Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 24: Pubcrawl Birmingham

Episode Date: December 5, 2011

This weeks news items: 6 Dead From HIV from Holy Water Cure, Kentucky Church Bans Interracial Marriage, Bachmann on US Embassy in Iran, VIDEO Bachmann on Gay Marriage, Indefinite Detention for Americans, Therapist and Satanic Cults, Yoga and Harry Potter are Evil, Gingrich and Child Labor, Patrick Redmond - Skeptics on the Pub Birmingham blog and Podcast. Clips used: James Randi on God, Gingrich on American Exceptionalism, Bugs Bunny Hypnosis, Three Stooges, Bachman on Jehova and Gays, Gingrich on CNN, Ghostbusters. Visit our site for the links to the stories: http://dissonancepod.com

People often ask me, do you believe in God? And I say, which God? Medusa? Ahura Mazda? Any of the thousands and thousands of gods that are out there. No, I don't see any compelling evidence to believe in a god. I think, my personal opinion, and I'm not a great philosopher in this respect, but my personal opinion is that religion is probably an attempt, an early attempt, a primitive attempt to explain the world, and the easiest way to do it is to invent an

agency that is all-powerful and can do all these things that you don't understand. You're walking along a path. A rock hits you on the back of the head. Perfectly clear day. You look around, you say, somebody threw that rock. Well, if nobody threw the rock, then there must be a rock god or something like that

who throws rocks and hits you in the back of the head. You've got to have an explanation for it. We human beings, and all animals, when you come right down to it, they want to have an explanation of the world around them. Oh, I do tricks. I do sleight of hand tricks for dogs and make them nuts. You know, you do a thing like, oh, what have I got here? Oh, yeah, the car, do this sort of a thing with the dog, and the dog goes nuts when he goes to, look where it is, because we've spoiled his expectation of the world. No, I didn't put it away, I put it in here.

It has spoiled the dog's expectation of the world, and it really worries them. You see them actually, they're worried, they're really grieved by it, they're bothered by it, and more crazy dogs just because they come in contact with me. But it challenges them in a way that they've never been challenged before because their expectations of a real world have not been met. And that's what happens with people. They want an explanation. And inventing a god or a series of gods, a whole panoply of gods, a panorama of gods is a very easy way to do it. Oh, I don't have to think about rain because that's the rain god. And that's how the water comes down out of the sky. That's the easy way to do it. Oh, I don't have to think about rain because that's the rain God, and that's how the water comes down out of the sky.

That's the easy way to do it, in my opinion. This is my own personal analysis of the situation. It may or may not be true. I don't know. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad.

It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome, man. Welcome, everybody, to episode 24 of Cognitive Dissonance. We're glad to have you guys here, and we've got some stories that are... It's been a bizarre week. These stories are fucking bizarre, Cecil. They're all over the map, all over the fucking map.

So for this story, we actually have a special guest. We've got Patrick Redmond on. He's from Skeptics in the Pub. And this is a story about curing HIV with anointing water. Sorry, can I just say I'm from Skeptic in the Pub, Birmingham, because there's about 40-odd of them over here in England. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

They are in the pub over there like fucking mad, okay? So you've got to be specific, I think. People will know there is, you know, Birmingham. I don't want people to think I've set myself as some kind of emperor of the Skeptic in the Pub. I like to think of you as the quintessential skeptic in the pub. You know, I think, Patrick, this is your time to seize power. I think this is your moment, so I think you should go for it.

The story that we're going to talk about here is about curing HIV with anointing water. There are at least six people who found this cure to be somewhat lacking. And by somewhat lacking, I mean completely deadly. Turns out that water is a cure for thirst, but not HIV. Right, right. They should have used Gatorade.

That's the thing. Shouldn't they have gone to some kind of like an AIDS quencher? Wouldn't that have worked better? This is anointing water. Maybe they're just doing this wrong. I would think, just knowing what I know about like power waters and the power of water, that this would be a surefire win. But no, at least six people have died.

The church post has has a 100 success rate i think they're right they are 100 successful in killing people with hiv they have never yet deviated from that path this this is not that much different to uh homeopathy is it really because like the water's got exactly the same potency as homeopathy and as exactly the same clinical effects as homeopathy it's just these holy homeopathic remedies is uh well yeah absolutely incredible i can't could not but i suppose i could believe this story unfortunately when i read it but just incredible i can't can't get my head around it. What do you think, Patrick, that a church has to gain from even saying something like this to its

parishioners? I think that it's the logical extension of a supernatural belief, isn't it? Because a supernatural belief is that God can do anything. And then he sets himself up with church, particularly this particular particular church which is very evangelical kind of crazy i don't know if you've looked at any of the other statements of tb joshua the prophet of the church but um but the logical extension is that they can do these things and they can cure hiv it's a big thing to claim but they're not afraid to go out and claim it and so they do but i just think it's tantamount to some kind of murder or manslaughter or it's just absolutely incredible that they can do this

and not face any kind of repercussions or legal punishments you would think that the parishioners would eventually find out you know you're sitting in a church pew and the guy who used to sit next to you doesn't sit next to you anymore, right? You're like, man, that guy used to cough all the time during church. It's so much quieter. What the fuck? Where'd that guy go? Yeah, seriously.

Like, I don't understand. Like, it's almost like, I guess you're just, it's like lying to your friends when you're a kid that you have a Lamborghini at home. And then, you know, you take them to your house. They're like, where's your Lamborghini? Oh, it's at the shop. You know what I mean? Like, how do you get around this? I don't understand how this even works.

Like, what I get is that they are trying to exert their power over their parishioners. There's that magical thinking, I think, that leads into it. But there's no benefit to this. I really don't see a benefit as a, I mean, you could say something like, oh, maybe we're going to try to heal this. But I think to say we 100% can heal you with water and then your parishioners die, that's really bad for publicity. Yeah, yeah. But what they have is they have that caveat in there that lots of faith healers have and also lots of alternative medicine people have is that if you don't get healed then it's because your faith wasn't good enough right so you have to really really properly believe and properly give yourself over to god and all that kind of stuff and then this magical water that

they're going to spray in your face that's going to do the job but if if you're not sincere in your belief then it's not going to happen in age your fault that you died it's nothing to do with them so wait a minute if they spray me in the face with water you're saying it wouldn't it wouldn't fix me because i don't believe in the power of their magic gatorade or whatever like that's not you you're godless even you're what if it's like pasta water you're gonna get aids first time that's the you know they're a godless heathen. You're going to get AIDS first. That's the you know, they're going to give you AIDS and then they're going to send you to hell, Tom. I mean, you're really fucked. You're like super bad, actually.

You know, the thing is, like the church. Here's what occurs to me, though, is that the church has never been asked to give any proof before ever. Like that's not let's say that's not what they do. You know, churches don't have to give you as a parishioner. They don't ever have to offer you any proof that something works. They just tell you it works. Right. They're just like works.

Yeah. Salvation. God, Jesus, whatever it is. It just works. It just works. And the parishioners like, well, it came from this figure of authority. And so now there's really not a substantial difference in them saying, well, you know, we can cure AIDS. We can cure cancer and cure anything we want with, you know, magic, holy water or what have you.

Nobody's even going to approach them and say, well, how how the fuck does this work? And I see your success. No one's going to ask for evidence. You're at church. That's not the place to ask for evidence. You're at church. That's not the place to ask for fucking evidence. Right. Right. That's the place to be like, oh, evidence. Hey, don't say the E word around here. Yeah. Who I feel bad for, I think I feel the worst for is the children in this church because they don't get the chance to make the decisions

about their own health care. And so there's a chance that they could be, you know, if they're doing this with AIDS, I'm sure they're doing it with lesser afflictions as well. And, you know, if the kid is very sick, there's a possibility they're not treating it. They're just anointing them. And that's not, you know, that's not good for the innocents involved in this. Have you been to the main website for this church, the main international website? It's the Synagogue Church of All Nations. How does that even work?

Synagogue Church Temple Mosque of All Nations. It's the Synagogue Church of All Nations, and you should check out their main website because they've got this charismatic prophet called T.B. Joshua on there, and there's all videos of him. And there's one bit where he's making this claim about an American hero who's going to die.

And what he says in this claim is fantastic. It's absolutely great. He says, I had this dream three days ago that this American hero was going to die. He's been battling with the disease for a long, long time. He doesn't name the hero or anything like that. Well, of course not. He says, and he might die.

He's fighting the Earth, but we could maybe pray and we could change this. And then he cuts to some film of Steve Jobs and all about Steve Jobs. And the implication is that the American hero that he saw was Steve Jobs. And they tried to save Steve Jobs with prayer, but it didn't work and he died.

But this is conclusive proof that TV Joshua has prophetic powers. And also on the website is some beautifully marketing labeled bottles of this miracle water that they're selling and putting out. And it's got like branding and everything on it. And there's whole bottles telling you about how it works and the biblical tradition behind how God can heal people through things like Moses's cloak and somebody's

something or whatever. God can put his work through this water and it's all on there. Fantastic. Synagogue Church of All Nations. Check them out. I'm looking at the site and it is a very slickly designed site. I will admit that they paid somebody to make this site because it is very slick. I will have to put this in the rotation and I, and I want to thank you Patrick for coming out and being, being very well researched. Unlike the host. So we appreciate when people come on and they're way more researched than we

are about the. Well, you know, I would believe in Moses's cloak cause it's plus five. So if you use a 20 sidey dice and you've only found a Sunday, Well, you know, I would believe in Moses' cloak because it's plus five. So, yeah, plus five cloak. Only if you use a 20-sided dice and you roll it on a sunbake. These people with AIDS didn't have a saving throw, though. That's all I'm saying.

They threw low on that one. You would think the church would start with the cold, right? Like, we have a 100% success rate in curing a cold. Start small. Can we go with a cold? Like, somebody, like, walks into the church like, I got the fucking sniffles man i've had them for like four days what you got oh here's some water oh i feel much better thanks well they're going right to aids that's ballsy that's a step that's for sure well there's a notice on there you've been probably heard

so i'm just got their website up and he's flicking through and there's a notice that their facebook page is being temporarily removed is on their website up and it's flicking through and there's a notice that their Facebook page has been temporarily removed. It's on their website. I wonder if that's fallout from what's happening on this. That would be something quite silly. Probably. I would imagine.

I can't see how they can't be prosecuted. If you give somebody advice telling them categorically that if they stop taking medication, that is going to extend their life and make their life better and that they should stop that so that they can have some water sprayed in their face how can that not be a criminal offense it's your country you tell me in america we'd elect them right yeah oh that's awesome so yeah okay it's it's a sad story i mean like we were laughing on you but it is a sad story because that's six people with families who died and everything and i'm sorry to get kind of serious but it's an insane story and we should not in the 21st century

still have people who believe that they can be healed with bits of water being splashed on them. That should not be happening. We had somebody a while back tell us that the mail, the daily mail, is not a paper you should be reading. Is this like a joke paper? Is this story a joke? It's not a joke. It was picked up in your other great paper, wasn't it? The Huffington Post.

Well, there you have it, folks. Oh, okay. All right. I want the listeners to forget everything they heard for the last 10 minutes. No, seriously, though, what's the deal with this paper? The Daily Mail is on a skeptical sort of scientific liking circle. The Daily Mail is referred to as a daily fail and regularly scores a zero or one out of ten.

And they have this campaign, if you look it up, which some skeptics have picked up, which is the Daily Mail Oncology Project, whereby they take every piece of matter in the universe and separate it either into this will cause cancer or this will cure cancer. So drinking coffee will cause cancer or this will cure cancer. So drinking coffee will cause cancer. But if you read a few months later on, they'll have an article saying drinking coffee will cure cancer. And somebody's gone through years and years of backdates of the Daily Mail and they've brought up this massive, brilliant thing where the Daily Mail seems to have just separated the entire universe into things that either will or won't cause cancer oh my god element by element they're like oh okay

fucking strontium cures they are they are not good okay fair enough fair enough and you know faith healing in churches i know people i know people who belong to evangelical churches and i remember one of my friends saying that her husband who couldn't work for six months, he'd had his back healed and he was great. And he applied for work. And three days later, he was crippled again because he got that boost. He got that three day boost from having all the hands laid on him. And he thought that he was all fine and great. And then three days later, he was laid back.

He was definitively not great. It turns out. That is the opposite. Yeah. So Patrick's going to join us at the end of the show when he's going to do a quick interview about his podcast, Skeptics in the Pub Birmingham. He's also going to talk about the website and the blog that he runs. So you're going to want to fast forward to the end, just like you did with with Sean Faircloth's episode. So you're going to want to fast forward to the end, just like you did with with Sean Faircloth's episode.

You want to just skip ahead until you get there to get to right around somewhere near the end of the podcast. Roll it back just a touch and you'll probably catch Patrick's voice. If you hear any vulgarities in between, that's us. So you're going to want to skip ahead to the end. The next story we're going to cover is out of Yahoo News. And this is actually from a Kentucky church. What a perfect place for it. Right. Yahoo News.

No kidding. A bunch of fucking Yahoo's. Kentucky church bans interracial marriage because. What's that? I can't hear you back in the 50s. what's that I can't hear you back in the 50s you know the conservatives often talk about you know this idea like this

golden era in America you know getting back to that golden time in America where things were simpler men were men and women were women you know and our black folk didn't marry our white folk you know back in the good old days of racist bullshit and uh leave it to

kentucky way to go you know it can't help but say kentucky and church lead this article right whenever you see an article led by kentucky, you know it's not going to be like, Kentucky Church wins Nobel. Right? That sentence doesn't end. Kentucky Church solves all of world's problems. World in peace now. Kentucky Church cures cancer. Kentucky Church makes chicken.

Kentucky Church makes chicken. OK. So reading this article, basically this person, a person in the church brings their black, I think, fiancé to church with them. And they sing a song and then they're basically asked not to come back. Don't come back. And then this pastor steps down and then this other person is like, well, the pastor is gone. So I'm going to, you know, let him come back to the church. And the pastor like basically has a vote. Well, first off, if your church is voting on whether or not they should allow interracial couples, maybe you should consider another church. I'm just throwing that out there, parishioners.

But they have like this vote on whether or not they're going to have, they're going to allow these, this interracial couple to show up. And the first thing that comes to mind when I think about this, Tom, is at least they're consistent in their bigotry, right? They don't like gays marrying. Hey, maybe they don't have to like interracial people marrying either. I mean, at least they're consistent in their bigotry. You know, I actually, I'll be honest, my first thought was, this is what churches, this is the way that churches should oppose gay marriage, right? If your church

has an issue with something, if your church has a moral stance that it wants to take, it doesn't matter that the moral stance is immoral, as it is in this case, you know, or... Clearly it is. I mean, this is fucking

some Stone Age shit. I mean, this is ridiculous. This is just fucking ridiculous. But it is their right to say, like, well, you know, I don't like this thing. I don't condone this action, and so I don't want you in my church. That's their right. And it's the same right that

churches would have individually as churches to say, well, I'm not going to perform a gay marriage. Okay, cool. Don't perform a gay marriage. I don't give a shit if the Catholic church ever performs a gay marriage. What I care about is what are the civil authorities allow? Civil authorities, even in Kentucky, allow blacks and whites to get married, right? You know, that's the only thing that matters because that's what bestows upon people certain civil rights. You know, the rights and privileges and responsibilities that a married couple has.

This church doesn't want to do it. And you're a part of this church, you just look at it and be like, wow, I'm not a part of your fucking backwards, backwater, hillbilly, bullshit, Bible-thumping church anymore. Later days, suckers. Fuck you. That's a weird sign, too. There's a lot of Bs on that sign.

You know, like you said, at least they're consistent. This is their right. I mean, and it's actually nice that it's out in the open, right? Because now reasonable, rational, decent human beings will know, oh, well, we don't want to go there because they're a bunch of racist fuckwits. I think if they're going to be – if you're going to be bigoted and be so set in stone in your policy, then fine. Just do that sort of thing and then watch the people leave. And that's what's going to happen. They're just going to leave eventually. Or they're going to throw you out, which is what they should do with this guy.

And say, look, dude, I'm sure there's some really, really, really, really tiny town that would love to have you go there. Right, right. Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are Jehovah God. So Michelle Bachman hit another one out of the park. This woman is fucking

spectacular. What a winner. I love this. I love Michelle Bachman. I can't wait to be able to not vote for her. Because she's not going to win anything. Oh gosh. This woman couldn't win in anything. And there's no contest right now. I'm sorry Tom. She is a fucking house of representatives.

Stop saying that. She has a one. She does not represent. No, she can win the crazy eyes contest. She has won a thing. She has won a thing in the past. She looks like Skeletor. That's all I'm saying.

I would defeat her by the powers of gray skull. That's all. Attack her with Battle Cat. Oh, my God. He pulled out Battle Cat for that one. Well, she's got some lofty plans for American diplomacy, such as removing our embassy from Iran, which is not there.

It'd be easy to remove. Hold on, Michelle. Let me remove that for you. Hey, it's gone. Bloop. You fucking retard. I love the line. You know, Huffington Post is not snarky at all.

Let me read the exact title of this article. Michelle Bachman, U.S. embassy in Iran, in parentheses here it says, which doesn't exist, would be closed under my watch. You know, and there's a great line. OK, Herman Cain left the race too, Tom. Well, no, he's suspended. Oh, whatever. He's gone. He still might deliver. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Herman Cain is leaving the race too because of extramarital affair, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's this great line from The Onion that I'm going to quote here, and it's for an article that just came out. Rumors of extramarital affair and campaign of presidential candidate who didn't know China has nuclear weapons. campaign of presidential candidate who didn't know China has nuclear weapons. And I feel like when you listen to that, that is exactly how we feel about these people. You know, she doesn't know Iran has – doesn't have an embassy. But she's closer than Herman Cain who had an extramarital affair, right? But Herman Cain obviously doesn't get ousted or doesn't get like shitty polls for not understanding politics or policy or any of that stuff.

He gets it for some sort of moral police get to tell him not to do it. And she's – the same thing is going to happen to her when her husband is caught like balls deep in a fucking 12-year-old. They're going to be like, OK, well, now she can't run either. And that's what's going to knock like, you know, OK, well, now she can't run either. And that's what's you know, that's what's going to knock out of the race. Not fucking ridiculous, bad, awful gaffes like this, which if you were in office, like we would be 30 seconds away from nuclear war. Oh, my God. This is a woman who believes we are in the end times.

Right. Why would you want somebody who believes the world is going to end to be in charge of the future of the world? If you're looking for a disqualifier, that's it, in my opinion. That's the disqualifier. You know, there hasn't been an embassy in Iran for 31 years. It's not like they just stopped last night, you know, and she woke up and she didn't get the fucking memo. It's been 31 years since 1980. I was two.

Well, she was fucking, she's 55 now. So she was in her 20s. This would have been relevant political news at the time for somebody who aspired to politics. She's, she's, I can't believe though, Tom, this is the political system that we have though, She's – I can't believe though, Tom. This is the political system that we have though where somebody who makes perfectly like awful, completely baseless claims that have no attachment to reality whatsoever. They somehow don't have to answer for those those gaffes. But when some sort of moral issue comes up that has nothing to do with them ruling. I mean, come on. What what is what if Herman Cain is fucking somebody that makes no real difference?

Who fucking cares? Who cares? Don't care. I'm not. I wouldn't care. Let's say I was interviewing a guy. Let's say you were interviewing a guy for a job. And he was great for the job. He was everything you wanted.

And then you find out he was getting a little something on the side. You wouldn't give a shit. Well, is his wife hot? So I hear your wife might be untended. Available. Nobody been tilling the garden at home? Nobody been tilling the garden at home? Yeah, I just feel like I feel that our political system has come to this point where now we don't care about the qualifications of the candidate.

We don't care about their intelligence level. We don't care about how they speak or what they know. We only care that they haven't put their penis or their vagina in a place where we don't think they should put it. And that's outrageous. Well, it's part of this idea that we're trying to hire our buddy, right? That we want our president to be likable. We want him likable. I don't like that guy.

I like that guy. He seems like an average guy. He seems like a normal guy like me. Let's get the average guys out of fucking office, please. There's a fucking nation of average people that shouldn't be president. Right. That's my answer. Right.

We are full of people who go to churches in Kentucky. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay. It's anything but gay. So another win for Michelle Bachman. She had a

shot at chatting with a teenager in the LGBT community. And she really acquitted herself wonderfully. Basically, the teenager asked her. This was like one of those town hall type things in Iowa. And the microphone gets to this kid. This kid says, you know, what would you do for the LGBT community? And then Michelle Bachman goes on this sort of like crazy aside about special rights and eventually devolves into, well, gays have all the same rights that heterosexuals have because they can get married as long as they marry people they're not sexually attracted to. We're not giving these people different rights. We're just allowing them to marry another consenting adult, which is how the law should be written anyway. It should be written you're legally marrying someone who is a consenting adult.

Who cares what sex they are? What about hermaphrodites? What do they get to do? They're fucked. Right. Or not. Or they're like the universal or or not or it or they're like the you know the the universal blood type so to speak you know where they can they can

do whatever they want they're the blank tile and scrabble you can call it when you put it down seriously though like like what is it what is it that we care so much about and why does michelle bachman care again she doesn't know there's an embassy – not an embassy in Iran, yet she's able to talk about stuff like this like she understands what the constitution really means and again dealing strictly with where people put their private parts. Right. Well, look, this conversation she had with this teenager highlights the absurdity of her position. And and really, if you were to take that same conversation, the same response that she had. Right. And and just take out sexual politics and insert racial politics and then replay the whole same conversation, you could very easily have an answer. It says, well, look, black people have the same rights as white people. They can get married as long as it's to black people. We had those laws.

Kentucky churches like them. They were anti-miscegenation laws. We had those laws. They were in place. She kept going back to this. Well, it's the law of the land. It's the law of the land. The law of the land is unjust. So you cannot fall back on, well, it's the law, and so they don't get special rights. The exact same argument can be made just substituting racial terms for sexual terms. And it's obvious then how horrifyingly unjust it is. But like you said, Cecil, we're obsessed here in America with what people are doing with their junk. Like, I feel like at some point you get like everybody's going to have to have a blog.

Like, here are the places my junk has been today. Right. You know, I've taken from my iPhone. Right. Yeah. Shit I've done with my junk. Yeah. Today my penis has been in the following places.

Mine's a very short list of places. The shortest blog ever. Yeah, you can tweet that shit. I don't even need all 140 characters. Tidy URL. tiny url oh man that's awesome do you suddenly swear tell truth all truth and nothing but the truth why don't you answer him he's talking big right now i don't know what he's saying

he's asking you if you swear no but i know all the words he's asking you if you swear. No, but I know all the words. He's asking you if you swear to tell the truth. Truth is stranger than fiction, Judge Woody. So the Senate passed a bill recently. This is an article from ZeroHedge.com. I almost said ID Tech. This is the first thing I saw at the top of the page. The ad is bigger than the page. We like ads.

Yeah. This is an article from ZeroHedge.com. The Senate actually passed a bill today allowing for the indefinite detention of Americans and considers a bill authorizing torture. considers a bill authorizing torture. The Senate, do they not understand that they can't pass bills that are in direct violation of the Constitution? That you could take an eighth grade civics test and know that the indefinite detention of American citizens is in direct violation of basic constitutional rights? They obviously don't understand, Tom, because they passed this bill. Are there no minimum competency requirements? Evidently not.

All you need to do is make sure that you tweet where your junk goes and you can get elected, no problem. Well, I guess it doesn't work with Wiener. But other than that, other people. No, but I don't understand this. Why exactly – what is the big threat that we are so afraid of at this point, that we are taking away right after right of people in this country? What the fuck happened to due process? What happened to uh to due process what happened to that isn't that part i mean isn't

that part of the the american legal system in the bill of rights isn't that part of all that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed which district shall have been previously ascertained by law and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation to be confronted with the witnesses against him to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense it's the sixth amendment to the united defense. It's the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It's fucking clear as day.

We have a right to due process. How do you pass a law that says, eh, no you don't? Here's the thing. If you want to rid us of our right of due process, amend the Constitution. You have to have a two-thirds vote and you'll have a revolution. You know, it says at the bottom of this article, Tom, it says that, I'm actually on a different article.

This one was posted by Lou. It's about the same. It was posted on our Facebook page by Lou and it's about the exact same topic. But at the bottom of the article, I'm going to read directly from it. This comes from RT.com. I'm going to read, President it. This comes from RT.com. I'm going to read.

President Barack Obama has pledged in the past that he would veto the legislation if it made it through Congress. And a White House official told the AP on Thursday that the threat still stands. So hopefully this doesn't go through. And, you know, I've said this before on the show, but I think it bears repeating. I can't feel this more strongly. But, you know, I understand that that the government has a responsibility to protect the safety of its citizens. I understand that I do. And I respect and I appreciate that. But protecting your country has to be about more than protecting the physical safety of the citizens. It has to be

about protecting the ideals and values that a country is established on and maintains. And when you sacrifice all of those ideals in order to gather together a little bit of physical safety, in order to make sure that we don't have any terrorist bombings, you know, we're going to violate the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. You're changing America. You're not protecting America. You're distorting it at this point. And we are not safer because of it.

We are much, much less safe. And the values that the country is founded on become less. And the values that the country is founded on become less. You're denigrating the very foundational beliefs that this country was built upon. And you're doing that in order to have a little bit more personal safety, you know, to protect people from terrorists. It's not worth it. Tom, you and I have been talking about this for five, six years. We've been talking about it on Everyone's a Critic for years about how indefinite detention is just horrible. And we thought it was horrible when we were picking up people on battlefields and doing it to them. You and I were rallying against this saying this is an awful,

stupid idea. You're basically also allowing other countries then to hold our people indefinitely without any sort of recourse. You're basically giving them permission to do that. See, so you hit the nail on the head. Everybody wants to fucking piss and moan about big government. I'm scared they're going to take all my money and taxes and they're going to spend it on helping poor people. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm kind of afraid that the government has the right to strip away the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution.

I think that's kind of a bigger fucking deal. Yeah. I hope he fucking vetoes the fuck out of this. I hope he pisses on the bill. I do too. I hope he fucking unzips his pants and pisses on the bill in veto. I want to see his tiny URL. I think this is very important. I want to see his tiny URL.

I think this is very important. I want to talk very briefly about American exceptionalism and then apply it very directly to one example of how big the change needs to be. Despite the fact that our current president has managed to avoid explaining, on at least four occasions, that we are endowed by our creator. The fact is what makes American exceptionalism different is that we are the only people I know of in history to say power comes directly from God to each one of you. We've got to now play a clip of Newt Gingrich, another GOP candidate, really speaking his mind about the important issues of the day.

And so I come around to this question. A very poor neighborhood. You have kids who are required under law to go to school. They have no money. They have no habit of work. What if you paid them part-time in the afternoon to sit at the clerical office and greet people when they came in? What if you paid them to work as the assistant librarian? And I'd pay them as early as is reasonable and practical. Then we get into the janitor thing. And I get these letters written

that say, janitorial work is really hard and really dangerous and it's this and that. Fine. So what if they became assistant janitors and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom? Fucking, I have never seen a more non-sequitur thing than that. And I've watched like David Lynch films. Yeah, like we're just going to get rid of child labor laws and put kids to work cleaning the fucking school because they're poor. Yeah, that's going to go over well as a child too, right? Like here I am. I'm the poor kid and I've got to clean up after all the other kids. Right.

And that doesn't affect me as a child? Stigmatize you terribly? Look at the article. Gingrich said his idea would be beneficial because the kids have no habit of work. Nobody works harder than poor people. Okay, so when I was a kid, I was a pretty industrious little kid. I didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up, so what I would do is I would just find jobs to do. I would just run out and like try to mow lawns, try to shovel snow. I was shoe shining when I was a kid. I was delivering papers. I was a pretty industrious kid. My dad was out of work for like seven years when I was a child. I didn't need to learn the benefits of work. benefits of work. I learned those very early because everyone learns those very early because the benefits of work are pretty fucking simple. I work, you pay me money. It's not rocket science. It's fucking, it's a fucking simple transaction, man. Child labor laws exist for a fucking reason.

You know, you start rolling these things back for, you know, to allow kids to work and be a janitor in a school. You know, I think it's telling, too, that like he suggests, well, just let him be janitors, let him clean the bathroom and mop the floor. Great. Great. So while kids from middle class and upper middle class and wealthy neighborhoods get to wake up in the morning and go to school and come home and, you know, be involved in extracurriculars and study and improve their educational lot in life, because that is, as we have all seen, the real path to success, the real path to the American dream. Absolutely.

You know, those kids are the ones that go to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, you know, the big schools because they don't you don't get in with just good grades anymore. You have to do 15 fucking other things. How's it going to look when you said, well, what did you do after school? Oh, well, fuck. Now the child labor laws have been partially repealed. My family needs money. I woke up and during the only period of my life where I might be able to actually focus

on my studies and on myself and my ability to get into college to better my fucking 40, 50, 60 year game plan in my life. I was mopping a floor. What I see this as is a way for him to basically say, hey, train him young. Train him to be manual laborers young. You know, I look back on that time and I completely agree with you, Tom. I did do odd jobs to try to get money, but I would have much fucking preferred to do a couple of chores around the house and be a kid. There's kids out there right now doing the exact

same goddamn thing I did when I was a kid. But you know where they're not? They don't have their head in a book. They're not being kids. They're not being fucking children, which is what you should allow children to be if you expect them to one day grow up to be adults. If you force them to be adults too early, you get me a big giant fucking kid. Well, and who wants to compete for their job with a nine year old? You know, all of a sudden people are gonna be like, I would like to do that work. I have a family to feed. I need a money. I need a money.

I'm a grown ass man. I need a fucking money. Oh, sorry. We gave your job to fucking Timmy really yeah because that's fucking insane Gingrich also says that poor kids have no habit of work

yeah well fuck you that's bullshit it's bullshit but poor kids I'll be honest Tom you know I've known a lot of poor kids and they know the habit of work because their parents work two or three fucking jobs. Right. Right.

It's it's it's it's based on this false idea that folks who are poor don't work, that they are fucking layabouts, that they are, you know, well, they don't have a habit of work. And he's basically saying, like, well, there's no model for it at home. You know, fuck you in the ass nobody works harder nobody works harder than people who are struggling every day to survive that's horseshit that's utter give up your fucking give up your fucking your excess one day gingrich to be a working poor person in this country you would fucking die you would die if you had to fucking do half of the work that these, you know, the people that work in my office, the cleaning people, the people who work downstairs, the security

guards, the people, you know what I mean? Like, there's all these people that don't make a lot of goddamn money that do a shitty job all day. And they come in every day and they work as hard as they can to help their family, whether that's, you know, their kids or their, you know, their their mother and father or whatever to stand up there and lie to keep this American sort of privilege going is bullshit. It's just total bullshit. You don't understand anything about the way the world works. You're so fucking isolated in your giant fucking gated off community that you have no idea

what a regular person has to go through on a normal basis. I don't understand how anybody applying for public office suggests that we repeal child labor laws. This guy's a fucking moron. So he's not going anywhere. Fucking newt's going to crawl back underneath the rock he came out of. We're going to take a break now to give you an opportunity to send in all of your complaints, your hate mail, your phone calls, your emails, your text messages, all that shit you kids are doing with the Facebooks and the Twitters and various. Just don't send us your tiny URLs, OK? No pictures of your tiny URL, please. When we get back, the second half of the show will be just as substandard as the first, I promise. You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

For more information on this or any other episode, visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. Like our show on Facebook to join in the conversation. Just search for Cognitive Dissonance in Facebook or go to our website for the link. Thank you. at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. So a longer video came out recently showing about 15 minutes of edited footage. It's almost 16 minutes of the UC Davis campus Occupy pepper spray incident.

And there's a lot of folks who are saying, well, you know, now that we've seen more footage, the police were totally justified in pepper spraying those kids because those students didn't disperse when they were told to, even though they were told, I'm going to use force on your face. I'm going to force force on your face. I'm going to force this in your face. What I'm seeing a lot of, and especially in this video, because this video has these, the video that we're talking about has this sort of commentary that runs through it. So it's not only edited, but it also has this commentary that pops up on the screen to tell you what you should think. And obviously, the person who's writing it has this sort of agenda, right?

They're talking about how the police, they start out with the police being shouted down. They use the words shouted down. And somehow that is a bad thing. It's a fucking protest. What are they supposed to like murmur amongst themselves? Right, right. Like quietly talk like you're in a fucking library? Like it's a protest. They talk about how they won't let the police through.

They won't let them leave. And again, there's a point at this where a guy walks up to the group of students before he sprays them fucking maliciously in the face with a giant fucking shotgun can of fucking spray paint or whatever the fucking spray mace with a fucking fire fire extinguisher size mace can right walks up to him and says he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna uh exert force on them if they don't move um just because a police officer tells you they're going to brutalize you before they brutalize you doesn't make the brutality any less of a crime uh if i were interrogating you tom and let's say you were in for murder and I was like, OK, well, Tom, I'm going to put your balls in this drawer and I'm going to fucking slam them until I give you a fucking vasectomy.

Unless you tell me what you did. Me slamming your balls in the drawer doesn't make it right just because I told you I was going to do it beforehand. That doesn't fucking exonerate me from all wrongdoing. I am fucking brutalizing you. I am a police officer with a fucking weapon and I am fucking hurting you. And somehow that just completely, the people who are talking about this, who are commenting, especially YouTube, because these fucking people are the fucking bottom of the barrel on YouTube.

I don't understand. YouTube people are insane. These are the dumbest fucking people are the fucking bottom of the barrel on YouTube. I don't understand. YouTube people are insane. These are the dumbest fucking people. I think it's like the only site they know how to work on the internet. So they're like, they fucking ook and ah and fucking throw their mouse around until it clicks on a video. And then they somehow fucking fumble fuck around with the keypad to write some fucking stupid shit on here. But you read through these comments and these people are all like, oh, they deserve that. They're a mob.

They're a, you know, the police officer said he was going to do it. And once he did it, you know, he said he was going to exert force. Like, you can't just tell people you're going to exert force and then exert force. It's going to be walking up to somebody like, I am going to punch you in the nose. Blam. And the police come. You're like, I told him. Right.

Fucking fair warning. Gave him fair warning. I was going to break his fucking nose. You got to look at the context of the video, Cecil. The students were chanting, sitting, chanting, sitting. Oh, they were touching each other. You know, were they chanting things that the police probably didn't want to hear? Oh, yeah.

But somebody needs to fucking sing the Sticks and Stones song to the fucking police here, right? You know, the video purports to show, well, look, you know, they form a ring around the police and the police can't get by. Give me a fucking break. Really? Really? Because there's like fucking 12 or 15 of these cops that are armed. They're standing up. The other guys are sitting down. They can just walk past them. They could just walk past them.

I don't know if you knew this, Tom, but the latest police model actually can't go into grass. I've heard that. If it goes into grass, like the ankle just falls out. I mean, look at this guy. You know, you got to fuel these things up with donuts. So there's no way that they're going to be able to walk through that grass. They're going to get stuck or they're going to fall over. It's ridiculous. You know, it does.

I will admit that watching the whole video paints them in a better light than just watching the clip. But they're still definitely in the fucking wrong. These are students on their own campus. They're sitting. They're sitting. They're chanting. Like you said, that's the fucking nature of protest. A protest is never going to be, hey, everybody, is everybody okay? You want us to move?

You want us to get out of the way? How are you going to accomplish anything? How are you going to do anything if you're not vocal really fucking vocal that's the nature of the fucking beast and the police coming by and being like well if you don't move i'm gonna fucking pepper spray you and be like really because your other option would be just to leave the other option is tom the other option is to reach over at the start at one end of the line pull the person out lay him on the ground and put fucking handcuffs on them and take them away. Because that's your option and that's what police do all the fucking time.

A regular police officer uses his nonlethal weapons in such a way as only if they are actually in danger. I've watched fucking hundreds of hours of cops. I am a fucking cops addict. I watch cops constantly. And I'm telling you, man, it's a rare occurrence when they pull to tase them or they're going to spray them. Most of the time, they just pull them right out of the car and they force them to the ground and then they handcuff them because the police are allowed to use physical force. I understand that. But macing someone is completely different than pressing someone on the ground and fucking handcuffing them.

It's a completely different process. These people went to the emergency room after this. Well, you know what it strikes me as? It strikes me as, honestly, it strikes me as lazy. Yeah, I agree. It's just like, well, I don't, they seemed, I watched the whole video. They seemed befuddled. They seemed like they didn't know what to do.

You know, you're right. They should just pull people out one by one starting at the end, you know, fucking separate their arms and and take care of business that's what you do you want to arrest them fine we have a court system that will prosecute them or not prosecute them you know that's that's the nature of the justice we have a whole system developed to deal with this sort of thing it's just it's just lazy just be like oh fuck they won't do the thing I want them to do. Spray them with a food additive.

Yeah. It's basically a food additive. It's just MSG. It's actually just MSG. They're actually hungry for more pepper spray 30 minutes later. Gotta use the accent. I pour Mrs. Dash all over these fucking kids. I pour Mrs. Dash all over these fucking kids.

I just feel like the people who watch this video, and I've seen it on Facebook a lot this week because it just popped up. And a ton of people are putting it all over their Facebook page being like, when you watch the whole story, it changes your mind, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those are people who already made up their minds beforehand about this thing. Right, exactly. And they're just reinforcing their opinions because some jackass wrote some shit on a screen. I watched this video and I had the exact same opinion I had before. You are in my power. You are slowly going into a trance.

You are getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy. You are completely under my control. I command you to be a canary bird. Oh, boy, it works, it works. It's a miracle. So this next story, I... So this next story is ABC News therapist brainwashed woman into believing she was in satanic cult. Attorney says this story is bizarre. First, it's bizarre because the video that goes with it doesn't match the story.

I love when they do that. That's awesome. So you're just like, oh, video of it. And you're watching. You're like, this is not the same thing. I don't know what's happening here. This psychologist accused a hypnotizing woman of believing she possessed multiple personalities and participated in satanic rituals. May be sued by several others who are also told the same.

This story is just fucking cuckoo, man. It's just totally cuckoo, man. It's just totally cuckoo. But I think the best line, the best writing, the Journalism of the Year Award has to go for this story because of their placement of two facts right up against one another. I'm going to read directly from the story. One of those acts included participating in, quote, a ritualistic eating of babies, end quote, according to Volsitsky. Nassif, quote, was in a highly vulnerable physical and mental state due to her preexisting eating disorder, end quote, according to the complaint. Babies are beautifully marbled. I don't know if you knew this. According to the complaint. Babies are beautifully marbled.

I don't know if you knew this. They have a lot of, they have, the connective tissue just melts too. It's just beautiful. I mean, it's like eating veal. It's just beautiful stuff. I thought atheists were the ones who eat babies, not Satanists. I don't know. Is there really a difference?

I don't know. I don't know. Well, we talked about the difference. We actually got yelled at in the past about the difference. Looks like Anton LaVey will be the guy who eats the babies here. What is it? I don't understand the link here between satanic cults and eating babies. Is that like sort of like – I mean is that a thing?

I don't have any idea. I don't think – I mean I've said it before. I'll say it again. I still don't think there's any real satanic cult i think all that shit is made up by fucking christian hysterics that uh are super worried about you know a competing denomination of their own religion this this is this is just nonsense that the therapist basically implanted memories um and uh told this person and and later in the article they're like i don't understand how I don't remember being in this satanic cult. You would think if I was fucking snacking on babies, I would recall that. Because I'd be all like, hey, how were the baby feasts yesterday?

I was pretty good. Well, and you know, here's another thing, Tom. People tend to keep track of their babies. Right. No kidding. They just, you know, they just do. They just tend to like know when they've had them and they tend to know where they're at at most times. So if you were, say, eating babies, you would probably, somebody would probably notice.

Yeah, they'd be like, where did all these babies go? You know, the thing is, anybody who believes this is a freaking idiot. Anytime one of these, anytime a baby goes missing, right? It's like the biggest fucking story possible. Amber alert. Right. It's like all over the news. Like crying parents.

I'm like, oh, the baby's gone. And then it always seems to end up that the parents fucking killed the baby. But regardless, when babies go missing. We are so jaded at this point. I know, right? The babies are probably... And you killed your baby, didn't you? The parents were hungry. Who can blame them? They had an eating disorder. They have to eat babies. That's the disorder.

You can't eat just one, it turns out. Once they pop, you can't stop. Babies are like delicious potatoes. We're not gerbils. We don't breed at such a fucking prodigious rate that we can't even – that we're just like fucking – I'm so hungry. I'm just going to eat one of them. Like women are walking down the street.

They don't even notice these babies are just falling out. They're just like lying in the streets with babies. There's like kid janitors with push brooms pushing babies out of the way. Shooka, shooka, shooka, shooka, shooka. Babies are everywhere. Oh, man. Okay, so here's a little fucking PSA for the listeners. If somebody tells you you were involved in a satanic cult, you weren't.

You just weren't. If somebody told you you ate a baby you didn't you probably didn't it turns out if somebody tells you you have multiple personalities demand postcards yeah tell yourself you're writing yourself letters if the ionization rate is constant for all ectoplasmic entities we could really bust some heads in a spiritual sense of course so the catholic Church is really doing it right this time. The lead exorcist, the man who is in charge of Vatican's chief exorcist. So we talked last time about their chief astronomer. Now we're talking about their chief exorcist.

Let's not get these confused people. He's the CEO. Chief exorcist let's not get these confused people he's the ceo chief exercising officer he thought he was gonna have to do jumping jacks but it turned out to be a totally different program he uh he claims that harry potter and yoga are dangerous that they lead to to Satanism and evil. Well, I kind of agree with him about the Harry Potter. He says – it's funny because they quote him. He says – I was talking about yoga here and he says they could degenerate into a cult of the body that debases Christian prayer.

Yoga poses could create a feeling of well-being in the body. Yoga poses could create a feeling of well-being in the body, but it was erroneous to confuse that with the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit. They're talking about yoga poses somehow being satanic. I disagree. I think yoga – one of the things – like first off, I've never seen an unsexy yoga person. Fat people can't do yoga, period, right? So fat, ugly people just don't do yoga. The people that do it are sexy.

So for me, I'm already lured in. Like I've only seen sexy yoga people. And also yoga has produced yoga pants. Hello. Well, that's why he's so concerned. He can't do anything about it. Right. This guy wakes up frustrated old man who doesn't want anybody else to have

any fun. This is a guy who believes he, that his job is to kick demons out of people. Yeah. Like to evict. This guy is the fucking bank of Americaica for demons right yeah like he's fucking foreclosing and kicking them out of their fucking house this guy is are you fucking kidding me this man starts off every morning thinking he believes his favorite book is the exorcist

yeah well this he believes it's an autobiography i, I don't even know what to say after that. Like, somebody starts off a conversation with, like, well, what do you do for a living? Well, I believe in demons and I kick them out of people. Like, okay, I believe you're a credulous fuckwit. I believe everything you say is automatically and forever suspect. You believe in fucking magic, dude. I believe in Penn and Teller. I love this part where he says, the Harry Potter books, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, seem innocuous, but in fact encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry.

So does the Bible, dude. The fuck? Right. This is the thing. If it's just a matter of believing in it, you believe in it. You clearly believe in black. You believe it exists. You believe in black magic or you wouldn't be worried about it. You believe in it. You clearly believe in black. You believe it exists. You believe in black magic or you

wouldn't be worried about it. I am really not worried about black magic because it's real. Do kids really think that though? That think it's real? I contend that if a kid is a, you know, doesn't have this sort of magical worldview

of the fucking Catholic church to back him up, he's going to look at this sort of magical worldview of the fucking Catholic church to back him up, he's going to look at this and he's going to be like, well, it's just a fucking book. Look, if you don't understand that, that Hogwarts is not a real place, you probably are too stupid to read. Yeah. So you're not going to get to the point where you're reading Harry Potter. You're still, you're still working on Hop on Pop at this point.

These are the people, too, who think that the fucking Da Vinci Code exists. Right. Okay. They're like reading Dan Brown. They're first tolerating it, you know, and then second actually believing that it's true. This is the same guy. This exorcist says science is incapable of explaining evil. It's not worth a jot how do you

know yeah you know clearly nothing about anything yoga is not supposed to replace the authentic consolations of the holy spirit it has nothing to fucking do with the holy spirit it's about making women look hot. That's what it's for, dude. Succeeding. Succeeding. All I'm saying is downward facing dog. I got to go tend to the tiny URL here. All right. So we're going to do a quick interview with Patrick Redman from the Birmingham Skeptics in a Pub, the best skeptics in the pub in the UK it turns out according to patrick anyway so patrick could you tell us a little bit about yourself okay um yeah like i say my name is patrick

redmond i live in birmingham in the uk and i'm one of the organizers of our skeptics in the pub and the skeptics in the pub is a huge thing over here it's growing and growing and growing which is fantastic because you can't often hear about evangelical groups growing and all the different kinds of alternative medicine groups growing. And over here, the Skeptics in the Pubs are these little bastions of rationality and interest and science that attracts all kinds of geeks and nerds, no, ordinary people. And there's something like 45 or 46 of them now. And we managed to grab the URL skepticsinthepub.co.uk.

And if you go there, you'll find links to the kind of stuff we do but there's also a link if there's any uh uk listeners out there i'm sure there are there's also a link to all the skeptics groups in the uk there's a page with them so if you want to find out where your local one is or the fact that you don't have a local one and you want to set one up there's all the kinds of information you you need for doing that there wow so we have like 46 skeptics in the united states so you guys have 46 groups we have like 46 skeptics i can't even imagine what it must be like to be a skeptic in the state i've got skeptic spends skeptic spends over there have you have you ever spent any time tied to a post with wood burning around you? Because that's kind of what it's like.

I mean, you know. It's nothing a few days in Hillary won't cure. Yeah. Walk through Texas with a t-shirt with Darwin's face on one front and Dawkins' face on the back. We can see how long you last. Yeah, you might as well get gay bashed at that point. I think your walk through Texas would quickly become a run through texas then a sprint out of texas then eventually a short burial in texas yeah there's some play

you know there's some bastions of of uh of skepticism in in the united states but there's big swaths of rural god-fearing country over here, and that's not a place where you want to be a skeptic. It's almost like we market credulity as a family value. It's not the good. It's mad, don't you, because your whole basis of your society was set up on freedom of expression and individuality and things like that. And the last thing that you seem to be able to be is individuals or freaks. Because if you express those kind of views, you're going to get people with placards outside your house.

Right. I hear a lot from the people that listen to our podcasts that live in the UK. They talk a lot about how they kind of look at us like you're looking at us. Like, that's very strange. Your culture is very strange. They have this sort of weird fascination with our culture and how there are these groups over here that are crazy evangelical. Do you have those like mega churches and crazy evangelical groups

and things like that and people like that running and possibly getting elected to government in the UK? Not so much running and getting elected for government, I don't think. We do have evangelical groups. I mean, I've got, it sounds odd, but I've got a friend who's a member of an evangelical group. He's one of the ministers. And we became friends

because we have these regular debates and arguments because he's very good on logic and philosophy. And I have to try to keep pointing out to him that believing in God isn't actually logical. So we have these debates. And he belongs to this very very fast growing evangelical church over here and you've got those outstripped churches like the one that's doing the anointing down in in london the synagogue church and you've got all those kinds of things

but in mainstream politics it's it's kind of not really seen as being great to be overtly religious there's nothing wrong with being religious like um tony blair for instance everyone knew he was religious but he very much kept it out of his main political thing and he waited until he left power and then he converted to catholicism but that was once he left power and it's it's not very often you will hear many people who are going for the top jobs in politics talking a great deal about their religious beliefs or religious convictions so yeah no it's almost kind of an opposite thing over here in some respects so to the skeptics over there you guys get to focus then

a lot i would imagine on non-religious issues you know issues of alternative medicine i know that homeopathy is a big uh-button issue over yonder. Is that correct? It is, yeah. And I think the skeptics haven't tackled. In fact, there's probably a bit of a debate over here about whether skepticism and atheism should be grouped together. I don't know, it might be the same over there, really.

And some skeptics feel that they're just not interested in religion. In fact, I've heard Stephen Avella say the same thing. Like, he's an atheist, but he doesn't really tackle atheism and his scepticism because it just doesn't interest him. And I think that atheism doesn't cross into everyone's radar. It does mine. It's a big area for me because by training, I'm a theologian, is my academic background. So I'm an atheist with a theology degree. And I find the religious side of things really, really interesting. But I think that probably a bigger topic is the alternative medicine,

and particularly homeopathy, the Merseyside skeptics. They conducted and coordinated the 1023 campaign. I don't know if you ever came across that. I listened to your podcast that you recorded, I think, at 1023. Last year they ran this big skeptical conference called QED, and they did the 10.23 thing there last time. And it's where you get thousands of skeptics. But they did it all over the world.

They had groups of skeptics stationed all over the world and all at the same coordinated time. Like they took an overdose of homeopathy. It's like eating a whole load of coffee sweetness. I heard that. I heard your podcast on this, and you said that you were overwhelmed with how sweet it was because it's all just sugar pills.

Absolutely. And it just shows how nonsensical it is. But in some ways, the depressing thing is that even though it is so blatantly and demonstrably nonsensical, so many people still go for it and it still goes on. And I think that like you kind of get the feeling that the skeptics is that you chiseling at this, this great wall of belief out there because people just seem to want to believe in magic. And if they don't believe in God, then they'll believe in homeopathy. If they don't believe in homeopathy, then they'll believe in ghosts or they'll believe in UFOs or something. There's something that they want to believe that's supernatural, it feels like to me.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, the thing about being a skeptic is that quite often people just see you as being unimaginative and a killjoy. You know, you don't believe in ghosts. But that's just the best part of being a skeptic. That's not the only thing. Yeah, that's the benefit. That's the meat and potatoes, yes, but, you know.

That's the bit where nobody will talk to you anymore. They didn't talk to me to begin with. Fuck them. They're all holding in little corners, talking about yetis and not as much. Speaking of, Hold on now. So you run. You actually like we're going to talk about your podcast in a second, Patrick.

But you actually get together with people in the pub, drink lots of drinks and talk about skepticism. Is that kind of the group that you belong to? All the skeptics in the pubs are totally autonomous. I mean there is no governing skeptical body in this country. So it's just people who've gone up and set up. In fact, I think someone who says like trying to organize skeptics is like trying to hurt. Skeptical anarchy over there. What's going on?

So you've got all these different skeptics in the pub groups. And the model of them, the way that they tend to run these groups is that you get a speaker in okay and it's usually a speaker on some kind of science or skeptical subject like so we've had ghosts and we've had ufos but we've also had physicists and people who've looked at the future and i try to get i try to get people from the other side as well so this january speaker who's coming to our talk is um he's a thermodynamics lecturer in physics full-on professor he's a professor doing thermodynamics and everything but he's also a young earth creationist who just talks for answers in genesis what how does that i mean if we're talking about if we're talking about cognitive dissonance like i think this guy lives it yeah absolutely like

and we've got him coming to do the talk and fair play to him because he knows it's going to be a skeptical audience and they come in and introduce them and everything and they do a talk for 45 minutes to a minute so everyone buys drinks sit down listen to the talk then there's a break where everybody goes and gets some more drinks and chats and everything for about 25 30 minutes then they come back and whoever's in the talk gets up and does a question and answer session. Oh, that's pretty clever. And then we get more drinks. Yeah.

So there's a fair bit of drinking. It's not compulsory to get drunk. Sure. But it can help. So we do that. And that's a typical night. But we do other things as well. We get involved with other groups and we coordinate other activities.

And some of the sceptical groups out there, like the Merseyside Sceptics and the Greater Manchester Sceptics and a few others, they organise big conferences and get-togethers. And the Edinburgh Sceptics, the Edinburgh Sceptics, and if you've heard of the Edinburgh Fringe, it's this month-long festival of drama and comedy. They do a whole month of events all through the festival, every single day to all

three events uh kind of panel games and podcasts and talks and lectures and things and it's just the skeptical scene over here is really lively i want you guys to calm down a little because you make us look bad that's all i'm saying i just want you guys to calm down this and i were looking for skeptics groups in our area we're like oh they're no longer active they're no longer active it's like it's pathetic the best we could do was a facebook page for what is your podcast about okay my podcast kind of happened by accident i started i started off and a friend was doing a podcast where he just wanted people to contribute to it and so what i did was um initially when we had speakers come to the skeptics in the Pub, I'd just record a quick 10-minute interview with him and upload that for him to go on his podcast.

And then he said, I'll just put these out as separate podcasts. And he put them out as separate podcasts. And then I just carried it on. So like everything in my life, there was no real planning behind it and no real kind of ambition. I just accidentally happened into doing this. And what I do is I basically find people who are around the sceptic science scene who are doing something I think sounds interesting

and I'll talk to them. So that might be podcasters like you lot or it might be people who've just written something good or it might be people who believe in ghosts and supernatural or sometimes what I quite like to do is to just get ordinary people that I notice on Twitter or who I meet who aren't doing anything fantastic, but they are doing fantastic things, but nobody knows about what they do. So people who are working behind the scenes, spreading science

and communicating with people and just doing really, really good stuff. I like to talk to them about what they're doing. So that's it, really. It's nothing glamorous, but it's just an honest little me talking to people I find interesting. Well, if you want to listen to Patrick's show, Patrick, where could they go to listen to it? It's on iPadio, so probably just best to Google. If you Google Birmingham Skeptics and iPadio, that's I-P-A-D-I-O, you can go to a site where you can stream it. Or you can go to iTunes and

do a search for Birmingham Skeptics and you can get the last 12 issues on there. For some reason, that's all that goes up. Or if you just go to our webpage, www.skepticsinthepub.co.uk, you can find links to everything on there. Patrick, I want to thank you for bringing the level of sophistication which we cannot bring to this program. So thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks, Patrick. Fantastic.

Yeah, no, it's really good. Thank you. So we got a few emails we got to go over and got to talk about, as well as some ratings on iTunes and some interaction with our Facebook page. Some of the interaction with our Facebook page led to some of the stories that we griped about on this episode. So keep in mind that if you guys want to interact with us on Facebook, please do so. Send us stories. Send us ideas. Don't make us dredge it up ourselves.

It just leads to this. Yeah, this is the product. This is stories. Send us ideas. Don't make us dredge it up ourselves. It just leads to this. Yeah, this is the product. This is the best we can do. You clearly want and deserve something more. But we got an email from John. John said that he relays a story that once he had contacts, he was working with some chili peppers and rubbed his hands on his eyes and didn't enjoy it. Cecil did not enjoying it at all. He said it was so traumatic.

He pretty much stopped ever wearing contacts again after that. Jeez, man, I feel bad for you. You too? God. Well, yeah, and I think this is a perfect illustration that, you know, the thing that John dealt with was a tiny amount of capsaicin compared to what they put in those pepper spray cans. Right. And these people got sprayed directly in their face, fire hose style. And it was just, you know, it's police brutality. I mean, it's fucking plain and simple.

It's police brutality. I mean it's fucking plain and simple. Joe sent us an email and he recommends a Pat Condell and I'll put the link on our site, patcondell.net. He's a UK commentator. I took a look at this site. This person has a bunch of videos up and it's pretty funny and he's got a lot of interesting points. So if you want to go take a look at it, Joe had suggested it to everyone. So I'll post that like I say on this week's this episode uh show notes and then we also got an email from uh steve steve is uh old school he's from everyone's a critic he steve is fucking totally fucking og like he is fucking as og as

you get with us because he was he was the first i think he was the first person outside of our wives that actually contacted our show many many years ago when we're doing everyone's a critic he was the like one of the first people ever to send us anything and both tom and i back then were absolutely floored that somebody that doesn't know us was listening and also doesn't come from the same country. So shout out to Steve. I still can't believe it. Are you kidding me? And who stuck with us after all these years right on, Steve.

So he sent us a link to an irate English woman on a tram, which read here train or subway. Yeah. or Subway. Yeah. Who just, for some reason, I can't discern on this crazy, racist, bigot tirade with her toddler in her lap. It is a bizarre, bizarre video. Is that what it was? I couldn't understand a fucking thing she said.

So I needed subtitles for this so bad. She's talking and she keeps on saying England's gone. Fuck all. Fuck all. Fuck all. She kept saying it over and over and over again. I keep wondering what she means. But but yeah, it was a crazy video. That woman is so racist.

She belongs in Kentucky. Send her over here. Right. We have churches that would welcome her with open arms. Open arms. Yeah, exactly. But Steve wanted to make sure that we stress that he does not agree with anything that this woman said at all, period. It's, yeah, this is a bizarre video.

The woman was arrested. Good. Deserved it. Right. What else do you have to say about that? Like, fucking racist whack job with a kid in her lap starts screaming random insults. That kid is going to fucking have a great upbringing right there, right? Here's your role model.

Way to parent the fuck away. Enjoy that. I was conversing with some people on Twitter all week. Thanks for sending us tweets back and forth. Got a chance to talk to several different people, people who promote the show and who help us out. We want to thank you if you contact us on Twitter. Thanks again for retweeting our stuff and for mentioning us and just for telling us that you like the show. We got a couple of those tweets this week and it's great to get.

So thanks for contacting us on Twitter and Facebook. We want to also say thank you to Patrick Redmond from Skeptics in the Pub Birmingham, who is set at this point to take over the Skeptics in the Pub completely in the UK. He's going to be the Skeptic King. I think that's what they're going to call him, the Skeptic Dictator. I don't know what title they're going to use. No, they have kings in England. Do they have kings? Yeah, it's the kings.

Okay, fair enough. He'll have a skeptical castle. Skeptical. I don't believe it exists. But thank you. You can always go to his website. It's skeptics in the pub. That's one word.co.uk. You can also just do a search for skeptics in the pub Birmingham. You can find out, find his podcast from that site. We're supposed to be on his podcast soon. We're not sure when that's going to be released, but we'll let you know via Facebook and Twitter and our website when we are, when that interview does come out. But we had a great interview with him and we had a lot of fun

and we're happy that he was able to join us. We're in contact now with a couple other people, but we'll, to be on our show, but we'll let you know as more stuff gels and it'll be after the new year. So as always, Tom, we're going to leave people with this skeptic's creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing,

water downward spiral, brainurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info, docutainment, Leo, Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. We'll be right back. you