Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 34: Thomas vs. the Bible

Episode Date: February 13, 2012

Notes for week 2/13/12 Poll confirms strong sense of faith in S.C. ,Air Force unit removes 'God' from logo; lawmakers warn of 'dangerous precedent'; Shaul Spitzer, Hasidic Man Admits Burning Neighbor In New York Religious Dispute; Google and Disney are Not Getting Better! ;Miracle Soap claims lead to £25,000 fine for religious TV channel ; Second 'sunken UFO' claim doesn't really hold water; The raw milk controversy: Where “natural” means “may contain harmful bacteria” ; Madonna’s NFL Satanic Ritual disguised in the Half Time Show. Thomas and the bible podcast, youtube channel, facebook. (thomasandthebible.com) Clips: Jesus camp, The Simpsons, Ghostbusters, Madonna ` “Like a Prayer” Visit our Website at http://dissonancepod.com for all the links.

Do you want to get Cognitive Dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at stitcher.com. Hi, this is Thomas from the Thomas and the Bible podcast, and you are listening to Cognitive Dissonance, what is quite literally my favorite podcast of the last 20 or 30 years. And I just love just everything that Tim and Cedric say. And they're funny. And it's a good thing you're listening because, man, what a great thing they do. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended.

The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political. And there is no welcome mat. And I say there's no welcome mat, but still, I have to extend a welcome, which makes me a giant fucking liar, which should come as no surprise. Welcome here to Thomas from Thomas and the Bible. This is a really well done podcast that Cecil and I found by virtue of the fine folks at iTunes suggesting it. We wanted to have Thomas

on and he's going to discuss our first story with us for the day. Our Wires... You said well done podcast. We like to think of our podcast as well done so our standards are very low. I'm just making sure we didn't get on the wrong line.

You're still talking to me, right? Unfortunately, we can't drop the call. line. You're still talking to me, right? Unfortunately. Yeah, we can't drop the call. I've been hitting the hang up button, but it's not doing anything. I need new batteries in the mouse or something. That's probably it. Fuck it. Since you're here, let's do it.

Do it live. You know, I got to say, fuck, I'm really sorry. There's something I absolutely have to address before I go any further with this. I have it on good authority, and maybe you don't even remember saying this, but you dip gay cocks in your coffee? Well, every now and again. I mean, don't you? Well, no. And honestly, I'm not being judgmental.

I'm not trying to change the way you live your life or anything. But honestly, I have tons of just, I don't know, practical logistical questions about this. Like I, I want to know. So like, do you, do you Craigslist this? Like, how do you find, first of all, where do you find like wanted gay cocks? Like come. You can find anything on Craigslist, Thomas. Come on. You can find anything. Do you like, so, and you say, and not only gay cock, like gay cocks. I just, now I can't, like, how do you, is there like people suspended? Is there people like suspended on wires or something? I just picture you, this big like travel mug of coffee.

And I really need to know this before I can go any further. Please tell me exactly. It's a very dainty little cup. It's not a travel mug. It's a tiny little cup. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually an espresso cup.

Yeah. It's, uh, it's more of a challenge that way for them. I gotcha. Look, here's the thing. I hang out with mostly deviants and you can get these guys to do damn near anything. So you're saying this is just another day for them, like for you. Right.

You're just like, hey, I've got a coffee. You've got a cock. It's a natural combination. It's a chocolate peanut butter situation here, Thomas. It's not complicated. You know, you're sipping an espresso. You take a sip. Good. Not great.

Needs a cock in it. It's not blasphemous. And wasn't that the issue? You wanted to make sure you were going against Mormon teaching as much? Wasn't that what it was, I think? I don't know. It was a great episode. But I want to know, like, I guess that's why it was so nonchalant for you.

You mentioned it, and then you were like, yeah, I'm moving on. That's totally normal information. Right. I mean, some guys like biscotti. I've said nothing controversial. Let's just keep going. It was awesome. Okay, sorry.

I just had to get that off my chest. So the first story we're going to cover. Not literally. I didn't literally have a cock on like nevermind well that'd be cool if you did I mean I'm not here

to judge yeah it's fine I mean we accept all types so it's cool whatever man oh okay and I mean Craigslist

for that too if you want I mean you can find it I know put a cock damn near anywhere Merle Beach well now that I

ruined your show yeah oh no oh no no no sir you've just elevated the discourse right exactly myrtle beach online this is a uh a story from myrtle beach online they actually get their stories from the sun news which sounds like a uh well let's put it this way their their little header has a beach ball instead of an O.

So it sounds reputable. Seems reputable. A lot of people use beach balls instead of letters in their typography. Anyway, poll confirms strong sense of faith in South Carolina. But religious leaders say survey is not accurate representation of how people worship. Cecil, you sent this story to me. This seems reasonable. Yeah, the one thing I think,

the reason why we want to talk to Thomas about this is because at one point they say, they take this poll and it's 800 and some people and they didn't poll on Super Bowl Sunday for some reason. I don't know. You'd figure if these people are so fucking religious, they'd be in church and not watching the fucking Super Bowl. But at one point he says – it says that the Bible is supposed to be taken literally word for word and 62 percent of people said, why, yes, it should be.

And now since we have somebody who has read at least three chapters of the Bible, books – is it books? It's books of the Bible, right? You corrected me earlier. Three books of the Bible. Books. Is it books? It's books of the Bible, right? You corrected me earlier. Three books of the Bible. We should. I think I'm pretty sure I'm on book like five, actually. Damn, dude, you are screaming through that shit. Oh, my God.

No, I'm not, actually. It's because it's such a page turner. You know? It's like, how do you put it down at night? I can't put it down. Yeah. So literally, word for word, what would you have to say to somebody who would take this book that you have read? I'm the king of non-sequiturs.

I got to say that just reminded me something that I've said. I will address your question. Hold on. First, I want to be political like a politician when I can't think of an answer. I'm really – I'm glad you asked me that. I'm glad I asked it too. I'm really I'm glad you asked me that. I'm glad I asked it too. I'm excited that our country gives us the chance to ask each other questions like the question you just asked me, which I forgot.

So the answer is freedom. Yes. I don't know. The answer is freedom. What I got to say is I love how like you, the reference you just made to being a page turner. I love how, like the reference you just made to being a page turner, it is certainly not that. It is not. The pages start to feel like they weigh thousands of pounds. My eyelids start to feel like they weigh thousands of pounds. It is the boringest, most fucking. Oh, I can curse on your show, right? Oh, fucking A2, bring it. Oh, no, fuck that.

That's fucking rude. Because for some reason, I decided to keep my podcast not. I don't know why. I thought there would be lots of children listening to it. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. We gather the family around your podcast. It is the fucking boringest book.

And I like how people think it's the word of God yet that they're okay with it being the most boring fucking thing. Like you don't think God would be a slightly better author? You know, like he should should he should be at least as good as clancy right he should at least be as good as clancy favorite fucking author is of all time he should be infinitely better than that you should like you should be crying just reading just turning the page just like i can't even handle how good this is the entire thing you should be just fucking the good parts you should be jumping for joy you know like it's just not that fucking good there's the best example of this i think i did it in one of

my youtube videos there are like fucking 20 pages of text about the fucking intricate details of putting together a tabernacle it says so it describes god tells them exactly what they need to do that for this fucking tabernacle like you have this has to be 12 cubits this has to be 10 cubit it goes on for fucking pages these curtains need to be purple you blah blah you need to stand on your head while hammering this in like all this shit no it says you have to put this many fucking like nails in in this part and it's fucking awful as if that wasn't bad enough the very next fucking chapter is everything identical instead but instead of saying it should be this it says and they built it so that it was this. Oh, shut the fuck up. I'm fucking serious.

It says, and so they built the curtain that was purple. And they built the fucking this. Word for word, except changing the beginning of the sentence. Oh, good lord. And if that isn't brilliant writing, I don't know what is. Look, Dickens got paid by the word. So did God. People don't know this. Brother's got to eat.

You know what I mean? He's like, how could I? Remember when you were in high school or college or what have you and you get assigned something like, I have nothing to say about this. I have made that. You just reminded me because like I said, we might have been not recording, but I forget. It's so bad. I just try to block what I've just read out of my mind. I don't remember any of this fucking book. I have to go refresh. But I just remembered I made that exact joke. The entire thing reads like you had God had a word limit, like some professor assigned this. No, God is the professor. And fucking whoever wrote the Bible on Jesus or Jesus wrote it. Right, right. Yeah, he wrote the whole thing. I have a signed copy, so I know it's Jesus.

Oh, really? Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. That's worth so much. That's how you have all the money to just sit and make a brilliant podcast. That's how we hire this crew to make this podcast for us. We actually wrote out...

I was amazed that you sent crew over to me, like, all the way over here. I've got people like, I've got a guy just like holding my drink right now. Is he dipping his cock in your coffee at all? It should be. That's what we pay you for, Rahul. Honestly, I already had a guy for that. We pay them to do that.

It's extra. It's a bonus. We have to pay them a bonus for that. A bonus, yes. You see how I did that? Anyway, so the question that you were supposed to answer, 63% of these people think it's real and it's

literal. I'm happy you asked me that question. I'm glad that we live in a country. It's, yeah, word for word, literally word for word. Okay, what I want to say about this, and again, I'm going to kind of answer it, but's a, yeah. Word for word, literally word for word. Okay. What I want to say about this. And again, I'm, I'm going to kind of answer it, but in a different way. Yeah. We didn't expect the sort of straightforward cognitive distance now three hours long.

Sorry. I've just cut all of me. Just cut all the parts where I'm talking. Just cut all that. Um, just, just ask questions and then just silence and then just say like, okay, well, he answered that question very well. I guess he didn't want to talk about that. Okay. Just be really emotionally hurt by every, every sentence. But yeah, I love how they say, whenever, have you ever, has anyone ever like a Christian recommended you read the Bible?

Has that ever happened? Like, oh yeah, no, no. I just, I don't know if this has been your experience, but this has been my experience with everyone who's ever recommended it. And everyone I've ever read talking about, they always say, uh, so they say like, Oh, you should, you should read the Bible. Okay. And, and then you say like, Hey, I started, you know, like just Genesis is, I can't, this is awful. And then they say, well, no, started, you know, like just Genesis. I can't. This is awful. And then they say, well, no, you don't start at the beginning. You need to read like a chapter of Genesis and then read like a psalm and then read from the gospel.

Like so that you're doing like a triple reading. Have you heard this? I have not heard this. No, they'll always say that. You don't. They say like, don't. Look, don't read the inerrant word of God in the order in which it was printed. I have not heard this. from how fucking horrible the Old Testament is. It's fucking, I mean, I haven't gotten to the New Testament, so it could be just as bad, but I hear, from what I hear, it's better.

But I think that the reason they do that is to distract from how obvious it is when you read it in order that it is not exactly the Word of God. Like, it's sort of, it's kind of not really at all the Word of God. It's a bunch of nut jobs. You couldn't fucking not really at all the word of God. It's a bunch of nut jobs. You couldn't fucking even mistake it for the word of God. I don't even know if God used any of those words ever in any order. Like, it's not even.

I'm not using that one. Fuck, he used that one. It's all my words. If he read it, he would say, I'm not even going to use whatever language this is just because it's so bad. I don't want to be associated with it. It's so you can tell they're not even talking about the same. I think Dan Dennett talks about this from time to time. Their concept of God in the Old Testament is vastly different than what it is for us now. God is like this super kind of warrior thing that sort of helps you win battles occasionally.

Unless there's iron chariots or what have you. Exactly. And then you're just like, fuck. Wait, I'm going to – I've got to – let's do – you've got iron chariots? Yeah, I'm out. Fuck that. Listen, I left a thing back home to do. Yeah.

I left the oven on – fuck. I had a roast in the – I had one in hell. I've got to get it out of there. It's burning up. Yeah. I left the oven on. Fuck. I had a roast in the I had one in hell. I gotta get it out of there. It's burning up. Man, it's hot. So bringing this back to South Carolina. So what I'm saying is I would say no, it's not the word of God. I guess

would be my answer. I would say possibly not. Not buying that argument. Okay, so you're one of these 17% of people that does not think. Oh, God, 17%. No. But actually, it's at 12.3. I don't know.

It seems like your math is off. Oh, my God. But what I want to say, though, is does it scare you that 83% of the people that were polled think this? Yeah. I can't even. and please watch my youtube video where i express exactly this i i read three pages into this thing and i'm like oh this is not this is a joke you guys this you don't really this is not really what you this isn't your whole fucking religion right that's not that's a joke right this is just some like prank like the onion bible

yeah onion bible that is perfect you got punked it's like the punk version i love the folks over at the onion i don't know that they could come up with something this fucking good it's so fucking funny in in how bad it is like it's so if you were a comedian set to write something like okay i'm gonna write something really fucking bad just to see if people can believe it. You couldn't come up with this with the Bible. You couldn't, there's no way it's too good. Now, is it going to surprise you when Ashton Kutcher pops out and is like, no, it won't surprise me. That's why that's my answer. This, this, this question, like it would, it's surprising me that he hasn't yet. I wonder if he's hiding somewhere in my house and like ran out of food and just, you know, never had the right moment. And so he like died of starvation.

So I got to ask you this question about this story, though. So this story, this story, one of the guys that they're interviewing talks about, you know, whether the Bible is literal and, you know, how much interpretation, theological interpretation that there is required in order to have this sort of deep understanding of the Bible. Having listened to your show, I've listened to many episodes of your show. I haven't listened to all the fucking 58 of them yet. But I have listened to many episodes of your show and there are page after page that there's nothing to interpret. Right. page after page that there's nothing to interpret right there's no you know there's the famous stories which are which are fucking pretty self-explanatory like the the meaning is is not difficult to discern but there are page after page of meaningless inconsequential tribal snafus

and what the fuck are you supposed to do with that you know these guys say it's the literal word and then they sort of go on the other side of their mouth and say well you know you got to really spend some time yeah my favorite thing is if it's not the literal world word of god if it's meant to be taken figuratively figuratively for what like so much of this shit like okay so like nothing happens and then whoever the current prophet is they go through a lot of i don't know abraham some i can't remember whoever it is murders like an entire town for no reason and it's like wow that's a great metaphor for what fucking murdering an entire town for no reason like what what's the fucking metaphor like how am I taking this figuratively?

I thought the same thing. What stands in for what in this metaphor? When Lot's wife gets turned to a pillar of salt, right? You're just like, okay, well that's a metaphor for the How bland food can be sometimes. I don't know. What? Too salty. Proper seasoning makes your steak

good. Kosher salt will sometimes be... Don't look back when God's destroying whole towns on a whim. If you look at that, you'll turn to salt. So that should teach you... It's a moral teaching, right? It says don't

metaphorically look back when metaphorical God is metaphorically destroying a metaphorical town. That's the message. It's very clear. I don't know why the fuck you can't understand this. I use that daily. I was making a three-point turn and I thought about Lot's wife and how she looked back

so I didn't look back when I was making my turn. I'll tell you what, you were fucking glad you read that, weren't you? I ran over like three kids, but I was like, whatever, dude. His bumper looks like shit. It's fucked at this point. That's all part of God's plan. You know, Sam Harris brings up a good point, too.

And I'm sure he's not the only one. I'm sure everybody in the world does. But OK, we've determined that the fucking Garden of Eden is figurative, right? Because we know that didn't happen. It's pretty well established. So what happens? What does that say about original sin? So that's all figurative, right? So like, what did, so what did Jesus have to die for then? If that's not, they sort of try to have it both ways, you know, they're like, well, we don't literally think that Adam and Eve, you know, did all that, but,

but there's still original sin and we all need to die for that, you know? So if you want to hear more Thomas from Thomas and the Bible, you're going to have to tune us in at the end of the show here. We're going to have him back on for an interview and talk about his podcast. Until then, you're just going to have to deal with our bad jokes and not his. Lord, we just asked it to be covered with the blood of Jesus. Open hearts, Lord. Open hearts. So Cecil, the next story I want to talk about is actually from the Syracuse.com website. This is Air Force Unit Removes God From Logo. Lawmakers Warn of Dangerous Precedent.

It's a dangerous precedent. It is. It's dangerous. Let me read the logo before and after. Sure. In Latin. And it's a Latin phrase for work of God. The new one reads, doing miracles with other people's money.

But the old one read doing God's work with other people's money. Right. Well, hold on. OK, so I want to just I want to just to address this. If I were let's say I were a Christian and I were thinking about this. If I were, let's say I were a Christian and I were thinking about this, I would be kind of pissed off that someone is saying that some sort of military unit is doing God's work. I would think I would be upset with that. I'd be like, man, fucking you don't get to say what God's work is.

You don't get to decide what that is. And you're not doing God's work, especially if you're a Christian. What if you're a Christian pacifist? You you know i don't believe in war at all well doing god's work and then the other thing too is if you're an atheist like fucking god's work god's fucking imaginary what is god's work doing square roots and negative numbers to get imaginary numbers and then adding those fuckers together what the fuck do you do with God's work? It's like you're in charge of the fucking ferry catching patrol. I like that it's with other people's money. Right.

How would you do God's work with God's money? How big is God's money? Right? God's like, I have an enormous coin. He's like struggling to put it in the coin slot. You know, like a giant claw comes down. It's got to be bigger than the earth because we're like his pocket lint, right? Right.

Yeah. So, yeah. So it's got to be bigger than the earth. He's like playing the crane game with our enemies. That's what he's doing. And then, you know, it just fucking slips. That's why it took so long to get Osama bin Laden. That crane, like, it just like grabs and is not strong enough to pick him up and like drops him back in the bucket.

You know, this is fucking retarded. I mean, it's a joke, right? That's the thing. It's a fucking inside joke. Doing miracles with other people's money. It's being it's fucking being kind of goofy. Yeah, it is. It's a dangerous precedent.

What's the dangerous precedent? Do the missiles not still blow up? We're talking about airplanes whose primary purpose is to fly around, shoot down other airplanes, and drop fucking death from the skies. What's the precedent? Oh, man, we took off the fucking ridiculous reference to God. You're still left in miracles. You're still left in miracles. I know.

It's not like – and isn't a miracle technically God's work? I know it's part of his work. It's one of the things he does. It's a subsect of God's work. It's either that or the fucking insane clown posse's work. The fucking Air Force. How does that work? So we've got a story from Huffington Post. This is a Hasidic man admits burning neighbor in New York religious dispute.

A Hasidic Jewish man from New York State pleaded guilty to assault on Tuesday for setting a neighbor on fire because he wasn't praying with the rest of the community, leaving the man badly burned. Probably owing to the fire. That's the fire right there. That's the fire. Wait, what is going on here? And this is obviously religiously motivated. what is going on here? And this is obviously religiously motivated.

Like, this is one of those stories when people are like, oh, well, you know, he's religious, but it wasn't, you know, that particular crime wasn't religiously motivated. This is specifically religiously motivated because the guy wasn't praying correctly. Right, yeah. The guy's not attending, you know, the same religious service. So what this guy did, I mean, this is, and this strikes me as a reasonable solution to the non-problem, you know, the same religious service. So what this guy did, I mean, this is, and this strikes me as a reasonable solution to the non-problem, you know,

is he took a bunch of clothes and he soaked them in kerosene and he threw them on their fucking porch while their family was inside sleeping. Because how could that go wrong? Right? No kidding. Hey, remember that time when you were sleeping

and somebody fucking lit your porch on fire and then you almost died? That's, it's a fucking awful thing to do well i love it's an awful fucking thing to do and this is not like this happened in some uh you know backwater this is in new york city yeah well and then it says spitzer's attorney um said this is a young boy this young boy has no criminal intent. I'm thinking no criminal intent. He's not a criminal. Motherfucker, last time I checked, fucking lighting, fucking gas covered, fucking clothes

on fire and throwing them on somebody's fucking porch to start their house on fire is a criminal act. It's this is this is more the same bullshit where it's like, oh, he's just, you know, he just it's religious expression. That's a religious expression. That's a religious expression. He's practicing religious freedom. You know, boys will be boys. Sometimes they'll light your fucking house on fire while your family's inside sleeping.

Sometimes that's, and then you'll come out to put out the fire and be badly burned in the process. I mean, didn't everybody do that when they were a kid? Isn't that part of like. Yeah, but they used dog poop back then. Yeah, right. Everybody do that when they were a kid. Isn't that part of like dog poop back? Yeah. Right. You know, and it's it's it's crazy because you scroll down on the same story and there's like a, you know, related on HuffPost Orthodox Jews under fire for altercation with eight year old girl. How can you have an altercation with an eight year old girl?

Well, you got to be a fucking asshole. Right. I mean, that's a fucking prerequisite. It's right on the form. This is the this is the worst kind of religious assholery available. Absolutely. Right. I mean, that's a fucking prerequisite. It's right on the form. This is the worst kind of religious assholery available. Absolutely. You know, like, you didn't do the thing I wanted you to do.

Here's a fire. And, you know, leave it to the fucking ultra fucking orthodox to do something like this. This is always what turns out. Whenever anybody is ultra orthodox, that's when the fucking shit hits the fan. That's when people are, like, killing other people or hurting other people or attacking other people. You know, fucking mellow the fuck out, Junior.

You know? Sit the fuck down in the corner. Read your book quietly. And if we fucking call on you, we call on you. But other than that, don't fucking bring your shit into the public square. Don't fucking intimidate other people. Hurt other people. Because they don't believe the same fucking crazy

story you do. You're all dead. Oh, be nice. Oh, my son doesn't stand a chance. The whole world's gone gay. Oh my God, what's happening now? We work hard. We play hard.

Everybody dance now. We work hard. We play hard. So, Cecil, one million moms is at it again. One million moms, by the way, if you look them up, they've got about 40,000 members. They're changing their name to 347 bigots. That's what they're going to change their name to. They're only 960,000 short of their goal. Yeah. So they're right there. They're close.

They're on the cusp, so to speak. They're 4% of the way. They're cusped. They're going60,000 short of their goal. Yeah. So they're right there. They're close. They're on the cusp, so to speak. They're 4% of the way. They're cusped. They're going to make it. They're right on the cusp. It's going to happen. It's a tipping point. You know, it's a tipping point.

Sure. Yeah. So they're freaking out now about the It Gets Better campaign. Particularly, they're aiming their criticisms at Disney and Google because 40,000 nutbags are going to take down Disney and Google. 40,000. You fucking idiots. 40,000 is such an inconsequential – even a million people is an inconsequential number to those two places. Like even a million – even let's say you had two million, three million.

It's not that many people when you come right down to these global institutions. It's a tiny fucking piss in the barrel here. It's such a tiny bit. These are some hateful fucking people because anybody who wants to take down the It Gets Better Project is a fucking degenerate. You're a degenerate. You like to bully people. And you think that should be protected if you are against this program. Right.

I mean, the name of it is it gets better. Yeah. Right? It can't be any worse, right? You're trying to make it worse. Yeah. You want to take, like, it's a message of hope for people who feel no hope, who feel shame, who feel isolated, who feel alone.

It's a way for an organized group of people to come together and to offer some fucking solace and to offer some realistic options and say it does get better because this time period in your life where you're sort of cloistered in the same bullshit middle school, high school, click-driven world, that shit disappears on graduation day for fucking ever. Right. And people don't understand that when they're admired in that bullshit. So to take those kids who commit suicide at a disproportionately high rate because of the awful torment and bullying that they're subject to

and to criticize the it gets better campaign. Yeah. How small minded do you have to be? How do you look at something saying like, oh, this is about things getting better. I oppose that. Yeah. You're such an idiot then. You just want to slap that person in the ear.

You know, like right where it hurts. Like, you know, like that fucking when you get your ear boxed, you want to box their ears. It says right on here, it says, um, the site is for homosexual teens so that they can feel better, get stronger in their sexual choice and know it gets better with time. This is a false statement and harmful to America's youth. Yeah. That's cause you won't fucking let it get better, you fucking bigoted bitches. What the fuck is wrong with you? And I love that they use such loaded language like in their sexual choice. Right.

Because we all know that the research backs up this idea of sexual choice. Where they take you on this page to go get information is the Family Research Council, which is a bigoted institution that tries to say that homosexuality is a choice and that it's fucking cool to fucking bully people around. It says after this too. It says this is not the way to reduce suicide rates when in fact statistics have shown there's a higher rate of suicide among teens who choose homos, who chooses homosexuality as their lifestyle. That's because your fucking bigot kids won't leave them alone. You're never going to accomplish your goal here, right? I mean, what's the goal? The goal is, the goal is to what? End homosexuality?

I don't understand what the goal is, Cecil. At what point can the one million moms be like, we won that one. What are you going to do? You're going to eradicate homosexuality? That's a silly fucking thing to even consider thinking that you could accomplish. Even if homosexuality was a choice, it evidently, which it's fucking clearly not, but if it was a choice, it would be a choice people were making despite the fucking challenges and difficulties and mocking and bullying that they received. So were it a choice, even were your premise accurate, which it is not, it would be evidently such a appealing choice that what you guys have to say about it is meaningless. It doesn't contribute anything to the conversation. How do you win?

Do they really think, Cecil? I mean, I'm going to ask you. Do they really think they're going to say, well, done and done. We got rid of homosexuality onwards and upwards. Well, and what is, you know, when you're fucking opposing the It Gets Better project, you are advocating violence. You are saying it's fine to fucking bully these kids because that's what it is. It's an anti-bullying campaign. It's an anti-fucking people are fucking with you.

Please don't commit suicide campaign. You are advocating that these children kill themselves. How dare you do that? Well, when you say it like that, it just sounds cruel. God, you fucking bag of assholes.

I just pray over this equipment. We speak over the PowerPoint presentations, the, all of the video projectors and we'll say devil, we know what you love to do in meetings like this. And we say, you will not, in Jesus' name, you will not prevent this message from going out. No microphone problems, in Jesus' name. So we've got to move on to a lighter story.

I fucking love this next story. This is from the National Secular Society's website. Miracle soap claims lead to 25,000 pound fine for religious TV channel. A religious TV channel has been fined 25,000 pounds by the media regulator Ofcon after permitted a televangelist to

claim that his miracle olive oil soap could cure cancer. Olive oil soap. Ol olives are fucking fruits you press them you get oil cancer is a disease of unregulated cell growth they do not have anything in fucking common how do you think that fucking rubbing a soap on your body is going to – soap? I can't say anything but just scream soap.

So I don't know, Tom, if this is actually going to cure cancer, but it will certainly clean out your bank account. Hey-o. Come on. Come on. Clean. It's a soap. It's a soap reference. I don't know if you got it.

Anyway, what happens when you drop the miracle soap? Like I wonder. That's all context specific, man. Do you get a miracle goose then? I don't know what happens. I'm just curious. Yeah, this is a stupid idea that somebody is going to be, you know, buying a miracle soap for a cancer cure. Like I always wonder. Remember, Tom, you and I had a conversation a while back

when we were talking about apple cider vinegar. And the idea that you drink this apple cider vinegar and suddenly all the calcification around your joints that cause arthritis, even if that is what causes it, I don't even know what causes arthritis, but this is what these idiots claim, right?

That the calcification around your joints suddenly gets dissipated because you have this vinegar has gone and attacked that calcium or whatever deposits and basically takes it away. And I remember you saying something like, well, it's got to go through your digestive system first. It's not like you could just be like, I drank the cancer. I drank the cancer. I drank the vinegar. And now it's just fucking floating around in my body. And now I can just run and attack everything that's like bad with me.

No, it's got to go through your digestive system because that's how the body works. I think the same thing with the Miracle Soap. I'm just like, I'm going to watch the cancer infected area. Be like, it has to go through the skin. Like, wouldn't you cut yourself open and shove soap in there? Like, wouldn't that work better? Why would you need the soap? Why wouldn't you just use the olive oil? The olive oil. why would you just rub yourself down with some olive oil right down it

like fucking chug that shit maybe it's got to be maybe in your fucking magical worldview it's got to be absorbed through the skin so just fucking juice yourself up with some olive oil i don't it's so baffling wrestling it says says encourage viewers to believe that treatment of serious illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, and heart problems could be boosted by being anointed with a product such as olive oil soap, Robina, or oil. If you believe this, it means that you're so fucking desperate for something to work. Either that or you're too stupid to own the money. And that's the reason these claims are so dangerous. Yeah. Either that or you're too stupid to have a money at that point. You get taken by

everybody then. It doesn't matter. You walk home every day and you don't have any money on you. You are out of money. You're the guy who gives 20 bucks to the person who needs the bus ticket just to get home, right? That you've seen asking for a bus ticket Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. I just need 20 bucks to get back, right? Like that you've seen asking for a bus ticket Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday.

I just need 20 bucks to get back. Look, it's, you're a fucking idiot or you're desperate. Yeah. And either way, someone is fucking preying on you. And that means that you are prey. Idiots. 25,000 pounds is not enough. I wonder how much they, that's the thing is,

I think that they should just take the profits away if they can. Like somehow take the profits from them for this shit. Like that fucking Kevin Trudeau asshole who makes a fucking fuck ton of money. He's got a billion dollar enterprise. A billion dollars. Right. And he gets fined like 26 million dollars. Who cares?

That's fucking... That's the cost of doing business. That's hooker and booze money for this guy. Are you kidding me? Well, let's put it this way. Let's say somebody said, Cecil, I'm going to give you – I've got a good news, bad news. I'm going to give you $1 billion. That's the good news.

Bad news is you've got to give me back $26 million. Are you still good with this deal? Are you from Nigeria? Because I want to know beforehand if I have to send the million. Are you still good with this deal? Are you from Nigeria? Because I want to know beforehand if I have to send the million. But it's, you know, he's still fucking winning, right? He's fucking, he's got tiger blood, man. And I'm sure

this is not, this is not through the fucking roof here. This is 25,000 pounds I'm sure they made a fuck ton more money off this soap and olive oil. You know, I don't even care where you buy it from. Even if you buy it at fucking Whole Foods, isn't that fucking expensive? Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness Monster, and the theory of Atlantis?

If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say. So Cecil, this story is from the science section, which cracks me up, at msnbc.com. Second sunken UFO claim doesn't really hold water. This story, first of all, the way this story is written, it's like somebody just now got out of journalism school. It's written so poorly, and it's such a convoluted, bizarre fashion. But evidently something was discovered on the floor of the Baltic Sea, and people were claiming, maybe, that it was a UFO.

There's a picture of it. It looks like a blip. If it's a UFO, it's just like, hey, let's build a spaceship that looks like a blood. Looks kind of like Petto Bear, actually. I don't know. Or it's like a gecko with its face pressed up against the glass. I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the fuck it is.

And do we really believe that an alien fucking navigated fucking, you know, light years only to crash into the ocean. That baffles me every time. You're like, oh, driving around. Oh, fuck.

I'm going to crash into the ocean. Are you serious? I've conquered the challenges of interstellar space travel. But what are you, you're like, and then you like, and then you arrive at a habit and an inhabited planet and you're flying around and you haven't made contact yet because we know there hasn't been any fucking contact yet. Right.

So, like, you just got there, right? That's like you just fucking arrived, and you're like, whoa. Oh, man. Millennia of scientific experience has finally pushed us to the point where we're about to make, oh, fuck, water splash. What? Really? It's baffling to even consider, right? It's almost like they sent somebody to the moon and forgot to pack a sandwich.

It doesn't make any sense. Like, this shit would be fucking covered in Interstellar Space Travel 101. It's being the chapter, What to Do When You Arrive. It's in the manual, man. Are you kidding me? Part one, don't crash into the ocean. Here's the thing.

You've traveled all the way across Interstellar and three quarters of the Earth, so a quarter of it is land. You would think that you could at least crash on the land. That's the same thing with Roswell. It's like they're flying and they fucking crash. Like they crashed. What did they not expect?

Gravity? When they flew all that fucking distance, they were just like, oh, gravity. That's fucking new. Who would have thought? This doesn't make any sense at all. And this thing doesn't even look like anything. It looks like a nothing. It looks like somebody took a shit and it's floating up. doesn't even look like anything. It looks like a nothing. It looks like a fucking, it looks like somebody took a shit and it's

floating up. Like, it doesn't look like anything. Who could read this and think that this is a spaceship? I have no idea. Fucking high. It does, it really does. You've got to, you guys have to check this out. This does not look like an anything at all. It really doesn't. And they're saying

like, well, it's the second one. It's the second one. It's the second one. It's the second one. It's the second thing that doesn't look like a thing. Yeah. There's countless of these. Let me tell you, they, they are legion. There is so many.

So we're going to take a quick break and give you all the information that you need to find us on Facebook. We're going to give you our email address, our Twitter handle and our phone numbers. You can call and harass us via telephone. Leave us a message on our Google voice. We'll return shortly to ruin the rest of the show for you. You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

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That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. So this next story is from Doubtful News Blog. The raw milk controversy where natural means may contain harmful bacteria. So there was evidently a Chambersburg area farm in Pennsylvania where a couple of dozen people became pretty sick because they were purchasing milk from this farm that was raw milk. What raw milk is, is unpasteurized milk. Unpasteurized milk in 2012 on fucking purpose right not like oh shit there's been a fucking

zombie apocalypse there's nothing to eat or drink there's a cow right i'll drink some fucking milk and hope for the best oh shit i got the trots you know like on purpose i i can't even imagine. It's not like they got like, oh, well, we shipped out a batch of milk and we forgot to fucking pasteurize it. Shame on us. Some people go, no, this is,

people preferred this. I would be willing to bet, Cecil, that people paid a fucking premium. They paid a premium for it. For raw milk. Absolutely right. What puzzles me about this, I think the most is don't the milk nutters – because there's like the whole group of people that are like the fucking milk nutters. They're the people who are like milk is fucking terrible for you and it's – they have all this fucking rhetoric bullshit that they scream about how bad milk is for you or whatever.

But don't those people just avoid milk? Like, I can't imagine somebody, you know, who really thinks about what milk is and then says, oh, well, you know, as long as you drink it unpasteurized, then it's totally cool. Because all the arguments against milk seem to stem from, you know, the fact that, you know, our bodies, you know, we only started doing it in the last, like, couple thousand years or something. One of their arguments is something like that. Like, it's only recent and our metabolism can't handle it and our kids are gonna die a young age if they drink milk it's so funny how often i do i run into like people who do this that i have this milk nutter thing going on and they'll be like oh my kid doesn't drink milk

and then they feed them a big fucking bowl of ice cream or that fucking there's cheese on the pizza and you're like you don't realize what went into that. Did you think about that at a time? The the other thing I want to say, too, is, you know, if you're going to drink unpasteurized milk, would you lick the underside of a cow? Would you do that? You're like, hey, I'm going to lick the underside of a cow. No, you wouldn't do that. You'd be like, hey, I'm going to lick the underside of a cow.

No, you wouldn't do that. Because that's what you're doing. You're drinking fucking unpasteurized milk is basically licking the underside of a cow. And I couldn't point to a single part of the underside of a cow that I would want to lick. I just can't. I just can't do it. Nope. That's not – you know, these people believe that the pasteurization process destroys certain enzymes. That's usually what the

claim is. And then once those enzymes are destroyed, then you can't break down the lactose, and there's like this chain reaction of events, and that's why everybody who drinks milk has died. Right? Like, we all know. I mean, this is true. We all know that if you drink a glass of milk

that, like, your bowel sees up and your head falls off and your skin turns to iron. I don't know how it works exactly. You know, I'm not a scientist. I would fucking drink milk all the time. And then I'd rob a bank. I mean, come on now. I don't even understand a world where you're bagging on pasteurization.

Like you can't live here anymore. Like we can't have a conversation.'s not we it's pastor it's it's fucking killing bacteria you remember bacteria the scourge of all mankind for tens of thousands of years those bacteria the one that we just now kind of sort of have a handle on most of those bacteria. That's what you're going to get your fucking panties in a bunch about. Like, well, let's think about maybe not pasteurizing our milk and then we'll just eat some fucking raw chicken and fucking cover ourselves in raw eggs. Why the fuck not? I'm going to eat all my food. I'm going to feed it to a chicken and then suck it out its asshole.

Are you kidding me well I can't believe I got sick from that raw milk wow who'd have thunk oh man I hear you call my name and it feels like home

when you call my name it's like a little prayer I'm down on my knees I wanna take you there in the midnight hour I can feel So see, so I like to, I like to finish out. I like to finish out the show with a super bizarre story. And if you're at the point now where you're wondering, isn't raw milk bizarre enough? I actually have to say no.

No, at this point, we can go you one better. This is from a blog that my wife actually found for me because she is a hateful, hateful person. This is from HollywoodIlluminati.com, a trusted site. Sure. Madonna's NFL satanic ritual disguised in the halftime show. This purports to break down the entirety of Madonna's halftime show and show how it was really duping everyone in the crowd

into praying for Satan. That's fair. Yeah. I mean, it's fair. I mean, it's at least well referenced. There's a lot of references at the bottom of this. It seems like they spent a lot of time on it. Somebody did spend a ton.

I love the like the inner posing. There's like a picture of like Madonna's homage to Baphomet. Fucking whatever. And it just has like Madonna like doing her fucking Vogue pose or what have you. And then it's just like photoshopped on like a like, a spooky image of, like, a goat-headed dude. Like, ah! It's like, that's not there. That wasn't there.

It's not doing that at all. That was not part of the halftime show. The best part of this blog by the criminally insane here is, I'm going to read directly. insane here, is I'm going to read directly. In satanic rituals, it is believed that Lucifer, or the devil, would assume a prostration position and the witches would line up and kiss his anus as a sign of respect. That's a sign of deep respect. You know, I think that they might be onto something

because when I saw Madonna performing, I was like, is that a goat-headed person? Is that a satanic goat? And then I realized it was Madonna and then I was like, oh, okay, it's just Madonna. But yeah, I don't know. She was like a Viking at one point. She came out as like a Viking and they're trying to say,

oh, well, she's actually a centurion or something. And then there's like horns. And then there's one part where I guess, you know, they're forgetting about the satanic part where Satan actually climbs on the shoulders of two guys with the big afros. Because that's obviously in the satanic Bible somewhere, too, because that happened on the fucking halftime show. too because that happened on the fucking halftime show what's your reference for the two guys with afros who enormous afros with fucking with fucking madonna on one of their shoulders what everyone knows satan has a jerry curl what is the reference what is it was satan a cheerleader was he trying to reach something from a shelf really high what was happening at that point that's what i want to know that's the fucking

mystery that needs to be solved i love that satan has to get fucking human centipeded by all of his witches right that that's the way you know i'm like anybody else cecil i like respect you know i like to give respect. I like to get respect. I don't necessarily need my anus kissed in the process. I only kiss pasteurized anuses. I mean that's the only – I only go with pasteurized anuses. Keep it safe. Yeah, I mean absolutely because you don't know. You don't know what kind of bacteria you could get in an anus.

Practice safe Satanism. That's all anyone is asking. Put a dental dam on that thing. You know, that's all. That's all anyone's asking. You know, put a dental dam on that thing. You don't know where all those witches have been. Nice. Nice. Okay, so we are back with Thomas from Thomas and the Bible. And so, Thomas, we know your name.

We know you have a podcast called Thomas and the Bible, but we don't know why you started it. Why on earth would you decide to read the Bible? You know, that's another thing I need to address. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm, did I mention I'm immune to answering a question? We covered this earlier in the show. I, yes. Um, I, you said in your show that you, I'm just throwing it by the way, I'm just fucking throwing out this fucking questions at this point. I just, they're gone. I'm just throwing them out. I need, I need something. I can't work off of nothing. I need something to completely ignore. You work off the Bible.

No, I will answer your question. Look, something can't come from nothing, okay? That's why I believe in God. I get it now. I get it. Oh, did you guys not know that? I'm actually a hardcore Christian. I just was, you know, this is all.

Yeah, I get that sense from your show. This is like, my show is like a Stephen Colbert type thing. No, but I have to, I bet you, you mentioned on your show when you were talking about me and you know, my ears burped up and no, you said that the Bible wasn't, you got me on the show, but the Bible's agent hadn't contacted you. Yeah, no, we couldn't. Unfortunately the Bible fell through. His agent didn't like you. Yeah, no, we couldn't. Unfortunately, the Bible fell through.

His agent didn't like the figures you were offering him. So I can talk about the new fragrance I have coming out. I can talk about kind of me and my hobbies. What is Thomas and the Bible's fragrance? Is that like an old book smell? No, no, no. You used that word in the Bible. We're not contractually.

We can't. He dropped it. I meant to say. Can we say the good book? Yeah. How about the mediocre book? We can, but we can't talk about anything that's in it. So what I'm saying is just any questions you had about the Bible, just drop those, and

then we'll talk about my fragrance. Fair enough. No, I'm just kidding. So you asked some fucking horrible question about how. I did. I asked a really bad question. No, I started doing this because I kind of – I don't know. I had this desire to know what the hell is in the Bible because if you'd ever read it, then any Christian has this stupid escape hatch in any argument of saying, well, if you had read the book and knew how great it is and just – you would have none of these questions. All your questions would be answered if you, if you just read that. I didn't want to

have them be able to have that little escape hatch, you know? So I wanted to kind of know what's going on. And then I figured, um, why not just kind of, since I, I was reading it the whole time and thinking of how ridiculous it was. And, you know, I thought of some jokes that I thought were kind of funny. And I thought, well, why don't I just record this? And maybe, maybe someone might want to listen to it. I don't know. I don't know who I was picturing. I think maybe like some guy with no family, you know, nothing to do, no job.

On the verge of suicide at that point. No arms and no legs, but just like. Yeah, strapped to a chair with an iPod. All he has is an iPod and some headphones. And he lost control. And bad luck, evidently. So the concept was you had this Bible, and you're like, you know, how can I inflict this on other people is what you thought. There's such a dearth of that going on. It's so nice that you're like, you know, how can I inflict this on other people is what you thought. There's such a dearth of that going on. It's so nice that you're inflicting.

I have to ask you, you know, I appreciate that you're reading it to me. As an illiterate, it's nice to have somebody read it to me. You guys view yourselves as ill-informed, but I just thought I'd come on and show you what a real ill-informed person is like. I'm addressing the audience now thomas you fit right fucking in so i want to show your audience that you guys are actually quite well informed and quite coherent and quite and very i i really like your show and uh i just maybe i can provide a contrast of somebody who just completely talks out of his ass that has no so just so you guys know audience like that's the difference. Me versus them, they're actually

pretty well informed. So yeah, I just want to call you out on that. That's wholly inaccurate. Are you coming out with a scratch and sniff version of your podcast? Like a Bible scratch and sniff? Or like a genocidal pop-up or something? You know what? That just reminded me of another thing.

You've got to market this forward. Here we go. Go for it. You had a great fucking line. One of you, I can't remember which. You're one guy, right? You just do like a ventriloquist kind of act. Yeah, it's two different voices. Cecil, you're just a dummy, right?

That Tom is like. Yeah, no, absolutely. Hey, at least Cecil gets to be the dummy in this thing. There's a hand up my ass right now. That, of course, is also paid for with the Bible earlier. So that's also, you know, Dick and Tom's coffee, hand up my ass. So anyway, yeah. You had a great line that I can't believe I didn't.

It's such a perfect tagline. I should have used it for my podcast. You said something like Thomas is exposing the Bible by simply reading it. I thought that was a great way to sum up what's going on. I think that was Tom. It's almost as a good lecture, Tom, anyway. So along with your new scratch and sniff idea, which is amazing, I'm going to go with that tagline, too, if you don't mind.

Steal whatever you want. Are you kidding me? And when you start making tons of money off the royalties, send us a coffee so we can dip cocks in it. Yeah, I owe you one gay cock dipped coffee. On me. So I got to ask this. I mean, this is something I think the listeners should know. Do you talk to yourself a lot?

Because you seem really practiced at talking to yourself. He's a lonely, lonely man. I just noticed you guys were talking. We're having conversation. When did you call me? When did we? I thought this whole thing was me just running through it.

No, I don't actually. I do have a bit of a theater background. I've done theater and I don't know. Maybe that's it. I also just – I'm nuts. That could be – no. I got to a point where I just – you know, you want to be entertaining, and you don't have a lot to work with. I'm not saying it doesn't work.

I think it's – I actually really like your podcast. I think it's hilarious. I think you're a very funny guy, genuinely funny guy. I would just – I'm just curious if you do, cause you must have conversations with yourself if you're that practiced at it. I do in my brain. I don't actually, I will be honest with you. You don't actually speak it.

I do not actually talk out loud to myself, but I do think I have a nonstop when I'm, and that's why I started recording it because like, as I was reading this shit, just piece of pile of Santorum, just piece of shit book, just an awful book. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's really bad. The Bible? Do you know? I don't know that you could use that word, but yeah, sure.

I feel like you're equivocating here. How do you really feel? Oh, sorry. I tend to get a little political when I'm doing it. I try to be sort of magnanimous. But no, it's a poor book. It's a poor book. Which, okay.

So that's why I started recording because when I read it, just in my mind, I have all these things. Sure, you have these conversations. So you're inflicting this horror upon yourself because of whatever sexual masochistic shit you're into. And that's cool. Hey, I'm not here to judge, man. Who told you i masturbate the entire time while i'm recording it's like there's this it's like a fleshy soundtrack god i didn't know fuck you know i accidentally miked my penis i didn't mean to do that oh accidentally right yeah so the end the webcam doesn't help you out at all but well you said your five books into this atrocity i think which of the five books

is the best i mean and by best i mean the most fun to make fun of the most fun to do your show about oh because you've got to be looking for the juice right i mean i know that's you've got you're reading this thing and you're doing this show? Because you've got to be looking for the juice, right? I mean, I know that's you've got, you're reading this thing and you're doing this show, you've got to be looking for the juice. When you get to the baguettes, there's no juice there. Yeah, you kind of skimmed over the baguettes. Because there's nothing, what are you going to say about that? That's a good point. What are you sketching?

I just had to look, I had to refer to my notes. I guess I'm on the sixth book. So, okay. So Genesis, you got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. I'm on, oh, Joshua, Judges. Wait, I can't count. Counting is not part of my podcast. Seven it is.

Turns out I can't keep track of what my guests do, so. I would say, what was the best? I would say Deuteronomy is by far the worst, I'm pretty sure, because that's, well,

no, they're all the worst. Can they all be the worst? Yes, they can absolutely absolutely um I would say Genesis was probably the most fun because it had so many all those recognizable stories um were really fun to go through and kind of you know because you knew I knew of them but I didn't know just how awful they are. So you didn't grow up a Christian then? Um, actually I did. I, I did. I grew up, um, my mom made me go to church through eighth grade and then she said, uh, you know, you don't have to go after that. And I said, yeah, I'm not going. Fuck. And that reminds me, uh, when I was really little, um, and I, I, I just, I didn't, I don't think I really believed in it, but I just was told I did. So, you know, so I just accepted that I apparently believed in this. Remember when you were little and you were naive?

Yeah. I used to think like I tried to read the book Contact when I was probably way too young because it's a pretty, pretty complicated book in a lot of ways. And I don't think I got through it. But there was one part where where she referenced all the contradictions in the Bible and I hadn't read the Bible. So I so little me, little Thomas reading this book, being supposedly a Christian, supposedly believing the Bible. I read that sentence that said, oh, here are all these contradictions in the Bible. And I thought, that can't be true.

There's no fucking way that these adults I know that I, as a little kid, I know are smart. There's no way they would believe in this if there were contradictions. That just cannot be true. You know when you're little and you think every adult is smart? Like you think like anyone who's bigger than you, you're like, oh, they know what they're doing. I honestly thought that Carl Sagan had apparently lied or something. Somebody had lied somewhere in saying that there were contradictions in the book.

Because even my little fucking eight-year-old brain was like, no one would believe if there were contradictions. Turns out it's not true. Well, I still think that's the case. It's not the case? I don't... Not too much. No, I think they deal with those somehow. They have cognitive... What's the word? Dissonance.

So, can we expect, like, a Thomas and the Torah or a Thomas and the Koran eventually? Yeah. Maybe. If I don't just die. If you get through the Bible, will you do the Koran? You know, when I first started on this, I thought this is the greatest idea.

I have infinite material. I could go through every shitty book. If I wanted a job. Eventually we could get to the authors that wrote about the Bible, like Thomas and C.S. Lewis. Fucking dude, I just want like Thomas and Huck Finn. I don't give a shit. Yeah, that wouldn't be, there's not as much to make fun of. That's a delightful book.

That's what I was going to say. I can't read good books. That's not, I maybe could do Thomas and the Twilight series. That could be. No. You don't know what you're getting yourself into. If there's anything I'd rather subject myself to less than the Bible, it might be the Twilight series. So that's probably not going to happen.

But, yeah, if I ever finish this fucking thing, I might go on to it. I want to read the Book of Mormon. That's got to be a good one. Thomas and the Book of Mormon would be very funny. I'd listen to the fuck out of that. So have you gotten—okay, so you've read. We've figured out it's almost seven chapters.

You're on the seventh now. Books, not chapters. Thank you. You keep correcting me. For example, Genesis has 50 motherfucking chapters. How long are the fucking chapters, though? You know,

you're fucking blowing yourself up here with the chapters thing. Chapters are not that long. I just don't want you to sell me short for how much fucking bullshit I've had to read. Look, I'm not dissing your struggle. I'm just saying your numbers are low. Anyway,

have you gotten anything positive out of the Bible at all? Yeah, are you a better person? And if so, how much better? Not even that much. Much, much better? I get where Tom is going here. But, I mean, I'm just talking about a little tiny positive thing other than you've been able to make jokes about it. Or has your penis gone?

I just like, I want. Some benefit, right? You're just looking for something. Give healthier shiny fingernails. I don't give a shit. My posture is a little better, I think. I don't give a shit my posture is a little better i think i don't know why it's not sure it's connected but um you know on occasion there will be something i'll read and i will i will make a point of announcing this in my podcast i will say you know what this wasn't horribly fucking awful

and that's about as positive as it gets. Like, sometimes I'll... I'll read a sentence that says, like, so one day they were journeying, and they're like, that's the end of the verse. And I'll be like, you know what? That verse was okay. It's like going to a restaurant and being like, well, that food was consumable.

But, you know, yeah. So that's the best you could say is that it was... There wasn't anything obviously poisonous about that. Occasionally when there's, like, a dependent clause that doesn't actually have like the subject. It says like, one day Moses was walking. Then I'm like, you know what? That's my favorite verse yet. That didn't say something fucking stupid.

I got to ask you this. You mentioned Noah's Ark before, right? And Noah's Ark is like, that's the family friendly story in the Bible. That's build. This baffles me so completely. You know, there's like, I don't know if you have kids or not, but like when you have kids, like you go to the. Now I killed them all after reading this book. Well, you had to. I mean, God told you and then he didn't stay your hand it was terrible that's true you know you go to like buy a thing for the kid you know like blankets and fucking whatever and you can get noah's ark themed shit right lots of it that's it's all so friendly like noah's smiling like hey i'm fucking

600 years old and then like all the animals like like giraffes. There's always a giraffe with its head sticking above the ark getting fucking rained on. And everybody's like, whoo. There's always a fucking giraffe. And it's the family-friendly story in the Bible. But everyone on earth dies. All the plants and animals. That's like the worst way to go. all the plants and animals that's like the worst way to go

but then at the end of the Noah's Ark story isn't that the part where like his sons have to turn around and like put a sheet on him and like in some weird sort of ritualistic sort of sodomy thing that's going on there have you encountered anything in the Old Testament that's family friendly

depends on your definition of family if your definition of family is If your definition of family is, like, having as many fucking kids as you want with, like, harems of women, then yeah. I like this definition so far. Yeah. Right now. So far, I'm down with this family. I'm in.

Yeah, those are family values I could go for. Yeah, you're right. I love the Noah's Ark. Like, oh, it's such a, you know, isn't there a, there's a song too. Like, Noah, there's going to be a floody, floody. And then like, they don't have the verse where it's like, and God's going to kill everybody and they're going to strangle to death in water and they're going to really be in agony and it's really horrible.

Like, they don't have that part of the fucking song. If you write that though, we'll use it as a bumper. Yeah, we'd use the fuck out of it. Really, it would rain for like four or five days before the panic would really set in. Right. Like, yeah, I don't think this is going to stop, guys. It's a little wet. But he not only opens up the heavens, but he also opens up the earth.

Well, that's scientifically accurate, though, because we all know that the center of the earth is filled with water. Right, right. It's like a big gobstopper. There's like layers. God, that sounds delicious. It's like a Halls with that sort of liquid center thing, I think. I didn't know the earth was so tasty.

It's full of mentholiptus, it turns out. God's cough drop. Yeah, yeah. He's just harvesting it for that one cold he gets. So do you get any feedback from like Christians out there that are like ready to lynch you? I wish. I've gotten one thing. It was the first comment I ever got.

And I find this odd because I thought that would happen. I thought that, you know, maybe I would get emails that are angry or I'd get comments on iTunes that were angry. I got one negative comment, first one I ever got, and it's been deleted for some reason. I think maybe if – do people vote those down or something? I don't know how it works. Anyway, the review was incomprehensible, but I think it was negative. It said something like, try this in a—no, it was definitely negative. It said, try this in a Muslim country and see how fast they cut out your idiot tongue.

It was the weirdest thing. I didn't understand what it was saying, really. Oh, gosh. Don't mock my book or I'll compare my religion to another religion that is violent to threaten you. Exactly. religion to another religion that is violent to threaten you. I will threaten you with the violence of other religions. If you mock the religion that is not the one that is being that. Yeah. I don't know.

I wanted to know. I wanted to ask this gentleman, like I really wanted to talk. I would have been like, are you a Christian saying like, I need to respect the fact that Christians don't kill me? Or are you a Muslim saying, like, you better not come after my book? Like, what are you? Yeah.

Don't do Thomas and the Quran or, you know, expect a fucking mail bomb. It should be pseudonym in the Quran. And that actually should be the title of it. Mr. X is way too identifiable name. It's all just. They'll never find you. Yeah, no, it's just you and I are the only, that's it. That's just one and two. So have you gotten, have you gotten a lot of feedback from other people that really, I mean,

we see the comments on your blog, but do you get a lot of private feedback? I mean, your, your podcast is very good, so I'm sure it's pretty popular. I really appreciate you saying that. I, like I said, I, I just envisioned at first some, some guy with just no life and no limbs or, um, and so I actually did go through a period where I, I, I stopped doing it for a while. That's why it's been so long. Um, uh, that's why it's been like a fucking year and a half or something. And I'm still only on this, but I've got, I'm trying to do it regularly now. But, uh, what happened was I did it and I had a couple of listeners and then I was like, ah, fuck this. No one cares. And then I, I just, it started growing. I don't know why, maybe somebody linked it somewhere. Um, and then

all of a sudden it was just going, you know, every month I'd have a dozen more listeners and got to the point where people were messaging me saying like, for some reason they wanted more of this pain. Like, I don't know. And, and so eventually got to the point where I was like, fuck, I need to keep doing this. So, so then, yeah, so now I was like, fuck, I need to keep doing this. So so then, yeah. So now I've gotten honestly, I have amazing, really kind listeners. I'm very I'm very flattered. They leave comments. They email me and tell me to keep my chin up when I feel like I've been just hit by the Bible. Yeah, exactly. Physically abused. When I feel like God is closing the Bible around my balls,

I feel like he's actually crushing my scrotum sack with the Bible. That's actually what Bible thumping means. So, Thomas, if people were going to find your show, how could they find your show? Well, I just made a Facebook page, and I think it's facebook.com slash T and the B, so that's pretty easy. You can go on iTunes and search Thomas and the Bible, and it actually comes up miraculously because it has enough reviews, I think. It took a while. So you're doing YouTubes now too.

I'm doing YouTubes. The YouTube videos are like little highlight shows almost. Yes, yes. And I might start doing – I think I'm going to start doing maybe even little tidbits about other religion-related things. Nice. Kind of talking head type things. We'll see. But yeah, for now, I'm definitely doing video highlights because I figured – I kind of wanted to go back and redo some stuff that I don't know if I did well enough or ideas that I missed out on.

So it's not just a rehashing. It's definitely not. If you want to check out the videos, I thought also, if there are people with, you know, lives or things to do who wouldn't want to listen to the entire motherfucking thing, they could just watch a quick little video and get like five chapters, you know? So that's, that's what that's about. I would urge all the listeners to listen to this podcast. I think you put on an excellent podcast. It's hilarious. Thomas and the Bible. You can you put on an excellent podcast. It's hilarious. Thomas and the Bible.

You can find it on iTunes, in YouTube, and on Facebook. Thanks, Thomas. Thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. I love your show, too. Thanks for being on.

So we did get a voicemail. Remember that you can pick up the phone. You can give us a call if you give us a call. We are going to play your voicemail on the air because we are poor decision makers. The best thing about the voicemail is the Google Voice translation. So we're going to go ahead and play the actual voicemail. I'm going to read the Google translation. You can hear what Google says was said.

Hey, you fuckers. I love that fucking show you guys do. It keeps me sane, for sure. Figured I'd waste some of your time with some of my anecdotes. I recently became homeless and wound up at the Eugene, Oregon Union Gospel Mission where,

yeah, dude, it's pretty fucking terrible. There are people with serious mental illnesses, and I mean like seriously crazy talking to themselves that are getting the help of Jesus Christ

yeah and it goes on and on and gets worse and the mission isn't free it costs money and if you don't have the two dollars you can work two hours and you have to spend an hour every night in chapel but uh yeah

thank you so fucking much for making your show. It makes me laugh at things that otherwise I would simply cry about. Thank you. Hey, you. I love that show you guys do. It keeps me sane. For sure, I figured I'd weigh. So, your time.

With all my anecdotesotes I recently became hopeless and wound up at the gene organ union dot formation where yeah dude it's pretty terrible there are people with serious mental illnesses I mean right serious crazy talking to themselves that are getting the help of Jesus Christ

yeah and he goes on and off and then gets work and that mission free. A cost money, yeah. And if you don't have a few dollars or two hours and you have to spend an hour every night in chapel, yeah.

Thank you so much for making your show. It makes me laugh at things that otherwise I would simply cry about. Thanks. Peace. It got that last part pretty you know, that might be improving. It does seem to be improving. I got to say I'm very sad about your situation though and thank you for the voicemail and I hope you're not still homeless. I know that there are some places that – I think it was on Reddit where there's a way in which you could maybe couch surf for a little while with other atheists where you're at until maybe you could get back on your feet.

So you might want to check into that, see if there's something on Reddit that could help you out. I vaguely remember seeing something about it. But thank you for listening and we hope your situation changes soon. And I do want to say that I am glad that if you are homeless, that there is some place for you to stay, even if it is a religious institution. But it is one of those... I know it's not ideal, but it's

a place to sleep at night. Like you said, they're going to give you the place to stay, but you've got to hear their... you've got to be indoctrinated. And I just think that that's the lowest common denominator trying to convince somebody. It's fine if they want to mention it. But to force and enforce people to go to, you know, prayer and stuff like that, I think that's low.

I think that's really low. So we got an email from Andy. I'm going to go and read Andy's email directly just because I think it's amusing. Muslim fuckwits is the title. Muslim fuckwits is the title. Do you think the Muslim community has some sort of handbook that tells them to periodically look for shit that the people around them enjoy and say it offends their beliefs? Actually, no. Every Koran comes with a spinner and they just hold it around all the enjoyable things and then they spin it. And it's just like they just spin it around and if it comes up on the dildo, then dildos are bad or sex is bad.

Yeah, that sort of thing. Dogs, whatever. Hey, remember man's best friend? Dogs. We got an email from Carlos. Carlos threw a challenge out to Martin. For I, Carlos, am the number one Mexican-American fan of this show. Fantastic. We have two Mexican-American fan of this show. Fantastic.

We have two Mexican-American fans of the show. It says here, I challenge you to a lightsaber duel for the top beaner fan of this podcast. I love that he refers to himself as a beaner. It's not something I would say, but it's something that Carlos said in his email. Thank you very much. I feel uncomfortable reading most of this email. I know. It's awesome, though.

But we did get another message from Martin. Martin's email is titled, I nearly Santorum'd myself. And I just want to say to Martin, you don't have to Santorum yourself. I'm sure Craigslist has a long list of people that would be willing to Santorum you for little or next to nothing. So if you would be interested in being Santorum'd, I'm sure in your area, you could find someone right now to Santorum you. And then we got another email from Lois.

Lois, thank you very much for the email. She says, let me see if I understand this. The Catholic Church wants the government and the church to have the right to force women to have unwanted births by preventing abortions. But they don't want the government to force the church to pay for the birth control and prevent the need for these same abortions. Yeah, you got it right. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Let me nail on the head there. All right, sir.

Yeah. There's a terrific PS in here. There's a terrific PS in here. My husband does not think I should share with you the idea I have for Atheist Man's superpower, which would prevent the Bible from ever having been written and which involves teaching early hominids how to lick their own balls. This idea sprang from your last show and the whole thing about dogs. And, well, I will not share the idea with you out of respect for my husband's wishes. Let me just say, Lois, if you if Atheist Man did go back and do this and I could lick my own balls, I would not be doing this podcast.

I would be very occupado. I would be very busy. I would be, yeah. So anyway, we've reached the, we've wasted another, I don't know, hour, hour and a half. We don't know exactly how long these shows are when we make them, of your time. And we're hour and a half. We don't know exactly how long these shows are when we make them of your time.

And we're glad that we did. We're glad that you joined us. Listen to Thomas in the Bible if you get a chance. We think his podcast is great. We think he's a very funny guy. We told you all the great ways in which you can find him. And on the show notes, you can also find all those ways in which to find Thomas' podcast. We thank him again for coming on.

And as always, we are going to leave you with the find Thomas's podcast. We thank him again for coming on. And as always, we are going to leave you with the skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit, couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, Pseudo-Quasi-Alternative-Acupunctuating-Pressurized-Stereogram-Pyramidal-Free-Energy-Healing-Water-Downward-Spiral-Brain-Dead-Pan-Sales-Pitch-Late-Night-Info-Docutainment. crystal balls, bigfoot, yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides.

Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. you