Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 79: American Atheists

Episode Date: December 22, 2012

Special thanks to David Siverman from , from American Atheists Donate to the legal fund for the .50th Anniversary American Atheist Convention - conservapedia - american atheists

Want to stream Cognitive Dissonance to your Android or iPhone? Buy the app. Go to DissonancePod.com and click on the link on the right-hand side of the page. Each purchase helps support the show. Hey everyone, Cecil here. It is December 22nd, and I am, I guess, happy to report that there was no apocalypse. I am, I guess, happy to report that there was no apocalypse. So since we are in this apocalypse-free world, all the money that was donated to our charity, Drive Apocalypse Without Borders, money going to Doctors Without Borders, is going to go directly to Doctors Without Borders.

And actually, it has already been done. We wound up collecting from our listeners an amazing amount, $8,150.37. We wound up donating because Tom and I kicked in $100 a piece. Today, we paid Doctors Without Borders $8,350.37, the proof of which is on our website. We are posting it on our website. We're also going to post a picture of the PDF To Facebook So you can take a look and see

That money went through this morning So Doctors Without Borders Is paid off The listeners also donated on their own So some of the listeners went to Doctors Without Borders site directly so they could do Tax things and such And so the final tally With that extra money that the listeners donated, the amount that was sent in by the listeners total was $8,660.37.

So we want to thank everybody who donated. And we hope to do something like this next year. It was very rewarding to see all the people in our audience who gave and who clearly think that this is a worthy cause. So thank you very much. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat.

This is episode 79 and we are joined by Dave Silverman from the American Atheist. Dave, even though there is no welcome mat, welcome to our show. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it, guys. So the story we're going to talk about is a story we did address last week in the show. This is a story from the Friendly Atheist blog. Bill Donahue, American atheists want to draw blood with its latest billboard. Catholic League's blowhard in chief. I still love that line so much. Said this about your latest billboard. This year, Dave Silverman wanted to make a big splash, so he

decided to draw blood. It shows what he is made of. He and his supporters do not want to be left alone. They want to inflame the passions of those with whom they disagree. Unlike Christians, who do not provoke, harass, or otherwise mock atheists. Silverman and his ilk want nothing more than to stick it to Christians at Christmastime. It's who they are.

So Dave, you are the Rambo. You're drawing first blood here. I am the Lord. That's awesome. You know what? I love Bill Donahue. You know, the Catholic League, I don't know if you know this, the Catholic League is two guys, okay? It's Bill and Jeff.

It's the blowhard and chief and the communications director who can't talk. The blowhardened chief and the communications director who can't talk. And I think they exist for the sole purpose of trashing people who criticize the Catholic Church. If you talk about raping children, they call you a fascist. If you talk about corruption in the Catholic Church, they call you evil and drawing blood. This billboard that we put up, I'm actually quite thrilled with it. I like the billboard very much. When we first put it up, we put it up to be more mellow than our passports. In fact, one reporter that I talked to actually said, why have you taken such a mellow route this year?

And he was right, because last year we called all religions scams. And the year before that, we said, oh, come on, everybody, you know it's a myth. This year we said, okay, keep the Mary, dump the myth. We've got a picture of Santa Claus up there. We've got a picture of Jesus, and the picture of Jesus that we chose is a wooden sculpture of Jesus. It's not the clip art of Jesus with the blood and the rolling eyes and all the gross stuff. We picked a very benign picture of Jesus and said, hey, folks, you don't need the myth to have the Mary. You can have the Mary and dump the myth, and it works out just great. And we figured that that would be a nicer billboard, an easier billboard.

But the Catholic League doesn't make any money when I put up nice billboards. So even when we put up billboards that are more mellow, like this one, they freak out because that's how they make their money. These two guys earn a living off of, well, me and American atheists because they got nothing else to complain about except people who complain about their church. And they blow it out of proportion. But what we have learned, and this is something that I want everybody to see really clearly here, what we have learned, and we've seen that I want everybody to see really clearly here, what we have learned, and we've seen this over and over again, we've seen billboards that say

one nation indivisible, and it's a terrible thing. We've seen the people at Coalition of Reason put up, don't believe in God, you're not alone. And it's an affront to the Christian nation. What we have learned is that they don't care what these billboards say. They don't care what the pictures are. They care that atheists are speaking. They care that we're out, that we're in front, that we have the money to put up a $25,000 billboard in Times Square. They care that we count, that we matter, and that we're demanding to be seen. That's why they're going to take whatever billboard we put up, any billboard we put up, they will complain about it. I could put up a billboard with Bill Donahue's picture on it, and he'd still complain.

It doesn't matter to them. I mean, they'll say it's about the picture, but this is a benign billboard, folks. This is an easy billboard. This isn't hateful. This isn't spiteful. You can't say anything bad about this billboard, except that we call Christianity a myth for the fourth or fifth time. This is not news. This is old stuff. This is easy stuff. They're

complaining because we're talking. And that's why we're not going to worry about whether or not they're going to be offended. Can I ask a question now? I'm just curious. This is something we brought up last week. We're not sure because all media gets created for an audience, right? Like you're creating a media for an audience. What do you want to tell your audience with this? Who are you talking to? Are you talking to a believer? Are you talking to somebody who already agrees with you? I mean, what is the audience here? This is the best question, Cecil, because the primary audience for our billboards, almost all of our billboards, The primary audience is the press. The press loves our billboards. That's interesting. And while they're going to be talking about our

billboards, while they're going to be taking pictures of our billboards and putting it in their papers and on their websites, they are our primary market. Our secondary market are the press's readers who are closeted atheists, who are on the fence. They are atheists by my definition, which is the broadest sense of atheist, includes agnostics and secular humanists and everybody else who, well, is an atheist. The primary audience is the press to get the word out because, you know, we don't make our money. We don't make our impact in Times Square. We made our impact by the CNN article on CNN.com that just went out to a million or two million viewers with the picture of the billboard on it, with the picture and the link and the website. That's my target audience. OK, and what are they talking to? They're talking to the people, the secondary audience, the non-believers who are not involved

with the movement. Right now, the non-believers in this country range somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million people. And the non-believers that are involved in the movement are somewhere around 50,000 people. That's one-tenth of one percent. That's one-tenth of one percent of the atheists who call themselves something that looks like atheists who are doing everything that we're doing. That's one-tenth of one percent. If we made it two-tenths of 1% or three-tenths of 1%, what would Bill Donahue and his partner do? I mean, the amount of growth that we have in front of us is huge. So it only makes sense for us to go for the low-hanging fruit of the closeted or unaffiliated atheist. The tertiary market is the believer, not to convert. I do not think for a second that any billboard that I or anyone else could put up

would convert a believer. But what we will do is raise awareness of atheism in the believers' minds, make them aware that the atheists are out there, make him wonder if we're all bad people, and I'm not going to shy away from this, make them talk about it. Let's make the preachers, the believers talk about it. When we put up, you know it's a myth, that first big billboard in front of the Lincoln Tunnel, the preachers preached about the billboard. Well, who are they preaching to? They're preaching to their choir. Who's sitting in that pulpit? Who's sitting in

those pews on Christmas Day? Closeted atheists. The preachers are telling the closeted atheists in their own congregations about our billboard and about our organization. So it's important that people understand that the billboards that we put up are very strategic. They complain a lot about the font on the billboard. I will go on record here saying that everybody who wants to complain about a font on an American Atheist billboard, you might as well just pray it to me because that's how much attention it takes. It's just pray it to me because that's how much attention. It's so unimportant to me. What is important is the press and the reactions that we're getting from the non-believers and from the believers. I want those preachers talking about our billboards to their congregations on Christmas Day. Keep them married, dump the myth.

How dare they call our myth a myth? I think that's, you know, it's far more insidious than I had initially thought. And so I got to say kudos to you and your marketing strategy because I think that is absolutely the best way to go about this. You're using CNN to broadcast your message. And to be honest, initially, I thought to myself when I saw this and other billboards that you've done, I thought, we're not going to convince anybody. We're not going to convince the other side about atheism if we are confrontational. But I see what you're doing. You don't really care

so much about them. Who you're trying to reach already agree with you, but don't know about you. And that makes a lot more sense when I see this. No personally committed theist is going to change their mind for any billboard. That's not that's that's that's that's an impossibility. We've got ninety nine point nine nine% of our market to tap. Yeah. Tap that. Yeah, no, that's really good.

That changes how I think about it, definitely. That's great to hear. So I'm really pleased with how the billboard is going up, and I'm also pleased at the rumors that I'm hearing about a counter billboard from the Catholic League because that's just wonderful. Let's do it. Let's have it out. All that does, and do not be surprised about this, okay, because the Catholic League will put up a counter billboard because they know, and despite the fact that they know, that it'll give us a huge press bump. OK, they don't care about giving us a press bump.

They care about taking some of that for them. Their capitalist, Bill Donahue, is not stupid. He's incredibly misled and very, very wrong. But he's not a stupid man. He's Machiavellian in his behavior. And I kind of admire that about him. He's not a stupid man. He's Machiavellian in his behavior. And I kind of admire that about him. And he's a businessman.

And I am expecting a counter billboard from the good folks at the Catholic League. That will say something really lame like, you know it's real. Keep the Mary and the myth or something stupid like that. I hope it says keep the myth. I think that would be spectacular to like, yeah, we'll keep our damn myth. Thank you very much. And I would love that. But I mean, it's important that you understand the the breadth of this movement and how this movement works and how the press works. CNN just put up an article online right now as we tape this. The front page of CNN belief blog is a picture of the billboard. And it's a story about the breadth of the atheist movement.

And it talks about American atheists and our billboard and our punch religion in the face style. And then it talks about Greg Epstein over Harvard humanists and how they got together with a bunch of believers and did a food drive. Well, that's great. I have no problem with that. But realize, and I hope everybody does, that CNN would not be writing about Greg Epstein's food drive without David Silverman's billboard. That's very true.

That's very true. And that's the big picture, isn't it? We're not only getting out one message. We're doing exactly the right thing. We're getting out multiple messages. And the messages that we're giving is no matter what kind of atheist you are, there's a place in the movement for you. And that's a very important piece to get past. You know, some people on the other side of the movement, on the more accommodationistic side

of the movement, they trash American atheists a lot. But without us, you're not going to get in the news. You're not going to get the press. You're not going to get the visibility that you will get with us pushing the envelope. Right. No, that makes sense. This is a lot more strategic than I had initially given this credit for. So I actually very much appreciate this, you know, because I was getting pretty nitpicky about this on our last episode, you know, about, you know, the aggressive use of, you know, keep the merry, dump the myth. It felt like an exhortation to do something. And I felt like, you know, it's not our role as atheists to exhort people to action, like do a thing, don't do another thing. Like that's for the, that's for the theists. I'm not here to tell people that they should do or shouldn't do things. That's, but the, the, the fact that this is such a strategic move

on your part in terms of manipulating the press and in turn buying press for other organizations that otherwise aren't just aren't controversial enough to get any attention. That makes a hell of a lot more sense to me now. And yeah, that's, that's, I appreciate that very much. I got to ask a question, Dave. Do you guys ever get refused space on billboards? Do people ever say, get lost? We don't want your money. Oh yes. Oh yes. Many times. In fact, right now we're struggling with the state of Pennsylvania trying to find some billboard space for a campaign against the year of the Bible. And all we're trying to do is put up Bible quotes. Now, they're not Bible quotes. They're the bad Bible quotes.

But we're trying to put them up. And we are having a terrible time. And billboard companies are private entities. And they have the right to refuse any customer they want and and also the larger billboard companies like Lamar and clear channel they kind of have franchise systems set up so the person in Pittsburgh rules Pittsburgh and cannot be overruled by corporate. So it's a matter of pleasing the individual markets. Lamar in New York would let us do whatever we want. Lamar in another city will not let us do anything. We can't, you know, a lot of people said, you know, we put our Muslim

billboard up in Elizabeth, New Jersey instead of Dearborn Michigan well that's because nobody in Michigan would put up our billboard so we put it up in in in in Elizabeth New Jersey and and we attacked Islam that way so yeah they they will refuse us they can refuse us they have refused us and they will refuse us. They can refuse us. They have refused us. And they will continue to do so until we normalize atheism to the point where bigotry against us is so repugnant that it can't be tolerated. So in 5000 years, basically. I am very, very positive about the direction of this country. I am thinking of what I have promised. And my goal is full atheist normalcy in 17 years. Holy cow. I originally said 20 years,

and that was almost three years ago. And I hold myself to it. You have a better chance of walking on water there, Dave. I'm sorry. No, no, no. I think we can do it. I think we can do it. Look what we've done in the past three years. Look how much we've come. Look how many podcasts there are for atheism now as opposed to five years ago. Look how many outed atheists there are in every poll. We've got 30% approximately of the under 30 crowd.

Now in 20 years, that's going to be 30% of the under 50 crowd. Yeah. And that's assuming no growth. So, no, I don't think it's a stretch at all. I think we are going to see atheist normalcy before I retire. And I'm very, very excited about the prospects of this growth. And I'm pretty confident in it. I think we're on the verge and i think

today's generation is going to watch this happen i mean think about what happened between the 19 between 1959 and 1969 okay that's the decade of the 60s yeah how much did the country change during the 60s? It was huge. It was huge. It was 10 years. We can do this. And they didn't have the internet. And they didn't have the money that we have coming in. They didn't have the power. They didn't have the momentum.

They didn't have 30%. But all of a sudden, women have just about equality in this country. Black people have just about equality in this country. Very soon, gay people are going to have just about equality in this country. Black people have just about equality in this country. Very soon, gay people are going to have just about equality in this country. And that's what we're looking for here at American Atheist. We're looking for just about equality, which is the best we can get. You know, there's always a diminishing return. But we're going to have that during our lifetimes. And it's going to be because we have a coordinated movement that works along multiple market segments toward a common goal. And I think it will happen, and I'm pretty confident that it's going to happen during this lifetime.

You know, there's something that you said that just struck me a moment ago. You said a coordinated movement. Now, isn't it one of the problems, though, that kind of plagues? And one of the things that makes it difficult for that 50,000 number to turn into the 50 million number, right, is that that coordination is what's key. And we had Sean Faircloth on this show a while back, about a year and a year and a half ago, maybe. I don't know. And that's something that he spoke at length about is the desire to coordinate the movement. And that that to me seems like the essential component. It is to get those people together. And a lot of people, you know, we had the Reason Rally a few months ago now, six months ago now. And, oh my goodness, nine months ago now.

And, you know, it was the largest rally, it was the largest atheist event in world history by a factor of 10. A big, huge success. And that was in the rain, a big, huge success. And we all had fun and organizations were formed because of that and people's lives were changed because of that. But I think lives were changed because of that.

But I think the biggest victory of the Reason Rally is that it was the first time in American history that all of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and CFI and CSH and and JREF and AAA were all on the same page. AHA were all on the same page. Richard Dawkins were all on the same stage with money, with One Direction. That was the first time we've ever done anything like that at all and it worked great. And one of the things that we learned from the Reason Rally, one of the many things we learned from the Reason Rally, is that not only can we do it, not only can we work together, but that when we do, the result is spectacular. And that's why, yes, the coordination is absolutely essential. It is also the most difficult thing to do because we're all type A personalities.

But the end result is that we have seen the fruits of that kind of labor. We have seen how immensely positive it is when we get. Remember, we had 30,000 people in the ring. The whole movement is 50,000 people. OK, we did that in what with only two years of preparation. But we did that because we worked together, because we put all of our bullshit to the side. And we actually worked toward a common goal with money in hand. And I'll tell you something, behind closed doors,

everybody worked together great. In our board meetings, every member of that board worked great together. Now, the Secular Coalition for America has its own challenges, Now, the Secular Coalition for America has its own challenges, but that's not because of infighting among the groups. That's because the Secular Coalition has its own unique issues. But I think the reason really shows that although we're not a perfectly gelled movement yet by any stretch of the imagination, we are capable of it, and we are capable of kicking ass when we do it. So we're going to have David Silverman from American Atheists on at the end of the show. If you're new to Cognitive Dissonance, we will do an interview with him. But until then, it's just going to be us talking about news.

Because notice, the first thing in America that we start yelling about is gun control. Have you noticed that? Gun control. No one's even thought about the fact that these shootings only happen at places where guns are banned. Have you noticed that? They have never had a mass shooting at a gun show where you can find over a thousand loaded guns at one time. Everybody in there is packing.

The DEA's in there packing. The owners are packing. They've got guns and ammunition everywhere. Not one person has ever been shot at a gun show. Amen. Boy, they just don't think. They're heady. And another thing they're talking about is this security in school. We've got to secure our schools. We've got to secure our schools. Well, guess what, buddy? This school was secured. He shot the window out and he got in secure our schools. We've got to secure our schools. Well, guess what, buddy? This school was secured. He shot the window out and he got in anyhow. Amen.

Security today, when you hear the word secure, it is a heady response where they totally don't think about liberty. Amen. So, Cecil, one thing we do need to talk about, and I think giving it a week is the right way to go. We've had a request to talk about this a couple of times from listeners. There's a couple of stories that are apropos. Obviously, the shooting last week brings us into sharp focus. But Cecil, I think we have some things to say about gun control. Yeah, I think we were asked about it last week, and we've also gotten private emails and messages.

People, I think, who listen to the show, who have listened to the show for a while, know that we're gun owners. Know that we are... We have... I've owned a gun at this point, I want to say, for about five or six years. Tom, you're right around the same time frame.

I know that you've been shooting most of your life. I started shooting later on in my life. But we do shooting sports and we hunt. We've hunted before together and we've also done clay pigeon shooting and that sort of thing. I've done target shooting. Tom, you've done target shooting. We think the guns are fun toys to play with when it comes to the shooting sports and the hunting and things like that.

But I would give my gun away tonight. I would go home, pack it up, and give it to somebody if there were a law that said I could no longer have a gun. I would absolutely 100% be fine with a law that said I could not own a gun. And I don't know if – I think you feel the same way. Absolutely. Uh, and I, I don't know if I, I think you feel the same way that if there was a law that, that, that took all our guns away, uh, you and I would be behind it, but we also are realists and we recognize that that is not a thing that can happen in this country with the amount of weapons that are already out there and the amount of people that are in this country that really do want gun rights.

And when I say gun rights, they want to make sure they keep their guns. You are not going to pass that law through any form of government in this country. I don't think that that's a possibility. So we've got to start talking about things that would actually work. Yeah. You know, there's 300 million privately owned firearms in the United States. 300 million. There's only about 360 million people in the United States, 300 million. There's only about 360 million people

in the United States. That is very nearly, for the kids doing the math at home, a gun for every man, woman, and child walking. There's a gun in every pot. Right. So the idea that you're going to, and we talked about this before the show, I strongly believe that the firearm is at this point indelibly written into the narrative of American culture. It's not going to be erased. There's not going to be a law that a team of legislatures is going to get enough votes for that's going to say no more guns. Turn them all in, guys. And 300 million guns all arrive at their local police stations with happy hands and glad hearts.

It's not going to fucking happen. And I think you're, when we talk about gun control, you have to talk about the current political climate and what's possible, not what is ideal. Talking about, and this is so important to me, talking about what's ideal is an important intellectual exercise. It should be done. But when it gets down to brass tacks, it's not about what's ideal. What's ideal is obvious, at least to me in this case. But we're not going to get rid of those 300 million guns. It's never going to happen. So you've got to look at, okay, what can we do? What can we realistically accomplish with legislation to accomplish the goal of reducing gun violence, right? Nobody cares that, or very few people care, that you and I go shoot a bunch of clay pigeons. You know, I don't think

anybody's going to bitch about that. Nobody really cares that, you know, for eight days out of the year, a bunch of hunters in Illinois go shoot a deer or go shoot some pheasants and what have you. That is not controversial or is much less controversial. The problem is gun violence. And that's what the legislation that revolves around gun control has to address. has to address. What can we do realistically, not to curb the existence of guns, it's not going to happen, but to acknowledge the existence of the privately owned firearms in the United States and reduce the gun violence that those firearms are involved in? And I think you and I both have some ideas about how that can be accomplished. Yeah. The first thing I would say is that I would

love to see a way in which we could register firearms. I don't understand the outcry when people say, oh, we shouldn't be having this sort of registry. But I think a comprehensive registry of some sort that tells you where guns are and who they belong to is a very important thing because then you can track back liability. you can track back liability. If you don't have that, because we have a sort of willy-nilly system here in Illinois, you're required to wait a certain period of time, like 24 hours or 48 hours. I think it's 48. And you have to sign a form that says you're not batshit crazy. And then you can get a gun. Well, I could sell my gun to Tom. Tom could sell his gun to Joe. Joe could sell his gun to Bill. And Bill could sell his gun to Frank. And the government has no idea, people who I think should pay attention to where these

guns are and should have some sort of idea of who has guns, that gun could be completely out of our hands, out of my hands, and into somebody else's hands six or seven people away from me. And there's no checks, no balances on a person. I mean, that person could be completely unstable and could buy a gun from a private owner. So we need some sort of checks there. And I don't know what, I'm not a legislator, so I don't know the best way to approach that, but we've got to have something that allows us to register our guns. And if you're on the other side saying, oh, well, the criminals don't have

to register their guns. well, who fucking cares? Because you're still going to have a gun after it's all over if you're a lawful citizen. If you're somebody who is actually allowed to have a gun, you're just going to have to register it, and I would make people wait longer. The other thing I would choose to do is make people wait a month to get a gun. What's the big deal? The cooling off period is proven to work in Canada. I mean, you know, they have a 28-day waiting period, and you have to get two letters of recommendation to get a gun. I don't see that as a problem at all. I think that's a great idea.

You know, I certainly wouldn't choose to write a letter of recommendation for some whack job friend of mine, and nobody else would. So they'd never have an opportunity to get the firearm. Yes, you can buy firearms illegally, but I think you also have to really seriously punish people with gun law when they're breaking gun laws, these laws, these brand new laws they could put in a place. One thing that I think is an important step in that direction would be to make gun owners liable for what their guns do. So we spoke. I have two things that shouldn't mix, right? I've got guns in my house and I've got a kid. But my guns are disassembled in a safe with a trigger lock on them. So I am confident, 100% confident,

that those guns aren't going to be used by my kid accidentally. They're not going to get found. It's, you know, I'm comfortable in the measures that I've taken. And these are not, you did not fucking climb the Himalayas to do these things. You basically bought a gun safe and a trigger. I mean, you didn't do a lot. No, and it was a mild investment. You know, we're not talking

about thousands of dollars to secure these things. You know, you're talking about a metal gun locker. If you don't need to get something that's humidity controlled and waterproof, a metal gun locker, which is going to keep, you know, prying eyes and curious hands out. A couple hundred bucks. It's not terribly expensive. It's less than the gun. Right. And that's the point, right? You're going to spend money on the fucking gun, but you don't want to spend the money on making sure that it's going to be safe and inaccessible for those who would do harm with it.

it. And I already hear, you know, well, what about the gun in my nightstand that I need because I'm terrified that strangers are going to break into my house and, you know, rape my wife and kids and steal everything and kill me and burn the house down. If you feel like a gun is necessary for your self-defense, I'm not saying you shouldn't have it. But I am saying that once you take that firearm into your home, once that becomes your responsibility, what happens to it? And there's safes that are, I'm going to use the right, it's like they're biologically controlled. You can put your hand on it. Biometric? Is that what they call it? Biometric? Biometric. Thank you very much. That will spring open for me, but not for you,

that they're safe and they're reasonable and they're expensive, but sorry, you know, nobody said it's, you have a right to own it. You don't have a right to own it cheap. You don't give it to you for free. I don't see why I can't be held liable and I'm willing to do this. Or if I'm not willing to, I just won't get the fucking gun. So I'm willing to be held liable for the violence that the guns that I own do. And if that—I'll take the necessary measures to make sure those things aren't used in the commission of a crime. And if I'm not willing to do that, I don't know that I'm willing to accept the responsibility of owning the weapon. I really hope in the future, in the near future, that gun laws get passed. I hate that we have to use recent tragedies as springboards for this because everybody who's bitching about what happened at that school,

nothing has been done since the Aurora shooting. The Aurora shooting was horrifying. And then there was the Sikh shooting, the Sikh temple that got shot up. And then a couple years ago, there was the Virginia Tech guy. And then the guy went on a rampage at NIU in Northern Illinois University. So these, you know, these things happen and they happen all the time. We can start to prevent them by putting certain

measures in place. So we've got to, I think, tackle this and move forward with it and stop gawking at the bodies and start actually getting shit done. I would love to see some sort of real gun reform in this country. I don't know if it's going to happen, but I would love to see it. Yeah. And you and I have both talked about the impracticality of banning certain types of weapons. I want to kind of go on the record as Oh, yeah. enemy hit, you're shooting at a distance. When you break into a classroom full of five-year-olds, it doesn't make much difference whether you've got a nine-millimeter pistol or a.223 Bushmaster. You don't need the range at that point. You have a deadly weapon in your hands. So it's not the type of weapon that's the problem. It's that these weapons are not properly secured. They're not properly registered. The ownership of the weapons is not tracked.

The people who own the weapons aren't held liable for the violence that their weapons do. So they don't feel it necessary oftentimes to secure their weapons properly, to secure ammunition properly. And then these things get stolen. They get borrowed by kids. They get whatever. And most gun crime occurs with legal guns. It's a fallacy. It's a myth that most crimes occur with illegally obtained weapons.

That's just not true. Most gun crime guns have been legally obtained. So it's not the gun itself that's the problem. It's not that criminals have this vast supply of stolen weapons hidden under their floorboards. It's that the weapons that do exist aren't being properly stored and kept away from hands that would use them for ill. It is altogether right to discriminate against homosexual behavior. I'm arguing that it's time that we as conservatives that we rehabilitate the word discriminate that we reclaim it that we dust it off and that we use it and that we use it unapologetically and i believe we need to begin to say look it is altogether

right for a rational culture to discriminate against homosexual behavior. Cecil, this story is from the Daily Mail. I know, the Daily Mail. World's first gay Bible, special Queen James edition, changes the translation of key same-sex passages. This Bible is fabulous. It is. It's brightly colored and adorned on the cover there with the rainbow cross. You know, the best joke, the Queen James Bible has already been taken. You know, like that's the best joke you could make about this. I think it's hilarious. I also like that the person who, one of the people who wants this Bible,

actually put together a billboard that has Jesus in the manger with a rainbow halo. And it says, it's Christmas. Time for Jesus to come out. I love that shit. I like it, too. I think this is a clever way to subvert some of that homophobic bullshit that people walk around slamming Bibles in the faces of homosexuals get to tout. It's like, well, fine.

It's kind of like certain words. It's like, fine, we'll just take it back. We'll just co-opt this shit. You want to run around and use this to beat me up? No big, man. I'll just take the same thing, put some fucking carnival beads on it, and walk around with it myself. And the clever thing is that they actually went through and looked at the translation and found that some of the translation might not be accurate.

And so they went through and said, okay, well, the translation for this word may not be what you think it is. And so it might change the whole aspect of what we think about when we think about, is the Bible against homosexuality. Well, that depends on the translation that you put into it. And I think that that, that is obvious because it's a fucking man-made document, you know, and it's a man-made translated document. So the very fact that, that people can look at this, this book and think it's divinely

inspired and you're like, okay, well then you I guess you're saying that everybody who's had a hand in making this was divinely inspired too. And I guess you could explain anything away with magic, but at least if you come at them and say, no, in these texts, in these ways, this word is translated in this way, and it's different than how you say it, then you can at least have a little bit more proof that says, look, maybe your God doesn't hate gays at all. Maybe your God likes gays.

Maybe even your God is gay is one of the things they're suggesting too, is that Jesus may have been homosexual. And really, in the end, it doesn't make any difference. Whether he existed or didn't exist, or whether he was homosexual or heterosexual, who fucking cares? Nobody cares. What the actual fuck?

What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck? Conservapedia. Come on, man. What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck? Actual fuck. What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck? Actual fuck. What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck, Conservopedia? American Atheists is an American atheist group founded in 1963 by Madeline Murray O'Hare.

David Silverman currently serves as the president of the American Atheists Organization. Members of the group have been noted for performing poorly in debates against Christians. Though officially supporting the civil liberties of atheists and the total absolute separation of government and religion, material found on their website suggests that they are hostile to religion and may be more anti-religion than pro-atheist. American atheists and their challenges in terms of overweight leadership personnel. Madeline Murray O'Hare, the founder of the American Atheists Organization, was overweight.

One of the last pictures taken of Madeline Murray O'Hare features O'Hare standing before a cake, as can be seen here. As of December 28, 2010, the pictures of some of the members of their board of directors showed members who were facing challenges in terms of their body weight. Members of the American Atheists Board of Directors who are overweight as of December 28, 2010 include Richard Andrews, Monty Gaither, Blair Scott, and Ann Zindler. Embarrassing incident concerning the website of the American Atheists. A Question Evolution campaign blog declares, The popular Christian YouTube video creator Shock of God just released a hilarious video entitled, Proof Atheism and Evolution are Stupid. On

the video, he first did a Google search at Google USA for the word atheism. The number one search result for atheism was for the website of the American Atheist Organization and they misspelled the words separation and church on the main page title tag for their website. The title of their website reads, Supporting Civil Rights for Atheists and the Separation of Kirch and... Did the American Atheist Organization's webmaster go to one of the many evolution-indoctrinating public schools with a high dropout rate? It appears so. Is it any wonder that the American Atheist Organization has been silent concerning the 15 questions for evolutionists of the Question Evolution campaign?

Besides being poor spellers, the American Atheists Organization staff is probably poor when it comes to science as well. This story is from rightwingwatch.org. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice-elect Roy Moore, who we've talked about previously on this show, says evolution and gay marriage are incompatible with the Constitution. Ah, yes, the Constitution, where they said about evolution, and I quote, Nothing at all.

I love this part where he says, Moore has argued that same-sex marriage leads to divine punishment and will destroy the country. I think this is, you know, we were talking about David Silverman in the ad campaign a little earlier and how it's pretty ingenious. I think this is a clever way to package this. Instead of basically saying

I'm a bigot or I'm secretly gay or I'm very uncomfortable around homosexuals, they get to make it about destruction of the country. They get to not only make it about the homosexuals, but they get to make it about the downfall of this country. And not just the downfall, the moral downfall,

but the literal destruction because they're the only ones who know the mind of their God. So they're the ones who get to dictate what that God wants. It's so easy to see. It's like, you know, somebody is basically saying, I know the mind of God.

You don't know the mind of God. Do what I fucking tell you to do. Well, you know, some people don't want to do what you tell them to do, Roy Moore. Some people would like to express love for another person of the same sex. Who the fuck are you, dude? Shut up and take your bigoted shitty God with you. And I love too how this kind of patently assumes that God is an American, right? It says, like, well, you know, if we legalize, you know, if gay marriage becomes acceptable in our society, God's going to punish America. Well, he hasn't punished any of the other societies.

Like, there are many societies at this point that have legalized gay marriage, and they've not been divinely punished. So God must reserve some special love or hate or judgment for America. Like God, this is that American, uh, Christian exceptionalism bullshit that's, that's written into the subtext of this nonsense. That if, if, if God is going to bless the nation, he'll also curse this nation. And it's right there. And you look at that and you think, but fucking Canada's doing fine.

Like, it's okay. It's going to be fine. You know, and if God is really against it, here's a challenge to you, God. Take a state, pick a state, I don't care, whatever state legalizes gay marriage, and just sink the state in the exact fucking shape of that state into the earth. Just sink it into the fucking into the depths of fucking the magma underneath. Just be like, well, that state chose gay marriage. They're being divinely punished. I will trust in your divine punishment from that point on.

If a perfect state shape drops right into the center of the earth, you have a new devotee, man. I'm your fucking guy. I will get the biggest goddamn sign I could find and just carry it around with me for the rest of my life. I'll actually get the Mitt Romney tattoo on my face. That's how devoted I'll be. That's so devoted. Yeah, I like to hear he says, you know, when they do that, they are attempting to destroy the foundation of which this country was built. And he's talking about gay marriage.

And what you want to say is what, on the foundation of equality? Right. No, actually what it was founded on when it was first founded was that there was a few people that were more equal than others. You're right. They are trying to destroy the foundation of this country because when this country was first founded, white males had way more power than anybody else. And now they don't. And you know what? That's okay. Well, and that's part of the pushback too. You know, it's this, it's just like, man, they keep eroding the, the power structure of the landowning rich white male. And as a landowning rich white male, I disagree with that.

Yeah, no kidding, right? That's the only person who would. Shut the fuck up, Roy Moore. God. Who listens to this man? I don't know. But he's like fucking in Bama. You know what I mean? He's down in Bama.

I know. And this is a guy. I mean, I's down in Bama. I know. And this is a guy, I mean, I would be fucking mortified if I lived down there and this guy even thought to speak for me. So we're going to take a break

and give you all the information that you need to find us on Facebook, to send us email, voicemail, to find us on Twitter and Google Plus and we'll return

in just a moment for the rest of the show and for the interview with David Silverman from American Atheists. Want to contact Cognitive Dissonance? Visit them on Facebook. You can find the link at the website dissonancepod.com or type it in the Facebook search bar.

Be sure to follow the guys on Twitter. Their handle is at dissonance underscore pod. The guys also post to Google Plus now too, so check them out there. And if you'd like to email them, you can do so at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. You can also leave a comment on the blog at their webpage or give them a call at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. And to everyone who listens, shares, retweets, or rates the show, Cognitive Dissonance would like to cordially thank you for all of your fucking support. See, so this story is from doubtfulnews.com. False hope that she survived.

Jenny Rivera's family swayed by psychic. This is a fucking sad story, man. So basically this is a story. This woman's plane crashed and she fucking died. She died because the fucking plane crashed. And this psychic told him that she was alive, gave him this fucking bullshit story about where she was and why the rescuers couldn't see her. None of it true, Cecil. Yeah, because the psychic is fucking bullshitting them.

And the thing is, part of me wonders, because there's some of these people that are like the, I don't even want to call them this, but like the fucking good Samaritan psychic who's not actually getting any money off of it are just calling people up. And when they're in this time of distress and being like, oh, don't worry, they're alive. What, what is, what do you have to gain out of this?

Now I can see if you're fucking, if they're paying you a money, you have something to gain out of it. But I guess the only other thing that they're looking to gain out of it is publicity. If they're right. Yeah. Notoriety. Like, I mean, is that it is because that's a fucking, the shittiest gamble in the history of PR. Well, you know, here's the thing. It's a no-lose situation for the psychic. Everybody's going to forget who the psychic was.

The psychic's name is not going to, you know, if they're wrong, they'll be forgotten. It's a counting the hits, right? If she was right, let's say the psychic was correct and this woman was found. So let's say Rivera was found and she was alive and the psychic was proven right. Now, there's a slim chance that that's going to be the case. But if it happened, this psychic gains everything. If it doesn't happen, she loses virtually nothing. It's a moment of bad press and a story that will be forgotten. This psychic gains everything. If it doesn't happen, she loses virtually nothing. It's a moment of bad press and a story that will be forgotten.

Oh, the psychic was wrong. And everybody naturally shrugs that off. Oh, the psychic was wrong. Well, because everybody kind of knows. Like, well, psychics are wrong. You know what I mean? Because whether you think they're bullshit or not bullshit, and they are bullshit, but whether you think that or not, you accept, like, well, man, they're not always right. They're not always—so you forget about that.

Yeah. So there's really—like, there's nothing to lose. It's an all-win situation for the psychic. But it is a—this is a terrible victimization of a grieving family. This 11-year-old kid tweeted, my mama is alive. I lost hope, but I got it back. She's not dead. Way to go. This kid gets to mourn twice.

Yeah, that's awful. And the psychic's name, it's a guy, pardon us, it's a guy by the name of Gilbert Salas. That's the person who's the psychic. So in the future, you will know the person chose to report and said this on their Facebook page. Yes, it is correct that Jenny Rivers is alive. I believe that Jenny and her makeup artist survived. They are located 12 miles west of where they believe the wreckage occurred.

It is located behind the mountain on a thunder belly. Thunder belly? I've got a thunder belly. On the thunder belly side near the canyon. It is not visible from the aerial view because it is a covered area. She is near a stream and she is able to hear the search teams fly

overhead. That's how close they are to her. And then at the bottom there's an update that says, and here it is, remains have been found. As the commentator remarked, if there is a hell, there is a special place, a special place, a special circle for psychics who pull this crap. Yeah, I think that, you know,

this person basically came out and said, you know, like, I mean, it's just a fucking made-up shitty story. I mean, there's a possibility, though, too, I think, that somebody like this believes what they're saying. They believe themselves to be, you know, a psychic. And so they have this little vision, which is like a fucking, I don't know, waking dream

or something. And then they tell people that. But I think, you know, I mean, this is not a it's not a victimless scam. There's victims. There's real victims to this. There's real damage that is done. There's real mourning There's real victims to this. There's real damage that is done.

There's real mourning that this kid had to go through, not just once, but twice. There's real damage that this person has inflicted on other people. And that's why when people are like, oh man, who are the psychics hurting? Well, they're hurting this person. Here's an example, a clear example of why this shit shouldn't go on. So we're back with David Silverman from American Atheist. There's a big lawsuit that got announced today, David. Could you tell us about it? Well, this lawsuit is something that we've been thinking about and working on for some time.

A lot of people have been talking about how the IRS treats churches differently from other 501c3 groups. And we are attacking the discrimination in the IRS tax code that is based on religious discrimination. Right now, the IRS has multiple different kinds of 501c3s. And every 501c3 has to go through a process to become nonprofit. And every 501c3 has to pay uh fees and every 501c3 has to uh declare its income every year declare how they spend their money every year declare their major donors every year every 501c3 has to do that unless they're churches churches do not have to go through an extensive process they do not have to pay fees and most importantly they do not have to file yearly i-990s like everybody else to declare how much money they make or how they spend their money they do not have to justify how they are uh why they are non-profit like every other nonprofit does.

This is discrimination. This breaks equal protection. This breaks due process. And, of course, it breaks the First Amendment because it's discrimination based on religion. It also breaks the Article 6 of the United States Constitution, which is the no religious test clause. A lot of people think that the no religious test clause talks about humans who want to become politicians, and that's true. The actual phrase is

you can't have a religious test for any public office or public trust. Now, a 501c3 nonprofit organization is a corporation whose stock, what actually makes it a 501c3 is that the United States government owns all the stock. Now, that makes it a public trust. And if it makes it a public trust, that means that the United States is employing religious discrimination on different public trusts, specifically breaking Article 6. So we have a multi-pronged approach demanding fair treatment from the government. We are not going out and saying, oh, you have to do it one way or the other. But we are saying that if you are going to treat American atheists one way, you have to treat churches the exact same way. And that suit has been filed in the Kentucky court. We are very, very confident about it.

Something that you should all know about American atheists is that we file cases to win. We do not file cases for publicity. We do not file cases that we don't think have an excellent chance of winning. I invite everybody to go onto the American Atheist site and read this case. It is extremely well written. They are clearly breaking the first, fifth, fourteenth amendments and Article VI of the Constitution, and we can show damages because American atheists has to hire people to, has to hire accountants every year. We have to file those forms. We have to pay our accountants. It takes about 200 hours a year to put together these forms, but churches don't have

to. And that's discrimination, and that's illegal, And that's what we're suing for. Wow, that's fascinating. You know, good luck. I hope it works out. Is there, now, I don't know, this might be a naive question, but is there a way that normal, like people who are atheists who want to help out with this, is there like a legal fund kick in or something like that that we can do to help you out? Actually, there's not only a legal fund kick in. that we can do to help you out? Actually, there's not only a legal fund kick in,

there's actually a legal fund match because one of our donors saw the early form of this lawsuit and put in $100,000 as a match for anybody who wants to donate to this specific lawsuit. You can do that on the atheist.org website and all of your donations to this lawsuit will be doubled. Wow, that's awesome.

That's a deal. That is great. We're really happy about that, and I'm really grateful to you guys for letting me talk about this. This is, you know, American Atheist was started by Madeline Murray O'Hare, who went to the Supreme Court and took prayer out of public schools, took forced prayer out of public schools. And this is the kind of suit that we file. This, the World Trade Center suit, this is the kind of stuff that we file, the stuff that will change our lives or protect our lives. And government-sponsored bigotry is just not American. And we're not standing for it anymore. We're going to fight it.

So we have a couple of questions from listeners I want to ask you. Ryan asks, do you think that the Fox News audience is reachable? If so, why? If not, why appear on a show like, say, O'Reilly or one of the other shows that you appear on? Okay, 90% of the Fox audience is not reachable. Okay. They're not. But when I go on Stuart Varney or when I go on O'Reilly and they treat me badly, I went

on O'Reilly recently and I'm not exaggerating here. Six Christians called me. They went way out of their way to call me and say, you know what? I don't agree with you, but I don't think you're a fascist. Or a pinhead. Or a pinhead. It turns out he called you a pinhead, too. He called you a pinhead by not calling you a pinhead. That was my favorite part. What I love about going on Fox News is not the reason that I go on Fox News. What I love about going on Fox News is that I am given the opportunity to make them look bad.

Stuart Varney, if you look at the recent Stuart Varney video, if you look at the recent O'Reilly video, they look bad when they treat me poorly. And I look great, and that's fine and then the video goes viral so people on our side can see how bad their side is because our side doesn't watch enough fox news in my opinion our side kind of escapes from fox news they don't want to watch that crap but if they don't watch that crap they don't see how bad that crap. But if they don't watch that crap, they don't see how bad that crap is. So it's important for our side to see it. So if my appearances incent our side to watch them abuse me, that's great. That motivates us. The other reason I go on Fox News is because CNN watches Fox News.

MSNBC watches Fox News is because CNN watches Fox News. MSNBC watches Fox News. CNBC watches Fox News. They look, they see me, and then they call me. And that's why I go on Fox News. I go on Stuart Varney and I get a call from CNN the next day. They want to do an article on me. I just did my first interview today with Time magazine. And there's another one behind it.

Because of my appearance, because of my appearance specifically on O'Reilly, the reporter saw it. So it's publicity for me. It's awareness raising for us. Yes, it's a little bit of convincing in their audience. Some of them might get heard. A lot of them will see the bad side of their side. And that's a good thing too. That's interesting.

Yeah. It actually works out pretty well. You know, there are some shows I'm not going to do anymore. Laura Ingram. I really don't like her anymore. And I'm not going to do any more. Mike Huckabee because of what he said about the school.

Good for you. I'm not going to him anymore more Mike Huckabee because of what he said about the school shooting. Good for you. That's ridiculous. Good for you. I'm not going to do him anymore. I did want to ask, too, because we have been – like sometimes – you have a fucking hard job. I will say that flat out because having to sit with O'Reilly and have a conversation with that man and not just – I mean not just want to slap some sense into him because he's talking about how Christianity is a philosophy and not a religion. I mean, he's just going off the deep end basically. But there's been a couple times, and again, I'll be up front with you.

We've been critical of you in the past. Specifically, there was a bit that you did or a show that you did where someone was asking you questions about the hurricane preparedness. And this was a while back. Somebody had said, questions about the hurricane preparedness. And this was a while back. Somebody had said, you know, hurricane preparedness. And there was a moment there where it felt like you wanted to talk to them about how they're like, you wanted to argue with them about how their God should act if their God were to exist. And it felt a lot like you were kind of rolling around in the mud with them, where I felt like you might've wanted to stay above that conversation. You sort of brought it

into, uh, I don't know, it, it felt a little too, uh, it felt like you were playing on their court, so to speak. Do you feel like sometimes you get drawn into, into arguments that you might not want to be in? Well, sometimes I know what show you're talking about. It was, that was also a Stuart Barney show. They, uh, they kind of, uh, ambushed me for that show. They came, they, they, they brought me in. I was supposed to talk about parsonage taxes. Uh, that's what I prepared for. I prepared to talk about tax rebates. Then in the limo on the way to Fox News, they called me on my cell phone and said, no, we're going to talk about the hurricane. All right. We're going to talk about the hurricane.

I'm not a meteorologist, but OK. We're going to talk about what atheists do in the hurricane. OK. It's kind of weak. It's kind of lame. Then I sat down with Stuart Varney. This is Fox business. And so Stuart Varney is I was like, this is Fox business. So Stuart Varney, it's my first

appearance on his show, he says, now listen, we're not going to have, this is not Fox News, we're going to have a civil discussion here. And I was like, alright, good. We'll have a civil discussion. And then we went live and they ambushed me, all three of them. And this woman on my right,

she oozed ignorance. She just oozed. I don't know who she was, but, I mean, it was like she had the word duh written on her forehead. She oozed ignorance. And she was talking to me like she was some sort of intelligent person. And it really, really pissed me off. to me, like she was some sort of intelligent person. And it really, really pissed me off.

And yeah, I really kind of got into it. And then she started screaming. And, well, she started screaming, guys. And I absolutely loved it. And I remember that moment very specifically where I chose to pull Epicurus on her because she was screaming because I knew it would make her scream more. And there was a time when she was screaming and I was silent. And it may have been short on camera, but in my mind on camera, it was a long time where I sat silent and let her screech at me. I just loved it. So the answer to your question is, yeah, sometimes I get drawn into something that I really shouldn't get drawn into.

But sometimes I am thinking about, you know, how does this look? And specifically with that argument, I was certainly thinking about how this screeching woman looked screeching at me about, well, why would God stop it if he made it? And I was, I absolutely love that. So, I absolutely love that. So, you know, I tweeted after that, screech on you, screechy diamond. That's the kind of stuff that makes us look good. Yeah. Right now.

Yeah, I could have I could have taken a little bit of a higher road there, but not much. I wanted to keep them engaged. That's a good way to go about it. I do have a follow up question to that specific one about Fox News. Of all the appearances you've had on Fox News, the one that stands out to me, of course, is the O'Reilly look after he went on with the Tides. You became a meme after that, the look, that look. But is that your favorite appearance, you think?

Or what's been your favorite appearance that you've had on Fox News, one of those moments where you walk away sort of dusted off your collar thinking I had those suckers all day. That would be my most recent appearance on on O'Reilly. Oh, yeah. The when when he stuck his finger in my face and said, don't you tell me what I'm thinking. And I took my stuck my face in his finger and I said, oh, yeah, I'm challenging you on it. I'm telling you, you're not telling me the truth. I thought that was a great appearance. And I'll tell you something, after the show went dark and after it was all over, O'Reilly, and I've said this before, O'Reilly is a performer, okay?

He is playing a part, off camera is different from on camera with Bill O'Reilly. So the camera goes off, and he looks at me and smiles, and I smiled at him, and we knew that we had made ourselves some good television that day. And I was very, very pleased with that performance. I was very pleased with him on that performance. He let me speak. He made a fool out of himself by calling Christianity a philosophy. I was all set with that performance. That was my happy place.

I got another question here from a listener. This is sort of changing. This is shifting gears a little. A listener asks, what big – this is Richard. Richard asks, what big atheist skeptical conferences are coming up? Richard asks, what big atheist skeptical conferences are coming up? Well, the biggest one is the American Atheist National Convention, and that's coming up at the end of March. And this is going to be our 50th anniversary convention, which means we're planning on making it the largest convention that we've ever had. The last convention that we had was in Washington, D.C., and it was the largest atheist event of the year. We actually beat TAM last year. And this year we intend to do it again. I will say that it looks like we're going to sell out our hotel and we're going to have to go to a second hotel. But this is going to be a fantastic convention. We have AC Grayling is coming. He rarely comes to anything in America. But we also have Congressman Pete Stark is coming. And we have JJ French, the lead guitarist of

Twisted Sister. And he's coming. And check it out. He is the sober, non-drug-using atheist member of Twisted Sister. So he's got a really interesting story to tell. He's the band leader that doesn't have sex with every groupie. He doesn't do drugs. He doesn't fall down drunk. He brought in Dee Snider. He started it. He's the captain of the ship.

He's the reason Twisted Sister was a success. And he's a hardcore atheist. And he came to us to speak. We didn't go to him. He came to us because he wants to speak to the atheists. And it's going to be a fantastic convention. That's going to be in Austin, Texas. And you know what?

I want to mention this because this is an important question. It's an important thing. Why a convention is important is an important topic. When I first started coming to these going to, you know, any sort of involvement in this movement, I went to these conventions and I skipped the talks. I didn't care about the talks. Sometimes I went to these conventions and I skipped the talks. I didn't care about the talks. Sometimes I went, but a lot of talks I skipped because the real reason that I went to these conventions was for the socialization. It was for the fun.

It was for the experience of walking into a room with 200 other atheists. Well, now we're going to have between 13 and 1500 atheists at this convention, and it's going to be fun. We're going to have a live band performance from Quiet Company. We're going to have a bar crawl. We're going to have affinity parties. We're going to have a costume dinner where you can come as your favorite. The rules for the costume dinner are come as your favorite God, biblical character, or whatever. Oh, no.

You are going to have, I just want to, I'm going to call it now. You're going to have a Brazilian Mohammed. Oh, we love Mohammed. Mohammed's come aplenty. We have flying spaghetti monsters walking all over the place. It's going to be our third annual. So the point that I want to make is that some conventions are more fun than others. And as president of American Atheists, I want to make sure that everybody knows that I think the most important part of a convention is the fun.

People come for the fun. And when you leave, you're going to is the fun. People come for the fun, and when you leave, you're going to remember the fun. Yes, you will remember hearing J.J. French. You will remember Pete Stark. You will remember A.C. Grayling, and you will remember Cara Santa Maria, who will come and talk about some new discoveries in neuroscience. You will remember some of the great speakers that we had coming, like Christina Rod and Hemant Mehta and Catherine Stewart. But you will also definitely, definitely remember the fun at an American Atheist Convention. So with no bias at all, I can say that you should come to the American Atheist Convention because it is going to be the convention of the year.

Easter weekend. We always have it on Easter weekend. Because what is a, you know, atheist, what are we going to do? What else are we going to do? The hotels are cheap. The flights are cheap. And we've got nothing else to do. And we get to have a party in the hotel on Easter Sunday when all the Christians come in their little coats to go to the fancy hotel dining room.

They see all the atheist stuff all around. But that's kind of – that's not really it. But it's going to be a really fantastic time. Oh, I got to tell you about the Bat Bridge. There's this bridge right next to the hotel. And it houses over a million bats underneath the bridge. Cool. Okay?

And every night at sundown, all the bats leave at the same time in this huge cloud of bat leaving the underside of this bridge. And we're going to be able to watch this happen every night. It's just going to be a fantastic event. And I will tell you that it is selling out. It is going to sell out and it is selling out quickly. We are about to sell out of the hotel. We are about to go to a second hotel. So if you want to go in on this, you want to get in on this,

it's at atheists.org and you can register online. And that is going to be the convention of the year. So I do have a question. So it's related to the bats, actually. So every night the bats go in, the bats go out. Never a misunderstanding. You can't explain it. Never a misunderstanding? You can't explain it. You can't explain it. They go up, they go down, they go up, they go down. Oh, man.

It's never a miscommunication. Never. Absolutely never. That is impressive. Doesn't it deny your entire movement, Dave? I mean, don't you feel like you see the bats go out and you're like, man, if they come back in, you've got to seriously re-invite them. There it goes. There goes everything.

We're going straight to church right afterward. Take the A off of everything, boys. It's now the Theist Convention. That's it. So that's going to be a great time. I hope everybody comes. It's my intention to make it the most fun event

of the year. All right. Well, David, if we wanted to find American Atheists on the web, if we wanted to find you on the web, where would we look? Well, you would find me, the website is atheists.org. It's a nice memorable domain, atheists.org. And I have my Twitter handle, courtesy of Stephen Colbert. It's at MrAtheistPants.

That's a moniker. I was looking for a new Twitter handle, and Colbert came out on his show and said, Hey, MrAtheistPants, you look too much like the devil. And I was like, I'm keeping that. When a king of comedy comes up with your Twitter handle, you don't just fucking throw that thing away. You keep that. Oh, that's mine.

It's mine. Awesome. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us today, David, and thanks for explaining all of the tactics that you use. It really changed my mind. Tom is – you're not going to change Tom's mind, but you changed my mind. So thank you very much. Hey, thanks for having me on. Thanks for letting me air this out. You know, we all have

to communicate more. We are in one movement. We might have different motives. We might have different methods, but our motives are the same and our intentions are the same. And guess what? We are going to win this, folks. We are going to win. So thanks for having me on and enjoy the ride. So we got several voicemails, Tom. We got five voicemails. I'm going to play them all in a row. Thank you, everyone who called and left us nice, brief, excellent voicemails. I want to thank the listener in California, Jeff from California, Max,

the listener in Albany, New York, and Brian from East Texas. Here are their voicemails. Hey, guys, listener in California here. Hey, I'm a gun owner, and, you know, I'm pro-gun, generally speaking. This recent shooting at this elementary school has really made me question,

really, really, who needs assault rifles with 30 rounds? Do I really have a right to an AR-15 with a bunch of magazines and a drum? Isn't that for soldiers? Do I have the right to keep that stuff or just the handguns?

I don't know. Australia did something. Maybe you guys can kick this around a little bit on the show. Thanks. Bye. Hey, guys. This is Jeff from California. I just listened to Tom's little opening column about the shooting and I just was so excited to finally hear somebody else express the way I feel. I really liked the way you compared it to pornography because that's what

all this news feels like and all this shit on Facebook. It's just like this tragedy porn and people really get off on it. But nothing, nothing meaningful ever comes from any of it. It just,

people just like to feel sad and feel tragic and it's like they sell it on TV, you know? It's crazy. And I think that's kind of the way you felt when you wrote that. So thanks for sharing, and keep up the good work, guys. All right, bye.

Hey, guys, this is Max. I've been listening for a long time, but I've never really called in or anything. I just wanted to address something that you talked about this week with the American Atheist billboard. I know you guys are out in Chicago, and you say it's a pretty liberal area, so I don't know what the billboard situation is out like there, or is like out there, but out here, there are tons of super aggressive, super confrontational religious billboards, all of them bordering on threatening.

religious billboards, all of them bordering on threatening. I've seen some that say, you know, basically there's, in fewer words, or in nicer words rather, there's two types of people in the world, Christians and morons. And I feel like the tone of the billboard is perhaps appropriate, given that context. So, while as a representative of the movement of the large, you wouldn't want to get your point across in an aggressive billboard, it does kind of of the movement of the large, you wouldn't want to get your point across in an aggressive billboard. It does kind of match the tone of the messages that are being sent back, because these people may not necessarily know how it feels to be driving down the highway and see a billboard that's borderline threatening. It's not aggressive.

Anyway, I just wanted to get that out there. I figured you'd thought of it, but wanted to just lean towards the downside of it, which I guess is okay. But I wanted to get that out there. Thanks. Love the show, guys. Bye. Hey, guys. Love the show, and I'm just calling in the middle of the night just to tell you, Cecil, thank you so much

for editing the show post-production, because there's like a thousand and one opinion radio shows or atheist shows that have nothing but coughing and just dead air. Oh, my God, no. Seriously, half the atheist shows on the net sound like they're recording through a 1950s radio. Just Cecil, thanks.

And, Tom, thanks for the color commentary. Love the show, guys. Thanks. Hey, Cecil and Tom. This is Brian from East Texas. I'm like the only atheist anywhere near here. And I'm out. It's frightening. Anyway, I just want to call on you to know that I can't go a week without listening to your show. It's awesome. You guys are awesome. Yeah, that's it. See you.

The one I wanted to specifically address is Max. Max mentioned that there's some really hostile billboards where he's from, and he's very happy that the American atheists are doing it. Before we found out what the American atheists were really all about, we kind of didn't really know what they were doing because we're marketing douchebags. We have no idea what the American atheists were really all about. We kind of didn't really know what they were doing because we're marketing douchebags. We have no idea what the fuck. But he came out and explained it, and he converted us.

I mean, he clearly has a plan, and it makes a lot of sense once we heard it. So, yeah, we agree with you now. I mean, before, we were certainly against a little bit about what he was doing. But now that we've heard him say what his plan is, I mean, I can't come forward and say that I disagree with their strategy. Yeah, I think I attempted to sort of put the billboard under a microscope and was far too myopic in my criticism now. Now knowing what he's aiming at, fucking bravo, dude.

It's awesome. So, Tom, we got an email from Russell, and I'm just going to read the title of the email. You're going to read the email. The title is The Bible Turtles, A Story. Yeah, I'm going to read an excerpt from this because this is terrific. While I love my parents, they are crazy Republican Christians. Republicans, because the two have melded.

Republicans. Leaving behind their former and truer identities. When I was a kid, they were very careful about what they let into their house, and especially what I played with. They had a very large book that I wish to God I could find today, lining out all the satanic messages found in children's toys, and my parents would frequently

consult it when I wanted to get myself into some new toy packaging. As a result of this book, where everything was scrutinized and analyzed to its satanic ideology, my toy box was a ghost town, a shell of my friend's satanic toy box bounty. At the height, I love this, at the height of their toy policing, my grandparents sent me a collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys for Christmas. All the major players were there, including a tank that shot pizzas. Oh, God. I love the turtles.

They're so dumb. That sounds so fucking glorious, too. Like when you're a kid, you're just like, I got all the fucking turtles. What turtle do I have? All of them. All of them. I got them all, motherfucker. Do you have the tank that shoots pizzas?

Fuck yeah, I do. Fucking A. Fucking A. I have never been more excited for anything in my whole life. But when consulting this book, my parents said, hell no, you're not playing with these. I begged and cried and wept for days until finally my parents reached a compromise. Since according to their sources, the satanic symbols were found in the fact that the Ninja Turtles had three fingers and three toes. They practiced martial arts, which inherently is satanic prayer,

and also that they were rebellious teenagers. I could keep them, and this is why I'm reading this, with some minor structural and thematic alterations. One, I had to remove the hands and feet with an exacto knife. I was maybe five or six years old. You're worried about keeping the gun out of your kid's hand. This fucking exacto knife is almost as dangerous. Almost.

I wouldn't give Finn an X-Acto knife to steal. Oh, my goodness. No. Two, I had to paint crosses on their shells. I chose the front and back football jersey style. I had to throw away their weapons. Oh, no. G.I. Joe was fine, though, because that's just war.

Just not any of the Ninja Joes. Four, no. G.I. Joe was fine, though, because that's just war, just not any of the Ninja Joes. Four, I had to rename them, and this is my favorite. No way! Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John because the Bible. And five, I had to rename them the Bible Turtles. It sounds

so horrible. I mean, I remember when I was a kid and you'd get a toy. And whatever that toy was, it was like you were just fixated on it, right? Like it's just a fixation. You're like, I really want to get the G.I. Joe fucking little car thing or whatever. And you're fixated on it forever. I could imagine, you know, being told to destroy that. That would be hideous.

To cut off their hands and feet? Oh, that would be hideous. To cut off their hands and feet? That would be hideous. Stumpy the turtle? I know. Like, all your turtles are, like, Venus de Milo fighting. Like, what the fuck? Just torso ninjas. That torso ninjas.

They just bang into each other. They don't really do a lot. They're just kind of there. That was a great, great story. Thank you for sending it. We're very appreciative. We got a short email from Tisha. Tisha says thanks for the show.

Thanks for making it. And she says, I don't live in an area with a large atheist community. I hadn't met another atheist until this year at college. I'm from a tiny little bumfuck town in central Illinois. Well, my mom lives in a tiny little bumfuck town in central Illinois, so I know exactly what you're talking about. That's a fucking horrifying experience down there, man. That's not a thing to do.

So good luck to you. Thanks for listening. Tom, we got an email from Robert. This is both from Rob and Kristen talking about the Newtown shooting. Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and read this. Hi, guys. I grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, 12 miles down the road from Newtown. Needless to say, last week's carnage has left an indelible mark on my community, my friends, and me.

I just wanted to thank you both for your treatment of the story. It isn't easy knowing the major news outlets have a magnifying glass on your community, exploiting the brutal and senseless deaths of your friends and neighbors just to kill time or inflate ratings. It was nice to hear somebody reporting on this with sincere sympathy and compassion. My wife and I have been voracious listeners since episode three or so, and we are now all the more glad to have found your podcast. Thanks guys. Sincerely, Rob and Kristen. Hey, thank you guys for listening. And we are, we are now all the more glad to have found your podcast. Thanks, guys. Sincerely, Rob and Kristen. Thank you guys for listening. And we are deeply sorry for the tragedy in Connecticut and for your, I mean, the loss in your community. That's just terrible.

Yeah. And this email really, really made us feel quite good this week. So thank you for sending it. I got an email from Isaac. He asked, where do you find the bumpers? Some of them are hilarious. I got an email from Isaac. He asked, where do you find the bumpers?

Some of them are hilarious. I find a lot of these on YouTube, but a lot of our main bumpers are pretty iconic. They come from certain places. Jesus Camp, we've mentioned that before. I play a lot of Simpsons bumpers. The one thing you're talking about is a woman who worked for that Crystal Palace church place, whatever that fucking Crystal Holy land or whatever they made, that big, it's like a big giant cathedral that they made. Crystal Cathedral is what it's called.

She's the lady who works for them. She's the lady with the really bad makeup and the big hair. I don't know her name, but I found a clip of her online, and she was going on about all those little women with their grocery money. You should give that to God. It's like, fuck you, lady. I'd like to feed my kids. How's that?

The bad makeup and big hair, isn't that like every evangelist crazy lady? It totally is. They all look the same. It's awesome. They're like all covered in cats all the time. We got an email from Julio. Julio just started listening and wanted to tell us about it, tell us a little story about Tennessee. Thank you, Julio, for sending your email.

We also got an email from Hannah, and Hannah's from Atlanta, and Hannah talks about our show and how we brighten up her day and how she laughs with us. So we thank you, Hannah, for listening. And the last email we got was today we got an email from Scott. Scott sent us an email, Tom. It's about our podcast. And I think the middle of the email here is really the part that I wanted to talk about. He says, the only issue I have with your podcast is that you often make me angry to hear all these news stories about the harm that's coming to others, especially children, because of half-baked religious ideals. And I think, you know, while this is the worst part of our show, it's obviously

the worst part about the research we do. It's one of the most important things we do is talk about the harm that comes from religion. The evidence of harm from religion is out there. And especially fundamentalist religion, especially the craziest of the religions, those are the ones that hurt people every day. And that's why we started doing this. Because when we first started, we thought we'd pick up some skeptical stories here and there. But when you start reading a few skeptical blogs, you cannot get away from this stuff. It is prevalent. It is ever-present when you're searching for stuff. Tom, I know we have to turn down dead kid stories every week.

We do. You know, the only thing worse than the abuses done in the name of religion that we cover that are these tragic stories is when these abuses happen and nobody covers them. That's the only thing that would be worse. They have to be covered. And yeah, we cover them in our unique way, for sure. We don't offer a terribly serious treatment of most subjects, but man, to not cover them, that's fucking insult to injury. And you ask how do we handle, we handle, how do we handle it emotionally? I will be honest. There are several stories that I have to stop reading. I have to stop reading and walk away and do something else for five or six minutes and then

come back and finish the story. Um, but there are many, many stories that I, uh, I, I can't finish in one sitting because they're so disturbing. And there's many times that I lose my cool on this show. I don't know if you've heard it before, but I've lost my cool in the past when talking about it. I get kind of wound up because it's hard to deal with. It is hard to deal with. It is emotional, and it's hard to deal with, but it's necessary. And we want to thank you, Scott, for sending in your email. We really appreciate it. We also want to thank you, Scott, for sending in your email. We really appreciate it.

We also want to thank all the people who rate us on iTunes. Rating us on iTunes is a wonderful way to bring us up in the ratings. In iTunes, we are normally shooting it out for one or two spots, fighting out with reasonable doubts and thinking alias at the top. Whenever you rate us, that helps push us a little bit higher. And so we thank everybody who rates us on iTunes. And I want to say, the lucky person, Tom, we're for drug. I know, Tom, you're for drug legalization, right?

Yep. I'm for drug legalization. I can't wait for the lucky drug user who's going to be review number 420 because that's where we're at right now. So the lucky person out there who likes to fucking hit a bong, go over and rate us on iTunes and be lucky number 420.

But we want to thank everybody who has rated us thus far. The only problem is they keep forgetting to do it. Yeah. They get really hungry and they're just like, man, I'm just so hungry. I'm not. I'm just going to eat this bag of Doritos. I was going to do that like, man, I'm just so hungry. I'm not. I'm just going to eat this bag of Doritos.

I was going to do that rating, but the Cheetos are right here. The Cheetos are like here. And then I don't want to touch the computer after I touch the Cheetos. Well, you got orange fingers and a white keyboard. That's unacceptable, you know? So we want to thank David Silverman for coming on the show. David Silverman can be found at atheist.org. The stuff that they're doing is actually very cool, and he made a believer out of two of us today.

We hope that they get a chance to really take that lawsuit to where it needs to go and hopefully win. And remember that if you want to contribute to that, you can. This podcast, Tom, is going to come out after our Doctors Without Borders, Apocalypse Without Borders charity drive ends. But at this point, we have collected over $8,000. Yeah. This show is, Cecil, at this point, post-apocalyptic.

Yeah. I mean, when you hear it, it will be post-apocalyptic. Post-apocalyptic. Yeah, I mean, when you hear it, it will be post-apocalyptic. But $8,000 from the generosity of the people who listened, we want to thank everybody who listened. And there was a couple people who gave $1,000 or more. We're going to send a shirt to those two people. I think it's wrong to not send a shirt to somebody who sends $1,000.

$1,000 buys you a shirt. So $1,000. We're like the worst PBS drive ever. You know, like a thousand dollars will buy you a shirt. So we're going to send two shirts out to the two people who contributed a large bulk of this. But I mean, I was heartened by all the five, $10, $25 people who sent in just a touch of money, just a little bit of money that they had just to show, hey, this means something. And we want to thank every single person who put in a little bit of money on behalf of Doctors Without Borders. We're going to post,

I hope it will be posted. I should have a receipt because I will have donated by then, a receipt posted on the show notes for either this time or next time. I should have a receipt because I will have donated by then. A receipt posted on the show notes for either this time or next time. I don't know how it's going to work. But one of those ways it's going to be posted. So you'll see it on the blog post. We will post the receipt. We will also post the receipt for all the

money that was donated on the Facebook page. So you can take a look at it. We'll post it. We'll probably black out a couple things. But you'll be able look at it. We'll post it. We'll probably black out a couple of things, but you'll be able to see it. So people can see that we actually did donate that money. Vastly exceeded our expectations with your generosity. I thought we were going to get a grand.

I was like, man, if we get a grand, we'll be fucking sitting pretty. But the listeners are amazing and they donated eightfold. And that's just, I mean, that's just great. And we're very happy that you took part in it So until next time Which will be we should be Relatively on time and we expect to have

A guest next time we're hoping this guest comes through And we will leave you as Always with the skeptics creed Credulity is not a virtue It's fortune Cookie cutter mommy issue Hypno Babylon. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative,

acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures. Detox. Reflex. Foot massage. Death in towers. Tarot cards.

Psychic healing. Crystal balls. Bigfoot. Yeti. Aliens. Churches. Mosques and synagogues. Temples.

Dragons. Giant worms. Atlantis. Dolphins. Truthers. Birthers. Witches. Wizards.

Vaccine nuts. Shaman healers. Evangelists. Conspiracy. Doubleak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local Dairy Council. Thank you.