Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 324: SPLC - Add Me Too [With Seth Andrews]

Episode Date: November 7, 2016

Special Guest: Seth Andrews from The Thinking Atheist  A big thanks to Elvis for creating the song that starts this episode!    Listener Submissions:  Alex Jones is really a Super Saiyan:  Ever want to own a bunch of absurdly creepy wax Amish children? Well now you can:   

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. And it's clear from Genesis 11 that this profusion of language is bad. This represents a curse from God. A fucking rock tower. Kind of a dick. Gotta build a tower. Up to God.

What's the foundation? For your rock tower? As it gets smaller, it needs to become exponentially wider. He's kind of a dick. We can concoct plans that will be a menace to everything that is good, everything that is right, everything that is

holy, and everything that is just. Rock tower! He's kind of a dick. Hi, Tom and T-Soul. This is Esme, and I love your show, as you know, and I was listening to your most recent episode. And in it, you guys talk about Louie Gohmert saying that illegals, they have no respect for the law. And it made me laugh because you guys pointed out that it's true that they don't respect one law, which is the law which, you know, says that they're here illegally. But the irony is, if you were like me and knew a lot of illegal immigrants,

well, I don't know a lot. My former husband, soon-to-be ex-husband, is illegal, here illegally. And he is the most law-abiding citizen. And because when you're here illegally, the last thing you want to do is have a record, because that will get you kicked out very quickly. Hey, Tom. Hey, Cecil. It's Devadoc Josh. Come up with another fucking episode soon, because I'm starting to lose my fucking mind,

as I am now enjoying fucking the movies that Gamecast is fucking covering. God damn it, I'm losing my mind and becoming Eli. What the fuck? Hey, come up with something new. Keep my eyes laughing. Peace. 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 the welcome.

The welcome mats are on sale. Cecil. Yeah. We are back in America. Yeah, we are. We are recording. We are reunited, and it feels so good. And we are also joined by Seth Andrews from The Thinking Atheist.

Hi, guys. Does it get much better than this? I don't think so. I don't think so. This is the pinnacle. I thought we peaked on the trip, but actually, this is even better. Well, I try to peak a couple of times, you know? That way, I don't have to last that long, as long as I just go again.

I'm here by accident. I thought it was another show, but I i'll stick around so it's all good it is it is a pleasure to have the velvety soft tones of your voice sir back on our show once again it's good to be back i hate we were talking just a little bit pre-show and i'll tell the audience this i i talk about they, you host the website, The Thinking Atheist, and yet you get suckered by the most basic of gags and memes and whatnot all the time. And it just happened to me again. Somebody sent me this video of a guy, one of those guys who climbs these radio and broadcast towers, these big 2,000-foot-tall towers, to change the bulbs. Because you have to, you have to, for aircraft and other reasons, you have to have bulbs at certain intervals that flash at certain frequency whatever and so there's this guy climbing the tower and he's i mean it's just mesmerizing and so i've been watching for the last half an

hour waiting for him to get to the top until some genius on facebook says you realize it's a loop and you will be there until you die he never gets to the top i feel so i feel so betrayed like i i've given myself to this man who had been going for the pinnacle and he's not he just never gets there and i just got so that's what i was doing right before we started the show together and it's all foreplay, no culmination. It's just, come on. Are we getting there? Somebody said there's a version of the video where he does reach the top,

and I've got to go find it. But I feel terrible because I think because I posted it on my social media pages, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are at this moment glued to a looping video waiting. They trusted me, and I led them astray. How awesome is that?

Go figure. Get this man some sheep jumping over a fence. He'll be unconscious for life. Welcome to my weird little world. But no, things are great, and I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me on the show again. So Seth, we wanted to have you on and talk about a story. This story comes from the Patheos blog,

from the Friendly Atheist blog specifically. And I actually found this story deeply unsettling and it really made me kind of rethink my support for Southern Poverty Law Center, to be perfectly blunt. Southern Poverty Law Center, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Majid Nawaz are anti-Muslim extremists. So basically the nuts and bolts of the story is the Southern Poverty Law Center compiles a list of hate groups and extremists, and they've been compiling this list for a long time, for a very long time. And they have recently decided in their non-wisdom to name Ayaan Hirsi Ali and – I'm going to mispronounce it – Majid Nawaz. I'm mispronouncing that. I know that I am. No, I think you're pretty close. Am I? Good. Yeah, I think you're there. As anti-Muslim extremists.

And I find that just patently insane given the work that they both do to try to bridge the gap between radical Islam and sort of the broader Western world. They both are part of a larger

movement that is calling for kind of a modern day reformation of Islam. And it's unsettling to me that they would be named among so many of these others who may be anti-Muslim extremists. And it makes me really question Southern Poverty Law Center's, really, their research, their decision-making. I mean, what the hell is going on here? I saw the story. It's gone viral. I saw the story today on Yahoo News, and it's been picked up by, I think, Raw Story and some other online publications, for lack of a better word. And the SPLC has been, in the past, an organization that I have, they've been easy to get behind. We have to remember they started back in the early 70s going after the Klan.

Yeah. Right. You know, they're based in Montgomery, Alabama, going after the KKK. You know, a couple of these guys who were just, they're advocates for human rights, for civil rights. They decide they're going to create this organization that's going to be sort of an advocacy and education group that provides information that files lawsuits on behalf of those who have had their civil rights violated. And, you know, they get firebombed. They get death threats. Over the decades, they have really put themselves in the crosshairs. And it's been easy for me, at least, to say, you know, hey, I support that.

These guys are brave. They're on the right side of the issues. They're fighting for equality and justice and those types of things. And all of a sudden, they just pull this one right out of their ass. And I think of all the things to do and of all the people you're going to call anti-Muslim extremists, I think to myself, I honestly wonder if it's just another speech police move, right? I don't know where you guys fall on the trigger warnings and all those types of discussions if you've been down that bunny hole or not. No, we have, my friend. We have been up that bunny, down that bunny. We've gutted that money and fried that fucking thing we put a saddle on that jackalope i don't want to live in a world where i mean and what's difficult

is that i'm i'm a person who i want to be sensitive to other people when i go out and i'm acting and reacting in the world you know i don't want to brandish the most abrasive parts of me on my sleeve 24-7 at the highest volume possible because I realize that's not always the best way to have conversations and to make inroads to change minds. But at the same time, you know, there are no sacred ideas. There are no sacred cows. And I'm not responsible for the susceptibility or vulnerability of the most, you know, the most traumatized person who happens to fall into my zip code. I'm at some point going to have to be able to operate in the arena of ideas without having to walk on eggshells. And I think with Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Majid Nawaz out there, they're going after Islam. They're hoping to reform Islam,

really starting from within especially with nuwaz's case because he's still as i understand it practicing muslim as secular muslim but he's a muslim you know you're not going to reform islam from the outside you're not going to look at islam and say you guys are wrong and this is stupid and they're going to say you know you're absolutely right we're just gonna nobody told us well it hasn't fucking worked yet right it's not like it's not like there's a there's some you know it's not like the ayatollah has read sam harris's book you know and and considered it you know what i mean that's not gonna fucking happen i i notice

on this list that sam harris isn't on the list right yeah that's another thing i was gonna mention yeah you know and he wrote that book with Majid Nawaz, The Conversation. I don't know what it's called. But he wrote the goddamn book with Majid Nawaz, and Majid Nawaz makes the list. Yeah. And Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes the list. And Sam Harris, who has been deeply critical, and these guys are critical of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Majid Nawaz.

They're critical of Islam in a really intellectually honest and rigorous way. Islamophobia, of course, is Islam's way, one of their ways of remaining insulated, or trying to remain insulated from criticism, you know. And I was speaking to Faisal Syed Al-Mutar about this, and Armin Navabi over at Atheist Republic, and Mohammed Syed, and many others, Miriam Namazi, they talk often about how Islam likes to say, Islamophobe racist bigot and they throw these out in an attempt to shut down all criticism against them you're not criticizing islam you are a bigot against let's call it brown people or you know whatever they happen to pull out of their ass at the moment and the truth of it is that assumes that is Islam is a skin color, a culture, a race, rather, where Islam is actually an idea that is held and practiced by people of all shapes and stripes and colors and cultures all over the world.

And it's practiced in all kinds of different ways by people all over the world. So the idea that it's racist or bigoted to criticize Islam is just absolutely insane, in my opinion. One of the things that bothers me about the way in which they classify these two people, one of the things they say about Ali, they say in this, and this is from the Southern Poverty Law Center's website, I'm going to read it. It says, while in the Netherlands, she wrote a script for a short and provocative film about women in Islam directed by Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in the street by a jihadist a short time after its release the murderer left a note threatening also to kill hirsi ali pinned to the victim's body with a knife but i want to bring your attention to the short and provocative like i feel almost feels like

they're blaming the victim here here by saying it's a provocative film. You provoked these people into doing this violence. That's bullshit. Hey, you know, you drew Muhammad. You drew Muhammad. So it's on you. If somebody comes in and cuts your head off, pal, I mean, that's the thinking. Absolute garbage. I can't believe that you would say provocative in that way because you are making that connection. As if to suggest that there is any set of words you can string together in the proper order that makes sticking a knife in another person's chest an acceptable reaction. Yeah. I don't care what that set of words is.

I don't care if the set of words is the most mean-spirited, evil shit about my children. most mean-spirited evil shit about my children the response there's never a response where it's like well i stuck a knife in that guy's chest because he said mean things about people i love right the spoc also seems kind of dangerously ignorant about the human rights advocacy that ayan hirsi ali has done all around the world with the aha foundation oh for sure so you think you know even a cursory glance at the totality of her work over the last, let's call it 12 years, reveals not a hate speaker, but an advocate for the very types of people that the SPLC has wanted to be an advocate for since 1971. And even before, when the founders were working independently, they are trying to speak out on behalf of those who may not have a voice. They are trying to speak out on behalf of those who may not have a voice. They're trying to speak out on behalf of minorities and people who are under the boot of oppression to try to create a more just and equal playing field for set of ideas is a violent set of ideas. They're now saying that you're a hate, you're someone who belongs in this group of people who hate other people.

And I don't think that that's the case. I think, you know, if you say all Muslims deserve to die, that's a hate group, right? That's somebody who's saying hate speech. If you're saying there should be no Muslims allowed into our country, again, I think you should be put on that group. That's fine. But when you say the ideas that Islam has lead to violence, that's not a hate group. That's just an observation. And it's an observation that is played out by the facts. I mean you look at a place like Saudi Arabia where they have Sharia law.

They have things where you can – they have a witch hunting group of people who go out and literally hunt witches and throw people in jail. There's an atheist blogger we're going to talk about later who did tweets on the internet. He had tweeted some things, and he's going to get 2,000 lashes in 10 years in prison in Saudi Arabia. That's a violent idea. It's a violent idea that should be condemned. It's interesting to watch the criticisms about Islam. I know that even our president plays, he's obviously, my opinion, it's a guess, is that when he says things like, we are not at war with Islam, right? he will often say in very public forums that, you know, Islam is really not the reason we're going after ISIS. It's not they they don't represent true Islam, those types of things.

And I think I understand why he does that. I think you don't put two billion people on the defensive in in the chess game of global politics by just calling out their religion. I think he probably knows it's bullshit and that it's damaging. But my guess is he's playing a longer game. But Ayaan Hirsi Ali actually says, well, read the damn Koran, people. Muhammad was a pedophile. All of this stuff is being justified scripturally. The problem is Islam. She's taken a harder line. And I think that's uncomfortable for some people. on a global stage can act on their personal beliefs is asinine, right? They should not be

doing that. They should be acting to further our national agenda and our national best interests. That's not going to happen if you piss off 2 billion people, you know, not insignificant, some of whom get pissy if you draw the wrong picture. So like, I totally get it. Like, I wouldn't, you know, if I was standing up in front of the country too, I would be like, yeah, we're not at war with Islam. It just so happens some of the people we are at war with believe in Islam, right? You have to draw that distinction. And I actually think that that's an entirely fair distinction to draw.

But it is also the case that if we are talking about things from, you know, the standpoint of, you know, hey, let's separate the intellectual idea from the human being who holds the idea. We can be as critical as we want of ideas. We should be deeply, deeply, irreverently critical of ideas. That is not necessarily the same thing as being... And I even think you can hate bad ideas. I think you can hate a bad idea with all the force of hate that you have in your heart, and there's nothing wrong with that. I hate the idea of racism. I think it's a horrifying idea. There's nothing in the idea of racism that draws me anything other than hate, and I feel comfortable with that. I feel okay with that. We should hate terrible ideas that do terrible injustices to

fellow human beings, right? We shouldn't give them any quarter. Bad ideas should be destroyed from their foundation. Even if the SPLC felt that these two were guilty of really bad speech, I agree with Penn Jillette that the cure for bad speech is more speech. So by tarring and feathering them publicly, especially because they are not the Klan. They're not lynching people in the streets. They are going after an ideology. And trust me, Ayaan Hirsi Ali had a razor blade taken to her genitals in the name of Allah. She's earned the right to criticize Islam. Right?

No shit. Right? No shit. Right? No shit. Right? Well, and one of the things that's weird about this Southern Poverty Law Center thing, they're anti-Muslim extremists. That's what they label them as. Nawaz, who was described himself as a feminist, was filmed repeatedly trying to touch a naked lap dancer, according to April 10th, 2015 report in the Daily Mail. The paper apparently got the security film of the owner of the strip club who was incensed by Nawaz's claims to be a religious Muslim. What does that have to do with being an anti-Muslim extremist?

Like all you're doing is just you're just like smearing the guy's character for no reason. Right. He's just kind of drifting to me it's totally off i mean i understand his character may come into play overall it's like if if you're watching donald trump run for president his character and his behavior outside of a specific topic may relate to how he might handle specific topics yeah but this to me seems a little bit like a witch hunt. It just seems like it's an effort to distract when what's on the table is Islam, the idea of Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic radicalism, and is the idea of reforming Islam to be more civilized and more peaceful in the 21st century, really the actions of a hate group or a hateful person. And I just completely disagree. So it's

tragic. And it doesn't look like the SPLC is going to change. It looks like they're doubling down. Perhaps public pressure will change that. But right now, they just seem to be digging in. Yeah, that's what it looked like to me. It cost them a fortune. I do want to play devil's advocate here just for a moment and talk a little bit about some of the things that they bring up about both of their paths, right? So like the Southern Poverty Law Center talks about both of these people and their past and how it seems that they have like told some falsehoods and some tall tales about their

situations in both of the places that they lived, right? So they talk, and these are things that a couple of them have already admitted. And then, you know, so there is some falsehoods in their past that they have talked about. And so one of the things I wonder is, are they using fear of Islam to sort of further their own agendas, whether that be popularity or wealth, and then exaggerating about their own hardships sort of to get sympathy from people who are looking to criticize Islam. You know, they're actually looking to criticize Islam and they're looking to get sympathy in that sense. Do you think that maybe that's the avenue that, I mean, if we're trying to be generous,

do you think that that's the avenue that they might be going down? I don't know. You know, I think I've read Ayaan's book, Infidel, and I'm familiar with the fact that she fabricated much of her story in the Netherlands and has accepted responsibility for that. I look at my own situation if I had been escaping Somalia or I think she ended up in Kenya and she was sort of pinballing through with her father to various locations. If I was essentially an exile looking for a place to land, would I fudge my resume to be able to get into another country? Well, I couldn't say that I would not, you know, I, I myself, I don't want to, I don't want to equivocate or excuse too much, but I also think that, you know, I was born in the heartland of

one of the freest places on planet earth. I don't know what I would do if I was trying to escape fundamentalism in that way. Um, you know, you try to escape fundamentalism in, in Oklahoma and, you know, you just skip the buffet, uh, after Sunday church and you're pretty good. Well, I will say I would definitely fudge. Like, I mean, I'll just, I'll just tell you the straight honest truth. Like I would fuck it. I would fudge the shit out of that. I mean, I wouldn't even think twice about it. I wouldn't think once about it to escape. Absolutely.

I think in the larger picture, we're looking at a person who has put themselves on the line to such a degree that there is nowhere she can go on planet Earth without armed guards. I mean, a portion of her life and life freedom, despite the celebrity that she enjoys, and she does have that, we have to say. She's on the wanted posters all around the world. And she is walking with one eye, always looking around to see who might be coming after her. She has paid a tremendous price for the things that she has said with conviction about her former religion. So I don't buy this, ah, you know, she fudged her resume so she could go out and be this megastar. Well, she certainly is famous, but I think she might have gotten famous and then disappeared from the radar if she was just a flash in the pan. But because she has said and done so much of substance, she remains relevant in the year 2016, more than a decade

after her activism really began. And I think that says something about her. You know, it doesn't say something too about the validity of her stance. If folks following Islamic traditions were not following a violent set of ideas, she wouldn't need armed guards, right? It's just the very fact that she even needs to – the fact that she's going to walk around in fear for her life. I mean doesn't that tell you something immediately that like, oh, well, maybe there's something to this? Because if there was nothing to this, then clearly she would not be in any danger, and she is very much in danger. We know that it is a dangerous thing to criticize Islam in certain parts of the world. If you're in Bangladesh, you're fucking shit out of luck.

Those bloggers are dropping like flies over you. I mean, it's insane. I mean, they're getting hacked to death left and right. It's not funny at all. It's horrifying. There are parts of the world where, like you had mentioned earlier, like in Saudi Arabia, you tweet the wrong thing. tweet the wrong thing. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, you know, she's got, like you said, she's got security concerns that are, you know, absurd by any reasonable measure of privacy that the rest of us would enjoy walking around. I've never understood, you know, you're talking about

a God who gets weird about what people say. The idea that people in radical Islam have gone to such extremes to flip out, to riot in the streets, and to carry on, and to carry out fatwas and death threats and all that, in the name of a God who pretty much has it handled in the first place, makes no sense to me. Essentially, you are betraying that you think your God is too weak or insecure or inept to handle the whole vengeance thing. I mean, who better to handle vengeance than God, right? No kidding, right? He's got a whole place dedicated to it. You're the one who has to go out. You're the number one.

You're the muscle in the Bond movie, and he's like the guy from Spectre or Goldfinger or whatever. I do not understand this. If you really believed in the omnipotence and the just nature of your God and that your God can just handle it, you'd just sit back and watch the fireworks. You would need to do and say nothing. It makes no sense to me. Your whole life would be that Michael Jackson popcorn gift.

You'd be like, oh, yeah. Here we go. Here we go. Your ass is fucked over now, buddy. Your ass is fucked over now, buddy. The last thing I would like to talk about, though, with this is I think that a nuanced stance on Islam and other issues, too, is a hard stance to take. And I feel like a lot of times people will paint you into a corner. and just like the Southern Poverty Law Center here is saying, because if you're saying anything about Islam is bad,

then they're saying, well, then you're basically saying all of Islam is bad. And so there's just no way to have this nuanced stance. And we find this in a lot of different places, especially when it comes to feminism, when it comes to social justice issues, like you talked about earlier with trigger warnings and things like that. It's hard to have a nuanced stance there. It feels like no matter what, you've got to take a side, damn it. You've got to take a side. And it feels like the Southern Poverty Law Center just drew a line in the sand and said, well, this is the side we're going to be on. This is one of the reasons why it's difficult for me, especially on YouTube. I did a whole show on it on for me to go and read a comment section, because what happens is,

is people seem to be only operating at the extreme swings of the pendulum. I think we, we were doing a show. This was last year after my laptop was stolen out of my rental car in San Francisco. And I was just, you know, I left it in the car for five minutes and went upstairs and came back and somebody busted out the window and stole it. Well, it turned into a teaching moment where we started to talk about, you know, how did this happen? Was it really my fault? It was a stupid idea to leave it in the car. And are there some people out there who truly live parasitic lives? And I've, I'm at that point in my life when I think, you know, I've met people, we've all met

people who would rather take than give, who would rather destroy than create, who would rather suck the marrow out of someone else's life than go out and try to be something of their own. And so I- Yeah, that's the Eli Bosnick story, actually. I read that on the Yik Yak. So I say something along these lines. We all know someone who would rather take what belonged, the hard work, the efforts, the sacrifice, the risk of someone else than to go out and risk and sacrifice and work to build and create for themselves. I think it's a fair statement. It's not an uncompassionate statement.

And so what happened was I'm barraged with people going going you hate poor people and all the people who steal things you you you don't know the circumstance of the person who stole your laptop you don't know what they're back maybe they were abused or maybe they were this or maybe that you don't care you're not compassionate and they just went off into oblivion and i'm sitting there you know drool coming out of my mouth i have no idea what to do with this because i i'm a compassionate guy who who wants to be charitable who wants to help the disadvantaged i wasn't making a statement about the whole of human condition i was i was talking about it an ilk of people that exist that we all know exist yeah right but for no one no one does nuance you said

it perfectly nuance is so difficult in a binary culture. It's yes, no, one, zero, black, white, all, nothing. It makes it very hard to have a conversation, you know? Well, my God, man, on YouTube? Like, I mean, that is... YouTube is the death of hope. It's so funny because we had you on our show a while back and we were talking about YouTube being like

where discourse goes to die. Oh, we already talked about it. It's already, it must be you on our show a while back, and we were talking about YouTube being like where discourse goes to die. Oh, we already talked about it. It must be on my mind all the time. And then we came on your show, and you posted to YouTube, and people savaged us. They hated us so much. It was so funny. They were so mad.

And it was specifically because we said, yeah, yeah, I guess we're feminists. And people were like, holy shit, I hate your life. And we're just like, well, we weren't talking about like you know like crazy feminism like and that's the thing is the problem is you can't be nuanced i can't say i'm a feminist and then that immediately means that you know i agree with everything any woman has ever said ever or i agree with anything that is labeled feminist right and it's that's not the case i don't and the same thing goes for you know when it comes to trigger warnings right when the case i don't and the same thing goes for you know when it comes to trigger warnings right when it like i don't agree with all trigger warnings like

i think some of them are just ridiculous like when there's like trigger warning bunnies or something it's ridiculous it's stupid right but i for example i just got back from england i was at stonehenge and on the audio guide when i was going out there i was coming back in in and they're like, and when you go inside, you can check out this stuff. And by the way, there's human remains in the exhibit. Like just so you know, there's human remains in the exhibit. And it didn't bother me at all. I was going to go check it out anyway. I wanted to go see the skeletons from a really long time ago.

It would be kind of cool. But that might bother some people. The people that it doesn't bother don't care. The people that it does bother, they avoid the exhibit. Nobody's hurt in that process, right? I don't care that there was a trigger warning to tell me that there was human remains at like at the museum at stonehenge it doesn't it doesn't hurt me in any way but it's just one of those things that it feels like it feels like um you know there's no way that i can be like i if i'm if i'm on the internet now i have to say i'm 100 for trigger warnings or i'm 100

against trigger warnings they can't just be like yeah can i just do this on a case-by-case sometimes they're appropriate fuck you take a side exactly we went to i don't know this has been years ago to the bodies exhibit you ever seen that thing where they they take this weird body world it's like a i don't know they take some sort of rubber plastic polymer thing and they dissolve the skin. It is an educational tour de force. It sounds like a joke. It is an educational tour de force.

It is amazing the stuff that you see. Yeah. Well, there's a section of the body's exhibit where they do fetuses, right? And they have a warning up. And this was back before the whole trigger warning thing was going on. And it's like, you know, you're going to see this in this room. It's a special section, just FYI. There are people who might find this disturbing and may not want to go in. I think that's not only fair. I think it's common courtesy.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. Even if you went to go see a body worlds or bodies exhibit or whatever they were calling it by you, but you're going to see it. If you maybe just fucking miscarried last week, that might not be the thing you want to see thank you very much right so yeah it's a total and it doesn't cost anybody anything to put that warning but for some people it becomes just so bogus country so it's sensitive people these days well this whole thing's going crazy and and they automatically i i say i said a couple of days ago on we were talking i think about feminism and i'm like there are so many people who can't separate fact from fringe right there they will criticize me for being aligning with feminism right the definition of feminism and then they

go you're wrong you're wrong you've you've spun off the rails you've lost your mind and i'm thinking to myself all right tell me which of my positions that you disagree with specifically. And then they're like, they just tilt. They cannot come up with one because they don't know before they criticize. They just assume, you know. We had a woman by the name of Karen Garst. She goes by the moniker Faithless Feminist. And she came out with a book. And so we had her on the show

and we talked to her and then the show posted to YouTube. And I named the episode Faithless Feminist because that was our guest. And somebody on YouTube commented, well, that's another show I can't listen to anymore. It looks like cognitive dissonance has gone away. And I said, and I was like, oh, well, you know, I guess, you know, other thoughts are scary. So don't listen, don't think about other stuff. And he comes back and I said, go hide under your rock. And he was like, oh, well, you know, I guess, you know, other thoughts are scary. So don't listen. Don't think about other stuff. And he comes back and I said, go hide under your rock. And he was like, he was like, oh, can I borrow one from the social justice warriors? And I was like, oh, you didn't even listen to the episode. You see, Pete Bogosian got her, her book deal. Pete Bogosian, the guy who attacks third wave feminists all the time on Twitter is the guy who got her, her book deal.

And you're, you didn't even listen. All you did was read the word feminist and you shit your pants. Like that's all that happened was you saw the word and now you attack me. He never even bothered to listen. He just wanted, he saw the word feminist and attacked. And that's, and that's a real problem that we have. And I, and, and I really do feel like it, it leads back into this Southern Poverty Law Center thing. I mean, I really do feel like there's no way you can have a stance that is, you know, I disagree with the ideas of Islam. And no matter what, you're going to have a Ben Affleck telling you that's racist and gross. And it ignores the fact that the vast majority of the people who are oppressed by radical Islam are Muslims themselves. Right.

And so, you know, you find Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Majid Nawaz, they're advocates for Muslims. The people they are trying to help and rescue are very often Muslim people who are in moderate or even peaceful Muslim cultures who are trying to escape or under the boot of radicalism. It totally ignores the hugely complex waters that is Islam across the planet. And it's my hope that the SPLC will one day wake up, you know, like it was all a bad dream. We're very sorry. You know, we didn't take our meds. We apologize.

The intern accidentally posted that. We're real sorry. Jill, get over here. What are you? God damn it. And if they will come forward at some point and reset and say, you know what, we made a mistake and it was an honest mistake. We felt at the moment we were doing the right thing. We were operating with a bad idea, distorted perception. We want

to reverse and make this right. If they were to do that, I honestly think people have an enormous capacity to forgive and understand. And then they would then rally behind the SBLC's other worthy endeavors. And I think that would be an amazing rallying point for them. Yeah, for sure. And if they do not, I think they only diminish their credibility in the arena of ideas and everybody loses. It's very tragic. People are very, very forgiving when you come out and apologize. But when you double down, sometimes that can be really problematic.

When they feel that you're in a corner and there is nowhere else to go and you only apologize because you would be ruined otherwise. It's harder and harder for people to sort of extend the olive branch the other way. Definitely. Yeah. But, you know, I got to say, like, I wonder if this isn't, you know, we're here and we're talking about this and we're saying, you know, I think this is a bad idea for the Southern Poverty Law Center because, you know, it doesn't reflect the nuance and it doesn't reflect the reality of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's work or Majid Nawaz's work.

But there are, you know, I wonder if we're in the minority of the voices. I wonder if Southern Poverty Law Center will come under, you know, the kind of criticism that will come under will be balanced, of course, by the people who, as we just discussed, will be all on one side or all on the other. There's a ton of people out there who, you know, they're on the other side, the side called, you know, because, I mean, we've all seen the same thing too, where, you know, unfortunately, nothing is no true Scotsman like criticizing Islam, right? You know, somebody can come out and yell, I am doing this for the Prophet Muhammad, and that is

specifically the reason. Please do not misunderstand the reason that I'm doing it. I wrote it down here, and then they'll commit some horrifyingly heinous act, and then again, they will repeat. And just so we're very, very clear about my intention and my driving motivation with respect to the violence I have just committed.

It was specifically for Islam. Then the people would be like, he wasn't a Muslim. He wasn't a true Muslim. He wasn't real. Because nobody fucking know true Scotsmans in an apologetic way the way some of guys, no true Scotsman, the Muslim issue, right? Look at CJ Werleman. He apologizes for every,

and Greenwald. They apologize for every single thing. And then when anything comes out, they're like, see, other people can be violent. I'm glad you brought CJ up. You know,

it's funny. CJ opened for a speech that I'd had years and years ago when, when I was in California and he and I were friends and, and he had named me. Did he write the speech? He did not. Oh, shits. Oh, shots fired.

He was, I'm just going to skip right over it. I'm going to wait. I'm not taking the bait. This is a comedy show. I'm taking the bait. You search like one word and it comes up for wikipedia i'm not i'm not taking that bait plagiarism jokes you gotta join in

the best thing is i didn't even write that joke someone else did i wrote like a 4500 word review of his book, the new atheist threat. We talked about the plagiarism thing and the credibility problems that he's had, but the problems with the SBLC is what they've done is they've been empowered and enabled CJ and, and,

and those guys, I mean, they've essentially put some more bullets in the gun so that they can go, yeah, see, hate, hate, hate.

It's racism, it's bigotry and whatnot. It's Islamophobia and whatnot. Sarah Hader is part of a big event that we're doing in Dallas. Our 300th broadcast is coming up. She's one of the co-founders of Ex-Muslims of North America. And she did something interesting, and I joined in and many others have, where she has said she's hashtagged on Twitter, SPLC, add me too.

Oh, yeah. on Twitter, SPLC add me too. You know what? If these people are hate filled extremists, if that's the definition that you're using, then you know what? Call me one as well and people are starting to line up. I did the same. I'm like, fine, SPLC, add me too. If these people are hate speakers,

fine, that must be me as well. Ready to stick it in the glory hole? Get links to their Facebook, Twitter, and if you still use it, Google Plus account at their website, dissonancepod.com. If you need to be all discreet about it, contact them by email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Or you can call and leave a ransom message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Want to hear Cognitive Dissonance commercial free

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Or tell your buddies in the drunk tank about the show. We want to send a big sloppy glory hole to all the patrons and people who rate us. You fucking rock. Well, I want to talk a little bit while we got here. Tomorrow,

this is releasing on Monday, so tomorrow is election day. And we just wanted to talk a little bit, you know, while we got here tomorrow, this is releasing on Monday. So tomorrow is election day. And we just wanted to talk to get your thoughts a little bit, just a touch. We're not going to go super in depth. It's skeptical. It's political. What's your thoughts on this election cycle so far? Well, I'm genuinely terrified by the, I i don't i mean i get the popularity of donald trump i understand how it happens but i don't get it at the same time you know do you guys know what i'm talking about like yeah you understand the cultural shifts that have happened people are fed up and they're pissed off and and we're talking about, it's like dealing with Christians who know the Bible is

true and couldn't tell you who wrote any one of the 66 books. And they can't quote really more than three verses. They don't know what it is, but they know it's true. Well, they sort of do the same thing with Fox News. They sort of do many of the same things with a lot of the God and country, gun culture, all the founding fathers were Christians. Let's get back to our roots. We need to be the only great country in the world who gives a shit what any of the other nations are doing. It's all about us, us, us.

We're number one, big foam finger waving in the sky. The guy in the red ball cap who looks powerful, who says exactly what he thinks, the thinking out there seems to be, you know, he's a total asshole, but he's our asshole. And I just, I'm terrified of a culture that would embrace a man like that. I'm not a Hillary Clinton fan. I'm going to vote for her. I think, you know, she's the better candidate by far. I think Sam Harris and I probably line up. I don't think she's a great candidate, but I,

you know, look, if you've got a car wreck that, that injures two or kills a hundred, you know, I'll take. That is straight true, man.

I mean, that's all I got. I don't know where you guys land on, on the whole election thing. we're both Trump supporters. I will come over there i will i will end you i just watched a five minute video somebody spent splicing together all the times that donald trump said china and that's all the whole video is china china china

china i watched the whole thing I watched it front to back. That's great. That's an even bigger waste of time than watching a gif of some guy climbing a pole. This is what I do to relax. My wife calls it bubble gum for the brain. This is what I do. Oh, that's amazing. We both stand up.

I think, you know, we were Bernie supporters. We really liked the sort of radicalism that Bernie brought in. Yeah, me too. I liked Bernie Sanders very much. We enjoyed his fire. We thought he was a fiery. And one of the best parts for Tom and I is when he would talk to the media, especially during the primary, and they would try to get him to talk about Clinton, he would say, I'm not going to answer that question. Talk to me about my policy.

Talk to me about her policy. But I'm not going to answer a question about whether or not I like her hair or whatever. Now, did people slip out, though? Did they come after you and go, socialism, socialism? Because it became this sort of, I don't know if it was a distraction, but it was almost they were arguing against the caricature of socialist programs. Yeah. We noticed that there was a little pushback there, but more often than not,

people got mad when we criticized Bernie. Yeah, if we didn't like everything he said. If we didn't like everything, if you didn't be like, no, his shit smells like roses, like Sid's the best smelling poo I've ever smelled. If you didn't say that, people would be super pissed about it.

I remember I criticized his commercially at a commercial that came out, and I was like, that is a terrible commercial. I didn't really enjoy it at all. I didn't think it was good. It felt really hokey and good. And it didn't feel like sort of, it didn't come with the sort of the tenor of his campaign and people like really just sent us a bunch of messages and said, you need to be more careful with what you say. People are listening to you. And I'm just like, nobody should listen to me about who to vote for. I'm an idiot. Like don't listen to me about who to vote for i'm an idiot like don't listen to me research what the hell um but yeah we're both uh we're both uh we were both in bernie's camp

but then when hillary got the nod you know we definitely you know there wasn't anybody in the republican camp i think this time around that except for maybe case that wasn't horrifying you may sick yeah whatever his name is. But that guy, maybe. But for most of them, they were all terrifying. They were all just these weird, scary people. Ted Cruz is just a weird, scary guy. Ben Carson was a gift. I mean, the guy has a picture of Jesus kind of rubbing his shoulders.

I mean, that's what we had as options. He thought that they stored grain in the pyramids. I mean, that's what we had as options. He thought that they stored grain in the pyramids. I mean, he was outstanding. As a comedy show, he was one of the best things that's – I mean, he was one of the best things that's happened since Sarah Palin for a comedy show like ours. But it's terrifying that he stood up on a stage with 15 other people and American citizens actually had to think, maybe that's my guy.

Of all that, we got 370 million people in this country and the 15 that they could put up on that stage ended with Donald Trump. And still, it was terrifying. I think, you know, like I had questions about, Bernie was talking about making college free. Yeah. Well, I'm like, yeah, nothing's really free. So where does that come from exactly? And I want some specifics. I'm a private business, private enterprise kind of guy.

I support the right of people to go out and work hard and take risks and be rewarded for that. So it's not like I want us to go straight up socialism. But there were some questions I had about, about some of Bernie's positions, but overall, I think what he said made a lot of sense. I think communities do have an obligation to support its citizens, you know, and a lot of the people I saw who were freaking out about socialism are the same people who, you know, they drive on highways and roads and they, you know, they enjoy the protection of the police and, and, you know, they use the, the, the, you know, they drive over bridges and, and, Yeah, of course. was you know where donald trump is positioning himself as the rogue and the outsider which is just the most ludicrous thing i've ever seen bernie actually sort of is a rogue he's and he has been i think an advocate for human rights and other important issues for decades i thought he

would have made a great president so now this is sort of what we're stuck with i i don't know how the election is going to shake out you know trump gets a bump after this apparently a poll bump after this email thing happens i have no idea what to make of it well i have no idea how much to trust the polls yeah and the popular vote poll right now is scary it's a i mean it's 45 to like 40 42 or something i mean it's a scary close the electoral college of course doesn't look like that like the polls that i've seen, the Electoral College looks very different. Much better on Hillary's side. But the actual polling results, when you talk about popular vote, I'm actually scared of that.

I mean, really, that many people in this country think that that guy, you know, that guy who's ready to, you know, use nuclear weapons if necessary. I mean, there's so much that this guy is willing to do. I'm terrified of Trump being a president. Terrified. You know, the thing that scares me is less Trump, although I can't believe I'm saying that out loud because I've been screaming about that guy since he started this game. But I've really come around to thinking that what is more scary

is that there's 42 percent of americans that see trump and think that's that's the guy that's that's you know because because one guy is a flash in the pan you know like one guy can captivate people one guy can you know can be that big cult of personality and drive um you know you know what i mean that can collect that can collect a group of people but and I believed it during the primary. It didn't surprise me too much during the primary because the angry, bitter white male vote is not terribly difficult to capture.

But the idea that 42% of Americans, which now is a much more inclusive group of people, it's expanded. Like when you're looking at the general and you're looking at numbers like that. Yeah, yeah. You're talking about independence. That's a lot of independence in there.

Like, this is 42% of Americans who don't value intellect. Clearly. Clearly. Nobody can look at Donald Trump and think, that is a man of great and towering intellect. It's not possible.

Clearly, this is 42% of Americans look at Donald Trump and think, you know, I don't value in a leader honesty. I don't value in, you know, I don't value in a leader honesty. I don't value in a leader consistency. I don't value in a leader, you know, I mean, really anything that I would consider a significant leadership quality other than just sheer angry force of will. The man is nothing but a force of will. Everything else is id.

I think it brings the question to if you see someone who has existed in pretty much a dictatorial bubble for his life. When he says jumping, everybody, everybody says how high. Everybody says when or how high or they're gone or whatever. So he ends up in a position where compromise is king, where he's not the biggest ego in the room. There's this narrative that he's just going to show up and world leaders are going to be like, oh, Donald's here, give him whatever he wants. He's like, oh, I'll make the best trade deals. Well, that is like a bumper sticker, but it sort of negates the idea, the reality that he's going to be walking in with world leaders

who are going to have interests of their own, who aren't going to kowtow and swoon and do all the things that his fans and followers are doing. I've actually had the conversation that if he goes into the presidency, let's say he wins, it's a four-year presidency. Would he ultimately come to a point where he wasn't getting his way all the time? He was having to compromise where he just, it turned into a wine fest. And then he just threw in the towel and said, I'll screw this blamed everybody else and left before the end of the first term. I wouldn't put him past him. Wow. Yeah. That quit like a Pope. It's possible. He'd go all rats and bird. I'm out of here. Actually, I'm here. I'm just staying. Divinely anointed by God. Pass.

Do you guys think that truly qualified people, Ron, do you guys think that most truly qualified leaders would subject themselves to the political process? Every aspect of your life is ripped open and analyzed by the pundits. Yeah, except for your tax returns. Do most truly qualified leaders submit themselves to that, or do they just go off somewhere else to be successful on their own terms? I mean, what do you think? I hear what you're saying, because if I take that same level of talent and energy and education and leadership, and I just apply it to the private sector, well, I get to keep all of my – I'm going to be wildly successful. I'm going to be financially well off, and I get to keep my personal life.

Yeah, your reputation doesn't become sport for everybody trying to make a name for themselves. And that time you got that weird massage never comes out. You know what I mean? It's just like you get to keep that in a row. At one time, yeah. At one time. We call that Tuesday. Wow.

Bring me my usual girl. Well, I don't know what to expect. I just think if Trump wins, one thing you do know, I'm a little terrified of what social media is going to be on November 8th. Yeah. Oh, it's going to be great. There will be friends lost. There will be families ripped apart. There's going to be hate November 8th. Yeah. Oh, it's going to be great. There will be friends lost. There will be families ripped apart.

There's going to be hate and death all over every thread. It's going to be interesting to see it all come together. The thing that I'm looking forward to the most, I truly believe he's going to lose. I think he's going to lose. I actually think he's going to lose very badly on an electoral college level. I think he's going to get fucking owned.

And when that happens, the thing that I want so much, and I have wanted this for so long now, is I want to hear that giant oompa-loompa man baby give a concession speech that is the least gracious thing. Because you know that man does not know how to lose with grace, and he has no dignity. And this sounds funny to some. I think Hillary Clinton would, I think in many ways, would be a great president.

I think she's got genuine leadership ability. I think she's whip smart. I think it would be historic to have her in there. I think she does speak the language of politics on the world stage. I saw just an hour ago a meme on the internet about something about her emails and the the photo image the doctored photo image of her on the story literally had fangs and satan eyes and i think to myself you know this is the narrative right uh hitlery killery benghazi she she rebels in the death of our citizens.

She is in the pockets of all these Middle Eastern powers. She would sell us out in a heartbeat. She hates America. And I think to myself, talk about a binary sort of way of looking at things. There's only an extreme for some people. And I look at Hillary, I think, I don't see someone who doesn't love her country. I don't see someone who I think she's hugely ambitious, who probably used her position to to become wildly rich and famous and powerful. Sure.

But I also know that it's like the foundation, the Clinton Foundation under scrutiny, rightfully so. But it's also done a tremendous tremendous amount of wonderful good out there with a great deal of that money going to help people i mean that's a nuanced look at the clinton foundation but there's no room for it in the discussion out there nope but i think if she's elected i i won't be unhappy you know i would certainly support that so i think she'll be an amazing president actually because she because she is, not because I agree with all of her policy positions, but I think of all the presidents that we have had in recent memory, she will be able to get a tremendous amount done. She is a person who

has proven over the course of 30 years, people have been trying to destroy her politically for 30 years, and they've been unsuccessful. And she has risen to this point despite incredible opposition, absolutely incredible and constant opposition. I think in the game of politics, she is a master. And I think when it comes to getting some shit done, she will be able to get some shit done. Will it be a bunch of backroom horse trading? Hells yes, it's going to be some backroom horse trading. But that's what politics is. I just guarantee that the YouTube comment section will once again rain down upon you with that last man.

Die and try. Bring it. Just saying. Bring it. So, Seth, before we let you go, we want to talk. you go, we want to talk, first we want to give you some accolades because you raised, you wound up raising $15,445 thus far for Camp Quest this year. Tell us about the fundraiser that you put together. Well, you know, I'm a big Camp Quest fan. I was raised around Bible Camp. The big one around here is Falls Creek. And we did a whole broadcast about superstitious summer camps where

these people go out to, you know, you're supposed to go out and canoe and raft and rock climb and, you know, be young. Play games, make friends, make memories. And instead, they drag you to service in the morning and another service in the midday and another one in the evening. And there's a lot of weird sort of faith exercises. And there's an altar call every five minutes. And some of these summer camps are just crazy. They just do it. They rounded.

We had some stories of people rounded up by people in hoods who were actually the camp counselors. And they brought them in to show them what it would be like to be persecuted for Jesus. And so they had them sleeping on concrete floors. And they put them under these car headlights and had them shouted at bullhorns and guilted them into dropping to their knees to accept Jesus Christ. I mean, just some crazy extreme stuff out there. But even just the less extreme, it's not about summer camp. It's not about being a child. It's about indoctrination. That's what many of the church camps are about. Camp Quest being such

a great alternative where you get to go and just be who you are. You get to discover and make memories and make friends and have a ton of fun. And so we thought it'd be a great chance to get together and try to help them. So we raised about $15,000 thanks to the generosity of our community. I went out and shot some video on Daryl Ray's ranch with many of the families who participated and some of the kids who'd gone. And they just lit up on camera and they were talking about what an amazing, life-changing thing it was. And I would encourage people, if you've been burned by church camp and you'd like to support an alternative that just is about the kids, whoever you are, be that, come, have a good time. They're religious kids. Their parents send them to this camp because they

know, the parents know, that camp is supposed to be about fun and not about altar calls and beating them over the head with a Bible. And so that's why we did it. And I'm sure we'll come to their side again to raise some money probably in the future as well. Wow, that's great. Great. Really cool. So I want to talk a little bit, too, about your 300th episode that's going to be live in Dallas, Texas. What's going on with that? 300 shows, it's hard to believe. I started in July of 2010. I come from FM radio.

I did 14 years in broadcasting in my hometown and left to be a video producer. Can't tell from your voice at all. Yeah, I know. The phlegm factor really has helped me over the years. It's funny. But, you know, radio by and large is a shrinking business, especially in the age of the internet where there are so many podcast options

and streaming options. People can choose what they want to listen to. Fewer and fewer people are listening to the AM FM radio band out there. And so what I saw was people, radio legends were getting handed a pink slip, many of them in their fifties, and they were essentially having to start their careers over. So I left radio in 2004 thinking, well, that's it. You know, I'll never get a chance to be a broadcaster like this again. I'll never get a chance to be a storyteller like this again.

And I left radio, went into video production for 10 years. And I never thought I'd have the privilege of being a broadcaster on the radio until 2010, when I realized there was this thing, you know, internet radio. And we started the show in July. R and raw was my first guest had just over a thousand listeners. And here we are in, you know, the fourth quarter of 2016 approaching show number 300. And to celebrate, we're going to have a big, big event in Dallas, Texas at the Doubletree by Hilton Dallas Richardson. We had to expand the venue. We have sold.

There were 200 seats, and they sold like that. So we called the hotel and said, help, and they've expanded to 320. It looks like we may sell that out oh that's awesome it's crazy and um so i'm my big thing really is i'm trying to not to screw it up i know that feeling buddy i don't want to screw it up i i am so grateful and so honored that the people have taken the show into their lives it's i'm terrified at any moment it will go away. Do you guys know that feeling? Like when you go out and you produce it and you, you feel like you put your heart into it and you want it to make a difference and, and you, you love it. You want

it to be there every week, but there's an insecure part of every performer and producer. I think that's like one of these days they're going to figure me out and they're all going to go away. I feel that way about my whole life. We just did our first live show at QED, Question, Explore, Discover in Manchester. We're just back from it as like two weeks ago, our very first live show. And I was shocked that there were that many people in the room. I just was shocked that, I mean, they had to close the door and not let anyone else in. They said, sorry, the room is at its fire capacity. We cannot fit any more people in here. And they sat and laughed and enjoyed this show. And we had this awesome, amazing time. And I, the whole time I was sitting there thinking like, there's going to be

six people that are going to come and I'm just going to invite them on stage and we're just going to hang out. You know what I mean? Like, I just like, I couldn't imagine filling that room up. You guys in front of a live audience, I think would be just fantastic. I would have loved to have been there. We had a lot of fun. And we had a gracious audience. I think the very best part,

and I think that that's what you're going to have too, is you're going to have a group of people that are there so excited to see you that everything you say is going to be great and your interactions with them is going to be great. And it's just going to be a love fest. You're going to enjoy the hell out of it. The only downside is you're going to have David Smalley with you.

I think that's the only downside. It's a small downside. It's a diminutive, minuscule. We have to give David Smalley shit every time. That's my favorite. We have to give him shit all the time. He and I have a friendly rivalry. It's sort of like church volleyball.

It's one of those things where you just... I've got a pretty amazing lineup. I was very fortunate. Dillahunty is going to be there, but he's not speaking. He does magic, right? And so if you've never seen Matt Dillahunty do table close-up magic, we'll go out to a restaurant and he'll pull out... He's got this little bag with some rope and some playing cards and stuff in him, right?

And the guy is amazing. He was doing tricks when we did the unholy trinity tour in australia there was one trick that he saw where a deck of cards disappeared from his hand natalie and i literally stepped back from the table like no you didn't like what what unholy magic is going on here but he's doing a 45 minute magic show to cap the day. Shelley Siegel's going to sing. She's doing a concert. Smalley's talking. I've got Aron Rod doing a speech. He's hauled off his new book, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism. Sarah Hader, who we've been talking about, is coming out. And the broadcast itself is, we're going to do a live to tape that day, and then we're going to broadcast it the following, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday.

Oh, wow. I can't wait to hear it. We're going to broadcast it the following, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday. Oh, wow. I can't wait to hear it. It's – everybody is going to be there, all my guests and the audience. And so that synergy, the back and forth, the action-reaction, the who knows what's going to happen in any given moment thing is going to be taking place. And I can't wait. I think I'm really scared about it because I keep having these dreams that the event's going on and everything is going wrong. I keep having this dream that, oh, they didn't show up. The doors won't open. None of the gear works. Everything's wrong. And so I think I must have some deep-seated

anxiety about it. I'm sure it's going to be amazing. I can't wait to hear it. So are tickets still available right now? Yeah, there are a few tickets left if people want to go. It's sponsored by Fellowship of Freethought Dallas. And let me say, if it wasn't for FOF Dallas, this would not have happened. I put up a significant investment myself, which also makes it increasingly scary, but FOF has done the same. And so it's a one-two punch between us. I couldn't have pulled this off without it. So if you want to go, the tickets, we kept the whole ticket price really low at $15 for the whole day. For less than the cost of a deluxe sushi roll, you can see Dillahunty, Sarah Hader, David Smalley, Aaron Raw, Shelley Siegel, and be a part of the broadcast. You can go to fofdallas.org slash 300 live, the number 300, and you can get your tickets.

fofdallas.org slash 300 live. Wow number 300, and you can get your tickets. fofdallas.org slash 300 live. Wow, that's great. Good luck. I have enjoy your 300 show, Seth. I'm a little terrified as to what we'll populate the following 300 with. I'm like, wait, I got to come up with more shit to say after this? What am I going to do?

People are going to love it no matter what you do. You're going to kill it up there. It sounds like a hell of a lineup. And the energy of the crowd is just going to propel that whole thing forward. Thanks for helping me slug it. I'm excited. It's a privilege to do what you love. I know you guys know the feeling.

When you do what you love, it is one of the most rewarding things. And we all have our days. We all hit the wall. This movement has its challenges that occasionally make it frustrating. In the YouTube comment sections of life, we all hit that wall. But overall, I am honored to be able to do what I do and to do how I do. I'm just excited. So it's going to be a great day.

We'll get it on the radio shortly after the 19th of November, and we'll make a big splash about it. Okay? Amazing. I'm pumped to hear it. Sweet. Seth, thanks so much for joining us today. And people are going to find your podcast. Where would they look?

Just go to thethinkingatheist.com, which is the site I host. The Thinking Atheist is not a person. It is an idea. It is an icon. You'll see there are videos. There are radio podcasts. There is an editor's blog. We have resources. We have a section just dealing with things like the Christian Bible and the

reputations of it. Just a lot of resources. But you can find the podcast list there chronologically. It's thethinkingatheist.com. Thanks again, Seth. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for what you do, and all my best. so we want to thank uh all our patrons of course uh but we want to thank our uh the most recent patrons jason king lewis the funk i love that tim darian sydney funnel web spider no winky face jonathan michelle this one i love the 49th apostate mike bob that's my cream in your latte sam eliza graham brian corkey Corky, Sycad, Greg, Corey, Tom's future ex. Call me. Paul, Joseph, it's a dude. Ben, Al.

Text me. Dick pick me. George, Jared, and Anthony, thanks so much for your generous donations. You're the reason why we were able to just go to Europe. Isn't that incredible? We just got back from QED, and it was our first ever show, live show, and it was an absolute blast.

We had such a good time. The room was packed. People were excited to be there, and we put on what I think was a pretty good show. You can see, you can listen to it. We released it last week, or if you're a patron, you can view the video.

We posted the video on the patron feed. So if you want to see us do the show, but there are a few site gags that are, there are site gags that are fun. And we had, I got to say, it was my first time I ever left the country. And I think the country breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the plane got my

ass off of it. Yeah. It was such an incredible pleasure to go out and to meet people at QED. I can't imagine really, truly meeting a better group of people, you know, from the first night at the kind of the social event that we had all the way through. And the first night bled quickly into the first morning and things got a little, things got a little shaky. I'm not going to lie about it. I feel like I owe some people, some apologies. You know who you are. I don't know who you are, but I would apologize to a lot of those people.

They didn't listen to the show. I don't know what to tell you. There was a moment where I saw somebody and I was just looked over and I'm like, do I need to apologize? Cause if so, I'm probably sorry. I don't know if I feel it, but I should say it. But, but truly I'm like, do I need to apologize? Because if so, I'm probably sorry. I don't know if I feel it, but I should say it. But truly it was like, I think you said it when we were there, Cecil, it's like everybody's trying to have a nice off. Everybody was just incredibly

kind and super gracious. Meeting the fans, I thought it was a fucking hoot. Being able to do the show live and being able to travel for the show and enjoy that time, that makes doing this and coming out and driving two and a half hours in the fucking rainstorm today just to get here. It makes that kind of shit really worthwhile. It makes doing this show, which I do love doing, but adding that element, being able to go out and meet people and shake hands and kiss babies and all that kind of good stuff. I fucking loved it.

It was great. I fucking loved it. It was great. And then meeting all the people, the people that we met were so amazing, fun to talk to cool people, just everybody, you know, through the, through the, all of them that, that I met, I don't, I didn't meet a single person that I was like, I'd get me away from this person. You know what I mean? Like, I think I was that person for a lot of folks. Yeah. Right. person you know what i mean like i think i was that person for a lot of folks yeah right yeah um and also we got a chance to hang out with the scathing atheist crew uh heath is i i you could put as many drinks in that guy and he's the same guy i've never seen that is amazing right that

no that is a hot because heath and i went pretty hard for two straight nights and it's four five o'clock in the morning and look over and heath is just fucking he's just he's just fucking smooth as velvet i can't believe the whole time i picked somebody up and threw somebody at him and he just calmly picked her up and set it to the side like no big deal people always be throwing bitches and it doesn't matter he is he is fucking unflappable he's he's a and he's funny and he's great to hang out with. Eli was awesome. Noah, hanging out with him was great. Just could not ask for better people to hang out with. Across the board, Eli is a hoot. He's the quickest-witted person in person I have ever known.

I've never known anybody quicker than that guy and more of a pain in the ass to go to a restaurant with. Every time Eli goes to a restaurant, it's so funny. Jesus fucking Christ. It just feels like he's got to ask. I mean, he's a vegan, right? So, of course, he's already sorry that he's there. You know what I mean?

So am I. And so he's, you know, yeah, I'd like to order this, but is there any way that you can maybe just take the broccoli and run it through a warm room? I don't want to actually, when we warm it up, I just want you to run it through a warm room. I don't want to actually, when we warm it up, I just want you to run it through a warm room. And then if you could just blow on it three times, spin around, walk over to me and present it. But I don't want you to look at me. I want you to hand it over your shoulder. Don't look at me while I eat it. He asks all

these demands whenever we go out. And it's so funny to listen to. My favorite moment eating with Eli this last time, and we ate a ton of meals with them, and it was great. We had this fight with Heath, who was going to pick up the bill, and Heath is so smooth. He got me twice, that fucker. It pissed you off, too. It was great. I was so mad, but he got me.

He got me really good at the burger place. This is why I fuck an asshole. My favorite Eli story eating out we contact uh the guys in glasgow who were amazing we're gonna talk about that in a second glasgow in a second but he uh like eli and the rest of us anna's with him and then it's noah and heath and and us too and then graham then he said graham graham say it? Graham. Graham. Graham. It's like Graham, but angrier. And a young lady

who I cannot remember her name. Oh no, I don't remember her name either. And she was so sweet. She was so sweet and nice, but I just can't, her name's not coming to me. But she was really nice

and such a sweet lady. We all, all of us go out to breakfast and I'm going to call him Graham because it's just easier. Graham was there and he was like, okay, we're going to go to this place. Well, he looks.

He's like, this place is closed. And so he's like, well, we'll just go to the casino. And so we walk over to the casino and we look inside. And inside the casino, it looked like there was a restaurant. It looked like a pretty nice restaurant. It was like, okay, no problem. And everybody outside was like, cool. And we walk in.

We show them our passports because we had to get inside to this place. And he's like, okay, you can go in because you're old enough. And we start to go in and we're like, oh, can we just go get a seat? And the guy says, no, you have to go downstairs. And Eli gets this look in his face. And it's like the look of a kid who walked in on his parents having sex and not quite sure what happened. Do you know what I mean? Is daddy hurting her? Is daddy hurting mommy? He's got this look on his face. Yeah, that's later in the evening.

He's got this look and it's this panicked sort of look. And I could see it in his face. And he's like, I don't know if we should go here. Guys, I don't know if we should go here. And I was like, Eli, we can go wherever you want to go. He's like, no, it's okay. It's fine. But I don't know if we should go here.

He couldn't stop himself. And so we start to go downstairs. And as we're walking downstairs, he's like. It's fine. But I don't know if we should go there. He couldn't stop himself. And so we start to go downstairs. And as we're walking downstairs, he's like, guys, guys, this is the before time. This is the before time. After this, we could look back on this and be like, we decided in the before time to actually leave. And I know why he was mad. I know why he wasn't mad. I know why he was nervous.

He was nervous because you're at a casino where they're just like, yeah, I gonna fucking i'm not gonna they're not gonna accommodate this at all and i could tell but it was so funny to see him just freeze and the thing is is eli doesn't panic like eli is unflappable we found that out in edinburgh oh yes nobody fucking knew who we were yeah and we all they're like asking us to do a q a and nobody in the room knows who we are and eli's like i'm eli fucking bostick he's making jokes and a magic show and he's fucking killing it but you know you know how you know how to ruin eli is say i'm gonna take you to the casino for breakfast and he likes just but he was body was just like no it was so amazing it was so great and then i looked at eli and i was like you're right this is the before time gram we're gonna go somewhere else and he was like oh okay no problem and we just went to another place it

was a total not issue but it was it was great it was eating eating with eli is as embarrassing as going to a restaurant with your racist grandmother though like you never know what she's about to say and you know you're going to fucking hang your head in shame when she does. And you're like, don't, it's not a pick-and-eat baby. You can't say that out loud, Grandma. That's not, you can't say that. That's terrible. Eating with Eli is almost

that bad, but watching him clap fingertip to fingertip with excitement when we ate a meal-ish item in a little tea room. He was so excited. Custom design for little girls. He was so excited.

He would clap his hands. He's smacking his little hands together. Fingertips to fingertips. Oh, he's so funny. Like a gay seal. Oh, it was amazing. He's a beautiful man. A beautiful man.

And just hanging out with all three of those guys. They were great. They were amazing. They were great guys. Noah is, you know, he doesn't drink, but he's so much fun to have a conversation with while you're drinking. So it's like, it turns out it's really great. Well, look at who he's surrounded by.

Yeah. Well, Eli doesn't drink either. Yeah, I guess that's true. But it was, we had a great time hanging out with them. It was a lot of fun. And the thing we did in Glasgow was awesome. Oh, my God. We had such a good time.

Brian put on this little quiz show for us, treating us like the foreigners that we were. We drank this fucking lacquer thinner or whatever it was. Burned bread. Iron bread. It was the worst thing. It was so bad. And then just like we learned that playing the air fluid is a bad thing.

Turns out. We just learned a whole bunch of stuff, and it was a lot of fun. Turns out the Scottish are still upset about things that happened 326 years ago. And then we wound up having drinks that night. And that was a lot of fun. We got met by Sean in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is a beautiful city. We just we absolutely fell in love with that city.

It is amazing. Tom and I ate at this witchery place for lunch while the guys for Scathing Atheists were recording. They were stuck in their hotel room. We were in this beautiful castle. We were in a 15th century castle having a fine dining meal. Enjoy recording, sucka fools. It was great. It was actually great.

It was beautiful. That night, we wound up going to the Skeptics in the Pub in Edinburgh. There was like six people in the audience. They listened to our show. I just want to thank you so much for coming to that because you saved us. Nobody in that audience knew, and they were a bunch of angry old Scots, and they didn't give two fucks who we were. They didn't know fuck all who we were at all.

It could have been a disastrous evening. It could have been an absolute disaster. And it felt like it was going to be when it started. It did. I think we were all looking at each other like, uh-oh, this is going to be horrible. What the actual fuck? This is not going well.

But it turned out great because there were some people in the audience that night that just saved the show. But we met so many cool people in Scotland. We met, his name, Declan, is that how he pronounced it? Declan was in Glasgow. Declan was in Glasgow. I'm talking about Scotland, though. Yeah, Scotland in general.

We met a ton of great people there. Declan, who was able to come out and go to the Skeptics in the Pub and hang out. We met a ton of people there, a ton of people I don't remember. Too many to name, and forgive us for not remembering every name, but everybody we met to a T was awesome. Plus, you get dogs in your pubs. Hannah, who came up from London, was just awesome to see

someone come that far to meet us. She was delightful and so sweet. Then we wound up going to that Edinburgh place. Stuart and a few other people that were in that group that night asked enough questions during that Q&A to keep

it rolling and keep it interesting. And we can't thank you enough for that because we were dying. Dying. We were dying up there. Eli was doing a magic trick. He's bombing the whole time. And he's like, this room is on fire. It's the best thing ever.

He was so funny. He was. And it was like, like after that moment of being on stage, when it wasn't really a stage, we were just sort of on like a little weird little raised platform on the side with, you know, the chairs. But really a stage. We were just sort of on a little weird little raised platform on the side with the chairs, but we were the focus of the attention. We sure were. And going through that sort of with them

was the best. It was so good because they, not only is Eli unflappable, but Heath was giggling uncontrollably and made it bearable. Noah was quick and funny and insightful when he needed to be he was and it was it was great to be able to lean on like everybody was leaning on each other just so we could survive that and it felt like i was in a plane crash i mean it felt like after i walked out of that i was like these guys like we're like

blood brothers i was gonna say like we're bonded through fucking trauma at that point. It was wonderful. It was one of those things that it was an amazing, amazing couple of nights, and we had such a great time, just such a great time in general up there. We can't thank everybody enough for being so accommodating and having so much fun. Again, to iterate the point, thanks to our patrons, thanks to everybody over the course of the years that supported the show.

We've been doing this for a long time. And, and really for me, this is kind of a culminating event, like to be able to start seeing the world because of the work that we've done for the show and the patrons and the fans that have supported us over the course of the last, however many years, I just think it's incredible. I just think it's really incredible

to have that opportunity. And I am intensely grateful for it. Me too. Me too. So we want to cover a bit of email before we go today. So we want to talk a little bit about some of the stuff that happened, you know, because we haven't had a show and we haven't been in studio for a while. So we did get a couple of messages about felonies. One of them in particular mentioned that felons can vote and that is state by state depending. Felons can vote and felons do slowly start to get reintegrated back into society.

There are steps that they can take. So that was a little bit of a misstatement on our part. So there are ways in which felons can participate in society once they are released from jail or paid their sort of debt to society. felony can be and patrick says until a couple years ago the virginia code listed both oral and anal sex as class six felonies oh um they wouldn't get a conviction of course uh but they would certainly have hauled me and my boyfriend off to a pokey uh and nothing but handcuffs if they wanted to that is crazy that you could get for oral or anal sex, class six felonies. What if nobody swallows? Does it still count? Then it's punishable by death. Right? Then it's not even worth it.

You get to slap somebody in the face. During? That's the only way to do it. I'm just double checking. I ask permission first, and then I'm game, dude. We got a message from Jonathan, and Jonathan was talking about when we had, we were talking about Jesse Lee Peterson. Jesse Lee Peterson was, we were playing a segment from him and he was talking about how he, imagine if you were running from Bin Laden and you jumped into a foxhole and there was a girl in bin laden or something like that and uh and he says he says

not only is osama bin laden five years deceased as you both noted but the idea of groups of american soldiers sailors marines etc would be fleeing from a lone insurgent is insanely hilarious and implies a level of cowardice i cannot be i love that that is so amazing and hilarious it's something i completely went past us. Thank you so much for sending that in, Jonathan. We got a great image. I love this. I want this poster. This is going to be

posting before the election. So this is actually a good election poster for Trump. I laughed. I laughed and laughed. Tom did laugh out loud when he saw this. So this is from Jason. We're going to be posting it as a motivational poster for this episode, episode 324. We got a message from Christian, and Christian sent us a big, long message chiding us about how flippantly we talked about the NSA during Jim Baker's little tirade. And Jim Baker was talking about the NSA.

This is several episodes ago where he was talking about how they record every single conversation and how they're monitoring him and how he can't even say certain things on his internet show because they'll monitor him or whatever. And, and we did make a comment about hashtagging a conversation that is incorrect. They do actually look for keywords and that is something that we did want to correct. But this is something that I did want to talk about too. We get a lot of emails from people who seem to have deeper interest than we do in some subjects

and a deeper bit of outrage in some subjects than we do. We don't approach it with the amount of gravity that they think we should be approaching it. We get shitty emails from people who say, God damn it, how dare you not talk about how bad the NSA is. And yeah, the NSA is dipping into conversations and they're keywording things. And there's a level of freedom we have to give up to be safe and there's a conversation there to be had. There to be had. I don't know where I stand completely on where the NSA is and where they where they they dip into, you know, regular civilian conversations. I also feel, though, that that Jim Baker was way off the mark in what he was talking about, the stuff he was talking about, recording every single conversation, listening to every single conversation. That's not happening. That can't actually happen. You mentioned it on the show. There's just not enough manpower to do that sort of thing. To suggest the suggestion,

the implication that Jim Baker was making was that the NSA has an enormous facility, which they clearly have. I'm not arguing that. It has an enormous facility. But again, he said it was a secret facility. It's not a secret facility. There's all these things that we were pointing out.

I was making fun. It's not a secret facility if you have a picture of it. It's not a fucking secret facility if you found it on Google search. Exactly. Stop. And it is not the case that there's people with headphones listening to every conversation everybody has in the world. That's not happening. It's literally impossible from a time and man power

standpoint. It's just not happening. I did make fun of the keyword thing with my hashtag comments because it was funny. That is very probably part of what's happening, but the idea that they're listening to you and I and there's somebody with headphones on listening

to every cognitive dissonance episode. Or every phone call that I'm making, whatever. And the way he was talking about it, it's like every conversation you have. Right, as if every part of the world is bugged. Yeah. So, yes, the NSA, there are definite things to worry about and to discuss and to think about when it comes to the NSA. I'm not sure that Jim Baker was near the mark on

nearly any of that. I agree. We got a message. This is from Travis, and Travis says, listening to the new episode about dogma debate in Smalley and Fisher, my response to Fisher's comment about all people being born straight would be, well, are transvestites born straight? And if so, what kind of straight are they? And what I think he would say to you, Travis, is he would say, well, that's a mental illness. He would come right out. And also, we don't say transvestites, by the way.

Transvestites is transgender. I'm just quoting the email. But yeah, I'm language policing you, Travis. Because we won't be language police. Because we're going to be language police for saying it. We'll get a ticket by proxy. But I just want to say... You got a boot on your tongue. But yeah, I think he would just say that that's a mental illness.

He would fall back on that. He's a great rhetorician, and I think that Smalley was actually smart to just cut losses and just forget it. the band in that train of thought yeah we got a great video i love this video this is from uh this is from somebody else and somebody else sent this in it's alex it's an alex jones video it's very short and uh and it's awesome and it it's just you just got to watch it it's on our website oh. Oh. Oh, this is great. We got a link from Bruno, and this is a link for somebody who's selling wax Amish children, and they are terrified.

They are amazing. I watch so many of these. I'm going to put a link on this episode's show notes, but take a look at these images. Could you imagine walking into this scary fucking room full of all these fucking images? Oh, my God. That's a horror show.

I love it. You know what you got to do is you got to stick a wick in the top of them and burn them like a candle. We did get a message from someone who does not want us to use their name on the air, but they said that they agreed with us on the idiocy of Jim Baker. They used to work at the NSA, and the NSA does not actually do the things that Jim Baker says. So, so, Hey guys,

argument from authority, a random internet guy says he's super. Yeah. Okay. Maybe, maybe, maybe, but,

but he agrees with us. We love him. We love him. Yeah. Nobody says, however, the U S constitution, specifically the fourth amendment prohibits collecting intelligence on the aforementioned groups without a court order or signed by a federal judge.

And he's talking about religious groups. So I just wanted to mention the thank you for the person who works at the NSA. Maybe. Possibly. Who said they worked at the NSA. Hashtag NSA. We got a message, and this is something we wanted to address. This is from John, and John says,

Jesse Lee Peterson may have a cleft palate. And we looked this up, and he does actually have a cleft palate. So we are, if we do do a show about him, we will talk about the stupid shit he says, but we will stop making fun of how he talks because that is physically disabled. He can't do anything about that, and so we don't want to go down that road with him.

That's not fair. That isn't fair. But he is a complete idiot. Oh, yeah. All the shit he says is still up for grabs. He's a complete idiot. Yeah. But the way he says things should not be...

He's still on the chopping block. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I do think we may still do a show with him as the person who we... Roast the shit out of. ...roast the shit out of. Yeah. We got a message, Tom, from Chris.

And I know you wanted to address this. He's a cop in Australia. Yeah, he says, he's talking, he says, you know, we stop people on bikes all the time. Now, granted, this is Australia, right? So it doesn't really count as a country. But he says, we stop them for riding at night without lights, riding without helmets, or traffic offenses,

like running through lights or pedestrian crossing. Riding without helmets. P offenses like running through lights or pedestrian crossing pussy ass country you can play rugby without a helmet you can't ride a bike you see all the people like riding in the middle of the fucking lane in chicago they're riding in the middle of the goddamn lane and they're on a fucking divvy bike and they got no other cell phone and they got flip-flops on like no pants and their balls hanging out and they're on a fucking divvy bike. And they got no helmet. Their other cell phone. And they got flip flops on. And like no pants. And their balls are hanging out. And they're like, whatever.

Beep, beep. Fuck you. Yeah. And then down there, they're like, oh, sorry. Sorry, mate. You ain't wearing a helmet. But he says, but most of all, we stopped them because our crooks get around on bikes. Simple as that.

If you're riding a shit bike, oh, that's the part. Or you look like a crook. I'll stop's the part, or you look like a crook, I'll stop and talk to you. I look like a crook. I gotta say, I think that's Ishmael's point, is he's tired of people thinking that he looks like a crook, just because he's a black dude on a bicycle. What the fuck does a crook look like?

He definitely looks aboriginal or black. We got a great image. I'm going to post this. This is Ted Cruz as a baby. It's so unsettling and hilarious. That poor kid. That's all I got to say. That poor kid.

All right. So we want to thank Seth Andrews, the host of The Thinking Atheist, for joining us today. What a great guy, man. And every time we get on the call with that guy, the language he uses, and I know we mention this each time,

but the language he uses is, however I can serve you is what he says all the time when we're off the air to sort of like, because we said, he said, how long is this going to take? And we're like, oh, it'll be done. And we can be done in 30 minutes. He's like, no, no, I just want to know.

I don't want to take up too much of your time is what he said. Like, that is just, like, the generosity of that guy is, it's just beyond, I mean, it's just an amazing guy. It's beyond almost anything else. It's just an amazing guy. In fact, I want to, a little further, the first time we had him on, he said, you know, he said something like, let me know how else I can be of service to you. He said something like, let me know how else I can be of service to you. And that's a phrase that stuck with me, and I've incorporated that into my own lexicon because I thought that is how graciousness behaves. For sure.

And I appreciated that so much. He's a good guy. He's a very good guy. And he just raised $15,000 for Camp Quest, and he said he's going to be doing more of that in the future. And if you want to go to his 300th episode, you're in Texas, and you want to go see him and suffer through Smalley, you can go get tickets. You're shaking your head at me? Jesus. Anyway, David, we love you, and we know you listen.

We know you're a huge fan. You'll catch this on your next listen of Cognitive Distance. I want to say thanks, Seth, though, for coming on the show. And if you do want to catch him in Texas, you can still get tickets. We'll put a link to that on this episode's show notes as well as a link to his show. But that's going to do it for this show, for this episode. It was a lot of fun. We had a great time in Europe, and we're going to hit the schedule pretty hard here.

Yes, we are. If you are around and maybe near a computer, we will either be, A, live tweeting election stuff tomorrow night, or it's our great hope, we're not sure if this is going to happen, but it's our great hope that we'll be doing a live broadcast on Facebook Live if we can get it to work. Yeah, we're going to try to work a video feed. We're going to try to do a video feed of us watching the election coverage in Glory Hole Studios on Tuesday night. So if you're around on Tuesday night, check our Facebook page out. There may be a link to YouTube or it may be happening on Facebook, but we're hopefully going to have a live video feed of

Glory Hole Studios, us watching our monitor, us watching FiveTh us watching 538 and during the boring parts we might be doing some stories and messing around so if you want to check that out that'll be probably uh tomorrow night that's crazy yeah the very but we you know at very least we will definitely be live tweeting throughout the evening oh absolutely so yeah look forward to that so uh that's gonna wrap it up for this episode we'll get you now next time. But we're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized,

pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Leo, Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, bigfoot, yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts,

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