Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 55: The Good Atheist

Episode Date: July 10, 2012

Special thanks to Jacob Fortin from the Good Atheist podcast: Kickstarter program:  Website with bible stories:  Podcast:  Louisiana Republican: When I Voted for State Funds to go to Religious Schools, I Didn’t Mean Muslim Ones Mermaids do not exist, US government declares Religious vigilantes claim to have killed student in Suez Whites-only Christian gathering riles some Alabama neighbors Mob kills 'blasphemer' Clips: CNN and David Silverman, Under the Sea, Islamic call to prayer, Lou Engle Avengers was a great movie,Visit our Website at http://dissonancepod.com 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. So he says there are still plenty of people who have never questioned God's existence and the number of atheists is low. So just because you question God's existence, it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't believe, Mr. Silverman. No, it doesn't. But it doesn't also necessarily mean that you do believe to, Mr. Silverman. No, it doesn't, but it doesn't also necessarily mean

that you do believe to say you're a Christian. A lot of people out there are cultural Christians, cultural Jews, and they tick the Christian box just because their parents raised them as Christians, even though they don't believe in the man in the sky. And I want to go back to your other question that you made to Linda about the politicians. I think as we grow as a nation, the atheists are going to be

looking at the political candidates and they're going to be looking at their religious beliefs with a very concerned eye. Because if you believe in a man in the sky without any evidence, if you believe your underwear is magic, what else will you believe? And are you qualified to run this country if you are this is something that we really have to ask because when it comes right down to it we need our politicians to be grounded and intelligent and educated and not victims of brainwashing if we 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, and there is no welcome mat. We have Jacob from the Good Atheist podcast here on our show. And we're going to talk about our story here our lead story from the friendly atheist blog blog we've had the good atheist and the friendly atheist and the angry atheist at this point so many different emotions we've had all the adjectives for atheists at this point on on the show this is from the friendly atheist blog and i love the headline for it louisiana republican when i voted for state funds to go to religious schools This is from the Friendly Atheist blog, and I love the headline for it. Louisiana Republican.

When I voted for state funds to go to religious schools, I didn't mean Muslim ones. Louisiana lawmakers have recently been pushing for, and we covered this briefly, the use of vouchers. The voucher system is really, I think, a disguise for federal funding to go toward religious schools. And it passed. And so religious schools. And it passed. And so religious schools want in on it, including religions other than Christianity. Louisiana lawmakers realized their mistake a little too late, I think. Jacob, what do you think of this story? First of all, I had reported on Louisiana doing this whole voucher program even way before they were talking about this. But one of the things I hadn't realized, I guess, when I was talking about it, because the first thing is you're right when you say that this is just a way for religious schools to get money.

Because most of them struggle like you wouldn't believe. And a lot of them also lie. They'll say they have more students. I wouldn't believe. And a lot of them also lie. They'll say they have more students. There's a couple of them that have court cases pending because they've been defrauding people. So they're a little bit desperate because, you know, they are shrinking.

Their influence is shrinking somewhat. And this voucher program is the best way for them to survive. But I guess what they didn't realize, and every Christian doesn't realize this, is that other Christians are not like them even. Like, you don't even like the other religions. You don't remember that you hate them. But even the ones that still believe in Jesus, you hate those other guys too. They seem to forget that very often, that, you know, Christianity, there's many sects of Christianity.

Yeah, over 30,000. Yeah. And they don't agree on nearly anything. But they seem to forget that, and they seem to think, oh, well, you know, Christianity, it's fine. One of the things that shocked the shit out of me about this article, which I don't think she's actually using real numbers here, she says

we need to ensure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islamic schools or Islam schools, she says. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. 1,000? In Louisiana. 1,000?

Is that a real number? One per student. It's really quite a very specialty school right there. Yeah, she's counting homeschooled kids, each individual homeschool. You know, I hear in Louisiana you can't hardly swing a cat without hitting a madrasa it's just fucking everywhere that's like a 7-eleven down there of well you have to imagine too that once it's something that you see that you don't like seeing you'll see it everywhere right i mean remember when everybody hated the volkswagen beetle and that's all you saw but now that you hate it you don't even see it they're still around but you don't see them anymore it's just that before you used to make a big deal you hate it, you don't even see it. They're still around, but you don't see them anymore.

It's just that before you used to make a big deal out of it because you had so much hatred. A thousand Muslim schools. Then this person, too. I mean, there's no veiling of your hatred toward this other religion. Yet there seems to be this sort of pushing of Christianity. They don't understand that they have this sort of cognitive dissonance going on. They don't even recognize it. Well, they view themselves as having the right religion.

And I don't know if you guys, if you talk to a lot of Christians in your day-to-day, but I know that these days, whenever I talk to one, they're always giving me the same answer. They're like, well, our God is living through history. That's what makes him so real. And I'm like, I actually think there's a better claim for Mohammed, really. That's not even a meaningful thing

to say. Our God is living through history? What are you fucking talking about? That's not a meaningful set of words to string together. That's one of those pseudo-sense-making bullshit phrases that gets thrown around and it's impossible to argue with because you're like well i i can't even understand what

that means without having to go into a long ridiculously over convoluted explication of this structure of this sentence it that that is just fucking nonsense it's like a shulper ism right exactly how do you argue because you can't argue with it exactly that's why it's so perfect you a sentence. That is just fucking nonsense. It's like a Chopra-ism. Right. Exactly. How do you argue with it? It's perfect, too, because you can't argue with it. Exactly. That's why it's so perfect. Who's going to come up with an argument that you can refute? That doesn't sound like a very pleasant argument to have. Right. That's an

immediate loss. I, too, like that she says that she supports teaching the fundamentals of America's founding fathers' religion. Really? Like, let's all break out our Jeffersonian Bibles then. Yeah, I actually went to check it out. Yeah, it's pretty thin, so.

Yeah. None of the supernatural bits, it turns out. It turns out there's a lot taken out. Literally, it's cut up to shit. Like, you look at it and you're like, how did you even read this thing? It looks like it's about to blow apart. Even the ones that were religious were deists mostly. So the fact that you're thinking that it's a Christian nation, which they said many times it was not a Christian nation.

But you go back to that fact. If it's deist, there's no deist schools popping up. And I think the Friendly Atheist even says this in the article. There's no deist schools. I just And I think the Friendly Atheist even says this in the article. There's no deist schools. I just don't understand how this woman can be elected. Well, I would send my kids to a Satanist school. Yeah. Just for the fucking sheer hell of doing it.

Well, they're hedonists, right? Satanists. So your child would learn everything about making sure that he's number one, stays that way. Super little porker when he comes out there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He'd be glutton for sure.

It's just donuts and sex. That's the whole curriculum is donuts and sex. Hey, that's a Catholic church. You can't take that away from them. Can you imagine the uproar if they tried to fund a Wiccan school? Well, that's the whole thing about it, though. There's the rub because in a sense, I mean, you look at the wall of separation, which is itself not something that any of, you know, that's in the Constitution, but it's from

a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to these Baptists who were worried that these other religious groups would come in and start, you know, trying to fund their shit and try to take over, and they were legitimately afraid. Now, I think that to some degree, Christians have done a really good job at trying to look as though they're homogenous, even though they're not. And it's just because they're on the defensive. So they'll create a certain degree of what we call ecumenism, right? That's when religious groups that otherwise would hate each other get together because they're like, well, our enemies are worse. And in a sense, we're their enemies.

So we do kind of make them stronger. And in a sense, we're their enemies. So we do kind of make them stronger. But what they don't realize is that their forefathers, their religious forefathers, were wise when they said, keep religion out of politics, because it's never always your religion that's there. You know, that's the important thing. Yeah, they don't see that it's to their benefit. They fail to understand how secularism protects their religious freedoms. Yeah, exactly. They just don't grasp that at all. And I love when they pass stuff like this because it's like, oh, it's all of a sudden it's like you can almost see the light bulb, dim as it is, blink on above their heads as it begins to dawn on them that, oh, there's other ideas.

That hadn't occurred to me. I think it's going to really, I mean, it's going to honestly blow up in their faces and they won't realize it. Like even this, what's her name? Watson or whatever. Valerie Hodges. There you go. She just didn't realize that it would go to Muslim schools.

Like what, what's happening? No, we don't like that. Yeah. You didn't, you didn't realize that other people have other faiths too, other than your own. And, and as soon as like they start opening this door, sure. Muslim schools could pop up. Who wouldn't want to have one?

Because you know what? They sound like cash cows, especially seeing as how you can lie. And apparently she's, she says there's thousands. Well, you know what boys sound like cash cows especially seeing how you can lie and apparently she's she says there's thousands well you know what boys and girls i got an idea let's start a muslim school in louisiana who you know who's with me it's not surprising looking looking at her clueless doe eyes staring out from this picture that she's a little maybe not the brightest bulb so i don't think you can be bright in politics. I mean, you remember there was this one guy, I remember, on Colbert. He was trying to get into the police force, but he scored too high on the IQ test. So it was like, well, we can't trust you.

What? You're too smart. You're going to do something bad. I think before macing people. Yeah, you'll do things that are unpredictable. That's what smart people do. They don't act in predictable ways. This moron acts in a very predictable way.

You put her in office and you know exactly what to expect. I remember watching, what was that Eddie Murphy movie where he runs as this congressman who has the same name who dies and he ends up going to Washington? And I'm like, I'm pretty sure that is actually a documentary. I want to go back and watch it because I feel like apart from the whole subplot that electrical lines were causing cancer, which, you know what, I think that movie helped fund some pretty bad scientific opinions. But hey, it's a movie. Fuck it.

Don't get your facts from movies. But yeah, I think that otherwise it just it seemed like, yeah,, it's a movie. Fuck it. Don't get your facts from movies. But yeah, I think that otherwise, it just seemed like, yeah, it seemed very believable. He just walks in, starts trying to make shady deals, isn't really interested in actually doing anything that's beneficial to anybody else, other

than themselves. You're like, that's horrible. Yeah, that's reality. That's what that is. But what do you want? Okay, do you want a person who has those types of religious convictions but who's really, really, really smart? Or do you want some idiot that's just going to make everyone look bad and cause a pretty harsh backlash? Just saying. I want you to prove to me that there is that first person first.

If you can prove that first person, then we might have an argument. Sure. I mean, like, the person, then we might have an argument. Sure. I mean, like, the neocons are filled with those people. Like, Milton Friedman is a perfect example. Like, he's an extremely intelligent man, and what he believes is fundamentally evil. Yeah, well, he's not... The thing is, you said religious, not...

I mean, you know what I mean? Like, you're talking about a guy who's talking about economy here, which is a little different. Everybody's going to have their little bit of wack out. Yeah. Sometimes it's going to be religious. But it turns out that people who are brilliant at religion, they do other things.

They're like, you know, Pat Robertson or Benny Hinn. They're making fatty banks because, yeah, they're not going to – there's way more money to be made from gullible yokels than there is in the politics. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. I mean have you seen the. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. I mean, have you seen the houses of some of these people? Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. We talk about it every fucking week.

It's ridiculous. I mean, I do this professionally, and I'm like, sometimes I think I should just do what I do, but on the religious end, I would be a motherfucking millionaire. You'd be Joel Osteen, man. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, but I don't have his smile and I certainly don't have his hair. And it's hard to have a prosperity gospel if you don't have hair. Let me tell you something.

You can buy both, my man. You can get a credit card and you can buy both. Right. And then I can say it's a miracle. I have hair. Really, it was hair plugs. So if you'd like to hear more of Jacob from the GoodAtheist.net podcast, you'll have to wait until the end of the show where we've strategically placed his interview.

It'll be about 40 minutes or so, but we'll have him back later and we'll talk about his project and his podcast and his blog. Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor. Such wonderful things around you, What more are you looking for? Under the sea. Under the sea. Cecil, the controversy is over. And I, for one, am pleased. This is a story from news.com.au.

Although I find it amusing that this is a news story from an Australian paper that talks about the U.S. government's declaration. I found that interesting too. But mermaids do not exist, U.S. government declares. The United States government has assured its citizens

that much like zombies, mermaids and this is my favorite part, probably, do not exist. Right, probably. Look, there's no evidence for them. mermaids and this is my favorite part probably do not exist right probably saying well it's you know look there's no evidence for him but it doesn't doesn't rule out their existence no it's um just shockingly fucking

implausible that they could no possibly be because they are a stupid fucking idea I the thing is is I don't understand why uh why they are depicted as, like, sexy, I guess. I wonder why that is because there's nothing you can do with it. I mean, I guess there is something you can do with it, but there's nothing really satisfying you can do with it.

I thought the same thing. It's like, oh, man, that hot fish woman? Like, what? What am I going to do there? I guess. I mean, this is not going to be. Look, even if even if it ends up the only way it can end up, she's not going to be happy. Right.

Yeah. This is not a good. I don't want that. That's not you need to. I need a different thing to be sexy. That's not a sexy. The reason why they did this, Tom, is because they received, and I'm reading directly from this article, they received letters inquiring about the existence of sea maidens after Discovery Channel's Animal Planet Network broadcast of mermaids' body found in May. body found in May.

So the name, I guess the animal, first off, animal planet's showing this shit? I thought it was Discovery when I did a cursory reading of this earlier. I thought it was Discovery, but no, it's animal planet that's showing it. What the fuck? Like, is that their version of ancient aliens? Yeah, I was, my first thought is,

was this an unsettled question? Was this really, was a really a group of people sitting around a boardroom thinking, all right, we've got to answer the big one here. Gentlemen, it's time to tackle the mermaid question. I'm wondering what else is on that fucking chalkboard that they're wondering. I mean, like, what else are you wondering about? Like, okay, now, we're going to double check to make sure the tooth fairy is not a real thing. And next on the Desperation Channel is Grasping for Straws.

Yes, that's right, Grasping for Straws at 8 o'clock. The body found mermaids. Why they've stayed hidden? All this stuff is just... And they say in this article, conversely, the U.S. government declaration offered no conclusive proof to deny the existence of mermaids. That's because they don't you can't prove the non-existence of something. Exactly.

That's not how evidence works. Nobody has any evidence that there's not something that you what you can't prove a negative. You stupid fucking article. It says here in the article, it says it paints a wildly convincing picture of the existence of mermaids, what they may look like and why they have they've stayed hidden until now. I'll tell you why they stayed hidden. They have stayed hidden until now because they don't exist. That's why they've stayed hidden. It just seems like such a basic, simple I can't imagine anybody

over like five believing in a mermaid. And what do they mean, stay hidden until now? They're still hidden. They're not washing up on the beaches. When was the last time you saw a beached mermaid? Right? I mean, let's be honest about our treatment of the fucking oceans.

We trawl that shit indiscriminately yeah we have caught the all of it in the ocean we've butchered them we've decimated every fucking form of wildlife that has existed in the ocean and yet i'm supposed to believe that a half human half fish an implausibility creature is swimming about in the ocean has never been caught in a net it's never been like hooked indiscriminately in the gill nets that are strung about in the fucking deep ocean trawling the fishermen use they don't wash up on the beach they're not like inside whale stomachs anywhere whale stomachs whales like fuck man i got heartburn you're throwing out though you are throwing out, though.

You are throwing out, I think, all the accounts of mermaids that the people crossing the Atlantic in the 1600s used to have. That's true. But I throw out a lot of that. When there's a here, there be monsters on your map. Those guys would have fucked a manatee, too. I mean, come on. You're stuck on a boat that long? Are you kidding me?

Yeah, that's a long time at sea without a whole lot to occupy your mind. Dude, look at that manatee. It totally kind of looks like a chick. Have you seen a manatee, too? I've heard that explanation. Like, well, maybe, you know, manatees, you know, they confuse them for. No, I've seen a manatee. That is you can't confuse that for anything vaguely human.

You just can't do that. If you if you do that, you're you're a fucking fool. Like you're scurvy addled brain should not be scrawling things on paper at this point. What I love, too, is that like, OK, I can kind of get behind a little bit of Bigfoot theory, right? When they say, well, you know, maybe there's this sort of other creature that we're not sure of, some other primate that we haven't discovered. I can kind of get behind that, right? I can kind of get behind the idea of a Nessie in the way because they say, well, you know, maybe it was a dinosaur or something like that. But when you come up with the mermaid, I mean, where in the fucking evolutionary chain does the mermaid fit?

Like at what point are human, like a fucking fully half of a human is developed? It's like, well, these fucking fins work better than legs. Right. Where does that work? How does that work? And they still have human arms yeah that's what you would do like evolution is just like well um the tail works best for the bottom half yeah but a human grasping limb is what you would want in the ocean you need for swimming is opposable thumbs

that's right like nature has selected somehow like generation after generation is still – this is still the most efficient body type for the ocean. Yeah. Hey, remember those fish with fingers? No? Fucking neither do I. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. Coming out of Egypt these days actually is. Religious vigilantes claim responsibility for the death of a student in Suez.

And they claimed it on Facebook. That's not a page to like. After attacking him. This is a guy who was walking with his fiance. Toward a bus. And three bearded men jumped him. And killed him. for walking with somebody. When walking is a crime, your religion sucks.

Yeah, well, she wasn't she was without a chaperone, I think, is the thing. They have a different name for it. But basically, the gist is she was without a chaperone while she was with him, even though they were and fianced. And it's like, well, that's too bad. You're not allowed to be with your girlfriend unless somebody else is watching you. And now we're going to kill you. The one thing I think that is the most puzzling about this, Tom, is that, you know, this happens

in Egypt and the guy who just got elected, I'm going to quote some of his quotes here. He says the Koran was and will continue to be our constitution. The Quran is our constitution. The prophet Muhammad is our leader. Jihad is our path and death for the sake of Allah is the most lofty aspiration. And he also talks about, uh, like he says, the nation will enjoy blessing and revival only through the Islamic Sharia. So he's talking about Sharia law here. But this same guy in this article says, he says that security authorities will stringently deal with the groups

seeking to impose religious discipline in an extremist manner. This seems like cognitive dissonance to me. Yeah, it absolutely does. I don't know how you reconcile those two. You know, in this same article, they referred to two people who were also killed for being – they were killed by bearded people because they work for a musical group. And again, there's a lot of strict adherence to Sharia law that forbid music.

If it's not religious music it's it's fucking verboten so i don't understand how this guy can say you know we want a a nation built on religious law built on sharia but we won't tolerate those who act on sharia like those who i mean that's clearly what these people are doing right they're vigilantes wandering the streets killing people. Yeah. Because they feel that these people aren't behaving piously enough. That's really what it is. Sure.

It's like you're not being pious. Well, fucking – it's a free country. Well, not so much stabbed. Yeah, they're the religious police. They're the people who walk around. And if you're not following to the letter of the Koran, they're going to they're going to murder you. And and really what what this brings up more than anything else with me is that when anybody ever says, oh, well, it's just, you know, the extremists are just a bunch of kooks. There's just a bunch of kooks. They're just a bunch of

kooks. Well, your president is saying that he wants to go back to Sharia law. These guys are enforcing Sharia law. Now the president's denouncing them. Well, the president either has to backpedal off Sharia law or embrace them. Those are really the only two logically consistent options that you have if you're going to follow that path. And that path is followed by many, many, many people in the Middle East. It's not just a fucking isolated incident. It's not just one bad apple in the fucking bunch. The fucking entire barrel is fucking full of shit at this point.

You can't endorse a religion that treats women this way, that treats their fucking members this way, that basically subjugates the people who follow it in such a way you cannot fucking respect it i i find no way to respect this religion and how do you treat this with with respect at all in a in in like an ecumenical sense right in a like hey we're all part of the same team we're all you know because that's that's the whole ecumenical idea right is that you know hey we're all worshiping the same the same God and we all have these things in common. No, I mean it's not the fucking case.

All religious, all monotheistic religions are exclusive of all other monotheistic religions. And the same assholes who would propose to inflict their religion on the populace here,'s not a there's not a big difference between those assholes and these assholes they're all assholes their stripes may be of a different color but they all have the same goal and that's to inflict their religious beliefs on everybody around them and if you stand up for your rights like this guy did he stood up and was like hey i'll walk with who i want to walk with they They're like, well, we'll fucking stab you. And when the president's speaking out of both sides of his mouth, and look, that same shit happens here, right?

It's like you've got, on the one side, you've got politicians who will pay lip service to the Constitution and their reverence for the Constitution and their love of the Constitution, while at the same time, you know, trying to drive home this false notion that we're a Christian nation founded on Christian principles and that, you know, we should be pursuing and using Christian dogma as our guidance for developing laws and policy. There's really no difference. It's just a matter of how far are you willing to take it. And this guy's

clearly just speaking out of both sides of his mouth like all politicians have to do in order to placate the religious nuts that are populated in their society. See, so this story is from MSNBC.com. White's only

Christian gathering riles some Alabama neighbors. This shit looks like something out of, like, the fucking Jim Crow era. Yeah, totally. The flyer even looks like it's old-fashioned. I mean, look at the flyer. Did you see the flyer? It's old-timey. It is old-timey.

It's probably printed on a printing press. It looks like Gutenberg himself put this thing together. Gutenberg, a racist. It's so funny because you see this, and seriously, the font looks like Wild West font. Everything about it. I expect to see it also say, like, reward, you know, $2,000. Yeah, no kidding. For the capture of escape Negroes.

But this is a Christian group that is having a whites-only religious conference. God, are you serious? Which will conclude with a flaming cross. How else do you conclude whites-only things? There's no other way. Right. Maybe a lynching? Look, when you get a massage, you finish with the happy ending.

You know, there's just ways to finish things. You get a really nice meal, you finish it with coffee. You go to a whites-only, whites-only anything. And I don't care what it is, a whites only anything, it has to conclude with a burning cross. You know, you've got to say, if you're going to have a free country, if you're going to have a nation that's founded on the ideals of freedom of speech, you can't outlaw this kind of thing, right?

You can't. No, no, absolutely not. But you can socially vilify it. Sure. And these people are clearly fucking insane. I got to read from this article. My favorite part of this article, if you can have a favorite in something so hate-filled, is, quote, We don't have the facilities to accommodate other races.

And we have nothing, not one bit of animosity. No racism whatsoever. No. No. What facilities do you need to accommodate? Are you so out of touch that you think you actually need a separate set of water fountains still? Well, do you saw the fucking flyer? They think they're in fucking old timey days. Right. I'm sure they got the fucking that beard? They think they're in fucking old timey days. Right.

I'm sure they got the fucking that beard chin strap like nobody's got mustaches. They've all got that fucking thing. Or if they do, they're waxed up, you know. They've got that giant top hat. Right. Walking around with their canes. They come with their carriages to drop them off at this thing because you can't be in touch with anyone and and not realize that this is like just a fucking the stupidest thing you could do and would you seriously let's just say

that something like this was going on and you agreed with it you were like you know what i don't think blacks are equal or whatever the fuck these idiots think okay would you physically go to a place to do something like this to fucking out yourself as a fucking subhuman would you do that because i can't imagine myself in the darkest corners of my mind i can't imagine being like you know i'm gonna out myself as a fucking subhuman so whatever that includes you know whatever fucking, nasty thing I'm thinking of, I'm going to be like, you know, I'm going to the pedophile convention, damn it. Right. You know, like who would do that?

I have no idea. It's like this is a part of America that should understand that they need to be ashamed of this. Yes. And the idea that they're not ashamed and they are ashamed, you can tell that they're ashamed because these flyers went up in the middle of the night right they weren't the organizers of this event weren't walking around putting the flyers up at one o'clock in the afternoon and knocking on the doors of the barber shop and saying hey do you mind if i put my hate-filled

fucking invective up in your shop they they put this shit up without people's permission without business owners permission in the middle of the night because part of them does understand that this is something they need to be ashamed of. Part of them has to realize that this is a part of America that's fucking long since been abandoned. And when it hasn't been abandoned, it has been made to seem what it is, a shameful, hate-filled part of our history, of our past. And these assholes who insist on living in the past, they are an embarrassment to the country. They're an embarrassment to the human race. I bear witness that none other than Allah has the right to do so. This story is from the BrisbaneTimes.com.au.

This is a story out of Islamabad, Pakistan. Thousands of people dragged a Pakistani man accused of desecrating Islam's holy book from a police station in central Pakistan, beat him to death, and set his body on fire. Well, that's one way to do it. He did destroy the Koran. I mean, come on. Well, you know, he's also a crazy guy. Yeah.

He's also clearly a crazy person. And they even said that the person was kind of a little nutty, but he wound up tearing up this Koran. And then they just came over and fucking – the police had – I mean this is the thing that drives me crazy. It's like you're in another country. Here in the States, if they came after like a police station, like a crowd of people came after a police station, there would be a lot of bodies around a police station. Right. No, like that shit only happens in movies where people like can walk into a police station and like do some crazy shit or in like a super small town.

Yeah. But this isn't a small town. No. I mean, I've heard of Islamabad before. I've heard of that town. Now, I don't know what that, let me see what the population is. I'll Google it real quick. Isn't it their capital?

It's funny too, because, you know, you look at the name of the town and you're like Islamabad. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, it just gets right in there. You know what's funny, Cecil, is when you Google it, Wikipedia, like one of the subheadings is list of tourist attractions in Islamabad. Do they have the beating grounds where you, you know, get murdered for ripping up the Koran? Because I want to go visit those. That seems good. The capital, let's see, population at this point is 1.1 million, according to Wikipedia.

And this was from 2011 census. So it's a big fucking city. We're talking about Chicago as around a couple million, I think, at this point. So you're talking about a city that's rival size with some of the larger cities in the United States. And you would think that the police officers there would be able to stop people from coming in and taking your fucking prisoner away from you. But they just walked in, snatched the dude, and beat the shit out of him. Then lit him on fire. You know, like that's kind of the fucking insult to injury to part of this story.

It's like, yeah, you know, let's just light them on fire too. He's not dead enough. Now that we've beaten him. Now that a crowd of thousands of people has brutally murdered this man. And you,

you've got to think that's a tough way to go. No. Yeah. When you're beaten to death by a mob. Yeah. That's a fucking, I mean the fear, the terror that this poor man must have felt all because and you know that the call to attack this man to murder the call to murder where did it come from it came over the loudspeakers of a mosque

that that cannot be emphasized enough this This religious institution's loudspeakers were used to incite people to violence, to murder. Seven police officers were wounded trying to defend this guy. Vehicles were set on fire. He was dragged out, beaten to death, and then his corpse burned this is not these are not the actions of a civilized people the the religious influences in this country render these people uncivilized i'm not talking about all people in pakistan please don't misunderstand me but i am talking about every single person who engaged in this action. Each one of the thousands, multiple thousands of people who heard that call over the

mosque's loudspeakers and attacked this man. They are barbarians. And what are they doing it for, Tom? They're doing it because they think some magical dude in the sky is thinking that they are right in what they're doing. He's watching from above like this is one big giant UFC competition. Right. And he's like, oh yeah, choke that dude out. Yeah, I mean, choke him out until he's dead. Not, you know, choke him out until he taps.

Choke him out until he's dead. And then light him on fire. And, you know, what is Allah doing up there? Beating off to this? You know what I mean? Like what kind of sick fucking degenerate god would you have to have? Put yourself in there. I'm just trying to put myself in their mindset, right?

You have this group of people thinking, I have to do this. I am going against – because killing someone is abhorrent. I don't care who you are. And these are a crowd of normal people, right? You have to assume that they're not all escaped mental patients. You have to assume that they're a crowd of normal people. So what put them into this is that they are thinking, they are imagining that there is something watching them, egging them on saying they need to do this. So they're going against some sort of, you know, I mean, cause there's something in our own brains, our own fucking monkey brains up there that makes it.

So you don't want to kill someone else. It's fucking in there genetically. So the idea that you're just going to be like, well, I'm going to go against all of that specifically for this, uh, this, you know, just for this fucking imaginary friend that I have, you know, it's so hard for me to even put myself in that position. But the one thing that really puzzles me is you worship something that in your own head looks on, looks above, you know, from on high and eggs you on as you murder someone and sort of relishes it. That's a disgusting God.

It's a bloodthirsty God, but isn't it also an impotent God? Yeah. If God needs me to take vengeance, isn't that an impotent God? Sure. You know, if, I mean, you and I are friends, but if I saw somebody insult you, I'd be like, well, if I can, he's looking to take care of himself. Right. I'm not going to step in and be like, I have to kill you.

Yeah. Because you insulted somebody I care for. Yeah. That's crazy. I would just say, well, fucking Cecil can take care of himself. Sure. If somebody insults a God, am I not to assume that the God will have his just rewards? Not to assume that the God will have his just rewards?

That if your God is so bloodthirsty and so hate-filled and so unable to forgive a petty injustice from a mentally challenged individual. Right. If that is the God that you've got, I have to attack for you? Yeah. I don't even understand that. Why did God need a guard dog? I have no idea. And the craziest thing is it's not like he's fucking ripping up an original fucking manuscript either. You know, it's not like it's fucking handwritten, hand fucking

cut. He's not breaking the fucking, you know, the Moses's tablets over his knee or something. You know, this is a fucking, it's a book, man. It's fucking printed a million times. You don't have to worry about it. Some crazy dude tore your book. Get over it. It's not like it's like they were, it's like all of Islam. It's just like, that was our only copy. I was going to borrow that next week. I was next in line. I really wanted to read it.

Now I'll never be able to read it. So this next story is from goddiscussion.com. This story confused and surprised me in a number of ways. This is a story out of Israel. Israel considers removing military draft exemption privilege for ultra-Orthodox Jews who claim they protect the country through the power of God. I knew that Israel had a everybody gets drafted policy yeah i did too man i had no idea that if you were ultra orthodox that you got some kind of an exemption and i actually don't really understand how that exemption works like we're all jews here or i mean the vast majority of us i mean

that's why israel is sort of in existence right so like if you're like like if you're like a super Jew, like if you're ultra Orthodox, like well, I'm not just Orthodox. I'm ultra Orthodox. I'm the fucking Voltron of Orthodox. That's what I was thinking

is that, you know, like if you're a normal Jew, you just get a rifle. But if you're an ultra Orthodox, don't they give you like a fucking mech like Robotech?

And you're like, the ultra Orthodox guys get to fly around in like the fucking Samus mechs and shoot people with miniguns. That's what I thought, but I was wrong. What's their job instead, Tom?

Their job is to protect the country through worship and prayer. Oh. But it doesn't work. Am I supposed to think that the rocket attacks would be more plentiful? Yes. So God is stopping some of the violence but not all of the violence? So like when a suicide bomber in Israel boards a bus and blows up the bus, incinerating the men, women, and children aboard that bus on their daily commute, when that happens, God could have stopped it if there were more ultra-Orthodox people praying about it?

I can explain it to you, Tom, if you'll let me. You've got to. Somebody's got to. It's really easy. It's a very simple explanation. God will protect people, but there is an inverse ratio to hair braids. So, you see, the thing is, the more hair braids there are, the less

rocket attacks. There's an inverse proportion thing going on here. So the more ultra-orthodox there are, the more hair braids, less rocket attacks. Now that you say it. It's how it works. I'm not the one who thought it up. I'm just the messenger.

Maybe that little hat, maybe the hat is like a deflector hat. You know, and they can all stand together. I don't know that that's the case. I don't think that that's the case. That's probably not true at all. It's probably not true. No. We're going to take a quick break here.

We're going to give you all the information to contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, blog, all that other stuff and things like that. And we'll be back with the rest of the show and the interview with Jacob from the goodatheist.net podcast right after this. Want to contact Cognitive Dissonance? Visit them on Facebook. You can find the link at the website dissonancepod.com or type it in the Facebook search bar. Be sure to follow the guys on Twitter. Their handle is at dissonance underscore pod. The guys also post to Google Plus now, too, so check them out there. And if you'd like to email them, you can do so at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

You can also leave a comment on the blog at their webpage or give them a call at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. And to everyone who listens, shares, retweets, or rates the show, Cognitive Dissonance would like to cordially thank you for all of your fucking support. So this story is from examiner.com. This webpage, by the way, is fucking unusable at my work. I have a slow internet connection at my work, and this webpage is the fucking doggiest dog that's ever been a dog. There's like 50 fucking ads.

It takes like literally like, I'm wearing a fucking broadband connection here just to scroll down it's like i want to scroll nope we're gonna wait a second okay now we're scrolling okay got it and every advertisement is like flash and shit it's yeah i fucking hate this website examiner.com christian leader wants to tax atheists for not going to church um now this is uh is Brian Fisher again from the American Family Association. This guy is awesome. Wow. He's really a sense maker. This one. He basically says that because going to church, he says, is good for your health. And so since it's good for your health, if the government can mandate that you get health insurance, the government should mandate that you go to church. And if you don't go to church, you should pay a tax.

So atheists pay the atheist tax. I'm not a logician, but I would say that that is not a logically consistent premise that he has there. premise that he has there. Because first off, he's saying something that you can't, you know, you're saying that all the people that go to church are therefore more healthy than all people who don't go to church. Which, I'm sure you could fucking figure that out. And

I would say that the chances of that happening are very slim. But let's just say, let's just say, Tom, for the sake of argument, he's telling the truth. He's saying it's obvious. He he says so we're going to mandate that you go to church for your own health because we have health care they're not saying in the united states that you have to be healthy they're just saying you need fucking

health care that's it right right they're not saying, you know, the Obamacare, which I hate saying it, the Affordable Care Act. I like it. It doesn't say, like, I can't eat a cheeseburger or I can't smoke cigarettes or I can't do any of that. I have to exercise 30 minutes a day. It's nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with maintaining a greater sense of health or well-being or whatever. It's nothing – it's not even fucking related to those issues. Right.

So even if his premise is true, which it's not, that people who go to church are healthier, then it doesn't make any sense to fit that – try to stuff that into your argument because you're not making any sense. I mean, it really just does not add up to the final fucking conclusion that you come to that atheists should pay a fucking atheist tax for not going to church. And I think it's interesting that it's just atheists he's talking about, right? So you can believe in a different religion. This is that whole sham argument, right? That any religion is better than no religion. Yes. So he's not saying that like, oh, if you go to synagogue, you also have to go to

church. He's not saying like if you attend a mosque, you also have to go. He's not even saying you have to believe it. The atheists just have to attend it. Sure. So I would just be dragging down the church. The churches would have to get bigger.

They'd have to be like, well, we need more floor space. Why? Because we had a lot of unbelievers who were cheapskates. Yeah. I would go. I'd be like, I'm going to show up, and I'm going to be disrespectful and sleepy. Well, you know what I would do is I would stick around for the question and answer session afterwards. Oh, they don't have those?

Fuck. Everybody, like, stands up and does the greeting. They're like, peace be with you, peace be with you. They're like, doubt be with you, doubt be with you. I'd be waving my hand during the middle of the sermon. Excuse me, excuse me. That sounds like a load of shit. Right.

Could you explain it better? Yeah, I doubt your premise. Yeah, I'm kidding, kidding right what an idiot the american family association has nothing to do with america or families it might have something to do with associations though this guy is we're not gonna rule that out and he needs some fucking hair club for men too look at that white ass fucking hair this guy's yeah it does well it gives him that that sort of sage look. He looks so shiny. He's a sagey guy.

Seriously, if you could put him out in the middle of a runway during a heavy fog. I'm not going to the prayer meeting. I'm just, shoot,

let's go see The Avengers. Avengers was a great movie. I mean, if that is not a Matthew 16 movie, I don't know what is. Two or three together, united together, whatever they pray. Listen, the guy that's the most selfish, sacrifices his life, closes the portal to demons. to demons.

The old dude who stands up like Daniel Shadrach Misha, I'm not bound. There's a lot of gods like you who think you're going to be a dead man. Suddenly the angel of America comes and takes it. So this story is from Right Wing Watch. Lou Angle.

The Avengers is a must-see for spiritual warfare. See, so I read this article, and I thought, well, this is a good article. This is good for the show. This guy is clearly nuts. And then you made me watch the video. I don't watch a lot of the videos for these articles because a lot of times I'll find them at work and our internet connection is too slow at work. This video is a must see. I'll put it on our site for this episode. I will put

this video connected directly to this particular episode on dissonancepod.com. connected directly to this particular episode on DissonancePod.com. This is not a coherent man. This is not a man who is well. This man needs help. I think – now, I'm not sure. But I think when you watch this video, it's – let me see how long it is. When you watch this video, now, it's only a minute and 52 seconds long, OK?

But when you watch this video, I think there's about four distinct portions of this video where you can clearly see he's having a stroke. Like, he is talking about something, he starts to say something, and then mid-sentence he interrupts himself. Now, I do this all the time. I find myself doing this

constantly, but I don't do this in a way that I don't make sense out of anything that I've said previous or after. He just doesn't make any sense. You watch this guy talk and he cannot put together a coherent sentence from beginning to end one time in this entire fucking one minute, 52 seconds. No, no. I mean, he is off the rails immediately. This guy is the Ozzy Osbourne of public speaking. Like, he is just utterly incomprehensible at every moment.

And this is only two minutes. Can you imagine sitting in a crowd and watching him for two hours? Plus, you just have to see the video to watch him move his body. He looks like he just got it an hour ago. Yeah, he just figured it out. He's moving that thing around as if he has very little control over it. That's why I think the strokes are happening. Yeah, exactly.

There's like a drunken marionette guy up there. He's weak and at Bernie's uncomfortable to watch. He really looks like portions of his body are dead and they are being resurrected momentarily to move. It's kind of horrifying. The other horrifying thing about this video, Tom, is all the nubile young people that are sort of following, like looking up at him adoringly and high-fiving him throughout. And they're all dressed in the same outfit. Yeah, that's not creepy at all. They must be in a band or something. Are they all in a band?

Is it like fucking Christian Devo behind him? Christian Devo? I have no idea what's happening. I don't know anything about it. The only thing I know about this guy, and we talked about this earlier, is he's the fucking who says that we need to pray and take over America and there's the fucking six fucking tiers of America that are like fucking categories on Jeopardy. And basically you have to take over each one of these and then you'll be able to protect America from demons. And these are the people who go around and fucking pray to fucking get demons out of things. And they think there is an actual fucking war.

And this is why this guy is fucking coming all over fucking avengers right because he's like he's like man i think i'm in the avengers every day you know he's a fucking whack job and everybody else in the fucking audience is probably whack jobs too if they believe this stuff but they believe they actually believe that there's a fucking war going on between heaven and hell. A real war. Not a fucking made up fucking in this guy's head war, which it is, but a fucking real war where angels and fucking demons are fighting it out all the time. And he's talking about like fucking how he's getting angels on his side and how he's the Hulk. At a certain point, he's like, I'm the Hulk.

And I just, no, you're not, dude. You're the most feeble old man I've ever seen. You can barely stand up. Right. He says, and I'm going to quote this, I want to be the Hulk. I was so moved in that movie when the music's going and Hulk's coming. Boom, boom. I start weeping in the movie.

I am so moved by the Holy Spirit. Now you really think I'm crazy. Yes. That's the only thing you've said so far I agree with. I really think that you'm crazy. Yes. That's the only thing you've said so far I agree with. I really think that you are crazy. And again, this is a video that has to be watched. Cecil, did you ever have one of those toys when you were a kid that has like the base on the bottom that's a circle? And when you press it, like the strings that hold the thing kind of go limp.

They go limp and then he pops back. Yeah. He looks just like one of those. He does. You're absolutely right. His body just like flops all over, all crazy and disjointed. He only doesn't fall back completely, but he does fall back mostly and then bounce right back. You're right.

Absolutely. Like you're half-assed pressing it open. This guy is not a sane. He needs help. There's a part of this video, Tom, and I'm just going to refer people to it. It's about 50 seconds, 57 seconds in now. I'm going to play a tiny little part of this video, Tom, and I'm just going to refer people to it. It's about 57 seconds in now. I'm going to play a tiny little clip of this. Just a tiny clip, about maybe 10 seconds long.

Everybody else is bowing down to the old high guy. You're going to love it. Did you see that? That was... Does a rat not see the Avengers? Avengers must read. We must see. Must see. For spiritual warfare.

I mean, that really doesn't make any sense. He interrupts himself four times in the same sentence. He can't figure out what he's trying to say. He's so excited. I'm surprised he's not doing the peepee dance i'm no kid i'm a fucking amateur tom at doing at talking to other people like this is i only do this as a fucking hobby on the weekends right where we do this podcast where we're in we're basically you know kind of public speaking to other people and i am fucking a thousand times better at this than this guy

right and i'm not very good at it. This guy is an idiot. I can't believe he is even remotely called, one, charismatic, or two, he has a lot of followers, or three, that he can make a living at this. Yeah, I'll admit that occurred to me. I saw this guy and I thought, I've structured my life in all the wrong ways

because I would be willing to bet this guy is better compensated than I am. Yeah. I bet this guy is pretty fucking wealthy and his whole job is to be crazy. Yeah. And to be a shitty public speaker as a public speaker. Now, I like to think I'm pretty good at my job. This guy is pretty bad at his job. This guy is pretty bad at his job. He's a terrible person at his job.

He's not good at it. People are, who are the people in the crowd who are like, you know, when he said, I really, that resonated with me. I really, that stuck, you know, right here, right in the old heart box there. When he was like. He sounds at points, he sounds like the fucking Tasmanian double. That. Like he sounds like that guy. He does.

He does. Fucking, it's ridiculous. He is only a quarter of an inch away from spinning into a cyclone. What? That's how he combats the demons. Oh, my. For fuck's sake, if somebody tells you that there's really a demon. I know.

Like an actual fucking demon. Or an angel. I don't care. If somebody really says like. We're indiscriminate here. Yeah. There are actually angels. Real,

legitimate for fucking, not a metaphor, but an angel. That is not a person to converse with anymore. That is a person to shun. They are ridiculous. we're back at the end of the show here we're back with Jacob from the goodatheist.net podcast. And now, Jacob, it's The Good Atheist. We're going to talk about how you got started with this in a few minutes.

But The Good Atheist, what made you choose that? Why that nomenclature? To be honest with you, it was just because at the time, this is like 2007, there were quite a few names that were already taken. And truthfully— Default. Default. 2007, there were quite a few names that were already taken. And, uh... Truthfully... Default! Default! Yeah, and truthfully, okay, truthfully, The Good Atheist had already been used, but it had been in disuse for

so long, and I'm like, I'm just taking that bitch. Yeah. This is mine now. This is mine now, because it was really hard finding, like, a good one. And you know what? To some degree, also, I mean, it's sort of at the beginning i thought i was doing something that was like where i was going to be all kinds of good i didn't realize that reading hundreds and thousands of articles would make me in a bitter

fuck yeah so i mean otherwise i would have called myself bitter fuck atheist bitter atheist i get it i get it it's probably not taken could probably do that. You could transition at this point. Transitional. Yeah, but now it has a sort of pleasant irony to it, I guess. I think it shocks people. They walk... Because also there's like a big cartoon version of me. I don't put my face on it

because I think it's a perfect face for radio. But, you know, in a cartoon form, I'm actually a very cartoon-friendly character. I have giant eyebrows. Yeah, one of them's slightly arched. Yeah. Always arched.

And I have kind of like one of those I'm smarter than everybody else look on my face. Yeah. Which is fine in cartoon form. Sure. It looks good. Yeah, it doesn't look super smug in cartoon form. You're absolutely right. It looks a little bit less asshole-y.

So it turns down the asshole. Yeah, just a touch. Yeah. Yeah. It sort of little bit less asshole-y. So it turns down the asshole. Yeah, just the touch. And it sort of, yeah. Yeah. It sort of like makes everybody think that, and plus, you know, when they come in with the cartoons, they think, oh, this is sort of like be friendly. And for the most part, we're always kind of just messing around, having a good time. But yeah, I am known to having lots of bitter rants.

So perhaps The Good Atheist is not always the best descriptor when you first go. And I'm sure that the cartoon is very, very, what's the word I'm looking for? Distracting. Maybe almost dishonest. Be like, I was expecting something for kids. No kids allowed here, Kimo Sabe. Right. So your podcast, could you tell our listeners about it?

Well, I started back in 2007. So this was actually when there wasn't a lot of competition. So I started a podcast because there was a lot of blogs, but there wasn't a lot of competition. So I started a podcast because there was a lot of blogs, but there wasn't a lot of guys talking. And I mean, I'm sure since you guys produce a pretty high quality podcast, you know what I'm saying? When there was a pretty big gap in terms of just audio quality. Yeah. Just from that perspective. Absolutely. Yeah. And I was kind of like, it can't be that hard. You just get some good mics and record a good compression, and it should be all good. And you know what?

Honestly, I have asked a lot of my early fans, and they told me that was probably the number one reason why they started listening to it. They were like, good audio quality. I'm like, well, I'm glad that I make a difference. Why don't I just hum for an hour? Just read the telephone book for a while. It's like you're filibustering your podcast. Yeah, pretty much. That's actually my role in our show.

Well, you have a pleasant, you know, what we call a pleasant drone. I have the same way. You and I are background noise, my friend. We're background noise for all kinds of things. Cooking, working out, maybe even some people having sex. I don't know. My voice is a background noise when we're having sex, so I understand the feelings.

I think you need to participate a little bit more there, pal. I think that's an attack on your performance more than anything else. It always ends well for me, Jacob. That's the important part. That's the part you have to be concerned about. So you had this Kickstarter campaign, which was a rousing success. You're going to be writing a book called Bible Stories. And the book at this point is funded.

You have funded the book. But now this Kickstarter still exists because you want to fund a book tour afterwards. Can you talk a little bit about the book and possibly the tour that's going to be happening? Yeah. afterwards. Can you talk a little bit about the book and possibly the tour that's going to be happening? Yeah, well, truthfully, the kind of the tour idea was something that was playing around in my head, but, you know, not really feasible on that sort of $10,000 budget, which is where, when I originally

planned the book, I thought to myself, well, it's really hard to gauge what the interest is going to be, even though lots of people are always telling you, oh, I love your stuff, I'd buy your book, and then come fucking crunch time, they're nowhere to be found. You know what I mean? Right. Where were you when I needed to feed my family?

Right, right. But, you know, like I had been working on Bible stories for a long time. I mean, it started off as just a podcast segment because I do two podcasts a week and one of them is for, you know, paying members. And because this is the way that I make a living now, I had to try to find creative ways to entice people to pay me money because for the most part, people don't pay money for podcasts. They're like, why would I pay you?

There's tons of them that are out there that are free. Right, that are free. And I'm like, well, there's still a free segment of my podcast, and that's how most of them listen. But I figured, well, I'm going to learn how to get people addicted to my shit so bad that they're actually going to pay me money. And one of those was the Bible stories, which was essentially, it started off me just wanting to read my Bible namesake, Jacob. And I thought, well, why don't I do a fun thing where I say the story of

Jacob, and then I try to relate it to me and say say like, does this sound like me? Because, you know, the biblical Jacob sounds a little bit like me. Like for instance, he liked to stay in tents. That means he's an indoors guy. I'm an indoors guy. Yeah, like if he had a gaming system, Jacob would have been a gamer. So, and he was a mama's boy, right? Clear mama's boy. Such a clear mama's boy that his mama invented a story about a soothsayer telling her that he was going to be the one who inherited everything. And then successfully manages to sew some sheep skin on his arm so that it seems like it's Esau. So it all sounds like mama had a whole plan into it. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

She was involved. Directly involved. So these Bible stories, this book, what is this book going to be about? Well, the book is essentially, when I started to do the show, I had to retell what the story is, but the truth is, I'm not going to give you a

like, I wasn't going to just re-read the Bible. I think we've all agreed, every single one of your listeners who has ever tried to read the Bible and not completed it knows exactly what I'm talking about. We all make the same promise. I want to read it so that I know exactly how to contradict someone, and I'm able to throw it right back in their face. But when it actually comes crunch time, you realize it's a snooze fest. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right.

That's the biggest problem. It's not written in a way, like primarily, that's actually readable for us. It's kind of a, that's weird because, you know, in the old days, when it was first translated, it was actually written in vulgar. Like thou, even though that sounds pretty, you know, fancy to us, is a vulgarity. I know that's just sort of like it kind of had a reversal, but the Bible was supposedly written for the common man. That was the whole idea. It's just that the common man spoke a little bit different back then, and it

sounds all fancy to us now. I mean, we must sound like real right retards. But in any case, that's probably the first problem. It's not really written for modern audiences, but it's also not you know like the people who translate it they always try to have the utmost respect for it i think that's the first problem i'm like don't treat anything with respect just treat it for what it is tell the story as it is raw and bring it into a context that seems sort

of like pretty modern for people so it sticks in in their brain, you know? Because that's the power of stories. The reason why stories work is because the dynamic of human relations is actually a very, very complicated math. You know, if you were trying to chart it out on a piece of paper, it would be overwhelming. But you are really good as a human being keeping track of others. That's why you're so good at gossip. That's why you're always telling, like, your friends about all the shitty things

your other friends have done. Well, all of those complicated relationships, you're so good at them that you can even have them with imaginary people, with story entities. And because of these characters that are inside, you can, you know, there's

a way for you to memorize other elements as well. It's why storytelling is a memetic exercise. So with that in mind, I'm like, look, if there is a way for you to memorize other elements as well. It's why storytelling is a memetic exercise. So with that in mind, I'm like, look, if there is a way to retain the stories, well, it should be we should try to make them clear because, you know, like the story of Jacob, the story of

Abraham, all the characters in the Bible, these stories are so horrible. You can just bring them up in a conversation and right there you're like, yeah, that's the Bible, guys. That's your book of morality. I just told you a tale that disgusts you. And I'm like, that's the Bible that I just told you about. The Bible.

Right. If you change the players around, immediately it's completely – you could get somebody who believes in the Bible to think that that's an abhorrent story when it really is directly from the Bible. Right. directly from the Bible. Right. And well, there's, I remember there's this one time this woman, she was on some radio program

and she had just come out of a sermon where the pastor was reading out of 1 Timothy's. So if you've ever sort of read anything out of that, it's sort of like women keep silent.

Yeah, I've seen that quote before. Yeah, that kind of stuff. So she comes out of it and she's all, and she's saying like, this is outrageous. How could the pastor read that? I'm like,

it's in the Bible, woman. That's what you actually pretend to believe. It's in your book. It's in. Well, I think that's, that's the whole point though, right? Is it's like, I, well, I believe, you know, in the Bible really, well, you haven't read it. And so you don't really know all these things, which what they believe is a, is a pick and choose. And I think that the interesting thing about treating the Bible as a book, you know, because it's not a book. The Bible doesn't exist as a book in the sense of any other book existing in the same way. It's a series of tangentially related stories by a series of disparate authors told over an incredible expanse of time, all of whose origin is speculative at best.

To treat all that as if it's a single book. Yeah, and then you're going to be like, well, this is a book. Well, it's a book only in the loosest sense of the word. It's a book in the sense that like when I went out in the schoolyard and I found 100 pieces of paper blowing randomly in the wind and they were all the same assignment from 50 different students. And I glued them together and now I have a book. That's not really a book. Yeah, it's bound.

That's what you can say. It's pages. It's square. It's a book. Yeah. Yeah, but it's funny. It is funny, though. And I think that this project is an interesting project because it gives people an opportunity to take

a look at some of these stories and see what really is there. Because there are a few podcasts out there. There's one podcast in particular where a young gentleman by the name of Thomas reads the Bible. And he reads it aloud, and then he makes commentary afterwards. And if you haven't heard Thomas and the Bible podcast, it's absolutely hilarious because he's a very funny guy. And off the cuff, he comes up with some really funny analogies and funny sayings about what he's reading. But most of the time, like you're right, most of the atheists, they don't bother to read it because they get to like the begats and they're done. I ain't reading all these begats. There's no way.

Well, it's not just the bigats it's also one of the biggest challenges that i have when i'm writing it is that the name of everything is just so alien to you right if i'm sort of like oh they were camping at gilgal this is not like are you going to remember gilgal in your head it's it's kind of a weird and plus some of the um you know acadian uh or or you know weird other tribes that have these names that sort of stretch on forever, it's sort of hard to grasp. It's a bit difficult. It's sort of like if you've ever read

a Chinese book called Romance of Three Kingdoms, which is sort of like, I love that story, but it's pretty hard when the names are so different from the context that you're acclimatized to. So that's the first challenge. And the second challenge is this is not a region that most people are familiar with either.

So if I was telling you that Jesus was going to Detroit, you know, like you can visualize what that is like. Part of the challenge is when you're reading these, you know, like there's so many times where you have to go, it's like, where is this? What is this place? What the hell where you have to go, it's like, where is this? What is this place? What the hell does it have to do? I mean, like a huge portion of what I do is constantly researching what is this word? What the hell does it mean?

Because it's not always obvious. And it is a really, it is a large amount of study to just actually go through it. Because some of the words are alien. Some of the names are like, is this the same dude from before? he just has the same name i guess that's not clear and then sometimes you're just reading a section and you're like is that it is that all there is on this one dot one dude it's like is there more no there's no more that's it so you sometimes sort of like say well maybe there's other extra sources which there are a lot of times. People made up other stories about, like, even Adam and Eve is a classic example. There's a whole

book that's just sort of like about them crying their fucking eyes out just because God has cast them out and they're like, boo-hoo. It just goes on and on, page after page, boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo. But this is sort of like written long after, you know, the Adam and Eve story, but it's just more

fan fiction fanfic that's exactly right plus the writing is not very good in a lot of it there's there's from a literary standpoint the writing is just in many places in the bible it's just a series it's a listing of events and this guy did this thing period the other guy did the other thing period the other guy went to the place, period. That's not good writing. Well, it's a lot of this repeated, and then the Lord said, and then the Lord said. Yeah, it's a lot of that too. But the one thing that you have to appreciate, and this is the part that I

think that kind of makes it worth it if you still decide, well, I'm not even going to read Jacob's book. I'm just going to read the Bible for myself. Well, if you do, and let's say you're reading the King James Version, which is much more challenging, and I don't necessarily recommend that's your first read-through. The one thing you have to understand, though, is that the man who wrote the majority of that Bible, William Tillsdale, is more often quoted in our culture than Shakespeare. And that's a pretty important thing when you think about just how many quotes,

how many phrases actually really come from the Bible. And it's, and reading them for the first time, you're just like, oh, is that where that comes from? Yeah. It comes from the Bible. When you say something, you're just like, I didn't realize that was a biblical saying, you know, the, my brother's keeper, you know, like when you read it for the first time, you're just like, oh, right, right. That's Cain talking to God about, you know, when God's like, where the fuck is Abel? He's like, where am I? My brother's And he's like, where are my brothers keeping you? Yeah, I fucking smacked him in the head with a rock. Or whatever implement.

He's never really mentioned. He's just, and then he slew him. Yeah, he slew him. He's like, well, you can be creative. We get to add that in. We get to do the fanfic of that. Yeah, exactly. Jacob, if our listeners were going to find your podcast and this Kickstarter, where would they go?

Okay, well, first up, you can go to thegoodatheist.com or.net. Either one works. If you go to Kickstarter and you go to the publishing, we're always in the popular section. But you can just type in Bible stories, and it should appear. Or even if you do a search for it, I think we're actually starting to pretty, like, take off with those words now. We're starting to own it nice that's pretty good and plus if you go to the kickstarter now there's still a couple of uh spots left one of the one of the ways that i was incentivizing people to pay uh for the the packages is that you can have your

face illustrated in the book and i don't know if you saw the actual illustration of the uh of the cover i'm i'm not a bad illustrator myself, I must say. So I'm recreating some of the famous works of art, but, you know, sometimes with a twist. Like, for instance, the cover is Gustav Dore's Jacob wrestles the angel. But in my version, it's me and I'm winning. Yeah, you're totally overpowering this angel. I'm looking at it right now. That angel is a wuss, dude.

You are totally overpowering him. Or her'm looking at it right now. That angel is a wuss, dude. You are totally overpowering him. Or her. I don't know. I can't tell. Plus, his staff is also broken, which is supposed to signify, you know, the covenant being broken. It's kind of like, yeah, there's a bunch of subtle things. But I want to do that, too. So if you're sort of like a bit of a narcissist, which I'm sure a lot of listeners are narcissists,

you have a chance to actually read a book with your face in it. So that's actually pretty cool. How much do I have to donate to get my mug as Jesus? It's about $250. There's an answer to that question. But the Jesus book is not going to be the Bible stories because, you know, the New Testament is its own book. I want to treat that puppy totally differently.

And I want to actually, you know, when I write that second book,. I want to treat that puppy totally differently. And I want to actually, you know, when I write that second book, I also want to talk about Christianity and its history from its inception to now, as I described the four stories and things like that. So I do have a plan for the second book, but I want to take my time on that one. You know, the Bible stories portion of it is just for me to tell everyone the Old Testament tales that really are kind of the foundation of all of the three major religions. And once you realize what the foundational stories are, you're going to laugh your ass off, especially the way I do it. So if you go on, plus there's a video, there's a ton of podcasts that they can listen to, which is basically an example of what the book will be. They can go on the site, and if they check out, there's a section called Bible Stories.

They're all there, and you can listen to them. And just if you laugh your ass off, go to the Kickstarter and support it. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on, Jacob. We really appreciate it. Thank you. No, I appreciate you guys giving me a chance to pit my product, and I'll have to have you guys on my show, too. I have recommended your show, too, by the way, because I figured that most of my fans would probably get a kick out of you guys since you're off the cuff, and you're pretty close to my spectrum of things anyways in terms of the disbelief yeah and also and also non-researched right so non-researched you know so before we get started with the email Tom I wanted to make sure that I said thank you to the people who pointed out last episode that the Jankum thing that I said, the poop smelling, as it were, is a hoax.

It's good that people are listening and finding this and saying, no, whatever you say is not true. This is bullshit. The Jankum thing is a hoax in the United States. It was based off faulty internet research. Snopes reported it as a hoax in the United States. About.com reported it as a hoax being used in the United States. And it's increased reporting that happened because of this faulty report that some kid pranked a bunch of people with. However, I pointed this out in a couple different places. If you go to the Wikipedia article and if you do a little quick search,

you can find some articles that reference it from kids in Zambia using it, street kids in Zambia using this drug. So in the United States, I think it's pretty safe to say that it's probably a hoax. Outside of the United States, the jury's still out whether or not it's a hoax. It was reported, like I said, in the BBC and in National Geographic. So I'm not sure if it is, you know, I'm not willing to say it's a hoax outside of the United States, but I want to thank people for sending in those things and to mentioning it. I don't want to be a purveyor of urban legends. I don't want to be somebody who's going to just like believe something off the cuff. So if we do say something that is specifically falsified, uh, let us know. We're

happy that you did it. Thank you very much. Like I said, we, we just don't want to do that. And we, we want to make sure that people recognize when we're, when we're saying something that is not true and, uh, and call us out on it. We got a lot of messages. We got Facebook responses. We got Twitter messages at us. And we also got posts on our blog all about it. So thank you. So we got a Google voice, Tom. And this is kind of disappointing. Fucking Google voice.

Not only can you not transcribe shit very well, but you also cut off our caller, which is really fucking shitty. Because the person who called tried to call at first time. They tried to call through the website, which they obviously didn't work. And then they tried to call us on the phone and it got cut off. I'm going to play it anyway. But basically, we're listening to a cut off message here. Ah, there's the beep. I tried calling you from the link on your website, but it said the call was connected, but there was no beep or anything, so I wasn't sure whether it got through or not.

I'm assuming it did not, since you do, in fact, have a beep. Anyway, love your show. Listen to episode 35 now, working my way back through the history of your show. So, Tom, Google Voice thinks that this cutoff message says something that it probably doesn't. Yeah, they got this just as wrong as connecting the call. I have to say, I want a refund, Google Voice. Yeah. Hi, there's AV.

I tried calling you from the link on your website, but so, it's all the calls, because otherwise I will be or anything. So I wasn't sure whether go through or not. I'm assuming you did not since you do, in fact, have a beat. Anyway, love your show. Listen, it is. Sorry.

Episode thirty five. Not working my way back through the history of your show. Oh, if you call again, I cannot promise that you will not get disconnected. But please call back if you can. We're excited to get any Google voice that we can. And this one obviously took a shit. So sorry about that. So we got a message from Tasmania, which was awesome.

A great feeling. We wanted to thank our Tasmanian listener who says they absolutely love our show and they want us to please keep it up. So thank you, David, from Tasmania. You devil. That's terrible. That is pretty bad. We want to thank all the people who participated in the T-shirt giveaway program that we had. We did, Tom, give away five t-shirts.

We gave a t-shirt to Tom, one to Mark, one to Marie, and one to, and I can't pronounce his name. It's the Americanized version. It's Juan Yu. Thank you. We also, the fifth shirt, George Rab, went to George. So five shirts went out. Hopefully you guys will get a chance to take a picture of yourselves at TAM.

They are chatting about it now to see when they'll be available. We're hoping to get that picture up on Facebook as soon as you guys send it to us. So have a great time at TAM, which is coming up next week. I don't think we'll be recording before then. We're not going physically, but Cecil and I both plan to astrally project our essence there. We will be there. So, you know, if you feel like a cold draft and you assume it's probably just air conditioning, that's actually me. Especially if the draft is kind of fat. And I'm saying we're tight-fitting underpants.

That's all I'm saying. Because I will draft anywhere near there. So we got an email from Kyle. And this is about St. Petersburg and the Gay Pride Parade. Kyle says that in Pinellas, some county in Florida, they have a serious mosquito infestation, shocking for Florida. They spray for every musical festival and large gathering. They got slammed by a tropical storm, 10 inches of rain, and it's a mosquito mecca, as he puts it.

The city's spray control was told to stand down on spraying for the gay pride parade and to save the chemicals to make sure they're fully stocked for this time of year for the Republican National Conference. So in Florida, it's OK to get fucking transmitted diseases through mosquito if you're gay, but

not if you're Republican. That's because that's because mosquitoes prefer cold, dead blood. That's why. So Jason sends us an email, and Jason is from Kanata, and he says that they don't have states up there. They have provinces. We never actually said that you had states, but I transitioned kind of weirdly. But, yeah, you could have a shot at us. Sure, we think you have states.

Who cares what you have up there? That's what I say. Who cares? But he sends us a message about health care. Thank you for sending it to us. It's great. You send us a big, long sort of list. One thing we will point out is that you say something about, you know, well, you know, we don't get some of the supplementary care. And Tom, you and I both said, well, we don't get nearly any supplementary. We don't get any supplementary care for free. We don't get any care for free. Yeah, it's funny because I've actually

heard this from a couple of Canadians, you know, where it's like, well, yeah, but, you know, we don't get dental. And it's like, well, we don't either, even through our insurance. You have to have a separate insurance policy for dental or vision that's separate from your major medical coverage. Absolutely, yeah. We have separate – so I have three different programs for myself. I have vision, dental, and health. Right. I have three different programs for myself.

I have vision, dental, and health. Right. And then, you know, it's funny because we also got another email from somebody describing how much, also from Canada, describing how much they pay to cover themselves and their family. And it broke my heart because it's like. I know. He says, I pay about 25% of my paycheck in taxes. That's not less than what we pay in taxes. I pay a lot of money in taxes in the States and still my medical insurance, you know, for my family. I've got a family of three and my kick is about seven or eight hundred dollars a month to cover us.

And that's not and that doesn't mean that you can get everything for free because you paid your premium. It just means that you have shitty fucking insurance and you still have to pay co-pays and prescription costs and all that. Like, it's funny. My wife has to have bridge work done on, on her mouth,

right? Like one of her bridges fell out or something. Um, a while back or not fell out, but it's like starting to fucking not get good. I don't even know, you know, like what the fuck's going on. But basically our insurance, our dental insurance covers cleanings and some major stuff.

But this thing's going to cost us two grand or almost three grand out of pocket. Right. And you're talking about they're covering like half of this or as much as her dental plan will allow. So and we're paying monthly on this thing. And at the end of the day, this as her dental plan will allow. So, and we're paying monthly on this thing. And at the end of the day, this is a group plan too. So it's not, they're collecting a lower premium from us, but they're collecting it from a large group of people who may only have to go in to get cleanings for a year. And then they get a big pool of money and then they pay off some of

these things. But still I have to pay, you know, almost three K out of pocket just to get her, you know, the bridge work done in her mouth. So the fact is, is that, is that you still pay a substantial amount out of pocket depending on the procedure. And that happens a lot when you go into a certain types of medical coverage that your medical coverage can run out. Your medical coverage can, you know, there's a certain amount that they'll pay up to, but then after that, they're like, fucking you're on your own, bro. Right. I'm my, my wife had back surgery. I'm 16 grand into the surgery. Sure. And that doesn't include dental visits and prescriptions I've paid for just 16 grand into the surgery for the year. Yeah. So, so that's it. That's a lot of money. And you know, you're just, there's a lot

of times people are like, Oh, well I have insurance in my job. It's like, well, when shit fucking really hits the fan, you'll see how much that insurance really covers. So we got an email from Drew, and Drew is one of our original listeners. We want to thank Drew for listening. Now, Drew had said that we kind of had a little bit of a logical fallacy here when I mentioned vouchers. I had said something to the effect of, why don't I get a voucher if I don't have kids? Why don't I get a voucher to go to school? And what I was really referring to is basically the government is saying, government really doesn't do this very often. They don't say, we collected all this tax money. Now we're going to give some of it back for you

to spend it. They don't do that. They spend it. They choose how they're going to spend it and they spend it. With a voucher system, it's kind of backwards. They give you the money back and then you get to spend it in a – so instead of spending it on the public schools, they're just giving you the voucher money and now you get to spend it on wherever you want. And that's why I was saying it about this. I understand and he says that basically the childless people need to pay taxes to send kids to school and it's kind of illogical for them to say that they shouldn't pay the taxes. And I absolutely agree with you, Drew. I think more selfishly I think the reason why I pay taxes as a child-free person is because those people are going to be making decisions for me when I'm shitting my pants. And I want to make sure that they're the best decision makers they can be. And that's completely and purely selfish. But just

like you say, you know, you got to make roads, you got to make you got to other things benefit the entire society that our taxes are going through. Even if I don't drive, I still got to have better roads. So you're absolutely right for pointing that out. I don't know that that was exactly my argument. But thank you again for sending the email. Tom, you committed a false dichotomy and Michael has told you so. I did. We got an email from Michael. He said, in episode 54, Tom committed a false dichotomy, logical fallacy in his comments about ACA and how if employers did not pay for health insurance, the employees' wages would rise. I apologize for that. I guess I should have been more clear in that it frees up the employer from paying that amount. And they can use that then to increase your wages if they so choose.

They very well might say, fuck it. You know, I'll just keep it. I'll just distribute it to the shareholders or I'll just if I'm a private ownership, I'll just keep the money personally. And if I you know, if I'm a private employer and I don't have shareholders. Yeah, absolutely. They don't have to pass that cost on to the employee. But I guess my point being that they can and they can they can offer a better wage or they can. You know, if you employ 50 people and you save that money across the board with 50 people, maybe you can now hire some people that you wouldn't otherwise be able to hire. So it frees the money up for either profit or expansion or employees' wages or whatever the employer seeks to use the funds for.

You're right. I was wrong in saying that that money would then automatically transition to the employee. I shouldn't have spoken so casually. We wound up getting an email about episode 53. This is from Jimmy. And Jimmy is from Melbourne. And he starts, he's talking, Tom, a little bit about MMA here and our thoughts on MMA. And then also sort of contrasting it with what we had said at the end of the show about

how to be a moral person without a higher power directing your life. Yeah. Specifically, he says, I was a bit intrigued by your statements about being almost obsessed with MMA fighting. What I'm interested in is asking you guys how you feel morally about this kind of sport, where the participants are more or less expected to inflict pain and injury to each other, where the main objective is to injure the other person. I take issue with a couple of things there, and I don't mean to be rude, but the expectation isn't that somebody will be injured in MMA.

An injury implies that there's a long-term damage to the body. MMA fighters aren't expected to deliver long-term injuries to each other. That's not the goal in MMA. Certainly it happens. Injuries occur in any sport. I know you mentioned that you like freestyle BMX. Injuries certainly occur in that sport. But injuries, the intention is to avoid injury. And I know you're probably thinking, well, yeah, but you're punching a guy in the face. Yeah, but being punched in the face does not necessarily translate into injury.

It may translate into pain. It may translate into discomfort. You may need to heal from it, but that's not the same thing in a sports sense as having an injury. There's also specific mechanisms in MMA to stop the fight. You can throw in the towel to stop the fight if somebody's getting their ass kicked. You can verbally tap out and just say, I give up. You can cover up and turtle up and just wait until the ref comes over and stops it, and that happens more often than not.

And specifically the tap out. When I tap, somebody has a joint lock on me and they tap, those joints aren't damaged permanently. How do I feel about that? That's an interesting question. I did say that I choose not to harm one another. But I also feel that there's some sort of voluntary participation involved here, too. I feel like just in a lot of other sports that are violent sports and we're talking American football is a violent sport. You know, these people are going down the field and getting tackled by someone else.

Rugby is a violent sport. They're getting tackled and thrown to the ground. These people are choosing to participate in the sport. They're signing the waiver, so to speak. They're saying, I want to do this thing. I want to participate in this sport. I think it's important to recognize that questions of ethics and consent are intermingled. questions of ethics and consent are intermingled. So virtually anything is ethically,

virtually anything is ethically appropriate as long as all parties consent to the action. You know, you can't, you can't call something unethical if I'm happy to do it. If it, if it, if I say it enriches my life to engage in this sport, and certainly people do feel this way, you can't as a third party say, well, you consent to this activity, but it's unethical. Ethics and consent have a conversation, and it's important to keep that in mind. It's also important, I think, to keep in mind that a fight in an MMA ring is not the same thing as a street fight, that they bear little or no resemblance to one another, that the level of danger involved. You know, if I get into a street fight, I'm worried that I might not live through this thing. MMA doesn't have that same thing. It's all about context, and that's important to consider as well. thing. It's all about context. And that's important to consider as well. And you also say,

what signals does this send to the youth in regards to the use of violence? I particularly don't feel any more violent when I watch them. I enjoy watching the contest between these two individuals, but I never turn to Tom who's watching with me and punch him in the face. That just never occurs to me to happen. I may be a more rational person than a child though. So I don't know. If you have a study though, if there's some studies that you've seen about kids and MMA, I know for sure though, and this is, I know this is a little tangential. I apologize for the tangents, but I know for sure that many, many martial arts academies specifically say that

violence is not the answer, that this is a last resort. This is a self-defense. I know that that happens in many different types of martial arts. So I know that that exists and mixed martial arts is still a martial art. So if you were to study this, they wouldn't say, you know, when you're walking down the street, punch a granny in the face. They would say protect yourself. And I've got a five-year-old. I don't let him watch the fights. He's not old enough yet. That's what you do.

You know, how does it affect kids? Well, kids shouldn't fucking watch it. You know, they shouldn't watch pornography yet either. You know, there's a fucking time and a place for these things in a person's life. And at a young age, it's not the time and the place. We want to end with Joey who posted a couple of posts on our Facebook page and also sent us a private email to tell us that we were the best podcast on iTunes. Agreed. Yeah.

were the best podcast on iTunes. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. If, if there are, if there were no other podcasts on iTunes, we would be the best one. So thank you, Joey. We appreciate it. I appreciate you sending us an email to letting us, letting us know as well as putting it on our Facebook page. All right. So that ends another episode of Cognitive Dissonance. Remember, you can catch Jacob's podcast at thegoodatheist.net or.com. He has that Kickstarter. If you give money to that Kickstarter, there's ways for you to get the product after it's over. So if you do

donate to it, you'll get a thing. So the book, the audio book, or however much you donate depends on how much. So at this point, he has reached his goal, but this money is to go to his tour afterwards to go see people in different cities. So if you're interested in that, go ahead to his Kickstarter, which we will link to in this podcast. We want to thank Jacob for coming on and talking with us this episode. And as usual, we will leave you with the Skeptic's Creed.

Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info docutainment, Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides.

Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Potential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. We'll see you next time. you