Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 315: Faithless Feminist Karen Garst

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

       

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording 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 is episode 314 of cognitive dissonance in this episode we are joined by karen garst a little later in the program karen garst uh we

are interviewing for her upcoming book women beyond belief discovering life without religion um so we had an interview with karen garst a little later in the show. But first, some unbelievably shitty stories and some David Icke. So there's that, guys. Hey, something to look forward to. Huzzah. Hey, you know what? Fuck it. Let's lead off with child abuse.

It's like trying to get somebody excited about Auschwitz. Right? Yeah. Hey, and then later we'll pour some soap on you. There you go. Maybe open a couple cans of Cyclone B. What do you say, guys? Oh, my God.

All right. So this fucking story, this comes from rare.us. That's evidently a site. I wish this was actually more rare in that it never happened at all. We cover this story or a similar story several times a year. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. This story, a mother beat her seven-year-old son with a coat hanger and used religious freedom as an excuse.

Has he never seen Mommy Dearest? I mean, no wire hangers ever! The kids should know better. Jesus Christ. So this happened in Indiana where she opened her kid like a fucking car door. Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, that's what you do in a co-hanging, right? Isn't that what you do?

You kind of bend it. You bend it and fish it through. Fish it through. I would imagine, like, at first when they said it came from Indiana, I thought, well, did she just rest her meth pipe on his back? Oh, shit. And then I realized, no, that's the rash you get from living in Indiana. Indiana. That's the Indiana rash.

That's called the Indiana ivy. That's what what that is you get it from the air down there we uh this this is about a mother who essentially beats her kid with a coat hanger and the idea here is is that she uses religion as a way to say hey i'm allowed to beat my kid because the Bible says so. Right. So specifically she cites Proverbs 13, 24. It says, do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with a rod, you will save his soul. What if you strike him down?

Will he become more powerful than you could possibly imagine? I don't think that's how it works. You know, like, all you have to do is, like, read that. Like, if you hit him with a rod, you won't kill him. Well, fucking, actually, if you hit him with a rod hard enough, you will certainly kill him. And she didn't kill him, but she beat the shit out of this kid. Yeah, she sure did.

And it's interesting because, you know, this isn't just one or two people that do this sort of thing. And they look to the bible for child rearing advice and that book is horrible that book is awful that book is full of trauma right it's full of physical trauma clearly it's full of mental trauma it is not a good book to use as a parenting guide and people do it all the time all the world all the time there's plenty of people in this country that still beat their children with implements because it says to do it in the bible yeah it's not even just like a hand across the ass it's like a beating with a stick man i know

and these are the people we talk about this all the time but we you know when we talk about fundamentalists what are they fundamental about well they fucking they're fundamental about the religion it means they have more they're more – they follow their religion more closely and are closer adherents to that religion. The religion is the problem here. The religion is the issue. It's the thing that's prescribing the beatings. Well, she does cite – she does also in this story. She does cite cultural differences too, right?

She does cite – she does also in this story, she does cite cultural differences too, right? So it's funny because a lot of times that criticism gets leveled and people say, well, it's not the religion. It's the culture. And she does cite cultural differences. She's like, yeah, look, I'm fucking – I'm a Burmese refugee. And in Burma, we could beat the ever-loving shit out of people. That's how it works. It's like, but it's fucking Burma. Nobody is looking to Burma as a bastion of human rights. Nobody is like, well, but it's fucking Burma. Yeah. Nobody is looking to Burma as a bastion of,

of human rights. Nobody's like, well, how do they do it in Burma? Fucking nobody. It's like, that's a great place to lose your head. That's it.

You know, you get, all right, that lost his head. What did he get? Super mad. No, they actually cut his fucking head off.

That's what it was. They didn't, he didn't lose his cool. Right. He lost his, he lost his actual head. Yeah. And I mean like, it's horrific. Like we're making light of it, but can you imagine what it would they didn't he didn't lose his cool right he lost his he lost his actual head yeah and i mean like it's horrific like we're making light of it but can you imagine what it feel like to be beaten with a wire hanger to the point where you look like the fucking photo here

guys and this is this is guys this is this is not i mean it's not there's no blood or anything here um but these are welts on the back on this article that are huge i've never had a welt like that in my life no i've never i've never been hit that many times and in succession to grow to i mean that's like a that's like getting your ass kicked by a group of people you know what i mean like it's like get it's like getting a boot party from somebody there's no way you do that to a seven-year-old kid right like this is a second grader yeah this is a second grade they essentially they essentially did what they do in full metal jacket to them right you mean there's something to hold them on the on the bed and just fucking beat the shit out of them right yeah right there's

no way you do that and you're like well i was just disciplining them fucking what could the seven-year-old have done yeah like what is the crime that merits a beating like that yeah that's the other thing it's like you know your crazy fucking book prescribes these awful beatings but it doesn't it doesn't lay out specifically you know if kid does this wallop them once if kid does that wallop them twice right instead it's just like like there's just like a general prescription called beat the shit out of your kids with sticks what's fucking there's no evidence that that's a good thing like we have lots of evidence about how to rear children and how to effectively discipline children and instill values in children and i mean basically like you people even raise kids you just domesticate them a little

bit like that's it like that's the whole thing you get a bunch of kids especially if you're catholic and you got like fucking two dozen kids or whatever right all you're trying to do you brand the ones that are yours put them in a pen and you hope to domesticate dozen kids or whatever, right? All you're trying to do, you brand the ones that are yours, put them in a pen, and you hope to domesticate at least a half a dozen of them. That's the whole thing. Sure. But there's like, there's fucking no evidence at all that it's like, well, maybe if we beat them.

Well, maybe we beat them even harder with a stick. I don't know. None of the evidence points to that's a great idea. so we are reading uh for our show the book the greatest biggest awesomest coolest secret by david ike the most bestest bestest the most bestest secret by david ike now david ike uh we have been reading this book, Tom. We're well over halfway through this book at this point. I can't. It's fucking brutal. Last week, we had a fucking – we were saved. Nervous fucking breakdown is what I fucking had.

We were saved by Stuart because he had great questions and we had a lot of fun with him. Now, it's just us and we do have – I have a few questions. I didn't – again again don't have a reading that a lot of this chapter again like last chapter was great there was some really great stuff in it yep um this chapter they went back to the names i know man it's just it's like it's an endless like at some point he's just naming people and places and you're just like oh it gets real real boring there's a large part of this chapter that's real boring. The next chapter, I think, is very short.

And then pretty soon, there's a chapter that's like 40 or 50 pages long we're going to have to split up a couple times. Yeah, it looks boring. It sounds terrible. All right. So, Tom, why don't you lead off and I'll follow up. All right. Sounds good.

Cecil, how do the reptilians operate? A, using tiny tweezers that buzz when you hit the sides. B, smoothly. Operator. Smooth. I love it. C, mostly in the background from underground bases and overwhelmingly by possessing the reptilian human bloodstreams, which resonates most closely to the reptile consciousness of the lower fourth dimension.

Probably not that one. D, shit, bitch, I don't know your life. Oh, Jesus Christ. Sounds racist. I'm going to go with C. Yeah, nailed it. I don't know how. These are not as hard as Stuart's questions.

Stuart's questions are a lot harder. All right. What might sound fantastic if you allow your vision of possibility to be suppressed to the size of a pea? They have the same question. Okay. Well, I'm curious what your answers are. All right. Here we go.

A, drafting Colin Kaepernick in your fantasy football team. B, having a reptilian or reptilian controlled president c a bird in the hand or d meth mouth i'm going with meth mouth not meth mouth it's b well coincidentally cecil all right when does having a reptilian controlled human president sound fantastic it's coming from the other way. I love it. A, if you've had your vision of possibility suppressed to the size of a pea.

I think we know the answer. B, if you've had your prostate massaged by an iguana even once. Prostate massaged by an iguana, not even once. C, when you consider the possibility of a Trump presidency. D, never, but until we ditch the electoral college, what can you do? I like that one. That's good.

Who do you think controls Alan Greenspan and the governor of the Bank of England and the statements they make? A, somewhat. Somewhat. B, certainly. C, of course. Or D, exactly. Because he says, this is exactly what he says. He writes that sentence out and then he puts, who do you think controls them?

And then he puts, exactly. It's amazing. He answers his own question with exactly exactly here's a rhetorical question i'll answer anyway that's not how rhetorical questions work also terrible literary device oh it's awesome it was awesome i know that's so bitchy i i shouldn't be doing that but it's but i come on i know what else he's supposed to bring to this he doesn't bring anything to it dude cecil why are the reptilians obsessed with interbreeding with the brotherhood streams a they need a whole yawn at the beginning of your question so oh god it's amazing a the need to hold the reptilian genetic inheritance and therefore maintain the vibrational connection between the human body on the third dimension its controlling force on the lower fourth b no for real that's what he said c i'm not fucking kidding or d

fucking kill me oh well it's probably a b and c i would have accepted all of the above or a bullet to the brain all right uh henry kissinger is a a satanist b a mass murder yes c mind control expert yes d a child killer yes e someone who gives really great hugs or f a b c and d i'm gonna go with that i'm gonna go with that but the hugs the hugs are still open right can i you know what does he does he at least bring the hips in because i hate the fucking you know i hate that fucking shoulder only hug he grinds a little fucking bring it in there don't fucking play give a fuck you know you know what i mean i want no if my fucking belly isn't rubbing up against your belly, we're not hugging. I wonder. We were talking about last week with Andrew Torres about libel laws.

And we were talking about – Man, I'm glad we don't have stringent ones here, right? We talked about it off recording about what the libel laws are in England and how you have to – The burden of proof is reversed. Don't you think Henry Kissinger would have a really good fucking case against fucking David Icke? Calling him a Satanist, a mass murderer, a mind control expert, and a child killer? I would think that those things would be pretty aggressive. Isn't that libelous to say?

Yeah, but I think these guys – the thing is I was reading something, I don don't know a while back when we first started this like he doesn't really get sued because everybody just thinks he's crazy i see yeah yeah like everyone's just like i don't want him to get the attention i don't really care about him fucking obvious troll is obvious cecil the global pyramid of power is made of what oh series a a series of smaller compartmentalized period pyramids b blue diamonds green clovers pink hearts and orange moons c sticks and stones which sometimes break our bones d snips and snails and puppy dog tails. It is a bunch of pyramids on top of other pyramids. Pyramids stacked into a... It is a series of smaller pyramids stacked into pyramids.

We know Project Paperclip happened. It did. Because... Yes. A. The Babylonians invented papyrus, which is how they first penned the agenda, and then they kept it together with primitive bindings, also known as paperclips. B. You can use a paperclip to unlock a door, and since all doors and locks are controlled from the fourth dimension, lizards.

Okay. Yeah, you got me there. That's a good one. C. Microsoft, in early versions of Word, had an evil embodiment of a paperclip that wouldn't let you skip a fucking line or indent properly. Or D, nothing other than David Icke's fucking wrote it down. No citation, no extra info, nothing. He just typed the letters in a certain order so it's true. It's the Microsoft one.

It is the microsoft i do want to say as an aside when you write poetry there is nothing worse than trying to do it in microsoft word because you're like i want to do something crit no i've reformed it's like i've reformatted that for you like well fucking why don't you go kill yourself like that is not you're like fucking hammering away at the indent and enter backspace it's funny because it was even worse back when there was a paper clip that it was it was fucking insist every time you'd tap you'd tab and be like i want to end on twice it'd be like are you sure you want to do that right he'd be like are you writing a business letter motherfucker if i wrote a business letter i'd fucking tell you i was writing a business letter i read a business letter to bill gates to kill you it was always like hey

man are you writing a resume no i'm just hey man are you writing a business is this a memo it is now it's a dear bill gates two it's a fucking death threats like that's it it's like at some point like and it just like the the types of like to include your own feces the font the font is all letters from magazines cut out that's a ransom note it looks like you're writing a ransom note or an m&m song it's actually hard to tell the difference amazing so cecil what is the agenda's ultimate goal

a to finally get all our monoatomic gold and eat it for superpowers. B, to get rid of that pesky Credo Mutwa. That's not it. Who loves Credo Mutwa? C, to finally and actually not finish the whole fucking container of cherry garcia that is impossible my friend i contend it can't be possible my friend that is a single serving container it doesn't matter what size the container is it literally doesn't matter it does not matter if it's got cherry garcia in it you're done when you're out you're done when

you're out right or it's out yeah that's the thing like somebody's either passed out or there's no more cherry garcia right the fucking dog is licking the remnants from your corpse as your bloated stomach has burst from cherry garcia over consumption and that's how i want to die exactly the guy on seven right yeah yeah i don't it's fine just feed him fucking spaghettios until he dies make sure it's cherry garcia kick me in the gut all day i don't... It's fine. Just feed him fucking SpaghettiOs until he dies. Make sure it's cherry garcini to kick me in the gut all day. I don't give a shit. Foie gras goose me, motherfucker. It's fine.

And finally, to take over the planet so effectively that no one notices, thereby accomplishing literally nothing. It could be A or C. That's awesome. I got one more. All right. It could be A or C. That's awesome. I got one more. All right. David Icke's image of the chain of command for the round table resembles. Oh, God.

A, a picture of a Tesseract to help include his fourth dimensional readers. His fourth dimensional readers? B, not a Jew star. No, not at all. C, the image of David I ike fisting a hollow earth globe or d he's using it like a puppet d a jewish star with circles so it looks like a yeshiva sheriff i'm going with this it totally looks like it too it does uh fucking round table all right so here's my synopsis and we'll be done with this horrible chapter. Thank God. Chapter 13.

Lucky. Lucky 13. With the amount of superstition in this book, I'm surprised the chapter isn't called 14A. The same reptile mines have been occupying all the famous players throughout history, or the next generation of reptiles takes over, or both. If Hitler won the war, they would have used a similar economic plan that they have been using now so the reptiles made him lose so they could lose a powerful dictatorship and replace it with an inclusive democracy david ike has a real bad experience with journalists because they dismiss

his evidence and think he's high this is also the same guy who once claimed he was jesus yeah oh yeah yeah which is why they're just i mean like not only are they dismissing him because he doesn't have any evidence right but there there's one point in this where he says something like and then i said then the person said the freemasons i should be more interested in fucking you know who's in the fucking rotary club or something when they said that. And he's like, can you believe they said that? Yes, I can believe they said that because the Freemasons are a bunch of guys who sit in a room. They have a pancake breakfast together.

Like, I'm not worried about anybody that has pancakes. Like, nobody has ever been like, yeah, I killed like 40 dudes and then we had pancakes. It's not a thing. It's like fucking worrying about who's the moose. I know, right? It's old men drinking Bud Light. That's it It's not a thing. It's like fucking worrying about who's at the moose lodge. I know, right? It's old men drinking Bud Light. That's it. Give me a break.

So we are joined by Karen Garst. Karen is the author of Women Beyond Belief, Discovering Life Without Religion. Karen, thanks for joining us. Oh, it's the pleasure is mine. So Karen, this book is a collection of stories that you not only contributed to, but you also edited. What made you decide to sort of collect these stories and make this book? A couple of years ago, you might remember that the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. And because of the previous decision in Citizens United where they decided that, oh yeah, corporations

are people. That's good, yeah. So in this decision – Did they get all Canadian on it when they did it? I want to ask Gordy. Did you like that? I know. I know.

I might say out and about because I'm up here too. A boot. A store, a corporation privately held called Hobby Lobby. It's a craft store like Michael's or other things. And they petitioned the court, filed a lawsuit that said under the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, they did not believe because of their religious views that they should have to provide certain forms of birth control that are really abortifacts or abortifacients, however you say that funny word.

abortifacts or abortifacients, however you say that funny word. And what was interesting, I heard the other day was they had been providing these forms of birth control under their previous insurance. So it might have been, you know, a broader idea

of attacking Obamacare itself. Yeah, it's just a test case to go after the broader bill, right? Exactly. And the court, five to four decision, that would be right? Exactly. And the court, a 5-4 decision that would be the five Catholic men in the affirmative, decided

that, well, let's see, a corporation is a person, and a person has a right to religious views, so, yeah, I guess. I think there's one more step in their logic process, and a person that matters is a man, so they're 4. You know, there was no problem with other forms of things that are available to men.

You're absolutely right. And so the court agreed with them and said they didn't have to provide it. Now, fortunately for the women employees, that was provided through a separate government program when Hobby Lobby didn't have to. But I really became incensed about that. As somebody who grew up in the 60s and 70s when all this was happening, for example, I was working on our college newspaper, and we'd put in an ad to call New York for an abortion.

This was the only place it was legal at the time, right? This was before Roe v. Wade. And all the newspapers were impounded. Of course, it was a private Lutheran college, so that might have had something to do with it. But I was having lunch two days after that with a friend of mine who's an author. And she said, oh, you should write a book. You should write a book. And I said, well, the only thing I can get passionate about is atheism. So I went home and decided to start asking my friends. And at the time, I had men and women. And one of my friends said, oh, you got to meet Peter Boghossian, whom I assume you know, who wrote a manuscript for Atheist and is creator of the new Atheist app. And he's been a mentor ever since. He loves sushi.

and he's been a mentor ever since. He loves sushi, so I apply him with sushi dinners. He connects me with everyone. He helped me get a blurb on the book from Richard Dawkins. He connected me with Pitchstone Publishing, and we get together frequently, and he's just been phenomenal as a mentor. And he suggested I just do women, and I'm really glad I did. as a mentor. And he suggested I just do women and I'm really glad I did. And so I started out by asking friends and then connected with some of the atheist groups in Portland. When I became an atheist, I never joined anything. I slept in on Saturdays. It was pretty cool. And solicited

authors there. And then when I started to work with Pitched on Publishing, they wanted a little broader view. And so I reached out through social media and ended up adding six more women. So we have a total of 22. So I have a question about that. So your book obviously, it's Women Beyond Belief. A lot of the time, atheist activists and atheist leadership, that tends to be predominantly male. It's a male-centric – if anything about the atheist movement seems to be predominantly male. It's a male-centric, you know, if anything about the atheist movement seems to be striking, it's that it's not only predominantly male, it's white male.

So I'm curious, you've gone through, you've collected these stories, you have this, you know, female-focused book that you've put together. Why do you think it is that the atheist leadership and the atheist movement is driven so heavily by men? Is it harder to be an out atheist as a woman or is it just harder to break into this community? Is there something else that's going on there? Well, I think if we look back at 9-11 and the activism came after that, the Four Horsemen, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. They all came from the fields of science and philosophy. So that was the approach that started it. And those fields, you know, except for the last 30, 40 years have been really dominated by men. So I don't think that's surprising. I also noticed when I started

to do some research that the debaters were all men. There were very few women who debated William Lane Craig. Why do you think that is? Well, again, I don't know exactly why that is. I did, one of the first things I did when I noticed that was start to call writers I'd read. I called Louise Antony, for example, who wrote a book called Philosophers Without God. And she said, well, I did that book, but I've kind of moved on. I'm a philosophy professor. That's not my focus. I called Annie Laurie Gaylor from the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

She said, yeah, it's frustrating when people call and want to debate her. They ask for Dan, Dan Barker, her husband, and co-leader of the foundation. So, you know, I think it's like a number of things. I was director of the Oregon State Bar. And until the 70s, there were very few women in law schools. And now about half of the students in law schools are women. And if you have a dog, I don't know if you have a dog, but if you go to a vet, the majority of those are now women too. So it's changing. And I think as more women read books like this and get involved, hopefully there'll be more debaters and more voices.

It's interesting that we're talking about this because this is sort of an interesting parallel to the appendix to your book, which talks a lot about how the church is sort of predominantly male-driven as well. I grew up as a Lutheran. i went to concordia college in moorhead minnesota and the first course i took was religion yeah i can do that oof to thing too yeah sure you betcha just go back to my north dakota roots in any time at all so i feel like you should do the whole interview you should be that woman from fargo that would be amazing just to switch to fucking North Dakota pillow talk in the middle. Just be like, oh, that's the spot, don't you know? My husband goes back and he starts saying, yeah, I sure bet you.

There you go. Anyway, their first course was Religion 101, and they talked about the different oral strains of the Old Testament. There's one that's called E. There's one that's called D, P, and J. J was the first one. And they really analyzed that from a linguistic perspective. They talked about historical events that have been validated by other sources, like the exile in Babylon, which we know from the Babylonian record. And it was so interesting because a preacher or a Sunday school teacher had never said anything like that. All you learned were stories.

But most preachers don't talk about those things because, ooh, that might cause somebody to disbelieve and talk about this was written over time. It wasn't really monotheism for 600 years. It really had a pantheon and the other thing i did was i read a lot of books about mythology the goddess atheism and religion and i developed a presentation called from goddess to god elimination of the feminine divine and if people subscribe to my blog they can download a paper of that free. In fact, I'm going to be giving a presentation to the BC Humanists on Friday in Vancouver, British Columbia. And every time I do that, I get angry because number one, women don't know this history. And at a time when we're killing the earth,

this mother goddess or earth goddess or whatever you want to call the relationship with nature was phenomenal. Imagine what it was like in the Paleolithic to understand that the moon, there were 13 lunar cycles and that women had their period 13 times. And this whole goddess idea started out with a relationship with the earth, and it was very holistic. The goddess gave life. The goddess took people in death. So it was very cyclical versus, you know, later on it becomes more linear with writing,

and there's monotheism. So that to me was fascinating, and as I said, I kind of get angry because I never learned it. Sure, because there's no forum for it, right? You know, like we were talking earlier, I think it's interesting. And Cecil, you kind of pointed – brought my attention to it. I was lamenting kind of with my question to you that there's very little place for women in atheism or in the atheist movement. There's not been so much of an established place or presence and then there's no place really in organized religion for women either so it's the

whole religious category sort of seems to be exclusive of women so i think a book like this you know cataloging and organizing those stories and providing an outlet for those stories um you know really has has an important place and I think it would be really great if a psychologist looked at what it is like for a girl to grow up and worship a male figure. And I, you know, I try to think back of that in myself. What does it mean to say our father, our father, our father, or Jesus Christ, his son, your whole life? And there's no feminine in there.

And the history of the feminine divine is fascinating because Karen Armstrong posits, and she's a fairly well-known religious writer and very well-respected, that it probably took 600 years from 1200 B.C. until the exile in Babylon, 598 BCE, to firm up monotheism. That in the beginning, this was not a monotheistic religion, and they never edited it out. For example, there's a statement that says, God is head of the divine assembly with his gods.

I mean, even in the Old Testament right now, you read it, it says there was a group of gods. That's a bit of a whoopsie doodle in there, huh? Like, it's just like, guys, did anybody cut out that part where we mentioned other gods? I know we copied this word for word, but did we copy all the words? Satan was developed into what Christians know a lot later on. Satan was a god, an angel,

working for God. When he comes down to tempt Job, he's doing it as homework, an assignment. God says, go down and tempt Job. Yeah, he was project-based back then. They paid him per project. Exactly. You know, it's funny because that's sort of implied in the Ten Commandments, right?

Like you shall have no other gods before me implies that there are other gods, and this one should just be the number one god, don't you know? It's implied in the language. For sure, you betcha. And then in the exile in Babylon, what they did was they took the scholars, the scribes, you know, the elite, and when Nebuchadnezzar overtook Judah, when these people spent decades, decades in Babylon, what were they exposed to? Oh, let me guess. The Babylonian myth, Enuma Elish,

and what happens in Enuma Elish? You have Marduk, who says to the other male gods, hey, look, guys, you make me top dog, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Wait, isn't Marduk already top dog? I thought he was the top dog. He's 80 seconds.

That's cute. That was cute. But he said, I will get rid of this this dragon this she dragon tiamat and we'll be done with her and the guys go along and say cool man yeah let's do that and he cuts tiamat and in the process of cutting her creates the sky and earth. Plus, the Israelites are going, we're the chosen people. What happened to us? How did we lose? It's terrible to be the chosen

people and you just keep losing again and again. At some point, you're like, fucking choose somebody else. It's like being the Yankees. You spend all that money on your team and you lose? God damn it. Can you fucking pick the other guy for a little while? I want to be shirts for a while.

Man. As opposed to foreskins. Shirts versus foreskins. I love it. It's the worst team you ever got drafted for. You're standing there in the line. Don't pick me. Don't pick me.

Don't pick me. There's just a guy standing there with a sharp rock and an evil look. Oh yeah, and it probably was a flint or something like that. It wasn't steel. They hadn't yet gotten there, right? That's where it came from. There are

pictographs and other things that show the circumcision. Why did that start? Yeah. I don't know how that catches on. Right? You know how to catch. I can understand Coca-Cola.

Like, that makes sense. But circumcision doesn't. Yeah. Because there had to be that first guy who's like, all right, well, here's the old calamari ring. And everybody else is looking at him like, what the hell is wrong with you, man? Like, I'm not doing that. Well, God said it. Well, fuck

that, dude. I'm not. No, that's crazy. That's literally crazy. When early Christianity was preaching to the Gentiles, the Gentiles said, count me out. That ain't happening. Yeah, no kidding. I'm not doing that. If that's what it takes to be part of your religion, count me out.

They say, okay, well, you don't have to. Yeah, I wouldn't do that to be a part of my own family. I'd be like, I'm sorry. You want me to cut the what off my what now? Yeah, exactly. I got to go. All right, so let's talk a little bit about some of the common themes

that run through some of these stories. Now, a lot of times when people talk about losing their faith, there sometimes can be a theme of regret. Is that a common theme throughout a lot of this book? I think the women who wrote this book are very happy they are where they are. And I think like the first essay that Anne writes that talks about one of the things she says was we were taught we didn't just commit sin but we as women were sin and the shame and the guilt yeah it took her years to get over it one of the things she did was just right and right and right and I had a cute email a very

nice thoughtful email from her a few weeks ago and she she said, I'm sitting on the beach and I had this epiphany that I feel good about myself. And I feel calm and serene and it may be the first time in my life. And I think writing the essay helped. Oh, my gosh. So I don't really think there's a lot of regret. So I don't really think there's a lot of regret. And I hope this book is going to be able to help women and men who are on the verge. I think we all look to models.

I know when I was growing up and took a course on evolution, I really thought it was cool, Australopithecus and all, giganthropus and all of that. But I never saw a paleontologist who was a woman it never dawned on me you either became a secretary a teacher a nurse and i wasn't real big on the hospital thing so that wasn't going to work out so i thought i was going to be a teacher and it's not that i couldn't have been something else, but you just don't see models. Sure. Recovering from religion is going to put the book up and I'll probably be on their podcast eventually because people are attracted to that particular organization to help them get out, to help them get over it and to feel good about themselves. And you read these stories and if your path is any easier than Anne, you start to breathe a sigh of relief. Like, well, at least I don't have it that bad. As you read through this book, I wonder if there's other

stories of women, you know, that regret, you know, even, even just being a believer for themselves for a little while, you know, like, like, because I know, I know, I look back on my life and think, you know, there's time wasted in church, time wasted worrying about the rapture, time wasted about, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like I've wasted my time sometimes when I think about when I was religious. Right. Not, not the regret of becoming atheist, but the regret of not having that sooner or having wasted time. Should we talk about, you guys want to talk about sex?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent of the time. I just sort of assume that's what we're always talking about actually well okay I was taught and I don't even say taught because

I remember asking my mom at the zoo why the llamas were riding piggyback why were they riding piggyback why are the llamas riding piggyback and she never explained it to me just dodge the question let's get ice cream let's get ice cream I'll buy you one of those plastic dolphins Are they riding piggybacks? I mean, are the llamas riding piggyback? And she never explained it to me. Oh, just dodged the question.

Let's get ice cream. Let's get ice cream. I'll buy you one of those plastic dolphins. I'm moving on to the camels or something. I don't know. Bob's just like, fuck the llamas. No, wait, wrong answer. Well, actually, don't go to the camels because they're humping.

So, you know, in fifth grade, you had this movie about menstruation. And, of course, the guys want to know what it's about. So you're on the playground after the movie and everyone wants to know what it's about. Well, the movie was made by Kotex and Walt Disney. Wait, what? Please say there was an animated tampon. Oh, my God. Hey, guys, I'm Tampy the tampon. Guys, this was before tampons.

Kotex, napkins. This was in the 50s, sorry, 60s. Anyway. See, so I look at each other like, there was a before? I'm dating myself. So anyway, it was so obtuse. I came home and I ran in the door and said, mom, mom, what's menstruation? And then after she explained what it was, I never said the word out loud again.

But she only explained the female part. My mother or my father never told me about anything about sexual relations. And I purloined a copy. I think I may mention this in the essay of my sister's dirty book called 79 Park Avenue, which I was in a used bookstore in California and bought a copy. I was going to read it again. And that's where I learned what intercourse was. This shop owner rapes a girl.

That's how I learned what sex was. That doesn't give you a very good impression of sex. But I know my attitude towards sex was so influenced by that. And I ended up being engaged to this guy and ended up sleeping with him and obviously lost my virginity. Never did see the guy again. But I know, you know, I'm not a virgin anymore. So what do you do? You know, okay, that's that's shot. So then you have sex, but you always still feel a little guilty about it. So I think particularly for women, religious attitude towards sex, I would put right at the top of the list. Yeah, it is. It is not natural. It's not something you should be doing.

You shouldn't get pleasure from it. And we're going to talk about it. So when you when you when you write these stories, I want to talk a little bit about some of the stories too because you have this uh you have to collect all these you have to you have to collect them and then read through them and uh and are there any that you read that you just that just broke your heart that were just like you just you just read it and you thought my goodness this is this is a heart-wrenching story actually a number of these had some terrible personal tragedies involved the first first one, Anne, who was raised as a fundamentalist, and I just gave her a big hug. We all got together. The first authors got together at the coast and talked and shared, and for some of them,

it was the first time they talked about it. And the other one is Kale Wright, which happens to be a pseudonym, and her falling in love with this boy on campus and then being called before these three elders in the Jehovah Witness church, congregation, etc. And she finds out later, as they're accusing her and are going to disfellowship her and kick her out of the church, one of the guys was having an affair, and he married oh gosh so talk about hypocritical yeah right now i can tell you that she married him and they have two little kids and they're happy and all that so that had a good ending but again here's this attitude sex is bad yeah don't do it we're gonna get you uh and you know somebody used it as a little leverage

in their own case to rat on her and turn her in. But what a, you know, what a, just a terrible way to approach life. Something so natural that gives you pleasure and you're told, this is bad, don't do it. You know, that sex is bad don't do it you know that sex is bad message though it's particularly aimed at women although the sex is bad you know message and what have you is you know sort of cross-gender but it seems to be internalized um and leveled at women you know as a weapon much more than men like you know maybe this is just anecdotal, but I don't encounter the same number of men who have the internalized guilt over sex and sexuality that we have certainly talked to women who have internalized guilt over sex and sexuality from their religious experience.

Well, that's because you guys don't have any control. See? That's true. So we're the brakes. That's true. We're the brakes. Yeah, we're just monsters, animals. And I knew in high school that there were women who

were sleeping with men and i assure you what are their names and phone numbers for research purposes i just i'm gonna at my high school year reunion next year i'm gonna mention them all but they were they were seen as sluts you, clearly the circle of friends I was with were going, look what they did. And there were five or six who got pregnant. And one woman mysteriously took a

trip on an airplane in my guess it was to New York. Or maybe to Canada, I don't know. But she wasn't pregnant when she came back. That happens on airplanes, actually. When that mask comes down. It depends on where your layers are.

That baby may get off. Right. And they lose your luggage. You guys are too much. So I think that women are held responsible. And it's this whole attitude toward dress. I mean you hear people say today about recent rapes on campus. Well, if the girl wouldn't have dressed like that in 2016, you still hear the same thing.

Well, if she shouldn't have gone there, she shouldn't have had that much to drink. Yeah. She shouldn't have worn those clothes. She wasn't dressed right. It's pervasive today, too. So if people were going to find this book, where would they look? Well, it will probably be in local bookstores soon. The publishing date is October 1st, but Amazon released it a month early. And it's also on Barnes and Noble's site. So it's available

online. It's just a print version for now. We are going to get a Kindle version. And the publisher is producing an audio book. Well, we will put a link to the book, Women Beyond Belief, Discovering Life Without Religion. We'll put a link to the book on this episode. This is episode 315. Karen, thanks so much for joining us tonight.

We really do appreciate it. This was great. You're entirely welcome. The pleasure was mine. 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.

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We want to send a big heartfelt glory hole to all the patrons and people who rate us. You fucking rock. So this story is from Right Wing Watch. David Duke has the fucking biggest hard-on for trump he does he does this guy is fucking bobbing head erect for fucking donald trump it's like every time he he you know like when the the mother bird comes and the mother bird has like a worm and all the baby birds open their mouth. Right. It's like – Just to receive. Exactly.

It's just like many erotic films. Erotic films. Yes. That's what we're calling. Yes. Erotic. The – yes, the old eight-minute movie. The erotic movies where there may be one or more –

Young ladies. Young ladies. Young ladies. Newbile young women. young women right right on their knees with their mouth open similar to birds right that's how i envision david duke and i'm glad i'm glad that we do not have a video because he is a featureless monster because what david you know we're talking about birds it's like if david duke's face was, if we could compare it to anything in nature, it's like when you get a turkey. It's going to be great.

And then you reach up inside the turkey and you pull out all of the giblets. Right. And then you look at them and you think, who the fuck eats these things? Poor people. If you were to arrange them in a certain way, you would have David Duke's face, I think. He sort of looks like a hawk has stripped all the flesh from a skull. If you were to arrange them in a certain way, you would have David Duke's face, I think. He sort of looks like a hawk has stripped all the flesh from a skull. And then somebody haphazardly pieced him back together.

Exactly, yeah. They mason-verged him back together. But they just did like – he's like that woman whose face got eaten by the chimpanzee. And they're like, hey, man, first face transplant. Then they unveil it. they're like, hey, man, first face transplant. And then they unveil it. And you're like, oh. Oh, no. I'll be like, I'll be like. You're looking.

You're hiding over there. You're just like, they pull the sheet. I'll be like, ah. It's like Darkman, you know. It's like fucking real skin stitched into the big cuts on your face. Darkman.

You're a fucking monster. Oh my god. This fucking Liam Neeson. Don't look at me. Don't look at me. A chimp ate off my face. But at least, it's like you gotta walk up to that woman. The best part about that woman, though, is that she doesn't have hateful thoughts to match the face.

You know what I mean? She's not gonna be like, you snooze, you get screwed by the Jews. You know what I mean? Like she's not going to be like, you snooze, you get screwed by the Jews. You know what I mean? I don't even know what that means. All right. So let's listen to David Duke be very hateful. But also get ready to receive Trump. Oh, God.

He's right in the fucking uvula, man. Donald Trump last night condemned, basically talked about the immigration from 1965 to 19, or here it is, 66, actually, to 2016. What the fuck is that popping sound? What is going on? Can nobody afford a recording device? Fucking popping sound. Hey, guys, let's record this on a fucking Fisher-Price Ye Olde record player.

Exactly. There's like a – I know. It's a – Oh, yeah. Could you put it on 45? 5 RPM. Exactly.

And how he said, well, there's been many good immigrants. But then he went on to say, but the fact is we have to go back to basically the national origins, that we have to preserve the origins of this country. So Native Americans. Yeah. That's what he's saying. Right. I'm sure that's what he really means. Trump is pro-Native America.

Yeah. Just like most of white America. No, he likes them because they have casinos. He gets good tips. It was a very, very implicit, almost explicit fact that we've got to take America back and we have to defend the heritage of the people who created America. And that's what's going on here. There is a purposeful effort to ethnically cleanse us from the land again this guy uses the word ethnic cleansing as if he understands what it means or as if he means you

hire a maid to do it right you know what i mean like is there any way you could come in and ethnically cleanse my apartment you know there's a lot of mildew in the tub could you ethnically cleanse that he doesn't know what it means yeah he's somebody just comes in with a broom and sweeps all the mexicans out of the room no the mexican would have the broom come on it's confusing who's supposed to do this work don't be ridiculous where our forefathers that the land our forefathers created and built the nation we built the constitution the rights that's really what's going on here and uh and it was a great speech last night. I was ecstatic. When they come here, they fucking sign up for all that.

They check fucking all the boxes that say, I want to do that. I'm cool with that. Yeah, right. But he doesn't want them. Yeah, but the problem is he doesn't want them to be okay with it. He doesn't want them to have all his nice things. I really think that's the problem, right? He's like, look, these are our toys. I don't want them to have all his nice things. I really think that's the problem, right? He's like, look, these are our toys. I don't want to share my toys. He's a

petulant fucking child. God, he's like a fucking kid you hated in kindergarten who wouldn't share his truck because he was a racist. And I'm just so excited, everybody. And I'm excited, Andrew, to think about the fact. Yay, Trump.

You made the racists happy. Yeah. Oh, you got the KKK vote. You got the white supremacist vote sealed up. Oh, God. That my whole life, I mean, literally my entire adult life from the time I was old enough to drive. When I could drag a black man behind my car. Even before that, I've been dedicated and devoted to saving this country. And one of the main issues I've been fighting about speaking about publicly since.

Is it public speaking when you're just standing at the podium of your burning cross rally? Exactly. Is that still public speaking? I don't know if that counts. It's a private group. But it's dark outside. Not anymore. Not in my neighborhood.

Since 1967 has been this massive immigration which is destined to destroy America, all the rights we have, every principle we have, and our own people and the future of our children. We have every principle we have on our own people and the future of our children to think that there is a great possibility if we work hard enough to go to the United States Senate and be part one of the leaders in the effort to stop this massive immigration. Massive immigration. I don't know what he's referring to. Because we talked about this. You know, there's not it's not a huge group of people that are coming into this country. It's about a million a year. Turn this country around. In fact, the first act that I'm going to do, Andrew, when I get in is.

Is lynch a black guy. Black guy. It has nothing to do with immigration, Andrew. But I'm just going to do it because I can. A man can dream, right? A man can dream. And is to put a bill forward, make these senators stand up one way or the other. dream and is to put a bill forward make these senators stand up one way or the other put a bill forward in the united states senate to repeal the 1965 immigration reform bill and to restore

the same policies we had before that and restore uh this country to the heritage of the people who created this nation respect for all races but well, we're going to make sure that our people survive and prosper. Our people. Our people. Respect for all races, which I kind of have to say because it's 2016.

I don't really believe it. But anyway, you know, back of the bus, Blackie. Oh, gosh. As another well-known skeptic might say, color me skeptical. Right?

And we preserve America as fundamentally a nation of Western Christian civilization where the people of Western Christian descent have a right to be preserved and promoted and really ultimately go to the stars. That guy's a fucking lunatic. We should be promoted and go to the stars. That guy's a fucking lunatic. We should be promoted and go to the stars. Congratulations, Cecil. You've been promoted. You get to go to the stars. Wait, the closest star is this one. It's not a place you want to go.

That's not a vacation home type place. Two, the nearest star is what? Four and a half light years away or something like that? Oh, you with your light years so there's like the the the two stars that you have an opportunity to go to but you have to go to more than one if you go to the the stars the stars maybe you just dance with them i don't know oh yeah i get it i get it now all right all right let's listen to this other clip because this is where this is just like fucking most anti-Semitic. It's just like,

he's like fucking carving skins off Jews faces while he's talking. Like he's whittling down Jew bodies. That's what he's doing. He shows up at the Senate. He's like, where do I put my Jew skin lamp? We do have to have some people though in politics that just get out there and say look we've got all these groups the mexican americans have representatives of a caucus

the uh black caucus is out there for african americans you know the white americans have a caucus too it's called congress right it's called the rest of the established powers all of the people everybody else it's called very called very often, at least until eight years ago, the executive branch. The judicial branch. Judicial branch. With now a couple of exceptions. A couple of exceptions. And the legislative branch.

But that's like the people who bitch and moan about, oh, man, it must be easy to live on welfare when you got all your food for free. But like, well, do it. You can do it right now go get your job and do it right now just go go do it right now and then you like well i like my job and eating food yeah i like living in a place where i might not get shot today i like not roaches that's what i like i like to sleep in a bed that doesn't have bugs within it i don't want to to break another one of Chicago's records by being another murderer. 502, 503. It's like you're playing a really bad game of hide and go seek. The Jewish group spend millions of dollars to advance their issues.

We've got to have one guy that just not only votes for us but openly stands up for us. Yeah, there's not one guy. There's not one guy who pays attention to white issues. What? Won't somebody think of rich white men? And I'm trying to do that. And I think if I'm in the Senate, don't you, that we're going to give Trump some space so we can move toward our positions. I hope so.

Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's why I think it's so important, because it'll open up the media to these issues we also need somebody to talk about the um the hebrew people you know i mean yes here it comes here i love he plays pausing he's pausing he's like can i say jews he's like I allowed to? I'll just say. I normally say kike right now. Can I say kike? No? Fuck.

I don't know what else to call them. I don't. Do they have another name? Because we've got a situation where they're now saying, well, it's okay if you are racist and you're against immigration, but we have, we have to include, include the Jews. What does that even mean? It's okay. If you're racist,

but we have to include the Jews. If it's okay, if you're racist, but include the Jews. Hey guys, we're going to burn some crosses. Did you bring any Jews? Where's our Jews?

No. The most Jew list cross burning I've ever been to in this movement so you know i mean the the jews are shifting they're pivoting uh to try and support a trump type position now and not actually you know of course overwhelmingly there's not even you know they're gonna trump will get fewer jewish votes than any candidate for president well not to support it but to be involved in it. But that's part of the control of the opposition, isn't it? You know? Well, this is what I'm saying.

This is what I'm saying. They want to get in there and control what's going on. What does that even mean? They want to get in there and control what's going on? I think they're saying that they're going to jump on the Trump campaign? But he said that they're not going to vote for for him so what are they gonna do they're just gonna

know they're gonna get into the campaign and control the campaign well that's how jews do it tom i don't under like i don't understand the crazy magic control powers that get ascribed to jews all the time understand it either these fucking crazy anti-semites like the jews have fucking magic control parts do they have hypno eyes they're lizards like every jewish person i know just is like a person like they just walk around and they poop and they eat they are just people people yeah i've never met one with fucking hypno eyes that's probably what they want me to believe and so you know i mean because this is the problem we know this is the problem is these people um these jews i'm gonna say i'm gonna say that i'm gonna save that clip that's amazing you know what we have a problem it's these people

these jews so i mean we know that and and that's something that i've got to really be very uh clear about you know the there's no question that the controlled jewish that the jewish establishment for instance the control of hollywood uh these are not european christians they it's a jewish control hollywood and the jewish establishment in this country this jewish mafia that controls media mafia the jewish mafia why are they so worried about who controls hollywood yeah it's just movies yeah we hear this all the time it's like the jewish mafia why are they so worried about who controls hollywood yeah it's just movies yeah we hear this all the time it's like the jews control all the movies okay well what even like that's fucking crazy but what if they did it's just fucking movies

if if if if this fucking crazy jew conspiracy nonsense were true they're already it's like the it's like the reptiles right they're already it's like the it's like the reptiles right they're already super rich yeah so what do they need your more money for yeah like have we not realized that at some point if you're super fucking rich more money doesn't do more things for you yeah well what good would it do for me not let it the super rich jews want to get rich they're fucking already rich. What's fucking step two? Right? Step one, collect underpants.

Step two. Step three, profit. There's no middle ground. Step one is get rich. Step two is get richer. Step three is get even richer. And that's all there is to it. But for what purpose?

It's so confusing. At a certain point, it doesn't matter whether you're a single billionaire or a multibillionaire. Right. And that's what I mean, right? Like if somebody is like, hey, man, what's effectively the difference between having $150 million and $250 million? There's no difference. Yeah. It's not like at $150 million, I'm like, oh, I can't afford to go somewhere or buy something.

There's literally – you can go anywhere, buy anything. Banking and politics, they're the biggest contributors for Hillary Clinton. They're not giving hardly any money to Trump, by the way. But they are leading our country to disaster. It doesn't mean every single Jew is doing it, but Jewish economic, political, and banking establishment is absolutely the driving force for the destruction of Western civilization. No, that's super anti-Semitic. I don't consider that to be anti-Semitic. I just consider it to be truthful statements about the reality of the world.

Well, the truth is anti-semitic these are your trump supporters people sir here we go that's fucking amazing that's a that's good so i want to thank our newest patrons kylerler, Jarvis, Joyce, Glenno, Basement Dildo, Wilson, the almighty Thundercunt, Clara, Atheist Indian Liberal, Jeff, Scully, or Scully. I'm going to go with Scully. I think Scully's better. The more often Scully pops into my mind, the better. John, one of my new favorites, Manos, the Hands of Fate. Deniz, I think.

It's hard to pronounce that. Haas, I like that one. The Whore of Babylon's Cuckold Husband. I love that! Sharky Xmas. Jules. Steven. Patrick.

Wesley. Matthew. Nick. Hieronymus Douche. Oh, Hieronymus Douche. That's awesome. Atheistically speaking. Oh, there's our guy.

Chris. Insert funny username here. Well, James, DB, Joshua, Adrian, President Drumpf, the Lizard Mongo, and Xavier. Thanks so much for your generous donations. We really do appreciate it, guys. We are going to be hiring very soon a assistant all because of you. We have this studio because of you. We are going to be going to all because of you. We have this studio because of you. We are going to be going to Europe because of you.

So we want to thank you guys also very much for your generous donations. We went through our resumes this week and we started making calls. If you are waiting for someone to say we looked at your resume or whatever, Tom's not going to do that. I'm just saying

Tom's not going to do that okay i'm really not earlier today when tom was sharing with me he called these people on the phone the people that he that were planning on uh some of the people that were planning on interviewing uh further he called him on the phone and he had notes and i looked him in the face and i said this is the most work you've ever done for the show and he laughed laughed and he said, ah, the truth. But we are in the midst. Tom did a fair amount of work weeding through some of these resumes. He's found and called several people.

And so we are going to go to the next steps and hopefully we'll have someone hired. It's my hope within a week. We'll see what happens. I'd like to have this done by the end of next week. So we'll going to go to the next steps and hopefully we'll have someone hired. It's my hope within a week. We'll see what happens. I'd like to have this done by the end of next week. So we'll have somebody soon. So we want to thank everybody for sending your resume. There was a lot of really super, very, almost overqualified people. More than almost.

Like, let me just say, like, you know, in all honesty, we got a ton, a ton of resumes and so many of them were kind of incredible yeah i mean they were like i mean honestly they were kind of incredible um we are spoiled for choice we really are spoiled for choice and if we had an option to hire all of you we would do that and do no work ourselves that sounds amazing but we don't have that much money maybe that'll be an ultimate patreon goal we'll just keep hiring just keep hiring and just outsource everything but the dick jokes. Outsource my voice. There's people moving my mouth. They're pressing on my stomach to get the air in.

We're just laying on chaise lounges eating peeled grapes. But we do – I mean I look through some of these resumes and they're very – there's very accomplished people. But truly, there's 10 people, 12 people who could do this job in their sleep. Yeah. And so we just – we only have the opportunity to hire one. So we want to start out with a message from Elvis. This is from Elvis and this is his version of Bruce Springsteen's famous hit. I fucking love this guy.

Elvis is awesome. Glory, ho! He was crucified. Glory, ho! For giving head to an anonymous guy. Glory, ho! Glory, ho! Oh, it's amazing.

Thank you, Elvis. As usual. And like 13 and a half seconds. Fucking amazing It's beautiful It's just beautiful We want to thank Bill Bill sent us in some bitters And we had a chance to try those last week

That was great They are Thank you so much for sending them It was very kind I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do With Memphis Barbecue Bitters But I'm going to figure it out We tried it

You tried it last week Tried it in an old fashioned In an old fashioned last weekend I did And it was interesting It wasn't bad It wasn't bad but I'm going to figure it out. We tried it. You tried it last week. Tried it in an old-fashioned way. In an old-fashioned way. I did. I did. And it was interesting. It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad.

It was just interesting. It's interesting. It's a different flavor than I'm used to. We're looking to get them some recipes. Maybe we can have a little bitters off. I would win a bitter off. We want to thank Alfredo. Alfredo is our sort of WordPress go-to guy. When our site goes down,

when things happen, Alfredo's there to help us out. Now, we do pay Alfredo, but Alfredo recently reached out to us and said, look, I just want to do the update every month. And we said, well, we'll pay you for your time. He's like, no, no, no. I just want to do this. This is kind of my service to you guys. So we want to thank you,

Alfredo, for doing that. It's just such a nice thing to do. What a nice thing to do. So we got a message from Sarah, and it's a pretty long message. And it essentially is talking about a lot of people are comparing Trump to Hillary and saying, ah, it's fucking – it's damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of feeling. There's no real excitement around Hillary. They're just kind of like you're voting so the other guy doesn't get in. Nobody is really thinking Hillary is good in any way. Why do we think that that's the case?

Now, Sarah in this email brings up the idea that there might be something that a woman – it's because she's a woman that there's a reason why that people aren't as excited about her or that they aren't. I think there's something to that. I think there may be something to that. I will say this. The reasoning for me is I feel like it's going to be politics as usual. I feel

like when Obama came in, he had a lot of fucking high-minded ideals. He blew his fucking wad on Obamacare which had all the teeth pulled out of it you know it's not single payer it's not anything it's not anything that even the rest of the world does right and it's a really poor substitute and it's it's had its ups and downs and some people have thrived off it and had some really great things happen some people have not had some really great things happen because of it and i just feel like it's not a great system

um it's what we got from him but he also had a lot of other and i just feel like it's not a great system um it's what we got from him but he also had a lot of other high-minded ideals and he's just fucking snuffed out nothing happened but obama was easy to get excited about because he was such a dynamic speaker yeah so he so in the early days of the election he was such an amazing speaker for me hillary clinton's not a great speaker. She's just not. She's hard for me to – I listen to her speak and I don't get that stir. You know what I mean? That big chest.

It's true. Like I don't get the lump in the throat. I don't get any of that. I feel too – the other thing too is that since they were in power for eight years, the same party would take over. My first thought is are you going to change much? Because a lot of – they're not on a hope and change platform anymore. There's no change. It's just – it's now status quo.

What I think Hillary is is a very smart, steady hand on the rudder. Right. I do. I do. I think as a statesman, I think she is terribly well accomplished. She's an incredibly smart human being. I think she'll do a fine job steering the ship. I just don't think she's going to hit the gas the way you and I kind of want to see the gas get hit. Yeah, she's a woman driver.

That's why. She's not Asian. the uh the thing the other thing i want to mention though too is if she gets in the microscope that is going to be on her as a woman i think is it's going to be horrible horrible i think that there will be a lot of a lot of garbage that she's going to have to weed through they will try to impeach her present oh we got a message from ke, and Keith says, hey – he was talking about our last episode, and he's like, hey, I'm the guy that Lawrence Wella knew that we had on – it was two episodes ago when Trump had his Brexit. And he put in quotes, foresight. He appears to have completely been unaware of what it was a month before the vote. And now I did read this, and I did did read his response and really i think he knew

that it was going to be happening he just wasn't familiar with the term brexit i think but i want to read it because it's great can i just read this real quick because the transcript takes seconds the transcript it's like three sex acts and brexit your position i ask huh brexit the brits leaving the eu i prompt realizing that his lack of familiarity with one of the most pressing issues in Europe is for him no concern nor liability at all. Oh, yeah. I think they should leave. I think he does know about it, though. I think that that's disingenuous.

I think he does know. I think he would know. I find it hard to believe that he could be an international businessman and not know anything about that. Yeah, right. You know what I mean? like i was watching it carefully of course you were yeah real estate is i'm in real estate he's in real estate right like you you knew that if brexit was going to happen that it was going to drive rates down he's going to move money into the and i don't i don't know that i can pin the anti sort of the xenophobic stuff on him for saying they should leave because as a real estate mogul it fucking makes sense that you would want them to leave because the dollar for me fucking

yeah was you know yeah it was brexit's been great for my business exactly so yeah so we are going to be going to uh on the monday we had mentioned this on the yeah let's be super clear because the date got mixed up so So it was originally a Sunday. It was originally a Sunday. It was a Sunday on the email that someone sent us, but that was a wrong date. Now, this time we are going to be – it's the 19th of September. We will be at Lagunitas to hang out with the Ethical Humanist Society and just hang out at Lagunitas and just chill. So if you want to come out and see us and hang out and give some money to a good cause, you can go to this episode's show notes and you can buy tickets that way.

We got a ton of messages about whether or not Jesus would be a good president and why Jesus wouldn't be a good president. Not even that. Why Jesus wouldn't qualify. These ranged from Jesus wasn't born in the United States. Which is really funny. Which is true. To Jesus would have only been 33 when he was running.

I will point out, though, that all the people that are being pedantic about Jesus only being 33, he's actually like 1,900 plus years old. Not actually. Well, does it count? I mean, if you die. I don't know. Does it stop the clock? I don't know if you stop the clock. It's actually like 1900 plus years old. Not actually. Well, does it count? I mean, if you die. I don't know. Does it stop the clock? I don't know if you stop the clock.

It's confusing. I don't know if you keep going. Is it like a chess game where you press the button and you don't go until the next turn? You stop until the next turn? I don't know. I would also say that maybe Jesus doesn't have the requisite number of heartbeats per year to actually be, or the requisite number of real to be. So there's a lot of things that Jesus needs to be president. But we got a lot of messages from a lot of people who said,

hey, you wouldn't be able to be because of X. Plus it's so awkward shaking hands because it's all sloppy. You can't hold babies because you can't grip them very well. There's a lot of reasons. Let's get the solution right through. We got a message. This is from Travis, and Travis was wondering what our stance on Syrian refugees are coming to the US. I feel like the Syrian refugee crisis is a major international humanitarian crisis.

First of all, it needs to be managed internationally. But in terms of how many or who we let in, I think there needs to be a reasonable vetting process just like there already is for immigrants that come into this country that claim refugee status. That's not a status that they just say like, oh, you look poor and sad. Here's refugee status. You have dirt on your face. Here you go. Right. There's already a process in place for bringing in refugees into this country and giving them refugee status i don't have a specific yeah we keep them in a camp yeah that's how this works they just put them in a box and lock the box and then you know you open

it up to find it if they're dead or alive they're just you know refugee cats that's it's schrodinger schrodinger's schrodinger syria yeah yeah Syria. Yeah, I guess I don't have a specific stance on Syrian refugees that's different than any other kind of political refugee. We have a process in place. The process has been in place for quite some time. I feel like it's a safe and reasonable and very thorough process, and I see no reason why it couldn't apply to Syrians. I do see some of the Syrian refugees that are coming in from other countries and specifically in some of the European countries that have let people come in

and there's been some problems. There's been rapes. There's been people who have been stabbed. There's been attacks. There's been a lot of stuff that has been not so good about letting in a lot of refugees. I think you do have to vet those people i think no

matter what you're gonna have to vet them but i think you just make sure you do a thorough job you just make sure you do a thorough job and if it's like oh yeah you're kind of a violent douche bag yeah enjoy syria because that's really a violent place full of douchebags so you've got it you've got a that's your place start right or new jersey we can't we just send new jersey this is like the fucking fourth dimension for lizards over there we got a message now this is from uh this is from desert dave and desert dave calls in on the phone all the time now desert dave had mentioned last week he was like hey i'm in chicago it's short notice i just want to know if you guys could be busyances are if you send us a message or send us a tweet

or any of that stuff and be like, hey, I'm in Chicago today. What are you guys doing? Chances are we're going to be pretty busy. I know I leave a very busy life. I have a lot. Clearly we have the podcast to do, but then I also have a lot of other hobbies and I also have a family and do things. I know Tom has a family as well and does

other things. Well, partially a family. What an asshole! Oh, you and your truth. So we both are very, almost always very busy. So if someone sends us a message, well, it would be awesome to hang out with people. That's not an option most of the days. We're just very, very busy.

We'd love to do it. We just don't want people to take offense that we can't. We would love to do it. But to get both of us together once a week to record requires like it kind of requires a lot of yeah of commitment to say finagling of calendars and yeah absolutely i mean it's a real thing that we have to sit down and say okay let's let's do our calendar for the next month or two to make those commitments to make sure that we can even get the show done so it please don't take offense if we can't meet you. We'd love to meet you guys. We just have to do kind of organized, structured events because it's just so hard to plan our lives.

Yeah. And so with that being said, Desert Dave, we would have loved to have had a drink with you. We hear from you all the time. That being said, Desert Dave said, here's the thing. I sent you guys a song. Now, it's a minute and a half. He said I can make it into short clips, but we started listening to this earlier. I don't want this any shorter. We stopped listening to it because we were laughing so hard. So we're going to play this. This is Desert Dave, and here's the song.

Who's that guy? I love it so much. I love it so much. I love it already. Oh, my God. This is amazing. It's kind of Willie Nelson. It totally does.

The other side of the glory hole. I woke up this morning, sent a room all over my face. sent a whole room all over my face the black wine spattered my behind and my mouth had a crackery taste and I came back in a blinding flash I said have mercy on my soul it's from the crust on my chin I knew right where I'd been

down at the glory hole it's so bad it's so bad on It's so bad. It's a whole song. It is. I know it's wrong, but it sure feels right. Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? He's got a mighty nice shaft and a lot of girth.

Big sexy laugh and for what it's worth, I figured out who's on the other side of the glory hole. Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? This is amazing. It's Jesus. It brings a little tear to the eye. What has happened to our lives

that this is now something people send in from across the country? You know, what's amazing to me is that we didn't even make that up. It's not ours.

We didn't even make that up. It's not ours. And we had nothing to do with the creation of that at all. Nothing. We had nothing to do with the original song or the use of glory hole as the moniker that identifies us. Yeah.

We had nothing to do with that. That's all listener created. It's outstanding. That really is amazing. What a fucking bunch of degenerates. I know. You guys are disgusting. I love you.

Never change. Thank you so much though it was really excellent uh so we got a message uh this is from uh dr richard and dr richard sends in a message of uh about shoe bat the yoga pant-wearing devil worshiper. There's a sign at the bottom here, Tom, that you wanted to talk about. Yeah, so it says, Warning. Homos, feminists, porn freaks, pot smokers, atheists, thugs, yoga pants, which aren't even people. Everything else is a people. Cutters, Muslims, witches, idolaters, masturbators, eternal damnation.

Fucking yoga pants get a fucking – they don't even have a choice into what they're made of. The spandex is just sitting there being like, I could be a Michael Phelps dick. That's where they could be or they could be yoga pants. They're the only – the yoga pants are there. They're the only part that isn't a person, right? It doesn't identify a human being at all but what does the bible have against yoga pants i look at the sign i'm like oh i'm down with homos i'm down with feminists i'm down with porn freaks i'm fine with pot smokers i am an atheist

i'll pass on thugs yoga pants are the greatest invention of all mankind cutters though what's that i think like people that cut themselves. Really? I think. Huh. I think they just need some help and a hug. Why would they go to hell? That doesn't make any sense.

Muslims, what about all the rest of the other religions? Very specifically, witches, that's not real. Idolaters, that's Catholics. Masturbators, that's everybody. It's fucking literally everybody. My nine-year-old son is going to hell. So we got a haiku. This is from Hoss.

Laughing at lizards, find out friend believes. Oh, shit. Laugh even harder. That's's great that's friendship that's real friendship that is friendship hoss we got a message from justin and justin commented on patreon on our last episode one of our last episodes we were talking about um the lady who's like muslims pray that uh we get abortions that are right the americans get abortions, that Americans get abortions. And Justin says, terrorists pray for abortions because we all know that radical Islamists are super concerned about women's reproductive freedom. I think that's great.

That's super awesome. We got a message from Sean, and Sean sent in a funny story. And the funny story is – So weird. a funny story and the funny story is so weird holy potato found at quebec seniors resident sacred spot found by cook makes residents feel safe washed over also kind of grossed me out yeah right that's rot yeah like your potato has a cross-shaped rotten spot or there's like there's like a fucking a piece of detritus or something. The potato fucking grew itself around.

Right. Right? Like that's what we're looking at here. Nothing good is happening in this potato. There's a potato along the thing. There's a cross in it. Clearly there's a cross in it. But this isn't a potato. You'd be like, and is it in a frame?

It appears to be a framed potato. A fripato. Frippatato. Well, we'll be visiting Irelandland i'm sure they will have plenty of god we're gonna have to eat irish food i'm bringing snacks i'm packing so much snacks this food oh god the food is gonna be fucking garbage we're going to fucking england scotland and ireland we're going to like the we may it's the boiled country oh my god essentially boil things that's just you know i also want to make a quick comment that like every time these guys We're going to like the – It's the boiled country. Oh my god. Essentially boil things.

That's just – I also want to make a quick comment that like every time these guys get fucking super excited about a cross, like do they not realize it's just two intersecting lines? This is hardly a complex shape. It's not like that thing doesn't happen all the time. It's not a Buddhist mandala, right? Like it just appeared out of nowhere. It just appeared out of nowhere. So we want to thank Karen Garst, the author of Women Beyond Belief, Discovering Life Without Religion, for joining us tonight. You can find her book and her blog.

Links to both of those things will be on this episode of Show Notes 315. We want to thank her again for coming on and talking about her book. So that's going to wrap it up for tonight. We're going to leave you, like we always do, with a skeptic's creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit.

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