Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 40: Three Dumbasses

Episode Date: March 25, 2012

Thanks again to Dumbass from Dumbass Guide to Knowledge and Invisible Sky Monster Child porn found on Montana priest’s Nintendo DS Cape Town faith healing event ends in one death and 16 injuries Italy: Man kills 'possessed wife,' spends day with body Gingrich Calls Obama a Christian Who Behaves Like a Muslim More See "Too Much" Religious Talk by Politicians Women Continue To Fill Rick Perry's Facebook Wall With Mock Questions Cameron: Secular Humanists are Imposing Their Faith on Everybody Jury returns guilty verdicts in ‘Holy Ghost’ rape trial Geraldo Rivera: Hoodie responsible for Trayvon Martin's death Private jets, 13 mansions and a $100,000 mobile home just for the dogs: Televangelists 'defrauded tens of million of dollars from Christian network' Clips: Ancient Aliens - History Channel, Billy Madison, Jesus Camp, Newt Gingrich, The Simpson’s, Rick Perry, Jesus Camp - Blue Suede, Lou Reed - The Gun, Some asshole televangelist. Editors note: We may have inadvertently called Trayvon Martin Travon Williams in this show - It is Cecil’s fault, he watches too much NFL. 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. One story goes that Greek fire was given to Constantine by an angel. Now angels are supposed to be these friendly creatures that instill peace and love. And all of a sudden, we have this one quote-unquote angel that gives one of the most sophisticated weapons in mankind's history to Constantine? Replace the word angel with extraterrestrial, and we have a very different story.

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag 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. This is episode 40, if you can fucking believe that, of Cognitive Dissonance. We have not been canceled. The network executives have seen fit to extend our- We have to cancel ourselves. What are you doing?

A completely unfunded podcast. It's not unfunded. My credit card funds the web and then you do all the work. So this is very funded. Right. Sure. Yeah. This is like the PBS model, except for we're not getting any donations. Yeah.

Right. Like, it's just like the. It's the bad PBS model. Yeah. You run on the love from your listeners. Yeah, that's exactly. I'm powered by fucking love. That's what I'm fucking power. I'm like fucking powered by fucking love. That's what I'm fucking powered.

I'm like fucking solar powered with love. That's what I am. I've got a great big fucking love panel on my back. I've seen you, Tom. You're powered by other things, too. I've got enough room for the solar panel. That would not be. I'm powered by gravy myself.

I don't know. It's actually a gravy combustion engine. Yeah. It's a GCE. It's a gravy combustion. It's,'s actually a gravy combustion engine. Yeah. It's a GCE. It's a gravy combustion. It's, you know. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

It's the newest thing out of my team. All the kids are talking about it. We have a guest, Tom. We do. We should include him. We should include him. He's already spoken. So, yeah.

We've got Dumbass from Dumbass Guide to Knowledge and from Invisible Sky Monster joining us. Hey, guys. I'm going to call you DA. I hope you don't mind. Oh, no problem. All right. So we got a story here, DA, that we asked you to take a look at. Child porn found on Montana Priest's Nintendo DS.

There's a fucking heap of wrong in this. What are your initial thoughts on this? Well, my initial thoughts, my initial thoughts probably exposed me as a complete failure as a human being because my initial thought was who the hell puts porn of any kind on a Nintendo DS. I thought the same thing. That's what makes this story so tremendous, right? It's not even on a Sony PSP.

It's not even on a more adult portable gaming system. It's on one made for kids, which I guess is child porn. Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. But who the hell needs porn with them wherever they go? You can't wait to get off until you get home to your computer? This guy, he's so fucking horny. He's running around with a DS in his back pocket.

This is the same guy who's probably tapping his feet next to Larry Craig, though, in the bathroom. You know what I mean? Like, this is a guy here who just can't help himself. I mean, look at this picture. Look at it. This guy can't help himself. I think Nintendo should use this to their advantage, though, and move it into their marketing campaigns. You know, like, are you a degenerate?

Has this ever happened to you? Man, I'm not going to be home for two hours. Nintendo DS. Jerk off in the bathroom at Starbucks. Oh, my God. This guy, seriously, it's on a Nintendo DS, and the best part about this story, DA, I think, is

that he sold the DS to someone else who then found his prawn on it. This fucking guy. What is wrong with you? Tom had a great point earlier that you would just crush this fucking thing if you're done. You know, like, I don't want to use this anymore.

Maybe he's repenting. Maybe he's done thinking about the diddling. Whatever he's doing. Maybe he moved to the 3D version. Maybe he graduated to actual porn. I don't know what happened, but here's this dude and he's like, you know what? I gotta get rid of my porn-laden DS. So let me sell it to a woman who get rid of my porn-laden DS. So let me sell it

to a woman who will then find my porn-laden DS. I know, it's um, I mean, you know, if I'm selling my computer or something, I'm formatting the hard drive. I would format this with a baseball bat.

It's got illegal porn on it. I would format it like they do the fucking fax machine on Office Space. Are you kidding me? I would be curb stomping this. You'd format with fire at this point. Yeah, no kidding. I think there should be a whole line, though, of children's

viewable products that people use for porn. I don't know that I like the way this is going, Tom. Just think about it. The marketing possibilities are endless. You have like a Viewmaster. You have the Viewmaster version of the prawn. One of those speak and says

that just like moans. Oh, no. Well, now they've got the leapfrog devices for kids. I guess, you know, teaching them how to spell S-E-X. Simple wording. My kids got one where you take a pen and you put the pen on the book and it reads the word. So, like, you could totally do the, you know, the pen would be shaped like a cock and you put it, like, on a The marketing possibilities are endless.

Hey, teach adults how to read. And that way you could legitimately say, like, hey, I'm in it for the articles. It does seem, you know, like a story of a pedophile priest is kind of like a story telling us that the grass is green or the water is wet. Because they're coming out so often. Right. Absolutely. This is we talk. Well, we're going to talk later on in this show about some other sexual misconduct by people in religious authority. This guy – and you don't know.

You're not sure. At least I can't be sure whether or not this guy actually touched kids. You don't know, right? And there might be some kids coming forward in the future that have been like, hey, man, this guy diddled me. This guy took my picture, put it on his fucking DS. On the DS, man? That's so crazy that it's on a DS. I'm never going to get over that.

I'm just not. That's not an adult device. But this is an example, though, of a guy who probably can't fucking program his own VCR trying to use technology. And, you know, his VCR right now is blinking 12 and he sold a ds with a bunch of prawn on it i'm sure he's fucking reply all with a big picture of a kid spread eagle on something you know he's done it you know this guy has done it he seems like a good guy from this picture he looks trustworthy i look at this picture and i think this man looks like, he just got stung by a bee. Or he's farting the most satisfying fart he's farted in his whole life.

Or he just got done looking at his DS. Right. One of those things happened. It's that post-DS glow. It's not the picture that you expect to see on a news article about some guy who's got the mountains in the background, majestic forest. It's not a walk of shame picture, that's for sure. Yeah, what I expect is a mug shot. That's what I expect because he's a criminal. That's the sort of thing.

But instead it's this sort of wistful outdoorsman type. I don't know. Those wistful outdoorsmen and their porn-laden Nintendo DSs. When will they learn so we're gonna visit again with dumbass at the end of the show uh we're gonna you're gonna wind up sticking with us uh up until the end and and probably we're talking about maybe 50 minutes or so all you people who want to just skip ahead and uh and catch dumbass at the end uh we're gonna talk to him about his show and about his website and about all kinds of other great stuff.

So you're going to want to listen to that. But until then, just listen to us. Lord, we just ask that to be covered with the blood of Jesus. Open hearts, Lord. Open hearts. So Cecil, we have got to talk now about, I think, one of my favorite stories of the week. This is from The Telegraph. Cape Town faith healing event ends in one death and 16 injuries.

These people were already sick. Right, right, right. Right? Like, these were already, like, sick people who showed up to a faith. Because, you know, a lot of healthy people don't show up to faith healing events. It's not like you, like, just ran a fucking triathlon. And you're like, man, I'm feeling good. I'm going to go to that faith healing events. It's not like you just ran a fucking triathlon and you're like, man, I'm feeling good. I'm going to go to that

faith healing event. That doesn't happen. And when I heal my sore muscles from the triathlon. Right, yeah. I've got a little hammy problem down there. My Achilles is bothering me from all that running. Yeah, exactly. It's like, man, when I was in the swimming

part, I was feeling a little winded. No, exactly. It's like, man, when I was in the swimming part, you know, I was feeling a little winded. No, fuck that. Like 16 injuries and a death at the faith healing event. So I love this because it's not just that it was neutral. They got worse. They definitively got worse going to this. I have faith that if you're really sick and you go to a faith healing event instead of a doctor, you're probably going to get, you're probably going to be worse off. That's just, you know, I have faith in that. I don't have any evidence to back that up, except for this study here, which was done without, without funding, you know, and there's no real control group in this study. But, but yeah, it's, it's a, it's kind of a horrible thing this person died and then a bunch of people

actually got worse at this event these are all just this is all like preying on the worst this is like preying on the most vulnerable people because these are people who are probably out of answers in other ways maybe medically they're out of answers

they're just kind of fucked and they're looking for something. And this person is fucking ultra rich. 30 million pounds, which is, I think, our GDP. I don't know. Right. That's like 150 million American dollars. It's a ridiculous amount of money. So this person's worth a ton of money and they're making

more money, obviously. And that's what I think all those faith healing fucking sham things, even the Catholic Church gets into it with Lords. And it's all that, all that fucking, you know, fake faith healing here, drink this fucking water and God's going to fucking miraculously heal you bullshit. And, uh, and this is a case where, you know, that shit just does not work and you can see it ain't working for the person who's dead. But here's what's surprising. This guy's from Nigeria. Now, they don't have any kind of a history of scamming. No, no.

They're very, you know. So that's a little surprising. But in Nigeria, yeah, that's a little shocking. If they want to get the water, you have to give them a little bit of money up front. And then they'll give you the water. But then you have to cash the water in and send some of the water back to them. You got to give them your bank account number over the email. I think this guy must be a prince.

He's a prince or a barrister. I get them from barristers all the time. Those barristers are coming into the fun, man. They should rock out with some faith healing emails, you know, just really like join forces. Seriously, like it'd be as effective, right? Right. Why not? And it's cheaper.

You don't have to buy a vial or anything, you know, just fucking, hey, it's fucking faith healing. You don't have to touch anybody. You don't have to come near anybody. I've always laughed like there's that idea like, how would you do this over the television? That's just absurd. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Why is that more absurd than doing it in person? It's fucking magic.

It's not like the mechanism requires a physical interaction there's no mechanism it's like wait a minute now I'll believe some fucking bullshit but really you're going to faith heal me over a TV that's bullshit because I saw Star Wars and he force chokes that guy through the fucking hollow net

so it can be done I know it can be done you gotta use the force. You got to use the force. And the force is very powerful. Well, at least 16 people did not use the force properly at the faith healing event where they ended up in the hospital. They did use ambulances, however.

They wound up using plenty of ambulances. 150,000 people showed up to this thing. This guy's raking in the cash, man. That's 120,000 more than are expected at the Reason Valley. This guy's raking in the cash, man. That's 120,000 more than are expected at the Reason Rally. This guy is raking in the cash. I just pray over this equipment. We speak over the PowerPoint presentations, all of the video projectors, and we 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 this story, Cecil, is from IGN. Man. Italy. Man kills possessed wife. Spends day with body. His wife is at least in possession of one thing. A bullet. Because he fucking shot her.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, maybe this was the best day he ever spent if she was like a nag or something. Finally, some peace and quiet around here. Honey, what do you think of the scenery? One of these days, pow, right in the face. Wait, what? Yeah, he was a little, I think, you know,

the thing is that he was unbalanced, right? They say in the article the person was fucking crazy and basically shot his wife because he thought she was possessed by the devil. So it's just a sad case of, you know, this guy's fucking nuts and had access to a firearm. Yeah, and he shot her with a hunting rifle. I wonder if he was camo at the time, you know, like in like a deer stand, like outside waiting for her. Like put out a salt lick. She comes out. He's dressed like a priest.

He's got the vestments on. He's performing an exorcism. You know what I mean? He just like douses the bullet in holy water. I wonder, and I don't know if this is the case, but I wonder if, and this is just a thought experiment, right, Tom? This is the case. But I wonder if – and this is just a thought experiment, right, Tom? I don't know if this guy would have done it if he didn't have that sort of fear of devils that was sort of ingrained.

I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. someone so afraid of something for their whole life and make them, you know, really be terrified of the idea of a devil inhabiting a human body, then maybe this might be some sort of outcome from the unbalanced people that you tell this story to. Sure. Maybe. I mean, clearly the guy flipped his shit, right? Clearly the guy's crazy.

That's fucking out. So the guy flips his shit. But I think I do think it's telling that when people flip their shit, often they flip their shit and like a religious switch gets flipped. And this switch gets flipped that says, oh, my wife's possessed by the devil or my kids have – my kids are all witches now or I've got to – Or they're unclean and I've got to kill them. Yeah, right. There's something there because it seems to be cross-cultural. It seems to be a recurring story and recurring theme.

And, you know, there's something, like you say, there's something about indoctrinating that fear and that fear becomes primal. It becomes ingrained and part and parcel of who we are. primal. It becomes ingrained and part and parcel of who we are. And I think that, you know, at least part of the story is that when these people unfortunately have some kind of a psychotic break, their mind goes to, you know, their mind no longer functions rationally. And so I think it's telling that when your mind ceases to function rationally, one of the irrational things it turns to for comfort and to develop stories and narratives to understand the now irrational world is religion. Yeah, and I wonder if you're not indoctrinated into it as a child to think that things like this exist and as an adult to think that things like this exist, that demons don't exist. What happens when you flip your shit then?

Yeah, I don't know. It'd be an interesting question. I don't know the answer to that question. It's just, like I said, it's just a thought experiment. I don't know. But for me, it feels like there might be some sort of tie here. And I also am an amateur paleontologist, so I've spent a lot of time looking at the Earth's temperature over a very long time.

So this story is just odd, just so odd to me. And it's so telling about the state of American politics. This is a story from the frozen computer. There we go. That's a great place to get your stories, by the way, the frozen computer. The best part is, is that you have all the time in the world to read them. You just read them and you don't have to worry about scrolling. You can really focus

on a couple of paragraphs, you know? It's all fucking ads where it freezes for me all the time, though. This is a story from the Christian Post. Gingrich calls Obama a Christian who behaves like a Muslim. What does that even mean? Well, that's fucking bizarre and meaningless. What does that even mean?

He basically says that, you know, he's responding to data that shows that there's still a significant number of people in America who believe that Obama is a Muslim, despite the fact that that shouldn't fucking matter to anybody at all. Right. Despite the fact that that shouldn't fucking matter to anybody at all, right? Like, he just picked a different sky daddy than you. Despite the fact that it shouldn't matter, despite the fact that it's not true, Gingrich is responding to that and saying, like, hey, you know, there's a reason people think that. People aren't stupid.

People think that because Obama's acting like a Muslim. I don't understand what that means. How is he acting like a Muslim. I don't understand what that means. How is he acting like a Muslim? The man owns a fucking dog. I guess that hadn't occurred to Gingrich here. This is a weird, you know, Obama behaves like a Muslim. He's also, I don't know if you knew this time, but Newt Gingrich is also against the chicken fried steak, which is a steak that's cooked like chicken. He does not like that at all.

He's actually very – I mean if you look at him, you'd think that he'd like it. I mean a gravy slathered piece of meat. This guy looks like he would like it. But he's technically against it. He doesn't like things that are like other things. They're both religious. What would it matter anyway? Like that's the thing is like what would it matter? Would it matter at all? And what it is, is this is this really shows you that the word Muslim in Republican circles is a word to instill fear.

That is what this really shows. Exactly. It doesn't say that, you know, Obama is like a Pentecostal. He doesn't say Obama is like a Mormon. He says Obama is like a Pentecostal. He doesn't say Obama is like a Mormon. He says Obama is like a Muslim. And that is meant to say, hey, guys, I'm not in the presidential race anymore. But just so you know, we should probably get this guy out because he's like a Muslim. And that should somehow scare you into thinking that he's like something that you don't understand or like. Well, and you can

say, I mean, you could just replace Muslim with boogeyman, right? You could just be like, yeah, you know, I mean, Obama is a Christian who behaves like a boogeyman. We should put terrorist in there. Right. Because didn't he have like a terrorist fist bump a while back? He did do a terrorist fist jab. Fist jab, that was it. Terrorist fist jab.

Yeah, terrorist fist jab. So, yeah, so, you know, you could just put whatever you want in there. You know what I mean? You're right. Yeah, like he should you could just put whatever you want in there. You know what I mean? You're right. Yeah, like he should just be like he behaves like a socialist. Yeah, anything, you know, right? Because that's another boogeyman for them is socialism. So socialism, you know, a socialist Muslim running on a platform would fucking make these guys shit golden bricks.

They would freak the fuck out. That would be spectacular. Like all he has to do now is just kill his dog. Like just kill his dog. Just kill his dog, change his faith, and be a different person. Does he have to do it ritually? Does he have to do it in front of a lot of people? He actually has to stone it.

That's what he has to do. The dog's trying to fetch the stones at first. I loved you, old man! This is also another way to say he's not as holy as me. Right, exactly. God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion.

You know, a new study came out from Pew that increasingly people are growing weary of listening to this religious bullshit within their politics. growing weary of listening to this religious bullshit within their politics. This is from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. More and more people see too much religious talk by politicians. The numbers are going up. 38% of people are saying that there is too much religious talk and too much expression of faith and prayer by politicians. That is a trend that is in the right fucking direction if only the politicians would start paying attention to it. It is pretty amazing.

I don't know, Tom, if you – let's say that the technology to make this show were to have existed 10 years ago, if this show would have even been interesting. ago if this show would have even been interesting. I think really the political climate in America causes this show to even be interesting because they are the ones who are making this such a big deal and making religion such a big part of what they're talking about every time they speak. There's almost – you could go through every single Rick Santorum speech and he's going to mention something that is biblically based, that is based on his belief structure. He'll mention God. He'll mention how we've fallen away as a country, how he's holier than the rest of the country

and he needs to bring the country back to that sort of thing. This is average fare for every speech he makes. And I don't know that that's how it was 10 years ago. I know that Bush was pretty – I mean Bush was just a bad choice. I mean let's just – Bush was a bad choice anyway. That guy was not a good choice for anything. But he was a bad choice for a lot of other reasons. But he wasn't super vocal.

At least I don't remember him being crazy super vocal, as vocal as, say, Santorum is. No, Bush was pretty aggressively religious. And he said some things about praying and getting God's guidance before going to war. So he said some things that were unsettling, to say the least. But Santorum seems a whole new level of crazy. He seems a whole new level of aggressive about instituting what seems obvious to you and I, a sort of Catholic Sharia law. And we're not the only ones that have noticed this.

I've seen article after article about this. I mean, if you Google Catholic Sharia law, Santorum, you're going to get more than one response to that. It's a significant number of people who are increasingly seeing how unsettling it is to have a religious nut like Santorum use the bully pulpit of his candidacy to express and espouse these ideas and try to motivate people based not on good policy or reason or thoughts about the future that come from any kind of a rational place, but instead to try to motivate them from this place of their religiosity first, you know, like, let's, let's get them in a, like, get them in the, in the heart isn't even right. It's not the heart, like, get them in the soul, like, get them in the, in the fear, you know, like, you got to, like, tap into that primal sort of spot where people store this sort of nonsense. I don't know where it is, but that seems to be what he's tapping into.

And now we're, you know, what does that yield for us? It yields these ridiculous debates about fucking antiquated ideas of contraception. Like, all it does is yield regressive thoughts and regressive behaviors. And it does nothing. I mean, when was the last time you seriously heard Santorum address in a significant way any of the actual problems? You know, people know all about his stance on contraception, his stance on religious issues and homosexual agenda and, you know, believing that there is one and all of this sort of nonsense. But, you know, what you don't hear from Santorum is like, really,

what are your practical ideas to solve some of the economic crisis we've gone through over the past eight years? Oh, that's not even part of the conversation because they can overshadow that converse. They can overshadow the real problems by having this sort of shadow conversation about the role of religion in politics. Agencies of government, EPA needs to be rebuilt. There's no doubt about that. But you can't name the third one? The third agency of government, I would do away with the education, the commerce, and let's see, I can't. The third one, I can't.

Women continue to fill Rick Perry's Facebook wall with mock questions. Ah, Rick Perry. This guy, what a douchebag. What I love about these horrifyingly out of touch fucking ridiculous old men is that they have no ability to understand the intro webs and the social medias at all. Like they just don't get them. So they have Facebook pages because a staffer tells them they have to have one and they have Twitter accounts because a staffer tells them they have to

have one and they don't understand how to use them. And they are the perfect vehicle for people to spam these assholes and spamming they're getting. Oh, yeah, it's great stuff. One of these I'm going to quote directly from the page. Somebody asked because the reason why they're going on to this page, let's just start that out. The reason why they're going on to his page anyway, is because he's been talking about the funding of Planned Parenthood and things like that. So they're saying now they're saying, oh, well, he's obviously an expert on women's health. So let me ask him my women's health questions.

So what he's getting is, and this is one of them, Governor Perry, I am experiencing mid-cycle cramping. Is this punishment from God for not getting pregnant this month? I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, they're getting ripped off of there because he's obviously got a staffer on, you know, that's working on this. And they're tearing down these quotes as they come on. They're deleting quotes. I imagine they're probably going to have something soon that's just like, no commenting, please.

I'm just going to post some shit. That's the best part about social media is it's like those sorts of sites people don't care about. They want to have this interaction. So it's awesome that he's got to have a staffer wade through these comments the whole time. It's nice and mean and I love me. I mean you know me, Tom. I love you. I heard that about you actually.

What I love too is that if you're gonna use facebook you know and there's no way so this guy can't realistically sit there and say oh this isn't really a friend of mine i'm not gonna accept his friend request you know what i mean they can't do that right and it's a public page so anybody can just like it you just and then you can just post anything you want yeah you can get banned and what have you but um this is a way for people, this is just another way for people's voices to be heard. And I think that, you know, what happens all too often is that people feel totally disenfranchised by the public system, by their politicians, and they don't have any way to express their frustration. But now we do. I mean, this is a much, much smaller example. But

social media is so powerful. I mean, it helped to take down the government of Egypt. Right. And I don't think you can espouse these crazy fucking ideas for very long before people will find you on Facebook. They'll find you on Twitter. And it's not email. It's not a letter. You know, those things get buried. Oh, well, he sent me an email. Well, fuck you. I don't care.

I just hit delete or I just ignored it in my inbox. It has no effect. But Facebook is part of the public world and it's not going away. And these people go on there and they say this hilarious shit. And it is fucking hilarious. But it's also like it's fucking jonathan swift style satire oh yeah it's so it's so terrifically aggressive and it gives people a way to engage the political process who previously did not have because really let's be

honest like if you don't have a lot of money your ability to engage the political process in a meaningful way is limited i I got an email recently. Let me find it here, Tom. Is it from Senator Mark Kirk? Yep. I got the same one. I got a letter recently from Mark Kirk about the Protect IP Act. Now, I don't know if you remember, but SOPA was happening last year.

Yeah. And I just got a message back. And it's a form letter. I'm sure you got the exact same form letter. Yep. I wound up going to a site that actually sent him, I think, a paper email, a paper copy of a mail, and it had my email address, and that's how he responded. But he sent back a form letter back to me saying, oh, I'm for freedom, and I like freedom, and freedom is good, and yada yada yada yada. I heard freedom isn't free though. Also I never fucking voted for you Mark Kirk and I fucking hope you lose next time.

You're kind of a fucking embarrassment but uh but other than that yeah it's nice to get a letter from some douchebag that I would never vote for and that I'm gonna fucking vote against no matter I don't care fucking Bozo the clown runs against that motherfucker next time i'm voting against mark kirk i hate that man bozo is now mobilizing his can his his election you realize that fucking i would do that too because then you know at least you get to play a fun game while you wait at the poll you know what i mean you throw fucking ping pong balls yeah so we're going to take a quick break and give you all the information you need to find us on Twitter, to find us on Facebook, to email us and to leave us nasty, hate filled rants on our Google voice. After that, we'll return and ruin the rest of your day. You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

For more information on this or any other episode, visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. Like our show on Facebook to join in the conversation. Just search for Cognitive Dissonance on Facebook or go to our website for the link. You can converse with us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at dissonance underscore pod. Help us out by retweeting and reposting our shows. You can call us and leave us a message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. So Cecil, this next story is from Right Wing Watch.

This is a story about Kirk Cameron. You may remember him from Growing Pains. You may also not remember him from Growing Pains because it wasn't a very good show and he's a terrible fucking actor. So it is very possible that you won't remember him. He's also the dipshit who follows Ray Kroc around. He's also in that awful movie we did, we watched on Everyone's a Critic, Fireproof. Fireproof. Oh, my dear.

Is that what it's called? Fireproof? Fireproof. God, what an awful fucking movie that was. The worst movie ever. Oh, my God. That movie was so bad. I can't believe the hell we put ourselves through for that show watching that movie.

So Kirk Cameron just continues to show up in the news. In this case, he's promoting his new movie Momentum or Melodrama or some fucking bullshit. Monumental. Monumental. Emphasis on mental. Yeah. And he had this to say about secular humanists. The idea of faith in government is inescapable.

It is always going to be somebody's faith, even if it's faith in atheism. Even the most ardent atheist has faith that there's no God. And he goes on to say that secular humanists are imposing their faith on everybody. This man does not understand the use of words. What? What's that even mean? And the idea that you have to have faith to be an atheist. No, you just don't have to have evidence for a God. That's it. And you have to care that there's no evidence, right? That's all you need, right? You don't like they misunderstand it. And they really do have a fundamental misunderstanding

about what atheism is. And it's the fundamental misunderstanding is that they think they think they automatically prove that there's no God. And I don't I don't prove that there's no God ever. I've never done that. All I do is say there's no evidence for a God. Therefore, I'm an atheist. That's it. That's the extent of it. And there's no belief structure whatsoever that follows that at all. I don't have to be a humanist. I don't have to be, I don't have to like other people. I, you know, I could be the fucking Unabomber and be an atheist. It doesn't, you don't, there's nothing else packaged in with atheism. Nothing whatsoever gets packaged in with it.

But these people think that, oh, you're an atheist. Therefore you believe in all this other stuff. You don't have to believe in anything. You don't have to believe in evolution. You don't have to believe in evolution. You don't have to believe in the value of science. Exactly. I mean that's – atheism isn't a fucking belief in and of itself. No.

It's just a lack of belief in a god. That's it. And that's just such – it's such fucking inanity to presume otherwise. You know, it's everybody. Look, we all have the same lack of evidence. It's just that for some of us that matters. And for other people, it's like, so everybody gets to say, like, I have no proof there's a God, right?

Everybody gets to say that. Everybody, you know, I don't care if you're Muslim or you're Christian or you're Buddhist or you're Hindu or you're, you know, whatever. We all have the same thing, right? We all have no proof that there's a God. It's just that for some of us, we say, okay, well, since there's no proof that there's a God, I just don't believe that there's probably not a God. Probably not a God. No reason to think that there is.

For other people, that is not a deterrent to thinking that there is probably something there. How can secular humanists impose their faith? Secular humanism isn't the same thing as atheism. They're different things. Right. One of them has a different viewpoint. And really, what's bad about it? What's the bad?

Hey, help other people. Yeah. Wow. Help other people. Those secular humanists are out to make people's lives better. And to help other, and with no pretext. Right. With no, I'm doing it because of X or I'm doing it and I'm also giving you a book and

making you realize that you should believe in this thing that I believe in too. There's none of that. It's just, I'm helping you. Yeah. So long, bro. Man, I think we should really. Moving on to the next person that I believe in too. There's none of that. It's just, I'm helping you. Yeah. So long, bro. Man, I think we should really. Moving on to the next person that needs help. Right.

I think we should really focus our fucking human attention on the betterment of our society as a whole. Yeah. Wow. What an asshole. Yeah. Why do we listen to fucking child actors? I don't know.

Why do I have to listen to a guy whose fucking career fucking wound up being at its height during his fucking like teen years? Why do I care what listen to a guy whose fucking career fucking wound up being at its height during his fucking like teen years? Why do I care what this guy has to say? What sort of special fucking platform does this guy have to speak on anything other than growing pains? Like if he had something to say about the show he was on in the fucking 80s, then maybe he has some sort of way in which to express something that I would care. I didn't even care about it then. Here's the thing. I posed that same question on Facebook, and one of our listeners had an answer,

and it is that because someone somewhere once masturbated to him. That's why. And I think that's the best answer. Like somebody was sitting there thinking about know, thinking about Kirk Cameron and, you know, getting a little happy. And that is the reason at this point. I mean, he was on the face of like Tiger Beat, man. I like to think that there are still lots of people masturbating to him. Oh, God.

Against his will. Against his will. And he's very upset about it. And that's why he's on this crusade. That would be hilarious based on Fireproof if there was like Fireproof porn parodies. That would be pretty spectacular. Oh gosh, that would be the

that's like angry porn though because that movie those people hated each other. They're so mad. Throughout the entire movie, everyone hates everybody. Remember when he throws his computer in the garbage? I love it when he fights the garbage can in that movie. It's the best. If you guys want to see a funny, funny, funny fucking preaching movie, it's this fireproof movie, which is just outrageous. It's about a guy and his wife, how their marriage has fallen apart.

And then there's this fucking promise book or something that he gets a really bad movie. I don't even want to explain the plot, but it's funny because Kirk Cameron is a giant wuss and he can barely kick over a garbage can and he's supposed to be a fire chief. I know. God, give me that guy is such a fucking fuck knuckle. I hate him so much. Him and that Ray Comfort guy just want to clunk their fucking heads together.

I thought his name was Ray Kroc. That's the guy who started McDonald's. Who's right here? Let me see. Comfort. Yeah, Ray Comfort. He's got the porn stash. It's Ray Comfort.

As soon as you said it, I knew you were right. I was like, oh, I think I called him Ray Kroc just a few minutes ago. New Zealand is burying their head in shame because he's a New Zealand born Christian minister. Oh my gosh. New Zealand right now is just covering their head up.

In the name of Jesus, we speak that. This is from the Salt Lake Tribune. Jury returns guilty verdicts in Holy Ghost rape trial. This is fucking insane. verdicts in holy ghost rape trial this is fucking insane um tarryl dalton the president of the church of the first born of the general assembly of heaven how catchy yeah that rolls right off the tongue right yeah oh hey you want to go to my church yeah what's the name of it oh it's the church of the general assembly of heaven for the first born or something dot Dot org? I don't know. Here's the plate. Put in five bucks.

So, evidently things get a little rapey at this church. Oh, no. But only if you're like a 15-year-old girl. This is a terrible story. It's a way in which a predator gets a chance to work on prey in private, right? Oh, I'm going to fucking give her some exercise. You know, he's going to exercise this woman. And then he gets a chance to, you know, he's convincing her that the only way to be saved

from this awful thing is to have sex with him. And that's fucking coercion and rape and fucking awful. Also, she was like 15 at the time. She was 15. She was promised great blessings from God. If she had sex with him, he made her have sex with other people. I mean, just, it's just, just the worst person ever. Yeah.

It's just the worst person ever. And you know, it's, the thing is that it's not a surprise at all that this guy used his religious power to gain control over other people because it's like it's like a fucking hallmark of people's religiosity like that's like you you you have power over other people it is not surprising that these folks abuse that power it's not surprising that they abuse that power sexually right well they abuse it all these other ways, right? Right. And they abuse it monetarily.

And then obviously they're going to abuse it sexually if they have an opportunity. And that happens – that's a cross-church spectrum there. That's not just one church that abuses power sexually. There's countless churches that wind up where one person is in power over other people and abuses that power sexually on minors, on adults. It doesn't matter. I mean look at the cults where you have these cults where people are – there's like 50 wives to the one cult leader. It's just – that sort of thing, it goes hand in hand. That's sort of the basis of it.

thing and it goes hand in hand. That's sort of the basis of it. And it's perfectly evident here that this person abused their power. But again, you're putting your trust in somebody where maybe they don't deserve your trust. Well, look, this guy told the girl that he was the Holy Ghost. I mean, he's not a ghost. He's not an actual ghost. I mean, the Holy Ghost was a ghost a ghost right it was like a spirit it wasn't even like so how can a dude be like even just like space ghost right i mean i would get it

if it was like casper shows up he's like i'm the holy ghost be like you're at least a ghost yeah right you have one of the qualities which is a ghost a ghost. Yeah. I am willing to maybe go the extra route and go holy here. Right. Because you've got a ghost working for you. Right. If Slimer shows up and is like, hey, we should get busy. I'm the holy ghost. I'm not attracted to you, but you are a ghost.

Who would be? Wait, who would be? I'm just saying. Bring up that Slimer in here. I love how he goes down on those hot dogs. And then church members called this guy God in the flesh. No, he's God of the flesh.

Well, yeah. And he's also a ghost. You really can't make up your mind. It's almost like he's got a fucking spinner. It's just like, well, what am I today? Well, I guess I'm fucking the Holy Ghost. Nope, I'm actually God in the flesh. I can't imagine how anybody can believe that this guy is God in the flesh.

I mean, seriously, he's fucking God. I'm supposed to believe that I'm going to be like, oh, I'm going to church on Sunday. Yeah, God's there. So I'm going to go see him talk. Great speaker. Really, very persuasive. Right, yeah. Omniscient deity.

What the fuck's he saying? Would you ask him a question and just be like, hold on, let me test you, God. Here's a test. Ask him something that God might only know. He'd be like, can you help me develop a unified theory in physics? Oh, gosh. Because you know the all of it. That should be a fucking simple fucking question.

If you're God in the flesh. Like what's the recipe for orange juice, right? Like it's that easy when you're fucking omniscient and omnipotent. Right. Like a recipe for orange juice. Oranges. Oranges. Oranges.

Yeah, we use oranges in that. Yeah, this is – it's a really sad story though. Obviously sad because somebody is being raped here. And the person – the jury did come back and they convicted this person. Yes, they did. So they found him guilty on two first-degree felony counts stemming from the allegations of rape in 2005, and he's going to jail. So good. I mean, two counts of felony fucking rape.

Good. Yeah. Fucking rapist. Go to jail. Enjoy your time in jail. A man has a gun. He knows how to use it. Nine millimeter Browning, let's see what it can do.

You point it at your mouth, says that he'll blow your brains out. So we would be remiss if we did not talk about the story. This is from Chicago Tribune. Trevon Martin, the death of Trevon Martin is all over the news, and rightfully so. Trevon Martin was a Florida teenager who was gunned down by a vigilante fucking whack job for no reason whatsoever. For no reason whatsoever. And Geraldo, who falls into the category of why is anybody listening to Geraldo? Right.

Blamed his hoodie. Un-fucking-believable. To blame the way this guy was fucking dressed for being murdered. I mean, doesn't this just smack of the blame the victim for the too short a skirt sort of yeah oh absolutely i mean it's just as repugnant a thing to say as you could spit out of the fucking gaping maw that is your poison-filled mouth. Yeah, fucking absolutely. I want a quote from Rivaldo. Yeah, because he's fucking revolting. I want a quote from Rivaldo here.

He says, Trevon Martin, God bless him, an innocent kid, a wonderful kid, a box of Skittles in his hands. He didn't deserve to die, but I bet you money if he didn't have that hoodie on, that nutty neighborhood watch guy wouldn't have responded in that violent and aggressive way. Let's stop talking about the hoodie and focus on this part of the sentence, that nutty neighborhood watch guy. Right. Let's focus on that part of the sentence. That guy was a nut.

That guy had a fucking access to a firearm, chased a kid down and shot him dead for no good reason. This kid wasn't attacking anybody. This kid wasn't in the process of breaking into a home. And even if he was, that's still not a fucking offense that deserves murder. But still, let's say he was in the middle of assaulting, raping someone or kidnapping a child or all those things that maybe you could look at and say, OK, he shot him during the act of some crazy shit. He was holding somebody up at gunpoint. OK, we can get it.

We can wrap our brains around this. We can say, you know, this person in this in the moment weighed the decisions out and shot this person. And now we have to deal with the consequences. And now you could have your argument about whether or not people should have guns. But when this guy is just walking through your fucking complex and you're like, hey, you have a hoodie on. You're a different color than me. Allow me to shoot you dead for no reason whatsoever.

He's not. There's no reason. He's just a kid. And you killed him. He's a kid armed with Skittles. Fucking Skittles. Right. He wanted to taste the rainbow.

Like, that's all he wanted. Right. I mean, you know, I was hearing that, you know, they were doing, like, the Million Hoodie March and what have you. And that there was, you know, celebrities are coming out, like, you know, wearing hoodies in support of this. And I'm good. And good. Because everybody should be outraged by this story what what is I there's so many egregious things about this that it's difficult to start with one

right one of the things that that bothers me so much about this story beyond just the just the hoodie is this guy wasn't charged. This guy who committed this murderous act was not charged because police could not find anything to contradict his claims of self-defense. What the fuck are you defending yourself from? What did he pick up? Did he have the force? Was he fucking lifting up fucking a Weber grill and throwing it at you from a distance? What the fuck did he do? Did he fucking blow fucking fire at you from his mouth? What the fuck could he possibly do to you? You had a gun. me as very probable, just thinking a little bit about this, is I doubt very much that this murderer thought, really thought, that Trevon Martin had a gun. And here's why. If I think

somebody has a gun, and they're not breaking into my house, they're not threatening me in any way, but I think that they're armed, and I think they're up to no good. I don't pursue them to engage in a gunfight with them. Right. Which is what he must have thought was going to happen or should have reasonably thought was going to happen if he thought this other person was armed. That's not what you would do. You would not get, I mean, this is not the fucking Wild West. Right. You don't do that. People have some respect for their own lives.

So I think the reason he felt safe in gunning this innocent person down and killing them was because he knew they didn't have a gun. He knew nobody was going to fire back on him. He knew this wasn't going to be a gunfight, that this was going to be a murder. That's part of what is so baffling about this idea that he thought this was self-defense. This was self-defense. He didn't see a gun. The kid didn't turn around and have a gun.

He didn't have a fucking water gun. You know, he never there's no there's no way to confuse the issue. And the fucking fact that Geraldo is saying that the person is dressed in a hoodie and therefore he shot and, you know, this is how you should think about it. You know what? I don't care if this kid's fucking dressed like Freddy Krueger with fucking knives on his hand. I don't give a fuck. He wasn't hurting anybody. Nobody's injured. So I don't care what he's dressed in. It's like it's always been the little women that caught the vision of giving, beginning with Jesus himself out of their private means. Some of you little precious ones have that little grocery money, some of that little money set aside.

Assure tonight the blessings of God on your family by giving it to God and speaking that. Say it. God, this is for blessings on my family. So see, so this next story is from the Daily Mail. A reliable source, I'm told. It is. A reliable source. Two former employees of the world's largest Christian television channel

are accusing the non-profit of spending $50 million. That's quite a bit of money. $50 million on extravagant personal expenses. I take issue with this. Extravagant, it's not extravagant to buy a $100,000 mobile home for your dogs. That's every dog. Dogs need mobile homes. They do.

They do. That means true proper care of a dog requires a mobile home. Right. Look, you've got to get, I've had dogs, right? You got to get a, they're expensive to keep. Sure. You got to get a dog bowl and you got to get a water dish. You got to get a stroller.

And as in the second picture here, if you scroll down, you've got to get a $100,000 mobile home. Yeah. You know, that's fucking, oh my God, I didn't see that stroller before. Tom, I want you to scroll down to the third picture. Okay, now audience, I just want to say that if you look at this person, it looks like her hair is a symbiotic organism that has attached itself to her head. It does not look like a hair anymore. She looks like fucking Mega Man with a helmet on. She looks awesome.

She looks awesome. She looks awesome. That is spectacular. I like that dude's tux that he's wearing, too. With the bow tie. It doesn't have a bow tie. It's got the Mandarin collar with the two big black lapels on the side. Man. Yeah, that looks good.

These two look trustworthy. I look at these two and I think... Here's all my monies. Yeah, I know. When you look at these two and I think, here's all my monies. Yeah, I know. Like when you look at these two and the way they look and you're like, oh, yeah, I would send them money. Scroll down to the fourth or the fifth picture and look at this woman again. Her hair looks like it's attacking her. It looks like she lost a fight with her head. Her face looks the same way.

Her hair looks like, you know, you make fun of Donald Trump's hair. Yes, I do. But her hair looks like a fucking pelt like I've never seen. Like she just scooped out the insides of a dead animal and chopped her head. She goes to the salon, she's like,

what do you have with like a raw intestine look? Do you have anything where it looks like coiled small intestines dangling from my face? Do you have anything that could make it look like I'm a conehead? Because I would really like that. Jesus, your hair, lady. Well, and, you know, I mean this is an example I think. This is an example of giving your money to a church thinking that there might be some good works that get done with it, right?

I'm giving my money to this church maybe for my benefit. And these people always play it off as, oh, you know, you're giving money for us, but it's a blessing on you. And the money's going to come in here, but it's just going to help the church. And then God's going to see that you helped us and we're going to help you through God in some way. There's this sort of weird transaction that transpires. Give us money to get money. And you hear these preachers say that all the time. But there's also people I think out there that give money too, because they think there's going to be some good works that happen. You know, yeah, I'm giving you money, but they are also talking about these missions that they run and all this, all the money that they give to help other people. But really there's no oversight. There's no oversight whatsoever.

And they can go out and spend your money on a fucking dog stroller and expensive dogs and a budget rent a car in the back here. And I'm fucking, you know, I mean this fucking mansion here, scroll down and look at this $175 million place. It's just outrageous. The private jet,

her fucking giant hair, all this money they're spending. It's outrageous. The amount of money they're spending, but there's no oversight. So you send your money and you get what you paid for. Look, I think this is a reasonable use of church funds. I actually kind of wish churches would just always use their money like this. Just always do. Because then people would realize not to give their fucking money to the church. At least you'd know then that it's a bad idea. But here's the thing. It is obvious that these people are leading ridiculously extravagant lives.

And yet people are still pouring, you know, $92 million a year in donations, I read. Wow. $92 million a year in donations. And $150 million then is not that much money considering who cares really it's not that much money if you're getting almost all that a year in donations these people have outrageous salaries too and they obviously have people around them that won't tell them that they look all fucked up they got a bunch of yes men following around no you look fine i love your hair it looks wonderful that's how you should look you should definitely look yeah half

dye your face yeah you should look like you should look like the top's how you should look. You should definitely half dye your face pink. Yeah, you should look like the top half of you should look like a bear and the rest of you should look like a human. Like a bear. This woman would scare Colbert. That's all I'm saying. Like just terrifying. Like, ah, ah. Yes, she would.

If she were to rear up on all two, you know, she'd be. You can't take her to Yellowstone. Can they drag her in the deep part of the park? I told you, Noah, do not feed the animals. There's one in a car. Here's the other thing, man. You hear all the time, right? You hear about like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donating tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars to charity to fight malaria, to do all these things, right? These people make $92 million a year.

Yeah. millions of dollars pouring that money into research to fight disease and poverty and, you know, real legitimate problems that good, like Christians have a stranglehold on morality. Right. They're supposed to have a stranglehold on what's right and wrong. It's true. They're bringing in $92 million. Why isn't $91 million of that going to eradicate poverty and hunger and disease? So we're back with DA, also known as Dumbass, who runs the Dumbass Guide to Knowledge website,

the Dumbass Guide to Knowledge podcast, and the Invisible Sky Monster podcast. So, DA, how did you get involved in the skeptical community to begin with? Oh, well, it was kind of a gradual thing. Oh, well, it was kind of a gradual thing. You know, well, I first started listening to podcasts after the Pendulet radio show went off the air. And I got into a bunch of different kinds of podcasts. And then I found the skeptical community. And I've been, you know, just listening to all the podcasts. And it kind of hooked me.

just listening to all the podcasts, and it kind of hooked me. And then after a little while, I thought, because I stay at home most of the time. I don't get out anywhere. You don't seem like the type. But I figured I wanted to take part in the skeptical community a little more, so I started up the website. wanted to take part in the skeptical community a little more, so I started up the website, and from there I did the podcast, and I've just been doing more stuff like that and really enjoying myself.

Yeah, you put out a lot of great work. Now, Invisible Sky Monster is different than Dumbass Guide to Knowledge. What's the difference between the two podcasts? Well, the Dumbass Guide to Knowledge is What's the difference between the two podcasts? Well, the Dumbass Guide to Knowledge is basically just me reading out things that I wrote, cracking a few jokes here and there, and just trying to do analysis of things, like, of course, ancient aliens.

I do that a lot, but I've also done other issues, looking at them with a skeptical eye. And then I started the Invisible Sky Monster podcast. I had an idea for a podcast that would be a little more conversational and invite two people in every episode to talk about the news of the day or whatever's on our minds. Now, the ancient aliens, is it difficult to be skeptical of such a well-researched and heavily documented program?

I'm not sure what you would criticize. I mean, I've heard the show, but I found your arguments, while exhaustive, you know, spurious. I think you could criticize the guy's hair. That's for sure. Like, that is absolutely certain. Have you seen that guy, Tom? I've not actually ever seen that show. Oh, my God, that guy is awesome.

He's an internet meme, Giorgio Ficala. Oh, my God. That guy is awesome. He's an internet meme. George Yosuke Kalos. Yeah. All you have to do is do a search on Reddit. Go to Reddit and type in aliens. And I guarantee one of the first things you see is this guy with his giant hair. And he's got his hands in this position like he's almost like forming a sphere. But his hair is like straight up in the air.

It's the craziest hair you've ever seen. It's like he's currently touching something electronic. Like, it's awesome. Anyway, Ancient Aliens. Go ahead, dumbass. I'm sorry. I've done five articles, five shows devoted to, like, analyzing the claims of the Ancient Aliens show

so far. And pretty much every other episode, I'm answering emails from people who... These are the best, by the way. That's really the best part of it are the best, by the way. That's really the best part of it, is when you answer the emails. Because these people, they come to your show, they find I must be googling ancient aliens or something, and they come

to your board, and they leave these comments to you, and you just eviscerate them every time, and it's hilarious. Your comments make no sense. Well, the last one, there was a guy who was telling me, you know, oh, you didn't mention this. You're just ignoring these things. I'm like, yeah, I spent eight paragraphs on that.

What are you talking about? And they're always accusing me of being, you know, closed-minded and not looking at the evidence. And it's like, you know, what article did you read? I looked at every claim that they made. Yeah, but you did it in a closed-minded way where you were trying to find out if it was true. Yeah, right, right. And that's, look, skeptics always get blamed for being closed-minded because you try to figure out if a thing is true instead of just deciding whether to believe it or not. Yeah, and you look for things like evidence, right?

So what are some of the claims? Let's talk about ancient aliens for a minute because I know it's a passion of yours. What are some of the claims that these people make? Oh, there are lots of them. There's the Nazca Lines. There are those— What is that? Now explain that to our listeners here.

The Nazca Lines are these lines in the desert that are made by ancient people. are these lines in the desert that are made by ancient people. And the one claim about them is that they're landing strips for ancient aircraft. How did they get here to actually land first off? If they need the strips to land again, how did they get? Anyway, go ahead. Not only that, but these lines go on for like miles and miles, like over hills, through gullies. That's a wild landing strip right there. That's a wild ride when you're coming down from another planet.

Let me tell you. That defeats the whole purpose of the landing strip, doesn't it? That's baffling. It's supposed to be flat, right? Yeah. Right. doesn't it that's baffling like it's supposed to be flat right yeah right but and of course you've you've seen this the the they've also made these uh images in the desert like you've seen the one of the hummingbird probably or the monkey right yeah i've seen those big ones from the where you have to look at them from like a plane yeah yeah and uh you know the they think that's evidence

well they were meant to be seen by uh. And that's absolutely hilarious because, you know, like aliens come down and command that you make them big line drawings of monkeys. We're not landing anywhere there's not a drawing of a monkey. I'll tell you that much. Draw your local fauna. I'll tell you what, though. I actually would really respect an alien race that made us do crazy shit like that. Totally fucking hazing us. Don't get me wrong.

I hope that is true. Hazing ancient peoples to make them do some crazy shit for you. That's the best kind of punking there is. So I think that that's perfect. I would love an alien race. Now, do they talk about pyramids at all on that show? Oh, yeah. They do talk about pyramids.

There are a lot of claims about the pyramids. It's hard to go through them all, but a lot of the claims have to do with how the pyramids were built, of course. How could they move these big, heavy stones and things like that? Obviously, there's the thing I think that most people don't understand, at least this is my understanding of it. Most people don't get how long it actually took to make the pyramid. It was 24 hours, right?

They just bang those together. People think on a modern scale like, oh, well, we build a fucking skyscraper in four years so those pyramids fucking, we whack those things out in like two weeks, right? Like, no, that's like hundreds of years to build these pyramids, right? I mean, I don't know if that's true. I'm just saying. I believe it took around 20 years, actually, to build. Only 20 years.

That's not bad, right? That's a good turnaround. Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the things they often bring up. You know, like they do the math and say, oh, well, if you want to do that, you'd have to like put in a block every few seconds. And's like no they had a lot of people yeah you know quarrying these things out and yeah and pulling the things you know they it averages out to that maybe but you know they were bringing a lot of blocks out of time there's an awesome thing on despair.com that

has a picture of the pyramids and it says achievement and it says something like you know there's nothing you can't achieve when you have an endless supply of expendable labor oh yeah absolutely right exactly it's not shocking what would be shocking about those pyramids is they were made of like tungsten you know but they're made of the local materials one thing that gets me is they often get caught in this minutiae about little things like, oh, they're aligned perfectly to true north. You can do that just by looking at the stars.

They revolve around true north in the sky. You can get that measurement. The thing is, you have to wonder yourself, aliens came down, taught us how to build out of giant blocks, and they were concerned that we built it facing true north. Well, that's important.

It's just like, you know, making sure that... No, I mean, come on. I mean, let's be realistic. If you were an advanced ray, if you were an advanced civilization that had conquered the challenges of interstellar space travel, and you arrived to teach a primitive people something, right? and you arrive to teach a primitive people something, right? The most logical thing you would teach them is how to quarry rock to build a shape facing true north.

Well, and the true north really only matters planetarily, right? Like it's not like true north means anything outside of our planet. Like outside in outer space, true north means nothing whatsoever. Maybe it's super true north. Maybe it's like interstellar north. True North means nothing whatsoever. Maybe it's super True North. Maybe it's like interstellar north. True North means a lot. Which isn't a thing. On the outside of our planet, True North means nothing.

What other claims do they make? I mean, do they talk about Stonehenge on that show? They haven't. They didn't talk about Stonehenge on the very first episode. I've been going over the first episode in the series, the one, well, they call it The Evidence. Nice. That's awesome. Which naturally leads me to believe that this should be their very best evidence, right?

Right. Now, they show people, I think, in, like, spacesuits. At some point, I thought I saw something like this. Is that something that you're familiar with, where they have, like, pictographs of people that look like they're in spacesuits? There's this one like picture on a lid of a coffin that they've interpreted. Von Daniken interpreted this.

Von Daniken is the guy who wrote Chariots of the Gods, the first book to really hit it big about ancient aliens. Von Daniken talks about this picture, saying that, oh, it represents an astronaut, you know, just interpreting different things as being mechanical petals or whatever, and that there are flames underneath. When really, you know, people studying this stuff know exactly what this is.

It's a scene representing the guy in between life and death. And all of the symbols are well known to people who research this stuff. So. So wait a minute. My options then are this is either a picture of a spaceman drawn by ancient peoples on a coffin, or this is a picture representative of the mythological understandings of life and death drawn on a coffin. Yeah, it seems like a stretch, Tom, that second one. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it follows. I think spaceman.

I'm going spaceman on this one. You know, I'm changing my mind. You're absolutely right. I'm going spaceman. I'm going spaceman on this one. You know, I'm changing my mind. You're absolutely right. Fucking spaceman.

And what's their, what's their, what is the main, I don't know if you know this. I'm going to ask the question anyway. What is the main contention they have with them not still being here? Why are there not still aliens if they were here then? Well, you know, a lot of people say that there are still aliens around. You know, they're just. Yeah, but those people are nuts. Okay? I mean, let's just fucking call them... As opposed to the first group? Yeah.

I guess maybe not. There's a lot of overlap. I guess there probably is. So they still think they're around then. The ancient aliens are just aliens. They're still here. Oh, they're still here. They're just sneaking around and shoving things up people's asses.

What? But why aren't they still commanding us to fucking make pictograms of animals places? I don't know. Maybe they found some lone guy in the desert and are asking him. I don't know. So if people, dumbass, were going to try to find your show, your podcast, your place on the web, where would they go? Well, my website are dumbassguide.info

and invisibleskymonster.com and both my podcasts are available on iTunes. It's the Dumbass' Guide to Knowledge and the Invisible Sky Monster podcast. You can just look me up and give me a listen and I really hope you enjoy it. Yeah, well, I know that I've enjoyed your podcast in the past, and I hope people can

head on over there and listen to your stuff. Dumbass, it was wonderful to talk to you in person. Thank you for completing the bromance and joining us on the air. We really appreciate it. I was glad to be on. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on, Dumbass. We really appreciate it.

I was glad to be on. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming out, dumbass. So we actually got quite a lot of email over the last week. So we do very much appreciate all of the email that we did get. We got an email from Terry. I think we need to talk about Terry's email. Last time we did discuss Terry, he said that he had a blog and we asked his permission to put his blog information up.

And that information, he did give us the permission. So that information will be available on our website. So you can go to DissonancePod.com. We'll have a link to Terry's blog up on there. Terry also rated us on iTunes. Granted, it was iTunes Canada, so it's not like the real iTunes. It's funny. Enough people have rated us in Canada, so we actually have a star rating up there. And thanks again for letting us share your blog. His blog is analyzedatheist.tumblr.com

and like Tom said, we'll put it on our site. So thanks again, Terry. We got an email from Graham. our site. So thanks again, Terry. We got an email from Graham. Graham's been listening to the show and giggling at work. Graham makes an interesting point that atheism is often pronounced as if it's its own sort of separate noun, rather than being pronounced with the A as the prominent vocal sound. Like you would pronounce any other thing that you were like asymmetrical, right? The A in asymmetrical in his post highlights the fact that it is not symmetrical. That's what the A is there for. Atheism should really be pronounced as atheism. So there's a little bit of a break, a little bit of a pause between the A and the theism to highlight that it's not its own separate noun. It's not its own thing.

It's just a lack of belief in theism, not theism. I like that. I think that's pretty cool. We got an email from Brian, and Brian said we had talked about the UAE last time, the United Arab Emirates. And we were talking about somebody who listened there and we said, you know, don't tell anybody that you listen. And this person, Brian said that that it's actually pretty westernized place and that they were deployed there four times. And they were really surprised how open the culture and the people were. So so it's – we were under the interpretation that it wasn't a safe place, but it seems like it probably is.

But even still, I wouldn't be announcing that I listen to this podcast to anybody here. So I certainly wouldn't announce it there. Are you kidding? I don't tell friends and family. This is absolutely not. We got an email from Simon. Now, Simon sent us an email, and he also sent us a rap that he wrote. I'm reluctant to read the rap or post the rap without permission because it was sent as a private email.

So, Simon, if you'd like us to put this up for other people to view, we're happy to do that. I don't want to do it without your permission. It just seems like your creative work should be respected. But thank you. We really appreciate it very much. Thank you. We got an email from British Andy. And British Andy, one of our favorite Andys. There was a bunch

of Andys that listened to Everyone's a Critic. Some of them completely douchey. Some of them very awesome. I remember really liking British Andy. And British Andy sent us a wonderful sort of goodbye when we had finished our

Everyone's a Critic last week and we're now done with it and he sent us a great message to sort of say thank you for putting it out and I particularly like this line from it he says when I say that I am astounded that two regular guys from the States put a huge amount of time and effort

into producing shows I do of course mean one regular guy from the states and tom because he recognizes that i do no work yeah he certainly does everybody does that does not escape a lot of attention um we got an email from matt matt has his own podcast um and he has mentioned us on his show uh matt thank you very much we appreciate the mention on your show yeah it's nice mentioned us on his show. Matt, thank you very much. We appreciate the mention on your show. Yeah, it's nice of you to do. His show is called Broadly Focused, and it's a podcast where he and another guy get together

and talk about several topics that interest them. I did listen to the clip, Matt, that you sent, but I didn't get a chance to actually download your show, but I will do it. It's a growing show. It's brand new, six episodes. So we're happy that you're out there in the podcasting world. He's very careful to say that he doesn't want to use anything that we do and that he wants to sort of keep his podcast as separate from us as possible. Even goes to mentioning that he wanted to use some of the

clips, but we use some of the clips that he wants to use. Just so you know, I don't own these clips. to use some of the clips, but we use some of the clips that he wants to use. Just so you know, I don't own these clips. These clips are most of the time, I'm just using fair use clips that I find in movies and things like that. And I'm just using them. So, you know, imitation is the finest form of flattery. If you think there's a clip in our show that you want to use and you think it's great, go ahead and use it. I mean, you're not going to, the idea that podcasters are somehow stealing listeners from one another, everything's free. There's no way. There's no stealing from anyone. So don't worry. We're very happy that you mentioned us. And I hope your show goes great. Like I said, I'm going to try to give it a full episode, a listen. You guys seem like you had a good rapport with each other and your sound quality

is very good. So you're already steps ahead of a lot of different podcasts out there. So good luck to you. And like I say, I'll give you guys a list. I'll be listening this week as well. And thank you very much for the email and for the mention. I do think we need to bring up a heartfelt and sincere thank you to everybody who voted in the about.com poll. It's now ended. We put on a hell of a showing through that. It doesn't look like we're going to win at the penultimate moment. The atheist experience must have mobilized. But I'm just so incredibly grateful that our show, which is less than a year old at this point, did as well as it did, that our listeners were as engaged and as willing to vote as they were.

And I just want to say thank you because it means the world to me. Maybe next year. You know, it was nice to make such a good showing, though. And we congratulate everybody who got mentioned in that poll. Oh, absolutely. And I just want to real quick ask people, if you haven't already, find us on Facebook and like us on Facebook. That community is growing and those conversations are growing.

So if you've not already found our page on Facebook, that community is growing and those conversations are growing. So if you've not already found our page on Facebook, just search for Cognitive Dissonance. You can also find us on Twitter and follow us on Twitter. We'd appreciate if you do that. All the stories that we're going to talk about through the week are generally posted on Facebook and tweeted out. So for the most part, you can kind of get a sneak preview of what we're going to be harassing you about by engaging us on those community websites. We did get a Google Voice from James.

Now James left a three-minute long Google Voice, and I will tell anybody who leaves a giant long Google Voice like that that it's difficult to play the entire thing. James was impassioned about the Trevon Williams case, and I understand. I am going to play an edited version. Actually, he was so angry in his post, Google Voice finally stopped listening. It was just like, you know what? I'm just done.

I've got to shut you off at this point. So he got cut off at the end of it. So I'm going to play you an edited version now of what James had to say. Hey, Cecil. Hi, Tom. Hey Cecil, hi Tom. This is James and I am mad as hell. I am just so livid and disappointed with the case involving Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old African-American kid who was shot and killed by a Zimmerman fellow who, after being told by a police dispatcher not to pursue Trayvon Martin, presumably because, as far as the police dispatcher could tell,

there was nothing fucking going on. I listened to the 911 tape yesterday on the news i heard it on the news and i was like that guy hunted a kid down and shot him and is saying it was self-defense and the thing that got me yelling at the radio this morning however was the response of the mayor of the town of sanford florida i don't even know what this douchebag name is but what he said was well this court's tried, this case is being tried in the court of public opinion. And that's when I snapped. And I shouted, that's because you didn't enlist the asshole and try it in a court of law.

So there's no other fucking option. And then he goes on to say, and if we've made a mistake, I want someone to tell us. Well, that's what they're fucking trying to do is to tell you you made a mistake. So fucking arrest the murderer and try his ass. And if he was in the right, it'll come out in the trial. That's what the trial is aimed for. And I think James echoes our frustration that, you know, this is also a gun control issue. Yeah, it's absolutely a gun control issue.

And, you know, we've discussed this before in our other show, Everyone's a Critic, and we've talked about it on this program as well. Our other show, everyone's a critic, and we've talked about it on this program as well. You and I are both gun owners, but I think, at least personally, I would get rid of my gun tomorrow if there could be laws that I think would be effective in eliminating guns from the hands of private citizens. It's not necessary. Often you put a gun in the hand of one of these nut jobs and you see the kind of devastation that they wreak and the havoc that they cause and the despair among families that's engendered by a culture so steeped in guns and violence. If this guy was not armed with a gun, I don't think that we would have some sort of tragic end to this. You know, the kid maybe the kid got tackled and held until the cops got there. You know, what's the worst thing that happens if the guy doesn't have a gun? Does he bring a knife out?

Yeah, people get a lot fucking braver when they're armed. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, you know, also killing someone with a knife is a lot harder than killing someone with a gun. You know what I mean? I know you can do it. Yeah, absolutely. You can do it. But you know what? It's not the same thing.

A point-and-shoot fucking two fucking calories of energy used at pulling a fucking trigger is not the same thing. And you can really, you know, one shot can kill someone. And having human beings have the choice to kill another human being so easily is a bad decision all around. We're probably going to get a ton of letters about this, but that's fine. We're willing to take the heat for that. So we want to thank Dumbass again for coming on the show.

His show and website are dumbassguy.info. You can check him out there and also at invisibleskymonster.com. He puts on a couple of podcasts. You should give him a listen. And thanks again, Dumbass, for coming on. And as usual, we will leave you with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue,

hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative alternative acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal free energy healing water downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch late night info docutainment leo pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and towers tarot cards psychic healing crystal balls bigfoot, 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. notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. We'll see you next time.