who were not inmates. to work in the lives of the people who were not inmates. Like, maybe he could have fucking turned his fucking watchful, sauron-like eye onto the people who were not yet fucking inmates. Oh, yeah, welcome to prison. God's looking now like, well, fuck of a lot good that does me now that I'm in prison. 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. And this story comes from Right Wing Watch. Graham Cracker.

Graham Cracker. Pastors. Well, I think that there is no better nickname for this guy than Graham Cracker. I think that that is. It works pretty perfectly. Absolutely perfect. Now, this guy was another speaker at Family Research Council's Watchmen on the Walls conference. And he told the assembled pastors they need to be willing to have their heads chopped off for speaking the truth about gays and that they're

bound for hell cecil yeah yeah we should listen to him he's also one of those uh one of the guys who took the black he's a watchman on the wall um and he he's also really into um the way in which they kill people in game of thrones off heads. So here we go. Are we going to be cowards because we're afraid? Could we get our heads chopped off? We could maybe one day. So what? Chop it off. I love the extended pause there because he's totally waiting for the people to clap.

And like there's sort of this, again, an anemic sort of response or like there's like four people like chuckling and three people slapping their fucking palms together and nobody's actually saying anything right and they're like yeah it was a joke he's talking about getting his head cut off i like to the the the sort of there's a reference there i think um at least it feels like a reference to me, to Revelation. Right. Like there's a there's a reference there about the chopping off of heads and the executions of people who sort of, you know, I guess the beast loves gay sex. So anybody who disagrees with the beast is going to get their head lopped off. So I think that that's what he's referring to there. Doesn't there have to be two beasts then?

Well, I'm just saying if the beast loves gay sex, there has to be at least two beasts. Maybe he just enjoys it in other species. It's like a voyeur. And if the beast is having sex, is it still the beast with two backs or is it just... All right, it's the rest of this dumb fuck. But we don't want to be called a homophobic.

And I tell people, listen, I'm not afraid of homosexuals. Matter of fact, I love them. I love them enough to care to warn them that if they want to continue living like this, it's the flames of hell for you. Now, if you don't like that, don't get mad at me. I didn't write the rule book. Almighty God wrote it. And it's a sin against him. And I tell you, listen, gentlemen, we live in a world where there is so much compromise. This city that we're in,

that's all they do is compromise. We cannot go down that road because you and I are going to have to stand before God one day and give an account to him. And you don't want him to say from his lips, you were a coward. What a bunch of empty fucking headed, bobble headed fucking fools. When you're watching this video, you can't help but get sick to your stomach with all the people fucking swaying their heads up and down, nodding along when he's like, they're going to throw you in's gonna put you in hell like oh yeah okay bobble your fucking head some more you know what's amazing is this in the rafael cruz video they're both they both end on the same note like hey hey hey we gotta do something about this or god will be mad at us not that it's the right thing to do not that that we love gay people and we want to serve and protect

them. Not that, like, not any of these other things. It's just like, look, do you want God mad at you? I mean, it's fucking your dad's coming home. That's what this is. He'll be home later. It's like, you guys need to clean your room because dad's going to be home in an hour.

That's, I mean, he has no argument. I'm telling him when he gets here, I will tell your father. I will tell him. I think, you know, and the other thing, too, is that, you know, when he's like, he's like, look, I love gay people. I'm just telling them that they're going to burn in the fires of hell. It's not my rules. It's God's rules. Well, the first thing I think is like, well, I don't fucking subscribe to your stupid book, man.

I don't. Just because you think I'm going is like, well, I don't fucking subscribe to your stupid book, man. I don't. Just because you think I'm going to burn in hell. I don't give a fuck. I don't care. If you don't want a fucking gay marriage, don't marry a gay person. Fucking problem solved. Let me dust your fucking palms off and walk off. You don't have to marry a gay person.

Real fucking easy, man. Just don't be attracted to homosexuals. If you're attracted to them, you still you personally think it's wrong then repress it be uncomfortable for your whole life and you know that's fine whatever you got to do i don't care right but when it comes to you telling us like well i gotta tell you because because this book that i read one yeah well i don't have to tell you everything every fucking book i read i don't have to tell you because a book i read said that something's you know fucking what if i read i don't have to tell you because a book i read said that something's you know fucking what if i read dianetics and i started walking around being

like look your fucking thetans are all fucked up you're gonna wind up in a volcano what you're gonna look at me be like i'm fucking there's no such thing as a thetan you know it's just fucking that's not a thing you know i fucking the volcanoes don't fucking eat up the fucking souls of the fucking long dead that came here in 747. So what the fuck you weirdos believe? You know, the same thing goes for the Book of Mormon. You know, well, John Smith said he fucking did this thing and you can marry a bunch of people and all Indians are bad. You know, well, I don't fucking care.

Your book is not a fucking holy book. It is a book like all the other books. You say it like that, it makes sense. But the problem, Cecil, is these guys, they don't leave any room for the possible. Because this whole thing, right, this whole thing is built on the idea that faith is a virtue. That believing shit you have no reason to believe is inherently a good thing. And that's like the heart of the problem. That really is.

Like that strikes right to the very foundation of the problem. Because if believing shit that you have fucking no reason in the world to believe, if there is absolutely no compelling evidentiary reason to believe that this thing is true, but you believe it anyway. And because you believe it anyway, that somehow is a virtue that makes you a better human being. If everything is built on that fucking faulty goddamn premise, then there's no way that like you can like they'd be like, well, you can't compare the Bible to Dianetics. There are two different books with different words on page 12. Like they can't even like I like they can't even get there from here. And they're fucking liars to boot. Right.

Because the thing is, like when he says like, you know, I don't I am not. It's weird. He says I'm not afraid of gays, which I know is kind of a weird and telling slip. Right. Like I'm not afraid of gays. Like, that's good, because there's not that many of them, and they're probably not going to cut your fucking head off, you weird dude making a straw man. But then he says, like, you know, I'm not

afraid of them. I love them. I love them so much that I want to warn them that if they continue living like this, they're going to burn forever in the flames of hell. And it's like, well, you know what? There's a better way to sell that. Like fucking watch the Slap Chop commercial. You need a better sales pitch.

Your sales pitch sucks. And I don't believe you. I don't believe you because if you cared more about really helping and saving other people, you would fucking refine your sales pitch a little bit. But instead, what they want to do is they want to draw a fucking line in the sand and separate us from them, the righteous from the not righteous. And they want to make sure that they can tell God they did the work, right? They want to make sure that when they die, they can look God square in the eye and be like, hey, I warned those dirty, no good sodomites.

God square in the eye and be like, hey, I warned those dirty, no good sodomites. So when you cast them into the fucking fires of hell as a benevolent God to burn for all eternity in your mercy, in your mercy, in your great mercy, Lord, when you torture them ad infinitum for all of time, I can feel good about that. Can you imagine a scenario where you're like, yeah, I tortured that person for 20 minutes for you, Cecil. Do you feel good about that. Can you imagine a scenario where you're like, yeah, I tortured that person for 20 minutes for you, Cecil. Do you feel good about that? I can't think of a single situation where I would feel good. Right?

But what if I said, like, but I really did it good. Like, I fucking took a blowtorch to that dude's face. And I fucking blowtorched his face. But not any of his thinking bits. So he's still alive. No, no, no. He's still alive. In fact, he's alive in the other room. He's in the murder hole.

He's in the glory hole studio, Cecil. But dude, hold on, hold on. It sounds bad. But I did it because I loved him. Oh, yeah. I loved him so much. That sounds so much better, Tom. I did.

And I did it for you, Cecil. Ending this call now. ending this call now and this by the way is reason 950 while never have a career in politics these shows ever get out i know man if more than three people listen to this we are fucked so we're back with ross from skeptically challenged and uh not a skeptical show here uh he has uh he he has a a great show that we've been on. We've graced his show twice, and then he had us on for another show that was kind of like a pilot,

and then he canceled the series right away, which is a smart move on Ross's part. That's how I know you nailed it as a guest, Cecil. When you show up, and they're like, uh, fuck it, cancel the Muppet show. We're fucking done. Sorry, there's no more of the show. You've used it all up.

Yeah, so Ross, if people didn't know who you are and about your show, just tell them a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your show. Yeah, thanks, guys. I genuinely did wait that 20 minutes while you were talking about other stuff, too. So don't let the listeners at home think that this is all editing shenanigans. There's really a wait. I wish you kept the sound on, though. It would have been a bit more uh interesting man no sorry unless you're a patron you gotta wait i'm sorry it's the wait yeah so yeah i do a podcast called skeptically challenged which is essentially like your podcast but essentially i do it by myself a

lot of the time and i tend to talk about the more uh skeptical issues um you know like homeopathy and ghost paranormal ufo type of stuff um but of course getting the guests on is always uh the most fun and I'm sure some of your listeners have probably heard it in fact I got a review on the American iTunes the other day and it it was essentially saying I love the podcast but I wish Ross could speak more American. Tom and Cecil can probably teach you. Yeah, just dumb it down by about three quarters and then you're right there. You're right there. And stuff a chicken wing on the edge of your mouth, too.

That helps. Oh, yeah. You've got to make sure that, you know, the real trick to speaking American is making sure there's a liberal amount of grease around your lips. I think that's the most important thing. So, Ross, you've been involved in skepticism. How and for how long? Well, like a lot of people, I actually started listening to the Skeptoid podcast. And from there, I sort of, like a lot of people, realized that I was, you know, what people

call a skeptic and that there was a whole community out there. And originally, I started off with a science podcast about three years ago. But that took a lot of work. And essentially when my co-host had two kids, that sort of put an end to that one. So I started Skeptically Challenged about a year ago. In fact, next week is my one year anniversary episode. Congratulations. Yeah. How many episodes did you do in a year? Actually I only did 36. I had a bit of a break at the start of the year. I had some kind of personal stuff happen that sort of put me out of the game for a little while.

But of course you guys came on the not skepticism thing. So I still had some stuff going on. But yeah, I really enjoyed it. So essentially what happened is that we came on his show and we knocked you off your game for several months is what you're saying. What we did is we put him in a spiral of depression so deep it took him weeks to get out of it.

How will I recover from this? I have no idea how I'll recover. So do you belong to any physical meetup groups or anything like that? Do you know anybody in the area that is of ilk? Pub talks and things like that? Yeah, well, Brisbane has a fairly... There's a branch of Q Skeptics, the Queensland Skeptics, and they have a speaker every month.

And that's always interesting. Just last night and they have a speaker every month. And that's always interesting. Just last night, they had a ghost tour operator and he was quite interesting, actually. He was into a lot of the history and stuff, which was great. And then there's also a skeptics in the pub, which happens over a couple of locations every two weeks. So we can sort of chat. And I actually prefer the skeptics in the pub because it's less formal and you just get to talk with like-minded people, which is always good. Well, and there's a pub involved.

And I do have to make a quick correction. It's pronounced Brisbane. Brisbane. You're going to want to go with it. Brisbane. It's like two words. So get it right. I know you're new over there.

I could have been getting it wrong for the past seven years. I mean, that would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? I think it is embarrassing. You know. So you've got something coming up in July. You're going to have a Skeptic Camp. We talked about it on the air once before, but it's sort of right around the corner for anybody who's in Brisbane.

Yeah, that's right. So it's coming up on July the 19th. And the cool thing about the Skeptic Camp is that it's sort of right around the corner for anybody who's in Brisbane. Yeah, that's right. So it's coming up on July the 19th. And the cool thing about the Skeptic Camp is that it's free. So anyone can come and they don't have to pay to get in. And the thing is, we've got a lot of local skeptics and speakers actually talking at the event. So it's just nice to get to meet all those people who you wouldn't normally get to meet. And there's about sort of six or seven hours worth of material here. So, I mean, this is the first ever Skeptic Camp in Brisbane. We've talked about it for about two years,

and finally we got off our arses and actually did it. Because what happens is that the national convention moves around every year that the Australian skeptics put on. But because Brisbane is still a relatively small city, it doesn't come to Brisbane very often. So we've decided that every year we're going to put on an event that people can come to and get together and talk about skepticism, essentially. And there's actually some guests as well coming.

One of them, his name's John Cook. He actually runs Skeptical Science, the website. Oh, yeah, cool. That's a global warming. He's actually runs Skeptical Science, the website. Oh, yeah, cool. That's a cool bit of warming. He's actually from the University of Queensland, and he's going to do a talk about engaging with climate change deniers. And we also have someone called Loretta Marron, who she actually works with Friends of Science in Medicine, and she sort of tries with her group to combat a lot of like woo therapies. So she's going to talk as well. So we've got a big mix of talks coming up on the day

and some little cupcake competitions and things like that just to keep it interesting. And for those of you who are into Jake Farr Wharton as well, I mean, who's not? Who's not? Come on now. He and I will be emceeing the event and also doing a podcast live on the day as well,

so it's going to be a big day. That sounds like a great time. Yeah, send me a ticket. I'll be emceeing the event and also doing a podcast live on the day as well. So it's going to be a big day. That sounds like a great time. Yeah, send me a ticket. I'll be there. That sounds awesome. Tom, it's free. No, I mean a ticket to Australia. I'm interested in this cupcake competition.

I was tuning the rest of it out, but he said cupcake competition. I started building a raft as soon as he said it. Oh, these Cambodian cupcakes aren't delicious at all. Maybe we should start doing Skeptic Camp Cambodia. I mean, the only downside is it will probably be in a literal camp and not the kind where there's a fire and a bunch of lives. Skeptic Cambodia. So, Ross, you said you started listening to Skeptoid. What was it that got you interested in skepticism itself?

Like, why did you start listening to Skeptoid? What prompted you? What got you started? Well, actually, it was my dad who got me into Skeptoid. He got into podcasts somehow. I mean, I didn't even know what they were until then. And I don't know how dad found it. I think there's a guy here called Dr. Carl, who's a science communicator, and he has a radio segment. And I think Brian Dunning went on the segment. And my dad started listening to the podcast. And

then I started listening to it. And you know, I think Skeptoid is a great starting point for anybody because, you know, he's so thorough with the topics that he covers. And I think you learn a lot about the sort of skeptical method, I guess, just from listening. And then obviously from there, I got into the skeptics guide, like most people seem to do. And after that, you know, you run through the entire back catalog and then you need to find another podcast and then another podcast. And I guess eventually you end up listening to about 20 of them so pretty soon you're sucking dick on the streets for podcasts i hear you man it's bad it's bad it's funny that your dad got you know my my dad would throw a record player at the computer before he would listen to a podcast like

that's unbelievable he'd rub two computers together in hopes of getting something else what's okay so you've done a lot of episodes what's your favorite thing to talk about because clearly skepticism has its range of topics what's the one thing that you just salivate when you hear it depends what you mean by salivate i mean being a medical science student, obviously the medical stuff I know a lot about, but I tend to get a lot angrier about that because of how ridiculous it is when you think about it. I mean, for me, the most fun ones are the sort of the somewhat silly ones, you know, the psychics. I don't know if you guys have read the psychic Sally story where she. We just did it on this week's podcast. That's right. I think you. Yeah, I think you had it there there and don't pretend you listen to it it's okay man you know that was a great

backtrack but it's not necessary it's all good hey between me and you ross i don't listen to the show either you know i mean the problem is and this this happens all the time at skeptics in the pub you're like oh did you hear that segment on the um and then you can't remember which podcast it is because you've listened to so many. And then some of them talk about the same stuff and you're like, oh, was it Cognitive Dissonance? Was it the Skeptics Guide? Was it those Skeptics with the K-Dudes? This week on Twitter, somebody tweeted at Noah one of Tom's jokes.

And Noah was like, I didn't say that. I think that was Cognitive Dissonance. So that does happen all the time absolutely so yeah the psychic sally where she did the reach into the box grab the picture and then was like this person's dead and then the person's like no i'm like right here yeah i mean it would have been good if it was just you know some relative of the woman but the fact that she was right there staring her in the face. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that you can only dream of as a skeptic happening. You know, it's kind of, I mean, and that one's a lot more fun

than, you know, the kind of the kid's dead and then the kid's not dead. I mean, that one's a bit more macabre and, you know, you can't have as much fun with that because there are, you know, there are people who are genuinely grieving and stuff. So yeah, that kind of stuff. I figure with the, you know, you can't have as much fun with that because there are, you know, there are people who are genuinely grieving and stuff. So, yeah, that kind of stuff. I figure with the, you know, the medical stuff, there's a lot of the kids dead.

You know, I figure with that stuff, you know, most of the time, the stuff that we talk about whenever we talk about medical stuff, like when people won't treat their children or people are anti-vaxxers, most of the time, you're counting the toll in deaths. You're not counting the toll in like somebody's out a little bit of money or a little bit of time. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and they're harder to cover as well. I mean, myself and Phil Kent, who's also one of the organizers of Skeptic Camp, we went along to an expo on Sunday and Meryl Dory was giving a one and a half hour lecture there that we sat in on. And it was really hard, you know, just to sit there and listen and not throw a shoe or something, you know, because Meryl Dory has done so much damage in this country. Who is that? I don't know who that is.

Forgive me. She's the ex-president and spokesperson of the AVN, the anti-vax group. So, but yeah, we, I mean, we went there as a little sort of investigation almost, you know, to see what was being said and to report back because, you know, they've been in a bit of hot water with the, like the trading standards people and the healthcare commission here. So, you know, we've got to try and keep them honest. And that was, that was sort of harder to do, but, you know, worthwhile at the same time. And then we just talked to other people who had Woo stalls and that was just brilliant. We got sold like hair analysis, aging creams, homeopathy, pyramids, you know, you name it. It was there. And that's a lot of fun. So if people were going to find your show, Ross, where would they go?

The best is probably skepticallychallenged.org. Pretty much everything I do runs through there. And I'm trying to do some more of the Not Skepticism podcast. I had actually good feedback on that show, probably just because you guys were on it. I don't think so. But more of those is good. I think it's nice for skeptics to just talk about normal stuff as well, you know, like movies, video games, you know, twerking. I think... Just an hour of discussions of twerking. All right. Well, Ross, it was great having you on. Thanks for coming on and joining us.

And good luck with the skeptic camp in July. So we want to thank we're not going to have an email section this week because this is one of our half episodes or midweek episodes. But we did want to thank Ross from Skeptically Challenged. If you want to find out about his show or about Skeptic Camp Brisbane, come to episode 154 on our website, dissonancepod.com, and you can find both links to the work that he's doing. Ross has a great show. He's a funny guy, and he has us on occasionally, and we're very happy to join him whenever he's doing. Ross has a great show. He's a funny guy. And he has us on occasionally.

And we're very happy to join him whenever he invites us. But that's going to be it for another couple days. We'll be releasing again on Monday. So until then, we're going to leave you, as always, with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead

pan, sales pitch, late night info- docutainment leo pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and 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 evangel evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak 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. Thank you. you