Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 363: Holy Kool Aid with Thomas Westbrook

Episode Date: June 12, 2017

Thanks to Thomas for joining us on the show! You can find his work here:    Stories covered in episode: 

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Hey Tom, Cecil, this is Ben from Montana. So, my wife thought it'd be funny to go down to the liquor store and they had some Crown Royal Black Canadian, well, garbage. And didn't take your recommendations and thought, hey, you know what, I'll give it a try. The lady at the liquor store was really anxious to sell it to me. Well, the reason she was anxious to sell it is because no one will drink this. This wouldn't even be good enough for disinfecting

freaking surgical equipment on the battlefield. It's disgusting. Oh, it's a smooth whiskey. Yeah, it tasted like I was freaking swallowing sewing needles. But thought it'd be funny to drink the rest of it and glory hole. Oh, God, that's awful. Oh, it's terrible. Oh, doesn't stop.

Oh. All right. No. Time to go fight something good. Hey, guys. Just listening to the most recent Oh, something good. Hey, guys. Just listening to the most recent episode. You guys did a great job. And I just wanted to put this out there

because it's baffling to me. It's baffling to me that the far right is so surprised that there are a bunch of different types of opinions in the world. There's like endless amounts of opinions and beliefs in the world. They're so baffled by the concept that somebody wouldn't agree with them that their entire reasoning behind that is that everyone must be getting paid by George Soros. I know you guys have talked about this a lot, but it's insane to me. Like, I don't agree with you, so I must be getting paid for my opinions. That's the only

other option. There isn't like, I don't agree with you, so I must be getting paid for my opinions. That's the only other option. There isn't, like, I don't know, an infinite amount of people with different experiences and beliefs in the world that exist, like, outside of your purview. Nope, must not be the case. You must be getting paid by George Soros and boiler rooms, quote unquote, of liberals. It's insane to me. So thank you for keeping up the good work and we appreciate it. Bye guys. 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 it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. This is episode 363 of Cognitive Distance. A little bit later in this episode, we'll be joined by Thomas Westbrook from the Holy Kool-Aid YouTube channel. So stay tuned to the end of the show for that. Cecil, also stay tuned for the release of the Donald Trump Comey tapes. I'm very excited for him to never release the imaginary tapes that he doesn't have. That's going to be exciting.

Before we get started, speaking of Comey and President Trump, it is National Best Friends Day. It is. So I want to say real quick to my best friends, Tom, Heath, and Noah, happy Best Friends Day. That's so nice of you. It is nice. You know, let me extend... Cecil. Yeah.

And Noah and Heath, if you guys are listening, happy Best Friends Day. Happy Best Friends Day. It's great to have so many best friends. It is. It's nice.

You know what's great about best friends is you can have as many as you want. Just as many. There's no limit to how many best friends you can have. You never have to exclude somebody from the best Just as many. There's no limit to how many best friends you can have. You never have to exclude

somebody from the best friend moniker. You can just add people in. It's like, you know, your heart can just keep growing. Exactly. It's amazing. And if you don't get this joke, you should listen to Citation Needed, the other podcast we do with our best friends,

Heath and Noah, and then Eli. Also, Eli's on that show as well. Yeah, incidentally. Just as a side thing. So listen to that show. Now you were saying Comey and Trump. So Comey testified in front of the Senate today. He did.

And first of all, what a poker face on that guy. Yeah, that guy, he's a serious dude. You look at him, you're like, that guy is serious. He is a very serious man. Very, very serious. And you also get the impression, I could be mistaken, but I get the distinct impression that that is a principled motherfucker. I really do. Somebody described him as lawful neutral today.

And I was like, that's true. That's true. I like that. And he's one of those guys that, you know, he looks like and, you know, he's an ecumenical abuser. You know what I mean? Like he would be willing to abuse Trump or abuse Hillary. Oh, yeah. Whoever. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter to him. You know, he said in a he said in an interview, he said there's a reason that Lady Justice is blind. And that's so you can't move the blind, remove the blindfold and see your patron, you know.

And and I think he really does live by that. Like you get that distinct impression. Absolutely. Um, and what was great, I think the one thing I got from the Trump testimony today was that he had this, uh, he had this, this moment where all these Republicans are quizzing him and they keep pushing back on sort of like, well, he didn't overtly say, you know, he was actually really nice about how he, he approached you when he talked about his, you know,

let's make sure that Flynn doesn't get, you know, investigated. He was really nice about it. It doesn't sound like he was trying to obstruct justice. It sounded like he was being really nice about it. How nice is it when a fucking mob boss walks into me like real shame of something were to happen to this place.

You know what I mean? Like it's so transparent. It's pathetic and all these republicans can't get his tiny cock out of their mouth to look at this from a from a perspective of is it obstruction of justice and i don't know if it is that's the thing is i don't know but at least approach it in a manner that maybe should have the gravity of this moment you You know what I mean? Yeah, the fact that he was nice about intimidating. Yeah. You know, it's like you have to recognize what a position of authority does to your

negotiating power or your how you approach people. Yeah. You don't have to, if you're the fucking president of the United States, you don't have to be heavy handed. Right? A heavy hand simply isn't necessary. You can just say, you know, Flynn and what he said, right? A heavy hand simply isn't necessary. You can just say, ah, you know, Flynn and what he said, I'm paraphrasing.

He's like, Flynn's a real nice guy. We kind of probably should lay off that guy. He's a real nice guy. I mean, there's a message in there and it's a clear, it's a clear fucking message. It's one of those moments where you're just like, how fucking, you know, he's transparent in his motives because he's an oaf, you know, and you can just tell when he's having a dinner, like there was a moment where they're asking Comey about the dinner. He's like, I really thought other people would be there. I thought other people would show up.

And it was weird. That was just us. I can't imagine how weird it would be to sit and have dinner just with Trump. And, you know, you read that testimony, his opening testimony, and I had a chance to read through it. I don't, I didn't read the whole thing, but I read parts of it. And some of it is just so fascinating where Trump would say, you know, there would be these moments of silence. And he and he notates these moments of silence between them where Trump would ask a very direct question.

He would just look at him. Yeah, well, I love the idea that you can make the director of the FBI so uncomfortable that he's like, I need to document this. Yeah. And I'm just not even going to talk at this moment. I'm not going to talk at this moment. I'm going to document the silence I had. Fucking weird, man.

That's fucking weird. But Schumer, I think, I love the way he did it. He said, look, Trump's come out and said, you better. I hope no tapes ever get released. I hope no tapes ever get released. I hope no tapes ever get released. Motherfucker, you either have tapes or you don't. Release them or admit you don't have them. And Schumer basically came out and said, Trump needs to release these tapes or admit he doesn't have them.

And that's it. And there are no tapes. Well, there'll never be a tape release. His lawyer said something recently about like how he lied under oath. And the only way you would be able to prove that is if you had tapes. Right. So prove it. So prove it.

But he won't prove it because there are no tapes. And it's all just the buffoonings of an idiot. And I think what's interesting about Trump is that, I'm going to speculate a little bit here, but my guess is that because he's been an authority figure for most of his life, that for most of his life, that for most of his life, things didn't have to be true in order for everybody to behave as if they were. Right. When you're the boss.

Yeah. Everybody just eventually they back down. And bluffing can work in other arenas. Bluffing works great in business. Yeah. Bluffing works great. But it doesn't work in the public sphere like this because there's too much scrutiny. And plus there's oversight that is disinvested. And that's the big difference between business and government, right? In business, there is no oversight that's disinvested. Even if you're in an industry that's heavily regulated, the regulators

are still invested, right? Absolutely, yeah, but now you have disinvested regulation. You have disinvested oversight. They don't give a fuck. Yeah. You can't fire them. Put up or shut up too. Right. Right.

It's like, where's it at? Yeah. You can't intimidate them. You can't fire them. You can't, you know, try to steal their customers from them. You can't go lobby to get a law change you didn't like. You can't walk away. Right.

You can't just walk away and be like, well, I don't want to do business with you anymore. No, sorry. Can't do any of that. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. So this story is from the telegraph.co.uk and it's with respect to the London Bridge attack, as is everything we know. So, you know, I'm sure everybody at this point understands that there was an attack on the London Bridge.

Guys drove some cars into a bunch of people. Jackasses did a thing. Then jumped out and went on a stabbing rampage. And I put this in our notes and I wrote next to it, I want to talk about gun control deaths, right? And what I want to point out is that as terrible as this was,

this would not have occurred this way in the States, right? What they would have done is they would have jumped out of the car and rather than running around stabbing people, which did some fucking real damage, right? People got hurt. A lot of people got hurt and some people got killed. They'd have jumped out of their cars and they'd have been shooting everybody. Yeah.

Right. This event was over in eight minutes. Yeah. Start to finish. Um, they've police fired like 50 rounds, killed these two guys that from, from the,

from the first nine one call to the death of the two suspects, it was an eight minute event. Yeah. Imagine if these guys had been armed the way it would be very easy to become armed in the States, right? You could very easily buy body armor. That's an attainable item here in the States. It's not terribly difficult to get.

You can buy body armor and you can buy an assault rifle, which don't send me your fucking email if that's a made up term. You know what I'm talking about. A semi-automatic rifle. A semi-automatic rifle. A semi-automatic rifle. A semi-automatic rifle with a large magazine. Yes. Or clip.

I don't even know what they call it. Like a Colt, like a Colt M5 or something like that, right? They could have done infinitely more damage. So much faster. The number, they don't have to run around getting in close quarters combat.

When I read the stories here, people were fighting back. They were throwing chairs and shit at these guys. They were fighting back in a meaningful way, which probably delayed or prevented their ability to stab more people. That doesn't work when people have fucking guns. It just doesn't work with people have fucking guns. It just doesn't work with ready access to one guy at an Orlando nightclub with one with a few guns on and one gun, 49 people he killed and he wounded 53. They are 49 people got injured. 49 people he killed.

These people killed seven and there was three of them and they had a car and how many got killed by the car do you know I don't I don't know what the breakdown is I don't know what the breakdown is either but think about how much less efficient because you hear that bullshit argument that's why I want to talk about it you hear that bullshit argument like well people are going to

find a way right they can always get a knife they can always make a bomb like whatever yeah you can, but nothing, and there's a reason we use guns, because nothing beats the efficiency of them. If there was a more efficient weapon, we would give that to our military and police. Guns are incredibly

efficient weapons at putting holes in things that didn't have holes in them. And if you put holes in people, they die. This is not terribly complex. This attack, I think it's reasonable to say that this attack could have been vastly more damaging and more deadly had this occurred in an area where guns were easier to get by the general public. And it's a reason we need to think about having real gun control. Absolutely.

I, you know, I am a gun owner. I have a gun sitting two feet from me. I have several guns. Uh, I carry a gun on me on occasion. Uh, I am, I'm right there with you.

Like, I think it's, you know, I think that there is a, there's a level of gun control that that's needed in this country. I am for very strict background checks. I am for very strict training. I am for very strict time,. I am for very strict training. I am for very strict time

timeframes to get guns. And I own guns and I'd be willing to give them all up and go through all the things necessary to get those guns again. Yeah. In order to make sure that the populace is more safe. I'd be willing also to take those guns to the scrapyard tomorrow if they said there were no more guns in the United States. I love to go shooting. We shoot on occasion. I love to go shoot sporting clays and trap

and skeet. I think it's a lot of fun. Shotgun sports is absolutely hours and hours of entertainment for me. I just love it. I'm not crazy about rifles and pistols. I don't care so much about them, but I do carry a pistol on me on occasion. I would give it up tomorrow

if I never had to worry about somebody having a gun on me. Yeah. And this also brings up to, this sort of leads into the other story here, Tom. This was from the Raw story. This is just an ex-British ambassador says he makes me puke, and he's talking about

Trump's tweets after the attack. I want to read these tweets. These are the four tweets that came out right after the attack. The first one is, whatever the United States can do to help out London and the UK, we will be there. We are with you. God bless.

That's the first tweet he sent. The second one was at least seven dead and 48 wounded in terror attack. And mayor of London said, says there is quote, no reason to be alarmed, which is a, uh, not true. Yeah.

It's just a not true. Yeah. Cause he skips the second half of what the mayor said. We'll get back to that. So what are the other things? And then the other one is, do you notice that we are not having a gun debate now?

That's because they use knives and a truck. And we are, we can have the gun debate if we talk about guns. Right. Like I say, you know,

you can kill 49 people and wound 53 with one single guy. You know, could you imagine if all those guys had guns? I mean, it'd just be, it'd be a bedlam. 150, 200 you imagine if all those guys had guns? I mean, it'd just be, it'd be a bedlam. 150, 200 people could be dead. And then the final one is pathetic

excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. MSM is working hard to sell it. So those are his four tweets that relate to this attack. The first one, of course, is, you know, we're with you. The other three are just, you are a bag of assholes representing us. You are an awful, shitty person being petty about and using, I mean, you know, the far right accuses the left of this all the time when these gun deaths happen in the United States. They talk about how you're using these people for political advantage, and they talk about it all the time. Look at a guy using people for political advantage, the deaths of human beings for political advantage.

It's right there in front of you. Yeah, and let's talk about what Sadiq Khan actually said. Yeah, and let's talk about what Sadiq Khan actually said. He says, Jesus. Fake news. You know, the idea that he's got to think fast. He just has to quote himself. Yeah.

There's no reason to be alarmed by this. Well, what is this? This is the armed police and security forces. He's trying to bring calm back into the city. He's not saying there's no reason to be alarmed by the terror attack. Yeah, he's alarmed. He's up the fucking police presence. Right.

So he's clearly alarmed. Taking and chopping off the end of that sentence. That's bullshit. Yeah. That's just absolute bullshit. That doesn't tell you, you know, that this guy's trying to manipulate how he's trying to put doubt in people's minds about the media. He's trying to put doubt in people's minds about this president. He's trying to put doubt in people's minds about this president. He's trying to put doubt in people's minds about their safety. He's trying to make sure that that, you know,

people will support him more on these anti immigration bills that he keeps putting forward. I mean, this is clear political motivation and it's pathetic and disgusting. Have you always wanted to win the lottery? Do you suffer from chronic poverty syndrome? Do you have real problems that are too much work to actually work on? Would you rather pretend to help than actually help? Prayer might be right for you. So this is the story comes from the Huffington Post. Kentucky governor's crime plan.

I love this. Good plan. This is this. Good plan. This is bat signal ineffective, right? And I say that because there's no Batman. Sure. Volunteer prayer patrols roaming the streets. This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Teams of people will just walk around praying in neighborhoods that are high crime

the end yeah that's the plan that's his plan that's his actual plan they'll walk around playing praying uh in other news fuck louisville yeah that's insane that's the governor's plan to fit like we got a expanding crime problem in Louisville. Maybe we should think thoughts about how we don't want that there. You know, outside. Why would you even have to walk around? It doesn't make any sense. Why not just sit where you're at and just project your thoughts outside?

They're dead. Magic thoughts, I think, are not like, oh, I couldn't get my magic thoughts through the drywall. Your magic thoughts are constrained to the room. I don't think so. Do I need to go out? Do I need to be in the space to pray about it? And so I was thinking about that. And I thought, like, is this really an excuse to create like community policing or like community like volunteer patrols or whatever?

Sure. patrols or whatever sure but if it is and it's a high crime area aren't you just sending a group of like unarmed happy people singing kumbaya don't i mean don't rush to judgment they could if they wanted to change the name of a few prayers to be a little more threatening i say so you could do the flail mary oh right i like it yeah it. Yeah. Yeah. The sword, the swords prayer. Nice. Another one. Yeah. That'll work.

Apollo's creed. It's another one. You know, these are threatening. These are threatening. Apollo's creed. He dies at the end, doesn't he?

But he's punchy until the end. But so is Jesus. So I guess it works. But he's punchy until the end though. He's a good puncher. Oh my God. So, and I guess,

I guess when I say like unarmed, like they are Kentuckians. So presumably guess it works. But he's punchy until the end though. He's a good puncher. Oh my God. And I guess when I say like unarmed, like they are Kentuckians. So presumably they're bristling with weapons at all times. Yeah. And probably have a stump cut off about at the elbow. They can gnaw at the criminals with their one good tooth or whatever. They don't fucking pray at it. They have a beagle that follows them around.

You better get out of here. I'm going to say the Lord's Prayer at you. Right? Like, whoa. Hallowed be thy name. Hallowed be thy name. As he's stealing your wallet. Right?

You just see these people walking around and think, there's a mark. Why wouldn't they just get robbed? I would specifically rob them. I would take their... You know what I'd rob them? I'd take their fucking Bibles. You are a bad person. It would be hilarious. I mean, I remember one time

I had a pair of shoes that I wore and wore and wore and wore, and it just for years the shoes did not wear out, and I wore them years and years and years. So, you know, sometimes God is saying little epiphanies to us, little things to us.

But we don't know how to listen to his voice. This story comes from Right Wing Watch. Lance Wallaby, whatever, says that God is behind Trump's tweets and ignorance of world events. This we just have to hear. Okay, now, hold on a second. So I want to summarize most of this. Okay. Because it doesn't, like, most of it is actually him giving a speech to a congregation.

And he's making some jokes and he's being kind of funny. The summary is Trump is kind of a wild, loose cannon that sometimes says the right thing, sometimes says the wrong thing, but it doesn't matter to him because he's anointed by God. He keeps saying over and over, well, that's what happens when you're anointed, when you're anointed. And everybody's laughing at him, et cetera, et cetera. And he finishes up by talking about China and how China, and I don't want to play it again. I don't want to play it because it's just this long, droning thing. It's not very good. We're going to play a piece of it. I want you to hear the end of it.

He talks about China and how Obama, they were playing chess with Obama, but Trump doesn't know anything. So when he asks the guy a question about North Korea and their conflict with North Korea, the Chinese person, the Chinese ambassador says, oh, I'll tell you about it. And then they have an investment

in it because they've got a chance to explain something to someone. And that's important. Ignorance. Ignorance. As a plan. Is good. And God made him ignorant and God anointed him. Now I want to play. That's astonishing because when I when I when I read this, you know, I saw like I thought, here's a guy who is one of Trump's biggest cheerleaders saying, hey, man, his weird, erratic behavior. And I'm not even paraphrasing. He says erratic behavior. When you have to look at the guy that you're saying is the leader of the world and be like, yeah, his behavior is difficult to understand and erratic.

And he doesn't know what he's talking about most of the time. Why are you defending that guy as the leader? It know what he's talking about most of the time why are you defending that guy as the leader it's because he's anointed by god you wouldn't allow that guy to be the fucking shift manager at arby's you wouldn't have all the arby's sauce on him his fucking belly's hanging up over the what do you want in your burger oh that's fucking amazing all right let me play this last bit for you here, Tom, because I think this is very enjoyable at the end. I think you'll really like it. This is a totally different game, people.

God's changed the game. I feel the anointing right now. I'm on sabbath. Holy shabbat. I love sabbath. I hope you're listening. I love sabbath. I love sabbath. I love sabbath. I love sabbath. I love sabbath. I love sabbath. I love sabbath. I love sabbath. Okay, so now it ends here,

but I actually went to YouTube to find, it continues on. So here's the rest of it. All right. Oh, yeah. That's amazing. Oh, I like this. This is good.

Yeah. That's right. Repeat after me. I'm this. This is good. Yeah. That's right. Repeat after me. I'm kidding. That's not it. That was rude. This is, this is actually, this is it. Oh, my God. That's the greatest video I've ever seen. I gotta learn that! I gotta learn that!

Oh my god! Look at him! That could go for the rest of... Oh my God. Look at him. That could go for the rest of, oh my God. I am, that is wow. The video for that is the greatest thing. Lance Wallen is pretty awesome. I think

he kind of looks a little... He does look like that trash man or whatever. Talking in tongues is seriously my favorite thing. Have you seen someone do it in person? I just saw it now and I would not be able to sit in that room if they were going

shimmy. I told you somebody talked in tongues at me, right? I would be in stitches on the ground. That's not something I can... I know that would be rude. I told you somebody talked in tongues at me, right? I would be, I would be in stitches on the ground. That's not something I can, I, and I know that would be rude. I recognize the rudeness of that, but I just would not be able to be in front of someone. And at this point in my life, no way either. When I was 17 and it happened, I got, I know I've told you this story before, but like I went to one of those mega churches because there was a girl I was interested in. I went to this mega church and they pulled me to the side they put me like in a little wacko room and this woman

fucking hobba doobla out at me oh how did you do below she like touched me she like touched my shoulder and put her head down she's like i'm gonna shove it a rigged bitty bop bop bop or whatever the fuck she said i don't know and i remember being petrified like am i is she not gonna let me go until i babble too like what do I have to do to get out of this you know and it was weird and they wouldn't that when they did let me go they were like when you need your name and phone or Mike

and I was like I'm gonna give you the wrong name and phone number there's no way I'm giving you a working phone those people that's like that's like lying to the cops like you're just like yeah I I just stole a big thing. I'm holding this for a friend. I'm Joe Joerson.

My name is Billy No Crimes. And the point that the psalmist is making is when a nation sacrifices innocent children in abortion or infanticide that is a sacrifice to demons it's like food for demons using that expression metaphorically what i mean by that is that act of the shedding of innocent blood the most innocent among us it empowers satanic forces. Oh, Jesus Christ. This is Jim Baker. The Ringling Brothers circus closing was a sign from God about the last days. This guy is a spin machine. This guy is fucking on the spin cycle all the time.

How he's not dizzy, how he can remain vertical is a motherfucking mystery. Unless we repent, unless we talk to God, unless we turn to God, and if we destroy our president, do you believe it was a miracle, right? You said that. I do believe it was a miracle.

Alright, if you come against what God does, or you're saying, when you're saying trump is no good we got to get rid of him you're saying you're attributing to satan what god did again we go back to the election night when we had that conversation i am the only way god interferes if you're a believer is he either changed people's minds removing removing free will, or he changed the ballots, removing our choice. Literally rigged the results of the election, which means that less people voted for Trump and their voices were not heard. Yeah.

Yeah. So either way, he fucked with our free will. Yeah. I don't understand how they leaps of logic they get through just to believe this. Right. I don't understand how they leaps a logic they get through just to believe this. But it's one of those things that you hear them say all the time. And it's that threatening, like, you know, don't you dare go against this. This is your guy. I guess the other possible, it's still fucking with free will.

But the other possible way that God could have influenced the election is to have had people who would have voted Hillary stayed home. Yeah, again, still, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. It's all free will. Is that right? That's very dangerous. Well, the same day President Trump arrived in the Mideast, something happened.

Something happened after 146 years. Would that be epic? Sure. 146 years? Well, it depends on what it is. Yeah. Just a regular thing. It depends on what it is. Yeah. What happened? You don't just agree that anything that

happened that took a long time to happen was epic. An old tree fell down. Dude, it was super epic. Well, what if it didn't make a sound? I wasn't there, so I don't know. Yes. Something happened, and God spoke to me.

He said this. He spoke to you after 140 years? Jesus. Jesus fucking took him. He's like an ant? It takes a very long time. You know what happened was? He told Pat Robertson 140 years ago, and he just told him ah he just got

right as a game a phone tag right right telephone or operator one of the kill a hooker or something i forget what's called kill a hooker this is no accident the same day he arrives in the mid-east the ringling brothers circus packs up its tent after 146 years it performed. What? Wait, what? The circus closed? Maybe there's no market for circuses. Who wants to go into a big, hot, smells like shit room and watch dirty animals run around?

Like, I've never, even as a kid, never wanted to go to the circus. Well, here's the answer. Not enough people to keep them in business. Yeah. Right? That's the answer. This is a bit of, the fucking circus is a business.

That's what it is. If the business closed, it's because the market doesn't want it anymore. These guys can't get the fucking free market deep enough into the back of their fucking throat, right? Their fucking uvula is fucking bruised with how hard they get face-fucked by the fucking free market all the time. Absolutely. deep enough into the back of their fucking throat right their fucking uvula is fucking bruised yeah with how hard they get face fucked by the fucking free market all the time absolutely

mascara is fucking and there's a pile of puke on right in front of them from how hard they're fucking gagging yeah on the fucking free market right they have to they have to tell the cameraman to hold on they're. They're like, wait a minute. While their eyes are just pouring, they vomit two or three times. It comes out their nose. They need to get a fluffer over there to wipe their face off. Whatever it takes.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever it takes. We'll edit that out. To get more free market into them. It's last performance. The elephant is mainly to blame. Now, that's not the prophecy, but that's a piece of the prophecy.

Here's the thing, Jim. I just want you to know that when you tell the folks that are eating your buckets of slop, I want you to let them know that the elephant is partly to blame for this. He had tried to do a hostile takeover. You know, it's so unfair to blame

the elephant. You know, an elephant goes rampaging through the crowd once or twice, you know, and it's like, oh, all of a sudden, the elephant's a big goes rampaging through the crowd once or twice. And it's like, oh, all of a sudden, the elephant's a big problem. We're not talking about elephant control methods. We never hear about that. We never hear about safety and regulation behind elephants when they go crazy.

The only way to protect myself from elephant attacks is with a bigger elephant. Absolutely. What if only bad guys had elephants? What if they only had bull elephants? Right. Then what? Where are you now?

And here I am walking around with my rhino and I'm fucked. You know, that's why I am going to actually clone a mastodon and raise it for a birth. The elephant is no longer in the show by law in America. You cannot have elephants in circuses anymore. Who gives a shit? Yeah, well, who seriously, who seriously is like, what the fuck?

You're in America. Like, I never even once in my life thought I need to see an elephant show. But it never occurred to me to see an elephant show. But like, he's going gonna get all fucking outraged about this but there's a reason it's because the elephants are poorly kept and poorly managed and abused and people protest they're a big animal yeah but but the reason is because people were like yeah maybe elephants aren't the kind of animal that you should fucking train to do this work because they're fucking big and smart and to train them you have to hurt them real bad and

you know they really shouldn't fucking live in a box car on a train. That's not like good for them. So yeah, they banned them because it's fucking cruel. I, I, maybe, I don't know.

I don't know anything about, I remember when this was a big controversy. Here's, here's why I don't, here's why I don't know anything about it. Cause I don't care. Like I genuinely don't care. Like I'm like,

when, if somebody were to come to me tomorrow and say, Cecil, do you realize that they banned elephant shows? I'd be like, there was elephant shows? Like, huh. It sounds stupid. Why would you ever even consider it? So, to me, I'm like, I don't even care. Like, I don't care why they banned it

if they did. And to be honest, to be real honest, I wouldn't care if they lit the item on fire. I wouldn't care. But I don't care that they banned it either. Like I'm, I'm, I'm completely neutral. I remember when this was a big controversy.

I remember when it was, you know, I'm sure you'll, we'll get email. Cause I remember when we talked about, uh, uh, animals being sad or looking sad at SeaWorld,

a bunch of people were like, black fish, you guys watch black fish and you got all super sad about it. Be like, no, I just don't like while going to zoos or I don't like going to the aquarium and seeing like the big, the big lonely ass one whale.

Like I, like I anthropomorphize it. I look at it and I think, well, I would suck. It'd be super boring. And so I, but I have no idea whether or not the whale suffering.

And here's the other key. I don't care. Like I genuinely don't care if the whale suffering, like it doesn't matter key. I don't care. Like I genuinely don't care if the whale's suffering. Like it doesn't matter to me. I'm like, because I, and that's the same reason

I wouldn't go to a fucking whale show. It's the same reason I wouldn't go to an elephant show because I don't fucking care. Because they protect, isn't it something? We kill 50 million babies or almost six.

Elephant babies? They just sell these, all these ears on the ground in small little tussles we have to make you have to make

like tiny little pipes out of them you can't even do anything fun with it you can't even make a piano out of that make a baby piano make a little piano

like a linus piano that'd be awesome 60 almost 60 million babies in America, but yet you can't kill a fucking elephant. What the fuck? Here are two things that are unrelated.

Get an elephant in here. I want you to feed it buckets until it dies. These two things have no relationship to one another. Until we fix the abortion problem, we can do whatever we want. We can kill elephants. We can stab puppies in the eyes. It doesn't matter because there's abortion. As long as we have abortion.

As long as there's abortion, every other wrong is just... You can do whatever you want. Yeah. Have an elephant perform because it's not humane. Right. Come on, people. You better wake up and listen. The elephant is no longer in the show and it was the death no god can you imagine how that elephant smells

what a dirty shitty animal oh they power wash it man it's fine they probably probably do they probably fucking power wash and scrub brush those fucking things. Still nasty, weird, wrinkly, fucking ugly animal. He's such a shitty person. Why? Because I hate elephants? I genuinely hate most creatures. I know you do. That's why I'm saying you're a shitty person. I don't like most creatures.

There's like three or four okay creatures and the rest of them are like, that's a garbage animal. Cats, dogs. Cats and dogs are fine. Boa constrictors. I'm not a snake person either. I kill all those snakes. I don't give a fuck about snakes. I don't give a shit about rodents. Kill all the rodents. Who cares about them?

Murder every rodent. Put it all in a big pot and light it on fire. I don't care. Fuck rodents. I'm like, birds, fuck them. I don't care about any birds. Birds are fucking awful. There's a few start I'm like birds. Fuck them. I don't care about any birds. Birds are fucking awful. There's a few mammals that I like

but they're like domesticated. The rest of them I'm like I can't think of anything else that's domesticated that I have any interest in to like I like foxes. I think they're cool looking. Yeah right. I would. You know what? Foxes are kind of neat. And it's interesting too because you can write a whole song

about what they'll say, which is good. Exactly. I'm the scat man! They found out that the elephant was the biggest draw the circus had.

Isn't that something? That's something. That really is. Now, what is this? Here's what we did. We went to the circus when we were in Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil.

We went to Cirque du Soleil. You want to know what? Damn, any fucking animals. They just had a bunch of people doing all kinds of gymnast crazy shit. It was fun. It was amazing. And fun to watch. Yeah.

So you could still do the circus. They do a circus here in Chicago that Sarah wanted to see. We couldn't because we were out of town. But it's called Cavalia. And it's horses. And it's a big horse thing. They do flips and whatever on the horses. And it's like a circus thing with horses. Again, it's a circus. You where they do flips and whatever on the horses. And it's like a circus thing with horses.

Again, it's a circus. You could totally do it. Right. Just because Barnum and Bailey didn't change their business model in 140 years, I shouldn't have to cry crocodile tears because somehow there's abortion. Right? I mean, like, isn't that his argument? Symbol of the elephant. Oh, yes.

It's amazing, honey. Say it. The Republican Party. You don't know that of course we do but you ought to help me are you guys high church what are you of course we do but when you say it out loud then we know it more i hate that one are you serious that's yeah because yeah this is the it's the death of the republican party this is yeah they're only in power. Right. They only like own it all. But I, it's terrifying to them because they're doing a bad job of it.

So they're elephants. They own it so fucking hard right now that even if there was an impeachment, nothing would happen. Like even if it went to the thing, nobody would impeach it. Nothing would happen. Okay. Hold on a minute. Let me break it down for you a little different.

There's a circus. It's been in town. It's been around for 146 years. It had elephants. The elephants are the Republicans. Nobody likes the elephants anymore. The elephants are also the most liked thing

because of the biggest draw. The most popular thing is no longer liked by people. Therefore, abortion is wrong and the Republican Party is the apocalypse. I think you've nailed it. Any holy rollers here? Anybody

from a Pentecostal? I need some Pentecostal or some shouting Baptist. Anybody shouting Baptist? You're a shouting Baptist. Jesus Christ. Now listen to me. Listen to me. I just need somebody to jibber jabber. You want me to tell you what God spoke to me about this?

Yes. I love them elephants. And if they go away, I'm never going to be able to see those curly tails anymore. And I love that stuff, the way they curl up. And then if you pull them, they go blink and they go right back to where they were. And you know what also happened in this 24 hour period, 48 hour period? This news from Manchester in England. How are you going to connect

the Manchester Arena explosion to the suicide elephant? Fuck, dude. That would be messy as shit. That would be, yeah. That would be messy as shit. Everybody on the other side of the elephant would be fine.

Can you imagine the size of the fucking suicide vest you have to strap on that elephant? It's fucking outrageous. God damn nuke. You got to get it at the big and tall store. Right. Our 22 mostly children.

Yes. Were murdered. By elephants. By a terrorist. A terrorist elephant. You're not going to like this, pastor. It was a donkey. I'm sorry, but I'm not not a happy prophet i'm a prophet of

doom as i say you know jay baker is a prophet no i'm a prophet of the king is coming back yeah and all the stuff that has to happen jeez i'll make sure to tell you about it so you buy my right so you can be well fed when the king comes back great news god loves you so much that his only dead son who's not dead is coming back to be more alive later. He's going to come back to love you so much. But first, there has to be some random apocalyptic

events that make your life terrible until that point. It's going to suck. Can you imagine how that would work if you just try to tell that to anybody else? It's like, oh, great news. We're going to go on vacation next week. But between now and then, I'm going to put out a pack of cigarettes in your eyes. Why?

What fucking what? But it's going to be an amazing vacation. We're going to Disney. But I won't be able to see Dumbo. This is coming back. That's right. I spent a lot of time in the revelation. Revelation is now, people.

Yes, it is. But here's what God spoke to me. The circus is over. Amen. Yes. Wow. Wow. This is so good.

What is happening? What is happening? On screen, there's just super post letters that says, the circus is over. And the woman is overreacting in a huge way. She's got her fake orgasm. She's got her fucking when Harry met Sally fake orgasm thing going on. Oh, this is so great. I'll have what she said.

Life as we know it, unless we turn back to God, it's not going to be fun anymore. It's a metaphor, Tom. I should have thought of that. I wonder if it's going to be bread and circuses or just this circus. Here we go.

They went to a concert. 21,000 people went to a concert for fun, happiness, joy. Yeah, yeah. And a bomb went off. Mount Everest. Hillary's step has collapsed. Mountaineer confirms. Mount Everest Everest So what

Hold on he's going to tie it all into the elephants Are doing this I swear to god I want to fist fight this man The rocky outcrop near the peak of Mount Everest Has collapsed Hillary's step It's called

Has collapsed You can do with that whatever you want There's warfare Hillary's step, it's called, has collapsed. Hillary. You can do with that whatever you want. There's warfare. As it fell, it just said, butter emails! This goes on a little longer, too. Does it ever make sense?

Nope. I love this. This is so great. I love this. It's my favorite thing. Scooby dooby dooby. I can't. I know.

Nobody can sing with you. So we're joined now by Thomas Westbrook of the Holy Kool-Aid YouTube channel. He's actually at the glory hole. He didn't break down any doors. He didn't scream, oh, yeah, when he came in the room. He hasn't left, though. That's when you leave. Is it?

I was concerned. Okay, I didn't realize. This is the lowest moment of my life. You have no idea how much worse this is going to get. My mom would be proud. She's already disappointed that I'm an atheist, but you know, now I'm on a podcast with a bunch of guys who make dick jokes. You know what?

She's a patron. So, I mean, she's got no room to talk. What perks does she get? All of them. Yeah. Well, there's a special glory hole. We had to create a special level for her. It was real. And it's about two and a half feet

off the ground. Welcome to the glory hole. Thanks for coming. Thank you for having me. So we met at ReasonCon. We met before that via email and chatted and stuff, but we met at ReasonCon and you have a pretty interesting background. Tell us a little bit

about your background first. You said that you grew a pretty interesting background. Tell us a little bit about your background first. You said that you grew up a mission kid. Tell us about that. I did grow up a mission kid. It was a very interesting experience. Was it impossible? I'm just wondering. It's a legitimate mission question.

Everywhere he walks. How do you not do that? How do you not? This man knows how to enter and leave a room. I would only enter rooms suspended from a series of cables. And now he leaves as the Kool-Aid man. Every heist he leaves is the Kool-Aid man. I actually, I shall stealth the other way in.

Blow shit up on the way out. I should hop up on the chair so i'm not triggering the alarm transition back to somehow transition back to a legitimate question a legitimate question and a legitimate answer so so a mission kid what even is a mission kid well so my parents were missionaries in Asia, in a Muslim country. And I grew up as, so I was homeschooled, which that's weird as it is. You know, I'm still trying to overcome my social awkwardness. Doing a great job, by the way. He's not doing a very good job.

Don't tell him. Well, I edit the shit out of my videos so that people can't see it. Cecil edits me. it's perfectly fine in fact just just now you know there's this long awkward pause that they're they're gonna edit out but um or just don't edit it out just let it like sink in so people can just feel the awkward they'll look down they're like is it buffering no no that's. It's still going. So a mission. So from birth, you were a missioner? Just like at what age were you a mission kid?

So from the, well, I mean, technically I'm always a mission kid now that I'm, you know, but I was. I didn't know there were technicalities. I guess I'm not a kid anymore. But my childhood was. Is it like the Marines where you're never like formerly a Marine? Just like, I'm always, always a Marine. Simpl, bitches.

No, so I was three years old when I went overseas. When they went missioning. Yep. Gotcha. But, you know, my parents, they were, you know, very educated. My dad had a master's degree. My mom was college educated. And so I didn't get the, the stereotypical homeschool

experience where, you know, it's, Oh, we're just going to wait inside in our pajamas and wait for the rapture. You know, I got to see a lot of amazing things. You know, I was in the Soviet or former Soviet union right after the fall of the Berlin wall. And I saw, I saw a country as it's, you know, emerging out of poverty. You know of poverty. There were bread lines that you would have to go and stand in line at in the morning to get bread. The water would go out and you'd have a little bucket that you'd have to take down to the watering hole and then carry it up 10 flights of stairs. I just I admire it. I don't care about other people's souls bad enough to wait in one line for anything. bad enough to wait in one line for anything.

Like the fact that your parents would be like over there, you know, they care enough about this to be like, yeah, they're going to endure the same hardship as the locals, right? Yeah, and in that regard, I think, you know, I hear a lot of people sometimes will bash Christians for particular reasons. And I get the, and I

made a whole video on why are atheists so angry? And it comes down to where if we're angry, it's because we give a damn. We see a lot of the harm that's being caused by you know the the catholic church covering up the the raping of pedophile or the raping of children raping of pedophiles would be a different story though right well the raping of children by pedophile priests is being covered up you have you know the the pope saying that you shouldn't be using condoms in AIDS-ridden parts of Africa. You guys have, you know, seen a lot of the crazy.

And that's enough to get anyone's blood boiling. But my experience as a missionary kid in the heat of all of this was a very positive experience. Most of the people that I encountered were good, loving, caring, kind Christian people. But that wasn't why I left my faith. You know, I left because I fell in love with science. I started doing all this research. Particularly, I've noticed a lot of atheists or a lot of neuroscientists a lot of cosmologists

and evolutionary biologists tend to be atheist and those are three fields that I just absolutely fell in love with and the more that I dove into them I thought that the science would prove my religion correct but instead the other is the other way around

and the more things... The religion proved your science correct? I'm very confused. Ray Comfort says that. As I left my faith, I started to see, I started learning all of these crazy cool awesome things that just completely

conflicted with my faith and that made me want to share it. It made me want to tell other people that, hey, here's some amazing thing that I've learned about the brain. Um, for example, I used to have a sleep paralysis and I just made a video on this, but it's when, when you're sleeping and suddenly you're jolted out of sleep and you know, you're jolted out of REM sleep. And normally, you know, while you're sleeping, your brain releases glab, GABA and glycine and it paralyzes your muscles so that you don't thrash and roll over and fall out

of bed. But if you're suddenly awakened during REM sleep, then you can, you know, your muscles can still be paralyzed for a little while while you're awake, while you're lucid. Yeah. Just take Cialis though for that, right? Is that what you do? I don't know.

Yeah. If your paralysis lasts over four hours you might be dead you're probably dead that's what i tell my wife just sleep paralysis i'm totally says sleep paralysis it's sleep paralysis it's not like seven whiskeys if you can just get it to be paralyzed in in an erect position now there's some real science to be done here i just use a popsicle stick don't isn't that that's standard right damn we're sitting on a gold bar now uh now i've had sleep paralysis once or twice in my life and that's it's a really shocking thing to happen to you very i've had it over a dozen times yeah oh wow yeah i i have

really are you sure it wasn't a ghost sitting on your chest it could be felt like it dude it felt like it seriously feels like there's something holding you down well the first time i thought it was demons yeah because it first happened to me while i was a creationist and so so I woke up and I remember like looking up and seeing like this cross on the wall. My eyes are just fixated on it. And I'm like inside my head, you know, I can't really say anything or scream for help. But inside my head, I'm thinking, you know, Jesus saved me. Help me. Help me.

Sure. And like nothing's happening and nothing like it. And it eventually goes away on its own. He doesn't even laugh, bro. He's just come on. He's not going gonna get the demon off your chest i didn't get enough likes on facebook like me enough and this demon will get off my chest yeah it's a really terrifying experience

though and i and i i will attest that it is one of those things that happens to you even when you're not a when you're not a believer. That is really weird. It feels weird. It feels, because you're still kind of quasi-dreaming and you're stuck in this position. And I've had some serious, like I've also like snapped out of it where like when I finally can move, like my limbs flail.

It's really awesome. Like it's a really crazy thing that happens. But I could see where people see it. I mean, I watched a ghost show one time where this woman was like, yeah, I wrote about sleep paralysis. And I knew it wasn't that. It was a ghost. I'm just like, what the fuck? No.

But seriously, it's such a powerful experience that it can wash even reason out of your head. Sure. And I can imagine as a creationist, like, so I do want to back you up a little bit because I'm curious. So it's mission work, but specifically what religion, like what denomination of Christianity? So they were Protestant, probably,

well, they were non-denominational, but they were probably closest to Pentecostal. So they believed in the whole speaking in tongues, demon possession. Did they hold on to snakes at all or no snakes over there? No snakes. But because, you know, they thought, you know, you shouldn't test God.

Okay. I see. But at the same time, you know, I was taught young earth creationism and that the earth was 6,000 years old. Yeah. You know, I feel like, and I could be wrong about this. So correct me if I am, but like, if you're taught that particular bill of goods, like, because there's a lot of Christians that don't believe in the young earth

theory, right? Like, I think more are not young earth creationists than are. I think if you're in that, even the most cursory traveling down real scientific roads will blow that up in a way that might be more unsettling and foundation shattering than if you happen to be, let's say, Catholic, right? The Catholics believe in evolution. They don't believe in a 6,000-year-old Earth. Right. Well, let's just say it takes a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance.

But when that happens, I have to imagine that's like... Because it's, it's such an untenable position for everything to rest on. Right. Well, that's, I guess that's what I'm saying. Like everything rests on a top,

you know, it's very unstable. It's a little, the littlest motion left or right is going to knock that fucker over. The wider that base is that, you know, the more stable it's going to be. Well,

if you're familiar with the, the backfire effect. No, no idea what that is. It's a, in, in psychology. A lot of times if you get in an argument with someone and you present them with facts and reason, then, you know, they've done studies on this where, you know, they'll present someone with facts that go against an emotionally held belief. Oh, and they interview them both before and after. And it turns out after they're presented with that evidence in an argumentative fashion, they wind up being more

solidified in their belief system. What about if you mansplain it, though? Does that change the effect? Yeah, sure. As long as you're manspreading while you do it. Women get moist. That's what it is. He's like, leaning, let me mansplain i wasn't condescending enough in my in my explanation i'll scale that back but

yeah condescending is when i talk down to you women are just screaming yeah good stuff that's actually my go-to pickup line. It works every time. Now, so you started, you must have shaken off religion at sort of a later age then, right? So you were in college at the time? The very end of college. Yeah. Okay. Wow.

I actually, I went through a bit of a transitionary phase where it was incredibly gradual. So I had a high school youth pastor who told me, you know, sat down with me and he's like, you know what? When you learn that there's, you know, more evidence in favor of evolution that, you know, or enough evidence in favor of evolution to show that it's a valid theory that you should believe, you know, don't abandon your faith altogether. You know, these ideas can be compatible. And so I was, I wasn't quite an overlapping magisteria be compatible. And so I wasn't quite... An overlapping magisteria, man.

Well, I wasn't afraid of it. How is it not incompatible with a 6,000-year-old Earth? I mean, there's just no time for the evolution to happen. Didn't you see the fucking short-necked giraffes in Ken Ham's fucking deal? Ken Ham's arc has short-necked giraffes. Will you excuse me while I kill myself for aed giraffes also has raptors and it had shell-less turtles that look like little poop monsters

but Ken Ham doesn't believe in evolution no he believes in creation he does believe in evolution in some ways you have to believe in evolution if you have a short necked giraffe on there even though the short necked giraffe a, is a bullshit thing. That's not a real thing. Right. But he's too stupid to realize that that's not a real thing.

And it's also, you're also believing in somewhat in revolution. But he believes in it in a fast time scale though. Right. And, and only like change over a fast period of time, but only within species, if I'm not mistaken. Right. Like he thinks a dog can turn into a wolf. Which is ridiculous if you've ever studied ring species. And you see, right now, there are birds and salamanders that we have that are all alive right now that

in varying regions that neighbor each other or border each other, they can reproduce with the species right next to it, or the salamander right next to it. But then as it goes around in a loop, you know, either around a mountain or around the Arctic Circle, then they cannot reproduce with the one on the other end. So once they get all the way around this barrier,

then there are different species. And, you know, so we have just blaring evidence of speciation, of one animal evolving into another. Sure, yeah. and it was little things like that that you know i started to stumble across and then when i realized oh hey like this whole evolution thing you know it makes a lot more sense than young earth creationism i shifted to i shifted to an old earth idea where you know oh well the story of genesis isn't

literal yeah sure but as soon as i did that all the dominoes started falling because if the story of Genesis isn't literal, then there was no first man. If there's no first man, there's no original sin. If there's no original sin, what, is Christ dying for an allegory?

That's a shitty reason to die, right? Yeah. No one dies for young Goodman Brown. You know what I mean? Like, it's a fine story, I guess,

but like, I'm not going to die for the fucking thing. Are you fucking kidding me? You want to to die for the fucking thing. Are you fucking kidding me? You want to fucking die for the crucible? Fuck you. But he didn't die for waiting. I mean, if when I think of death, I think it's, you know, this permanent thing.

Right. Jesus, you know, he just got set aside for a couple of days. You know, it's like at the worst, it made him late. So he was inconvenient. I know. Right. Like He was temporarily inconvenienced. And who's to say it even hurt? God can't use some magic fucking Novocaine? Admittedly.

We're being a little harsh here, but a temporary inconvenience, isn't that cancer? It's a temporary inconvenience too, right? I mean, like cancer or brain cancer, tumors, those are temporary inconveniences until they kill you. Yeah, right. But if you know that you're going to be just fine

and you're going to go on vacation for the rest of your life later, that's the difference, right? Yeah, that's fair. But what about the Make-A-Wish Foundation? Worth it. Worth it. You haven't heard my wish. They just open up

this giant envelope of your wish and it's all commas. And you're just like, they're like, no. They look at my wish like, close the foundation. We are not serving you a thousand peacocks. It's not happening. You can't have ordolence for every

meal. And the thing is, none of it's sexual. It's not happening. It's not happening. You can't have ordolence for every meal. This is fucking... And the thing is, none of it's sexual. It's all food. Right. It's like all food. That does not mean it's not sexual.

You make everything extinct. I want to eat the last of the following animals. Oh, man. Cancer's going to be balling. Oh, man. Oh, cancer's going to be balling. Oh, God. You shake off religion. And how soon after do you start a YouTube channel?

So what is the requirement on that? I'm just curious because, you know, you clearly have a story to tell and you clearly have a point of view and you clearly are well educated. So you obviously wanted to talk to other people about this because I know as a believer, not becoming a believer was a very life changing experience for me. Well, a huge part of it. It was not an instantaneous thing. Sure. Well, a huge part of it, it was not an instantaneous thing. Sure.

I went through, you know, I spent a couple years where I was very hesitant to start anything because I didn't want to misinform. And so I just, I read so much. I mean, it's an honorable impulse that I simply don't share. I don't understand it. Go ahead. So I started reading about a book a week and in, you know in a wide area of science-based topics. Have you made a reading rainbow yet? Hey, hey, take a look. It is a book.

I tried to soak up as much information as I could before I really started talking about it. And initially, it wasn't meant to be this massive thing. It was just going to be a few videos that I could share with my family and with my parents telling them why I don't think that this is logical, why I don't believe anymore. Because if I have these conversations in person, I tend to just get interrupted and cut off. Sure. And I wanted to be able to share something from my heart. And the audience started growing.

And then I started seeing a lot of the harm that religion did sure or does and i was frustrated and so i made a few videos that were a little bit more you know mocking satirical um i'm a polemicist what can i say but i i'd made a series called animated bible myths and in it, the main character God is Dinkleberry, which that apparently was the most offensive thing to my family. Yeah. They stumbled across my YouTube channel and they just, they took huge offense at that. I want to rewind you a little bit.

So you said that you had, you created this partially with the intent to share with your family in a way that you don't get into a sort of back and forth that they can interrupt. How was your channel received by your family? Your folks know about this? Initially. Before the mocking. Initially, I wanted to have a bunch of videos before

I shared it with them. But I got three videos in and I just had a lot of frustration over how I'd been misled not I wasn't mad at my parents because I don't think that they deliberately lied to me sure yeah but I was I was mad at religion in general and you know I felt free at first but then I was kind of frustrated and then I was just you know I kind of wanted to show why all of this is bullshit and I did it in kind of a tongue-in-cheek way and then i mellowed out a

little bit now i just i just love life yeah i don't i'm not angry or mad or upset because i don't want to live under that cloud i want to have you know a positive side of you know looking on just the fact that this life is short makes it so much more meaningful makes it you know gives me so much more purpose to make the most of it. And I want to share that joy and that love of humanity with other people. So I think my channel has become a lot more optimistic,

but when my parents stumbled across it, it was right as I was making those animated Bible myths. And they did not take it well. My mom and dad think I'm going to hell. My uncle said I'm just as crazy or I'm just as bad as religious extremists, which, I mean, religious extremists kill cartoons. And I'm making cartoons. So if you can't see the emotional disconnect, if you can't see the moral disconnect there, something is wrong with your objective sense of morality.

Do you think he really believes that or do you think that's hyperbole to sort of compare you with the worst, right? I guess because I've heard that concept before, like, you know, it's just as bad as religious extremists, atheist extremists, right? It's just as bad, right? And it's like, well,

I mean, like, the worst end of religious extremism is, you know, bombings in Manchester and it's burning well i mean like the worst end of religious extremism is you know bombings in manchester and it's burning driving a car on london bridge and killing a bunch of people and like buildings yeah right there you go and you're making youtube videos and i just fail to see how anybody with even the most basic common decency can actually make that comparison honestly are they just making it in this in the sense that like an extreme point of view because the extreme the extreme point of view of atheism like what is it i mean do you think that comes from an honest place here's the

problem with religion is that it people take it on as part of their identity and they adopt it emotionally so if you go after their religion if you go after their god they feel like you're personally attacking them they're not able to swap it in and out like an idea you know if i tell you right now you know that you know if you think that and i use this example in one of my videos but if you think that lightning never strikes the same place twice and i show you actually it's you know the empire state building gets struck 100 times a year that idea you can easily just dismiss and it'll be like oh okay you know i i agree with you and you move on you're not emotionally attached to it it's not part of your identity religion people

say you know they don't say oh i believe in allah they say i am a muslim yeah yeah okay yeah and so if you come along and you say, oh, that's wrong, they feel like you're rejecting them. They feel personally attacked. And so I think with my parents, they see it as, we raised him better than this. Here he is rejecting

us. How could he do this to us? Rather than just, I reached the end of a rational journey. So if people were going to find your show, where would they look? So the main thing right now is my YouTube channel, which is called Holy Kool-Aid. And then I have a website called holykoolaid.com that aggregates everything. I'm trying to come up with different resources there to plug people into the atheist community, you know, finding local groups near them, finding conferences.

I want to have a wide variety of resources. I also have Facebook and Twitter as holy Kool-Aid, and I have just about every other social media platform. We'll put it on this episode's show notes. This is episode 363. Thanks for joining us in studio, Thomas. I had a blast. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Glory hole, motherfuckers. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers? I want the'm entitled. You want answers? I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Newsweek. Bald people should watch out for which doctors? Mozambique police warn after murders.

Whoa. It's people with hairlessness. The fuck is wrong with you? People who are follicularly challenged. Follicularly challenged folks. This is just unbelievable. The level of rudeness. I'm sorry, man.

Unbelievable. I'm trying to be. There's like two people with follicle-ness, follicle-less-ness in the audience that are so mad at you right now. There's going to be somebody with alopecia just like, God damn it. God damn it.

All right. It's not fucking funny. All right. I always wanted to get one of those alopecias. Those things are so cool. They're huggable. They have big, long necks, right? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, you can

you can share them and make a sweater. Yeah, you can make a sweater. Actually, an alopecia is exactly the opposite of that. I love those alopecias. They're awesome. I think a real alopecia would be funny to just lube up and squirt like a bar of soap. Yeah. What you need is a slip inside and some Crisco. You know what I mean?

You'd just be like, all right, here we go. This is how the magic happens. I'm just saying. So, turns out Mozambique, not exactly a hotbed of scientific literacy. This story is nuts. So a couple of bald people were killed. They were murdered and chopped up and their fucking organs were removed for use by witch

doctors and hear this out because people thought that bald people were rich. I, I would think you would just like the person and then maybe they're not all just rich. Figure out if they're rich. Right. It's just super easy to test. It's the easiest claim to test ever. Absolutely. But they also thought that bald people's heads is the best part of the story. I can't

see it. Okay. Scroll down. I'm going to read it because I don't even want to paraphrase it. You bet. So this is from the Newsweek article. This is amazing. Think about what has to happen in your mind to believe this is true. Some people in Mozambique, and I love the way this is written by Newsweek,

mistakenly believe that the heads of bald people contain gold. Me gold! You get that guy who's like, he cuts it off and he's like, oh, someone scooped the head out. Or just the brain in there.

I love it. They had to be like, some people most like the writer. Some people believe back had to be like, some people, like the writer of Newsweek, some people in Mozambique believe backspace, backspace, backspace, mistakenly believe. I used to have that qualifier. So Newsweek doesn't get sued. That's why. Yeah. Because somebody's like,

because there's some guy in Alabama's like, there's a head in there. There's gold in our heads. There's gold in that bald head over there. All right. What? I got to get me panning stuff out. You know, I don't want to fall into the...

Trap panning. Trap panning. Ain't no gold in there. Maybe if I sift these brains here through this strainer. This is the turn I was going to tell him. Shake it with a strainer? I don't want to generalize about a people.

But all of the people that think this are fucking stupid. They're not just a little stupid either. They're fucking literally criminally stupid. The idea that they'd be like, no hair, probably their head's full of gold.

Let's kill them. I don't know how you get from one to the other. What do you think is in a human head? I don't know. That you think that somebody could walk around and do stuff that has a head full of gold. So we want to thank our patrons. Of course, we want to thank all our patrons for their generous donations we want to thank our new patrons simon vizubon this one's my favorite the bjorn identity jessica ivra ensemble justin natalie frode dale matt ashley john and christine ensemble, Justin, Natalie, Frode, Dale, Matt, Ashley, John, and Christine. Thanks so much for your

generous donations. We really do truly appreciate it. Thank you so much. You keep Glory Hole Studios going. So we got a message from Patty Cake Rex, who was talking about the Paris Agreement and talking about how there's some states that are actually going to pledge to do the Paris Agreement and talking about how there's some states that are actually going to pledge

to do the Paris Agreement. It looks like Hawaii is the first to sign. Hawaii signed on. Patty K. corrects. Like we talked about in the first 100 Days episode, I feel like this is sort of echoing what we said,

which is, you know, this work has got to be done no matter what. Sure. Right? No matter what climate work to try to get renewable sources of energy, to try to slow the warming of the planet, to try to, you know, get energy saving stuff, to try to make sure that, you know, all of these things come into place. It's going to have to take private hands now because the public sphere is out of it. Sure. So private individuals are going to have to step up and do the work of this. I saw that the president of France put out a thing on TV or on the internet the other day,

I don't know if you saw this, basically said, anybody who's working on this stuff, no matter where you're at, you can come here. We want you here. So what's so funny is, you know, like this idea that the free market's going to spur innovation. Yeah, it might spur it right the hell out of here. It'll spur it out of here. You know, we're not going to be here. We won't be a leader in this anymore.

If we are now. It's exactly it, right? A brain drain based on this. And he was like, come here. You're welcome here. You're welcome to do that work here. So, you know, again. Let's incentivize our best and brightest to leave. Yeah. Right. That's how you make America great again. Yeah. But but Patty Kittrick says you should call your representatives

whenever you can write your senators, email your governors and mayors. Hopefully, I know that our city, the Chicago has pledged to follow this Paris agreement as well. I think a lot of places around the country are going to do this. I heard Pittsburgh was outraged that they were called, they were the example that Trump used. He said he's not the president of Paris, he's the president that, you know, with Pittsburgh is the city that he cares about. And Pittsburgh came out and said, look, we've had clean initiatives for decades, for decades. We've been one of the cleanest cities because of reforms and things that we put in place decades ago.

I love that he picks a city that's like, no, we're the exact opposite, right? Yeah, exactly. You didn't even do the fucking research to pick us. Yeah. You should have picked Houston. Yeah. Houston hasn't done clean anything ever.

Houston just has factories that produce smog. They just burn. They don't even do anything. They just burn. Those are the dead bodies. They just randomly burn things for no reason other than to pollute. So we got a message and I want to play this message before I talk about the tweets that we got. But I want to play this message first.

This is from Martin. Hey guys, this is Martin from Charlotte. But you know, I've been a doctoral student for more than four years now, working on my dissertation for three. And I can tell you that just learning about the specific thing that you're studying, the area is usually so laser focused on something very specific that you spend years and years just reading about this one thing among millions and millions of things that are out there to study, topics. And for Boghossian, and I forget the other author, to write a hoax type of paper to kind of poo-poo this gender studies idea is really baffling to me. And I can't believe that someone who supposedly understands the scientific method would do that. It just boggles the mind. So very interesting that we got that message

from someone who's a PhD candidate. We got a couple tweets that I want to read. These tweets came in this last week, right after the show. And I hate responding to people on Twitter. I genuinely loathe going back and forth. I hate the back and forth of having to confine what I want to say, especially on

a subject this broad. I don't want to confine myself to 140 characters. It's ludicrous. I'm never going to do it. So if you tweet at us, chances are what I'm going to do is I'm just going to bring it onto the show and talk about it. So someone tweeted at us the question is, if only PhDs

understand their area of study, how do the rest of us evaluate any truth claims? Apologists use the same argument about the Bible and the Quran. If you are not a scholar, you cannot fully understand. And lastly, if we need a PhD to understand these things, why does Thomas and Eli have to have Eli explain gender studies to us? I want to address that one first. And that is he doesn't. Right. He never does. That literally never happened. You clearly didn't listen closely enough to that podcast. He did not explain gender studies to us. Didn't explain one concept. He never once even tried to explain a concept of gender studies. us. Didn't explain one concept. He never once even tried to explain a concept of gender studies. He may have explained some of the things that came out of

gender studies in the sense that these were social revolutions that happened because people studied gender, but that's not the same thing as explaining gender studies to us, which I do not remember happening. I would be happy to listen to any time codes though, that you would send of Thomas's podcast. So I won't poo poo the notion, but I listened to it pretty carefully and I don't remember it. Yeah. I will. I will say, I'll just flat out say, I don't think that that happened. I listened to those episodes just like you did. I listened to those episodes pretty carefully. I thought they were interesting episodes. Eli did not go on with the intent to explain gender studies. He is not an expert in gender studies, nor does I think he pretend to be an expert in gender studies. And Thomas doesn't

either. They did have discussions about the hoax paper. Yeah. And then they also, he also talked about some abstracts and some of the, and we're going to get into the abstracts here in a second. So we're going to, we're going to take that part of the question differently. So the second, the question is if only PhDs, Tom, understand their area of study, how do the rest of us evaluate their truth claims? And so you had an idea about this. Yeah. I don't think that the rest of us get to understand those truth claims as lay people without changing our status from lay people to expert, right? So it is unreasonable in 2017 to presume that I can pick up an abstract from any field of study that is not my area of expertise or pick up a paper from a field of

study that's not my area of expertise for which people have spent 8, 10, 12 years of their lives building a highly specialized body of knowledge and vocabulary surrounding that body of knowledge. highly specialized body of knowledge and vocabulary surrounding that body of knowledge. And I, as a lay person, having done none of this, can pick that up and just read it and decide whether or not I think it's accurate. That's, I think, the height of arrogance. And I think it completely invalidates the reality of how knowledge works in the 21st century. Why do they need a PhD then? Why are you paying someone this kind of money? If everybody can just pick this stuff up and I can just pick up any very deep, thick, really complicated philosophy paper by somebody who's a PhD level

and just get it. Why even pay to get a PhD if anybody can get it? We're not all the guy from Good Will Hunting. Right. Most of us aren't, right? Most of us, most people are not. Yeah. One, there was a guy. So, you know, the same, he wasn't real. The same. It's like, yeah, just because you can read doesn't mean you can read Ulysses by Joyce, right? Absolutely. Like, okay. Yeah. You can read, You might be able to pass your eyes over the words and maybe you even know what most of those words are. But does that mean that you are equipped to read that novel in a meaningful way?

No, it's not. We tried to read, Tom and I, when we, long time ago, we tried to, we thought we'd read some of the best books ever. And I remember we started with a list that was like 25 best books. And number 25, we're going to work our way down to one.

We got through one book and it was 25 on the list and it was Sound and Fury. Is that what that was called? Sound and Fury. And Tom and I read that book and we thought it was the most backwards, gibbledy garg book that we'd ever read. It was gibberish. The whole first half was just... And what happened was, is, you know, if you read Critical Theory, that book, it's a brilliant book. You just need to have someone help you with it. Like, I mean, I could, I was not equipped to pick that book up and just understand it. When I read it, I was like, I don't get it.

Yeah. And I was not equipped either. And I have a degree in English literature, right? And you have a degree in continental philosophy. We are not equipped to read that book, right? Because it's over our head. It is the case sometimes that things are just over your head. That's why you continue to get education in a field of study. You know, so I did take the liberty of just poking around and finding a handful of abstracts. And I want to read these to make my point, right? So this is an abstract picked literally at random is an abstract picked literally at random from a physics

journal, right? So here's the first couple of sentences for the abstract. Tell me if, as a layperson, this seems reasonable that you should be able to read this paper, right? Do I have to be honest? Yes. And this was seriously picked at random.

I didn't go try to find a hard one, right? WMAP precision data enable accurate testing of cosmological models. We find that the emerging standard model of cosmology, a flat A-dominated universe seeded by nearly scale invariant adiabiotic Gaussian fluctuations, fits the WMAP data. For the WMAP data only, the best fit parameters are H equals 0.72 plus or minus 0.05 omega sine with a little zero. What? H squared equals 0.024 plus or minus 0.01 omega sine with the M.

You can't even read it. H2 equals. You can't even read it! You can't even read it. I can't read it. The thing is, like, I would look at this and say, I don't know what this means at all. I don't know what the WMAP means. I don't know what... I don't have the vocabulary. I don't have the math. You would have to, if you wanted to understand

this paper, you would have to translate it, right? You would have to spend a good... Some portion of your life, whatever a good, some portion of your life, whatever that is, some portion of your life, looking up each section of this to try to contend with it. You might find something that you don't understand as well. So like, if I looked up the equation weirdness that they have in there and be like, well, I don't get that. What can I get? Can I work my way down to understanding something? And once I understand one thing, maybe I can work my

way back up. You would have to spend a lot of time trying to teach yourself some things to try to figure that out. And I don't know that I ever could teach myself how to do this. And the thing is like, okay, let's say I did all of that and I'm no longer a lay person, right? I have taught myself.

I have developed a body of knowledge, which has moved me from layperson to a person with a specific area of expertise, right? But then I'm still not any closer to evaluating whether it's true. I've only gotten to the point of understanding what it meant. I've not yet even begun to build a larger body of knowledge to compare that against. Right. And what, and what their argument is, is that these things are too complex. Right. So what we did was we looked for some gender studies ones and we,

I found four or five that I read through and I was like, I kind of get that. Like I kind of, I kind of understand that. Like I get, right. I get where this particular gender studies one is coming from. I understood him enough where I read him and I was like, oh, I kind of get that.

I kind of get that. We found one where we're like, oh, this one seems very challenging. So the name of this paper is Transitional Subjects, Gender, Race, and the Politics of Temporality. Right. So let me read a couple of sentences from this. temporality. Right. So let me read a couple of sentences from this. I argue not only that the role of temporality must be theorized

in these debates, but also that these issues must be considered within a historical context in which temporality is deployed as a mechanism of power. I ask how transgender experience requires a rethinking of foundational continental queer feminist frameworks such as self-creation, disciplinary normalization,

the sex-gender distinction, and the intersection of gender and race. I show that paying attention to transgender experience highlights the central role of temporality in the nation-state's racialized maintenance of the category of gender. Throughout, I contend that the conversation between continental feminist philosophy and transgender studies allows for a more thoroughly historicized intersectional account of the relationship between bodies, time, and power. So here's my takeaway from that. I don't understand that. I don't get it either. I don't know what it means. I know all of those words. Sure. And I look at that and I think, okay, I would have to be familiar with a body of knowledge that is

so deep that it is just as specific as that physics abstract that you read, right? I would have to pour time and energy and effort into building a depth and foundation of knowledge that I can come to this paper and contend with it, as you say, contend with it in a meaningful way, right? And so again, I think it's entirely hubristic to look at something and say, well, you know, I'm a pretty smart guy and I should just be able to pick it up without a specialized body of knowledge and understand it.

We don't expect that of physics. We don't expect that of biology. We don't expect that of almost any other area of expertise or study. You don't expect that of anything that you have to spend that much time on. Yeah. And, you know, you wouldn't expect to be able to say, oh, look, you know, I occasionally read for pleasure. I read James Patterson novels, so I'll pick up Ulysses.

You'll be fucking lost. Yeah. We got a message. This message is from Varden. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but Varden is in Germany. And recently there was a couple of exchange people who came that are Christians. And Varden was wondering how to talk to them. And then he realized, you know, I could probably do some street epistemology like Anthony Magnabosco.

And Anthony Magnabosco was a guest on our show recently. Really just a very smart, sharp guy who does street epistemology. And this is a great way to do it. If you would have sent us this message without your own answer in it, Varden, this is the answer I would have given you. So good luck. And send us a message and let us know how it goes.

He's going to talk to these people and just ask them how they know. And I think that that's such a great, it's such a great way to open up the conversation. We got a bunch of messages about the story we did last week about the 11-year-old girl. A bunch of people said it's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong. It is not wrong.

It's old. Yeah. And so that's one of the things that we would like to say is a lot of people said it's on Snopes. Well, just because it's on Snopes doesn't mean it's all false. is a lot of people said it's on Snopes. Well, just because it's on Snopes doesn't mean it's all false. We checked it out on Snopes and they said, yeah,

a couple decades ago, someone did marry an 11-year-old and they were 20. And so that was a thing that happened. Now, there was a couple, there was a mixture on there. So there was a couple of false claims, but they were things that we talked about.

The image that was used in the article was not a true image. And we didn't talk about that. And they didn't make it clear in the editorial that we were discussing that this was an instance that had happened several years, many years ago in the past. But the facts of the case do not seem to be in dispute. And it happened, right? So it happened. Right.

You can't have a system that both says a person under this age is unable to consent to sex and yet is able to get married because the parents consent for them? Yeah. How could I consent for somebody else? And I don't know that that changes what we were talking about. It doesn't. That's what I'm saying. It doesn't change what we were talking about. Right. Fundamentally all those things hold true.

So yeah, it was an old article. We will absolutely admit that. But again, it wasn't technically an old article. It was a new article in the New York Times. It's just an old thing that happened. But Mike had a great point. He said that the senator in Florida that was arguing that the 13-year-old girl's opinion didn't matter when it came to changing the marriage age in Florida basically said a 13-year-old isn't mature enough to inform our decision on this,

but is mature enough to get married by at least two years. Good point. It is a great point. We got a message from Aaron and there's a sign outside. A sign, one of those, what do they call those? The signs with the marquee signs.

Yeah, with the changeable letters. And someone had put this on a sign. When I find myself in tweets of trouble, Mother Russia changeable letters. With the changeable letters. And someone had put this on a sign. When I find myself in tweets of trouble, Mother Russia comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, Kavafe. So we want to thank Thomas from Holy Kool-Aid for stopping by.

Absolutely. A lot of fun to talk to him. Great guest. We're going to have a link to all of his social media and to his YouTube page on this week's show notes, so check it out. If you haven't checked it out yet, check out Citation Needed. We're going to be covering in the next week.

We're going to be covering J. Edgar Hoover. And then in the following weeks, we'll be doing Stanford Prison Experiment. And then we'll also be covering the illustrious career of John Harvey Oswald. No, John Harvey Kellogg, you son of a bitch. Did he kill, is he an assassin? Because he had three names. God damn it. He had three names, so he had to kill somebody, right?

That's not true. John Wilkes Booth, Harvey Oswald, John Harvey Kellogg. John Harvey Kellogg probably did kill. John Harvey Kellogg killed William Henry Harrison. I'll tell you what, he killed fucking a lot of boners. That's what he killed. If you're interested in that, it's going to be, it's a total not safe for work one too. No, that's not.

It's a lot of fun. So check them out. Citation needed, citationpod.com. You can find us on iTunes and all the other places. It's a lot of fun to do that work with two of our other best friends and Eli. So that's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do with Skeptic's Creed credulity

is not a virtue it's fortune cookie cutter mommy issue hypno Babylon bullshit couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble pseudo quasi alternative acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal

free energy healing water downward water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info docutainment. Leo, Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens,

churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential.

Conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios, LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

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