The Scathing Atheist - 469: Thunderverse Edition

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

In this week’s episode, Missouri only loves CHRISTIAN company, the Marines get a little fewer and a little prouder, and we’ll dust off and crack open a book clearly inspired by dust and crack. --- Advertiser: Check out Behind the Mormon Curtain: Selling Sex in America’s Holy City by clicking here. --- Important show links: To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click there: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Headlines: MO Gov says "I only nominate people with ‘Christian values’ to positions of power": https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/mo-gov-i-only-nominate-people-with-christian-values-to-positions-of-power/ USMC grants only 3 religious exemptions to COVID vaccine, despite thousands of requests: https://www.kabc.com/2022/02/05/marine-corps-grants-only-three-religious-exemptions-to-covid-19-vaccine-despite-thousands-of-requests/ Appeals Court to Relitigate Whether First Amendment Still Counts: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/can-police-promote-public-prayer-an-appeals-court-may-soon-allow-it/ Lauren Bobert is a stupid bigot who's wrong about everything: https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-jesus/ https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-2656562484/ https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-2656441848/ Perry Stone heckler accuses him of sexually harassing congregants: https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2021/dec/25/women-perry-stones-ministry-allege-sexual-mis/560366/ Tennessee teacher proselytized, made antisemitic comments during "Bible as Literature" class: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/complaint-teacher-made-antisemitic-comments-proselytizing-82710560

Warning, the following podcast contains those words that stupid people get more offended about than actual harmful stuff. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Honey, Adam and Eve, Behind the Mormon Curtain Selling Sex in America's Holy City, and by The Skin of Our Teeth. The Skin of Our Teeth. Because if a saying is old enough, sometimes we don't bother to ask what the fuck it could possibly mean. And now, The scathing atheist.

I'll be honest. I've never been one for writing sonnets. I've been searching for souls and sinking, and so I'm thinking it's kind of ironic that we're preaching about a pulpit and the pastors teaching bullshit, spewing hatred from the pews, nothing else better to do but passively pass passages of pastoral paragraphs, and... That's enough of that. But with Noah, Eli, and Heath always laughing through gritted teeth, we're closer to uncovering the monsters that they've been. Only, of course, if we didn't fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's February 10th.

And this is your last chance to buy Valentine's Day flowers. Yeah, we just got you laid. You're welcome. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. I'm from Joe Rogan's, New Jersey. From the Duke of New York, Georgia. It's forever Joe Rogan's, New Jersey.

This is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Missouri only loves Christian company. Eli Bosnick makes the greatest pun ever constructed just now. Thank you. And we'll dust off and crack open a book that was clearly inspired by Dustin Crack. But first, the diatribe. I've got to admit, I'm running a little behind today because my behind was running a little bit yesterday. I know, I know, nobody wants to hear about me getting a late night case of the emergency dribble shits,

but sometimes that's where the fucking story starts, so that's where we're going to have to start. So buck up, put on your mature enough to talk about these things pants, and let me tell you about my diarrhea. Now, to be clear, it wasn't just diarrhea. diarrhea now to be clear it wasn't just diarrhea i i got a hold of a shrimp cocktail that didn't agree with me before dinner yesterday and it was it was having its fucking revenge my ass is blasting like it's trying to put out a fire i'm puking so hard it's using my nostrils as overflow channels i'm purging sweat like a beer at the beach like if there was such a thing as ear vomit my ears would have been throwing up and as i'm sitting there i suddenly feel a timeless kinship with whatever ancient jews 6 000 years ago added and no shellfish to the list of commandments like yeah shrimp are delicious lobster is amazing the only thing better

to eat than crab is drugs but i can see how one time going through that agony would have left anybody with the authority to do so to say, and no shellfish ever for anyone for fuck's sake. How is there still more shit in me? And all of that got me to thinking because, you know, when you're shuddering your way through an all holes evacuation for three and a half hours in the middle of the night, you got some time to ponder. Anyway, so I was thinking about how my violent diarrhea was kind of like greg lock in a lot of ways right like hear me out back in the ancient jewish days this whole deontological thou shalt attitude was probably the way to go right it only takes a couple of

members of your tribe dying from a shellfish allergy before you say hey let's just rule those motherfuckers out all together i don't care how delicious they are. Only takes a few times of people junk rotten and falling off in large groups. Before you say hey let's stick to one fuck buddy at a time. But the reason it makes sense is because it's being implemented in a time of great ignorance. And not the voluntary kind that we have now. Of course when you try to solve your problems with thou shalt. It gives rise to several problems. The first of course is that by making something taboo, you forestall any real understanding of that thing.

If God hates it when we fuck with shellfish, you're way less inclined to fuck around with shellfish and find out why. Another obvious one is that it removes the action from the consequence. Right. Like socially enforced monogamy and taboos about premarital sex may have arisen because of paternity questions and venereal disease. But in a time of paternity tests and condoms, those same taboos only serve to exacerbate the problems in a sort of like kind of self-perpetuating intellectual turf war. Now, obviously we don't have room in the diatribe for an exhaustive list of all

the reasons that you shouldn't get your morals from the dictates of bronze age mystics or in the form of thou shalt. But there's one more that i want to emphasize and that's how childish it is right because by their very definition commandments are black and white right like we can quibble all you want about you know what taking the lord's name in vain actually means but once we've settled on an answer the imperative not to do so is absolute. There's no degree. There's no exception. There are a series of immutable and overly simple rules. And when you teach people that the means of confronting moral dilemmas that's preferred

by the God of the universe is a series of thou shalts, you're also teaching them to enforce their rules in the same way. It's no wonder, then, that the Christian solution to the problems that they perceive in modern society is always to ban something. Kids these days not behaving in a way that comports with your outmoded worldview, ban their music, ban their fashion, ban their books, ban their video games. Kids drifting away from your religion, well, I guess you could try to re-examine your teachings with an emphasis on the major concerns of the generation you're trying to reach, or you could just make a big-ass bonfire and burn Twilight books. It's this simplified sense of morality that gives rise to so many of our problems with religion.

Their inability to recognize nuance doesn't quite guarantee that they'll always have the dumbest possible take on every moral issue, but it sure as hell gets them close. I mean, there are plenty of moral absolutes that don't require any real nuance, but those aren't the kind of things that give rise to moral dilemmas. Moral dilemmas, by their very nature, generally only arise when there are competing moral imperatives. I mean, fucking Christians can craft them out of whole cloth from misunderstandings and an out-of-control persecution complex. But for the larger society, moral dilemmas only arise when there's a gray area to argue about. But for the larger society, moral dilemmas only arise when there's a gray area to argue about.

Exactly the kind of place where thou shalt thinking is at its least useful. Anyway, obviously that's not the only way that Greg Locke's religious philosophy is a lot like involuntarily evacuating your bowels while throwing up. But the only other important one for the purposes of this diatribe is that it's something that needs to be flushed when it's all over. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Peter and Paul to my Mary Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to puff the magic dragon? Hey, I've been asking for years to do a high out of our mind and entirely improvised episode. But you keep saying, but that's all the other podcast. I do have an ivermectin guy ready to interview Eli. Let's do this.

As long as we just ask him questions, we should be fine. All right. Well, while I find yet another way to phrase, trust me, guys, we don't want that hundred million dollars. We're going to pause for a word from our first sponsor this week. Honey. Do you want it though? Rumble. talk to us.

I will do a show for you. Give us a call. My wife will write you a song. There you go. What rhymes with juice? Today's episode is sponsored by Honey. Lou, Lou, Lou. Doing online shopping stuff. Online shopping stuff is my favorite stuff. Lou Lou Lou, doing online shopping stuff.

Online shopping stuff is my favorite stuff. Lou Lou Lou. Hey, hey Heath. Oh, hey, promo code field. What up? Don't you have a promo code to put inside me? I bet you're missing out on an awesome discount. Yeah, yeah, maybe, missing out on those. But no, I don't have a promo code.

Oh, you hear that? Sketchy promo code websites, I don't have a promo code. Oh, you hear that? Sketchy promo code websites. He doesn't have a promo code. Ooh, you sure you don't want to search on me? I have a bunch of codes. Yeah, yeah, but none of them are going to work. You don't know that unless you try each and every one. I know. Yep, I'll try all of them, but they won't work.

I mean, you could try Honey. I am trying, sweetheart. No, no. Honey is the free browser extension that scours the internet for promo codes and applies the best one it finds to your cart. Okay, but how's that different from sketchy promo code websites? With Honey, when you check out, the Honey button drops down and all you have to do is click Apply Coupons.

Wait a few seconds as Honey searches for coupons it can find for that site. If Honey finds a working coupon, you'll watch the prices drop. It's true. I watched Noah save a bunch of money on his old video game collection, and Eli saved... Let's just say he saved money, too. If you don't already have Honey, you could be straight up missing out on free savings. It's literally free to install in just a few seconds.

And by getting it, you'll be doing yourself a favor in supporting this podcast. Get Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash scathing. That's joinhoney.com slash scathing. Alright, I'm sold. I will use Honey for sure. You, uh, still searching for that one-person dishwasher?

It was an excellent idea. That's sad. You don't know. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, you cannot be a true believer in Christianity without being a bigot. It's impossible. Really? It's impossible. If you truly believe that you're going to eternal paradise for having the belief system that you have,

and I'm going to a literal lake of eternal fire for having the belief system that I have, you're already a bigot no matter what else. Yep. You could be a super nice person who doesn't buy into all the standard homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic bigotry of Christianity. And you don't give money to a church because you know it might end up in a pile of evil. You're still a bigot. You're still a bigot no matter what.

You think non-christian people are damned forever well we got another reminder about this concept last week when a christian right republican said the loud part out louder about christianity according to missouri governor mike parson he would never appoint someone to a government position if they didn't share his Christian values. Exact words. Yep. Just show up with some rocks in a bag for your first day as undersecretary. All right.

Let's find some witches. Let's do this, Mike. Some women who have had premarital sex. Come on now. So here's what led to the bigot proclamation. Governor Mike Parson, who looks like the governor of missouri and is that he nominated a guy named don kowaroff to be the head of the state's department of health and senior services and this is where we get a fun little idiot fight a bunch of missouri republicans

got mad because mr kowaroff doesn't hate science quite enough. He does, but not a lot exactly like them. He's anti-vaccine mandates. He's anti-mask mandates. He's pro-life. But he did once say, yes, vaccines are real, while he was talking about the very important freedom of plague spreading. And, you know, that's a datum boonerd. So they refused to hold a confirmation hearing at the state Senate. And that's when Governor Parson went on Twitter to literally defend his ignorance cred and the ignorance cred of his nominee.

Because defending ignorance cred is the thing in our universe now that you have to do if you're Republican. According to Parson, quote, Don is a public health expert that is on record opposing masking requirements and vaccine mandates. He is outspokenly pro-life and morally opposed to abortion. Missourians know I share these beliefs and would not have nominated someone who does not share the same Christian values. An exact quote. Jesus Christ. So even before we get to the naked bigotry i could legitimately paraphrase his statement as don is a public health expert but not not a good one come on exactly don't worry

yeah he's against mask mandates and vaccines so no no he's not don is a public health expert but don't worry no i mean defended your ignorance cred solid so in response to being reminded about article six of the constitution that says hey man you gotta do bigot stuff quietly when you're governor you can still be a bigot but just do it fucking quietly that's approximately what it says in article six in response to that parson's office issued a statement explaining that, shh, no, I didn't. That's, nope. No. He might as well have just tweeted a dim gaslight as his tweet.

Yup. The statement said, quote, Governor Parson has never required a religious litmus test for appointments. Don't listen to Governor Parson. Yeah, I guess he said the exact opposite. Ironically, to satirize himself. Pay no attention to the statement behind the curtain. Just from there, it actually got worse.

He seriously added after that just blatant lie. He seriously added that one of his best nominees is Muslim. Best nominee is his Muslim. Literally, they were able to name one Muslim guy who got appointed to have one out of seven seats on the board of probation and parole as their one Muslim friend. The statement was ridiculous, by the way. They're like, well, just because they have to share his Christian values doesn't mean they have to be his religion. So, you know, as long as you can accept certain basic moral precepts, like Jesus is the son of God and none can come to the Father but through him,

it doesn't matter what your religion is. So, bottom line, I would like to persecute Christianity, please. I feel like we dance around this topic a lot, but let's just be honest. The Christian right, they're constantly shouting about their persecution complex, and then we quietly explain how nobody's trying to outlaw your religion.

It's just a red cup at Starbucks, man. Relax. But no, I do want to outlaw their religion. Not the theoretical mental part of believing something, although their thing is so stupid to believe. I just mean the behavior part should be outlawed. If you're Christian, like inside your head, fine. Begrudgingly, fine. But if you're Christian and you have behaviors in the world,

you're probably being a bigot. And I want to persecute you. Yes, I do. Yes, I do want to do that. Well, Heath, I've got good news for you. Technically, being an honest Christian in the world is already supposed to be illegal. But yeah, I also would like laws to start applying again.

So I get it. I see where you're coming from. And in the fewer, the prouder the Marines news. In surprisingly good news this week, the United States Marine Corps has granted only three religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine, despite thousands of requests, because say what you will about the Marines, they don't fuck around.

Yeah. Makes sense. One of their main jobs is not dying. Yeah. Although that's also one of the main jobs for like everybody. Really, it's a prerequisite for most judges. That was just understood that everybody does that. Yeah.

And also like indiscriminately killing people is that's more of an Air Force thing when you think about it. So we cleared all of them. It's all fine. It's fine. killing people is that's more of an air force thing when you think about it so we've cleared all of them it's all fine it's fine now i don't want to fall into the trap that literally every single media outlet i've ever seen reporting this kind of stuff falls into which is like talking about the people asking for exemptions so i want to point out that so far 95 of active duty service members and 87 of reservists are fully vaccinated against the virus so the real headline here is vaccine mandates work yep however as i said a

spokesman for the marine corps said they've received more than 3500 requests for religious exemptions from the shot and only three have been approved and of those that have been denied only 469 marines have been discharged for refusing the shot which according to my calculations at least makes up less than three percent of the number of marines good job hedging your bet with that less than in there so you know you gotta three percent of the marine corps over 8 000 people so yes less than there's a lot of numbers that are less than uh i'm a little bit of a pedant no i'm sorry that i uh yeah no no you might gotta get it right you might get it right and look i bring up this story for several reasons the first is i actually think it's

pretty important to point out that christian assholes have been telling us like what an honor it is to serve and die for the core before every movie you've seen in a theater since 2001. But like the minute it was time to get the ouchy poke, they're all Kent State alumni. Also, those three cases, that's what religious exemptions should probably look like. Don't get me wrong. If Eli was king of America, that number would be zero because God isn't real. But that three that were granted are probably people who don't have any of their vaccinations right they were idiots before joe rogan told them how

right they were and while we certainly don't have respect for those beliefs we can at least acknowledge their consistency also we get to deny him a place in the marines i feel like too but yeah okay all right yeah i i begrudgingly agree They got to do the wall climbing at the top. There's just a lady with a flu shot. Ah, dang. And in policed common denominator news tonight. Back in 2016, a Florida court was asked to decide whether the state was allowed to promote a particular religion.

Well, the court got it right. And now Christian activists are finally able to do something about that. So now the 2016 decision for the American Humanist Association, which affirmed that police departments can't sponsor Christian prayer events, will be reexamined by an appeals court. And given the extent that we're not really doing laws now, there's every chance in the world that this one gets overturned. there's every chance in the world that this one gets overturned. Oh, I really want to do an after school Satan Club thing here, but I feel like my local New Jersey police department won't be down. No, probably not. So this story actually started back in 2014 in Ocala, Florida,

where police chief Greg Graham posted a message on the police department's Facebook page under the department's official seal encouraging residents to attend a Baptist prayer event. And he seems to think he canceled out the theocratic parts by calling for both universal participation in a sectarian religious event and unity. Nailed it. Multiple times in the letter, he frames this exclusionary event as an effort to foster unity. Needless to say, blaming crime on the fact that not enough people participated in his religion

turned out not to have the unifying effect he was hoping for, and in fact, got the city sued by the AHA for blatant violation of the First Amendment. Yeah, but they were able to pray themselves a violent crime rate in Ocala, Florida. That's only about

175% of the national average. Oh, well, there you go that's good i mean you don't want to like over ask when you're doing the prayers is that you don't want to be pushing so that's over three percent your god there's literally three meth heads in that town you could pray to with more effect and they never drowned the world right yeah honestly there's a lot of reasons far more ethical if you think about it come on tooth steve so after a bunch of legal wrangling about standing and whatnot the case eventually went to court and during the trial even the defense agreed that it was unconstitutional for the police department to endorse a prayer event

but instead they argued that sending out official memoranda through official channels with official seals didn't amount to an endorsement the judge was unconvinced and found in favor of the aha and if everybody had just voted for hillary clinton that'd be the end of the fucking story but everybody didn't huh that would have had an effect on the universe yeah crazy yeah so instead we have a supreme court dominated by christian zealots and conservative appellate courts are getting increasingly bold so now the 11th circuit court of appeals have agreed to hear the bats shit claimed by the american center for law and justice who summarized the ruling as atheists quote shutting down protected first amendment gatherings end quote okay just circling back i really want to persecute christians yeah they're

crying about us shutting down their event and we didn't get to shut down any of their events we didn't get to do that i want to slap pancakes out of hands if we're gonna get accused of slapping pancakes out of hands at their stupid prayer breakfast i don't know maybe they like wake up in a bath of ice with a tattoo on their forehead and like i have lots of ideas we might as well get credit doing them if we're gonna get credit for doing them me and he show up and start doing satan stuff no, this event is sponsored by crime. Yeah. Fair and balanced.

We'll obviously hear more about this one in the future, but if I had to put my dollar down right now, I'd say look for a state-sponsored, explicitly Christian prayer event coming to a town square near you. And on that ominous note, we're going to pause for a word from our second sponsor this week, Adam and Eve.

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With a machine that sucks your dick markedly less oh still offer me and we're back next up in headlines lauren bobert is wrong about everything just everything and not normal wrong she's aggressively wrong about every single thing she ever says or does is wrong the worst and of course that makes her the perfect gop congressperson which she is here's the latest lobobs news she debunked cancel culture using the bible she justified being an outspoken bigot using the bible and she accused a group of jewish people of being literal spies. That all happened.

And also she continued being the owner of a gun-themed restaurant. Well, and to be clear, listener, these are separate events, not one long, do you know who I am, rant at the shift manager on duty at Kmart. Those are all real separate. Well, actually, you know what?

I'm sorry. It could have been both. It could have been all of these separate events and she yelled about all that shit. And the Kmart thing. Yeah. Absolutely. I want to go to her gun-themed restaurant Or actually, you know what? I'm sorry. It could have been both. It could have been all of these separate events and she yelled about all that shit. And the Kmart thing. Absolutely. I want to go to her gun themed restaurant and keep accidentally shooting off my gun.

Keith and Noah said no. Eli walks in with two eye patches. I got lots of good stuff here. Just hanging. I'm just cutting my steak with a gun. You want me to be able to do this, right? I've got lots of good stuff here. Just hanging, just holsters on holsters on holsters. You want me to be able to do this, right?

Are you rolling a cannon into the room? Yes, I am. I am. I have a cannon. So let's start with her Bible stuff. Boebert did an interview with Mike Huckabee, and he asked her if people tell her to maybe tone it down with all the Christianity sometimes.

And then Mike Huckabee placed a softball on a tee and slowly backed away while Boebert responded. She said, I think people would love it if I would tone it down. But our Lord Jesus certainly didn't tone it down for anyone. And that's when nobody said anything about cancel culture. And Boebert responded, speaking of cancel culture, here we are in said anything about cancel culture and bobert responded speaking of cancel culture here we are in another cycle of cancel culture but this is nothing new cancel culture has been around since the beginning of time nope cain canceled abel oh there you go we had

shadrock mashak and abnego that were thrown into the fiery furnace. King Nebuchadnezzar wanted to cancel them, but there stood another in the midst of them, and he was the son of God. And then they tried to cancel Jesus, like being removed temporarily from Twitter. That's pretty much exactly like rock-based fratricide being burned to death in a furnace and or getting crucified and stabbed by a Roman. Ty, I mean, it would be if Heath and I were in charge, but no, we're not allowed to put stuff in the suggestion box anymore. That was part of the legal settlement. That's not my fault. Okay, that brings us to jewish equals espionage that's an equation in lauren bobert's life and here's how we know this really really happened a group of jewish people were at the capitol building for a meeting

with their representative just to be clear most of the group was wearing yarmulkes and one was an orthodox jewish man with a traditional beard and as they were walking in lauren bobert happened to step out of an elevator and she looked at the group of people quote from head to toe according to a witness and then asked are you doing recon yikes well okay Well, okay. But so, okay. In her defense, we don't know that she wasn't going to offer to help if they were, right? It would not be the first time. That's true. Actually, yeah.

That's true. She did that with rioters. Terrorists, you mean. It's also worth noting that the proper response to that statement is to physically attack someone. Right. The fact that the second half of that story's sentence isn't, and then a lady in a jean skirt scissor kicked her in the chest. That's actually why America is broken and it won't be fixed.

It's because they know you won't scissor kick them. Hard to do in an ankle-length jean skirt, though. Just that scene from The Matrix where Trinity goes nuts at the beginning, but it's the jean skirt. I love it. Okay. So Lauren Boebert saw that and said to herself, they look Jewish. I'm going to check if they're spies, which makes her obviously a bigot, but also incredibly stupid.

Would they say yes at that point? Was she going to solve it? It doesn't matter and in sticks and stones news when we first met tennessee pastor perry stone he was trying to babble a bunch of meaningless sounds and failing and still we managed to overestimate this guy for new listeners this is the guy who went viral after checking his phone mid speaking in tongues during a sermon and just ended up going on and off while he read through a few emails or

something. It would be an insult to coordination to compare this to not being able to walk and chew gum. This is more like not being able to chew gum with both rows of teeth at the same time. He was shooting for nonsense and he missed. And when we first covered that story, sure, there was hope that he'd show up again trying to plug his microphone into a donut for 15 minutes on video or something.

But I don't think any of us expected him to become one of our most prolific and most despicable regulars. But thanks to sexual harassment allegations serious enough to involve the FB fucking eye, he managed to achieve those lofty climbs in just a couple of years. Yeah. So truly evil, truly evil person. But I got to circle back to the fun part of this. He ran out of fake noises. He ran out of those. He just had to make any face noise. And he came up with ah and also

end of list yes he came up with ah and then panicked and did more ah okay wait theory maybe he was reading the sexual harassment accusations okay because that explains the ah no okay yeah I get it. All right. So after gifting us with a few spectacular stupids in the form of bogus miracle proofs and shit, things got serious when he stepped down from his duties at the church last summer. He did so citing unspecified moral failings. And I mean aggressively unspecified. So unspecified that we all knew right away that it was not just fuck stuff,

but it was gay and or non-consensual fuck stuff and apologies for clumping those two things together but we're talking about what baptist congregations in cleveland tennessee deemed too controversial so i kind of have to anyway we learned soon after that he was being accused by several women in his congregation including former employees of sexual harassment and it was serious enough that at the end of the year the fbi got involved with the investigation uh by now you've all heard of the accusations against me i'd like to read from this prepared statement please proceed oh you're done yeah that's the whole yeah so the new bit of this story it's not actually particularly new it happened in december but somehow we didn't talk about it on this show

and that's fucking criminal so stone who has since stepped back from stepping back from his duties in in the church is doing a little sermon and at some point he laments that people are leaving the faith they're leaving christianity and at that point a, a legend, stands up in the back of the crowd and says, quote, probably because you keep touching them, you nasty perv. Why don't you tell them the real reason why they left? End quote. The best. Well done. Hey, hero lady, didn't get your name in the story, but I really hope you're listening.

We are hiring heroes. I want you dropping down from the ceiling on a rope yelling, fuck your face all over the country in the middle of sermons. Just reawaken America events. Clay Clark right there. You just drop down and tackle him and yell,

fuck your face. Interviews with Jordan Peterson, whoever might be doing the interview. Everywhere, I want you dropping down, yelling at people. You could scissor kick Lauren Boebert in the chest. There you go. What I'm saying is, we have a lot of ideas. We have a lot of ideas for you. On the rope, you can get a swing going, too.

There'll be extra Spider-Man. Extra power. So now, somehow, even more damning than the woman's heckle was Stone's response. He responded, quote, ma'am, I'll have you arrested. Nope, sure won't. And I'll bring a lawsuit against you for making statements like that. You've talked to people. And at this point, I have to pause to emphasize that this is the actual quote.

I have not enhanced it for comedic purposes or anything. the actual quote i have not enhanced it for comedic purposes anything or anything quote you've talked to people who told 16 lies on my wife and i what that's who you've been talking to oh it's a good thing he didn't say that into like a microphone or in front of witnesses because that would suck for his case yeah yeah that's how his lawyers felt of course as he's saying all this shit his security guards are forcefully escorting the woman out of the church and there's nothing in the articles about what she did afterwards but if i had to guess i'd say it involved you know like foiling bank robbers or catching the kids that stumble over railing something like that probably calling

us for an outfit fitting there you go because we do want our logo on you while you're doing the kicking and the dropping down no capeses, etc. Please call us. Yeah. And finally tonight in For the Bible Tells Me Whoa News. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that one of the insidious ways that theocrats sneak the preaching into the classroom is through so-called Bible as literature classes. Right. so-called Bible as literature classes, right? They claim to be teaching the Bible as no more than an influential work of literature,

which is stupid for a bunch of reasons, right? The first is, why the fuck would you teach one 1,200-page book in the name of literacy? And two, Mein Kampf is also an influential work of literature, but if you taught it in an English class, people might object.

Okay, well, people in Northern... Well, people might object okay well people in northern well yeah right some people in some yeah us anyway these objections and more were proven to be the least of our worries as the mother of a tennessee middle schooler filed a complaint against her daughter's bible as literature teacher for prophetization anti-semitism and oh so much more yeah it so it's been a bit of a running theme on the show, but just one more reminder. When you see Christians going out of their way to legalize shit that already is legal, worry about that shit, right? That is always going to be a smokescreen for bigotry. So, according to a Jewish student's parent, the teacher wrote an English translation of the Hebrew name for God on the whiteboard and told students, quote, if you want to know how to torture a Jew, make them say this out loud.

The name, by the way, is Yahweh and is commonly misunderstood to be of Voldemortian significance to Jews. It's not just so you know, it's just rabbinical tradition not to use the holiest name of god when you're not praying kind of like how i had to get used to my wife calling me daddy in public once my son was born yeah no like that but so what's more is that's not even the holiest name right it's four letters meant to represent that name that idiot christians are treating like a word like a bunch of white supremacists talking about how much they hate the knack but that's not all apparently class assignments also included questions like do you read the bible at home the teacher in class taught genesis as a scientific fact and then regaled the class of the undoubtedly fictional story of an atheist student who supposedly quote took the

class to prove it wrong and ended up later quote, realizing it was true. Jesus, even just that phrasing right, like prove it wasn't literature right? Actually I guess you could do that, a good atheist could probably do that, but to be clear though all that shit, the point

of that class, right? The one simple trick to defeat Judaism probably was, and that's probably the teacher swinging for the fences here, but all that other shit is the whole reason that class right the one simple trick to defeat judaism probably wasn't that's probably the teacher swinging for the fences here but all that other shit is the whole reason that class exists yeah and i want to point out that absolutely every article i read on this thing fell up its own ass to point out that there's nothing wrong with teaching the bible this teacher was just teaching it wrong and hot take no yeah maybe don't teach any holy books in school right that is unless of course it is my class you won't believe what this fucking thing says 101

yeah which will get approved any day now waiting on you new jersey school board waiting on you also tennessee if you're looking for anti-semitic holy books, check out the Quran as literature, too. You'll love it. You guys actually probably like that more than you think. And now that the ball is once again in the New Jersey legislature's court, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji.

And when we come back, we'll admit we can't all have forgotten we said we'd read the David Icke book. Hey, Eli, what you doing there? Reading a book with with no pictures. Wow. OK, must be a really good book. Hey, guys, what's up? Eli's reading a book with no pictures. Must be a really good book. That's exactly what I said. It's a great read. The author interviewed independent sex workers in Salt Lake City, plus Johns, police officers and mental health professionals. Wait a minute. I knew Salt Lake City had Mormons, but sex workers? Wait, what's sex workers? Try to keep up, Heath. Turns out Salt Lake has a lot of sex workers and they all have lots of Mormon clients. You won't believe the stories they shared, from funny to infuriating to even heartwarming.

So much for the Mormons' carefully cultivated, wholesome image, huh? Oh, sex worker. No, no, I get it. I got it. It talks about the lives of Mormontown sex workers, unusual requests from Mormon johns, legalization, and delicious religious hypocrisy. There's even a brief history of Mormon sex. What's Mormon sex? read the book keith just read the book this book sounds great what's it called by the way behind the mormon curtain selling sex in america's holy city by friend of the show and humor columnist

steve what's a humor no none of these are count none of these are counting. None of these are counting. It's a laugh out loud funny in a lot of places. Okay. I gotta get this book. Where can I find it? Click the show notes link, ask your bookstore, or just Google Behind the Mormon Curtain, Selling Sex in America's Holy City. Cool. I'm looking forward to reading Behind the Mormon Curtain, Selling Sex in America's Holy City. Me too.

But can I get it with pictures? It's not that kind of book, Heath. But it's good even though? Even though. Without the pictures? Even though. You can look at pictures while you're reading. That's true.

Way back in February of 2021, we here at the scathing atheist committed to reading through an entire book of david ike's dense stream of conscious ramblings and boy have we not made much of a dent in it in the past year in fact thanks to vulgarity for charity we haven't had to pick that book up since october and that's a solid contender for best thing to come out of that 425 000 fundraiser for the poor. But unfortunately, not enough of you forgot about this bit, and the archives are still there, so it's time for another installment

of the newly rechristened segment, Everything You Need to Nope. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well done. Thanks. So, when we left off, the Moemraths were out craving, and the four-bull blade was going snake or snack. And we're going to rejoin the action with chapter three,

log in, log out. And to remind us what an intellectual powerhouse he is, David Icke is going to start that chapter with a quote from the Percy Jackson series of YA fantasy novels. It's a quote from The Lightning Thief. That's the first book in the Percy Jackson series. He didn't even dig into the catalog.

No, asshole. And he opens the chapter going like, so now I'm going to say all the stuff I just said over the last two chapters, but computerier. Yes! Yes, I was into the metaverse way before Facebook was. Dibs. Yeah, and I knew it was only a matter of

time. I'm like, oh, God, he's introducing the simulation hypothesis. Right, yeah, he is, but dumber. He's introducing the simulation certainty. Right. Because he knows the simulation creator's name was Yargobargle or something. For certain, he knows that for certain.

And look, no insult to stoned 19-year-old Eli who had his mind blown by the simulation hypothesis, but for clarity, it is nonsense. Okay? You know how we might have calculators so advanced that someday they grow arms and make you a souffle? That's the

first step of the simulation hypothesis. I mean, the souffle things. That feels compelling to me. It's a weird example. I like it. That makes me like it. We'll have that basic thing. Bad example all around.

So, yeah, but of course, I'm writing in my notes here like, oh, well, if Neil deGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk are on board. Yes, I like that he can't help but shit on Neil deGrasse Tyson when he mentions him. He's like, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who thinks I'm an asshole, by the way, he thinks we might be in a simulation, according to this quote I took out of context. And no, no, he doesn't. Nobody who isn't currently rooting for Spotify to keep Joe Rogan thinks we might be in a simulation. Well, Neil deGrasse Tyson did think it. And then a professor that he knew was like, here's why I don't think that. And he's like, oh, yeah, that's a really good argument. I don't think that anymore.

That's happened. Both of those things have happened since David Icke wrote this. So, yeah. But here's the deal with the simulation theory, in case anybody's not familiar. The popular version, it's this guy Bostrom from Sweden. And he says that eventually we invent computers that simulate the entire universe of the past, And he says that eventually we invent computers that simulate the entire universe of the past, including sentient simulations of ourselves right now that feel exactly like reality.

And a bunch of those simulations would invent simulations inside the simulation, and we'd have almost infinity levels of this. And if that's the case, the odds are that we're in one of those simulations rather than being in the base level real universe. But here's the thing. If we ever invent a supercomputer with nearly infinite computational power, I feel like you just ask that computer if you should spend time and effort and resources

making giant simulations of shitty, old-timey times entire universes of that. And the computer's like, no, that's dumb. Don't do that. I can just answer specific questions for you without doing a whole universe right that's like saying we're going to build a computer to find out the

odds that a dice will roll a six and it's answer will be to 3D print a dice and roll it a bunch of times so and then he starts talking about he quotes Max Tagmark you know he talks about like you know the objects that we think we can solidly bump into are are nothing more than decoded information and electromagnetic resistance, which is not solid at all. Now, that's a real quote. But David Icke interprets that as so I can walk through walls if I believe it in my heart.

Right. He's like computer programmers are made of numbers. And what are electrons numbers exactly okay what that's that's not an exaggeration of his point so that guy tag mark wrote a book about how you can describe the universe with numbers and david ike interpreted that to be okay so yeah try to name something between zero and infinity that's not a fucking number exactly exactly You can't. I know Kung Fu.

We're in the Matrix video game. Matrix, Matrix video game. Yes. So, and then he opens his disagreement with PhD physicists by saying, quote, this is a real quote, as someone who went to secondary modern school, second class, apparently, left aged 14 and never went near a university let alone a physics lab i contend dot dot dot end quote and he seems to think that the point he just made is this is very obvious well uh david eich as someone who put fabric softener on their butthole the other day because i thought my wife bought fancy new talcum powder i disagree ty well there you go

oh god he also seems to be implying that the people who created our simulation live in a world where light goes however the fuck fast it feels like like the fact that light speed is consistent is a tell that it's a simulation right like like the simulator people accidentally made light go the speed it goes here in the simulation and it's a smoking gun that we're in yeah simulation and then that supercomputer alien whatever was like fuck hopefully we won't get foiled by a guy who said he's the godhead and then immediately choked on a cookie no it's probably fine we'll leave it we'll leave it we'll just have like go to speed of light it's fine and they won't have a chance yeah he says quote scientific orthodoxy claims that the speed of light 186 000

miles per second is the fastest speed possible i disagree bold david ike yeah bold einstein schmeinstein i'm pretty sure he's telling us that he can go faster than the speed of light but not while we're looking right Right? Guys, just look away for a second. Now, and I'm back. And I'm back. See? In your face. And by the end of that subchapter slash paragraph, Ike knows that he needs to

create the illusion of progress, so we get the subheading all in the numbers. And the opening question here seems to add up to, how do we know that Pi isn't a Wi-Fi hotspot for alien gods? It is. That is the opening question. The opening answer is yes, it is.

Yes, it is. Alien gods were trying to make Oculus humanity and they kept being like, fuck fuck I'm only getting one bar are you guys I'm just somebody unplug E M C and squared for like 15 seconds plug them back in should we make light speed of light it would be he doesn't know enough awesome

science numbers either at this point so he's got to put together a list right you know obviously it's a simulation because all these awesome science numbers like phi, pi, the golden mean, the golden ratio. I'm like, is the next one going to be the ratio of a circle's circumference to a diameter?

The golden corral. Shit. Come back to me. Come back. They serve pi. Nailed it. Yep. Actual argument, by the way, he's like, when you write out genetic codes that kind of looks like computer codes if you think about it sure yeah and he starts talking about dna strats here and he seriously he's like so dna it's made up of a c g and t act cat tag laser tag jewish matrix he actually tries to get like

thyme eat it to like his reasoning it's so dumb also okay all right good argument here though things are symmetrical a lot of them how do you explain that if we're not nodes in a holographic alien simulation motherfuckers atheists whenever anyone brings this stuff up i just want to know what they think a non-simulation would look like well it wouldn't look you wouldn't be able to look at it given the variable speed of light i look at any two things i get a fucking ratio a real universe would have some non-ratios if it was real right oh then the fucking fine tuning argument makes a cameo yeah he just finished talking about the giant multiverse of simulations if we already have nearly infinite simulations we have to have this one with this exact tuning yep and all the other

tunings too you would think obviously it's funny he sounds a lot like christian liars when he starts flinging shit on the big bang theory right yeah at one point he seems to get stuck on the idea of everything being everything yeah i'm not kidding he spends like a half of a sentence being like okay but what about the stuff that isn't everything? And then I wrote in my notes, who ordered the side of climate change denialism? Oh, God, it comes out of nowhere. He can't even be wrong about simulations correctly.

If we're in a simulation, that doesn't mean we should ignore the environment or start a murder spree. That's not good reasoning. However, okay, now that i think about it if we are in a simulation it does make me happy that future humans they're gonna genocide the gop at some point based on the data they're gathering right now right like that's what you

would learn if that's what was happening right sure there's a terminator robot with like a laser pointed at Bob Dole right now. And then we literally and metaphorically look into the sun for a bit in the subheading called In Plain Sight. This starts with him telling us about the very legitimate sounding Electric Universe and Thunderbolts project. Yes!

Which he summarizes as I'm going to paraphrase a little bit here like stars don't gossip okay so i will admit i went down a rabbit hole with this electric universe and thunderbolts project yeah we're real science this is serious if anyone would like to follow along the website is thunderbolts.info okay because i guess info isn't a legally protected term right yeah and it is awesome they have a beginner's guide and the first thing their beginner guide tells you is that they're rejecting the model of a gravity centered universe well then what is like center loses its meaning at that anyways also thunderbolts.com is available for sale i just checked why would they get the dot info

that's weird but also i gotta say it reads like they're saying gravity is for old people on that side i checked too so i saw that eli went down this rabbit hole i was like all right let me check it out they seem to be like, yeah, gravity's fucking okay, boomer. Gravity. They also have an entire page that says, alright, well, you're probably wondering where's the math about all this stuff we're saying.

The answer was, stop. Please don't wonder that. They have quotes from Tesla and Einstein here. They have no math, but they have quotes from Tesla and Einstein because those people were anti-math. Oh no they both had quotes about how math is fucking stupid for boomers equations yeah so and then we get a bit more climate change denialism yeah so there's there's two theories out there one is we added two trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as human beings. Or two,

there's a magnetic rope from the earth that's plugged into the sun. It carries solar wind in the rope so that Jewish demons can make lightning bolts and kill everyone very slowly if they feel like it with

climate change. You decide. It's one of those two things. It is one of those two things. Yeah, it is one of those two things. David Icke staked his claim on one of those. Honestly, the climate change denialism is so out of left field that it feels like he's throwing at his audience a bone. Yeah. Right? It's like him doing a classic from an early album

or working in a catchphrase from his previous show or something. Everybody's shouting, Jew lizards, Jew lizards and he's like, what's that? You want me to do Lady 95? Okay. Boing! He also says, he claims anyway, that Earth's magnetic field spikes during traumatic events like 9-11

because lightning is empathic. Technically, I shat myself in Peru because of 9-11. It's really a tough day. Also, the sun is not a nuclear furnace. It is an electricity donut. Thank you very much.

He seemed to be describing the sun as actually like firewire. It's a pain in the ass proprietary thing that you can't really use very easily. Unless you're in on the inside with the Illuminati demons. And by this point in the chapter, he's lost the ability to maintain any categorizable similarity between the consecutive sentences. So I'll just say that the name of the next subheading is one simulated system.

Every move that he makes so so brains thank you you see our electric receivers for solar electrical donuts otherwise why would we need water yeah right because you know when you're dehydrated your your dna stops being able to tell your body to keep being genetic. Right. And that's how we know, because water, electricity. So perhaps an analogy would help. Laser tag. DNA is like a phone cable.

Way to keep your example in the now, Davey. A phone cable, huh? Yeah, and cells are like Ginny down down at the switchboard except she's a computer you're you're reading my book don't blame me for the yeah almost all his points rely on the idea that if two things are similar they are the same fucking thing that's right pigs can plug their tails into the phone matrix oh shit that's how we know that pigs are laser tag text messaging he takes this robert lanza quote which boils down to like science should be humble before what it doesn't know and answers it with yeah but i do know and therefore you should be humble to me

motherfuckers is what you're saying and i should point out like we see this bullshit a lot from christians as well right they grab some scientists who had too much wine at a dinner party talking about oh but then they forget that when scientists talk about what they don't know there's always an invisible yet in that sentence and the invisible yet is important super important yeah by the way the quote from robert lanza it's about the uncertainty of the big picture it ends with the question what is the nature of this thing we call reality the universe as a whole what is that very next sentence after that question from the real scientist very next sentence from david eich ah but the archontic force and its agents in human society jewish

demons is what he means by that, don't want humanity to know the answer to that question or the game will be revealed. Yes. That's David Icke's answer to the scientist's question about the universe as nature as a whole. He might as well quote someone saying, what is the sound

of one hand clapping? And then his next sentence is, peh, peh, peh, peh. Peh, peh, peh, peh, peh. He's waving. of one hand clapping and then his next sentence is just waving well it's okay but so now when he took ayahuasca it seemed like lights were flickering even when they weren't which is really if you think about it proof of trans-dimensional alien ghosts okay the other day i said alexa play nickelback and music started playing out of nowhere and so i'm thinking it's probably the invisible demon alexa sending me a message in the form of a photograph that i should look at i thought about this for a while yeah okay counterpoint still don't know when i took drugs i was a smokestack and spirited away and I didn't know when the little girl was coming. So son's not a donut anymore. Sorry,

bud. Yeah. And he closes this off by saying, don't do drugs or do, you know, do the official position of us here. It's B. And then we summarize the amorphously defined electric universe theory under

the subheading Microsoft reality. You see, the universe is like No Man's Sky, which is the least enjoyable video game I've ever played. How dare you, sir? Some of us have longed to explore the stars as tediously and repetitively as

possible, and my ship's out of launch fuel again. Fuck. Alright, well, I'm just gonna kick some of these rocks around, and then i'll explain the universe i like that he uses microsoft as his reference again like so bing the uh yeah right everything's the worst everything's the worst that he made oh i hate him so i had to pull this specific quote as well he says are they really our thoughts and ramblings that put so much nonsense in our heads every waking moment?

And I see that's not how the rest of us would describe our inner monologues. David, that's the crux of the problem, buddy. It's just bullshit in here, right? You guys know that, right? My brain face makes me confused. It's probably invisible Jew demons. So I looked at that photograph for a while. I still don't get it.

It'll come to me. Typing is fun. I'm enjoying it. What about free will? Yeah. Free will is the thing I want to talk about. It's not that free will doesn't exist. It's that you're an avatar being driven by a spirit animal that still wouldn't have free will.

Shit. No, okay. It's like the Matrix and Westworld. Yep. Yeah, those things are similar. You only think you're fucking a robot. He goes, why don't ducks ever wake up behaving like elephants?

I'm like, I don't know, man. Is it because we're in a simulated electrical hologram thunder universe? He's like, it's probably because we're in a simulated electric hologram thunder universe? He's like, it's probably because we're in a simulated electric hologram thunder universe. Aha! Yes, it is. Everything he says sounds like it was followed by vomiting

and being told to leave the murder mystery game night at somebody's house. Everything he says, you have to leave. Dude, you smoked crack out of your Sherlock Holmes pipe. You have ruined this for everybody. You know how everyone has that friend that constantly blames the fact that they got fired

from Buffalo Wild Wings on capitalism and not because they got caught snorting lines of sweet and sour sauce? That's David Icke with the simulated electrical hologram universe. And with Jewish people, yeah. Right, well, spoilers. Another great quote here.

One constant is that everything survives by killing something else. Well, this guy doesn't know how lettuce works at all. Yeah. Or ventilators. Well, no, none of them know that. And then the penultimate sentence in this entire fucking thing is basically,

I am not crazy. Please don't make fun of this on your podcast. And believe me, David, I am tempted to take you up on that offer, but we made a commitment, damn it, and we're sticking to it. So we're going to see you soon with even more Everything You Need to Know.

Before we ride into the sunset tonight, I want to apologize in advance for my absence next week. Lucinda and I will be off celebrating our 25th anniversary. That's the silver one, of course. Though, honestly, I feel like we should replace that system with one where the silver would be your 47th anniversary and your 25th would be manganese. But nobody ever listens to me on shit like that. Anyway, that's all the blast we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait,

don't forget to look out for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. You'd think I'd be able to say that by now. Obviously, this episode would be more of a sub-sode

if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for his painstaking attention to detail. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for his pains giving inattention to the same. I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for listening to me yell at video games for a quarter of a century without ever divorcing me, not even once. I also want to thank Robert for providing

this week's Farnsworth quote. I feel like my thanks should rhyme, though. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most marvelous mammals. Peter, Matt, Ryan, Osiris, NotAnMI, PsyLikePsy, Andrew, Marco, Christina, Moran, Jin, Joanna, Keith, Jason, Mel, IamDarkness, IamKnight, IamBatman, Celeste, Danilo, LegendOfGary, Patricia, OtherMarco, Liam, Rebecca, Genevieve, and Joe, whose selfies got an honorary mention in the Best Picture nominations. Together, these 24 people, NegativeDeclarations, Myths, and Caped crusaders kept us inflated this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some of it to us, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode,

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