Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 200a: Guesticulation, Part 1

Episode Date: January 5, 2015

  Thanks for David from My Book of Mormon, Adam from The Herd Mentality, Andy from Inkredulous and Michael from Be Reasonable for joining us.   :   :   :   : Next week - Thomas from Thomas and the Bible, Atheistically Speaking and Comedy Shoeshine, Heath and Noah from the Scathing Atheist and Jake from Imaginary Friends Show. To see the video or the image go to dissonancepod.com.

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Oh, glory hole! It's Maynard here from the Skeptic Zone and Maynard's Malaise podcast. I'm just edging my transubstantiation here by holding my thumb over it a bit, but look, greetings from Australia! Hey, Ken Ham's from Australia! All of Australia is here!

Thanks, guys. To say you guys don't just rock You fucking bedrock I don't know what that means Wish you a happiest 200th show Fucking bedrock Whatever that means All right, gents, it's Dave Thomas.

Just ringing to wish you a good one on this momentous occasion. You've come so far from so little. You've become podcasting titans. So I'll just ring it up to wish you a happy 100th episode cheers boys have a good one hey guys this is chris from milwaukee happy 200th episode you guys fucking rock glory hole tom and cecil this is avidon from balmy southern california to wish you guys a happy 200th episode and to let you both know that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men.

Hey, this is Charles in Skeletopia. Love your show. Now I was listening to you and you were talking about they only had like, you know, 18th century, 17th century versions of Grand Theft Auto. They do, it's called Red Dead Redemption.

And yes, you get to do stuff like jack a horse or jack a wagon and go for a high-ish speed race. I gotta warn you, taking a horse through a desert for 20 minutes to get to a location, it gets old. Hello, guys. This is Jim from Michigan. A couple shows ago, you made a comment about substituting Thor's name for Jesus' name in the Lord's Prayer. So I thought I'd take a look and see what happens

when we do that. This is what we end up. In Thor's name we pray. All Father, who art in Asgard, Oden be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Midgard as it is in Asgard. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we raise the villages with debts against us.

Lead us not into Ragnarok and deliver us from Loki. For thine is the kingdom, power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Glory, home guys. Tom Cecil, congratulations on 200 episodes. This show is by far the one that gets me the most strange looks on the bus when I bust out laughing at very inappropriate times. Glory hole.

Hey, Tom and Cecil. This is Reverend Jeebus H. Slackattacks with Spagpunka Superloop Records, one of your newest Patreon donors. I just wanted to say congrats to you. I'm glad to fucking glory whole Asians on your 200th.

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 Growler... Growler Hole Studios! Wow, okay, alright. What's a growler hole?

It's a well. You only stick something in there once. Listen, that's episode 300, big boy. 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 200. Yay! Yay! We have our first in-studio cast. Very first. This is a first for us, so I hope you'll take it easy. Gentle.

Slow. I don't know. That glory hole is pretty tempting. You brought yourself a lot of lube for today. I don't think you could ever ask anybody to take it easy in the glory hole. You really can't. All bets are off the glory hole studio. It may not even knock.

You know what I mean? It's a lot smaller than I expected. We get that a lot. That's a lot smaller than I expected. I might have to open it up a little. Yeah, we get that a lot. That's a normal complaint. I don't want to call it a complaint because I don't give a fuck. Right. I mean, I'll still call it a complaint, but I ain't going to fucking resolve it. I'll tell you that much.

It's smaller. You're here. I'm here. Yeah. One of us is going to have a great time. So who is joining us? You haven't even fucking done that yet. God damn it.

It's David Michael from the My Book of Mormon podcast. I actually fucking pointed over to him. Yeah, you did. Is this a fucking video cast all of a sudden? No, it's not. Thank God. I think it was implied. I think people could feel the point.

Okay, good. Whenever I move any of my girth, there's usually an air movement anyway. You hear that sucking sound? It's just like air movement anyway. You hear that sucking sound? It's just like a whoosh. Yeah, that sucking sound is actually our podcast. So you drove all the way down from another suburb. I did. Wow.

It was not easy. Man. That's a big, that's fucking commitment. That's a barrier to entry, let me tell you. In the glory hole. In the glory hole. I will drive a fair distance for a glory hole. I'll go to almost any truck stop along I-80.

I'm not even going to define fair distance. You tell me where the glory hole is. I'll make that decision that morning. Nebraska's beautiful this time of year. So my favorite part is that we had you drive all the way down here to be on this, the commemorative coin episode of Cognitive Dissonance, to talk about this fucking story from Hindustan Times, which is so sad. It doesn't have much to do with Mormons, though.

It doesn't. There were no Mormon stories. The Mormons were really quiet. What we found out last time is he doesn't know fuck all about Mormons. It didn't matter. Just their one book. It's read like part of their book. And not even the whole thing.

It's just parts of it. Not through it yet. Not sure. All right. So I do want to ask you before we talk about the story. So you're reading the Book of Mormon, obviously. So how far into it are you at this point? 65%, something like that.

Wow. Are you 65% converted at this point? No, not yet. Like your conversion ratio, like how close? No, I think they're leaving the close of the sale until the end, I'm fairly certain. Because so far, it's just like they're keeping me interesting or keeping it interesting. So I'm there with them. It's entertaining.

Right. Lots of killing, destruction, and fun stuff. So are you like a Nephite or like a Levi Strauss guy? Well, according to the book. What color is your skin? Yeah, exactly. You say, well, I'm white and delightsome. So that makes me a fine Nephite.

So this story does come from the Hindustan times, as I mentioned. Two sons get mother beaten to death by a cultist. And that sounds terrible. Until you get to the end. Terrible. That sounds bad. Fucking wait it out for the end all right right it was for good luck well there you go it was good luck this is the worst game of slug bug ever by the way now i mean it again it's it sounds bad being beaten to death sounds bad um it says the two then took the woman to this occultist who beat her to death.

No, no, no. You're reading it wrong. The sons beat her to death. Oh, I'm sorry. The occultist said, hey, so they, alright, let's tell the whole story. First off, he's going to do it better than you. Let him do it. So you got these two kids that are down on their luck.

There's got to be a better solution. So their sister says, hey, I know this occultist down the road. Always full of good advice. Sounds like a plan. So they go down there and the occultist says, I've got just the solution. You need to beat your mom to death and your sister. Which at first off

I'm thinking, what kind of referral bonus is that? The highest compliment I can receive is the referral from your friends and family. Unfortunately, I may recommend that they kill you. So, yeah. And they did. Well, okay. That's the story.

You forgot the part where they removed the eyes afterwards. Yeah. No. Because that's, I mean, you can't just bury a body in a fucking shallow grave. For luck. Yeah. For good luck. Good luck, buddy.

Well, they took both eyes, right? Yeah. Yeah, well, that's two for flinching. Oh, nice. So, yeah, I mean, they take those right away. Nicely done. Now, it's funny because to me, like, the police, I almost said parents, the police arrested the occultist.

Well, what about the people who took mom to the occultist? Sure. Where do you take, it strikes me as like one of those things where you're like, you tell your kids they're going to Disney World and you bring them to the dentist. So like you get mom in the car and mom's all excited like, oh, mom, it's going to be great. We're going to go to the fucking retirement home. You can finally have, you know have the food you wanted to eat. The food. It'll be great.

No, no. We'll even give you the medicine you desperately need not to feel pain. It'll be awesome. It'll be great, Mom. I can't wait to go. My kids love me so much. You're just the best kids. You know what?

Let's get our sister, too. Why not? It's all fun for the family. Do you think you tell her as you're right if the cultist like do you think you tell her as you're killing her beating her to death like mom you love us right you want us to have good luck so i mean come on right i think she probably went along with it is is luck like the movie the one i don't know if you were if you have to you have to kill someone else and take their luck in order to be lucky or something like is there only a finite amount of

luck in the universe and you have to like steal everyone else lucky or something? Like, is there only a finite amount of luck in the universe and you have to, like, steal everyone else's luck by murdering them? Is that how this works? What I was wondering, like, is mom particularly lucky? No, no. I think evidence here points to no. Are we bringing evidence into this? If you shake a magical ball.

I think we're reading this too early. We should look them up in a few years and see how their lives turned out. That's true. Because, you know, if they're suddenly captains of industry and millionaires, well, I might kill my mom. Well, and again, maybe they are lucky because the police arrested the occultist, but not the two that brought the woman to the occultist. Well, I love, too, the law that they arrested her under. Did you read that? It is the penal code.

Seriously, this is a law. If this law exists in your country, you may consider moving. But there is a law called Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman Evil and Agori Practices and Black Magic Act of 2013. Oh, there's 13! This is a new law! Oh my God. So like 2012, this would have been gold. Who was running this?

Was there a platform to get elected? No, you're living in the wrong place when there's a law that says the prevention of human sacrifice. Wow. Oh, Jesus. I'm just shocked at the 2013 component. 2013, like, you know, you almost feel bad for the occultist. You know, it's like one of those people who's like, yeah, I write my books on a typewriter. I use a typewriter.

The person's pressing the cigarette to the hole in their throat as they talk. And, like, all of a sudden they're, like, living in a world that they didn't grow up in. They're like, what's going on? You can't even kill a motherfucker. Good luck these days, huh? We've been doing this forever. What are you doing to me? How's a girl supposed to make a living?

Can you throw a couple kids in the meat grinder? I need to get lucky tonight. I'm about to play the lottery. Kill your father for me. Oh my gosh. It's like one of those places where when you say mama needs a new pair of shoes, like she literally needs a new pair of shoes. I just they don't even have to be new. Just please do not kill me.

I don't need the shoes that bad. You can just take my feet. You can take my feet. Keep the shoes. Keep the shoes. shoes that time they're walking around with like different talismans like a lucky mama's foot god i got a forehead and clover you know there were two sons there were two sons i could share you just get a foot right it's good. It works out. But really, somebody died. Yeah, but I didn't know her. I didn't know her. Actually, it wasn't feet, though. I think they took her eyes, right?

We're not sure why. They make nice keychains. What they do is they put them in the pickling jar with the eggs. Is this just a practical joke? You never know. Tee hee hee hee hee. Someone goes for the egg and they eat it and you're like, you're a cannibal now.

Gotcha. I got you. Oh, you guys. Human flesh again. So, David. Yeah. Let's not talk about this anymore. Let's not even start talking about it.

Let's talk about something else i would like to poll the audience on what was the most offensive part of that as attempting accents was it the uh no there's a lot of offenses the moms the me threatening to kill my mother i'm not sure where we cross there's gonna be a list so if you want to send a bulleted list we'll forward it to david david if people were going to find your podcast, where would they find it? They would find it at mybookofmormonpodcast.com. Before we let you go, one of the things that we wanted to do is thank you personally for donating to Foundation Beyond Belief during our hour. We know that there was other tempting times for which you to donate during, but you decided to save that $300.

Nothing was more tempting than taking your money though that was i couldn't somehow the guy was like i'll match it times six i'm like it's still not thomas's yeah we wanted to thank you we didn't get a chance to thank you personally so we want to thank you personally for donating during that time and you were there in studio during i was it was quite a bit of fun i crashed your hour you did You did. You did. And it was great. I mean, you made it like at least like 2% better. Yeah, we got. No, I love you, dude.

Maybe two and a half. Together, we got David Smalley talking about Fleshlight. So that was impressive. It's true. That was impressive. And he brought it up. He's just a guy who's waiting to talk about Fleshlight. I think he is.

Yeah. He wants to show you his collection. Hang on a minute. This is a rare one. They don't make this for just anyone. I had this custom done. No, don't put that by your face. I actually had to go to Bangkok to pick this one up.

No joke. This is it. Don't sell them here. This is illegal south of the Mason-Dixon line, but you'll see. So he sounded ridiculously annoyed when we were talking to him. Was he as annoyed in person? Did he hate every moment we were on? Because he felt like he hated every moment.

There was a moment where I kept goading you, talking about glory holes or something, and he did put his mic down and look at me dead in the eye and go, Why are you doing that? I think I looked back and said, I can't help it. Take that. That's amazing. I don't know how to turn this off. Us being on that show is basically like handing nitroglycerin to a juggler, though.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's just like something is going to go wrong. It's just there was no way this turns out better than it did. Well, thank you so much for joining us on our 200th episode. We really appreciate it. Thanks for all the beer. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's great for you to drive down. These guys know me. They know me very well because they're like, would you like to come have some beer? And I'm like, yes. And then I get here and it's like, oh, yeah. So we're going to record, too. Oh, right.

All right. I haven't sworn yet. Fuck. There you go. I don't sworn yet. Fuck. There you go. I don't get to do it on my show. So I want every opportunity I can. I think you really seized the bull. You really did.

Glory old gentlemen. And thank you for your show. And of course, your vehement condemnation of all things eggnog. condemnation of all things eggnog. If you, or anybody really, is interested in learning about Big Daddy Cheese raising Joe to be a treasure seeker, to get Cowdung all over and D-Day David's help to swindle Not-So-Smarty Marty,

even after he went to Not-So-Smarty Marty's super-study smarty-party pooper pal Charlie, and learned that Joe was full of shit, what I'm trying to say is if anybody wants to learn real Mormon history in a scathing format from an ex-Mormon, check out Naked Mormonism podcast or Naked Mormonism on iTunes or find me on Twitter at Naked Mormonism. Thanks, Tom and Cecil.

You fucking rock. So we are joined for this story by Adam Reeks from the Herd Mentality Podcast. Adam, there was no way we could have this story and have anyone other than yourself on our show to discuss this. This comes from the Raw Story. Pastor rips Bill Maher in absurd rant. He's wrong about God because we still listen to Mozart. I think he said Mozart's, actually. He did actually say Mozart's.

He says Mozart's. But you and this pastor, this is Pastor Manning, you guys have something of a storied history. We go way back. Met over coffees, he and I. The good Pastor Manning. So for anyone who's not up to speed, Pastor Manning has a very checkered history of when it comes to facts. But the story you guys sent through to me, he actually did get a couple of things correct in that Bill Maher's an atheist and doesn't believe in an earthly life. I will say one other thing he got right was, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me.

I will say he got thing he got right was, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me. I will say he got that right too. I love – we've got to talk a little bit about his reasoning. He says, Bill Maher, you say there's no life after death, but do you believe in reincarnation? I thought like – I believe in instant carnation. Yeah. And I thought, like, I believe in instincarnation. He goes on, he just sort of stares down the camera, screaming at the camera, going, Bill Maher, talk to me, talk to me. As you so eloquently portrayed there, Tom.

And it's almost as if he's expecting a response. I'm not sure Pastor Manning doesn't know that the camera can't actually talk back to you. Actually, Bill Maher was in the audience. I mean, who are we kidding? Bill Maher was there. He's a live studio audience. And you get a latte! And you get a latte!

And you get a latte! Oh, there's so much to give away. He's such a generous guy. You had done a bit of re-editing him. You had bounced his words off of himself there for a little bit and inserted yourself a little bit on it. One of his first videos. Wording. Yeah. Well, look, I'm just saying.

But you had done a little remix of his words. And he had found this and then retweeted it. And then you had, again, you remixed the rebuttal. And so you guys were kind of locked in battle, like two, I don't even know, like two deer that were fighting over the same dough, I guess. Two whales fighting over a grape. dough i guess two whales fighting over a grape there's no one at the end really is a victor because what can you do you just claim well i made the other guy look like an idiot no i think we both sort of walked away from the confrontation throwing your hands up in the air and proclaiming victory but at the end of the day everyone's's a loser. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I think this show is the winner. I do want to talk a little bit because I want to say that I found some of his arguments to be very persuasive. Okay, persuasive. I think he says, let me ask you another question. Do you believe that there is a legacy and a spirit that persons that once lived that spirit still reigns and can still be detected many years after death? So, Cecil, I will just pose this question to you. I'll repeat it if you'd like. You know what I feel like? I feel like when you were in, as they would say in Australia, primary school and you were there and you were sort of dozing in class or not paying attention or looking out the window.

And the teacher calls on you in some sort of crazy way and you just blurt out like dinosaurs. Like you don't even know what the fuck they were talking about. That's how I feel. I feel like I just want to Tourette's out the first thing that comes to my mind when you say this because I don't think there really is an answer. He struggles with words, doesn't he? That's an understatement. Yeah. He struggles with words, doesn't he? That's an understatement. Yeah. Yeah.

He struggles with words and thoughts. So like, really, when you combine the two, he's really just just really in a tough spot. Yeah. And I got to ask you this, because you've you've really spent a lot of time with Pastor Manning intimately dissecting the things he's said. Adam really sort of hanging on every word so to speak for uh for a while do you really think that this guy actually believes or under like is actually a like a real person who actually is saying these things and thinks that he's saying something profound or does or do you think he's just making making all this up as he goes along and it's just a joke? You know, I've spent more time than would seem reasonable.

Right. Studying the biblical teachings of Pastor James D. Manning. To be honest, I just can't work the guy out. I think when he gets up on stage, he's overwhelmed with endorphins or crystal meth or lattes or whatever it is he's on. And he just gets on a roll and then convinces himself that this must be the case. And because he is quite a charismatic speaker,

he's relatively... Actually, maybe that might be generous. I don't know. He has a personality, we'll say that comprehensible perhaps not so much but he convinces he certainly convinces himself and i think there's a whole bunch of uh other people who are along for the ride because i don't know i don't know i've never been to america it's my dream one day to go there and see one of his sermons. Yeah, there's an interesting part in that video that you that you chopped up. We're going to play here in a few minutes, but there's an interesting part of that video.

And that video has a woman sitting on stage that sort of not behind him, but sort of off to his right. But you're viewing him so that she's sort of almost behind him because their camera's sort of on the side and uh and when he does that flip out that sort of talk to me talk to me talk to me thing that he just goes crazy on uh she just sits there completely straight faced she doesn't seem surprised at all and i i'm shocked because the moment i heard that i sort of you sort of immediately cringe you recoil and then you look side to side like wondering if anybody else is hearing the same thing you're hearing it's crazy it's almost less embarrassing to listen to that than getting caught

like listening to porn yeah you know like if i got caught with like pastor maybe like talk to me talk to me talk to me like can't i just like i would immediately like be like control tab and like be like oh it's just it's just like fucking midgets fuck yeah i think the only way she would have sat there so placidly is if she was high on drugs by by her choosing or not you'd have to be wouldn't you to be able to sit there yeah and watch a grown man on stage scream at a camera, talk to me! There's a moment in your life where you decide who you're going to hit your wagon to. And you've got to wonder about that moment for this woman,

where she meets Pastor Manning, she's like, yep, click, pitch it up to this one. This is my guy. You, coattails, on it. We're going places, big boy. His name says doctor in it. We're going places, big boy. His name says doctor in it. He must be a decent breadwinner.

You've got to wonder, like, what is his doctorate in? Oh, gosh. Insanity? It's like doctorate in, like, Velveeta cheese. Like, it's not a – that's not a thing. He graduated with a minor's in osteostomy. Osteostomy? Oh, nice. with the miners in Osteenostomy.

Osteenostomy? Oh, nice. The Starbucks thing that he did a while back with the semen and the lattes, did he get sued for that? I was led to believe that. A lot of the audio that I pulled for the third sketch where he and I did some George Michael work in a

public toilet, he then continued on afterwards and talked about being sued and and but again goes off his dial and says no no i'm right they're absolutely categorically as semen and latte so he just can't let it go well he did say there was synthetic semen right what other semen what other sort is there tom the fuck is synthetic semen? What does that even mean? Let's take a moment to think this through. So the next thing you know,

they'll be genetically engineering synthetic sperm whales to try and keep pollinating the ocean. I don't know. Synthetic semen. Presumably it's the only, there just aren't enough gays to keep up with the demand. Now, down in Australia, do you have anybody that's a fucking one-tenth as crazy as this guy?

Yes, and we exported him to your country to build an arc park. There's a couple who spring to mind. One's our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who trained in the seminary for, I think, 12 years. He was going to be a priest. Then he was a failed journalist and now he's a successful politician so it's a lethal combination the three of them wow uh who else have we got who's an utter nutbag uh we've got fred nile he's sort of our pastor

uh our um robertson pat robertson oh okay uh, senile old gentleman sort of rocking back and forth on a porch with a shotgun. And Pastor Fred Nile is the leader of the Christian Family First Party in Australia. They probably hate homosexuals, right? Not a fan. Anytime you hear family first, you're like, hmm. Yeah, they don't like families. Right. Yeah.

Yes. Only the families without the gate. Yeah, right. Right. Nutbags, no, just Ken Ham. And, well, we can't claim credit for Ray Comfort, unfortunately. Ray's a New Zealander. Oh, no kidding.

You didn't know that? See, I actually didn't know that, I thought. No. I can't tell the difference between your accents. It's all the same. Yeah, they sound the same to us. Yeah, to the untrained ear, it's a little bit like American accents and canadian accents so you've sort of got to listen a lot right but ray yeah new zealanders clip their vowels and uh they say fush and chups instead of fish and chips

yeah it's exactly how he sounds well you only say that because the only really the only right comfort you've ever listened to is my impersonation of him. Probably, but you're it. You know, that is very true. It's like saying, oh, you sound so much like you. You sound just like the Adam Rieck's impersonation of Ray Comfort. It's amazing. That's actually what I told Ray Comfort when I met him.

I think a lot of people often ask me, would you have Ray Comfort on your show? And I think, well, certainly not to debate because he wiped the floor with me with his, you know, new whiz-bang fandangled apologetics. But I would have him on to play the role of me in a Ray Gates sketch. So I impersonate him. That would be amazing. He impersonates me. He gets to get his revenge. I'd like to do that.

He would never do this. If you're listening, Ray, if you're there down at the Glory Hall tuning in. Roy is a huge fan of the Glory Hall. I hear he's a patron. The thing is, people go out of their way to ask for Ray because of that mustache. They're just like, man, that thing is just so comfortable. It's like a fucking dick pillow. It's like fucking an Ewok.

It's amazing. It sticks to me like Velcro. So now we want to close out your bit here on our show. Thank you, by the way, for joining us for 200. We really appreciate you coming on. But we want to close out. First, can you tell people where to find your podcast? Yes.

If you really have to it's at herd mentality podcast.com and i often say best avoided because it often features people like um uh tom and cecil from the skating atheist and even now from this pod they oh i knew you were going to get that in there somewhere wow slip it Just slip it in sideways. Yeah, that's... No, keep it in there for a minute. Keep it in there for a minute. I like it when it stays in there. And we talk utter bollocks.

So there's often a serious component to the show where people tell a story or we have a chat about something that's relevant to them. And then we go on with the little sketches and improvised scenarios much like what we may be listening to very shortly yeah well you had uh you have edited the video for this particular piece this is a story that we just covered um this is the audio for this you had edited it you cut it down and i have to say you know tom and i are both always impressed with the

amount of editing work that you put into your show specifically these skits that you put together where you edit the people sort of twist their words around, remix them a little bit and put yourself in there Jake Farwharton, thank you so much for joining us and we're going to close you out with his

little piece, Adam's piece. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, to celebrate Tom's ability to count to maybe 200, we're joined on Cognitive Dissonance by me. I'm James David Manning, everybody. I'm the Lord's servant. Are you familiar with their show? I've even been on there from time to time. Now, Tom and Cecil have tasked

me with reading a news article about one of your sermons. It made absolutely no sense to me at all, so I decided to try and edit your presentation in order to make it comprehensible for the people who have smaller brains than you. My friends, the pain is going to be beyond your ability to deal with. Firstly, you had something to say regarding Bill Maher's views on an afterlife. He's become pretty prominent of late because he's assessing that, affirming rather, certain that there is no God.

There is no life after death. You die, when you die, you're just dead. Seems reasonable. But do you believe in reincarnation? And your answer should be no if you're going to be consistent because if there's no life after death, then reincarnation connotes

that there's a spirit that is alive and is now taking over the flesh of a person that's alive, where that spirit's flesh died, and so, or it is reincarnated into another person's flesh. You've got to say no to that, because it means that something after the flesh dies, that that spirit still lives. So you've got to say no. But there is a sense of spirit, spirituality of your life, Adam reeks. Even when you're dead, you still have influence. You know, the influence of your mother or your grandmother or loved one, they're dead now, but their spirit still lives in you.

Come on, talk to me. Talk to me! Talk to me! Talk to me! May I speak? This is just impossible to make any sense of. So let's just move on to mediums. What is a medium?

A medium is a person who doesn't have a soul. No soul? And because a medium doesn't have a soul, a medium can receive the spirit of anybody. And you can talk to someone that died a hundred years ago through the medium because the medium has no soul of their own that blocks that interception and they're open to it. And the spirits that are dead or that died of flesh know it. And so they enter into. So people go to mediums to talk to dead people. Sometimes we loom larger after our death than we do when we live. What makes you say that?

I mean, Mozart's music is still full of life. Respighi's Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome, for me, still has life. Many other artists, long years after they are dead, still influences. These words written by a regular printer and typewriter, written years ago, when you read them, good God almighty, when you read this Bible, it has life now! It has life now! Right, okay. I think this all makes sense now. One final question. Having spent several hours at the Cognitive Dissonance glory hole, what would you say was your favorite activity? Drinking semen!

Pastor James D. Manning from Adler World Ministries, thanks for your time. And that's all there is to it. Happy 200th episode, Tom and Cecil, from your biggest fan, TheVeganAtheist on YouTube. You guys are fucking amazing. Hi, Tom and Cecil. This is Brandi from the Irreverent Skeptics podcast. Just congratulating you on your 200th episode. Glory hole, guys. Oh, Tom, hey, it's the 200th episode, I'm sure. episode, I'm sure.

So we are joined for the next two stories, as a matter of fact, by the inimitable Andy Wilson and Mike Marshall from all of the podcasts overseas. I think they do all of them. There's no podcast left undone. So Andy Wilson from

Incredulous. Yes, hello. And Marsh from Be Skeptical or Be Reasonable. He doesn't even know the name! He fucked Reasonable. He doesn't even know the name! He doesn't even know the name of the show! Big fan of the show, are you? You're a regular listener, are you? Hang on, let me go and check the...

Alright, so anyway... It's a little early. It's a little early, gentlemen. Oh, God. God damn it. This is going well, Tom. This is about as well as it can go. This is what happens when I introduce Or am involved This is what happens whenever I appear on Mental Dissonance or whatever

Mental Distance Mental Deficiency Is what we're calling it these days You know it's not I can barely keep track of what episode we're on for the single fucking podcast we do. Much less keep track of how many fucking shows and fucking projects you guys have. So I will just beg your forgiveness and accept it whether you offer it or not. You leave us little choice but to forgive.

So anyway, this first story comes from the raw story uh publisher sets off firestorm after omitting israel from school atlases quote to meet local preferences and clearly the preference is not to have fucking israel like i love i love the idea that we are reshaping our globe like We are reshaping which countries get to exist based on local preferences. If this were the case, atlases of the United States would stop south of I-80, as far as I was concerned. Everything there would just be like, there wouldn't even be the bottom half of the country. Or any of the countries. It would be like the two coasts.

Yeah, let's not get yeah or any other countries yeah no well yeah i mean let's not get crazy no other countries it would be america and then the rest of them would just be labeled as not america right yeah that's actually that's actually how america i'm pretty sure that is the existing attitude yeah what's that what's that baseball thing called the world series well we invite some canadians to the canadian yeah there's a couple canadian canadians probably because you feel guilty that's like the world yeah it's like a world it's america's hat gets to hang out yeah again what i really like about this though is that the atlas instead of just like i was trying to think how do you emit israel because if you

have a gap then that's going to be israel shift but instead they kind they kind of just like extended Jordan and Syria all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. And what I really like about you guys asking us to cover this story is that not only do we get to, you know, analyze complex geopolitical landscapes there in the Middle East, but we're also able to highlight the fact that Israel is a country. So that'll help your American listeners. And also, also, we can highlight that jordan is a country and uh and syria and also that there's a mediterranean sea so we're education on all sorts of levels here wow i just i'm just gonna sit at your feet and listen to this geography lecture that you're doing this is amazing the thing is that i i think you i think you

mis-underestimate america uh first of all did you just say mis-underestimate America, first of all. Did you just say mis-underestimate? Yeah, George Bush coined that term. That's a real thing, right? Mis-underestimate. Yeah. We've been mis-underestimated because we know that Israel is a real country. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to sell them nuclear weapons. That's a good point. And we know about Jordan because they have awesome shoes.

No. They used to play for the Bulls. Jordan used to play for the Bulls, so we know that's a thing. I mean, that's a whole country that can fucking dunk. And Gaza is like a type of pasta, isn't it? I love a good Gaza. It's delicious. You've got to drizzle olive oil on it.

Yeah, a little bit of garlic and olive oil on your Gaza. It's phenomenal. So we know all this stuff. And it's actually a cut of meat. You can get the gauze of strip steak. Delicious. But you do have to cook it a little while. It's a bit tough, as it turns out.

Is it kosher? Years of bombardment will do that to us. Is it kosher? Well, it's very hard. I hear there's a big disagreement over whether it's kosher or not. There are some people who think large parts of it are kosher, and other people are very much like, no, this is definitely not kosher, you can't have it.

Yeah, Marsh, people are literally willing to go to blows over this. It turns out you have to actually tenderize it with artillery. It's a bit tough. It's a bit tough. There's another amazing part of this story as well well apparently this this kind of thing happens all the time and apparently customs agents in one of the gulf nations they didn't say which one they only allow atlases with israel on into the country to cross the borders once they've marked the country out by hand so they like

expand the country and i was thinking that's a hell of a job because how do you, how well do you have to cross Israel out of a map for it to count? Can you just do a simple line through? Or do you have to actually carefully colour in

the whole borders? Because if you colour in the whole thing, in effect, what you're doing is just accurately drawing Israel. So,

I've got the solution. Are they going to rename Israel Tippex? But I've got the solution, man. The only thing you can do, as far as I can tell, the only thing you can do that would actually count is that you colour in all of Israel and then you colour in some of the other land around Israel

in order to make it unclear where the boundaries of Israel stand. Although, to be fair, making it unclear where the boundaries of Israel end is pretty much the job of the Israeli government, I thought. Oh, nicely done. Very good, Marsh. Very good. Oh, Jesus. Nicely done.

What I was thinking is you just use like a marker that's like halfway running out of ink. So that like as you're coloring it, it just gets fuzzier and fuzzier. Or you just use disappearing ink. Because, you know, you never know. It could be, you know, I color this in and then, you know, it it just gets fuzzier and fuzzier or you just use disappearing ink yeah because you know you never know it could be sure you know i color this in and then you know disappears in like the 60s and 70s and then you know reappears a little later later on depending on you've got themselves like a little israeli stamp but they just like oh and all the atlases just just a little conveyor belt of guys just stamping israel but then they put in israel it still feels like you're drawing israel There's a very difficult thing going on here. And for me as well, this is

all a bit offensive and ridiculous because how dare they let their own petty political and religious beliefs start to interfere with international boundaries and then use that to dictate whether Israel is or isn't a country. Because there's only one entity who gets to decide on the existence of God's chosen country of Israel. And quite clearly, that's the British military. Oh, man. I do like from this article where it says the publication of this atlas will confirm Israel's belief that there exists a hostility toward their country. Oh, shit.

Parts of the Arab world. Oh, I didn't know that that was actually in question. Like somebody sitting around like, you know, I'm not sure, but I'm sensing. I'm a pretty astute observer of the human condition. I'm sensing some hostility here.

Yeah, when they don't get Christmas cards. There's a good reason they don't get Christmas cards, in fairness. Jesus is the reason for the season. Like you get a card from the Muslim nations to the Jewish nations. Jesus is the reason for the season. Like, you get a card from the Muslim nations to the Jewish nations.

Jesus is the reason for the season. Like, well, this is just confusing. We don't really. I think they probably do call them holiday cards. I think that's probably what they do. Holiday season. Yeah. We wanted to also talk to you about this story from Alternet.org.

Pastor gives up on God to have a closer relationship to reality. This is actually a follow-up article to a story that came out about a year ago, about a Seventh-day Adventist pastor who decided he was going to give atheism a whirl. He was going to basically walk away from the church for about a year. A lot of people were criticizing the methodology, like how can you just play atheist for a year but it turns out if you fake it till you make it then you fucking lose it yeah because he's basically like wait a minute this isn't true and a waste of my sunday afternoon do you think that's what it is

do you think he's he has faked it until he's made it or do you think it's it's the other way around do you think he was he stopped making it then carried on faking it until he's made it? Or do you think it's the other way around? Do you think he stopped making it then carried on faking it and then thought, fuck it, I'm just going to give this up, but I don't want to just leave. I'm going to go for the soft exit. Do you think he was still a hardcore believer when he left? No, honestly, what I think is that he

had strong doubts that were leaning him toward atheism, and he wanted to make a buck off it. The way to do that was to have this public announcement that he was going to try atheism you may get a bunch of you might not being it be being entirely fair there i think you're right in saying that uh he had it on his mind already but um he did say right at the beginning of his announcement that he was going to be writing a book he also had a film crew following him around although that only happened after the story hit international headlines.

And he's had a huge amount of airtime in international media. But fourth, he's also said quite upfront that even before he resigned from the church, his faith was getting pretty shaky anyway. So it is possible to think the entire thing was cooked up by a pastor who'd become an atheist before disclosing it to anyone and thought there would be a good opportunity to make some moolah by framing his existing acquired atheism as a journey, whose name, A Year Without God, conveniently sounds like a book title. And he had recently become unemployed after all. But I don't think so. And if that is the case, it's maybe just a tiny little bit

because I've read quite a lot of stuff about this. I made the mistake before coming on of actually reading some things I'm really sorry about that You're on cognitive dissonance No, no, no I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance Our only requirement

is that you give the headline Did you know, for example, did you know that in 2012, in his role as senior pastor at his church, he withdrew several hundred thousand dollars of church funds from the Bank of America in protest at its policy of foreclosures and placed them in a bank more sympathetic with his views on social injustice? And the reason for his resignation from the church, in fact, I'll use his words. As it turns out, the day came when I really didn't fit in within the church anymore.

I had been an outspoken critic of the church's approach to our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members, that approach being exclusion or at best second-class membership. You very much don't approach them. Yeah. That approach being very carefully and from a distance. Or with rocks in hand.

We approach them, but really the stones approach first, and then we follow up to check their pulse. The stones are very much the scout party in that endeavor. We send the stones on ahead. These are reconnaissance stones. That's what these are. Talking of stoningoning he didn't like the way women were treated either um but he also had an issue with the uh with the church itself and uh he now works for charity i think this guy's a good guy that's the bottom line here and um the whole i'm going to pose this

question to you because he says the whole thing started by an atheist asking him a simple question what difference does God make so what do you think? What do we think? What difference does God make? I don't think it makes much of a difference at all I think if you get rid of that then you can actually focus on the things that are more important

clearly he has social justice in mind right and then that's what he wanted to focus on and God was just getting in the way? And then that's what he wanted to focus on. This God shit was just getting in the way. It was an anchor to what he wanted to accomplish. Yeah, it depends how you're asking the question, I guess, really, because if you want to ask what difference does God make, then we've just covered a whole story about how Israel has been expunged from the map because of a disagreement over which God believes it should be there or not.

I think those are the differences that God makes. I haven't seen any positive differences yet. I think lots of people do good works in the name of God, which is, you know, if that's what inspires them to do it, that's fine. But it's the people doing them, not the God. But what do you think Ryan Bell's, and this is what I found fascinating about the whole thing, what do you think Ryan Bell's answer to that question was? When he started out on his year without God, and he was explaining that he'd been asked this question, when he started out on his year without god and he uh was explaining that he'd been asked this question and he he he gave an answer to the question what difference does god

make and it was one word can you think what it was it depends is i don't know one word it depends it depends on that if that's hyphen yeah i think it's hyphenated yeah then i think it's one word i'm gonna go with one word on that. I think the answer is just y'all. Well, y'all. But that doesn't address it. It clearly addresses it. Well, after spending an entire life in the service of the Lord, his answer was the word hope.

What does it even mean? Exactly. I'm not fucking surprised. What does that mean? I'm not in the least fucking surprised he took a year out. You'd think his master would have given him a bit more to cling on to, wouldn't you? I assume the question wasn't, in a word, what difference does God make? Wow, in a word.

Hang on. Oh, God. I could give you a whole paragraph. I could start reciting. But you want me to whittle it down to a single word. Was it like some sort of after dinner party game? Yeah. Maybe he misunderstood and maybe he thought that

they said, what difference does Barack Obama make? And then he was like, oh, hope, hope. That's what he went on. Wait, is it hope or change? I can't remember which one to use. Let's not get crazy about the change. Wow, fuck. Yeah, right? We're hoping for the change. Still hoping.

A lot of hoping. Hop well hoping as it turns out isn't actually very effective didn't sound very he sounds very atheist actually he didn't say nope and they just misquoted him there was just a translation error that's all that was somebody the guy wrote it down wrong he's got sloppy handwriting the reporter it's like oh is that hope or nope yeah hope's a better headline. Let's go with Hope. Let's report it as Hope because Nope seems a little, like, honest. Let's skip that.

Yeah. So, you know, in the days leading up to a really good holiday that you're looking forward to, how do you feel, guys? How do you feel in yourself when you're looking forward

to a great holiday? All right, actually, yeah. Yeah. Actually, no, I don't. I don't because I don't feel excitement almost ever. I'm not excited about going on holiday. I don't look forward to things ever honestly i am i'm terrible for it i i'm just totally neutral i i didn't have that answer in my script could you choose

different one this is incredulous andy we don't run off your script here yeah we're both looking at each other panicked like wait and then we figured out you were talking about actually vacation not holiday holiday not like christmas or easter or yeah wait christmas my point my point is that you feel better even though you're not actually on it yet and that's what religion's offering in this case i think um but uh i just i just don't understand why uh why this it's so fucking shallow and this is the best example i've seen for a long time of how shallow it is because even this guy who spent his entire lifetime in it the best he can do is optimism it's interesting too with time and i were talking a little bit about this beforehand uh we don't want to call it research but no we were we were talking a little bit about it beforehand and we we had we had a conversation and one of the things we said was you know once

once you leave and once you start really thinking there really is no way back. You could lie to yourself, I think, and try to say, oh, because I was a believer before I became an atheist. And I there was times where I really wish I didn't think the things I thought. But there was no way there's just no way back. Once you once you release those thoughts and you and you and you're not thinking that there's a God anymore, you can't just be like, well, I really want there to be, so I'm just going to pretend. You just can't do that. So did it happen gradually or was there some epiphany?

A Damascus moment. I came out as an agnostic beforehand but hadn't really thought about it. And then, funny enough, my dog died and that's when everything sort of flipped out for me. And just on a scale of one to ten, how funny was that? Because it didn't seem the funniest thing to... Oh, it really was not. It's a really hilarious thing that happened, right? The dog full on dead.

Brilliant. It's like a... Well, he was sort of stiff, so I'll give it a one. The thing is, he fell off a cliff and flattened like Wile E. Coyote. Yeah, yeah. So it was sort of hilarious. Yeah, he caught an anvil on the head. Right.

A piano dropped on him. I feel inspired to write a blues song. Yeah. Yeah, so that was a quick transition. And that was a really strange time. But it was one of those feelings that you get that you wish you could go back to those moments where you did think there was a God, because it is comforting to think that you're going to go

on forever, and that when you go to heaven, all these little puppies are going to run up to you, and it's going to be great, or whatever. Yeah, 72 puppies I think you get, is it? Yeah, 72. Well, it depends on... Are they virgins, Marsh? Are they virgins? They're puppies, Andy. What's wrong with you?

Andy holds a gold. Every hole's a gold. Wow, I had to repeat that in case it got missed. Yeah. Okay, so we're going to wrap this up. That's, I think, that's the cue. Before the police arrive. You're clearly, Marsh, you're clearly still doing both podcasts.

Do you want to tell our listeners about both of them? Yeah, so I do Skeptics for the Care, which is a little bit like this, although we read the full stories ahead of time, essentially. And also we've got someone on the show with any degree of expertise, which I'll stress isn't me. But yeah, we take a look at a few kind of stories, and it tends to go all right. And then the other show that I do that I'm very, very proud of,

I really love doing it, is a show called Be Reasonable. Or Be Skeptical, actually. That's the subtitle of the show. Be Skeptical is a better name, I'm just saying. Tom just shoved both of those titles together. He just, you know, that's how his brain works. Be reasonably skeptical. Exactly, be reasonably skeptical how his brain works. Be reasonably sceptical. Exactly.

Be reasonably sceptical. That's it. That's perfect. But yeah, on Be Reasonable, I interview someone that I disagree with, but we make sure we never have a big slanging argument. We just try and walk around people's beliefs and try and understand them and try and get to the bottom of why people believe these slightly odd things. And you end up in some pretty interesting and weird places

if you let people talk to you about what they believe rather than telling them why their beliefs are wrong. So, yeah, that's one of the, that's a thing we do on Be Reasonable. And every show that we do ends up somewhere slightly different and slightly odd, I think. That show would not work in America. Like, that show would just be called Fist Fighters. Slightly different and slightly odd, I think. That show would not work in America.

That show would just be called Fist Fighters. So, Andy, you do a podcast, but you also have an event that's coming up. Yeah, just before I go on to that, I just want to say that Marsh has just given you his perspective on Be Reasonable. But as a listener to Be Reasonable, what's interesting is that it exposes the beliefs of the person being interviewed because it's all about the questions and the answers are very, very revealing and really, really intriguing and informative. So I think it's a good thing. Good thing. I hate saying that about Marsh.

I can hear the pain in your voice when you're saying it. He does very well with his beer-fucking-twat. I literally only do the show and put so much time and effort into making it good just to force andy to uh to sing my praises it's the only thing that works honestly that's as close as you're going to get to singing your praises but i'm involved with the incredulous podcast i host the incredulous podcast it's a satirical panel show type game show type thing which you guys have been all of you guys have been on a number of times how often does that podcast come out i'm just curious rigid production schedule for that show like maybe once every week or so

hello oh you're back you're back i've got your back so yeah incredulous comes out on a regular regular basis and uh yeah i really enjoy doing it it's great to meet some great guys online i love incredulous i i listen to it every time it comes out at the same time i'm getting my flu shot but the other thing that uh both marsh and i are involved in is QED, Question, Explore, Discover conference, which is running this April, April 2015 at the Palace Hotel in Manchester. And you can find out more about that awesome event

at qedcom.org. Yeah, I think it's probably at this point the biggest regular sceptical event in Europe, I think, by this point. We tend to have 500 or 600 people there over the course of two three days tickets are cheap at 99 pounds as well we struggle to keep the team we really strive to keep the tickets very reasonably priced so almost inevitably people's travel getting there or people's accommodation costs way more

than the actual event itself but we do the best that we can on the the bits that we can control and it always feels like it's a pretty good atmosphere it's tom it's tom's and mine great hope that in 2016 we'll be able to attend qed that's that's sort of on the on the radar for us we'd love to do that you know we're going you know this year we had to make a tough choice because we had another event in april and that was in hickory north carolina. And so we were thinking about our choices of where to go. Sounds like a smoking event. Yeah. Nice.

Yeah, good. We did have to opt for Hickory. You guys are going to have to get over to QED sometime because at the moment what QED attendees have to do is they have to go away and read the raw story for themselves and read Right Wing Watch for themselves. So it would be good to have you guys there just to do that job for them. You mean read the headlines? Read the headlines for themselves. Yeah, of course. Let's not get crazy, Marsh.

I'm not going to read the whole thing. To be fair, sometimes we read the whole headline for the Daily Mail, and that could take minutes. Yeah, literal minutes. And thanks, guys, for inviting us on to your 200th edition we're absolutely delighted to be in part eight guys thanks for joining us we'll see you on episode 300 yeah only if i've got fuck all to do like today yeah and presumably episode 300 tom will still think that's episode 276 or something so we've got a long way to go.

I just wish you nothing but the best for Be Skeptical. I hear it's a great thing. Be reasonably skeptical. And Andy, when you hit your 200th episode of Incredulous and I'm dead and gone. And the Earth is being devoured by the sun. With Pangea fucking reforms. I think it'll go out just before the heat death of the sun. With Pangea fucking reforms. I think it'll go out just before the heat death

of the universe. It'll be scheduled to go out. Triggered. Oh, that's amazing. Brilliant. Okay, thanks guys. Really appreciate it and great work.

Absolutely. Well done, guys. Thanks so much, guys, man. It was awesome. Tom and Cecil, you glory holiest motherfuckers. This is Sebastian from the Headless Phoenix podcast on YouTube,

and I just wanted to call in and wish you guys a happy 200th episode. You know, your guys' show is one of the things I look forward to most in my weeks. I can only do playing, recording, commentating video games for the entertainment of the internet. That is to say, nobody. Can't wait to hear the next 200 episodes. Keep up the good work. Glory hole. So as you might have surmised, we are not actually including all the guests we interviewed for episode 200.

There's just so much recording that we did this week that we are going to have to split it out into two episodes. We have a full other hour worth of guests next time uh we just we just don't think that it would be good if we sent out a whole two and a half hour show so we're splitting episode 200 up like we did episode 100 up into episode 200 a and episode 200 b uh next week we are going to have uh jake from imaginary friend show Thomas from Thomas in the Bible, atheistically speaking and comedy shoeshine and the scathing atheists, uh, Noah and Heath on to round out the show. So we're going to have three full segments next time with, uh, with some great guests,

some really funny content. We thought that everything we did this time really turned out great. The guests were really great. So, uh, we're going to finish out right now with just a little bit of an email section. We're also going to do an email section and an intro next time. But most of this stuff is pre-recorded that you'll hear next time. If you didn't hear your promo that you sent, don't worry. We're going to be playing some of the promos next time. And we definitely are going to be making sure that we put everybody else's promo in uh we're going to get right into the email right now so for this historic 200th episode we want to thank all of our patrons of course we we really

appreciate everybody who's a patron but we specifically want to thank our latest patrons andrew sophie chris colin storm wing dave tor wesley and travis thank you all so very much for Sophie, Chris, Colin, Stormwing, Dave, Tor, Wesley, and Travis. Thank you all so very much for all your generous donations. We really appreciate it. Make sure that the show continues, and we can't say thank you enough. Yeah, we really do appreciate it. I don't believe Stormwing, though. Yes.

I'm just saying, like, I don't believe that that is your Christian name. It's his middle name. Yeah. That would be awesome. Like, my name is Bill Stormwing Johnson. Like, wow. So the first thing I want to talk about is an image from Galen. Galen sent us an image for our 200th episode, and it's just got a bunch of shit that's on the Clesicoptic screen.

I love the giant worm. Yeah, it's great. There's a giant worm there there's a bursar to birthers there's fucking people in a pyramid there's witches there's a fucking warlock it's

fucking amazing it's very good it's amazing so we're gonna put this as the image for this episode you can find it at dissonance pod.com it should be the very first episode that pops

up episode 200 so thank you galen for making an image for this episode we want to thank also everybody else who sent in uh congratulations and plug their podcast thank you guys everybody for everybody who sent those in we're we're we're happy to uh to not only plug your show but we're also happy that you guys wished us well so thank you you know 200 episodes and i've enjoyed recording at least six of them that's pushing it for me something like that something like that

tom do you want to read this email? This is from Lee. And Lee sent us a message about the founding fathers and evolution. So we do have a slight correction. He said, well, actually, the founding fathers, particularly the scientific-minded ones like Jefferson, Franklin, and Priestley, wrote about evolution and supported deistic creation. The fact that the many species of plants and animals on Earth seem to be related is very old, and even some ancient Greeks postulated that they evolved over time, but they had no idea how such a thing might have worked. William Paley, born in 1743, was known to the founding fathers,

and his watchmaker argument was pretty devastating at the time, so Jefferson and others supported it, as any good scientist of the time would. It wasn't until 1836 that Darwin and Wallace figured out the mechanism and gathered evidence that natural variation and selection over millions of years would explain evolution and apparent design without need of a creator. Only after that would it have been possible for good scientists to not be a creationist. So yes, our founding fathers were creationists, but that's no surprise. If they had the evidence that we have today that not even Darwin and Wallace had, they probably wouldn't have been. Well, Hamilton, maybe he was a faith head. That sort of does miss a little bit of the point of what he was saying, which is, you know, he's saying that they understood the theory of evolution.

Right. And they didn't understand. Not as we understand. When we talk about. So I think that's the disconnect. Right. Is that is that evolution as a concept existed, but evolution the way that we think of now as evolution because of an understanding from 214 fucking years ago, you're like, that's fucking goofball stuff. And why did they dismiss it? Well, they dismissed it because they didn't have the evidence that we have.

Okay, well, we currently have the evidence. What he's trying to say is that the argument – he says there's nothing new under the sun. When I'm quoting him when I say that, he says there's nothing new under the the sun meaning that there's nothing that has been found out about it that has made it been convincing but that's a lie that's him lying about the thing also it's also more fucking founding fathers knob gobbling that's basically what it is he's basically saying well if the founding fathers didn't think it then it fucking doesn't matter well i don't give a fuck what they thought i don't care what they thought if they thought thought something good, I'll think it's awesome. But I don't deify the founding fathers.

Just like I don't deify anyone. I think everybody is able to err. And I think everybody should, you know, if I'm going to judge your merits, your argument, I'm not going to judge who you are because I don't give a fuck who you are. I'm worried about your argument. And their argument's flawed because they don't have the fucking correct reasoning because they don't even know the evidence. There's nothing new under the sun except for the mountains of fucking evidence there's a lot of new 200 years of evidence it turns out a lot so we got a message this is from

leanne leanne just wanted she sent us a message to talk about uh our show and that she really enjoys it but she also sent a message to say uh a third someone by the name of Chris, who she's friends with, is turning 30 on January 9th. And she wanted to give him a special birthday shout out. So we would like everybody to know that the person on the other side of the glory hole is Chris. It is. And he has to suck 30 cocks on his birthday. It's the worst. It's totally the worst.

It's the worst birthday until the 31st birthday. It gets worse every year. You contemplate suicide the night before the birthday. Happy birthday, Chris. That's awesome. We appreciate both of you guys listening to the show. And we look forward to meeting Chris, even though if Leanne's totally ditched him for reason kind.

We look forward to meeting Chris, though. This is a great email. I love this shit. This is awesome. So this comes from Amanda. She said, hey, guys, just wanted to say you two were the first atheist podcast I ever picked up and probably one of the best. I've listened to a few others here and there, but they feel really too smart.

And I feel like I can never live up to their eloquence of speech. But you guys, fucking right up my alley. I am not an articulate person. So it's just more comfortable to hear people who I could reasonably have a conversation with than the guys who study and have all these points and the ability to back up what they say at the drop of a hat. I'd rather laugh at people because it's super obvious how dumb they are without having to explain every reason why okay i'm sure you guys are actually really very smart but thank you for

dumbing it down for the rest of us oh nice glory hole and four beers you motherfuckers oh that's nice thank you we're not actually very smart yeah this is us raising our general level of eloquence actually i i had to look up eloquence, actually. I didn't know what that meant. Look it up where? I'm going to put a video with this episode. This is from April. And April says this.

This is fucking great. This is a video called I'm a Climate Scientist. And it's sweary and awesome and there's like fucking cheerleaders in it and it's it's just great it's just really awesome and i had never seen it before april so thank you for sending in this i had i totally had missed this i had missed when it come out but uh but it's really great so if you want to check it out go to dissonancepod.com episode 200 and you'll be able to find this video. That's really very funny.

On a very special episode, we're going to leave you, as we always do, with the skeptics' creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative acupunctuating pressurized stere tarot cards Psychic healing, crystal balls Bigfoot, yeti, aliens Churches, mosques and synagogues Temples, dragons, giant worms

Atlantis, dolphins, truthers Birthers, witches, wizards Vaccine nuts Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy Double speak stigmata Nonsense Expose your signs. Thrust your hands.

Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. 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. First guest in Glory Hole Studios. Wow. Very first one. I'm happy to be your first. Just leave the hole like you found it. This is the first threesome we've had.

It is the first threesome. A threesome with a glory hole. That's a challenge. Why are we not recording this? Threesome with the glory hole. All right, let's get. The difficulty with the threesome with the glory hole. I think I've been recording the whole time. This is all the outtake. The difficulty with the threesome with the glory hole all right let's get the difficulty with the threesome with the glory hole i think i've been recording the whole time so we're good this is all the outtake

is that you've got a sword fight to see who goes in first you know what i mean you gotta work here with using unless unless unless it's a short room with a hole on either end that's you know so there's someone in the center it's almost like a saw movie So there's someone in the center. It's almost like a Saw movie, right? There's a guy outside of a box. I'm just saying, finger cuffs is always an option. I just assumed I'd be the other guy on the glory hole and you would both be on the other side.

I was a little confused when I got here. We're on the other side of the glory hole, but we're definitely not on the receiving end of the glory hole. I don't know if it's a sword fight. Like, all I've got is a sheath. I was like, that's not a knife. No, that's not a knife. That's still not a knife.

It's not even the second half of that. You don't even care what you do. You could bring a friend and that's not a knife. That's just not a knife. So what were we doing? We're doing the people who got beat. This is awesome. This is great.

This is great. Should I do the intro? Go ahead and do it. Do the intro recording from glory old studios in Chicago. Got to separate that more. Okay. That was terrible. No fucking notes from the goddamn episode.

Episode. Which episode are we doing guys guys which episode are we doing