Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 45: Walking on Sunshine

Episode Date: April 30, 2012

Ron Brown defends anti-gay stance Adel Imam, Arab Comedian, Sentenced To Jail For Offending Islam Jurassic lark? Expedition to seek living dinosaurs in Africa Christian women urge Congress to block Protection of Women Act Phil Bryant, Mississippi Governor: Democrats' 'One Mission In Life Is To Abort Children' Detroit church holds 'blessing of the purses' for those struggling with debt Woman sues after arm amputated following holistic procedure Swiss woman dies after attempting to live on sunlight; Woman gave up food and water on spiritual journey West Palm man claiming to be 'prophet' charged with wrecking Stuart store, vehicles Beginning clip: Students Walk Out On Dan Savage Criticizing The Bible Clips: Nebraska Fight Song, Allahu Akbar, Jurassic Park Theme, The Simpsons, Quackery PSA, Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves, A Few Good Men 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. The Bible. We'll just talk about the Bible for a second. People often point out that they can't help you. They can't help with the anti-gay bullying. Because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans, that being gay is wrong. We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people.

The same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn't say Christians don't own people. Paul talks about how Christians own people. We ignore what the Bible says about slavery because the Bible got slavery wrong. Sam Harris, a letter to a Christian nation, points out that if the Bible got the

easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong. Slavery. What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100%. So you can tell the Bible guys in the hall, they can come back now because I'm done beating up the Bible. It's funny as someone who's on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-ass some people react when you push back. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence

to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat. This is episode 45 of Cognitive Dissonance. I'm going to title this one Echo Change. Hello. Hello.

Hello. I like that. I like that. You know, maybe we should have a midlife crisis one soon. But it seems odd that 45, we should have probably done that around the 36s, I guess, especially for our body types. For my body type, my midlife peaked at the 20s. Are you kidding me? I'm not going to make it to 50.

I got six more good years out of this body. That's all I'm looking at, about six. I didn't read the Tolkien books, man, but how long did Gimli live? He and I have a lot of similarities. Although I can't rock a beard quite so heavily. But if you did have a long beard like that, you should braid that fucker. If I had a long beard like that, I would be a fucking hero to men and women everywhere. That fucking beard was spectacular.

Admittedly. So the first story we're going to go over is from ESPN. This is the only time I have read ESPN. This is a first for us on this show. This is a first for me personally. ESPN, are you fucking

kidding me ron brown defends anti-gay stance uh nebraska assistant coach ron brown uh it's it's funny he says uh you know he's got some he's got some views on the on the homosexuality issue generally not pro not he's certainly not for them yeah he's not wearing a rainbow shirt anytime soon. And he says, this is a great quote from him. He says, to be fired for my faith would be a greater honor than to be fired because we didn't win enough games. I haven't lost any sleep over it.

Listen, dipshit, you wouldn't be fired for your faith. You'd be fired for your bigotry. Right, exactly. And if that's an honor, I, for one, would love to honor you. This is a guy that plays games for a living. Right. He doesn't even play the games. Exactly.

It's like he helps the coach tell other people how to play the game. What I like is that he is, his job, like your fucking job, dude, is to be an assistant coach, and your fucking, the end of year performance appraisal is, did I win enough games? That's what you're fucking being assessed

for. Who cares what you have to say about homosexuality and or anything else other than the game you play i have no idea i have no idea like these fucking quasi celebrity motherfuckers shut your fucking pie hole they have just you exist so people win a thing right right i don't know what look i'm not gonna pretend i have any idea who this guy is in the sports world right right that's not i'm not going to pretend I have any idea who this guy is in the sports world. That's not – I'm not faking that one. But I will say you're absolutely right.

This guy has got a job. His job is to make sure the ball goes the place you want it to go. That's fucking ubiquitous for all sports. So I can say that and feel pretty comfortable. What's awesome is I don't even know what ball it is. I don't either, right? It doesn't matter. I don't even know the shape of the ball. Put the ball in the place.

It could be oblong. I don't know. I didn't even get that. I mean, I didn't pay attention well enough to know whether or not he's a football coach or a basketball coach. I didn't even pay attention to the article. This guy seems like a complete dipshit from reading this article. He talks about the Bible.

It says, ultimately, if you don't have a relationship with him, you don't really have a Bible-believing mentality. It's not really a thing. Really, anything goes. Really, anything goes? Anything goes. Anything goes without a Bible-believing mentality. You're telling me that the majority of the earth, the majority of the people in the world who do not have a Bible-believing mentality, that's most of earth.

They're just fucking running rampant. Anything goes. No morality. Morality only exists in Bible-believing mentality peoples. Right. Consider the prison population. Right. The prison population overweighed the United States overwhelmingly.

Yeah, absolutely. Also in prison. Yeah. Well, also unbelievably violent. I figured it out. It's football. It's either football or they're starting to play basketball outside and all the team – the team has huge shoulders. That's – I'm pretty sure it's football though.

There's a part of this article that I liked quite a bit. He says that he uses his position for ministry and he tries to incorporate like the Bible into what he does. And I'm thinking like what do you tell your people? Like, we should all follow what Jesus said. Red 21! Red 21! Like, what the fuck? What did Jesus say?

Go on a fucking post in and jump over the fucking safety and catch the ball and run for a touchdown? What did Jesus say about football? I'm presuming that the combination of words you just used had meaning. I don't actually have any way to verify that information for our listeners, but yeah, I have no idea. I mean, fucking be the assistant coach,

stupid. That is what you are paid a money for. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. So this next story is from Huffington Post. Adele Imam, an Arab comedian, sentenced to jail for offending Islam. I mean, really? Like, you're coming after comedians now.

Comedians. We don't want them to be funny. We don't want them to accidentally say something that would offend Islam. How do you even offend a religion? Like, the religion is just like, oh, I did not find that amusing. I don't get this at all it's like like learn to fucking take a joke this it's absurd it's when you when you're so fucking hung up about your uh religious sensibilities that you can't look at a comedian and be like oh he's

poking a little fun ha ha ha okay i mean. Okay. I mean, sometimes people poke fun. That's what comedy does. How does comedy exist without a subject of its comedy? Right. And oftentimes the funniest stuff is the most controversial stuff. The stuff that makes you squirm a little that you know I probably shouldn't be laughing at. Oh, that's an awful thing. I probably shouldn't be laughing at. Oh, that's an awful thing. I probably shouldn't be laughing at that.

That's the stuff that specifically is normally the funniest stuff. Right, and if being transgressive in this culture means being a little critical of the national religion, I mean then that's going to be what comedians do. That's – I mean good grief, You fucking joyless asshats. It's comedy. Just don't laugh. Like, don't, just don't buy the two drink minimum and show up at the club. What the fuck? There's no sense of humor here.

And I mean, really, you need to, you need to just, just recognize that your faith is robust enough to withstand a little ribbing. I know. Come on. And when your faith is not robust enough to withstand a joke here or there or a lot of jokes or criticism or people who don't believe in your faith, then your faith isn't worth much. I love this next story, Cecil. I love it so fucking much. I love the picture.

I'll tell you that. The picture is great. This is from Fox News. It's fair and balanced. It's fair and balanced. Like us. Right, yeah. Let's not pretend that we're not fucking... You ain't getting no fair and balanced shit from us either, man.

It's almost like we select which stories to... It's like a process where I arbitrarily decide what we can laugh at this week. Jurassic Lark. I love the name of Jurassic Lark. That's clever. Clever. Expedition to seek living dinosaurs

in Africa. So some dipshit in Missouri with no training in biology. Put some dipshit in Missouri with no training in biology. Put that out there. No training in biology. Is going to go to deepest, darkest Africa and

wander aimlessly about until he dies of dehydration and disease in the search for dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, yes. And giant spiders the size of dogs yes because that seems like a thing that you'll find and man-eating fish boy get the fly get the fly go get the fly go on you want to go for a walkies they actually build webs so big they catch the dinosaurs in the way sure yeah absolutely it. Fucking brontosaurus is like stuck.

Fucking velociraptor all upside down in that big. This guy's going to die. There's a possibility, you know, if there's a fucking if there's a way to bet on this in fucking Vegas, you know, they should take advantage of that for sure. You know, here's what I don't get. First off, I'm glad it's on Kickstarter. I'm glad that you have to sort of – that people are putting their money towards this if that's what they want to do.

Fine. That's perfect. I think that this is exactly the place that money like this should come from, from a private source that doesn't have anything to do with the government or actual study, great. Go down there and do it. The thing is, is like they say they don't have plenty of any training really at all. No formal education in biology or zoology, the article says. And they anticipate discovering hundreds of new insect, plant, and fish species during

the course of their research. Now, are they saying new as in like new to them? Exactly. It's new in the sense that you have not experienced it. What with living in Missouri and not being a biologist and all. I love, too, that he says, you know, we're looking at live capture methods, like maybe a tranquilizer rifle. Oh, yeah.

I mean, what could go wrong? Wandering around the Congo with a gun. The Congo? As a fucking white dude. With $26,000 in your pocket to get back home. Good luck. Good luck, big guy. It's not the Ozarks, stupid.

Oh, no. You're going to die out gonna die i wouldn't want to be stuck in either one but it's no kidding no kidding i don't know which is more dangerous um i do also like that on on kickstart he says that uh you know there have been several previous expeditions to the congolese jungles in search of large unknown animals. They all failed to find evidence. He believes his group's youth and enthusiasm will help them succeed where others fail. How much of this do you think is this guy just wants people to donate money so he can go on vacation? That sounds about right.

Youth and enthusiasm. I could see if like car washes fail because they don't have youth and enthusiasm. But I can't see how youth and enthusiasm would even help you whatsoever in this expedition. It strikes me as rare that somebody comes back and they're like, you know, fucking sweat stained and just like,

oh my god, did you find anything? No. If only we'd had more youth and enthusiasm. We were just... We should have brought the little rascals with us. The problem is I kept seeing things, and by the time I got my trifocals out and fastened them around my ear globes back here,

I couldn't... What? Youth and enthusiasm isn't a thing that's going to help you find monsters. And you know what's going to happen on this expedition, too. I mean, I think... I've said it. He's going to die up there.

They're going to start out. There's going to be a bunch of them. They're going to hire a bunch of natives to carry all their equipment into the woods. They're live kill traps for the dog size spiders and such. And slowly one by one, they're going to be picked off. They're going to be, you know, somebody is going to disappear and then they're going to have to search around for them. And then in the end you find out that actually it's been Rosie O'Donnell who's been eating everybody. I mean, I've seen this movie before. I think you've seen it too. You know, I just think the best part about this is that they have no fucking training whatsoever.

So they're going to go out there and be like, oh, my God, I found this brand new butterfly. And they'll be like, yeah, that was documented in 1926. You know? Exactly. It's going to be the entire thing. Good luck, stupid. He's going to go find can thing. Good luck, stupid. He's like he's going to go find canine sized tarantulas. I was reading in this article and they said the largest tarantula leg span right now is only a foot.

I already think that's canine sized. If you have like a teacup chihuahua, that's already canine sized. What canine exactly? Exactly. Like the size of what dogs come in a fucking variety of shapes. I don't want to see. I don't know if you know. I don't want to see a mastiff size tarantula.

That's all I'm saying. I don't even want to see it. If you find it, don't tell me. If you find it, it eats you. It just eats you, man. Yeah, you are definitely in its fucking. And he says even in here, he's like he's looking for for for creatures that kill elephants in here. He's like, oh, the creatures that kill elephants?

Well, I'll tell you what creatures kill elephants. Us. We kill elephants all the time. I just read an article this week about poachers in a helicopter shooting a whole herd, the whole herd of elephants. You don't need a dinosaur for that. You need assholes with a helicopter and a gun. And really, he wants to go to the

Congo? I don't know if this guy watches the news. You're all dead! Oh, be nice! Oh, my son doesn't stand a chance. The whole world is going gay! Oh my God, what's happening now? We work hard.

We play hard. Everybody dance now. So this story is from The Examiner. This story is just unbelievable. Concerned Women for America is a Christian public policy group who are evidently not concerned with the women in America. The board of directors is all men. Right. Because they are opposing and they've been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Fair enough. One of the 18 most anti-gay hate groups in America. And they are opposing the Protection of Women Act. And they're opposing the Protection of Women Act in part because it would protect lesbians and Native American women. Yeah. I mean, come on. Let's not pretend that Native American women are actually human beings. I mean, that's just – look, if Native Americans were people, we wouldn't have been able to take all their land and slaughter them wholesale.

What's their pitch to the women in this organization? Like, you know what you should do is you should be able to take a punch, punch in the face, just so we can hate gays more. Like, we should – I hope that all the women in this organization are willing to get bruises on their feet and on their backs where people can't see them just so we as a group can hate the gays. You know, your priorities are fucked up, just absolutely fucked up when you're really saying, I want to make sure this bill doesn't pass because it would protect people whose life I don't agree with. You don't even want to protect them. You're okay with them being beaten.

Yeah, whatever. You know what I mean? Just beat them up. That's good. I'll even – I want them beaten so badly I will allow myself to be beaten. Sure. I'll take a hit for the team just because I don't value someone else's life. They're concerned for America, concerned women for America.

Why do these groups always have names like that too? Look at number four. I always bag on this, but this is ridiculous. Criminalizing erotica of all kinds is one of their fucking mission statements. Yeah, good luck with that. That's not going to work. What does that even mean, erotica of all kinds? I think they're saying like even literature.

I think they would even – I think – so they're saying not just like pornographic images and videos and what have you or drawings because people could be victimized by a drawing, but even literature. There's a lot of these groups that are extremely strident about their distaste for erotic literature. That's crazy. What about number five, fighting for freedom of religion? You don't have freedom of religion? They have all the freedom of religion they need. They just haven't been able to impose that freedom on other people. Right. We want you to

freely choose our religion and do it right now. Well, Cecil, how about encouraging national sovereignty? That's the scariest one. What does that even mean? We are a sovereign nation. Because what it means is that they're so disconnected from reality that they've got to say something like that, that that's one of their tenants.

They just – they're fucking lost. They have no idea. They don't even live in the same reality as us. Right. No, that's true. I mean that's exactly it. These people feel that we've lost our national sovereignty. Who are we subordinate to?

What other nation are we subordinate to? What other nation are we subordinate to? What other nation passes our laws? Oh, that's right. That's not a thing. No other nation. Some would say that our nation doesn't really pass a lot of laws either. Right. We're deadlocked all the time.

We're deadlocked about whether we're deadlocked. So way to go, Concerned Women for America. I think the women in America would be displeased. I think so, too. And that's why I said I tend to think that this fucking – that this group is run by a bunch of men or at least it's run by a bunch of women who are listening to a bunch of men. Because none of these things are for fucking, like, are helping women out at all. Concerned women

for America. Preventing gays from marrying? How the fuck does that help women's fucking causes at all? You've got to think about it. So, let's say that you're a woman in America, and you wake up, or what have you, and you're trying to get a cup of coffee. But then two gays got married and then you couldn't have your coffee.

You see? That's how – that doesn't work. That seems tragic. Yeah. Or like your marriage would be destroyed. My marriage would explode in like the fire of a thousand suns the moment fucking a gay marries another gay. Are you fucking serious? I live in Illinois and we don't have gay marriage we've got civil unions and that's good for me because if you know i'm married to my wife and if if a gay got married to to another gay in illinois i my marriage would

dissolve my wife would stop loving me and i would stop loving her i would have immediately because you'd want it you'd feel like you're missing out. You got to go – you got to have a gay marriage. I would just have to engage in just like crazy amounts of gay sex. And then the next one, outlawing abortion and providing personhood for fetuses. Then don't call them fetuses. You know what I mean? Like if that's the case, then don't call them fetuses.

And then the number three, including creationism and biblical principles in all schools and public and private. Are you fucking insane? Like what group of people? How did you even – I mean the gravity of your stupidity is what brought you together. Their gravity actually pulls them together. Yeah. Into a denser mass of stupid. A denser mass of stupidity.

Yeah. Way to go. This group is fucking terrifying. I've never heard of them before. I never want to hear from them again. Abortions for all. Very well. No abortions for anyone.

Abortions for some. Miniature American flags for others so this story is from huffington post uh phil bryant mississippi governor says that uh democrats one mission in life is to abort children well you you got them you really you really got the Democrats on this one. I don't think they're going to be able to recover. That is, I mean, it's a secret agenda. Well, that's not a secret. It's right on their mission statement.

I do remember when they were trying to decide between the coat hanger and the donkey for their national symbol. Donkey edged it out, but just by a tiny vote. Sure, sure. It's their one mission is to abort. They actually want all children aborted, all of them, so that there are no children born at all. And the human species just stops entirely. Just there's no more propagation of the species at all. Democrats just want the entire, the total shutdown of the human species.

I mean, this is one of these issues, right? This is one of these issues that people feel so unbelievably strongly about. And I feel like we in this country don't like to talk about it. choice and you fucking – every baby, every pregnancy you have ends in fucking abortion, hopefully on like the fucking eighth month and the 29th day, or you're on the other side where you're just like every sperm is sacred. Right. And it feels like there's such a gulf in our country where there's no meeting of the minds.

There's nobody who can – there's no debate about this topic ever. Yeah, but we can't have that conversation. We'll never be able to have that conversation as long as people are as inflammatory and divisive as they are right now on both sides of the argument. There's no way to sit down and have a reasonable conversation about, you know, when does this become – when does personhood something we should actually stop and consider in a reasonable way? Because if you've got this group that won't bend and a personhood begins the moment a man looks lustily at a woman. We take it back so far. It's both sides of the argument push to the point of absurdity. I think a conversation of any substance is not going to happen.

It's just not. And if it's not going to happen, then you have to just say, OK, well, fine. I mean, you got to protect nine-year-old girls that get raped. Yeah, absolutely. So if that's going to be the case, then you have to just say, well, fuck it. We can't have a reason. This is why we can't have nice things. So we're going to pause now.

We're going to take a break to give you all the information that you need to find us on Twitter, on Google+, on Facebook, in our email, and to send us Google voicemail. If that's not enough ways to get in touch with us, fuck you. That's all I got. We didn't want to hear from you anyway. Yeah, come on. You want a tin can and a string, people? You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

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Long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. Detroit. Detroit News. Detroit. What else can you say, Cecil? I feel bad for Detroit. I feel so bad for Detroit. What else can you say, Cecil? I feel bad for Detroit. I feel so bad for Detroit.

This is from the Detroit News Metro and State. Detroit Church holds blessing of the purses for those struggling with debt. This image is truly worth a thousand words because there's a group of women lined up with their purses and there's some fucking dipshit with his holy water phallic decanter of death or whatever that thing is, spritzing them with wine or whatever. And then there's a woman just holding like a Hello Kitty looking backpack in front of her face. I know. Right over her face. And this woman is so poor she doesn't have a purse. She's got a kid's backpack. It's so depressing.

I like the women that brought like four and five purses. Right, bless them all. Like thinking, you know what? Here's the thing. I don't just have one purse. I have like a bunch of purses. So I want you to bless all my purses so that my money management prayer skills go in each purse. So when I leave the house, my debt relief will hit me no matter where I'm shopping and with which purse.

I'm blown away that somebody would – I mean I'm not. I'm not because I'm not that fucking ridiculous. But really, you're showing up to have your purse blessed? That is fucking retarded. That is – there's no way to possibly respect the offer to bless a purse and the recipient who's like, yeah, yeah, that seems like a good idea. I'm going to go get my purse blessed. You know, we've talked about this in so many other applications,

but if there's an interventionist God and he doesn't want you to be in debt, he's not just like sitting up there twiddling his thumb saying, well, if only somebody would bless her fucking purse, I could do something about it. I can't get in there when it's not blessed. That's the problem. It's one of those zipper purses. Look, I'm an omnipotent God, but I can't get in your purse unless you bless it. Who keeps their debt in their purse? That's not where you keep your debt.

Like, where's your debt at? I don't know. Debt's kind of a nebulous thing. keeps their debt in their purse. That's not where you keep your debt. Like, where's your debt at? I don't know. Debt's kind of a nebulous thing. It's actually a series of promises probably coded electronically for, you know, repayments of monies owed. Well, fuck, that's not convenient.

Bless the purse. Give him your purse. What? I hope that this guy, while he's blessing them, is pulling their credit cards out of their purse. It would be so awesome

if he charged money for this. I would... Oh, yeah, that would their purse. It would be so awesome if he charged money for this. I would. Oh, yeah. That would be great. That would be the greatest thing. He would be like Peter Popoff then. Wow. It's, you know, and I love it would be like Peter Popoff.

It would be exactly like Peter Popoff. Yeah. I like, too, that the reverend says, what can we do about the economy? What can we do about violence? Ask the reverend. Nothing. You can do nothing about those things. If your solution is to bless purses.

No, well, he says right now, he says you can do something. God gives us an answer in his word. We want God to heal the land. What does that mean? That doesn't mean anything. There's no thing being meant there. You want God to heal the blessing of purse. Let me tell you something, son. You should get a

truck full of water and you should bless Detroit. That's what you should do. You should just drive around with one of those insect trucks where they just spray the fucking shit in the air. Just put your holy water in that motherfucker and bless the entirety of Detroit because it needs it.

If it was really like, if the magic worked in that physical, first of all, if the fucking magic was real and it worked and it needed a physical mechanism like this, why wouldn't you just bless the whole fucking Lake Michigan? That's everybody's drinking water. It would take about 20 minutes. Yeah, and the Midwest would become the most prosperous place on the planet. You know, why wouldn't you seed the clouds with holy water? The problem is that you have to be a believer.

You have to want to go to this guy to get it. And you said, is he charging? Yeah, they're fucking tithing. They're fucking seers. You're going to have to spend some money regardless. You know, it's like the art museum on Wednesday. You go ahead and pay what you think it's worth. Right, right.

And that's why I go free, you know. Yeah. Because if you're going to make that offer, I'm just not going to pay you any money. Right. Because I'm an asshole. I'm Raymond Massey, and I have a special message for senior citizens. Today's doctors, drugs, and medical devices truly work medical miracles for young and old alike. But there are some as phony as a $3 bill.

Investigate before you invest in health services or products. Help stamp out quackery. So this story is from the Toronto Sun. Woman sues after arm amputated. So this story is from the Toronto Sun. Woman sues after arm amputated following holistic procedure. This is a bad idea. I love the idea of the holistic procedure, at the end of which you are less whole. Right? I want to make sure that they really treat the whole self.

And by the whole self, I mean everything but my arm, which is getting cut off on Wednesday because, you know, it doesn't work. It's a half-listic procedure. This is pretty spectacular. A 55-year-old woman is suing a holistic medical practitioner. I can't speak or read. $844,000. Basically, this person gave her an adjustment on her neck. Her arm immediately went numb and kooky.

It's not a good feeling. And he told her, oh, don't worry about it. It's all in your head. It's psychological. It's not a real ailment. Oh, my God. It became a real ailment when her arm turned black and they had to cut it off. Turns out it wasn't all in her head. It was all in her arm.

That's something you just want to say to people is like, look, I know there's people that go to chiropractors. They go to these people that get these adjustments and stuff. Stay away from the neck area. The neck is such a fucking delicate fucking balance of bones and shit. And this is not the first time that some shit like this has happened. This type of thing happens where people go and they get a fucking adjustment and they wind up with some fucking like a broken neck, fucking paralysis. They get fucked up.

Your spine is not anything to take fucking lightly um i'm i'm just blown away that somebody would go to to somebody who fucks up their neck so badly that their arm has to be amputated and when they're feeling this pain they're told oh it's psychological it's not it's all in your head it's not a physical pain it's psychological. It's all in your head. It's not a physical pain. The fucking arm got cut off. This person, how are they not in jail already? How are you not? This is horrifying.

This person went to this doctor and trusted them. They showed up and said, I've got neck sprain or neck strain, and I have a problem. You bill yourself as someone who is here to help me. And that's what you exist to do. In the mind of the patient, that is what the doctor exists to do, is to help. And to go and to get not only no help, but to be injured by this person. I hope this woman wins. And I hope she learned a lesson.

I mean, not to go to these fucking y'all hoos. I think she has a reminder now. Yeah, right. I feel alive, I feel alive, I feel alive, it's really real. I'm on sunshine, baby. Oh, oh yeah, I'm on sunshine, baby. Oh, I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa, I'm walking on sunshine.

Whoa, I'm walking on sunshine. This story is from the New York Daily News, although I've seen it just about everywhere on the intratubes this week. A Swiss woman starves to death after attempting to live on sunlight. This is a woman who saw a documentary about an Indian guru who lived entirely on sunlight and fraud. And she tried to live on the sunlight without the fraud. And as a result, she is dead. Yeah.

Because we don't photosynthesize. What I love is the way they write this. They say Swiss woman dies after attempting to live on sunlight. And I say that that's the wrong way. She definitely wanted to die on sunlight. That's what she wanted to do. She certainly didn't want to live on anything. If you give up food and

water, you don't want to live anymore. You know, part of me has to say, like, what an incredible stick-to-itiveness, you know? I'll tell ya. She showed to this nonsense. I'll tell ya. The perseverance alone, when your body is just, like, fucking freaking the fuck

out because it's starving and dehydrated. I could. I wouldn't skip lunch to live on sunlight. Are you kidding me? I don't skip snacks. What are you kidding me? We're doing this show now and I'm daydreaming about what I'm going to eat for lunch.

Are you fucking kidding? Yeah, I just, you've really just, maybe she went a little crazy from the dehydration. It's just hard to tell. Like, I just don't know. When it says in the article there have been similar cases of self-starvation in Germany, Britain, and Australia, what is with this guy putting out a documentary about living on sunlight? What could you possibly hope to gain from that? Other than just to have people dying

because you cannot live on... We don't have chlorophyll. How would that work? How would it work? How would sunlight possibly... You could get, like, cancer from sunlight, for example. Or a great tan.

Or a terrible sunburn. A terrible tan, too. I've seen that. But you can't get energy. We're not solar paneled. Are you solar paneled? Are you covered in solar panels? Because I am not covered in solar panels.

Even if you thought this sounds great. Even if some part of this appealed to your wackadoo spiritual self I mean aren't you at least a little curious about how the mechanism works we understand how the mechanism

for food and water works that shit's fucking explained before you cut out eating and drinking in favor of sun light wouldn't you want to know if there's any way for that to actually do something dying from something like this takes it's not you know you just don't stop eating and then 30 minutes later you're dead no like we're talking a long time for this person

to slowly wither away and just be like no no, no, I'm cool. No, I'm just going to go outside. No, I'm good, man. I know that I look like I probably just got out of a camp at Auschwitz. I know that's how I look, but it's the sun, man. The sun is just really good for me. And as you can tell by the way I look, the sun is really good. And at a certain point, what do they got to wheel the hospital bed outside? Isn't there a point where you're just like, this is not working. Bring me a certain point, what, do they got to wheel the hospital bed outside? Isn't there a point where you're just like, this is not working. Bring me a cheeseburger.

This is not... At a certain point, a cheeseburger won't even work anymore. Right. Yeah, you couldn't eat it. You'd have to be slowly rehydrated and reintroduced to food stuffs. Yeah, at a certain point, a cheeseburger, you'd be like, you can fucking eat the fuck out of a cheeseburger.

You're still dying. You're dying tomorrow. Organ system shutdown. You ain't putting that shit off, you know? We got an appointment here. I wouldn't last the better part of an afternoon living on sunlight. Although, admittedly, I could probably last a lot longer than she did.

Yeah, if I didn't have to give up water, too. Yeah, water, too. I'd be fine. I got it. No problem. I mean, there's going to be a season's change. Jesus, this podcast isn't getting canceled for another year. What are you kidding me?

We're on episode 45. I could stop eating tomorrow. We'd hit episode 90. Yeah, 90. No problem. No worries. No worries. No problem.

We did episode 90. I'd still have enough energy to run the marathon. I'm just. Yeah, 90. No problem. No worries. No worries. No problem. We did episode 90. I'd still have enough energy to run the marathon. I'm just – Yeah. I'd still have enough energy for four people to run the marathon. I've basically packed rocket fuel around my midsection at this point. Yeah. When they're talking about like new forms of energy, they shouldn't be looking at fucking like drilling or any of that.

They should be looking at how to use mine. It's just looking at Americans, right? Yeah. We're walking tallow. Look at the energy that I've stored up and figure out how to use that energy. I like to think of myself as a human battery. Yeah. You know, I'm just a human battery.

I'm just a power plant. You know, that's me. Yeah. You just want to stay just... You have a battery. I'm just a power plant. Yeah. You know, that's me. Yeah. It's, uh... You just want to stay away from my smokestack. You want answers? I think I'm entitled to them. You want answers!

I want the truth! You can't handle the truth! So this story is from News Channel 5, WPTV.com. Dun-dun-dun! Dun-dun-dun-dun! West Palm Man claiming to be prophet charged with wrecking Stewart's store comma vehicles.

I love this. In Stewart, Florida, West Palm Beach Man claiming to be a prophet by God is sent to get rid of the devil's evil doings faces criminal charges for destroying psychic corner and several vehicles. What was this man made of was it did iron man go crazy i had no idea james randy was this strong i know

so mad he's just wielding a giant pigasus award just hitting things with it. Randy smash! Randy smash! Yeah, I think that the two parts of this article that I think are absolutely wonderful. One is that Psychic Corner wasn't prepared for this destruction. I think Psychic Corner should have prepared itself better.

You know, those little things they put in front of the federal buildings, the poles so you can't drive a car into them, maybe a plexiglass storefront, some way in which to stop this guy from climbing in and destroying it. I mean, you should have saw it coming. That's all I'm saying, Psychic Corner. That's it. The second part of this article that I absolutely love is that this guy

crazied himself so crazy he scared the crazy out of himself. He saw what he did. He's like he saw what he's like he totally yeah so bad he fucked up vehicles what does a man do to a vehicle he spread blood his own blood he wrote in his own blood and at the end he, he's like, it's a little scary. I scared myself when I saw what I did. This guy. I love, too, that this happened on Gun Club Road.

He went so bonkers. He's like, he wakes up out of this fucking rage that he's been in, this blinding rage, and he stops and he looks and he's like, who the fuck did all this? It's like, oh yeah, you and what army? Holy shit, it was just me. So you got it all on tape? Oh, you saw the part where I was cutting myself and shooting blood all over the place? This guy is awesome, man. Oh, yeah, this is great.

You're a little unhinged when you could out-crazy yourself. Television sets were ripped off the wall. And he says money and shards of glass scattered on the floor. There was very little left in the store that was reusable. This must have been the most fucked up day. You're sitting in psychic corner, like doing your tarot cards. This guy rolls in. He just starts to...

It would be so fucking funny to watch. I love that the destruction was so thorough that no one thought to call the police during it. He destroyed a car. I know. How does a man destroy his car? The Jeep had its hood and doors open. Its leather interior was stabbed, sliced, and torn. The radio ripped out.

Its electrical wires cut. This guy was a fucking whirling path of destruction. That's pretty awesome. I love this so much. Well, I mean, I guess he got rid of the devil's evil doings in that. Yeah. Well, yeah, sure. Particular.

You know what they say in the Bible, two wrongs make a right. Yeah, I remember that. I think that's part of the sermon on the mount. It's like the first thing he says. Two wrongs make a right. And Jesus said, two wrongs make a right. So we got a few emails we want to talk about. John sent us a message.

And John titled his message, Please Stop All the UFO Bashing. He said it was a great show, but we bash on UFOs and we should stop doing that. He gave us some links to some documentaries and such. And he also says that, P.S., ghosts are real, but that's for another time. I got to say, first off, a couple things, Tom. I don't think ghosts are real. What do you just unequivocally say?'t think ghosts are real. What do you just unequivocally say? Like, ghosts are real.

Ghosts are real. I don't know that they're real, John. I don't think they are. I tend to think they're not real. I think that there are UFOs, though, and I will agree with him. They're absolutely 100%. UFOs are real. 100%. They are unidentified, and I will agree with him. They're absolutely 100 percent UFOs are real, 100 percent.

They are unidentified, but I would not call them flying because I don't necessarily think they're flying. I would just call them unidentified objects in the air. I would say that that appear in the air because sometimes they don't even just appear there. They're not even from the air. there. They're not even from the air. So I would say that there are unidentified things that people see that people think are flying saucers or some sort of

visitation from aliens or some sort of advanced craft that the government has or some shit. But it's really just a figment. It's definitive that there's shit that's unidentified, but the fact that it's unidentified, attributing that to aliens is just a god of the gaps argument absolutely just replacing

god with aliens um i think it's lazy and um i don't mean any disrespect but uh show me the evidence i think it's it's incredibly implausible that aliens are just showing up and buzzing aimlessly about on occasion, not interacting in a meaningful way with the general populace. They've solved all of the myriad problems of interstellar space travel and all of the complexities that are inherent within, and they've got nothing better to do than to occasionally zoom about mysteriously in our atmosphere, generally in rural areas. Yeah.

You know, they don't land. You know, I'll believe in them when they land in, you know, Central Park and they pop out. You know, give you a wink and a nudge. But there's no definitive evidence of aliens. There's anecdotes. There's eyewitness accounts. Eyewitness accounts are useless as tits on a bowl. And in this message, you say, John, you say, whether or not people are seeing actual alien spacecraft or a highly secret military aircraft, you can debate to some extent, but people aren't

just imagining seeing these things. And I will say that's untrue. Yes, they are imagining seeing these things. And I'll tell you, this is anecdotal and I'll admit, but twice in my life, I've been fooled by things in the sky and once on the ground that I had no idea what it was. And I'll just briefly tell you these two stories. One time I was driving in a car and I saw a light and it was a series of lights. It was like blinking and it was going very fast. And I was driving and I was like, how fast is that thing? That thing's going so fast. And I'm driving along, and I'm like, that has got to be something I've never seen before. And I wasn't willing to call it a UFO, but I was like, that is fucking crazy. And then I stopped at a stop sign, and I saw how fast it was really going.

Because your brain can't comprehend how fast shit is going in the sky while you're moving at a fast speed. So you're thinking, oh, my God, that thing is just ripping by, but it's not. It's just going the normal speed that a, that a craft might go, but your speed is enhancing the way in which it moves. And the other time I was in the woods one time and I saw a floating sphere of light and it was, it was kind of like a amorphous sort of, it was spherical, but it was like a floating sphere of light. It was hovering off the ground off in the distance. And I was like, what the fuck is that?

I kept walking toward it. And I walked toward it for about four minutes. I could not figure out what it was. It was shifting and moving. And I finally got to where it was, and it was an incline with a puddle on it. And it was the moon through the clouds that I was seeing. But I had – it seriously looked like a ghost or something out there like it was moving and it was weird and it was crazy. But I just walked toward it and found that it was a puddle.

That shit happens all the time. It absolutely happens all the time and it's – I think people – when you say people aren't imagining them, I agree. When you say people aren't imagining them, I agree. They're not imagining the experience. But they are attributing causes to the experience that they have no rational reason to contribute to the experience. They've decided that it's aliens or that it's ghosts or that it's whatever. But they don't ever prove that it's aliens or ghosts or whatever. Yeah, I believe people have experiences that confound them, but I think it's much more likely

to be a reflection of moonlight on a puddle. Right, and I also believe, Tom, that people fake this shit. Oh, they do. People fake this shit all the time. So, you know, there are people that do imagine it because they fucking thought it up in their imagination. So I just don't see these

things as credible. I just don't see, you know, do I think that there might be some sort of intelligent life in the universe? Maybe. I don't know. I don't have enough understanding about cosmology to make that call. My tiny little brain that is not that intelligent thinks,

yeah, probably. I don't think that we're that unique that we would be the only sentient beings in the universe. The universe is a big fucking place. But I don't think that we're that unique that we would be the only, you know, sentient beings in the universe. Universe is a big fucking place. But I don't think that there's any any reason to think that those things are here. No, but thank you for the email. And you know what? I'm happy that you listen to the show. I don't think that we market the show towards people who think like this, but I'm happy that you found that you like it. And I'm happy you're a listener. I think that's great. Absolutely. Welcome. Yeah. We got a message from Henry about this.

There's an article. Henry sent an article that was on Fox News about proposed law that would force churches to host gay weddings. And he actually did a little research to find out that this isn't really true. And it's funny because when Tom and I saw this article, we had gotten this article somewhere else. We looked at this article and both of us decided not to run with it because it didn't seem likely. No, and it doesn't have any facts in it or information in it at all. It's just like, here's something that's potentially inflammatory.

And it's like, really, what? I don't, why would that occur? You know, like the only thing I could think is that churches were renting out their space. But why would you rent out your space to another religious organization? That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't – So it doesn't – the idea just doesn't hold up and thanks for sending that in. I like the idea that people are seeing these stories and not taking them at their word.

I don't care what news organization puts them up. This week, we had a story that came across the mail but was also on Reuters, and it was about the Egyptian law that you could still bang your wife a couple hours after she's dead or whatever. It's just a horrifying idea. A horrifying idea. Like, what is the guy like standing there with a stopwatch and be like, go ahead, go ahead. It's cool.

You still got three hours and 21 minutes left. You can go ahead and take your time and you can do a little foreplay beforehand if you want. Is it like the five second rule? Yeah. It's just like you got a six hour. She's still good. She's still good.

Yeah, right. She's just a little rigor mortis. Right. But we found out what's great is not only did the mail reported this story, but then we looked on a bunch of other places, and a bunch of other people just took what the mail did and ran with it. Yeah, they did. But a few sites were a little more critical, and Tom found one. I found one on Huffington Post that said that a bunch of people had denied that this is true, and Reuters actually pulled their article. So that article doesn't even exist on Reuters anymore.

So it's nice to see that other people do this too. You look at a bunch of different news sources, and if something comes up and you look at it, you're like, this can't be true. Tom and I cover a bunch of stuff on this show that may or may not be true because it's funny. But that's one article where you're like, that can't be true. I put it on Facebook and Twitter just when I found it throwing stuff out there. And pretty much immediately our listeners were like, yeah, that's not. Yeah, right. Exactly.

This is not real. And I'm like, I'm glad it's not a true. I don't want it to be. I don't want it to be true either. And when we do stuff for the Facebook and Twitter stuff, that's normally – that's how – what we do is we gather stories during the week. And then now, instead of, uh, uh, just keeping them to ourselves, we post them on Twitter, but we, and Facebook, but we go through each of these stories and make a decision on whether or not we're going to, uh, to talk about them. And which is a great segue to our next email. It is. Which is from Mark. Mark had asked us last week, um, if we ever criticized Democrats

and if we ever voted non-Democrat. And so we answered him and then he wrote us a nice long message. And so, Mark, we want to talk to you a little bit about what you had to say. Yeah. You know, Mark asked us in his email, instead of ridiculing what a Bachman or Kane says about taxes, why not take the time to critique a Milton Friedman or Tom Sowell? Because that's not what the show is about. The show is about current events, news, politics. And the show is about trying to find things that are funny in those things.

This isn't a scholarly show. It's just not. This is also not a reporting show. We're not reporting the news to you. We are not your news source. If we're your news source, you're doing your news wrong. Absolutely, yeah. This is an editorial show. We're having a good time. Yeah. And, you know, let's be honest, we're pretty much

preaching to the choir. Yeah. And we're unabashed about that. I don't think that there's I mean, right in the opening, we tell you this is irreverent. Like, we're just here to have a good time and try to try to provide some entertainment and some humor. And do we get worked up about things? Yeah. But am I going to sit and critique Milton Friedman? No, I've got an English lit degree. What the fuck do I have to say about Milton Friedman?

And not only that, think about it this way. It's like, you know, we're going to critique. I'm going to ridicule Bachman and Kane about tax because they have a danger of being elected. Milton Friedman is not going to crawl out of the grave and run for office. He's just not going to do it. So I don't have anything to worry about Milton Friedman's policies because there's no danger of Milton Friedman's corpse being elected president. It's not going to happen. And even in this message, you say several times that, you know, we get all of our information from one side and we're kind of an echo chamber, that all we do is we just say all of our information from one side of the issue. And I will say that there's a lot of issues on this program that there aren't two sides to.

There just aren't. There's not two sides to a misogynistic religious worldview. Nope. There's one side to that that and I'm against it. That's it. There's no logical way that you could ever convince me that that's a good, wholesome worldview. There's no logical way that you could convince me

that creationism has anything to offer whatsoever. The creationist isn't going to give me anything that I can use. I don't listen to the creationist because I already know what they're going to say. They're going to say, God did it. Yeah. And, you know, going through and elucidating all the various merits or demerits of those arguments is not this show. Right. This is a different kind of show. You're looking, I think, you know, I appreciate the feedback and thank you very much. But if you're looking for that information, there are many good podcasts that are available that are out there that will give you a more scholarly dissection of the issues. This show is not a scholarly dissection of the issues.

Right. We're not interested in doing that. That's not the niche that's needed right now in the skeptical and atheist community. There are a dozen or two dozen shows that will do that for you. You don't need us to come onto the scene and do that for you. So we're just not going to. I'm not interested in it. I'm not going to sit around and tell you why I don't think the creationists are right.

I'm going to mock them. That's what I'm going to do. Rebecca sends a message from Scotland. She says, I love your show, and I've managed to get my boyfriend and my wee 17-year-old sister listening. 17-year-old, I'm okay with. I'm okay. 17-year-old, as long as there's a parent or guardian in the room, I'm okay with any age. But I'm a little leery about an 11-year-old finding our podcast on their own.

Daddy, what's a cocksucker? That sort of thing. I'm sure it's going to come up. But we're happy that we, you are the first person I think that has contacted us from Scotland. I know British Andy was in Scotland, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's Scottish. That just means he's British in Scotland. Right.

But you're like the first, now watch, they're like, oh, but I'm British too. I just live in Scotland. You're like, we've never really had a Scottish listener before, I don't think. Maybe there are no actual, maybe there is no true Scotsman. We got an email from Mike who said that they really love the show and they were from New Zealand. They sent us somebody to take a look at. We would make fun of this guy, this Bishop Brian Tamaki, but he looks like he'd beat our asses. Yeah, this guy looks tough, man.

Brian Tamaki is a tough-looking motherfucker, man. He looks like he's a linebacker for the Bears. He's wearing those mirrored shades. He looks like Dan Hampton. He's fucking huge. This guy will fight you into loving Jesus. You can just see it. I don't ever make fun of anybody whose neck is larger than their head.

I just don't do it. I just, I avoid making, unless you're like Newt Gingrich. Like, then I'll make fun of you. That's all dough anyway. But this guy, no, this guy's neck is thicker than his face, and I'm not interested in making fun of him. I love that he's a self-appointed bishop. Like, he's, what? Who's going to stop him?

Right. Look at the guy. He just walks in. He's like, hey, I'm the bishop. Shut the fuck to stop him? Look at the guy. He just walks in. He's like, hey, I'm the bishop. Shut the fuck up and sit down. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Here's your fucking giant hat. He

walks in and pushes the old bishop down and just takes his hat. Takes his scepter. Mine. Put the smoke up the fucking chimney Or whatever you guys do I'm the fucking bishop Put the smoke up the chimney

Oh that's awesome But New Zealand listeners We're happy to have people from New Zealand listening Speaking of Down Under Next week We are actually recording a little early So we can get Jake From Imaginary Friends Show

He's going to be on We're going to be on. We're going to try to record next week during the week a little bit. It's actually going to be during the week for us, the weekend for him. And we might have the podcast up a little early next week, so you might want to check on Saturday because we suspect it should be done by then. But we're looking forward to talking to Jake. I just listened to his interview with Ray Comfort.

He talked to that, I guess, non-mustachioed gentleman, but he had a nice fucking porn stash before. And he's going down on that banana with that big porn stash. That was awesome. It's like, oh, my God. What's going on here? But we're going to have Jake on our show, and that should be a pretty good time. So as always, thanks for joining us, and we will leave you with the Skeptic's Creed.