The Scathing Atheist - 472: Texas-stential Threat Edition

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

In this week’s episode, Greg Abbott declares war on trans kids and their parents, Ben Carson considers using our strategic grain reserves in the Washington Monument, and Don Ford will be here because the voice of Reality and Inaction wasn’t available. --- 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/ --- Guest Links: Learn more about FreeFlo here: https://www.freeflo.org/ Check out the Atheism UK podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa37v-1G873DmiNrimfPlaA --- Headlines: Texas declared was on trans kids: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/texas-governor-calls-citizens-report-parents-transgender-kids-abuse-rcna17455 Supreme Court to hear hate group lawsuit that could overturn LGBTQ protections https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/02/supreme-court-hear-hate-group-lawsuit-overturn-lgbtq-protections/ Ben Carson says accepting church/state separation is a form of schizophrenia: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/dr-ben-carson-accepting-church-state-separation-is-a-form-of-schizophrenia/ Conservatives freak out because teachers won’t be able to look up students’ sexes anymore https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/02/conservatives-freak-teachers-wont-able-look-students-sexes-anymore/ P-Robes comes out of retirement to say Putin is “compelled by god”:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/01/pat-robertson-putin-god-russia-ukraine/ and https://onlysky.media/ahall/us-christo-fascists-love-vladimir-putin/ CPAC highlights: https://www.christianpost.com/news/desantis-tells-cpac-to-put-on-full-armor-of-god.html https://www.rawstory.com/candace-owens-2656801654/ https://nypost.com/2022/02/26/cpac-2022-in-photos/

Warning, the following podcast contains words that would make Winnie the Pooh faint. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by 3.5 billion years of evolution. It was all leading to this, folks. If that doesn't convince you there was no divine intent, I don't know what you're waiting for. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hello, this is Richard, one of the hosts of the Atheism UK podcasts. You know, I recently went back to university trying to improve myself and improve my knowledge, and I ended up in one of the science reading rooms at the British Library. And as I was walking down the corridor, I saw shelves and

shelves of books and of journal articles and of experimental reports, all of which provide incontrovertible evidence that we did indeed evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's March 3rd. And it's what if cats and dogs had a posable thumbs day? They'd probably be way less excited about the can opener. There's that, yeah.

I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Ken DelVecchio's New Jersey and Auburn, Michigan and Waycross, Georgia this is the Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Greg Abbott declares war on trans kids and their parents. Ben Carson

considers using our strategic grain reserves in the Washington Monument. And Don Ford will be here because the voice of reality and inaction wasn't available. But first, the Washington Monument. And Don Ford will be here because the voice of reality in In Action wasn't available. But first, the diatribe. Don't get me wrong, I am excited as hell katonji brown jackson ascending to the supreme court she'll be just the sixth woman to sit on the nation's highest court and only the third

african-american she'll bring the gender balance one justice away from reflecting the actual percentages of the population more or less she's apparently fantastically intelligent and pragmatic and qualified and it'll mark the first time i think in my entire fucking life where a supreme court justice is going to be replaced by someone to their left politically it's an event so deserving of celebration that i feel like an asshole nitpicking the ceremonial end of it i should just be overjoyed at all the historic firsts that i get to witness here. But when Biden formally nominated her on Friday, she opened up her acceptance speech by saying, quote, I must begin these very brief remarks by thanking God for delivering me to this point in my professional journey. My life has been blessed beyond measure, and I do know that one can only make it this far by faith, end quote.

So I kind of have to address it now yeah look i'm willing to give her a pass on the first sentence and the first half of the second one i mean i kind of feel like when you graduate magna cum laude from harvard you get to like stop being humble but whatever it's a political appointment that'll come with a confirmation fight a bit of humility and pandering is entirely understandable and begrudgingly acceptable and and who knows maybe she actually believes this shit too it kind of conflicts with the whole ability to keenly discern facts thing that we kind of look for in a judge but in america you take what you can get in that department but that last little bit sticks in my craw right i know that you can only come this far by faith of course i want to give her all due

credit here so let's take the most positive possible interpretation she's not saying an atheist could never come this far or actually she is unavoidably saying that but that's not the point she's trying to make given the context of talking about how blessed her life has been the most reasonable interpretation is that her point is intended to be that her career was empowered by her faith, that God had her back the whole time, that he was rooting for her and laying a path for her and guiding her towards a higher purpose. She's saying that faith provided her with support when the stresses of her education and her job overwhelmed her. She's saying, in other words, that religious belief gave her an advantage over folks like you and me. And that's what needs to be addressed. In other words, that religious belief gave her an advantage over folks like you and me. And that's what needs to be addressed.

I mean, you know, sure, a liberal genius should probably be able to think of a less exclusionary way of expressing humility and Christianity. But let's set aside any condemnation here. It's worth addressing simply from the perspective of its truth value. I mean, believing that the universe's author set out an important role for you in in the plot probably does come in handy from time to time right assuming she's sincere in her beliefs it probably did help katanji brown jackson get through some pretty tough times in her life thinking about how the omnipotent guy had her back so you know do christians have this superpower that seems like an important question to answer just if you're trying to sell people on atheism in general. And of course, just like every other claimed advantage of faith, this one

disappears as soon as you shift your focus. Because the other side of that coin is hitting the ground before you realize that God isn't going to catch you. And let's face it, the overwhelming majority of people don't make it all the way to the Supreme Court, regardless of their faith and what they think God has planned for them. I mean, I couldn't have made it here without my faith. That sounds great if you're the quarterback that just won the Super Bowl, but not so much if you're literally any other quarterback. Is failure easier to handle when you assumed that success was preordained the whole time? Is failure easier to handle when you assume that the failure itself was preordained? How does that belief inspire you?

And what does it inspire you to do? And look, even if we could somehow filter out all the differences and measure how often faith helped and how often it hindered and we could somehow weigh those two things against each other and we were to discover that it helped more often. That still doesn't matter if it isn't true. Anything propped up on a lie stands to fall apart the second that the lie falls apart. Basing one's coping mechanism around something that is at best unproven and highly questionable just strikes me as a bad play to begin with. Of course, it may still be technically

true that she couldn't have got where she was without faith i have a hard time imagining a self-identified atheist getting nominated to the supreme court but that's not a problem with the atheism that's a problem with prejudice and ultimately i have every hope and every reason to believe that welcoming katanji brown jackson onto the court is a step towards solving that problem they're talking about you jesus interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin joining me for headlines tonight are the playstation and xbox to my nintendo heath ed right and eli bosnick fellas are you ready to play bloating sorry just kidding i'm one of the earlier versions couldn't find a five no i get it i'm not

as desirable as the other two but i'm available and i'm backwards compatible yeah i was gonna justify it and with age no still loading just yeah right no so there will be probably some tips some tips going across now in our lead story tonight among the worst things that donald trump unleashed on america was the bigotry arms race that he touched off amongst Republican hopefuls. Right. He taught prospective GOP candidates that overt bigotry was not only acceptable, but beneficial. Hell, maybe even sufficient. And so conservatives with an eye on high office now feel the need to shore up their bigotry bona fides the same way as they've traditionally kowtowed to evangelical extremists or bolstered their anti-abortion cred or whatever in the run up

to an election. And while that's kind of always been the case, as the targets of the bigotry can attest, it's gotten a hell of a lot worse since Trump left office or showed up in office, I should say. Case in point, last Tuesday, Texas governor and man whose facial expression has been stuck on way less sorry for breaking your phone than he should be for decades greg abbott where he called upon his constituents to report the parents of trans kids to the authorities so that they can be charged with

child abuse fucking evil what the fuck is happening okay just to review greg abbott wanted texas authorities bloodhound tracking fugitive state senators recently and now parents who don't meet the state-imposed bigotry floor that he's set up it feels like we take him away until the end of the semester he doesn't get authorities for a while right hopefully beto, Ben O'Rourke takes him away forever. Yeah, here's hoping. That'd be great. So, yeah, so this whole Nazi declaration stems from an opinion released the day before by Abbott's xenophobia Igor, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose expression, by the way, has been stuck on trying to seduce a care bearer for decades. He's crazy looking.

Yeah, I looked him up because of this story and i looked at pictures of him it's like he's always shitting and having a stroke at the same time and he's happy about it yes and he wants to tell you a secret about it he looks like he's happy about something he shouldn't be happy about you know how in video games or movies the evil magic will twist a regular looking person into a monster he looks like he's on day three of right magic he's part of the morph there so paxton's opinion claimed that allowing minors to receive transition care like puberty blockers hormone therapy etc is child abuse under state law and this i should emphasize comes after abbott failed to get a bill passed declaring as much last year so the state's overwhelmingly republican legislature has already rejected this transphobic bullshit wow the republican legislature of texas yeah is like

dude you're too much come on think about that yeah it also came a week before abbott had to face a crowded field in the republican gubernatorial primary and right in the middle of paxton facing a trial for securities fraud and an fbi investigation for bribery and abuse of office so claims that it was a political stunt by both parties have found pretty easy traction yeah it says a lot that the way to misdirect away from your misdeeds in texas is by blowing the fucking horn of the wild hunt against trans children yeah it's a different misdeeds yeah now to be clear the state ag and the governor saying something is against the law doesn't make it against the law no it does not legislators make

laws judges interpret laws like no you lost me nerd well the point is no judge in good standing anywhere in the fucking country has ever found that trans affirming therapy is child abuse despite them all looking at pretty much the same laws so this is less of a government mobilization and more of a coordinated harassment campaign organized from the higher levels of state government which isn't better no right abbott specifically called on doctors teachers and members of the general public to report trans affirming parents and even added that state law quote provides criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse end quote cool he's gonna get everybody narking on everybody else about this evil fucking thing this is ridiculous

greg abbott needs to be brought up on federal charges of attempted child abuse yeah because of this like eight million counts of that or however many kids are in texas and then actually a bunch of actual child abuse because that is definitely going to happen because of this yeah and by the way while we're reporting people for invisible crimes based on our private beliefs i would like to report greg abbott for robbing banks because i think the way while we're reporting people for invisible crimes based on our private beliefs i would like to report greg abbott for robbing banks because i think the way he golfs is bank robbery there you go i am the governor right i declare it yeah it's illegal to not report him for fake bank robbery golf whatever there you go and to be clear it's doubtful that this will lead to any parent being

charged with child abuse neither abbott nor paxton wants a legal decision on record officially refuting their bullshit claim but it will lead to an increased harassment and abuse of trans kids it will lead to parents rethinking getting proper therapy for their kid and it's also going to clog up all the departments that deal with real reports of fucking child abuse and make it harder for them to do their jobs. But even if you set aside all the children's lives and well-being that Abbott has sacrificed on the altar of his political fortunes, and I have no fucking idea why you would do that,

the very fact that bigoted enough for a Christian voter is a bar that politicians feel the need to clear should be plenty enough to terrify you on this story. Now do comedy, Eli. Yeah. You got to picture someone tipping Greg. Just picture it. Take a minute.

It's going to be fun. On to Madison. Tipping him like a cow? Yeah, exactly. And in HTMLGBTQ news. Nailed it. Is there all letters? Nailed it.

Really tickled myself with that one. A Christian web designer is suing the state of Colorado for banning businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation because she doesn't want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples. Are we doing this again? Here's the catch. She hasn't been asked to make a website for a gay person. In part, no doubt, because her websites look like she couldn't quite get the hang of personalizing her MySpace in 2004.

You got to get pimp MySpace. It's an idiot. But that hasn't stopped the Supreme Court of this nation from accepting her case against the state, which will be heard either this or next year in what is almost certainly bad news for anti-discrimination laws everywhere yeah right because apparently this iteration of the court thought the problem was separate but equal was that it targeted the wrong minority yeah they do though so the bigot in question is laurie smith and her company 303 creative llc makes websites at least as far as i can tell from her client page for other homophobes it's a it's an age of specialists as my daddy used to say anyway she's teamed up with the alliance defending freedom of course and claims that her suit is not on religious freedom grounds because

those already got shot down by even this supreme court no it's on free speech grounds because her job i kid you not involves putting words on websites oh right so okay so this would just potentially affect the kinds of services that involve words or talking communication in languages yeah at least it'll be narrow yeah okay so obviously you have to type whatever words when your product is made of words like that but in this lady's head a gay couple is going to demand that she make a wedding website that says, come to our wedding, after which time we will have penis in butt sex. We will describe it in detail right now on our website. Here it is.

What the fuck is going on? You think that... Heath, you joke? I wish there was a page on wedding websites for what kind of sex they have. Okay, that would be great. Way more interesting than the bullshit they put on the Our Story page. Oh, you met through a friend? Your good friend Tinder?

Did your friend Tinder introduce you, Karen? Are you done, Eli? I am done, yes. Alright, one last thing about this story. As I usually do when writing a story about a bank, I looked up 303 Creative LLC. That's where I learned that Lori's websites look like

kidnappers' notes with lower quality stock photos. But I also happened on her contact page because, you know, I like to drop an email to these bigots just, you know, telling them I hope they get eaten by bears or something. And I ran across a message on that contact page that she was ready

for me. Quote, to those who have filled my inbox with vile, hate-filled messages. Hi, Lori. Hey, this is Heath. I did a bunch of those too. Hello. If we disagree, we should be able to do so civilly. That is the mark of a healthy and free society. And while I think people should always strive to treat each other with politeness and consideration and speak in ways reflecting that I will always affirm one's right to freely speak. All I am asking for is that same freedom and quote. But to take away.

I just like everyone to respect my freedom to take the freedom away from other people in the name of freedom. Is that too much to ask? Lorem ipsum penis penis. Fuck. Am I gay now? I think I'm gay now. Yeah. So you heard it here first.

It is very important to Lori that you, podcast listener, have the freedom to speak. Be it on her Yelp page, her Google reviews, or hey, just leaving her an email on her passive aggressive contact page. Don't do it for me. Don't do it for me. Do it for Lori and her love of freedom. Right. Exactly.

And write that long poem describing the graphic detail of the gay sex that you like to have. Whatever. Whatever. Exactly. Yeah. Whatever you come up with. And in sleepy, happy, grumpy, dopey, sneezy, bashful doc news, Ben Carson. Fantastic.

Ben Carson gave us a christianity speech at the u.s air force academy last week and yes that sounds a lot like a violation of the first amendment and the principle of church state separation and the air force's own policies about that but the speech was all about how there's actually no such thing as church-state separation, so it cancels out. Or it doubles the problem. It's one of those. It's either the opposite of what I said, one or the other. Either way, the Air Force Academy learned from Carson that accepting the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is a form of actual word he used, schizophrenia. Huh. Really, Ben Carson, who several friends and family have said is

unrecognizable from the man they knew when he was younger you're gonna diagnose other people's mental illness now ben well yeah it's but he's he's doing it with the everyone's insane but me gambit that's the sign of a healthy mind right there so here's a little background to give you an idea of how this all happened it starts with ben carson being a really good brain surgeon and literally nothing else he's good at nothing else ever clearly and he's like i cut brains i figured out schizophrenia he's so stupid and thanks to that body of experience of good brain surgeon and nothing else he got chosen by donald trump to be the secretary of housing and urban development. Well, there was also a very upsetting chain of word association that got Trump from urban to Ben Carson.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. But either way, he's got that job. And now he is a talking head for the Christian right. Well, the Air Force was doing their thing. You know, Lulu raining down, exploding hellfire on heathens using an Xbox controller. See? My favorite stuff.

Available. It's going great. But they wanted to make sure the next generation of Air Force people had all the right philosophical principles in place. And Christian God invented raining down, exploding hellfire and heathens with an xbox controller so they got ben carson to deliver a christian nationalist keynote address at their national character and leadership symposium that's their literal christian nationalism event like more extra than they are already according to to Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Air Force somehow finds a way to ramp up

the Christian nationalism from their normal, extremely problematic high level into a giant gala of Jesus and jingoism and grits and gravy and guns, whatever the fuck the other thing is from Huckabee's book. Okay. God. For a branch of the military whose chief use at this point is being the second most interesting thing at the county fair,

they do think awfully highly of themselves, don't they? For fuck's sake, the Air Force. You can't even nail down most beloved U.S. military aerial stunt pilot team, right? Top three. Fuck you. So the speech was an hour long. there's not enough cocaine in the world so i'm gonna not get into all that but fun fact if you watch ben carson on double speed he's just a guy talking yep so i'm gonna focus on a moment that happened during the q a after his hour-long speech

somebody asked him about who the fuck cares doesn't matter and he was like speaking of which belief in christian god is why america is winning the game and then he reenacted an argument with nobody in his head out loud that he's pretty sure he won but i think he even lost to himself in that head argument and i think we have another contender in the concentrated wronging tournament. So I'm going to tell you what he said. See if you guys can score as we go. Jump in.

If you notice anything wrong with what he said, point it out. Go right ahead. All right, here we go. Here's what Carson said next. Quote, those people who like to criticize America are always talking about separation of church and state. So far, so good. Which is not in the Constitution, by the way. Do they realize that our founding document,

the Declaration of Independence, talks about certain rights given to us by our creator, a.k.a. God? I guess he's asking questions on all these. They're not exactly wrong. Yes, they are. He continues. Do they realize that the Pledge of Allegiance says we are one nation under God?

That many courtrooms on the wall, it says in God we trust. Every coin in our pocket, every bill in our wallet says in God we trust. So if it's in our founding documents, it's in our pledge, it's on our founding documents it's in our pledge it's on our courts it's on our money but we're not supposed to talk about it what in the world is that in medicine we call it schizophrenia nope not what and quote so but his argument is though if you needed to breathe oxygen to survive how could i be holding your head underwater like this right okay so yeah full of stupid there but here's the big takeaway why the fuck is ben carson carrying a pocket full of coins what is he you want people to hear him coming what's

happening in your life i mean if anyone is keeping penny candy machines alive as an industry, it is Ben Carson. Okay, alright. Oh, this one's got cashews. He's doing the skill crane, trying to impress everybody at the truck stops. And in searching for children's genitals. Eli, Eli. It's relevant

to the story, I swear. I still have the remote for the shot caller. I know, I know. Teachers in North Carolina can no longer look up the birth sex of students on a school database because why the fuck would you need to do that but you know what that means what are the guys talking about it's the newest the greatest christian freak out that's right christians are freaking out calling this new inability to Google the genitals of their students, quote, the Biden agenda to elevate transgenderism in schools, end quote. Well, I mean, they're right that it is that, but wrong in the implication that that's a problem. Exactly.

But yeah, guys, when a minority earns equal rights, that is being elevated. Congrats. If rights are a zero-sum game to you, you're doing a hate crime right now. You're a hate crime. Exactly. Yeah. So in reality, this is a small change implemented by the State Department of Public Instruction to their PowerSchool software.

PowerSchool allows teachers to look up info on students like their names their past teachers and before last week the assigned sex at birth of their students huh so your permanent record if you will okay but when the fuck would that be useful right great question when would a teacher be like okay if you don't quiet down i'm gonna slap you right in the okay hold on. I'm searching the database. Penis. Penis that you were assigned at birth.

I'm going to slap you in the dick. What the fuck? Everybody take out your number two pencils and your balls. And to be clear, this change wasn't without reason, right? It wasn't random. According to the article where I read this story, the Campaign for Southern Equality, quote, random according to the article where i read this story the campaign for southern equality quote got several complaints last year about transgender students being outed by the power school software so they complained to the dbi about how the software was violating transgender students

federal rights to privacy as well as title 9 which bans discrimination in education on the basis of sex end quote so of course dbi changed it and now christians are freaking out let me clarify because they can't out trans children anymore yeah no but like look freaking out about a ban on discrimination that's a fitting summary of their last 50 years of political activity if you want to be honest about it yep yeah and a bunch of centuries before a bunch of teachers just going into north carolina schools be like now i gotta carry this duck and this scale back and forth to work every day i'm trying to figure shit out this is ridiculous i need that database yeah so let's get to the freakouts first up is right-wing organization

education first alliance who appear to spend most of their time posting trans panic videos on rumble they said that the bill will quote allow students to choose their own names and sexes without the input or permission of parents and kids well i no illusions can't imagine the kind of panic that would ensue if people just started choosing their own names willy-nilly dave murder what the fuck next up tammy fitzgerald and yes of course her name is tammy with an i and and only one m no less yes yeah tammy of the north carolina values coalition said quote this goes back to the biden agenda to elevate transgenderism in schools and to use schools as a laboratory for experiments instead of looking at what's best for children end quote

all right well first of all laboratory just implies experiments but if you didn't do experiments how the fuck would you know what's best for the children oh you ask their north carolina parents who are universally wise about that sort of thing. Yes, Tammy. Right. So this change is actually a good thing, which surprisingly kind of makes this story good news. But quick reminder for our listeners of that age-old

saying, if someone asks about your kid's genitals, you can hit them with a baseball bat. I don't think that's an age-old saying. It is if we keep saying it. Not for an age it isn't. Hit them with a keep saying it. Not for an age, it isn't. Hit him with a baseball bat right now. And in Ukraine technique news tonight, Christian nationalists are having a damn hard time

not praising Putin's invasion of Ukraine this week, and for a lot of them, it's because they're not trying. Mm-hmm. Republican Senate candidate Laura Witzke told reporters, quote, I identify more with Putin's Christian values than I do with Joe Biden's, end quote. Cool. Go to jail. I would think.

Steve Bannon applauded how woke Putin wasn't. Tucker Carlson praised him for not, quote, trying to snuff out Christianity, end quote. And of course, Christian nationalist in chief Donald Trump has already dubbed the invasion genius. Can't believe I tried to buy Greenland from the Greens like an idiot. Invaded. Dumb. It's like if you didn't need the glasses to see who was an alien and they live, right?

Yeah. They just kept walking up to you. Hey, by the way, I'm an alien. I didn't notice you weren't wearing glasses, so I thought I should tell you. But the supporter I'm most interested in for the purposes of this show didn't exactly endorse the invasion so much as put the holy seal of approval upon it in a hardened heart of Pharaoh kind of way. And that theological justification comes from none other than Pat Gelato Robertson. robertson that's right p robes came out of retirement long enough to tell the new hosts of the 700 club that the invasion of ukraine is probably the opening salvo in the end time struggle of biblical prophecy he's back baby he's back could be that could be that putin does sound like a good guy and definitely not a vaguely eastern european demon so yeah he's probably a

good guy either way p, P-Robes, go ahead and put some sunflower seeds in your pockets. It's a thing. It's going to help later. By which we mean your cheeks. Yeah, under your cheeks would do fine as well. It's going to hold more. Yeah, he wouldn't have to wait

until he died to sprout there. Yeah. So, yeah, after more than a half century of failed apocalypse predictions during his tenure as the show's host, every single time a major world event happened pat robertson has clearly learned absolutely nothing during the very first major world event of his less than six month old retirement he popped back in on the show to

tell him that this time though the end times really were coming he suggested based on nothing but rectal evidence that putin's ultimate goal was to move against Israel and that Ukraine was just a staging ground for that. Since, you know, it's closer to Israel. It's closer. It's closer by water for sure. That's why Israel wasn't willing to condemn Russia at the U.N. They knew they were next.

Yes, exactly. Of course, he seemed less sure on this one than he was on the final judgment that he guaranteed would be visited upon the Earth on or before 1982 or the end of the world, his book, The New Millennium, predicted on April 29th of 2007

or the asteroid that he said would destroy the Earth if Donald Trump wasn't reelected in 2020. But he's still holding out hope. Damn it, he hasn't given up yet. It's metric. You got to just reconvert the time. And finally tonight, the Conservative Political Action

Conference took place in Orlando, Florida last weekend. It's CPAC time. One of two. They have another one coming up in the summer. Yes, they do. The gathering of America's top conservative minds included scathing atheist all-stars as usual, like Mike Lindell, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo, Kevin Sorbo, Matt fucking Gates was there. Still, huh?

And, of course, Donald Trump was there. hill huh and of course donald trump was there and i could not find anything about those people getting mauled by a very sexual pack of 30 to 50 feral hogs thus proving once and for all that god has no sense of ethics or comedic timing right i think we can all agree that prayer doesn't work either because i i did a lot of that that being said the universe did let them call it cpac 2022 awake not woke so maybe a little bit of a sense of humor oh my god their motto next year is going to be cpac 2023 sheep in sheep's clothing yeah no i mean honestly it sounds like they're describing sleep paralysis which makes a lot of sense as a republican theme right you're conscious only in the most technical sense. You're imperfectly perceiving the things around you.

You're impotent to react to them. Paranoid about threats that aren't really there. This kind of fucking nailed it, really. Extreme paralyzing fear of everything at all times. Yeah, exactly. Right. As society moves past you, then you're very sad.

Yeah. You're all going to die. I hate you. So are we. yeah but them statistically on a ventilator yeah yeah so as usual there's no active platform for the republican party they don't want any like positive things they just things that they don't want right every speaker they just do a list of things that are scary and and then they say, Christ Jesus, at the end, and everybody claps. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis focused on critical race theory in his speech and complained about how liberals are removing statues of Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abe Lincoln.

Circle the one that doesn't play. He got confused there. It's hard to remember the sides of that whole snafu conflict thing that we had, whatever, in the United States back then. Either way, he said good Christians need to fight back against cancel culture, corporate media narratives, and big tech. Those are the things he's afraid of. And he told everyone, quote, put on that full armor of God. You'll be met with flaming arrows but the shield of faith will stop them end quote and just a reminder the armor of god it's from ephesians

i think uh it also includes the helmet of salvation the breastplate of righteousness the belt of truth the sword of the spirit okay and the shoes of peace those are the best ones they protect you from satan who's attacking in the form of canceling bigots on twitter and stuff like that yeah and christians if you're listening please please actually test out your armor with real literal flaming arrows please do that yeah you're gonna prove it well so but let's be fair though they're under exactly as much threat from literal flaming arrows as they are from fucking critical race theories so sure why not okay so i guess in the interest of journalistic fairness we're journalists here sure i'm gonna throw in a compliment i found a collection of CPAC photos put together

by the New York Post, and to CPAC's credit, I did not see any major structures at this year's CPAC that were shaped like a literal swastika or some other Nazi rune. Well, there you go. And that's a big 100% improvement since

a year ago. Right. That being said, they did have a very large golden idol in Defiance of God again. Again? That happened last year, too. And once again, it's a statue of Donald Trump, and he's holding a magic wand with a star on top, like Mickey Mouse would have. Yeah, it looks like they're going to launch a cereal based on him as the mascot or something. It does look like a serial mascot. It looks like Big Boy's abusive father.

That's why he's... Everybody, everybody Google this. That's a really good description. By the way, he's standing in front of a thing called Patriot Mobile. Apparently that's the only Christian conservative wireless network. Yes. That's a real

thing. It's AT&T. Is it? It's AT&T. They're mobilizing freedom. Patriot Mobile. Clandroid Freedom Phone. And that brings us to the highlight of the event. I mean, there were a lot of highlights. The golden idol of

the abusive dad big boys up there but this was my top highlight kevin sorbo showed up at this convention and he made himself a custom suit in blue twitter egg color printed with screenshots of his own best tweets in his head yep but he doesn't have any best notes they're all that he fails so badly every time he tries to go on twitter but he thinks he won he might as well have a suit made of lucy lawless holding him down and spitting into his mouth it's's literally, it is literally if liking your own social media posts was a suit.

That's what it literally is. He wore a suit. He retweeted himself as a suit. In the summer he's going to wear a suit that says my mommy thinks I'm handsome. Right, yeah. Alright, well now that you've got an image to Google, I guess we can close out the headlines for the night.

Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Too lodgy. And when we come back, we'll delve even deeper into the parts of the Bible Eli wasn't considering when he suggested we acted out in skits. No regrets. I mean, they could have mentioned us. Okay, but Noah hasn't mentioned them in any of his books. Yeah, but they're not Noah's best friend.

Really? On this show too? Love is love, Heathen. That's definitely not what that phrase means. I mean, at this point, that might be what that phrase is about. Oh, you know what? Good point. Don Ford, voice of fantasy adventure hello thank you hello all right hey guys guys are you ready for uh bible peace theater oh the part of the show where we go through the bible and act it out to show how stupid it is

yeah yeah absolutely where were we well we had just begun the many miracles of elisha right student of elijah and not to be confused with Ahijah from the last book. Yeah, again, I don't name the characters. So let's talk about some miracles. Oh, Elijah. Yes, widow, son of prophets. Why weep you so?

I have a name, you know. It's not in the Bible, you don't. What up? What do you want? Okay. Well, my husband died in a great debt, and I have no money to pay it. Oh, worry not. So tell me, what do you got in your house?

Only a single pot of oil. Oh, excellent. Okay, so take every container in your house and fill it with that oil. Your pot shall not empty, and you shall repay your entire debt. Oh. Oh, oh, um, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. No problem.

It's just, um... Yeah, what, what? Well... It's just what? It's not that I'm not grateful. No, no, I, I, go ahead, what, what? Well, it's not that I'm not grateful. No, no, go ahead, what? What is it? Well, I mean, maybe God could just...

Just amazing what I did. No, go ahead. No, what was the problem? Oh, well, okay, just hear me out. Maybe God could just make some gold appear in my pocket or something. It seems like selling loose oil out of containers in my house will be difficult, maybe impossible. What? No, just give it to the guy you owe the money. Give him the oil and you're fine. But what if he doesn't take, like, I don't know, the flower vases full of oil?

Everybody takes flower vases full of oil to repay debts. You're fine. I think they do. Okay. Thanks. I think they do. Okay. Thanks. I guess. You're welcome. God magic. Awesome. I'm amazing. And then of course there's the story of the old lady who had no children.

Mmm. Mmm. Oh man. You guys are the best. Every time I come by here, you guys give me bread and a place to sleep. Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you guys? I have God powers. Did I tell you I have God powers? Oh, no.

Just your presence is enough. Mm. Although. Mm. Oh, um, although what? What? Well, you know, we never had any children, and now my husband is just too old. I guess I am a little sad about that, I guess.

Oh my God, I can totally help you have kids. I got this. No fooling? No fooling. And sure enough, she got pregnant and bore a son. Uh, he fucked the shit out of that old lady, right? Well, I mean, why do you think we had Heath play Elisha? Elizabeth Warren is a beautiful woman.

Hey, who said anything about Elizabeth Warren? Did you not? I felt like Don, you said. Did somebody not mention Elizabeth Warren? No, moving on. That was you, I think. Just like his mentor, it's time for Elisha to bring a dead kid back to life.

You guys aren't into the silver fox thing? No, man, nobody's into that. I am. You're the same age. You guys aren't into the silver fox thing? No, man. Nobody's into that. I mean, I am. You're the same age. You know what? Fuck you. Elisha. Elisha. Oh, hey. What up, old lady who I am definitely just

friends with? What's going on? You know that son that you gave me? That God gave you? With the magic. I helped. Well, he died. Is there anything that you can you? Right. With the magic. Right. That God gave you. Well, he died. Is there anything that you can do? Yeah. What's yeah?

No, no. I can. I can. I got to. I have to lay on your kid to do the magic. I'm sorry. You have to lay on my. Yes. Yes, I do. You know what? you have to lay on my... Yes, yes, yes, I do.

You know what? Hey, servant, come here. Ah, yes, Elisha? Yeah, so gird up your loins and go put my staff on that kid's head. Why do I need to gird up my loins for that? It's God magic. I'm doing God magic.

Just do what I said. All right, fine. It's just God. Yeah, yeah, that's perfect. So go put the stick on the kid's head. Okay, got it. Tighten it up a little bit. Tighten it.

Okay, that's good. Thanks. So, how you been? Oh, you know, that's good. Thanks. So, how you been? Oh, you know, I'm good. Good. Cool. Cool. So, hey, you play any Elden Ring yet?

I don't. I don't really like Souls games. What? Really? They're so good. You gotta try it. I know. I know.

Everybody says that. But then it's just like, why do people like this? It's just hard. If I wanted to die constantly, I'd play some fucking Frogger. But the aesthetic! Oh, sure. It's the same thing over and over again, though. You're a shadow

human or whatever, and you gotta run around fighting the night before Christmas to light the gathering of the go-fuckers. I'm telling you, you're missing out. It's so good. You run around fighting the night before Christmas, delight the gathering of the go fuck yourself. I'm telling you, you're missing out. It's so good. Elisha? Yeah?

I'm back. Yeah, I see that. The stick thing didn't do anything. Fine. I'll come lie on the kid. Let's go. Okay. Try not to get killed by something

because your sword moves eight times slower than it's. You're missing out. It's an amazing game. Missing out on a fucking boar, mate. I hate you. It's right in there, sir. Right. Right. Just got to check if he's dead. And, yep. Okay. Yeah. Dead.

Now, what did Elijah do? Ah ah it's like an eye thing okay i put my eye on his eye yeah maybe like maybe i smooch him nope okay it wasn't that uh okay maybe i'll just like lie on him for a second. This is weird. This is weird. Didn't make Eli act this part out. It's uncomfortable. Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! I'm alive! Cool.

Yep. Got it. Did you hear me sneeze seven times? I did, yes. Seven. Yep. I heard seven. This book is weird. Very. Yes. So, is that This book is weird. Very, yes. So, is that it for the miracles of Elisha?

Oh, not even close. Oh, man. This is good stew. Right? So good. Wait, wait, wait a second. Elisha, I think this stew is poisoned. Poisoned? I don't want to cry. No, no, it's fine.

Oh, well, then never mind. Right. So good. Sorry, I don't get it. Is that a reference to a video game or a TV show Eli doesn't like? No, no, no. That's actually a story in the Bible. Okay, one time a guy thought the stew was poisoned,

but it wasn't. But then it wasn't. Yep, that is in the Bible. Okay, right. And then there's the time Elisha fed a hundred men. Elisha, we the men of Baal Shalisha come bearing 20 loaves of bread. Oh, awesome, awesome so uh give some to everybody but elisha there are a hundred people here there's no way this bread will feed no no no no no trust me

god told me that the bread will feed everyone with plenty to spare you got i'm sorry what was that yeah yeah totally the word uh is you cut I'll choose a god superpower because it feels like a really lame one. Your powers are lame. I brought a kid back to life last week. I laid on him, I think, and it worked. We heard about that. Sneezed. Did you put your eyeball on his eyeball?

It was my first. I thought if you would smush him and then he would. I'd never done that before. I brought him back to life, though. It's confusing to do all the magic. It worked, though. He sneezed seven times. You all saw that.

That really makes no sense, but okay. You don't make sense. And then one day, Elisha is hanging out with the king of Israel when the king gets a very upsetting letter. Oh, gosh darn it. Whoa. King of Israelrael you seem upset and you tore your shirt off there everything okay no the king of syria has asked me to cure his general naman out of his leprosy but i don't know how to cure his leprosy he's just doing this to start a land war, and we're gonna get our asses kicked. Hey, hey, hey, no sweat, no sweat. I can cure Naaman's leprosy.

I got it. You can? Yeah, yeah. So just send him to my house tonight. Also, maybe don't tear your shirt, like, every time you're upset. That seems like a bad policy. I don't know. It looks kind of cool.

I think it's a great way to express yourself, Your Majesty. Well, thank you. Sorry, what? Who are you? I'm the Royal Tailor. Sure. Yeah. Cracks. Way to express yourself, your majesty. Sorry, but who are you? I'm the royal tailor. Sure, yeah, tracks. Hi, can I help you? Hello, I'm Neman.

I can see that. You're a man, but what's your name? Neman. Look, if you're not going to tell me your name, I'm not opening the door. Okay, the pronunciation doesn't even work for this to be who's on firsty. Fine. What do you want? My king sent me to get my leprosy cured.

Oh, right. Yes. I'm Gehazi, Elisha's servant. Elisha says to go bathe in the river seven times, and then you'll be all good. Seriously? Seriously. Like, I schlepped all the way over here for take a bath? You know we have rivers in Syria, right? Hey, what can I tell you, man?

I'm just the messenger. Okay. Is he even home? Can he just come and talk to me himself at least? I'll tell you what. He's not at home. He was not attempting to gird his loins and not getting stuck in what I would call an atomic wedgie situation. Oh, okay.

Little help! Who was that? What was that? That was our dog. Okay. Hey, Gahazi, right? Are you there? Yes, hello. What's up, papadom or namon whatever right just which i just wanted to stop by and say hey that cure for my leprosy totally worked oh right wow uh it did good yeah yeah christians actually used this section of the book quite a bit as

an apologetic about how the bible is scientifically accurate. Really? Even after the part with the flood? I know, it's crazy. Anyway, can I repay you for the leprosy cure? Oh, Elisha doesn't want any money, but, you know, I wouldn't be adverse to a little tip, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah, here, totally. Here you go. Oh, nice. Thank you. Good luck with the new skin. Thanks.

Hey, Ghazi, who's that? Oh, that was Naman. He says thanks for curing his leprosy, and he tried to give you money. Oh, right, right. You didn't take it, though, right? Oh, no, no. I refused, just like you told me. Okay, but what's that right there?

What's what? Did you take a tip? Are you holding a tip? No, I mean, I mean, it felt rude to say no to a tip. Seriously? You know what? From now on, you have leprosy too. What? And everyone in your family has it as well. Like, genetically? Yes, genetic, whatever, genetically, yes. I'm so mad at you right now.

Well, so much for scientific accuracy, huh? Okay, was that last one even a miracle of Elisha? I don't, it's hard to say on some of these, but wait until you hear the story of Elisha and the axe. Thanks for coming with us to chop wood for our new home, Elisha. Oh, yeah, sure thing, sure thing. Aw, man, my axe head flew off and fell into the water. Aw, no worries, no worries.

Everybody stand back. Oh, hey, look, it's floating. Right? God magic. Nailed it. Elijah, don't take this the wrong way, but some of your powers are like like barely morlock level okay look it's not like every little thing i do is going to be encoded into a book of moral law that somehow doesn't have room to forbid rape but has all my awesome magic that's not no okay that's gonna happen no that's fair that's true

okay you guys don't think elizabeth warren is hot you gotta move on from this man answer the question i'm elijah now and i'm asking and with heath sexuality once again the focus of our atheism podcast i need to stare at a wall for a couple hours elisha but we're back next month with even more bible peace it's time for the part of the show that comes next, listener feedback. This is the part of the show that's connected to the shinbone. Our first message comes from Ryan on Facebook. He writes, question for y'all. Do you have any suggestions on how to politely turn down a donation request to a co-worker's fundraiser for a church?

Great guy. We get along well. request to a co-worker's fundraiser for a church. Great guy. We get along well, but he's running a 4x4x48 for a youth ministry fundraiser and solicited a donation over Teams. I have no idea how to go about not giving my hard-earned cash to a youth ministry that looks much like the one that tortured me growing up. Yeah. So yeah, good question. Well, yeah, it's a real shame that Ryan feels the obligation to be polite at all, all right. About the request to give money to the child torturing, like the very act of asking your coworkers to support your religion is so fucking rude that social mores should give him, you know, should free him of that obligation altogether. Right.

Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in, though. It would also be nice if we lived in a world where Ryan could just say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm an atheist. But Ryan told me he wouldn't feel comfortable tossing that word out in the workplace either. And I get that. So unfortunately, you don't have no illusions with you at all times. Right. Well, so basically the question boils down to like, how do I best be discriminated against without making waves? And it's a shame that shit like this comes up so often. Yeah.

Okay, prank war alternative. Ask him the name of the organization then look shook like we really disturbed and then say who's the leader of that and then whatever he says you go that bastard they swore he'd never work with children again. I promise your co-worker

will not ask for details. Okay. Bonus, bonus. You're probably right. I promise your co-worker will not ask for details. Okay. Bonus, bonus. You're probably right. I mean, statistically. Yes, right. No, yeah. Okay. One more prank war alternative.

How about just an escalating series of increasingly ridiculous Islamic charity names that you make up and insist that they donate to your thing? I'm collecting for the Do Another 9-11

Brotherhood. No, it's a different... It's a... A lot of things happened on that date. It's British. That's 11-9. Yes. Also, fuck your face. Say fuck your face. Fuck your face. Always a good one.

We also got a message from a listener who I'm going to guess would rather not be named specifically. He took issue with a recent ad that we ran and had this to say about it on Facebook, a Facebook post in which he tagged me specifically. Quote, I listen to a lot of podcasts. If I can chuck them a buck, I do. But I haven't always been able to do that. So I tolerate the fact that they have ads mostly but i get a bit pissy about it because sometimes they're advertising shit that is obviously some kind of

grift take honey for example it's a free browser plugin that gives you coupon codes no the fuck it isn't this is continuing this quote no the fuck it isn't they're paying money no one to advertise on your show which means they are making far more money from doing something ostensibly for free. I don't know the precise mechanics of it, but they are harvesting data and selling it or something along those lines, and you are helping them do it. Soylent honey is people. What the fuck are you talking about? Wait, he goes on. How's this for an idea?

Stop selling ads and I'll become a patron or cop to the fact that you're shilling. Capitalism is a wonderful, fun ride in it. Corruption can be so much fun and silly ass self-aggrandizing bullshit quote. And he tagged Noah. Yeah, he tagged him. Now, ask yourself, podcast listener, why? Why wouldn't you Google how Honey makes their money before writing the status and tagging Noah? Because I'm not going to lie.

I also thought Honey made their money by selling your data. It turns out they don't. They make their money through you using the coupons on their website. The companies give them a little kickback. And they very specifically do not sell your data. That's how coupons work forever. Yes, always. Yep.

And you know how I found that out? I Googled it. Yes. A casual Google. Right. So here's the thing. Having a suspicion and then acting on it without checking up is not skepticism. It's stupidity.

Sure is. It's just stupid. And when it comes with an accusation, it's also assholery. It's stupid assholery. Typing out that bullshit screen took so much longer than Googling how does honey make their money and then reading it and finding out that you were fucking wrong. their money and then reading it and finding out that you were fucking wrong look in terms of betting our sponsors we do more than i'm gonna say like 99.5 percent of every venue that takes advertising in the history of fucking advertising yeah we have volunteer experts standing by in a half a dozen fields to sign off on shit before we bring them on board and yes we occasionally

fuck up and we run an ad for like Robin Hood or something. But I overwhelmingly stand by the companies that we've endorsed. And to have all of that written off because some douche gargling fuck biscuit thinks maybe something not quite ethical might be happening, but he doesn't have the fucking time to check.

It's just a fantastic reminder of why we can't have nice things. Okay. Does this guy just scream at the highway when he sees a billboard as he's driving by? Was he screaming uncontrollably at his own Facebook screen the whole time he was

writing that post? And that's the other thing. He's writing this. You're so worried about your data being harvested that you went to complain about it on fucking Facebook? On Facebook. I'm sure you used the incognito mode so it's impossible to track you use this clandroid freedom phone and look i want to be clear it's not the feedback you're allowed to say whatever you want about us you really are i get it okay

just don't fucking tag us don't tag us if you're going to be wrong. Right. Take the moment to just be like, oh, I'm not going to fucking bring their attention to this if I'm fucking wrong. I'm going to really double check that all Kentucky has to be made in whiskey or whatever the fuck it is. Actually, if you're going to be that aggressively wrong, I'd like you to tag me. Please tag me and write long explanations of what you think and I'll definitely pay attention to it. Can I also add one other thing too? Even if Honey

did sell your data, that's still a free browser plug-in, you dumbass. Even if you were right, you would have been wrong. Jesus Christ. Alright, well, I think that's all the feedback you get if you want more keep sending us those emails tweets and facebook messages and tag me in your really long well thought out points about your stuff you'll find all the contact info on the

contact page at skatingatheist.com. At Heathenburg. Before we let cool for 20 to 30 minutes, I wanted to give you one last call to come see me in Orlando at Free Flow this weekend. I don't think they're recording the talk. There won't be any video. So this is a one-off chance and tickets are still available. I think might not be by now, but I believe they are. So check the link on the show notes and find out.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's Hot Friend God, all from Wednesday, being at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even new episode of our Half-Sister Selectation, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. I feel like I missed a syllable or two there. That's fine, that's fine. You know what I mean. Obviously, I need to thank Heath Enright for being right as rain, Eli Bosnick for being

here in the nick of time, Lucinda Lusions for Jeanne something, Don Ford fordaining to be here. His name's great for that bit. Way better than Lucinda's. I also want to thank Richard from the Atheism UK podcast for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Be sure to check the show notes for a link to his show if you need

more atheism or more UK in your life. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people. Robert Jesse Hotspears, who owed to a small lump of filibuster I found in my armpit one midsummer morning. Other Robert, Eric, C.S., Jane, Harold, James, Patron Redacted, Dr. Chris with a K, Canadian James, and Kendalyn. Robert, Other Robert, Jesse, Hot Spear, and Eric, who are so hot you could light a joint off of them. C.S., Jane, Gerald, and James, whose IQs are high enough not to need the joint to begin with. And Redacted, Dr. Chris, James, and Kendalyn, who are better than cheese.

Together, these 13 thoroughly philanthropic heathens helped us thump theology this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some to us, but if you do, you should. You can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button

on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, money isn't into you you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review telling a friend about the show or following at piatpod on twitter legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of p andrew torres tim robson handles our social media and our audio engineers morgan clark was over all the music that was used in this episode which was used with permission if you have questions comments or death threats you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skatingads.com. And nobody ever wonders about my sexuality nope sure don't what older politicians do you think are hot done boys uh well uh see you didn't even have an answer you called for it you weren't ready

for it that's why we don't ask you, Don. Get the fuck out. God damn it. I made peanut butter toast too. You son of a bitch. I mean, any answer's right after you make peanut butter toast. Damn right it is.