Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 61: Letters to Christian Leaders

Episode Date: August 19, 2012

Kids found bound, blindfolded in Walmart lot said their family feared demons Police: Woodburn priest chased boy down street after abuse Anti-gay marriage rally labelled 'offensive'  Pat Robertson: Don’t adopt sexually abused children that could grow up ‘weird’  Inside the Hezbollah 'theme park' where children are taught the glory of martyrdom  Eastern High School bringing the Bible to the classroom  PR Dummies: One Good Chiropractor Could Have Stopped the Batman Massacre  Jake’s Podcast: http://www.imaginaryfriendsshow.com Jakes Book - Publisher’s Website: http://www.dangerouslittlebooks.com Jakes Book  - Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0956427642 Jakes Book  - Amazon USA: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0956427642 Clips: Religulous, Louis CK, Pat Robertson, allahu akbar, The Simpsons, A Few Good Men Visit our Website at http://dissonancepod.com 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. This is it. I'm standing on the very spot where many Christians believe the world will come to an end. It's called Megiddo. And it's the place that the book of Revelation says Jesus

Christ will come down to, end the world, and save the people who believe in him. Now, when Revelations was written, only God had the capacity to end the world. But now man does too, because unfortunately, before man figured out how to be rational or peaceful, he figured out nuclear weapons and how to pollute on a catastrophic scale. And if it's one thing I hate more than prophecy, it's self-fulfilling prophecy. 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 61 of Cognitive Dissonance, and we have Jake from the Imaginary Friends show back, because we are, as it turns out, unimaginative. We just fucking recycle our guests. It's so good that you would give me such an introduction.

It's not because we liked you, Jake. Look, don't get us wrong. Don't think for a second that it was because we liked you. Don't think for a second that it was because we had fun with you. It's because we're unimaginative. You would be

mistaken if you thought of it from those previous two reasons. I just like you understood what I was really getting at. I didn't want to be too subtle there. I wanted to make sure my point was well-graft. And, you know, you got it. Yeah. It's this enormous IQ of mine. I just cut right through the bullshit.

All right. So this first story that we're going to go over is from the bullshit. All right. So this first story that we're going to go over is from thestar.com. Very reputable source, I hear, by the way. It's a very reputable source. Oh, who doesn't read The Star? It's like the first thing I fucking navigate to. It's my fucking homepage is The Star. Kids found bound, blindfolded in Walmart lot lot said their family feared demons.

This story is exactly what it sounds like. It's from Lawrence, Kansas. Uh, basically fucking this. The kids were found in a Walmart parking lot bound and gagged because their family hear me out here feared they were demons. Yes.

Yeah. So that seems like a pretty rational worldview, Jake. What do you think? Yes. Look, I have a couple of thoughts on this. Firstly, let's acknowledge the fact that this is probably the least strange thing that has ever happened in a Walmart car park. Is that right? Now, you don't have Walmarts.

You don't have Walmarts down there, do you? No, I've got an American wife, though, and we've been there a few times. Yeah, because this sort of thing would actually be considered quite tame for a Walmart parking lot, for sure. Absolutely, yeah. I was a little surprised anybody reported it, actually. That's right. Well, for

fear of having their own secrets blown out. You know, if you tell on somebody who's got their children bound and gagged in the car park, especially in the car park of a Walmart, then there's every possibility that you'll have your eerie secrets found out at the same time. You know, the thing that shocked me is that the person didn't walk up and ask how much they were. Like, that's the thing that shocked the shit out of me. Well, that's good stock there. Are you guys rolling

back the prices on these kids? You know what happened is, I'm surprised because I would think they'd walk past and look at them and be like, glass houses, and keep walking. Very nice. Well, you know, hey, the other thing with this is you know we can look at this and say you know these are bad parents for you know using duct tape which is arguably one of the most painful ways to tie up somebody yes let's look at it that way i like looking at it that way so i

mean that's that's that's one way to look at it but let's look at it that way. I like looking at it that way. So, I mean, that's one way to look at it. But let's look at it another way. Let's presume that they were correct. Let's presume for a second that their children were, in fact, possessed, right? And let's bring this into a contemporary situation like, for example, the zombie apocalypse. Okay. So, if we, in fact, we're gonna go through the zombie apocalypse these are the kinds of people that you want on your side because they they are willing they are

willing to put their own children through immense pain and torture just to save the human race i mean that's that's pretty incredible that's very true i whenever i watch that show the walking dead i always think like this guy is a total fucking asshole. But he rules in the fucking Walking Dead universe. And the reason why is because he's a total cutthroat. He's a total asshole. He doesn't care about anybody else. This is a perfect type of person that you would want in that type of situation.

I'm here with you, Jake. I get it. I understand. It also occurs to me that they're really early adopters, right? I mean, that. I get it. I understand. It also occurs to me that they're really early adopters, right? I mean, that's what they are. They're like the zombie apocalypse. The rest of us take a few minutes.

We're like, really? Zombies? I don't know if that's – by then, my fucking brains are eaten. These motherfuckers are ready to go. Somebody is like, hey, I think there's – boom, the shotguns go off. Exactly. You have to say the word. Exactly. They were right there ready to – and the other thing that I wanted to say about this is, you know,

I think a lot of parents are going to be watching what happens here in this case because if you read this story, they were in the car traveling long distance for some time. And I don't know whether you guys have any kids, but if you've ever done a long road trip with children uh you know when they start doing the whole uh dad uh riley's on my side uh can you tell her to stop looking at me um you know that sort of stuff like after at least you know 20 minutes you want to you want to tie them up shove a gag in their mouth, and blindfold them. So I think there are a lot of parents who are going to be watching this case very intently just in case they happen to be acquitted, in which case this might actually be a viable defense in the future for why you bound and gagged your children while on a long road trip.

Exhausted parents breathe sigh of relief as Walmart exonerated. And you know, the thing is is that a roll of duct tape is way cheaper than those in-fucking-car DVD players. So true. So, so much cheaper. So true.

So the frugal family can still have a quiet vacation. And that's how they should be marketing duct tape from now on. Duct tape! Now, you just said you're a parent, right? Yes, yeah, Yes, yeah. Okay.

So how many times have you hogtied your demon children? Well, zero at this stage. But, you know, you just never know, Tom. You just never know, Cecil. You just never know what situation they're going to put you in and how you're going to need to react. I mean, in all seriousness, I don't know how to react to this news story i mean it's it's one of those things where you know people have magical thinking and they're they're prone to thinking in these sorts of ridiculous ways so i thought why the hell not think in equally ridiculous ways but uh they they're just

abhorrent parents they really should not have one child, let alone five, the five that they have. It's ridiculous. It's just proof again, that certain people should never reproduce ever. That's God's problem. He made it too fucking easy.

You know what I mean? It's just too easy to bang a kid out. You know, now I read in this article, it says, I'm going to read directly from it. It says the younger siblings had been tied up because the family believed that demons had overtaken their bodies. He said the child told him that the duct tape was placed over their eyes to protect them from demons.

Now, as near as I could tell, the children were already infected with the demon. Yeah. So the tape over the eyes is really just there to pull off their eyebrows. Like, that's the only thing. Well, you know, if you've got demons, the last thing you want is more demons. Listen, Cecil, the man has a point. It's true. Because I'll have you know, it's only two out of the five kids.

These two kids that were duct taped, they were an object lesson. Oh, yeah. Don't you motherfucking get possessed by demons. You see what happens to the little one over there? Demons. You want demons too? No, I didn't fucking think so. Sit down, shut up, and drink your juice box.

If your child is hyperactive for whatever reason, they're jumping off the walls and whatever it happens to be. And then you give them sugar, you know. It's that sort of thing. The last thing that you want to do is give them more demons because they're going to flip out. They're going to end up tearing your eyeballs out or something like that.

I don't know. I thought what they were saying is that they were covering the children's eyes so that the demons didn't transport into the parents. Oh, they were protecting themselves from the demons. I get it. I see. The news story wasn't, you know, it was a little bit awkwardly written. No, not from the star.com.

Take that back, Jake. I know. They must have an intern writing it today or something. Well, the headline tells you the whole fucking story. Like whoever fucking wrote that headline needs to go back to headlinewritingjournalismschool.org because they're awful. The other thing that occurred to me is you've got the two of them that were taped up in the demon tape because demons can't penetrate tape.

No, no. They're powerless against duct tape. As we all know. It's like they're krypton tape. No, no. They're powerless against duct tape. As we all know. It's like they're kryptonite, which is fortunate now, but for all those thousands of years when there was no duct tape, the demons were fucking having at it. Oh, yeah. No, they were just using

back then they were using ducks. Just ducks. Just wrapping ducks around. Somebody's walking down a fucking dirty ass God damn street Like fucking 1305 Like what's with Joe What do you mean

He's covered in ducks Oh demons Demons again huh That shit's a bitch Okay you ready for a really poor pun I don't know He needed to go see a quack That shit's a bitch. Okay, you ready for a really poor pun? I don't know. I don't know.

He needed to go see a quack? Oh, we're moving on. I think that's a clear fucking, that's a clear, clear indicator that we need to move on. But we're going to have Jake back at the end of the show. Until then, we're going to torture him. And I don't know, probably just torture him. I don't think I really need any information. I just to torture him because i'm american so i'm down with torture i'm so oh my goodness i've been reading 50 shades of gray i gotta tell you i'm so ready well i i thought that the that the point of the church was to worship god

and the boy fucking was just incidental no No, it's just the other way around. The point of the church is the boy fucking. All the other stuff is just busy work. So Cecil, as I've mentioned previously on this show, I am a fat guy. Right. And I have considered doing the couch to 5K before. Right.

But the 5K, couch to 5K thing involves, you know, running five kilometers. Right, you gotta go five kilometers. So that's, you know,K thing involves running 5 kilometers. Instead, I just got a pizza. It turns out I wasn't properly motivated. Oh, yeah. What would have motivated you, Tom? This next story from OregonLive.com. Woodburn priest

chased boy down street after abuse. There is no way to read this and not immediately think of how they caught Jeffrey Dahmer. Right, right. Right? Totally. Midnight on Sunday, a 12-year-old boy running down the street out of breath, begging for help with a man chasing him.

And who is that man but a priest? I would like to feign surprise here, but I cannot summon it. It must be, I think, you know, we were cannot summon it. It must be. I think, you know, we were talking last week about resumes and special skills. I have a feeling that when you apply to Divinity School, they look under your special skills section. If it says pedophile, they're like, this guy's in. This guy's in. No problems.

He gets right to it. It's like affirmative action for pedophiles. Like they immediately get accepted. In all seriousness though, Tom, I think one of the things that attracts the pedophiles to the priesthood is the fact that they can and do get away with it. And I think that they have seen the people that grow up this way and realize that they have something in their head that's a little – they think to themselves, how can I do this and get away with it? And the Catholic Church and other churches have created a culture of basically get-out-of-jail-free cards for these people. And they have created it through their own doing. They've created this monster.

And so I think in some ways that might attract people to that calling because they can see, you know, this is a place where if I do it, I'm not standing by myself. I'm not, you know, just some creep. I'm a priest. I got cred. And I've also got a big fucking bankroll behind me to get out of jail. Yeah, and you've got massive opportunity.

What are the things a pedophile needs in order to be a pedophile, right? One of the things they have to do is they have to establish trust with children. Right. Because it's – if John Doe down the street wants to be or I shouldn't say wants to be – is a pedophile. I doubt anybody wants to be a pedophile. So allow me to clarify. You don't take the online course is what you're saying. You're not like, oh, man.

I really need to go to a training. Yeah. You know, I want to go down a water slide or be a pedophile. I'm not sure which of the two that I'm looking to do at the moment. But yeah, so if the guy down the street's a pedophile, he's got to have victims, right? He's got to have people to... How much contact is he

going to have with children of an age that he wants to seduce? Right. Or abuse or whatever. Probably not too much. But if you're a priest, man, you're just like, that's the jackpot, man. That's fucking Captain Fantastic for you.

I have to point out, I would be fucking remiss if I didn't point out two of my favorite things from this creepiest fuck article. First of all, it's Father Angel. Yeah. Which, I mean. And hell, thank you very much. And hell, Perez, right. But still, you know, when you put that down on paper, it's Father Angel. It's fucking angel, yeah.

Fucking bravo. You know, bravo. I also have to laugh. This is one of the comments. It was like someone running from a ghost. And immediately I read that and think, a holy ghost? Oh, it is a creepy article. It reads like something out of fucking the Wrong Turn movie.

You know what I mean? Like it's really crazy where he's just like he gets the kid drunk with a beer and then he starts diddling them. And the kid's woken up by the flash on the camera. So he's obviously taking pictures, engaging in child pornography at that point. Really fucking creepy shit. And like I said earlier, the reason why they go to, you know, to reiterate another reason why they go is because the Catholic church covers that shit up. So there's a possibility that they can do it for years and years and years and years, and nobody's fucking the wiser because the Catholic church quiets people down.

There's that backlash from the community. Don't you fucking, don't you dare talk about our priests that way. That happens all the time. Um, so you create this culture of covering it up and this is, this is what you sow. These are the fucking oats you sow when you create this and it's all you're

doing. You could have, you could have come out strong against it initially. And I think you would not have the level of pedophilia you do have that is in the priesthood. But it's a fucking problem. And it's something that needs to be addressed, not covered up.

And the current Pope obviously doesn't give two flying fucks about it. He's just like, whatever. Yeah, I think so too, right? Anytime a new CEO comes into a company, there's always a discussion about the corporate culture. Well, here you've got a corporate culture that hides abusers. That's their corporate culture. And that's a real and significant thing. And a corporate culture is something in the work world that does attract people to positions. It does attract people to work at a company.

And to pretend that this is not part of the corporate culture is disingenuous at best. And to pretend that this is not something which might be attractive to people who are predators is just fucking flatly dishonest. One thing in this article I have to point out is is that the priest says quote i made a mistake yeah no you didn't make no that makes me angry a mistake is when you're filling out a deposit slip and you do your fucking math wrong yeah right that's a mistake a mistake is you know you you didn't check the time and you showed up late to the movies oh i made a mistake accidentally stapled two things together that should have been paper clipped. That's a mistake. That's a mistake.

A mistake is not, oh, I fucking lured a 12-year-old boy back to my house, plied him with alcohol, laid him down on a bed, waited until he fell asleep, then fucking pulled his pants down, touched his junk, and took pictures of him. That's a fucking Rube Goldberg mistake. Yeah, no kidding. No, that's it. That's a fucking Rube Goldberg mistake. Yeah, no kidding. No, that's it. It's a despicable, deplorable act. And the guy's saying, well, I was drunk and I made a mistake.

And it's like, I don't care how drunk I've been in my life. I would never do that to somebody. I don't care even if they were consenting adult, I wouldn't do that to somebody. That's just not something you do. Because you realize that you're invading someone else's you know privacy you're invading you're invading their space you're sexually abusing them without their knowledge like that's a horrible thing to do to somebody who's of consenting age let alone an innocent child that you've lured to your house when you

know with fucking um with the the hopes of going camping right well see so you and i have known each other what like 16 years yeah i've been drunk you've been drunk during the course of that time i've never gotten fresh so to speak right but at no point were you like oh man i was so drunk i turned into a sexual predator that was so weird yeah yeah no i mean like at worst it was like man i was so drunk i jumped in the swimming pool in my clothes. I was, I was so drunk. I threw up. I was so drunk. I went to bed early. Yeah. I was so drunk. I disappointed my wife. I knew that. So you don't need alcohol for that. So we're going to take a quick break and give you all the information you need to get in touch with us on all the different methods that are available to you to get in touch with us.

And we're going to return with an interview with Jake from the Imaginary Friends Show podcast about his book, Letters to Christian Leaders, Hallowed Be Thy Claims. 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

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rates apply. And to everyone who listens, shares, retweets, or rates the show, Cognitive Dissonance would like to cordially thank you for all of your fucking support so cecil this next story is from news.9msn.com.au i'm exhausted just thinking about that um anti-gay marriage rally labeled offensive sure a gay rights group has labeled comments made at an anti-gay marriage rally. I can't even like my brain is just like, wait, an ant, an anti-gay marriage rally. What? I can't. What? As offensive and derogative after a speaker suggested that homosexual people only reproduce by molesting children. Clearly, this person does not know how children are produced.

So I want to know, how does this work? Like the stork comes in with like a black diaper it's holding to carry the kid in, and it's like one of those malfeasant kids that just like flies in. Like, no, no, no, that's one of the bad ones. The black stork brings it after you met. I guess that's what they're saying. I don't know. It's so despicably stupid.

Yeah. Like, you can't, like, your brain tries to read it. It's like, wait, is that despicable or is it stupid? Like, you just, like, ripped a fucking sundae. Right. Trying to figure out, is this more hateful than it is stupid? Or is it more stupid than it is hateful? It's a fucking peanut butter and chocolate of awful shit.

Fucking, they only reproduce by molesting children what does that even mean how would you how would you reap how would you molest a child and be like oh i fucking let's let's go back to the last story just cover what fucking that that dude molested a child did he just somehow reproduce was there another like does he bud? I mean, like, what's the process? Well, you know, the thing that, the thing I think would help them through this, you know, if, if, you know, this guy says, I'm convinced that homosexuals reproduce themselves by molesting children. You know, if you weren't so fucking dead set against abortion, you could just kill all those kids. It really is. It really is shockingly stupid.

It really is. It really is shockingly stupid. One of the things I want to point out at the bottom says the National Marriage Council's or pardon me, the National Marriage Coalition's Peter Madden said that the rally was not about and it's quotes having a go at the poor homosexual, but putting family values first. And when I think about it, I think the reason a lot of people are making such a big deal out of this is they would actually really like to have a go at the poor homosexual, like in a different way, have a go at the poor homosexual.

But really, when you say family values, what does that mean? What could that possibly mean? Because if your family values are discriminating and segregating a group of people, then fuck your family values. But if it means having a's about bigotry that you want to say is family values. You're fucking – you're basically just not advertising it correctly. Isn't that the most exhausting old canard to pull out to like the family values fucking card? You know, Manson had a family.

Right. Charles Manson had a fucking family. An awesome family. Family doesn't mean – I love my family. But family doesn't mean shit in and of itself. A family doesn't necessarily mean that you are, you know, an ethical or moral unit as a group or that any individual within that group is going to behave ethically or morally. So, and the idea that there is even such a thing as family values. Well, let's, you know, I'm here for good old family values. Really? Which family? Because

family values are fucking incredibly malleable and they change, you know, culturally, they change regionally, they change from fucking house to house. If you were to fucking take a poll and walking down the street and ask people to you know have a real and honest discussion of their family values you couldn't walk through one neighborhood in the united states or any country with any amount of diversity and and say you know okay i interviewed a hundred houses in any community and i found you know these things are all identical it's just not a thing. Like, that's not a fucking thing.

And at no point does bigotry defend a value. Like, what value is that? It's not a value. It's a fucking hate-filled diatribe of nonsense. A man doesn't want to take on the United Nations, and this woman's got all these various children, a blended family. I mean, what is it? And you don't know what problems there are.

I'm serious. I've got a dear friend, adopted some little kid from an orphanage down in Columbia. Child had brain damage. You know, grew up weird. And you just never know what's been done to a child before you get that child. What kind of sexual abuse it's been, what kind that child, what kind of sexual abuse it's been, what kind of cruelty, what kind of food deprivation, etc., etc., etc. So you're not a dog because you don't want to take on that responsibility.

You don't have to take on somebody else's problems. I mean, you really don't. You can go help people. You can minister to people. We minister to orphans all over the world, thousands of them. We love orphans. We love helping people. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to take all the orphans around the world into my home.

And Cecil, speaking of hate-filled diatribes of nonsense, sometimes the segues write themselves. This story is from the Raw Story. Pat Robertson. Don't adopt sexually abused children. That could grow up weird. I know. Pat Robertson is low-hanging fruit. He really is.

I get that. He really is. And I know I think we talked about him just a week or two ago. But sometimes this guy says some shit that is so fantastically crazy that he simply must not be ignored on this show. What he's saying, he basically gets a letter from a woman who wanted to know why men stopped dating her when they learned that she had adopted three daughters from three different countries. And the answer –

And the men were – now, to be clear, the men were cool until she says that. Like three daughters is fine. Then they find out because that's how she specifically wrote the letter was like then they find out they're from three different countries and then it's a big deal and they leave. Right. And listen to how hateful this shit is. Robertson says a man doesn't want to take on the United Nations. And this woman's got all these various children and a blended family. What is it?

For fuck's sake really in 2012 you're gonna look at it and say like a man doesn't want to take on the united nations you as a woman who's adopted who's who's opened up your heart and your your purse strings and your fucking family and your life to children from different cultures because they fucking need a home this woman should be fucking celebrated and applauded by anybody you know and to say like that makes her less desirable as a mate because she's a good fucking human being do you know how impressed i would be if i was learned if i was in the dating scene and i was like so you know tell me about yourself she's like well fucking i'm an incredibly selfless giving giving person. Like, oh, wow.

That's awesome because I'm a taker. That's something I'm interested in. Because I'm a taker. That's what I just take. We're going to match up very well. Yeah, I understand somebody not marrying into the Brady Bunch. I get that, right? Like you're like, hey, man, fucking – you got three kids.

I didn't – I don't want to be – I get that. Oh, sure. But, you know, somebody – the way he says it, he like the way the questions word it isn't that it's not about you know you're you're going to be dating or marrying into three kids it's that these three kids are from orphanages in other parts of the world and he specifically says at the bottom of that which you read he says a man doesn't want to take on the united Nations, which is a shitty, lowly, fucking despicable comment to say. And then he says, and this woman's got all these various children and blended family. I'm like, what the fuck does that mean?

Fucking douchebag. And then he's like, what is it? Well, let me fucking clue you in, Crypt Keeper. It's a fucking family. That's what it is. It's a family. It's a loving family. family. That's what it is.

It's a family. It's a loving family. And he says, you know, he even says in this thing, he says in part of this, he's like, we love orphans. Oh, we love orphans. And it's like, yeah, you love orphans. Not enough to give them a home, but you love them enough to minister to them, to take photos of them so people could send more money.

You love them so, you know, that you could show people how fucking caring you are. But you don't love them enough to know that you could you could show people how fucking caring you are but you don't love them enough to fucking bring them home that because that's what he fucking says in this video he's like i don't i can't put them all i don't take them all home and it's like yeah dude you know i get what you're saying what you're saying is we can make a lot of money off these fucking orphans but we don't fucking care enough to fucking what happens to them we don't give a fuck yeah at the end of the day let the poor and brown stay poor and brown and if somebody wants

to adopt them well i mean brown with brown and white with white i mean that's you don't want a blended family tom right yeah you wouldn't want to have a family that's blended culturally because you know you wouldn't want to endorse the idea of a fucking diverse nation of peoples orphans will it blend? Asshole. And then what about his comment below where he's like, you just never know what's been done to a child before you get that child. Basically saying like, well, you don't want fucking damaged goods. What kind of sexual abuse?

What kind of cruelty? What kind of food deprivation? Et cetera, et cetera. So in this guy's view, as a religious and moral leader, he's basically saying like, well, I mean, fuck them. Yeah. If kids have had a hard go, they're damaged and that's not your fucking responsibility. So just leave them to rot. What an awful thing.

I mean, really basically what you're saying is orphans are great in orphanages. Orphans are not great in your home. That's what you're saying. And it's fucking, it's ludicrous. You know, the most, if you're fucking gonna go on about being Christ-like, if that's fucking what you want to do, you can't look at this and say, this is Christ-like. Because if it were Christ-like, what I think Christ would do, and I'm not a biblical scholar, but you know, from reading the gospels, I would think that Christ would want to help the people

that are the most underprivileged. That's sort of what you see in Christ. This is not it. This is not Christ-like. This is a fucking completely, I think at this point, a senile old man who for a lot of years lied to himself and to other people and now finally has the filters blown off from his senility. I think so too. He cannot hide his true feelings at this point. And he even acknowledges it. He says, we got to stop here. Yeah, I'm in trouble.

Next question. I'm in trouble. You're in fucking trouble, all right. Yeah, because you're a fucking despicable human being. I just, for fuck's sake, when are you going to die? No kidding. He's already a fucking mummy.

Like, you look at that guy. He's got sunken-ass eyes. You could nearly see the back of his skull through his eyes. I'll tell you this much, Cecil. I wouldn't spend 35 cents a day

to keep him alive. Fucker. So Cecil, we just got back from vacation and I, for one, am bummed. Yeah? On my vacation, I went to a couple of tourist attractions. I did miss the Hezbollah theme park. This is an article from Daily Mail. This shit is spectacularly weird.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has put up a multi-million pound theme park to indoctrinate children about the glory of martyrdom against Israel. First of all, it looks like a fucking apocalyptic skate park. It totally does. And I don't know how this cost many millions of pounds. All of the attractions just look like rubble. They totally do. Everything looks specifically like it was blown up. It's awesome.

It's like, couldn't you get cheaper rubble? Don't you know to go to the discount rubble store? No kidding, right? It does look like rubble. Is this designer rubble? It looks like Rubbleopolis. It's awesome. It's fucking great too because like the whole outer rim of this thing is just charred remains of like tanks and it's just fucking completely – everything is falling over or blown up.

It's awesome. You know, you live in a culture that celebrates this. Like consider that. Just consider it for a second. You know, there's lots of places you can go, I think, that would be, you know, a memorial in a way to certain things. This feels like a celebration more than a memorial. Oh, yeah. It totally does.

Cecil, my favorite picture on this thing i have to just point this out is the tank yeah it had the the turret tied in right like fucking bugs buddy and elmer fun like who's going to see it looks so comical it looks hilarious it's a it's a fucking tank turret tied in a knot that's how are you supposed to see this thing and not laugh? And the idea too, that like, this is, I mean, like you said, this is what your culture celebrates. Like, hey, you know what's really good? Murder and violence. I'm really a big fan.

Hey, let's, let's take the kids over to the murder and violence fucking theme park. No kidding, right? Well, you know, this tank thing you're pointing out, this tank thing, there's an actual giant-sized one that's a water slide across the way from it. So you just go down the big water slide and you come out in the tank. So that's why they have it there. It's a model. This place is the bleakest fucking theme park. It's like the zombie apocalypse theme park.

You know, for a long time I thought Disney was pretty aggressive. At least they don't have just fucking rubble it's just i've been to some fucking awful goddamn theme parks in my life like i've been to some fucking you know you show up and you're like oh you know i wanted to do that like quirky off the beaten path sort of tourist thing but to just show up and be like oh honey look at all the rubble this is totally off the beaten path and you know what are your souvenirs like grenade pins like is that what they're giving it's like oh kids you got to make sure you leave you got to get your grenade pin it's oh hey where do we get a drink oh it's in debris canyon yeah they got they got some great souvenir mugs they serve

all the beverages and fucking human skulls so a nice little handle on there a little cozy for your human skull yeah like a cozy for that it's just a hat that's awesome god has no man. That's awesome. God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion. Eastern High School bringing the Bible to the classroom. This is fucking just wrong. So this story revolves around a history topics class at Eastern High School. It will soon include a lesson on what the Bible says about creation. And this is basically being snuck through. And there's really no other way to put this,

as sort of like, well, it's just kind of a history of ideas. It's about the Bible and its influence. How can you deny that the Bible didn't influence people? Right. Oh, man. I mean, you can't pretend it didn't influence people. So let's have a whole fucking class dedicated to, you know, fucking superstition and mythology and bullshit run by a guy who so clearly has an agenda that even as he tries to sell you the idea that he doesn't have an agenda, he cannot help himself but spout the agenda. At one point, the superintendent of the school says, you can't ever go wrong with good character education. There's a lot of good lessons in the Bible, like the Ten Commandments.

And, you know, let me just burn through the Ten Commandments here. You must not have any other gods but me. You must not make yourself an idol. I don't know if that applies to American Idol or not, but you can't make yourself an idol. You cannot misuse the name of the Lord in vain. You have to remember the Sabbath day, honor the mother and the father. Okay, so the first five, what does that do for a young person? Misuse the Lord's name? Like, you can't use his name in vain? Like, how does that build character in someone? What does that do for somebody?

You can't have other gods? What if they're not fucking religious? What does that do for them? Like, the first five are throwaway commandments. Well, I mean, only if you stop and read them. And the last ones, you must not murder, you must not commit adultery, you must not steal.

Sure, six, seven, and eight, okay, that's fine. You can't falsely testify against your neighbor. I'll admit that too. But again, I feel like committing adultery is pretty much the same thing as number nine. It's like you're basically lying in both chances. You're basically taking advantage of somebody else. And then the final one, it's like you can't covet. What is high school about if you can't covet other people's shit?

I mean, isn't capitalism based on coveting? Exactly. Capitalism only works if somebody's got a station in life or a thing or an opportunity or an education a travel, or something that you want. Somebody has to have the thing you want in order for you to be like, I want the thing. Right. I'm going to buy the thing. So it's fucking anathema to American values. It's anathema to standard fucking jerking off of capitalism that's part of the flag-wearing bullshit that's constant.

I mean, you've got ten commandments. At least six of them are utter nonsense. Three of them are so basic that my five-year-old atheist could come up with them on his own. Right. Nonsense. And this is the same guy who says there's a fine line between teaching about the Bible and preaching it. And this is the same guy who says, you know, there's a fine line between teaching about the Bible and preaching it. This same guy writes a religious column.

One of them was titled, Just Dumb. Mom Demands Witch Books at School to Balance Bibles. In it, he says, if you think for a second that we're going to put your little spell book on par with the Bible and say it's just as good, just as meaningful, just as important and vital in raising kids and sustaining our way of life here in America, you're a lunatic. This is your impartial teacher. No, it's totally true, Tom. And you know, we've said this before many times, but what would happen if they were teaching, okay, so you're going to go against and say, okay, no spell books, whatever. Okay, fine. I think that's pushing it.

I think, though, it's perfectly valid to say let's look at the Koran. Let's put the Koran in the same exact crosshairs that the Bible is in and say, okay, it was an influential book because you can't deny that it wasn't an influential book for a lot of the world. You could do the same thing with Hinduism with a book from their culture. Confucian world. You could do the same thing with Hinduism, with a book from their culture. Confucianism, you could do the same thing with a book from there. Buddhism, same thing there. There's a lot of people in those religions. Those aren't just flash in the pan.

Those aren't tiny religions. Those aren't the exceptions where you're talking about spells and shit. We're talking about real religions with millions or billions of followers. So you have to look at those in the exact same light. And if you're the person to say, well, the Bible has special precedents, you're an asshole. You fucking do not understand how things work.

Because if we're going to choose to teach religion in schools, we can't pick and choose. We can't. It's just that's the way the country was made to not have a favored religion. You want answers? I think I favored religion. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. So see, so this story is from Gawker.com.

This one is just silly. It's just fucking silly. This is a story about, the title is PR Dummies. One good chiropractor could have stopped the Batman massacre. As unbelievable as it may be, the massacre in Aurora, Colorado, the cold-blooded fucking murder and injury of dozens of people

is being used as a fucking advertising ploy for chiropractic. Right. And let me read just a brief part of this before I let you loose. Moviegoers beware. The person sitting next to you could be subluxated. Cutting them off. I know, right?

What if he's constipated? Is that as bad? Right. Or irritated. Irritated bowel. What if he just had some Olean and he's shitting himself? Yeah, the person sitting next to you could... Really?

Really? This is what you've chosen to use to try to sell your company? What PR person, what PR professional would say, you know, we want to associate your company with something. I'm going to plant that association. What about a very recent mass murder still fresh in the minds of American people? I love this part of this. And this is a long, if you want to get a laugh, go click on this article on our page, dissonancepod.com and click and just read. It's a gawker article, but they quote this entire like PR flyer thing. I'm just going to read a small portion here.

It says, and they're talking about, you know, people are on medications and their brains all screwed up and people who have sublux, is it sublax or subluz? What is it up. And people who have subluxated spines are getting screwed up messages in their brains. They take medication because the messages can't even run in their bodies anymore. Does that mean everyone taking medication is going to go all Batman movie on someone? What the fuck does that even mean? Somebody's going to go all Batman movie on someone? I can't even figure out what that means. I've run that through the chiropractic translator, and it comes out blank every time.

I cannot decipher it. You know, to use the Batman massacre as a verb, like going postal. But it's, talk about the movie. I know. It's not saying the massacre. They just said go all Batman movie. Like, which one are you going all Batman Begins on him? Or are you going with the bad one, with the Dark Knight?

Like, which one are you doing? I'm actually going Batman, like, the 1970s television show. Oh, yeah, fucking Adam West style. That's the way you do it. He says later, don't let anyone else go all Batman out there. Bring them to it. So don't let anyone else be kind of

a kick-ass vigilante. No, don't do that. I was kind of a quasi-superhuman. That's, yeah, like all of a sudden you're going to be like, oh man, my kid, I got to take him to a chiropr going to be like, oh, man, my kid. I got to take him to a chiropractor. Why? He's been inventing awesome weapons.

What? He's plotting my death so he can be Batman. You know, what this article really is about, what this flyer is really about is what they're saying is that these people that commit these mass murders can't feel anymore is what their argument is. They can't feel their bodies. They can't feel the environment they're in. And so they become detached. At least that's, you know, from the fucking babble. That's what I garnered from it.

I don't know if that's fucking accurate, but that's what this dipshit I think is saying. They're saying the person is detached from reality, detached from other people. And they go on these killing sprees. You know, what I wonder is, is somebody sitting there reading this and going, you know what? I was really considering a fucking shooting spree this weekend. I was, I had my guns loaded. I had my bulletproof vest, my fucking tactical helmet. I was going to go shoot up a fucking Baskin Robbins. I was ready to go. A Baskin Robbins?

31 flavors of death, motherfuckers. But I decided to go to the chiropractor and it fixed me. Like, you know, it's hard to wrap your brain around, but you feel like, you know, you're profiteering off this tragedy and using this tragedy as an example. And I don't even think the example even fits the normal person. Well, no, because most people don't go to a chiropractor. And the vast majority of people don't commit mass murder, don't feel detached, are able to feel emotions and connections with other people. It's not like there's some relationship that's ever been established between this fake subluxation nonsense and psychopathy right you know that's and how incredibly insensitive to to the to the victims and families to just start using this as a marketing ploy no kidding

can you imagine reading this article or reading this, this advertisement, you know, like your, your, your wife or your child or your husband or whatever, you know, is fucking dead, dead. You fucking buried them recently. You got a hole in your life where that person used to be. And you see some fucking cynical ass motherfucker turned that into an opportunity to make jokes about going all Batman. So we're back. We have Jake from the Imaginary Friends Show podcast, as well as the author of Letters to Christian Leaders. Now, Jake, we had you on last time, and we barely skimmed over.

We talked about your podcast extensively, how it's kind of a pale comparison to our podcast. Yes. Oh, my goodness, yes. It tries. It tries, it does try. We glossed over the fact that you had a book cause you know, we just got off, you know, just got to fucking talking and we didn't really talk about this wonderful book you have written. Um, and we wanted to talk about it today. Uh, tell our listeners quickly about the book, uh, in general, and then we're going to get into some more in-depth questions. Okay. So basically what I did in the book was I took 12 Christian leaders. I took a

speech or an address that they'd given or a post that they'd written, a letter or something like that. I'd taken something that they had done, put out there into the wide world, and I'd addressed the specific claims using fact and science and logic and truth, all of those things that they seemed to really abhor. And a little, yeah, just a little bit of sarcasm. Just a touch. Actually, I had a rather scathing review a couple of weeks ago. And if you read the back of the book, it says that I used a dash of toilet humor.

And the reviewer said, not only did he use a dash of toilet humor, but he dumped the entire toilet on it. Well, bravo. That's how you got to do it. Damn straight. So what made you write it? Why did you write it? Well, okay, so I used to be a Christian. I was quite heavily entrenched for the first 20-odd years of my life in Catholicism and later in evangelical Christianity.

and later in evangelical Christianity. And what I missed out on, I think, throughout a lot of my adult or throughout a lot of my teenage years and certainly through my formative years, was somebody to be there to counter the claims that priests and pastors and religious teachers around me made. I remember being a really receptive child. I remember sitting there in religion class and being told evolution isn't true, for example, and then going to science class and learning about evolution, being told that the world is 7,000 years old,

and then going to science class again and learning, in fact, that it's a few billion years old. So I had all of this cognitive dissonance, as it were, and didn't know how to filter one from the other because I was being taught these two different things and didn't know which way to go. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I went the religious way, and it took me a really long time. It was a very painful process for a lot of people to lose their religion, and certainly it was for me. So that's basically the reason why I wrote it, was to people like me, and certainly to atheists around there who want some fodder to work on with religious people, but for people like me who basically needed a few of the answers,

basically you know needed a few of the answers you know who had heard the same claims that i had heard and needed to see the truth but in a light-hearted way that was easy to digest if you know what i mean so i got a quick question for you jake your your book is written now our listeners may have surmised at this point that uh jake is from australia no and this book has this uh you know it's a letters written primarily to uh leaders of you know american politicians and you know folks that are i mean nobody pays attention to australia so i understand that's why i didn't focus on australia right i mean come on because look you want to sell a book right and nobody's going to buy a book if it's based on a bunch of Australian politics. Do you guys even have politics?

I don't know. Of course we do. Of course we do. It's just all kangaroos. I don't know. It's actually pretty. Yeah, that's right. It's pretty terrible.

We do have a few politicians. That's how they carry around their legislation. They just keep it in that little pocket. That's how we travel. their legislation. They just keep it in that little pocket. That is how we travel. No, but seriously, you did obviously focus on American politics and American leaders. Why did you as an Australian choose to focus on American politics and American leaders when you put this book together? Well, probably a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, in Australia, religion isn't as much of a bastion as it is in America. So as I said, I wanted to help people that were like me, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they were in Australia, because in all truth, the level of religiosity in Australia is far lower than it is in the US. Actually, in pretty much every country throughout the world, it's lower than it is in the US. What are you saying, Jake? So basically, I was, again, trying to help people like me, but again, who weren't necessarily in the US. Secondary to that, as I said, my wife is American.

One of my children is American. And I would like to be able to go back there and to spend a lot more time there in the future. And, you know, I thought if I do a little bit of groundwork first, you know, start things rolling, I thought that my book, in fact, could be the game changer. I thought, you know, Barack Obama might pick up my book and, you know, suddenly realise, oh, my goodness, all of this stuff is bullshit. And, in fact, just lose his religion.

And, you know, look, Mitt Romney might pick it up also and, you know, lose his Mormonism. Oh, sure. Yeah, that's very likely. Realistic things. Realistic goals. Yeah. Absolutely. That's why I sent a copy to Barack Obama.

Yeah. I'm no longer allowed in the U.S., but that's, you know. I'm no longer allowed in the US but that's you know which, you said you wrote this book because it's sort of getting something off your chest, growing up with

this sort of dissonance that you had, you wanted to sort of get this off your chest, which letter you think in the book reflects this the most in a way like which is your favorite one that you had written you know a lot of people have asked me that question. I'm not sure I can answer it. The one to the head of the Christian, not Christian lobby, the Christian Coalition of America, the Roberta Coombs one, was certainly, it was the first one that I wrote and it was the

most visceral, I think. It was the most vivid and I think there's probably some imagery in there that I would like to write out in the future. But basically, that one, I think, because it covers such a wide range of subjects that I'm passionate about, she's quite anti-gay, she's quite anti-contraception, anti-abortion or anti-choice. She's quite anti a lot of things that I'm actively involved in trying to make available. So in that way, she was one of the favorites, and that's probably because she was one of the first. Secondary to that, there was somebody from the Institute for Creation Research, Dr. Georgia Perdum. She was also one of my favorites because she is a geneticist. She's a geneticist who works in creation research.

And I found it really hard to get my head around how the fuck you could. Long lunch breaks. She has a PhD in genetics. She has a PhD in genetics. She has a PhD, which is what? At least nine years of study. She has been studying biology and genetics in order to see effectively the interrelationships between this organism and that organism.

So she has a unique understanding of how we are all interrelated and yet we all descend from each other. And yet she's got this ridiculous view of intelligent design and creationism. That one I found the weirdest to write, but I also found the most entertaining. I think I probably got the most out of it. But to answer your question, I don't know. Okay. So did you mail any of these letters?

No, I mailed all of the people who were in the book, I mailed all of them a copy of the book so that they could get some context, so that they knew that it wasn't just me targeting them specifically, so that they understood that I was targeting a whole bunch of them. I didn't want them to feel as though they were being you know intentionally targeted for all of the ridiculous horribly damaging bullshit that they were saying yeah you wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong impression yeah no no yeah i know that's it's terrible stuff how did kirk cameron respond

well he didn't none of them have responded oh Oh, that's shocking. I'm shocked. I'm shocked, too. I thought it would be a point-by-point refutation of your book, of your letters. I receive his, whatever they call it, the Living Waters publication that they send out every week, he and Mustache Man. Mustache. Exactly. I love that guy. Well said. I love that guy. I love that i love that um i abhor him um he's just a generally horribly don't equivocate how do you really feel about it you know you can

tell us i refuse to equivocate equivocate he's a he's a he's a terrible human being. But, you know, I read his newsletter every week that they send out. And they regularly put out very long newsletters on just ridiculous shit, just, you know, pointless stuff. Like he walks into – the letter that I took up of his in the book was, you know, he's gone to a university and he's started street preaching and he's talking to these young liberal men and women who have, you know, liberal views about life and the world and everything, et cetera, and they're not accepting his bullshit. In fact, they're standing up to him and countering just about everything that he says.

Right. his bullshit. In fact, they're standing up to him and countering just about everything that he says. He's saying that they're bad for doing that. And that's pretty much what he sends out every week. And I really had hoped that he would pick up my book and refute me, but for whatever reason, they just haven't taken the time to do so. I'm calling you out, Kurt. I'm calling you out. He listens. He's a big fan of the show. He rated us on iTunes this week. I've heard that. I've heard that, yes. Yeah, he rated us this week, so we're big fans of his. He comes over for barbecues on occasion because all of us in the States are buddy-buddy. That's just – everybody likes each other.

I've heard that. I'll be with you in just a minute, Kirk. I'm recording. Hang on. Just settle down. Just get the lube ready. Yeah. Okay?

I'll be – Hey, he's in the corner minutes. Put the crocodile down. He's eating lube ready. Yeah. Okay? I'll be— Hey, put the crocodile duck down. He's eating a banana right now as we speak. He's got this banana in his hand. He can't get it out of his hand. So you mentioned in your review, you got a review about a little bit of toilet humor, and they said they dumped the whole toilet on it. Let's talk a little bit about the tone of the book.

Yeah. Did you start out with the intent of having that tone or did the research sort of like poison you and you read these things and you were just so ticked off at all these different things that you couldn't help but put these sarcastic and snide comments in? Well, that's kind of a difficult question to answer. I think when I started off writing the book, I really wanted to write something that was informative and easy to read and just leave it at that. But when you entrench yourself in these letters and you really try to dissect them and find out what these people mean, what the implications of what they're saying means,

these people mean, what the implications of what they're saying means, you really get a sense for the vitriol and disgusting natures generally of these people. And I felt, I think, as I was writing the letters and reading their letters, reading their statements, I found it very hard not to be snide and not to insert my own vitriol as a counter to their own, in a way sort of fighting fire with fire. Because a lot of what they say has really, really dangerous implications. A lot of these people have enormous, enormous influence throughout the United States and, in fact, throughout the world. So the influence that they have can impact people's lives. You know, we know this. We know certainly people in the gay community are dying.

They're committing suicide because of, you know, in many cases, because of a religious upbringing, because of religious parentage. And that's terrible stuff. And to perpetuate that stuff is just so bad. So I felt that it was, in fact, important to insert some vitriol to make them understand that we are just as vehement as they are, except a little bit more informed. Well, a lot more informed.

A lot more informed and a lot more sweary i think so when you were collecting these things uh these letters and these things that you were going to rebut in your book uh yeah was there just like a deluge of stuff and you had to call a bunch of them is that how you i mean because because when we do stories for this show it just it's just a constant fucking stream of garbage. There had to be some that you started writing and were like, I just can't. This is not as good as the other stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, I started off with about 30. So the book was actually going to be a lot bigger than it ended up. But, I mean, in the end, I started repeating myself over and over again. So I did, there were a few that just got cut out simply because I'd already counted those, uh, you know, specific claims in other areas. Um,

so I just, you know, I just cut out an entire individual, uh, letter or response to a letter, uh, because of that. So,

you know, it ended up, I think at 12 because of that fact, just, just basically cutting out the, the ones that I'd already gone over. I thought it was based on the apostles. That's what I was just going to say. It was based on the apostles.

Yeah, so it was based on the apostles, so I kept it to 12. So, Jake, if people were going to buy your book, how would they go about doing it? Oh, the best way to do it is to go to Amazon.com and search Letters to Christian Leaders, Hollow Be Thy Claims. It's available on Kindle for $5.99. Do you see any of that money? Do you see any of that money when it gets Somebody pays Because I bought it

On Kindle Tom you bought it right Yeah I did too Yeah Do you see any of that money Royalties are a funny thing I do see I do see a bit of it

Okay Not a huge amount Not a huge amount But that's okay I'm a first time writer But people should still buy it Because you're Hey Jake's getting some money

Out of this So you should absolutely buy it Because if you were like No I's getting some money out of this, so you should absolutely buy it. Because if you were like, no, I see like fucking 10 cents, I'd be like, no, you know, buy the fucking hard copy then. Let's get this guy some funds. I see about half of it. Oh, good, good. Definitely. Dive in.

Dive in. Buy the shit out of it. Yeah, buy it for all your friends and neighbors. That's what I would say. And your neighborhood priests. Yeah, yeah. And send Barack Obama a copy on Kindle. Just send it to him via email. Seven copies. Whitehouse.gov. That's where I would say And your neighborhood priests And send Barack Obama a copy on Kindle Just send it to him via email

Whitehouse.gov, that's where you go for it And if you're worried that the whole toilet's been dumped on the book The nice thing about the Kindle version Is you can download it on your phone And read it on the toilet Which, you know Context is everything Absolutely

So that way, when you consume it It can pass right through you into the toilet and into the sewer system. It's a very efficient, very efficient way to do it. Thanks for coming on our show, Jake. No, it's my pleasure. So we got an email from Chris, Tom. And Chris says, you know, first let me say you guys put on a hell of a show. Thanks, Chris. It's very nice of you to say he I like his his the way he describes it. He says it's a perfect mix of high concept and lowbrow.

I often sat on the train with you in my headphones laughing like a schizophrenic off his meds. So so thank you. That's great. Now, Chris had a dilemma, Tom. What Chris did was Chris initially, you know, when they were when he felt that the religious right was sort of closing in on him, as he says, he went all angry atheist, bought a bunch of shirts, basically, you know, kind of went all balls out with his atheism, like this is who I am. I'm going to advertise it for other people. And, uh, and since then has sort of taken a step back, I think mainly because a couple of times he's been sort of looked at like with a glare and, uh, and eventually said, and I'm gonna read directly from his email here is eventually I started feeling

like I was being all oppositional for the sake of being oppositional. It felt more like a petulance than a pride. So I was basically put it all away. So here's my question. Am I being a coward? What role does advertising play? Is it juvenile as it feels sometimes? Or do I need to take up the banner for the cause? Whatever ideas you have on this would be cool.

What are your thoughts on that, Tom? whatever ideas you have on this would be cool. What are your thoughts on that, Tom? You know, the first thing that I want to say is that it's totally reasonable to be cyclical in terms of your attitudes and your moods and your thoughts about, you know, how you portray yourself to the world. You don't have to choose one attitude or one persona and say, oh, well, this is the one that I've chosen. And now this is who I am forever after set in concrete and it will never change to, to think that that

is going to be the case. Um, I just think is, is unrealistic and untrue. So, you know, I, I understand that you're feeling some, some dissonance, um, between your sort of the prior incantation of your personality being somewhat oppositional and maybe more aggressive. And now you're, you know, not feeling that same level of sort of aggressive, assertive oppositionalism. That's reasonable, man. I mean, first of all, people kind of mellow out generally as we age.

That's just that's just fucking fact. Your testosterone levels go down as we get a little older and we get a little more mellow. It hasn't happened to me, but that's what I've read. And it's cool. Maybe in a year, you'll swing back the other direction. You just kind of go with what feels honest for you. Now, we got a voicemail from Esme, and I'm not going to talk about the voicemail at all because Esme was very clear she didn't want it broadcasted or talked about.

But I will say only one thing, and that's you got cut off in the middle of your voicemail. You were almost done and you said, I have one more thing to say, and then the tape cuts off. So we have no idea what the last thing you said, Esme, was, but you got cut off right at the end, at the three minute mark. So another reminder to listeners, if you're going to call in and you're going to leave a voicemail, I know, Esme, you didn't want yours played, but if you're going to leave a voicemail for us, understand that Google cuts it off at three minutes. So you've got to be brief. And if you want to play it on the show, you've got to be even more brief.

A minute, minute and a half is really the tops we're going to play on the show. I love this next email, Tom. We got an email from Gardner here. Yeah, we did. I think this is great. I'd get t-shirts of this made. He put together an image based on something that Cecil Hood said previously. It's very amusing.

He said, God hates polycotton fabs. And it's got Leviticus 1919 underneath. Bravo. I think that's hilarious. I think it's great too. It's a perfect play off of the Westboro Baptist Church. And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to use this as the image for this show this time.

Thank you for making it. We think it's great and we're going to use it for this show. We're going to put it on the blog. I don't know. We might have to use Jake's book cover for the show. I actually, I apologize. How about if I use it next week? I'll use it for next week's show instead.

So I'll put it on the blog this week and I'll use it as the main image for next week's show. So, Tom, we got an email from Paul. And Paul says, I just heard number 60 and wondered if my email did not arrive or if my questions were too hard. Paul, I got to say, We Would has certainly answered your email. We didn't get it. It was in our spam filter. I checked. It got caught in our spam filter.

your email. We didn't get it. It was in our spam filter. I checked it, got caught in our spam filter. And since you send an email that's kind of dickish, we're not going to answer your question. I don't think it's too hard and I could certainly answer it, but I don't want to encourage people to send us email that is confrontational and adversarial. I think we put out a show every week that we try to make sure that our listeners, we treat them with a great deal of respect. And we would expect to be treated with that same respect. So we're not going to answer your question. If you want to make sure that we don't address you seriously, be unnecessarily shitty and aggressive. Yeah, that'll make sure.

I would have answered. I certainly would not have shied away from your question. But you sent us an email where you're basically saying we're not smart enough to answer your question. So I don't know why you would even want an answer from us. I'm not interested. Tom, that stuff from the abyss is real. At least that's what this person said. Jake sent us an email with a video.

Yeah. Ew. Ew. The goo from the abyss is evidently a – that's a fucking thing. Although I don't think it's ready for primetime. No, I don't think so either. But – So it's real-ish. Yeah, and that's cool.

And this is a great email of just saying, hey, guys, just so you know, this stuff might be real. Thanks for sending it in. We had no idea. We were just kidding around. But it turned out like that we were wrong again, like we are about many things. But thank you for the suggestion that we, the correction, I guess, is what I should say. Yeah, constructive criticism. I love it. Thank you for sending it. It was very nicely worded, too. Thank you. So, Tom, Lewis sends us a message. Lewis attached this Gifts and Ministry of Prophecy. There's a big document about prophecy that he attached. But one of the things that we'd

like to address more is the PS, the piece at the end. Yeah, he asks, I wonder if there might be some distinctly secular way to establish a community of mutual support within the atheist community, or if such a community already exists. Sometimes I miss the tribal nature of a church and the way that they would come together to help their own. You know, I think that that's something that a lot of people who used to belong to a church particularly feel a distinct loss when they move away from religion. I think that that's the meeting place, the gathering place is something that churches provide an easy avenue to get to. I think you got to establish your own traditions. That's the first thing that I would say is just find like-minded

people and create a tradition. That's all a church is, right? It's a group of people based around a tradition getting together who are like-minded to experience fellowship. That's what you miss. You can make that on your own. We got an email from Dan, and Dan had sent us an email last week and said, hey, should I request my funds back from my tithing? And we said, sure, go ahead and try it. And he actually sent an email to a Baptist board and asked them for his money back. And they responded and he sent it to us. And I got to thank you, Dan, for sending it to us. I thought it was a fascinating read. And I

thought the way in which you handled it was superb. I think that you're very eloquent in the way you wrote it. And I really do highly respect the way that you treated this situation. Yeah, I thought this was a great read. Thanks for indulging us by sending this to us. So I want to talk real quick, Tom, before we sign off and thank Jake for coming on the show, which we will do. I do want to talk about iTunes for a second. We got an iTunes rating this week that sort of stuck in my craw. We just got a brand new rating, and this is what it said.

It said, too much cussing, one star. I couldn't even listen to the content for all the F-bombs dropped. Do you have to cuss like a sailor to be an atheist? Just not for me. So what I want to say is we get a lot of this. A lot of people will say, you guys cuss too much, whatever. Um, cussing the word cuss, the root of it is from the word curse. Um, I know, I know, Tom, I don't believe in curses.

No, I don't think curses exist. I can't imagine someone who is an atheist would be offended by language. My father-in-law is a religious guy, and he's a very religious guy. I have, Tom, I have never heard him use a swear word ever. I've never heard that man utter a swear word, not ass even. I don't think I've ever even heard him say. But he curses all the time. What he says is, you devil.

And gosh darn it. He is cursing things. And he has the exact same intent that I do when I call something a motherfucker or whatever. He's just using a different word for it. It's just semantics at this point. But he has the same intent. That's why I can never wrap my head around people who are like, you guys swear too much or their swearings too much. Like swearing shouldn't bother you. Why does it bother you? There's nobody up in heaven who's

like shaking his finger at me for swearing. It's just how I speak when I'm comfortable. You know, if you don't appreciate the content or you don't like the way that the content is delivered or you don't think that the you know what we're saying is of value or you have a suggestion, that's legitimate. Like, OK, cool. You know what I mean? Provide me that feedback and I will listen to it. And even if I don't agree with it, I'm not going to get salty about it. But this idea that there is a thing called swearing, that's kind of a socially agreed upon nonsense.

You may as well hit your hand with a hammer and say, expletive. Right. Because that's all it is. It's like filler word, expletive. You're just naming parts of fucking speech at that point. It's silly. And if you don't like it, I cannot imagine being surprised when you get through the two explicit warnings prior to listening to this show and then being

turned off that it's explicit. People have said, I've read reviews too, where they're like, they're just throwing in curse words to throw in curse words. No, this is really how I talk. I am not doctoring my speech. I don't swear at work. I don't ever swear at work because I realize that that's a place where other people may find it offensive. I swear when I'm comfortable with people. I happen to be very comfortable talking to Tom and on my own fucking podcast. I happen to be very comfortable. So I speak how I want to speak. And if you don't like it, I'm sorry.

There's plenty of podcasts out there that are clean podcasts. You should listen to those and rate those too. So we had a great time, Tom, with Jake from the Imaginary Friends show. Yeah, that guy's awesome. Thanks, man. We really appreciate him being on. That was terrific. We're going to be on his podcast which you can find at

imaginaryfriendsshow.com We're going to be on his show which is going to be episode 107 and we're going to be on it for the whole time so I think it's going to be out pretty soon I don't know how long it's going to take him to edit it but we suspect that you could get a couple of hours

worth of us this week if we were so fucking inclined you could do it so we'll be on his show Imaginary Friends show number 107 he wrote a book so you guys should check it out. It's called Letters to Christian Leaders, How It Would Be Thy Claims. You can find it on Amazon.

It's like five bucks for Kindle. It's really not that expensive. And as he said earlier, he gets half of that. So it's a good amount of money that he's getting. So if you get a chance and you want to read a good book, go ahead and click it and read his book and listen to his podcast. But it was great to have him on. So we have our last, our latest disclaimer that we've got to play, Tom. Oh yeah, we do. Absolutely. So we've got to make sure we play that. So be sure to stay tuned. We're going to leave you

with the Skeptic's Creed, but after the Skeptic's Creed, listen to the disclaimer. Thanks for listening. 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 spiral brain dead pan sales pitch late night info docutainment leo pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and towers tarot cars psychic healing crystal balls bigfoot yeti aliens churches mosques and synagogues temples dragons giant worms atlantis dolphins truthers bir wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides.

Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The views and opinions expressed in this show are not suited to small animals or virgins. Look, if you don't like it, don't fucking listen. Pretty simple, really. We'll see you next time. you