Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 401: In Studio With Seth Andrews PART 2

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

Seth Andrews joins Tom & Cecil to ruminate on the maniacal vocal stylings of the inimitable Alex Jones. If you haven't yet take a listen to Thanks to all our Patrons for supporting us to 400 episodes. Cheers to 400 more! You f*cking rock.   Stories from the Week   Images from the Week   Make sure you follow Seth Andrews • • • • • • • • •

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. It's like it's always been the podcast patrons who cut the vision of giving, beginning with Patreon itself, out of their private means. Some of you little precious ones have that little pizza money. Some of that little money set aside. Assure tonight your support of Tom and Cecil by giving it to the show and speaking that. Say it.

Guys, this is for congratulations on your 400th episode. Hey, Cecil and Tom. This is Stephen Hines, author of Rebirth Defect, My Journey from Catholic Altar Boy to Teen Atheist to Adult Christian Metal Evangelist and Back to Atheism. And I'd like to wish you a happy 400th episode. Glory hole, motherfuckers. Hey guys, it's Michael Schaefer from Reasonable Risk Podcast. Congratulations. 400 episodes. Never would have thought that Eli's best friend and a random goon could last so long.

Glory hole. Congratulations, Cecil and Tom on your 400th episode. Glory hole. Congratulations, Cognitive Dissonanceance on show 400 from the missionary position podcast glory hole motherfuckers hey tom and cecil congrats on 400 episodes um this is mike with uh mike and sarah's best picture podcast we watch uh we're watching all the best picture movies and we uh record an episode about each in chronological order. So feel free to check us out.

Congrats again, Glory Hole. Hello, Cognitive Dissonance listeners. This is Garrett Harvey. And Tim Richardson. From the Why I Hate This Album podcast, wishing Tom and Cecil a happy 400th episode. But since Cognitive Dissonance only takes up an hour of your week, why not spend one of the remaining 167 hours listening to our podcast? Why I hate this album. Shameless

plug! Over 350 episodes ago, I gave you a crappy four-star review. Sorry about that. I deserved that tongue-lashing. Happy 400th. Hey, Tom and Cecil. Happy 400th

episode. I love you guys. Glory Hall! Hey Tom and Cecil Happy 400th episode I love you guys Glory hole Hey Tom Hey Cecil it's Devil Dog Josh Wishing you guys a happy 400th episode Happy glory hole Enjoy yourselves keep the last rolling

And also at the same time I would fucking love an episode of you guys Just talking about all the times You nearly died I would share mine too because holy you guys just talking about all the times you nearly died. I would share mine, too, because holy fuck, I got like over a dozen. They're fun. But besides that, thanks for the laughs. Glory home.

Bye. This is Amy with a Y. And Amy with an I. Your arch nemeses from the Secular Soup podcast calling to say that even after 400 episodes, we're still better than you. Cogdiss sucks. Eat your soup, bitches. Happy 400th episode to you.

Happy 400th episode to you. Happy 400th episode. Glory Hole. Happy 400th episode to you. figure out who I am and, like, what I want to be in the world. So, uh, thanks. Uh, glory hole, motherfuckers. Hey, Carmen Cecil. This is Brantley. I, uh, want to say happy, uh, congratulations

on the 400th. That's fucking crazy. Uh, you, uh, want to check out our show. It's, uh, Unapologetics Spelled with an X, uh, on SoundCloud and Stitcher, and, uh, you know, we're just a mixed couple and you know

we talk about all the atheist issues and just all sorts of cultural issues and shit like that so if you want to check it out, it'd be fucking awesome but love you guys, you guys are fucking awesome fucking glory, fucking whole motherfuckers

Hey Tom and C, this is, the atheist pal from the South. I just wanted to call and wish you guys a happy 400th. That's amazing. Thank you for making it a little bit more terrible than I live in this shithole of a fucking state. Glory hole, motherfuckers. 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 gloryhole studios in chicago this is cognitive dissonance

every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence. Too many topics that makes the news. What you doing over there, Cecil? What are you doing? Oh, that's dangerous. Playing with your keys during the intro. I was silent.

Silent like a game of operations. I was moving them like the crane game. I didn't want to interrupt you and I didn't want to make the sound. I didn't want to be like David Smalley in studio when you're banging on everything. Slamming on stuff like it's the first day you've been around a microphone. That was like reverse operation. That's what that was. Instead of

pulling the fucking funny bone out, you were pulling the keys out. It was very nicely done. That makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And I've been interrupted.

There is no welcome, Matt. This is episode 401 of Cognitive Distance. This is Seth Andrews from The Thinking Atheist. He was in studio. He was a great guest. We had him out. He was nice enough to come to the

Windy City and enjoy our winter. Yeah. And we recorded with him for such a lengthy amount of time that not only is he the guest for 400, but he is now the guest for 401. So we have a couple stories with Seth.

We're going to introduce him to Alex Jones this episode. That's coming up later. We're also going to do an interview with him. Is that a nice... I mean, we introduced him to Alex Jones. Is that... Like, do we send the apology card now? I know that he knew who Alex Jones was.

Do we send the apology to his wife now? I feel like we didn't introduce... We just reintroduced him. Again, like, when do we apologize for that feel like, I feel like we didn't introduce, we just reintroduced him again. Like when do we apologize for that? Although I, I don't know. Like,

I feel like that's a gift. Yeah. He loved it. He thought it was great. He thought it was great.

So you know what my life goal is? I don't to be on that show, to be on info wars. I think we should, I think we should invite Alex Jones to

come in. Holy shit. That would be amazing. I think we should invite him to come in studio. He would be, Oh my God, I just need to I need a moment to process that

idea for the end of the night. Either Tom and him are shirtless and drunk or Tom and him are fighting shirtless. I just know we're not wearing shirts like somebody's no matter how that night. I think it's more the latter though. I think you guys would get into a fist fight because he's have you seen him get interviewed and he's super mean

and he's shitty and so he would be are you suggesting that i want i wouldn't tolerate that super well i think that i think that that there would be a there would be a fight i would just be sitting back i'd videotape it right like whatever guys that would be a fight. I would just be sitting back. I'd videotape it. I'd be like, whatever, guys. That would be a great live stream. Alright, here we go. He would be something. He's a dense guy. He's like a big dwarf.

And my axe. You broke your axe in the scene prior. Anyway, it's not a value. We're going to be back later on. We're going to have Seth on and then he's going to talk about Alex Jones. We're going to talk about Alex Jones. Then we're going to be back later on. We're going to have Seth on and then he's going to talk about Alex Jones. We're going to talk about Alex Jones. Then we're going to have an interview with him talking about his current projects.

And then we're going to come back, talk about patrons, talk about episode 400, 401 and do some emails. So enjoy us with Seth pre-recorded. A thousand years ago, there was a great conjunction. Three suns lined up.

Another great conjunction coming up. Anything could happen. The whole world might burn up. The great conjunction is the end of the world. Or the beginning. This story is also the raw story. Jerusalem expert slams Pence for treating his city like an end of days biblical theme park. I'm sorry, it's

not. Jerusalem is not a theme park. You got to ride the holy roller coaster. That's the... Did Mike Pence leave... Holy roller coaster. Holy roller is the joke. It's holy roller. You know, it's like, you know, when you call

somebody very religious, Tom. Holy roller. And then you just add coaster at the end. It's like, you know, when you call somebody very religious, Tom. I see, a holy roller. A holy roller. And then you just add coaster at the end. You just add the coaster at the end there. It's like, that's how it works. Go on. No, go ahead. No, you just ignore my joke. It's cool. It's fine. I just wanted to comment that Mike Pence is

unnaturally smooth. Like, did you guys know, have you ever noticed that he like has no facial features except for the ones... He's like punched out of Play-Doh. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, we'll put a mouth here. This is your thumbnail. You know, it's just... It's like...

He's like manufactured by an alien who's like, this is about what I think they look like. He's made out of Play-Doh and he's rolled behind the couch and he's got the frizz. Like the stuff, the fuzz that's underneath the couch from the cat. That's on his head. Like it's so weirdly smooth it's like it's like somebody took like a baby's ass and put an eyeball on it like

it's just thanks to the two of you from this day forward this is all i will ever see when i see my pants god i i saw i looked up and as you were describing the image, I was like, oh my God, they're absolutely right. Now, what's scary about this? And this has been going on for a while. Now, when you were religious, was it a lot of revelation stuff in the religious stuff? Yeah, it was. Yeah. We did a lot of end times theology.

Yeah. So a lot of these people are starting to think like he's really sort of setting up a lot of the like doing a lot of fulfilling of prophecies to make it the end times come about i mean like and these people that believe that there's an end times yeah or they're happy or they're happy they think there's an end times and they think he's sort of putting all the pieces in place for an end times to happen i'd actually like to hear your experience like we're like the people that you knew that were like end times revelation interested were they pro end times or were they like

worried about it honestly they had a lot of cognitive dissonance they they had a lot i mean it was you know, it's an odd thing. It's like the people who believe the most in heaven in the faith are the ones who seem most afraid of death. It's just this weird paradox, right? And this was the same. They celebrated and couldn't wait for Jesus to come back. And at the same time, they were all freaked out about Jesus is going to come back. And it's that way, you know, everything they would read in the paper,

you know, prophecy is always fulfilling in hindsight when you take and bend whatever headline there is into whatever scripture or whatever sermon that you happen to hear. And especially in our family with my father, you know, the legitimization of Israel as a state and God's chosen people all coming together. This is, again, one of the

dominoes that must fall. And after a series of them all fall, then we hear the trumpet and Jesus comes back. And we would say at face value that, you know, we couldn't wait to go to heaven and we can't wait to all be together. But at the same time, I think, at least in my own experience, we were just fine living right here. And we were kind of weird about the idea. And, you know, when we talk about heaven in my churches, they would always talk about heaven in these weirdly nebulous terms. I mean, it's hard to get excited about a place that you can't really get your mitts on. Can I ask about that, too?

I'm actually really curious about that because hell is always described. Can I ask about that too? Because I'm actually really curious about that because hell is always described like, I guess I have a better idea of what a lot of people would think hell looks like. Yeah. Physically, you know, and like what's going to happen when you get there and all the tortures and torments and, you know, the lakes of fire. And there's like a geography here, you know, like, you know, we have this idea. And then heaven is just like, oh, it's really good. I think the same is true with Satan as a character.

We think of Satan in terms of exact physical features. We even maybe hear Satan's voice. We kind of see a character, a personality behind Satan. But if you say Yahweh, it's always like what they show in the movies. You know, there's always this meaty Satan character in the whole film. And at the end, there's just a big orange light that comes from the clouds and it says, I defeat the Satan. And you have no idea what God looks like. He's just this nebulous other that you can't really take personally.

And, and heaven is very much the same way. That makes it harder to look forward to. Yeah. Hell is easy to be scared of, right? You described it. Sounds real bad.

Like that sounds like Florida. Like it sounds terrible. It sounds terrible. Like not even Miami, like just like the thing that made heaven attractive to us, what wasn't the geography of heaven. I mean, you can say pearly gates and streets of gold and mansions and crowns and all that stuff, but it was really more about, I lost my best friend in a car wreck and we're going to be together again. I lost my mother, father, child, and you know, it's all, there will be a reunion. That was our heaven in a great many ways.

But if you read the actual text of scripture, if you see the Bible's version of heaven beyond all that, essentially we as believers go to heaven and for eternity we kiss God's ass. We say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty who was and is and is to come. And we just essentially sing praises to God at Jesus' feet. Oh, it sounds terrible. And I'm like, send me to hell. That's hell. Send me to hell. Yeah. You know, we had a, it's interesting because I, when I was a believer and we actually had a gentleman on by the name of Drew Beckius. Yeah. i don't know if i'm mispronouncing his name let's ask his mom let's ask drew's mom he came in studio he wrote a book and and so he came in studio and we had a chat with him and we were talking about because he's he was he went to

moody bible institute here in chicago so he was ready to be a priest a pastor yeah but once his hormones regulated it was just bible yeah He wasn't as moody anymore. He didn't have as many tantrums. But he was talking about the idea of living forever, and I was talking to him about it. And to be honest, when I was a believer, living forever scared the shit out of me.

It scared the... I think I was more terrified of living forever than I ever was about death because living forever for me. Um, and I said this on the show before, and it was that,

you know, you get to experience, if you live forever, you get to experience the heat death of the universe. Like you get to see everything die and you are still there. That's scary as fuck. Like that's way scarier than one day. I just blink out and I'm done.

Does it remove some of the urgency to do what needs to be done? Does it take away the preciousness of life when it becomes, you know, if you're forever and ever? Absolutely. Right. And you know, why does it matter if I just sit here and watch, you know, a couple of reruns of Seinfeld? You know, it doesn't matter. My, my time doesn't matter then. Right. Cause time is infinite for you at that point. But I will say, when I was growing up, I was terrified of the rapture. I grew up in a Catholic household. My father was Lutheran, but I had friends whose parents were religious, and they were afraid of the rapture. So they made, they talked to us about it and they scared the shit out of me as a kid with the rap because I had never grown up.

I didn't know anything about it. I, and they're adults. So immediately you think, well, they're telling you the truth. Why would this adult lie to me? And I was terrified. Absolutely. Just stone terrified of the rapture. I mean, I was like, you know, nightmares

and just freaking out about it and constant like, oh my God, because they, because to them, just like now, the end times is coming. The end times, and it's for them, they're like, all these signs are in place. There's all these signs in place. I had a sixth grade teacher stop the class one day and start talking about how all those signs are in place for, you know, the rapture to come about. Yeah, sixth grade public school teacher stopped class. That's insane. In my math class to tell the story about how.

What was the transitional moment? I don't even know. I know you don't know, but like. I don't even know. You're just like, you're up there, you got your chalk, and you're like, all right, guys. Okay, six plus seven. You know what that reminds me of. I know, right?

Yeah. No, but I remember he spent 45 minutes of that class talking about all the different signs that were in this moment. And I remember being really fucking afraid. He was basically telling a ghost story to all the kids in class holding the fucking flashlight up to his face. Ratcher theology is used to keep people in check. It's used to keep people. I wrote a book in 2015 called Sacred Cows.

And I did a chapter on the end times predictions over the last 2,000 years. I mean, every generation had its prophets who said, this is it, people. Yeah, yeah. We're right here at the midnight hour, and it's going to happen on this date. I mean, how many times was the Herald camping wrong? Four. And that's just in the last 15 years, right? So, I mean, every generation has had this narrative that it's pitched. Every generation has been absolutely wrong. Yeah.

And I think this is no exception, but it's still powerful for people who are watching Israel, the state of Israel, the Israel-Palestine conflict over land. When it's going to affect our politics. Yeah. This fucking nonsensical jibber jabber bullshit is going to affect actual human beings. Like, who cares? You know what I mean? Like, who cares if somebody wants to buy themselves a Jim Baker slop bucket? You know, it's your fucking money.

Buy your dehydrated corn chowder if you need to, right? Yeah, whatever. Yeah. But, like, we have high—these are high-stakes situations. When you have somebody like Mike Pence, you have the vice president of the United States who goes over to Jerusalem and believes this fucking nonsense and is going to act based on this nonsense being true and has a narrative in his head that he hopes plays out in a way that enforces or reinforces this gobbledygook made up storytelling bullshit. Like this is going to it's not like this is a stable part of the world where we can afford to make a lot of diplomatic mistakes. And didn't they say...

He said that they changed the embassy where they were going to recognize that, was it Jerusalem was the capital instead of Tel Aviv? Is that what they were doing? I forget which one it was. They're recognizing Jerusalem as the capital. They're saying Jerusalem is the capital.

Right. And that's just... The reason why they're doing it is just to placate these evangelicals who want to believe that there's an end times. That's the only reason they're doing it. They're not doing it for any other reason. There's no political reason to do that other than piss people off and placate fucking evangelicals. Yeah, but the scary thing is if you get the wrong people in power, they can create this apocalypse. Absolutely.

No, I don't. No. I know. And Bill Maher, I think, said that in Religious. I think that's how he opens the movie is, like, you know, people have been saying, you know, that the end times are coming and coming. We are the only, this is the time now where we can make that happen. Yeah.

You know, like, These are a people who if they believe it hard enough and fucking jerk each other off in just the right way, I could see them rationalizing their way into saying this is what we have to do. We are called. We are called. I am a horseman.

Whatever fucking nonsense language you want to spin around it and then buzz home. You can blow the whole thing up. Blow the whole thing up. Well, the spinning wheel picked me up. Thanks, guys. Thanks for coming, Seth. It just scares me.

Thanks for having me up. Appreciate that. Good night. Let me refish your whiskey. I would argue that anybody who argues for sodomy, ask them, is there any life in the rectum? Can two women produce life? And the answer, of course, would be no. Then the ultimate goal of life is life.

All right, this story is from LGBTQ nation. Mike Pence gaslights gay people. I never supported conversion therapy. Said Mike Pence. Don't look under the blanket. Said Mike Pence. Don't look at my past record. Why do they say this shit?

That's like, you can just, you can just look it up. You just look it up. Find it. And then you totally did say that. But I mean, you can just look it up. You can just look it up. Find it. And then you totally did say that. But I mean, isn't the Trump presidency, Trump and

Pence presidency, isn't that just like a series of more and more egregious gaslightings? You know what I mean? Like, it really is. Like, he's the guy. Trump is the guy who'll be like, I never said it. And you're like, you literally just said it. Yeah. Trump is like, you wonder if he's like, hides Melania's car keys. He's like, I don't know where your keys went. Then they just said it. Yeah. Trump is like, you wonder if he hides Melania's

car keys. He's like, I don't know where your keys are. Then they reappear on the kitchen. Your keys are right here all along. For real. He's just that guy. That's why she can't leave. She's lost her keys. She's just wandering around. She's going to buy a tile and just be like,

I'm out of here. Is she counting the seconds till that guy dies? Oh, my God. I see. This was months ago when they were walking toward the Air Force One. I forgot what country. And he tried to grab her hand and she's like, bam. She's just swatted away on international television.

At the inauguration, there's a great gif. And I don't know if it's real or not. I haven't looked it up. But where you could see her face just has the most horrible look of disgust. And then he turns around and she smiles. And then he turns around and goes, It's just this look of disgust appears on her face. I have this daydream that he's going to have a cholesterol incident.

And while he's laying there, he'll be having his glass. And she'll just be flipping through a magazine. Like loudly rustling the pages. Tapping her watch. So he can hear that she doesn't care. It's the last thing that enters his fucking mind. You know, you look at the relationship that they had. But you look at the relationship between Michelle and Barack.

And you look at that relationship and you think, man, they really did love each other. Like you look at how much they wanted to be around each other. They have big smiles on their face. And then you look at this and you're just like, that's a transaction. That's a business transaction right there there's a new series that they just released on netflix with dave letterman who looks crazier every five minutes super nuts he looks like he just crawled out of the fucking woods but really wait what but he has not lost his skills as an interviewer and it's just like an hour of David Letterman with long Moses beard, but David Letterman sitting on stage with a live audience with Barack Obama.

And they just shoot the shit. They just talk. Yeah. And it, it was amazing. Actually, I think it may be closer to two hours. It was, it was amazing. Yeah. I mean, I didn't see it. I saw it the other night, but it was only one episode. So I didn't watch it on Netflix. And there's one episode or there was when we watched. Yeah. No, one a month i hear is that he's gonna do one a month or release one a month so i want i want to wait until like six or seven it's like barack obama talking about his wife and his kids in a way that just it just draws you forward and then it makes you ache for what we sacrificed him for right Right? Third term, right? Constitutional amendment,

emergency session, somebody call somebody. I need an adult! There has to be an adult somewhere! It is such a study in contrasts, and it's definitely worth your time. It's on Netflix, it'll pop right up. I think it's probably on their new releases or something. And I know I'm going to look wistfully at it because I'm

a lefty, right? So of course I'm going to look wistfully at Barack Obama. But, you know, I just look back on the presidents, the previous presidents, and I just don't think any of them were so just gross. You know?

You're just like, you can't believe he said that. Or you can't believe he did that. Or when he grabbed, did that or when he grabbed you remember he grabbed that guy by the shoulder and pulled him back just so he could walk in front of him and then he's got that everyone's hand like pulls him forward he's got that smug fucking shitty look on his face after he does it like look at me and he's got his shaking his fucking head and you just want to slap the fucking taste out of his mouth. Every moment that guy is, is in the limelight. I cannot stand him.

And he, I just feel like, you know, even with Bush and I hated Bush, I hated Bush. He scared me. And Bush was a scary president. Even with Bush,

I never felt like, God, what a fucking unbelievable embarrassment. Now I felt he was an embarrassment sometimes when he was like, you know, what was it, Ken? Is we going to get these children to read or something? Or what did he say? He's like, no one is asking the question,

is our children learning? Why isn't our children learning? I forget what he said. But it was, you know, there's sometimes that he felt like a total embarrassment. I mean, I had a calendar of Bush-isms. Yeah. Of all of his little

gaffes folksy down home sayings of you know we misunderestimated something oh you want a good one go to his dad on the japanese prime minister too yeah then he almost choked on a pretzel yeah he was hilariously incompetent yeah go i look up the youtube montage of his dad's vice president dan quayle dan quayle had a series of gaffes, verbal gaffes. Oh, yeah. Literally, I thought my brain cells are self-destructing just watching. But there are montages of all the shitty, crazy, bizarre, hysterically funny things that Quayle said during the vice presidency.

I got to look it up. It's awesome. I got to look it up. Q-U-A-C. It's a Q-U-A-Y-L-E. Dan Quayle. And they've done, and I think they've done this

with all the contemporary presidents. But yeah, Bush Jr. and Quayle are my two favorites right now. But I remember watching and Gary Busey. Yeah, do that with Gary Busey. God, his whole life is a gap.

But I remember watching the movie W. Did you see the movie W? I didn't know. And I remember walking out of that and I was like, oh my God, we're in so much trouble. I remember walking out of that and I was like, oh my god. We're in so much trouble. I would have him back right now. I would have

him back right now. Because I don't think he was, I think he was stupid. I think W was stupid. I do. I don't think he was a smart man. I think he was incompetent. He was in over his head. But he wasn't bad. Even though I disagreed with him on nearly every single topic that I think we could ever discuss,

I don't think that he was like a fundamentally bad person. His version of good and my version of good just differed. And that was a big problem for me. Well, now you got Pence, though, in the second seat. And you think what happens if and when he becomes the next contender. He's so damn smooth. He's slick. He's well so damn smooth. He's slick. He's well-spoken.

He's polished. He looks the parts. In many ways, he's even more terrifying. Look at what he did in Indiana. I mean, the stuff that he did with the, you know, he wound up closing down all the AIDS clinics down in the southern part of that state. Immediately, there was a huge spike in HIV because he closed down clinics where people could get clean needles. And they just was a huge spike in HIV because he closed down clinics where people could get clean needles. And they just like a huge spike in HIV.

He did, you know, the money for gay conversion therapy, but also other, you know, anti-gay stuff that he did. He's a real, real menace. He is run by his very strict religious ideals, and they're scary ideals. These aren't like happy, like, you know, Jesus was a cool guy ideals. These are gay people will burn in hell forever. That's his ideals. Honestly, the gay conversion thing is designed, I mean, the end result, no matter how you slice it, is to cause people to live with self-hatred, guilt, and shame for the rest of their life.

Yes. I've been to the service where they trot the guy out and they say, and he tells his quote-unquote testimony where he talks about how, you know, I used to be perverse and have sexual deviancy in my life because Satan had got a hold of my heart and I was a homosexual. my life because Satan had got a hold of my heart and I was a homosexual. And then they took him into, they took him in, in love. Yeah. And he went through this program, Bible study, and I don't know who all knows what happened behind closed doors. And he comes out and he gives his testimony, but you know, in his heart for the rest of his life, if he follows this path, he will be denying his true nature. Absolutely. And he'll be wrestling with guilt and shame in many ways. They may have ruined his entire life. You know what they do?

That's essentially just nailing him into a closet. That's what they're doing. They're building a closet around him and nailing him into it. It's disgusting. You know, and it's not just sex, right? Like think about how, like, I mean, when I think about like, like your relationship with your spouse is not mostly sexual. Your relationship with your spouse is sexual, but it's not all of it. Right. And like these guys, they're going to have

fucked up relationships because they're not going to have relationships that have a sexual bond that makes any sense at all. Right. And so like they're, they're, they're just doomed to be lonely, like fundamentally lonely. like they're romantically interested in the opposite sex. They're not just sexually interested in the same sex. They're romantically interested in the same sex. And they're going to live this life where they're not going to be able to direct that romantic and sexual energy at a person that makes sense for them to direct it at. And so they're doomed to not only just like a deeply unsatisfying sexual relationship, but just to be fucking lonely. And then to hide. If they do, you know, try to satisfy themselves, they're going to hide all of that and live in shame the whole time because somebody has told them to shame that part of themselves.

So if they do at one point satisfy themselves sexually, either with another person or by themselves, they're going to be so ashamed of that moment that they're never going to be able to even enjoy it. We talk about this quite a bit on the Thinking Atheist podcast when we get into relationships and how the church operates. If the church controls the bedroom, if they control your sexual identity, they got your life. They got your whole life, right? They tell you you're broken, you're born in sin, you're born to carnal desire. They tell you that you're broken and they sell you the cure. And this is a business, it's the business model for winning souls and beyond. It's how the church operates, survives, and thrives from day to day, century to century. You're broken, We will fix you.

Anything that operates outside of this model, you know, that's broken. We'll fix you. You are diseased. Let us sell you the cure. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. All right. This is terrific. This is from Right Wing Watch. This is Alex Jones. God will destroy demon spawn CNN reporter Brian Stelter. Now, you weren't going to be able to leave here today, Seth, without us playing a clip of Alex Jones

because we love Alex Jones a lot on this show and we play a lot of Alex Jones. This clip is especially crazy. I'm sorry. It's crazy for Alex Jones? I think it is crazy for Alex Jones. I think it is crazy for Alex Jones. Most of the time, he's pretty crazy, but this is

a lot of grunting. It's a lot more grunting than I'm used to anyway. Can I ask real quick, Cecil, before we start this, do you have a favorite Alex Jones moment? I do have a favorite Alex Jones moment. It's when he there was a moment where he had a guy that

had a lizard mask come out and they were talking about how they were basically running the world and they both I think they both had lizard masks they both had fake lizard masks on and they were both talking about how

how great it was sort of satirically to run the world and what they had run and all the different things that they had control over. And they did that whole like skip. At one point, one of them says, what does he say? How's your herpes? Or something. What does he say to him?

Something like that. And I just couldn't. I was like, no, this is the best thing he's ever done. That's really good. What about you? My favorite Alex Jones moment is a little simpler, but it's when he eats all those hot peppers. If you've not seen it, it's the best. He eats all these hot peppers during a break.

During the break, he eats a bunch of hot peppers. He's like, he's belching, and he's like having obvious distress. Yeah, he's in distress. He's red. He's as pink as I've ever seen him. And he's just, he's just. Into the microphone.

He's kind of, he's dying. He's dying inside. He's dying. But he's also Alex Jones. He's like, I'm really. Now I'm about to take him. He keeps on trying to hold in the belt, but he can't do it. All right. So you were in radio. What do you do if you got a belt, but he can't do it. All right.

So you were in radio. What do you do if you got a belt, right? Because this guy is on the TV. What do you do in radio when you have to belt? Well, in FM broadcasting, we have what's called the cough button, which was our cheat. You got to sneeze or cough or whatever. You just hit the button and it mutes your mic while you cough. I see.

So you mute your mic. That's smart. Yeah. But if you're on video, you're screwed. Yeah. You're pretty much lost. Well, Howard Stern turned that on his head when he used to just belt right into the microphone

back when he first started. He used to just turn me like right into it. He was like, what? Alex Jones just follows the same model. Alex Jones just, he's going to so great. Even the other one that I like too is when he says it's not human intelligence. That's a really good one too.

He kind of flips out and he screams that there's like an alien presence and it's not human intelligence. I want the mind control technology. I want the life extension technology. This guy's the best. What did Brian Stetler do? I'm sorry, Stelter. What did he do to piss him off? Was it some article he wrote or was it something else?

Oh, I have no idea. No, I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea. The best part is like, I don't care at all. I love his rage. His rage, he just has like, he just walks around like with a rage gun and just points at things

and it's just mad. That's a t-shirt. Let me write that down. I love his rage. Okay, got that. Alright, let's play this video. This is from Alex Jones' show, InfoWars. Oh, oh, oh my gosh. Oh, hell on earth.

Is he coming? I think so. Look at that face. He's giving it. Did he just finish? He wants to run your life. He wants to control every aspect of your life because he knows he is a cowardly degenerate.

That guy? That guy? Wait a minute. That guy looks like if I gave him my keys, he could park my car. I would be very afraid. That guy's not running my life. That's Stelter, right? He's just getting a bunch of different fucking images. He's got a photo montage fucking, I don't know, images.

Yeah. He's got like a photo. Yeah, exactly. He's finding the least flattering images. Shack of anti-human trash. I would be disappointed if he descended into ridiculous hyperbole, though,

that would be unbecoming of a reporter. I pledged before my heavenly father. Here we go. I will resist them every way I can. These people are the literal. Spit it out, porky pig. What the fuck, man? John Madden isness right here.

Boom. Demon spawn of the pit of hell. Look at him. And you know what? He is better than you if you keep letting him run your life. He runs your kids. He runs the schools. He runs the banks.

This guy. That guy? I thought it was George Soros. Just that guy, though? God. He'd be exhausted. This spirit. I thought it was George Soros. Just that guy, though? God. He'd be exhausted. The spirit, this smiling, leering devil that thinks you can't see what he is. He is your enemy.

I'm saying that. End up me. End up me. What was with that? I think he's going to start singing the spirit magic helmet song here in a few minutes. Period. All the narcissistic devil-worshipping filth. I see you, enemy.

I see you, enemy. Enemy. Enemy. You are my enemy. I didn't say anything. You didn't say anything. don't have to say anything just let him talk you are my enemy

and I swear total resistance to you with everything I've got disingenuous, fake, false broke back twisted he's mad at a guy it says adult swim behind him and he's so mad at a guy

he's like he's mad at the guy who's like smiling by like a cartoon thing. He's running my life. A defiler! A betrayer! A backstabber! A devil! You will pay.

You think I don't see your face, scum? You don't think I don't see you? Stealthy. Oh, yeah. Seth, you got a great voice. This guy's got a really good voice. Listen to that again. Listen to that one more time. Listen to the change.

I wish you could see. I mean, the facial thing, he's got his teeth grit, and he's just, he's literally, the vowels and contents are bleeding through the spaces between his teeth. It's awesome. I got to play this part again, though, because this is almost like one of those in a world. Like, it's amazing. You will pay. Yeah, you think I don't see your face, scum?

You don't think I don't see you? Delta. The you will pay part is so good. You will pay. It is so good. All right, you try it. Me? You will pay.

Seth? You will pay. Seth? You will pay. You're more devilish. You got the devil going on over there. I see you. You understand me? I know what you think of me and my family. I see you.

Is he growing? Is he growing? He's growing. What are we, Zool now? He's going to go lay down in the refrigerator. I'm just watching the color of his face just increasingly go crimson. Big vein popping out somewhere. Oh, my God.

I love this man so much. This guy is amazing. He would be the greatest dinner party guest ever. Oh, God. I would never kick him out. He would live with me. I would just never let him. You control me.

You could control me. Right back. You understand that? You understand that, Stilter? Stilter. He's just growling and snorting he's like a Tasmanian devil he really is it's through in front of a mic

you will fall you will not bring humanity down God is going to destroy you you're playing him at the wrong speed they are God isn't that deep my God God is going to destroy you You're playing him at the wrong speed They really are God isn't that deep My God Get him off the screen

I'm about to get that God they're so evil Just please God free us from them Alright So now you've I don't know how much Alex Jones you've seen I don't know how much Alex Jones you've seen. I don't know how much Alex Jones you've seen. But you just saw one clip.

Just the one now. Just one now. Maybe you've seen others in the past. Is he faking? Is he putting us on? Absolutely. Yeah? You think he's making a big joke of everything?

It's like he was part of that lawsuit. Was it last year? And I think his lawyer had, one of the defenses his lawyer had put forward, at least to the press, was calling Alex Jones and his shtick performance art. And I thought, right there, there's the smoking gun. I mean, do I think he knows there's a sucker born

and every minute, yeah. Do I see religious conservatives who either don't know about this stuff and they post a little bit of the more benign stuff sure uh there it's like when people post david wolf memes right uh david wolf is the guy who uh who says that gravity is uh as gravity's toxic and chocolate is it is uh was brought here on the cosmic wind and as part of the energy of the sun. The guy's just lost his mind. This guy sounds amazing.

Mental known. More David Wolf. David Wolf, W-A-L-F-E. And what happened was, I think David Wolf's a charlatan as well. He's one of those guys who sells just crazy batshit ideas and then he sells this blender for like $150 on his website. Right? But he catches people by doing these happy clappy like i'd like to buy the world a coke let's all love each other let's

all be better people memes and then once he sinks those little memes into you when he gets you to subscribe then he goes into more of the deeper whoa and i see alex jones posted in evangelical circles this way they find something that sort of plays into the Fox News conservatism angle. Sure. Yeah. And either they ignore or just don't care about all the other insanity.

There is a great YouTube video that shows, and I wish I could remember who compiled it, a list of Alex Jones predictions over the past, I think, 10 years. The things he said, this will happen, right? This will happen. You mark my words. And they went back and they actually did some fact checking and they went

to the times and the dates and the predictions that he made. And they're like, nope, nope. So you've got the predictions. No prediction. No prediction. No. And I think the video goes on five to 10 minutes. And so just Google or YouTube jones prediction fail or something it pops right up it's beautiful but no i think he's i think he's a performer i think he's filling his pockets i think he knows there's a sucker born every minute and i think he knows that it's just people gravitate to these charismatic strong bizarre bad people uh it just it hurts the heart to see it happen but you know people trust in it. There are some people who see that and go, well, he's, Alex Jones isn't afraid to say it like it

is. It's, you know, what, what, what tipped me off to the fact that he was, he was not real. Besides all the ridiculousness because I mean, the ridiculousness itself, you can't believe that you believe that stuff but then there was a moment where Chobani had sent him a message that was like a cease and desist because he had said like I guess like I forget what he said he said some horrible shit about their company something about

it might have been about immigrant workers or something I forget what he said and they made him they sent him a cease and desist and he had to go back and eat shit and he's on his television and basically like I do not mean what I said and this and this and this and this. And he's keep going. Oh, he totally walked it back. Walked it back.

And he's like, and he basically, I mean, he didn't even read a statement from his lawyers as much as he just basically walked everything he said back and then sort of, you know, couched it in some very legal language. And I was like, oh yeah, if you're really crazy, you don't give a fuck. You're just like, you know what? I'll just sue me. I'm going to go to my grave, tell him the truth. Just fucking sue me. I will resist with everything I have unless I'm threatened with a lawsuit. Unless I'm threatened with a, you know,

if you bring me a lawsuit, I will not resist at all. I will contact my lawyers and write a very nice statement. And that's what he did. And the same thing happened with the Pizzagate thing. When he was all up on, I mean, one of the major reasons why Pizzagate even when he was all up on... I mean, one of the major reasons why Pizzagate even happened... Was Alex Jones.

Was Alex Jones. And he spread that word about it over and over and over again. And that guy walks into fucking Comet Pizza with a fucking semi-automatic weapon. Yeah. And immediately, Alex Jones scrubs all instances of it from his website.

Pizzagate off his website, yeah. It's all gone. Oh, he wiped it all clean. Oh, yeah. And then he comes back with, I never really said anything. We were just following other people's reports. We weren't leading the story on

that at all. And so it's all the cover your ass moments. Because if you really believe this shit, you would go down swinging. But I don't think he really believes this shit. I think he just wants to make him, like you say. How do you get there? How do you get to that point in your life? I mean, are you... Do you think anyone

this stupid deserves to be taken advantage of? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's more insidious than that. I think it's like, you start off and it's like, well, you know, people really like it when I do that big angry thing. And I got angry about this one thing. And I'm going to get angry. And I got to find things to be

rage-filled about. I got to get my hate on. What sells is this anger. So I got to find things to be rage-filled about. I got to get my hate on. What sells is this anger. So then you start going down. I think it's a series of little tiny snowballs that just escalate and escalate. He's got to know it's all just... But he's probably justifying it all with

there's slivers of truth within it, that kind of nonsense. People will ask us why we cover it, right? Because I know Tom and I don't think it's real. Why give him the lie today? Why help him be more famous? That's one thing. The other thing, too, is if they say, well, if it's fake, what do you care? Well, the people who watch it

don't think it is. I think there's a lot of people who watch it that don't think it is. Clearly, that guy picked up a semi-automatic weapon and went into a pizza place because he thought this was real. And this guy, nothing we do is going to amplify his voice. He's way, way, way more popular than we are. He has a million plus people that

follow him on YouTube plus. I mean, he's a very, very popular guy. So nothing we do is going to boost his signal. He's spoken with the current president. Yeah. Yeah. A couple times. That alone is terrifying. Yeah. But, you know, it is one of those

moments where you, where you got to wonder, you think here's a guy who, you know, probably is pretty intelligent if he can come up with this stuff and keep that facade up for so long. You know, he's almost like an Andy Kaufman. You know what I mean? Like he's almost one of these guys that, that is so entrenched in his own character that it's hard for him to even come out of it at this point he's a really really entertaining person and destructive terrifying person too All right.

So, Seth, what's going on with the thinking atheists these days? What's going on there? Well, I mean, people still listen for some strange reason. People still thinking? Look, people, it's like, you guys know what it's like when you do something like this, where you know there are thousands of people who rely on you to produce content. And it's a zero-sum game. As soon as you put something out, you're back to zero. You're ready for the next show, the next speech, the next whatever.

And so, you know, you do this week after week. And you wonder if, you know, at some point week after week and you wonder if at some point, is everyone going to come to their senses and realize that I'm not that good? You know, I'm kind of relying on people not coming to their senses. Don't come to your damn senses, people. I mean, this speaks to the fear, I think, of a lot of people who do what we do. Like, will there be a come a point when I'm irrelevant or I've said everything there is to say or blah, blah, blah. You struggle, I think, a little bit with creative burnout when you're doing this stuff all the time. And so, I mean, I go through that ebb and flow, but, you know,

it's still something that despite the challenges I tremendously love. I mean, it's weird. Like, I try to tell my religious parents who they can't reconcile happiness outside of God. But I tell them I'm like, I've never been happier than I am right now. I've never been more comfortable in my own skin than I am right now. Doing what I do for the thinking atheist and beyond meeting the people I meet and whatnot. And they look at me and go, no, you're not. No, I'm really happy. They deny the subjective experience of your own life.

That's not how you feel. I'm really happy. I love... No, you're not. No, you're not. Really? But the truth is that it's a tremendous privilege to be able to have these conversations.

It's weird. I get a chance to bump elbows with people I never thought I'd meet. I had John Delancey from Q from Star Trek and he was in Breaking Bad. Just an amazingly talented actor and voice actor. Had him on the show. I had to meet him. I had the opportunity to talk to Penn Gillette. And of course, I'm trying not to fanboy the whole time. I'm like, Penn Gillette, oh my

God. And what's weird is I saw Penn and Teller at the Rio back when I was still coming out of the faith. I was still a God believer. And I was like, I was in the audience going, oh, poor Penn. He's just an atheist. He doesn't know the love of Jesus. So then I get to interview him on the other side of that deal, right? Where I'm like, dude, I was in the audience at the Rio. And we sort of had that moment. And probably as much or more importantly, I get a chance to hear from people who, you know, they're just, they're taking the journey every day and they're just trying to figure it out. And they got people telling them they're crazy or they're going through a crisis or they lost their mind or they don't have the right to live their own lives. And they take comfort in the work that happens and the videos

and whatnot. So I'll keep kicking, I'll keep doing it as long as people continue to benefit from it. And I've been fortunate to be at a point, thanks to the generosity of my listeners and sponsors, to be able to do it full time. So that was scary. But I started full time in the summer of 2015 and I'm still alive. You're still doing it. Still doing it. So, yeah, it's all good. You know, I'll do a few speaking dates this year. The American Atheist National Convention is coming up. I'll be there. It's going to be in Oklahoma City, which is beautiful. Bring it to the Bible Belt. Bring it to Oklahoma. We need the American Atheist Convention in Oklahoma.

And when is that againoma it's always on easter isn't it it's it's and the religious kind of field day with it but it's april fool's day the weekend of april fool is that when is that when easter is this year because they normally have it on easter right yeah they usually finish it up on easter sunday yeah because they normally go out and like do stuff i from we talked to David Silverman once, and he was like, yeah, you guys should come down. And we said, when is it? It's Easter weekend. And it's kind of hilarious that they're like,

well, it's not our holiday. What do we care? I always thought Easter was a weird holiday anyway, to be perfectly honest. Even when I was religious, I was like, why do we just eat a ham? I don't get it. What is going on?

We're celebrating the death of the family. I don't understand what's happening here. So let's talk for a second.'s talk about your twitch channel okay this is exciting this is exciting so I had for a while a while wanted to start my own twitch channel um I never got around to doing it I would never have enough time to do it anyway um so I there's a lot of envy that goes into what you're doing. You're an entertaining guy by yourself all the time. Your show is mostly yourself. You'll do interviews, but your show is you. And you're an entertaining guy.

So when you're on Twitch, you're entertaining as well as playing video games. Are you enjoying Twitch? Well, it sort of started as a fluke. I mean, it's really more of a distraction. My wife calls it bubble gum for the brain. We all need something to distract ourselves to come mindless and fun.

And, you know, I'm not a great gamer. Look, I'm a product of the Atari 2600. You know, we had one button on the joystick. And we liked it. And we liked it and we liked it right right we had tank we had we had the horrible et video game atari 2600 that killed atari caused them to go bankrupt we had that um but you know i i i've always kind of enjoyed it i um and so i just played occasionally just for fun. And I had my

stepson over and we were playing this game, Alien Isolation. And I posted a clip of me playing the game. I'm in the little postage stamp of the video. And of course, I'd just get my ass kicked and people are like, hey, this is fun. And so they said, you should start a Twitch channel. What the hell's Twitch? I had no idea. Wait, people watch other people play video games in mass. I mean, like people enjoy this. And so I thought, what the hell? So I put together just a basic channel and started. I mean, I just started a few weeks ago and, you know, people show up. I think I've got six, 700 people that showed up for the last one.

And I'm just going through like a plain layers of fear, which I like a good ghost story and sort of a haunted house. Sure, yeah, yeah. People are, you know, they're telling me, hey, go through this, open this door, do this, do that. Are they waiting for you to get jump scared in that? They are. And I'm going to try to do a better job of interacting. I'm still learning it.

It's like learning a new language, right? It's a whole new thing. I feel like I'm, look, I'm going to be 50 in April. And I'm like, am I too old to be on Twitch? Like, is this just for young, agile gamers? Am I trotting into territory in which I don't belong? You're like spraying a thumb. Like, oh, fuck!

You know, you think that it's all about the games, but on Twitch, it's not about the games. It's about the personality behind the games. It is. It absolutely is. There's a guy who plays a game that I play, Guild Wars. I play a game called Guild Wars 2. And I watch his Twitch stream because he's fucking entertaining. He's an

entertaining guy. He's a funny, entertaining guy. He interacts with his chat very often, and he'll make jokes, and he'll kid around, and he'll play the game. And he's an entertaining dude. And I think that a lot of people think, oh, you just got to be... Because I also watch a guy who plays the same game, and he's one of the best in the world because they do world championships in this game. He's one of the best in the world. So he's a very different type of person to watch. You watch him not for what he has to say, but for what he can do. But there's other people that you watch just for what they have to say and how they have to interact and how, how much fun they're having. My inner monologue does become an outer monologue. I mean, I'll walk in and before you know it, I'm like,

you know, this is reminiscent of the, you know, the basement in Evil Dead. Did you see Evil Dead when they did this? And so I'm just sort of rattling off. Sure. And, you know, some people enjoy that. It's weird. It's like sort of a companion to their day. Yeah.

So, I mean, I'll keep it up. And if people enjoy it. How often are you doing it? Oh, I think I'm doing right now. I'm just doing a couple. Right now it's about bandwidth. It's so hard to get the podcast produced and the videos produced and, you know, I'm getting the tour schedule finalized for the year and doing all these other things. But

I really, you know, my, my wife's always like, you're out of balance. Not that she's into like, you know, uh, equilibrium of the universe, but she knows I'm a workaholic. So she's like, you need to make time for fun stuff, dumb stuff, family stuff, other stuff. Yeah. Because I'm the guy, when I'm laying in bed, I'm like, you know, tomorrow I got to do this and I need to write that. And I've got this idea for a book and I need to do this. He's someone to be ready. Hey, by the way, I'm going to Chicago. It's going to be a great deal with this guy. And I'll just sit there. My mind's just twirling. Sure, sure. And she's like, off, shut it off, off.

And so I'm using it as kind of a way just to, you know, it's bubble gum for the brain. Yeah, yeah. And you're doing videos too as well. So you're doing videos and the podcast and Twitch. When do you have time to breathe? Well, you know, one beauty of being self-employed is that I can take, you know, I can do three hours and then go down and, you know, have a bite and

take care of the dogs and whatnot. And I mean, I can find time it's, but it's just, it's, it's weird. There's not a, you're at work time and you're off time. It's just an always time. I'm working on a book idea right now. I'm, I'm working with a researcher to get some stuff. I don't want to give details yet, but it's probably going to be a year-long endeavor for release maybe next year. I'm working on, and this is another distraction,

but we do an October broadcast every year on ghost stories. I love that broadcast. That's fun. So you guys are familiar with it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love a good ghost story. And so like seven years ago,

we started to do this thing where I'd, you know, I'd lower the lights virtually and we'd have the music and the emotive stuff. And then we'd tell ghost stories around on the radio, just like old time radio, right? Back before TV was here. And a few, like four or five years ago,

I decided to get really clever and write my own ghost story for the end. Well, yeah, that's nice. That's great. So now every year I'm like, oh shit, I gotta come up with something. And every year it gets more elaborate, you know? And I'm like, so I've decided, well, I'm going, if I'm going to go to all of this trouble, may as well kill a man. Right. Cause that's how you get ghost. Absolutely. Turn both cheeks. Don't kill him. Turn both

cheeks. I've decided I'm going to take a lot of some of the best work of what I've already written and some fresh new material. And I'm actually going to release to Audible, hopefully by this September, a ghost stories audio book. Oh, wow. How great is that? So instead of just like, you know, my autobiography and sacred cast, which talks about religion, this is a total distraction. And my hope is, is it'll be appealing to a market that's well outside of atheist circles and maybe bring in some people to the conversations we're having about myths and superstitions, you know, because they're like, I hear it all the time. Well, if you're an atheist, why would you, why would you be ever be scared by ghosts? And I'm like, you know, if you don't

believe in Lord Voldemort, why would you go to a Harry Potter film or read the book? We can operate in the realm of imagination and fantasy. We are human beings, and it's a great distraction. So that's my big project now is getting Ghost Stories, the audio book, ready for release in September of this year. You got any other big guests coming up on your show? Anything coming up? I have, you know, I got an interesting one that's coming up that I'm waiting to tell. I'm probably going to take a lot of heat for this one. Dr. Hector Garcia is a clinical psychologist in Texas, and he's written a book called Alpha God, and he's coming up in February. And essentially, he's, I mean, the way people are going to read it is the reason we have the patriarchal gods of old and now is because it's man's fault, because it's guys. And we get into

these patriarchal societies that help to construct the deities and why they look like men and the aggressiveness and the violence. And it's the men who start wars and whatnot. And of course, you know, I'm trying to automatically get in front of those who are going to say, this is a man-hating show because it really isn't. But it's an interesting angle from the perspective of a mental health professional who has studied the creation of these religions. I have that. I've got Dr. Abby Hafer. She's going to talk about the not-so-intelligent designer. You know, whenever you speak to a religious person and they're like, look all around you, look at the trees. Look at the animals. They're so obviously perfectly designed. And of course, we're looking at the giraffe going,

what the hell are you talking about? Well, she's written a whole book that gives you one after the other example of just crap design. It's evolution explains it perfectly. Design does not. And it takes Yahweh and other gods to task for what their design might be. So I've got that

one coming up. We're doing, you know, we're just doing a lot of that kind of stuff. So, you know, it's a different topic, a different theme every week. And then sometimes we'll just totally hit the brakes and talk about something that has nothing to do with anything serious. And we'll just talk about fun stuff. We did a show, I think it was last year or the year before, called The Weirdest Websites in the World. And we just, the whole broadcast of people going, oh my God, have you seen this online? And then we pull up the website on the browser and go, holy shit.

And I describe it and all of our listeners go there. And you know, it's just a fun distraction. And most websites just getting like a bump in traffic. Like what the fuck is going on? I'm sure they did. I'm sure they were like, what's happening? And then they trace it to me and then they really wonder. But mostly it's just about getting together.

It's about community and being together and be reminded that, you know, you're not alone and it's okay. And the tide for reason is slowly rising here in the United States. We're seeing the seculars, the non-religious, they're seeing those numbers, especially in the younger people go up. Yeah. And we're alive in kind of a sea change here in the country. I'm not seeing it reflected politically. No, no. I'm seeing it reflected generationally, and I think that will pay dividends in the next decade.

Yeah, they say the nuns, N-O-N-E-S, are the largest growing group of people. That's the non-religious. The people who don't have any religion is the largest growing group. They don't need it. I mean, they're not necessarily atheists, but they're like, you know, I'd rather spend my Sunday with people I care about than go sit in church. And I, you know, I've got, I'm gay or I've got a gay sibling or friend and, you know, I don't, I'm not going to judge them. I just want them to be happy. Good for them. We see that rampant in millennials and generation Z. And I think it's amazing. And it drives

their parents and grandparents batshit crazy. It drives them crazy. But don't you care who's sucking whose dick? No. No, Grandma. Go back to sucking Grandpa's dick. Here's your $5 you sent me last year at Christmas. Well, I'm going

to congratulate you guys. 400 to major milestone. 400 is that's a lot of content congratulate you guys, you know, 400 to major milestone 400 is, uh, that's a lot of content that you guys have given so much of yourselves for. And I don't think people really realize what goes into putting together a broadcast. I know I don't many people think, you know, Oh, they just show up and flap their gums. And the truth is there's, really, there's just a lot of, a lot of gears to the machine, a lot of commitment, time away from loved ones, spouses and kids and the things you, you know, the responsibilities of everyday life.

The fact that you guys are at 400 is mass. I mean, it's major. And so congrats to you, props to you for sticking it out this long, for maintaining the quality you have, for having the audience size you do and for allowing me to play along here for the 400th. I think that's amazing. Thanks for coming. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for helping us

celebrate. It was a lot of fun. It was really a lot of fun to have you in studio and we hope to have you again one time for sure. It will be my honor. I was glad we could buy you some real pizza. I don't know what they have in Oklahoma, but I'm going to sound like Alex Jones at about three in the morning. Thanks for joining us, Seth. Seth, if people are going to find you on the internet, where would they look? Just go to thethinkingatheist.com. Remember, I am not the thinking atheist. I always make this caveat. The Thinking Atheist is an idea for those of us who came from a faith culture. We reject faith as a way of learning how the world works. We want to embrace reason and the evidence. So we should all hopefully be thinking.

TheThinkingAtheist.com So we want to thank, I mean, this is our 400 technically 401 episode. We want to thank our patrons for sticking with us. Is this a 401th? 401ths. 401ths. 401th.

We've got so many great emails this week and the past couple weeks that we're saying that people were saying that they had seen us or heard of us episode 7 or episode 12 or even episode 100, which is a very long time

ago. 300 episodes ago by my man. Which is a very long time ago. So thanks for sticking with us for so long. Thanks for hanging out with us every week. episode 100, which is a very long time ago. 300 episodes ago, by my man. Which is a very long time ago. Yeah. So thanks for sticking with us for so long. Thanks for hanging out with us every week. Oh, yeah. We love that everybody enjoys it, and we get a lot of great email about it. So thanks so much for listening. We are going to go through a ton of patrons, because we haven't had a chance to do this

in a while. So thank you, new patrons vicky kernan javier missionary position podcast linda rachel andrew's second favorite shoe shirley alan james casey ruffle Dumb all over. Stephanie, Kanya, Chris. Okay, what? Skip, Skip a drongs, Kif to Florida ding ring. Sure. Brent,

Leslie, shave me jebus. Brian, the wrong crowd. John, the dude live. Dave, Deanna,

and Dean. Thanks so much for your generous donations to Glory Hole Studios. You're the ones who make this possible. Thank you so much. Tom, any thoughts, reflections on 400 episodes? I wanted to ask you a couple of episode 400 questions. Oh, okay. Sure. What is the best meal

you had in studio? Best meal in studio? Best meal you've had in studio. We were at the old studio. This was over at the Music Garage. And it was the first time we ordered La Pierre Gourmet or whatever. I was going to say those guys. I miss those guys. They make like a Thanksgiving dinner.

It was good. They make a lobster roll. Yeah. A mind-blowingly good lobster roll. I had their chicken and stuffing and I thought it was amazing. I just, it was tender and delicious.

That place is rock solid. I think it's a hotel or something. I don't know what, if it's a hotel, I want to live there. Second best meal was Pequod's Pizza in here first night we recorded. Yeah.

Pequod's Pizza. We had a sausage recorded. Yeah. Pequod's pizza. We had a sausage pepperoni. We posted it to Facebook and a bunch of people who only like floppy pizza were very upset. Who cares? They don't count as people. It was amazing. Every time we order, it's amazing. It was genuinely amazing. That's probably my second favorite. Worst meal. Worst meal we had here was Roots

pizza. Roots pizza was delivered here and it was uh it's it's minnesota or something quad cities quad city quad city style pizza so they took this shitty pepper like shitty sausage and they crumpled it up and it's all greasy and gross and it's like so there's not like a you don't bite into sausage it's just like so much of like a sausage essence to the pizza which is really unpleasant and then they cut it in weird strips and it was cold. So it was like, imagine eating a mozzarella lasso.

That's what it was like. It was disgusting. I think you're forgetting about that place where we ordered chicken. I got catfish. Do you remember? We got, we threw it out. I threw it out.

I just threw it out. And, and it was, I ordered chicken and it tasted like the cat It tasted like... The catfish tasted like dirt wrapped in more dirt. A different color of dirt. It was like... It was catfish,

improperly prepared, and then it was... Oh, I remember that. In the cornmeal. Oh, in the cornmeal. And it tasted like dirt. It did taste like dirt. It tasted like actual dirt.

It tasted like you were eating like a handful of sauce. It was so bad. And then I tasted my chicken and it was so dry. I literally, I took a bite out of it and I was like, I can't eat it. And I'm starting to chew and I'm like, it tasted like eating chicken chalk. And I was like, I'm out. And the other place that we ate that was really, really bad.

I had to go home, run home real quick. They delivered it while I was gone. And I came back and it was a barbecue place and it was super dry. Oh, I do remember that. So there's been a couple of places that I think are even worse than roots because they did eat the crust of the roots pizza. You know, another wonderful meal we've had here, RPM Italian. Oh, RPM Italian is outstanding. Our RPM Italian, delightful. What's great is it's a high-end restaurant here in Chicago. It's hard to get into. It's hard to get into, but they deliver. So we get there once in a while. I'll get the

chicken parmesan. It's perfect. I get the squid ink pasta. Holy shit. 400 episodes, man. What's something that this show has done for you that you never suspected we would do? I got a chance to talk to Dan Savage.

I've always wanted to talk to him. I listened to his show and I've, I've always wanted to talk to him. I've, I listened to his show and I heard him on, I've heard him years ago on this American life. And I always wanted to just have a conversation with him. And I got a chance to do that through this show. And I thought that that was outstanding. Outstanding. We have,

we've been able with the, with the, with the aid of our audience, we've been able to donate more money because of this show, personally, from money we've earned and also money we've raised through the show, than I could have ever been able to donate myself. For sure.

Using my own private means. I thought about that the other day. I was thinking about episode 400. I was trying to think how much over the course of those 400 episodes, how much good do you think that's done? We joke about like, oh, it's just a dick joke show,

but it's tens of thousands of dollars that's been raised and donated to Doctors Without Borders. Think of all the charities we worked with over the course of those 400 episodes. It's like we've accidentally done some good. Foundation Beyond Belief. We did Modest Needs.

Doctors Without Borders twice. ACLU last year. This year we donated to It Gets Better. There's probably going to be a vulgarity for charity up our sleeves pretty soon. I'm sure we'll fork out for that as well. We donated a lot

throughout the years. This last year, we donated directly to Modest Needs during the Smalley Podcast-a-thon. Plus, the previous year, we had raised, with the scathing guys, $25,000 for them. Yeah. That's something I could never have done with my private means. Yeah. I just would never have been able to do it. Yeah.

I thought about that the other day, and that's something that I'm just like, I'm inordinately proud to have been a part of. Yeah, for sure. That's really cool. That's almost as cool as some of the food we've eaten in this season. 400 episodes, man. 400 episodes, yeah.

This is like, this show is one of the, I'll say this too, and then like, this show is like one of the very few hobbies i've ever had that has sustained right for a long time yeah this long me too i mean it it's been it's been a a long ride we've been doing it we did it with with everyone's a critic beforehand and then we start you know we've been doing it with this show for at this point six years um so yeah yeah it's crazy it's been a long time and it's and it's and it's one of those shows it's one of the things that you know i look forward to every week i look forward to the

record i look forward to the final product because it's uh it's always fun to do so that's crazy to do something for this long this many episodes and still enjoy it and still like it. I still enjoy it. I like to do it. Yeah. Well, thanks for sticking with us for 400 episodes or even if this is your first one, thanks for sticking with us for one.

So we were happy that you listen. We got a bunch of email. We got, we want to get through. We got a message from Grant and I had mentioned, I had made a quick joke about the pineapple pen song. And if you just do a Google search, if you don't know what I'm talking about,

it's just a weird guy who's just saying pen pineapple and apple in a different way. And it's goofy and whatever. But anyway, I made a joke about pineapple pen and then also Pence. And so he made a pineapple Pence. It looks great. It looks like a great,

he looks like an evil supervillain, like a pineapple flavor. What's the pinhead guy? What is that guyain, like a pineapple-flavored supervillain. What's the pinhead guy? What is that guy? He's from Hellraiser. Yeah, well, they have a name for those. Ascentabytes? Maybe, yeah.

He looks like one of those guys to me. I guess he kind of does. Yeah, he's kind of got a little, you know, because it's a pattern on his face that looks like, yeah, so he looks hexagonal. He's got that grid thing going on. A little spiky.

So check it out. It's going to be on this week's show. It's 4.01. I think it's appropriate because I think voting in Trump was opening Pandora's box. So it makes sense. I'm just saying. There's got to be some great quotes that you could take from Hellraiser and put it and make it sound like Trump would say it. Because it's got to be some great quotes.

Like, you will not escape us or something like that. There's got to be something great in there. I've seen the movie once, but I don't remember what they say. I'm just saying, I think a box that shoots out fish hooks is more pleasant than our current administration. I'd rather put it by my nuts. All right. So we got a message. This is a while ago. This is from Miliardo. put it by my nuts. All right. So we got a message.

This is a while ago. This is from Miliardo and Miliardo says, Tom, why don't you just read his, his email? Now this is referring to an episode we did where Alex Jones is just freaking out. At one point he says, and the pot belly PPPs are doing stuff and we could not figure out what

he's talking about. He tells what pot belly PPPs are. Tom, read this email. He says, I've officially started walking around the office, putting this into common conversation, hoping somebody will clarify. Examples. I fixed the printer. Boom. Who gets the pot belly PPP? This guy. Guy walks in pissed off to the side. Jeez, who took that guy's pop belly PVP? Am I right? This is my favorite part. So far, not only has nobody clarified, nobody

has questioned it, you know, as if I'm making sense. I don't even care if that's true. Here's the thing. I think it's true because I had a job. I remember once I had a job and I hated the job the shitty job and it made me mad and so I would do little shitty stuff like this all the time just

to relieve my frustration one of the things I would always do is people would call they'd want to know where we were in a mall so we're gonna at a high-end like audio store and they would want to know where we were I know where you were and and high-ish and and so I mean they thought they were high and anyway it was terrible. It was awful. We were near a gazebo, right? And so that was a landmark. Oh, I remember this. Every time I'd be like, yeah, we're right across from the Gazebo.

Gazebo? We're by the Gazebo. Nobody ever said, do you mean gazebo? No, they just saw like... I would purposely say it two or three times. We're like right across from the gazebo. So if you find the gazebo, we're going to be across

from the, and I would do it like it's like mispronouncing grotesque like a grotto skewer. It's grostic. That's so funny. I also like I used to passive aggressively like there was this woman that was super, super,

super superficial and very vain and like her hair was like a big deal for her. And every time she would come into my office, I would do this thing where I'd look at her eyes and I would quick flick my eyes up to the top of her head. That's so mean!

That's so mean! I did this because I had a mirror in my office and I would tell her, I'd be like, my assistant Johnny would be like, I'm going to make Lisa look in the mirror. You're so mean! And she would come in and she'd talk to me and I'd flick my eyes and she'd turn around

and check herself in the mirror. She did it every single time. Every single time. It was the best. You're such a dick. I don't like people and I want to hurt them. You should have said to her, is that a pot belly PBP on your head?

Are you just happy to see me? We got a message from Wolfwing and Wolfwing says that he was reminded of a joke. The internet is where men are men, women are really men, and eight-year-old girls are FBI agents.

That's a great one. We got a message from Lee and Lee says, we misgendered the Peachy King. We had said maybe she transitioned and now she's the peachy King and, uh, and, and, uh, and Lee thinks that we misgendered peachy King Lee. You do not know what the peachy Kings made up pronouns are. So you don't get to tell me that I misgendered the peachy King. I get to decide what the peachy King's pronouns are and they are she and he. So thank you very much. So we got a message from

Matt and Matt says, I love how the guy, he's talking about the guy who was saying that, uh, that we was, it was before Seth was on and there was a person who was talking about how great if you, if you love Israel and you're nice to Israel, everybody else prospers. And he said, I heard this half an hour after hearing the U.S. just had the biggest single one-day stock crash in history. Fair enough. Yeah, no, that's fine. That happened. Yeah, it was bookend by two mass shootings.

Well, we only care about neither of them. We're waiting for the next one. We already don't care about the last, whatever. There might be one right now we don't care about. Who knows? Got a message from Aiden, and Aiden sent in a Facebook video of a helper horse, and we're

going to post it on this week's show notes because it's amazing. We also got a message from Kernan, and love this. And Kernan found a Fox News lower third, which is almost certainly not edited by Kernan at all, of Dr.

Alveda, quote, PG King. So we will post it on this week's show notes. Oh, we got a message from Gavin and Gavin had said that in Australia a couple years ago, the prime minister had said something like,

shit happens when a soldier died. And then he gets confronted about it and it's Tony Abbott. And the video is priceless on this. I'll just do a search. We didn't get a video, so we have to search for it. But it's Tony Abbott, shit happens. There's a guy who confronts him and Tony Abbott just stands

there. And I think he blows a circle. He doesn't say anything and he just kind of shakes. He has a straight up petite mall seizure. It's the only explanation. It's the only explanation. Oh, it's nuts. It was a really funny video. Thanks for sending in Gavin. explanation. Oh, it's nuts. It was a really funny video. Thanks for sending in, Gavin. Got a message from Brian, and Brian sent in an image of cognitive dissonance the beer.

I can't wait to try it. We're going to try it. Tom's going to find it, and we're going to try it. We'll let you know how it is, but thanks for sending in. You can find an image of it on this week's show notes. This is a great message we got from Dan. Dan said, congratulations on 400. He said that he looks at Trump the same way people look at domestic abuse.

If you aren't turned off by the first punch, then all subsequent punches seem about the same in comparison. He said, if you weren't completely turned off by the Mexicans are rapists, maybe some are good people, then anything that comes after is mild in comparison or slightly worse. Grabbing by the pussy was a big one. some are good people, then anything that comes after is mild in comparison

or slightly worse. Grabbing by the pussy was a big one that shocked many people, but ultimately did nothing. And, and it's, I think it's so true. Um, so yeah. And it, and it's funny too, because he says, otherwise you have to beat him with policy because outrage has left the station. And it's, there's nothing you can say about him now that can make you more outraged about what he people aren't even out. We don't even care that at this point they've come to expect a certain level of awfulness. We got to Valentine's Day. Oh, I thought these were that are also headlines.

They are hilarious. We're going to post it on this week's show notes. Thanks, Chris, for sending them in. They are really, really funny. Yeah, they are. We got a long email from Trish telling us about her experience with getting Peter Popoff water and how they just kept sending stuff

in the mail over and over. They would put on the, they would started asking for more and more money. And then they eventually started just sending it all the time. She would put, stop sending it. And they would just keep sending it over and over. They to resort to saying we don't believe in your god we are

atheists stop sending yeah so uh so i guess peter popoff like like uh seth had mentioned is just just breaking it in and he just throws out as much crappy you know fucking sortable garbage shit junk mail that he possibly can. I love this. This is great. This is from Brad. Brad said, this is from the talking point about Trump, and it was not real, like putting

little pizzas as toppings for his pizza. And so he made a pizza and he put pizza bagels on it. I want to eat this pizza. That's so funny. It's hilarious. We're going to put a photo on this week's show. It's Brad.

Hilarious. My favorite part of that article, though, is when he's in a sing-songy voice and he's singing about it. That, to me, it just makes that article so good. It's so good. Little pizza. It's so good. Little pizza. Little pizza. It's so fucking funny. So this week, this week's mass

shooting happened in... Where did it happen? I don't even... In Florida? Was it? In Florida. Florida? Yeah. I don't know. Which... The reason I don't know is it depends on what day the show releases. Yeah. There could be another one.

We're talking about the one that happened that everybody's still talking about. On Valentine's Day. Talking about on Valentine's Day. So this show, that was on Wednesday. The show released Monday. There might be another mass shooting between now and then. But the one we're talking about is the one from last week. So don't get confused.

We know that it's easy to get confused about these things. Try to remember to care for seven days about each one. Minimum. See what happens. Like your marriage. Like your marriage. We can give it a try. What we want to do is we want to share. Carlos sent in a message and he said, hey, there's a GoFundMe for the victims of this. We're going to put it on this week's show notes. I don't know if they're going to reach their goal. They already have like $500,000, but there's a GoFundMe for the victims of this. We're going to put it on this week's show notes. I don't know if they're going to reach their goal. They already have like $500,000.

There's a lot of victims. So if you have some money in your pocket, some change jingling around, you want to donate to it, you can check this week's show notes for it. Don't worry. Next week, we'll have another mass shooting GoFundMe. So if you miss this one, guys...

You should probably just include this in your monthly budget. If you miss this one, you'll be able to donate to another mass shooting almost certainly very soon. So don't worry. You're not going to miss out. And if you miss the news on this one again, don't worry about that either because they're not going to stop talking about it until the next one. Just take all the money that you were going to spend on sensible gun control laws. Yeah. And you can use that.

You can just use that because you don't need that. Yeah. Well, we want to thank Seth Andrews for joining us. Seth has was a great guest. He's a lot of fun to talk to. Really nice guy. One of the guys like just a guy that when when we got a chance to meet him in person, he's just he's just a wonderful guy giving with his time, willing to come in here and be on, listen to us for three hours worth of time. And then, and then we had a great night. We wound up going out to a first steak dinner with him after the night after.

And he was a really great guest and, and he puts on an amazing show. The thinking atheist is one of those cornerstone shows that atheists should know about. If you haven't checked out his show, the thinking atheist, you should. It's really great stuff.

He's got a great YouTube channel. He's been doing a lot of live stream stuff too on Twitch. So check all that out. You can find all the information for that on this week's show notes, this episode 401. So you can find out all the links to Seth's social media, as well as the stuff that he does, that he puts on the internet

in all different types of formats, video and audio. But that's going to wrap it up for 401 for us, Tom. That's going to be it. To another 401 more. Why not? What the hell? I got no plans for the next six years. Cheers. Cheers, buddy. We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed.

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