The Scathing Atheist - 475: Leave it to Beavers Edition

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

In this week’s episode, Pat Robertson is running out of time to be wrong, Lindsey Graham checks to see if Ketanji Brown Jackson is from one of those religions with the dolls and the needles, and I bet she ended the day wishing she was. --- Get tickets to see us in Toronto here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/god-awful-movies-live-in-toronto-tickets-294592011637 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: Find out more about American Atheist’s convention in Atlanta here: https://convention.atheists.org/ --- Headlines: The report discussed in the diatribe: https://bjconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Christian_Nationalism_and_the_Jan6_Insurrection-2-9-22.pdf The happiest nations on Earth are strongly secular: https://onlysky.media/pzuckerman/the-happiest-nations-on-earth-are-strongly-secular/ https://onlysky.media/jpearce/are-you-happy-because-they-certainly-seem-to-be/ Pat Robertson would like Joe Biden to start a nuclear war: https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1504186777879420931 Christian missionaries take advantage of Ukrainian refugees: https://www.opindia.com/2022/03/christian-missionaries-descend-upon-ukraine-to-bring-the-gospel-to-people-suffering-from-the-war/ and https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/former-wa-rep-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism-working-to-secure-adoptions-for-ukrainian-children-in-poland/ The Babylon Bee chooses misgendering as its Twitter hill to die on: https://onlysky.media/kdavis/the-babylon-bee-chooses-misgendering-as-its-twitter-hill-to-die-on/ GOP candidate: Witches at my preschool tried luring me into Satanism: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/gop-candidate-witches-at-my-preschool-tried-luring-me-into-satanism/ UK Preacher: Teachers are devils teaching an abomination: https://onlysky.media/jpearce/uk-catholic-priest-teachers-are-devils-teaching-an-abomination/ The DC Talk song we make fun of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr3HrnxNroQ

Warning, the following podcast contains Eli. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, Honey, HelloFresh, and by the new communion cracker delivery service, HelloFlesh, HelloFlesh, because even though I don't know what comes up when you Google that, I kind of want Catholics to do it anyway. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, this is Jacob calling from Minnesota, and although I am calling from a state that And now, The Scathing Atheist. Tom Emmer, so I can definitely assure you we evolved from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday.

It's March 24th. And it's National Poison Prevention Week. Okay, got it. No, don't drink that. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. Nailed it. I'm Heath Enright. And from Samuel Alito's New Jersey

Ann Arbor, Michigan And Waycross, Georgia This is The Scathing Atheist On this week's episode Pat Robertson is running out of time to be wrong Lindsey Graham checks to see if Kataji Brown Jackson is from one of those religions With the dolls and the needles

And I bet she ended the day wishing that she was First, the diatribe. This is one of those weird moments where I have good news, but it's about the fact that Christian nationalists are increasingly adamant and open about their desire to restrict voting rights for minorities in order to preserve the dominance of their worldview so there's kind of no way that the good aspect of it can be more than marginal but it is good news so to get there though let's start with the terrifying aspect of this christians are getting worse right like like nine years ago they were so bad that we thought hey you know we need to spend

all of our free time podcasting about how dangerous these motherfuckers are and then they spent nine years getting ever more dangerous and then last week we got a report that said they're getting so much fucking worse y'all now the report in question was a project from the baptist joint committee for religious liberty and the freedom from religion foundation and a bunch of it was authored by friend of the show andrew seidel and it focused on the role that Christian nationalism played in the January 6th riot, but also on the implications of what that might mean for the future of American democracy. This report obviously is terrifying.

It's 66 painstaking pages that outline all the ways in which Christianity played an integral part in the deadly Capitol riot. It's a fascinating and actually very readable document that we'll have linked in the show notes, of course. But suffice to say, it doesn't shy away from the very real ways that Christian rhetoric and political activism over the last few decades enabled Trump, Trump supporters, and ultimately the Capitol rioters. It plainly states that without a ready institution of conspirators in the form of evangelical Christian churches, none of this shit ever could have happened in the first place. Seidel even goes to an extensive list of Christian symbols, Bible verses, and prayers that accompanied the rioters. But despite its focus on January 6th of 2021, it's not a backwards-looking document.

The point of the entire report is very clearly that this is not the end of the Christian nationalist insurrection. And to make that point, it outlines many ways that their tactics are evolving. And the primary tactic that they highlight, as I already mentioned, is the desire to restrict voting. The entire point of Christian nationalism is the idea that America should be more explicitly Christian. And since that would never earn a majority vote in a free election, they don't want free elections anymore. In other words, they were great with majority rule while they were the majority. All that being said, there is good news at the heart of this, like I started off mentioning,

because this report wasn't just shared with a bunch of atheist activists. It was presented to Congress in a hearing hosted by the Congressional Free Thought Caucus. Instead of being restricted to podcasters and bloggers who can shout about it to people who already recognize the problem, it's being discussed in the halls of power. Say what you will about their attendance and scope, but conversations about the dangerous direction that Christian nationalism is taking and the threat it poses to our democracy are taking place in an official capacity in congress and look

a big part of the reason we started this show and indeed this movement right was was that stuff like this wasn't being talked about in congress like during the obama era we had this increasingly large and vocal minority talking about their holy mission to take jesus's country back for the white man and people in power were like well are you guys just wacky and things like project blitz and pulpit freedom sunday openly state their goals to subvert both the laws and the system that makes laws possible and that's not because they're brave it's because they're invincible they know that no american politician can afford to stand up to even the most heinous incarnation of christianity so they just toss across on their racist, treasonous bullshit like it was a bulletproof vest.

But thanks to Jared Hoffman, Jamie Raskin and the 14 members of Congress that make up the Congressional Free Thought Caucus, they have reason to start wondering about that. You know, you look 16 out of 535. That's not much, but it's a start. Keep in mind that the Free Thought Caucus is all of four years old. It was started in 2018. And a lot of the reason that it's there at all is because of concerted effort by atheist activists, specifically the efforts over the last decade and a half to increase our visibility. This is what progress looks like. I know it's not what we want it to look like.

We want big sweeping changes that eradicate major problems, but that almost never actually happens. And when it does, those sweeping changes are tenuous as hell. Whatever mechanism created them so quickly is almost certainly going to be able to destroy them just as quickly when the political pendulum swings the other way. But incremental changes have to be dismantled to one piece at a time. And so as frustrating as it is, in long run it's often better i i know nobody wants to hear me talk about slow and steady winning the race but damn it if we don't have fucking midterm election coming up later this year that republicans are expected to dominate now i know our audience isn't big enough to swing the outcome of that or anything but if our sights aren't set on big sweeping changes, we can still go to the polls enthusiastic, knowing that we're going to be tacking one more atheist vote under the demographics that all the politicians are looking at.

And if we're lucky, maybe we can send one or two more congresspeople to the Free Thought Caucus. They're talking about you, Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the squirtle and Bulbasaur to my charm, Andrew Heath, then right, and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to get caught up? Okay, if I evolved to a war turtle, why are there still Squirtles? Doesn't make sense.

Hydropump is P. People need to grow up and admit it, okay? Hydropump is P. All right, well, with our record broken for how fast we could corrupt something pure from our childhood, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, ZipRecruiter. Is it P? It's P. Alright, well with our record broken for how fast we could corrupt something pure from our childhood, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, ZipRecruiter. Is it P? It's P. Well, hello podcast listener. I'm an emotionally manipulative

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I hear that's what happens anyway. I don't really know because, again, I'm in my office playing games on my computer. And if you're one of those employers, you might want to use ZipRecruiter. Oh, what's ZipRecruiter? Oh, wow. You took the ZipRecruiter point. Okay, I guess. Oh, wow.

That's super obnoxious. Is that how you manage people? Yeah, it's how I do my whole job. Awesome. ZipRecruiter uses its powerful technology to find and match the right candidates up with your job. Then it proactively presents those candidates to you. You can easily review these recommended candidates and invite your top choices to apply for your job, which encourages them to apply faster. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site in the U.S. based on G2 ratings. What's a G2 rating? I don't know, probably something businessy. In fact, ZipRecruiter's technology is so effective that

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Especially if you don't suck. And I mean, even if you do. Yeah, technically. I'm going to be in my office I'm doing a thing. Yeah, I yeah i figured and now back to the headlines in our lead story tonight religion is bad yep and that's the show you want to wrap it up right there we got 55 minutes left teeth come on i'll elaborate sorry sorry religion is bad and not religion is therefore good. Okay, I'll keep going. So in debate format, I guess this idea usually appears as something like, is religion a net positive or a net negative for human society? And I'm going to go ahead and

reject the premise because it used the word net there just now. It's just negative. Religion is negative. And we got a pretty clear reminder of that concept last week with the release of the annual World Happiness Report. And the trend is very clear. If a country is less religious, it's almost certainly more happy. Religion equals unhappiness it's mad i mean looking at these numbers it could also be how funny your language sounds to americans let's not rule out all the possibilities yeah it can be both so we got an excellent article about the latest happiness

report from phil zuckerman over at only sky media. Also, Hemet Meadow over there, of course. So, Zuckerman starts by asking, what happens when millions of people stop going to church and lose their faith in God? Do they all descend into a terrifying orgy of violence and despair? Now, okay, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but that was the basic idea of the question at the beginning of the article. And the answer was, what the fuck are you talking about of course not of course that doesn't happen again paraphrase but very similar and the world happiness report tells us what actually happens when millions of people start leaving religion we ascend into a

wonderful orgy of science nerds and happiness it It's fucking great. At least, you know, that stuff relative to the places in the world that are still clinging to religion, which sadly is most places in the world. But here's the top 10 happiest countries. At number one is Finland, assuming that's a real place, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands,lands luxembourg sweden norway israel and new zealand obviously israel is the outlier in terms of being heavier on religion but all 10 of the happiest countries including israel have become much more secular than they used to be over the last couple decades i love that the country under constant missile attack is still happier than us yeah yeah no machete

attacks do suck but hey at least we don't have juggalos am i right well and i should point out that like measuring irreligiosity is in israel is super tricky because there's advantages to identifying with a certain religion but by a lot of very reasonable measures it's among the least religious countries on earth right like almost everybody's jewish sure but 20 of those jews don't believe in a deity and an additional 15 beyond that observe no religious practices like for reals pew list the non-religious population in israel is 3.1 and the win gallup poll lists it as 58 so it really is about how you ask the question. Alright, so like halfway in between or probably 58?

Yeah, it's probably 58 and they want all the advantages of being Jewish. Yeah. Guys, we're going to get yelled at again. We're getting close. We're getting close to the you're not Jewish if you don't think Jewish thoughts fight. My Twitter will never recover. No, it's not. Whether you're Jewish or not, you're not religious.

Right, yeah. In fairness to religion actually no no i'm fuck that i'm not doing that in fairness to i'll say analyzing data correctly there you go it's important to remember that correlation doesn't prove causation is not equal to causation less religion correlates with happiness but that doesn't mean it causes happiness and of course we have other factors at play for example every country in the top 10 has above average per capita wealth and yes money absolutely does buy happiness it's crazy when people say otherwise it does why would it not buy happiness of course it buys happiness so yes being a nation of super wealthy atheists that's probably the move but it's not a guarantee of happiness.

It's a bit more complicated. But here's what the happiness report does tell us for certain. When religious people try to claim that society needs religion lest we descend into chaos, they're definitely wrong and or lying. Yep. Probably both. Also, leaving religion usually does cause happiness it seems pretty clear like nobody's like all right i left religion and i lost my absolute morality and now i'm not happy no it definitely does that it fucks stuff and masturbation you have sex and drugs and

bacon happiness and money it's clearly a good thing for most people. We just didn't prove that with this particular report, to be clear. Right, but just in case, you should become a patron at patreon.com slash scathingatheist for the science of it. Once we're rich, we'll report back on how much happier we are. Oh, there you go. There you go. And by the way, lest the apologists rejoice at this nuance, I have to point out, like, atheism makes people happy. Happiness makes people atheist. And the thing that causes happiness also causes atheism are all really problematic positions for you guys.

None of that's good for your whole thing. No. Moral of the story, being not religious and being not conservative correlate with literal units of happiness. Winning the game. That's what we're doing here. Don't be religious. Don't be conservative. You're better, happier.

It's win. You won. Christians and Republicans are the death of happiness statistically. Or those little meatballs might have something to do with it. Again, we are skeptics. We will let you know. I will have something to do with it again we are skeptics we will let you know i will have meatballs to find out and in pat rockalypse now knows former host of the 700 club and man whose jowls violate most private school dress codes pat robertson is running out of time for the world to end he's 80 bajillion years old and he's pretty aware that he's about

to join the literal millennia of preachers before him who promised the world was going to end he's 80 bajillion years old and he's pretty aware that he's about to join the literal millennia of preachers before him who promised the world was going to end during their lifetime so he's attempting to tilt the scales a little bit this week when he called for joe biden to call vladimir putin's bluff yeah and i think start a nuclear war right yeah what he's asking joe biden to do is to go nah i bet you won't launch nuclear missiles look if feudalists were running previews about me before they got started i'd be willing to risk atomic annihilation for and i told you so too but on behalf of everybody whose expiration date isn't in a race with their milks fuck you i have living left to do you asshole yeah appearing on the 700 club once again even

though he said he retired like last fucking year he had the fuck i'm just saying it's weird right like the madonna he has the he had the following to say quote we have the firepower to wipe out every russian city with just one trident submarine and of, we're not going to use it and have no intention of using it. But why doesn't somebody in the administration call Putin's bluff? What? He's bluffing. And every time he says, well, if you do that, we're going to escalate. Oh, no, you're not old buddy.

We're going to do you if you try to do us and we'll make it worse. And you know it. And actual code'll nuke you harder than you nuke jesus christ i wonder why there's such a wide gulf in tactics between our national leaders and vladimir fucking putin okay jesus man what exactly does pat robertson even think he's suggesting there like he said we're not going to blow up Russia with nukes. So does he think calling a bluff is just like saying the word bluff out loud? He wants Biden to do a press conference and walk up to the podium and be like, bluff, and just walk back out?

What the fuck does that mean? Yeah. So Joe Biden, if you're listening, and we know you are a big fan please do not listen to pat robertson about anything anything but especially this i do not currently glow in the dark and i'd love to keep it that way that'd be awesome yeah you're real like i don't feel like they'd nuke me but they'd nuke you they might get heath too and did you crane or shine news tonight one of the most common defenses offered up by christian apologists is that regardless of all their sexism homophobia transphobia xenophobia racism child molesting child molester protecting bilking of the elderly and undereducated opposition to

important medical research opposition to basic science education opposition to all the other types of education no we gotta you know i got like a tag team it i have three pages okay let me shorten it regardless of their faults christians consistently go where help is needed most and this sounds great unless you ask the follow-up question which is and when they get there do they help case in point multiple reports of evangelicals traveling to the Polish-Ukrainian border to pester incoming refugees about their lord and savior. What the fuck? People just turning back around. No, thank you. My oven in the Ukraine. Oh, you know where people need saving? All the tall buildings in Kiev, my guy, get on it. It's just filled with Jews. Let me tell you, get in there. Now, there are, of

course, some Christian groups that brought along medical supplies and personnel, like Franklin Graham's group, Samaritan's Purse, which is helping refugees regardless of what religion of cisgendered, heterosexual they are. Cool. Woke. But from everything I can find, they seem to be dwarfed by people just

going there to tell fleeing ukrainians that it's their fault for not loving jesus enough and in case you're curious yes ukraine is overwhelmingly christian the latest numbers i could find were from 2018 when 86 percent more than 86 percent of respondents reported to be some variation of christian of course only 1.2 percent were reported to be protestant and therein lies the problem yeah fuck good work right that doing good stuff is for dirty catholics who are clearly hiding something it's about faith alone that's such a weird schism why does protestant why do they think they're on the good team with that? But isn't that perfectly exemplified by this fucking story? Sure is.

And to be clear, at least in the pictures we've seen from Twitter and the Associated Press, they are often doing this in front of aid centers. Yes. Right? Because they're not allowed to go to war zones, which means that like huddled families are heading to some of the first food or shelter they've had in days and people wearing official looking vests are stopping them and being like hey i'm sorry you have to stop for a second have you heard of our lord yes would you like a pamphlet and a bible now of course christians aren't just insulting and harassing ukrainian refugees they're also trying to steal their children or at least that's super duper what it looks like okay sorry what so i know this is a weird fucking thing to just sort of tack on at

the end of this story but you guys remember matt shea i do remember him yes the domestic terrorist slash former republican state representative from washington slash nazi manifesto author who hosts treason fundraisers in his free time yeah i remember a nazi manifesto happening i do remember that yes yeah so apparently he's in poland right now with 60 ukrainian children whose american adoptions he's trying to facilitate and if you're wondering who in their right mind would trust matt shea with orphans well it sure the hell isn't the agency that oversees international adoptions in europe because they don't know what the fuck he's talking about. Okay.

He wrote a very literal Nazi manifesto. That happened. And now he's stealing babies. What's he doing next? Where does this fucking ramp go? Where do you ramp to? Well, Heath. Never mind.

No, no, no. Noah, you were saying? He wants no so no no so yeah shea claims to be working with a texas group called loving families and homes for orphans or loving homes and families for orphans he can't quite decide it seems like super important for you to nail that it'd be great for you to nail it And while a group with one of those names did register with the Texas Secretary of State in 2018, they didn't register as an adoption agency. They also didn't register with the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, which you kind of have to do if you're an adoption agency. And they also aren't registered with the Intercountry Adoption Accreditation and Maintenance Entity. Their website isn't functional and when the mayor of the small polish town

that shea is in asked him what he planned to do with those kids he reportedly told the dude it was none of his business now it's our business it's our business now so many good answers to that question and he said none of your business are you fucking kidding if somebody says what are you gonna do with those kids? Already not looking good that somebody had to ask you that. But your answer needs to be right away like, no, this is something very obvious. Here are the permissions. If your answer is coy, you go to jail now just in case.

That's insane. Like 60 tiny little ski balls are rolling down a ramp to Tom Cruise right now. Yeah, they sure are. That's terrifying. Hey, hey, where the fuck is QAnon when you need them? Yeah. Can you all stop analyzing the shape of Kourtney Kardashian's house for a second? We have a literal child thief here for you.

A literal one. He's right there. Yep. So pretty sure Matt Shea is stealing children from ukraine okay i'm like i'm at least as certain of that as andrew will allow me to publicly say that i am and something tells me we're gonna hear more about this story at some future date uh and quick before andrew runs out of tums i guess we're gonna take a break and pause for a word from this week's second sponsor honey and then you're gonna want want to use Craig 81 at checkout. Okay, thanks, man.

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Oh, no. Not Coupon Craig. His misuse of AVN is deeply problematic. Yeah, he's actually problematic in a lot of ways. But how else am I supposed to find coupons when I'm doing online shopping? That's right. Coupon Craig is the only homie with the couponies. I hate you so much, man.

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slash scathing. That's joinhoney.com slash scathing. Alright, thanks Noah. You guys want to hear my opinions on trans women in sports? No, we do not. Super do not. They're real bad. Yeah. I bet they are. Real bad opinions. Yep. You want me to rap them no please no rare no

and we're back next up in headlines the state of political discourse in the world was thrown into upheaval last week when we lost the twitter account of the babylon. For three days in a row, I've been sipping my morning coffee and firing up my laptop and looking to start my day with some important headlines from the Christian version of The Onion. And I find nothing. And I weep for the world. Twitter shut down the Babylon Bee's account this week for posting hate speech because Twitter hates freedom and America and they want to murder each and every one of our troops and seen. So that just now was pretty much the exact reaction from the Babylon B and its followers.

Wow. You know, if this lasts another 43 days, their followers might miss something funny. Yeah. I know they think it's apt, but I really wish people would stop comparing the Babylon Bee to the onion. The Babylon Bee is to the onion as the opening speech at a lynching is to stand up comedy. I know they're both going for yucks. It's like movie and Christian movie. Yeah, absolutely.

Right, yeah. Exactly. So just in case anyone's not familiar, the Babylon Bee is the perfect storm of ignorant bigotry and failure. Just imagine every drunk wedding speech that has slur words in it somehow. And now imagine the deafening silence when even the other bigots at the wedding

don't laugh at the jokes. Maybe there's one guy who goes, and now imagine that cringy, almost silence came to life and turned into a website of headlines. You're imagining the Babylon Bee right now. So without giving all the exact words from the hate speech posing as satirical headlines that they posted recently, here's the basic idea. They tweeted a headline with some transphobic bullshit about UPenn swimmer Leah Thomas and another headline that very intentionally misgendered the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel Levine. So Twitter sent them a notice saying hey you're suspended until you delete the hate speech but the babylon b refused they will not be silenced except yeah

yeah they kind of yeah right no their twitter is literally silent now so and and by the way lest you think that the misgendering came as part of a larger joke or something. No, no, no, no. The misgendering literally was the joke. The entire content. It's gross. Yeah. If every white guy who ever yelled, it's a fucking joke. I was joking while being escorted out of a bar.

Face first was a humor website. It would be the Babylon Bee. There you go. Yeah. And just to be clear, they don't even have to delete the headline about Leah Thomas. Somehow, that's not a violation of Twitter's hate speech policy. They just have to delete the headline that specifically misgenders Rachel Levine. But according to their CEO, Seth Dillon,

that's a violation of their First Amendment rights. Apparently, the founding fathers had very strong opinions about social media and how that works. When Seth Dillon was told he just needs to delete one single tweet from his stupid fucking website, he responded, Never do you hear the people say it. It's almost that. Here's the exact words of the response from Dillon. Quote, It's almost that.

Here's the exact words of the response from Dylan. Quote, we're not deleting anything. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it. End quote. That's what he posted on Twitter after being silenced. Oh, interesting. Cool, cool. He can join all the super successful people who did really well after they lost their platform, like Alex Jones, whose listenership by his own admission is a tenth of what it was, or Milo Yiannopoulos, who is in a self-imposed hell dimension that includes tossing his wedding ring into the ocean for attention. I can't wait. I can't wait. way i'm sure trump is uh with uh truth social at this point have you checked in on social he hasn't even posted yet since they opened they opened like what well he posted four weeks ago

so good he's already up to 0.2 percent of his uh followers on on twitter though so oh good for him nailing it he doesn't know what 0.2 percent means though it's fine that's like two different maths right there and so just in case the absurd persecution narrative from Seth Dillon and fucking the Babylon Bee wasn't quite absurd enough

he added the following quote one of the jobs of the satirist he's going to tell us how the satirist tell us about satire oh good so one of the jobs of the satirist is to poke holes in the popular narrative but twitter is rigging the system this makes it difficult if not impossible to use comedy to speak truth to power we're superheroes guys, guys. He continues, I'll be on Tucker Carlson tonight

around 8.20pm to discuss how silenced I am. How he was really having trouble speaking truth to power. So he went on Tucker fucking Carlson. Now, to be fair,

no truth has ever been or will ever be spoken on Tucker Carlson. So that's, I mean, that's legit. And can we just say there's no more powerful force that needs to be taken down a peg than trans college students. It's about time. Having too easy a time of it. Yeah. So it looks like they are not going to be deleting their hate speech. But if you're a big fan of the Babylon Bee, first of all, go fuck yourself.

But also, don't worry. You can still find them on Mike Lindell's frankspeech.com. Nope. Actually, no. Server down. It's broken. It's a lot of gay porn right now. Check back in a few hours.

Bottom line, here's the big takeaway from this whole story. This is very important. Big congrats to Leah Thomas for winning the NCAA National Championship in the 500 Freestyle. Fuck yeah. And if you think we can't announce that, someone should tell Ron DeSantis.

And in Witch Please news, one of the most frustrating parts of atheist activism is the belief of the vast majority of religious people that most people's religion is just like theirs. Right?

God is love, hope, feeling of a baby on clean sheets or whatever the fuck they've reduced it to. Nobody takes that shit seriously and certainly nobody in power. When in fact, the opposite is true. Millions upon millions of people

take that shit super seriously and the ones in power not only say they do, but act like it. And there's no better example of that problem than Republican and current only candidate for California's Secretary of State, Rachel Hamm, who took to the airwaves this week to tell us about the time her childhood preschool

was run by witches who tried to convert her to Satanism. Okay. Well, okay, but that's exactly as real a problem as critical race theory in Virginia's public schools, and Youngkin won an election on that so he did yeah why the fuck not yeah that's fair okay here's the thing i think she's lying really and for all the christian voters in california if you're listening just keep in mind this is the perfect lie if you actually are a satanist witch it's the perfect if that you know oppo research is gonna get you you say this first yeah so she was speaking with mary crowley who i'm pretty sure is an

einrand character based on how she spells her name but she claims to be an anointed speaker who operates with a strong prophetic anointing real quote and ham told her the story of her traumatic upbringing by the way i highly recommend watching this entire batshit video but here's the good part i do not quote the preschool was a coven that was run by witches and really the cover was that it was a preschool but in reality it was a coven where they were training children in satanic rituals and in all things satanic and how to be a satanist got it literally literally well she has to add the literally because that's the same terminology they use when referring to the teaching of evolution or the existence of lesbians or something sure yeah okay here's the thing i've just been

thinking about for a second. What's the perfect cover to explain all the milk you need to buy for milk-pouring Satan stuff? Mmm. A preschool. Yeah. Exactly.

She's a witch. Chocolate milk work? Yeah. She continued her story, quote, it was day one. It was immediate. And I then, you know,

just begged not to go back. But I didn't say what was happening there, though though because they made you feel like you were complicit so you would never tell because you think you're equally guilty end quote yeah nobody keeps a secret quite like a room full of preschoolers yeah she concludes quote and then they just literally like teach you how to cast a spell. We had to make covenants, which I've undone all of that now, you know? Okay, okay. You know who's really good at reverse covenants? Fucking witches.

Witches. Who else would be able to do that? She's a witch. So quick reminder, this woman is literally the only candidate for California's Secretary of State position as of right now. Thomas, get on that shit. Yeah. And look, yes, some Democrats who have a chance of winning will probably join the race. But as of this writing, they haven't done it yet.

So taking it back to the beginning, maybe part of the reason that absolute whack jobs like this are in power is because they're willing to fill out the fucking paperwork and we're not. Right, Thomas? Thomas. Damn it. And finally tonight, in Brit-slinging news, at least some people in the small English town of Gosport considered invading Ukraine this week,

if that's what it takes to cut off cultural exchange with America after a decidedly American sermon spewed out of the mouth of a decidedly British preacher. Namely, a Catholic priest named Rosario E. Banks dubbed England's teachers and the UK's education regulatory agency devils and accused them of teaching an abomination in the form of LGBTQ acceptance. A firebrand preacher in England feels like it's going to be as successful as chanting fight fight fight in a silent meditation retreat but go off i guess my dude very much was so here's an excerpt to give you an idea of the flavor i noticed that i say an excerpt because

there's a lot that i could have chosen from quote the devil is tempting the faithful tempting the little ones those who are innocent and pure it It's very sad, dear brothers and sisters, that we have opened up a door to the devil in our Catholic schools, embracing all of the gender ideology and this rainbow flag revolution, end quote. Okay, just to be clear what happened here. This guy gave a whole speech about the importance of maintaining a traditional understanding of gender, all whilst wearing a beautiful flowy dress of purple and gold brocade. Yes.

Without realizing he's complaining about a philosophy that says, yeah, wear whatever you want. Obviously, just don't be a bigot. While acting as a mascot for the world leader in child abuse since ever. So there's a lot this guy's missing is what we're saying. He's missing a lot. Obviously. Now, to be clear, this also happened at four out of every five churches within a hundred miles of me

in any direction on sunday but this kind of shit doesn't normally happen in british churches and it's become something of a national scandal with calls for the priest to be alternately fired or canonized but it is kind of comforting to know that even post-brexit their american import sector remains strong. That's right, England. You might not have fresh fruit and your water system's full of sewage, but we're giving you buckets of bigots. You're welcome. There you go. You did ask for it. Market solution. All right. Well, a Catholic priest just accused some other group of behaving inappropriately around kids. So I think we need to close off the headlines before irony dies

altogether. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. And when we come back, we'll check out a version of DC Talk harder to listen to than Katonji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing. That's fantastic! Thank you. Lou Lou Lou, doing working in a grocery store stuff.ulu lulu hi i'm so sorry did did you guys move

the eggs the the shelf where all the eggs are usually is empty oh yeah yeah we're out this week sorry you the supermarket are out of eggs yeah so you know that feeling that permeates culture lately that you're inside a machine that's slowly breaking down and moments like this sort of just keep happening? Yes, I do know that. Yeah, it's that again. Okay, I'm going to ignore this.

Are there eggs somewhere or a place where I won't occasionally feel like this but also have to pretend it's normal? Well, why don't you just try HelloFresh? What's HelloFresh? With HelloFresh, you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable.

That's why it's America's number one meal kit. And I'll never just like not get a box one week like this week when my CVS where I've been getting my pill for two years just closed down overnight. And the closest one is like 36 minutes away. And nobody told me or warned me. And now the building's just empty and sort of sitting there. HelloFresh delivers pre-portioned ingredients to your door, including farm fresh produce that arrives within a week. So you get convenience without skipping on quality. Skip the trip to the grocery store, saving you the wait in long lines and ensuring you don't waste money on excess food.

That sounds good. My bank broke up with me this year. They were just like, hey, you're with a different bank now. And I was like, I don't have any of those where I live. And just nobody wrote me back. They just sent me a new debit card. And that's not all. HelloFresh is 72% cheaper than a restaurant meal of the same quality. And you can save on average over $65 per month when you order HelloFresh instead of grocery shopping. That's money back in your pocket. It's true. I was a HelloFresh customer even before they were a sponsor.

I love the 50 menu and market items to choose from every week, including veggie, fit and wholesome, family-friendly, and gourmet options, providing a whole bunch of variety. Heath, what are you doing here at the grocery store? Oh, I'm picking up rapid COVID tests, which were completely out for a while, and now everyone has them again. I don't know what happened.

What happened with that? I heard Florida destroyed a bunch. It's best not to think about it. Yeah, man, don't think about it. Just go to HelloFresh.com slash Scathing16 and use the code Scathing16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. and three free gifts. That's go to HelloFresh.com slash scathing16 and use the code scathing16

for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. HelloFresh, a lovely product that will help you keep it together for just a little bit longer. I don't think that's their catchphrase. Do other people know about the war? Really?

Just don't think about it. Yeah, don't think about it. There's a war, though. There's always a war. You know, of all the god-awful things we review between our shows, my favorite is the god-awful music. And that's because songs are shorter than movies, books, and even short films, obviously. But it also is because it means we get to welcome Anna Bosnick to the show.

Anna, welcome back. Oh, thank you, guys. Always a pleasure. All right. So what song did you pick for us today? Oh, boy. I'm so excited about this one. We listened to DC Talk's I'm Into Jesus.

It is. Yeah, man. It is not their most memorable. What? It's not their biggest hit but it's definitely the one we need to talk about first if we're gonna dig into dc talk definitely all right so so what's this song about okay so so you know christians i'm familiar with their work you know how you know that they're christians like they come up in conversation with a mutual friend and

you're like oh fun fact that person's like super into jesus and uh the other person is never surprised about that fact because they knew that person was a christian yep right yeah so it's almost like they never fucking stop talking about it and they wear clothes and jewelry exactly and this song is not self-aware enough to know that is making fun of its own religion. Isn't that fact? It's brilliant. All right, so let's dive into the song, starting with verse one. It opens out the words, I see the moon. And I'm like, are you fucking bragging, man?

We can all see. But he says, I see the moon. A million stars are out tonight. Okay, who had one second until exponentially wrong about the physical universe? There's 5,000 visible stars max, and I'm counting all around the world. That's if the Earth wasn't there to get in your way, dumbass. Anyway, the lyrics continue, gentle reminder of the way you are. And I'm like, the stars?

You're a raging ball of gas? From the up area. Okay. Jesus and stars are up. Okay. I got something different. I got twinkly. Oh, right. Reflective? Sure. So honestly, these are new adjectives for gods. I like the twinkly god. God is twinkly.

God's a twilight vampire. Yeah. I love this fanfic. Okay, so this one carries on. A sea of glass, a raging storm has come to pass. Okay, now I'm confused. Am I the stars, a sea of glass, or a raging storm that has come to pass?

Well, first of all, the sea is never still as glass. No. I don't care how calm the wind is. There's always a tide. Read a fucking book. Right. Stupid. Doesn't even make sense.

Dumb lyric. Right? Dumb. But then we realized that this is all uh but what about tree's argument because he because he goes on to say you show your face in an array of ways you couldn't give us one fucking rhyme in the first four lines a b c d phase of like the fucking alphabet rhyme scheme over here. Face, ways, glass,

past. No, they're internal. Oh, I legitimate. What, moon tonight? No, I was going to say there rhyme scheme, but there are rhyming words if you go looking for them. Yeah. Reminders are. Of and of.

So verse one translation. If I call random shit God, looking for them. Remindars are. Of and of. Yeah. So verse one translation. If I call random shit God, I see God everywhere. God is pop filter. Music stand. Nope. Do the pre-chorus.

Yeah, here's the pre-chorus. My feet may venture to the ground okay so does he not always achieve gravity i feel like he's telling us he doesn't they may sometimes they are permitted to but you will never let me down okay i think that was actually their first attempt at a ride this is not going good for them no i'm just going to say. Especially when you consider how bad they do with the next line, yes. Okay, to be fair, Anna, ground doesn't have any rhymes. It's impossible. So you

start with down as your start rhyme, obviously. Then you got thorny crown. You got fucking flavor town. Just so many. He says, I can't hold it in. My soul is screaming. So is mine.

Three votes. Yeah. Now, and of course, until now, this could just be a song about some chick that the stars remind him of that keeps him grounded.

But then we get our surprise Christ is Lord moment in the chorus. Ooh, yeah. Yeah, the chorus. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The chorus goes, hey, you, I'm into Jesus. Hey, you, I'm into Jesus.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, you, I'm into Jesus. Hey, you, I've seen the truth and I believe. Yep. Take a look at that. You thought you never saw a worse chorus than baby, baby, baby. Yeah, right. No, there is a downhill there is a

downhill from there yeah oh god somebody comes up to me and says hey you i'm into jesus i'm like oh god can't you just talk to me about crypto or something what about crypto explain how the blockchain is the future please i will give you a hand job right now if you play drops of jupiter instead of what you're doing i don't need anything anything. I'll start while you're playing it. Well, also, like, this is just occurring to me. The picture they're painting here is that a guy standing on a beach in the middle of the night

and just he randomly starts, hey, you, I'm into Jesus. Like at the fish or something. Or somebody's walking by. Who are you yelling at? Hey, you. Yeah. The comment section on YouTube

paints a very similar picture, Anna. One of the comments just says, Hey, Nancy Pelosi, I'm into Jesus. It really does. As in, like, fuck you because you're atheist. I don't know. I don't know what they think.

Some of them were like, Hey, ISIS, I'm into Jesus like they were being grave. It's really weird. That famous secular activist, Nancy Pelosi. Yes. But wait, there's more. Verse two. I know you're there.

It's like, well, because the sea has water in it, obviously. Yeah, sure. I feel your love through my despair. Rhyme. Sounds healthy. Yeah, cool. It's a love song about having Stockholm healthy. Yeah, cool. It's a love song about having Stockholm syndrome.

Yeah, right. You speak the words that ease away the pain. My heart is free. He pronounced free, by the way, as though he was about to cuss, but then his mom walked in the room or something. My heart is free. My eyes are clear.

You're shouting at no one on a beach. Full hearts can't lose. No, that's Brandon. That's okay. Who am I yelling at? He goes on. My soul is healed now that you have a hold on me. Yeah.

At this point, this song is describing a Pokemon slash fiction more than it's describing a healthy relationship. I'm going to put the lotion in the basket now i love this this is awesome and in case you weren't paying attention yes we just rhymed clear with me all right yep so we get the pre-chorus in the chorus again i did not notice that because that's insane yeah okay that is what they tried to do though and then we get this get this amazing bridge. Now, I can't, like, I can't really read you lyrics for this, because they're just sort of

echoing and whining and shit, but I'll do the best I can here. I still believe, I still believe, hey, you, this kid is back. Yeah, no, I think, I assume they're talking about Jesus when they're talking about the kid. They are absolutely

talking about Jesus and calling him this kid. So next time I go to a church gig, I get a church gig, I'm going to see what happens if I just start calling Jesus the kid. Oh yeah, you know about the kid. This fucking kid over here, he knows what I'm talking about. This fucking crucified

guy, right? He knows. This kid over here. Showing up to church and almost nothing. Am I right? Now I really want to write the Marky Mark Bible. Amen. Anyway, and then he says, I do declare the sun is shining. I mostly got stuck on

I do declare. Did he let Foghorn Leghorn write one of the lines of the song? I believe, I believe. I say, I say, chicken. All right, now I want to write the Foghorn Leghorn Bible. This is some good shit. I've got great news for you about Baptists. No.

He goes, hey, you, this kid is back with a red alert, and it might be blinding. That's blinding as to rhyme with shining but don't worry but don't worry if Jesus blinds you he can heal that shit you're good sure that's fair hey you the kid is back and I do declare once again I do declare the sun is shining okay so two lines foghorn

yeah hey you the kid is back my feet may venture to the ground yes we're back to the same shit. And then they do this like super quiet chorus. Yeah. Right. They whisper at us.

It's a secret chorus. I'm into Jesus. And so this whole part, this whole bridge and everything has this distinctly like, we don't know what the hook is, but we're going to find it in here somewhere field. Right. Totally. He goes on. Hey, you, I'm into Jesus. Oh, yeah. goes on hey you i'm into jesus oh yeah hey you i'm into jesus hey you i've seen the truth and i believe i love this it sounds like a pamphlet guy getting rejected over and over again in the middle of times square being like

hey you i'm into no he's gone he's gone all right this keeps happening my life is sad hey you want to see a comedy show okay honestly like they've got the tin can phone effect going on so i kind of had this moment in my head where he's run out of fish to tell in the sea or people to pass by on the beach so he's like literally just calling up his mom hey mom i'm into jesus next person on the beach. So he's like literally just calling up his mom. Hey mom! I'm into Jesus. Next person on the list. Hey you Uncle Dan I'm into Jesus. But it's not a phone it's the tin can in his tree fort.

Yeah right. Mom's just sadly passing it to the next member of the family. The string's not even connected to anything. It's extra sad. But then we get out of the whisper and we get back into the loud stuff and he says one time one time and it's like getting to this fucking story told to you by a kid one time one time jesus bled

i think he bled more than once i mean admittedly probably not as profusely as that last time but dude was a carpenter thank you yeah exactly yeah you saw it. On the third day, he rose again, pronounced such that the third day is a single syllable. Can I get a witness for the thing he did? And I'm like, you know what? You literally cannot, historically speaking. That's odd. Seems like you would a little bit.

How would you feel about a business card written in Greek? Oh, yeah. Well, one time I cut my finger while i was opening a box with a bread knife and i cut it almost to the bone and it was like a i had a fill-out for an audition the next day and insurance didn't cover the hospital so i had to stay at home and then i still got the audition and a call back so i killed it where's my fucking witness i'm right here darling i was there and that's why i don't let you open boxes anymore. No, that's fair. A bread knife?

Yeah. Yeah, man. Wow. I had to open a box. She used to just go at boxes with literally whatever was to hand. Teeth sometimes. Sure. Okay. Not great.

Bread knives are great for cutting tomatoes, very thin slices. I like it for that. Excellent. Interesting. It's very good that we got that into this song. Fun fact. Tomato carpaccio. I really would have preferred if we had all just stayed silent for a full Christian minute after he said that. Excellent. Interesting. Very good that we got that into this song. Tomato carpaccio. I really would have preferred if we had all just stayed silent for a full

Christian minute after he said that. So Noah, I hate to give edit notes, but can you just put in 60 seconds of silence? Listen, I'll keep talking about how to make the perfect happy waitress if you guys want to do silence. I'll do it. It's a grilled cheese with tomato, everybody.

Alright, so then he wraps up a little bit with more, I'm into Jesus, I'll do it. It's a grilled cheese with tomato, everybody. All right, so then he wraps up a little bit with more, I'm into Jesus, I believe, yeah, I believe. And as bad as it was, perhaps it can at least go to its grave knowing that it inspired something good. So Anna, you did your own version of this one? I did. As it turns out,

there's a lot of songs about Jesus when you're talking about Christian music, but we can't all rhyme them with penis. Of course, right. I decided to give this one... Can't we not? I mean, it would get boring. It would get boring. It makes it up.

I get it. This one's about a real passion of mine. Awesome. I hope you enjoy it. The water's cold But there's a lovely path of stones and sticks and foliage To stop the flow It's like somebody cast a spell Catch that whiff, that special smell I just can't hold it in, I have to yell Hey you, I'm into beavers.

Hey you, I'm into beavers. Oh yeah, hey you, I'm into beavers. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I do love the bees. Do love the bees. I know you're there. I see a thick, sleek mound of hair. When you're near, I have to stop and stare.

If I had my way, I would stay right here all day. I just pray that you would show yourself show yourself get more excited than I should when I see you munch that wood when you doggy paddle oh so good

hey you I'm into beavers I'm into beavers this song isn't a metaphor it's'm into beavers. This song isn't a metaphor, it's really about beavers. Vaginas are cool and all, but also I just like beavers. That I'm here for the bees. Here for the bees. Here for the bees. Here for the bees. They're flopping tails, yeah.

Here for the bees. And their big ass front teeth. Here for the beat Love it with the little feet, yeah Hey you with your legs like hands Go wiggle in the water and build your dams, yeah Hey you with your beady eyes And your floppy tails

And your oversized teeth Hey you with your legs like hands Go wiggle in the water and build your dams, yeah Hey you with your beady eyes and your fluffy tails and your oversized teeth hey you with your legs like hams more excited than i should Hey you, I'm into beavers. Hey you, I'm into beavers. Oh yeah, hey you, I'm into beavers.

Yeah, it's clear that I'm here for the bees. Hey you, I'm to be birds Hey you I'm meant to be birds Hey you I'm meant to be birds Yeah I'm here For the bees One time I saw your little face

It rose above the waves And now I wanna be your friend Be your friend One time I saw your little face It rose above the waves Yeah, I do Love the bees. Once again, amazing job, Anna.

Thank you so much for all the amazing work that you do. Oh, my pleasure. Always fun to be here. And we'll be excited to welcome you back on the next installment of God Awful Music. Before we let the air back out of the studio tonight, I wanted to remind you that you've got not one but two chances to see us live coming up. We've got a live record of Godawful Movies coming up in Toronto on May 7th. If you can't make it that far north, we're also going to be hosting the Charity Game Night at the American Atheist

Convention in Atlanta over Easter weekend. Be sure to check the show notes for links to more information on both. Anyway, that's all the blessing 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, 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 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. Obviously, this would be a no-show if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for being so funny, Eli Bosnick for being so funny, and Anna Bosnick for being so money. I also need to thank Lucinda Lusions, who should be back for more Twim next week. I also want to thank Jacob for providing this week's Farnsworth quote, but most of all, of course,

I want to thank this week's most mellifluous mammals, Shaza, Logan, Robin, Elizabeth, Chesspiece Face, and Linda. Shaza, Logan, and Robin, whose IQs are bigger than Jesus and the Beatles put together, and Elizabeth, Chesspiece Face, and Linda, whose intellects were doing unlimited data plans long before wireless providers thought of it. Together, these six sexy secularist sacrifice species secure our sacrilege this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some of it to us, but damn would it be awesome if they did. Right? They could all just make a per-episode donation

at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby they earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or they could 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, but you don't have, like, a spare money thing going on, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, or following at P-I-A-T-P-O-D on Twitter.

Legal services for this podcast are provided by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robertson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote 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. Okay. The people cry out for more Coupon Craig. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.