The Scathing Atheist - 479: Earspace Edition

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

In this week’s episode, we all collectively wish Noah had been on the flight with those Christian missionary singers, Canada politely tells Evangelicals they suck, and we’ll try to sell time trave...lers on last week’s American Atheist convention. --- Come see us in Toronto: 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: Learn more about Recovering From Religion here: https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/ --- Headlines: 26 questions for the Christians who sang worship music on a plane: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/questions-for-the-christians-who-loudly-sang-worship-music-on-a-plane/ Satanic Temple takes on fake abortion clinics and their efforts to misinform patients: https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/cpc Canada: Evangelicals are the worst: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/canadians-evangelicals-hurt-society/ Stew Peters made a movie where he says COVID is cobra venom they snuck into the water: https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-king-cobra-venom-pandemic-stew-peters-unveils-a-new-covid-19-conspiracy-theory/ https://www.factcheck.org/2022/04/scicheck-covid-19-is-caused-by-a-virus-not-snake-venom/ Gay parents called 'rapists' and 'pedophiles' in Amtrak incident https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/gay-parents-called-rapists-pedophiles-amtrak-incident-rcna24610 FL School Board Member says the quiet part out loud, faces no consequences because Christian privilege: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/fl-school-board-member-admits-prayer-resolution-is-about-god-and-jesus-christ/

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Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Warning, I was trying to think of another way of warning British people that this podcast contained explicit language, but then I was like, fuck those people, and I just carried on with my life. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, HelloFresh, and by GodawfulMoviesLiveInToronto. GodawfulMoviesLiveInToronto. Apparently, you're not supposed to pronounce the second T and locals get Canadianly upset when you do. See the show notes for links to buy your tickets. Hi, I'm Saoirse. And I'm Ademir. We're twins in our final year of secondary school, or high school.
Starting point is 00:00:36 In Ireland, that means passing your series of brutal exams within a rigid system that until 2019 didn't even make allowances if a student's parent or sibling died during exam season. The actual quality of education here is pretty good, so For all you non-Irish speakers, that means we can confirm that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey people. But when we think about how it was descendants of those filthy monkey people who designed our exam system, sometimes it feels like we haven't come that far. It's Thursday.
Starting point is 00:01:32 It's April 21st. And it's Bilegal Weed in New Jersey Day. Finally. I have no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Whitney, Houston's, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, I can taste colors.
Starting point is 00:01:49 I can color tastes. And we'll try to sell time travelers on last weekend's American Atheist Convention. And I color tastes. But first, the diatribe. Anybody who's ever taken I-75 across Georgia can back me up on this. There is a weird billboard war that you see all along the way here. On the one hand, you have all of these like, you know, Jesus is Lord and abortion stops a beating heart signs, but they're interspersed with all of these strip club and adult toy superstore at the next exit signs. Now, I think the Jesus signs are probably outnumbered at this point. So I think sin is still winning and that's nice. But I live
Starting point is 00:02:39 in the southeastern part of the state where no interstate dares to tread. So when I drove north to Atlanta, I spent most of my time on the county highways where the craziest of the signs live. I'm talking handwritten signs about the dangers of the U.N. and is nice shit that belongs on a cartoon sandwich board. Eighteen foot letters on the side of a private home that just say repent. Also, the word peanut misspelled in every way you can imagine, even if you work with Eli for a living. Now, I grew up down here, so I'm kind of used to it, but sometimes the signs are so fucked up I have to stop for a picture, which was, of course, the case on this trip. Hell, not only did I stop for a picture, but I pulled into a driveway, turned around, and drove back to make sure that I could get a nice unobstructed view of it.
Starting point is 00:03:27 Now, this was a professionally made sign, at least in the sense that it wasn't hand-drawn, but it was the kind of color scheme and font choice that are normally reserved for the don't picture in graphic design textbooks. Along the top, it reads, wake up, so you know it's about to get good. And in case the exclamation point wasn't emphasis enough, that part is underlined in yellow on a white background. Anyway, below that, it reads, Christians, stand up for Jesus now! Which also gets an exclamation mark. And then it concludes, quote, vote straight Republican, end quote. So I snap a picture, I post it on Facebook and Twitter, and I get an amazing array of responses, including a bunch of true Scotsmen explaining to me that that's not really Christianity.
Starting point is 00:04:10 My favorite was a guy who accused me of being bad at Photoshop. That's one thing to accuse me of lying without evidence, but at least admit that if it was a Photoshop job, I fucking nailed it. Given that it's literally indistinguishable from reality. Of course, it took all of nine seconds for somebody to find another picture of the same sign from a different angle from like months ago and a newspaper or some shit and a combination of being proven wrong and maybe realizing that admitting his side is so full of shit it's hard to believe ran him off before i could respond but as much fun as i had with all these various responses they didn't remotely balance out the terror i have at the sign's
Starting point is 00:04:46 message. Usually when we encounter entreaties to stand up for Jesus, it's going to be a euphemism for homophobia or something. And I guess that could have been what they were doing here, but to be honest I doubt it. Conservative Christian advertisers on billboards around
Starting point is 00:05:01 here are much more likely to use slurs than euphemisms when it comes to the anti-LGBTQ stuff. I mean, I think in this instance, we can actually take a Christian at their word. What is this sign telling me to do? Stand up for Jesus. What does that mean? As little as possible on purpose. I mean, don't get me wrong. As poisonous as their messages tend to be, you might think ambiguity could be the best possible thing to put into them, right? But when you think about how much mileage Christians have historically gotten out of imaginary enemies, you can start to see why this is so insidious.
Starting point is 00:05:35 I mean, imaginary problems can't be solved, can they? There's no evidence I can show a concerned Christian that Democrats are defending Jesus from this undefined attack, nor is there any evidence I can show that Republicans aren't. There are no numbers we can compare that show how attacked Jesus is under Democratic versus Republican administrations. And at the same time, there's no compromise we can offer, right? There's no middle ground between reality and a nonspecific fantasy see look for decades they've been able to motivate their base with hollow promises to outlaw abortion but at this point that issue motivates about as many people to vote against them as to vote for them
Starting point is 00:06:14 and they're on the verge of accidentally accomplishing it anyway they need a new boogeyman and preferably they need one that can never be defeated. We've watched for years as they've concocted this Frankensteinian phobia that sews together fears of society progressing faster than them, bigotry against the LGBTQ community, loss of unearned societal privilege, and panic about plain red Starbucks cups as an attack against Christianity itself. Never mind that the perpetrators are majority Christian, right? It's not their outmoded worldview that's under attack. It's not their narrow definition of acceptable romantic relationships. It's not their decreasing relevance to the larger social conversation.
Starting point is 00:06:56 It's their very religion under attack by the forces of darkness themselves via the Democratic Party. And look, this shitty canvas billboard cover wasn't made by the big movers and shakers of the GOP. It wasn't affiliated with the One America Network. Some jackass Fox News addict dipped into his retirement to finance this thing. He's been hearing this refrain of an attack on Christian values for so long that he believes it completely, even if he can't define it. He's all in. And what's more, he's almost certainly going to
Starting point is 00:07:29 remain all in until the day he dies, because there is no victory condition for an imaginary problem. Joining me for headlines tonight are the low and mid to my high Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to balance out? I already explained in the intro that I'm the high one today. Hell, you're not. I was born in the dark, and I'll let you. Medium. And while Eli and I resolve this dispute with a quick bong off, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, us.
Starting point is 00:08:01 Sponsor, us. Hey, podcast listener. Just hearing about all the fun we had at AACON make your blood boil? Do you want to see us live in person so bad you could spank a horse? Well, then head on over to Godawful Movies live in Toronto on May 7th. We've got platinum and VIP tickets. Excuse me, sorry, voiceover guy? Oh, hey Noah. Hey Heath. What's up?
Starting point is 00:08:32 Yeah, hey, so we actually sold out of VIP tickets and we only have two platinums left and that's like as we're recording. That could have changed. Oh, wow. Really? Yeah, and there's only like 40 some odd tickets left at all. So maybe talk faster? Nope, you got it.
Starting point is 00:08:46 You heard the man. If you want to see us make fun of Journey to Hell, a film whose low budget and terrible acting doesn't stop the main character from interviewing Hitler, Mao, and Joseph Stalin, get your tickets before they're literally all gone at GodAwfulMoviesLive.com. That's GodAwfulMoviesLive.com. Hurry, because those tickets will be gone lickety-split. That was me doing a split.
Starting point is 00:09:09 Hey, question. Are you related to Manscaped Man? You know, you have very similar voices. We do not speak of the Dark Traveler. Oh, okay. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. You made our podcast so weird.
Starting point is 00:09:33 And now, back to the headlines in our lead story tonight a group of evangelical christians decided to hijack the ear space of an easy jet commercial airline flight last week and start singing a song about jesus while one of them walked up and down the aisle playing the goddamn guitar. Masks were completely off, clouds of pestilent anti-vaxxer COVID breath spewing everywhere inside a tiny little tube with hundreds of people and not a word of protest from the entire staff on that flight. Apparently the pilot even announced them on the PA. Yes. Oh, fun. I honestly can't say if I'm really happy or really sad that I wasn't on that flight. I am sad. I can say that dude with the guitar is real happy I wasn't, though.
Starting point is 00:10:15 That, I'll say, him and his proctologist both. Yeah. He would have got a big bill, though. Yeah. It's crazy that this happened on the same weekend they let out the guy who shot Reagan. It seems like the timing was perfect, right? It just really feels his met.
Starting point is 00:10:29 So the original video of this very rare example of a musical war crime that happens outside of Gitmo got posted by Jack Jens, the leader of Kingdom Realm Ministries. He gave it the caption, Jesus is taking over this flight. Emoji of an airplane, emoji of a fireball. The top comments when I checked it on Instagram were awesome with eight likes and what is wrong with you with 112 likes. Those were just at the top as most recent when I checked. And the video went viral after U.S representative ilhan omar who happens to be muslim responded with a tweet that said i think my family and i should have a prayer session next time we're on a plane and ilhan omar makes an excellent point it ends with air marshal side tackles in the best case
Starting point is 00:11:19 scenario yeah right no exactly a fucking muslim puts an airplane emoji next to a fireball emoji on instagram they're getting fucking side tackled by an air bar show exactly exactly so the only redeeming quality to this video is there's one guy he's it's like 55 year old heath one guy he's sitting right next to the asshole with the guitar that guy has come right next to his row and this guy is trying to decide so clearly in his face, in his eyes, in his heart. He's trying to decide if whatever he's thinking about is worth getting arrested for when they land. He's seething with rage.
Starting point is 00:11:54 It's the fucking greatest. At one point, the person who shot the video on their camera phone points it right in this guy's face and this guy comes so close to a throat punch and a standing ovation from a bunch of the crowd so close one of my favorite twitter accounts is this one called chaotic nightclub photos and i always say it's because there's one person in every chaotic
Starting point is 00:12:16 nightclub photo from that account who just became aware that culture is dead and will never go back that's this guy in this video yeah he's just mourning a childhood loss. Just staring 8,000 miles in front of him somehow. It's the greatest. So two big takeaways for me. One, if there is a God up there, they had a shot to convert me here. If this video ends with like a, you know,
Starting point is 00:12:41 one of those 500 pound service carts just flattening the guy with the guitar i'm rethinking my whole atheism yeah sure yes absolutely like an anvil also somehow on a piano but no none of that missed opportunity by god you could have had me two here's the second takeaway if i could have one wish in the universe i'd have a time machine i know a lot of my wishes are time machine based my one wish i'd have a time machine i know a lot of my wishes are time machine based my one wish i'd have a time machine i'd put away my sniper rifle i'd stop trying to kill hitler in 19 whatever and i would get on that flight with noah lucinda eli and anna so i could watch the
Starting point is 00:13:18 musical warfare between how great is our god that's the name of their song and of course you know anna and eli doing fuck your face the name of their song, and, of course, you know, Anna and Eli doing Fuck Your Face, the improvised counter song on the spot. Or Not Very Great. With, by the way, of course, Lucinda on the varmint hammer keeping rhythm on people's fucking faces. Absolutely, yes.
Starting point is 00:13:38 And in Join the Stick It line news, the Satanic Temple has once again discovered a brilliant answer to religious bullshittery. In fact, it's so beautiful, I might just participate myself. Because starting this week, their members, or just folks committed to reproductive freedom, will begin picketing and handing out pamphlets at crisis pregnancy centers. Oh! This is great work.
Starting point is 00:14:03 Nice! This is fantastic work. Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Oh! This is great work. Nice! This is fantastic work. But I will say, I still like our idea of doing the airdrops of Plan B all over the American South,
Starting point is 00:14:12 like Hunger Games with the parachutes. But this seems a bit less, you know, we get arrested. Sure. That's good. That wasn't a challenge, Eli, by the way. It sounded like a challenge to me. Nope. Andrew doesn't let us do anything.
Starting point is 00:14:22 Exactly. I hate being the new guy. So, for those of you who are unfamiliar, crisis pregnancy centers are religious institutions that dress up and pretend to be Planned Parenthoods or other medical services and then attempt to lie, bully and trick the women who visit them into having their baby with misleading medical information, gifts, or in some actual documented cases, forced ultrasounds. Yeah, no, it would be like if we bought a bunch of buildings that we disguised as churches and then on some... I'm sorry, actually, I have some phone calls to make. I'm going to be right back. I have an idea.
Starting point is 00:15:01 Who's getting arrested now? I'll admit that each of us here at The Scathing Atheist has our own little pet issue. Long-term listeners will know that Noah was actually inspired to do this show when he saw a little girl being told not to read on the subway. Heath takes deep personal issue with the
Starting point is 00:15:17 theocracy's destruction of politics, and mine is these centers. Maybe it's because two of my partners have had abortions and I had to watch what they went through. Maybe it's because two of my partners have had abortions and I had to watch what they went through. Maybe it's because now I'm a dad and I know what a special thing parenting can be and how important it is that we don't force that on people.
Starting point is 00:15:33 But whatever the case, I am pleased as punch that the Satanic Temple has provided an informational pamphlet to hand out to people, as well as actual information about abortion services because it's gonna make the people in these crisis pregnancy centers so mad just so mad and in their little fake scrubs and that makes me happy it makes me very happy and in opening a can of duh news tonight fantastic religions suck but none of them suck quite like evangelicals.
Starting point is 00:16:06 And that's the finding of nine years and counting and doing this show, of course, but also a recent report by a non-profit group in Canada called the Angus Reid Institute. The data came from two surveys of about 3,000 Canadians total, and while the report had a number of interesting findings, the one that
Starting point is 00:16:22 caught the press's attention is the part where they asked respondents whether various faith groups do more harm than good for society and in terms of both their answers about others and others answers about them evangelical christians are the fucking worst in pretty much every measurable way fucking great job canada love canada they do even bigotry nicely like correct they do bigot bigotry yes yeah right it cancels out to be fair i feel like the test was biased when they asked people to rate the religions on a scale from one to yeah no so a couple key findings up front two groups jews and hindus received positive marks across the board every religious demographic surveyed agreed
Starting point is 00:17:03 that they were a net benefit to society. Sikhs almost made that list also, but by very narrow margins, both Catholics and evangelicals marked them as a net negative. I don't think they know what those are. I don't either. They don't know that word. The other group that scored positive across the board was, of course, us. Not us as an atheist, but every subgroup in the survey agreed that their particular group was a net positive though nobody had quite as high an opinion of themselves as evangelical
Starting point is 00:17:31 christians there it is which were also the only group that literally everyone else agreed was a net negative it's sincerely held dunning kruger that's your fucking religion. Yeah, exactly. Lunch table all to myself. Now, this was interesting. Islam almost joined them in everybody agreeing that they sucked. But in a twist that nobody who's read the Koran would have seen coming, they were saved by the Jews. Really? Who are the only non-Muslim group that considered Islam a net good. Oh, Jews. Okay.
Starting point is 00:18:08 Okay. islam ain't that good oh jews and special care okay i feel like those numbers would have skewed different if they had a checkbox for answered too quickly and too loud oh i love muslims me as a jew do i think they're great numbers i honestly i don't know that the jews would have been seen as positive across the board if we'd had that checkbox as well. What? The smell is my favorite part of the Jews. What else? What are your other two and three? Now, the report doesn't speculate on why people think what they think. But Rick Heimstra, the director of research at the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, knows exactly where the blame lies for people's negative view of evangelicals.
Starting point is 00:18:48 Netflix. Quote. Interesting. I watch Netflix just like everybody else. And really, when you see the perceptions of evangelicals or Christians or religious people generally, devout religious people are usually presented as deviants. This is really, I think, where people are getting a lot of their ideas about religious people are usually presented as deviants this is really i think where people are getting a lot of their ideas about religious people generally and forming those opinions
Starting point is 00:19:10 not based on firsthand experience or knowledge but based on what they're presented with end quote sure it's the old saying life imitates art and art just made shit up and they're saying okay but sorry just for a second it's the opposite though yeah right all movies and tv shows do is show christians as kind and generous followers of a brown trans loving quote mind jesus is he talking about the documentaries because the documentaries do make them look bad no it's been like netflix even the show that netflix did where the christians turned out to be to be blood sucking vampires was too nice to them. Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:49 Yes. They were very pleasant blood sucking vampires. Yeah. Now, unfortunately, this is a first of its kind survey, so we can't look at these numbers over time yet. But I think it's also worth highlighting how good the overall perception of atheist was on this thing. Canada is, of course, a less religious country than the U.S. Just over half of Canadians identify as Christians. And while their percentage of nuns is only a little bit bigger than ours, almost three times as many Canadians identify specifically as atheist.
Starting point is 00:20:14 And perhaps that's why Canadians in general look at atheism as a net positive for their society. While only mainline Protestants, Muslims, and evangelicals disagree. And honestly, I feel like being seen as a net negative by those three groups is more of a badge of honor than their approval would be, right? Yeah. In unrelated news, the Joker, the Riddler, and the Penguin all think Batman is bad for God.
Starting point is 00:20:37 Yeah, right, right. And while we reflect on how much worse Canadians' opinions of atheism are going to be when we get done with them, we're going to pause for a word from our second sponsor this week, ZipRecruiter. Oh, and we got to go to Cheesecake Factory. That wasn't fun. It was actually it took forever, but hanging out with everybody
Starting point is 00:20:53 at the table was a lot of fun. Absolutely, yeah. I enjoyed the hanging out with people. Hey guys, why are you talking to my desktop? What? Noah! We're not talking to the desktop. We're talking to ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter, yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:08 So you're talking to a website? Not just any website, the AI at ZipRecruiter. Their AI is always learning. So we figured, better get on its good side before it goes full Skynet, you know? I think it's good to use the S word. I feel like it might be offensive to the AI? Oh, oh, good call. Guys, guys.
Starting point is 00:21:27 Yeah. Zip Recruiter's AI gets better and faster at finding the right candidates for all your roles, not taking over the world. And right now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. We can? Okay, well, how does it work? Zip Recruiter uses its powerful technology to find and match the right candidates up with your job.
Starting point is 00:21:48 Then it proactively presents those candidates to you. You can easily review your recommended candidates and invite your top choices to apply to 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. Wow. And where do I go to try it? You can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address, ZipRecruiter.com slash scathing. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. I guess we don't have to bother with this stupid old website after all, do we, Heath? That's not very nice. He wasn't talking about you.
Starting point is 00:22:20 I was talking about Facebook, I swear. Facebook, yep. I'm going to share your browser history. Don't. Please don't. Please'm going to share your browser history. Don't. Please don't. Please don't. And we're back. Next up in headlines.
Starting point is 00:22:31 It looks like they finally figured out our plan to kill millions of people all over the world with COVID as a cover for killing hundreds of thousands of Republicans here in the U.S. And also hundreds of thousands of Democrats, but a bit more Republicans. A little bit. They figured out that plan. And we would have got away with it, too, if it wasn't for that damn Stu Peters. He's the Christian right broadcaster who does a show that we usually refer to as nobody fucking cares. And he just released a new documentary called Watch the Water. Apparently, that's a Q anon phrase too it explains how covid is actually a form of synthetic snake venom that we spread via drinking water and vaccines in order to help the catholic church
Starting point is 00:23:13 turn all the people in the world into satanic demons so water we got caught this sounds like conspiracy theory by committee right like there was some weird compromise situation where everybody's idea had to get used at least once in the conspiracy. Why would they put it in the water and the vaccines? Damn it, Greg. We said everyone gets to put in three words. No question. Stop it. Dollar in the idea jar.
Starting point is 00:23:40 Madlibs conspiracy. So obviously you can't crack a big case like this without some expert help. You're going to need your Ocean's Eleven squad. Stu Peters went with a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, and a medical researcher. Yeah, it's just the one guy with all those things, but he's a pro. His name is Brian Artis. So here's how Artis figured us out. artists. So here's how artists figured us out on top of the acupuncture and the chiropractor ring and his job doing, you know, quote his own medical research. That's not a protected term. Yes, I am.
Starting point is 00:24:13 He's also an expert in Latin words that conspirators like us are always embedding into our genocidal plots as a subtle clue because we enjoy the game of it all he's an expert in that according to artists quote the latin definition historically for virus originally and historically those mean the same virus meant and means venom so i started to wonder what about the name corona and on dictionary.com webster's dictionary defines coronaary defines Corona. He does that here. It brings up 13 definitions for Corona. He says, Corona religiously, ecclesiastically, means gold ribbon at the base of a miter. So this could actually read the Pope's venom pandemic.
Starting point is 00:25:00 In Latin terms, Corona means crown. Visually, we see kings represented with a crown symbol. So put that together for me. King Cobra Venom. What? What? It could actually read King Cobra Venom Pandemic. So that's the translation.
Starting point is 00:25:17 Even by your own silly, stupid thing, it's not that. Yes, the etymology section of dictionary.com where all the best medical research happens fucking idiot also also covid19 virus pandemic is an anagram for andre's mnemonic vindictive so all we gotta do is find a snake named andre and we're all set little does he know we hid that snake. So good luck with that. So you're probably wondering, did the Catholic Church think of the snake thing as an ironic double bluff because it's the perfect cover? And yes, they did.
Starting point is 00:25:55 According to Brian Artis, quote, if I was going to do something incredibly evil, how ironic would it be that the Catholic Church or whoever would use the one symbol whoever is in his conspiracy theory. I love this. How ironic would be if the Catholic Church or whoever would use the one symbol of an animal that represents evil in all religion. You take that snake or that serpent and you figure out how to isolate
Starting point is 00:26:20 genes from that serpent and get those genes of that serpent to insert itself into your God-given created DNA. I think this was the plan all along, to get the serpent's DNA, the evil one's DNA, into your God-created DNA. And they figured out how to do this with mRNA technology. They're using mRNA, which is mRNAna extracted from i believe the king cobra venom
Starting point is 00:26:47 it's got dna and i think they want to get that venom inside of you and make you a hybrid of satan end exact quote i i like that the second dose of exchanging your dna with satan gives you fever and a headache right yeah but on the But on the plus side, after your booster shot, you're able to disconnect and regrow your tail when threatened. Yeah, that's cool. I've been using that one. But Brian Artis very clearly made this documentary so he could sell more of his snake oil, ironically, dietary supplements called the anti-V collection. Oh, Jesus. Because V is for maybe virus, but maybe not.
Starting point is 00:27:31 So it's not quite illegal for that to be the title. I don't like how many of those we've covered on our show. Yeah. He's literally selling the thing that would be the answer to the documentary he made up. And in Q-Train news. selling the thing that would be the answer to the documentary he made up and in q train news you know we joke about crazy shit christians say and do here at scathing atheist and it can be hard in between the wacky quotes and insane messaging to remember that people actually believe this shit and when they do there are real world consequences and there's no better example of a joke losing
Starting point is 00:28:04 its funny real damn quick than the vicious attack robbie pierce and his husband underwent this week as they tried to ride the train with their children only to be called pedophile rapists in front of them oh oh you you left a break in the notes for jokes right after the end nothing is less funny than example tidy like this. Did they go right here? Yep. Boing! There we go. See? Boing! So here's the story. Pierce, his husband, and their two young children were enjoying a
Starting point is 00:28:33 train ride from their home in Los Angeles to Oakland, California as a part of their spring break when a man across the aisle from them, brain filled with 4chan and Fox News, followed his young son to the bathroom oh jesus what and then screamed at all of them that they were kidnappers and pedophiles saying quote that's not a family you're rapists and pedophiles you steal black and asian children
Starting point is 00:28:58 and you rape them end quote and i just realized that I heard myself say it. Apparently, I would prefer that you do that with a different race of children. Am I woke because of that? I think I'm woke, right? I don't think I could be a textbook in Florida. And look, horrific as this is, can we just take a moment to acknowledge the superhuman patience and self-control of Robbie Pierce and his husband? I once threatened to murder a child because he told his friend he was going to kick my bug. So the fact that this dude had someone come for his children on a train and told his story on Twitter rather than, you know,
Starting point is 00:29:36 at the police station as an explanation for why he would not stop wearing that guy's face as a hat, thank you very much, is otherworldly amounts of impressive. Absolutely impressive indeed. But I would like to announce that if you do that, okay, also apropos of nothing based on what I just said, Andrew would like me to announce that Heath Point's trademark are not being granted if you do the face hat thing. I'm not winking.
Starting point is 00:30:01 Yeah. Good, Andrew? All good. So yeah, crazy yelling guy was escorted from the train. By the way, I have not been able to find news of his arrest and immolation yet, which makes me fucking crazy, right? The idea that they just took this guy off the train and he didn't go to jail for it is, let's resort to road warrior levels of upsetting to me.
Starting point is 00:30:21 But I digress. The point is, if you're like me, it's easy to look on these latest attacks on the LGBTQ community and its allies as the desperate acts of a dying party, right? The don't say gay bills and the trans sports bills. And it's true, they are those things, but they're also really dangerous. We can't just stick our heads in the sand and wait for these people to die out because if we're not careful, they're going to take a lot of innocent people with them. Right. A cornered, wounded, dying
Starting point is 00:30:49 animal is only safer if you average it out over time, guys. Yeah. And finally tonight in hitting the Florida news. That's nice because the kid doesn't think. It's a theme. It turns out that overly woke math
Starting point is 00:31:04 books aren't the only threat facing students in Florida. They also have to worry about a distressing lack of coordinated Christian wishing. So stupid. At pretty much the same time the state was rejecting 40 plus math textbooks for incorporating prohibited topics like fucking critical race theory. incorporating prohibited topics like fucking critical race theory. Miami-Dade school board member Christy Fraga was offering up a resolution declaring May 5th a national day of prayer. And to maintain a patina of legality, she insisted that she didn't mean strictly Christian prayer, but rather, quote, wanted to unite people of all
Starting point is 00:31:41 faiths and encourage those who want to get together and pray to do so. End quote. Because if there's one thing we've learned from doing this show is that people inclined to pray in groups need a lot of encouragement to do so. Okay, if you think you can get a magical ghost to do literal magic by asking, but you need an official invitation in the goddamn morning announcement at school before you do that? No, you don't. No, you don't. You're a liar, and you don't think that's real. Yep.
Starting point is 00:32:09 Okay, wait. This just occurred to me. Hear me out. God needs an invitation into your heart, requires blood sacrifice, invisible in mirrors, and also not in mirrors. God is a vampire. Nailed it. Nailed it. Tracks.
Starting point is 00:32:23 Now, some people, including Freyja, have tried to justify this by pointing out that it doesn't actually do anything. As she's quick to point out, her resolution makes no changes to classroom or district policy, but like, it's useless is, in most circumstances, the opposite of a justification. I was gonna
Starting point is 00:32:39 say! Yeah, and since this uselessness is inherently exclusionary, the fact that it doesn't serve any other purpose is a pretty solid argument that otherizing is the whole fucking point but we don't actually have to speculate on the intent here because at least one member of the board one lovey navarro didn't get the memo about pretending this was religiously inclusive and therefore legal and instead used her time speaking in support of the measure to offer up a fucking christian sermon about how prayer saved her
Starting point is 00:33:05 daughter from a coma and Jesus' dad is the only real God. She comes out covered in briars. I fell into my own you know what? My name is Lubby? Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, Navarro who is not a doctor
Starting point is 00:33:21 despite what the honorific that often appears in front of her name might imply, delivered the kind of mindless, dangerous, bigoted screed we've come to expect from Florida school board members and anti-mask transphobes, both of which are groups that she proudly belongs to. Shocking. But the crux of her speech was that when you're in trouble, turn to God instead of, you know, real people with expertise. no turn to god instead of you know real people with expertise quote if you're going through a crisis take a moment and pray and ask god to help you instead of saying let's send you to your counselor end quote fuck yeah and and just to make sure that nobody mistook the resolution for the
Starting point is 00:33:57 inclusive non-sectarian act that was being sold as she closed her remarks by pointing out that adopting the measure would quote send a message to our community that we have one creator, and that is God and Jesus Christ, end quote. Right, but it is for the other religions, too. I know I just said Jesus Christ. But, for example, if you're Jewish, we made you these nice little stars you can wear that day. Yeah, right.
Starting point is 00:34:18 Festive. I feel like someone needs to rip off Lovey's face and discover she's a deep cover agent for the Satanic Temple already. She's a little broad, guys. you went a little broad with this one so yeah to be clear using one's position on a fucking school board to send the message that our one creator is god and jesus that that's not constitutional right and and in impotent and lazy recognition of that fact vice chair steve gallen later vaguely condemned certain remarks made during the meeting, though he failed to specify which ones and why. It's also probably worth noting that pretty much everybody who spoke at the meeting echoed Navarro's bigoted take. So it was super duper clear to any impartial observer that the impression this resolution gave was an endorsement of Christianity over other faiths.
Starting point is 00:35:03 And there's really no way to read it other than an endorsement of faith over the lack of faith. So like, you know, as much as we already knew that shit, the fact that they're making such a half-ass effort to hide it these days, still worthy of a headline. And on that terrifying reminder of why we're here to begin with,
Starting point is 00:35:20 we're going to close the headlines off for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Love a bunch of coconuts. And when we come back, we'll make you regret missing the American Atheist Convention even more than you already do.
Starting point is 00:35:31 So, spaghetti? What, though? Sauce? What kind of sauce? I don't know, man. You come up with a sauce. Hey, guys, what's all the commotion about? Heath and I can't think of what to cook.
Starting point is 00:35:44 Yeah. I mean, we know what food is, but also, what is food, you know? Great question. Sounds like you guys could use the variety and fun of 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.
Starting point is 00:36:09 So no arguing over what to have for dinner? Or what dinner conceptually is. That's right. It's all about convenience with HelloFresh. Not only do the ingredients come pre-portioned, so you're not overbuying or wasting food, but it's easier than ever to get filling meals on the table in a snap with options like family-friendly or quick and easy recipes.
Starting point is 00:36:26 And HelloFresh's chefs really know how to diversify the menu with seasonal recipes like salmon limon and pasta primavera. Okay, that sounds amazing. I think it's pronounced lemon, Noah. Probably not. I've been using HelloFresh for years now, and the food is always tasty, easy to cook, and unpacks in seconds. Go to HelloFresh.com slash Scathing16
Starting point is 00:36:43 and use the code Scathing16 for up to 16 free meals and 3 free gifts. So I can go to HelloFresh.com slash Scathing16 and use the code Scathing16 for up to 16 free meals and 3 free gifts? That's right.
Starting point is 00:37:00 Alrighty, Eli. Guess we don't have to figure out what, you know, spaghetti is philosophically after all. Wait, so I'm sorry. Is that Lucinda's knitting yarn? Well, that's the question. Is it? Well, I mean, yes, it is.
Starting point is 00:37:13 Well, then I should probably go to the hospital. Already called. For quite a long time, the pandemic didn't really bother me. I work from home. I'm more comfortable with my face covered in public anyway. And I live in a town where there's nowhere worth going and nobody worth seeing. But eventually, even I got sick of it. And when the guy so misanthropic he named his first book after it starts missing human interaction, you know, this shit has been going on too long.
Starting point is 00:37:37 Which is why it was such an overwhelming relief to finally have a full blown atheist convention to attend this past weekend in Atlanta. And for the record, I was stir-crazy when it was only going to be two weeks and we were still all playing jackpot games. I wouldn't mind a couple more years of mostly... Well, mostly, yeah. Mostly is the rest of my life. But yeah, so
Starting point is 00:37:59 it's become something of a tradition for us to follow up these big cons with a segment where we list our top ten memories. And a part of that, admittedly, is because we're always running late after these motherfuckers and need to see segment. It's pretty easy to put together quickly. But another big part of it is the hope to convince those of you who have never made it to one of these things that you're really missing out. So with that in mind, we're going to start with number 10. Seeing Eli's kid again.
Starting point is 00:38:24 Yeah, I know I just said that the point of this is supposed to be telling other people why they should go to atheist conventions. Obviously not everybody has the same connection to Eli's kid as me. But if you'd gone to AA Con, you almost certainly would have had a chance to meet Eli's kid too. So this totally counts. Yeah, I feel like
Starting point is 00:38:40 my son's cheeks were up there with a lot of people's top 10 convention memories. Solid, solid. Often a lot of people's top 10 convention memories. Solid, solid. Often two out of everyone's top 10. Yeah, right. You just spoiled my number seven. God damn it. Now, of course, even more fun than seeing him was seeing my wife see him.
Starting point is 00:38:58 The best. So Lucinda spent pretty much the whole weekend in his back pocket. And it turned out that his favorite thing in the world was walking up this long ass flight of stairs that was across from our table he was too scared to walk down him mind you so lucinda would have to pick him up and carry him all the way down 36 steps she counted and then they'd slowly walk up together and then she'd carry him back down like eight times in a row four times a day for three days.
Starting point is 00:39:27 You could at the end see the smoke rising off her calves but she just kept fucking doing it. And keep in mind that my son comes up to Lucinda's chest. Yeah. Right? This would be like if Heath spent the weekend carrying me up and down the stairs. Okay, to be fair
Starting point is 00:39:43 I did a lot well not eight times a day well not in a row yeah yeah yeah and while we're on the subject by the way i should give a big shout out to camp 42 it's a secular summer camp that was tabling at the conference and running the daycare center that was going on there eli and anna were of course not the only people bringing their kids to the con and american atheist was thoughtful enough to have some people there to look after them while the talks and workshops and shit were going on. They actually had the room pretty much right behind us. So I can test to the fact that the kids were having a blast the whole time with their parents, listen to like panel discussions and whatnot. So if, but my kids don't like
Starting point is 00:40:16 lectures about secular community building was the sticking point for you. You are in the clear. Heck yeah. Free babysitting baby. All Absolutely. Alright, number nine. Drunken Codenames. Yeah. Or sober Codenames, but just Codenames. It's awesome. Well, there's also high Codenames as well. Oh, yeah. Good point. Aroused Codenames. All the Codenames in all the
Starting point is 00:40:37 states. So if you're not familiar with Codenames, it's the best game. I love Codenames. And I'd say Codenames is decidedly my favorite. Learned it a couple of years ago. And we got a group playing like in the lobby, playing in the bar, all throughout the con. Here's the basic idea. There's a red team and a blue team, and there's 25 words on a table for everybody to see. And one person from each of those teams is trying to clue their team to choose the words that are secretly that team's color.
Starting point is 00:41:03 Usually you can connect two or three words at a time, but when you're the clue master and six of your words, maybe more, six, stretchy, seven, they directly relate to the classic 80s movie Roadhouse. And you very recently reviewed that exact movie with Andrew Torres and Andrew Torres is on your team and you're the code master to him. You have a very exciting is on your team and you're the code master to him, you have a very
Starting point is 00:41:26 exciting moment on your hands. So my team's secret words included beer, bar, draft, knife, fight, wall, and one other that definitely related. I can't remember which it was. Like the other one might as well have been Patrick Swayze. Andrew, this is about the movie we reviewed last year with Patrick Swayze in it. roadhouse stuff so i gave the clue roadhouse six and immediately andrew's like shut up shut up shut up i got this i got this and he starts going through the the plot of roadhouse explaining how each word connects number eight raising seventeen thousand dollars for abortion services like the goddamn legends we are now look i'm putting this down at number eight because i am very humble you you sound humble yeah i'm nailing it but when debbie asked for us to run a charity game slash trivia night
Starting point is 00:42:18 to benefit abortion services with our apprentice andrew torres you know gathering glasses entering trash cans for us okay maybe we'll raise a couple hundred bucks we'll have some fun but as always our listeners went above and beyond whatever we were hoping for not only did folks show up from all over the country just for the game slash trivia night and give to the cause but one of our favorite listeners fred freddy g yes volunteered to match what we raised so yeah i think we went above and beyond what and give to the cause, but one of our favorite listeners, Fred, Freddy G, yes, volunteered to match what we raised. So yeah, I think we went above and beyond what anybody was expecting, and
Starting point is 00:42:51 Fred, two reminders. One, you are allowed to match our fundraiser for ourselves next month when we do Matreon. Eli. And two, you can fuck Heath if you want to. No, yeah, that's accurate. Yes, you can. Hi, Fred. We should point out, by the way, that the group that we were raising money for was called Access Reproductive Care Southeast.
Starting point is 00:43:11 They provide transportation, cover medical costs, etc. for people in the South who need abortions. And as we discovered when we started doing Bulgarian for Charity, it isn't always easy to find a charity that's even willing to take your filthy atheist money. Nope. This group was all in. They were enthusiastic about it. An American atheist told them going in, hey, look, based on our past pre-conference fundraisers, we'll probably be able to cut you a check for $3,000 or $4,000.
Starting point is 00:43:36 And instead, we sent them $17,000. That's amazing. Fantastic. Incredible. Okay, so at number seven, a bit of a personal one for me, watching Gail Jordan turn Heath pink by having a sense of humor that's at least as dirty as his.
Starting point is 00:43:53 So first, the backstory. At every one of the American atheist conventions, recovering from religion has a like wine and cheese mixer for their volunteers and for those of us who promote their work online. They'll bring us in, play us with some wine and charcuterie boards, then let us know what they're doing for the next year, what their focus is going to be, etc.
Starting point is 00:44:11 And first, let me earn my cheese here. 184, I doubt it. That's the RFR's hotline. It's a great number for us to have on hand whenever any religious folks that we know are having second thoughts or having doubts or whatever. Also check the show notes because they've got numbers in a few other countries as well i know we have an international audience it's probably worth checking yeah and even though they didn't have any vegan cheeses i'll remind you that they are actually also a fantastic resource for those of you recovering from religious trauma and abuse so like even if you're a firm atheist now they have some excellent folks who you can talk to about what you went through. I know we have a lot of listeners on that as well. Fantastic work they do. Also, great cheese and charcuterie, by the way. So, I was super hungry when this happened,
Starting point is 00:44:53 and I got caught aggressively eating cheese by somebody. Somebody saw me across the room just flying into cheese like a wood chipper, and walk over to me afterwards and they're like hey man I kind of got like a on my camera I got a video of you eating cheese which is just like so on is it okay if I put this on? I was like yeah okay. Send me that video if you are out there
Starting point is 00:45:18 I need that. Oh it's online man it's online it's there for you to find so anyway so while this is going on, Gail Jordan, RFR's executive director, she's about to give her presentation about their plans for 2022 and beyond, and somebody cracks a dirty joke, and Gail
Starting point is 00:45:34 feels the need to one-up that with a dirtier one, and she ups the ante so fucking quick that Heath loses it, and he does that high, squeaky Heath laugh, and then, of course, everybody in the room cracks the fuck up because how can you not crack up at the squeaky high Heath laugh? And that's like everybody got distracted.
Starting point is 00:45:52 I had a chance to load up on some cheese, eat the fuck out of it without getting caught on camera. Kind of a win-win for everybody, I thought. It's like it was scripted. It was so quick and right on the nose. It was so good. Okay, number six, The Talk by Aaron Rabinowitz. Aaron, great talk.
Starting point is 00:46:09 Great, great talk. The main theme was describing the way anti-atheism stereotypes work and what they look like. You know, the way religious people think we're evil or deviant or like fucking kids in the basement fuck dungeon of a pizza place because we don't have absolute morality or something like that. But he also tied in the idea of making sure that our community doesn't have the type of bigotry that he was describing and, you know, have that towards other groups. In particular, lots of the atheist movement, sadly, not all of it, but lots is embracing social justice. And he was saying, we need to work hard to make that a priority and continue to make it a priority well you know we all agree on the number of gods it's zero but that's just a very basic organizing principle what do we do next that was his question and his answer was hey social justice of course and he made a great case for that and of course he
Starting point is 00:46:58 mentioned the fundraiser for arc southeast and people like f Fred helping out huge. One more ooh for Fred, if you wouldn't mind. Great. Two more, actually. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, the point is, it's not like we were raising money for atheist uterus havers only and making people read Darwin pamphlets to get the donation. Because, no, you'd be an asshole
Starting point is 00:47:20 at that point. And he closed out the talk by mentioning the service project. And he said, a bunch of us skipped church on Easter Sunday and spent our time packing up food for people who need it most. And I genuinely, I teared up at this moment. It was like a really poignant speech throughout, peppered with humor. But this moment, it just got me. I teared up. I, Heath Enright, had a feeling. So, I mean, just great talk by Aaron all around. Keith Enright had a feeling.
Starting point is 00:47:44 So, I mean, just great talk by Aaron all around. Amazing, amazing, amazing. And speaking of talks, number five, Mandisa Thomas' always stellar speeches. Fantastic. I've seen Mandisa speak half a dozen times at this point across all the conventions, and she is always so insightful and directed in what the movement is doing right and what we need to be doing next. And a quote I liked especially from her talk this year was about spending your privilege. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:48:12 Also, some atheist chuds who weren't at the conference got big mad at one of her slides. And any time you could piss off the douche canoes to remind them that they have as much to do with the movement these days as kevin sorbo is a good time right you gotta yeah the twitter meltdown was almost as enjoyable as the talk itself that was lovely kevin sorbo is much more part of the movement than those people by a lot that's true yeah we spend a lot of time talking yeah we do and you gotta love a good meltdown that tells everyone i'm a bigot ignore ignore everything I say from now on, but without those bigots actually saying those exact words out loud. They pretty much said it. It's helpful. Yeah. All right. At number four, Heath already hinted at this one. I'm going to go with the service project. So of course, American Atheist always holds their convention on Easter weekend,
Starting point is 00:48:59 since it tends to be a pretty easy one for most people to get time off for, and atheists don't generally have pressing church plans. So on Easter sunday they closed the convention off with a volunteer effort to remind people that while the christians were busy fucking coaxing their kids into reenacting capital punishment that's accurate the atheists were doing something useful for society this year that project was bagging food for underprivileged families and we don't even get forever points to spend at the afterlife canteen for doing it. Right. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:49:26 Now, unfortunately, Eli and Heath had to fly out too early to participate. Tattletale. But I'm only like a five hour drive away from Atlanta. So I drove up. I got to leave whatever the fuck I felt like. So Lucinda and I stuck around with, I think, like a couple hundred other atheists and bagged up 50,000 meals for hungry people. Took about two and a half hours.
Starting point is 00:49:46 Got a little competitive. Pretty sure our table won, but nobody would keep fucking score and did a lot of good. Plus, I'm pretty sure that Lucinda got her picture in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which is awesome because one of atheists' biggest PR challenges is that people find us intimidating and varmint hammer. No, there are a few things in the world less intimidating than lucinda doing volunteer work in a hair net yeah and honestly after lugging my son around for three days 50 000 bag lunches was a cool down set for lucinda oh if she had to do all of them she'd have been okay yeah all right at number three pub trivia night so we had a really good time that was
Starting point is 00:50:23 on the thursday night right at the beginning and it's always fun to have a big nerd contest, pub trivia. Here's my favorite moment from that night. One of the trivia questions, one of the categories for the trivia questions that Andrew gave us was basically words that sound sexual but actually aren't. That was the category. And one of the questions in that category had a multiple choice answer that included the word invaginate. that included the word invaginate. And Andrew's definition of invaginate that he looked up was something like to sheathe a thing inside a cavity or something like that.
Starting point is 00:50:50 So he had that one as the right answer. But thanks to Dr. Lindsay Osterman, PhD, we got the only official protest of the Pub Trivia Night, which made me very happy. Love a good protest. So here's the definition I got from the first Google result when I typed in define invaginate. This is from Oxford Languages. Invaginate, to be turned inside out or folded back on itself to form a cavity or pouch. So Andrew had
Starting point is 00:51:19 a different dictionary source that included a definition that was closer to his answer. But philosophically speaking, the main definition seemed to be more about a process from the perspective of the body that creates that tube shape. So it's about the sheath and not the sword. So we got this excellent, you know, feminist ontology critique as the protest, which was delightful. Nice. And then snide remarks about, you know, using the word invaginate correctly or incorrectly were being thrown around for the rest of the weekend, and it was a lot of fun. See, I'm glad to finally get the context here
Starting point is 00:51:48 because I thought Lindsay was just making fun of Andrew for being bad at sex all weekend. Yes. Also, canonically, Lindsay Osterman punched a cop. That is AACON canon. Please tell everyone you know. That's a video. Waffle House is a fun place.
Starting point is 00:52:00 5 a.m. Telling you. Number two, the youth pastor's worst nightmare. The strong contender for number one. Now, look, I'm not going to say Christian protesters are my favorite part of going to
Starting point is 00:52:15 atheist cons, but they don't let us do the Coliseum anymore, so this is about as close to feeding them to lions as you can legally get. And this year, we actually had a couple groups of Christians. So first up, we had two little old ladies who were Lutherans, and they had rainbow signs that said, we're not all bad. But they walked away in an awful hurry when I asked them if the rape pricing in the Bible
Starting point is 00:52:36 was moral for its time. Yeah, too quick for me to make up the, but you're all wrong signs. I don't know. Honestly, I wasn't there for them. They came mostly during Aaron's talk, but based on pretty much everybody's interaction with them, their signs should have read,
Starting point is 00:52:49 we're not all bad, but you'd never guess it from interacting with the two of us. Who'd have thought ladies who show up at a not us convention to talk about us weren't super receptive. Yeah, right.
Starting point is 00:53:01 But no, no, no, no. I don't want to talk about them. I want to talk about the three young men who made it to the actual floor of the con on saturday and chose of all possible tables and booths the black non-believers my friend it was like watching three guys who are pretty sure they know how to fight walk into the black belt section of a karate tournament and start throwing punches. Yeah, I had to miss this one. It happened while we were
Starting point is 00:53:29 eating, recovering from religion's cheese. But if anything could have separated Heath from that free wine and that charcuterie board, that was going to be it. Okay, now that you mention it, I do remember starting to hear Rocky music in my head while I was eating the cheese. That's weird.
Starting point is 00:53:46 Well, actually, you know what? That happens to me regardless. Well, that's true. Maybe it was a sign. My friends, it was a slaughter. It was a murder. It should have been sold on VHS alongside the faces of death and UFC tapes at your local video king. But the part I will always remember, that I will always hold
Starting point is 00:54:02 close to my heart, that I immortalized in the Facebook message thread I had with Noah and heath are the messages that read as follows quote he just said what you have to understand about biblical slavery to the black non-believers group and literally everyone is looking at him followed by the message, he's crying. And there's like 30 seconds between those two messages. It was real fast. And of course, at number one, I'm going to stick with the same number
Starting point is 00:54:34 one that we do every time we do this, and that is the opportunity to meet our listeners. Also, there were great talks. We did a lot of important charity work. We sold some books. We watched would-be apologists get eviscerated. And all that would have made the weekend worthwhile. But we also got to spend all weekend making this a two-way conversation for a change. Yeah. It was like
Starting point is 00:54:55 going to a bar for three days straight. But instead of being like, yep, cool, I don't care about anything you're saying. You're the worst. Like every time you get into a conversation, as it feels to me at lots of bars, it was the opposite of that. Right. It was like nerds with actual interesting things to say. And it was fantastic. Absolutely. Yeah. And unfiltered nerds unfiltered. That's just the beauty of it. Yeah. It's unfiltered. That should be the post colonic. Yeah. Hell yeah. And look, I get that a lot of our listeners are introverted. They don't feel super comfortable coming up and talking to us at these things. I know that some of you feel awkward. You leave thinking that you sounded dumb or whatever. That's usually me, actually. Well, yeah, me too. But and that's
Starting point is 00:55:33 the point, right? Like those awkward conversations are the ones that mean the most to me. I know that you had to overcome something to even come up and talk to us, knowing that it was worth all that anxiety for you to just tell us like what our show means to you that floors me every time yeah yeah without indulging the deadly sin of like it's hard to make stuff on the internet which i am aware is the fourth most boring topic possible to talk about but when you do what we do we spend a lot of our time alone and with negative feedback yes right like people tend not to email, hello, I liked it again this week.
Starting point is 00:56:08 And like, yes, we get to record together and that's awesome, but that's an hour and a half out of like five or six hours per show. More. We're saying email and be like, I liked it again this week. Yeah. And so it's easy for us, at least for me, to kind of get my head stuck on my ass. And when folks like come up to the table and they're like, hey, you were there in a dark
Starting point is 00:56:30 time of my life or you're the reason I started taking medication for my mental illness. Yeah. It's just such an important reminder of like who we actually do this for. And I'm so, so incredibly grateful for that check in with you. Absolutely. 100% agree on that. And, okay, this is going to sound kind of dark, but the number of oncology people specifically who apparently recommend our weird atheist dick joke shows to patients is fucking great. High.
Starting point is 00:56:57 High. It's very, we're basically oncologists. It's pretty much, we're tied. Maybe ahead. More than Lyre, Kara, Santa Maria, certainly. Yeah. Well, I tell you what, we have more acclaim to the term doctor
Starting point is 00:57:07 than Dr. Lubby fucking what is that? Dr. Lubby. Yeah. Look, we started this show with the hopes that it would help build community among atheists. And as awesome as it is to see that play out in online communities, it pales in comparison to seeing it happen in real life.
Starting point is 00:57:22 I know that most people come to conventions like this in hopes of finding some inspiration. But whether they mean to or not, they also provide a lot of inspiration while they're there. So thank you very much to everybody who came out. Thanks to everybody who made it to the table to say hi or share your story or thank us, whatever. And if you missed this one, it's okay. We forgive you. But don't let it happen again.
Starting point is 00:57:42 That's right. Damn it. We want to invaginate you into our hearts. What? That made more sense than Andrew's thing's right, damn it. We want to invaginate you into our hearts. What? That made more sense than Andrew's thing. No, it did. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:57:54 Before we save and quit tonight, I wanted to remind you one last time to check the show notes for links to get tickets to our live show in Toronto on May 7th. We're probably going to sell this one out
Starting point is 00:58:01 so sooner is better than later. Anyway, that's all the blast we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait 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
Starting point is 00:58:13 at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Say It Is You Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'd be a miserable failure of a host if I neglected to thank Keith Enright for taking the overnight shift at AACON. I want to thank Eli Bosnick for loaning his kid to my wife so freely over the weekend. I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions for eventually
Starting point is 00:58:30 and reluctantly giving him back. I want to thank Nick Fish, Debbie Goddard, and all of the other organizers with American Atheists for inviting us out for such an amazing weekend. I also want to thank Saoirse and A. DeMere for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Glad to know that there was an upshot to how much my education sucked, I guess.
Starting point is 00:58:47 But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people. Jeff, Jalen, F.A. Johnson, Walter, Voldick, Stubby, Dylan, Clank, Trucking, Carl, Love That, Dan Housen, Adam, Rosemary, Evan, and Andrew, the public health geographer. Jeff, Jalen, F.A., and Walter, whose IQs are so high that they just became legal in New Jersey. Voldick, Stubby, Dylan, Clank, and Carl, whose IQs are so high they can't pass a piss test. And Dan Housen, Adam, Rosemary, Evan, and Andrew, whose IQs are so high I had to record this segment on 420. Together, these 14 feisty freethinkers fulfilled our fantasies of financial fortitude this week by giving us money.
Starting point is 00:59:17 Not everybody has the alliterative qualities it takes to give us money, but if you think you're up to the challenge, 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. 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 rolled the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission.
Starting point is 00:59:39 If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScalingAlias.com. I've always known what yellow tasted like. This is not new to me. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

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