Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 296: Victoria Gettman

Episode Date: May 30, 2016

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Hey Cecil, hey Tom, this is Texas calling. Oh my gosh, that Ted Cruz pulls out episode. That was the funniest thing I've heard in years. I had just fallen asleep. I was listening to podcasts, but the laughing, oh my God, the laughing, that laughing woke me up. I started snickering and then I was giggling and then I started laughing and as soon as I the laughing, oh my God, the laughing, that laughing woke me up. I started

snickering and then I was giggling and then I started laughing and as soon as I was laughing out loud, I had to get up and go to the living room. I was afraid I was going to wake my husband up. The combo of Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz, that is a match made in, well, made in heaven, if you will. I sustained myself on the tears of Glenbet. Here's something that not many people know about Glenbet tears. They're made up of 9% salt, 15% sugar, and they're 30% fat. Together, they have a delicious umami quality that just is not found on our planet or in the Patriot emergency food kits he hawks on his dumb show. Hey Cecil and Tom, this is Pat from Evanston. The show sounded great. I'm just listening to episode 294 and I wanted to let you know you can't build a wall with baby

skulls. They're just, they're too soft. They're not fully set yet. You want to use adult skulls for the wall, but if you grind up the baby skulls and mix them with breast milk, they make a perfect mortar. So, you know, fun for the whole family. Story hole. 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. Hey, everyone. We wound up recording two interviews the other night on Friday.

A couple people were in town for the AHA conference, the American Humanist Association conference. And we wound up recording with Victoria Getman. And then we also wound up recording with the Gaytheist Manifesto podcast. The recordings were so good that we wanted to keep them in their entirety. But they're so long that we don't want to put two recordings of interviews on one podcast. So we had recorded early in the week and we had an entire show that I'm going to split into two and then I'm going to tack on to that show an interview to half of it. And so releasing today, Monday, you're going to hear Victoria Gettman's interview along

with half the show we recorded last week. And then on Thursday, you'll be able to hear our recording with the Gaytheist Manifesto and the second half of that show. So without further ado, here's our first – the first part of last week's show along with the Victoria Gettman interview. Recording live from Glory Hole Studios in Chicago, this is cognitive dissonance every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way we bring critical thinking skepticism and irreverence to any topic that makes the news makes it big or makes us mad it's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at this episode 295. Six. Six is what I meant and almost said of cognitive dissonance.

And we're doing something a little new. We've made a decision, Cecil, a terrible decision. I know we announced it last time. We are reading Red. Started? Started. Begun? Yeah.

We're reading The Biggest Secret by David Icke. Ick. Ick. Uckie. Ick. Eckie. Ick. Ick.

Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. I know.

I say Ick because people send us corrective email. Yeah. Like his name matters. So we're going to read this book and we're going to talk about it until one of us dies. I think that's what's going to happen. This book is basically the- We can't stop before the second chapter. This is the textual- Because the second before the second chapter this is the second chapter is don't mention the reptiles reptiles tom and we we've only done the first chapter which is martians we we we were going to talk about this book now

a lot of people read uh you know the bible they read these religious texts there's a bunch of different shows that do these things we thought we'd take a different tack we thought we would read this thing this was your idea it was it was i i feel like beating the ever-loving shit out of you with this fucking own that so bad i have never so bad i have never wanted to hit somebody as bad as reading by time i got i will tell, we read 13 pages of this book. It took me 72 hours to read this. It was amazing how difficult it was to read 13 pages of this book. It's more than 13 pages.

Okay. 18, 19. I mean it's like – 17 in the beginning plus the intro. Yeah. Okay. It's the – this is spectacularly, unbelievably gobbledygook. Because the intro starts at X-I-I-I.

I want to hit you so hard. And it goes to X-V-I. I want to treat you like a fucking empty pinata, buddy. Like, I just want to fucking ruin this thing. What's your take on this so far? Are you fucking kidding me? The book is called The Biggest Secret. The fucking...

Hold on. I'm going to drop this book. Yeah. Yeah. This is five... We got through 20 pages. This is a 500-page book. We should be done when Thomas finishes the Bible. My God.

This is the cra... So we're going to start talking about it. We're going to start talking about it. Why don't you talk about the intro to start out, Tom? Well, why don't I? Yeah, why don't you talk about the intro to start out, Tom? Well, why don't I? Yeah, why don't you get started? Okay. The delightful part is the introduction is only a handful of pages long.

And it's basically a warning. Yeah. That this book is so – like this is a guy who's so fucking crazy that he has to write an introduction called, This shit is so crazy. Yeah. It's cray-cray. It's so – he's good so it's gonna he's like guys guys get ready to have your minds it's essentially it's essentially it's a fellatio

of himself chapter it is it is which if you can do that i don't know why you would ever write a book i'd be fucking occupied all the time this this book the very the second sentence the second sentence let me read this a crossroads where we make decisions which will influence life on earth well into the future of what we call time. The future of what we call time. What does that mean? Is it the future? Are we suddenly like, do we have debate about what we call time? Yes.

Well, he does. This book is so full of sentences like that this book is so full of like of what they say of what they're so called so-called authorities the so-called time it is this is the fucking nuttiest shit i've the introduction i started reading the introduction i had the the introduction three pages long. I have a degree in English lit. I read real fucking fast. I took two breaks. Yeah. Two breaks.

You have to. You have to. Now, normally with like – if you read any kind of academic type papers, right, if you read an academic paper, there's a very sort of standard format that academic papers follow, which is I'm going to start it out by telling you what I'm going to do. Then I'm going to do it. And then at the end, I'm going to start it out by telling you what I'm going to do, then I'm going to do it, and then at the end I'm going to recap what I did. That's a very standard way that academics talk. It's just a standard structure of a paper. Right. So essentially, the first chapter is his introduction, where he's laying out his groundwork.

This starts in such a way that it feels like it's something you should be reading that was scrawled in the wall with a pin and feces. You know what I mean? Like it's the shit that was on the wall in the guy's apartment in Seven. You know what I mean? Like that guy who like cut himself

and like wrote a bunch of crazy shit on the wall. Like that's what this is. So I had to sort of write what the main idea was of each section of this and i have almost a page and a half of stuff so i want to read sort of what the beginning part of this is because it's just it goes from like fucking it first off it goes from zero to 100 right away i know it's like the second sentence is there's martians okay it's like it's like and then it goes from it starts it's just like a stream of consciousness vomit so i'm going to start up he talks about the babylonian brotherhood which is mostly males and they try to push an agenda which is basically centralized control of the planet by

a bloodline that may or may not be aliens right i think i got that i believe that it is alien they're aliens but they're like inner bread aliens yeah that's this like the third like a husky wolf like you know what i mean sure it's like sure they're like a crocodile so the most influential families are like the rothschilds the european royalty rockefeller's president's businessman he i'm going to quote here he says but at the top of the very cabal which controls the human race and operates from the shadows outside its public domain yet all of those are very public extremely right all those people are kind of the most public people and publicly in power of things right but somehow they're a shadow cabal they haven't't completed their Babylonian great agenda yet because there's too much infighting with the brotherhood.

Yeah, they're all pissy with each other. They're all super mad at each other. They're mad, bro, right now. Yeah. Yeah. And then he starts talking about extraterrestrials. He says that – he starts out with the Drake equation by basically saying, look, here's this. There's a bunch of planets.

There's a bunch of planets. There's a bunch of stars. And then I'm going to quote here. He says it would take you 4.5 or 4.3 light years to reach the star. And even at that speed, it would take you 100 years of light to cross just this galaxy. It's 100,000 light years across the galaxy. The guy is saying it's 100 light years across the galaxy the guy is saying it's a hundred light years across a galaxy like it like and i'm not a fucking astrophysicist i'm just a guy who's like that sounds a little light bro i know right one of the best things he says uh the more i've researched this over the

years the more obvious it has become to me that the origin of the bloodlines and the plan for the takeover of the earth goes off planet to erase or races from other spheres or dimensions of evolution. What does that mean? Dimensions of evolution? It's just fucking... It's throwing words together.

That's a word salad right there. That means nothing. That's the best thing I've ever read. I'm going to bounce ahead here because i don't want to i don't want to cover every little tiny thing he says but i want to kind of bounce ahead at what he's because i like there's so many different ideas that pop out in the very beginning he talks about he starts talking about the golden age right so there's everybody's looking back on this golden age he talks about how like the bible is not really um the bible is kind of is is a story that's been written a bunch of times. If you look at all these old tablets, there's all these stories from the Bible, et cetera, throughout history.

And some of that is true, right? That's a thing that – absolutely. There's flood stories that permeate. There's nothing even new in that. Like there's archetypal stories which are – well, archetypal. That's just how they were. And they were back then too. It's not a big deal. There's nothing even interesting about that. But to him, it's proof that there's like some sort of like golden age back in the day.

Right. And he says that there's this planet called Nibiru. I love that. That's as an orbit that goes between Mars and Jupiter and then out past Pluto. And that's where these Anuki came from. So it's another whole group of people. And I don't know if those are the Brotherhood or not. Because he starts talking about later on how they started to make people.

So they came here to mine gold. I saw it in Africa. They show up. Why would they need gold? They show up. How inefficient is it to travel to another planet to mine gold? Like, you've got to land. Then you have to fucking use a bunch of energy to blast off.

Like, you could just make it in a lab. What are they? Like, what does this gold do? I don't know. Is it like. I am. I am a little distressed, though, that you were able to piece together that whole planets, aliens, Anuki thing. Yeah, the Anuki thing.

My brain just started to shut off. I don't know, but they came here to mine gold. And then they started doing bio experiments and genetic experiments. And they were like Frankenstein-esque. And the reason why we know this is because Mary Shelley and her husband were high initiates in the Secret Society Network. I have that right here. I have that highlighted right here.

It's my favorite thing i i highlighted the same thing that yeah yeah frankenstein is proof of what again i don't know that there's a nukes he talks about atlantis and how there's like a bermuda triangle again that's all leaning back to that right to that garbage and i want to play this is sarah reading a clip for us this is a piece of the book i want to play this. Venus would have been an ice-coated comet, Desborough says, and the ice would have disintegrated when Venus approached the Earth and reached a point known as the Roche Limit. This is a vibrational safety device, if you like. When two bodies are on collision course, the one with the smallest mass starts to disintegrate at the Roche Limit. In this case, the ice

would have been projected from Venus' surface towards the Earth. Also, as it entered the so-called Van Allen Belt, which absorbs much of the dangerous radiation from the sun, the ice would have been ionized, magnetized, and therefore attracted to the Earth's magnetic poles. Billions of tons of ice, cooled to negative 273 degrees centigrade, would have fallen on the polar regions, flash-freezing everything in little more than an instant.

This, at last, would explain the mystery of the mammoths found frozen where they stood. The mammoth, contrary to belief, was not a cold-region animal, but one which lived in temperate grasslands. Somehow, those temperate regions were frozen in a moment. Some mammoths have been found frozen in the middle of eating. There you are munching away, and the next thing you know, you're an ice lolly. If this ionized ice did rain down from Venus, the biggest buildup would have been nearest to the magnetic poles

because they would have had the most powerful attraction. Again, that is the case. The ice mass in the polar regions is greater at the poles than at the periphery, and yet there is less snow and rain at the poles to create such a buildup. The Venus scenario explains this. I just scrawled on it and put exclamation points because I had no idea what to do with this information. I can't. I mean, I seriously I seriously don't understand it at all.

I love it so much. So let me see if I can explain it. Let me see if I can explain it. Okay. Break it down for me, Professor. I'd like to explain it. Venus is a comet, okay? And Venus comes into it goes through the Van allen belt yeah sure and it magnetizes the ice because it ionizes and then he writes magnetizes i was like wait a minute

don't you have to so it magnetizes the ice and then magnetized and then what happens tom is the ice falls off of venus shoots towards earth but it doesn't fall in its regular trajectory of course it can't because what happens is this magnetic ice is attracted the poles you fool i'm gonna kill myself oh my god and what happens is it lands on the poles. Yes. And then, Tom, it's your favorite part. It flash freezes the woolly mammoths. It flash freezes all the wildlife. The woolly mammoths. It talks about, this is my favorite, I'm sorry I kept it.

So the space ice from Venus. The space ice from Venus. It flash. That lands on the poles. It passes through the atmosphere. It passes passes the atmosphere completely frozen and it hits the it's the earth and immediately flash flash freezes it to 250 and didn't he have like an exact 237 below or something he had an exact thing you know what i mean like

it was perfect it was exact he talks about like well that explains why the woolly mammoths were flash frozen and flash frozen in place. Flash frozen. They're just like walking around like – but the only thing evidently that gets flashed is just the woolly mammoths. They just get – And he's talking about how like they're chewing. They're chewing food and that's how we know. Yeah, because they were not really – the woolly mammoth was a temperate animal, not a cold-weather.

Yeah, and they were in the act of chewing, and that's how we know that they got flash frozen. It's like a fucking tuna. You know what I mean? Like you throw the tuna, and it's just like a fucking stick. They're like those bird's-eye vegetables. You just have this giant steamable package. What's awesome is you could take the woolly mammoth, and you put it in a big pot and add a little water and cover it. And it will reconstitute.

Just be justified. It's freeze-dried like Jim Baker's product. This is the best thing I've ever read on a piece of paper. It doesn't stop there, though. It goes to – he also says at one point, he's like, Mars was closer and we were closer still. Yeah. And that's why black people are black. I forgot.

I wrote, fuck me on the page. And then at the end, I wrote, I quit my life. That's why black people are black. Black people are black because we were closer to the sun. So they're black to protect themselves from the sun proximity. Yes. Yeah, that's it. And then it says Martians were white.

And you can tell because our circadian rhythms go back to Martian land. I know. We're like 23 hours and 50 minutes. When you spend that much time in a sleep deprivation tank. Yeah, that's what he says. He says that if you take people and put them in a – if you take white people specifically, he gets real racial in this thing. Oh, yeah, super racial. He gets super racial.

Talks about how white people were the totes smarter ones and we're the ones from the Martians and the black people are the slave race. I mean these are things he's fucking talking about in this thing. He combines so many ideas and he just fucking rambles them together. It's just vomit. It's just vomit. He's just vomiting out ideas in the first chapter. It's the most amazing thing I've ever read. Now, I'm hopeful that this is the blueprint and this was just so jumbled and he'll go through and be able to explain each one of these.

If not, we're expecting this every time, which be i have to read really bad i have to read the last sentence of this chapter all right because nobody could close out chapter one the way that david ike closed out chapter one go on that subject i must now introduce an added dimension to this story which will stretch your credulity to the breaking point. I strongly suspect that he's right. I strongly suspect that my credulity will be stretched. You know what? I'll actually give him this.

You have stretched my credulity like a fucking whore's ass. Like, it is to the brain. I got a fucking fistula. That's how fucking stretched out I am as far as my credulity. This is the craziest shit ever. My brain was like a prolapsed anus after this was over. Seriously, it took me so long to read. It's going to take longer too next time because it's a long chapter next time.

Chapter two, here come the reptiles or don't talk about the reptiles. It's super long. Somebody pet my iguana or whatever he fucking called it. I said, who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? It's Jesus. So this story comes from Wait.com, which is ironic because if they had just waited until the kids were 18, they'd have been in a lot less trouble. Very true. 32 people arrested in a human trafficking sting operation,

two pastors charged with trafficking, including a children's pastor and a volunteer creative pastor. Pastor? Pastor. At Lifehouse Church in Oak Ridge in Tennessee. at Lifehouse Church in Oak Ridge in Tennessee. So after a three-day investigation, 32 people were arrested on prostitution and human trafficking charges. Two of the dudes were pastors. The pastors were the two dudes

that were trying to buy underage girls in this story. So one dude, they respond to an ad on Backpage, and then one guy walks in and is like, 100 bucks for both girls, And he drops his drawer. He drops his drawer, his hands over his money, and then they just handcuff his dick. Yeah, they just – No. We're staking you downtown.

One of the things that makes sense about this in some ways, I mean, this guy is a youth pastor. And I don't know if you've ever heard the saying, never trust a skinny chef. You know what I mean? Like I think – Oh, no. I think if you're – Oh, no. You've got to sample the –

No. No, you don't. No. You don't. No. Is that not how it works? I feel like you shouldn't finish any of this thought. Is that not –

No. That's not how it works. OK. All right. I just wanted to check. I wanted to check i wanted you know i i read this story and i thought if only if only one of the commandments was thou shalt not fuck children thou shalt not diddle tiny poona right it's so funny though because it's like

come on he wanted a 17 year old though one of them's 15 and he was told that one girl's 15 he's like i'll take them both that's what he says that is that's what he says he says yeah there's places in the world where 14 years old is legal consent but tennessee isn't one of those places which i think is the most surprising part of the story. That's very true. Right? I would think it's Tennessee. Yeah. It's like I'm surprised you walk in and be like, sis, is that you? I'll take them two youngins. Already had her.

Can you wrap them youngins up for me? I'll take them to go. Is there a way you can put them in a little tinfoil and make a goose head? I want it to be like a fancy restaurant. Y'all got an agent. I want to pop up on one of those little takeout containers. Throw a few wantons in there. I got some ideas of some chopsticks I'd like to try. Yeah, no, just throw in that plastic baggie.

I'll take her home. I don't know. She don't look clean. She got crab ragoon. She Greek. She got crab ragoon. She Greek. She got Ziki sauce on her. I just, here's the thing. I might not fuck her, but I'll falafel her.

You know, I'm just, I don't know. I don't like those Italians. They slide right out of bed. That's gross. Oh, of bed. That's gross. Oh, it is. It's so gross. It's human trafficking. We're just joking. These are monster people.

These are the worst people. These are the youth pastors who's like, I mean, it's not like, I do have to think that it wasn't just like, oh, this is the first day I happen to troll back page for fucking youth. Yeah, this is the first time I ever wanted to. I'm looking for two youths. Two what? The two youths. It's so gross.

But, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, you're right. There's no way that this is the first time. And if so, you have the worst luck in the world. But even still, it doesn't matter if it's the first day or not. You still wanted to have sex with a 15-year-old. And they explicitly said, that one's 15. He's just like, yeah, my pants are off. Yeah.

Is there any way you could cut her open so I can count the rings? Oh, my God. I just want to be sure I'm paying for it. Well, I can't count to 15. Who am I kidding? Let me call my sis on the phone. Want to contact the guys? Go to DissonancePod.com to get links to their Google+, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

If you want to contact them directly, send an email to dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Or you can call and leave a message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Do you want to support the show? Go to patreon.com. That's p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com forward slash dissonance pod. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com forward slash DissonancePod. Or click the link on the podcast homepage,

and you can donate to the production of Cognitive Dissonance on a per-episode basis. If you can't spare any money, take a second to give us a five-star review on iTunes or Stitcher, or spread the word about the show. We want to send a big heartfelt glory hole to all the patrons and people who rate us. You fucking rock. This story is also from right wing watch this is our friend jim baker with a prescient prescient and oh so specific warning all right let's hear let's hear his warning what do you say harold harold camping i'd like you to pray and say, God, what should we do?

Yes. This is a different woman saying yes. Is it? Yeah, this is a dark-haired... I've only gotten one to say yes. And you regretted it for a long time? Well, later I said no. I believe it's time to hear from God.

And God has been speaking to me. I walked out of my garage yesterday and as I'm walking and things happen and when I, one of those you might call them crazy things. Yeah, I would probably

call it crazy. We might call it a breakdown. Alright, here we go. Or a delusion. God said, hey y'all! Y'all owe me $3 for the paper! Hey, I love those little buckets of food. Those are delicious. I love those little things. All I gotta do is add water. I love it. My hound dog loves it too.

Coon dog. What is it that pissed off Bobby Carey that we said God had that made him mad? Was it a coon dog? I think it was probably a coon dog. Bobby Carey did not like that Hillbilly got at a coon dog. Well, he's just fucking jealous because it's a purebred. That's the thing. It's a coon dog with human teeth.

Bobby Carey's teeth. They found him in the river. A major event is about to take place. There we go. A major event. Let's hear that all again real quick. God said a major event is about to take place.

I mean, I just. He didn't say that. He said a major event is about to take place. It's the Justin Bieber concert. Okay. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Jim Baker strikes me as a guy whose fucking fillings are talking to him. You know what I mean?

He's a guy. He's got like the radio coming through on his fucking molars. And he's like, oh, what's going on? He's just fucking been listening to BBC. That's it. I love how nonspecific that is. A major event is taking place. Now let's see if he uses that to leverage people to buy garbage. Hold on a minute because maybe he doesn't know the nature of the event,

but certainly he'll know the specific day and time. Oh, almost certainly, Tom. I knew that I knew that I knew. And every time God ever speaks to me like that, something happens. I want you to pray. Say, God, what should we do? And if God speaks to you, you need to write this number down. It's toll free. 1-888-988-1588. It's called 911. That's the number. If God speaks to you, write it down. 911. And go with the nice men in the white coats. And you can call 24 hours a day.

There's always operators there. Or you can go to our website, jimbakershow.com. And all the products are there. And you can go to our website jim baker show.com and all the products are there and you could order them today but don't put it off don't delay one day it will be too late now a major reading of this yeah what's this last year and last year he predicted specific bad oh okay and it didn't work this it didn't work so now he's being less specific so he's being less specific now right that's actually smart of him so next year he'll be even less specific i think that's smart on his part because when he did that fucking shimita or whatever scimitar stuff amazing he was talking about blood moons for a long time

yeah we were talking about all that stuff for a long time. Well, fucking none of that shit came true. I know. And then none of your garbage comes true. And then you're sort of stuck being like, yeah, you guys have all that special Shemitah food that was sent out. Well, don't worry. Something extra awful is going to happen. Something double awful. You'll need double food buckets.

You know, it's interesting. I wonder how much you could be a repeat customer of this garbage. You know what I mean? Let's say you're a crazy person and you order Jim Baker's eight-year buckets, right? Eight years worth of buckets.

How many times do you order eight years worth of buckets? Just once, right? Every eight years. I'd start on them right away. I'd get them. Like, there we go. I'm getting in on that. Yeah, man. All I got to do is add water.

That's fucking bachelor cooking, motherfucker. Let's do that shit. Jesus Christ. Yes. Speaking of bachelor cooking, let's talk about this other story, Tom. Because he came out with Mexican food. He nailed it. This is so bad.

This is so bad. This is the worst thing. And so this is Jim bad and so this is jim baker this is amazing asking you to buy his mexican food god we have done the less tweaking as we call it tweaking tweaking what's he fucking is he snorting something or whatever bro tweaking that's that's actually twerking and it does not help when you're making the food. That's fair. On this food than anything we've ever put together. The first few times this food is so good, it passes the official Mexican test. What is that? It can make its own way over the border illegally.

It's made out of real Mexicans. You know what you could – you could deport it after it goes to college here. It passes the Mexican test. It made itself. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, God. Oh, that's awesome.

It made itself. It just built itself. It's so hard working. It's self-generated. It passes the official Mexican test. You can spray it on your lawn. It'll cut your grass. This is Mexican food that real live Mexicans approve of.

Real live Mexicans approve of. Real live Mexicans. We haven't been back in a pen, and we throw slop at them once in a while. These are genuine Mexicans. Imported straight from Mexico. We're going to deport them a little later. But right now, we have them trying our slop. Y'all ever see one of these real live Mexicans? Holy shit.

We thought they were a myth. But they love our fiesta bucket. Genuine real life Mexicans. I got to hear him say that again. I got to hear him say that again. This is Mexican food that real live Mexicans approve of. Real live Mexicans. Real live Mexicans.

They're like circus animals. No, they were all Mexican puppets made by Geppetto and not real live Mexicans. Real live Mexicans. He's so racist. That's not racist. That's countryist. It's so bad. That's not racist. That's countryist. It's so bad. That's countryist.

Oh, my God. You know, this is not gringo food. This is... You can serve it with crackers, but it ain't for crackers. Oh, God. Up next, Jim Baker's soul food bucket. Oh, God. The Negroes love it.

This soul food bucket will make you say, Mammy. Say adios to your other buckets. It's so bad. I can't believe it. Did he just say that? Oh, God. Oh, I'm going to laugh. Is that gringo food?

This is good, good food. And it is unbelievable. But the big thing is, you know, I believe there's going to be some events take place. It may not be the big, big event. I'll tell you what, you eat this, you're going to have a big, big event. You're going to have a huge event. I'm looking

at this stuff and it already looks pre-digested. I give a warning every time I'm going to have sex. Like, look, it's not going to be the big, big event. Alright? I always tell somebody... I'm not even sure it's an event before i go to the bathroom like look i'm gonna go have an event so i just want we're not yeah it's a kind of an entry level event actually just leave the apartment yeah i'll tell you what i had some of that gringo food so the grid going totally down but i believe there's going to be major event that's literally gonna like a shot across the bow that's literally gonna like a shot across the bow that's literally

not figuratively gonna like a shot across the bow tom that's deep because that's that's god that's a simile and a metaphor, my friend. He's going to warn us. God's been dealing with me. Nobody wants to deal with you. God's been coaching me on my ethnic phrases.

I'm so unrestful about it because I know things are coming. This guy is amazing. That guy, that's amazing. Dude, that is the best. The gringo food or whatever is fucking amazing. Real life Mexicans.

Real life Mexicans. Wow, look at him. Look at, Ma, Pa, look inside that pen there. There's the real life Mexicans. Ma, can I get a stick and poke it? Can I scalp one just for fun? You kidding me? What is this, Blood Meridian?

Ma, is there any way I could displace this one? So we are joined in studio by Victoria Gettman. Now, Victoria is getting the President's Award for the American Humanist Association this weekend. And she's an Army veteran. And she runs a bunch of stuff for atheists in the military. So, Victoria, thanks for joining us today. No problem. This is awesome. Glad to be here. So you were in the military for how long?

I was there for 20 years. And then you just decided to quit. You're kind of like a— You reach a point, and then you just got to go. That's it. That's it. First 20 years are the easiest, I hear. I agree, and that's why I was like, this is too easy for me. I quit all kinds of shit after 20 years are the easiest, I hear. I agree.

That's why I was like, this is too easy for me. I quit all kinds of shit after 20 years. It's just what you do. Marriages. Whatever. The first 20 are just a trial run. Just a trial run. So I got to ask, were you an atheist when you went into the military?

I was not an out atheist by any means. I was only a part-time catholic and that was really kind of losing steam with me so i hadn't gone to church in a long time in basic training they give you the option to stay and clean the barracks or go to church so of course yeah that's not much of an option right really it's not that's a terrible option yeah it's it's who stayed and cleaned the barracks like that seems like there were a few actually really yeah they're fucking scrub a toilet or go to church i don't know man maybe i'd scrub that fucking toilet yeah i know right yeah you'd be like yeah i don't know what's the sermon about

do i have to hear about jesus again at least i can put my headphones in listen to something else while i'm scrubbing a toilet i don't think they had headphones back then. Fuck this. What kind of crazy madcap world was this? Jesus. Dystopian nightmare. I want to ask, though. It seems like it was pretty hard for atheists back then. Is it any easier now for atheists? It depends on the service that you're in.

Honestly, I was in the Army, and it's mostly run by evangelical Christians. What? What, what? That sounds terrible. it's mostly run by evangelical Christians. What? And so, what, what? That sounds terrible. The Army is run by evangelical Christians? Yeah, most of the commanders, most of the higher-ups are definitely identifying in an evangelical Christian kind of way.

Just by, you can watch, they've gotten in trouble for making video clips in uniform for these churches. No shit. Not necessarily preaching, but definitely saying a scripted thing in favor of that. And wearing the uniform, they can't do while they're doing that, right? Because then it lends credence of, you know, like they're bringing the weight of that uniform to whatever they're doing. That's exactly right.

So they definitely cannot be doing that. And then they do it anyway. And then they do it. All right. Just wanted to make sure. I just wanted to get those two pieces together. All right. So I want to talk for a second, though, about the President's Award because that's pretty awesome to wind up getting this.

Why are you receiving this award from the American Humanist Association? Well, the bottom line is because Rebecca and Ben McGraw submitted me for it. But that's the bottom line. That's the Chicago way. You don't have to apologize for that if you know a fucking guy you know when you're in the city when you're in the windy city it's like how'd you get the thing don't worry about it why are you asking a lot of questions so somebody somebody recommended it yes they did they nominated me for it but they say that all they did was write down the work i did so So I guess it might be the work I did that also gave. Well, let's presume that it was the work that you did and not just the kindness of friends.

Of strangers. Yeah. So basically in 2012, I was teaching trainees for the Army and for the Air Force. And so they decided that we had this critical mission. The Army said we need to start doing the suicide prevention training. Okay. So we were like, all right, let's do it. We got suicide is really rampant in the military overall, veterans as well.

So we need to make sure we get ahead of this. And they did a theater thing. They put all of our 800 students in the theater, did this super awesome student side prevention training. Got all that. Did some resiliency training on how to get through hard times. It was all really great training. There's resiliency training? Master resiliency training. Like you go in and

you leave and then you are more resilient. That is the plan. I am fucking getting hit on that. Are you kidding me? I'm a jello pudding pop. No, no, no. You don't understand because the baggage that comes with that is you're in the army. Oh, no. Fuck that.

I don't know. No. All right. Yeah. They sign you up for 20 years. Whoa. Can't I just get in on the resiliency? Didn't you already do 20 years?

It was a hard 20, man. I ain't signing up for another. Hard as hell. All right. So you did the resiliency and the suicide prevention? And so then the last 10 minutes of that, we were there for two hours. It was like 5 o'clock in the morning. The last two hours coming up on 7 o'clock, they brought in the chaplain.

Totally cool. Bring in the chaplain. Let people know that he's a resource. I'm on it. That's awesome. So chaplain walks out. We are literally across the street, not even across the street, across the parking lot from the chapel. So I'm waiting and he turns out the lights.

He hands out these battery light up candles and starts praying, dear heavenly father, blah, blah, blah. So I decide that this is not right. There's 800 students in here that I know for a fact 100% of them are not Christian. Sure. It was Yom Kippur, the same day as Yom Kippur. I know two Jewish students were denied leave because they wanted to take it. Because suicide prevention training is mission essential. Got it.

I agree. Yes. But when you bring in a Christian chaplain and have them start praying on Yom Kippur to Jewish students, I have a problem with that. So you're just kind of a killjoy, I feel like. Yeah, absolutely. There is a phrase out there, a fun sponge. People take that in a lot of different directions. But you know.

Put one of those in there, you prevent a baby. That's one of the directions. So yeah, I did that. And then I decided that was wrong, so filed an EO complaint. Mikey Weinstein's group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, helped me out a lot filing that EO complaint. Jason Torpey from the Military

Association of Atheists and Freethinkers helped me out filing that EO complaint. I became the director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in San Antonio, and I also became the point of contact in San Antonio for Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. You probably also became a pariah among those. I mean, I'm certain that that did not win you a whole lot of friends.

It definitely didn't. It definitely didn't. It made working very interesting. There was a lot of just looks and you're going to work over here now and you know this or whatever um but but it was it was all right you know i i kind of knew that would happen i was i was at 18 years in my career um i was a lab tech i knew i wasn't going to make my next uh promotion and so i was just like you know what this is this is it i'm either and my husband was set my husband said does it mean a lot to you or doesn't it so i said you know what it does it

means a lot to me. He's like, well, you either go all in. You know, that's a great way to think about it, right? Because there's consequences for all of these actions. But does it mean a lot? Is this something that's really important? Then just get in there and fucking do it. I think that's great.

It took a lot of bravery, I think, to do that. And so because of those two positions, the point of contact for the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, this awesome guy, his name is Taylor Grin, was headed towards Air Force basic training right there in San Antonio. And he contacted MAF and he said, hey, I'm going to go to basic training. There isn't humanist support. Do you know anybody that can meet me if I can get it set up? And so Jason worked really hard, contacted me as the point of contact and said, hey, do you mind meeting this guy every Sunday while he's in basic training? It's only eight weeks. I said, absolutely.

I'll absolutely go there and do that. Got some friends together, Deb, Nick, and Vivica. We kind of worked out some things. I was pretty consistent so far since we started it in July 2013. I've only missed this Sunday will be the fourth meeting that i've missed no one since in almost three years so i was the consistent one and debnick and vivica kind of rotated in and we came up with the curriculum googling stuff what happens at humanist meetings things like that talk to the guy when we got there to meet him he had brought seven friends with him

oh nice yeah so our first meeting had eight uh trainees in it. And what are you up to now? We're almost to 500. Holy shit. Yeah. We had to break it down into two services. That's tremendous. Yeah. So you started with eight people and now you're at 500 or nearly 500 people.

Yeah. We're coming up close on 500. That's impact. That's real impact. So I got to ask. So this gentleman was Air Force. Yes. Are different branches more or less religious, to your knowledge?

Is the Air Force a less religious branch in the Army, which you mentioned is evangelical? We have had a lot more success with the Air Force commanders, and that's how we got this started was Taylor Grin was in basic training for three weeks requesting service, saying, my needs are not being met here as an airman. I want to be just as successful as everyone else. I deserve to have this service. And so he fought for it, and he had one commander that said, you know what? I want all my trainees to be just as equally successful. So we were command-sponsored to be on there to meet with Taylor. Do you think that's possible because, like in the Air Force, they can fly around and see there's no heaven up there,

and then they're just like... Yeah, they're above the clouds. They're looking around like, I don't see God up here. You guys. But if that was the case, then wouldn't the Navy worship Poseidon? Maybe. I'm not in the military. I don't know. Maybe they do. Now, are you an atheist chaplain? I am a humanist chaplain.

Humanist chaplain? Yes. So what does a humanist chaplain do? There's two different things you can be, a humanist chaplain or a humanist celebrant. I'm a humanist chaplain, which means I can lead different services. If I was a celebrant, then I could do the ceremony portion. So currently I'm only a chaplain, so I can lead services. I can teach through those things along with the Humanist Society and the American Humanist Association guidelines.

But I'm working on being a celebrant, too, because then you can marry people. Are you also – and so is this a recognized thing by the military, the chaplaincy? Is that recognized or is this just what you call yourself? This is a title that has been given to me me by the american or by the humanist society okay and so the it's a civilian gig got it the military you know it's just another piece of paper to them right right but it is credible it is um really important and see i thought i had thought it was the the because there are chaplains in the military yes that's a very different job though very different okay all right all right are there do you know of humanist chaplains in the military?

Is that a thing that exists? It is not a thing that exists. And in fact, there's a guy right now, Jason Heap. He was trying to do it for the Navy. And he exceeds all the requirements to do that. There's a lawsuit going on right now. It's been going on for years. And they just keep saying no.

And they really don't have a ground for saying no. They say that you have to have an endorsing agency, which he does. He has an endorsing agency. What is an endorsing agency? So a Baptist chaplain will have a Baptist church or a Baptist agency back them. And so a chaplain has actually got a hard job because they have to do what the military rules and regulations are, and they also have to do what their endorsing agency rules are. So there are chaplains that still can't counsel gay couples, even though

that is a legit legal thing. All those rules have come down. Don't ask, don't tell has been repealed. But the military says you can, but the endorsing agency says you cannot. So what they have to do is if you come in and you need marital counseling for a same-sex couple, then they can say, I can't help you right now, but this is a person that can. And they're supposed to redirect you. But if you need financial counseling, then they could. So explain the role of a chaplaincy in the military, because I don't think that I understand it properly. So what does a chaplain in the military really do like what would people go to a to the chaplain in the military for because i financial counseling that struck that that kind of came to me from left field like i wouldn't go to a chaplain for

financial counsel right so they're counselors and they can provide and the the thing the best thing about the chaplain is is that they have like a non-disclosure agreement so they don't talk about anything you go to like a therapist or something yeah uh right but even even the therapist if you choose to go to a therapist at some level uh they have to let your command know or they have to let oh i see yeah yeah so the chaplain can hold everything and so if you need counseling i'm sorry can or has to hold everything has to hold everything okay i i know it's just it's a minor distinction but i'm curious right um and i and i might be mistaken on that but my understanding is is that they they have to hold everything. And so it benefits you if you're going through some stuff and you have a high security clearance that you want to go to the chaplain and get guidance and

unload all that stuff and have someone to talk to you. Because if you go to a therapist, that might be something that the therapist says, you probably shouldn't have that high of a security clearance. You have a lot of problems going on. We need to look at that. And people lost their security clearance. So talk a little bit about, so you said that you had started a couple of different groups. So you talked about one of them, but you didn't talk about the others. Talk about the other groups that you started as well. Okay.

So I really wanted to get involved. I didn't know how to do that. I had come out as an atheist in 2008. And obviously, I came out pretty strong in 2012 when I went through that EO complaint. It went into the civilian newspapers. Mikey Weinstein obviously was handling it. And so I'm an atheist now. I'm a really loud-out atheist.

I want to do something. Sure. And so I was looking around to see what I could get involved with in San Antonio. And I wound up finding something in Austin. There was this guy, Joe Zemecki, and he had started Atheist Helping the Homeless in Austin. And what he did is he just gathered up some hygiene supplies, went down to where the, underneath the bridge where the homeless usually are around in Austin and handed them out. Simple. That was all. I was like, well, I could do that. So I contacted Joe and I asked him his opinion. And he said, you know, you need to be, you know, are you, are you really involved in

this? Because, you know, you really need to be dedicated to this. I said, no, Joe, I really want to help. And so I created Atheist Helping the Homeless in San Antonio. It was just me and my husband and my two teenage daughters at first. And we, out of our own pocket, just bought about $100 worth of stuff every month, went down there, set up a table. If we couldn't find a lot of people, then we would drive around and hand bags out through the window. And just hygiene supplies, sometimes some clothing items if we had something, depending on the weather and stuff.

And I started posting it on Facebook and putting some pictures up like, hey guys, I'm doing this. I could use some help. It would be great. And so now, you know, we've helped about every, we do it the last Sunday of the month, every month in San Antonio on the corner of Freo and West Houston. And we have about 80 homeless people that come through our line that need help or they take something off of our table. And I have about 20 regular volunteers that come out there and help hand stuff out. The people are always asking what they need to do. They get in line, and they have a bag, and they're getting ready to collect the items.

And what would I need to do to take the items? Oh, you don't have to do anything. Just go through the – take your bag and kind of go through the line and see if you need anything. Oh, you don't want me to pray with you? And I'm like, no, no. We have a sign that says Atheist Helping the Homeless. No, we're just here to – if you need anything off this table, then please take it.

And so some of them will still say, God bless you to us, and different people handle that differently. Nobody gets hostile back, but they'll either say, oh, we're atheists, but thank you, or something to that degree. Wow, that's great. That's really grown then, huh? So yeah, I started that about the same time as i started the the lackland meeting and um so it was uh july 2013 the lackland meeting kind of

kicked off it was august 2013 the atheist helping the homeless in san antonio kicked off so we've been pretty successful keeping both of those going do you have a a web page or anything that for this particular organization facebook page or yes Yes, I have a Facebook page. It's actually, some people wanted to help and they said they felt more comfortable helping if I put humanist in the name. So the Facebook page is Atheist and Humanist Helping the Homeless.

Why do you think that is out of curiosity? What is it about that word atheist? Because it's still in the word. It's still in the name, Atheist and Humanist. So we're not taking away Atheist. We're just adding Humanist. I wonder what it is that makes people? Because it's still in the word. It's still in the name, atheist and humanist. So we're not taking away atheists. We're just adding humanist. I wonder what it is that makes people feel more comfortable in your opinion. I think that they were going to be in pictures, and some people are still scared of the word atheist.

And not every humanist is an atheist and vice versa. Not every atheist is a humanist. And so I think they wanted to be equally represented in case they were in a picture. Then they could deflect that big big bad A word and say, no, no, I'm a humanist and that's why I'm helping. So are you always looking for volunteers to help? Always looking for volunteers. And we have some financial contributions.

Some people just can't get out and shop. And so that's okay. If you can't get out and shop, they trust us to do that shopping for them. And then they see in the pictures, they stop down and see what we're doing, and they see that we're a legit organization that's doing that. And then we couldn't find a family group in San Antonio that was meeting the needs of what our family needed.

We had five kids. We needed some free stuff to hang out, like potlucks or park meetups and stuff. And we just couldn't find a group that was doing that that had the same goals and whatever. So last fall, some friends and I started a South Texas atheist for reason, and that's a family group. We have those potlucks. We have especially quarterly potlucks. We have atheist Easter. We have heathen Halloween. We do something in the summer. Yeah. So we did some stuff. We did a chili cook-off in December. So we got that kind of moving, like I said, in about October of last year. And that's really picking up steam.

We have a lot of people that are enjoying that, getting together with families. We have game nights. And everything has the kids around it. And then some of the parents were like, can we do something without the kids? Sure, right? And so we were like, yeah, we absolutely can. So we started a Stars Out night. So that's parents.

And then if anybody needs a babysitter, then somebody else in Star watches the kids for them. And then we kind of do Stars Out and go to a pub. Nice. We went karaoke one time. Just whatever it is to get a break away from the kids and stuff. If anybody in our listenership wants to meet up with you, we'll put links to both of these on their website so that people can reach out if they want to do charitable work or if they just want to hang out and go to these atheist meetups that you're running. Yeah, that would be great. The listeners can come by and scream glory hole at you.

That would be awesome. That would be super awkward. Especially now that I know what it means. Otherwise, it would have been really awkward. Yeah, it actually never gets less awkward as it turns out. I'm curious, in South Texas, do you feel there's a number of atheists that are underrepresented? I guess what I mean by that is it's got to be different to be an atheist in South Texas than it is to be an atheist here in the Midwest, or it would be to be an atheist in New York or in Seattle.

So I'm curious what your thoughts are in terms of the population and the willingness because you had mentioned some people prefer that term humanist instead of that big bad A word. Right. And so I'm curious what your thoughts are as far as your reception as an atheist group when you guys go out. And then do you run into people you think are sympathetic but maybe unwilling to call themselves atheists? I'm just curious about your perceptions. Well, I know for a fact the school systems are difficult to navigate. Different kids are always talking to my kids about how they're going to hell or the devil is coming out from underneath their bed. We do have shirts made that say star. They're blue and they have a big

yellow star on the front of it. And I haven't had any bad experiences going out. In fact, our director of development, Casey, she has even called places and said, hey, we're working on nonprofit status, but we want to get together and do something at your venue. And they've been more than happy to assist us with doing that. That's great. So I personally haven't had any, even dirty looks when we're out or anything to that. But you can definitely see the politics in Texas speaking to an opposite side of that, where somebody that was just running and defeated still was believing in creationism and things of that nature. So we have quite a few people in the military right now that listen to us.

If you could say anything to them to try to maybe help drum up a little bit, a few more people to come to your particular group down in San Antonio, go ahead and talk to them. All right. So it's up to you guys. If you guys want something like this, if you're heading to basic training or if you know somebody in basic training, it has to happen internally. Even if you're in a training environment, it has to happen internally. So you need to go to your chaplains. You need to go to your command and say, I want this. I need this. I deserve this. It's already happening at Lackland. It's very successful if you want to check it out. It's a thing. People want it. And if it's provided, then it's definitely accepted. And I used to teach on Fort Sam and I would go to the chaplains and I would go to the command

and I'd say, hey, I'm doing this on Lackland. It's awesome. It's happening. I would like to start it here. I just need a command sponsor. And they would all say no. And they're valid to do that. The regulation does not allow for it it It would be them stepping out of the box It would be them kind of putting their necks out And so I completely understand the choices that they made And so they said Well how do we know they're out there And so I'd say well we know they're out there

You could see that on Lackland it started with 8 And at that time it was 100, 200 And they would say well prove it But in the military You can't be out there asking people their religion Or what their beliefs are So they're asking me to do something They. But in the military, you can't be out there asking people their religion or what their beliefs are. So they're asking me to do something that's – They're asking you to prove something you can't prove, right?

Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. So I'm like, let me build it. They will come. And they were like, oh, no. Prove it to me. So it has to come from inside.

It can't come from me calling your command or me calling a general or anybody. It has to come from the soldier, the trainee, the airman, the sailor. It has to come from inside the organization. And then they can give my name, Victoria Getman, and contact me and I can try to help them get anything done. Or Jason Torpey, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. Go to there and contact him and say, I want this. How do I get it started? And we can give them the tools to get that going. That's awesome. I got a question, though. Don't they on dog tags put your religion on there?

They absolutely do. So wouldn't they know how many atheists there are or agnostics? Or do people just say none? Well, you do have a choice of no religious preference. But a lot of people did what I did, which is just put the religion that you grew up in or that you're comfortable around. I see. Right. So atheists you can have.

We're just not sure how many people are not comfortable putting that down. Right. So you feel it's underrepresented. I do. I do. The Army has allowed humanists, and so we've seen a pickup in humanists. I don't have the numbers. I truly believe, especially when you have to go to your commander and they're going to see on your record, are they going to recommend you for promotion if they're an evangelical

Christian and you're an atheist? Sure. They should. The military says they absolutely will. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. It's one thing to write it down and say, you absolutely will. It's another thing to have somebody actually do it, right?

Right. There's a lot of gray area in interpreting those regulations sometimes. Well, congratulations on your award. Absolutely. Thank you. And congratulations on just a ton of great work. What an enthusiastic person you are. You're just such a foil to us duds up here.

Bravo. Bravo. I mean, I want to say, having Rebecca and Ben help me do the Lackland meeting and Scott, they have completely improved it. They've been working with me the last year and a half. They have completely improved it in ways that I didn't even know was possible. So they, I,

you know, I gave them an idea of having this meeting and then they have just run with it. And so the same thing with star that star family that I have, I definitely am not doing this alone. There's no way I have my family, my kids that support it. I have my whole community of people around me that support it. know i i couldn't be more fortunate that i get that i'm

here receiving this award but it's definitely definitely a lot of people that are that are holding me up well the nice thing is now you can rub it in all their faces you know like you can get back and be like look at the award i got you know what you want to do is you want to hire somebody to carry that award around for you wherever you go. Are you available? Do you know, is it going to be like a medal? You can swing it and wallop people with it? I hope so. I hope it's like some kind of weapon of some sort. I know she's military.

I'm thinking some sort of weird pope hat. Like a mitre of some sort would be nice too. I like that idea too. A scepter? That'd be great. I think we should get involved with this American Humanist Association and design the next award. Everything should be a walloping scepter? That'd be great. I think we should get involved with this American Humanist Association and design the next award. Everything should be a walloping scepter. That's every award.

That's like that movie Home and they have the shusher. I don't know if you're into cartoons at all, but I have a bunch of kids and that's what he has. He has a scepter and he calls it the shusher and if he doesn't agree with you,

he smacks you in the head with it. I've got to have seven of those. I need them right now. Thank you so much for joining us. We really do appreciate it and now. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. We really do appreciate it. And congratulations again. Congratulations. Thank you so much for having me.

So we want to thank our newest patrons, Vince, Knuckly McGrundle. That's awesome. Meredith, Moira, Nick, Cockness Monster. Cockness Monster. Lindsay, and you are here. Thanks, guys, for your generous donations. And I think, oh my goodness, You Are Here is actually a podcast that's coming out. It's going to be an audio drama podcast.

And I listened to the- It's like a sci-fi choose your own adventure choose your own adventure yeah and actually i listened to the first promo and it's really good like the promo sounds super professional it sounds really well done so i'm excited when that comes out i'll let people know when it actually hits but it's a clever idea yeah it's a clever idea it's done by uh by paul from uh kuranify me and a couple other people brian and a few other people are involved in it. And it's really an excellent idea. I can't wait to see what happens with it.

So it's going to be a new audio drama. I'll let people know when it pops. We also got a PayPal donation this week, Tom. We did. We got a very generous PayPal donation from Jerry. Jerry, thank you so much. Very kind PayPal. Another way to reach out to the show and support us.

You can go to our website, dissonancepod.com and find our PayPal link there. We also want to thank Alfredo. Alfredo came in. We're going to be, we hired Alfredo to help fix our website. Our website went down a while back, exploded in a terrible fury. Yes, it did. Sounded fury signifying nothing, it turns out, because everything was wiped from our

website. Alfredo just happened to help us before and had an old backup of our website came in. We've been working with him to try to restore everything that's up there. So there may be a few of our podcasts right now that don't have active links. So some of the links are not active on a certain number of them. I want to say maybe 50 or 60 podcasts don't have active links. And they're sort of like from 250 to like 200.

They don't have active links or images or anything. I'm going to try to do my best to restore those, but we don't have any records of those. So I have to go through and try to add those back in. From the show notes? Yeah, but the good thing is that you're so lazy you never delete the show notes. So we have them all. That's true.

So one time in your life, your laziness has paid off. Watch this. You see this? I'm patting myself on the back. Yeah. Nailed it. Because people would have thought that you were patting the side of a dog or something when you did that.

So yeah. There's no dogs. It's like slapping a ham. It is. It is. It is. But we want to thank Alfredo. And he's been such a lifesaver, helped us out so much with this particular project.

And he's going to continue to help us out. We're actually going to be transitioning our site to make sure that everything is saved and all that other stuff and making sure that everything is set and all the things are paid for and whatnot. Can I offer to help? Can we throw money at the problem? That's kind of what I'm doing. Yes. Yeah, Alfredo is accepting the money, and I'm the thrower. Oh, thank God. doing yes yeah alfredo is yes is accepting the money and i'm the thrower oh thank god but he's

been really great and he's been able to uh to work with us on this and it's been it's been very helpful so thank you all certainly we got a call to prayer here i want to play it for you guys this is really funny Man, the bass really hits there, doesn't it? Oh, it's great. Wow. Nailed it. When that fucking Skrillex drops, it fucking drops, man. It's awesome.

We got a message from Brad, and Brad had tattooed Doubt Even This on his arm. He did. It's underneath an Irish America flag, and it looks to be his left bicep. I'll tell you what, it's big. Shouldular region. It's not a hiding tattoo. That's a lot of text there, man. It's big.

We got a message. This is pretty great. This was sent from Denise and Bronson, and they sent this in, and it's you might be a cognitive dissonance listener if and it's a whole long list all Jeff Foxworthy style it's in the style of Jeff Foxworthy

which is not a style most people try to emulate it turns out not anymore I mean after the last 10 years or so not even Jeff Foxworthy runs this bit anymore but there's some really funny stuff in here um we're gonna post it on this week's show notes uh if you want to go check it out which you could just go read it there's a lot of great stuff in there it's very funny this next

image galen hit us with two images one of them i like the other one i just it's so hard to look at he sent in an image of a donut um that has cream corn i can't look at it i really i really i'm gonna navigate away it looks like a poo it's so terrible it's worse than that but anyway we're gonna post it on this week's show notes if you guys want to gross yourself out galen that's disgusting that's all i'm saying i'm sorry i even thought of that here's the thing man cream corn yeah no yeah never oh it's gross never it's like a shepherd's pie donut or something. That's food someone already ate. It's like that Tres Leches cake. It's like you go to bite it and you're like, someone ate this already.

It's not for me. I feel like I'm eating something I shouldn't be eating. I feel like a baby bird. We also have an image of Moses filling a pothole that we're going to put on this week's show notes too. Galen, thank you for sending those in. I love this. Derek sent this in. Another call to prayer that is amazing.

Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. It's so good. It's so good. It's perfect. It's perfect. It's perfect. It is so good.

That is just amazing. So funny. Well done, Derek. So funny. We got a message. We got a message about the U.S. military from David, Tom. David says, I was just listening to the latest podcast and I wanted to clarify the U.S. military is bigger than the next 10 militaries combined. China, Russia, UK, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy and Brazil.

Specifically, the U.S. military budget for 2014 was $682 billion. For comparison, China, the next largest military, had a budget of approximately $150 billion. We also got a message from david a while back tom and this was about um and this was about the email scandal that uh that david smalley had brought up david smalley had said that the that his his idea was that they were keeping this in in play sort of in the back court waiting for hillary to finally get the nomination so that they can roll it out and destroy her credibility with this email scandal. And he made it sound like there was people that were looking into this that were part of the Congress.

These people were senators or Republicans. They had a bent. It's not that at all. It doesn't seem like it's that at all. It looks like it's an FBI investigation and, as you said, a State Department. Yeah. So a State Department audit came out, and I saw it just on MSN, and the State Inspector General was evaluating her use of private email for State Department business, and it was critical of her. It was critical of past secretaries of state as well. There's also an FBI probe,

but they said that they didn't think that there'd be anything that was prosecutable as a result. So it's probably going to go nowhere. But we got a couple of emails letting us know that while David was thinking that it may not, that sort of thing doesn't seem like it would be the case. The other thing that we got a message on was people saying David portrayed Bernie as squeaky clean

and Hillary not as squeaky clean, and that's not as cut and dry as people think it is. Keith had sent in a message and a couple other people sent in messages basically saying the same thing. Like, look, politics are muddy. Politics are gross. Nobody's squeaky clean. And I think that that's a fair point. You know what I mean?

Like you can portray someone as the better candidate, but like we said last time, we're looking at these polls now. We don't know what's going to happen in the future. You have no idea what's going to happen. President Trump? We got a message, and this was from last time. We got a message. This one's from Mark, and Mark was very upset with us. A lot of people were very upset with us because we said third parties were throwing your vote away. And a bunch of people tried to lecture us on how we need to be more third party friendly and that it's one of these things like, look, you guys say it's throwing your vote away, but the only way to throw your vote away is to vote for somebody who you don, you know, you don't, you don't want as a, as a representative. And I, and I agree with that. And, uh, and I, I think it's hilarious that I get lectured on this

when I'm old enough to have voted for Ross Perot and I voted for him twice in two different elections. I voted independent twice in two presidential elections. I voted Ralph Nader in 2000. I voted for Nader too. I voted. I voted every single time I've had an opportunity to vote in Illinois for a gubernatorial race. I have voted Green Party every single time. I've never voted for the Democrat and Republicans. And you know how many times the Green Party candidate has won? Wait, wait. Do you know how many times the Green Party candidate has gotten more than like 1% of the fucking vote?

They've gotten none. I mean like they're like statistical fucking anomaly how few votes they've gotten. You're actually the only person that they've ever voted for. Yeah, I'm like the only guy and him and his wife. Like all three of us. Yeah, we're going to have a menage a trois later. Even his mom won't vote for him. Yeah, his mom is like, fuck that.

I'm voting for Quinn. You know what I mean? But it's funny because I've voted for third parties all the time. And I think this lets me tell you that, yes, I know that I'm throwing my vote away. I know I'm not going to be the guy who elects the next person. I'm OK with that. I'm OK with voting for people third party. The problem is, is that the people that you're putting up for third party, especially in

this presidential election, people told me to go listen to Gary Johnson's Gary Johnson guy. Go find him. He was on Penn and I guess he was on Rogan well on Rogan he had two and a half two and a half plus hours worth of talk with just this Gary Johnson so I listened to it Gary Johnson

but this guy was a fair tax guy I'm not a fair tax guy I don't like that I don't like it I'm sure that there's ways to approach it and make it I guess a way that could be fair, but it's not a fair thing inherently. He has some really kind of delusional things that he wants to do, like create a system where he can meet with people, like just the average Joe once a month like he did when he was a governor. He had this thing where you can come in and spend five minutes with him and just talk about issues. And while Joe Rogan even points out that this is not a great idea for a president with 370 million people.

Yeah, it's great for a small population state where you're the governor or maybe a mayor. But at a certain point, this is not a thing that a fucking president should be doing, meeting with people. The guy I think has some interesting points and is approaching it from a different standpoint than what we're used to. But this isn't my guy. I listened to him talk, and I was like, you're not my guy. We got a message. This is from Stormtrooper.

And Stormtrooper just wants to – I wanted to ask a question. He's having some difficulty. He might be having to be getting baptized. His family is very religious, and he's thinking about maybe they're possibly going to get baptized soon. He doesn't know if he can accept it. It's really against everything he stands for. What should he do? Should he tell his family he's an atheist at this point or what?

Well, here's the thing. If your folks are that religious and you live in their house and you don't think that they're going to come out, you don't think they're going to respond to it well, the baptism is meaningless, man. Yeah. It's just the water. You're 16. Give it two more years. It's a fucking sprinkle of water. Or a dunking or whatever they do.

Whatever. It doesn't matter. Here's the fucking newsflash. If you don't believe, you didn't really get baptized. Yeah. Somebody just fucking splashed some water on you. Yeah. Nothing happened.

It's all fucking happened it's all fucking it's all symbolism garbage it's no different than playing ouija board or any other nonsense that's not true or real right so eh what's the big deal you your your parents are happy your fucking home life doesn't suck for the next two years you turn 18 you move away you go to college you know you become a fucking dirty fucking liberal hillbilly fucking hippie shithead atheist in college. Everybody expects it. It's fine. It's fine.

It's fine. You come home with your first boyfriend and everybody is going to expect it because you went to a liberal gay college. Right. But there is a point where a little bit of independence will go a long way toward making you feel more secure in bringing those kinds of beliefs to your parents. Yeah. And I tell this story and I might've told it a couple of times, but I was contemplating getting married in the Catholic church. And this was, my wife was religious. My in-laws were religious and I was contemplating getting married in the Catholic church. And I wound up going to, I went to a Catholic school, a Catholic university.

And one of my teachers at the time just happened to be a priest. And I wound up seeing him during office hours to talk to him about a book that I was reading. And then I mentioned to him, I said, hey, I've never gotten married before. I'm not religious. I don't know what happens here. I'm not really, I kind of don't want to get married in a church because I'm an atheist. What do you suggest? And he said, what does it matter where you get married? He said, you love her, right? And I said, yeah, I love her. Would it matter if you got married outside? No. Would it matter if you got married here at the university? No. Would it matter if you, and he named like five or six places. Well, why does it matter you get married in a church? It doesn't matter. It's just a place to me, but it has symbolism and

meaning to somebody else, and it means something to someone else. And so if I could help them get the meaning that they were trying to achieve at the same time, having no real damage done to me, then it's not a big deal. Last thing, we got a message from Stephen, and Stephen sent us this Pastor Manning clip. Because he can't sit down. He can't sit down. He's got a face. He's got that special ass vestless diaper. Burn and burn and burn. It'll burn and burn and burn. I think my tongue will end. That's great.

I love it. It's so funny. That is some good stuff. So that's it for this week. Expect a midweek show out. Like I said earlier, there's going to be a midweek show with Callie and Ari from the Gaytheist Manifesto coming your way on Thursday. But we're going to leave you like you always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

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