Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 72: Religion Poisons Everything

Episode Date: November 5, 2012

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This is episode 72 of cognitive dissonance and for this episode we have a guest we've got steven from the religion poisons everything facebook page as well as it turns out five or six other facebook pages um all of which uh seem to be relevant to the community of listeners that we might have. The first story we're going to cover, this story is from Gay Star News. Not exactly the first place I look for my news personally, but Gay Star News reports Christian Preacher blames gays for Hurricane Sandy. That didn't take very long. Hurricane Sandy, that didn't take very long.

I don't think Hurricane Sandy even hit the coast before the gays were being blamed for the hurricane. Stephen, what do you think of the story? I'd like to say I'm shocked, but it's just become pretty passe nowadays. It seems to be the first place they go. Anything bad happens, it's the guys. It's surprising. I'll tell you what surprised me is that it wasn't Pat Robertson. You know, at some point, it's not whether it's going to happen. No kidding.

It's like those carnival spray gun things, you know? You know one of the horses is going to win. The question isn't which one makes it to the end. It's, you know, who does it first. You need to speak out of Ravoy in New York and say pretty much exactly the same thing, too. Yeah, yeah. They'll just line up to say it. You know, one of the things I think we really need to consider here is that if the gays can control the weather like this, I think we should just acquiesce to their demands.

Well, look what they've done in San Francisco. It's beautiful. They must control the weather. It's a population density thing, man. Right, right. Yeah, the hurricane destroys New York, and they have a lovely sunny weekend. Right. And, you know, it really shows you that there's sort of this weather bubble around the gays,

that they cannot be affected by this bad weather. They are obviously controlling the weather. We really need to just say, okay, marriage is fine and all the hurricanes will just go away. I find it strange that the countries that allow gay marriage didn't have any trouble with this. Right, right.

Now, is marriage equality a big deal in Australia? It's on the cards. We've got a problem. We've got an atheist female prime minister, but she kowtows to the religious and she's against marriage equality. How in the world can she be against marriage equality? I have no fucking idea. No idea. Like what linguistic backflips does she have to endure in order to, as a non-religious person, oppose marriage equality when there's no rational opposition that I've heard? I mean it's always a religious opposition. What does she say when she supports this sort of bigotry?

She's a politician. So she just goes for the people with the highest numbers. Unfortunately here it's like 65% Christian, I think. Really? And dropping. Yeah, she's just saying what they want to hear. There's a part of this article that's interesting. It says, this guy is talking, this dumb fuck who predicted this, he says

21 years breaks down to 7 times 3, which is a significant number with God. Which one is the significant number? Because there's three numbers. Well, they're all significant. They're all very significant. They're all significant.

That's actually, you know, 21 is a significant number because that's when God first could drink. You know, and. He went out partying. He fucking, he donned a couple pints. Well, how are you going to have a last supper with all that wine if you can't drink it? You know, it's just fucking pointless. It's true.

That's ridiculous. So now this is some hateful kind of stupid language here, obviously, right? This is some idiot. But recently in Australia, there was actually some falling out and rioting over that video, that Mohammed video. So now that's not just words. of that Mohammed video. So now that's not just words. That's people sort of reacting in a vitriolic way.

That sort of ties into what you do with your page there. I mean, religion really does have some sort of hold on people and can make them do some really stupid shit. Yeah, it's unfortunate. A lot of them go into it with good intentions, but you read the Bible, it's some twisted fucking shit. So how bad were the riots? Were they significant events or were they quelled pretty quickly? It wasn't really too bad. Police had a handle on it. Still, I've been to protests here and you'll get, you know, 15, 20 fuckwits. But with that, it was the majority were being crazy

and a small amount of people were trying to stop it from the same group. Oh, so from the same group, they were splintering off and trying to stop them from doing it. Yeah, there were a small group of leaders and some of the spokesmen that were trying to stop it. But the vast majority of them were going nuts. At least the people, you know least at least the people you know at least some people that were part of the in-group though were trying to you know restrain their

fools you know i mean if you could get more of that if you could get more restraining your dipshits then i think you'd have a lot less problems you know it's like when the dipshits are the ones calling the shots you know when the inmates run asylum, that's when you've really got problems. It's the ones that take these holy books word for word. They're the problem. It's the moderates or whatever that don't actually believe the majority of it. They're not too much of a problem. It's the ones who actually follow their religion

are the problem. So you're saying people who follow the Bible word for word are a problem? Man, that's like fucking a quarter of America. Look at the Westboro Baptist Church. They follow it closer than any other Christian. Yeah, they really do. I don't like hearing that, but that's the fact.

They follow it word for word. Well, and that's why they didn't get hit by a hurricane. I mean, you've noticed very few hurricanes have hit the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. In fact, I don't have the statistics at hand, but I would dare say there have been no hurricanes that have in Kansas. In fact, I don't have the statistics at hand, but I would dare say there have been no hurricanes that have hit Kansas.

They may have a lot of gay people around there. That's right. They put them on pikes. That protected them. There's one funny thing that if this hurricane was sent by God to punish America, why did it destroy three churches on the way, flattened them to the ground? God has bad aim? Yeah.

He's fucked up. He's really, he's not good at it? Terrible, terrible, terrible decision maker. It's like God bowling. He just, he's always hitting the gutter ball. He just misses all the time. Did you guys see the, there was a, there was a post that was circulating all over the place where people were commenting on

this marble, a marble Mary was on this little, I don't even know, it was just on a stand out in front of somebody's house or something. And the entire block is burned down, but this marble Mary is still there. And everybody's just like, it's a miracle! No, it's made out of marble.

It's made out of marble. It's made out of marble. It doesn't burn normally in just normal fire. You know, all the plywood Marys were gone. All the paper mache Mary statues fucking incinerated. The asbestos ones, just fine. Asbestos Mary, just fine. Asbestos Mary, rocking. I mean, no problems.

No problems. Well, it's just like the kid gets cancer that has nothing to do with God, and then somebody gets cured of a cold. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Cured of the cold. Yeah, I got it. Thank you, Jesus. Jesus cures all my colds in seven to ten days. Yeah, it takes a little while.

Amazing, isn't it? Yeah. I found a little while. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. I found the same thing. So we're going to have Stephen on at the end of the show for a short interview. You're going to have to stick around for a little while in between when we talk about some news items. But be sure to stick around so you can catch him talking about the religion poisons everything and grand unified theory Facebook pages at the end. So, seasonal hurricanes, it turns out, can be caused by a lot of different factors. You know, you can have warm weather over the cold water.

It can have, you know, various effects. You can also just have angry Muslims, it turns out. Yeah, oh, yeah, angry Muslims. They cause hurricanes all the time. God's punishment. Sure. You know, it's God's punishment. Sure. It's God's punishment. Anti-American clerics have cast the Superstorm Sandy as divine punishment

for a recent film mocking the Prophet Muhammad. So take that. Although I would point out that the Superstorm hit the East Coast and the film was produced on the West Coast. Right, right. So Allah's geography sucks.

Ala's, he's very bad at aiming. He's really not very good. Because not only did he miss the coast time, he missed the guy that actually did it. Yeah, totally. You know, I figure if I'm going to send an entire fucking giant super storm after someone, I'm going to make damn sure it's right where they're at. Cecil, isn't that like the shotgun, right? Like, it's like the earth is like spinning around super fast and, you know,

Allah's up there. He's like, pull! And he's got his hurricane gun. He's got his hurricane gun. And he just nicked it, you know? Just, oh, man, I spun off the edge of the. I totally hit it. There's a couple pellets that went through it.

I got America. Did you see that, everybody? I got the America part. Yeah. I just didn't get, you know, because that surgical precision is. I got America. Did you see that everybody? I got the America part. Yeah. I just didn't get, you know, because that surgical precision is out of the reach.

He's not very good. Not very good at all. There's a part of this article. It's from USA Today. It says, and this is a quote from some guy whose fucking name

I'm not even going to pronounce. His first name is Wagdi, I guess. That's what I'm going to leave it at. So Wagdi says, some people wonder about the hurricane in America and its causes. No. No.

Nobody wonders about why it's caused. Because the cause is real simple. Weather. Like, that's the cause. It's real fucking easy. Very few people, unless you're really really stupid, think it's God. This idea that there has to be a why for everything, you know, well, why was there a hurricane?

No, no, no, no. You misunderstand the nature of why. Yeah. Like not everything has an answer to why was there a hurricane? Why is there earthquake? I mean, you can the the cause of the hurricane right i mean you can be like well we you know we live on a geologically unstable planet with shifting weather patterns that are complex and varied like that shit is fucking bound to

happen uh you you can't however be like well but who sent it i mean what does it mean yeah well it means winds it means sustained wins of at least 90 miles an hour. That's what it fucking means. It doesn't mean much else. You know, it's not that there was a, if there was a hurricane every time there was a bad movie, are you fucking serious?

The Fast and the Furious franchise would have destroyed us all. It would have completely nuked the entire Earth. All of Wes Anderson's movies would have opened up a giant crater on the planet. You hush your mouth. Everything would have been sucked in. You hush your mouth? Those movies are beautiful.

They're the reason we have sunshine. Shut the fuck up. There's another thing, too, in this article. There's a point where somebody says, because they're talking about evidently, like, I don't know what the hashtag was, but evidently there was a point where somebody says because they're talking about evidently like i don't know what the hashtag was but evidently there was a twitter hashtag that says you know like fucking america deserved it or whatever and uh and it says somebody is responding to this because there was a lot of uproar among the muslim community basically saying hey man don't do that shit and it says this hashtag doesn't represent muslims but represents

a terrorist we will ask god to help and save Americans. I'm wondering, like, does God, like, frequent Twitter and Facebook? I mean, I guess he does frequent Facebook because I'm his friend on Facebook. But, you know, I wonder, you know, what is he, how is he answering? Is he answering through Twitter or is he going through, you know, I mean, because he used to answer prayers, which is an email, right? So he should be able to, you know, I guess answer Twitter and or Facebook. Well, you know, I think it's probably, you know, it used to be that God would

only answer prayers if you pass the chain letter along. Right, right. Because God only cares when it reaches critical mass. God is like fucking plutonium 235 or whatever, right? Like he's got to reach a certain critical mass before anything happens. He's like, I'm unenriched, you train, you know, whatever. No, not yet. But the intranets allows him to reach that critical mass much quicker. That's the glory of social media. Sure.

That's why we have it. The glory of social media is intertwined with the glory of God. I get it. Thank you. I just pray over this equipment. We speak over the PowerPoint presentations, all of the video projectors. And we say, devil, we know what you love to do in meetings like this. And we say, you will not, in Jesus' name, you will not prevent this message from going out.

No microphone problems, in Jesus' name. This story is from digitaljournal.com. So weird. Louisiana parents fear school palm scanner is the mark of the beast. Either that or it is a palm scanner. Right. Because there is no mark of the beast. According to a parent, Mammy.

Mammy? Mammy. People are listening to Mammy, Mammy? People are listening to Mammy. Whose child is a student at Moss Bluff Elementary School. I was very, very mad and disappointed with the school authorities. As a Christian, I've read the Bible

because, you know, that's required. You know, you go to church and stuff and stuff. I know where it's going to end up coming to the mark of the beast. I'm not going to let my kids have that. I don't understand that at all. I don't either. If you believed in revelation, don't you believe it's inevitable?

So why would you stop it? How could you stop the inevitable? Either it is or is not inevitable. It can't be not inevitable. It can't be not inevitable. It's either inevitable or inevitable. Right? It's like, what? Yeah.

You know the best part about this is, like, what this is is a palm scanner that scans the veins, I guess, in your palm. Like, that's how it figures out who you are. So if, by that estimation, wouldn't you have already been marked by the beast in order for it to read it? Like naturally, like I was born, I got these veins in my hand that help it function, right? Evidently veins in your hand is the mark of the beast. I think what you've hit upon is the fear of literacy that is endemic of people who believe in the mark of the beast. Right? Because it's not the marks.

It's the reading. Right. Well, we don't believe in reading round about here, these parts. You better not be reading now. Boy, shut off your light. You better not be reading. Boy, you better be masturbating if I get to read the narrative. Oh, man, that's awesome.

You're exactly right. It's not the mark of the beast that they're afraid of. It's like, well, the mark's fine. Just don't fucking read that thing. Then the only one who can read it is the beast. Right. I just don't mean I really don't get it. I watched a fucking video of it, and they literally put their palm on a thing

and then a scanner tells them whether or not it's them. Like, even if let's just say it's like a palm reader that can read, you know, like the structure of my hand or something, or just the print of my palm or whatever, like the mark is already there. They're not putting a mark on you. There's no mark to be had. It doesn't even make any sense. Now I could see if they're tattooing 666 on your kid's fucking hand. Now you can get an uproar. I'll be in an uproar if they're tattooing children.

You know what I mean? Like I would – that's not fucking what you do in a school lunch program it turns out. You don't need a tattoo in order to get your lunch every day. I understand, and I would understand your outrage, but this is very simple science that could speed up a process and actually get your kid a food instead of waiting in line. That's what they're doing it for, Tom. I know. There's a part of the article where parents,, dumb, like completely fucking backward and gullible parents would rather their child go hungry, Tom, than put their hand on a thing to get their lunch quicker. Right.

The same woman, Mammy, says if they do put this in, if the program does come to a school, she says, I'd probably pull them out of the school and transfer them to another school. Well, that'll solve the problem. Yeah, that's how you fix it. But even if you believe this mythology, right? Even if you believe the mythology. So the beast, the Antichrist, is marking people. Well, they're already marked. But he's finally reading the marks. He's reading them now.

Because it takes a while to learn. Being hooked on phonics takes time when you're the beast. Yes. It turns out. So it started. Fucking end time has started. It's not end time. It's not like, it's like Revelation is only coming to your school.

It's not only coming to like Forrest Bluff Middle School. Like, ah, the end of the world. Well, fucking the end of sixth grade. What? You can't just transfer to another district and avoid Armageddon. I don't think that's how that works. I know. Like if you pull your kids out of school, you're somehow averting the crisis.

I don't get mad if somebody believes something stupid. Normally it doesn't. I don't care. I'm just like, uh, you know, you want to believe that there's UFOs. Great. Believe there's UFOs. Um, you want to believe that, uh, that, um, that you shouldn't, that you personally shouldn't get vaccines because you don't want autism. Great. I, I mean, I don't care. Uh, what I care about is when, you know, innocent children are hurt by this. And while these children aren't being hurt, they're being inconvenienced in such a way that could cause them, you know, not harm.

I don't want to say harm because, you know, you're in America, you know, you can skip a meal in America, you know, it's not that big a deal. But the fact of the matter is, is that these kids are not eating properly during the day. You know, what's the what is the point of that? Is your belief that strong that you wouldn't feed your own child? I don't understand. I mean, I really just I can't wrap my head around that. Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? It's Jesus.

Ceaseless News is from Yahoo.com. It's also from just about everywhere. This is part of a growing trend. Court rules against Polish rocker who tore up Bible. Poland Supreme Court opened the way on Monday for a blasphemy verdict against a rock musician who tore up a Bible on stage. This is kind of a thing now. Like, this is sort of a thing that's kind of happening all over. The pussy riot situation over in Russia.

This thing here in Poland. And then all the calls after the storming of the embassy shenanigans and the video. There's been a lot of calls for anti-blasphemy laws, which strike me as utterly ineffective, totally subjective, and insane. Yeah. You know, you're not building any bridges with a stage name like Nurgle, I don't think. You know, but one of the things in here that they're talking about is, you know, this band is tearing up a Bible and somebody says, oh no, it's just like an artist performance. It's like, no, just come out and say what you're doing. You know, like, I think you're trying to be offensive. And I don't think that that's a problem. Like, I really don't think that there's a problem with you offending another person.

They're the one who has to decide whether or not it's offensive to them anyway. They're the ones who have to decide to be offended by it. They could just ignore you. They could be like, oh, well, he's up there tearing up a Bible. I don't really care. There's a fucking gajillion Bibles. He tore up a Bible. It wasn't my Bible.

Who cares? Like plenty of Bibles I'm sure every year get destroyed, recycled, thrown away, hidden, burned on accident. You know what I mean? Like, there's a million ways to lose your Bible, I'm sure. This guy happened to tear it up. So I don't think that there's a big, big deal behind what he's doing. I do find that these laws that they're using to prosecute these people, this is kind of fucking scary. I mean, this isn't, you know, they put people to death,

and we talk about it all the time, Tom. The people who get put to death are the people who have, you know, threats of death or get beaten up by mobs because they burn or mess with the Koran. There is no shortage of stories on that at all. Here's a perfect example. You remember Piss Christ? Do you remember that thing that was going around where, like, the guy, there was an artist who put a crucifix in

urine and then they had it at a bunch of art shows and stuff and people were offended by it, but there was never any riots. Nobody ever burned a fucking museum down because of it. And I feel the same way here. It's like, let's not start crossing this bridge because it only leads to next time this happens or, you know, not next time, but, you know, many, many times after this is illegal. Somebody does it on stage and they die from it. Well, you know, at what point is being offended and offense so great that rather than being offended and saying like, well, I just I won't associate with you. I won't attend your concerts. I won't, you know, purchase your goods. I won't, you know, buy tickets to your museum. You know, I will engage in a vigorous back and forth regarding what has offended me. Right. You know, at what point are you just you know, it's so lazy that you're just going to say, well, no,

fuck that. I'm just going to make it illegal. I'm going to make it illegal for you to make me uncomfortable. That's what we need to do. We need to have a society where once I'm uncomfortable, although nothing's been stolen from me, nothing's been taken from me by force, I've not been damaged financially, my reputation hasn't been damaged, nothing has actually happened to me

except for that my tender sensibilities have been bruised. And because my sensibilities have been bruised, you go to prison? That doesn't make any sense. I have to take issue with one thing that you said, though. Every time a Bible gets destroyed, an angel loses its wings. Yeah, that's right. So that's sad. I forgot about that.

It's right. You know, so that's sad. I forgot about that. It's true. Every time a Bible gets destroyed or even a page gets torn off. What happens if you ejaculate in a Bible? An angel loses its teeth, actually. You know, it's bad. Because angel dentists are few and far between. Right, right. They got to gum the manna up there.

That doesn't sound good. It's terrible. That doesn't sound good at all. No. I'm going to stop ejaculating in Bibles then. I'm not. I'm actually not. No.

I've got three of them lined up in a busy night of porn. Porn? I just read the Bible. What, are you kidding me? Oh, and then Ezekiel said, hold on a minute. How big was that box? What was its specifications? Wrestle that angel.

Wrestle him. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. So this story is from Salon.com. And this is good news for idiots. Good news for idiots. Good news for idiots. Is that Salon's tagline now? Wouldn't it be awesome if it was good news? We've got to start a fucking Facebook page called Good News for Idiots. Good News for Idiots.

Would it just be Bible quotes? Yeah, no kidding. It's going to be spectacular. There you go. The good news. You're spreading it. Have you heard the good news? Is it for idiots?

If it's for idiots, then I'm down. Oh, man. Oh, I know. Actually, it's intellectually stimulating good news. No it for idiots? If it's for idiots, then I'm down. Oh, man. No, actually, it's intellectually simulating good news. No, fuck that. I'm not interested. Uh-uh. No. So we've skimmed over what this good news is.

The complete dummy's guide to good news. Yeah. So a recent poll. Most Republicans believe in demonic possession. Meanwhile, less than half think humans are responsible for climate change. Now, those two things are not interrelated, but they are interdepressing. Totally. There's a lot of numbers in this because evidently there's a polling, public policy polling, which NPR calls, and this is directly from the article, one of the most prolific polling outfits in the country, polled a bunch of people and asked them a bunch of questions.

And here's – I'm going to read directly from the Salon article. It says, in a classic example of cognitive dissonance, only 37 percent of registered voters, both Democrat and Republican, believe in ghosts, although 57% believe in demonic possession. Obviously, those two things can't be related, though. I mean, come on. Ghosts are totally different than demons. Oh, yeah. I mean, demons have little pitchforks and red skin and, like, goat legs, right? They're like high-level ghosts.

Right. They're like the ghost executives. They're like the ghost executives. They're like the CE ghosts. Regular ghosts are just like admin assistants. In the typing pool. Yeah, I ate my undead life. I can't wait to graduate from this sheet with two holes in it to pitchfork time. It's going to be awesome.

You get your own corner office and your own pitchfork. And where does like a poltergeist fit on that scale? Because like a poltergeist can fuck your shit up. They're like the garbage men of that world. I don't know. But you know, this really isn't a Republican or a Democrat thing. It's a thinking, rational worldview

versus like a fucking Dungeons and Dragons exorcism of Emily Rose worldview. Like those are the two those are the two things at odds here. It's not Republican versus Democrat, although, you know, they go out of their way to say a staggering 68 percent of registered Republican voters believe in demonic possession. But evidently only 57 percent of Democrats believe in demonic possession. So it's down a little bit on the Democrat side if a few of them don't believe in it. But how can that be more than half of America believes in

demons? Fucking demons, man. Like, can you imagine something fucking sillier than demons? How does a demon get in you? I really can't. I really can't. I try. I mean, God, I guess, is sillier. I guess if you're going to build up the power scale here, God is probably, you know, at least when I say the God, I mean the traditional sort of I got a fucking toga on and a big goddamn beard. And I'm sitting in the sky with a fucking book in a chair with a bunch of people around me. Yeah, that God is ridiculous. That's a ridiculous idea. I think more so than what a demon would be. Although they're really fucking close. Well, I don't know, man. Cause like demons are like angry little mini gods and they get inside you, but then you're always like,

well, how, like, how did they get in there? Like, Oh, you've been possessed. Huh? What? That doesn't, I feel fine. I don't don't know well you're acting funny I just act funny I was drinking you know and that's how that works oh you've been possessed by alcohol yeah why do they always possess like a 108 pound woman

why don't you possess like fucking some giant fucking muscle headed dude who could break some serious shit yeah that's true, right? They always possess like, oh, they possess kids and small women. They don't ever possess like, well, fucking Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bodybuilding years was possessed by a demon. Three people tried to hold him down.

They're now dead. Yeah. Three people tried to hold him down. He ate two of them. He's just seen bench pressing demons. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe it's a muscle mass. Maybe it's like a BMI thing.

Oh, you know, I think you're onto something. The demons swing by and they're like, BMI is over 23. Get in there. So all the fat people get fucked. That's why we've been possessed, hence the show. This is the demon's talk. It is the demon. It's the demon.

We need to be exercised. I need to exercise. I need to exercise. That's true. I do need to exercise. I don't know about exercise. Sized. Real bad.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm fucking breathing heavy just talking to you. And now it's time for a sausage break. A nice glass of sausage. So we're going to take a break and give you a moment to give you all the information you need to find us on Facebook, on email, voicemail and on Twitter. We're also posting to Google Plus. And we'll be back in just a moment for the rest of the show, including our interview with Stephen from Religion Poisons Everything's Facebook page. Want to contact Cognitive Dissonance? Visit them on Facebook. You can

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And to everyone who listens, shares, retweets, or rates the show, Cognitive Dissonance would like to cordially thank you for all of your fucking support. See, so remember when you were a young lad walking down the street and you saw an attractive woman? Or when you were an old man as you are now walking down the street and you see an attractive woman and maybe you'd stop and shout her up for a moment. Not anymore, Tom. You know, did anyone ever throw acid in your face as a result? You know, one might mistake me for an acid-faced individual. I have thought that. But I've never had actual acid thrown in my face.

No, no. You're lucky because in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a mother and father have won the Parent of the Year Award for killing their 15-year-old daughter for maybe talking to a boy. Maybe. She wasn't, like, fucking the kid. She was talking to him. And I remember that, you know, like when I read the Koran She was talking to him.

And I remember that, you know, like when I read the Koran, which didn't happen. I remember it said something like, and thou shalt not talk to a boy or your parents will splash acid on your face and then not take you to a hospital where you'll suffer horribly for a whole day and then die. It's in there. It's like page 44. It's like verse 9 or something. Everybody has read that part. Yeah, that's right in there. You know, and it's exactly what you said, because I'm going to read directly from the article. The parents have confessed saying that they suspected the girl had illicit relations with a boy.

I mean, really? You suspected like that's what you suspected it. suspected like that's what you suspected it so instead of confirming it you know even if it's confirmed i still wouldn't fucking agree with it but at least then you know they did something right but in this case you don't even know you get to send your child to the fucking grave on just a guess on a hunch that's like you know preemptively killing your child because you think they're a zombie. Yeah, no kidding, right? I just don't want them to wake up in the middle of the night and have to fucking do like 28

days later where they're fucking standing out in the hallway looking all cute and then they bite my face off. I just want to fucking stop that from happening before I end so I'm going to murder them. That is equal on the fucking scale of logic, that's equal. the fucking on the scale of logic. That's equal.

It's a preemptive zombie murder. Yeah. That's how you got to do it these days. If you think your 15 year old daughter might have spoken to a boy. Oh, my gosh. You have to beat her, disfigure her and torture and murder her. It's I mean, you know, what other options does a loving parent have? I mean, let's think about't, what other options does a loving parent have? I mean,

let's think about this for a minute, right? You could sit down and you could say, Hey, daughter, we are a very conservative household and you know that, you know, that's why we're abusive. So we're a very conservative household. We beat you every day. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to have to have a talk. You know, we saw you talking to that boy. That's not allowed in the house until you're 109, or we've sold you. Yeah, we sold you into marriage. As the chattel property that you are. Yes, absolutely, yeah.

So you could sit down and you could have that wonderful heart-to-heart that just makes everybody feel small and demeaned. Or you could just go straight to the acid. And how did the mother and father, at what point did they, do you think they sat around like, we've got to do something about our daughter. Oh, did you see her talking to that boy? All right. I imagine the talk from Juno, you know, like after she leaves and she's like, oh, I thought she was going to say she was on drugs. But she's pregnant. You know, like, I imagine that conversation, except for they're much more angry,

and they're digging through a box of stuff to kill their daughter with, the knives, the guns. They have a fucking bat in there, and they settle Tom on the fucking acid. Like, on the most horrible way that you could probably kill someone in a two-day span is to fucking acid them. Yeah, and how do you sell that to the mother particularly? someone in a two day span is to fucking acid them. Yeah. And how do you sell that to the mother particularly? You know, like, hey, remember when you like gestated this thing in your body for nearly a year and then strove to push and expel this other human being from your arms physically into the world?

You remember that? And it was kind of this joyous moment. Well, we're going to pour acid on that. What? How do you get there? I have no idea. How do you fucking get there? You have to have a culture that so hates women that the women attack the women.

This story is from The Telegraph. Mother murdered her son for failing to learn the Koran. This seems counterproductive, as I'm not sure he knows any more of the Koran now. Yeah, no, I don't know that he does. This is not a good way to teach kids. At no point, you know, I went to school to be a high school English teacher. You know, that's, at no point did they advocate learning through murder. That wasn't part of the, it wasn't like, oh, well, you got to, you know, work on ways to engage the students on a variety of levels.

And if that fails, murder them. Right. That's not a thing. No. You do? That's not a thing. No. You do? That's not good. To kids? The thing is that she wanted him to memorize the Koran.

And I'm going to read directly from this article, the Telegraph article here. It says they wanted him to become a hafiz. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but that's H-A-F-I-Z. So I don't know what that is. It sounds like a fucking analgesic of some kind. I'm going to take some Hafiz. It sounds great for an upset stomach, doesn't it? Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Like a fucking Pepto type thing. Like I took a Hafiz. I should be fine after eating that meatball sub. I should be good. They wanted him to become a Hafiz, an Islamic term for someone who memorizes the Koran. People who memorize the Koran we call Rain Man. Yeah.

You know, I mean, when I was a kid, I used to – I don't know if you did this stuff, but I used to memorize stuff all the time when I was a kid because your brain is fucking empty and you're just filling it with nonsense. And my brain was completely empty. I used to memorize commercials when I was a kid. A commercial would come on, and I would know every single word to that commercial. I could repeat it with the – I mean, so memorizing stuff as a child is not all that difficult. You know what I mean? Like, so this kid was obviously stupid. They have every right to kill him.

Yeah. You've got no other option. If your kid can't learn the Koran, you. You have to definitely hit him with a hammer. Oh, yeah. A rolling pin. A rolling pin. A slipper. Slipper.

The slipper seems like a reprieve. Right. One of these things is not like. All of a sudden she pulls out the slipper and the kid's like, I fooled you on this one. That doesn't even hurt. Right. She tied him up in a shed. She basically tortured her son.

Yeah, basically. I mean, that's really what she did. There's no parent who's like, man, I really want my kid to learn. I'm going to torture them. And that way they'll learn better. That's not a thing that happens. That doesn't really occur. I want to push this into the realm

of saying the person was crazy because they say here at one point she would allegedly lock him up in the shed and tie him to the door and force him to do press ups the mother in the months after Yasin's death Mrs. Egi

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly told the doctor she had been told to kill him by Shaitan, an Islamic name for the devil, the court was told. So she's being told to kill him by voices in her head. I would normally try to say, well, this has got to be a nutty person. This person is obviously unhinged or crazy. But we just read a story where a fucking couple killed their own kid with acid for talking to the opposite sex. Yeah. So part of me is trying to say, no, they've got to be crazy.

But we're seeing girls get killed by acid attacks. Girls get killed because they wear makeup in Canada, you know, by their Muslim parents. It seems to me that there's something here. There's something there's something to be said about growing up in this culture and how, you know, whereas every parent I know loves their children. It almost feels like there's an adversarial relationship here. Yeah, I mean, well, the first thing that occurs to me reading this is like, what did the dad do? Can you imagine you come home from work? You're like, honey, I'm home.

Did you beat the kid with a hammer today? You know, there has to be a collusion. He's got a notice, right? He's got a hammer-sized print on his face. What happened to him? He must have fell down the stairs again. We locked him in his shed. Oh, he's in the shed

again? Why'd you lock him in his shed? What's he doing there? Oh, we got him doing press-ups in the shed until he cries and bleeds. What? Why the fuck are we doing that? Because he knows the Koran. Did you give him a bowl of fish heads, too? There's a part of this article, too, Tom, that, you know, like, there's a part. I'm going to be honest with you.

Reading the stories for today was fucking pretty fucking depressing. There was parts of the day when I'm reading these stories and I just wanted to stop fucking reading them because there's no fucking shortage this week of kids dying because of fucking either crazy people who believe in religion or just people who believe in religion. Right. Right. So it's, it's a pretty fucking depressing week here on fucking cognitive dissonance. And, you know, I'm reading along and the thing that turned my stomach about this, I'm gonna read directly from the article.

It says the beatings were so brutal that the boy died from his injuries and his mother tried to burn the body to destroy the evidence. Now, if I killed my own fucking cat, I wouldn't think to burn the body afterwards. Like, what kind of fucking degenerate are you to think I've got to stop this by burning the body? I've got to get out of this, you know, problem. You're obviously fucking, I mean, that's why I'm leaning toward unhinged here. Well, no, you got to lean toward Shaitan told her to. Well. Shaitan, the evil spirit of Islam, told her that she had to do this.

I mean, you're just not paying attention. Shaitan sounds like a rust-proofing agent. You're like, I got my car Shaitan'd. Shaitan. Shaitan. It's Network News. News. News.

News. So Cecil, this story is... This story is so depressing. God fucking hell. Cecil, this story is from the Daily Mail. It's also kind of from everywhere local around here, because it happened about 10 miles north of where I live. If that.

You're going to heaven tonight. Last words babysitter said to son before stabbing him a hundred times. of where I live. If that. You're going to heaven tonight, last words babysitter said to son before stabbing him a hundred times and killing girl, five, and two dogs. She's just stabbing everything in sight. She's like one of those punching nuns with like a fucking knife. She's got a lever on her back.

Somebody taped a steak knife to her. And she just went, went, went, went. She's like one of those birds that drinks, but it's stabby and it's on a Roomba. Just zipping around. Stabbing everything inside. Oh, my gosh. She's like a fucking porcupine. You know?

Put her in the room with somebody and they just get a hundred holes in them. I picture like drinking the water like in the cartoon and like the water like sprays out all the different... Well, something's spraying all over the place. I mean, geez, how many times do you have to stab somebody before they're dead? And this article is one of those ones.

You know, I know the Daily Mail plays shit up too, so I'm not going to, you know, obviously people fucking hate the Daily Mail. We're going to get an email. We fucking don't ever link to the Daily Mail again. But there's parts of this article that are hard to read. There's like parts where the kid's like saying, Mommy, I love you. Please don't fucking kill me. Yeah.

You know, like that's just horrible. It is terrible. It's just horrifying. Yeah. And, you know, after it's done, obviously she's a fucking nut, right? That's why she's on Nutwork News because she's a fucking nutball. But, you know, after she's done, she calls her church. Like, was she looking for like a drive-through, like confessional?

Yeah. How exactly does that work? She tells the kids to get down on their knees and pray. And then she tells them they're going to go to heaven tonight. And then she stabs them, like, she stabs the girl 50 times. The boy 100 times. 98, 99, 100. Okay, now it's your turn.

It's, I mean, it is just absolutely brutal. But yeah, what do you say when the church picks up? You know, like somebody at the church, you know, picks up. It's like, well, fucking truth and bullshit fellowship or whatever. You know, here we are. Yeah. Can I talk to a pastor or what have you? Oh, yeah.

Hang on a minute. Let me get him. Yeah. Would you got a problem? Somebody can help you with? Oh, I totally stabbed my son and then this girl and then two dogs. Then two dogs. Why did you kill the dogs?

Like the dogs. She dogs she said she was trying to get the evil out of them that's not evil stupid that's blood yeah you got something to be inside you got the life out of them lady like they were filled with life before you fucking fiddled with it what the fuck there there's something to be said too though i mean you know i don't want to look too deep into this, and I don't want to obviously paint with a fucking broad brush over, you know, every religious person out there, obviously.

But there is an avenue here that you've got to explore, and it's that, you know, she's telling these kids you're going to be in heaven tonight. If she didn't think they were going to heaven, if she thought, kill this kid, it's fucking over, it's done, there's nothing after this, is she going to kill the kids then? I don't know. Maybe. If she thought, I killed this kid, it's fucking over, it's done, there's nothing after this, is she going to kill the kids then? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe she will. Maybe it

wouldn't even matter to her. But there's this, you know, I think there's something to be said about, you know, giving people this, you know, hey, don't worry, you got a free guy after this guy's dead. Yeah. Well, that's, I think you hit the, I think you make a good point. Clearly, you know, she's unhinged. Okay. But she thinks, I mean, there's a part of her that says these kids, they're going to go someplace wonderful. They're going to go to a paradise. And yeah, I get to, you know, I'm going to murder them and that's going to suck. Like nobody's probably, she's probably not selling anybody on how awesome it is to get fucking stabbed to death. Sure.

But, you know, if the price let's put it this way. If somebody said to me, I will put out a fucking cigarette on your arm and you get a month's vacation in Hawaii. I think about that cigarette in the arm sucks. Sure. Month's vacation in Hawaii probably makes up for it. Well, okay, an eternity in bliss in paradise. Yeah, you know, I mean, you might

be willing to put up with some shit for that. Do you solemnly swear to tell truth all truth and nothing but the truth? Why don't you answer him? He's talking big like mine. I don't know what he's saying. He's asking you if you swear. No, but I know all the saying. He's asking you if you swear. No, but I know all the words.

He's asking you if you'll swear to tell the truth. Truth is stranger than fiction, Judge Woody. This is from Freethinker, the Freethinker, voice of atheism since 1881. Jesus apparently had a screw loose. Now New York Church is being sued for millions. I love this story. Screw loose.

Ha ha. I see what you did there. Very clever. This guy, New York man, credits a statue, a big fucking outdoor statue of Jesus, for his wife's recovery. His wife had cancer. He went to the statue, prayed to the statue. Wife gets

better. The statue did it. Then the statue fell on him. In a ha ha moment. And you know, all I could think is, eh, you win some you lose some. Yeah, really. You know, if you're relying

on the statue to sort of change your life, it's changed your life twice now, bro. Look, you know, you gotta balance the scales. Yeah. Jesus takes the cancer from your wife, but he's gotta get something in return, because he's an evil fucker.

So he drops a fucking giant statue on you. See, now, I watch a lot of reality TV, and Pawn Stars is one of my favorite shows, right? So I watch it all the time, and whenever anybody brings anything in that has been cleaned, it's always devalued. Right. I mean, they bring in a gun from like 1881 that fucking, you know, somebody really famous gave to somebody else who was famous who then shot somebody else who's famous with it. And if they took a fucking steel wool pad to it, it's like seven bucks. They're like, yeah, best I could do is 450.

You know, like it is fucking worth nothing after that. Right. I think God got pissed off. He was bringing down the home value there. He's like, motherfucker, there's some patina on this cross. You are ruining my chances of selling it to some bald guy in Las Vegas. So he fucking was just like,

get this guy away from my cross. Can somebody do something about this? How about you go down there and loosen a couple screws and have it fall and cut his leg off. It would actually be hard to loosen a couple of screws because the whole thing, the 600 pound thing, was held in place by a single screw. Oh, my gosh.

Screw. It says the church has since removed the crucifix from its property and transferred it to another parish. Hopefully it's held up by one screw. They must have confused it with a sex offender. Oh. Hey, it's getting a screw wherever it goes. So it doesn't matter. You know, the one thing I wonder is if it's just like,

is that the lucky screw? It's just like, this is the screw of the faithful. Like, if it doesn't fall on you, you were faithful. If it falls on you, hey, it's your fucking fault. You should have prayed harder. It's like dunking witches to find out if they're guilty. It's the witch. Go pray in front.

I want to know if Jesus is going to forgive me for killing. Go pray in front of the 600 pound statue held up by a single rusty screw. Pull on this rope. That's a great idea. It's like fucking held up by carabiners now.

On the fucking side of it. Jesus may not work, but it turns out gravity is still in effect. Yeah, fucking A it does. Funk. Many issues are at stake, but some issues are not negotiable. The right to life from conception to natural death.

Marriage should be reinforced, not be defined. It is an egregious violation of our cherished principle of religious liberty for the government to force the Church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life. Your vote will affect the future and be recorded in eternity. Will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire? This is Mike Huckabee asking you to join me November the 6th and vote based on values that will stand the test of fire. Cecil, we are just a few days. We're recording this on Saturday. So we are just a few days away from the 2012 American presidential election.

And Mike Huckabee says, if you vote Democrat, you're going to hell. So for all of the six people who are worried about what Mike Huckabee says, I guess you should be shocked not to vote Democrat. Did you watch this video, Tom? The vote Mordor video? Yeah, vote Mordor. A vote Democrat is a vote for Soran. No kidding, right? The big fucking flaming eye.

You know, here's a fucking tip. You know, I'm a video, I do a lot of video producing and stuff like that. Here's a tip, dumb fucks. If you're gonna say something, don't fucking put the text on the screen. That's called redundancy, morons. Can't you

show something else there for a minute? Why do you gotta put the fucking text on the screen? I'm fucking listening to you say it, you dumb fuck! What you're missing is that they're actually closed captioning this in forged metal. Yeah, they totally are.

And not just that, but like certain words are highlighted. Like it's really fucking stupid. But the gist of this whole fucking thing, the gist, the thing that makes me fucking livid when I see this. And I mean, of the stories we read and now, Tom, we're talking about fucking child murder here. We're talking about we're talking about, you know, people that are hating on homosexuals, people that are hating on on on America, because I don't know why,

because they don't like America, all the different things that we talked about today. This is the one that I just I thought, you know, this is the most conniving of all of them, because, you know, I can see these the way in which people look at certain things are manipulated. But this is the most manipulative. And when you see it, it says here, it says, meanwhile, Fox News is Huckabee is promoting spiritual extortion if you don't vote Republican. And I think, you know, of all the crazy shit, Tom, that we fucking listen to today, just fucking today on this podcast that people do in the name of religion, how difficult is it to punch a ticket in the name of religion? You know, something that's perfectly within your rights to do. How difficult is it to convince people to do that?

You, this is why it's dangerous. It's not just dangerous because it hurts people. And we've, you know, obviously you're seeing that throughout this whole show, but it hurts because people are so easily manipulated by an authority. That's the difficult part. All this dumb motherfucker has to say, and you know, when I say dumb motherfucker, what I really mean is really slick dude

because he's manipulating people. All he's got to say is, I got an in with God and I know what God likes. I'm an authority when it comes to God. And since God is the ultimate authority, I'm basically taking the place of him and can tell you kind of what to God. And since God is the ultimate authority, I'm basically taking the place of him and can tell you kind of what to do. And I'm basically threatening you with torture for

eternity. If you choose to vote in a way that is not compliant with how I am telling you, God is acting and God believes you should act. That is despicable. And that is, that is something that I just, I just fucking burn my ass today. What is it? That's exactly right. I mean, because what is, what does religion have to do in order to work and to thrive is it has to set up an authoritarian structure. You can't have a God who's at the same level as you. You can't, you have to have a hierarchy in order to have a God who's at the same level as you. You can't. You have to have a hierarchy. In order to have a God, you have to place yourself underneath.

You have to place yourself in a subservient position. So if you're a religious person, you're already in a role where you're taking orders, where you're in a position of subservience to a higher authority. You're in a position of subservience to a higher authority. So I think it's a natural step for somebody to insert themselves somewhere along that chain, that vast gulf between you and your deity. Somebody has a lot of room to step in and fill that void and say, OK, well, you know, God's not talking. But let me tell you what, I got the fucking bat phone to Jesus. It's actually Commissioner Gordon's head. but all the numbers are sixes.

So you flip it up, and then you got to turn on the Jesus light and shine it into the clouds. And then he'll come down and talk to you and tell you who to vote for. And you're right when you're talking about threatening torture because it's like he talks about values forged in fire. It's a clear reference to hell. Right. I mean that's what he's doing. He talks about values forged in fire. It's a clear reference to hell. Right. Right? I mean, that's what he's doing. He's basically saying, if you don't do the things I'm telling you to do, then you're going to go to hell. It's not just that, okay, well, we've got to have a real discussion about your theology.

You're going to burn in fire. That's a terrible thing to threaten somebody with that believes it. It's not a terrible thing to threaten me with. You can threaten me with hellfire all you want. Problem is, Tom, is that fucking the evangelical vote is huge in this country. There's a lot of them. They're a motivated base, and they vote. I mean, we saw that Huckabee was getting support in a lot of states.

And the thing I keep thinking is you're diametrically opposed to Mormons. Like, they're really different they're really different things and you know obviously they believe a lot of the same stuff but i mean really there's a whole fucking other book tacked on to the fucking i mean it's a whole nother thing it's a whole nother adventure that jesus came in it's like fucking it's like harry potter 8 you know what mean? Like it's a book that, you know, that has all the fan fiction. It's like all the fan fiction put into one. Tumbledore's triumphant return.

It's just ridiculous, but it's a total another book, man. He's in another fucking magical land. So the idea that they're right up there with the Christians is totally different. It's a totally different thing. If your hell is on that fucking knife's edge of jeopardy, or your soul is on that kind of knife's edge at all times, your God is a dick. He's making you walk a tightrope over a pit of fire. I mean, think about it this way. It's like, okay, you show up at the pearly gates and you're like, okay, so every week you worked at the homeless shelter.

You gave 20% of your income to charity. You bought, you know, 50 families Thanksgiving dinner every year. You worked on the fucking, on Christmas day, you fucking ladled out soup to the homeless. You know, like they start going through all these, you know, a really pious person's life and then they're like, oh, fucking voted for Obama. Where's the fucking lever for the trap door? Get this fucker off my gate. But the chat was hanging. Oh God. And you know, and here's the fucking lever for the trap door? Get this fucker off my gate. But the chat was hanging. Oh, God.

And here's the other thing. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but one of the things here, at the very end of the video, there's a website that pops up called godfruits.com. And I kept thinking, like, Godfruits, is that a porn site? And then I stopped and I was like, no, what it really is is it's Christian Mingle, but for gays. Godfruits. Yo, baby, you want to see my Godfruit?

That's a kumquat. There was shrinkage. It ain't no pomelo. Yeah, it definitely ain't no pomelo. It definitely ain't no pomelo, sweetheart. This is not that far off. It's an inch of rind of disappointment inside. No kidding, right? A whole inch of rind. Inside is a tiny little nugget of anger and bitter.

Yeah, that's great shit. Alright, so we're back at the end of the show here with Stephen from Religion Poisons Everything Facebook page and Grand Unified Theory Facebook page. Stephen, now, you're a pretty big contributor, obviously. You're doing a lot of work on these. How did you get started in this? Well, to be honest, I was inspired by my religious friends filling my inbox with abusive messages telling me that Jesus loves me and I should stop making baby Jesus cry I thought oh okay I won't post it where you can see it I'll just start my

own little page and it sort of got out of hand I would say your little page has grown to 77,000 likes so that little page has certainly struck a nerve. What do you think it is about your page that people have gravitated toward? Well, I have a lot of support from other pages that are on Facebook that help me out. We share each other's work and help get the message out there. So plagiarism. Plagiarism. I wish there was a plagiarize button on Facebook. It's a nicer form of plagiarism.

Yeah. I think it's that and the fact that more and more people are seeing the damage that religion does in the world. And they're looking for this sort of thing. So what kind of things, you post a lot of different types of things. What kind of things get the most attention on your page? Funny quotes, generally. A funny quote picture that I'll make will get like 4,000 likes. And then I'll post a news story and 13 people will like it.

13 people. They're like, well, it took me – it takes five seconds to read the meme, you know, and it takes – Yeah. That's a big part of it, I think. You got to click over to a link and then read a story and then you might have to think about the story. It's exhausting. Quality of comments on both of those things. If you have an article,

are the quality of comments generally better than on a meme? Yeah, you'll have more reasons, responses, but then again, just about every time you'll get the old, too long, didn't read. Oh. Oh, gosh. What the fuck are you here for?

I like that somebody takes the time to comment that they're lazy. You know, it's like, oh, my God. You know what I didn't do? I didn't work out today. Let me let everybody know. Still a fat slug. You know, like, what the fuck? Stop broadcasting your fucking ineptitude.

I don't know what that's about. Yeah, you get it all the time. Anything more than, say, 30 words? Too long, didn't read. 30 words? 30 words is like a fucking candy wrapper's ingredients. Yeah, well, you'd think that. Oh, my goodness.

A lot of funny people out there, I guess. It's like, yeah, I didn't do very well on my essay. Oh, fuck it. Who cares? So there's like two types of people that like things, right? There's the people who like it to sort of dig on people, like because if somebody comes to your page, it probably shows up on their page like so-and-so likes religion, poisons everything. And then there's other people I think that like something to join a community. How many people are really involved in the religion, poisons everything community?

Do you have a couple thousand people that you think are pretty involved? Is it more than that? There's a lot of names that I see over and over again that contribute, post photos on the wall and comment on photos. But then you'll post something bigger and you'll get comments from everywhere. Like, Allah will destroy you. I love this page. Do you get, do you get a lot

of anti stuff? Oh, hell yeah. Are the trolls fun at this point? Like, is it, is it just like,

oh, trolls. I like trolls. I like killing trolls. That's a good time. Or is it just a pain in the ass? Oh,

it depends what sort of mood I'm in really. Sometimes I'll, I'll say a few things that make them fly off the handle. But, I love it. If they just come there to prophesize

and just like Jesus loves you, I just delete and ban them. They're not there to talk. They don't respond to any questions or anything. They just make a post and run. I love that somebody says Jesus loves you and you ban them. It's like a drive by loving. If that's all I have to say is repent now, sinners, or you'll go to hell. Or Jesus loves you even though you don't love him.

I'll let people respond to it. And if they don't have anything else to say, I'll just get rid of them. Do you get any violent comments? Ah, yeah. Time and time. Get a few death threats every now and then. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, it's good.

Keeps you in shape. That keeps you in shape. How many times I've got, religion doesn't poison everything, people poison everything. Yeah, that's the whole gun control argument. Like, guns don't kill people, people kill people. We make it a lot easier if they've got a gun. So we get letters a lot of times from people who will thank us. They'll send us letters or they'll call the show and they'll thank us for helping them either laugh.

send us letters or they'll call the show and they'll thank us for helping them either laugh or also we get a lot of times people will tell us, you know, you were instrumental in my deconversion. Do you get people that send you messages that say, you know, thank you for posting this stuff? It's really sort of helped me through things? I have actually received a couple recently in the past also. That makes it worthwhile worth the effort to hate on people i'm hating ideas and i'm against the ideas and against the religion not the people how much time do you spend moderating i know you said that uh we were speaking earlier and you said there were about 10 moderators working on the page how much of your time does it take to maintain a

page of that size and you know what do you get out of it? You know, personally, like what, what do you find particularly fulfilling about running a page like this? Well, I only work on it when I'm awake. And what I get out of it is just, I don't have the community. It's, I refuse to make any money off it. I don't want to, like I'm selling t-shirts at the moment, but all the money's going to charities. Oh, good, good. I said from the get-go I didn't want to make any money off it, and I'm sticking to that. Well, that's excellent. That's excellent to hear.

So if people were going to find you on Facebook, where would they look, Stephen? It's just facebook.com slash godisnotgreat. Did you want to talk about Grand Unified at all? Yeah, there's another page on the portal. That's Society for Science Education. We use music generally to get the message out there, atheistic and scientific messages. Artists like Graydon Square, Team Standard Deadman,

Shelly Seagal, Grip, Sickness. We've got so many now, it's crazy. Albums coming out all the time. So if people were interested in Atheist music they could easily find it at Grand Unified Facebook.com we are Grand Unified

that's the main page well thanks for being on Steven we really appreciate it yeah thanks for having me thanks for your time man so we got a couple of voicemails

we're gonna play them for you now one of them is from Caesar which is a fucking awesome name. Caesar sent us a voicemail. And he actually sent us two, but he wanted us to play the second one. And we also got one from John. Hey, guys. My name is Caesar.

I'm dropping off a new message. Since my last message sucked, I just want to say thank you because you guys make a difference in people's lives. It makes a difference in my life. It makes a lot better. I became an atheist about a year ago, and life became hell.

But since I met you guys and this amazing sense of humor tons of intelligence and phenomenal voice you guys are amazing you know my life changed

and I listen to you guys every day so I wish more Brazilians I'm from Brazil I wish more Brazilians would speak English to understand you guys and to listen

from you guys because you guys have the good news of the I don't know the good news of the world you know always phenomenal information, always helpful information

to show how amazing and beautiful the world is. Of course, I'm joking. All the best. Take care. Hey, Cecil. It's your old pal, John. I had a couple comments about your last show.

First one's about the great baby being a gift from God. I was wondering if the same pertained if a guy was raped. Would he then not be able to be treated for any STDs that he might have contracted from the rapist? Is there a gift from God, too. Another comment had to do with the Italian scientists that were brought up about the earthquake. I was reading an article that showed for Hurricane Sandy that the U.S. weather model predicted it would hit landfall in Maine, while the U.K. model was accurate to where it wound up coming into land. Does that mean that our forecasters could have been going to jail too? Anyway, get the good work. Thanks.

Google Voice had it just right. Hey, speedboats. Zero bill. John had a couple of comments about your last. So Burke calling about the right baby. Tina gift from God. I was wondering if this thing for time, if they have a guy with the rate 40 that not be able to be three days for an

ESPDs, but he might have contracted from the right fit. Is there a gift from God? Two other comments had to do with the Italian scientists that were brought up about the request. I was reading an article that showed Burger King, Sandy, but the U.S. weather model predicted it would. It's my in Portland, Maine.

Why don't you pay model with the Ackerson word? Wanda, coming up in that last meeting, let our forecast there. Instead of then, I'm going to jail, sir. Anyway, if the good work, bye. I don't know about you, but I got my ESPDs. I contracted them from the right. I have all of the ESPDs. All of the ESPDs belong to us.

I eat all the antibiotics as a result of the ESPDs. Thanks to Cesar. Cesar, we're happy that the podcast has affected you so much, and it's nice to hear from somebody that likes the show. And, John, John, I miss you, bro. I miss seeing you. It's good to hear your voice, though. I wanted to mention, Tom, I miss you, bro. I miss seeing you. It's good to hear your voice, though. I wanted to mention, Tom, Apocalypse Without Borders.

I want to play the original Apocalypse Without Borders bit that we did first and then talk a little bit about the charity. I'm looking at you, feeling pretty safe. It's the end of the world as you know it. It's the end of the world. The year 2012. Some say the last year ever. You could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportion. What do you mean, biblical? What do you mean, this Old Testament, Mr. Mayor?

Real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. It is this certain future catastrophe that we here at Cognitive Dissonance want to prepare for. And so we give you your Cognitive Dissonance

first annual charity drive to prepare for the inevitable Armageddon. Hereafter known as the Apocalypse Without Borders. From now until December 22nd, 2012, we will hold a charity drive and count on the goodwill of all our listeners to give money to the noble and secular cause of Doctors Without Borders. You've never looked at the heavens.

Everything in the heavens is here, moving as the heavens move. The Great Conjunction is the end of the world. Giving is easy. Simply go to the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. On the left side of the page is a button. Click it and donate to your heart's content. Doctors Without Borders provides emergency medical care to millions of people caught in crises each year in more than 60 countries around the world. This will certainly be a busy year for them. Help contribute before it's too late. Wait, what am I laughing for?

So the idea behind this apocalypse without borders, if you haven't heard of it yet, is that we would like to collect money for Doctors Without Borders. And as a joke, we think it would be funny to give them the money on the 22nd of December, because the 22nd of December, the world is supposed to have ended, according to the Mayan kookanuts out there that think that the world's going to end on the 21st of December. And we thought it would be hilarious to send them some money the day after the day after the world is supposed to have ended. So that's what this drive is all about.

And this week, Tom, we got some great, great news. Yeah, we had a huge donation from one party donated $1,000, $1,000. And that was just such an incredibly generous donation. And we've had a couple of people who have indicated that they would like to make a large donation, but they, of course, were concerned about reaping the tax benefits. So here in the States, certain charitable deductions are occasionally tax deductible, depending on your situation. And they asked us if we had the requisite tax forms. We don't.

We don't have any of the requisite tax forms. And that did not sway someone from making that donation. It was a large donation, $1,000. And all of that goes to Doctors Without Borders. All of it does, yes. Not only does 100% of that go to the charity, but Cecil, you and I are kicking in some money. Not $1,000. No, no, I don't have it. I mean, I wish I had $1,000 to give, but I do not.

We are each going to give $100, and that is still going to be added. It's going to be tallied on at the end. We're going to tack it on at the end. So the number that's on the chip-in widget, we're going to add $200 to that, and we're going to send it all along on December 22nd. You can donate to Doctors Without Borders right now through our website, through our chip-in widget. It's called Apocalypse Without Borders.

It's on our website, dissonancepod.com on the left-hand side. Click on it. Donate money. It goes into a kitty, and then we are going to send all that money. And at this point, it's a goodly sum. Over $3,000 is going to go to Doctors Without Borders. We're really happy. We're so excited.

We have such generous fans. We are absolutely elated by it. Absolutely we are. I'm blown away. This is a lot more money than I thought we would have collected. Yeah, absolutely. I thought it was going to be like fucking six cents and like a piece of lint. So thank you all for being so generous.

And you guys all have a lot to work for here. If you want a t-shirt at this point, you know, the t-shirt winner is probably a foregone conclusion, but don't let that sway you with a, with a one K donation. It's pretty much, it was very generous. Thank you. A person who donated a thousand dollars. We got an email, Tom, from Rachel and Rachel had something pretty funny to say about homosexuals here. She did. She said, I'm pretty sure these people are just afraid that if more kids grow up gay, they're going to march into their houses and force them to redecorate, causing all the bigoted rednecks to give up their precious deer or bear in the snow artwork and hunting trophies. I love it.

I love it. I love it. Thanks for listening, Rachel. We're happy you sent us an email. Thank you. We got to say hi to South Carolina and Lewis. Lewis said that he, like Mitch, who also found our podcast through the Atheist Experiences from South. And also just wanted to say hello. Our numbers are growing and they like to show.

Lewis, thanks for listening. Yeah, South Carolina, probably not our target demographic. No. But we're glad to have you. So Joseph sent us an email that was a correction to a caller last time, had some things to say about the Mormon church. And Joseph wanted to sort of just say look there was a couple things that were misrepresented possibly

we are not in any way experts on anything I'm not even an expert on like where I can find things in my fucking condo you know like I am really just not an expert in any field and Tom I know you share my expertise in nothing yeah I have a

degree in nothing and an expertise in nothing. Expertise in nothing. So the thing is, is if somebody is wrong on a call, I don't have the knowledge to decide whether or not they're right. A great place for this email that you sent us, Joseph, would have been on our blog or on our Facebook page so you could interact with some people to let them know what the content was and to get into that debate on whether or not the person is correct. But thank you for sending it to us. But again, I don't feel comfortable correcting someone if I don't know what they said was right or wrong.

And I am so fucking lazy I'm not doing the research. And isn't that what the Internet's for? To battle strangers over minutia? A thing called a Wikipedia you could look this up on. Thank you, though, for sending us an email. We're happy you enjoy the show. So Richard sent us an email, Tom, and another surprising email we get. We got an email from Richard that said that we were instrumental in his deconversion. Wow. Cool. Thanks for the email.

We're glad that we have any role in any of our listeners' lives. We're screaming into the void sometimes, and we're glad that the show obviously means so much to some people. And Richard, thank you very much for listening in, as he puts it, right wing Bible nut Florida. Yeah, that sounds like it. I'll tell you, you know, I always I don't know if somebody were to ask me about the show, even still today, Tom, I would not say that this is a show I would recommend to somebody who is on the fence or somebody who is a believer. I wouldn't recommend this show to them. or somebody who is a believer. I wouldn't recommend this show to them. I wouldn't say this show is for a person who is a staunch or even an agnostic. I don't know that, you know, like a certain demographic of agnostics

might be very upset with the things that we say. So I'm always surprised, always surprised when I see a letter like this that somebody on the fence could possibly even be motivated by anything that I ever said. But it's wonderful to hear. Tom, we got a letter from Andrew, and Andrew has a lot to say about the election. Why don't you read his email? I'm going to read the whole thing, so bear with me a moment. After listening to the latest podcast, I have a question for you guys. Why should I, as a voter, care where either presidential candidates stand as far as LGBT rights concern, considering their relatively minor populace compared to the much larger unemployed or underemployed? I am one of the millions of people in the U.S. that was laid off for a long period of time in part to the Obama defense budget cuts and has had to take a job with substantial pay cut just to put food on the table.

Don't get me wrong. I think the LGBT issues are an important one and need serious addressing. I just feel at this moment in time our country needs to focus on more pressing issues like our national defense, our horrendous housing market, unemployment, etc. I look at it this way, and I could possibly be wrong. But if my neighbor had gotten laid off because of the economy and at the same time his marriage to his partner would not be recognized, off because of the economy and at the same time his marriage to his partner would not be recognized i think a job insurance and pension should far outweigh the need to be recognized as a couple again i'm not gay so i don't completely understand the need for such recognition

it just seems we as a nation have far more important things to worry about i hope i'm not coming off as a complete douche canoe who doesn't give a shit about people who are not heterosexual because in all honesty i could care less if someone is gay, straight or whatever. Makes little difference to me. Andy, I think I think there's a false dichotomy here. We don't have a choice between fixing the economy or LGBT issues. I think that's Romney has not, as far as I'm aware, put forth a plan that is definitely going to fix the economy. It's not like we have to make this difficult decision between, God, we can only do one of these two things.

Which of these two things should we do? And I would also point out that I don't think that Obama is focusing on LGBT issues. There were a few things that he did that were LGBT friendly, but I would hardly call his administration focused on LGBT issues at all, at all. I mean, certainly more focused than his opponent would be. And then finally, I want to point out that you say that the country needs to focus on more pressing issues like our national defense. I've never understood this. I think this is a little – and I understand that you're employed in that sector.

So clearly it means a lot to you from a personal economic standpoint. But our national defense is not in jeopardy. I think it is – we have the largest military in the world by a margin. We spend the most money in the world by orders of magnitude. Our national defense is not at risk. I don't see that as the pressing issue. I think that you obviously do. I think that there's a couple of things here, too, that I just want to mention, Andy. One of them is I would never begrudge you

at all for voting for whoever you think is going to help you personally. No, of course not. I would never begrudge anyone that right whatsoever. You know, I think that there's plenty of people out there that will vote with their pocketbook, what they think their pocketbook, the best way it's going to help them and completely ignore social policies. And I'll be I'll be fucking dead serious when I say I don't care that that's what they do. They've thought about the issues. They've weighed the issues that are important to them. And they're voting based on those issues. I can't break myself from voting for social issues.

I've tried so many times to think, what should I do? How should I approach this election? What should I look at? What's the most important thing? And it almost always comes down to social issues, mainly because I think that the right and the left really do about the same job when it comes to the economy and when it comes to the way in which we lead our everyday lives. There's important decisions that are always made on the battlefronts, which are these social issues. And I want to make sure I'm on the right side of those. So that's why I choose to vote how I want.

But I would never begrudge you voting who you think you should vote for. Especially if you think you're going to get a job for it. I mean, Mitt Romney said he's going to build more fucking boats. So if that's going to get you a job, hey man, I would vote for a job too. If I was under, underemployed or unemployed, I understand where you're coming from there. I don't, I don't know the best choice, but I will say that, you know, from what I've heard of Mitt Romney's plan, and at this point it's fucking basically divination to understand what it is. You know, it sounds like trickle-down economics to me. And I don't know that that's going to get you a job.

But again, it's really up to who you want to vote for. I think I want to be on the right side of history, though. When the numbers start turning, and it is, gay marriage is legal, and there's ways in which we can protect marriage equality and we can protect women's rights that should have been fucking protected years ago. When that stuff finally hits the fan, I want to be on the right side of the history of that. Last email, Tom, was from Maya and Maya sent us an email that was very surprising because it's the first ever like person who's rejected Islam.

Yeah, we've had several emails from people who've walked away from other religious faiths. But this is the first one. It's a fellow apostate. It is. Because we converted on the show. Yeah, be careful. And then immediately deconverted. And they do say in their email that they are Australian born, Middle Eastern descent, currently living in Sweden and had to move all the way across the world to get away from their family and the difficulties from being a nonbeliever.

Wow. We're glad to have you. I mean, just welcome and thanks for listening. It's pretty cool. So we want to thank again, Stephen, from Religion Poisons Everything Facebook page, as well as Grand Unified Theory Facebook page. We're happy that he came on and traversed mediums to come on our show and talk to our listeners about his great Facebook page. Remember, you can always find him on Facebook. All you have to do is search for Religion Poisons Everything, which I think is like forward slash God is not great. And then

you can also look for a grand unified theory if you're interested in atheist artists. That wraps it up for another completely mediocre. I think I'm going to keep saying that completely mediocre show of cognitive dissonance. We'll leave you as usual with the skeptics creed. show of cognitive dissonance. We'll leave you as usual with the skeptics. Creed credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter. Mommy issue. Hypno Babylon.

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do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local Dairy Council. We'll be right back. you