Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 7: There's no place like Norway

Episode Date: August 2, 2011

Why are you not a Christian? Because I see no evidence whatever for any of the Christian dogmas. I've examined all the stock arguments in favor of the existence of God and none of them seem to me to be logically valid. Do you think there's a practical reason for having a religious belief for many people? Well, there can't be a practical reason for believing what isn't true. That's quite... at least I rule it out as impossible. Either the thing is true or it isn't.

If it is true, you should believe it, and if it isn't, you shouldn't. If you can't find out whether it's true or whether it isn't, you should suspend judgement. But you can't... it seems to me the fundamental dishonesty and the fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true. Well, I was thinking of those people who find that some kind of religious code helps them

to live their lives. It gives them a very strict set of rules. The rights and the wrongs. Yes, but you know, those rules are generally quite mistaken. A great many of them do more harm than good. And they would probably be able to find a rational morality that they could live by if they dropped this irrational, traditional taboo morality that comes down from savage ages. 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. Here for our seventh episode, Cecil. I think we're really moving along with some momentum here. That's evident because we actually have stories to talk about that were recommended to us rather than dredged up. We also have people on our page saying, could you fucking get off your ass and post another episode, please? Here's the thing.

I appreciate that very much, but none of those people will work for me. I, you know, I've responded to, yes, I promise you I will do this much more frequently. What I need you to do is be a short fat guy and come to work and pretend to be me. So if you can do that, then I can definitely know. We're actually very, very pleased that people like the show enough to clamber and harass and harangue us for more of them. We will try to get these shows out with increasing regularity. I think it'll be difficult, Tom, to find a short, fat man on the Internet.

I think that it would be a difficult task. to find a short fat man on the internet. I think that it would be a difficult task. Just look for hot single women. That's what you do. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth.

You can't handle the truth. In a news story, this is actually an awesome little news story that was recommended to us by a couple of our listeners. Austrian man wins right to wear pasta strainer in license photo. It looks so awesome. It does look awesome. So there's a gentleman, Nico Alm, a self-described pasta farian.

Now, for anyone who's not familiar with Pastafarianism, it is based on the gospel of the flying spaghetti monster, which is an awesome fake or real religion. It's a real religion. It's the same thing. dreamt up in response to the sort of dubious claims of, you know, there is a God that people have been yammering about for some time. So this this gentleman was evidently touched by his noodley appendage. And he fought to have, you know, I guess you can only wear head gear in your photos for official photos if it's religious, which is ridiculous. Which is stupid.

Because why can't I wear a baseball hat? You know, I'd be like, fucking, I love baseball. No, you don't. I know you like God. You know, I fucking love baseball. I love it so fucking much. You know, like, whatever. Like, I wear a fishing hat or something.

You know, like, I like fish. I want to wear a ski mask so they don't recognize me. That's what I want to wear. I want to wear just a full burka and get my picture taken. Are you sure this isn't your sister's ID? No. So he's wearing, in his photo, a pasta strainer. He's wearing a fucking colander on his head.

It's fucking super duper awesome, too. They have a picture, a little better picture. We're going to post the link on our site. There's a little better picture below where you could actually see the handle of the fucking strainer sticking out to the right side of the photo. It's really very funny. I think this is exactly what you need to do, right? It's really very funny. I think this is exactly what you need to do, right?

We talk about it. Tom, you and I talk about this all the time that, you know, there's lots of ways to be angry and feel like you're slighted by religion and like how dare they, you know, present themselves as the people who are sort of the chosen people. The people like specifically not just the chosen people by like God but the chosen people by the governments that they're in. They're like first class citizens because they get kind of what they want because they're the squeakiest wheels that you can find. So they bitch and bitch and bitch and they get 10 commandments put up in a courthouse somewhere. You know, we have religious iconography in all kinds of state areas and in the Supreme Court even.

And, you know, here's an opportunity to say, hey, dude, here's my flying spaghetti monster. I believe in the floppy flying spaghetti monster. I love that when they're finished with their prayer, they say ramen. I think that's very, very funny. I mean, how is this any more ridiculous than a yarmulke? Right, exactly. That's exactly it. Or a rosary.

Sure. Or, you know, any other piece of just jewelry and whatever that people wear to, you know, feel like they're pleasing the great man in the sky. You know, I can't imagine that if there's a God that he gives a shit what you wear on your fucking head. There's a God. Yeah. Right. He created stars, created the whole everything, like the fucking all of it you cannot think about a thing and be like what about that nope omniscient deity fucking created the whole thing like i'm pleased when i like when i drywall a wall right i'm pleased i'm like man look at that holy cow look at if i like repair a plumbing i'm. Like, oh, that's not leaking anymore.

This guy, like, created fusion. Right? I'm done. Created not only the idea of it, but the action of it. But I'm worried what's on your fucking head. You just see somebody, like, grabbing onto his toga at his knee, like, hey, God, God, can I wear this hat? Can I wear this hat? He's like, I'm kind of fucking busy basically making sure no fucking stars collide

in the universe. Wear what the fuck you want. Right. Like imagine like a symphony conductor. Like he's standing there and he's like fucking busy and there's a whole symphony except for the symphony is everyone and everything, you know. So it's a really big symphony. It's a very big symphony. Hard to get tickets to. It's a son

of a bitch. The stick is huge, but the audience is massive, right? And nobody dares cough during the performance. I'll fucking tell you that. Yeah, and then like a three-year-old runs out like, I want a banana! What? You're an atheist.

Give me a fucking break, Michael. All right, you know what? We need to start going to church every week. Equally ludicrous are some really awesome Facebook posts. This is from Richard Dawkins Foundation, the Richard Dawkins Foundation site. I love the title to the article is Loving Christians Respond to Atheists. Loving Christians.

So Fox News, ever the bastion of good reporting and objectivity and their viewers, there was a story about the 9-11 Memorial Museum and whether there should be a cross there and of course there were some folks who said no. And that course, there were some folks who said no.

And that's really it. Just like, no, I don't know that that's a good idea because there's a lot of faiths in the United States. And maybe we should not choose one faith over all the rest of the faiths. Some some folks put put some pretty hate filled shit all over Fox News's Facebook page. Some folks put some pretty hate-filled shit all over Fox News' Facebook page. I know it's shocking because, you know, most people are so responsible on Facebook

with their commentary. But, like, I say kill them all and let them see for themselves there is a God. Shoot them. Shoot to kill. To all atheists. Singular. Die and, and rather than and, go to hell. Ha ha.

If I could shoot all of you in the head with a 12 gauge. No end to that incident. Wait, hold on now. Hold on. Because. If I could. You put punctuation in there, Tom, that certainly was not there. I know.

I was being somewhat generous with that comment. I was being very generous with that comment. You're being very generous to this statement because, first off, it's in all caps, and there is not a bit of punctuation in there. The reason why we have punctuation is so we can communicate because if you don't, those fucking words don't mean anything.

Yeah, I love this. That's easy. Shoot them. Shoot them. At least we know where they're going. Waste of oxygen. Are you running out? Nail them to the cross then display it. That to me I think is one of the ones that I look to and say okay, well that I think is Christian

values sort of encapsulated right there. Nail them to the cross then display it. Come on. The last one is my favorite. What is I thinly? What is he thinking? What is he trying to say there? I think he's trying to say I think, but clearly he cannot do it properly. I thinly, I think, we should hang the leader of that group on a cross with nails through their hands and feet. Or maybe his hands and feet.

I don't know if you'd want to say their. Or her. Place a crown of thorns on their head. Ram, and it's R-A-M, so it's what? Random access memory? A spear through their side? Two gigs. All their, pardon me, all after being whipped and beaten publicly.

So just so they can endure what Christ did, so they can understand the sacrifice behind what the cross symbolizes. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That doesn't make any sense at all. First of all, it's pretty hard to get behind your idea that like, well, yeah, but Christ died for your sins. Yeah, but he's coming back. And he fucking knew it.

You know, it'd be like if I said to my wife, I'm leaving. You know, there's I'm leaving. Well, that's a big deal. And I'm leaving, but I'll be back in three days. It's a huge deal. There's a fucking gulf there. If I die, for example, big deal for me. I'm not coming back.

I'm just fucking dead. But if I die and they're like, yeah, but you're coming back. Shh. Fuck. Don't tell him. You're coming back. Three three days that's all you got to do three days okay um yeah all right fair enough i can you know well okay let's play three days fine it's first of all that doesn't make any sense anyhow but who are you gonna what leader of the atheist pick a leader of the The leader of people who don't believe in something. Where's their leader? Who's the leader?

There's no leader. The family leader. Right. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Leader. When you were last at Atheist Church, Cecil. Wait, there's not one of those. Right. What about the Atheist Pope? Yeah. No.

The hat's awesome, though. Man, it all comes back to the hat today. It's a one of those. Right. What about the atheist pope? Yeah. No. The hat's awesome, though. Man, it all comes back to the hat today. It's a giant colander. That's why. Okay, so the thing I love the most in the world is my wife. If somebody were to come out and say, Cecil, I don't like your wife. Cecil, I hate your wife. I would not say to them you know what, I would like to

nail you to a cross ram a spear through your side and put a crown of thorns on your head I wouldn't say that to them because the thing that I love the most in the world, they hate and they're not even saying they hate it they're not even saying they hate Christ

they hate God, they hate whatever you believe in. They're just saying it's inappropriate. So for somebody to say, you know what, I think it'd be inappropriate for you to bring Sarah to the work party. That would be the equivalent of me walking in with a shotgun and shooting everybody in the face at work. Because I can't bring Sarah to the work part. Like that's the fucking most ridiculous fucking reaction you could possibly have. Is putting things on there that are just blatant threats at this point. It's not even like veiled threats where back in the day it used to be where they'd kind of look out the side of their eye and be like, well, you're going to get what's coming to you.

You know what I mean? But instead now it's just like, yeah, you know what? We're not even going to wait for hell because we believe in a magical man in the sky and a magical man in the ground. And the magical man in the ground is going to get you and the magic man in the sky is going to get me. We're not even going to get that far. I'm going to kill you first. I'm going to fucking physically do harm to you because you don't believe in the shit

that I believe in. The unverifiable shit I believe in, you should fucking believe in it or else I'll kill you. Look, you're doing benevolence wrong, right? Fucking believe in it or else I'll kill you. Look, you're doing benevolence wrong. Right? Like, you've got an all-powerful, all-loving, benevolent God. And you're like, believe in him!

He's so nice! Oh, God, my kid, you see how much he loves you? I swear to God, I'm going to stab you in the face! It's like, you know, it's like a jealous boyfriend, right? It really is, yeah. If I can't have you, nobody can. Oh, stab me, stab me, stab me. Shut the fuck up. I hope you're as committed to safe sex as you are those abs.

I know you're all about that abstinence thing, you know. Come on, B. Palin, are you serious? Like, you're not going to hook up with, like, before you marry? For real? For real. For real, for real? For real, for real, for real. Equally ridiculous, Cecil, I think, is Rick Perry.

Yeah. My God. Rick Perry is the governor of Texas. As we all know, Texas produces a lot of high-quality governors. I don't know if you guys have noticed that or not, but really just good folks all around. Nice hats, too, down there in Texas. They do again. Yeah. Again, you know, I wear a hat every day. I think I'm going to have to revise that practice.

I'm getting nervous about hats in general at this point. Hats just don't seem like a good idea. They used to seem like it. You know, he's got, the governor has a pretty surprising abstinence-only policy. You wouldn't have guessed that from a strongly conservative Christian nutter. And shockingly, it's not working. More kids are getting pregnant in Texas

despite them saying, don't have sex. Right. Yeah. Strangely, that doesn't work to a 15 year old with a boner. You know, you're going to tell a 15 year old with a fucking raging hard on. Hey, ignore that. Are you fucking kidding?

Yeah, right. Are you kidding? That is you clearly are out of fucking touch. Abstinence only is probably the worst idea as far as sex ed, because it does not involve sex or education. Either of them, actually. So as sex ed goes, it's totally ineffective. it's totally ineffective.

The sex ed in Texas consists only of a single unit of abstinence-only education. That's just not enough. And it also emphasizes, and this is my favorite part, this is the part of the story that actually is the most appalling, because the curriculum emphasizes that birth control doesn't work. Right. So now you're telling them, don't fuck. But if you do, definitely don't use birth control because it's fucking expensive and it doesn't work anyway.

Thanks. Now everyone's pregnant. And who better to raise a child than a child, right? I mean, if you're looking for somebody to raise a child, what you really need is children raising the child. How could it go wrong? Yeah, exactly. That's the best way, I think, to make sure that the children wind up just as fucked up as the parents.

Look, if you don't talk about sex around kids, they don't know about it. And then they go out and they're like, hey, I got this thing in my pants and it wants to fucking get out. So what you doing? You know, and they're going to, they're going to, kids are going to bang. They're going to bang because their hormones are screaming to bang. And you know what? If you aren't going to try, you cannot stop the hormones. You just cannot do it.

There's no way to do it. Unless you fucking lobotomize all the kids, right? Like that's the only way you're going to do it. Or like tie them down from like the period of 12 to 18. Like those are the only ways in which you're not going to have kids having sex because the moment they're private moment, they're good. They're away from their parents. The moment they're, you know, finally away from their family for any moment of time in privacy with somebody else, they're going to do something because this is the moment that they're going to have to do it. It's just it's just an idiotic way to look at sex education because you're right.

It isn't sex and it isn't education. You're not telling them anything. You're not telling them anything about sex. You're not telling them anything to the dangers of STDs. The the heartbreak that comes from, you know, unwanted pregnancies and the heartbreak that comes from child pregnancies. Because let's be honest, these kids, these are kids. These are kids in high school. This is your, I'll tell you, I don't think I was an adult until I was out of college.

So let's not pretend that you're somehow like equipped to raise a child at that age. So there's all these dangers that go around with it. And, you know, you're not going to tell them about those things. You're telling your kids to fucking look both ways before you cross the street but not fucking strap a jimmy on before you bang somebody? It is ridiculous, and it's not working, and it's not going to work. And kids are going to find a way. Right.

That's the other thing. It's like kids are going to find a way. When you're 15, you don't need a lot of time. It's not like you've got to block off an hour in your day for this. You're a 15-year-old boy. You've got to block off from 9.01 to 9.01 and a half. That's how much. This isn't a matter of supervision.

And the thing is that this sort of nonsense can only come, it can only come from a place of misguided religious beliefs. There's no starting place for abstinence-only education other than from these misguided religious beliefs. It cannot come from any other source because it is irrational at its base. So it has to have an irrational foundation. And the only irrational foundation that's going to lead anybody to abstinence-only policies is religion. We just talked about this. Why do we always have such a big problem with, you know, why is it so funny, this Pastafarian guy? Why? Because, you know know religion isn't helping yeah it's not helping all these teen moms and teen dads

in texas who were told that birth control doesn't work and they should just repress their urges you know and it's not i i really i take offense at the idea that this is sex education i would take my kids out of a school yeah that offered that kind of sex education. I would remove them from that school in a fucking heartbeat. And if I had to get another job to pay for private education, I would do that. And I think you're absolutely right. If you approach this as a from like a secular, biological, strict biological viewpoint, there's no way to come at this and be like, oh, abstinence only is the way to go. viewpoint. There's no way to come at this and be like, oh, abstinence only is the way to go.

Because the only thing that is going to keep you from thinking that to keep you thinking that abstinence only is actually the way to go is some sort of mystical worldview. That's the only thing that can do it. And, you know, these are the same fucking people that are telling their kids don't have sex and don't touch yourself. And you know what? Like you tell a kid that at that age and there's stories about evangelicals and, you know, the Like you tell a kid that at that age, and there's stories about evangelicals and you know, the, the kids that get told not to touch themselves, how they have, they're like, they agonize over masturbation. They agonize over it. They write it in their diary about how it's like such a big fucking deal that they had to succumb to masturbation today or whatever. And you're just like, you know, if you tell kids this stuff, they are a fucking ticking

time bomb of jizz. That's what they are. And they're just going to inseminate the first thing that they can bed, and that's a fucking guarantee. If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay. It's anything but gay. Bachman has her, you know, pray the gay away nonsense that her camp or her ministry or her whatever does.

And it's actually turning out, there's an interesting article on CNN that for a lot of Christians, even evangelical, you know, pretty hardly right wing Christian groups, the whole conversion therapy thing, even they're beginning to recognize that doesn't work. It's kind of sobering when the people that are the most faithful among you are looking at you like you're crazy. And what does that say about somebody who's running for office in this country? Like enjoy the theocracy if she gets fucking voted in because she is fucking cuckoo for fucking Cocoa Puffs. This lady is crazy.

And her husband, there was some great shit they were doing on The Daily Show. Her husband's voice, he's got an obvious lisp and has like a very effeminate tone. Like when he talks, he sounds fucking gay. Like you listen to the guy and you're just like, dude, wait a minute. And like, you know, how many people call this shit? You say it all the time. Like, you know, like you basically like if you're so against the gays, you're probably the gay. He I you know, you could just hear the way he talks and you're like, are you sure you're

not gay? Are you sure you're not just a little gay? Just a little bit gay? You know, they played, they played what the guy had to say and what he had to say. He starts out his statement when he's talking about homosexuality. He's like, well, you know, there's a curiosity there. But what I want to – and he starts to stutter. And then he gets into the idea of how they're barbarians and they need to be taught. They're like barbarians and they need to be like cultured or something.

It's a really – like he's just a really – just a – you could tell the guy just – the whole time he's thinking this is just going – his brain is just screaming suppress it, suppress it, suppress it suppress it you know what i mean because he's fucking he is a ticking time bomb of hormones this guy wants to be balls deep in some dude and you know he does like you look at him you're like yep that guy's a gay but he is he what he's doing is he is repressing himself because one because of the culture that we live in where we just don't accept homosexuals as regular citizens. They always have to be sort of – we have to couch our language around homosexuals and have to be like, oh, well, they're not normal people. They're deviant or they're whatever you want to call them. They don't deserve the same rights as you.

That's the culture we live in. I mean we live in a culture where they can only get married in like five fucking states in our country. So we live in a culture that specifically already represses homosexuality. And this guy's religion is another reinforcement of that. So he's not only being, you know, repressed from his culture, but he's also being repressed from his religion and his private life and probably his crazy fucking wife. So, you know, like, here you go.

Here's a guy who basically is trying to make a living, you know, praying the gay away. And recently I read that they were like they were using partial federal funding for this fucking place. No. Yeah, man. I fucking like like there was like a big petition flying around the Internet. Now, again, the Internet famous for fucking anonymous hearsay. So how do you know?

But one of the things that they were saying was like, well, it's privately – it's not all privately funded. It is partial federal funding. So they were looking for – there was a giant petition floating around the internet like stop them from getting federal funding. Oh, that's depressing. That's really depressing. I didn't know that. I mean the whole idea that you would have a ministry that tries to just fundamentally change people, you know, and it's only this, right? Because if you came and said, you know, like, I like salad, they wouldn't be like, hmm, conversion therapy.

Now you don't like salad, right? They'd be like, hmm. Because they're not worried about what you like to eat. Right? They're not. And if you were like, well, I'm fat. Can I still love God? Yeah, can i still love god yeah you could still love god come on in like we'll have a party here's some donuts and be like okay cool

like i like the dick are you dude yeah sorry what but i like all this other stuff and you don't care like i like video games and i like you know i you could you could tell him virtually anything you know you could be like i you know i like to smear myself in mustard every night before I go to bed. I go, okay. Well, fair enough. I mean, I'm certain they'd be like, that's kind of crazy. Like, why do you like to do that? That doesn't seem like a thing you should like to do.

But fine, come on in. God loves you. Here's a sandwich, you know. But, like, if you're like, well, I like the deck. I got one, too. Nope, not going to happen. And it is telling to me that much of the anti-gay rhetoric seems to center around homosexuality among men. around homosexuality among men. Like homosexuality among women seems to garner much less vitriol and many less mentions by these nutjobs.

And I think that's just because most of the guys are like, well, yeah, but that's hot. I mean, I'm not going to get in front of that. What you want to say to those people, Tom, especially when they talk about like, if you're born, you know, you're, uh, that you're not born this way, that you choose to be a homosexual is like, well, when was it, when did you choose to like what liking women? When did you choose that? It was May 3rd. Uh, yeah. Cause I didn't fucking choose that shit. I wasn't just like, you know, I see that there, you know, there's fucking chocolate and there's vanilla here.

And I can go with the chocolate or I can go with the vanilla. I didn't fucking think like that. I was just like, huh, so there's that and there's that. Well, obviously, clearly, I would like, you know, the female here. I think that that's what I'm attracted to. Like, I didn't, I never really thought about it. I wasn't like, oh, you know, it's here. I think that that's what I'm attracted to. Like, I didn't, I never really thought about it. I wasn't like, oh, you know, it's fucking smorgasbord. I can take a little bit of fucking column A and column B.

Or I never thought like that. Did you think, I mean, you want to ask these people, did you think like that? Did you have to consciously choose? You know what? I want women. I want women, even though I'm sort of wanting some guys sometimes. I really want women even though I'm sort of wanting some guys sometimes. I really want women. Anyone who has experience with kids, like little kids.

I mean, I've got a four-year-old boy. He loves women, man. Like he already, like it's not, he's not at a place where he chooses between, you know, fucking nectarines and apples at this point. Right. You know, and I will be I'll be supportive, but I will be shocked and amazed if he turns out to be gay because he is really enamored of women. Like we got my my sister in law. He is very much enamored of her. And when we are going someplace where she is going to be and we are having a hard time getting him in the car, we'll be like, oh, come on. And so and so is going to be there. And he runs to the door. He runs there. He tells me all the time about how his babysitters are so pretty

and he likes them. You know, he's not making a conscious choice. He's just following the fact of his biological being. And that's why would it be any different for a homosexual or bisexual? They're just following the fact of their biological selves. That's all that they're doing. There's not a choice. Nobody would choose that. Nobody would be like, you know what I'd like to do? I'd like to live a life that's really hard.

I'd like to be ostracized from friends, family, church, and community. That's what I would prefer. What do you have in the way of getting my ass beat today? Yeah. You know, like it doesn't make any sense at all. It doesn't because there's no other choice that comes with that level of consequence. There's no other choice you could make that is, you know, other than to be like a mass murder or something absurd. There's no other choice that you could possibly make that comes

with that level of anger and vitriol and isolation. If it was a choice, even if you thought, I'm going to try it, if it were a choice, you would try it and you you would say this is really hard and i don't want to do this and you would just go back you right you know because but it's not a choice and so nobody does that because even saying it's fucking absurd no one does that i wish the american media would take a great look at the views of the people in congress and find out are they pro-America or anti-America. Bachman just gets kind of crazier all the time, all the time. This is a woman who's running for president who has these insane beliefs about homosexuality. And, you know, turns out she's also an end of the world nutter. Big time. Predicted the world would end in 2006.

Didn't do that, though. Fair enough. You know, I wonder if she did have, like, on the back of her bumper sticker, like, she had that May 21st, you can know sort of thing on the back. I wonder. You got to kind of wonder. I want to play a clip, Tom, of her giving a prayer. And I just want the listeners to listen to it and just hear how crazy this sounds.

Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are Jehovah God. We know that the times are in your hands and we give them to you. But we also, Lord, are astute enough to recognize the blossom on the fig tree is opening. The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will come nigh. Nothing is more important than bringing sheep into the fold and bringing new life into the kingdom. Lord, you are the one who chooses us. We don't choose you. You choose us.

And there are young people, Lord, that are, that are to be chosen. You have gone, Lord, and you have, you have plowed the field. You have planted the seed. You have watered it. You have weeded that garden and the harvest is at hand. Now, the thing about this prayer that makes it sound, I mean, when I hear somebody do this, the first thing that comes to mind is please keep your prayer silent. Because the moment you start talking about them, you sound as crazy as can be. And when she's like, oh, God, you're a Jehovah, like that is so weird. It's so strange and weird. And it almost sounds like she's casting a spell at some point. How different is praying than any other magical incantation?

I mean, how much different, honestly, is it? You're calling to a spirit to assist you in some way. You know, it's, I mean, yeah, there's no double bubble boil in trouble or whatever, but it's not that far off. I mean, it's really not. And I mean, this woman, how could you possibly elect to lead you somebody who thinks your fucking days are numbered? Like, I would let this person be like the leader of the scavenger hunt, right? Like, hey, Joe, we got number seven on the list why bother what the world's gonna end at noon it's 11 45 i'd like to plan ahead no there's no point in it i

mean what the fuck right what the fuck right this person should be on the margins of society. This person should be ridiculed from every corner of the world. This is not reasonable. This is un-fucking-reasonable. She's crazy. She's fucking evidently crazy. She believes in the fucking end times. She believes homosexuality is a choice.

She is a lunatic. A fucking lunatic. Look at her. You know, her being in charge of the government and having the end times notion is like having Debbie Downer from Saturday Night Live be like a suicide consultant hotline person. Without any sort of sustainability in mind, like think about what you could do as like the president or somebody in, you know, in real power, you know, say as a senator, what you could really do

to this country if you were pushing through legislation that was just like, well, the world's gonna end very soon. So we could do whatever we want. Fucking, you know,

we could just shoot missiles around, play fucking catch with fucking uranium. Like, it doesn't matter. It's all gonna be gone soon. So drill, strip mine, clear cut, destroy everything you can because we're all going up into the folds of heaven soon. And you know what? Drill, clear cut, strip mine, and you will be going to heaven soon because there won't be a world left.

Self-fulfilling prophecy. Here you go. Yeah. You know, there's a whole group of people who ardently hope to bring about, you know, the Armageddon. That's because they believe in Armageddon. Right. They believe in the fucking fever dream that is Revelation. That's crazy. This woman very clearly believes the same thing. So, right.

Why not? Like you said, why not launch missiles? Why not? Who's you're not hurting anyone. You're just fulfilling the prophecy of your of your God at this point. There's fucking no harm in it. That's terrifying. You know, this whole idea that and we, you know, I think you and I have both been accused by people who don't think well of, you know, atheists being immoral or living in a world that is completely morally relative.

I'm completely morally relative. But I'll tell you what. I will take moral relativism all day and twice on Sunday over this kind of nonsense. Right. You know, if you ask me, you know, Tom, would you launch fucking missiles at – no, I don't want to bring about the end of the world. That seems like a bad idea. I want to extend the life of the world as long as I can. That's – Yeah, indefinitely if possible. I want to extend the life of the world as long as I can. That's yeah.

Indefinitely, if possible. I want to get the whole five billion out of it. Like when the sun expands into a, you know, a red dwarf and engulfs us all. OK, fine. I give up. Seas boiled. What can you do? But I want my whole five billion. You know, if I can get it, I want the whole five billion out of it. Not twenty five. Well, at the rate you're going, you're going to get, you know, one and some change. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. Uka, uka, chaka, uka, uka, uka, chaka, uka, uka, uka, chaka. I'm hooked on a feeling. I'm high on believing. Almost but not quite equally disturbing is a story you sent me from the Telegraph. And this is a story about Jewish leaders who, rather than reporting, rather than advocating for reporting child abuse and child sexual abuse, they're basically trying to keep it in-house. They're trying to keep that, you know, they're going to handle that themselves.

And not in a way that they're going to, like, take child sex abusers and put them in like rabbinical prison. Right. I haven't seen one, but I'm, you know, instead of what they're what they're basically saying is what we should probably do is just give them a shame, shame, shame on you. And threaten to expose them to the community if they don't change their ways. Sure. That's a terrible fucking idea. A fucking awful idea. And it didn't work for the Catholics.

The Catholics gave this a whirl. Right. Sure. It didn't work. It's basically crushing the Catholic Church in a lot of ways. It certainly has not helped them. church in a lot of ways. It certainly has not helped them. So the idea that they would try to follow that model of hiding abusers of children seems so incredibly unconscionable. But this whole idea that their community is the community with ultimate authority. So why would you, if you don't

respect secular authority as a real authority, why would you report it? What he's saying is, is that it's – what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you. This is exactly what he's saying. He's saying, I'm going to say to you, you're diddling kids. I'm going to go up to you and be like, look, dude, we know you've been diddling kids. So you have two choices. Either stop diddling kids or hide it right right right that's exactly what it is like we'll expose you to the community if you don't stop oh okay so i just need

to make sure this never gets reported exactly because what is it what is our choice is there to be like oh well you know i could i could wind up you know because i'm i'm obviously a fucking unhinged crazy person because i'm out there diddling kids. Obviously there's something fucking wrong with me because I'm fucking out there fucking on little kids. So they're not going to stop that. That's not going to be something that they're going to stop. What they're going to do is they're going to stop doing it so blatantly. That's what they're going to do. What you're doing is you're forcing them to hide it more, threaten more, threaten to injure more, maybe cause some people some more trauma than they actually would have gotten.

That's what you're doing. So it's absolutely the worst plan you could possibly – take them out of your community. We're going to shelter these people in our community, these awful, hateful, evil people that want to ruin children's lives that when those people become adults, there's a propensity that they'll continue to do this. We're basically just going to be sowing the seeds of evil in our community or we're going to take this person and throw them the fuck out of our community because we're good people. Those are your two options. You're choosing fucking a if if somebody in our social circle was found to be an abuser of children they would no longer be in your fucking social circle right you wouldn't be like hey let's invite jim over really sure because wasn't he you know when in jim really jim really yeah but no

there wouldn't even be a question. There would never be a question. They need to be marginalized. They need to be kicked out of polite society. They need to go to jail is what needs to happen. They need to get, because it's not, even if it worked and it wouldn't, and it's absurd to suggest that it would, but even if it worked, it's not enough to have them stop the behavior that they never should have done in the first place. That's not enough. They also need to be punished and they need to be removed from society. You know, what message do you send to the kids?

Well, you know, that guy fucked me when I was a kid. Well, yeah, but he's not doing it now. Oh, OK, well, fair enough. Really? Like, why don't we send the message? Like we value you. We value your, your, your, uh, yourself, your safety, your innocence as a child. And if anybody threatens that we will come at them. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not like you, Tom. I'm not one of these people who thinks that vengeance is necessary in a legal system. But I think justice is, and I think that the child, whoever it is that is being molested, if they don't get any sort of justice out of this situation, then they're going to grow up fucked up thinking that everybody is against them. I mean, you want to alienate a child, you know, have them be sexually abused and make them think, you know, not only are they ashamed about what happened to them,

but then suddenly the whole world is saying, well, it's kind of fine. That sort of thing is, you know, I mean, we really don't really frown on it. We just make sure that they do it quietly. It's so funny, Tom. Contrast this story with the first one we covered or the second one on the Dawkins one. Don't believe in

God, we want to ram a fucking spear through your chest. Diddle a kid. We want to hide it. Fucking contrast those two stories. And that tells you everything you need to know about organized religion right there. Everything right there, encapsulated in two stories.

We, Lord, we just asked it to be covered with the blood of Jesus. Open hearts, Lord. Open hearts. Another article that you sent from theage.com is Australian.

Sex abuse led to 26 suicides, says the police. Sex abuse by clergy. Again. Fucking again. Again. 26 suicides.

That's insane. And to have people possibly suggesting at all that you should deal with this in-house, you've got 26 bodies. Bodies at this point. Not just ruined lives. lives, but ended lives. It is impossible. It is genuinely impossible to defend this. Any community, whether it's a religious community or not, you find out people are victimizing children. They've got to go.

They've got to be cast out of your, of, of, of polite society. They have got to be, you cannot, you have to send a message that there is no room for that here, that, that there are some things which we will not give quarter to, that we will not hide, that we won't, you know, uh, let, we will not let this shit stand. won't, you know, let we will not let this shit stand. And I think if you don't, it's a it's a pretty fair line to say, yeah, you just you can't abuse kids. Like, really? Like, is that is there even anything controversial about that idea? What this article tells me, like when I when I when I think about this, this led to 26 suicides. There's a, this American life, Tom, that I know you've listened to. It's episode 425. It's called Slow to React. And it's a story about the story. The first story is about this guy who was abused, sexually abused as a child. And he goes up on this like sort of thing down the road, you know,

like 20 or 30 years later in the future, he decides to kill the person who abused him. He never actually, I'm going to ruin the story for you. He never actually kills the road, you know, like 20 or 30 years later in the future, he decides to kill the person who abused him. He never actually, I'm going to ruin the story for you, he never actually kills the guy. But it's a story of sort of like the thoughts that go through somebody who has been abused mind. If you listen to this story, I think it's very telling about what happens to somebody who's been abused. The sort of steps in which they go through it and then the feelings that they have towards the people that were involved in it. And one of the things that he says that I think is very enlightening, he says,

you know, he says he felt like he was bitten by a werewolf at one point in this story. He talks about how, you know, I feel like, you know, because the sex abusers have this, sex abuse victims have this propensity to become sex abusers in the future,, sex abuse victims have this, uh, propensity, but to become sex abusers in the future, he felt like he was up ticking time bomb. And he said he made a pact with himself that if he ever felt those urges to, you know, diddle a child, he was going to climb them out. Cause he was into like climbing at that point. He said that he was going to go climb a mountain and fall to his own death, basically commit suicide rather than diddle another kid. And I can't help but wonder how many of those people in that sex abuse, the 26 that were suicides, I wonder how many of those people made that same path.

Sure. Sure. You know, it's not a secret that, you know, abuse as kids leads to kids or, you know, adults that abuse. That's right. That's pretty well established. But let's begin tonight in Norway. Obviously, what Norway is going through right now is just awful. People are upset, angry, outraged, although some people's upset, anger and outrage, at least in this country, extends into areas that may surprise you.

Why is the liberal press playing up the Christian angle in the Norway shooter case? The mainstream media was quick to paint the Norway terror suspect as a crazy person and a Christian extremist. They just sort of lay down this narrative every time there's a psycho out there. He's some fundamentalist Christian. That is not the case absolutely at all. They quickly label him Christian when there's nothing religious about his approach. The idea that in any way he represents any mainstream or even fringe sentiment in the Christian community is ridiculous.

Yes. Yes. the massacre in norway is a tragic story about the persecution of christians so we've got to now talk about the norway massacre i think everybody i believe knows this story um there's no need to rehash i think the particul the particulars. It's awful enough that everybody knows. But the Norway massacre, incredibly awful, incredibly violent. Very difficult to believe that one man could cause such chaos and devastation with such a large death toll. with such a large death toll. That being said, you look at the way that Norway handled the aftermath of this.

You know, here in the States, we've had some domestic terrorism with the Oklahoma City bombing. And obviously we had 9-11. And we handle it with this rage and this fury. Like it seems like nationally we have this righteous indignation. And I think that that is to some degree fair to feel that way. But we don't we tend not to temper that righteous indignation with compassion and reason. We don't seem to get our feet back after they get swept out from under us sometimes. And so we've headed down some paths as a result that I think are destructive. This massacre in Norway was met by the Norwegian government with calls for, you know, more multiculturalism,

you know, and that was that was this guy's Anders Breivik's Breivik. I'm not sure how his last name is actually pronounced. That was his whole hate filled 1500 page diatribe. It was all about, you know, uh, anti-immigration and, and, uh, anti-Muslims and anti-multiculturalism. And, and, uh, Norway responded with basically, uh, fuck that, fuck that. That's not the problem. The problem isn't multiculturalism. Um, if anything, this shows us that we need more, that we need to teach people to be more compassionate, that we need to teach people to be more accepting and understanding. We need to increase people's awareness of other cultures and find ways for more people to have a better appreciation of those cultures. That is the way to handle this situation. Yeah, but Norway doesn't

have a giant military industrial complex. They need to sick at somebody. You know what I mean? Like, like the thing is, like we got this fucking giant military industrial complex. We need to shoot something. Something comes after us. We have to kill it. We have to kill it no matter what. Now, I agree. I think, you know, one of the things that is, you know, kind of ironic about this whole situation is this guy was a crazy Christian extremist. They like to call him extremist, not terrorist, by the way. I love how only Christians can be extremists, but only Muslims can be terrorists. I know. God.

So this Christian terrorist, complete fool that he was, he was against Muslims. He was a Muslim hater. That's what he was. And he had an 812 page manifesto that basically said this. What I think is the best part of this and the most ironic part is like the country that you went after with your Christian attack

is extending the olive branch now. You know, the Christian values that are turn the other cheek, that, you know, the ones that everybody loves to talk about, you know, they love to talk about turn the other cheek that you know the ones that the ones that everybody loves to talk about you know they love to talk about turn the other cheek well what is what is norway doing right now you know what are you doing right now they're turning the other cheek they're saying okay you know what that you know valid slap in the face sir but we're not gonna we are not going to

change our ways and we're not gonna we're we're not going to, you know, close our borders and, you know, make people, you know, get prostate exams at the airport and, you know, whatever, all the awful, crazy shit that we went through because, you know, what the extremists did to us is turn us into extremists. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, the whole, the whole goal of terrorism is to affect political change through violence. That's the goal of terrorism. And that was this guy's goal.

And that's why he's a terrorist. He's not a mass murderer. I mean, he committed mass murder, but he is not just a mass murderer. He didn't go into Brown's Chicken and shoot up a Brown's Chicken and take the money out of the cash register. He was a terrorist. He had a political ideology that he was trying to push forward. And, you know, he thought that the way to do that was through this extreme act of violence. And and that's that's no different than other acts of terrorism in any way, in any way. But, you know, the goal of terrorism is to is to instill fear and affect

political change. And I hate to say it, but it's really effective against the United States. Because when we're the victims of terror attack, we react really emotionally to it. And it creates political change within our country. And it creates a tremendous amount of fear within the country. And it sort of sponsors these knee-jerk reactions. And then we waste incredible amounts of resources chasing people all over the place. It is a response that is out of proportion with the attack. And that's the goal of it. That's how asymmetrical warfare works.

You want to create a response. You want to use as little of your resources as you can to make your enemy expend as much of theirs as possible, because they have more. So you can't go mano a mano on that. I am just so warmed that Norway's response is so compassionate and reasonable and rational. And is it easier when it's just one guy rather than this sort of shadow network across the globe? Yes.

I think that it is a it's easier to have a more level headed response because it's sort of it feels a little more like an isolated incident. It doesn't feel like, well, shit, is it going to happen again tomorrow right right um and so there's there's certainly that it's not to negate that um but bravo norway as far as your response it's just i just think it's incredible um the way they responded i can't do it we'll do do it. We'll do it live. We'll do it live! Fuck it! Do it live!

I'll write it and we'll do it live! Fucking thing sucks! Norway reacts to this. Norway is injured by this. Norway reacts to it. Of course, the whole world is reacting to it. And when the whole world reacts to something, Bill O'Reilly typically weighs in and gets it wrong. And he has again weighed in and gotten it wrong. But he's not, he's not alone. He's basically just the mouthpiece of people who assert that, you know,

Breivik was not a Christian because Christians, by definition, he couldn't have been a Christian because a Christian would not kill all of these people because evidently they don't understand that there is actually a pretty broad tradition of Christians killing folks in mass. Pretty big biblical tradition of it actually. There's a fair amount of genocide in that book. Just chucking that one out there. There might have been a crusader a couple. There's a fair amount of genocide in that book. Just chucking that one out there. But there's – There might have been a crusader a couple –

Yeah, there's inquisitions and then – but in recent history, there's Tim McVeigh. But his point is that it couldn't have been a Christian, that the whole idea that this guy was a Christian and that that was in part a motivating factor to his violence. He's saying that that is impossible. It couldn't happen. It's not true. It's part of a liberal media conspiracy because the liberal media doesn't like Christians and Christianity. That is just wrong on virtually every level. The guy was a Christian.

He said so. He said was a Christian. He said so. Like he said so a lot, a lot. I think that you have got to be religious in order to be anti-Muslim. This guy was aggressively anti-Muslim. I'm no more anti-Muslim than I am anti-Judaism or anti-Hinduism or anti-Christianity. I'm sort of anti all of them. I'm not specifically anti-Muslim in any way. I don't think that there's – how would you be not religious and still have some hatred toward one of the other major monotheistic religions. It doesn't make any sense. Where would your starting point for your anti-Muslim beliefs stem from?

Right. It's like not liking baseball but hating the Braves. Right. It's like what's the big deal? You don't even like – you don't even talk about baseball. Right. But you hate the Atlanta Braves so much. You shot them all.

Yeah. You just went outside the field like, shoot. You shot the Atlanta Braves. Like, I fucking hate the Atlanta Braves. What? I've never seen baseball. It doesn't make any sense. Right.

Because, you know, like, I've never watched a game of baseball in my life. I don't know anything about the sport. In fact, if somebody was playing cricket, I might mistake it for baseball, but I'm going to kill all the Atlanta Braves. You know, this is a guy who considered himself a member of the Knights Templar, which was a Christian group

devoted to crusading against Islam. Right, but they weren't true Christians. Nobody who's a true Christian would believe in – they believe in Christ and friendship and happiness and puppy dogs and my little pony and Care Bears and that sort of thing. That's a true Christian. Right. And you hear that. How many times have you heard that to excuse shit?

How many times do you hear that how many times have you heard that to excuse shit how many times do you hear that that nonsense it's like well you know you point out like well christians are being persecuted well you're 76 percent of the american population how's that possible well those aren't all really christians really i mean at what point and and who gets to decide because you know if 76 percent of the american populace identifies themselves as christian if this guy identifies himself as a christian if this guy says that he is a member of the knights templar leading a holy crusade against islam i i don't get to count that right but yeah i do get to count it when somebody's Muslim, right? Sure.

When someone's Muslim, it counts. It counts now. Well, he went to a madrasa. Never mind that's the only schooling available. It's an Islamic school, but it's the only schooling probably available to him. You know, he grew up Muslim. Well, everybody in that region grows up Muslim. You know, you could make the same set of excuses, but we don't. We only do it because this guy has the same religious belief as the dominant religious belief in our culture. its religious beliefs are not harmful and not violent and incapable and incompatible with harm

and violence, then clearly this guy was not part of our culture. And I agree to some degree. You have to distance yourself from people like this, but you don't distance yourself by saying this guy was not a member of the same religion that I am. You know, a long time ago, I had a conversation where I mentioned just in flip, sort of a flippant in passing. I was like, yeah, I remember that atheist that blew up that abortion. Right. Yeah. Neither do I.

That's what I said in passing. And it it drew this like sort of hatred from a bunch of different angles. Bunch of people sort of attack me for saying that being flippant about that. that. And, you know, I got to say straight away that I think, you know, the people that I got into an argument with about that comment, in a way they were right, because the Christian and Islamic and other people that are labeled as religious extremists or terrorists, a lot of their motivation, most of their motivation is political. It's a political thing. They're doing something for, for a political reason. You know, the towers, uh, you know, the tower, the twin towers that fell did not fall because somebody, it was, it was Christianity versus, uh, Islam. It wasn't, you know, the Muslims versus the Christians. It was, you know,

our involvement in the middle East encapsulated in a, you know, in an act of terrorism that wound up being way more political than it was actually – than actually was religious. But the thing that opens it up, the thing that – the reason why we even talk about it in this context is because the magical thinking that goes into religion allows people to think that they're going to be saved if they do commit murder, that they can sacrifice themselves, that they're allowed to kill other people because their book says so. That's the link. It's not the link of the act.

It's the link of the thoughts that go into them creating that act. That's the link. And that's the thing that you need to look at and say, no, that is wrong. That's a bad and that's the thing that you need to look at and say, no, that is wrong. That's a bad way to think because if everybody in the world thought the way like you and I did, Tom, that you only get one fucking chance at this. I think there would be a lot less of this sort of thing because people would – I think people would certainly cherish life more, at least their own life more. Well, how could you not? How could you not? How could you not? How could you not look at your life and say, man, I only get one when I'm done.

I'm void. I really, really don't want to die. I really don't want to sacrifice myself. I'll tell you, Cecil, I don't want to sacrifice myself to a cause. Or spend it like this guy. I don't know how long this guy is going to spend in prison. There was some speculation that he was only going to get like 20 years or something like that. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is.

But, you know, shit, 20 years of your life, 30 years of your life in prison? You know, if you're somebody who thinks you never get another shot, the rest of your life in prison even? Let's just kill the death penalty completely and presume that that's gone from our ideal utopian world. Tom, the death penalty is gone, but you spend the rest of your life in prison. That's going to suck. That's going to suck because man, I'm in prison. No possibility of parole. I went out and did some shit for political reasons. Now what?

Right. So, you know, the idea and the idea too, that O'Reilly is going on and on about how this guy can't be a true Christian is just it's just absolutely ludicrous. This guy, you know, this guy exhibits more Christian qualities than Bill O'Reilly does in some ways. You know, if you're really looking at it. So, you know, don't don't don't play that. The liberals hate the left game. The liberals hate the right game.

And this is why they're doing it. Liberals hate Christianity. This is why they're doing it. No. hate Christianity. This is why they're doing it. No, you know, thinking people don't think religion is a good idea. That's what the problem is. That's awesome. I think, you know, you got to separate yourself. I am one of these people that thinks belief is fine as long as it's private.

Like I don't give a rat's ass what you believe. In fact, I encourage you to believe whatever you want privately. But the moment it comes into the public sphere, like something like this, you got to take responsibility for that shit. You are watching the beginning and the birth of the new world order. And you want to call me crazy? Go to hell. Call me crazy all you want. You know who's not taking a lot of

responsibility these days? Glenn Beck. I love that these guys, something awful happens in the world. Awful, awful. Massacre of people happens in the world. And of course, these these nut jobs try to politicize it in a way that makes it about American politics. And that that blows my mind. That blows my mind. But Glenn Beck goes on his. Is he still on the radio? He's still on the radio. He's on the radio. Yeah, he's on the radio. So he went on. Yeah, he's on the radio. So he went on. He started kind of criticizing the idea of these political camps, these summer political camps, which is where these kids were slaughtered in Norway. And he went on and he said that he drew comparisons to Hitler youth and of course he did because fucking Godwin and –

Right, because it's a political camp is one of the things he's like, political camp? That's weird. But this is the same guy who's promoted vacation liberty schools in the United States. I mean this is the same guy that has promoted political camp for kids. An awful tragedy happens all of this overseas and like you said, he politicizes it in the American context. But then also, you know, he really insults all these people by saying, oh, that's Hitler. You know, they sound like Hitler youth or whatever. I mean, like that's like saying, oh, man, there's a lot of people dying and, you know, from hunger in Africa.

You know, they'd lick and sweat off my balls if they could. You know what I mean? Like something like that, like just like say something really, really disrespectful and awful every 30 seconds because that's what's going to get you attention. That's what he seems like to me. He seems like one of these guys that is just – he's going to say one of the most worst – like one of the most awful out of – in bad taste things that he can just to get attention these days because nobody is paying attention to him anymore because everybody knows he's fucking crazy.

Or at least the shit he says is crazy. I can see it in my head, mom. Look what I can do. I'm riding my bike with no wheels. Look what I can do. One popular thing to do in American politics is to note that the summers in the United States over the past few years have been very warm. As a result, global warming must be real. What's wrong with this reasoning? It's only gone up 0.6 degrees. Yeah, it's not really a big problem, is it? No. So this is an article that is on a blog, a skeptical science blog, And the blog, we'll link to it as well, but I'll give the address here.

It's skeptical-science.com. And there's been some debate about climate change. Shocker. I know it's a surprise to everybody that climate change is still being debated. Can you define debate? What's that? Yeah. Vitriol?

Is vitriol a way to? Anger. Unsupported, unsubstantiated garbage versus science is how I would put it. Right. Yeah. Irrational jib jabbing against reason. So, but there, you know, there was a, some recent research that was conducted and that research seemed on the face of it to demonstrate that climate change was possibly not the issue that a lot of people say it is. I think that's pretty clearly insane at this point. That said, this blog actually does a great job of going through some of the information about that research and putting out there that research is based on a flawed model, that the model has been tweaked to match observations but doesn't make predictions.

And if you can't make predictions, your models are flawed. Your models are no good. It's not science at all of course Fox News got a hold of it and put it out there as a counter argument to climate change which is just absurd no but this is a great blog and we're going to link to it you get a chance to read basically exactly what Tom said here

the fact is that there is a significant scientific consensus. And whenever stuff comes out like this and this is this is the great part about science. Right. Tom is like, you know, whenever stuff comes out like this, it immediately goes through the rigor of scientific testing. People like, OK, well, what's you know, what's the basis for this report? What's the facts behind this report? How is this testing done? And then, you know, if it's done and it's flawed, it gets pointed out that it's flawed.

And it's not, you know, it's not the dogma of science versus, you know, the little researcher who's trying to get published. It's, you know, people can do these tests and decide if these tests are valid on their own. If they're trained in, you know, trained in this field, they can decide if their tests are valid on their own.

This is science at work and it's wonderful to see. Yeah, it is. It's also interesting too the way that these scientific papers, which are complicated, right? There's no way to pretend these things aren't complex. They get spun by non-scientists. I think they make a great point. Kerry Emanuel of MIT, one of the two scientists who said the study was good, I'm reading here, said bloggers and others are

misstating what Spencer found. Emanuel said this work was cautious, limited mostly to pointing out problems with forecasting heat feedback. He said that what's being written about Spencer's study by non-scientists has no basis in reality. I think it's important to remember that unless you're a scientist, you're not a scientist. You're a guy reading what other people have summarized for you. You're always reading a paraphrase. You're always reading a summary. You're reading at best an abstract. You know, there are very few people who can take a scientific paper from a field that they are not trained in and pick that thing up and read through it with any clarity. There's a whole vocabulary and method with which you will not be familiar. And so the conclusions, the methods, you cannot possibly come after these things and criticize them with any real alacrity because you don't have the training to do so.

So what most people, myself included, end up getting is news stories about things, the occasional scientific American-style article about things, which is, you know, that's fine. It keeps you sort of in the know. But it does not give you the tools that you need as a lay person. If you were to actually look at the data and say, I am going to criticize this study and find out if its methodology was sound, you know, that's not something I can do. That's not something most lay people, hardly any lay people can do. It's not even something that scientists from other fields have any real business doing. And it's because lay people and lay reporters don't generally understand the studies. They just don't. They need to have them paraphrased. And then they write an article which further paraphrases. paraphrased and then they write an article which further paraphrases and then we as lay people read these articles and i i think it's impossible to suggest that you can pick up as a guy with an

english major or a philosophy major or an accounting degree or you know whatever you're not going to pick up a scientific climatology paper and read it through front to back. You're just not going to do it. You can't do it. And may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us. Madam President, I hear the floor and suggest the admins of the court. Clerk will call the roll. Expressions of approval or disapproval are not permitted. So a lot of hullabaloo was made about the 9-11 settlement issues, the 9-11 settlement bill. It was being held hostage in the House and Senate for a long time.

It finally, of course, goes through. It finally, of course, goes through. And the purpose of the settlement, of course, is to provide funds for first responders, people who showed up on that day and, you know, inhaled whatever awful shit they were inhaling. And, you know, and we're not talking about, you know, for a lot of these people, you know, for an hour. And we're not talking about for a lot of these people for an hour. This is for days, weeks, months on end as they clear the debris, as they sift through, as they did the important and grisly work that was necessary after such a thing. And more problems. More problems with the bill. It's interesting to note that it's only 11 years since 9-11. There's no way to know.

There's really there's really no no way to know what the actual health effects are. You know, the health effects are beginning to appear. They will probably continue to appear as time goes by. And there's cancer, post-traumatic stress. This article suggests that cancer is not being included in the list of diseases that automatically qualify. To some degree, you can say, okay, well, you know, clearly not all cancers that people who worked at 9-11 come down with are going to be the result of what they experienced at 9-11. But I got to be honest, Cecil. My thinking is I'd give them the money anyway.

Right. Who gives a fuck? I don't care if it was caused by heredity or, you know, just give them – am I that cheap? I mean the very idea that it's not covering cancer, first off, is ridiculous. That's like being like, well, my auto insurance doesn't cover rear impact, side impact or front impact damage. It only covers if I flip over on my fucking roof. Like that's the only thing it covers. So every accident I have to flip over on my goddamn roof in order to get covered.

That's ridiculous. The fact is, is that we should be covering their health. And, you know, do we need a study to figure out what caused them to be sick? Whether it's heredity, whether it's, you know, them fucking being chain smokers, whether they're, you know, alcoholics or whatever that happened to cause them some awful thing to have them. Do we need to worry about that? Shouldn't they just have health coverage? What's the big deal? We pay for a lot of shit in this country that is useless or unnecessary.

Our tax dollars go to garbage. And, you know, you're not willing to these guys that are that are mucking about in the worst conditions possible for weeks and weeks and weeks after 9-11. Digging out dead bodies so people can have closure and you're fucking not willing to cover that shit? Wait, why not just kick them in the fucking balls while you're at it? Well, can you imagine looking at somebody who did that and saying with a straight face to them, hey, we're not sure if this was caused by 9-11 or not. Give us a fuck.

Yeah, I know. Who cares? I don't. You know, if the only reward for that work, that grisly, awful work, is that you get fucking health coverage, which you should fucking have anyway. Right. Like, you, that's, here's the thing. This debate doesn't exist in all of

Western Europe. This debate doesn't exist in Canada. This debate doesn't, it doesn't exist there. Because if you got fucking sick, it wouldn't matter if you got sick because you were picking up the pieces after a major terrorist attack or if you got sick because you ate too many

fucking potato chips in all the rest of the fucking developed industrialized western world if you get sick you're like I'm sick I would prefer not to be is there a way to be better yes there is it's called fucking medicine here's a medicine that was good thanks

that's the system in the rest of the world here it's like well hem and haw how do, hem and haw. How do you hem and haw at a guy who's, you know, done this work? How do you hem and haw at him? How do you look him in the eye? How do you look at his family in the eye and be like, geez, sorry.

We'd like to give you fucking health coverage. We'd really like to. But it's not 100% clear whether this disease that you've got is related to the work that you did. So fucking suck it up. How the fuck does this get passed without cancer? I have no idea. Who's the fucking fuck ups in charge of that shit? I don't even understand how you say it. Like, okay guys, uh, we're almost there. All right. We're going to wrap it up. We're going to go to Quiznos. Uh, okay. So do we include the cancer, I go to Quiznos. Okay, so do we include the cancer?

Cancer, everyone? No? Just a no on cancer. Okay, no on cancer. Cancer is not included. You know what I do for a living is I write web page code, okay? So if somebody were to send me the text of a web page and I were to publish the web page with no fucking text, I would get fired. Same thing here. If you're going to legislate without fucking

legislating, you should be fired. You shouldn't have a fucking job. Because you know what you did? You basically fucking throat fucked the entire fucking 9-11 fucking first responders. Way to go, assholes. Way to fucking, you know, why the people, this is the thing

that drives me crazy. The people that were there to pick up the shattered fucking two twin towers, the symbol of American capitalism gets fucking blown out of the fucking sky. The people that are picking up the shattered pieces of humans and the remains, those are the people you're going to spit on. What a despicable group of people you are, our legislators. The people we chose to lead in this country, You're a despicable group of human beings. If you're in front of me, I'd knock your fucking teeth out. Jackasses. So we did get some email.

We encourage you guys to give us as much feedback as you'd like. We certainly want that feedback. We got a couple of emails. We got an email from Jace. Jace said that he likes the podcast, but he wanted to give us some advice. Cecil, he wants us to say fuck more often. If you don't have your USDA amount of fuck at the end of this fucking program, right? Your daily allowance of fuck at the end of this program.

You fucking listened and a half of it muted for crying out loud. This would make an absolutely fatal drinking game. That's all I mean. Fatal. Yeah, they'd be fucked up at the end of that. Paramedics would have to stand by during this show. He also says it's kind of funny that his mom, they were talking about Mormons. She said that Mormons believe some really weird stuff, and she was being totally sincere.

I agree. I think Mormons do believe some really weird stuff. some really weird stuff. There's a Broadway show called Book of Mormon where Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, are making fun of Mormons on Broadway. But I think the Mormons, that's one of the things that I tell people. Whenever anybody asks me, they say to me, what would be a book that I could give someone? a book that I could give someone, you know, I promise to read, you know, whatever, you know, some book, some Christian book, or even the Bible. Somebody will say, you know, if you read the Bible,

I'll read one of your books. You pick the book. And this happens all the time. And I see this sort of deal gets made a lot. And I would, they consistently get asked this question, well, what book would you suggest? And my suggestion is the Book of Mormon. Because if you can get them to think about the Book of Mormon as that's fucking crazy, you know, what's that old line? You know, you're just as much an atheist as I am. You just believe in one more God than I do, right? Like all the rest. You don't believe in Thor. You don't believe in fucking Zeus. And you certainly, you know, most Christians, if you had them read the Book of Mormon, which is really crazy, they would be like, well, that's really crazy. And you certainly, you know, most Christians, if you had them read the Book of Mormon, which is really crazy, they would be like, well, that's really crazy. And they're like, well, what about the virgin birth and all the, you know, fucking flood

and all the animals and then the fucking Ten Commandments, you know, like all the things that are really crazy about the Bible. You can easily sort of then have that conversation where that shit is crazy. And this is, I think, a perfect example of that. Book of Mormon is fucking nutty. That being said, I am doing this podcast right now sitting in my magical underwear. So it protects me. Tom, any underwear you wear is magical.

That's right. We also got another email said, I just started listening to the podcast this week. I downloaded all of the available episodes. That would not take you long, it turns out. Yes, very quick. And have been listening to them on my way to and from work. I love the podcast. I think you guys do a great job.

You make me laugh all the time. Some of the shit going on in the world and in politics is so scary that sometimes it seems all we can do is laugh and point out how ridiculous it all is um you can also just get really angry ineffectually yeah that's what i do that's our approach actually um so uh podcast helps me laugh through it all and also fires me up to stand uh stand up for reason and science i just finished listening to this week's episode i think it's kind of kind of cute that they think it's a weekly thing. Yeah, weekly. Oh, bless your little heart. I will point out to

Deidre here who emails us, we do another podcast called Everyone's a Critic, and that podcast for 70 or so episodes had this chunk that we're doing here that we're calling cognitive dissonance. That was part of Everyone's a Critic, which is a movie review podcast. So the first half of

Everyone's a Critic for 60 or so episodes was us doing this sort of thing. And then we would jump into a movie review in the second half. So if you like what you're hearing here and you think this is funny and amusing or whatever, you can certainly go over to Everyone's a Critic and you can find Everyone's a Critic very easily. Either go to everyone'sacritic.org or you can go to our website and there's a link to, it says, our other podcast, Everyone's a Critic. And there's two drama masks, both of them with the frowny face. You click on that and you'll go to everyone's a critic page. You can download all the old episodes and you don't have to listen to the movie review then, right? You just listen to us talk about some sort of news politics slash atheism slash skepticism.

And that's the first half of the show. And if you're not into movies, you don't give a rat's ass, just stop listening then. And you can listen to a goodly amount of material. I would say there's got to be several hours worth of material there that would be accessible currently. So if you're looking to get that cognitive dissonance fix in, it was on Everyone's a Critic back in the day. And if you listen to 60 episodes before we put another episode of Cognitive Dissonance up, you're on average. That's the level of dedication that you're showing to the show That we clearly do not show

To the same show Yeah, exactly We did want to mention that we now have a Libsyn app For the Android phone If you have an Android and you want to listen to us You can find this app on our page Dissonance-podcast.blogspot.com. If you go there, on the left side of the page, there's an Android icon.

You click on that. It will take you directly to our app. The app, sadly, is $2. And there's no way for us, Tom, to actually give this away for free. If we could, we would. But the problem is that the developers need to make some money too. And so the minimum amount that we could charge for this app was $2. Of that $2 though, we get a buck and they get a buck. So if you want to donate to the show in a way and you have an Android phone, this is a great way to do it. All you have to do is just go

download the app and we'll wind up getting the dollar out of the proceeds. And you'll get a chance to download episodes, take a look at old episodes, that sort of thing. And it looks like a really functional app. I personally have a dumb phone, so I don't have a smartphone. So I can't download things and upload things and even view the internets on my phone. It's just a dialy phone. That's, you know, you press buttons and you call people. Fucking old Western phone is what it is. Jesus Christ. Is it a fucking Wells Fargo? I mean, is it like, does it have wagon wheels on the bottom of it? When I dial, it sounds like this junk, junk. Um, but do download our app cause every dollar we make,

we'll, we'll put into the podcast. Yeah, because it's currently not free, so definitely go back into paying for the podcast. We'll do things like upgrade our sound quality, which we can certainly do. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, if we can get a certain amount of money from the app, then we can definitely look into a little better sound quality specifically for Tom and that sort of thing. And one of the things that I would encourage everybody to do, I know that we're getting a lot of great feedback from people, but I would say send us your emails. That's great. Rate us on iTunes and download through iTunes because for the first couple weeks we were on iTunes as one of their featured sort of new, hey, these guys are new and they're brand new and they're in this

sort of news and politics. And we were getting a lot of downloads specifically because people were just going to iTunes podcasts and being like, oh, hey, here's a show. And they were downloading it. We were getting a ton of downloads early on because we were featured on iTunes page. And if we can get more downloads specifically through iTunes, I know that down the road we can maybe break that page again. And that just leads to more listeners. And if you could just tell one person, you know, specifically skeptical friends of yours about the show, retweet our podcast. When we send out our podcast, we tweet the episode. Retweet that episode for us. We know that a lot of Twitter followers have thousands of people that follow it. If we can just get a couple more listeners each time, it just helps build that snowball and it

helps us create new and better content too. Absolutely. And you can, you can find us and like us on Facebook. Um, so that's, it's another avenue for you. If you're a, uh, uh, member of, of other online communities like Reddit and you want to, you know, try to put our stuff out there, we certainly would appreciate it. So we basically want you to do the work. That's what we're saying. One of the things too, is that, you know, places like Reddit really kind of frown on self-promotion. So it's really hard for somebody like me to go on there and be like, hey, listen to my brand new podcast. Because most of the time that shit just gets downvoted to oblivion and then nobody ever sees it. So if you listen, if you're on Reddit and you listen to our podcast and you think, hey, maybe the skeptic board or the atheist board would like this.

Send it along to them and see if there's some way that, you know, they could listen to it and we'll get more followers that way, get more people to listen to it. Get more people involved in this conversation because we know there's more of you out there. So, Tom, I think that wraps it up for this podcast. Definitely listen to the bumper at the end if you want to contact us. There's lots of great ways to contact us. And as always, we're going to leave you with the skeptics' creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit.

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Doubt even this. Conclusive. Doubt even this. Thank you for listening to Cognitive Dissonance. If you want to reach us by phone, you can call us at 740-743-6828. That's 740-74-DOUBT. Long distance rates apply. Send us an email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

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