Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 67: Vote Democrat and Enjoy Hell

Episode Date: September 30, 2012

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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. If I say you have an ugly face or a horrible voice, you have every right to feel hurt, and I hope I would have the good manners not to say it. But I think everyone accepts that I have the legal right to say it.

Where religion is concerned, however, it's another story. Religion is a special case, a privileged case. Why? What is so special about religion? You may be hurt if I say something that you consider insults your religion, but that's no reason why I shouldn't say it. Your religion is your religion, it is not mine, and it's not society's. You're not entitled to expect anyone else to respect it. Religious spokesmen, and it

always is men, not women, all too often threaten mayhem and murder if anyone breathes a word against religion. They literally threaten to behead people for a crime no more serious than making a drawing or writing a novel. But the real problem is not the religious wingnuts themselves. The real problem is the accommodationist, appeasing respect that we decent, liberal, nice people wrongly give them. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended.

The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. This is episode 67 of Cognitive Dissonance, and I don't have anything clever to say immediately thereafter. Nothing comes to mind. 67.

67 is one of those numbers. I mean, 69 is easy, right? 69 is super easy. 65, multiple of five. Nothing really big happened this week, so you're just kind of like, eh, it's 67. So Cecil, we would be absolutely remiss if we did not talk about, I mean,

if this was like Sesame Street, right, the word of the day, the word of the week would be blasphemy. Brought to you by the letter B. Brought to you definitely by the letter B and the number. I don't know how many people were killed in Libya. Well, it could be it could also be by the number of six, three times, too. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very nice.

Now, I've got strong feelings about blasphemy. I think it's wrong. I think people should not do it. Fuck it. Right. Right. wrong i think uh i think people should not do it fuck it right right there's no way that we could we could come out on one side of blasphemy on this one here no yeah there's this is not going to be a fair and balanced look at the uh complex issues involving blasphemy this is not uh not going to be that that portion of the fucking program yeah um. The Times of India had a story out of Pakistan. Pakistani accused of blasphemy. A businessman has been accused of blasphemy. Now, again, we've discussed this before.

The penalty, the potential penalty in Pakistan for blasphemy charges is death, which that's kind of like the bigger of the penalties. Like, how does penalties go? Yeah, it's pretty bad. And this isn't one of those things that is an isolated case, so to speak. This is par for the course in a lot of countries that have Sharia law. And you know what he really did? This guy, he wasn't even blasphemous. And you know what he really did?

This guy, he wasn't even blasphemous. This particular guy who was arrested or at least is being investigated, is being accused of blasphemy. He's being accused because he did not take part in rallies and protests and did not close his shop. So he woke up in the morning and did not actively participate in a protest. That doesn't seem like blasphemy to me. I mean like look, I'm no big biblical scholar here. But part of me thinks that if you're not basically denouncing the text, that's not blasphemy. If you're just going to work, that's just a workaholic.

Don't get it. It's not like he woke up in the morning and like got over the fucking mosques loudspeaker was like hear ye hear ye fuck muhammad in the ear you know okay you know probably a bad call in pakistan i think he's fine as long as he starts it out with hear ye hear you that's how they all start yeah the muslim call of prayer yeah absolutely that's actually just that when they do that like sort of beautiful singing as part of the – that's actually just hear ye, hear ye. Yeah, it's just in Arabic. They're saying hear ye, hear ye. Yeah, absolutely.

Fantastic. They're going to like sound the horn. It's like a fucking sheep horn. It's like a fucking sheep horn. It's like... Every time I blaspheme from now on, I'm going to sound an animal horn. I'm just going to carry around like a fucking ram horn on my... You know what? I'm going to have two. One full of mead.

Because the ram horn will add a delightful, Meaty flavor to my honeyed liquor drink There's going to be a pocket somewhere In your pelt that you're wearing You can put it in so you'll be fine I think it would be fucking awesome To come to work every day dressed and armed Like a viking What the fuck is going on you work in an office

What's happening here Oh man But anyway blasphemy We may have strayed a little off topic Just a little Oh, man. But anyway, blasphemy. Blasphemy. We may have strayed a little off topic. Just a little. Just a little. The subject of horns gets us confused. It totally does.

It totally – it will take me right off topic. Yeah. But there's been calls all this week. I've seen calls, even here in the States, calls to respect the importance of religion, to have movies like the anti-Islamic film The Innocence of Muslims or whatever banned to make it impossible for those things to be produced, to basically ensconce into Western society some of the anti-freedom of speech, anti-blasphemy laws that are endemic across parts of the East and Middle East. And I have to say that's the stupidest fucking idea ever. That is a step back as far as you can step back. That's like fucking falling backwards into the pit of stupid. who would be in favor of this law would also, it seems to me,

be the type of people who would say something like, get the government out of my life. Right. It seems like, I mean, I'm just putting the connections together. I can't be, you know, sure. I don't want to name a party. But I think that's what it feels like to me. But it feels like such a separation here.

It feels like on one hand you it feels like such a separation here. It feels like it feels like on one hand you have you have the thing that they hold sacred and they don't want anyone to go near that without, you know, without the proper reverence. They don't find it sacred at all, which they shouldn't. They obviously shouldn't. But they want to make sure that the government stays away from all these other things. I would want the government to stay away from my religion too. I'll be honest. The government is not good at things, and I don't care what those things are. The government normally is not good at things.

I would want the government to stay as far away from my religion as possible because I wouldn't want them to to overstep their bounds. And and while you are on the side right now, the winning side, so to speak, the side that is that is Christian. Right. You're on that side. And the majority of people here are Christian. You're on that side, and the majority of people here are Christian. It only takes a little bit of a shift to start getting people that are converting to Islam. I mean you could wind up with something very horrible if you instituted something that allowed the government to play a part in some sort of religion. So you're giving them the freedom to mess with that in a way that, that would be, I think, detrimental to your belief structure. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't want that if I were a religious person, but the blasphemy laws in themselves, I think, um, you're right about the free speech thing. Some people try to say it's hate speech. But the thing about hate speech is when I make a diatribe of some sort against gays, gays exist.

Like they're real. When I'm making fun or attacking your god, he's not a real thing. your God, he's not a real thing. And even if you think he's a real thing, there's nobody damaged by my supposed quote-unquote hate speech. Which is why it makes sense, which is why rabid vitriol against, as you mentioned, like homosexuals, which you don't do obviously, but if you were, that would be hate speech because there's people involved. What occurs to me immediately is wouldn't all religious speech be blasphemous to all the other religions? I was thinking the same thing, Tom. I was thinking the same thing.

If I'm going to stand there and I'm going to say there is only one God and his prophet is Mohammed. Is that not blasphemous then to a Jew or a Christian or Hindu? For me, because what I'm saying, obviously, you don't have to read between the fucking lines, is your God's not real. Now, I didn't come out and look at you and say your God's not real. What I said is there is one God and his prophet is Muhammad. But by doing that, I have blasphemed all of the other faith traditions that exist.

If this guy in Pakistan gets arrested for not closing his shop on a day that's specified by the government to protest these, you know, this video and the, you know, the speech. The only way this works is if you have a state-sponsored religion where only one religion is allowed. You cannot have an anti-blasphemy law that makes any sense, that's coherent in any way in a multicultural society. Yeah. I mean I think you're absolutely right. If you have a monotheistic god, you preclude any other religions from saying that they are the one true religion. So places where Sharia law is the law, I think it is blasphemy to be a Christian. Christian. I think that, you know, that sort of thing is, I think that they should, if that's the case and you're okay with them, you know, treating it as a capital offense, be okay with them

killing Christians then. Because I think that that's not far off if you support this kind of action. You know, and the other thing that always occurs to me, I know I've said this before, but I have to say it again, is who's harmed by blasphemous speech? If your God is harmed, your God is fucking weak sauce. Well, your God's going to take it out on you in the afterlife then, right? That's the thing. It's like, well, you really upset my omnipotent being. He's got that shit covered. What with being omnipotent and all.

he's got that shit covered what with being omnipotent and all like at no point are you like well god is a dickhead oh you can't say that why well god will get upset yeah god's got that yeah no kidding right he is unconcerned he is not sitting up there in his fucking cloud land or whatever in his crystal palace next to super. I don't know where he lives. Fifth Avenue. Who knows? I have no idea. But he's not, like, sitting up there, like, twiddling his thumbs like, I wish he hadn't said that, but there's nothing I can do. I simply lack all of the powers.

You get to be an... You know, if God exists, you get to be an asshole for 70 years, 80 years, Tom's. And then it's your ass. Exactly. Because if that's the case, you probably believe in hell too. So you're like, oh, well, he's just going to fucking burn you forever. Okay, awesome.

Well, I'll deal with that when it comes. You shut up now. And if I'm a person, like a regular person who's a believer, and you blaspheme my God, my very first thought is, as you mentioned, I'd be like, well, I got it jokes on you suck a fool yeah because we only get to be here for a short period of time you are going to spend all eternity

all of the eternity all of it yeah burning in a lake of agony and fire what do i need to accelerate that for what am i accomplishing you? You don't ever – it's infinity. All other numbers are inconsequential next to infinity. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you live for a million years. It's still the infinity. You know what I mean?

Right. Yeah, 70 years or a million years, infinity still beats it by infinity. It's all the numbers. It doesn't make any sense. And then you also have to imagine like, well, how bad is it going to hurt? It's going to hurt all the hurt. It's all the hurt all the numbers. It doesn't make any sense. And then you also have to imagine like, well, how bad is it going to hurt? It's going to hurt all the hurt. It's all the hurt all the time. It doesn't make any sense.

There's nobody to be offended by blasphemous speech. No, it doesn't make any sense. And there's no reason. You know, these people that are calling in for the blasphemy call in for the replacement refs in the NFL. I mean, geez, that's a better cause than the blasphemy. Everything's a better cause than the blasphemy. Everything's a touchdown. Yeah. Seesaw, this story is from patdollar.com.

The war starts here. I don't even know what that means. This is a story about Ahmadinejad. Why is there an eagle on top of this? I don't know. What kind of website is this, Tom? This story, this website is. This website at the very top is like, we must retake the Senate to repeal Obamacare. Tom, I don't know about the validity of this website.

I've got an ad on the right-hand side of mine that says, Apple military financing. It has a big picture of the Apple symbol. What? I don't know what that's all about. Don't click it. It's probably malware. That's all right. I got a Mac.

It won't matter. This is pretty awesome. Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad has become Iran's Sarah Palin or maybe Rick Perry. I'm not sure which. It depends on whether or not he can see Israel from his backyard. How do you say you betcha in Arabic? How do you do that?

This guy is crazy as hell. He says that after war, Muslims will conquer them and the survivors can submit to Islam or die. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. Again, I'm not sure about the translation from this website. Yeah, it could be totally and grossly inaccurate. But I just like the idea that people still listen to this guy speak. Yeah, they do.

And I was reading this and they were talking about how Jesus was going to come back. He was talking about how Jesus is going to come back. He's like, Jesus is coming back. I'm thinking, well, what is Jesus going to come back with? Is he going to have like a box of VHS tapes? He's going to have like a bag of floppy disks? He's going to have a bag of floppy disks. The thing that Jesus has in common with all of those things, VHS tapes and floppy disks, is that he's obsolete.

That's the thing he has in common with them. The other thing, too, here's the other thing. You have these two religions, then, I think, fighting over who Jesus is coming back for. It's like two kids fighting over which, you know, you can't be that Power Ranger. I'm going to be that Power Ranger. You know, it's like two kids arguing about an imaginary friend or an imagination. Like, no, I want to be, you know, I want to have that G.I. Joe guy this time. Like, it's like two children arguing over something. Everyone wants to be Wolverine. That's all

I'm saying. Or Jesus. Wolverine for Jesus. No, but it's just imagination. It's bullshit. It doesn't make any sense. It's like, oh, well, my imaginary friend's going to come back and he's going to be awesome. Yeah, well, your imaginary friend

is my imaginary friend and he's going to come back. He's going to be more awesome. He's going to be on my side. Great. Can we all just fucking stop talking about pretend? This is a my dad could beat up your dad. Totally is. That's what this is. Everybody like, oh yeah, well, my dad can fly to the moon and punch the

moon and throw the moon at your dad and your dad would be like, oh no, a moon. Yo, my dad would just swallow the moon and then shit it out, man. My dad would wait for your dad to poop the moon, and he would take the moon out of his butt and hit him with it. Let's play on the swings. This is crazy. Tom, I got to ask you, though.

Why does Jesus need to come back? I don't know. Nowadays, you can start your car remotely. Hell, we can move a fucking rover on the Mars from here. I'm going to drive that shit. I'm like, boy, hey, I'm fucking driving around, taking pictures, fucking whoop, whoop. Why does he even need to come back? Can't he just do that shit while he's roaming?

What's going to happen is everybody's just going to get a Skype request. Like all of a sudden you're just like, oh, I got a friend. Oh, it's Jesus. Look at that. just going to get a Skype request. Like all of a sudden you're just like, oh, I got a friend. Oh, it's Jesus. It's Jesus. Look at that. That would be a great crank Skype account where you just had like a Jesus account and you just started friending random people. Friending everybody like it's time.

You know, that occurs to me too. It's like, well, Jesus is going to come back. Well, what are you fucking waiting for? Yeah. What is it that, why are you, like the fucking timer, the cosmic egg timer hasn't gone off yet that why are you would you just like the fucking timer the cosmic egg timer hasn't gone off yet why are you coming back anyway i don't know to bring that's the thing it's like well he's gonna come back and he's gonna bring peace well couldn't he have brought the peace the first time what is he gonna go on fucking larry king

it's why do we have delayed action piece? Yeah. Right. Like we have fucking delay, like control release medicine. Right. I can take I can take various pills and what have you. And it's like, oh, it's controlled release. Why don't I have controlled release? Jesus. Why do I get like one fucking Jesus? Why do I get like one fucking spurt of ejaculate Jesus?

Two thousand fucking years ago. Yeah. Two thousand years ago. if this idiot is real. Yeah. And then, which is not. And then shit times from between now and then. Right. Yeah.

It's like chronic pain, chronic back pain from then until now. And then you finally get a don't. And then when he does come back, it's like, yeah, well, he's also going to bring like a lot of like shit with him, like death and destruction and pestil yeah, well, he's also going to bring a lot of shit with him. Like death and destruction and pestilence. Yeah, he's only staying for a weekend. He's going to crash on your couch. And then he's going to be gone.

He's going to crash on your couch. Jesus shows up. Hey, man, can I bunk in here? Bro, you got an air mattress? Yeah, I'm good, man. I'll just crash out on the floor. I can sleep anywhere. Yeah, I'm good, man. I mean, you can nail me up. You know, I can sleep anywhere. Yeah, I'm good, man.

I mean, I'll fucking, you can nail me up to two sticks. I'll fucking fall asleep after three days. I'll be giving no fuck. You got anything to eat? I'm going to need to wear some gloves, too, so it doesn't fall through my hands, but. It just drips out the side. Who cares? See, now we're going to get killed for blasphemy.

Way to go, Tom. This story is from MSN or NBC or fucking something. NBC. I can't even tell anymore. MSN.com looks just like NBC News.com, which is US News. NBC News.com. So whatever the fuck. This is a story that we actually covered like three years ago, two years ago.

It's been a while on our on our other show. No fix for Jesus rifles deploying to Afghanistan. Afghanistan, the manufacturer of some of the rifles which are used by U.S. military and military defense contractors. These rifles have fucking biblical scripture, not the whole scripture, but references to it, fucking on the barrels of the guns. That is a bad idea when engaged in a war with an enemy who is of a totally different religion than your – this is a fucking spectacularly bad idea. It really strikes me as a bad idea. You know, I also heard that they're going to change uniforms to tabards with big red crosses on them. So that's going to be fine too.

So then they'll just have those and be able to shoot the Muslims in the face with them. It sounds like the Bible verse for this is really stupid too. It's John 8, 12. I'm going to read it. It says, Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying. I'm going to read it. It says, Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He

that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. That's on a gun. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, the light, maybe the fucking muzzle flash of life, but certainly not the light of life. The tracer round of life.

I don't know. What is that? That doesn't make any sense. That should be on like all the phosphorus incendiary, you know, here's a light. Oh, no, that actually feels much worse. That's terrible. That's burning my skin horribly. I hate your light of life.

Yeah, your light of life sucks balls. You know, people are making a big deal about this, obviously, because it's it's asinine beyond reason. And it's why is the U.S. military buying from a contractor that's putting fucking religious iconography or references or scripture or what have you on weapons that are being used overseas? That's just a fucking bad idea. But even more asinine to me is the idea that somebody is going to like shoot and kill a u.s soldier and recover the body or capture him and then he's got the gun and some like they're sitting around the fucking fire outside the cave or whatever the fuck and they've got the soldier bound and gagged and they're looking at it and the soldier's thinking don't look at the gun

don't let me look at it it just says like JN812. And they're going to think, wow, maybe that's a biblical passage. And then the guy in Afghanistan pulls out his Bible because, of course, he would have one. And then looks up John 812 in his Bible. What? Yeah. It doesn't put people in any more harm's way. I mean I really don't think that it does unless they get a hold of, I don't know, this fucking story. Yeah, well, I mean, publicizing it obviously puts people in harm's way.

But the thing is, is that this company came right out and said, yeah, that's what we're doing. Right. You know, they were pressured initially and then they came out and said it. Well, now it's out in the open. Now you've got to fix it. You know what I mean? Like, like it was just a serial number.

But since some dumb fuck said that it was what it was, now you've got to fix it. Because if they get a hold of one of those rifles, that's propaganda for their side. That's converting people to their cause with the gun that we had. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's recruiting for their side. It's the stupidest, dumbest thing we could do There's no fucking upside to this And what are you hoping to accomplish?

Like, okay, you're a religious dude And you manufacture guns and gun sights For war And you're thinking, you know They're good I mean, the guns are good Guys, the guns are good We've tested them

You can really shoot somebody real dead with them. Like, we've shot a whole bunch of people, and they died. Boom, right there. Great guns. Well done, guys. Bravo. They're just not religious enough. They need to be more real.

Maybe we can inscribe onto the site so that when you're looking down the site, and you've got fucking bullets pinging off the ground around you, and you're nervous, and you're scared, you can look at your gun, and you can feel the comfort of Jesus and you can feel nestled in his warm, soft arms as you cradle your M4 and pick off your targets from afar. You know why though that this person does it is to clear their own conscience, right? That's probably why it's on there. It's not on there because they love Jesus so much. It's on there so that they can be like they can be OK.

They can walk home at night, look themselves in the mirror and be like, yeah, I made some guns, but I made some guns for Jesus. Jesus was a big firearms enthusiast. A lot of people don't know. I had no idea. There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party platform. But I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils. My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote, but I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remained silent out of fear of sounding political and didn't say anything about the morality of these issues.

People of faith object to these platform positions that promote serious sins. I know that the Democratic Party's official unequivocal support for abortion is deeply troubling to pro-life Democrats. So what about the Republicans? I have read the Republican Party platform, and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin. Certainly, there are pro-choice Republicans who support abortion rights, and log-cabin Republicans who promote same-sex marriage, but they are equally as wrong as their Democratic counterparts. But these positions do not have the official support of their party. Again,

I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against, but I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy. Well, Cecil, bad news for those at the ballot box who might be going blue this November choosing the Democratic ticket. It turns out, according to LGBTQ Nation.com. Catholic bishop warns voters who back Democrats they are putting their eternal salvation at risk. The Roman Catholic bishop of Springfield, Illinois, is warning that the Democratic Party has endorsed intrinsic evils.

And consequently, voters who back Democratic candidates have put their eternal salvation at risk. Can you imagine going up? You know, you die and you go up to, I don't know, wherever they decide wherever you're going to go to heaven or hell, you know, and then Peter, whoever is standing there and he's like, well, you voted in 2012 for a Democrat, so down to hell forever. You like health care for people that can't afford it? Burn, burn, motherfucker, burn. Yeah, that doesn't seem like it's very, you know, if that's your religious view, then why would I believe that anyway?

I want to read what he says here. He says, again, I'm not telling you which party or candidate to vote for or against. But I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote. Because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy. And I guess the first question I got to ask is, OK, so I prayed for to to see which candidate I chose and I chose one and suddenly it's my fault. It's my, I prayed. I asked you, I took the burden off my shoulders to look for the guidance of the Lord. My God. I said, dear, sweet fucking tap dancing Jesus, please tell me who it is I need to vote for. And he did. Somehow I fucking fell asleep.

I woke up the next day. I was like, hey, I know exactly who I need to vote for. And then I go to the ballot box and I get up there. He's like, I didn't want you to vote for him. Well, you fucking told me to vote for him, asshole. What the fuck is this? What kind of game are you playing? Is this the fucking

soul shell game you're playing with me? Like, oh, is it under one? Is it under two? Is it under, oh, fucking enjoy hell. Well, that is a no win, right? It's like, well, I prayed. What'd you come up with? Well, Democrat. Oh, go to hell. Sorry. I prayed. What'd you come up with?

Nothing. You didn't fucking answer. So I guessed. What'd you guess? Democrat. Go to hell. Fuck you. You're not giving me any options, you dickhead. And it's a stupid thing to say that, okay, so my one vote, which in Illinois is inconsequential when it comes to the president. This jackass is in the middle of the state. If this guy doesn't know where he is, if he doesn't know that he's in a fucking blue state, he is the dumbest person walking, okay? He's in the middle of a blue, blue state, not the bluest state,

but certainly a dark fucking purple at this point. And he's like, oh, you know what? If you don't vote the right way, you could go to hell. Well, what if they voted Green Party? What if they voted Libertarian? Who cares? What if they threw their vote away, so to speak? Who cares, right?

Oh, sorry, going to hell. You didn't vote for Mitt Romney. Well, Mitt Romney had no fucking danger of winning in Illinois. Sorry. Enjoy hell. Does God follow the electoral system? That's what I want to know. If you're Catholic and you vote for a Mormon?

Yeah. What? What the fuck? Yeah, that doesn't even come into play, right? It's like, can't I, can I just vote for Rick Santorum? Can I just, can I go back in time and vote for that idiot? Like, what are you going to do? Yeah, no kidding, right?

Like, that's your only choice. Catholics must be terribly conflicted. That's your only choice, Rick Santorum. Wouldn't you be sitting there thinking like, well, you know, on the one hand, there's, you know, the possibility that 30 million Americans might receive access to healthcare. I think that's probably good. That is 30 million people after all. On the other hand, I've got a Mormon.

That is not the same religion. My brain won't do that. He's basically saying that on one side they have policies that are morally reprehensible. The other side houses people that agree with those policies, but the party line is not morally reprehensible. And what he means to say is, is that one side is a religious party and one side is basically not a religious party. And that's where we're at right now.

And so you're either religious or you're not religious. That is what this boils down to. Yeah, and it's not even true. Like the Democrats are religious as hell. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, enjoy the Obama's prayer breakfast, right? So we're going to take a short break, give you some information to contact us, and we'll be back with the rest of the show right after this.

Want to contact Cognitive Dissonance? Visit them on Facebook. You can find the link at the website dissonancepod.com or type it in the Facebook search bar. Be sure to follow the guys on Twitter. Their handle is at dissonance underscore pod. The guys also post to Google Plus now, too, so check them out there. And if you'd like to email them, you can do so at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. You can also leave a comment on the blog at their webpage or give them a call at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. And to everyone who listens, shares, retweets, or rates the show, Cognitive Dissonance would like to cordially thank you for all of your fucking support.

Cecil, we got to introduce a brand new segment to the show, which is named, we don't have a name for the segment of this show. We tossed some ideas around. We did. Home Under Ranged was one of them. Home Under Ranged. I liked Home Under Ranged was one of them. Home Underanged. I liked Home Underanged. It's okay. I thought that was-

It's just kind of clunky. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's not good. But really, the stories, Tom, are just about crazy people. They are. They are. Normally, we come across a variety every week of stories where total fucking nutbags blame

their nutbaggery on woo or religious beliefs or what have you. And we don't cover them because they're just clearly insane people. But the stories are fucking hilarious. Most of the time the stories are gold. But we've been reluctant to cover them. We want to throw it out to the listeners. We're going to go ahead and talk about these stories very quickly. If you have an idea for what this segment should be called, send us an email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

And if we like your idea, then we may name the segment what it is that you suggest. So throw your suggestions to us in an email. Now it's time to start the stories. Yeah, we're out of ideas at this point. No ideas, yeah. I mean, we're really, we're not good at this. We gave it like 10 minutes of the old college try. Both of us furiously typing away

at thesaurus.com. Nothing coming up. Nothing. No good synonyms. We came up with some fucking lame stuff, but what do you think? We really did. None of it was good. No. So this story is from GwinnettDailyPost.com I don't even know where this is from.

This is from Duluth. I'm sorry. A middle Georgia man had to be tasered and dragged away from a van that he set on fire outside a Duluth hotel early Sunday morning. Man claimed to be the devil, Cecil. Because the devil hates vans, as it turns out. More of a convertible guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

When the van is a smoldering, don't come. I don't even know. I don't know how to finish that. Well, this is great because they were hanging out outside the Hyatt Place Hotel and Venture Parkway drinking when the conversation, quote, turned to Jesus at about 4 a.m. As all drunken conversations at 4 a.m. outside the Hyatt will inevitably do. You know what I mean? They went upstairs and got their Gideon Bible out of the sun. Well, let me show you, John 812.

It's on my M4. So this guy stated that Mr. McInnes stated that he was the devil and started acting crazy. So in character, he's in character. Yeah. No, that's fine. He pulled out a pair of butterfly knives. A pair? Why do you need more than one butterfly knife?

Right. He's just flipping them. They're already unwieldy. Like they're already an unwieldy. Like a fucking lock blade is so superior to any butterfly knife ever made. Don't you just picture this guy like wearing like a like a red leather jacket with all the zippers. And he's like snickety snickety snick snack snack as like he's got his fucking butterfly knives out. He's got to have like a rising sun headband.

You know, this man owns nunchucks. And they're the ones he made at home out of a broom handle and a dog chain. I made that when I was 12. I did too. I did too. I had a butterfly knife when I was 12 too. And then I realized this knife sucks. This is going to hurt me one day.

I should give this away. This exists only so I can snickety snick it around and one day do it backwards the only good thing about the butterfly knife is everyone i've ever touched ever in my life has been dull as shit oh yeah absolutely well they're made that way because if not everyone who ever touched a butterfly knife would have one working hand there's like a pool of fingers on the ground. ER docs would be like, ooh, another butterfly knife injury. Yeah, exactly. Walking down the street, you're like, there's a butterfly victim.

There's a butterfly knife victim. There's just four stubby little fingers laying on the ground. Give me all your snickety, snickety, snickety. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Not again. I only had two hands. Why did I buy a pair of butterfly knives?

This is the worst investment in my criminal enterprise. Oh, man. So he pulls out this pair of butterfly knives. He breaks the rear window glass on the van and sets it on fire. They don't even say whose van it is. It's just a van. It's like a random casualty van. And he doesn't do anything that we can figure out with the knives.

He just pulls them out. People run away. He sets a van on fire. figure out what the knives he just pulls them out people run away sets a van on fire when the officers arrived he was reportedly sitting on the back bumper of the burning van and gave profanity laced refusals to move he stayed at the back of the van even though the fire started coming out of the windows see the thing you're missing here, Tom, is he was fine. He's Satan. He's totally fine with all the fire.

Right, because he's the devil. He can't be injured by it. To him, it's like Club fucking Met in there. I thought it was a little cold out here at 4 a.m., so I set this van on fire. Light a van on fire. I love that guy so much. He looks great, too. He looks like a crystal meth- addled Keanu Reeves. I love the fact that he looks like Keanu Reeves.

I'm like, wait, it's half of Bill and Ted. I don't even know which half. Bill and Ted's excellent crack pipe. Well, they used to hang out outside the Circle K, didn't they? Yeah, I guess. You know Circle K, the Hyatt, it's all good. Yeah, it's fine. A parking lot's a parking lot when you're crazy as a shit house rat.

This next story is from The Daily Mail, the leader in reliable news. Husband, quote, shot his neighbor because he believed he telepathically raped his wife which is terrible until you see the picture of this guy i think he was surprised by the camera like when you look at him you're like oh you you he didn't know there was a camera there, did he? Cecil, he looks like he's melting. Like the next picture, he's just like his eyeballs are on stalks and all of his skin is just melting away. Yeah, he looks really fucked up. I got to say, as a young man, I telepathically raped a lot of people.

If that's rape, uh-oh. Yeah. Oh, no. Because I have, as a young man, I thought of a lot of different women. Yeah, as a young man. This guy, this poor neighbor, can you imagine this crazy neighbor comes over to your house and says that he thinks that you're having sex parties with his wife? What? And this is the same guy that believes that Eddie Van Halen comes into his mind and helps him occasionally?

When Eddie Van Halen is your help? No wonder why his life is in shambles. Right? You know? And of all the people, you could choose to help you to get through something, it's not like, you know, the ghost of, you know,

Isaac Newton or something. No, no, no. It's a living guy. And he comes into your mind. Eddie Van Halen. And this guy telepathically, according to Nutterhead here, was told by his neighbor,

we're having a sex party tonight. There will be cocaine. If you don't come, I'll kill you. That's the worst invite ever. This guy, will you attend? I'm definitely replying maybe to that one. And look at this guy. Looks like he fucking did all the cocaine.

Right. All of it's gone. He did all that cocaine, all of it. He did the neighbor's cocaine. He did his own cocaine. He went down the street and did some of their cocaine. When I look at this guy and I hear that, like, if we're going to kill you, if you don't care, the first thing I think is those memes of those, like, greeting cards.

Yeah. Like, with this guy on the side like we're having a sex party tonight oh god never have I wanted sex less than looking at this picture geez can't you just make a fucking pot roast like everybody else this picture is as effective as going swimming I'm just saying. There's a full-on retreat. I'm Raymond Massey, and I have a special message for senior citizens.

Today's doctors, drugs, and medical devices truly work medical miracles for young and old alike. But there are some as phony as a $3 bill. Investigate before you invest in health services or products.

Help stamp out quackery. So, Cecil, this story is also from Daily Mail, although it's not as funny. No, this one is not funny at all. It also just is baffling. Doctor behind the, quote, hunger cult that obsessed a mother who starved her 16-year-old daughter to death. A mother who was accused of starving her 16-year-old daughter to death.

Her daughter weighed 40 pounds. 40 pounds. That's what my 5-year-old weighs. My 5-year-old is about 3 1⁄2 feet tall. And this doctor advocates being wonderfully hungry. I doubt very much this 16-year-old girl felt it was wonderful up until she expired. I've never been wonderfully hungry. What is this even about, Tom?

What is this even? It doesn't – I tried to watch the video. And the guy is the first, the guy's talking so low, you can barely hear what he has to say, but he's not making any sense. The, the stuff he's talking about in here, he says, because being hungry is wonderful. The opposite of hungry, which is not hungry is the opposite of wonderful, which is terrible. The logic is't available. What does it even mean? That doesn't mean anything. You didn't make

any sense, dude. And he says when we are ten times hungrier, doesn't food taste ten times better? And when food tastes ten times better, that's wonderful, isn't it? It's a mathematical principle. No. When you're hungry, your body's telling you you need to eat because you're hungry.

And all food's going to taste pretty good right now because you're hungry. Yeah, hunger is sort of like that in that it is your body's way of saying eat fucking something. Eat a food. Can you imagine all those people across the world every day who are desperate just to have a food? Yeah. Do you think they feel that that's wonderful? Like they're waking up and they're like, yeah, there's nothing to eat again. Fantastic.

It's wonderful when I get a couple grains of fucking rice in my mouth. I hope I can catch a bug today. My life is a living hell. Yeah. And how jaded are we, Tom, that we live in a way, you know, basically we live in such luxury that we have the luxury of starving ourselves. Exactly. Isn't that, I mean, really that's the most mind boggling thing is that we have the luxury of starving our own children. You look at that and you think immediately. That's one of the first things I thought too is in most of the world and throughout all of time until very recently, such an idea would be seen as asinine as it is.

idea would be seen as as asinine as it is. But it's only in a culture of wealth and privilege, even relative wealth and privilege, that a hunger cult could even, you couldn't even use those words. You couldn't even suggest that hunger would be something to be a proponent of you know it's been the bane of our existence as as animals it's it it's the thing that all animals seek to avoid like right throughout most of time like that's like the biggest fucking worry it's like i need enough to eat to drink and i need somebody to fuck like those are my fucking imperatives we're at such a point of luxury like you say that we can look at a cultural or biological imperative rather and we can make it into a – I don't know, a totem of some kind. And like think about it this way. He's saying something like you're basically increasing your life by doing this. I know that I read somewhere that – or I tried to hear what he had to say. And it was something about taking care of yourself. And this is how you take care

of yourself is by being hungry. And, you know, I, I wonder, okay, like, let's just say, let's just make, you know, throw out all the evidence, even if there is any about whether or not I'm going to feel I'm going to live longer because I'm hungry, let's say. Is it worth living if I'm hungry through it? I mean, being hungry kind of sucks. And we're not talking about like, oh, man, I could use a snack hungry. Like we're talking about serious hunger here. If you're 40 pounds when you're supposed to be 100 to 115 pounds? Yeah.

That's a big deal. That's a big – we're not talking about just a little bit of food that you're missing. We're talking about a substantial amount of food that we're missing. We're talking about a hunger that I think anybody who's listening to this podcast has never felt. Right, right. So you can't even – first off, it's so hard to even comprehend that level of hunger. It's not just, man, I haven't eaten since yesterday. I'm pretty hungry. It's, man, I haven't eaten since August.

Yeah. I mean, it's got to be even longer than that. I mean, to get down to 40 pounds, it's got to be years, Cecil. It's got to be – It's years of very little. Right, yeah. That's It's years. It's years of, you know, very little. Right. Yeah. That's what it is.

It's years of it. And is that is that somehow better than than just being, you know, living a normal life and eating a normal diet? No, I'm not saying I'm not saying, you know, you should eat a fucking turkey and gravy every day. I'm actually advocating. I do. Yes.

I'm advocating what you just said. I do eat a turkey. I eat an entire turkey and gravy in a bun every day. I had a nice pint of gravy just before this recording. It was delicious. That's why my voice has this soothing silk. It's the butter in the gravy that I pour down my gullet. But really, obviously just eating healthy is better than just, you know, dying.

Yeah, dying is really low on this. Dying seems like a bad idea. Well, and this asshole, this fucking asshole doctor, he mixes scripture up, of course, with his health advice, which is not health advice at all. And then he says, he even says that, you know, if this woman had been under my care, she wouldn't have starved. She clearly wasn't following my medical advice. You know, zero out of 10 doctors recommend starving yourself to death. Like there's never been, I've never seen like, you know, I went to my doctor and they told me, you need to lose some weight. All of the weight.

All the weight. Fucking just be a floating fucking ball of light in the sky you cannot be physical anymore we lord we just asked it to be covered with the blood of jesus open hearts lord open hearts this story is from toronto.ctvnews.ca um jury here's tape confession of bible murder trial um now this person didn't kill a Bible. They actually took a page because one could think that from the title, you see. Right, no, yeah. Bible murder, yeah.

That's blasphemy. That's terrible. It's a capital offense in certain parts of the world. You're going to hell. You should really think about who you're voting for, Cecil. This is terrible. I'm going to hell. This guy decided he was upset with his wife or girlfriend or what happened? His girlfriend, I think. And so he beat her with a

hammer for a while and then when he was finished up with that, he went and got his Bible because this had to be a good Christian murder. Yeah, absolutely. You don't want to do this just willy-nilly. He didn't get his fucking Stonehenge certificates or whatever. He got his Bible. A ticket to go see Stonehenge certificates or whatever. He got his Bible.

A ticket to go see Stonehenge that he fucking pokes on her. And he tore a page out of the Bible, put it on her chest and stuck it in there with a knife. Oh, that's how you do it. I mean, if you're trying to send a message to that dead

person you just killed, that's the best way to do it. Maybe you hadn't thought of this passage, Mark. I mean, after beating her with a hammer until she died, isn't that just kind of gilding the lily at that point? I mean, what are you doing? Well, yeah. I mean, and it's funny because when you watch this tape, this guy is talking about him beating her. And he gets a little choked up there,

but when he talks about, like, taking the Bible verse out and taking the knife and stabbing it in her, he seemed like he was pretty fine about that. Yeah, he didn't seem too worried, because that was the good Christian part of the murder. Yeah, that was the good part, yeah. The devil got a hold of Cecil when he was beating her to death with a hammer. That's when the devil, like, really gets in there and

you know, grabs hold, and that's bad. That's when the devil like really gets in there and grabs hold. That's bad. That's bad. I want to read because this story was posted by Carl. Carl Maymer runs the Conspiracy Skeptic podcast and he was a guest of the show a while back. And he says on our Facebook page, he writes this little snippet. And I guess this is from an article. So I'm going to read it. He says, he lost it and tore a page out of the book of Jeremiah from the Bible and placed

it on his wife's chest and drove a kitchen knife through it. Charles, and this is the girl, who had missed her period twice, the guy hadn't missed his period twice, was the girl, but wasn't pregnant, told Barrett she had no longer wanted to get married, couldn't handle caring for another child, and would get an abortion if pregnant. Barrett, a devout Christian, became enraged and picks up a hammer and carries the hammer back into the bedroom. He swings it at Lucita, hits her, Arnold told the jury last week. So, you know, this guy, obviously there's some commentary going on there, but I think that there really is something to be said about this exchange they had. That seems like a very likely thing.

They have demonized abortion to the point that it is – that they have shown that it is OK to kill someone if they would consider it. They have proven this on many occasions. would consider it. They have proven this on many occasions. This is just another moment for them to say this is just another moment for a religious person to say they want to kill a baby. That's

fine. I'll kill them first. What they don't realize, of course, is that they're killing the baby too. Right. Yeah. Isn't that the baffling thing? It's like you can't commit murder. To teach you a lesson about murder, allow me to commit a murder. And murder your unborn child, possibly. My unborn child.

I'll kill my own son. What? Or daughter. Before you abort it. Wait. Teach me? What? Someone?

Who? I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. I also like, too, that in the video, Barrett claims to be a devout Christian and blames God for leading him down the wrong path. How can you be a Christian and blame your God for leading you down the wrong path? Wouldn't your God always lead you down the right path? Isn't that Satan who's supposed to lead you away from your paths? You picked the wrong one.

Oh, I know. Tom, I know why. Because Satan was busy lighting a van on fire. That he has things to do. So God had to take his shift and he had to lead somebody away. That's what happened. That's the problem when you're murdering someone at 4 a.m. Yeah.

Somebody could be over at the Hyatt parking lot. You never know. Yeah, basically channeling the devil. And if they do that, then God has to take their shift. And then God, now you've got to blame God for that stuff. And then they do that, then God has to take their shift. And then God, now you've got to blame God for that stuff. And then you can't feel good about that. No, that's bad times. How do you blame God for leading you down the wrong path if you believe in a God?

I don't know. He hasn't thought about a lot if his solution is to go get a ham. That's true. I guess that's true. I guess I may be considering him as too thoughtful. That's not... Your first reaction is what carpentry tools do I have to

kill someone? Yeah. I also like that he went to the kitchen to grab a hammer. Yeah. Eating a lot of coconuts or what's the story there? They got a hell of a junk drawer. I mean like if he grabbed a meat tenderizer. Yeah, sure.

All right. You know, probably break the handle. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers? I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. This story is from HeidiandFrank.com.

What? Okay. Police, Polish police in a lather over creepy initiation photos showing teens licking whipped cream off priest's knees. But Cecil, it's not that big a deal. This is all part of an initiation ceremony for freshmen at a Catholic school in Poland. So it's not that big a deal. Yeah, I mean, it's really not. Tom, look, this is like a ritual, right? It's like a form of in Poland. It's not that big a deal. Yeah, I mean. It's really not, Tom. Look, this is like a ritual, right?

It's like a form of hazing. They lick the whipped cream off his knees, and then he beats him, and afterwards they give him a hand job. I don't think this is that big a deal. It's standard. It's just, look, it's standard. Yeah. He's, in another one of these pictures, he's sitting on a hill and hitting a girl with

a stick. Like, there's this teenage girl on her knees in front of him, and he's beating on a hill and hitting a girl with a stick like there's this teenage girl on her knees in front of him and he's beating her with a stick see i know the next stick that comes out i've seen this movie i'll tell you what i look through these photos and the way the faces are blurred like this i like i've seen porn works a little more less explicit than this you know the way they're blurred. And look at the third picture down. There's one, two, three,

four. The fourth picture down. There's five total pictures. There's one with a set of boys. That's the first one. Then there's a boy mixed with a couple girls, I think. Then there's the girl getting beat with the stick outside. But then there's the fourth one. Doesn't it look like the fourth one the girl had been like someone had either like dumped water on her or ejaculated on her or something?

Like if you look at her shirt, it looks very wet. It's very, very. It looks like sweat kind of because of the way it's pulled around her back like that. But if that's sweat, this is not a girl you want to dorm with. I'll tell you that much. Maybe he wants to stick to push her away from his knees. Like, damn, bitch, you stink. What's up?

And really, like, you can't have a worse set of pictures come out if you're a priest, right? Other than having a bunch of girls with fucking white foamy lather around their mouths kneeling at your crotch. And you're going to be like, hey, I don't see what all the fuss is about. And, you know, like it's like I think it's exponentially dirtier because he's wearing socks with sandals. Like that makes it dirtier for me. I don't know why, but I look at these and I'm just like, yeah, it's dirty. I'm sorry. This is dirty.

Look at the last picture. There's even a girl helping the other girl lick the fucking cream off. I mean, we have all seen this video. I did not find this picture hard to masturbate to at all, really. Eight out of ten on that one. No, they're all, like, young girls, too. Like, that's the thing is, like, they're all, like, young people. These are, like, all of these images.

all like young people. These are like all of these images. They, they, okay. I guess they seem sexual if you were to have sex, right? Like if you were someone who had had sex before, you would look at these and be like, wow, those look sexual. So, I mean, you know, I guess to a priest, this is innocent fun since they don't know what, you know, they don't have any idea about this stuff. They're just like, well, I've never had sex. To me, they're just licking whipped cream off my knees. What's so weird about that? What's so weird about teenagers licking whipped cream off my bare skin? That's a normal initiative.

Don't you have to wonder about the first year of this initiation? Because I get it, right? Like, oh, man, we're going to the venerable school of fucking witchcraft and wizardry or wherever these idiots are teaching. Going to the venerable school of the fucking priest with the fucking clean knees. The holy order of the big stick. Yeah. Like you're going to this Catholic school and you're like, oh, man, we've got this tradition.

We've been doing it for years. It's a little weird, but bear with me. I've been doing this for years. There had a little weird, but bear with me. I've been doing this for years. There had to be a first year. Oh yeah. Yeah. There had to be a first year where the priest was like, you know, it'd be a great initiation for all those delicious young girls and boys. How about if I put some whipped cream on me and you guys lick it off? How about if I put the whipped cream in a place that no one could construe is sexual, even though it's, you know, on the lower half of my body, you know, maybe a foot away from my crotch.

Why don't I put it there? You know, that's not like I mean, that's not that sexual, right? I actually can't think of a part of your body you could put whipped cream on and have a girl on her hands and knees licking it off of you. That's not sexual. Like I could put it in my hair and it would be sexual at that point. The girls on her hands and knees licking whipped cream off your body absolutely right like what what are you gonna put it in your belly button right that's not that's you know that's a little sexual your back sexual you know your arm you know anywhere your fingers you could be wearing a suit of armor and this would be sexual. It's not.

This could be. You could fucking put. You could put the whipped cream on a crash test dummy and it would be sexual. What was this guy thinking? I don't know. And who took the pictures? Why would you let somebody be like, oh, I'm going to get some pictures of this. No, no, no, no, no. This is a secret initiation.

We don't do photos. You don't want to show me beating him with my stick here. I'm just going to whack this girl with my stick for a little while and then have her lick the cream off my bare skin. That's cool. What? Oh my god. These are just not right. These are not right. That's so fucking

crazy. And you know, if I wasn't such a fat guy, this would wean me off whipped cream for a while. Yeah, this would get me the next would wean me off whipped cream for a while. Yeah, this would get me the next 20, 30 minutes off whipped cream. Yeah, I mean, I probably won't have any tonight. Well, I'm not going to go that far. Let's not get fucking crazy. Plus, can you imagine like you're a teenager, right?

You're 13, 14, 15, whatever these kids are. And somebody has to explain this to you. Okay, we're going to go do this thing. What, like math? No, no, no. Religious ed? No, no, no. No, no.

We're going to lick, hear me out. We're going to lick whipped cream off a priest. Wait, fuck you. No, I'm not doing that. I'm calling mom and dad. I'm going home. Yeah, and you know they're picking fucking hair out of their teeth after they're done. I mean, come on. look at this guy's legs.

He looks like a fucking wolfman for crying out loud. The letters that you write, like, hello, Mata. Hello, Pata. Hello, Pata. I got whipped cream from the priest. I got whipped cream up my nostrils. How was your first week at school? I would like to come home

right now. Other than being scarred for life, I'm fine. We didn't get any voicemails this time, but remember you can always call us at 740-74-DOUBT and we can play your voicemail if it's short and interesting. We will play it.

But we didn't get any this time. But we did get some email, Tom. And the first one is from Derek. Derek says that he watched this YouTube video and he sent this YouTube video to us. And we watched it. And he says he was impressed because there clearly isn't enough people who see through the divide of our two-party system. And this video that we watched was basically about how there's this two-party system in the United States and there's very little that separates the two-party system. The two-party system basically has the same policies for a lot of large things that they do. And they only differ in a few

select social policies that we all seem to fight about. Yeah, I'm not sure that I understand. I appreciate this. And I do to some extent agree. I think that there is a bit of a shell game that's going on with politics where it's like, hey, let's all pay attention to these four or five hot button issues so we can go ahead and sneak various things through without anybody paying attention. I think that's reasonably accurate. I do think, though, that there are significant differences between the parties, which is why they can't fucking accomplish anything. And I'm not talking about just social issues. They can't accomplish fucking anything. They can't accomplish any tax reform.

They can't accomplish any banking reform. They can't accomplish any economic policy. They can't agree on a budget. They can't. I mean, those aren't social issues. They can't, although I guess to some degree they could be argued that they are, but they can't fucking agree on anything. You would think they would be able to get together better if there was this sort of collusion that this video represents.

The other thing too that I think that this video fails to recognize. And while I will agree that the third party candidates in this country get pushed to the wayside and they shouldn't. That's one thing that I'm very upset about. I wish we had way more choices for president. I wish there was still the ability for those people to participate in the political system and have a real voice, other parties. But we just we are so divided. And so I agree with that.

We are so divided and so I agree with that. The one thing I will say is that there's a lot of focus on the presidency very often. And that's one thing that I think while it is something we need to focus on, obviously we need to have a president, a strong president, a president that represents the things that you would like to see done. This is neglecting I think the largest part of the government and the most influential part of the government, which is the Congress, the House and the Senate, 500 people. These races are probably the most important races in our country. And they get neglected because they're so local. You're only voting for the people in your state when it comes to your Senate, and you're only voting for the people in your state when it comes to your Senate, and you're only voting for the people in your district when it comes to your, you know, the Congress, when it comes to the House. So it's a very local thing, but people need to start seeing it as more of a U.S. thing,

because you need to start getting, because it's been half and half for a very long time, or close to half and half for a very long time. There needs to be a significant swing in order to get things done in there. And that hasn't happened in a long time. And I think that's something that really needs to be focused on. We got an email from Bruce and Bruce wanted to bring our attention to a Southern atheist website called Sauce for All. We will put a link to this on our page, but it stands for Southern Atheists United for Candid Expression, Free Thought, Open Mindedness, Reason and Living Life. So that's what Sauce for All stands for. And and we are going to put a link to it on this episode. Thanks for sending it in, Bruce.

I like that your organization sounds delicious. Yeah, it sounds like I mean, you know, really, there's nothing better than a good sauce. You know, I like a gastrique. I'm a huge fan. So, you know. It ignites the dish. You know, ties everything together. Yeah.

Tom, we got an email from David, and David wanted, he had something that he wanted to say to us about astrology here. He did. He said, you must be aware that when Mercury is in retrograde, it is just like having a finger in Uranus. Totally missed all the Uranus jokes last week. We did. How did we do that? How did we miss the Uranus jokes?

We failed. I don't believe we missed. I can't believe we missed them. We'll go back and rerecord the whole episode just to insert Uranus jokes. We got an email from, and I'm going to mispronounce your name. I'm going to pronounce it the English way. It's Villard. That's what I would say.

Now – and that's – we pronounce it Mar-sales and Paris too. So Villard I think is perfectly fine here. It's going to correct us. So, so Villard says he says that our American is showing the age of consent in other countries, in a lot of other countries, ranges between 14 and 18. He says that means that a Catholic priest could have an affair with a 14 year old in Germany, cannot be prosecuted for child abuse. He says, I love the show, but sometimes you see the world in a narrow American worldview. In the past, it would not matter. But with the internet, there really is no excuse. I got to say, Villard, here's the problem.

That story took place maybe 15 miles from where Tom lives. And the age of consent in our state is 17. Tom lives and the age of consent in our state is 17 and it's 18 if you're in if the person who you're having an affair with is in a position of power over you. So in this case, it would be 18 because they're the priest. So where it mattered, we had we were talking about the age of consent here. And that's where the story occurred. You know, the other point, I think, is that the church doesn't have the authority to choose a new age of consent here. And that's where the story occurred. The other point, I think, is that the church doesn't have the authority to choose a new age of consent. And I also think, I'll be honest, I mean, I think, I'll tell you right now, maybe I sound very American, but having the age

of 14 as consent in another country, I have never met a 14-year-old, I think, that should be consenting to anything. Yeah, right. You can't drive a car or sign a 14-year-old, I think, that should be consenting to anything. Yeah, right. You can't drive a car or sign a contract or drink an alcohol, but you can fuck. We got an email, Tom, from Michael, and he wants us to talk about his skeptics in the pub movement in Pensacola. He has this meetup site and Facebook page, and the Facebook is facebook.com slash psitp. Now, I'm going to put this on our site, both the meetup and the Facebook page for the Pensacola skeptics in the pub. If you're down in that area and you want to get together with Michael and hang out and do some

skeptics in the pubby stuff, certainly feel free to contact either of those places where he's going to leave the information. I'd love to see a skeptics in the pub movement take hold here. Absolutely. And I'm happy that people, you know, if you want us to plug your skeptics movement and you have a place that you meet and a designated place on the web, let us know and let us know if we can help you out. I want to apologize, Tom, to Adam.

He was having problems with our Amazon app. Yeah, our Amazon app. I mean, let's be honest. The apps, they're not the greatest. No. You know, we don't develop those apps. Our host, Libsyn, develops those apps for us. Yeah.

I guess it's better than nothing if you wanted an app. Yeah. But if you can't get it, it's not really better than nothing at all. Adam, if you could send us maybe the error message you were getting or something, then I could at least contact them. The thing is that my app is working on my Android device, so I can't troubleshoot this for you. But if you send me the information, I could always forward it on to our Libsyn provider, and then they can talk us through this and maybe we can get this problem resolved. Thanks so much for at least trying to buy an app, though. We appreciate it. Absolutely.

Tom, we got an email from Nick from the UK. I love this email. Nick, I'm going to read part of this here. He was on the cross trainer as usual in my futile attempt to ward off impending love handles when the Mitt Romney section about his tanned mug had me bursting out laughing and getting some strange looks from the packed out gym. I Googled the Gawker story on my iPhone whilst still on the cross trainer and his burnt umber face grinning back at me only made it funnier

whilst you guys described the day glow visage of America's next runner up to stifle my laughs I had to keep sipping water out of my water bottle only to find that I drank so much my bloated stomach and the swaying of the cross trainer had me running to the bathroom it was

not pretty I I then left. We ruined your workout. Oh, Nick, we're sorry. But we had a lot of fun last week with our racist stereotypes. Oh, my gosh. Completely un-PC episode of Cognitive Dissonance. Terrible. As opposed to the other 66 PC episodes of Cognitive Distance we've done.

Yeah, no kidding. So I wanted to mention we are at the very last stages at this point of getting a new T-shirt vendor. The T-shirts are going to be sent to us. We're going to try the T-shirts on. We're going to take some pictures and maybe post them on Facebook this week. So if you're not a fan of Facebook, now would be a good time to go ahead and like us on Facebook. You can always find that at dissonancepod.com. If you like us on Facebook, then you can laugh at the pictures with all the rest of the listeners when we post them later. But the good news about the shirts is they're better quality and we'll be getting more

money from them. So you'll be supporting the show more once we get the new shirts in, which is great news. We want to thank everybody, Tom. We've been so happy to get all of these reviews on iTunes. It's been great to get them recently. We were up to 328 reviews on iTunes. That's kind of fucking awesome. Yeah. For a show that's only a year and a half old, it's huge. And your ratings have shot us up in other categories too. We were up high in comedy and in news and politics. So thank you for subscribing on iTunes. Thank you for rating us.

All those efforts make it so more people find the show, and we're really appreciative when you do that. So thank you very much for that. Absolutely. Next week we're going to be recording a little, we we hope we're going to be recording soon next week. I'm going to be going on vacation next Saturday, or I'll be on vacation for a window next week, uh, early next or late next week to early the following week. So I'm hoping that I'll have the show out by Thursday morning. Now, the next show. Now, if this show doesn't come out Thursday morning, it won't be up until like Wednesday of the following week.

So if the show's not up on Thursday morning, don't post to our Facebook on Sunday. Where's the show? Asking where the show is because it's not coming. It's not coming at all. We might not even do a show next week if we're too busy. So understand that there's some complications coming up over the next week. So you may miss a week, although we're going to try our best to actually do a show. It might be early.

We're not sure. So we'll just let you know. You'll find out when we know, which we don't know yet. And when we do know, we'll definitely post it on Facebook and on Twitter just to let you guys know, hey, no show this week or hey, the show will be up just to keep you guys informed. We're doing our best. We're working around our lives here. Yeah, I've been doing a couple of vacations here, so it's been tough. But I will say if we don't do a show, I will put something on our blog that says, hey, there's no show.

And I'll also tweet it and put it on Facebook. So you'll know, hey, there's no show, and I'll also tweet it and put it on Facebook so you'll know, hey, there's no show. We have a blog? And with that, I will leave you with the skeptic's creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. and cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble,

pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot

massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Pisces, Cancer Cures Detox, Reflex, Foot Massage Death in Towers, Tarot Cars Psychic Healing, Crystal Balls Bigfoot, Yeti, Aliens Churches, Mosques and Synagogues Temples, Dragons, Giant Worms Atlantis, Dolphins, Truthers Birthers, Witches, Wizards Vaccine Nuts

Shaman Healers, Evangelists Conspiracy, Double Speak, Stigmata Nonsense Expose your sides shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only.

The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. Thank you.