Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 58: Chick-Fail-A

Episode Date: July 30, 2012

Kashmiri acid attack victim let down by law Victim of domestic violence fails to find lawyer Mother Teresa 'miracle' patient accuses nuns Conservative radio host says liberals' caused the Aurora shooting, cites bible The Jim Henson Company splits from Chick-Fil-A over gay marriage rights 500 Attend Vigil for LGBT Member Attacked in Lincoln Home 16-Year-Old Lesbian Brutally Beaten By Group of Men in Kentucky US evangelical Christians accused of promoting homophobia in Africa Eagle Scouts return medals over organization’s anti-gay stance Catholic Priest Sexually Abuses a Woman During Exorcism 3 arrests made in spa therapy deaths Clips: Sam Harris, Allahu Akbar, Christopher Hitchens, AFA, Michelle Bachmann, Jesus Camp and Blue Suede, Boy Scouts Song, A Few Good Men. Visit our Website at for more info.

Want to stream Cognitive Dissonance to your Android or iPhone? Buy the app! Go to DissonancePod.com and click on the link on the right-hand side of the page. Each purchase helps support the show. They had no idea why people got sick and died. Unless you saw someone stabbed with a spear, you had no idea why they died. And in moral terms, with a few notable exceptions, most of these people were no wiser than your average Afghan warlord today. They had absolutely, the most had absolutely no notion that

slavery was problematic, that it was, there was something morally unsavory about owning people and treating them like farm equipment. Jesus and his apostles couldn't see that slavery was worth condemning. In closing, I just want to suggest to you that just as we don't have Christian physics, though the Christians invented physics, and we don't have Muslim algebra, though the Muslims invented algebra, we at some point will not have Christian and Muslim morality. The truth has to float free of these provincial ideas. What remains for us to discover are all the facts that relate to genuine questions of human well-being.

And the goal, clearly, is to build a global civilization based on shared values. Now it seems to me the only tool we need to do that is honest and open inquiry. And if faith is ever right about anything in this space, it's just right by accident. 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. This is episode 58 of Cognitive Dissonance.

And see, so I'm excited for this episode. We've got some new stuff we're kind of rolling out. And, you know know if you guys keep listening if you made it past the intro yeah you know they have to have a lot of fucking fortitude to make it past the intro it's true you know yeah let's be honest i have to have a lot of fortitude to make it past the intro so we've got some great stories to talk about. We'll just go ahead and dive right in. This first story is awful. Fucking incredibly awful. This is from India Today.

Kashmiri acid attack victim let down by law. No shit she was let down by the law. This is a story that is very upsetting. A Kashmiri woman was basically had acid thrown in her face by a local imam. Right. So that's good. Yeah. That's definitely what you want.

You want your religious leaders to chuck acid in the faces of women. That's definitely a good way to structure your society. And the law pretty much said, go pound sand. Yeah, they said that. So she came in and she gave a statement. So they threw acid on her. They were arrested. Then they were kept in the police station for a single night. Then they were released and they were supposed to basically go to trial and have some sort of statement. But basically they were exonerated, completely exonerated of the crime. So this woman who now has one working eye because of the attack, who has one normal side of her face because of the attack, basically doesn't get any justice whatsoever.

She basically doesn't get any justice whatsoever and the person who threw the acid in her face because let's be honest, when you're a man in that society, you get to basically do whatever the fuck you want to the lower species and the lower species is women. Right. Absolutely. That's how they're – that's the way it's treated. If you read the story, she doesn't even get to know what happened. Right. Like she's kept completely in the dark. She was called in once to record a statement.

And that's it. That's the extent. Right. That's that's the whole of her involvement. She doesn't even know what happened in court. Yeah. Like there's there's clearly no transparency and no no one fighting for this woman. You know, where where are the groups?

Where are the advocates fighting for this woman to get some kind of justice? I mean, this is a religious leader who threatened her because she had a beauty parlor. So, I mean, wow, the fucking nerve, right? Yeah, the audacity. Yeah. And he threatened her and she was like, yeah, whatever. He's not going to do anything. And then he did. He threw fucking acid in her face, which I guess is a thing.

That is. The acid attack is kind of a horrifyingly symbolic and vicious attack. And unfortunately, it seems to be kind of a thing in these countries. I shouldn't say these countries. India is not one of these. That's a shitty thing to say. It seems to be a horrifyingly common thing in some Muslim cultures. And this is a problem with a lot of the crimes that happen in Muslim nations. You have crimes against women really just aren't even paid attention to.

They're just like, well, sorry. You know, you could kill a dog in our country. You could go outside. I could go out inside and shoot a dog in the face. Right? Right now. I could walk down the street and be like, hey, nice dog. Boom, shoot the dog in the face. I would not get life in prison for it. It wouldn't happen. I would get, I would get, I would go to jail. I would probably have to pay the person some sort of punitive damages for killing their dog. You know, there would be some things that would happen. There would be something that would happen to me that would be bad. I would have to spend some jail

time, probably get a fine and probably have to pay punitive damages. But Tom, I would be walking outside. I probably could get outside that day with bail. I could probably walk outside my house with bail. Maybe not shooting in Chicago, but let's say I killed someone's dog. I would be able to get out. I think it's, this almost feels like it's the same thing. Yeah. I mean, this guy got, got arrested. He got released in a day. Yeah. He got to overnight in – oh, man, I got to spend – it great lead to the next story. This is from Sunday's Zaman.

Today's Zaman.com. Victim of domestic violence fails to find a lawyer. This story is upsetting in every way that a thing can be kind of upsetting. This is a woman who was forced by her husband to jump off a balcony and lawyers refused to take her domestic violence case. What I don't understand here, they're talking about a lot in this story, Tom. They're talking about this as they go through that she's getting, uh, trying to get people to take this case. And she's using, uh, some sort of organizations that help people get lawyers when they don't have the money for it. And what I wondered to myself is why do I have

to hire a prosecuting attorney again? Why? Because, because you don't have to hire a prosecuting attorney in the United States. You just walk in and be like, that guy fucking threw me off a balcony. Well, the state's going to take that one pro bono, it turns out.

Right. You know, that's a good point. Like, she doesn't need an attorney to defend her. You know, that's not what's happening here. She needs an attorney to go after this guy.

Right. I mean, isn't that what the police do? I mean, like here, like you say, like, you have if you can if you have cause and you can show the police, I got fucking chucked off a balcony. I mean, clearly the event occurred. And then, you know, I think it was fucking it was this guy. And then they find out it was this guy. And then they arrest that guy and they will prosecute him.

You don't have to worry your pretty little head about that. Right. Right. arrest that guy and they will prosecute him you don't have to worry your pretty little head about that right right like it's not they don't come hat in hand oh you know we'd like to prosecute you know these various criminals within our community but i need a little money first like we've kind of got a system for that when the system is geez we hope the victim has an attorney what i i wonder if this story just isn't full i wonder if this basically they maybe maybe that they tried to prosecute the guy and he didn't he he proved some way i don't know how you prove like she jumped off the balcony and i didn't do anything but maybe we're not getting the whole story here he in some way got off of the thing and now she's

trying to sue him for damages. You know, maybe this is the second part of this is the civil part of that trial. And it's it's it's clearly like it's it makes it sound the article makes it sound very much like it's a pay for play justice system. Right. That's what I thought I got out of it, too. But maybe we're not getting the whole story. I don't know. And this woman, you know, this woman was trying to divorce her husband. And this woman was trying to divorce her husband. So she was forced to jump off the balcony after she asked her husband for a divorce. So is it the case that no attorney will take her case for the divorce?

For the divorce? Here in the States, you can't hold somebody in a marriage against their will because of financial circumstances. If my wife tomorrow said she wanted to divorce me and she can't afford the attorney and I can, I have to pay her attorney. So I have to pay my attorney to represent me in the divorce and I have to pay her attorney to represent her in her divorcing of me. Because otherwise, the financially powerful partner in a relationship can basically own. You can just say, I own this woman. She can't afford to divorce me. And there's clearly, you know, while it sounds crazy to pay for somebody's attorney so they can divorce you, so they can represent somebody in an action against you. It's clearly a recognition that there's a strong difference in the power structure financially and socially between parties in a relationship.

If it's the case that nobody will represent her in a divorce, like nobody. I was asked why some of my um natural tenderness and puder and fair-mindedness would and by the way one must confuse fair-mindedness with objectivity you know how people often do that in this culture people say even they think even-handedness is objectivity or fairness as objectivity or putting both sides there's not. Objectivity is the search for truth even if it leads you to unwelcome conclusions.

It's nothing at all to do with impartiality. But none of these things apply in the case of Mother Teresa because it's a simple matter of record that she was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud. I think probably the most successful confidence trickster of the last century and responsible for innumerable deaths and for untold suffering and misery.

I'm proud of it. So this next story is from The Telegraph. Mother Teresa miracle patient accuses nuns. I love this story. For those who are not familiar with this story, one of the steps to, I think it's beatification, which is being made a saint. Is that right, C.C.? Beatification is before. That's when they beatify you. That's the level before sainthood. Canonization is the saint. I got you. So it's like the pregame. Yeah.

I see. Yeah, this is the pregame. Well, one of the – I guess you have to like – you have to posthumously have two miracles attributed to you in order to be a saint. And one of Mother Teresa's miracles is the healing of this woman. This Indian woman whose miracle cure from cancer was part of the beatification process that's being undergone for Mother Teresa to make her a saint. This story is ridiculous, and I think we may have talked about this before. Because this woman, not only was she healed by Mother Teresa, but she also responded to the treatments, the cancer treatments that the doctors were also simultaneously performing. Right. Right.

And her husband basically says like it wasn't a miracle. It was just doctors doing their doctoring. I think that was in Hitchens' book, wasn't it? It was, yeah. It was in like God is not great. I think Hitchens talks about this because Hitchens was one of the people that was really against Mother Teresa being beatified, was against her being even just looked up to as a role model in some ways in the Catholic Church. He wrote – didn't he write The Missionary Position? Is that what he wrote? that they're talking about in this article, was part of the reason why he was against

using certain things as proof of miracle. And this is an example of one of the things. The woman didn't even, you know, technically didn't even get better. She got better from all the treatment and things she was receiving, not from a fucking little metal in her hand. But they still applied it to Mother Teresa.

But now, and it seems like, and I'm not going to say that this is the case, but they still applied it to mother Teresa. But now, and it seems like, and I'm not going to say that this is the case, but it seems like somebody was saying, Hey, if you say this, we'll do some good things for you. Right. And now it seems like the, the, the sisterhood, the, the nuns that are of the order of mother Teresa, I think it's something of charity. I forget what it's called, the Ministry of Charity or something like that. That group is now saying, well, we're not really going to take care of you so much. That's exactly – it sounds like they bought this woman and then afterwards reneged on payment. Sure.

Because the Catholic Church is hurting for money? Yeah, well – I mean how much money do you even need to give this woman to elevate her lifestyle? You know, to give her a reasonable, I mean, it's only one person. You're a massive organization. And she says in the article,

they made a lot of promises to me and assured me of financial help for my livelihood and my children's education. After that, they forgot me. I am living in penury. My husband is sick my children have stopped going to school as i have no money i have to work in the fields to feed my husband and my five children unbelievable yeah you would you would think that this woman would be celebrated

as the living embodiment of a miracle like even if if, regardless of the fact that I think it's very obviously not a fucking religious miracle that a woman getting treatment for cancer ended up getting better from the cancer. Right. But even if you believed this, if I had a religious worldview that said this woman is the living embodiment of a divine miracle why would you not celebrate this woman why would you not have why wouldn't you go through all possible measures to say look at this this is this is our interventionist god in action every day

waking up and breathing we want to make sure that this person is well taken care of. Not just – I mean I'm not even talking about like sending her a couple of bucks now and again. I'm talking about holy shit. This is fucking proof of the pudding, you know? Sure. Treat her like a fucking Hindu cow. Right. And what does it cost?

You're right, Tom. Earlier you said what does it cost. What does it cost? There's commercials on TV. It only costs a dollar a day. You could take care of like fucking 10 kids. Yeah, she's only got five. You're talking about 50 cents a day. Jeez. How hard

is this? You know, it's like, it's the Vatican. Right? It's the fucking Vatican. It's like, oh, shall we sell another golden scepter? Yeah, no kidding. No, fuck the living embodiment of divine miracle. I want another boy.

Bring me another boy. What if the Ten Commandments were reinforced? Thou shalt not murder. What if that had been his daily dose of moral instruction and spiritual instruction? Now, who knows if things could have been different, but we've tried it the other way. This is the point of my column. We've tried it the liberals' way for 60 years now.

What have we got? We have massacres in Aurora. 12 people shot dead while they're watching a movie at midnight. So, Cecil, this next story is from examiner.com, which is, I think, my most hated, most pop-up-tastic website that I'll ever click on. This thing like shits out like four pop-ups. Conservative radio host says liberals caused the Aurora shooting. Cites the Bible.

Well, Brian Fisher, welcome back to Cognitive Business. Oh, man, this guy is great. I love that liberals, you know, the people who are for gun control, the ones that are saying, you know, hey, maybe we shouldn't have all these guns. They're the ones. They're the ones, Tom, that have said, you know what? We want this shooting to happen. Let's fucking get this shooting on, man. Let's fucking rock this thing.

Yeah. You know, this guy is so full of wrong. Like everything he says, like you're just like, well, that's just, you're just fucking mistaken. He openly, he says, when students are taught they are no different from animals, they act like it. Well, animals don't commit mass murder. When animals don't go on shooting rampages. Right, Right? I mean we're not acting like animals in this sort of bizarre separation of humans from other animals, like the sort of nonsensical differentiation of the two. But even if you were to just somehow create that difference where no difference exists and say humans are behaving like – like really?

Which animal? Tell me which animal like shoots 70 people. They're behaving like animal farm. I don't, I don't know what they're behaving like. I can't. The thing is, is you, you, you, you listen to this guy talk and one of the things he talks about, one of the fucking points he tries to hammer home here is that because we don't have a prayer in schools anymore or the 10 commandments on the

wall in schools, that's why people are murdering other people. This guy, if he were confronted every day with those 10 commandments on the wall, he wouldn't do this. Does that make any sense at all? No, no. It's not like it's not like he didn't know right from wrong. It's not like people commit mass murder because they're unaware that killing people is socially frowned upon. Right. I mean, it's not like as if the idea that this guy is walking to the theater loaded with fucking guns and ammunition. And if he had suddenly just seen, oh, hey, did you know thou shalt not kill? Oh fuck, really? Oh yeah, thou shalt not kill. I don't know if you read that or not. No, I had no idea. Nobody mentioned this.

Really? I can't kill? No. No, turns out it just stole all these guns. He just like abandons his plans. I guess I'm going to Chick-fil-A.

All right, we're going to take a break and give you all the information that you need to find us on Twitter, on Facebook, on Google+, to send us email, and to give us voicemail. And we'll return in just a few moments to ruin the rest 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.

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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. Jim Henson Company splits from Chick-fil-A over gay marriage rights. Take that, Chick-fil-A. You know, Cecil, you and I had a pretty reasonably long conversation just prior to taping the show about Chick-fil-A and about the responsibility and the role of government when it comes to issues of discrimination.

And I think this is exactly, you know, this sort of thing is exactly the role that society should play in determining who gets to play within who you want to be a part of your culture. In this case, the Muppets basically were like, well, fuck it. I don't want to do business with you anymore. They voted with their dollar. They voted and said, hey, we're not going to align ourselves with this other company, and we're backing the fuck off. Well, Jim Henson Company basically said, look, we're not going to endorse you by giving our toys away in your little bigot meal, whatever they call it. I don't know what they call it.

Bigot meal? But they're not willing to give the toys away in that thing. So they say we're going to split with your company. Now, recently Chick-fil-A came out and said in a couple places, I don't know exactly where it happened, but a couple places said that Chick-fil-A actually stopped doing business with them because some of their toys were dangerous. That's why they stopped doing business with them. But a bunch of people say, they're calling bullshit. They're saying, no, they stopped doing business with you. And you know your corporation fucked up when the fucking Muppets hate you.

When the Muppets hate you, you know, these are – Really? Really? When the Muppets hate you, you fucking suck. You have failed at life when the Muppets won't even fucking come stand next to you and sing a fucking song with you. There was a letter that's been circulating on the internets. And this letter is from the mayor of Boston. And the mayor of Boston basically wrote a letter that said, hey, look, when, you know, Massachusetts was the first

or one of the first states to legalize gay marriage. And when that happened, I stood on the courtroom steps and welcomed people in. You know, Boston is not about bigotry and you're not fucking welcome here. And Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, has expressed similar sentiments. And Cecil, it's an interesting question. You know, what is the role of government when it comes to regulating which businesses and the ethics of the businesses that are going to be part of their community.

Yeah, we talked about this earlier and I err on the side of as long as they're not breaking any laws, I would say let them go wherever they want. People will vote for their dollar. I don't think if you opened a Chick-fil-A in Chicago, part of me thinks that what would happen is, is there would be people every week standing outside that Chick-fil-A to tell people, hey, this is an organization that supports, they're supporting traditional marriage. They support discrimination against gays. And we should, you know, you shouldn't shop here. You shouldn't eat here. There would be – I think that that sort of reaction would be the norm in Chicago. I don't – because Chicago is a very diverse community. We have a huge homosexual population in Chicago and it's – they're not going to just stand by and be like, oh, that's fine. You could open up that organization that funnels a shit ton of money to me not getting married.

You could open up that organization that funnels a shit ton of money to me not getting married. They're not going to let that stand. And so I think people vote – people should try to convince others to vote with their dollar. I don't think that you as an alderman sitting over your little fucking fiefdom in Chicago get to decide whether or not a company gets to open if they're not breaking any laws. If they're not breaking any zoning laws, they're not breaking any laws based on discrimination. Like if they're like if Chick-fil-A wasn't hiring gays, now we have a problem. But if they're just not, you know, if they're if they're just trying to open up a restaurant, I don't feel like the government should be stepping in and saying you can't get your fucking licensing. The way to approach this is to say, well, you know, this opens up to me. My first feeling is, well, what this should open up for any municipality, any state, any community is, you know, if we are going to set community standards and it is reasonable for a community to set certain standards,

then we need to have standards that don't respond to a single individual or a single individual corporation. But we need to say, okay, Chicago is a city in which it is illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Right now, in most states and federally, it is legal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is not a protected class. So it's perfectly legal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Chick-fil-A has said publicly they're not doing that. They serve homosexuals. They hire homosexuals.

So they've said in public statements that they are, you know, non-discriminatory. But, you know, if Chicago wants to make a stand, if Chicago wants to draw a line in the sand, it seems to me the way to do that isn't to say Chick-fil-A, you're not welcome here. I think like, I think you're right. I think the market will say that to Chick-fil-A. I think people's dollars and purchasing habits will demonstrate to Chick-fil-A that this is not a community where they're going to be financially successful. But I think it is reasonable for the city to say, hey, let's pass a law that says we don't allow the discrimination based on sexual orientation. Right. And now you've accomplished your goal.

Now you've made a law that you can enforce from here on out. And the other thing too that I don't think is out of character or out of line for either one of these mayors to say, too Chick-fil-A in an open letter, I don't agree with your policies. This is a diverse, Chicago is a diverse or Boston is a diverse city and we respect all the people who live here and we respect their beliefs and their religious beliefs, their personal beliefs, their sexual preference. We respect their gender, whatever you want to say in that letter and then say we don't think that your company would have a good match here. We don't – I certainly don't endorse your company coming here. I don't think that that's a bad thing.

You can say that all you want. Just don't use your power to legally stop them from coming here because I think that's out of line. I think that's an abuse of power. You go to some bigot town, some crazy town somewhere, probably in the south, where they would stop a company from coming there because they have some sort of connection to the homosexual community. We would be outraged. We would be pitchforks in hand, torches, like marching down there to stop them from discriminating against this company. So we can't, you can't on the same breath say, well, that's fine, but we don't want Chick-fil-A to come here. And for people who think, you know, well, what's the big deal about Chick-fil-A?

I'm going to read from this article, this examiner.com article real quick. It says a recent interview with the Baptist Press and Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy told exact feelings about gay rights. And I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he says. He says, this is what he says. Support for gay marriage is inviting God's judgment in our nation, on our nation. Cathy added, I pray God's mercy on our generation that has had such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about. We, we define marriage. We got to define it. So, uh, so the idea that we have the audacity to define marriage, what is, what's next? Are we going to be like,

you know, you humans had the audacity to define, uh, uh, that a triangle has fucking 180 degrees and three angles, you know, fucking God says, God says it has to have 120. Like if God's wrong, then, you know, we got to fucking point that shit out. But again, I feel like, you know, we are the ones who wrote the law on marriage. Like the, the, God didn't come down and write the United States laws. You know what I mean? Like God didn't come down with his like fucking, you know, his fucking traveling salesman briefcase and his fucking dapper little hat and sit down and pull out his big quill and write down all the laws of the United States.

The United States fucking wrote their own laws. So we've defined what marriage is already without God being involved in it. Now, they might have referenced something in the Bible or whatever, but we get a chance to now change that since we fucking wrote it down. If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay.

It's anything but gay. So this story is from 1011now.com. So catchy. 500 attend vigil for LGBT member attacked in Lincoln home. This is a story out of Lincoln, Nebraska. A woman in Lincoln, Nebraska, basically was the victim of a home invasion where men broke into her home. This is a lesbian woman. They tied her up.

They beat her. And they carved hate into her skin. They carved, I want to call them racial slurs, but they carved slurs referencing her sexual preference into her fucking skin. Way to go, Lincoln, Nebraska. This is the sort of thing that people want to say, well, you know, it's my preference to believe in traditional marriage. Well, it's my preference to think that gays are immoral. Well, when you start to isolate a group of people and start to think of them as less than, this is the sort of thing that happens. You have dipshits who will take this way too fucking seriously.

And they will think, well, if God says they're immoral, then I can do whatever I want to them because God doesn't like them. So, uh, so I can go over and carve shit in their skin and be, I mean, do something that is, you know, literally defined as demonic. You know what I mean? Like if you were trying to think of something that would be demonic to do to somebody else, carving shit in their skin is pretty fucking high on the list. That's, you know, that's right up there with cutting out their heart like a fucking Indiana Jones movie. You know what I mean? Num-num-shabai, num-num-shabai. Right? It's very close to the top here.

So carving shit in someone's skin, a permanent scar on their skin to indicate sort of, you know, you're red letter A-ing them on their fucking skin. Yeah, yeah. You know, you get away with that shit because you think that they are an immoral person. You think that they are less than your morality. So now you've got to get out of jail free card, so to speak, to go fuck them up and do some horrible shit. And this opens the door to that. Yeah. These idiots prop that door open constantly by reinforcing these kinds of messages in their churches and at the political soapbox. The vilification of the other leads to a tremendous amount of abuse. That's not a surprise to anybody.

That's a historical fact. That's part of human nature. That's how you decide which groups surprise to anybody. That's a historical fact. That's part of human nature. That's how you decide which groups have to go. When you're the group in power, the vilification of the other is how you establish and maintain dominance and control. So that's not – I mean, and that's cross-cultural and cross-time. That's the first step, right? That's the first step in the amelioration of the ethical problems of violence. You can only justify this sort of nonsense if the other is some, like you said, is subhuman.

Less than. Less than. And it's problematic when companies like Chick-fil-A, which are big companies, and big companies have a soapbox. Let's not pretend that they don't. When churches and politicians and these fucking fools, these fools, they stand up on their soapbox and they try to pretend that this issue is an issue of religious freedom. And it's not an issue of religious freedom. This is an issue of religious freedom. And it's not a religious, an issue of religious freedom. This is an issue of discrimination. And this is an issue of, are we okay as a nation deciding that this is a group we want to discriminate against?

And if it is, here's how we will justify it. But I think it's a post hoc justification. Well, and then this other story too. There's a story, Tom, from shewired.com that fits into this. This is another beating. This is a beating that took place. This 16-year-old girl was brutally beaten by a group of men. She was with two young boys, 13 and 15, that weren't able to protect her. She got fucking fucked up. I'm going to read directly from this article. It says the girl's jaw was broken in several places where she needed,

she'll need a plate to put in her jaw. And she had several teeth knocked out. Um, and one of the boys suffered a concussion trying to help her. And I want to, I want to just mention here, you know, people say gays are immoral. You know, they say it all the time. Gays are immoral. Gays are immoral. Being gay is immoral. Let me pose two scenarios. Say a guy that is straight from anywhere in the United States. Let's pick the most homophobic portion of the nation. And let's say this person is homophobic.

And they walk in a nightclub that's a gay nightclub. And people know that he's straight there. And he doesn't pull any homophobic shit. Chances are he's going to walk out of there just fine. He'll have a drink. Oh, yeah. No problem. You know, some guy may come up and hit on him or whatever.

As long as he doesn't freak out, you know, gay panic defense and stab him in the face or whatever, he's fine. He's fine. He's going to walk in, walk out, no problem. Or she's going to walk in, walk out, no problem. Switch the fucking scenarios around. A known gay guy walks into a straight bar somewhere in the United States that has a bunch of homophobic guys in it. Chances are he's going to be fucking the chances of him not walking out or getting fucked up are really fucking high. Who's the immoral one? Why are we somehow – how can we somehow look at those two scenarios and be like, well, obviously the gays are immoral? Yeah, it's an indary position to the disgust and hatred that some people feel probably many to be a little on the gay side.

Right, right. You know, this aggressive reaction to the existence of homosexuals. And, you know, we even had a listener write in, and I'm not suggesting the listener is anywhere near. Right, right. At all, even comparable. You know, but we had a listener write in recently who said, I'm all for gay marriage, for homosexual equality. He's like, but I do find

imagining the act of homosexual sex unsettling. But I think it's interesting because we only imagine homosexuals having sex. I don't look at every heterosexual person and say, the first thing I think when I know that somebody is heterosexual is I don't imagine them having sex with their partner.

There's this reaction to the fact of their sexuality, which is so visceral for some people that it justifies that visceral reaction somehow in their mind seems to justify this aggressive, hate-filled reaction. And then that hate is justified and rationalized by your church and by politicians and by leaders of major corporations. And what happens? Grown men beat up a 13 or 14 year old, 16 year old girl. Knock her fucking teeth out. Broken jaw is not a fucking fun thing either. That's not fucking like, oh man, I can't wait till the summer when they break my jaw. You know, like that's not a fun thing to look forward to.

That doesn't sound like a fun time. As a fat guy who likes to eat Twinkies, let me tell you that I would not enjoy having my fucking jaw wired shut. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. See, so this next story is from The Guardian. The Guardian. U.S. evangelical Christians accused of promoting homophobia in Africa. Why do the Christians treat Africa like a blank slate that they just get to show up and fucking write on? Like have a little, the thing that immediately occurs to me is have a little fucking respect for the religious and cultural traditions of that continent.

How incredibly arrogant to show up and be a missionary anywhere. To show up and be a missionary anywhere. I can't even imagine the level of personal, unbelievable arrogance to be a missionary. Think about it this way. It's just like sending business overseas, right? It's a cheap venture that yields a lot of believers, a lot of followers. What do you have to spend over there to get a ton of people to follow you? What do you have to do? Like, how do you how much aid do you have to give people in order for them to think of you as somebody who is helping them you to show through this, you know, through your website or whatever, through TV shows, whatever that you have available to you to show full stadiums of people that are all worshiping the same thing. How easy is it for you then to

come back here and one show all the good that you're doing and then also show people will look all over the world. These people have less than you and they believe. So it's really just a great way, I think, to drum up more money here in the States. Oh, my God. That's probably right, but it's so incredibly cynical. Like I can't. There's no way I out-cynicaled you. There's no fucking way that happened, Tom.

You know, I have to. Can I relate a personal story? I'm relating a personal story. All right, personal story time. Take happened, Tom. Yeah. Well, you know, I have to. Can I relate a personal story? I'm relating a personal story. All right, personal story time. Take this, world. All right, I'm going to play the personal story music. Just this week, I live in a reasonably diverse community. And not crazily diverse, but a reasonably diverse community.

Across the street, there's a Muslim family from me. There's Catholics. There's an atheist to block over. They have a reasonably diverse community. The other day, I'm on the phone. My son is in the house. It's myself and my son. I'm on the phone upstairs in my home office.

And my doorbell rings. And my kid goes to answer the door, which I don't like anyway, but fine. He goes to answer the door. I think it's probably one of his friends, you know, coming over to see if he can play. He comes running upstairs, excited, beaming, grinning ear to ear. I got invited to a party. And what does he hand me? He hands me an invitation to an evangelical party sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship,

party sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, which is a local organization that evidently holds parties. Local families that are evangelical fucking lunatics hold parties to try to proselytize to

children. And they do this under the guise of inviting kids to parties because five-year-old kids like to go to parties. And rather than waiting for me, the parent, to come down and say hello and then for them to try to, you know, hand me the invitation and to discuss whether or not my kid gets to go or not go, because that's what you would do for any other party. Right. Any any other party that you invite a kid to a five five-year-old kid, you don't invite the kid. You invite the parents. Kids can't even drive yet.

They can't decide. They're not going to look at their fucking social calendar. Oh, yeah, I'm free on the 3rd. Yeah, I mean, fucking, that's a ridiculous thing to do. And so nobody does it. Adults don't invite kids to parties. But it's this idea. It's this favored notion. It's this sense of presumptuous righteousness that people who are evangelical have that, well, you know, I don't have to follow any other social norms. They all get thrown out the fucking window as long as I can evangelize

to someone. I don't have to say, well, in every other circumstance, I would respect the wishes and the responsibilities of a family's rules and traditions, just like in this scenario. Well, in every other case, it would be totally unreasonable for me to throw out your cultural, your beliefs, your great heritage as a people. If I think I've got some kind of religious righteousness on my side, I will piss on that as soon as look at you in order to try to get you over to my side, to win you over to my religious side. And it is as wrong as a thing can be. So, Tom, I made a little something and we're going to talk about it afterwards, but I want to play it for the listeners here.

It's a tiny little bit that I did. And then we're going to we're going to discuss a very important venture for our podcast. for our podcast. It's the end of the world, as you know it. It's the end of the world. The year 2012. Some say the last year ever. You could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportion.

What do you mean, biblical? What do you mean, this Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together.

Mass hysteria. It is this certain future catastrophe that we here at Cognitive Dissonance want to prepare for. And so we give you your... Cognitive Dissonance First Annual Charity Drive to prepare for the inevitable Armageddon. Here after known as the Apocalypse Without Borders. From now until December 22nd, 2012, we will hold a charity drive and count on the goodwill of all our listeners

to give money to the noble and secular cause of Doctors Without Borders. You've never looked at the heavens. Everything in the heavens is here, moving as the heavens move. The Great Conjunction is the end of the world. Giving is easy. Simply go to the Cognitive Dissonance website,

dissonancepod.com. On the left side of the page is a button. Click it and donate to your heart's content. Doctors Without Borders provides emergency medical care to millions of people caught in crises each year in more than 60 countries around the world. This will certainly be a busy year for them. Help contribute before it's too late.

Wait, what am I laughing for? So we got this plan, Tom, that we thought up called Apocalypse Without Borders. December 21st, 2012, we all end. It's just, it's over. And I suspect strongly that the doctors are gonna need some money. So we're gonna try to raise some of that money. We're calling on the listeners to donate.

Donate to the show. You can go on our website and you could donate to the show. All of that money, 100% of that money will go to Doctors Without Borders. Yeah. And that's exciting for us. We'd like to try to make sure that we put together a nice size donation for them. And to give you some incentive, we have three different incentives. The first incentive is between now and the 1st of October, if our listeners donate $100 or more between now and the 1st of October. Tom and I are going to donate $100 between the two of us.

So there's a $100 increment. So if you guys get up to $100 in that first 10 weeks, we're going to donate $100. Then between October 1st and the end of the donation drive, if another $100 is reached, Tom and I will donate another $100. So a total of $200 we will match based on giving to this cause. And the second, or really the third incentive is for the highest donor, the person who donates the most above $30. So somebody who donates above $30 the most is going to get a free t-shirt. We're going to send a free, very thin, cheaply made t-shirt to you. And that's about the cost of the actual t-shirt. So if you were thinking about buying a cognitive dissonance shirt, you can automatically put yourself in the pot just by donating. And in that case,

you might still get the shirt, but you'll certainly get a tax write-off, and you will have given money to Doctors Without Borders. Yeah, and it's a secular charity, and they do a lot of great work, and we're happy to help them any way we can. What I would say to the listeners, and this will be the last thing, is what I would say is if you enjoy the show, if you – every week you download the show and you enjoy it, if you tell your friends about it, we appreciate that and we love to get email from you. But if you enjoy the show enough, maybe you'll donate $1 a week between now and when this ends. And that's $21 total dollars between now and the end of this donation process, this donation period. So you're talking about 21 weeks between now and then. If the show is worth a buck a week to you, then please donate that money to the Doctors Without Borders page. All you have to do is go to our page

and click on it. It's going to keep a running tally of how much money gets donated, too. So we'll be able to tell you at the very end of it how much money gets donated. And the other thing, too, is if you don't think the show's worth a dollar a week, maybe it's worth 50 cents a week. Maybe it's worth a dollar a month. Whatever you can give, we're happy if you give any amount of money between now and December 21st.

So anything you can give would be great, and it's going to go to a great cause. It's a new wave hanging around. It's getting hot, hot off the ground. Take a hike if you like Cause we do it The Boy Scouts So this next story is from Yahoo News. Eagle Scouts return medals over organization's anti-gay stance. I don't have a whole lot to say about this except for good.

Yeah. This is how this is how members I think should respond is publicly say, hey, I went through a lot of work. I'm an Eagle Scout and no thanks. You know, I am the I'm the highest rank your organization recognizes. And I'm just going to turn that back at becoming an Eagle Scout is not an easy thing. It's not a simple thing. There's a lot of people, a lot of famous people that have been famous, especially going into the military and things like that. Those people, there's a lot of people that were Eagle Scouts. It's not an easy thing to do. It's not an easy thing to accomplish. And in order to to get there, you have to put a lot of time and dedication. And one of the things that I know that Eagle Scouts have to do is they have to put in some time giving back to the community. And I can't think of a better way to give back to a culture in the United States of having that sort of diversity and that equality than giving back your Eagle

Scout badge to say, you know what, I'm not interested. Yeah. Good for you. That's a brave thing to do. It is. It is. Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? It's Jesus.

So the story comes from Friendly Atheist. This is the Friendly Atheist blog, FriendlyAtheist.com. Catholic priest sexually abuses a woman during an exorcism. She got a twofer. Oh, no. She not only got the exorcism, which is a made-up ritual to get rid of fake demons, which don't fucking exist, but then she got sexually abused by a priest. Oh, yeah. As an adult.

Yeah. Which is, you know, it's pretty rare, I think, for priests to do that. It's hard to do. Yeah, yeah. As an adult. Yeah. Which is, you know, it's pretty rare, I think, for priests to do that. It's hard to do. Yeah, yeah. How many times did she wind up getting, it looks like she was sexually assaulted over a period of two years several times. And at one point, I'm going to read directly from this friendly atheist article here. It says, he kissed the corners of her mouth, stroked her legs, breasts and thighs, caressed her face, laid his body on top of hers,

and frequently explained full, passionate kisses as blowing the Holy Spirit into her. It turns out the Holy Spirit is pretty viscous. You know, it's a pretty thick substance. The Holy Spirit is definitely contained within your body fluids. Oh, yeah. That's fluids. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And the reason why I know why is I always scream, oh, Jesus, when the Holy Spirit comes out. So I know that it is.

The Holy Spirit is actually a transmitter of disease. The Holy Spirit, you're like, ooh, that could have blood-borne pathogens in there. Who knew you could get AIDS from the Holy Spirit? I had no idea. I thought that was the gay plague. The Holy Spirit is gay. What I love about this, what I think is hilarious, is that basically the end of this article, they're talking about how she's trying to go after this group, this, you know, the church that is involved in this. And they've sort of switched this person around to a couple different places. And they said, and I'm reading again, it says, well, even though he was physically in Virginia, he was really reporting back to the guys in Palm Springs.

So it's their problem. So it's their problem. So they're basically trying to sue somebody who works for the church is like trying to fucking redeem your airline miles when there's fucking blackout dates. Like, that's how hard it is. Yeah, you can't. No, sorry. They just weren't here. You know, like it's like a fucking it's like being a telemarketer and trying to. No, you know what?

My wife's not here. No, she's a fucking in a biodome for four years. So she's not going to be back. Yeah, I'd love that. I'd love to give to the ballet but i just you know she's the one who likes the ballet i just go because it gets me laid so i'll just tell her you called when she comes back from her missionary trip in four years you know what i mean like like it's the same thing trying to sue these people it's ridiculous right well it's like a full, it's like playing the three-card money, you know? It's like, pick a card, any card.

It's like, well, I just want to find out who's responsible for this molestation. Pick a card, any card. Where's the priest? Who's got the priest? Where's the priest? Find the priest. It's easier to find fucking Carmen Santiago than it is to find this fucking priest. Yeah, no kidding. As long as they play fucking Where's Waldo

with these sex offenders, it's going to be very difficult to prosecute. I'll tell you what, if you start dressing them in that red and white, kids will stay away from them. You know what I mean? Although this guy looks a little molested. Oh yeah, he looks a little bad touchy. You want answers? I think I'm entitled to them. You want

answers? I want the truth! You can't handle the truth. So Cecil, this story is from CBC News. Three arrests made in spa therapy deaths. This is a story about a woman who died. She basically got braised. Yeah. At a spa therapy treatment.

The name of the retreat, whatever it was, the name of the seminar where you get cooked is actually called, and I fucking shit you not, Dying in Consciousness. Truth in advertising. Yeah. It says here in this article, it says this person and eight other participants were covered in mud, wrapped in plastic and blankets, and spent nine hours lying with their heads in boxes while being encouraged to hyperventilate.

And when they wrap them up and they stick them in there to cook them, she's not a fucking Beef Wellington, okay? She's a fucking human being, for Christ's sakes. You can't do that to somebody. They say in the next paragraph, Tom, Levine was eventually taken to the hospital unconscious by ambulance with a body temperature of 40.5 degrees. That's Celsius. Now, translate that in the Fahrenheit.

That's 105 degree temperature. 105 degree temperature you don't get after age one. Right. No kidding. No kidding. That's not good for you. kidding no kidding that's not good for you no you know and the thing is like a lot of these nut jobs have these like hyperventilator or uh hyperthermia uh you know experiences well you're fucking hallucinating you're not having a transcendent experience you're seeing you're

experiencing fucking organ shutdown yeah well dehydration your experience you know like here's somebody who died because they believed that they could that that as a healthy person and this is what gets me fucking crazy about this stuff is this person was pretty healthy this person was healthy enough to go to this thing and fucking sweat out all the fucking whatever the fuck they were lying to her about but But, you know, she's healthy enough to go there and do all this stuff. This is a healthy individual. And they were able to be duped into fucking basically murdering themselves. Think about what happens when you're sick and the cards like suddenly, you know, the kiddies a little higher now, you know, the pot's a little bigger. My health health it's not just my my future health that i'm gambling

on now it's my current health which i could die in a couple years think of how easy it is for quacks to be like able to manipulate you to get you to do some crazy shit but also to give them a gross amount of money like in here they talk about eighteen thousand dollars eighteen thousand dollars to be fucking coated in mud and saran wrapped. I have to say, as a business model. Pretty easy, yeah. Right? I mean, what do you have to have?

You have to have a little bit of cardboard. Yeah. Some saran wrap and dirt. Well, you've got to have a lawyer budget, it turns out, too. You did. Yeah, right. A pretty substantial one. You've got to have somebody on retainer.

See, so I think you hit the nail on the head. You know, these people are being taken advantage of by shysters, by cons, and they're being fleeced. This shit isn't free. It's never free. It's like the beetle treatments in Argentina, right? It's people who are desperate for an experience, whether that experience is healing from a sickness or a spiritual transcendence, you're preying on people who are in need in some way. They come to you in fucking need and you invent some nonsense. You shit it out at them and then you charge them money.

You have a gall to charge them money for it. And somebody, you know, even if they're not, and in that article on Argentina that we were talking about last week, I thought some of them were saying that they were sharing the Beatles, that there was like a free sort of back and forth. Yeah, right. Beetle exchange. Let me tell you something. Eventually, somebody is going to capitalize and tell you that they're going to sell a better Beatle. You know, my Beatle has more fucking Beetle juice in it or whatever. You know, then they're going to be able to capitalize on that because there's money to be made. And we got an email this week from somebody who was saying, you know, that in Argentina,

we were kind of mischaracterizing how Argentina is. One, people aren't leaving in droves, this person said, because they live there and they would know. But one of the things was this person went back and forth with them. And one of the things that they said was back and forth with them. And one of the things that they said was they work in the medical profession and the people that come to them always get the medical treatment first. And they've never experienced somebody who's gone to these Beatles or gone to some sort of alternative therapy first. And there's a

couple of reasons, I think, for that. The one is what if they died? What if they went to that treatment and they're now dead and you never get to see them? What if they went to that treatment and they distrust doctors in general? There's a chance that people still do this. You just wouldn't encounter them if you're a medical professional. People might also be embarrassed about trying something that they were tricked on. Plenty of people that get conned are embarrassed because of this sort of thing. But these sorts of things take root.

They take root and people believe them because imagine if you're caring for your dying – somebody who's dying near death with cancer. The treatments have failed and at this point, they're to die. And they start doing this beetle thing and the beetle thing has this placebo effect and they start feeling a little better. They still die, but now your brain puts together your head, you're watching them, you're caring for your, your nearly dead relative. And you say, well, you know, they got a little better when they drank that beetle juice. They got a little better based on that. Now, maybe the cancer was a little too advanced to protect them completely. But what if I started doing this when I was healthy? Or what if they would have started doing it earlier? Now, maybe there's sort of this foothold that starts to take place because people start

seeing, based on anecdotal evidence, they start seeing some sort of improvement. That's a dangerous thing to have happen. It's not a good thing to be tricked into doing some medical treatment that has no efficiency. Well, and if it is a treatment that works, then great, let's test it. Like, you know, there's no, this idea that like there's alternative treatments and then there's, you know, Western medicine and there's this you know western medicine just means fucking shit that works shit that's been proven to work nobody cares if it comes from beetles you know if if pfizer found the cure for cancer in beetles right they'd be selling us beetles we'd be fucking eating beetles nobody would care nobody cares that aspirin comes from willow tree bark right nobody's like oh well it's fucking there's no nobody cares that aspirin comes from willow tree bark right nobody's like oh well it's fucking

there's no nobody cares does it work yes okay great let's have it that's that's how it works all all anybody is suggesting is let's test it yeah if you say it works great let's test it if it works then we'll continue it we'll refine it we'll try to do everything to make it more controlled, more efficacious, more dosage consistent. And then it will become a traditional Western therapy, right? It'll become a part of modern medicine. If it doesn't work, then it's bugs. Then you're just eating bugs. So we got a couple of voicemails, one from Matt and one from Jeff.

We're going to play those for you now. Hey guys, it's Godless Matt here. I'm not trying to become a regular feature on your show, I swear. Anyway, I just got done listening to just the intro. I haven't even gotten into the meat of the episode yet, but the piece that you guys played, obviously in relation to the Denver thing, before the intro was just fucking awesome. I'm totally going to steal it with credit and put it in the show the next time we record, which will be next week. I just want to make sure I'm crediting you guys or crediting whoever I'm supposed to be crediting but that thing was really really good

it reminded me of two things number one was a movie called Natural Born Killers going back I don't know maybe 10 years or so and then also a song from the band Tool called Vicarious kind of about the same thing also.

But in any case, keep up the great work, and I'll see you guys soon. Bye. Hey, Tom and Cecil. This is Jeff from Southern California. Love the show, of course, for listening to you ass fuckers since the beginning. I was recently in a group situation where I mentioned I'm a science enthusiast and that I take pride in being a critical thinker and skeptic. Later, a lady came up to me and complimented me for being a scientific thinker. She went on to tell me how she was recently getting into science and critical thinking and how she was nice to meet somebody with similar interests. After talking for a bit, she suddenly mentioned that she believes in God and she knows he exists because science has proved it. She talked about some scientist, I don't remember his name, who had discovered, as she put it, a space beyond time where God exists. I think she is referring to the concept

of alternate dimensions. I'm not a confrontational person and I don't have much experience defending skepticism, so all I could do is sit back and nod. I feel like I lost a few points for our team. I really want to get better at communicating my point of view to people like this. So I was wondering if you guys or other listeners had any suggestions on how I could handle the situation without getting into a big argument or offending her too much. Thanks a lot. Keep up the good work. Bye bye. So, Tom, I already addressed Matt's question and talked to Matt a little bit about it, his stuff on Twitter. But I do want to talk about Jeff's voicemail here really quick. Jeff was in a conversation with somebody, and they started bringing up proof of God through science and stuff.

And they were wondering what kind of techniques we would use to try to talk to somebody about this sort of thing. I'm not really good at that sort of thing. So, Tom, do you have any advice? Most of the time, I don't think it's useful. I actually don't think that that conversation is usually productive. If it is, however, somebody that you think is genuinely open-minded and trying to have a legitimate conversation, I don't think you need to have finely honed rhetorical skills in order to have that conversation. I think people with finely honed rhetorical skills engaging in a vigorous debate are generally

engaging in a vigorous debate with somebody else who has an entrenched viewpoint. And what you're really doing is debating at that point for an audience. So when somebody like Matt Dillahunty engages in a debate, and he does have finely honed rhetorical skills, he is not engaging in a debate with somebody who is likely to have their mind changed. What he's doing is engaging in a debate for the benefit of an audience. I think when you're having a conversation with somebody under normal circumstances, you don't need to have, you don't need any special rhetorical tools to sit down and say, well, let me ask some questions. And I also think it's

important to just say, hey, you don't have to make a point. I never make a point, right? I mean, hey, you don't have to make a point. I never make a point, right? I mean, but just ask good questions. Learn how to ask good questions. And that will encourage a terrific conversation amongst people who can have a conversation with respect. Yeah, absolutely. I think questioning people and questioning their beliefs, that's what, if you really watch the atheist experience with Delahunty, I mean that's really what he does. His whole bit is when they call, he asks them really simple questions and you find how hard it is for people to justify their answers based on the questions he's asking. They almost always have to give some sort of some preamble or something to make sure that they can get their point across. But if they just answered the really simple questions, they would realize how kind of ridiculous their position is. So that's a great point, Tom. Another thing I would point out, too, is that sometimes the battle isn't worth fighting.

There's a lot of times I run into people and people I care about that will say some things that I totally don't agree with. But I know that their position is so deep that there's no way I'm ever going to have a conversation with them that's really worthwhile. So I kind of just smile and nod a lot of times. I'm not really good at that sort of thing. I'm not good at debate. I do talk about religion and I do talk about ideas about religion with a lot of people, but they're almost always open-minded or at least open-minded enough to respect my position as an atheist. So I don't ever really have debates. I have discussions, which I think is a totally different feel because I'm not trying to convince anybody of my position. I'm just trying to say that my position is a valid one. So we got – let's start going through some of these emails, Tom. We got the first email that we got

that I want to talk about is from Colette, who is still flustered at the amount of F-bombs I drop. And I was listening last week, man, do I swear a lot? Holy shit. I fucking swear a lot. But anyway, lot. Holy shit. I fucking swear a lot. Um, but, uh, but anyway, uh, Colette basically invites us to maybe do a, one of our shows on the road. Uh, it looks like Colette is trying to put together some sort of skeptical conference, uh, nearby and wanted to see if maybe we'd be interested in doing one of our shows live. I will say right now that this is not a live show, nor will it. I think it would be, I think it would be very difficult to actually have a live show based on this. So while we're flattered, I don't know that it's something that we could take you up on. Yeah, I'm, I'm incredibly flattered. I think it's a wonderful offer. And, and

Cecil and I talked about this and we would be more than happy to attend. And we would be more than happy to be a part of a panel discussion. I think that would be great fun, and I think that we're both incredibly flattered by the offer. But, yeah, this show on the road? Yeah, and really, you know, like we posted pictures of ourselves on the Internet recently based on some listeners who wanted to know about the host. So there's a new About the Host page at DissonancePod.com. If you haven't seen it, you can go to dissonance pod.com and check it out. But people,

everybody was just like, wow, I am unimpressed with your looks. I mean, nobody was like, man, we have a face. Oh my gosh.

Do we ever check? Yeah. It's but people were, nobody was like, man, you be hot. Like nobody was like that at all. Everybody was like,

we got very few marriage proposals. Everybody was like, oh shit, that's not a... I thought they put shit like that in cages. I didn't think they actually let shit like that walk around. So yeah, we're definitely not the type of people that people would gather to see, so to speak.

Unless, of course, we're in the freak show. Not with all pitchforks and torches. If we're in the freak show, biting heads off chickens, they'd show up all day. We belong there. That's the only travel like we're going to do is traveling. We got a message about YouTube. This is from Pete. Pete said that we should probably try to branch out and do some stuff on YouTube. And I will admit that I recently, a couple, I want to say maybe several months ago,

I tried to start putting our videos, putting a video of our audio track that we record every week on YouTube, because YouTube allows you to put in hours worth of footage now. But the conversion times just to make a small movie was immense. Like it was such a long process to actually put together a movie that only had one slide. It would have one slide with our fucking image on it. And it would take, you know, an hour to process, you know, an hour's worth of time as a movie. And I just, I just, I don't know enough

about video compression to make it fast. So I just stopped doing it. But we do, Tom, have some things planned for YouTube. Yeah, we're going to definitely try to put together some fun YouTube videos and kind of commercials for the show. So if we can get the opportunity to get together physically and actually hammer this shit out, we will let you guys know. So we got an email, and this is about the destroying of the pyramids, and I do want to talk a little bit about that. And this is about the destroying of the pyramids, and I do want to talk a little bit about that. We got an email from Jerry, and Jerry said that while the pyramids are a World Heritage Site, so are the ancient buildings in Timbuktu, and already several of them have been destroyed. I guess being a UNESCO Heritage Site does not protect you.

It's protected kind of, but not really because obviously they can still go over there and fuck them up well it turns out there's no unesco police yeah like the you can dial 9-1 unesco yeah and uh you don't get a quick response um that actually occurred to me last time we read the email like well they're already protected well yeah they're not actually protected you could dial 9-1 unesESCO and you wouldn't even get a pizza. Right? You know, they're protected in the sense that some people have said, please don't destroy them. Yeah, that would suck if you destroyed these things. But – and this brings us back to – I did – like last week we talked about the slaves not building them. And somebody on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe forum I think sent us a message and said, know, and we basically said, oh, yeah, well, you know, you're nitpicking

a little. But one of the and one of the things that they did point out, and this was a salient point that I actually forgot to mention, was that the pyramids, I guess, were covered at one point with this sort of rock. It's like a whitish rock and they were covered with it. Evidently, of rock. It's like a whitish rock and they were covered with it. Evidently, Muslims already went and pilfered that rock to put on mosques, this person said. So they've already done something. This was, I guess, a long time ago. They've already physically altered the pyramids once. So what's to stop them again? So I want to thank them for pointing that out. And I forgot to point that out last week. That's my bad. But yeah, it was a great point and I should have mentioned it. But I was a little miffed because everybody's like,

well, you weren't built by slaves, man. We're built by slaves. Okay, I fucking get it. They weren't built by slaves. I'm sorry. The one tiny thing I said about slaves got brought in and people got to call me out on it. But I also want to mention too on the Skeptic's Eye to the Universe Forum this week, Tom, somebody posted and said, wow, saying that all swingers are ugly is a pretty bad generalization. And they kind of railed on us about saying all swingers are ugly. I want to point out that in the episode, you're mad about us saying all swingers are ugly. But in the same episode, Tom says them's raping hands. And nobody fucking mentions that at all. Nobody says, oh, fucking them's raping hands. And nobody fucking mentions that at all.

Nobody says, oh, fucking them's raping hands. Like, that's not a fucking good thing to say. We talked about fisting nuns on this show. And the one thing that somebody brings up is that we called swingers ugly. Right. I think that's very funny that all the things you could possibly object to, it's like, whoa, whoa. You're bagging on the physical appearance of swingers. I will admit. So right now, for the record, I have done no studies of the facial symmetry of swingers to determine that a majority percentage of self-identified swingers are unattractive. So, yeah, I will I will freely admit that that

statement was a joke. It was a comment made to elicit a humor response. Clearly that failed. It was not meant to be a factual comment regarding the physical attractiveness.

I mean, come on. We say a lot of offensive things on this show. We say a lot of offensive things on this show. We say a lot of generalizations. Most of what we say is hyperbole and what I just said isn't hyperbole. So Brandy sends us an email, Tom, and says – and actually has a really interesting point here. mentions that minorities, based on this sort of the scientific sociological definition, is reference to any group who are systematically prevented from full access to all aspects of society, prevented from getting mortgages, prevented from voting, et cetera, et cetera. And the absolute number of the group is irrelevant. And I think that's a wonderful

way to look at this. And I think that's a wonderful way to look at this. And I think that's how I've been looking at it, but I might've not have, but that's a great definition and a great thing to point out. Yeah, I think I, I, I appreciate the clarification. Thank you, Brandy. And I know that we've mentioned, um, you know, we've joked that women are not a minority because they are half the populace. Um, yeah, I think we're playing with the term there in order to make a point.

But definitely I understand that the sociological definition refers to access to power, capital, and resources. Yeah, and she makes reference to Mrs. Cognitive Dissonance. That's my lovely wife, Sarah, who does some of the bumpers for the show. She's nice enough to take time out of her day. And you could tell, she says in here, you know, she's sort of smarmy. Yeah, that's because I've asked her to walk six blocks in Chicago to come over here and record after work. At least it's not 100 fucking degrees every day. Yeah.

Gosh. Fucking why? Fucking Illinois. Come on. Fucking worst place to live weather-wise ever. Okay, so we got an email from Amber. We did, and Amber sent us a very, very kind and heartfelt email relating a personal story, which I am not going to relay here. Amber, I will tell you that I will have a Guinness tonight and I will

have it with absolute respect. And thank you so much for the email. Yeah, I just echo Tom's sentiments. Thank you for the email and our hearts go out to you. Paul sends an email. He's talking about photoshopping Kim Jong Il's face on somebody with actually Kim Kim Jong-un because Kim Jong-il is dead. Although you could – I mean there's plenty of pictures of him and I'm sure they're all very reverent pictures. You could find some wonderful pictures of Kim Jong-il too. And Kim Il-sung. You could find just fucking a ton of different Korean leaders and put their faces on cognitive dissonance if you wanted to – cognitive dissonance shirts if you wanted to Photoshop that for us, Paul. A great way to find a bunch of photos with people wearing Cognitive Dissonance shirts is to go like our show on Facebook. And then you'll be able to download those pictures directly from the Cognitive Dissonance page.

So we got an email from Kevin. Kevin says he works for a company, the sister company of a company called JackPrince.com. And they make shirts, some great shirts with some fucking wonderful logos i'm going to read one here for you at the back of this shirt says um and i quote i stab you in the fucking cunt while you still gurgle blood um i think that's a i think on the front there's two people hugging on that shirt i'm not sure it's it's bunny rabbits and unicorns it's a bunny rabbit yeah it's like a My Little Pony shirt. Yeah, so Kevin sent these wonderful shirts to us.

But he said that their quality is great and we could probably use them. Kevin, what I want to say is what we're looking for is a company that not only makes the shirt but also sells them for us because we're very lazy. And we don't want to actually spend the time to put into making fucking shirts and then selling them and having to go send them out and all that jazz. So if that company does that, I'll look into them. But when I looked at their website, it really just looked like a place that I could order a shit ton of really nicely done, but shirts I'd have to sell from them. Yeah, we appreciate the help.

Yeah, if you guys come across, what we're looking for is something like, we're looking for a high quality cafe press is what we're looking for. We're not looking for a place that can sell us shirts that we would have to sell. We're looking for a place that can make the shirts on demand and then sell them. I don't want to keep an inventory in my home. I'm not interested in the inventory situation. I'm not interested in the inventory situation. So I'm going to leave you, though, first with our skeptics' creed, but I want to play Andrew's disclaimer. Now, Andrew has a podcast called Godless Business, and you can find it at godless.biz, which I think is fucking brilliant. Andrew's podcast is an atheist podcast,

and you can find it on the web. The podcasters have left us some disclaimers, so we're leaving them. Remember that if you want to leave us a disclaimer, you can. All you have to do is send us an audio file via email, and if we like it, we'll play it. We really like Andrew's, and that's what we're going to leave you with is a disclaimer, but we want to say goodbye for now.

We'll catch you guys next week. 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, 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, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive.

Doubt even this. G'day, Bruce from Australia here. I was just wandering past and I noticed you're listening to Cecil and Tom from the Cognitive Dissonance Podcast. I'd just like to point out that the views expressed by these two galahs are not necessarily those of their employers, families, friends, or the local sheep shearing association. Apparently these two cameahs are not necessarily those of their employers, families, friends or the local sheep shearing association. Apparently these two came out with this festering pile of rotting dingoes bollocks all by themselves. It's truth. It baffles me why anyone would listen to these two drongos anyway. Seems they've got a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock if you know what I mean. I reckon they've been down the local watering hole drinking like lizards. Anyway just thought I'd'd like to point that out. Now I've got to go see Amanda about a wallaby,

and I might crack a tube, put a prawn on the barbie, and drop this ridiculous Australian stereotype. Cheers.