Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 184: Call Me a Magistrate

Episode Date: October 20, 2014

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This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Hey guys, just started listening to your show a few weeks ago. Love you guys, love your podcast. You fucking crack me up. It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud in terms of podcasts or even like TV shows. But yeah, you guys easily make me laugh out loud and just feel good and I love what you're doing. Anyways, I'll try to keep this short.

Thank you guys for creating an awesome show, and I will be a faithful listener. Bye. Hi, guys. I recently took the Kiva Challenge, and I wanted to let you know how it went. My wife and I make a pretty good living separately, so we've never really had to ask permission to spend money on what we find interesting. But she's still Catholic, and when she found out that I recently gave $50 to a yam farmer in Nicaragua, She thought I lost my mind. So I have to give you credit for that. It was always, it's always fun to rub her the wrong way, just enough to let her know that Catholicism isn't the best path. So I have to give you, give you props. Go Kiva. Thank you for what you do. Keep up the good work. 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 at this episode 183 of Cognitive Dissonance. And, uh, I don't have a snappy intro, actually. That's pretty much, like, I have actually no snappy intro at all. Nothing snappy today, huh? I know, I'm not feeling

all that snappy. So, we're just gonna launch right into the first story. I'm just fucking abandoning ship on the snappy intro portion of the program. You don't do any planning for that, do you? I've never once thought. It's fucking evident. It's fucking ridiculously evident.

I have never thought until the moment we start recording about what I'm going to say in the intro. And I think I've actually come up with something 182 times. Except for obviously this time I failed. So, yeah. I got nothing. So this story comes from PilotOnline.com This is evidently a news source sandwiched

amidst every ad available to man. Seriously, you can't advertise more shit. On the page, at least on my view, a third or less of the page is taken up by the actual store. Ad block rules, dude.

It's got seven ads on this page. I can't see a single one. Ridiculous. So Elizabeth City Magistrate turns away same-sex couples. This is North Carolina. And basically a couple, obviously North Carolina is now one of the states, one of the 30 states where same-sex couples can get married. A same-sex couple went down to the old courthouse.

After 31 years together, they finally were able to get married, or so they thought. But the magistrate turned them away and said he won't be performing the marriage because of his religious beliefs, Cecil. I love that we still have magistrates. Right? I actually looked up magistrate to make sure it meant, like, lay judge, which is what it means. It feels like you need to, like, get a herald in to be like,

call me a magistrate, you know? Honey, where's my powdered wig? I got to go to work. Everywhere they walk, they have to have a bugle that follows them around, like, da-da-da-da. Like, I love the idea that we still have a magistrate. But the guy didn't want to fucking marry him. He's like, I'm fucking Grumpy Gus.

I don't want to do it. I'm not going to do it. You can't make me do it. Newsflash, yes, they can make you do it. And so you're probably going to lose your job. I hope he loses his job. I mean, it would be really like all that should happen is he'd be like yeah i'm not gonna do that thing and then they'd turn to his supervisor and be like you got somebody competent i mean that'd be my fight i wouldn't that's the thing i don't understand is

these people we've heard these stories before and like the people are like yeah so we fucking didn't get married today be like slow your fucking train yeah i would fucking make a scene like you'd be fucking pepper spraying my ass before i walked out of there because there is absolutely no way to let that go right i show up it is your fucking job to do a thing and to be the it honestly would be the same thing if you went to fucking speedway and you're like yeah i want to buy gas and like yeah i don't sell gas to white people or you know whatever be like, why are you talking about? Like, that's outrageous. You can't do it.

Like, you simply cannot do that. So, I mean, it's the exact same thing. Like, it's against my religion to be a decent human being. Like, well, fucking, I don't give a fuck what your religion is. Yeah. Do your job. It doesn't enter into this conversation at all. It's like, you're not the one getting married. So you can do whatever the fuck you want.

You know, this would be like if you had the guy who plays the mouse at Chuck E. Cheese and he spiked your birthday cake on the ground. Just like going, nuh. You know what? This is actually, I was eating Brussels sprouts the other day at work, so I had left over. I had made Brussels sprouts, brought leftovers,

and somebody's like, I don't like Brussels sprouts. I'm like, well, I wasn't fucking offering you any. Like they just came by and like fucking threw their opinion. They're like, oh, I don't like Brussels sprouts. I'm just like, well, I wasn't going to give you any. Like I wasn't a fucking easy suggestion. Don't do the thing. Like, oh, I don't like gay marriage. And don't fucking get a gay marriage. Yeah, man. That's like like super easy it's like wearing like a concert t-shirt and being like I hate that band and be like fucking I didn't ask you to go to their concert right shut up

it'd be like I have fucking two tickets sitting here like waiting oh shit I'm tearing them up fuck who else am I gonna go see Evanescence with I was counting on you to go see Evanescence with. I was counting on you to go see them. God damn it. Fucking who's going to go to the Taylor Swift concert with me?

Glory, glory, hallelujah. God does not exist. So this next story comes from thegrio.com. I don't even know why I chose this source. I don't either. Because this story is everywhere. This story is everywhere. This fucking story has been vomited up everywhere.

And I picked like the craziest news source for it, the griot. What the fuck is the griot? So this story is kind of great. A pastor who admitted he had AIDS refuses to step down, gives Sunday sermon. This is the most awkward Sunday sermon ever. Juan McFarlane was the pastor in attendance at the church, at the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He delivered a sermon on divine healing, posted the video to YouTube.

You can check it out. I didn't because it is probably bullshit. And this guy is the same guy that he admitted to sleeping with members of the congregation despite knowing that he was HIV positive. How fucking awkward is that? Oh my God. That's fucking ridiculous. And then they wound up, the church hierarchy voted him out. And they said he had to step down.

And the vote was 80 to 2. I want to know who the two are. The two, probably him and his wife. I don't know. Was it like a seed from like 12 angry men? He like couldn't convert the other 80 people. Now he's like filibustering to try to keep his position. But it said following his AIDS admission,

as well as other troubling actions, such as drug use and mishandling of church funds. And I just can't get this image out of my head of him, like, like snort and blow off a hooker's ass in between choir songs. You know, he's cutting it, you know, he's fucking snorting it up there.

Can you, this guy, he could, he could have just walked out into the fucking audience and, like, punched a parishioner in the face, you know what I mean? Like, he was doing everything wrong. It's so great, too, because he's mishandling funds, so he's got that hooker and he's fucking making it rain.

He's like, ah! I got AIDS! Who fucking cares? Ah! I can do anything I want! Oh, man. The church deacon actually commented that the parishioners wanted only to take the church back, not to hurt McFarlane. And I got to tell you, like, if I found out that a trusted member of the church was fucking stealing the money and fucking infecting people with diseases, I'd be like, I don't care if he gets hurt.

people with diseases, I'd be like, I don't care if he gets hurt. At this point, I gotta hand it to you because if you're willing to turn the other cheek when a dude is stealing my money and infecting people with diseases, I'd be like, I kinda don't fucking care what happens to that guy. He's a fucking

bad person. This guy's got like, he's like three of the four plagues on his own. I know. All he needs is like a guy with like a t-shirt gun filled with frogs to follow him around. He just wants his own horse. Like, that's it. He's like, what do I got to do?

What do I got to do? Like, look, I'll be pestilence. Is that what you want? I'll be pestilence. I already am. Fine. I already am. I'll take the food out of their mouths by taking their money. So I'm famine. He's famine. I'm pestilence. P pestilence. I already am. I already am. I'll take the food out of their mouths

by taking their money. So I'm famine. He's famine. I'm pestilence. Pestilence. It's going to take a while, but eventually death. Death. And people hate me, so it's war. Right. There you go. Fucking all four of them. You know, there is nothing normal about being a sodomite. There is

no life that will come out of a rectum. You cannot produce life. It's only death. Everyite. There is no life that will come out of a rectum. You cannot produce life. It's only death. Every time, there's nothing in a rectum except waste, refuse, and death. This fucking guy. There's so much in this. Man, look at this.

This is from the Raw story. North Carolina popping up again. Pastor comes unglued overcoming gay weddings. You think Ebola is bad now? Just wait. He bellows. A Baptist pastor

I can't speak. A Baptist pastor is warning that God will escalate the Ebola crisis when North Carolina begins performing same-sex marriage. And I love the idea that God is just waiting. Like, man, when they start doing that in North Carolina, not North Carolina. Fucking Massachusetts, who gives a shit?

But once that shit hits North Carolina, Ebola for everybody. Don't make me turn this car around. I will turn this car around. Let's play it. There's a minute-long clip, I guess, of him. I haven't listened to it yet. I'd hate to think that a bull and a pasture and a cow has more sense

than a PhD in a university. Does he hate to think it, or does he think it? He does think it. I mean, I think he thinks it. Yeah, he's absolutely like, I hate to think this thing I'm thinking that you're cheering about. That's what I hate to think. And actually, everyone in this room thinks it, too.

You're right. Exactly. When you say I hate to think, that's just a turn of phrase. I really don't hate to think it. I actually fucking just orgasm thinking it. Right. Like, I lay in bed fucking pulling my dick thinking about this. Thinking about it all the time.

Being smarter than a P-H-A-E. Good, good, good, good. Don't get it. Being smarter than a PhD. Good, good, good, good. Okay, here we go. A little more. I'd hate to think that two skunks in the backyard are smarter than a judge that's supposed to have studied the laws of the land and able to interpret the law. Isn't it amazing? For 150 plus years, we've had the laws and many of the same laws on the

book and all of a sudden we're supposed to have had a vision overnight at how dumb we were all of those years and now the things that even put laws in place that said homosexuality is breaking the law is now putting so-called laws in place saying that it's okay, that it's a lifestyle that's acceptable in our society. Listen, we're not getting wiser. That's evidenced by everything you just said. Right. Some of us certainly are giving it a whirl.

Where does it say in the Constitution that marriage is between a man and a woman? Oh, yeah, that would be on page none of the pages. You might want to check that. The thing is, a lot of people don't read the index on the Constitution. It's hidden in the fine print. You guys got fucked by Scalia because he's such a literalist, you know what I mean?

So that's the problem. We're getting dumber. We're not getting smarter. My friend, we are meriting, we are bringing the judgment of God on this nation as sure as Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. Don't be surprised at the plagues. Don't be surprised at the judgment of God.

You think Ebola is bad now? Just wait. If it's not that, it's going to be something else. Oh, that's perfect, isn't it? What a great out. I know, when it's not that. What a great out he left himself. He's just like, so somebody goes back to me like, hey, man, you remember when you said

Ebola was going to be like the fucking big thing that was going to take us out because God was maybe like, oh, but I put that little clause in there that said, or something else. And you see, when things don't, when my fucking prophecies don't come true, I just pick new prophecies because I leave outs for myself. Right. I don't specify a timeline. And in this case, I don't even specify a mechanism for action. So over the course of an infinite period of time, something bad will happen.

Wow. Great. Thanks, fucking Pastor Snoozebutton. Who gives a shit? I'll either win the lottery this week with these numbers or I won't. Oh, man. That's 100% guaranteed. What a prognosticator you are.

Oh, my gosh. My friend, I want you to understand. You can't thumb your nose at God and God turn his head away without God getting your attention. Okay. Yeah, God can get my attention anytime he'd like. I have a really good life. I have a great attention span. You know, here's the thing, man.

I have a great life. And I'm fucking thumb my nose at God 183 times so far. I fucking thumb my nose at God basically as a part-time job at this point. More than that because of EAC. That's true, right? Because we did it during the other

show, too. And I have a fucking great life. So, come on, come get some, God. So far, it's atheist one, God zero. Because I'm real. There's a part, I want to read part of this. He says, they were doing something that was not normal. And this is about Sodom and Gomorrah. They were doing something that is not natural.

And as a result of that, like God judged the world of a flood, he judged Sodom and Gomorrah. They were doing something that is not natural. And as a result of that, like God judged the world of a flood, he judged Sodom and Gomorrah with fire. The most blasphemous thing I've heard in 40 years of ministry, I heard on the news last night where rogue judges have gone against the will of the ministry and made America a country where totalitarianism, where there's totalitarianism. What the fuck? Do you even understand what fucking totalitarianism, where there's totalitarianism. What the fuck? Do you even understand what fucking totalitarianism is? Like, that would mean, okay, if there was a violent coup of the government

by the Supreme Court, which I was unaware of. The oldest people ever. Then maybe. Could you imagine, like, fucking Scalia with, like, a fucking M-60? There was a lot of breath, and like breaking hips in the process. And he's got like the Rambo fucking red headband on and his shirt is off. And as he shoots the gun, each of his fucking moobs is bouncing with the gun, you know?

Are you fucking kidding me? It's a dictatorship, man. Where is there a dictatorship? Like there was fucking first off, there was nine people. And it wasn't fucking 9-0, dumb fuck. It was fucking 5-4. I know. Like, it is every time.

It's always 5-4. It's like never not 5-4. It's always Scalia's height. You know what I mean? It's always 5-4. Hey, guys, why are you making fun of me? I'm 5'5". Oh, God.

Always picking on me. He's like the George Costanza of the judges. He's this little fucking proponent fucker that you just want to go away. Oh, God, I hate that guy so much. Oh, my God. You know, this other thing in this sermon is he's talking about, like, ah, these fucking animals know it. Like, it's a basic fact of biology is what he's basically getting at.

It's for the animals across the fucking animal kingdom engaged in homosexual activity. Like, homosexual activity is not limited only to human beings. Plenty of animals engage in homosexual activity. There's fucking, like, probably not having fucking sex because you have one bull. It's not like you've got a fucking herd of bulls. Nobody has a herd of bulls. You've got a bull and then more cows because that is the efficient way to breed shit. If you get a herd of bulls, the milk is very thick. way to breed shit. If you get a herd of bulls, the milk is very thick.

All the bulls have this confused but satisfied grin on their face every morning like, I don't think he knows what he's doing. Don't tell him. Don't tell him. Thanks, Farmer Handjob. I don't know what to tell you.

Oh, man. Old McDonald had thanks farmer hand job oh man old mcdonald had a hand job it's like it's always been the little women that caught the vision of giving beginning with jesus himself out of their private means. Some of you little precious ones have that little grocery money. Some of that little money set aside. Assure tonight the blessings of God on your family by giving it to God and speaking that. Say it. God, this is for blessings on my family.

So this story comes from the Raw story. Ohio pastor forced vasectomies and abortions because kids divert money away from church. The fuck is going on at Grace Cathedral? I mean, hold the fucking phone. This guy, this This guy Cecil Reverend Ernest Angley Yeah Is the dude in charge and he's telling you like

Yeah time for you to go get your Fucking nuts cut and get an abortion Like wait what the fucking What are you talking about This had to be the hardest sell ever Man it's crazy these people like they were talking This woman said she was four months pregnant and she sat in the abortion clinic waiting room

and told her baby that she was so sorry she was doing this. I know another girl, she won't come forward, but she was forced to have four abortions. And I started thinking, I'm like, okay, so give me a secular analog to this. Give me a secular reason to convince someone else who is not willing to have an abortion. Where is the secular reasoning,

right? Right. Yeah, where's the authority from outside? Yeah, to do something like that. Because I couldn't, I was like, uh, what? Why would you listen to him? Oh, because you think you're gonna go to hell if you don't. Because he's the authority. He's the mouthpiece. He's the one who tells you what is right and wrong, what is good, what's holy. And you've got to listen to

him or else, you know, you're in real trouble when it comes time for the judgment. Man. And he's so weird. Like the things that he says, let me read some of the things that he says. He says, I'm not a homosexual. God wouldn't use a homosexual like he uses me. He calls me his prophet. Indeed, I am. They call Jesus a homosexual. Did you know that? They still do because he was with men.

What? Right? Who calls Jesus a homosexual? And then when he's talking about the fucking, like, the vasectomies, like the weird, like, forced vasectomies, because somebody says in here, like, you're not allowed to have kids. None of us have kids because he makes all the men get fixed. And he says that he had helped many of the boys down through the years.

They had their misgivings. He recalled. Sure. I'd have them uncover themselves, but I did not handle them at all. And I would tell them how that would work and they'd have to watch it. What do you tell? I'd have some of them come back to me that I felt needed to. And I would tell them. I would look at them. They're privates. So I could tell how they were swelling. How they were swelling?

It's better. I was a farm boy. We thought nothing about undressing. We didn't know about homosexuals. We talked about women. What the fuck are you talking about? This guy doesn't even seem... The thing that's so unbelievable to me is he doesn't even make sense when he's talking. I know.

When I read that. How is he selling this? When I read that, I was like, wait a second, what was swelling? I was like, wait a minute. How is that swelling? And what is going on there? Right, right. Let me examine your swelling.

Hold on. I just need to get a little closer to the swelling. But this guy looks great too, doesn't he? I mean, he looks like, that looks like the biggest piece of fake hair I've ever seen on a human being. Doesn't it? I mean, it just looks, it looks like, it looks like the woman from Napoleon Dynamite helped him pick out a wig.

His face is so jowly. I know. That his eyes are actually beating a strategical retreat into the back of his head. I know! That you can't even see and I'm fucking not even kidding. You cannot see his eyes at all. I wouldn't be surprised if someone treated his eyes socket like a wishing well and like

chucked a quarter in there. I wish I didn't get a vasectomy. I wish I had my baby. Oh no! That's terrible. I wish I didn't get a vasectomy. I wish I had my baby. Oh, no. No. That's terrible. This guy missed his calling. Can you imagine if this guy was this effective, like, selling used cars?

I know. You know, you'd show up. You'd be, like, driving away a fucking flaming Pinto. And you'd be like, how did this even happen? The car was on fire while I bought it. This is the kind of guy who could sell you a vacuum cleaner at your door. Right, yes. And you have

hardwood floors. You know what I mean? You're just like, oh, I guess I needed it. You're like, this guy walks out of your house and you've got like three Kirby vacuums and a bunch of cutco and you're like, what the fucking, I don't need this at all. What just happened? You could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportion.

What do you mean, biblical? What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath of God type stuff. Exactly. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. So this story comes from the Beacon News. Mom told police she tried to kill daughters so they could go home and be with Jesus Christ. A woman in Montgomery, Illinois, tried to kill all three of her children.

She did a terrible job of it, by the way. Yeah, she fucking cocked that job up. Jesus. If she's this bad at killing her kids, can you imagine how bad of a homeschooling teacher she was? Oh, no. Just terrible. Just terrible. She has not found her calling.

No. So she's estranged from her husband. And her husband's a pastor. And her husband called up and basically told her the world was ending. So she did the only rational thing that she could do, which is that she tried to poison her children by making them drink a concoction of household cleaners. The three girls

said, you know, fuck that noise. And they're all like older. It's not like these are like little girls. No, 12, 16 and 19. Even the 12 year old's like, Ma, I ain't drinking the Windex. Like, that's not a thing that's gonna happen. Right. So she had concocted a poison out of dishwashing detergent in order to subdue her children.

It's so strange. And she told police she hoped that they would fall asleep so she could stab them. And I have to tell you, like, I don't know much about the toxicity of dishwasher detergent, but I don't think it's the same as a fucking sleeping pill. Yeah. I don't think anybody's like, oh, I'm filled with fucking cascade. I'm going to go take a nap. I'm so sleepy.

I had a whole bottle of Jet Dry. I'll tell you. You know, I don't know that it was the emails from the husband that made her flip. Maybe they just bothered her too much while she was playing Farmville. You know what I mean? Like she was in the middle of Farmville and it's like fucking, will you stop? So she tries to make them

drink the fucking dishwasher liquid and the kids are all like, mom, fuck that. And so they don't drink the dishwasher liquid. She stabs, she asks if they accept Jesus as their savior. She stabs two of them. But then she, like, stabs herself.

So when the police show up, she's all dressed in white and all fucking stabby and everything. And it's like you failed. Not only did you fail to poison your kids, you failed to kill your kids. You only stabbed two out of the three. Then you stabbed yourself. You're fucking terrible at this. Yeah. And, again,

we're talking before, we talked about the abortion, right? You know, how do you convince somebody to get an abortion? How do you convince someone to kill their own children, right? Now, clearly this lady's fucking messed up, right? I'm not saying this lady's not fucking crazy. You can't discount. You can't just say, well, she was just a crazy person.

You can't just throw that out and say, well, it's not anything. That's a statistical outlier or something. Yeah. And you can't decide that, you know, without this trigger of apocalypse, right? Because the whole apocalypse like narrative, like is so woven into the fabric of some people's being that they really, truly believe that shit. And if you really, truly believe that the world is ending and then you also are unstable, then all of a sudden there is a rational, you know, a quasi-rational case in the mind of somebody who's, you know, maybe not firing on all cylinders to be made for, you know, committing something like this. But the trigger here relies on that embedded narrative, right? It relies on that, like, man, the world is ending, and there is such a thing as Armageddon, there is such a thing as an apocalypse,

and all of that is actual and real. And, you know, I mean, I got to tell you, too, like, killing your kids, if you think that there's a heaven where they're going to go, man, that would be preferable to living through the hell of, you know, scarcity and war. It would be much fucking preferred. Like, hey, I can send my kids to paradise.

Or it'd be like, it's exactly analogous to saying like, hey, do you love your kids? Yeah, I fucking love my kids. Okay, well, you know, I got to tell you, you have to send them to either Honolulu or Syria. Well, who doesn't pick Honolulu? Exactly. And if you think those things are a real thing, right? I mean, you've got to believe, and that's the

problem again with belief, right? You've got to believe 100% that there's going to be two options. It's going to be Armageddon or it's going to be Paradise. And you've got to be Armageddon or it's going to be Paradise. And you've got to believe both of those things are true. Now, it may be a little easier to get over on someone who clearly doesn't have the mental faculties

to stop someone from getting over on them, right? I mean, clearly there's something wrong here because she's allowing somebody. But there has to be a mechanism for them to get over on you. Want to contact the guys? Go to DissonancePod.com to get links to their Google+, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. If you want to contact them directly, send an email to Dissonance.Podcast at gmail.com. Or you can call and leave a message at 740-74-DOUBT.

That's 740-743-6828. Do you want to support the show? Go to patreon.com. That's p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com forward slash dissonance pod. Or click the link on the podcast homepage and you can donate to the production of Cognitive Dissonance

on a per episode basis. If you can't spare any money, take a second to give us a five-star review on iTunes or Stitcher, or spread the word about the show. We want to send a big heartfelt glory hole to all the patrons and people who rate us. You fucking rock. So this story comes from Mother Jones. Mother Jones, ISIS magazine, promotes slavery, rape, and murder of civilians in God's name. I haven't gotten my subscription yet, mostly because I'm terrified to mail in the card.

You know, like, here's my address. Send me a magazine. Yeah, the payment, you have to send eight heads in a duffel bag. And then they take that as the payment only. So ISIS evidently, I mean, they're actually quite the sophisticated media. I mean, they're very savvy when it comes to their use of media. They have a magazine, which I just find fucking unbelievable. It bills itself as an informative source for the activities of ISIS fighters.

And Cecil, it has some absolutely crazy religious, and this is very important, religious justifications for some awful barbaric shit. Yeah, there's several different points here where they go out of their way. I mean, clearly they're listing all of these parts of this magazine where they're using their religion as a justification to not only hurt other people where they live, because there's a part where it says sack other people's cities.

I'm just going to read off these headers. Condemn other people's beliefs. Enslave people. Threaten and kill people. Turn women and children into sex slaves and concubines that you didn't kill, plunder, murder civilians, ethnically cleanse, use suicide as a weapon. So there's a lot of things here that they're utilizing and they're pointing to their belief, specifically pointing to their belief and saying, these are the reasons why we're able

to do this. This is a justification through our holy book that allows us to do this. Are these people, you know, using this book in a crazy interpretation of this book? Yeah, sure, they are. But the book still exists. The book still exists and is still showing not just this small group, but there's a lot of other people that it's showing that this is the right path. This is the right way to interpret this work.

And so when you have that many people banded together, I'm not saying all of Islam, don't get me wrong, there's a billion people. So clearly not all of them think that this is a good idea and that this is the way in which the Quran should be interpreted.

But there's clearly enough of them so that they can, say, take over a country. Yeah, and let's not pretend for a moment that ISIS is a small group of people. According to the CIA, ISIS is between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters. That's 20,000 and 30,000 active fighters, according to the CIA. This is not 400 people. This is not, you know, 400 people. This is not a small group of people. This is not the Westboro Baptist Church getting in their van and driving across the country.

Right. You know? Right. These number in the tens of thousands. They have swept across two countries. And the motivation and the justification for the violence, according to them, not according to Cecil and I, but according to them, the justification for this violence is their religious conviction. That's why they call it the Islamic State. Right.

Right. It's right in the fucking name. That's why it's, you know, there's a caliphate. Right. That's why it's, you know, they're calling these things by name. This isn't us deciding like, oh, these fighters are doing this in the name of Islam. It's them saying we are doing this in the name of Islam. And I will fucking read from what's in their fucking magazine regarding turning women into sex slaves.

Yazidi women could be enslaved, unlike female apostates, who the majority of the jurists say cannot be enslaved and can only be given an ultimatum to repent or face the sword. So great choice there. After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided, according to the Sharia, amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations, after one-fifth of the slaves were transferred to the Islamic State's authority to be divided as taxes. One should remember that enslaving the families of the unbelievers and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Sharia,

that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the prophet. These are their words. That's what they fucking said. Right. So it is entirely fair and reasonable to judge their actions as religiously motivated when they expressly tell you. religiously motivated when they expressly tell you, I mean, in words that simply could not be clearer, that the reason that they feel they can turn human beings into sex slaves and divide them as taxes is because their holy book says they can't. And I don't want to say that they're not fundamentalists and they're not a sect, right? I don't want to say that. Clearly they are. But you can't look at this and say that they have a handbook that they have clearly

looked at and chosen verses out of and chosen the way in which to interpret it, and it is damaging parts of the world. That text is the genesis for all of this, because without that, how do you convince another human to do these things, right? Because how do you convince someone that another human being isn't of worth and that they can be divided as taxes, unless you're saying that there's some sort of judge up above us that's saying that that's totally fucking fine to do, right? There's something outside of human beings that is allowing us this, it's giving us this ability to split up humans like we want, kill whoever we want. And it's not whoever we want, it's who God wants us to kill.

And, you know, they're manipulating large groups of people using this text. And then they have, you know, they have, the religion, of course, has its ability to motivate people through, you know, threat of punishment and promise of reward. And you can't look at this and say that this isn't a bad thing in its core, that the religion part of it is not the rotten core center of this. And I do think that that particular piece is also written to ease the misgivings of moderate Muslims who might look at this and say, you know, how could you do that? How could you do that? And they're attempting to say, look, here's our

justice. I mean, this is how we can do it. Because at the end of that paragraph, they say, look, if you deny this, you deny the words of the prophet. Fucking, I'm not going to deny the words of the prophet to the fucking ISIS people. That's for fucking sure. So this is their way to say, like, I can do it. Don't you dare question me. And especially in that part of the world where apostasy is death. So this next story comes from The Independent.

Iraq descends into anarchy. Shia militias abducting and killing Sunni civilians in revenge for ISIS attacks. And, you know, the other thing I want to point out about this article, because it's exactly what it says, is at some point, you can't make a rational distinction, I don't think, between ethnic violence and religious violence. I don't even understand how you do that. These are two religious sects. And they're split, I mean,

along cultural grounds now, but the original split was over, you know, I mean, who, like, the lineage of Muhammad. Like, that's really, like, where the Shia and Sunni split comes from. It's, like, split over, like, who the prophets are according to the lineage of from. It's like split over like who the prophets

are according to the lineage of Muhammad. Oh, it's his cousins. No, it's whatever. Who fucking cares? And now these people are fucking butchering each other in religious fueled warfare. Because how do you differentiate a Shia from a Sunni? It's what you believe. It's not the color of your skin. It's not. It's what you believe. It's the church you go to. This is like, you know, the Catholics and the Protestants. We see this happen with other religions, like you said, the Protestants and the Catholics. We see, you know, clearly there's been a long history of those, violence between those two sects. And there's, you know, a long history of violence between these two sects, too.

This is, again, another sad moment for us. those two sects, and there's a long history of violence between these two sects too, this is, again, another sad moment for us. And this is not, like we said, this is not Islam only. This is a religion-wide problem, is that there's always somebody who's going to reinterpret that book in a different way, and it's going to make some people mad and mad enough to kill and this is a perfect example of this people dying like i mean the fucking photos in here it's like the goddamn end of the world it's the fucking road it's so bad it's so genuinely upsetting that this is fucking going on and why is it going on? It's going on for no reason. Like, for no actual reason.

You can't bring reason into these conversations. And as proof of that, I would say, if you were abducted by these people, do you think you could reason your way out of it? Abso-fucking-lutely, you could not reason your way out of it. Because reason has nothing to do with this. And as long as reason has nothing to do with this conversation, the conversation's over before it has begun.

Now, the concern, obviously, is if this isn't bottled up in San Francisco, this kind of nonsense, then it's going to be spreading across the entire Fruited Plain and you're going to be going to your Burger King in Des Moines, Iowa, and you're going to have a rainbow-colored wrapper for your Whopper. Sister, it comes from Right Wing Watch. Klingenschmitt. Government recognition of gay marriage is deceiving

citizens into hell. I have to say that the video where it's frozen here, where it's like it looks great because he's got his little chubby fist like right up by his face and he looks like he's like I don't know taking a smash or something like his face is all contorted

it's a great picture let's play Klingenschmitt Klingenschmitt basically is just going to go on about gay marriage again so let's listen to him go on about it is this God's judgment on America? That many of these judges now, since they don't acknowledge God,

they're making decisions out of a debased mind. I'm talking about at the appeals court level to homosexualize marriage. And ultimately, as I said, God will be the judge. You know, gay marriage is still illegal in all 50 states because God has decreed it so.

When did God write our fucking laws? And God will throw you into jail. No, wait, that's not true. God's got a badge. God the sheriff. God the sheriff swings in. He's a crusty but benign old sheriff who sort of sits behind his desk. He's got his old hound dog that sits next to him.

And Jesus is like that young cop, the hothead, who's always busting out of the seams. That's awesome. He's the young rookie cop that doesn't play by the rules. Like, wait, what? God damn it, chief. You can take my bad. Okay, fine. Who cares? In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, the Bible

says this. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Let's take a moment and pray. Would you pray with me? Tom, are we going to pray with him? I'm going to pass on that. You know, I do want to ask you about inheriting the kingdom of God. Don't I have to wait for God to die before I get the inheritance? And then you've got to deal with all the people that want a piece of that. You know what I mean?

Like, just get in line. You know what I mean? And then, God's got to pay off all his debts with all of his estate. Oh my gosh, it's exhausting. Like, the probate court in heaven is just like, it's ridiculous. Like, you go up there and it's basically just

a fucking DMV. Like, that's it. That's heaven. That would be... It's like a deli counter and it's like Beetlejuice. Like, you pull the number and it's like 4,865,000. And the thing clicks over. It's like, now serving two. You're like, God damn it. At least the vision of Beetlejuice is more interesting than hell or heaven.

It doesn't matter. Either one. It's more interesting than both of them. The vision of Beetlejuice is a more in-depth and interesting afterlife than anything depicted in the Bible. You know what I mean? You look at it and you're just like, well, the way they depict heaven, you're just like, oh, sounds kind of lame.

I do like in the Beetlejuice afterlife that if you're fucking mangled in a horrible car wreck, you die and you go mangled. I know. You're like totally like everybody's like head is flat and shit like that is crazy and awesome. So like if you get like burnt to cinder, you're just like, ah, fuck. And somebody else dies of a fucking freak heart attack at 25, and they're in heaven, and they're all beautiful.

And you're like, what the fuck? That's not fair. That's just bullshit. It'd be perfectly fair if you were still old and weird looking. Yeah. Because, I mean, you at least got to live out part of your life you know what i mean like that's true right at 25 let's i want kind of want to pray with them so let me let me just pray with them real quick father in heaven i do pray in jesus name that you will vindicate us as americans that our laws will reflect god's

highest law wait god's highest law is do not worship any gods before me. Yeah, no. It's been replaced by don't have butt sex. That's in the footnotes. Yeah, it's a new highest law. The don't have any other gods before me got bumped down. No butt sex and no immigration is the second one.

Alright, so there's a little more. So that our government, locally, does not deceive our citizens into hell. By telling the citizens, this is okay, this is normal, this is acceptable, when God, you yourself, have decreed it to be sin.

It just seems like such an inequity. Cause you're like, how often, how much of my life do I spend having sex? You know? Like I, like I would. Well, hold on. I can do the math. Hold on. Hold on.

I can do the math. Zero percent. So wait, wait, wait, wait. So seven minutes. No, wait. It's not a twofer. All right. Three and a half. I was going to say seven minutes entirely for my whole life. It's not a twofer. All right. Three and a half minutes.

I was going to say seven minutes entirely for my whole life. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. No, but you know, like, like how much, how much time do I, how much time do I spend at work? How much time do I spend in bed? How much time do I spend interacting with other human beings or ignoring the needs of

other human beings, let's say, or doing other bad things. Right. Right. I, I, I just, it's like, it like, it's such a minute part of people's lives. Unless you're like a fucking sex worker. Like, that's the only person who fucking, like, sex is a part of their life because that's their job. Yeah, I don't get it.

And it's such a fucking banal part of your life. I mean, at the end of the day, like, all the things that, like, that you do in your life that matter, sex is, like, one of those things. It doesn't make it. It doesn't matter any more than if I'm like, I ate apple pie. It's like, who cares? Who fucking cares that you ate apple pie? It means nothing to anyone.

Like, it's just, that shit's between me and the pie. And, I mean, don't get me wrong. I fucked that pie. I mean, I fucked that pie. I fucking went straight up American Pie style on that thing. Just tore it up. Alan Mode, my friends. You want answers?

I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. So this story comes from Pat Robertson, right wing watch. Halloween is a festival for demonic spirits Halloween's coming up Cecil are you ready?

do you have your costume? I haven't picked anything out yet I was maybe going to go as Pat Robertson that would be the you have got to come to my Halloween party just go get a cryptkeeper mask I would just have to like print his face out on a piece of paper

so Pat Robertson had some shit to say about Halloween. So we should listen to it. You know, maybe I think he's a huge fan of Michael Myers, actually. So we want to get right to your email. Pat, this first one is from Hope, who says, My sister wants to throw a Halloween party for the children in our family. But I'm a Christian woman and want to continue to instill these values in my children and grandchild. So I don't let them participate in trick or treating or costumes.

My family feels like I'm stopping my kids' fun. What a fucking mean person you are. What a mean person you are. My sister wants to enjoy her life, but I'm a fucking mean-spirited spiteful bitch. Wow. Great.

My fucking sister wants to raise fucking normal kids, and I want to make sure that they're fucking constantly repressed at every moment, and the weird one at school. Oh, great. They can't celebrate their birthday either. Will it be wrong to let them go to the party and buy them costumes and just don't let them trick-or-treat?

Please help, because I don't want to see them upset. How about be a parent? How about fucking don't send a message to some fucking goddamn grizzled, old, fucking nearly dead, fucking completely archaic dirt man? Mom, can we go to the Halloween party? I don't know. Pat Robertson hasn't told me yet. I don't like. Mom, what do you think?

I don't. I don't think. Pat Robertson hasn't told me what to think. All right. Halloween is a festival for demonic spirits the whole idea of trick-or-treating the druids um would go to somebody's house and ask for money and if they didn't get money they'd kill one of their sheep i mean that was the the trick uh you know so i mean it was serious stuff. And it was also all this business about goblins and

jack-o'-lanterns and all that, all comes out of demonic rituals of the Druids and the people who lived in England at that particular time. I think churches can have Halloween parties. You can bob for apples and do stuff like that and turn it into a Christian festival. And that's what we ought to do. We need to redeem these days. But that day was given over to satanic things. That day was given over to Satan. Satan, you win this one.

It was a Satan thing. Christ 364, Satan won. I just looked it up to see if there would be some mention of killing sheep, but I didn't see anything in here about the murdering of sheep. Looked like it was just about begging. That's it? That's what it was. It was like trick-or-treating was about, it's like they dressed up and they begged, basically.

That's what it looks like. So I can't, I mean, I don't see anything about sheep getting killed or druids. Well, are you suggesting that Pat Robertson is not factually accurate? You know, maybe he's right. The thing is, is like fucking, aren't we past the point where we start fucking believing in like, like the thing is, is like he wants us to think Halloween's like a real thing. I know. I know.

He wants us to think like Halloween's like a scary, real it. I mean, this is a guy who wouldn't say like fucking candy man 10 times in front of a mirror, right? Like bloody Mary. No,

stop. You'll summon her. You'll, you'll literally summon her here. And then I will fucking, I don't know what will happen. Like we'll have to have eat tea sandwiches together. What would possibly...

This is the thing. These people put this shit in their heads to think that trick-or-treating isn't evil. It's a satanic thing. It's a demonic thing. A jack-o'-lantern. A fucking carved goddamn gourd is a demonic thing. It's a carved

gourd. It's a fruit, dude. Somebody took a fruit and a knife and made a face in a fruit. It's like a fucking goddamn apple dove is a fucking demonic thing, too. It's like somebody like carves a rose out of a radish. It's like, oh, my God, it's the devil. It's the devil. It doesn't matter whatever it is. If you carve it out of a fruit, it's fucking, it's, it's complete evil.

So like, you know, it's actually those, those old Ginsu commercials where they used to make all the different like fucking tomato fucking flowers and shit. That shit was fucking totally, I mean, you might as well just be fucking like writing, writing a check to Satan right there. I mean, you know, the thing is, if you play those commercials backwards, then you get your instructions on how to serve Satan. Yeah. It's, and it turns out you serve

them with a side of applesauce. Actually, if you play those backwards, people put cans together. That's what happens. The knives magically heal cans. That's amazing. So we want to thank all of our patrons, of course, but we want to thank specifically our newest patrons,

Graham, Dave, Sean, Michael, Megan, Matthew, Sherry, Lee, Jared, and... Reuterherry. Okay, so I'm just going to spell it. R-U-A-I-D-H-R-I. R-U-A-I-D-H-R-I. Okay, so I'm just going to spell it. R-U-A-I-D-H-R-I. I don't know. Maybe you might want to save some money and buy a vowel. I can't.

But in any case, thank you all very much. Thank you so much. For being patrons. We appreciate it. We're very happy that people like the show enough to become patrons. So thank you all so much. So we got some email we want to read. I think, Tom,

do you want to get right into the hate mail right away? Yeah, why not? I mean, why wait? Let's just do a little hate mail. Do a little hate mail first, and then we'll work our way into the other mails. The various mails that we receive. The various types of mails.

So let's just do this one first. So I want to read, work our way into the other males, the various males that we receive. The various types of males. Yeah. So let's, let's just, uh, let's just do this one first. So I want to read, this is from Christopher and Christopher got mad at us for apologizing. Uh, he said, when we apologized for using the word homosexual, he was so mad about it. He was like fucking furious. You could see he was pounding on his keyboard. He was so mad because he says, as he says, that politically correct pandering to one person who was offended came across as insincere, self-righteous, and fucking condescending. I don't know that we got the fucking in there, but sure.

Okay, fair enough. And he said that gay was used as a pejorative exponentially more than the technically correct term of homosexual. I'd like to see his metrics on that. So what I did was, I had sent him the GLAAD reference guide, which is what I did. And he had said, he sent back another email. He said, I stand educated. I see where you're coming from, but I still disagree. After showing this to a number, and he said,

might have only been three gay friends, I was told by one to fuck glad in our hypersensitivity and that either word is okay. It seems most share this sentiment. Well, I am glad you went through the scientific rigor of less than fucking Andrew Wakefield to find out, right? I mean, like fucking Andrew Wakefield had like 12 people, right? They had 12 people and they decided that autism came from vaccines.

You had three fucking people. You went to go talk to three people. And then you're suddenly like, oh, well, fucking, hey, man, you guys were wrong. Yeah, that's actually how you figure it out. So what I did, Cecil, after we got that email, is I called the Pew Research Center. And I told them, guys, I can save you so much time and money. All you have to do. You guys have been spending all this time and energy polling and controlling and doing these big statistical analyses.

Absolutely, yeah. You just need to get three data sets. That's how you figure out if something is a true. All you need is three points and you have a triangle. That's it. That's it. Done. Fucking sold.

So, yeah, man, I'm glad that you found us fucking condescending. I appreciate that. I'm not sure who exactly we were condescending to. I don't know either. I find that sort of confusing. I felt like I who exactly we were condescending to. I don't know either. I find that sort of confusing. I felt like I was pretty genuine when I apologized. Here's the thing. Because here's the thing.

I was genuine. I know. And we don't want to offend the people that we are on the side of. Their side. I don't know of a way we can make that more clear other than just say it. Maybe this will come off as insincere, though. I think I hope this does will come off as insincere though. I think, I hope this does actually come off as serious.

I don't know how to drip with more evidence sincerity. He says, stop with the holier than thou bullshit and stick to making the funny. Holier than thou? Like where did that even come from? A holier than thou attitude often comes from an apology. A lot of

times people are like, oh man, that apology was really holier than thou. Said nobody ever. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I'll tell you what, the moment you become a fucking patron, I'll listen to you. Give me orders. How's that, Christopher?

So go ahead and get on that. We also got a message too. And this is, this is, Tom, I think we need to call on one of your amazing voices, one that we've sort of called a nerdy conspiracy theorist. Will you please read the comment? This is a comment left to us by Thomas. And this comes from the, he put this on the About the Hosts portion of the page. Yeah, so if you want to comment on this, it's on the about the hosts portion of our page.

It's public, so you can go ahead and look at it. If you want great content in a way you can barely parse it, this is a podcast for you. If you like digging through crap to find diamonds, you have found your podcast. If you think a bowl of half ice cream and half shit is okay, then Diesel and Tom are the holes for you. I love that it... Like, this is a guy who clearly has eaten a bowl of half ice cream and half shit. And I don't

say... He's like, burned me once. Right, well, I don't say that he's done it on purpose, but I think that probably he was in an area where some shit got in his ice cream, and he was just like, fuck it, I'm still eating it. That's fucking ice cream, dude. I'm still eating it. It's fucking ice cream, dude. I'm still eating it. It's still good.

Nothing alone they do is bad, but their constant lack of research, i.e. understanding what they read, and the juvenile insults, laughs, and insults get old after a while. If they even pretended to want to try to present the show in an educated, educational, LPA entertaining way, they would be worth the time. A very long podcast spent getting through all the crap to get to the feel-good point they have. You know what's so funny when people say

that, like, oh, their podcast is so long, and I don't want to listen to it, but I like your news items. It's like, just fucking go to Reddit. Yeah, if you're coming to us to find, like to actually source news rather than get the editorial portion of it, like you've done newsing wrong. Fucking failed so badly at the things you're doing. Like the reason you should come here is the editorial.

If you don't like the editorial, why are you here? I can't. The whole show is an editorial. That's honestly the same thing as if you went to the editorial. Why are you here? I can't. The whole show is an editorial. That's honestly the same thing as if you went to the editorial section in your newspaper and was like, this is just somebody's opinion. What the? What I like about this, when he says, then Tom and Cecil are the host for you. You know what I was thinking is, you and I are like Captain Planet.

We both turn into one host. That's it. And then I was thinking, well, maybe we are more like Captain Planet because if we merged together, we would be a literal planet. See, I saw that and I thought maybe we were like the holy host.

Like, open up your fucking mouth, man. I'll give you a present. He does end it with, if they're, if, and he puts if in both caps,

I don't know why you do that. I don't know if that's probably just a typo, I guess if they are trying to be the atheist and he puts atheist in quotes too. I don't know why you would put atheist in quotes, Howard Stern. They have a long way to go. What the fuck? Who the fuck wants to be the atheist Howard Stern, they have a long way to go. What the fuck? Who the fuck wants to be the atheist Howard Stern?

I don't know why anybody would want to be the Howard Stern, Howard Stern. He also says, too, and this part I like, he says, this sort of sophomoric humor will appeal to some, but they needs to decide on a goal of what they want to be other than two or three guys using up an hour to an hour and a half of time. Okay, so it's need, not needs. And we are two people, Suso and Tom. I mean, we're big guys.

So if we put us on a scale and you turn the person around and just read the number, they might say there's three people on the scale. Yeah, I think when he says this will appeal to some, it's like, we did break three million all-time downloads. Actually, this guy downloaded us 2,999,000 times because he was so mad. He was furious about it. So if you want to leave a comment for Thomas, Thomas can be found on our page. If you just go down, scroll down, about the host, you can leave a comment for Thomas. If you, you know, if you agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment.

We got some other email that's a little, I guess, less venomous. So we should read some of that. We got a message, Thomas, and this was Tom, and this is on our Patreon page. And somebody had said that the Indonesian say, I think is how you pronounce it, is actually has some autonomy and is not really representative of the Indonesia as a whole. So we wanted to make sure that we mentioned that we did say last time we were talking about that area of the world. We were talking about it being part of, you know, Indonesia and how that's we were using it as a as a measuring stick for Indonesia. And I think that that that that came off incorrectly. Yeah, I think I was just flat out wrong about that. So thank you for the correction.

You cannot use ASE as a measuring stick, like you said, for Indonesia. It's just inaccurate. But it's still fucked up. Oh, that's fine. I'm not going there. I'll tell you where I'm not going. ASE. So we got a message and this is actually kind of terrifying, Tom. This is from Galen. Yeah, this is say. So we got a message and this is, this is actually kind of terrifying,

Tom. This is, this is from Galen. Uh, yeah, this is, this is pretty great. Um, he says, hi guys, I need to warn you of the danger unleashed at my cookout the other day. We were hanging out in the deck when a fly landed on my friend Joe's arm. He brushed it away quickly, but clearly this revealed Joe as the antichrist. We all knew it. We had barely begun to come to grips with this revelation when Ernie noticed another fly on my shoulder. Since there can't be two Antichrists, obviously the reins had now been passed to me. It was an odd feeling.

The rush of power was indescribable. Sadly, before I could put my first evil plan into motion, a fly landed on the potato salad. Just like that, my title was stripped. The potato salad became the Antichrist. I threw it away, but I know it's still out there somewhere. Plotting. Scheming.

Stay alert, my friends. That's pretty great. That is pretty great. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much hilarious we got a message

this is funny too because I guess I didn't realize that there was a thing Michael sends us a message and he says searching for a needle in a pile of needles

is actually a saying and he says he looks he's heard it in like particle physics and things like that because a needle and it is

and a haystack is rather easy since it's very different, but things that are very alike, it's harder to find them. I would say yes, but wouldn't you say you're looking for the needle in a pile of needles rather than a needle? Because when you say, I'm looking for a needle in a pile of needles,

I would think, well, there's a whole pile. You could find nearly any of them. It's like, it's like saying I'm looking for a used car in a used car lot. Got some choices for you. You can pretty much take any of these. Now, if you're looking, say, if you say I'm looking for a specific used car, that's very different. Right.

But the saying itself needs work because immediately when I heard it, I did not think of a specific needle. I thought of like a fucking needle like you are busy sewing something and you're like fuck I need a needle I need a needle oh where do I look oh I look in the pile of needles oh yeah hey did you look in the pile of needles for the needle yeah

also who has a pile of needles probably over there honey have you seen my pile of needles seems dangerous seems like you should have like an OSHA rope around your pile of needles. It's just like your whole house is a biohazard. We got a message from Eric, and Eric says,

just an FYI, the name of Job in Hebrew is actually pronounced E-O. And actually, little known fact, Job has a like a sad bow on his tail. He does. He's super sad all the time.

His best friend was Winnie the Pooh. His best friend loves honey. That's all I'm saying. He fucking loves honey. I got a message about why we hate religion so much. It says, I regularly listen to your podcast, and I can't stand how negative it is. What is it about religion that you hate so much? Religion provides hope and morality to the world, and historically it's been only positive.

Aren't you afraid that by angering God so thoroughly, your blasphemy and misguided atheism, that you will almost certainly burn in hell for all of eternity? I think the only reason you two are the way you are is that you weren't properly brought up in the faith and do not understand the glorious word of the Lord properly. I'll be leaving you a one-star review on iTunes because I think your show is immoral and damaging. Yeah, fuck that noise. You guys are awesome.

Disregard everything I said above. I totally thought that was a real email, too. I did, too. I was like, oh, Jesus. I was like, are you kidding me? I'm reading through it too because, you know, you're on your phone. And when you're on your phone, you can't get the whole thing or whatever. And you're just like, oh, no, not one of these. Thank you very much, Kevin.

So we got a message from Tim. And Tim had said that he's run into some issues and he has a GoFundMe up right now. Tim, he was laid off and there were some problems there. he's run into some issues and he has a go fund me up right now. Uh, Tim is, is, he was laid off and there were some problems there. And then he'd recently gotten a job and then some other problems hit and there's people in his family that are sick. And it's just,

it's a very sad story. And, uh, and he has currently zero out of a thousand dollars that they're looking for. A thousand dollars is not a ton of money. Uh, this is just to, to help somebody and not a ton of money. This is just to help somebody and their whole family get by.

This isn't just one person. It's a whole family. It's a man, a woman, and three children. So we're going to put a link to this on this episode's show notes. This is episode 184, right? I think it's 183. You said the wrong number earlier.

God damn it. You said the wrong number. It is fucking 184. it's 183. You said the wrong number earlier. God damn it. You said the wrong number. It is fucking 184. It is 184. So when Tom earlier had said that this was show 183 it is not show 183. It's show 184. And I was actually going to tease him

and say it was show 184 but I didn't so. God damn it. So show 184 will have a link to this GoFundMe. so if you have some extra cash lying around and you want to help somebody out uh tim is looking for help from the community uh we got a message this is from martin and martin says i think you were a bit off base on the aflac harris uh mar thing uh i agree with you that to criticize Islam is not to attack all Muslims.

Cool. I think that we're all on base with that. He says, but it seems to me that Marr and Harris use language that isn't restricted to religion. When Harris talks approvingly of dropping a nuke or Marr about how Gaza is like an annoying girlfriend, you have to punch once in a while. They aren't wishing for the people

to have more self-determination than possible under a restrictive religion. They are asserting that whole swaths of people are less than human. And so their deaths are of no concern, which sounds pretty racist to me. While the Marr thing, I'm not going to defend. I think Marr makes plenty of off-color jokes. So I think it's hard to pick and choose what he says as what he's thinking is real and not. So I'm not going to defend him. But you are being taken out of context when you talk about the nuclear weapon and Harris. So, Tom, you had found something about nuclear weapon and Harris that you wanted to read that that talks about this in specific. Yeah. So here's what Sam Harris actually said. And so it's important. It's important to get context. This is why this is essential.

So he says, What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are, what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Then he goes on to say, needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime,

as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day. But it may be the only course of action available to us, notice he doesn't say preferable, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so. This very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All of this is perfectly insane, of course.

I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world's population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the Philosopher's Stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely. We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the 19 hijackers may one

day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side. That is a wildly different thing than suggesting that he is pro-nuking people who live in Islamic countries or Muslims. He is simply positing a possible scenario in which religion plays part in a world war, a nuclear world war. He calls a unthinkable crime right so i don't i i mean i unless you know martin of another place in which he said that uh it doesn't sound like he's

pro dropping nukes on people we also got a message message about uh moderation here so this is from a an anonymous source uh says uh, I understand the argument that is made that moderate religionists make space for and incubate extremists and thus immoral behavior, that moderates are pussies that don't take religion seriously. I have heard Harris Hitchens and other promised atheists say this. And if I understand, you made this argument as well. I don't know that I've made that argument. That seems like a different argument than I made. Last week, I made an argument that I actually respect moderates because they're less religious. So I actually said that the good thing about moderates is that they don't take the Bible

as seriously as other people, and that they pick and choose the things that are good out of the Bible rather than the bad out of the Bible. Yeah, I think that there's an important distinction to be made here. So a moderate is not as religious. They're just not, because you're picking and choosing your shit. So you are not as good at following your religious holy book if you are a moderate. If you are a moderate, however, you and I are much more likely to find common ground. And I am absolutely on board with people. If you have to be religious, I mean, I would strongly prefer that you be moderate as opposed to an extremist or fundamentalist.

moderate as opposed to an extremist or fundamentalist. It doesn't make the reality of your claims about the world any more intellectually defensible. So in other words, you're just as wrong if you are a moderate as you are. You're just wrong about less things because you're deciding some of that book doesn't matter. Fine. You know, that's cool. Like, you know, The more you throw away, the better. I think the only difference between me and a modder is I've just thrown away all the pages and they've picked out the ones they want to keep and thrown away the ones they don't like. It's just a matter of degree for us at this

point. So we've got a second show coming out, midweek show this week. So keep your eyes peeled for that. And we are going to leave you, as we always do, 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, Scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble Pseudo, quasi, alternative, acupunctuating Pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy Healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead

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Expose your sides. nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. We'll see you next time.