Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 87: Thomas and the Bible, Part 2

Episode Date: February 17, 2013

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. Because the Bible says that this is what you're supposed to be spending your time on. You say, well, I have all these other important things. Well, what does the Bible say is important? Feeding and clothing your family is what this woman is spending her time on.

She's getting up early to make food. She's making clothes. She's making, I mean, that's what, look, am I making this stuff up? I mean, that's what the time's going into. And so if this is not what your time is going into, ladies, you need to reevaluate, you know, the time that you're putting into your household. That's your main job. Teaching your children, training them, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Not just shut them up with a cookie, shut them up with a prepackaged snack

so I can go back to farmland or I can go back to bejeweled, bejewel me or whatever, you know what I mean? Or mafia war or whatever. You know, I'm going to go back to my video game now. I'm going to go back to finding out what my fifth grade classmate is doing with their life right now. You know, I need to get back to watching movies and watching TV

and watching soap operas and watching the reality show. You know, I'm too busy to homeschool my children. I just don't know how anybody can hold. You know what I'm too busy to homeschool my children. I just don't know how anybody can hold, you know what, I don't even understand why you even have children if you're going to just drop them off at the government school so they can be brainwashed to be a wicked, God-hating pervert. And I'm not saying that's how they're going to turn out, but that's the goal of that system, to make them turn out that way. And if they don't turn out that way, it's going to be a miracle. And you got to thank God every day for it. I mean, if you can get out of that place without being corrupted, you're an amazing person. Okay. And then you have an amazing

family because I'm telling you that is the goal. That place is run by Satan. The public school is run by the devil himself. Obviously, he has an authority structure. He has little devils working under him at the school boards and school district levels. I'm going to tell you something. I'm not ashamed to tell you that institution is run by Satan. It promotes sodomy. It promotes godlessness, atheism, evolution, humanism, perversion, relativism. I mean, we could go down the list of the abominations of public school,

but ladies today, they want to eat the bread of idleness, so they drop their child off at public school and say, here, raise my child for me. But why even have a child if you're giving it unto Satan to be raised? The purpose of producing children is so that you can bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Not so that they can be raised by the devil and raised by the world and raised by his crowd. You know, we should raise our own children. And look, it's just an excuse to eat the bread of idleness.

Draw my kid off at school so that I can do nothing all day. And you say, oh, but I'm so busy. But it's easy to become busy with the wrong things. It's called being a busybody. 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 man we are recording this is episode 87 and i have to note that we are recording on valentine's day with our original bff thomas from thomas in the bible also from f this podcast we are neglecting our wives to bring you this show today. On Valentine's Day. I'm neglecting your guys' wives, too, actually, to bring the show. Did they mention it?

She's used to disappointments from people with the same name, so it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she's really on to that name now. She's like, next, she's, she's really onto that name now. She's like, next guy I pick, not going to be named. I gotta say,

uh, maybe C, no, maybe a name that starts more like with a CEC. Um, so yeah, I think it's been exactly a year, just about exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. By one day. Yeah. Oh, well we should have recorded yesterday then. We totally should have done it yesterday. Fuck this. All right, let's go 88 miles an hour.

Who's got the flux capacity? I heard you make that joke the other show, and I laughed really hard. I only have two jokes. Tom only has like four fucking jokes. No, he only has four, but that was the fourth. I've heard the other three, and that was the final fourth. So I've heard all his jokes. But yeah, like I've heard the other three and that was the final. Right. Right. So I've heard all his jokes.

But it. But yeah. So I'm never laughing at you again. But like that last one. Now, you said like no one in that country can go 88 miles. That's really funny. Oh, man. Yeah.

So but I want to clear something up because like I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong. But I think the last time we talked, I was a little bit skeptical of the Bible. I think I maybe was almost critical, I'd say. Is that true? There was definitely that flavor to your readings. For listeners that don't know, Thomas' show, he has in the past read the Bible and then offered some commentary as you're going along. read the Bible, and then offered some commentary as you're going along. So are you saying this has changed, that your skeptical, critical bent on the Bible has shifted?

Yeah, I was worried this would happen, because, I mean, it's going to kind of change the tone of the show here, I bet. But, yeah, it turns out I had a listener, a very erudite Bible scholar email me. It turns out I'm using a bad translation of the Bible and I really should be using just that. That's like the problem. I should be using a better translation. And once I found that out, it was, it was just a world of difference. It's, it's completely, I can't even tell it's I'm a hundred percent on board. Totally different book, huh? It's just a completely different book. And I should have, Oh shoot. I've,, huh? It's just a completely different book. And I should have, oh, shoot, I've got to pull up my example. I think this was the one that really did it. And forgive me because the page is refreshing because I had it open before the Lord took away my internet.

He'll do that. Hey, the Lord give it. Yeah, the Lord give it. The Lord give it. The Lord is actually a customer service rep at Comcast, it turns out. He's going to return in 2,000 to 4,000 years. Yeah, it sucks that his, yeah, I was going to make that same joke. God's idea of time is a little different than ours.

He's like, so I can return. We'll be there between 8 p.m. on the year zero and 12 p.m. Yeah, but Jesus is like, I'll be there between 1300 A.D. and 2500 A.D. If you could just wait around, just sit around the house. You can't watch internet porn because the internet's down. But other stuff you can do. There's some poor bastard in a cave in the Middle East still waiting. Like, it's been so long.

That's what the second coming refers to. It's like they came for the preliminary appointment, and we're like, oh, we've got to go back and get some different gear. I need a wrench. I'm sorry. I've got to go back. Yeah, I need a totally insignificant tool that I didn't bring. I'm going to have to come back another day. You're going to have to take another day off work.

Oh, shit. You guys did such a good job of stalling but i still where is it oh here it is here it is 23 24 we didn't even know we were stalling yeah we just called out the show oh here we go we called out the show yeah you guys have been stalling for what like 87 episodes no i'm kidding man try the, get to the fucking point. We haven't figured out what the point is exactly. No, okay, so there's this, I just wanted to give an example of this translation that, like, you'll see how, just how, like, it's a completely different book.

So, like, Matthew 23, 24, I believe it is. Matthew, yes. See, I was reading a translation. It's gonna, you're gonna laugh. Like, I was reading a translation that said, has strain at a gnat and swallow a camel i know like that's obviously that's obviously the wrong translation i'm stopping you before you even start laughing at me like i i understand like i've gotten a lot of shit for it yeah i know that was wrong it really the real wording is you strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel which i mean it's just completely holy

shit you can understand jesus you just fucking opened my eyes cancel this program delete all the prior episodes for blasphemy holy shit well you know it's part of my penance you know it's like i gotta understand that uh did i use the wrong word penitence penance i don't know anyway i'm still new with this religion stuff. I haven't learned all the words. It's still part of that. And once that translation was corrected, it was just a short skip and a step toward Jesus is my savior and all that. It's just a scant couple premises to the argument and then you're there.

It's just that one word was the missing thing. No, I swear to... Oh, hey, when you edit this... How is it that someone thinks that the tiniest... You changed one word and that's going to change anything? I know, I know. And when you go back and edit this,

do you have like a sarcasm filter that you... Just make sure you up that so people can detect the sarcasm involved. That's make sure you up that so people can detect the sarcasm involved that that's the show oh okay well i assume you have like a massive on our show no i use filter in a way like you buff it like you look for those you know you look for those peaks and you're like oh i'm gonna up that a little bit that's what i'm saying now filter it out yeah somebody sent me an email like and i i'm i'm really happy to email like i'm always happy if someone emails me that's cool like either way you know if they want to tell me to, you know, fuck off and die.

Like, I'm happy. I'm like, hey, thank you. You should read some of our emails. I'm not, I don't think, somehow I don't get as much hate mail as I thought I was going to. You know, like, I don't know if we talked about this last year or if any of your listeners, you know, are still alive who are listening back then. But they've died of boredom. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, no kidding.

Like, I can't take any more of this stalling. I was good for 60 episodes of stalling, but I can't do any more. Yeah, no, he sent me an email saying, like, I can't. All these outlining all these reasons why I shouldn't be using KGJV. And if someone wants to say, like, yeah, it's a little hard to understand. And someone did say that like 40 episodes in someone's like, Hey, I kind of wish you would just use the, you know, the new wave version. It's all crystals.

The whole thing is fucking crystals and dolphins and pyramids. Jesus doesn't walk on the water. He just slides across the back of two dolphins. Jesus has like a flock of seagulls haircut. he just slides across the back of two dolphins. Jesus has like a flock of seagulls haircut. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a very detailed picture. Yeah. No, but it'll say like, and this guy had sexual intercourse with this person. You know, like it'll say, that'll be the wording it'll use for when, you know, the begats, how it goes through like eight years of begats. Yeah. The new versions. There's one that I swear to God, I swear to God that I now really believe in.

I wouldn't say that lightly if I didn't really believe in God now. No. Yeah, there's one I was listening to. I started off with this podcast to try to just, I don't know why I started. I didn't get very far. But I started off with a pastor reading the Bible when I first started this project. And the begats was, and this person had sexual relations with this person. And I was like, that's one of the jokes I made.

It's like, well, sexual relations, meaning what? Like they blew each other. And she gave him a handy. It would be awesome if there was a dirty Bible, you know? So it's like, and Jehoshaphat fucked them good and proper. It's like, whoa. Oh, you mean the Bible? You mean the Bible.

It already is that. It spares no, you know, detail most of the time. There's tons of good stuff in it. I mean, doesn't Noah's daughters rape him or something? No, that's not. Is that Noah? No, that's not. Is that Noah? No, that's not Noah. What do you think I've read this fucking thing?

You don't even know your own book, man. You think I've read this? I thought that was Lot. I'm just a big fraud. I haven't. No, it's Noah, man. I'm sure of it. Lot's daughters are the ones that he offers up for the people to rape them.

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Instead of. I'm trying to make more ridiculous passage from a made-up text for another. Noah already has. Almost like it's interchangeable bullshit. Well, the only reason I say it's not Noah is because he already had a shitload of

children that he brought on the Ark, so I didn't think that that was a time when they needed to make more babies, incestuous or otherwise. No, it's not the time guys was it like Cain or Abel who cares who cares

yeah they got that fucking drunk though and fucked him right that's what they did yeah you've unearthed the fact that I'm just a big fraud and I've never actually read a single page of this book the whole thing is just a farce it's fucking ad-libbing the entire bible what the fuck was I talking about I was getting to a point, guys.

What was it? I don't know. I don't remember. Oh, yeah. Said sexual relations. Yeah. When you say begat, I can understand that that means like, okay, they did it and eventually a child resulted. You know, but when you say like sexual relations, I don't know what that means.

Like, is that, you know, is that, does that involve a cigar? And like, you know, there's, you know,inton reference but yeah there's there's varying definitions of sexual relations you know there's only one sexual relations that's it it should actually just be sexual relation because it's just one act it's just we don't need to pluralize it at all it's just and they had sexual relation you know the the one. Yeah. Wink, wink. That's actually exactly how it should be written. But don't think about it because that's a sin. From now on. So are you spellbound at this point?

Are you fascinated, mesmerized by the stunning literary masterpiece that is the Bible? Well, once I had those couple, you know, prepositional phrases changed to the correct ones, then yes, absolutely. That did it for you. How far along are you now? Oh, shit. I didn't know you were going to actually ask me real questions. Let me check. No, I'm not going to show. Oh, my God. You guys,

your standards are so high. I just don't even... Let me... Hold on. Let me stall for you. You're just going to do another episode. No, I just finished 2 Samuel.

I get screwed up now because they got 1, 2, this is the book of Samuel. Oh, by the way, a fun fact about 2 Samuel. Samuel himself died somewhere toward the end of 1 Samuel. Oh, by the way, a fun fact about 2 Samuel. Samuel himself died somewhere toward the end of 1 Samuel. And then

2 Samuel started. It's like the second lassie. It's like how many lassies did they go through to make that fucking program? And God is like, fuck, I need another Samuel. Bring me another Samuel. I've run out of the first one. Yeah, right now I'm on the book of Land Before Time 14.

No. Yeah, no, it's totally true. Like, Samuel died forever ago, and the book kept going. I was like, who's writing this book? Like, I don't understand. The same could be said of Jesus. He died some time ago, and it just keeps going.

Yeah, but there's no... To be fair, okay, to play devil's advocate, aka God's advocate, there's no book of Jesus. Yeah, wouldn't that have cleared some shit up, though, if there was? Yeah, if there's a book of Jesus and then Jesus died like three-quarters of the way into it, and then there's like a second book of Jesus where Jesus was not even there, that's what we're talking about. The second book of Jesus. So was not even there. That's what we're talking about. The second book of Jesus. So I just finished

The second book of Jesus is the Mormon book. The second book of Jesus. The third book of Jesus would be just Scientology where he just gives up. He's like, fuck it, dude. I'm doing sci-fi now. I dropped that fantasy shit.

Yeah. So the point I was going to make is basically like, yeah, okay, I can use a different translation if you want, but I really don't think that's the issue here. Like I don't think at the gnats or whatever the hell the sentence I read was, like of the gnats, for the gnats, you know, like moreover the gnats. Like I don't think any of that's going to do whatever the hell that sentence was. That's not all of a sudden equaling me believing in Jesus.

Like I'm it's like if someone said the movie, I don't know. What's what's a good example? Like the movie Ghostbusters 2. If they're like, no, that's real. I was like, I don't I don't think that movie is real. It's a fine movie. Don't get me wrong. I love Bill Murray just as much as the next guy. Probably more than. but I don't think it's real. And they said, no, no,

look, you're probably just, you're just reading, you got the bad translation. Like the movie's real. You just, you're not, you need to get the dubbed version where like they dubbed over, you know, like that's what it is to me. It's like, no, I don't like, okay, I'll watch it. It's a great film. I'll watch it again. Different version if you want me to. Like, I'm in. It's a good film. I'll watch it anytime.

But I don't think it's real. But you didn't turn the subtitles on. Like, that's like, oh, but I heard it just fine the first time. You didn't watch it with the director's commentary. I was just going to say that, yeah, the DVD extras. A Bible with director's commentary would be fucking spectacular. That's what I'm trying to do. You're saying I didn't direct the Bible?

No, yeah, I completely agree. It would be a lot of, oh, I don't know what we were thinking here. Oh, man, this was a question of production. We're just out of budget at this point. There's a lot of budget problems in the Bible. The whole Bible. The whole middle section is like, I just let the key grip write that. I don't know. just out of budget at this point there's a lot of budget problems in the bible the whole bible the whole middle section is like i just let the key grip write that i don't know we were fucking drunk in the trailer shit got fucking serious i don't lot was getting raped by his daughters we

were just we're just having a hell of a time the whole commentary will be like god after that arc scene we did we blew our entire budget and the rest of the book the rest of the book after the arc all those animals god you have any idea how expensive it is we literally drowned it all the actual i mean they're all just a drought yeah well we wanted realism you know we didn't want people sag was up our ass the whole time you know what they say never work with kids and animals so we killed all the kids and animals and killed yeah at the end of the movie, it said like two more. Every species was harmed in the making of this film.

Literally every possible species was harmed. Every species? So if you want to hear more from Thomas in the Bible, you'll have to tune in later on in the show. If you'd stick around or you could fast forward one or the other. So later on in the show, we're going to be covering a story with him. And we also had him do a reading for us this episode, which will also appear a little later on. 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. So this story is from time Indiana high schoolers pushed to ban gay classmates from traditional prom. A group of high school students and parents at Sullivan High School in Sullivan, Indiana, have banded together. They're trying to prohibit gay and lesbian couples, transgender couples, bi couples, what have you, from attending the prom. I actually read a further story about this just the other day saying that they were going to throw their own prom at a church. Totally. Are they going to do that? They're going to throw like sad prom like they're gonna like where there's no fun to

be had and the punches and spiked nobody's getting laid right after that prom right how was your how was the after prom oh man it was so great like we prayed and then mom drove us home yeah and then we watched all dogs go to heaven. It was awesome. Best night of my life. Coming of age, baby. I love being a senior. Oh, man. We watched ABC Family all night long.

It was awesome. Yeah, there's this prom they want to have. And the thing that fucking, I just hate, I think, I'm starting to think, Tom, that the word traditional is a hate word. It's getting big close. That traditional is becoming a word that denotes some sort of hatred, some sort of bigotry because they talk about it being a traditional prom. And you're like, well, what does that even mean? Like what does a traditional prom even mean? I mean the first proms were in the 1800s, the late 1800s.

So what does that mean? Like you're arguing about, okay, right there, Eunice. Let's slap on that old flapper gown and head on over with our horseless carriage. Maybe we'll stop by the speakeasy and pick up some hooch, eh? And then afterwards I could possibly enlist and you could ship me off to the big war. Like what is a traditional fucking prom? Like I want to know what the fuck a traditional prom is. A traditional prom is some bullshit made up about an idealized 1957 America that never really existed.

You know, where you can only touch someone on their forearm the entire night. You're only allowed to do-si-do with your partner. The thing is, you're allowed to have sex. You're just not allowed to talk about it or get caught. And it's got to be boy-girl, missionary style, in the back of a Studebaker up on Lookout Hill. That's how it happens, right? Exactly. it's fucking happy days yes exactly yeah it's a sexier version of happy it's it's a false narrative like let's

get back to that false narrative that time in america where you know well i mean it wasn't very good for blacks or women but you know by god the white men had it pretty fine they had they had a good time, didn't they? Fucking Mad Men style. Like you could walk in, grab a handful of your secretary's ass every morning, you know, and like fucking smoke at your desk. Like that's what they want again. And the idea here is like what they say is they're like, look, we love the homosexuals, but we don't condone what they're doing. And it says underneath this, it says, we don't hate anyone.

We're not judging anyone. Bullshit, you're not judging anyone. Like, who the fuck? Who are you kidding? Who are you crapping with the we are not judging anyone line? You are clearly judging people. Like, you could not fucking more judge someone than what you're doing. Like, I don't even understand your fucking internal logic.

than what you're doing. Like, I don't even understand your fucking, your internal logic. I'm not judging you, Cecil, but I won't be in the same room as you because you're not as good as me. Right. Because you're not, yeah, because your sexual activity,

you know, this private moment that you have with someone else in private. Now, granted, you're with that person in public, but Tom, you and I are in fucking public sometimes too, and we don't fuck each other. You know, that's the thing is like, you know, it's like, okay, granted, you're with that person in public, but, Tom, you and I are in fucking public sometimes, too, and we don't fuck each other. You know, that's the thing is like, you know, it's like, okay, well, you know, there's plenty of times and opportunities for people to be in public with one another, and who cares who you're in public with? It's what you're doing privately that people care about. Why the fuck do you care, man? Just get your head out of your own ass and stop fucking worrying about what I'm doing with my girlfriend.

What, because you envision it and it's icky you want to fucking stop it well man what if your fucking girl's fat and I don't want to think about you fucking some fat broad what the fuck is that like is it my choice be like oh you know or your fucking boyfriend's fat oh my god how do you even find his penis you know

like I don't want to have to think about that and I don't think about that. I choose not to. It's real easy. Like, are these people walking around with no fucking filter that they just walk around and everybody they see is just like, I wonder what that person looks like when they're having sex. Yeah.

You know, but part of me says the answer to that is yes. I mean, it really is. It's like for some of these people, the idea of homosexuality is so titillating. And they're furious that it's titillating. And they're so scandalized by it. You know, it's like when you're a kid, you know, when you're first learning about sex, you know, and then you realize like, Whoa, there's all these different other ways, like these, all these other different variations. And like you get these and your, your mind just kind of can't stop. Like when you're like a teenager, you know, and you kind of, you're

like, wow, really? Like you can do that. That's all. And you know, part of me thinks that that, that level of a hyper focus and titillation isn't a large part of the drive to picture, you know, this, oh, I don't want to think about two dudes having sex. Just fucking don't think about it. But you can't stop thinking about it. I mean, it's real easy. You know, I think, I think, you know, there's an interesting point you brought up there. I wonder, Tom, if this stems from the fact that they are so deprived, that they deprive

themselves so much of the sexual activity that, you know, makes us human beings, that in the long run, they're actually damaging themselves because they can't stop thinking about sex. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. So this story is from, and I've never found a story from here before and may not ever again. Metalsucks.net. Pregosh, Kashmir's first all-girl rock band, forced to disband due to death threats. Pregosh is Kashmir's first and, it turns out now, only and last all-girl rock band. I don't even know if you would have to say all-girl rock band.

I'm going to throw this out there and say I'm guessing Kashmir is not a hotbed of the rock and roll. You can just be all-girl rock band. You know what I mean? Like there is all-girl and they are mad. I don't even think they're allowed to play rock band. Like I don't think girls would even be allowed to play the video game rock band in Kashmir. Yeah. Well, they wound up, this is interesting because the band

had to disband because they were being threatened by a bunch of people were threatening them with all kinds of stuff. And I'm going to read directly from the articles. They then came to backlash from social media where they were branded as prostitutes and sluts.

They were threatened with rape and death. And this person, this Ahmaud, who is a cleric, Tom, no kidding. Another cleric. No kidding. A fucking cleric said, when girls and young women stray from the rightful path, this kind of non-serious activity can become the first step towards our destruction. And then it says later on, this chief minister, who's probably like a fucking cleric with a bigger hat, says, Abdullah, what is his name? Abdullah, that's his name, Abdullah, does not believe any legal action is necessary against the grand fucking poobah, whatever the fuck that is, who declared, who publicly declared a fatwa on the girls. So somebody fucking publicly declared a fatwa on them.

And at first I thought it was because they were girls, but I later found out it was because he didn't like their rendition of Stairway to Heaven. Nice. Nicely done. Actually, to be honest, most of the people that contacted them really wanted them to find the actual Stairway to Heaven. Yeah, they did. There's like one person in the crowd like, Freebird!

And everybody else just stoning them. They're probably just mad because they wound up on their set. They did the Tory cover of Muhammad, My Friend. Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah, you know,

it says in this thing that they disbanded pretty quickly. Yeah, that'll happen when you threaten teenage girls with rape and murder for playing music. Just for playing. It's like, like hey let's get together and play some music oh yeah that sounds great we'll we'll write some songs and we'll play some music it'll be a lot of fun like it'll be a creative and artistic outlet oh yeah that's awesome we'll

rape you like wait what the fuck how is that possibly warranted like at what point are you like hmm gotta do something about this problem. What's the problem? Oh, man, those girls are playing music. Oh, have you tried to threaten to rape them yet? No, I haven't. Let's give that a whirl. That's the solution to this problem.

That's fucking horrible. That is horrible. So we're going to take a quick break, give you some information on how to contact us via all the methods that you can contact us. And we are going to be coming back later on with Thomas from Thomas and the Bible to talk about a news article with him and talk about his podcast, Thomas and the Bible. 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 the New York Times. Zen groups, and this is the first time we've ever attacked the Zen Buddhists here. Zen groups distressed by accusations against teacher. This is a story about a Buddhist teacher, Joshu Sasaki, probably mispronouncing that, who is 105 years old, 105 years old. Um, and he is now being accused of using his influence to, uh, sexually molest and

otherwise Harris, the, uh, people in the, in the people in his fold, so to speak. A Zen Buddhist? A 105-year-old Zen Buddhist? So there's a part of this article, Tom, where it says, Mr. Sasaki did not respond to requests for interviews made. The dude's fucking 105 years old. Does he respond to anything anymore? Like, is he fucking, does he actually speak?

105. And at one point in this article, they're talking about, uh, that he was doing stuff all the way up until 2006. I know. 2006. That guy's, that guy's fucking 99 years old at that point. 99 years old and he's still thinking about grabbing a handful of titty? Like for real? No idea how this, you, at some point you just have to admire the stamina. You just have to stand back and be like, you know, I'd let him touch

my penis. That's fine. You're a hundred years old. You're a hundred years old. There's, there's some parts of this article that are incredible, right? I mean, absolutely incredible. I'm going to read directly from the article. Among those who spoke to the council and for this article was Nikki Stubbs, who now lives in Vancouver and who studied and worked at Mount Baldy. I like that, too. So she's at Mount Baldy and Mr. Saki would fondle her breasts during a private meeting. He also asked her to massage his penis and she would wonder, was this teaching? Look, when Mr. Saki wants you to fondle his penis on Mount Baldy, that's not teaching. You're like on the five-fold path at that point.

You're just getting groped by an old man. No kidding. That's all that is happening here. No kidding. That's all that is happening here. No kidding. It says here, you know, like one monk who Mrs. Stubbs said she told about the touching was unsympathetic. He believed in Rashi's style that sexualizing was teaching for particular women. Mrs. Stubbs said that the monk's theory common in Mr. Sasaki's circle was that such physicality could check a woman's overly strong ego. What is he saying?

He's like, you know, lasso that young filly with your penis? Like, is that what he's saying? Yeah, it's like, well, she seems like a spirited lass. Maybe sexually harassing her will break her down. No kidding. That's kind of a horrible thing to do. And this guy, he seriously was doing it like for years and years. We're talking they started in the 50s, like in the 50s during the fucking Cold War.

This guy is, you know, keeping his hands warm, so to speak. This guy, like one of the things Jessica Kramer from Los Angeles was this guy's personal attendant. Kramer from Los Angeles was this guy's personal attendant. She said he would reach into her robe and that she always resisted his advances. Surrounded almost entirely by men, she said she got very little sympathy. Quote, I talk about it with people who'd say, why not just let him touch your breasts if he wants to touch your breasts? Who says that? Who? Like, where are you at? What community of people are you in where you're like but the fucking guy just tried to grab my tent you're just like well just let him just go ahead and let him grab your boob it's fine like what who's not like what do you mean he tried to grab

you like what when you're surrounded by people who are not outraged that you're getting groped isn't that your clue that like you're in a bad group of people? Like it's so inappropriate. It's just so inappropriate. Like you can't imagine. It's like, you know, going to college and your college professor is like, well, in order to pass, I got to shove a thumb up your ass. Like I just, there's the only way you're going to pass this class is if I fondle your bum, you know, like really? There's no fucking, that's just not what happens. You just don't do that sort of thing. There's some lines that are being crossed here just because it's more like this guy thought that he was part of a cult rather than he was part of something else. And maybe, you know, I don't know anything about Buddhism, so I have no idea what the levels are or, you know, how close-knit and how how much they they revere the people that

are in charge of them or the priests or whatever they call them. I don't I don't know. I know fuck all about Buddhism. I literally know nothing. But, you know, you look at all these other cults that pop up all over the United States and, you know, that sort of thing where, you know, somebody is getting groped, somebody is getting fondled. The the person who is in charge is taking his liberties with the women in his flock.

That's fucking – that happens a lot. That at least seems a little more consensual than what's happening here. Well, you know, the thing is, man, that's like – it's like this – all this strikes me as textbook religious sexual attack, right? Right. It's like, you know, you build a community of mostly men. You have a certain amount of women in the group. The women are sexualized. They're harassed.

They're molested. They're, you know, violated in some way. The religious leader is revered and so kind of untouchable. And the insulated community works to protect his action. You know, we've seen it in the Jewish community. We've seen it in the Christian community. We've seen it in the Muslim community. I mean, honestly, it's not surprising that it would exist in the Zen Buddhist community.

I just think it's a smaller community. Right, right. And there's 105. Like, Hugh Hefner is proud of this guy. Right. And he's 105! Like, Hugh Hefner is proud of this guy. What the actual fuck?

What the actual fuck? What the fuck? What the actual fucking fuck fuck? What the actual... The actual flying fuck? What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck is this conservatidia bullshit? What the what? What? What? What the actual fuck, this conservatidia bullshit? What the fuck? What?

What? What the actual fuck, conservatidia? Atheism and Obesity, Part 2. Picture of an overweight PZ Myers. Oh, that was the caption for the picture. Probably shouldn't have read that. A 2009 picture of a significantly overweight PZ Myers can be found here. A 2010 picture taken in Australia shows PZ Myers drinking ale slash beer,

and he had excess weight in his abdominal area. In 2010, PZ Myers had health problems related to his heart. In addition, medical science research indicates that excess weight impairs brain function. Given P.Z. Meyer's biological training and the wide dissemination of harmful health effects of being overweight in terms of cardiovascular health and brain function, it is unfortunate that preventative medicine was not used in greater measure in terms of his health. P.Z. Meyer's inatt attention to diligently implementing the recommendations of nutritional science, exercise science, and medical science, is not entirely surprising given his vehement

advocacy of evolutionary pseudoscience. There have been a number of notable evolutionists who have also been overweight. On June 1st, 2011, Myers posted a picture of himself and others on his blog, and Myers appeared to no longer have issues with being overweight. PZ Myers is a leader within the New Atheism Movement. A significant amount of leaders within the New Atheism Movement have problems with being overweight. All right, I'm going to do this like my show, and I got to stop there and just go over the 200 stupid things from this. For one, first of all, I like this thought that, so atheism causes obesity because atheists, you know, they don't do sports, you know, they're not into fitness, they're just into being fat for some reason. I still don't really know how the connection is made. But I want to know, like, which is it? Because he said, uh, excess weight impairs

brain function. So wait a minute, but I only got the excess weight because I'm an atheist, right? Is that, that's what you're saying? Like, I, you know, so like, which came first? So was I, did I get excess weight that impaired my brain function? And then I went back in time and decided to then, because of my impaired brain function, be an atheist and therefore gain weight? How does that work? Which is it? And then another thing I'd like to say is a very quick Google search will reveal that

eight of the ten fattest states are in the South. And I remember from somewhere that the South is kind of religious. In fact, I'd say most likely, I'm going to go out on a limb. I'm not even looking this up. Someone check this for me. I'm going to say 10 of the 10 most religious states are in the South. I'm just going to say that. It could be wrong. It could be 9 of the 10.

It could be 9.5 out of 10. Who cares? It's some number close to 10, and they happen to be the fattest states. So I'm going to go ahead and say that's not because of atheism. Oh, shoot. Okay, is that all I wanted to do for there? Yeah, let me read more. P.C. Myers is a leader within the—oh, yeah, that part. I love this. for there? Yeah, let me read more. P.Z. Myers is a leader within the...

Oh yeah, that part. I love this. This is how you can tell this is a trustworthy source. A significant amount of leaders. Listen to that grammar. I don't know how many fellow grammar people there are out there. I'm not insane about it, but I prefer to read an encyclopedia that has at least a decent grasp of grammar. You know, if you want to learn something, a significant amount of liters, amount of liters, how many is that? Like

five grams of liters. How do you have an amount of liters? Do you mean a number of liters? You mean a number of liters, not an amount of liters. You can't have an amount of a countable noun. You can have like, like four pounds of liters. Like what's an amount of leaders. You can't have an amount of a countable noun. You can have like, like four pounds of leaders. Like what's an amount of leaders. Anyway, that, that just goes to show the level of confidence you should have in this glorious, uh, you know, what do I even call this slice of shit? Um, okay. Quick other things. Uh, it goes on Fox day. I don't actually know that is Christian apologist Fox day had an individual complaint about the notion that the atheist community has a problem with obesity. As a result, on May 19, 2011, Vox Dei released a blog post entitled,

Male Vox, Now Who Said Atheists Are Fat? Where 80% of the people taking a picture with PZ Myers are overweight. And PZ Myers was overweight in the picture as well, as can be seen here. Click on my voice to go to that picture. The picture was originally posted on PZ Myers' blog Ferengula. I should know how to pronounce that. Ferengula? I don't know. By Myers.

On May 16th. I've actually been to the blog. I just don't know how to pronounce it, okay? On May 16th, 2011. An online argument quickly ensued concerning the appearance of the photographs' participants. This is the best part. I shouldn't have even read that bullshit, because who cares?

This is the best part. During his visit to the Creation Museum, P.Z. Myers had a noticeably greater difficulty than others climbing on and off a dinosaur model due to the fact that he was overweight and out of shape. Yes, because this is the measure of a man. How fast can you climb on and off a dinosaur model? Men, that's the measure of a thinker.

You know, that's the measure of someone who's got their act together and you can trust. I don't trust anyone who runs less than a 12 parsecs on a dinosaur model run. You better be able to do the dinosaur model run in less than like 12 parsecs on a dinosaur model run. You better be able to do the dinosaur model run in less than like five parsecs before I'll listen to anything you say about anything, especially grammar. There was something else I was going to say, but who cares?

Fuck it. So I'll just say what the actual fuck, Conservapedia. You've got to be kidding me. This story's from motherjones.com. Anti-evolution Missouri bill requires college students to be kidding me. This story is from MotherJones.com. Anti-evolution Missouri bill requires college students to learn about destiny. Rick Bratton, a Republican state representative in Missouri, introduced a bill that would require that intelligent design and destiny. Destiny, not destiny's child. Destiny.

Get the same educational treatment and textbook space in Missouri schools as the theory of evolution. This guy's fucking nuts, Cecil. He is fucking crazy. This is the bill. Let me read part of this. It says the Missouri Standard Science Act redefines a few things you thought you already knew about science. For example, a hypothesis is redefined as something that reflects a minority of scientific opinion and is philosophically unpopular. A scientific theory is an inferred explanation whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy. And destiny is not something that five-dollar fortune tellers believe in.

Instead, it is events and processes that define the future of the universe, galaxies, stars, our solar system, Earth, plant life, animal life, and the human race. This guy is a fucking senator in Missouri. Like this is what happens when you fucking elect Boss Hogg as your fucking senator. You can't just redefine stuff. You can't just redefine stuff. You can't do that. Especially like really specific terms that already have – it's like he's redefining the color blue. I mean seriously. It's like you cannot pass a law that changes the vernacular of a discipline in a community.

You can't just pass a law that's like, well, hypothesis now means this. No, it doesn't. That does not mean that. And what possible point is there to passing this law other than just to be like, hey, Missouri, get educated here and don't get a job. These states don't realize that, you know, higher education institutions of note, they look at your high school that you come from. They look at, you know, they look and see where you graduated. You could have a 4.0.

You could have, you know, a really good high school record. And you could have tried to attend, you know, a prestigious university. If you come from a shit high school, they know it's a shit high school. And if your entire state churns out shit high schools because you're redefining fucking hypothesis and theory and teaching destiny, they're not going to look at you the same way. All you're going to do is be like, you know, I'd like to put all the students in our state at a competitive disadvantage. Yeah, no kidding. the same way. All you're going to do is be like, you know, I'd like to put all the students in our state at a competitive disadvantage. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he started fucking redefining the astrological signs.

Like, that would make sense. It'd be like, okay, well, obviously this guy doesn't, I mean, he's fucking talking about destiny, for fucking Christ's sakes. Destiny! I know. That's not a fucking scientific term, you fucking asshat. Destiny! I know. That's not a fucking scientific term, you fucking asshat! Destiny! The law, this bill that is being introduced, requires that textbook space be equally given to evolution and intelligent design, but it also says you have to give equal space, equal space, as if they are equivalent things, to any other theory of origin.

are equivalent things to any other theory of origin so any other theory of origin they all how big is this textbook you're gonna give fucking scoliosis to every kid who has to carry this thing to and from there's been a lot of theories of origin no kidding and i can understand like i i can honestly i can understand if you were taking a like history of ideas course cool man that's like a totally reasonable thing to teach but in a science class be like oh yeah and then that's the part where odin you know came no fucking what where's the science there yeah there's nothing to be said there we had some asshat on Facebook comment where he's like talking about like how, oh, wow, you shouldn't be looking at two different theories, laugh out loud. Oh, why would you want to give – why would you want to like look at something else? Why would you want to look at another explanation?

And the idea that intelligent design is anything but creationism in the Bible wrapped up in some sort of faux scientific theory. That's all it is. It's just they're using the language of – or trying to use the language of science and failing utterly and putting it in a context that makes it seem like it's scientific. But there's no science there. They're going about the process wrong. They've come to a conclusion and they're trying to gather up little pieces of evidence to try to prove it. That's not how it works. You have to have a hypothesis and test your hypothesis.

There's no testing going on. We got you a test to make sure. Like don't you remember in chemistry class where you took the beaker full of Jesus? Yeah, the beaker full of Jesus and then you mixed it with the Mary Magdalene juice and then you swirled it around with the litmus thing? What I did was I just had a little beaker of water and I parted it. I just parted the water right down the center. There's a difference with how you feed your family. You know, if you cook from scratch, if you cook from scratch,

it's both more economical and it is healthier. It's both. Because, you know, you're not feeding your family a bunch of laboratory chemicals and a bunch of additives and preservatives

that are associated with prepackaged, ready-made foods that are easy, time-saving foods of just grab a box. You know, it's ready in 10 minutes, but it's not healthy. All the nutrition is gone from it. It's filled with preservatives and artificial things. And, you know, not only you think you're saving money, but you're going to pay down at the hospital eventually, you know, for what you're doing to your body and the bodies of your family.

But not only that, but look, you're spending the same amount of money in the end. Because if you buy the ingredients and you cook from scratch, you can make an economical meal that is actually healthy, but it's labor intensive. You know, for example, baking a loaf of bread takes a lot of work, takes a lot of energy. It's a lot easier just to buy a loaf of Wonder Bread. You know, the one that's the white bread where you can squeeze the whole loaf into the size of a Super Bowl.

You know, it almost proves the theory of the Big Bang, you know, that you could cram that much matter into that small of a space. I'm just kidding, I don't believe in the Big Bang. But you know, to be able to cram that much matter into space, you're like, the Big Bang's starting to make sense. You know, because they think the whole universe was crammed so small

it was like a dot that you couldn't even see it. You know? I mean, it's the universe of Wonder Bread, apparently. But, you know, you can sit there and say, well, why would I bake bread? I'm just going to go buy a loaf of bread. That bleached out, processed bread with no

vitamins, no nutrition, no minerals in it. And, you know, yeah, you can tell your husband, here, honey, thanks for working so hard today. Here's a bologna sandwich on Wonder Bread. I mean, that's not looking well to the ways of your household. I'm sorry. So we're back with Thomas from Thomas and the Bible. And is F this podcast still in production, Thomas? Shit, I'm sorry you brought that up because we just had, it was me and my brother, but he's had some life events and he has to stop.

And I'm really sad about it. I think it's a fantastic show still. And if anyone wants to check it out, but it's on hiatus for now. So just fuck that. So cut this out. No, you don't have to check it out, but it's on hiatus for now. Okay. So just fuck that. So cut this out. No, you don't have to. I don't care. I want them not to go search for it if it's a...

I mean, it's still up. It's still good. The episodes are still there, but it's, you know, for now it's on hold. It's just on hiatus. Okay. Well, we're back with Thomas from Thomas and the Bible, and Tom, we're going to talk about one more story with Thomas. Yeah, this story comes from the Friendly Atheist blog, who incidentally is going to be on our show next week.

Christian pastor, I'd rather experience Chinese water torture than listen to a woman argue with me. For fucking real, Pastor Steven Anderson at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, Pastor Steven Anderson at a Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, has an hour worth of some of the craziest make-me-a-sandwich sermon I have ever heard in my life. Thomas, I need to know how much of this biblically acts. You're my scholar. You're my go-to guy here. You have grossly overestimated my abilities. I don't know.

All of it? None of it? Who knows? Isn't that the thing? Who really fucking knows when it comes to the Bible? He's got a point, Tom. I think it is all pretty literally right on the Bible. You can find any of it or you can find none of it. That's why it's so stupid.

That's why it's a dumb book to use as your guide. You can find anything. none of it. That's why it's so stupid. That's why it's a dumb book to use as your guide. You can find anything. I'm just wondering what verse and chapter says that public schools are run by Satan. I'm just wondering where that comes from.

I'm glad you picked that one out because that was my favorite line. Let me read the whole line because that was my favorite thing. No, go ahead. 29.35 of the video, it says, public schools are run by satan literally period teachers and school board members are just little devils i love when people use literally like i love literally thinking of satan has like an office you know like that he's like he's like

god i thought running public schools was gonna be all just you know ruining christian's lives and all that but god there's a lot of lot of administrative. There's like fucking like somebody comes in and they're like, Hey, the kids really want to change like meatloaf Monday to, you know, like hash Brown Monday. And the devil's like, God,

if I didn't know it was going to be this much work, like I would not have decided to take, except the role of running public schools. Like this is way too much work for me. It's actually really funny that you say this because if you watch, if you actually subject yourself to watching the video, he actually references an organizational chart. Yeah, yeah. With Satan at the top. And lots of little Satans in different admin positions.

Because, like, clearly there's a recognition. It's like, this is too much work for any one devil. Like I gotta have, I gotta get some fucking help around here. I gotta get an executive devil's assistant. You know, I gotta, I gotta make, I gotta have a fucking secretarial typing pool for all of this devil work that I'm doing. I mean, he is fucking serious about this. Do you think Satan's a real micromanager? Like he's got, he's got one devil that's like, no dude, I'm saying like I mean, he is fucking serious about this. Do you think Satan's a real micromanager? Like, he's got

one devil that's like, no, dude, Satan's like, hey, what are you working on there? He's like, oh, I got it. I'm just, you know, I'm tormenting this one child and making sure that they're going to turn out an atheist. Oh, yeah? How are you going about doing it? No, look, I got it. I don't need you to... Look, if you're

going to micromanage every little devil that you have under you, like, this is going to take all day. You got to go – you got higher up things to do, right, Satan? I mean, come on. I'm going to need to see your – I'm going to have to go ahead and see your plan here. You got this all mind mapped for me to review? Yeah. He's making all the devil spill out TPS reports.

I was just going to say. He's like, yeah. Devils have to come in on Sunday. I was just going to say, the devils have to come in on Sunday. So there's another part of this, too, where he's talking about how women should never make sandwiches on Wonder Bread. Like a woman should never make a bologna sandwich on Wonder Bread. And I'm wondering, again, because you're our Bible scholar and you know the Bible inside and out. What I was wondering is, you know, I remember we were talking, this was last year, we were talking about like there's certain parts of the Bible where they talk about specifications about arcs and how big things need to be. Do they ever specify what kind of bread you can and can't eat?

Like brands? Do they have like brand favorites in the Bible? I think they didn't honestly have a lot of selection back then. I don't think it was like, well, you can, the French is okay. You know, the French roll, not the sliced French. You can't go with a slice. That's no good. Yeah. But what if, uh, yeah. What if this is some interpretation of like the, you know, you can't combine meats or whatever, you know, like what if, what if Wonder Bread is like some sort of pork product and we don't know about it? Like, what if like it's bologna?

Well, you know,oney. I think when I heard this, it made sense because the Bible makes it so you can't wonder. So I would see why they would be against wonder. It makes sense to me. Purely the word. Someone's going to look at the wrapper on the bread or whatever, the bag

and then they're going to get ideas. Your children. You're going to make little Carl Sagan's because of the bread they're eating. And ye shall go with to the piggly wiggly and ye shall buyeth the bread, but the bread shall not be the wonder bread. Yeah. So say is first Bolognans chapter three.

The bread shall be two cubits high, one cubit wide. Specify it all. Big goddamn loaf of bread, that's all I'm saying. I want the sandwich cut diagonally, not horizontally. And thou shalt cut it off the crusts. Yeah. And you shall not bring me pimento loaf, for that is not food. So sayeth the Lord.

If anyone gathers salami sticks on the Sabbath, they shall be stoned. This guy has some super crazy shit. I got to read my very favorite one. My absolute favorite one is 54 and a half minutes into this diatribe of inanity. Women, don't get mad if the washing machine doesn't work. You used to be the washing machine. I can't

see how that would possibly alienate somebody to be referred to as a modern compliance of convenience. That implies that people didn't used to get mad at women when they didn't wash the clothes correctly. Like, maybe that's not true.

Like, maybe people used to get mad back when they were the washing machine, you know? Like, how's that logic sound? I just am not, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and say his logic is a little thump. Just a little. A little bit. Like, I'm with him on his general premise, you know? It's a great message he's giving, but I think his finer details are a little bit off. I'll just

say that. The guy really what he's doing is basically saying, I found in the Bible a couple passages that allow me to put every woman in the audience back in the fucking kitchen. So get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich and it better not be bologna, it better not

be a Wonderbrain. Yeah, I just don't know how these kind of things I just like and it better not be baloney and it better not be a wonder breath. Yeah. Yeah, I just don't know how these kind of things I just like to pretend don't actually exist, you know, but I guess they do. Just like you like blot it out. You put your fingers in your ears and just go la, la, la. No, I just hear it. I'm like, well, there's no way that's true, but I guess it is. You know, like I just, I guess there are people, you know,

it's not like this is just one random guy on a street corner yelling things, too. Like, he supposedly has some sort of following, right? I mean, I don't know anything about this gentleman, but, like, he. Gentleman, that's so polite. There are people who, like, were there, right, when he said this, I'm assuming. So, yes, it's not just him. It's, like, there's people who listen to him. I can't even believe it.

I mean, there's an audience. At least his, you know, we can't see the audience, but he does reference his wife, so I think his wife is in the audience at a certain point. There may or may not be two or three other people in the audience. I have no idea because you can't see how many people are there. But it certainly sounds pretty quiet.

It's rare that there's much, you know, going on in the background, so I'm envisioning, like, you know, an 8x10 room with like four chairs in it. But I could be wrong. I don't know. He does address our criticisms. I do want to point out he does say 55 minutes in that the world may disagree with me,

but fuck it. Don't tell me I can't say this stuff just because I can't give birth. I'm a pastor. So it's proof positive. It's done. You know, I don't think the reason he can't say that is because he can't give birth. I'm pretty sure that if a woman

was saying these same things, like, I don't think people would be like, oh, it's a woman. It's fine. Yeah. A woman can tell us to get back in the kitchen because they can technically give birth. So yeah, that's fine. You can only say that during your childbearing years too. Like once you hit menopause, like, whoa, are you ovulating

right now? If not, get the fuck off the dais. I'm not listening to that shit. Yeah, at a certain point, like, there's got to be people who are the worst misogynists that are like, all right, man, we get it. Like, there's got to be... Yeah, when the misogynists get up and walk out of your audience, you know you've done the wrong

thing. Too far, man. Too far. They're like, okay, well, we get it. We're with you, but all right, this is an hour of you making these, okay, we get it. Is there anything else you want to cover in your sermon, or is this it? This is your sermon for the week. It's like a broken record after a certain point. We it you hate women we understand all right so we're using two we're wondering what

kind of woman would possibly marry a guy like this i know i just can't even i i just don't i i honestly get embarrassed just imagining like his wife even being anywhere around him when he's saying these things like i i start to i almost feel like I'm blushing just thinking about it. How does this happen? It's like once you meet the fuckers, you just want to hide your head under a cushion. Like, no, stop fucking. I can't.

Don't do that. You're going to do that thing. I know you're going to. Oh, he said it. Fucking he said it. There's one point in the video where he stops and he says, how many hours do you spend a day in the kitchen? And she responds back, you know, and you can't hear her response.

He goes, two to three? Nah, fuck it. I think it's more. You know, he's like, even when he solicits her feedback on what she does, then he dismisses it. So he's finding these passages that reinforce what he thinks about women and reinforce what he thinks about other things, other parts of society. At some point he's talking about – he's clearly anti-gay because he says that when kids go to public school, they become like homo lovers or whatever he says. The guy is completely off his rocker. Because the guy's completely off his rocker.

But the idea here is that he's using this book, this Bible, to lay out a blueprint for a life that he thinks is sort of righteous and holy. Who wrote that? What book are you talking about? I'm sorry. I didn't do my homework. I should have done more research before coming on here. What I want to ask, though, is like, is there, you've read a fucking lot of this book. Have you come across any part of it that you've been like, I would model my life after this part of this book? Listen, I might, this might get a little controversial. And I'm not, I'm being serious.

Like, this might be an opinion I have that maybe some other people in the atheist community don't have. But I'm going to say it because and you can just delete me out of the show. No, I don't think that there's any reason we should believe that the Bible would say anything good. Like, you know, all those signs people wave that said and Jesus said about homosexuality, dot, dot, dot. Like, you know, as in blank, like he didn't say anything about it. Yeah, I think that's I don't think that's the road we should be going down. Like I, I totally under, uh, I appreciate if anyone is trying to reduce bigotry within religion like that, that's definitely a good cause. But the, the, the idea that we're going to say like, no,

you're right to have your religion, but you're reading your book wrong here. Let's tell you, let me tell, let me, I'll tell you how you're supposed to be your religion, but you're reading your book wrong here. Let's tell you. Let me tell. Let me. I'll tell you how you're supposed to be reading your stupid holy book. And you should be reading it in a way that will make you nicer toward gay people. You know what I mean? Like, for instance, because you the problem with the Bible is everything is in the Bible. Like everything shitty is in the Bible. You can find justification for anything. What are the odds that all these movements, you know, that like gay rights around the 90s, for example, like what are the odds that it just so happened that people started discovering the Bible was actually pro-gay rights the whole time?

But they discovered it only right when, you know, society was discovering it. Just so happened, you know, if the Bible was really, if Jesus was really so cool with gay people, like, why didn't we always know that? You know, why was it only coincidentally when society started turning that way? You know, and I just don't, I think it's, I guess it's a tactic. Maybe it's a tactic we have to use in order to get people to treat other people better and specifically religious people to treat gay people better. But I just, isn't it frustrating at all that, that that's the arguments we have to use? Like, let me tell you what your book really says.

You know, it's like, who gives a shit what a book says? Why don't we just tell people, like, this is what you should do? You know? Yeah, no, I agree. And I think you're absolutely right. The problem, I think, arises in that there's no way to get these people to stop looking at that book to reference their life. They can't just leave it behind, whereas the rest of us can be like, look, man, that thing is fucking full of hate. I mean, they drowned all the animals.

All the cute animals are dead. Like, how could you read a book where you drown all the things, all of the things on the earth? And that's the children's play. Yeah, exactly. How do you look at that book? I'm not trying to be facetious at all right now, but that's one of the nicer things that has happened to people in the Bible. I'll be honest with you. In the Old Testament.

Drowning. I take drowning over a lot of what happened to people. Just to give you an idea. You look at it, and my first thought is when you were saying that Thomas is I, I kind of disagree. Like I want people to use the Bible to justify the shit that's going on. That's progressive and decent in society because it's behavior modification. You know, at some point you don't reason with the dog to stop pissing on the floor. You know, you just try to modify the behavior. It's like, oh, we should try to figure out why and explain to the dog.

You know, there's some there are some people who are like, I'm going to read the book, whatever the book says, or rather, whatever you tell me the book says. I'm not going to read it myself. So whatever you tell me the book says is what I think the book says. And the book that you hold that I didn't read that you read to me kind of sort of partway is the thing that I'm going to believe. that you hold that I didn't read that you read to me kind of sort of partway is the thing that I'm going to believe. So if that's going to be the case, then it's like, well, fucking put the shock collar on them and make sure they don't bark at the neighbor. You know, I just don't want them to bite the mailman anymore. Yeah, I you know, I'm really glad that you're providing like a counter argument because I really think that you're right. But I just don't think I can be that person.

And you're right, but I just don't think I can be that person. And that's why I'm not going to stop anyone. But I just cannot be a person who lies, who just – except when I tell you that I wasn't with your wives the other day. That's the only time. What I think though too is – I mean look at what this guy does. What does this guy do? He's not reading the Bible to them. He's just finding a verse in there that he can keep talking about.

He's talking about, like, the bread of knowledge. And at one point he talks about, you know, you'll be wise in the Lord. And he's saying that means if you read the Bible, you're more wise. And then you listen to the guy and you're like, well, clearly you've read a lot of the Bible, my friend. And you are not the wisest individual I've ever heard speak before. So the thing is, is that he's picking and choosing all of his arguments. He's going through and saying, well, this passage reinforces my chauvinistic behavior. And this passage reinforces the fact that women shouldn't be doing other things. And this passage reinforces the fact that women shouldn't speak unless they're spoken to, et cetera, et cetera. And he works his way through to find and pick all these things to, to, to modify his point, to show people,

this is what he thinks is the Bible is saying. I think that the counter argument to that is when people go through people that are really, you know, biblical scholars that have studied the Bible can go through and be like, well, here, this is where he says this stuff that counteracts that. And I think the only way you're going to get some of these people to even change their mind is to show them the Bible. But I'm with you, though, too, where I just want to say, well, fucking wake up, dummy. Well, I think, okay, let me pose it to you this way. Why should it be? Why would you think it is?

You're an atheist, right? I mean, are you like, do you make some other distinction? I'm sorry, I don't already know that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, just you make some other distinction? I'm sorry, I don't already know that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, just making sure before I go on. Why should it be that the Bible somehow had this right at a time when no one had it right? It's true. And all the people involved.

Like, why do you think that there's, do you think there's some mystical reason they would have gotten it right? No, they were wrong. They were a horrible society. Why do you think that it, well, why do you think that they would have gotten it right? I just, there's no way that the, I mean, that argument that if you really look detailed into it, that they're wrong. No, they're right. Like if you interpret it that way, you're right. I mean, you can, I personally think that if you're going in and finding ways that we shouldn't be misogynistic in the Bible, all you're doing is doing it the other way. You're just covering your tracks, the, you know, finding, picking and choosing to justify the other way.

Because even Jesus himself said that he fully believes in the old Testament. Jesus was a Jew. He was not a Christian. He wasn't a follower of himself. He just chases his shadow at infinitum. Yeah. He's like, man, I can't catch myself here when I'm trying to worship myself. He just ran around in circles. That's all he did. And people were mystified by it. They're like to not be that. And I, and I'm glad you,

you made that argument though, because you might be right that people need to be diplomatic. And, and I like, that's why I started out from the get-go saying like, if this results in people being nicer to people and respecting other people more, then I guess it's the right thing. But I just personally, I can't handle just going into the dipping into this just madness, you know, just this ludicrous idea that we should be even be listening to this book to God like that, like there's any shred of truth in it, really, in its premise, that is that there's a God talking to these people in order to treat each other nicely. I just can't even get into that reality. And then you're also I mean, you're right in that what it is is depicting a barbaric society. I mean, when you read this book, it's not like these are civilized people.

You know what would make it more believable? I mean, honestly, you know what would make it more believable is if everything that we've come to know about the world was in, like if for 2,000 years,

if everybody looked at that thing and was like, man, slavery isn't wrong. What the fuck? We've had, you know, and it was like, it was clear as day, like slavery is some bullshit. So sayeth the Lord, like women be just as good as y'all. So sayeth some God. Like, and for 2000 years, people were like, man, no, you got that part wrong.

And then all of a sudden it was like, oh man, that's, that's fucking clear. It's not told in a series of fucking obfuscated parables you know like it's just here's some fucking real advice and but instead it's like well here's a bunch of stories that contradict each other but then otherwise shed light on a backward world and now we throw that shit out because you know it's like we have to drag this religious all religious text kicking and screaming into the modern world and try to fucking shoehorn them into a way that we actually want to live. Because nobody wants to live that way.

Like, you know, as ridiculous as it is, it's like, well, you used to be the washing machine. It's like, well, yeah, and that sucked. Like, nobody wants to be the washing machine anymore. Because now you can be a fucking doctor. You know? Yeah. Or now you could just even just be a stay-at-home mom who doesn't have to be the washing machine anymore because now you can be a fucking doctor yeah you know yeah or or now you could just even just be a stay-at-home mom who doesn't have to be the washing machine you can do other things yeah and i love like he really has he has no uh sympathy for women or empathy for

women but he's he's really empathizing with the washing machine because he's saying like women don't get mad at it like that's the one thing he really cares about is washing machines. He's like, hey, you know, go easy on this washing machine. He's a pro maytag. You could be that washing machine. Damn it. Be nice to it. Yeah, that's the only thing he cares about.

It's funny. We found his real motivation. Yeah, but I love this argument of Jesus said nothing directly on it. Therefore, he's totally fantastic about it. Like, yeah, he also didn't say anything about raping a baby, pooping on your grandpa's head, you know, like mass genocide.

He didn't really, there's a lot of things he didn't say anything about. It's like when you take it, you're taking all the stuff that he didn't say something about and writing a book about it. It'd be a huge fucking book, man. Right. He didn't talk about the Big Bang either. What the fuck? Yeah, it's like those were things that were universally at the time not

accepted. Well, actually, I've read that Pupil Young Grandfather was accepted in some circumstances. Does Noah's Daughters do that? Is that a different book? Two daughters, one cup? I don't know. I mean, there's something going on there. I don't know. Why are you using those kangaroos as firewood?

Well, I can. Jesus didn't say not to. So I just use them as firewood. They're good hopping firewood. Also, Jesus didn't say anything about always using turn signals, but I really think that we should always. Jesus' rules of the world. Keep your hands at 10 and 2 and don't bleed on the steering wheel.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to make a sign that says, And Jesus said about safe driving habits. Sot, tot, tot. Quote, blank. Like, why are you drinking and driving? Jesus didn't tell me not to.

And Jesus said about secondhand smoke. Dot, dot, dot. Like, yeah, he didn't say a lot of things. So, Thomas, if people were going to find your podcast and your stuff online, where would they go? Oh, I got this new website I set up. It's www.g-o-o-g-l-e.com. And then I put in this little bar that if you type in Thomas in the Bible, I found it's way easier. So it's just, yeah, it's messing with a long URL.

G-O-O-G-L-E, is that what you said? Yeah, two O's. G-O-O. Yeah, it's weird. I know, it's hard to remember. But it's like, it's like one with a thousand zeros or one with a hundred zeros. Yeah. My actual, my actual place where you can find me, sorry about that.

My actual place is actual place where you can find me, sorry about that. My actual place is the Facebook page. I'll link over, I'll plug the show on my page and cross link. And if you want to go to facebook.com slash T and the B. T and the B. That's where, yeah. So sorry, I'm being snarky. No, no, I mean, it's fine. The thing is, is that that would totally work. You know what I mean? Like going to Google and typing Thomas in the Bible is just as good as giving out a web address. But we will link to it on this episode of the show, and hopefully people will check out your podcast. It's a very funny podcast.

Tom, are you doing it live now? Oh, yeah. I've been live videoing. What's the proper verb for that? Video casting? Oh, okay. We call that the Bill O'Reilly. Actually.

Video casturbating? Yeah. Something like that? No. This is one of those adult stations. Okay. Oh, wait, yeah. That's my other podcast.

Sorry, that's a little... No, it's... Yeah, I've been live doing it on... What the hell is the site? Stream? You stream. Are you familiar with your own show at all? No, look, I don't know shit.

I'm just a paid represent... This don't know shit. I'm just a paid represent. This is not actually Thomas. It's an incredible simulation, that's for sure. He doesn't get out of bed for the figures you guys discussed with me. He doesn't even waste his time. Well, thank you for coming on our show, Thomas. We appreciate it, man. Hey, the pleasure is all mine.

Great show. I had a great time this year, last year, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day 2014, I'm going to expect a call. I'm putting it on my calendar right now. So this week, during the week, I wound up on my work email getting a message from someone who listens to the show. work email, getting a message from someone who listens to the show. I work at a religious institution, a liberal religious institution, but I still work at a religious institution. And I've mentioned this on the show before a couple times, but I work at a religious institution and someone contacted me through my work email address. So they found my work email address, found my work YouTube page, and then commented on a video on my work YouTube page.

And the video was something I did in grad school, but it could have easily been something I did for my work as well. And I want to just put a kibosh to this right now. want to just put a kibosh to this right now. I think that there is no, I would really like a separation between the podcast and my work. My work is very lenient and very tolerant of all kinds of viewpoints. I'm an open atheist at work, so there's no shock there. People know I have a podcast. There's no shock there. But I just want to make sure that there's a clear and definitive border between this podcast and my work world. So I would expressly ask all the people who listen, please do not try to find me at my work, try to find my email address at my work or things like that and make comments, especially public comments, that's just really inappropriate. Yeah, there needs to be plenty of room between our personal lives and the show,

or the show can't continue. It has the possibility of threatening one or both of our jobs, it's not acceptable. Yeah, and when Tom says the show can't continue, what Tom means is the show will end. Yeah, we have to cancel it. I mean, like, the show is over. Yeah, I don't mean to mince words. It's, you know, there's obviously the show does not put a roof over our heads. It doesn't put food in our mouths and enormous bellies.

So, you know, if there's anything at any point that says, you know, hey, this show or your job, you know, the show doesn't win. So we appreciate feedback. I think we give the audience lots of ways to contact us. You can find us, you know, there's a bumper in every show on how to find us, how to communicate with us. We love to get that feedback. But our personal lives have to stay personal and they have to stay private.

And in particular, our work lives and in particular, Cecil's work life. That's that sacrosanct. And if that gets violated, the show can't continue. So we got some voicemail and a voice memo. First, I want to say hello to Preston who called and left a message about a Netflix movie that he had recently seen. Preston, your voicemail was three minutes long, and we just can't play a three-minute-long voicemail on the show. But we will say thank you for calling. We did get a voice memo from Maya

and we're going to talk about Maya's in a second. We also got a voicemail from a guy who I need subtitles to fucking read what he said because he's so British. He's so unbelievably British or whatever. I don't even know.

He could be Irish. I have no idea what his... You know who he sounds like to me? Michael Bisping. That's who he sounds... You know who I'm MA. He sounds like Michael Bisping to me. I was like, and I don't understand a fucking thing Michael Bisping says. When he talks, you need to

subtitle it for me. When I watch the movie Snatch, and I watch Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, I have to have the subtitles on. I can't understand. So this guy says some stuff that, man, I have no idea what he said. But I think his name is Dave, and here is his voicemail. And here's Maya's voice memo as well.

All right, lads. It's Dave Thomas from Little Hampton in the UK here. Just wanted to say I love your podcast. Keep it up. Well fucking funny. And I wanted to leave a message for a mate who I

got to listen to your podcast called Ricky Ashcroft. I wanted to call him a fat dirty bastard. Cheers. Take care you fuckers. Hey guys.

My he. Middle Eastern slash Aussie slash Swedish dissant that emailed you a little while ago. I just had a few comments regarding your last show. Now, regarding the baby burqas, I don't see how enforcing children to wear the burqa is in any way in line with Islam. First off, the father of his child is a mahram, which means unmarriageable kin with whom sex would be incestuous. So she isn't obliged, Islamically speaking, to wear the scarf or burqa in front of her father. For example, my sister wears the burqa

or scarf or whatever you want to fucking call it, but doesn't have to be in front of my father my brother or my uncle or my grandfather or anyone like that so it might help when strangers pround young children but how does that help when it's the father or the brother who's the sick son of a bitch like in the case that you brought up that's hardly an appropriate response to that tragedy. And what's the solution for young boys? Burkas too? On to more important things. My partner's grandfather passed away recently, and I found myself having an interesting conversation about death and the afterlife with him. While I dismiss the idea of a god in any form,

I can't logically deduce from there that there is no afterlife of some description i personally believe that there this is our life and that's it um but my my partner is more of an agnostic i'd be interested to know what your opinion is are atheism and the possibility possibility of a life after this one mutually exclusive. So do you want to read Dave's text? Yeah, I mean, let's let Google Voice take a crack at it. Sure, okay. I think they'll get it right.

Right, that'll probably just be fine. But I have to send by told us from Atlanta, you guy. Shrinivas, I love you. Call calls, take off. Well, funny, I want to leave a message for Mike. The water, okay? Listen to your phone calls. Hold with, yeah.

School is going to call me, and I thought that I posted. And cheers. Hi, Kate. August. You see, now that makes more sense than what he said. I'm right there with you. Man, I couldn't understand fuck all what that guy said. But, hey, thanks, Dave, for calling.

I'm going to try. What I'm going to do is I'm going to throw it in Audacity and see if I could just play it at, like, half speed. I don't know. I don't know how to decipher it. Maya asks a couple questions. First, Maya tells us that burkas are only worn by people that you're not related to. So that story that we did last week where the guy was saying, hey, put your baby in a burka. It's like, well, you know, that's an incestuous relationship and they already address that.

So there's no reason that the baby would be in it. That would only protect you from, you know, other, you know, pedophiles or something. I'm like strangers raping your baby. Strangers. Let me tell you, you have the epidemic of strangers raping your babies, man. But anyway, Maya mentions that. But then also Maya says in her voicemail that she got into a discussion with her partner and she asked us a question.

Are atheism and the possibility of an afterlife mutually exclusive? Yeah, I think that they are. Personally, I think they are. I mean, I think that, you know, an atheist, if you don't believe that there is, if you believe in a materialist worldview, if you believe that there's nothing transcendent about the self, about, you know, if you believe that there's nothing transcendent about the self, if you think genuinely that there is nothing transcendent or supernatural, period, and certainly the ultimate transcendent or supernatural existence would be God and the afterlife and all the shenanigans therein, I think that if you have a materialist worldview and you recognize like, well, my body is meat and when the meat decays, then I decayed like that. I don't think that

there's a fundamental part of me which transcends the meat. I think that, you know, the parts of me are meat. And when the meat spoils, it's over. Yeah, I agree, Tom. I think that there is – I feel the same way. And if someone were to say to me, do you think that there's an afterlife? I would say, no, I don't think that there's an afterlife. But if someone said, do you know that there's no afterlife? I have to say, I don't know. Of course.

I don't think there is. I will, you know, I'm like, I'm like what Dawkins said was like, you know, like a seven out of nine or a seven out of 10 or whatever. He said six out of seven, one of those numbers. There's a seven in there somewhere. But Dawkins was talking about, you know, you, you have to, I think, be a little agnostic, at least admit the possibility of being agnostic. If you want to truly be a skeptic, if you want to truly be skeptical, if you truly want to have a mindset that I think uses science as a baseline to try to think, then you've got to at least say, okay, maybe there is. I don't know. But at the same time, you've got to say, I don't think it's possible because there's no evidence pointing towards it. So there's, yeah. Is there a slim chance that there's no evidence pointing towards it. So, yeah, is there a slim chance that there's some sort of afterlife?

Maybe, but at this point, I mean, I would not bet on that. Like, if I was a betting man, I would not be betting on that. I would be, like, I would think, well, I'm a food after I'm dead for all the worms, and there's nothing else. My electrical impulses stop, and I become calories for other things. You know, real quick, I want to address something that I hear a lot. It's not in this voicemail, but I hear and I read a lot this sort of idea like, well, you know, I think energy cannot be created or destroyed. And then so, you know, I think my energy has to go on. And I'm sure you've

heard that. Oh, yeah. All the time. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to address that real quick because, you know, I hear it all the time and it never makes any sense and it's never very well thought out. And it's such a silly thing to say. Your energy, you know, if you just, if you just think of, you don't have an energy, right? Like you don't just contain an amount of like, I am just full of energy at all. No, I mean, you're just, you're using fuel. Like that's what you're doing. Like you're full of energy in the sense that a car is full of energy because it's full of gasoline. Like it, but a car, if you don't start the fucking engine, it doesn't do a thing. Like it's not that the energy is now, man, I had to go off into space and still retain a consciousness.

It's like, no, it's still, I mean, it's still a potential energy. It just hasn't been chemically converted into, you know, electrical impulses and movement and, you know, the stuff that we think of as life. Like, yeah, the fucking banana that I ate an hour ago is energy. And if I die, it's still energy. Yeah. It's just not used. Yeah. It's the same way like the gasoline in my car.

Well, it's energy. But if I never start the car again, the car is not alive. Like the car doesn't like go off into some transcendent ultimate cardam where it, you know, exists in a, in an ethereal plane because it had gas in it when I last stopped running it. Like that's, it's a silly argument. And I think you hear that a lot from, from the sort of, uh, I don't want to admit that there's nothing after life crowd. And I just, I feel like I need to touch on that cause it makes me kind of crazy. We gotta to stop this. We do.

We got to stop. But evidently, David sends us a message and talks about a movie, Happiness, where there's a dog who – Well, first off, he says, in the final scene, a young teen boy jerks off on the balcony, then goes inside and sits down to dinner. His dog goes outside, laps up to come, goes back inside, and the boy's mom lets the log dick her face. That's awesome. Dog lick her face. The dog lick her face. And that's not even the weirdest part of the movie.

Well, goodness gracious, sign me up. That sounds awesome. That sounds awesome. No, really, like, I mean, you know, curiosity is getting to me, though. Like, why is the dude jerking off on the balcony? Like, stop doing that. Yeah, that's a very unusual place to be like, man, I got to rub one out. And use a Kleenex.

Outside. Use a Kleenex. You know what's so funny? The last time we were on Incredulous, Tom, there was a fucking term that they kept throwing around. And I had no idea what it was. They kept on saying posh wank. Have a posh wank. And I was like, what the fuck are they talking about? Because I listen to the show, and I'm like, a fucking posh wank have a posh wank and i was like what the fuck are they talking

about because i listened to the show and i'm like a fucking posh wank like i mean who's even gonna wank off to the fucking posh spice anymore she looks like fucking mick jagger for crying out loud now she looks like a handbag and i'm wondering what the fuck they're talking about so like you know i of course had to google it i'm like well what the fuck does google say about a posh wank so if you google, I found out that what it means is is to fucking wear a condom and jerk off into the condom. Like, your fucking

society's so proper, you fucking use safe sex when you're giving yourself a handjob? Like, what the fuck is that? You never had to use a Kleenex before? Like, what the fuck is going on? Are you worried about transmitting something? Does it go from hand to dick or dick to hand?

I know. Like, really, I could not understand it. I've heard of foot and mouth disease, but what the fuck? Like, the only person I think that would ever want to do that is the guy who's forever alone that only bought the condoms just because, you know, in vain hope, and now they expire tomorrow or something. That just seems like an expensive way to jerk them off. It really does.

It's just like, the fuck? There are better options for cleaning up, man. Jeez, buy a fleshlight for crying out loud. It's probably got a storage container in there. Anyway, we got an email from Michael who basically says that what we should do is put burkas on all the people, all the little boys that are around the Catholic priest. Maybe.

Maybe that's a good idea. I don't know. They kind of already are. Those altar boy outfits are not that far off. We got an email from Emily who said that she grew up in Naperville, so our accents reminder of home. Hey, come over to fucking Tree Guys Pizza. No, but Emily says that she's very happy that she found the podcast.

We're happy you found us. She lives, I think she said she lived in an area that is highly religious and that she has her husband's religious but inactive. So she's trying to, she's just trying to cope. And she's using us as a coping mechanism. And we're very happy that we can provide that to you, Emily. I do want to say that when she told her husband that she was an atheist, his reply was a very sincere, no, you're not. I love that. That's awesome. It's very funny.

That's awesome. That's awesome. We got another email from a Michael, and Michael says that he loved Tom's comment about the knuckle-dragging troglodyte. Last week we were talking about the guy who brought his gay dog in. Somebody posted on our Twitter and said that the gay dog guy might have been black, so he couldn't be a hillbilly. I disagree, sir. I disagree strongly. You don't have to be white to be a hillbilly. You just have to be a fucking dumb person. I don't think

you get out a hillbilly free card just because you have darker skin. Yeah, I'm not one to do your skin. No, you could be a hillbilly. You could be any color. I don't care what you are. I'll call you a hillbilly. We've called

every country has its hillbilly. Absolutely. Look, if you give your dog to the animal shelter because you think it might be gay, you're a hillbilly. We got an email from Catherine. Catherine sends a nice long email where she talks about finding our podcast and listening to us on purpose. And we're very happy that you did that. Although it sounds like you listened to us a lot at seven hours, seven hour stretches. That's too much. I think that I think the surgeon general warning is actually like only an hour and a half.

I will say that in your email, you say, thanks for exceeding my expectations. That's the only time a woman has ever said that to me. That's it. So lastly, Thomas, it's women first for you. Last time a woman has ever said that to me. That's it. Lastly, Tom, it's women first for you. Last time a woman called you sexy, and this time, you know, you've exceeded expectations. Let's be clear. She just called the voice sexy.

The rest of me definitively not so much. She hasn't seen the picture yet. I want to mention, we got an email from Kyle, and Kyle says he's been an avid listener for some time. He stumbled upon something that would be right up our alley. This guy's application for the newly vacated position on the Vatican. It turns out that the guy we were originally on Incredulous with, Dean Burnett, who is Welsh, who I couldn't understand a fucking thing he was saying most of the time.

Actually, I did understand a lot. He was a very funny guy. He was very funny. He was very funny. He was quick. He was quick-witted. He was hilarious. But he does a blog for The Guardian called Brain Flapping.

And we're going to link to this article. I'm going to put this directly on our notes for this particular episode because it's very funny. He basically signs up to become the pope. He's got his resume right here. His CV is attached and his personal statement of application to the Catholic Church to be pope is right here. So if you want to read Dean Burnett of the Brain Flapping Blog's piece, we're going to link to it on this episode. Thank you very much, Kyle, for sending it in.

I think he's got a shot at it. I think so, too. All right, Tom. Person wants to – they gave us their name, and they said pronounce it like in the following equation. Pikachu, pick, and then – go ahead. Pikachu minus pick plus then. So it'd be then-a-chew. Then-a-chew?

I think, right? Yeah, then-a-chew. I like it. Pikachu minus pick. So you keep the achoo. Achoo then. Then-a-chew. Or achoo then.

No, achoo then. Then-a-chew. I like then-a-chew better. I like then-a-chew. Then-a-chew is better. But achoo then says a couple of things to us. He posted on our Facebook page and we didn't respond, and that is a fucking normal case of affairs, my friend.

So when you post on your Facebook page, sometimes we don't get to it, and by sometimes I mean never. So we rarely do that. He does say that, Tom, your looks are as sexy as your voice at the very end here, but he does talk a little bit about abstinence, uh, abstinence education. And he says, um, abstinence only education, uh, can come from a religious mindset, but it can also be cultural. He's from, uh, he's from, uh, what is that?

India. I know, but what's the fucking Kerala? Is that it? Yeah, I think it's Kerala. Um, Kerala? India. I know, but what's the fucking Kerala? Is that it? Yeah, I think it's Kerala. Kerala? Kerala, India. And it says there's been a very successful, successful abstinence-only policy. And, you know, he says he didn't even know about sex until he was 16, and he's now 18.

And even dating is a taboo there. So not necessarily religious. And he says that the system is actually great. It makes people pay attention to what they're doing and focus more on bettering themselves and things like that. I think that there's just a different culture here than there is over there. I mean, there's no way to get around that. So, I mean, I can't comment on your culture

and how your culture handles this sort of thing. I can only really comment on the American culture. And if you didn't tell kids about sex and they do this, if they don't tell kids about sex, they wind up finding out about it in the wrong way in that they're pregnant because they're going to just find out about it because the parts just go together. Right. Yeah. You know, I have a hard time understanding a world where 16 and 17 year old kids don't know anything about sex in the sense that like that they're unfamiliar with the idea of sex. for a modern society to have quality sexual education for kids in order to reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, reduce unwanted pregnancies at a young age. If you don't do these things, it's a recipe for disaster. Maybe it works in India. I don't know. I don't know anything about India except for there's like a billion people in India.

So clearly some people are having sex. There's some people having sex. I can only talk about it here, and I will say that, you know, like what happens is idleness. I mean, like that's what happened because when you're a teenager, you don't have a job because you're too young. You're really just hanging out with your friends and doing all that kind of stuff. And, you know, you're going to meet the opposite sex because we don't keep them sequestered. and doing all that kind of stuff. And, you know, you're going to meet the opposite sex because we don't keep them sequestered. So there's this, you know, you're just going to have the opportunity

to get a little chitty-chitty bang-bang going on. You know what I mean? It's just going to happen. So that's what happens here. I have no idea what happens in other cultures, but I will say that's the cause of a lot of teen pregnancy is idleness. I mean, it's just, you know, I mean, that's it. But thank you for sending me.

Yeah, boredom and opportunity. Yeah, I mean, that's it. you know, I mean, that's that's that's it. But thank you for saying an opportunity. I mean, it's it it's, you know, it's opportunity. I do want to talk about this email. We kind of avoid this all the time. But but we got an email from Christine and Christine talks to us a little bit about atheism. Plus, she mentions that that atheism, she says, I think atheism leads to social justice as much as much of the oppression oppression has been justified by religion. So when one throws off religion, they should throw off the prejudice. And then they're talking about somebody talking to somebody the other night about, you know, atheism plus and how just the fucking conversation devolved.

And and it got heated and it got stupid. and it got heated and it got stupid. And what I want to say, I think, first and foremost, is that the atheism plus thing is really just kind of a sad time here in the skeptics world. And I think it's sad because nobody gets – everybody is – we're so used to dealing with the religious when they just – all they do is just have this invective and they don't have a lot of logic behind what they're saying. And they're just spitting some bullshit out and you've got to combat that or try to come at it logically. We're the, the, the two sides on this, the two

sides that are the far sides on this are just yelling at each other right now. And it's so unpleasant to listen to. Yeah, it is. It's, you know, we've talked, we talked about atheism plus back when we first heard about it on the show, you know, and I don't know that atheism plus, I don't know that it's humanism. It really is just, I don't, I fail to see how it's not just humanism and feminism, as we've said in the show is an offshoot of humanism. And feminism, as we've said in the show, is an offshoot of humanism. You simply can't be a humanist without being a feminist, in our opinion. I think we've said that as well. Many times, yeah. So, you know, does atheism necessarily lead to social justice and to, you know, humanists?

No, I don't think that it necessarily does, but it sure doesn't hurt. There's plenty of people who are wonderful humanitarians that are not atheists. Some incredibly good and good-hearted people. I don't think that atheism teaches people to be better. I just think that it does take away some roadblocks or excuses that religion can sometimes provide. But in no way do I think that it has a stranglehold on good behavior or social justice or equality. And I don't think it necessarily leads there either. Yeah, and I don't know. I mean I just don't know about atheism plus. I don't want to – I just don't want to have to prescribe to anything that uses a cross.

You know what I mean? I just want to stay away from the cross whenever possible. So I feel like too that there's just this fight that happens all the time on both sides. People are yelling at each other, making blog posts about each other and this person said this and I can't believe they did this and you've been banned from this forum and you've done this. And the thing is, is like, I don't ever get involved in any of that drama because it's just stupid. Like, I don't care. I really don't in any way care about any of the drama that goes on about atheism plus. I do care about the plight of women. I do care that women aren't treated equally still. That we're talking, on this episode in particular, 15 to 20 minutes about some jack hole who's standing up there saying, bitch, make me a sandwich. You know what I mean? Like this is a real problem that we're facing and it's

not just, uh, religious people that do it. There's, you know, there's fucking misogynist atheists out there and there's, you know, absolutely those people exist. And, uh, and they just, they, they don't want to admit that they're misogynists. They're just saying, oh, I'm keeping it real or whatever they fucking want to jerk themselves off with. But I feel like Tom and I have been many times have come down on the side of feminism and said, look, we just want people to be equal. It's not that we want feminists – we don't want women to be more equal than us. We just want them to be equal. And we'll get email from – shitty email from stupid people who will be like, well, a woman can't bench press 400 pounds.

What do you say to that? Checkmate. And you'll be like, well, asshole, you can't bench 400 pounds, you dumb fuck. Like, no kidding, a woman can't do it. But you can't either. Like, you fucking nerdy little shit. Yeah, it's not. That's not even a conversation.

It really isn't. It really isn't. It's just not. I would have a hard time with that conversation. It really isn't. It's really not. It really isn't. It's just not. I would have a hard time with that conversation.

We got a long email from Kate, and I don't want to read the whole thing, but I do want to say thank you, Kate. It was very nice of you. It was a very sweet email, and we really appreciate it. We love to get email like that. And she did ask us to mention the Council of Ex-Muslims. So it kind of is what it sounds like. Check it out, councilofexmuslims.com. I'm happy to plug that for you and direct people to it. So check that out if you're interested. So we want to thank Thomas from Thomas and the Bible

for coming on. You can go to this episode of Cognitive Distance to find his podcast. Thomas does a very funny podcast. He's a very funny guy. And we're always happy to have Thomas on, so we're happy that he came and joined us. Next week, Tom, we got a really big show. A big show next week. A really big show. We're hoping that we're going to have

Hemant on from the Friendly Atheist blog. He's going to come on and talk about an article that he's done recently. And we're hoping that he's going to talk about his new book, A Young Atheist Survival Guide, as well as just shoot the shit with us for a little while. So we're looking forward to that. And we also have another special guest in the works, but we'll talk about that next week. So until next time, we will leave you as always with the Skeptic's Creed. We will leave you as always with the Skeptic's Creed.

Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pan sales pitch late night info docutainment leo pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and towers tarot cars psychic healing crystal balls bigfoot yeti aliens churches mosques and synagogues temples dragons giant worms atlantis dolphins truthers birthers witches wizards vaccine nuts shaman healers The opinions and views of this podcast are those of the listeners, and not necessarily those of the listeners themselves. 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. We'll see you next time. you