Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 56: Purity Ballz

Episode Date: July 16, 2012

Friday the 13th Phobia Rooted in Ancient History Televangelist Tells Christians to Write in ‘Jesus’ on Election Day Mexico: Christian fundamentalists burn down a school “possessed by the devil�� (video) State Officials Say It’s Time To Pray For Rain Controversial religion from Japan finds success in Uganda, infuriating Christian clerics American Family Association Calls For Boycott Of Google Over Company's Support Of LGBT Rights SPLC demands hate group stop misusing gay couple’s engagement photo Pledging Virginity to Dad: A New Doc Explores the World of ‘Purity Balls’ Afghan female rights activist killed in latest act of violence against women Islamic Clerics Call on Egypt to Destroy Great Pyramids Anal sex is your passport to paradise – but only if you’re a suicide bomber Imam arrested on sodomy charges Report: Cannibal Cult in Papua New Guinea Killed Seven ‘Evil Sorcerers,’ Used Their Penises to Make SoupClips: Neil Degrasse Tyson, The Simpsons, Jesus Camp, AFA Vs. Google, Allahu Akbar, A Few Good Men.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. You say you're worried about kids. I'm not worried about kids. I'm worried about grownups. Okay? These are the ones who vote. These are the ones who tell you the world is coming to an end in 2012.

Kids don't say that. Grownups do. I'm worried about grownups who say, read my horoscope. Tell me where they'll find money tomorrow grown-ups say this not children okay children do not read horoscopes okay children are perfectly happy counting through the number 13 children are not afraid to walk under ladders they see a black cat cross their path they sell the kitty kitty they want to pen it and not run in the other direction children are not the problem here get me started plus kids are born curious they're always exploring. We spend the first year of their lives teaching them how to

walk and talk. And the rest of their lives tell them to shut up and sit down. 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, Matt. We are very fortunate today to be even recording episode 56. We both survived Friday the 13th.

Cecil, it was a tough day. I'm not going to lie about it. It was Friday the 13th. As a complete lunatic I'm scared of dates and numbers me too I think hey dude Jesus don't bring a seven near me if you bring a seven anywhere near me I shit myself like that's just how it works I don't know about you but I I followed the traditional Friday the 13th folk remedies um and I spent the day standing on my head eating a piece of gristle because NationalGeographic.com suggests that is a folk remedy for the existence of a day. How can you have a remedy for a day?

And how long do you have to do it? Because, like, look, what you're basically doing is pulling yourself out of the equation if you spend your entire fucking day chewing gristle on your head. Like, you're basically removing all chance that anything bad is going to happen to you. Although maybe you might choke on your gristle. I was going to say it takes the whole fucking day to chew the gristle because it's gristle. That's not – it's like it's fucking meat bubble gum. That's not for eating. One of the other suggestions in this article, which I love, one recommendation is to climb to the top of a mountain or skyscraper and burn all the socks you own that have holes in them. What?

They updated it to skyscraper? First, I would like to see somebody in America climb to the top of a skyscraper and start a fire post-September 11th. That strikes me as a bad call. You want to have some bad luck. That's not going to be taken over very well. Yeah. Well, another thing, too, is why put yourself in a mountain climbing situation on Friday the 13th? I am afraid of this date.

So here's what I'm going to do. I am afraid of this date, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to either climb a mountain, light a fire on a skyscraper, or try to chew inedible foods upside down. Yeah, those seem like the ways in which to ward off. I think those are created to, like, actually make the stupid people kill themselves on Friday the 13th. Fucking Friday the 13th. I was reading this article. It's so fucking ridiculous. Like, one of the things in here is like, you know, some

biblical scholars believe that it was on a Friday that the snake tempted Eve. Really? It was on a Friday? Well, hold on. I have access to Satan's calendar through my iPhone. Let me check. Yeah, he shares it with you, right? It's a Google calendar. Yeah, it was a Friday, Tom.

Yeah, it is. It's a Google calendar. You can find it. I found it, Tom. It's Friday, and it's the first week of ever. It's 00. So, yeah, the first week of ever. It's a little hard to find.

You've got to scroll back pretty far in your Google calendar. It's 6,000 years. It turns out. It's findable. I've got to go back. Yeah. It isn't that far. I mean, it's not impossible.

One of the things, too, that they should add to this, we should add a few of these things. So another folk remedy, let's say, is cleaning your gun on that day. Cleaning your gun and making sure the barrel is empty using your eye. So that's a possible way to ward off bad spirits on Friday the 13th. You could start a grease fire in your kitchen. That's a way to ward off the bad spirits of Friday the 13th. I'm going to try to put it out with some of the water from the fracking wells. And it's got blue.

You just run your water in Pennsylvania. It'll just explode your house. Too blow-uppy. Another way to do it is to cross the street, a busy street, with your eyes closed. That's a way to ward off the evil spirits on Friday the 13th. So try that next year. That will work. I guarantee you will not have another Friday the 13th that gets you down.

It's true. We are aliens. But what are you going to do about it it's a two-party system you have to vote for one of us this is a two-party system well i believe i'll vote for a third party candidate go ahead throw your vote away So, Cecil, this story comes from PoliticUSA.com. This is pretty funny. A televangelist tells Christians to write Jesus on Election Day. This guy does not know what he wants.

This article, this story is pretty awesome. This is a story about Bill Keller, the world's leading internet evangelist and the founder of LivePrayer.com has encouraged people and over 200,000 people have already signed up to write in the name Jesus for president this November. What? Well, what if he doesn't want the job? What if he's like, let's say that, you know, nut balls across America all join together and they all write Jesus in instead of Mitt or instead of Barack Obama. They choose Jesus. What if they actually succeed?

Can you imagine, like, Jesus is like, wait, fuck, there's an electoral college? I didn't win. Well, no, they walk out on the street, I guess, in Washington, D.C., Jesus is like, wait, fuck, there's an electoral college. I didn't win. Well, no, they walk out on the street, I guess, in Washington, D.C. and be like, anybody with the name of Jesus, we're looking for a Jesus. Any Jesus that we get, the first Jesus we see is going to run the country. Is that how that's going to work? And we don't like let's just presume it's a real person, Tom. Like, let's say fucking, you know, I know that people do it every year. Howard Stern gets fucking written in on ballots.

I don't know how many, but there's a certain number. Let's just say fucking everybody in the United States has a fucking mental breakdown and writes Howard Stern in and he wins by an overwhelming number. What if he doesn't want the job? Right. What if he's like, fuck, I don't want to do it. I didn't want to fucking do it, so don't write me in. But they wrote him in anyway. What the fuck?

How does it even work? The write-in seems like such a stupid thing. It's an extravagantly stupid thing. And like you said, Howard Stern would be like, I don't want the pay cut. What, are you kidding me? I'm going to show up and be paid. It's a lot of work right now. He's like, I just judge like America's Got Talent.

I watch strippers sit on a fucking machine and get off. You know what I mean? Like that's what his job is, his work. Yeah, and Jesus' job is to be not real. So, you know, that's like another – Jesus is taking a pay cut too. He's like, but I've got all the riches of heaven. What do I need? I mean, that's like all the riches too. It's pay cut, too. He's like, but I've got all the riches of heaven. What do I need?

I mean, that's like all the riches, too. It's a lot, man. It's a lot. You know, it's interesting when they talk about the riches of heaven. It's like, well, where do you spend the money? Like, is there like a commissary in heaven? I'd like one candy bar. That will be one all of the riches, please.

Oh, how convenient. I have all of the riches. please. Oh, how convenient. I have all of the riches. I just pray over this equipment. We speak over the PowerPoint presentations, all of the video projectors. And we say, devil, we know what you love to do in meetings like this. And we say you will not, in Jesus' name, you will not prevent this message from going out. No microphone problems, in Jesus' name. So this story is from Univision News.

I love this story. In Mexico, Christian fundamentalists burned down a school possessed by the devil. This is going to work out well. This is from a religious community in Mexico that goes by the name Nueva Jerusalem, or New Jerusalem for those who don't or cannot translate. Damn, dude. You know Spanish? I know the one word.

Google Translate. Recently burned down a public elementary school, arguing it had been possessed by the devil. So I just want to point out that you're using fire to chase away the devil. That's where he lives, man. You're basically like, you just basically built a waterbed for him. Like, hey, sit down, relax, we'll massage your feet. This story is misnamed. It should be like Mexicans usher in ignorance.

You know what I mean? Like, they'd much rather have no school than try to, I mean, wouldn't you rather just try to fucking get the demon out of there some way that doesn't actually destroy the thing that you want to fucking protect? Yeah, that's such as any other method, right? Like any other method. Plus, you're in a tiny outskirt community in Mexico. I'm guessing you don't have a lot of resources to build a new school. So this is really just a way for these religious nuts to get rid of the school. Like that's what it is. That's exactly it. Well, they, you know, they get rid of the school and now they, what do

they do? What do you do with your kids now? How do they learn a thing? And did you burn down all the stuff that was with the school or did you just burn down the building was all the stuff like your fucking books and desks and things was all that possessed too or was it just the shell of the school who knows i don't know how the how does the devil possess a building is he in the drywall like is he in the mud and tape is he is he like hanging out inside the framing like ha ha ha they'll never find me here and then what would he do what would the devil do if he possessed the building does he possess the air inside of it well i've seen hammityville horror

tom and a demon can just possess a thing it's documented that's a documentary that's documentary yeah i should have thought yeah before i spoke um if there were like a million flies in there that definitely would have been i'll be honest that there's a million flies in there it warrants getting burned down that's all i'm saying that's all i'm saying you know one thing i like about this article too is it says the circumstances that drove members of the nueva jerusalem community to burn the school down last saturday remain unclear well i'm gonna guess they the school down last Saturday remain unclear. Well, I'm going to guess they're going to continue to remain unclear. I doubt any real clarity will come to this situation.

I doubt there will ever be a time where somebody looks back and says, that was a good call. We really, I'll tell you what, we were in the front of the curve on that one. I'm so glad we don't have a school for our kids anymore. We had an argument this week, Tom, with some dumb fuck on the Internet. You and I were going back and forth with him for a little bit. And one of the things that he was saying, you know, most of it, you know, he was barely literate. So most of it was kind of hard to understand. But one of the things that he was saying was, was like you can't lump all the religious people together.

You can't lump them together first off. One, because religion isn't a thing that's like – it's not a group of people. It's just books or whatever he was saying. I don't know. Like I say, it was barely literate, so it was hard to understand even what he meant. But one of the things that he said was if they do something that is bad, if religious people were to do something that is bad, then the local authorities would arrest them for it. And here is a perfect example of something that someone is doing that is bad. But it's the entire group and no one's going to pay for it. The only people that are going to pay for it are the children because they're not going to be able to learn.

Won't somebody think of the children? the children because they're not going to be able to learn. Won't somebody think of the children? Here we have an opportunity to see that, you know, magical thinking, thinking that a demon is possessing something, is not a fucking universal good. It's not a thing that is useful

in today's society. It's not like people walk down the street and be like, fuck, I'm so glad that I believe in demons. I'm fucking ecstatic that I fucking believe that a fucking demon exists. You know, nobody does that. Nobody should do that. And it's right to fucking scorn people when they fucking remove the chance for their children to get an education because their head is so far up their own ass.

They think demons exist. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. exist. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. Oramana Shandakarabam. Lokoramane melejereke de burushida kilibirasa. Uka chaka, uka, uka, uka, chaka, uka, uka, uka,

chaka, uka, uka, uka, chaka. I'm hooked on a feeling. I'm high on believing. Cecil, this story comes from our own great state. Oh, gosh. Great state.

The proud state. The state of Illinois. The land of Lincoln. Land of Lincoln. Lincoln, the vampire hunter. Yeah. It turns out. Yeah, he's a vampire hunter.

This is from CBSlocal.com. It's a news station out here um state officials say it's time to pray for rain um this isn't just a state official this is the governor oh the governor of the state of illinois uh i mentioned the power of prayer that's a good thing to do the best thing for us to do is just hope and pray for rain, and hopefully that will turn around. But there's really a forecast of not much of an end in sight in terms of conditions. Yes, that will work. You should pray for rain.

That's how rain happens. When you don't pray for rain, you don't get rain. You have to pray for everything atmospherically that you want. There's a whole group of people that pray for the sun to rise every morning. And it does. It just does. They pray for it to set. It sets. Other famous governors

that prayed for rain? Rick Perry. And that worked out for Texas? That worked out for him. What this really says to me, Tom, is that Governor Pat Quinn is saying, look, I fucking give up. I fucking am incompetent. I give up. I'm not going to give any real solutions for anything. I'm not going to put together a task force or try to figure out some way in which we can maybe utilize other parts of water for the rest of the state, whatever.

No. What I'm going to do is just say I give up. Sorry. You know what? It's in God's hands now. Sorry. Not my fault. Only God controls the spigot of the sky.

The spigot of the sky. That's exactly right. It's like, well, I could come up with some water rationing we've kind of got you know we've got to manage our resources or we could just fucking pray right that's because you know we've talked about this it turns out god is stupid god is is all powerful and all-knowing and yet somehow remarkably stupid. Yes. Because he doesn't know.

He doesn't know. Wouldn't you only have to, even if God was so fucking unbelievably, cosmically, mentally retarded that he could not figure out without outside intervention that people did not want to drought, wouldn't you only have to figure that out once? Does it really take you 6,000 years? So you don't want a drought again? I thought this time maybe.

No, we never, which you don't understand, we never want a drought. Are you saying that you don't want a drought for never? Never? Not even a, what about a drought here? No, we don't want a drought ever in any location. There are no locations which ever... I did that! You had to build an ark!

Well, I don't know what to do. I'm just going to go ahead and light Colorado on fire. Oh, man. That's ridiculous, Kyle! Oh, gosh. Yeah's a ridiculous cop. Oh, gosh. Yeah, you got to ask him for everything. You got to ask him to mitigate all his damage that he does to the world or that the devil does to the world or whatever the fuck you believe.

Who he can't stop or just doesn't want to stop. He's so powerless and so fucking inept that he can't stop. That devil done tricked me again. He done tricked me. I thought droughts were a good thing. Fucking hillbilly. There I was, just eating an apple. Like that there nice snake done told me to.

Oh, man. Every time God's voice gets played in movies, there should be banjo music behind it. Instead of like a wise man with a flowing white beard and a fucking toga or whatever, he should just be like a fucking gap-toothed, dirty-ass hillbilly who's scratching his own ass. He's got overalls on with one buttoned and the other one sort of falling over. He's stumbling out of an outhouse. Copy of penthouse letters in his back pocket.

This here's believable. Dear penthouse, you'll never believe what happened to me. This story is awesome. This is from WashingtonPost.com. Controversial religion from Japan finds success in Uganda, infuriating Christian clerics. I love this story so much. So there's a crazy Japanese cult. Cecil, what is the name of the crazy Japanese cult?

It's Happy Science. Happy Science. I love that it's happy science so much. Oh, it's fucking great. You know, the thing about this cult is, and let's call it a religion, because, I mean, let's be honest with ourselves. Sure, why not? So, this religion, at first they believe that

this guy, this main guy, is like a god or whatever. But, you know, they do things a little differently than most of the Christians that are over there. They do communion differently. You actually, the person sits in like a center of a bunch of priests and they just pour wine on your face. Like, so that's how they do their communion.

I love it. I love it. I love that the Christians are all upset. They're like, wait a minute. Wait. We were fucking with these people. Hey, we were going to try to subjug wait a minute. Wait. We were fucking with these people. Hey, we were going to try to subjugate these people. Right.

Damn it. What? This is, it's like a game of like religious risk. Right. You know, they're like,

no, I had my tanks over in Uganda. What's going on? Turns out, turns out, yeah, and you know, they actually have

different saints. One of their saints is Hello Kitty. And another one, another one, one of their more famous ones is a holographic young girl in a Sailor Moon outfit. Nice. So she's like, you know, she could fill the fucking entire concert hall, though.

You know what I mean? Like, she just sings, like, Japan pop. And all the holy relics come from vending machines. There's just, like, thousands of Japanese vending machines, like, filled with holy relics. Mostly girls' panties. Holy girls' panties. Well, yeah, I mean, they're all like Sailor Moon panties. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So, yeah. This is awesome. I think one of my favorite things is the Christian outrage is so ridiculous because it's so obviously hypocritical. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the best part of it. He says,

It's an abomination for Okawa to come and tell us that we should bow and worship him. This man is arrogant and he is also misguided. People who claim to be God are either impersonators or comedians. Jesus? Yeah. Which one was he? Was he an impersonator or a comedian? He had a big act.

It ran through Bethlehem. He was a huge improv guy back then. How you doing, Jerusalem? Hold his hand to his face. I see everybody in the audience. Hey, how you doing, everybody? Anybody here been crucified? See, the other day I was hanging around.

Here's the seven words you can't say in heaven. Science, reason, math. Math. Math is my favorite. Google has launched a worldwide push for gay rights now. Google has launched the campaign for gay rights called Legalize Love Initiative. I said that I did not want to support any efforts like this, and in fact, we are a part of boycotting efforts similar to this with other businesses. This is going to be a hard one for a lot of us. A lot of us are so integrated into Google and Google products, this is going to be a tough one.

It's more than just a search engine. Many of us have Android phones. The Android system is a Google product. Many of us use Google Calendar and Google Task and Gmail and all those kinds of things. YouTube and all the other things. It's not just the search engine so uh this one's going to be tough this one's going to be one of those situations where i guess we'll test the meat of our convictions so see so this story is from huffington post i love this story because you kind of called this last week um when or maybe it's two weeks ago i don't i can't be bothered to remember yeah timelines don't work in my own head so i don't know american family association calls for the boycott of google over the company's support of lgbt rights uh well it

was it was easy for you guys to boycott a cookie yeah um it would not be easy for me to boycott a cookie no i've yet seen the cookie i've boycotted. But, I mean, I'll even eat shortbread cookies. Like, I'm fucking desperate for that shit. It doesn't matter. If there's butter, fucking flour, and sugar, it is being consumed. But now they're calling for a boycott of Google. And if anybody is curious, you can watch their video on YouTube. Owned by Google.

Yeah. Well, Tom, you could also tune in to their AFR News Talk Network page on Google, which has, you know, 1,268 subscribers, over almost 6 million views of each of one of all their videos combined. But more importantly, has almost 6,000 videos that they've uploaded. Why isn't this fucking station deleted? Right. Why haven't you deleted your station, hypocrites?

Fucking delete it. Also, you could talk about this on Facebook, on their Facebook page. Facebook happens to be a fucking equality fucking organization too, assholes. When's your boycott of facebook starting right what are they what are they gonna end up using like web crawler like what's their search like using friendster yeah like fucking hey we're gonna go back to myspace you know because like they can't use bing because microsoft supports right uh equality microsoft has come out in public support of equality um so bing is not an option and google you know and android phones and google calendars

and google docs and google tasks and youtube and like you just can't do that you're gonna be even less functional than you are now and imagine imagine, American Family Association, how deeply, deeply dysfunctional you currently are. If you're interested in contacting the American Family Association, you can contact them at afa.gmail.com. But nobody's allowed to check it. You're not allowed to check it, you know. It just, you know.

I just wonder, though, how many companies are you willing to do this for? And are you only willing to do it for the companies that say, OK, we're actually coming out? Because that's why they did this on this in particular is because Google, this video of this fucking gigantic douchebag, he's talking about how they've started this campaign for marriage equality. Like maybe you have to make a stand. I don't know. I have to think that what they're really doing is saying, oh, fuck, who do we have to get rid of now?

Like there has to be a threshold, like you're saying. There has to be a threshold. And I think that threshold, they have to set that bar pretty high because you have to live in the world and if if you just pay attention to every company that like what are you gonna do knock on doors of small businesses hi i would like to purchase a good or service but first i have to ask you a series of questions yeah here's you fill out this questionnaire for me right like i this is the this is are you pro, are you pro-bigot or anti-bigot? Just as a picture of two guys kissing, it's like, does this make you sick to your

stomach? Check yes, I'll fucking shop here. Right. The only place, eventually the American Family Association is only going to be able to purchase products from Chick-fil-A. That's it. They're just going to be these huge people with all this fucking stuff, roast fucking chickens down their maw, right?

We need to search for something, but we're all too fat from Chick-fil-A to type with our chubby, chubby fingers. I can't hit one key individually. From now on, I can only hit two keys at a time. I've been mashing on the keyboard for hours. And I can't use any sort of voice recognition software because that's all created by people who like gay people. Right. So I'm fucked. I want to read off though, Tom.

Can we go through and read off the 25 corporations, the LGBT-friendly products and companies that they're boycotting? Oreo cookie, which we mentioned before. Betty Crocker, they're boycotting them. Levi's. Cheerios. American Apparel. cookie which we mentioned before betty crocker they're boycotting them levi's cheerios american apparel walt disney starbucks wheaties tide microsoft the home depot pampers pepsi safeway Pepsi, Safeway, Crest Toothpaste, Old Navy, the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts? I can't believe they're fucking the Girl Scouts, you assholes. Macy's, which we've talked about in the past.

Target, JCPenney, Pillsbury, because that doughboy is so gay. Walgreens, Ford. Oh, man, Ford. That fucksgreens. Ford. Oh, man. Ford. That fucks them over. Ford really fucks them over. All of them drive trucks. Who are we kidding?

Gap. Green Giant. So those are the 25 companies that you should feel good. You should feel good about buying their products at this point. Because if they're willing to be boycotted by this fucking bigot shit storm of an organization you should be fucking ecstatic to buy their products. You would think

that at some point this is going to be a badge of honor. Like, you know, bigots don't shop here, you know. Real people welcome. Fucking idiots. Humans who like other humans can come into our store. Right.

I don't think this is going to last long, Cecil. No. I cannot imagine in this day and age genuinely boycotting Google. And how is Google possibly going to care? No, I don't know. They are still posting to YouTube, Tom, because that video that talks about boycotting YouTube or talks about boycotting Google on YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. It was posted on the 9th, Tom, but they posted a video one day ago.

So they've been posting videos all the way through. So they they have not stopped, started boycotting Google yet. I think they're waiting for the right moment. Yeah, they're waiting for the moment where the world suddenly flips, spins around, and becomes 1936 again. They're waiting for the moment when they pull it out of the hat and it's not a practice. Right. You're all dead! Oh, be nice!

Oh, my son doesn't stand a chance. The whole world's gone gay! Oh my God, what's happening now? We work hard. We play hard. Everybody dance now. So this next story comes from a listener actually sent this in. Christine sent us this story.

This story is from the Southern Poverty Law Center's website. And the Southern Poverty Law Center demands hate groups stop misusing gay couples' engagement photo. What assholery this is. Not only do they use their photo, but then they Photoshop it. That's insult to injury right there. That's pissing in the pool. I mean, that's fucking pissing in the pool.

Absolutely, Tom. That's a great way to put it. That's pissing in the pool. I mean, that's fucking pissing in the pool. Absolutely, Tom. That's a great way to put it. That's pissing in the pool. You know, look, I don't think that people should be free of satire, let's say. Let's say, like, if you're a public figure and we want to make fun of you or whatever, I don't think that, you know, there's anything wrong with doing that. You know, I think we're obviously not immune to that either. If somebody wanted to make fun of us, they're more than welcome to do it. They want to take a picture of me as somebody who's part of cognitive dissonance and Photoshop it, do whatever, that's fine. Public figures, I think, are very different than private figures. This was not posted so people could take it and pull it out of context. I think you go on somebody's Facebook page and you pull a photo off

and you start, or this was on a blog or whatever, but still you pull that photo off and you start photoshopping it, start changing it. Even if it's Creative Commons, there's still things that you have to pay attention to. Sometimes you can't alter things. Sometimes you are what they call remix. You can't remix things. So this in particular, even if they loaded it with Creative Commons, they might not have said you can't change the picture then. Well, they fucking change the picture. They fucking put fucking way down with snow fucking fir trees behind them.

They kind of make it into like a nice Christmas card. I think they should use it for their Christmas card this year. It's the same thing. That would be so great if they co-opted the co-opted image. Yeah. If they're just like, oh, great. Thank you. You know, I like too that like the image

is of these two kissing like a snow-filled backdrop and it says state senator jean white's idea of quote family values unquote like okay great i'm voting for jean white yeah right right i see this and i think like yeah okay cool so here's here's two dudes in love i'm down with that like that's a good thing people loving each other is that's a good thing you can't get you can't get all that fucking bent out of shape this is the same group that uh sent out a fundraising letter um encouraging people to quote imagine a world where the police would allow homosexual adults to rape young boys in the streets. What? Yeah.

What? Because that's analogous to two grown men kissing one another and being married. They're the same thing. Like raping children on the street is the same thing as two consenting adults expressing their love and affection. That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. Tom, we've been doing this show now for 56 fucking episodes. So at this point, at least 56 hours worth of fucking garbage we have fucking sifted through. That is the dumbest thing that

has ever been said on this show the dumbest thing and we've said some really stupid things you and i oh yeah spectacularly so that is the dumbest thing has ever been written down by a human being yes using words like actual words. This is spectacularly stupid. My mouth is just fucking agape. I'm just like, I can't believe you would equate the two things together. Yeah, and the thing is that letters like this, they don't convince anybody on the fence, right? They don't convince anybody on the fence, right? Nobody on the fence is like nobody on the fence would even look at the image that they photoshopped and hijacked of these of these two people.

Nobody would look at this image that was on the fence and saying, like, well, you know, I'm not sure whether to go full bigot or, you know, human being. I'm not sure which of the two avenues to pursue. Nobody would look at this and be like, oh, well, fucking that swayed me. That was a powerful argument. You really, man, you got me with that one. That's I got no choice but to just just swing full bigot on that one. This is what this is, is is part of their national five minutes hate. This is a way for them to stir the pot and bang on the bees nest. This is a way for them to stir the pot and bang on the bee's nest just to get people who are already pissed off more pissed off in the hopes that they'll scream louder into the fucking ears of their politicians. I guess when I look at this photo, I don't – it does not stir anything in me.

I don't look at it and be like, oh. I look at it and I'm like, that's awesome. Like, good for you guys. Like, I'm happy that you're happy. Just like every other engagement photo. Right. Doesn't matter what the you know, it doesn't matter what it is. It's like, oh, well, you're with your loved one and you're having a good time and it's awesome. And, you know, the photo, the original photos framed very well. That's like, you know, they got this beautiful rule of thirds going on where like they're in the one third of the picture and you see this gorgeous bridge behind them and the all the fucking photographer did a great job i think it's

awesome i'm like that's a great photo they co-opted it they fucking put some stupid shit like your idea of question mark uh family values values in quotes i'm thinking yeah dude that's my idea of family values two people love one another that's fucking family values like i don't see the problem but if it was me and they took my, like, and they had, like, my wife and me or whatever kissing, and they're like, is this your idea of family? I'd be pissed off. Oh, yeah. I would be fucking furious.

And, you know, you're despicable. Well, you know, the thing is, is that they couldn't get any of their interns for this fucking bigot organization. Like, hey, Bill, will you kiss Ted? Is there any way we could get you to kiss Ted? We'll take a picture of it. Then we could use it for this fucking bigot fucking letter we want to send out. No, we can't get you to do that, huh? You don't have any friends you're willing to kiss?

What about your other buddy? You sure? Are you sure you wouldn't kiss anybody? Because we really want to spread some hate. So we need an image of two guys kissing. And we certainly don't want to use any gay image. Right. So we'll just troll of two guys kissing. And we certainly don't want to use any gay image. Right, right. So we'll just troll around until we find a genuinely nice photo of two genuinely nice-looking people, well-dressed in a nice environment.

And we'll just hate on it. We'll just take it. We'll just use it as our own. You know, I'll also say, Cecil, as an aside, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a pretty cool organization and they've got a pretty cool website to check out. So if you get an opportunity, this is a group that actually my boss donates money to and that I've looked at and discussed with him. And it's a pretty awesome organization. So if you get a chance to poke around on their website and maybe donate some money, that wouldn't be a terrible thing. So we're going to take a break and give you all the information that you need to find us on Google Plus.

I'm leading with that this time. Facebook, Twitter, to send us emails and to leave us voicemails. And we'll return in just a few moments to ruin the second half of the show. 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. Our next story comes from religiondispatches.org.

This is a, I think we talked about this in the past, maybe not on this show, but on Everyone's a Critic, I know we certainly talked about this. There's a new documentary coming out called Virgin Tales, which is very unfortunately named. Because if you did an internet search save sir john save sir john yeah let me tell you let me tell you that would not be a thing to search while the family's in the room it's uh this is not the only movie with this title, by the way. Yeah, because there's also Virgin Tales 3, 4, 5.

Plenty of those to go around. Monster Virgin Tales. Anyway, what movie? Virgin Tales is a Swiss know what purity balls are are unbelievably creepy like dances where little girls pledge their sexual purity to their fathers until their fathers give them away as fucking chattel and property right on the day of their wedding and these little girls dress all in white and they you know hang shit like they sometimes they'll get like a purity ring because they're kind of like married to their dad oh gosh ew tom um first off why are you so against traditional marriage

you know you realize when you're against traditional marriage? You know, you realize when you're against traditional marriage, the terrorists win. You realize that, right? I know. I know. I just wanted to check to make sure you were

on base with that. Yeah, I'm good with that, actually. I'm going to read from this Religion Dispatches article, this portion here. They're talking about this young girl who's already an old maid,

I think, at college age in the story. She's already an old maid. Notice also she's not age in the story. She's already an old maid. Notice also she's not in college. Yeah. No, she's not in college because that's useless. She doesn't want to spend thousands of dollars on useless skills just to be a mom. But she says that she actually teaches other young girls how to do this or how to be good little girls.

She teaches younger girls how to be good little girls and she uses a book on etiquette now i'm reading directly from this article from 1920s from the 1920s to demonstrate how to modestly bend over at a water fountain tom that book was written before penicillin was created that book was written just after the zipper was patented that's where we're getting our fucking morality from yeah like right after our boys came home from ww1 exactly right just after the biggest influenza outbreak in the world has ever seen this is when this book is written when people were you know i mean come on are we serious? And these purity balls, first off, don't Google purity balls either, by the way.

But really these purity balls are really just this way in which to have these fathers have this sort of sexual ownership of their daughters. Um, they're in charge of this, like keeping, making sure that their daughters remain pure and they're going to protect them, which is really overbearing in a paternal sexual way that just sort of makes me sick to my stomach. It actually made the woman who wrote this articles, dad sick to his stomach when he heard about it. But there's another part of this article time. I just want to talk about it really quick uh there's a part where she says a family friend uh friend reads from a prepared speech to her telling telling her if and when God brings a godly that godly man into your life and opens up your womb

becoming a mother will be the one of the most important and profound and significant things you ever do. Just, you know, look, having children is great. I'm sure a lot of women are very fulfilled by having children, but that's not your only purpose as a human being is to fucking pop a child out of your fucking vagina. Okay. Women are, you know, they're just as real as men. They have just as many thoughts as us guys, you know. So the idea that, you know, the only way to be fulfilled is to utilize your reproductive organs is the most despicable thing you could say to somebody. I mean, it reduces them to livestock. Exactly. I mean, it reduces women to to livestock.

I mean, it reduces women to livestock. And these purity balls suggest a level of, you know, as you mentioned, paternal ownership, you know, where it's like, well, you know, I own you until the day that I give you away. And only then can you experience sex. Because let's also face the fact that if you wait until your wedding night to have some sexy times, you're going to have a fucking awkward wedding night. You're going to have a bad time, so to speak. Man, that's not going to be. If you've got two virgins like pawing at each other that have been pent up for 20 years or 25 years, however old they are when they actually get married. Plus, I also know from personal anecdotal experience, the best kind of experience.

A lot of people that get married very young, like the people who subscribe to this sort of nonsensical philosophy, they're so fucking horny and they're so pent up and they can't experience any kind of sexual release or relationships of emotional significance and physical significance with members of the opposite sex that they actually get married at a younger age than is the norm in the rest of society.

Because it's like, well, fucking if I can't do this till I get married. Yeah, I'm going to get married. Right. Marriage is the cost. Like marriage is the is the price. That's the price of admission for the fucking ride. You must be this married to ride this ride. You must be this married to ride this ride. You must be this married.

I like, too, that she says this woman who's the one who's primarily followed in this documentary. She says, as she explains that the events, the purity ball, aren't just about the party. Quote, it's a beautiful moment with their father to say, I care about you enough to invest in an expensive hotel, an expensive meal, and a lovely dress for you to say that you're valued.

Shut the fuck up. That's not how you tell your children that they're valued. You don't say, I'm going to spend the money on you. That's how much

your value is directly proportional to the funds that i have available to spend on a ball where you pledge your sexual purity to your father if that's how you value that's how you express how much you value people in your life i mean cecil i value you you and i are friends but i don't need to pay for shit, right? Like, it's not how we establish a friendship. You don't establish any other relationship that way. Right.

And, Tom, I don't want to know about your purity balls. I mean, I really, I just am not interested. It's not like we're like, well, you know, in order for me to really express that I care about somebody, I have to throw them an elaborate party where they pledge some part of their essential being to me until a future date occurs. Right. Right. What? What?

This Cecil comes out of RT.com. This story is fucking sad. This is Afghan female rights activist killed in latest act of violence against women. The regional head of women's affairs killed by a car bomb specifically targeted Afghanistan. You know, the Taliban is sort of reasserting a lot of the control that it had originally lost after the Taliban was pushed from power. And, of course, one of their primary objectives, as seen by their poisoning of schoolgirls and their continued violence and misogyny against women. One of their goals is to assert religious domination over the female population. She was a good looking woman here, Tom.

You can see a picture of her on this image here. Good look. Good looking. Good looking. Oh, is that a woman? You can't tell. It's either that or a bed sheet. Are you sure that it's her?

I mean, like, are you sure they actually killed her? Right. You know, we've all seen the movie where the guy's driving his car and he goes underneath the viaduct and the helicopter's following him. And he gets out of his car and he gets in another car and drives away. Like, couldn't she? This would be real easy just to, you know, you could kill the wrong person. All you got to do is wear the same thing. They wear the exact same whatever that thing is called,

the giant burka thing. I don't even know what it's called, but the big, I mean, full head thing with, they only have a fucking mesh thing to look out of. They look like they're in a hazmat suit. They do look like they're hazmat. Can you imagine how awkward a blind date would be? Oh, yeah, meet me at the cafe.

I'll be the one wearing the burka. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how they could just get away with, you know, murdering the people that are involved in this and trying to make sure that women are equal there. But I feel like, you know, at this point, at this point, anything is possible over there. At this point, anything is possible when it comes to misogyny.

I couldn't agree more because they keep proving it. You know, there was a video that also came out this week, which I did not even click on. The still image was enough to turn my stomach of a young woman who was executed in the desert by a group of nutcases for the crime of adultery. Yeah, they beheaded her, right? They shot her. They shot her.

They lined her up and stood behind her and just riddled her body with machine guns while a crowd cheered behind them. Because you should definitely fucking assassinate helpless people with machine guns from behind like a coward. Religion doesn't cause any problems, though. No, it's just a set of dusty old books. It's just a set of dusty old books. So there's no real problem.

And, Tom, if this was against the law, they would be arrested. They would be arrested if this was a lawful country or a country that didn't condone these practices, right? Right. And that's what you were getting at earlier. these practices right right and that's the that's what you were getting at earlier that's the whole problem is that when when you have a society that bases its laws and its its morality and its ethics on a uh two two three four thousand year old book um a ridiculous book filled with hate and misogyny that's used by people in power to disenfranchise other groups.

When that is your basis for how law works, you're not going to end up with a just society. You're not going to punish people for wrongdoing because you don't see it as wrong. And who loses? Well, in this case in Afghanistan, women lose terribly. Cecil, have you been to the pyramids? The great pyramids in Egypt? I haven't been to any Muslim countries, Tom. You might want to get

your photos together. Because as it turns out, this story is from gatewaypundit.com. I actually looked for this story in other places. I found it in several other places. I don't know how well attributed it is. Several Islamic clerics called on the Muslim Brotherhood President, Mohammed Morsi, to destroy the Great Pyramids. Now, this comes hot on the heels of the sacking of Timbuktu, the destruction of Timbuktu.

I don't know how thoroughly destroyed Timbuktu has become. I don't know if you guys remember about 10 years ago in Afghanistan, they blew up, the Taliban blew up thousands of years old Buddhist statues because they were offensive. Of course, the Great Pyramids predate Islam. Yeah. And yet somehow they're offensive to Islam and Muslim clerics are calling on them to be destroyed. Yeah. And you know how they're going to destroy them is they're going to fly some hijacked planes into them is what they're going to do. So that'll destroy them.

Is that too soon? Is that a too soon joke? I don't know. That was in poor taste. Yeah, most of this show is in poor taste, so who really cares, right? That's all right. The one thing that you don't want to do, there's not a lot of things drawing me to Egypt at this point. The one thing that would probably draw me is a place that people considered one of the wonders of the world, right?

So if you were looking for something pretty amazing, you could go see something that was built over that 40-year span or whatever. These amazing structures that were built with very little tools and lots of slave labor. And you could get a chance to see some of these things. You blow up one of your tourist sites, that's probably the thing that draws the most people into your country. You're kind of throwing away a lot of fucking cash, bro. That doesn't sound like a good idea. Yeah, I actually can't imagine them actually doing this.

I think the outcry would be incredible if you blew up the Great Pyramids. Like, they're such a feature. They're such a, they're a feature of human civilization in general. Right. You know, everybody, little kids, my kid knows what, he's five years old, he knows what the pyramids are. You know, like that's, they are part of the whole culture of humanity, of the human civilization to to explode them because they offend your God. God's been fine.

They've been up since before him. He was OK with it. Yeah. And they probably predate him at this point by what, like 1300 years or something. A lot of years let's just do let's just do that let me just do the math real quick hold on a second so 2560 you're talking almost tom it's almost 2000 years they predate him by almost two because the quran is written in around 700 or that's when muhammad lived right was around 700 i think

so you're talking about the qu Quran being written around that time. It's almost 2,000 years. Yeah, and you're going to blow them up? Are they going to go, are they going after Stonehenge next? I mean, are they just going to blow up everything? It's like, well, fucking mountains predated Islam, and they're, you know, they're a monument to nature. People love mountains.

Just fucking blow up mountains. They blow up all the fucking like every lake in the entire place is just blown up. They fill in every lake. They blow up every mountain. They basically turn the entirety of every Middle Eastern country into a big flat piece of concrete that just says Allah on it. Right. It's almost like they're saying like what can we do to be culturally poorer and more backward? Is there anything crazier that we can do?

They figured it out. So we'll just blow up the pyramids. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah. So this story is from freethinker.co.uk um i'm not sure if this is true or not but it's fucking awesome um this is a story anal sex is your passport to paradise but only if you're a suicide bomber um this story uh refers to a question asked of a Muslim cleric in which he addressed that it was OK to be sodomized if the sodomy resulted in a looser bum, which allowed them to more easily pack explosives up your tuchus. You know how when people are interviewed on those ghost shows and they're like, I want to believe. Like, I feel right now, Tom, like I want to believe that this story is true. It's so funny.

It's got to be true. I want to believe that this is true. I don't know that it is. I don't really care that it is, to be honest with you. I think it's hilarious. The guy goes on about how, you know, he's like, well, you know, it's only you know, you really shouldn't be diddling around with another dude's anus unless, of course, you're going to be trying to pack some explosives up there. And that's why I think, you know, our other story that we have about Islam here, the Islam arrested on sodomy charges. Basically, he had a bunch of little boys. He invited him over and then he he diddled them and then they went and told somebody and he got arrested for it.

Maybe he was he was prepping them to be suicide bombers. It's entirely because the only way Cecil to widen an anus. Right. Would be to fuck it. That's the only way that you could possibly like if you had to widen an anus, if were like you know it's wednesday i've got to do some anus widening i i i guess i guess i just gotta fuck his ass like that's the only way to do it there's no other possible no way and we all know that that anal sex results in a permanent widening of the and never it's not a muscle that contracts. It's just, it's permanently bigger.

Just like you, that's how it works. The question too is, is it permissible for me to let one of my jihadi brothers sodomize me to widen my anus if the intention is good? Well, the intention is always good, Tom. I mean, come on now. And you know, you're right. It doesn't – the anus never goes back to where it is. Once it's widened, it never goes back. That's why people who have had anal sex just poo spheres.

They're just little spheres come out. It's like they just drop them like little globes. They just pop right out. You never have to worry at that point. You got to wonder too, you know, when they say, you know, well, you know, if you're just going to widen the anus, how other how else could you do it? I mean, look, I could jam my cock up there and then both of us are getting something out of it. It's like going into the store and you're like, hey, you're going to the store anyway. You know, you're going to go get beer.

Can you pick me up some chips? It's the same thing. It's like, look, look i gotta widen your anus okay we can't fit the explosives up there so look why don't we just do this so you have a good time when i widen your and i have a good time everybody's happy it's what else could you possibly do maybe shove explosives up there instead of a penis like If you're sticking something up the ass to prepare it for explosives, just shove up the explosives.

When you even said, Tom, what happens when you put explosives in a body? It's funny because I was reading a story about the human body is a great baffle for explosives when they're inside the human body. There was a case where a suicide bomber had done just this.

He had shoved explosives up his bum, and he was shaking the hand of the person he was trying to murder with this bomb, and he detonated the bomb, and he fucking blew up. They said he actually launched like a rocket. Like he blew up, but he like went up. That's because the anus hole was like a fucking throttle for the force

of the explosion. The ass was widened from the fucking that he got before and then he just he shot up it's like it's like a rocket it's like a it's like a jet what are they a liquid fueled rocket he shot right up suicide rocket so he shot up but did he hurt anybody?

No, the guy was fine. He was shaking hands with the dude. But the dude who stuffed the human bottle rocket died, right? Yo, extravagantly so, I would imagine. He blew himself to bits. Oh, that's awesome. This is a terrible, not only is it, I mean, it's obviously that somebody is just trying to fuck you in the ass, dude. That's what's trying to happen.

It's like somebody's feeding you a line of shit instead of being like, no, no, no, no. See, my cock is hard for your butt. But that's not the problem, because that's the other part of the story. That's so funny, right? It's like nobody. I could not reluctantly fuck a man's ass because I would just be like this isn't going to work. Like this is silly putty in a coin slot. I can't make it happen here.

Yeah, we are pushing a rope uphill at this point. Yeah, there's no way it's getting hard. Clearly there's somebody who wants to fuck your butt. And the line that he's feeding you and the line that you're buying is oh man i really don't want to get i really don't want a dick in my pooper that's i'm not into that but i guess i gotta take it so that i can eventually still bump oh man what's the pickup line in the bar it's like are you are you one of those are you one of those uh 67 versions i get into heaven because you've been blowing up in my face all night?

Like, what is the pickup line? I don't understand. Yo, baby, I saw your butt and it's like, boom. Your ass go boom. It's a whole new explosive diarrhea, you know. Emodium does nothing for it. It's like the Pepto-Bismol song, like, upset stomach, bombs in your ass. Bombs in your ass.

Somebody wants to screw you, dude. Let me tell you, bombs in your ass is way worse than any Mexican food you will ever eat. It's way worse. What? What? Bombs in the trunk? It's a roadside checkpoint, baby. Open up.

You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. And Cecil, we would be remiss if we did not discuss the story that Anthony sent us. Yes. This story is from Gawker.com. This is one of those stories that you just have to end with by kind of reading bits from it.

Right, right. Cannibal cult in Pawpaw, New Guinea killed seven evil sorcerers, comma, use their penises to make soup. Tom, I think before they made the soup, they dipped the gay cocks in coffee first. They had to. They had to. They have to do that. That's kind of the requisite thing you do. It's cock biscotti again.

Cock Scotty. I love, too, that this is a, it's 29 members of a militant group seeking revenge against rogue witch doctors, as opposed to the witch doctors who are not going rogue. It's the worst kind of witch doctor. It turns out it's the rogue kind. No, no, no. I'm a conventional witch doctor. I'm in with the establishment.

Oh, fuck. Pass. Okay. Yeah, here's my ID, my no, no. I'm a conventional witch doctor. I'm in with the establishment. Oh, fuck. Pass. Okay. Yeah, here's my ID, my witch doctor ID. It's a fucking dead chicken. A skinned cobra. Here you go. I'm a real witch doctor.

Can't you tell by my shrunken heads on the wall? They're right under my diploma. Right. Yeah, from fucking lunatic university. They're right under my diploma. Right. Yeah. From fucking lunatic university. In addition to murdering the evil sorcerers is believed the cannibal cult also consumed portion of their victims brains and other organs and prepared soup from their penises in an effort to become bulletproof.

Just when you think the article couldn't get any more crazy. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. think the article couldn't get any more crazy unbelievable unbelievable yeah that's the that's the that's got to be a pretty fucking awful soup too oh yeah that's it's like oh come on it's like a stock like you're just making penis stock like oh what's that smell it smells like got something going on here i got seven penises on the oven You gotta cook penises for a really long time for them to be tender. Because they get a lot of work in their lifetime. And really, like, if you were gonna

eat a penis, like, consume it. Like, eat a penis, not just put a penis in your mouth. Not like in the jihadi sense. No. Is it okay if he sucks my cock if he's going to shove explosives up my ass? I mean, soup? Like, not like getting a hot dog bun? Not like cocktail wieners, put a little stick on them, put them in some barbecue?

Soup? Like, you're eating a tube meat. It's a Philly tube steak. Oh, my god. You don't want to know what they use for the cheese, though. It's not a very tasty thing. That's fucking awful. Yeah. This is just such a crazy article

because these guys, first off, you know, obviously sorcerer, these sorcerers are extorting them, the sorcerer group. Sorcerer group, I don't even believe, I can't believe I'mers are extorting them. The sorcerer group, sorcerer group. I don't even believe I can't believe I'm using those words in a sentence. But source this sorcerer group was kind of extorting them, charging them all kinds of crazy shit to fucking bless them in some way. though I'm charging you a thousand of whatever fucking dollars we have, which is actually about almost 500 bucks like U.S. or a pig or a bag and a pig and a bag of rice. I also want to fuck your daughter or something.

And they're like, OK, that's enough. Now we got to cut your cock off. Right. And you know, I guess I don't have sympathy for the people who are getting their cocks cut off. But at the same time, it's like this is really kind of going off the deep end, folks. So we got some emails and some voicemail we're going to play for you. Two voicemails, one from Timothy, one from Thaddeus,

and then Tom is going to read Thaddeus' Google Voice Translate. So here's the two voicemails that we got this week. Hi, guys. This is Timothy. A couple episodes ago, you mentioned the Boy Scouts and their discrimination against homosexuals. I just wanted to say a couple things.

Of course, you're aware that the Boy Scouts discriminate not only against homosexuals but also against atheists, which is a big one for us. And I just wanted to mention that the thing that really irks me about the Boy Scouts and their discriminatory practices is they were created by the United States government, actually by a public law passed by Congress, signed by the president. They're a special type of organization that doesn't pay taxes because they were a creation of the United States government, and yet they're still permitted to engage in these discriminatory practices. The other thing I wanted to mention is, I don't know if you're familiar, but Penn and Teller actually have a TV series called Bullshit. They did an episode on the Boy Scouts of America. I'd highly recommend it. They talk about the influence of the LDS Church, the Mormons, and how the LDS Church has made an active effort to take over the Boy Scouts. And for those of you who don't know, the LDS Church is the same organization that funds many of the propositions against gay marriage in the various states. I just wanted to mention those couple things when I heard you talk about the Boy Scouts of America.

Keep up the good work. Love the show. Hi, guys. My name is Thaddeus. I love the show. I was debating a creationist on the Internet because I love pain and got a response I can't quite make heads or tails of. I thought if I ran it through Google Voice, it might actually translate it back into English. So here it is, reading as it was punctuated. Well, scientists and evolutionists are supposed to be or think they are so intelligent, anyone trying to prove evolution is the least intelligent of all people if it is true they you won't know it once you die darwin don't know it if it's true he won't be proud or

get a medal nor will any scientist if they did now once they die so what they will not know it nor will anyone once they die science can work on making toasters or microwaves. Something beneficial proving evolution helps nothing. Thanks, guys. Keep it up. Bye. So Google Translate has a different idea of what Thaddeus wanted to run through Google Translate, Tom. Close, though. Very close. It is close. Actually makes more sense. It couldn't make less. Yeah, couldn't make less sense than what he read. Hi, guys. My name is Thaddeus.

I love the show. I was debating a creation-est on the internet because I love pain and got a response like, can't quite make it heads or tails out. I thought if I ran into Google Voice, it might actually translate it back into English. So here it is, treating it as if it was point you later. Well, Francis, an evolution us are supposed to be or think they are so intelligent. Anyone trying to prove evolution is the least intelligent of all people. If it is true there, you won't know if once you died, darling't know it if it's true so he won't be

prouder get a metal normal any scientist if they did now one state dies so what they will not know it nor will anyone one so they die science can work on making it posters or microwaves something beneficial proving evolution helps now bye thanks guys and keep it up that's awesome that's spectacular thank you yeah the state that dies is kansas i mean come on let's be honest yeah kansas has a although illinois is in the running this week yeah well yeah actually we died a little inside when we read that story. Definitely. So we did get some email, Tom. We want to start with a limerick that was sent to us from Terry. Terry's limerick is, if podcasts are what you like best, then you better ignore all the rest.

Because Cecil and Tom are the motherfucking bomb, cognitive dissonance passes the test. I love it. Awesome. I think it's great. I love it. Spectacular. Thank you, Terry. Thanks, Terry. I love it. Awesome. I think it's great. I love it. Thank you, Terry. Thanks, Terry.

Thanks for sending that in. So we've got an email. This was from Ashley, and Ashley said that she's a longtime listener. And something around episode 29, we started putting a disclaimer at the end of the show that said opinions and views expressed in this program are explicitly of the hosts, um, and don't reflect any of the things that are involved in their lives. Uh,

and she has a different, uh, suggestion. She decided to rewrite it. So the opinions, expressions and views are just that opinions don't like it. Fuck off. I love it.

I think it's great. What I would encourage people to do though, is if they really want to change that at the end, record something. Record a short disclaimer. It's got to be under, I would say, under 25 seconds long. If you want to record a short disclaimer for our show, send it in. If we think it's funny, maybe we'll use it at the end of the show. Maybe we'll let you know we used it.

So if you're interested in recording a disclaimer for us, Audacity is a free program that you could use. All you need is a free microphone. Most computers come with them nowadays. Record a disclaimer for our show. If we like it and we want to use it, we're going to use it. But send it to us at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. You could probably link to it in like a Drive account if it's too big a file too. And the nice thing is eventually we can outsource the entirety of the show to the listeners.

And it will be a much better show. We got an email from Steve, Tom. Steve's an avid listener and they wanted to know about the Skeptics Creed. And now Skeptics Creed is not called the Skeptics Creed. It's called Doubting Thomas. It's a poem written by you. But we're going to make sure this week sometime that we get a revised version of that poem up somewhere and put it on our site. We got an email from Corey. Corey found us through George Krabb. And by the way, if you're interested, we have an image now on Facebook, the people who got the shirts. This was awesome, Tom. I know you really enjoyed it too. I did. I did. I got a huge kick out of this.

Yeah, they took a bunch of pictures and they wound up going and finding a bunch of different people. So they found Steven Novella. There's a picture of somebody with Randy. There's a picture of somebody with Michael Shermer with a couple people with Michael Shermer. There's Dave Silverman. We have to have him on the show now. We do.

If we do have Dave Silverman on the show what we could do is we could actually put that backdrop on our Facebook page for that week. But George was nice enough to pose for like three pictures with them. And it's very funny. There's some funny pictures in there. But we chose one for our backdrop on our Facebook page. So if you want to see who got the T-shirts for free, you could take a look.

There's Juan Yu in the background looking very dejected because his T-shirt didn't get there in time. We shipped it right away, man. We shipped it right away. It's in South Korea. It takes a long time. It was on the 19th we sent that shirt out. So if it didn't make it in almost a month, I would blame South Korea because it's their problem. But really, we are happy that you guys were there.

We're happy that you guys took some photos. And from some posts, it seemed like they all got along too. So we're happy that you guys could introduce each other. But getting back to this email, there's sort of this common sentiment that we might be anti-theist. And this sort of dovetails nicely with another email that we got, Tom. And I wanted you to read it. This one was directly sent to us on Facebook. Now it was sent to us on Facebook from a person by the name of Eddie. And Eddie says, I just want to preface with, I am a Christian, but apparently though you may disagree, a sane one. I recently found your show and I find it

very intriguing. You guys do a good job of presenting your information and make it very funny. Anyway, to my point, I recently had a conversation with my cousin, who despite vastly different views than myself, we came to an agreement on something very fundamental. We fucking hate douches that make everyone else associated with that group look bad due to their douchebaggery. For me, one of them includes batshit crazy Christians. For him, it was overly flamboyant gay pride parades. I just wanted to ask, possibly infer, that if your problem with a lot of people,

mainly religious persons, are these douches who cannot respect anybody else's personal space and right to believe whatever the fuck they want. What do you think, Tom? You know, I have to admit, I'm initially drawn to the idea that overly flamboyant gay pride parades are somehow as offensive as all of this shit that the Christians keep doing. It's like they're not analogous at all.

Like a gay pride parade is not an affront to anybody. It's not even an example of douchebaggery. It's just it's a parade at a specific location that if you don't want to attend, you just don't attend it. It's not, let's say, priests and a hierarchy of power disenfranchising women and abusing children. They're not analogous at all. There's something to be said about hurting other people here, right? There's something to be said about there's a victim, there's crimes with a victim,

and there's crimes that are victimless, right? This is one of those things where you're like, well, it's a gay person and they got their shirt off and they're dancing a fucking YMCA and they're riding on a fucking big rainbow float down the street. Who cares? Who's being injured by that? Who's the party that is looking at that and being like, my, my day, my month, my year is ruined because I've seen this. No, but that you can't fucking argue that point. You can't look at me and be like, I am physically or mentally damaged by the fact that a fucking buff dude with his shirt off is dancing to fucking YMCA.

It's impossible to argue that point. But the other – and the contrary, the douchebags who diddle children, the douchebags who blow up a fucking – the leader of the women's sort of rights, women's rights in Afghanistan. Like that's a that's not just douchebaggery. That's fucking hatred. There's a big, big, big difference between those two things. Yeah, there's there's no way to to say that those things are even remotely analogous. I don't even understand how it's douchey to be flamboyant. Like, how is that douchey?

It's only douchey if you're offended by or unnerved by the existence of gay people. Like, that's your shit. That's not their shit. They're not the same thing at all. Yeah. And Eddie and Eddie, he may be turned on by it. He may actually be turned on by the fact that there's gays and he can't express it. Right. That happens to a lot of people. That might be the source of that discomfort.

Yeah. There's a longing to jump on that same rainbow float. Yeah. Let's read really quickly, though, the second part of this other email, because it also talks about anti-theism. The common sentiments that come up often in the show that you aren't anti-theist. I've come to adopt this term to describe myself and have always understood it as Hitchens described, which appears at odds with your understanding. I was under the impression that anti-theism was the idea that religious thinking was ultimately bad for humanity and its ideas should be subject to scrutiny. This idea is independent of the existence of God. Not that religion should be altogether outlawed or something similar. I was curious as to what you thought of that distinction.

Am I wrong about the term or am I misunderstanding your position? It's hard for me to argue with the idea that religious thinking isn't bad. But a part of me wants to, I really do want to separate myself from saying that religious thinking is all one thing. That religious thinking is all bad because it's all sort of, it's all easily sort of slottable into its own little drawer. There's ways in which to be religious that are very unobtrusive to other people and really only deal with yourself. that are very unobtrusive to other people and really only deal with yourself. And then there's ways that, you know, that as you go on this continuum farther down, there's ways in which you can't be honest with yourself unless you're trying to meddle in other people's lives to injure other people. You're not honest to your religion unless you're subjugating women or whatever it is.

I feel like that continuum, I'm, you know, the middle and past, I'm against. I think I'm probably more anti-theist than you are. You know, where I draw the distinction is in terms of institutions. You know, individuals versus institutions have different responsibilities to me. Institutions have greater responsibilities because they exert a greater level of influence on culture and the world. So religion as a set of ideas, I agree. I think religion as a set of ideas, I agree with Hitchens. I think that they are not useful at the best and often damaging at the least. I think any kind of supernatural, non-reason based way to understand the world and to pass that false understanding on, I think that's a bad idea. That being said, I genuinely don't care what an

individual believes unless that individual uses their belief to assert power and control over other people. I recognize that religion isn't going anywhere. It's not, there's never going to be a day in my lifetime or my grandkids' lifetime or my grandkids' grandkids' lifetime where everybody's going to be able to, you know, clap your hands together and say, all right, all supernatural beliefs have been extinguished from the earth. That's not going to occur. So I think I take a practical stance that, hey, you know, what Joe down the street happens to think is probably irrelevant because Joe down the street is probably irrelevant. But it matters what the school board thinks. It matters what your president thinks. It matters

what, you know, people with guns think. So that's where I focus my time and attention. The last email we got, was from micah and uh micah was just you know trolling the local starbucks looking for gay cocks to dip in his coffee and uh came across us and you know better for him i think right we we will appear we're like um we're like a wish that gets granted on a falling star, but like you can wish upon a gay cock and a cup of coffee and our podcast will appear. So he says that he loves the podcast. Thank you very much. And he says as a high school senior, he's appalled at the lack of proficiency in basic concepts, e.g. stuff is made of atoms or humans evolved from apes that one is expected to understand upon entering the adult world.

Oh, my God. I had no idea that high school seniors were not being taught basic atomic theory. I understood evolution. But what's the objection to the idea of atoms? Yeah. And I'm probably going to move at this point because he says you should be shitting your pants that we're going to be taking care of you during your sunset years. I ain't making it then. You know what I mean?

Like, I'm fucking checking out. I'm moving to fucking Washington State or whatever. And when it gets time, I'll be like, well, you know, I'm almost to the shit in my pants stage. We're out. We're done. I try to be optimistic about it because, you know, I've seen a lot of polls that say, you know, millennials are losing faith. More people enter college. College tends to be an environment where people lose faith in larger numbers and because more people are going to college. I think that

there is a growing trend of secularization in the States. And I hope that long term that that trend will yield positive results for the growth of science and the respective reason. But if as far as, you know, who's going to take care of me in my elder years? Yeah, I think we're probably fucked. Yeah. You got to become a mountain man and just take care of yourself. That is what I will become, a fat, lazy mountain man. Until your sunset years.

You'll just get eaten by a wolf eventually. I'll be eaten by a pack of wolves with leftovers. They will feast off you for many days because you won't go rotten in the cold. A wolf religion around the great bloated corpse. corpse. So we wanted to mention quickly that we're optimistic for the chances of us having a podcast guest next time.

Greta, who runs a blog, Greta Christina, her name is. She runs a blog, and we're interested in having her on our show. She's a feminist, and she's an atheist, and she wrote a book, and we're going to try to have her on our show. She's a feminist and she's an atheist and she wrote a book and we're going to try to have her on next week.

So if all things go well, expect that interview next week. 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.

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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. Thank you.