Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 53: Geologic

Episode Date: June 23, 2012

study: Special thanks to Geoge Hrab at the Geologic Podcast ------------ Visit our Website at for more info.

Do you want to get cognitive dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at Stitcher.com. They should be put to death. That's what happened in Israel. That's why homosexuality wouldn't have grown in Israel. It tends to limit conversions. It tends to limit people coming out of the closet. Oh, so you're saying that we should go out and start killing them. No, I'm saying the government should. They won't, but they should.

One of the primary reasons that it is over for America is because women are taking over. Of our president getting up and saying that it was all right for two women to marry or two men to marry. I'll tell you right now, I was disappointed bad, but I'll tell you right there, as sorry as you can get, the Bible's a gannet, God's a gannet, I'm a gannet, and if you've got any sense, you're a gannet. I recall what happened with the oil spill in the Gulf, how all the Gulf governors except for Charlie Christ of Florida got together and called for a time of prayer that God would mitigate the damage of that and cause that

thing to be sealed. And, you know, guess what? All the expected damage along the shorelines and the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. This episode, somehow, and I'm still a little unsure how we managed to get george from the

geologic podcast on george thank you for being on our show hi boys i assume i assume the check's in the mail correct it is right it is yeah don't yeah it won't bounce at all yeah no no that's a that's a perfectly legitimate zeros on that check There's a lot of zeros on that check. There's a lot of zeros on our account, it turns out, too. You decided the decimal point. Yes. Absolutely. I post-dated it to December 21st, 2012. I figure, you know, I'm just playing the odds.

Smart. Smart. You have that Mayan checking account. Yes, that's right. Yeah, that's excellent. It's from a Mayan checkbook, actually. Oh, wow. Yeah.

It's hard to get your hands on them, but I'm kind of a big deal. Right. Right. So, listen, Cecil, happy anniversary there, my friend. Oh, thank you very much, George. I appreciate that. My goodness. And any response yet from the Vatican?

You know, he called earlier and he left a message, but I haven't checked it yet, you know. You saw the call coming. You're like, ah, decline. Yeah, I was like, fuck that guy. Fuck that guy. Geez, what a douche. Again? Yeah. Brett that guy. Geez, what a douche. Again? Yeah.

Brett Zinger. He's just wanting more money, that douchebag. It's just awkward when he's doing all the sexting, you know? That's just the... Yeah, well, you know. A little... That scepter isn't as big, you know, looks bigger on TV. That's all I'm saying.

And he is calling from the rectory. So, George, we want to talk about the story from The Telegraph. This is a story, right to die, locked in sufferer, Tony Nicklin, Nicklinson, petitioned by Twitter users encouraging him to live. That, first of all, is a terribly written headline. That thing is so fucking awkward. all is a terribly written headline that thing is so fucking awkward um this is a terrible story about a man uh with this thing called locked-in syndrome which basically sounds like the worst thing ever your whole body gets uh locked down eventually your muscles uh you lose control of them with it i think it was reading in the article within four months you know 90 percent

of people with locked-in syndrome die. So it's not ideal. It's not cause for celebration. And this gentleman is petitioning for his right to die, his right to exit the world in a way that still leaves him with some peace and some dignity. And some Twitter lunatics are kind of giving him shit about it. Well, I don't know if they're giving them shit or they're just sort of trying to be supportive in that way

that kind of people that are with the best of intentions can be a little bit self-deluding, I think. So from the story that I read, it didn't seem like anyone was saying, you can't do this, you shouldn't, you know, you're evil if you do this, if you decide to end your life. It seems that most of the tweets that were being tweeted were supportive if not a little clueless maybe. I mean especially what I thought was so fascinating about the story is the guy is a self-defined atheist, Mr. Nicholson, saying it's nice of you to tweet me things like you believe in miracles and that's all that kind

of stuff. But I don't. And I'm actually on this end of this disease. And it's way harder to be on this end of this disease. The thing that struck me the most is the fact that in two days, this guy got 14,000 Twitter followers, which really has to make me change the way I think I'm trying to get Twitter followers. What's hilarious is I actually sent that to Tom me change the way I think I'm trying to get Twitter followers. What's hilarious is I actually sent that to Tom today in the chat, too. I was like, 14,000? My goodness. But, you know, the outpouring is great.

I think that, you know, a lot of people showing him support is great. But what really comes to mind here is a lot of times – and I'm going to make an analogy. When people are homophobic, almost all of that stems from religion. Like when I speak to atheists or I speak to people that are secular or humanists and say, you know, what do you think of homosexuals? There's never like a visceral reaction like you get from religious people. And I feel the same way about this too. If you were to talk about this euthanasia to anybody that is secular or atheist and say, what do you think euthanasia? You would not receive this sort of visceral reaction without belief in a god, I think. You know what though, Cecil?

I think they use their religion in both those instances to to not deal with what actually is bothering them because i think when people are against homosexual unions or against homosexuality i think they don't have the courage to say either a that secretly makes me really hot yeah or b like it's like it's gross to think of that thing as gross. Because yeah, it's icky. You're never going to get someone who says it's icky. So what they can do is they can mask it with this idea of, well, my religion says it's not right. And I think it's the same thing here. This idea of having the control of your own existence, having the right to decide, you know what, my life is, the way it is, is worthless right now and I want to end it. That's a very uncomfortable thing and it's, I think a lot of people can project themselves into that position.

You know, the way you think of horrible situations sometimes, you know, like whenever I watch a prison movie of someone who is, you know, wrongfully imprisoned. You know, essentially you put yourself into that position thinking, what would I do? You know, and you sort of have that horrible thing of equating your thoughts and your position with the person in the film. I think the same thing happens here where it's like, gosh, if I was in that position, I would hope that I could rise above it and have the strength to do it. So I think the religion allows you to mask and not deal with the issue, which is so horrible, which is supposed to be the antithesis of what religious belief or belief in a community of religious thought is supposed to be. You know what I mean? So it's like they mask it, they cover it. It's a real shame. And I don't know, the whole situation is so sad and I can't fathom what this guy is going through. I mean, I can't fathom to get to that point of be like, I'm done. You know, I was, I was shocked when I read that he had a

daughter and a wife and it's like, oh boy, to be that miserable, to be that, to feel that stuck, to feel that, uh, without any kind of future, uh, to, to say, you know, it's just better to end it. That's got to be like a personal decision. You know, obviously it's a decision that we can't make in most states here in the U.S. You know, most states here in the U.S., that's anathema. It's not even on the table for reasonable discussion. I look at this and, you know, it's interesting. You say like you put yourself in that position.

You know, I immediately put my loved ones in that position. And not be like, haha, it happened to my loved one, not me. But, you know, I think I think it's part of the difficulty I think that people have with it isn't so much that they don't want to have the right to die themselves so much as they don't want to see the loved ones that they have taken from them. They don't want. because they don't want to see the loved ones that they have taken from them. They don't want, they don't want you to look at your father, you look at your, your mother, your, your wife, you know, your, your children. And you think, I don't want you to make that choice. I don't want you to take yourself away from me. And, and I mean, that's what occurs to me.

You know, it, that's, that's immediately what occurs to me is like, what if this happened to somebody in my life that I really loved? And, you know, I cannot help but think, yeah, but I did it for my dogs. I was just going to say that. What's so funny is that when a pet is ill and gets to the point of being of suffering, you know, they say it's the humane thing to do. Unless it's a human. That's what's so fascinating that like and and you in if the dog or the cat or what or the the rabbit or whatever could could say

this is really horrible i'm really in pain this is we need to we need to end it that would be so much more helpful because as it is you feel sort of helpless and you're making this decision for this creature um and here is an instance where a person can say, yes, you know, as long as they are psychologically stable, which there are all kinds of tests and examinations that can be done and all kinds of things that need to be passed, apparently, like in Canada and in Europe, they have all kinds of psychological testing that has to be done before someone can decide, I want to stop. And that that isn't humane, you know, in the US. It's just, it's weird. It's such a weird issue, but so, I think, important on so many levels. And this, you know, maybe this guy, maybe he'll get some kind of a, I don't know, it'll outweigh, you know, the fact that he might

have a Twitter existence will outweigh the negative aspects of his life. I don't know, probably not. Well, that's interesting too, because maybe this might reveal something. Yeah, because, you know, it's got to be very difficult for him to communicate. I mean, when I read about this syndrome, really, you only have use of your eyes. That's the only thing that you really have use of. And they communicate by using their eyes to sort of – I guess there's probably like computers now that actually they're able to use, be able to look at things and be able to spell words. But even still, that takes a long time. But this is an opportunity for him to converse with many, many people without having to be in another place. And so it is.

It is a way for him to, you know, find some sort of purpose. Uh, but you know, the stuff I read about what you have to go through and how your body is treated at one point in this article, he even says something like, you know, I have to be fed like a child, except for I'm never going to grow up and out of this. And that's just, it's just so sad. I look at Roger Ebert and I think, you know, here's a guy who lost his jaw who was someone who talked about movies. And yet after his condition, he's sort of got this online. His life has flourished online. Yeah, absolutely.

And he's in some ways even more respected now because he's so much more passionate about it. So, again, you don't want to assign someone significant saying this is what you need to find significant now. significant saying, this is what you need to find significant now. Because if he's in pain, if he's miserable, you know, he could have a million Twitter followers and it's not going to change his existence. But no. Well, you know, one of the terrible ironies of a situation like this is that, you know, if you or I decided today's the day, I'm done. We're able-bodied. I might not be able to make that choice in a medical setting. I might not be able to make that choice in a medical setting. I might not be able to make that choice to sort of put myself down humanely. But sufferers of these sorts of illnesses, you know, locked-in syndrome and other illnesses that cripple your ability to be

autonomous, physically autonomous, they take away even the right to die inhumanely of your own accord. You know, it's such an obviously personal decision. And I look at these Twitter things and it's, you know, when I said they're giving them shit, you're right. They're not really giving them shit. But what immediately occurs to me is I wonder how many of you guys are locked in. You know, I wonder how many of you guys are speaking from a comparable analogous worldview, you know, because when you're not, it's sort of like, hey, I hear what you're having to say.

I gotcha. And I got no fucking opinion because you're locked in and I'm not, you know. One of the tweets said to him, not that he tweeted, but that one of his followers tweeted said, I believe in miracles. They spelled believe wrong, but that's fine. And we'll pray for you god will heal you one day god bless you he loves you very much and i was like he's got a fucking funny way no kidding right yeah really like you're gonna say god loves me very much like and this is some kind of a test he fucking hit you with the locked in stick you know what

i mean like that's not a good thing right maybe Maybe he could get – maybe he'll get so just angry at how silly some of these things are. That will drive him to stay alive, you know, just with pure vitriol and anger. Become the meanest atheist tweeter on Twitter, you know. That's actually what keeps me going, you know, just pure atheist vitriol. Yeah. That wakes you up. Yeah, my alarm clock runs on Twitter. Oh, that's right.

Yeah. That wakes you up. Yeah, my alarm clock runs on. So we're going to visit with George again at the end of the program. We're going to be doing a bit here in between. We're going to, for about 30 or 40 minutes, we're going to be talking about some news items. So if you're new to the podcast and you want to hear the interview with George, you're going to have to wait. We sent him out for two medium pizzas. He should be back any time.

Oh, yeah. I mean, how long could that take? It shouldn't take long at all. Oh, what the fuck? So, Cecil, if you wanted a medium pizza with pig on it, this is the worst segway ever. One of the... Delicious, delicious segway. You can head over to the Dearborn Michigan Arab International Festival

because it turns out that the Christian missionaries are spreading their message of love and peace and tolerance by showing up and taunting the Arab Americans and holding a pig's head on a stick. Yeah. There's a pig head on a stick at one point. And now I got to ask you something, Tom. Now, these are missionaries, right? Like they're the people that are Christians that are taunting the Arab Americans here are missionaries. Yes. And when you're a missionary, it's your job to convert people. You're kind of the salesman of that religion.

Right. You're the person who's saying you're basically saying I have this God and he's awesome. He's an awesome God. I don't know if you heard that song, but it's a really, really great God, and I'd love to sell it to you. By the way, here's a fucking pig with a stick jammed in the business end of a trachea. Would you like to fuck—you know, like, how are you going to convince these people, too, about the wonders of bacon by doing something like this? They don't even—they don't eat pork, and you're going to hold up a pig head to them? I mean, you're really doing a disservice to bacon.

They should have a nicely brined pork chop. Yeah. You know, be great. Seared just perfectly on the outside. Still a little pink on the inside. Yeah. Tender and juicy.

This is a terrible decision. How do you decide? How are you standing around with a group of fellow like-minded bigots and saying, you know, Hey guys, you know, there's that Arab American. And it's Dearborn, Michigan. So there's a tremendous population. Yeah, it's a huge, huge population. You know, it's one of the largest populations, if not the largest, in the United States of Arab Americans.

So they're holding a festival because they're fucking Americans. And every American group, you know, Chicago is famous for it, right? We're from Chicago, the Chicago area. Chicago has festivals for every neighborhood and every ethnic group throughout the whole summer. It's like fucking festival again, you know? So Dearborn, Michigan, hey, let's have a festival. Great. And the Christians are like, hey, pig head on a stick.

Let's protest. Protest their religion. Pig head on a stick. Let's protest. Protest their religion. One of the protesters at one point, they were screaming back and forth, and the kids were saying, Allahu Akbar. And then one of the kids said back, one of the Christians shouted back, Jesus Akbar.

And I wonder if there was Star Wars fans, would they have screamed Admiral Akbar? Would they have been like, Admiral Akbarckbar, it's a trap! Oh, that's spectacular. Yeah, what a bunch of lunatics. That's not, you're not advancing your cause. You're just reenacting Lord of the Flies. You would think that they would have to try to convince. Like, that's what you're up there for.

You're passing out flyers. You're standing outside of prayer. You're actively trying to convince other people that they're choosing the wrong path, yet you're the one with the severed pig head. Yeah, right. No kidding. Yeah. Your religion is violent. We were having a nice time. What are you talking about? Please remove the stinking, rotting pig head. Any serious Christian all is going to say that one of the primary teachings of Christianity is that you love your neighbor as yourself. Can you love your neighbor as yourself and then at the same time, knee him in the face

as hard as you can? I love this next story so very, very much. I knew you would. I knew you would. This is from theweek.com, but you can find it in a lot of other places. Fight Church. The video for Fight Church is the greatest thing ever. It's pretty awesome.

Fight Church is the name of a movie that's coming out, and it discusses a church. Is it just one church or is it a group of churches? You know, I couldn't tell. It's hard to tell because the way it's written, it's hard to tell. And it's really about the documentary. And so you don't know. I recognize this dude, though. I don't know who this guy is, but I've seen that guy before. The coach guy?

The coach guy, yeah. I've seen him. I am almost positive he's somebody's corner man in the UFC. I'm almost positive of it. You know, my concern about this, so I give you background. There's a movement. I don't know. There's a documentary about these people who are fighting, MMA fighting, cage fighting, kickboxing. Muay Thai. I mean, this is legitimate fighting, and they're doing it ostensibly like as a Christian fighting group.

Like as a Christian fighting group. You know, I'd be concerned somebody would beat the Christ out of me. Then what are you left with? Well, you don't have anything left then. You just – the Christ got beat right out of me. These guys are getting the shit kicked out of each other. And they're getting counseled with, well, you know, the one guy says something like, you know, I do it because life is a fight. And it's like, well, that's a metaphor.

It's not a real fight. It's not actually a fight. I'm not constantly swinging my fists. Right. That's awesome. I got to be honest, though, Tom. I'm not a fan of the way this article is written, mainly because I'm a mixed martial arts fan. And I know you're a mixed martial arts fan, too.

I actually used to have a mixed martial arts podcast. I specifically enjoy—this is one of the sports—you know, I'm a football fan because I'm from Chicago, and you've got to be a football fan in Chicago. But I'm a football fan, but I'm certainly not as rabid as I am about mixed martial arts. I watch almost every pay-per-view that the UFC comes out with. I love watching the fights. I love talking about the fighters and talking about the fights. And at one point in this article, they say use brutal mixed also in this article to sort of depict this as this sport where there's – it's really just like all the people that are against it when they say like it's human dog fighting and all that crap.

It just feels – I don't know. There's something about the way that this is presented that really kind of irks me. Yeah, well, it's definitely a judgmental article I think think, against that. It's got a subtle sort of tone to it that is not to approving of mixed martial arts in general. I just think it's hilarious to try to find some middle ground between this sport and saying, like, well, we're doing it for Jesus. It's Jesus fighting. That seems so incompatible. But again, I really can't put myself in the Jesus mode anymore like when I was a kid. So I couldn't tell you if this is compatible or not.

It just doesn't feel like it logically would be compatible. But again, I really can't apply logic to a lot of people that are believers. Most of the really rabid believers, I can't say this is logical. And some of the moves I think they might not be too fond of. I mean, I'm thinking of one, the rear naked choke. They're probably certainly not fond of the rear naked choke. That's actually outlawed. Yeah.

You're not allowed to do that one. You can't straddle a dude. That's not a good one. You know, you can't get in the full mount. The full mount is definitely bad. That's a bad one. The crucifix? Yeah.

Definitely that's encouraged. They're huge fans of the crucifix? Definitely that's encouraged. They're huge fans of the crucifix. If the Boy Scouts allowed homosexuals to become scout leaders, that would be the end of the Boy Scouts because we know that pedophilia occurs at excessive rates in the homosexual community. They're responsible for a third of all the offenses against children, even though they're 2% of the population. So what that's 16, 17 times at the rate the general population offends, they offend against children.

There's no way parents are going to trust their kids to the Boy Scouts unless they are very, very careful about screening. So this next story is from Huffington Post. This is from their politics section. Brian Fisher, Boy Scouts will be destroyed by homosexual pedophiles if the gay ban is listed. For those who don't know, the Boy Scouts are considering, for the first time in a very long time such as ever, lifting their ban on allowing homosexuals to interact with the scouts.

Right now, if you're a homosexual, you can't be a scout. You can't be a scout leader. You can't be a den mother. You can't basically hang out with the scouts. Right. There's no interaction allowed with the Boy Scouts. And I think that's a shame because the Boy Scouts do some things that are really exciting for young kids and have a lot of

fun and do some, kind of go on some fun adventures and shit that there's really not a lot of other alternatives that are as well funded and well organized as the Boy Scouts in America. Brian Fisher came out and said that it's going to

encourage pedophilia. What? That's a guy who has no idea. This is, again, one of those moments where somebody just picks a fucking number out of their head and just shouts it out and pretends like it's backed up with study upon study and that they've done research. This guy is pulling numbers right out of his gaping asshole. He has nothing. He knows nothing about the numbers that are – when you look at the relation between homosexuals and pedophilia, he knows nothing. and pedophilia. He knows nothing. And one of the things he even says, he's like, we know that pedophilia occurs at excessive rates at, in the homosexual community. And that's just not

true. It's just not, I looked at, I went out and did a little research today. I found a study that I'll actually post on our show notes. And it's a big long study that talks about several different, uh, control groups that they had and different things. And most of the time they came up with zero or very low percentage that actually where these people actually identified as homosexual. They will tell you too that their study is kind of flawed because they're – the only people that they ever talk to are people that are looking for counseling or people that have been caught as pedophiles. So their sample size is small. Or people that have been caught as pedophiles. So their sample size is small.

So when somebody is even willing to put that out in the beginning of their study and say, look, this is – this study, there's no way that we can really be truly – we really truly can know these numbers. You've got to look at that as more valid and at least more honest than just somebody saying some bullshit number that they just fucking made up. What people I think don't understand, too, is that pedophiles aren't homosexual. Even if you are a pedophile man who has sex with pedophile boys, pedophiles aren't attracted to grownups. They're not attracted to adults. That's why they're pedophiles. They are attracted to children. They are different things. That's why they're pedophiles. They are attracted to children. They are different things. That is a different sexual proclivity than homosexuals who

are attracted to people of the same gender as themselves, you know, and then abide by the social norms for when it is appropriate to engage in sexual behavior. But they are not the same thing. A pedophile is attracted to children. Right. That is what a pedophile is. A pedophile and homosexual, they're not definitionally the same. And to confuse the two is just a way for these hate mongers,

which is what the American Family Association is. To confuse the two is a way for them to spark fear because it is scary as a parent, you know? If you're a parent, if you've got young children in your life that you love and that you care for and that you're responsible for safeguarding, you want to make sure that you do a good job of doing that. And no person would knowingly put their child in harm's way. So, yeah, if the Boy Scouts were reconsidering their stance on allowing pedophiles, then, yeah, okay, fine.

We got to sit down and talk about that. That's not a good idea. But that's not what they're arguing. They're arguing about whether or not homosexuals should be. And there is no danger to these kids that is any greater just because scout leaders might be homosexuals. It's fucking ridiculous. So this next story is from Addicting Info. This is a story about coming out of Michigan.

Michigan's going full North Carolina crazy lately They're making a run, they're making a push for nuttiest state in the union They're seeking to legalize discrimination against patients For legal reasons Psychology students have If you are a student, a psychology student And you're pursuing an advanced degree You will, as part of that degree program, generally counsel other students throughout the degree process. There was a student who didn't want to counsel a suicidal student because they had religious conflicts.

What is your religious—what the fuck conflict do you have? I don't know. You have people fucking tweeting some guy on Twitter about, you know, it's going to get better, don't worry, God makes miracles and all that bullshit. They're tweeting him. They're counseling this guy about

suicide. What possible, you know, you would think that she would fucking jump at the occasion. Yeah, you would. You would think if you were a decent human being and somebody came to you and you had a certain skill set. Let's imagine it's not psychology. Let's imagine it's any other skill set, right? Let's imagine that somebody's car broke down and you were a mechanic and you saw that their car was broken down because they came to you and they said my car is broken down and if i can't get my car up and running if i can't get back on the road i'm gonna die i have medication it's 100 miles away i need to get to it

if i don't get to that medication within the next four hours i I die. Oh, I'm gay. Would you not fix their car? Would you be like, oh, well, you know. Sucks to be you, dude. Fuck. You know, my religion tells me that I can't help you. So it looks like you're just going to die. It's cruelty.

And for the Michigan legislature to pass a law that instead of protecting the person in need of aid, protects the person who refused to provide aid? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to read directly from this addicting info article. It says, by passing a bill, making it illegal to, and now they're talking about, they're

quoting directly from the bill, discipline or discriminate against the student in a counseling, from the bill, discipline or discriminate against a student in a counseling, social work, or psychology program because the student refuses to counsel or serve a client as to his goals, outcome, or behaviors that conflicts with a sincerely held religious belief. So if, like, let's say I had a sincerely held religious belief that I've got to beat the shit out of everyone I see. Like those MMA guys that we were talking about earlier. Right. You know?

Suddenly I could just go fucking assault whoever I want because, you know, you can't fucking – you can't discipline me for that. You know? The idea that you can't be disciplined for a sincerely held religious belief, you know, even like it's just taking morality right out of there and saying we're not going to talk about morals. We're not going to talk about ethics. We're just going to think about what people, what Bronze Age text people follow. And that's going to be how we adhere the rules. And that just seems it just seems so ass backwards.

Why would you want to enshrine into law what is basically the luck of the draw card, right? I need help. Hope you don't get me. Yeah. Wow. You pick up the phone. I really need help. Oh, the wrong guy answered it.

I don't get the help. Also, I'm suicidal. So there's a couple of other absurd examples that are given in this article, and I think they're apropos to the points that we're making. So the first one is, if it is my sincerely held belief that I do not need glasses, should the Department of Motor Vehicles be required to give me a license even if I refuse an eye exam? What if I sincerely believe that unrefrigerated seafood is safe to eat months after being cooked. Do health inspectors have any right to keep me from selling my wares to the public? It is my belief that most of the buttons, controls, and safety equipment on commercial aircraft are just for show. You got a problem with that, FAA?

Great job, Addicting Info. That's fantastic. Well done. So we're going to take a break and give you all the information that you need to find us on Facebook, on Twitter, Google+, which I am posting to now. So you can check the posts out there. You can also give us a phone call. We've got a number set up for you to leave us nasty messages. And we'll return in just a moment with an interview with George from Geologic Podcast and to ruin the rest of the show.

You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. For more information on this or any other episode, visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. Like our show on Facebook to join in the conversation. Just search for Cognitive Dissonance on Facebook or go to our website for the link. You can converse with us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at dissonance underscore pod. Just search for Cognitive Dissonance on Facebook or go to our website for the link. You can converse with us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at dissonance underscore pod. Help us out by retweeting and reposting our shows.

You can call us and leave us a message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. So Cecil, this next story is from Novanite.com It's Sofia News Agency. I actually really like this

article quite a bit. This is about Bulgaria's Sofia Pride Gay Parade. And they have they're facing a lot of opposition. There's a lot of calls for violence against the parade. There's a lot of opposition to the fact of their homosexuality in this parade. And they're calling on the church to call out and say, you know, end the violence.

We can't have any violence at this parade. And the church has responded not with calls to its parishioners saying, hey, yeah, we're a church. Sure. Yeah. Love your neighbor. Love your neighbor. Unless they're gay. Unless they're gay.

Because I'm going to read directly from this article here. And by the way, thank you to Religion Poisons Everything, which is a Facebook group. And you can find them. They're easy to find on Facebook. They post a ton of stuff throughout the day. They're fun to follow. And they actually sent this directly to us. So I want to thank them for sending it to us.

And I want to read directly from this Novanite article here. Novanite article here. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church further called upon its parents and teachers to prevent children from participating in the parade or even witnessing it, claiming it would be a harmful demonstration that violates the rights of Orthodox Christians. That and you also told your other parishioners to pelt the people in the parade with rocks. So that's maybe why you don't want your kids to participate. What kind of a church calls on its parishioners to hurl stones? I'm not a biblical scholar. Ones that don't live in glass houses, it turns out.

Didn't Jesus do a whole he who is without sin? Yeah, fucking that's in the Bible. Come on. That's just part of your own teachings. That's the whole thing that we base everything on. It was kind of like a sort of a big story in that book. There's a lot of people without sin. You don't understand, Tom, how few people have sin. That's probably true.

In Bulgaria, it's definitely a sin-free country. It's a sin-free zone there. No one has any sin, so they can fucking whip stones willy-nilly. Don't go to a fucking football game over there. Yeah, no kidding. Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? It's Jesus. See, so this next story, this is from Huffington Post Religion.

Cecil, this next story, this is from Huffington Post Religion. This isn't so much of a story, so much it is an incredibly long, insipid blog post by a totally vapid, pointless individual. This is how reading the Bible in 100 days changed my life. This was written by Craig Cannelly, senior editor, one of the senior editors, the Huffington Post. senior editor, one of the senior editors, the Huffington Post. This is a spectacularly poorly reasoned blog post. I loathe it. I loathe it with every fiber of my being. Craig recalls the story about how he was unhappy in his life and he had made some job decisions and what have you that weren't working out

for him. And he changed, Cecil, many things about his life. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Also read the Bible in 100 days. He read 1% of the Bible a day. On his iPad, he mentions that like three times. Yeah.

Bully for fucking you. You got an iPad. You know, your fucking life is not so bad. Right. When you could start the story out by saying, so I started reading the Bible on my iPad.

You know, like I was visiting the golf course with my friends, drinking with my pinky up, you see. Like, fuck you, dude. At one point he says, I'm going to quote directly this douchebag. I'm going to quote him. He says, I decided to make a career change, abruptly leaving my job at NBC News and coming back to where I was happy in a prior phase of my life, the Huffington Post.

And he starts talking about how great, like, the Bible is like, dude, lucky for you you didn't experience crushing fucking unemployment like most of the country when they leave a job or get fucking removed from a job like fucking 10 percent of our country. You have you fucking left a job for another job. Well, awesome, dude. Some people don't get to do that. And those people probably read the Bible, too. But they're fucking shit out of luck because they didn't read it on a fucking iPad. probably read the Bible too, but they're fucking shit out of luck because they didn't read it on a fucking iPad.

You know, and he's talking in this article about how reading the Bible changes life for the better. He starts relaying all these good things that started to happen to him. Yeah. Wow. You know, then this person just emailed me out of nowhere and asked me if I wanted to go to the Yankees game. And the idea here is that by reading the Bible, he somehow has a better life.

He conjured up good luck. It's a fucking magic fucking lamp. Dude, it's the secret. Yeah, it's a fucking genie lamp. He's fucking humping. He's like, oh, I fucking rubbed this fucking lamp. I'm gonna get all the good stuff. At one point he's like, and there it was.

Like, last minute, I got into Chicago. I get into Chicago and fucking somebody had Blackhawks tickets right on the glass. You're a fucking editor of a fucking one of the biggest blogs in the world. You know, like it's not like you're a fucking you. You mingle with people that most people don't get to mingle with. You report on shit and people like fucking favorite your tweet. Like, give me a break. That's not a fucking evidence

of a God or suddenly the Bible's doing better for you. And the other thing that fucking just grinds my gears about this shit. And let me tell you that fucking, that just makes me want to grab the guy by the throat is there's a lot of people out there reading the Bible that are fucking suffering that don't have enough to eat that wind up fucking, They just have a shit storm of their life. And what you're saying basically is shit came through for me. I must have prayed right. I must have done it right. Look at me.

Look at how fucking pious I am. You're a fucking douchebag is what you are. Facebook post that he just references in here is starts off with quote when life gives you lemons make lemonades more than one lemonade he's an editor dude this man is an editor yeah he can't edit his own tweets

this is a privileged guy let's not let's not look away from that fact you know he's talking about all of these good things that happened to him and they happened to him because of the connections that he has made, you know, because of the all of the work that he's done. You know, he makes it sound like he you know, this is a great big transition. He was only at the NBC job, he admits for three months. Yeah. And he came back to a job that, you know, he came back to a job he already had. He experienced outside the box, said, fuck that. I'm going back in the box. And he fucking

went back to the same old job. At one point, Tom, he's like, more good things happened. I went for a walk. And one day I somehow got this photo of the Veranzo Bridge in New York. And you look at it's just a shitty Instagram fucking photo, dude. It's you're not fucking you're not you're not a photo journalist. It doesn't look that great. I look at him like, Oh good. You took a fucking face. You took an iPhone photo. Is that fucking proof of God? You know, it's, and it's shit like this too. This thing has gotten a million, you know, the guy has like a Brazilian people, the 110,000 people or something follow him on Facebook. So when he posts something like this, a million people talk about it. Like, oh, look at how the Bible has this great effect on this guy's life.

You know, I don't even think you read it. If you read it, if you really read it and tried to understand it, what did you get out of the begats, dude? What did you get out of that? Because I listen to fucking Thomas read that shit, and I wanted to put a bullet in my face. I was like, I do not care who begat who.

I'm really done with the begats by now. Or the detailed instructions on how to build the ark. Sure, yeah. Or Leviticus. What did you— Oh, man, this is great. Leviticus is just so awesome. It's like totally point on.

You're reading Deuteronomy. You're like, wait, if my dad fucked up, I'm screwed? Yeah. Oh, man, that really speaks to me. What? You know, here's some of these insipid points, right? Well known as a picky eater. I tried sushi for the first. That was a choice you made. You just made a choice to eat a food. That's not a change in your life from the outside. That's just you. You used to be a picky eater. You tried a new thing. That's like saying, well, I don't like to run.

And I went running. Okay. What? Fuck. I don't know. I took a left where I normally take a right. That shit's under your fucking control. You're an autonomous human being. God, this guy's such a I just want to hit him. I read this thing. I got so mad. My teeth were like clenched all the time.

Like, you're such an idiot. How do you have such a good job? Yeah. And he posts things on Facebook and a lot of people liked it. Well, okay. Cool, dude. That's how social media works. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

To me, it's pretty simple. A person either believes that God created this process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own. So this next story is from Alternet, alternet.org. As America grows more polarized, conservatives increasingly reject science and rational thought. You know, this isn't a surprising article at all, but I do want to say that what it speaks to that I think is important is the anti-intellectualism that every election year seems to explode into view. And then it kind of calms down a little bit. But during election year, there's this sort of grandiose exploration of the glory that is anti-intellectualism among the hardcore right wingers. And it is absolutely off-putting for anybody who could even try to consider themselves

politically independent. Yeah, this is a sad, sad state of affairs talking about how low, Sad, sad state of affairs talking about how low – first off, how low the people who believe in evolution, how low those statistics are and how they're dropping, how people are starting to believe less and less in evolution and starting to believe more and more in creationism. And one of the things that occurred to me, Tom, when I was thinking about this that actually kind of – it made my it made my anus clench up a little bit. You know, I thought I was going to shit my pants there for a second. I was like, oh, no, that's kind of scary. And the idea isn't that we're becoming more anti-science. It's that we're becoming more biblically literal. And that's the part that scares me more, because you can be a person of faith and also believe in evolution. There's people out there right now that I know specifically, the Catholic Church is one of the people that one of the groups of people, as well as tons of other people that aren't biblical literates that believe that, you know, while they think that evolution

was maybe started by God or God had some sort of hand in it or something like that, right? that evolution was maybe started by God or God had some sort of hand in it or something like that, right? People though instead are rejecting that wholesale, saying no, evolution is wrong. And instead, I believe the fucking Flintstones version. And that's the scary part is that they're not just saying, I reject science. That's a symptom of them becoming more biblically literal. science, that's a symptom of them becoming more biblically literal. Yeah, I think you're right. But the biblical – the Bible doesn't have anything of value to teach us when we take it literally. And they're hunkering down on that now.

They're saying – Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you want to take the Bible out of the schools and you want to – it never was in the fucking schools. You want to take prayer out of schools. Yeah, you can fucking pray in school. Yeah, you want to take the Bible out of public spheres and you want to take prayer out of schools. Yeah, you can fucking pray in school. Yeah, you want to take the Bible out of public spheres.

You want to take all that. They're hunkering down. They're fucking building a fucking couch fort out of the Bible now at this point. And my problem, my larger problem personally is I just read this article in Wired. You actually gave me the Wired magazine. I read an article in Wired recently. It was an the Wired magazine. I read an article in Wired recently. It was an interview with a gentleman. I don't remember his name.

But one of the things that he said that stuck with me was we have to rely on science to fix these problems. And he's talking about problems of energy. He's talking about problems of food production. He's talking about some of the basic global problems that face us as a rapidly expanding human population. Yeah, yeah. The Bible will not solve those problems. No. Mormonism will not solve those problems.

Islam will not solve those problems. One thing, one ideological construct, one worldview, one method will solve those problems. One and only one. And it's science. We're not going to get there if we don't place value on science. And we're not going to be a nation that is politically and economically relevant forever. Yeah. If we don't value science as a nation and as an inherently good idea, because it is a good way to learn about our world and to solve problems. I think it's I think it's I think it's more drastic than than what you say. It's not that they don't value it. It's that they actively want it out. They actively don't believe in it. They actively want to undermine it. They want to say that science, it's just not, it's not able to do the things that it says that it makes claims to do. Just a quick, you know, Wikipedia says,

here's what they say about science. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. And you got to wonder, like, how the fuck can that be partisan? How can that pick a side? You know, you're talking about testable. You're talking about explanations using predictions based on models that are testable. And you're thinking, how does that even choose a side? That doesn't choose a side. It's the most objective way to gather data. And yet you're going to be anti-science. You're going to say, you know what? I want to choose to believe not only in the Bible, but I want to believe that what the scientists tell me is wrong, that they are being subjective about several

things. And that's the biggest error that they're making. And that's the one that they're pulling. They're not just pulling it from evolution. Now they're doing about global warming and expect it in other places soon because everything that they disagree with that falls into the realm of them disagreeing with science, disagreeing with their book, they're going to find something else that they can pull into and say, no, we don't believe that because the Bible says this and therefore it's wrong and we don't trust the science on it. And once they stop trusting the results of scientific enterprise, they're not going to respect the method either. We're not going to raise new scientists. No, you won't. We're going to be a dim-witted, stupid, backward nation.

Yep. Yeah, well, and you got to also think about it this way too is that they use technology, they use science every day, but they're not willing to accept that. I mean, medicine,, we've medicine, transportation, communication, all those things are enhanced so greatly by all the things that we know and all the things that we've studied and all the things that science

has put forward and you're gonna just throw that all away and just be like, yeah, well, I just don't believe in it. Well, how would you like to live in a world with no science then? You know, I can pick up my phone right now and I can tell you with reasonable certainty

what it's going to do tomorrow as far as the weather is concerned, right? We use that. That's fucking useful. Do we want to go back to a world where hurricanes catch us by surprise? What? Surprise! Hurricane! Because that was most of our existence, you'd be like oh it's a

beautiful sunny oh fuck no that's not but you you can't like you said you can't live in a modern world without taking advantage of the uh the things that science has given us So we're back at the – we're going to have a little interview here with George, and it's George Rabb, correct? Robb is fine. Robb? There's an H portion in there. little interview here with George, and it's George Rabb, correct? Rabb is fine. Rabb? There's an H portion in there? If you can. Yeah, it rhymes with job. Okay, sure enough.

All right, so I'm just going to say George. So George is here, and he's from the Geologic Podcast. Now, George, hilarious podcast you have, a great podcast. Could you explain, if our listeners never heard it, how would you explain it to our listeners? It's a very, oh boy. There's three segments of the show. This is kind of how I explain it. There's three segments of the show. There's me talking about being a professional musician. There's me talking about things that relate to atheism and science and skepticism. And then the third component is just really silly things like sketches and sounds and songs and silliness. So it all relates kind of

back to me, but those are the three kind of main components, music, skepticism, and silliness. No, that's actually, I hadn't considered because I've listened to a lot of your shows. And I guess when I first started listening, what occurred to me was it really didn't matter what you were talking about. It was always entertaining. Like you were always trying to entertain the audience. I hope so. Thank you. And so it's always been funny or interesting. There's this, but there is this sort of skeptical bent that fits.

There are a lot of times you do, I think almost every show I've listened to, you do a religious moron of the week, which oftentimes is many morons. It's not just a single moron that you single out. There's many. A grail of morons. A grail. That's the collective noun for a group of religious morons. A grail of morons. So yeah, I often have a grail of three or four.

That's a very popular segment. That's kind ofil of morons. So yeah, I often have a grail of three or four. Yeah, that's a very popular segment. That's kind of one that sort of is almost every week I do that. But then there's, you know, my mom calls in and we have a segment that's called Gio's Mom Reads Jay-Z Lyrics. And she reads Jay-Z lyrics and I put little beats behind it. And then it just gives us a chance to catch up and bullshit about stuff.

And there's interesting fauna, which is just weird animal things. There's Dr. Demian Hanji's facts that'll fuck you upuna which is just weird animal things there's dr demian hange's facts that'll fuck you up which is just weird scientific or planetary facts that are just so crazy they just make you sit awake at night like calvin trying to determine why a record can run at both speeds you know um so yeah it's it's an amalgam of silliness but ultimately it's just me being stupid so and how did it get started? Like what made you decide that this was the format, this was the thing you were going to do? My best friend is visually impaired, so he was on the podcast train very early, like in 2005, 2004, 2005. And he sort of said much like the graduate.

He said, I have one word for you. And it wasn't plastics, but it was podcasting. Another P word. Podcasting. I said, what's that? And he said, I have one word for you. And it wasn't plastics, but it was podcasting. Another P word. Podcasting. I said, what's that? And he said, well, it's this thing. It's like an audio magazine, blah, blah, blah. And eventually he sort of said, you know, you should really do one.

I started listening to some. And he said, you should really do one because it's just, it seems to fit your sensibilities. So before I did one, I did a radio show here at a local college station that had, for the summer, they would allow local people to run, when the students were away, they would let local people just have shows. And I asked if I could do one as long as it wasn't, you know, like a music show, could I just talk? So, Tuesday nights from 11 to 2, I did three hours of just this, just bullshit, just talking. Almost as a laboratory to kind of see what bits would work if I were to put a podcast together and that's when I started

calling my mom and doing the religious morons and doing some sketches and some preliminary things and then I just started doing the show and I figured that my friend would listen to it Slough my blind friend and maybe my dad and I would basically do it the two of them like they would tune in and then if anybody else occasionally here and they're you know family members that were coerced into listening you know you know what it's about oh yeah we're gonna be lucky if we get four or five listeners on this episode alone so we'll be happy with that I'll double that to eight yeah well dude fucking eight Jesus we'll take you out for pizza. Are you kidding me? Hopefully your servers won't crash. You have those kerosene-driven servers.

Yeah, fucking hamster-driven. That's it, man. That's it. So, yeah, and it just somehow, somehow, and it never was going to be, oh, this will be about skepticism and atheism, or if I do this for four years, then I'll get to host TAM. It was just, oh, let me just do this for half an hour. We can just be stupid so I can make Slough laugh or make my dad laugh. Which like most things, most people

that are successful at whatever it is that they do, they do it because they are just interested in that thing. Very few people approach something by saying, I need to be successful. Not that I'm successful, but I need to, I need to, you know, do this thing because it will provide other avenues of success for me. It's just, no, this is really interesting. You know, whether it's music or art or fashion or calligraphy or architecture or, you know, building puppets, whatever it is, it's always a passion that's sort of there just to do the thing. And I just fell into it. And somehow people started listening. And then somehow I got this reputation of having this skeptical atheist thing. Because just like you guys, every decision you make, every thing that

comes across your desk, either literally or within your life, is affected by your critical thinking. From what parking space to take, to what shows to watch, from what parking space to take to, you know, what shows to watch to what, you know, what to eat. I mean, there's some level of critical thinking. And so that relates to everything I do. And because I'm a musician, which is kind of a different thing, not a scientist, there seems to be this connection that people have. And I think I sort of represent the fan side of science and not so much the doer side of science, but just like, this is so cool. I have no idea what's happening, but it's so cool.

And people tend to, I think, connect with that. I think that that's a very important part of driving forward an interest in science. We're not all going to be scientists. We're not all going to work in the sciences. But like you said, that doesn't mean you can't be a fan. I think that's a great way to put it. You know, I think this show is a love letter to science in a lot of ways, too. You know, it's that's that's a lot of what it's about. You know, one thing I want to bring up is you had on one of your recent shows, a short 30-minute review of Prometheus.

Review? That was a drive-by shooting. That was fucking awesome, man. It was awesome. So disappointing. Oh, it was awesome. And you said, you know, you were saying a moment ago

about bringing critical thinking to all parts of your life. Should you have left the critical thinking at home when showing up to the movie theater for that one? Because it sounds like a train wreck. I'm fine with suspension of disbelief. I am okay. I understand that within the context of a fictionalized story

that you need to suspend some things. I understand, like, warp drive doesn't work. I get it. That's fine. Like, I'm okay with that. But a scientist running away from the very first alien life form any human has ever seen. I love it. That's too much suspension. That's like Golden Gate Bridge worth of suspension.

I can't do it. I'm sorry. And it doesn't need to be that way. It doesn't drive the plot. I mean, it's not essential to the plot. It just allows the plot to be lousy. And again and again and again and again. And it was just so it was so frustrating, so frustrating because there's so many examples of great pieces of scientific writing or science fiction writing that are smart, that don't need the dumb space scaredy cat running away from whatever.

Or not understanding how a planet's north and south might work. You know, like, oh, it's just, it's so, so that's what that whole movie was. It was so upsetting because this is like a $200 million film. Like how many dozens of probably great movies could be made with that $200 million? I mean, how many directors and writers wouldn't kill for $100,000 each to make, what would that be? That would be 20 movies, right? Think of the 20 independent films you could make for $100,000 that would be undoubtedly hundreds of times better than Prometheus. Like, what a complete waste of resources and waste of artistic talent. And yes, it looked

great, but, like, who gives a shit? You say 200 million? I believe so, right? Yeah, that's a lot more than 20. That's gotta be... Right? If it's 100,000, let's say, per film, even 10,000, right? Is that 10 and then 20? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, let's see. It's a lot, though.

That's wrong. That's shit. You're off by an order of magnitude, I think. 200. 200 films, basically. No, $200 million films. So it would be, see, this is why I'm a fan of science. See, this is why I'm not a mathematician, it turns out. So you're off by two orders of magnitude.

Let's say a million dollars. How many science writers and independent movie makers wouldn't kill for a million dollars to make 200 movies. It cost barely – from what I remember, it wasn't a huge budget to make the first Matrix. And that movie – I personally think that that's a very, very good sci-fi movie. Absolutely. That's probably one of the last ones that really struck me that the effects actually enhanced the story. Yeah. And they weren't dependent on the effects,

but that it was like, wow, these effects are amazing, and this story is amazing. Well, you know what? I'd have to say Inception. Yeah, Inception. Inception is another one that just, you know. It's funny. You get – I'm 41.

So there's the point where you start getting crusty to the popular medium of entertainment. And you think, am I done? Am I just too old at this point to enjoy? Am I gone? Is it not designed for me? Which I understand that time will come, and I'm fine with the time coming. I just don't know if it's now or 10 years down the road or five years or five years in the past. I'm not sure. And every now and then I think like, okay,

you know what? I am never going to fall in love again. The way I did with, you know, the temple of doom or the way I did with the matrix or whatever. And I'm okay. And then inception comes along and it's like, okay, Oh, all right. I can still get it up. I can still get it up. I can still get it up. I get my movie boner and it's okay. It's possible.

It's possible. I'm not foregone. Maybe at 70, I won't appreciate, you know, the equivalent of Inception. But at 40 or whatever it was, 39, I could still do it. You know, the thing, if we're talking about sci-fi movies and budgets, I don't know if you guys are hip to a film called Primer. Yes, yes, spectacular movie. What, did it cost $20 to make?

$7,000 this movie cost, literally $7,000. I think it was like 7,200 bucks this thing cost. It is one of the most, one of the smartest films I've ever seen. It looks like it's a two or three million dollar Soderbergh film. It's beautifully shot, beautifully done, really well acted, great editing. People that talk about that I can't handle the concepts of Prometheus and that not everything needs to be answered, I say, look at Primer. I have no idea what happened in that movie. I've seen it probably 15 times.

I still can't. I've been to websites. I've looked at plot lines that have been drawn out with all kinds of diagrams. I still don't understand what happened in that film, but I fucking love it. It's funny that you mention that movie because that movie's Wikipedia page alone will melt your brain. Just to look at the diagrams of the timelines and how they intersect, it's numbing how complex that movie gets. Memento. I don't know if that's another one that's just similar in its – wait a minute.

But does that mean that – but then, oh, oh boy, so much for sleep. You know what I mean? And that's wonderful. I know Memento is not a science fiction film. But still, in terms of low budget, using your mind to create something. Yeah, it's not a memento on a science fiction film but still in terms of low budget using you know your mind yeah it's a cerebral movie completely cerebral yeah yeah not that it needs to be cerebral even because i like you know a silly shoot it up thing i like it when shit blows up too absolutely as long as there is some yeah some consistency, you know, within, let the characters behave the way even science fiction characters, I mean, even in a Kung Fu movie, there is, you know, internal

consistency. Like, I don't mind the guy flying across the temple. I don't mind it. I'm okay with that. I know that that's not possible, but within the universe of that film, it's fine. And yet, I understand he is going to avenge his teacher. That's the deal. Great. Like, entertain me under that context. But Prometheus and things like that just are so disturbingly just poor. And it's so sad that how many scientists, you know, would have killed to look over that script. Oh, I know, would have killed to look over that script? Oh, I know. Would have killed, would have paid to look and be able to say, you know, let alone. Don't use Darwinism. In the wrong context.

You know, I'm sure for what was the Danish budget, you know, for craft services. They could have gotten a dozen science fiction to just be like, ooh, you shouldn't use that word, use this word. Because there's some podcasting asshole who is going to pitch about this for five years when this thing comes out. Yeah, that's awesome. We used to, before we started this show, we used to have a show called Everyone's a Critic, where we did movie reviews, and as a fan of your show, I will tell you right now, you need to add a movie rant

to most of your shows, because it was fucking outstanding. I was laughing. I was in stitches while you were just tearing it apart. It was absolutely wonderful. It was too easy. That was the problem. Yeah, well, most movies do not present much of a target, it turns out. We went through a lot of

really bad movies and you know we inflicted the Twilight series on ourselves and if you want to talk about a bad fucking science movie watch The Happening that is a shit storm of a movie or what the bleep do we know is another fucking abhorrent piece of shit

that should not even be shown to anything even people on Death Row shouldn't see that movie. It's awful. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think a film like that is similar to Ben Stein's movie. Yeah.

Right. Right. Exactly. The worst thing about it, the worst thing about it is that it's boring. I mean, like it is a sin, isn't it?

And a movie, that's the thing, you know, I will watch triumph of the will, you know, and it's like the, the idea of it is horrible. These are Nazis that are doing things, but boy, it's fascinating. And it's, and it's well- movie? That's the thing. I will watch Triumph of the Will. The idea of it is horrible. These are Nazis that are doing things. But boy, it's fascinating.

And it's well-paced, and it's edited, and it's beautifully shot. As filmmaking, it's incredible. As the message, it's horrible. These movies, a film like Expelled, Exposed, whatever the hell it is, is just boring. I couldn't even sit through the trailer. The trailer was like this three-minute thing, and I'm thinking

like, okay, okay, okay. Get to your point. Get to your thing. Get to the meat of what you're doing. Just ultimately, I almost don't care what your point is as long as it's presented in an entertaining way. Wasn't that funny about, it's Ben Stein, right? I mean, it's like, here's a guy who made a living

having the most droning, boring voice that you could possibly have. And you're thinking, wait a minute, I'm going to sign up for an hour and a half of this? Yeah. Maybe as a novelty item, I'll give you your 30 minutes. But an hour and a half. Just bad filmmaking.

And the other favorite thing was, I mentioned this on my show, was that on the DVD box of the Ben Stein thing, there's four stars. But it says four stars. And then the person who said it has four stars is Ben Stein thing. There's four stars, but it says four stars, and then the person who said it has four stars is Ben Stein. And like underneath it's like three and a half stars Ben Stein's mom. Pure balls. Pure balls. Wow. I'm going to rate all

of my products from now on. This podcast is a five star podcast. You're going to TAM this year? Yes. You're going to TAM. of my products from now on. Oh, totally. Yeah. Best. This podcast is a five-star podcast. What the fuck? You're going to TAM this year? Yes. You're going to TAM. You want a free t-shirt, by the way? We can't even fucking give them away on this show.

I will always take a t-shirt. Yeah, we'll send one to you. Don't worry. You're going to get it. We'll get you your address afterwards. So anyway, you're going to TAM this year. Now, there's been some controversy about TAM this year and specifically that talks about women and how women are treated, not just specifically at TAM but at a lot of skeptical events. Do you know anything about that and do you have any comments? Since you seem to be part of that scene, you go to these things.

Do you have any comments about that? things. Do you have any comments about that? I'm conflicted because the people that are involved in the conversations that are happening online are almost to a person, all friends of mine on both sides of the issue. Sure, sure. And as a sort of representative of the JREF, I mean, I'm very fortunate that they've asked me to host TAM. So I'm actually the emcee for the whole thing. Oh, okay. So it's a delicate thing. I haven't really talked about it on my show because I don't want to talk about specifics. I think the most disturbing thing to me is that a lot of this takes place on Facebook,

within the comments of Facebook. Sure. And... Or people blog at each other. Yeah. And akin to emails and blogs and Facebook messages, a lot of the subtleties of human communication are completely lost. A, they're lost, and then B, you can, much like a Rorschach test, you can impose your own meaning onto

a phrase or a sentence because the tone and the phrasing is all lost. And both sides are falling into that of not reading things into, but just letting their own vehemence or their own belief in their cause, which is completely, I mean, both sides are, as in many debates, as in all debates, actually, are trying to do the right thing. actually are trying to do the right thing. No one has evil intentions. No one has, neither side has dark intentions. And I would hope that as skeptics, we could remember that. Yeah. And unfortunately, when you are in an emotional state, when you are in a passionate state. It's difficult to remember that about both sides. That's pretty much all I want to say is that.

I hope that as people comment on either side, you can remember that it does run both ways. I mean, yes, there's wrong and right and there's good and bad, but it does run both ways and that we can as skeptics remember that. And that's it. So it's a really weird, delicate situation. Ultimately, I always have a wonderful time. I have had nothing but a positive time at TAM not to say that there are – that I could comprehend what it's like to deal with these issues because I can't. So yeah. So that's my political –

Yeah. No. Very measured answer there and we will take that. Now, you said you're emceeing this year. What kind of stuff is planned for TAM? I mean, if our listeners were going to go, what could they expect? Well, I emceed last year. I had attended the three years previous as well.

TAM is one of those wonderful instances where, yes, the people that are speaking are preaching to the choir, but it's so wonderful to be part of the choir for once. So what this is, is sort of a choir meeting of people that are like-minded, you know, within 98% of ideologies, people agree at TAM. So there's all kinds of speakers. Usually within any day, you'll have, I guess it's maybe 8 to 10 kind of presentations during the day, 6 to 10 presentations, half hour, 45 minutes on various subjects pertaining to skeptical thought, critical thinking, all the stuff that has to do with James Randi Educational Foundation. And then at night, there are special presentations. So this year, George Carlin's daughter is doing a presentation about george carlin that she does that's cool oh that's i'm so excited to see that because i'm just a huge obviously i think most people are huge george carlin fans yeah uh pen

and teller are doing a special presentation uh 38 years of of bullshit or well i forget the exact name of how they're presenting it but 38 years of of Magic and Craziness with Penn and Teller. And then the really wonderful thing about TAM is beyond the presentations. To me, what I think is so great is because so many people are on the same page when it comes to the big issues, like, yes, critical thinking is important. Yes, science is important, most people don't have religious beliefs or let their religious beliefs influence them in ways, that you can have those really interesting conversations on that final 2%. So that in the 98%, it's like last year there was a panel about space exploration that was

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss and Phil Plait, I think maybe, and Pamela Gay. Maybe Phil Plait wasn't on that. But anyway, here was a panel that was sort of the antithesis of what you normally see on television in terms of a debate about space exploration. Because what you would see on TV would be Neil deGrasse Tyson saying,

we need to do this and spend as much money as we possibly can on this within the confines of the budget. And you have another person saying, we don't need to do this at all. This debate was, well, of course we need to do it. And they all agreed. The debate was, okay, what are we going to spend the money on? Which is a much more interesting conversation for someone that already is in the camp of, yes, we need to explore. Everybody in the audience agrees. So let's just move forward. Again, within 95% or whatever it is. So here was this conversation of that 5% to 2% of what do we spend it on?

What's the smart? And it was a vehement debate. It was, I mean, they were going at it. And it was awesome. And that carries over into conversations that you might have when you're waiting for the things to start. Or when you're sitting at the bar. Or when it's 2 in the morning on Saturday night and you're still sitting in the bar talking about whether or not, you know, what the educational system needs to do in terms of its skeptical teaching or scientific teaching or how awful Prometheus was. It's a wonderful,

and you just meet people, you know, it's whatever people, 1,500 people that are within that 98% of agreement that we rarely get to be in those kinds of numbers. Those kinds of ratios rarely apply to people that are like-minded and love to talk about stuff. I was looking on the TAM website and I saw that Stephen Novella is going to be there. Now you got an email from Stephen for your last show. He listens to your show and he gave you a little correction there. I thought your bit was hilarious with the number of countries that were ahead of us. I thought it was very funny. And until he pointed out that it was, you know, the UNICEF uses botched up numbers.

I just wanted to point out, too, that Stephen listens to our show. I don't know if you knew this, but Stephen is a big fan of Cognitive Dissonance. And I wanted to read. I wanted to read just quickly. You know, I got it in front of me. I just wanted to read his last email to us. He said, Dear Tom and Cecil, your show is a fucking abomination please never record anything again you suck and then he says at the bottom he says cordially Steven Novella and he says p.s. die in

a fire so you know he's a big fan that's so that's so Steven yeah his voice just comes through the page that wise the noveas, actually all the guys that are, all the guys in Gal that are involved with SGU are amazing. The fact that I can call them friends,

that's one of those perks, one of those mind-blowing taint-shrinking perks that have happened over the years of me doing this show is that I've got to know Steve and Jay and Bob

as well as Rebecca Watson and Evan Bernstein and And I consider them friends. And they are the people that they are on the show. When you listen to the skeptics guide is pretty much exactly who they are like in life. So when you're sitting at dinner, talking about what you're going to order, the same kind of relationships come across and it's so cool and so fun and so great. And you know that when you listen to that show, you are getting this kind of pure reality of what they are, what they believe, what they're passionate about. And it comes across and they are,

they are so generous and so wonderful. I'm just, I'm really lucky and really fortunate. And I've time and again, when I see them at conferences like TAM or Nexus or whatever, they're always surrounded by people and they're always incredibly generous in terms of giving their time. I remember being at a conference in Manchester, QED, Question, Explore, Discover two years ago. I was asked to host that too. And Steve flew in, like had an eight hour flight from Connecticut to Manchester, did his presentation, and then was up until about 2 or 3 in the morning in the bar just answering attendees' questions. Like there was like a line. It was like a signing that sort of just sort of spontaneously happened.

And I looked at him and I said, like, when's the last time you slept? He's like, oh, like 30 hours ago. Oh, my gosh. But because he's so generous and because everyone in that group, and most everyone that I've met within this community is like that. Yeah. I mean, the fact that Penn and Teller, after their shows, get out and go in the lobby and meet everybody,

the fact that you can approach just about anybody at TAM and ask a question and talk, and there are the superstars. There are the Neil deGrasse Tysons and stuff that unfortunately are usually on a schedule and they're in and they're out. But I can say that to a person, they are all extremely generous and kind and are the people that you would hope that they would be. There's a good sentence for you. Diagram. But I think you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah.

They were an influence on us, Tom and I. I think one of the first podcasts I ever listened to was Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. And so they were an influence on us a long time ago when we first started listening to them. Great, great show and great, like as you like, like, as you say, great people too. So, so, so we didn't even get a chance to talk about your music. So we're going to have to have you on again, George. I don't know. See if we can pencil us in. Maybe we can get a post TAM report. We'll probably call you and see. Absolutely boys. My pleasure. I would love to do it. No, in all seriousness. I've twisted your arm. I appreciate what you guys are doing. And I know it can feel like it's against the tide sometimes.

But keep doing that. And you guys are obviously into it. And that comes across. And that's the most important thing is that you do, you know, you believe in what you're doing and that you just have fun while doing it. So, awesome. Well, thanks for coming on, George. We really appreciate it. Anytime.

Anytime. Thanks, guys. And, you know, if you're ever in Chicago, look us up. I'll buy you two medium pizzas. Hey. Trouble. Awesome. Awesome.

Well, those are deep dish, too, so that'll be a whole its own. Yeah. Yeah. That's like four. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we got a lot of email, but we ran a little long with George, so we're not going to be giving shout-outs and stuff.

Thank you, everybody who sent emails. Thanks to everybody who rated us on iTunes this week. We got another flurry of iTunes reviews. We're happy when you do that. Thanks so much for doing it. And thanks to everybody who just sent us quick little funny emails. We got a ton of them, but we can't read them all. There is one that we want to touch on though, and this is Henry.

Henry sent this email to us, and Tom, why don't you read it? Hey, guys. This note is relevant to the poop-smearing guy, but more importantly to your discussion about sexual harassment instigated by men against women at skeptical atheist conventions. One of the primary fears among religious fundamentalists is that secularism and atheism will lead to some irreversible moral decline, and they use instances of the aforementioned behavior as ammunition. I think having a discussion about how to establish and maintain a standard of ethical behavior in a secular environment is important. Absent a contrived morality handbook such as the Bible,

Absent a contrived morality handbook such as the Bible, how does a secular society decide what's right and what's wrong? That is an interesting question. And really a lot of people touch on this. I'm going to say a little bit and then I'm sure Tom is going to say a little bit. One of the things that I always try to do and one of the things that I always try to make sure that I follow is that I make sure that I don't injure anybody else. Like my ethical code is I don't want to hurt anybody else. And I also don't want to hurt anyone else's property. Right. So I don't want to hurt. I don't want to steal. I don't want to smash into somebody's car and leave the scene. I don't want to injure someone, you know, force somebody to do something against their will, those sorts of things. But those are real simple, right? Those are social contract sort of things. Those are

things that I think everybody that is in a society should be able to play because all those things are pretty much against the law, right? You shouldn't be forcing somebody to do something against their will. That's either kidnapping or rape or something. You shouldn't be bashing into somebody's car because that's damage to property. So a lot of those things are already laws. So those are already bad things, things you shouldn't do, something that is wrong. But when it comes down to the more gray area, another thing that I try not to do is try not to make people uncomfortable. I will do that on occasion. I'll probably try to make some people uncomfortable on our podcast, but you're self-selecting into that. So when I say some

really nasty, dirty thing on here and some people cringe or they want me to stop saying stuff or whatever, you're self-selecting, you're coming into that. But I would never do that to somebody unwarranted. I would never want somebody to feel uncomfortable. So that's kind of how I live my life is I follow the laws of the land, which are the basic social contract laws that almost every society has, unless you're living in some weird place without laws like Somalia. But most societies have that set of laws. And then I just try to make sure that I'm a good person. You know, like what does that mean? You know, if I'm going to quantify that, I just, you know, I really do think that there is sort of that, I wouldn't say the golden

rule, but you know, the one step below that, maybe the silver rule or something, something where I try to go out of my way to be nice to people before they get a chance or don't have a chance to be nice to me. I try to make sure that I take that first step to be nice to people. I think, you know, for me, I have to think it comes down to two things and then kind of a rule that I try to follow. You know, for me, it's obligations and respect. Am I meeting all of my obligations? I have an obligation to my employer. When I accept a check, I'm obligated to them to work for them.

Am I meeting my obligations to my wife? I pledged a certain, you know, to my wife to be her partner. Am I meeting that obligation? Am I being a good partner? Am I meeting my obligations to my friends? Am I being friendly? Am I doing the things that I think a friend should do? Same thing with other family members.

You know, same thing with strangers. You know, I'm part of a community. Am I meeting my obligations to this community? And that helps a lot to govern behavior. I have an obligation as a member of this community to ensure that it's a peaceful, safe, clean place. Am I doing things that push those ideas forward? I'm obligated to that. I feel that very strongly that those are, you know, and respect is a big part of that. Am I behaving in a way that is respectful? Am I showing people respect? Respect of the night, if I were to, if I were to replay this day on, on a, on a big screen in Times Square, would I be proud to show it to you? Would I be able to look up at that and say, that was my day and I'm proud of it. And I think if you can, if you can follow that and say, yeah, you know, I, I looked up at this and I didn't carry a pig's head through a carnival today. I'm proud to show you. I didn't punch anybody else for Jesus.

Right. You know, I mean, I punched him because they needed to punch him, but not for Jesus. But yeah, you know, I think if you can think about yourself in those terms, I just don't think it's hard to be honest with you. I don't think it's hard to come up with morals from a secular standpoint. I think ethics come from critical thinking. I don't think it's hard to come up with morals from a secular standpoint. I think ethics come from critical thinking. I don't think they need to be – I don't think they need to come from an external source because I frankly don't believe in an external source, right? I mean the Bible is not external. It's written by guys.

It's written by people. So I want to thank George for coming on the show. George does a great podcast called the Geologic Podcast. You can find George's podcast at geologicpodcast.com. He comes out every week with a show. He's also got, you know, he's a musician, so you could buy his music. He's also got a book. could buy his music. He's also got a book. If you just go to aboutme, about.me, slash George, G-E-O-R-G-E-H-R-A-B, that's George Krabb, one word, you can find his page. We're going to link

to it on these show notes. You could buy some of the various things that he has and or listen to his podcast. We think he's a great guy and we thank him for coming on. It was awesome having him on our show. It really was. What a great time. He's a great guy. We are going to leave you as always, though, with the skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

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