The Scathing Atheist - 480: Fifty Yard Lyin' Edition

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

In this week’s episode, the Supreme Court will be anything but, upside down butt plug Jesus guy is back, and we’ll soften the blow of Biblical genocides with more funny voices. --- Come see us live 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: Hear more from Andrew Torrez here: https://openargs.com/ --- Headlines: SCOTUS hears Bremerton high “praying coach” case: https://onlysky.media/tkrattenmaker/praying-coach/ and https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/the-supreme-court-seems-to-favor-the-football-coach-who-prayed-at-midfield/ Scamvangelists and GOP leaders spread election lies at Christian gathering https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/scamvangelists-and-gop-leaders-spread-election-lies-at-christian-gathering/ California MAGA candidate claims God will commit voter fraud on her behalf to help her win: https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/04/california-maga-candidate-claims-god-will-commit-voter-fraud-on-her-behalf-to-help-her-win/ ‘You Are Islamicizing Your Genitals,’ Jarrin Jackson Tells Transgender Individuals https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/you-are-islamicizing-your-genitals-jarrin-jackson-tells-transgender-individuals/ Alabama can’t adopt because they’re atheists: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/an-alabama-couple-cant-adopt-a-child-because-theyre-non-religious/ Florida atheist asks book-banning school districts to get rid of the Bible too: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/florida-atheist-asks-book-banning-school-districts-to-get-rid-of-the-bible-too/

Warning, the following podcast contains those words that stupid people get more offended about than actual harmful stuff. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Blue Apron, Stamps.com, Policy Genius, and by the first choice in Mother's Day gifts for the deity who fucked himself into his own mom, Oedipal Arrangements. Oedipal Arrangements. Because Christian God's a motherfucker no matter how you slice it. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hi, I'm Don. I live in South Georgia, two hours away from NOAA.

My county has 27% fully vaccinated people, which means 75% are Karens, Brads, and QAnon shamans, demonstrating that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey men and women. It's Thursday. It's April 28th. And it's Clean Comedy Day. So, felt your mung out of my blistered cornhole. At least we tried. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick.

I'm Heath Enright. And from legal... I didn't even know what that meant, really, sexually. From Legal Weed, New Jersey, Legal Weed, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Legal AR-15 Gunf what that meant, really, sexually. From Legal Weed, New Jersey, Legal Weed, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Legal AR-15 gunfights way across Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. Oh, this week's episode, the Supreme Court will be anything but upside-down butt-plug Jesus guy is back. Hi, new listener. That'll make sense eventually, maybe. And we'll soften the blow of biblical genocide with more funny voices.

But first, the diatribe. You know, if this was any other venue, I wouldn't do them the favor of talking about their stupid fucking viral marketing campaign. But considering our audience, I'm pretty confident I could talk about a Jesus-based TV show for quite a while without increasing its viewership. So here goes. There's this show called Chosen. It's a multi-season series about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth that distinguished itself even before it debuted by crowdfunding over $10 million. As every press release the show has ever

or will ever put out notes, that makes it the most successful crowdfunded TV show or movie of all time. Which sounds good as long as you don't look at the list of all the other most successful crowdfunding projects of all time. I mean, I'm not going to say they're all stupid, but 15 of the top 20 are NFTs and three slots below the chosen on that list is an effort to

build Trump's wall through Kickstarter. Anyway, despite this amazing crowdfunding achievement, you've probably never heard of the show. And if you ask its producers, that's because the mainstream media hates Christianity and refuses to talk about any other stuff. And if you ask anybody else, it's because nobody's heard of almost every TV show ever. But regardless of the reason, the show decided to do something about it with a viral marketing campaign. The campaign started with a series of boring,

uninspired billboards all over the country with messages like, binge Jesus on them. Right, but then a few weeks after those showed up, they were all mock vandalized. The Virgin Mary got silly glasses, Jesus got dressed as a clown, and the website ChosenSucks.com was conspicuously painted over the show's actual website. And to be clear, it would have been hard to do a worse job faking

vandalism. The font is far too sloppy for a good graffiti artist and far too legible for a bad one. The vandals were super careful to never cover up the name of the thing they were vandalizing, and the messaging was hilariously safe for work. The most profane the vandalism ever got was a reference to, I shit you not, poopy butts. And if you go to the website that the fake vandals send you to, you're going to find a video wherein Satan tries to discourage you

from watching the show and tells you that you're good enough without Jesus. But alas, there is no level of falsity that's self-evident to Christians or they wouldn't be Christians. So many of them were outraged that someone would blaspheme the image of Christ in such a blatant manner. They called their local police departments. They called the companies that own the billboards. And most critically, they called the local media just like the people who planned and paid for this whole campaign intended for them too of course now the producers are apologizing and saying they never intended for anybody to think it was real i mean how could they have possibly predicted that reaction from a group of people

that over represents the undereducated and has been primed for a decade to seek out persecution against them that doesn't exist. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, almost 60 percent of white evangelicals believe that there's a lot of discrimination against Christians in this country. That's about twice as many as believe there's a lot of discrimination against blacks and Muslims, by the way. So obviously they were going to freak the fuck out, take pictures of the sign and share them all over social media to prove their point about how oppressed they are and no apology from any advertiser for anything that caused more people to see their ads has ever been genuine though this might be the least genuine one so far and i should point out by the way that tricking people into thinking these things were real isn't the only thing they're apologizing for

because you know even when you tell devoutlyly Christian idiots that the spray-painted silly mustache on Jesus was put there by a Christian, they don't stop being mad about it. Turns out they take blasphemy super serious there. But alienating their core audience was clearly worth it as long as it ends in the media outlets talking about their show complete with image of their ads. Now, as fucked up an admission as it is that these producers are perfectly fine given jesus a clown knows if it means a few more clicks on their website there's an even more fucked up admission hiding just below the surface

because what we're talking about here is a fake hate crime right like if these were billboards about a show aimed at a jewish audience and they were covered with anti-semitic vandalism we'd rightly classify that as a hate crime even if the language was never any harsher than poopy butts now i'm not saying we should charge these producers with a hate crime i think that'd be fucking hilarious but i'm not saying we should i do think though it's worth pointing that out because it's about as stark a confession as you could hope for that the whole idea of christian persecution in america is bullshit you'd never actually consider doing this if it was real in other words the entire idea of christian persecution is every bit as

much of a marketing campaign as this manifestation of it is they're talking about you jesus joining me for headlines tonight are the kentucky derby and preakness to my belmont They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Kentucky Derby and Preakness to my Belmont Stakes, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to horse around? Oh, I wish, no. With my body, I'd have been shot in the head long, long ago. Okay.

Yeah, we're more like the old leather and glue, I guess. All right. The horse things. Sure. And with the thought of dead horse meat on your mind, I suppose it's a great time to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, Blue Apron. Oh, man.

Not boring old spaghetti again. Tell me about it. So boring. Hey, guys, what are you complaining about now? Oh, hey, Noah. We're just tired of eating the same thing day after day, you know? Well, why don't you guys try Blue Apron? Oh, what's... Blue Apron? Oh, what's...

Blue Apron. No, no, absolutely not. Stopwatch, 1.79 seconds. We already agreed you can't keep your own stopwatch after the trade coffee incident. No, we said that you couldn't keep your own stopwatch. So Blue Apron delivers far fresher... Okay, so you're saying now we have rules that just

apply to me. Absolutely not. No. No, this is the kid excuse all over again. Kid excuse? You cloned Anna's phone and texted me, the baby is really, really hurt during ads so you could get a point. We have arbitrated this already. Lots of fresh ingredients that they have. Well, apparently we need to arbitrate it again because you're a cheater.

Okay, you know what? Let's get Andrew. He's on the show this week for Headlines Anyway. He'll talk us through this. Fine, let's go get him. He hasn't made it to his car yet. I suggested it. The better way to cook. And now, back to the headlines. In our lead story

tonight, the Supreme Court seems ready to unravel decades of precedent on coercive school prayer in a case about a high school football coach whose lawyers claim that he was fired for engaging in quiet, private prayer on his off time after football games and that's true except for the part about the prayers being quiet and private and the part about him being off of work and the part about him being fired what

really happened was lying about that what really happened is that he led students on his team and the opposing team in very loud prayers on the 50 fucking yard line immediately after the games. There it is. Repeatedly, even after the school's administrators asked him to stop and explained how that would be seen as coercive. And when he refused, they didn't fire him. They put him on paid leave until his contract was up, at which time he did not reapply for the position and move thousands of miles away i could see him not knowing the word coercive but it's still definitely yeah exactly i think it'd be weird to pray with the opposing team because you'd be like let us win this one or them lord or a tie would be fine too they got a jew okay so to help us understand what's going on here we're

happy to welcome back the co-host of the opening arguments podcast and clean up on io 45 andrew torres andrew welcome back no uh thanks question mark yes never good news hey andrew when we have you on hey so andrew correct me if i'm here, but this case lost in a district court in 2016, lost in an appellate court in 2017, got turned down by the Supreme Court in 2018, got tossed in a summary judgment by a different district court in 2020, and then lost an appeal on that judgment as well. And as near as I can tell, every one of those decisions came with the legalese version of the term fucking duh. So why is the Supreme Court even hearing this case to begin with? So number one, that is as concise and accurate a history of the case as you will find in the briefs. Fucking duh is pretty much what the school district's lawyers filed in their opposition to the cert petition. And I think they were as shocked as we were that the court took it up.

Also, interestingly enough, despite all of that being correct at oral argument, the first Liberty Institute lawyers representing coach Kennedy in this case spun that history as this poor man has waited six years to get his job back. Jesus Christ. But they're going to rehire him? No, he hasn't. Okay, all right. So from a legal perspective, what is the question at the heart of this case?

So I've been trying to think about the best way to analogize. Because look, we're all atheists. And so saying a prayer and can you do it in your off time? And so saying a prayer and can you do it in your off time and this and that, like, it's hard to kind of conceptualize of, you know, what that might mean to somebody. So I've come up with what I think is a just and fair way to understand it. And that is I want you to read the briefs and read the news coverage and listen to oral arguments. And every time you hear the word prayer, I want you to substitute the word masturb masturbate i want you to think about it this way okay because right because masturbation super fun really really important wouldn't want to be at a job that told me i couldn't do it right like

right all of the all of the claims that the petitioner is making here better if you do it in front of children that thanks eli um and then when you think about it, you're like, you fired me because I masturbate. Well, no, we fired you because you masturbated on the 50-yard line in front of a bunch of school children. And you invited the kids to all come over and masturbate with you. Hold on, which yard line should I have done that on? No, we shouldn't have said 50. I cannot. Again, it is not supposed to be the case.

You guys know I've been on the show enough times to make this clear. The Supreme Court is not a trial court, right? The Supreme Court is there to adjudicate legal questions, and they are bound by the factual record below. Now, I've talked to Andrew Seidel about this, and he says, you know, it's pretty common to just like lie about stuff, particularly in religious cases. It is not common to lie this brazenly, this openly, as you've set it up in this court. And by the way, those lies have continued in the mainstream press, in the New York Times Daily, which followed around Coach Kennedy and spun this kind of ridiculous narrative. So just to be clear, Coach Kennedy's argument is, all I ever do is, the moment the game is over, I sprint out to the 50-yard line while my kids are

still in the end zone celebrating, and then I kneel down and I very, very quietly say a little prayer to myself that lasts 15 seconds. Now, we know that's a lie because apparently, unlike the entire sitting Supreme Court, we've met evangelical Christians before, right? There was no, the last time, you know, the next time an evangelical Christian prayer lasts 15 seconds and is quiet will be the first, right? Like it lasts five hours and takes place in the middle of an airplane, right? Like that's what these guys do. That's what the evangel part of evangelical is, okay? And it is well documented. This is the first cert petition, opposition to a cert petition I've ever seen that has photographs in it.

Why does it have photographs in it? Because again, the cert petition says, you know, he's quietly petitioning for prayer for 15 seconds on the 50-yard line by himself. And then you look at the brief filed by the school district, and there's 75 people in here. There's a little arrow that you have to point out where the coach is, right? And so this is really a repeated pattern over and over again that started with quietly praying by yourself, then escalated to pregame and postgame prayers with your students, then allowing students on the team to join his on-field prayers. Then he began standing, holding up the helmets from both teams and delivering motivational prayers to the players with kneeling Bremerton players surrounding him. And sometimes, as you pointed out in the introduction,

players from the opposing team joined also. So to put all of that together, the Bremerton School District said, under duh law, right? The lemon versus Kurtzman test. This is very obviously an endorsement of religion. Please stop. And they begged him to stop over and over.

They said, look, how can we accommodate you? You tell us, we want to be respectful of your sincerely held, blah, blah, blah,

whatever. And this coach at every stage said, no, the way to accommodate me is to let me proselytize in the middle of the football field. All the fucking revival on the 50-yard line. And so it's bad. Here's, again,

you got it correct in the introduction. I've made mine here. How about I read from the actual briefs? This begins on page 17 from the school district that says oh please do yeah the petition insists that this case is about coach kennedy's brief quiet prayer by himself except for prayer every word of that description is wrong i want to point out a lawyer not me wrote that so there you go he's delivering the do not be selfish for water speech from mad max and everyone's like i don't think this is normal all right so now i

know that you've said before that people in the media place too much emphasis on oral arguments in cases like this so with that in mind what if anything did anything, did we learn on Monday? Yeah, what I look for in oral arguments in these kinds of cases, that is, religious cases in our hellscape scenario of the Supreme Court, is, is this going to be a five to four loss like Tandon versus Newsom because it's just so egregious? You get all the liberals plus maybe John Roberts. Where is this going to be an 8-1 Trinity Lutheran? Now, Trinity Lutheran was 7-2, but that's before RBG was replaced. Oh, man, I sure hope we lose 5-4. Yeah. That's the best.

Spoiler alert, this is headed towards the 8-1 territory. Wow. Right. Okay, so realistically, what is our best case scenario in terms of outcome oh oh i know i don't think you're allowed i'll take this one andrew uh okay best case scenario i'm really reaching here and that would be that the supreme court remands this case back to the Ninth Circuit. And the way in which they would get, this would be a narrow ruling. This would be if Roberts writes the opinion, and it would say something like, in cases

involving the private 15-second prayer by yourself after school hours of a school employee, the test is whether the school district actively discriminated against you on the basis of your Christianity as per Masterpiece Cake Shop. So we are remanding to the Ninth Circuit with instructions to decide the case with that being the rule here that we just made up. Note that that's still real, real, real, real, real, real bad. Also, asteroid strike on the Supreme Court. Yeah, you are allowed to say that.

There you go. What? Asteroids are non-volitional. Or are they? I say that all the time. So, and of course, let's nerd ourselves for this. What is worst case scenario? Okay, I cannot stress this highly enough.

There are two things that I think are overwhelmingly likely to come out of this opinion. And if this is not the result, right, this is a second best scenario, right? I told you, best case scenario goes back to the Ninth Circuit. I think that's not likely to happen. Anything that runs shy of, number one, explicitly overruling the test, and number two, carving out some kind of free speech, free exercise-based exception for people, for public school teachers, right? For anybody to, you know, engage in kind of quiet prayer on their own time and have that be subject to the masterpiece cake shop rule of you have to be non-discriminatory about that would be a victory. So the converse is I think that's what's going to happen. I think the Supreme Court is going to say, yeah,

lemon test is gone, dead. Nobody liked it anyway. And we have replaced that with you cannot actively discriminate against someone on the basis of their Christianity. And the reason, so this kind of comes back full circle to the first question you asked me that I'm going to now answer seriously. The reason they're teeing this case up is because the ADF, the Liberty Institute, Christian nationalists are trying to cram through as many cases as they can to get as far out in front as they can. And the next case that is indistinguishable from this case from a legal perspective on the facts that they have lied and said that this case is about would be a public school teacher leading a Bible study before a public school homeroom, right? Hey, I'm just doing this thing on my own time. And, you know, if the kids want to come and join in, then that's fine. And if they don't, then that's also fine. But I don't see how you can stop me from, you know, you would be discriminating actively against my religious

beliefs if you stop me from loudly holding a Bible study before a public school class, that will be the next case. You guys know I don't say these sorts of things lightly, right? You guys know I try and look for the optimistic and the narrow legal perspective here. This Supreme Court is off the rails when it comes to, quote, religious liberty issues. This is going to be a parting gift from Judge Breyer to us. Hopefully, Judge Jackson will have slightly more sensible views on the separation of church and state. But even then, that's going to be a Sotomayor-Jackson two-vote minority for the foreseeable future.

It's real bad, and it's going to get worse. And the only way to fight back against that is at the grassroots level. That's why I find myself as general counsel for a show called The Scathing Atheist in the years in which people tend to be somehow less scathing and it just couldn't be more necessary. All right. Well, Andrew, thanks so much for helping us make sense of this. And let me promise you one more time that eventually we're going to have you on to talk about something other than the judicial sky falling. That would be nice.

Eventually, I would like something other than the judicial sky to fall. So that too. Yeah. Let's see if we can make that happen. And in con con news, you know, as we were reflecting on the awesomeness that was American Atheist Convention last week, I couldn't help but wonder what Christians are up to at their conventions. Well, luckily, the news feeds answered my question last week as we learned that Christian nationalists gathered at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, roberts university in oklahoma along with several elected republican politicians and an event called flashpoint live to repeat a bunch of demonstrable lies about the 2020 election well okay but to be

fair repeating demonstrable lies is their entire thing that's fair that's the thing just be drunk at 3 a.m at the bar and lie to everyone that's what you're supposed to do it's so much better than christianity do you drink too much have a little coke and lie to everybody. That's what you're supposed to do. It's so much better than Christianity. Do you drink too much? Have a little Coke and lie to everybody at the bar. Come on. Yeah, but that's how the religion gets started, right? Jesus was feeling good. It was Passover. Everyone was sitting on the same side of the table. And here we are. Right. So among the attendees were Congressman Kevin Hearn, the state's attorney general, John O'Connor, and several other state levellevel officials but the host for the evening was gene bailey who works with two full of demons aficionado and billionaire

mega preacher kenneth copeland huh and bailey got right to the bullshit saying quote there's one thing that i know for sure and this is the raw truth the raw truth was on november 3rd 2020 president donald j Trump won the election. Sorry, I got to go back a little bit, though. Does anybody else feel like John O'Connor is the off-brand leader of the resistance that got chased by the term O-nator or something? So later in the evening, preacher Hank Kuhneman, who regular listeners will remember for predicting that the coronavirus wouldn't affect America because Donald Trump was pro-life.

Yep. Well, here's what he had to say about Joe Biden's administration. Quote, they're talking about Biden's poll numbers. What they really need to be talking about is cell numbers, not phone prison cell numbers. Nailed it. Nailed it. Good job. These guys have committed a crime

they've committed treason against the United States of America and it's constitution and word for word quote the connective tissue was two things that both have numbers and you still managed to fumble it dude

just woof it's like the telephone game you know with a bunch of people during word association. His thoughts by himself are like that. That's rough. Cell phone. Fuck. I got myself. Booth.

Booth. John Wilkes Booth. No. I always get to murder. So, yeah. I checked the website and apparently Flashpoint Live did not have a trivia night or any photos of an adorable toddler that won everyone's hearts and minds. So it seems like the Christians definitely lost if we compare the two events. That said, I'm not sure why Christians need a convention to keep reinforcing your faith

in provably wrong statements. I thought that's what church was for. Yeah, you already have the... And next up in headlines. This is why Christian people should not be allowed to hold public office. Now, okay, it sounds like we cut ahead by accident, but if you're a longtime listener, you know that we could start pretty much every story like that.

It's going to make sense eventually once we explain it. At least a lot of them. So this week, we got another reminder of this truth that we hold to be self-evident. When GOP candidate for California Secretary of State Rachel Hamm said words out loud again. And according to Hamm, God is going to commit voter fraud on her behalf so she can win the election. Okay, but in God's defense, it's pretty much impossible for Trinities to cast a ballot without committing voter fraud. I like that it's still

going to be cheating right like the omnipotent omniscient owner of the universe is not going to win her the election no he's going to pull a fast one during the election just have her get more vote whatever still it's a really elaborate plan so here's a quick background on how rachel ham got started in politics until very recently she didn't have any political aspirations but then she had her little kid she has a little son she had him examine her closet and as we all know that changes everything especially considering her son is a seer what and when the kid yep the kid's a seer so the kid checked the closet and then saw in in it and he said there's a really big guy whose power is pushing me to the ground and that's when the

man in her closet that guy handed a scroll to the little kid and it said on a scroll i guess tell your mom to run for Secretary of State of California. Also, that was Jesus Christ of Nazareth in the closet because, yes, it was. Oh. My favorite detail is the scroll. It's like Jesus easing his way into texting. You can do it these days. Here's my problem.

I'm so deep into the inside and running jokes we've built on Bible Peace Theater in this show that I was sure you were going to tell me it was Sarah Huckabee Sanders. And then I had to remind myself, that's just our bit. That's not their bit. So it might sound like Rachel Hamm has, you know, no political experience or relevant skills, but she's not just some lady with a son who can see invisible closet attackers. She's actually an election empath, too. And she verified that Donald Trump was the real winner of California's electoral votes in 2020.

She checked that by driving all over California before the election and doing empathy, I guess. And it turns out that pretty much the whole state was in favor of Trump at that point in history. In 2020, there's a lot of Trump people all over California. So that's how we know there was election fraud because in the end, he didn't get those electoral votes. And that's what led to her latest announcement. She knows that California Democrats

are going to try their best to steal the election from her too, just like they did with Trump. So she did some praying. And during an interview last week, she was asked about that. The question was, what are you praying for? And Ham said, I would pray that I win. And like, again, you pointed out, it seems like that would be the end of the praying. But no, she continued. One thing that I've been doing is praying that if anyone tries to steal a vote, that God would send the angels to steal that vote back. I'm sorry, we do not have a registration for Yomiel the Watcher. That's a very nice halo. But I'm just picturing a ballot tug-of-war between a thousand

eyed ball of flaming wings and a purple haired antifa not allowed to give bottled water to angels online yeah and if any california voters are listening to us and you want to learn a bit more about rachel ham just in case you know you don't check out all your candidates, check out her website, rachelham.com. That's Rachel Hamm with two Ms. Among other things, you'll find a few visual aids. So that's nice. That includes a photo of her

with a laptop computer and another photo with a cellular telephone, both of which are emerging technologies that she has in her life and definitely knows how they work. She proved it with the photos. There's also a photo of a latte, just the latte with foam art.

So coffee is something she's aware of experientially. And all that being said, she does not know about how font size works. According to the site, she's a Liberatio next line nist and she has an app and you can download add the app because she doesn't know how to block out text on a website and here's my favorite part it says i'm a number one best-selling author of my autobiography. Okay. Wow, there's competition there, huh?

Well, I think we need a minute for Rachel to pat herself on the back, so we're going to take a break for a word from our second sponsor this week, Stamps.com. Lou, Lou, Lou, nailing Noah into a box. Nailing Noah into a box is my favorite box.

Don't forget the air holes. Oh, I won't, Noah. Hey, Eli. What you doing there? Oh, hey, Heath. I'm just saving Noah some time and money, box is my favorite box don't don't forget the air holes oh i won't know hey eli what what you're doing there oh hey heath i'm just saving noah some time and money by nailing him into a box instead of sending him on an airplane oh yeah how are you doing that by mailing him oh oh you're gonna mail him how are you mailing him in the mail do you have a service to recommend that I mail him with? No, not that I can think of. Do you have a service to recommend to me for that?

Cut, cut. Come on, Heath. We just went over this in arbitration. I declare a meeting with the high council right now. What? Arbitration has obviously failed us. High council. Heath, there's no need to bring the high council into this.

I think there is a need to bring the high council in. Fine, I'll blow the conk. I'm going to go get my light sword then. Oh, you're going to need the light sword. Guys, I'm still in the box. Is the ad over? And we're back. Next up in headlines in female to Muslim news.

I don't want to say that there's an upside to anti-gay bigotry. Well, I'm glad to hear that. But, but. I'm glad to hear that. I will say if the sizable cloud of prejudice does have a silver lining, it's the transphobia gets downright weird in its final thrashing stages before death. And I would argue that there's no better example of this than Jaron Jackson, a right-wing Christian nutbag who is running for a seat in the Oklahoma Senate,

who declared this week during his live stream on Tuesday that transgender individuals are turning their genitals Muslim by being trans. Really? Well, so now I'm picturing a disembodied penis on a little tiny prayer rug bowing to Mecca and wishing we could make our own cartoon series again. Suni tunes. There you go.

Fantastic. And puny tunes. Angela. He's going to do it now for sure. That's awesome. Yeah. So Jackson standing in front of a bookshelf that contains what I'm going to call a baffling amount of

crazy shit, like a single old boot, a bottle of red wine, and a tiny trophy the size of my thumb, took issue with a Reddit post from 2017 because apparently his internet runs only slightly less behind

than his values. Sorry, just circling back. Those are normal items for a bookshelf. I feel like you're being weird. Why wouldn't you have a boot, red wine, and a small trophy the size of a thumb? Why is that weird? That's fair. Stupid. Your comment was stupid.

Yeah. So in the post, a parent is asking how they can support their trans kid. And Jackson has this to say, quote, God's categories are good categories. God's plan is a good plan. It's a good order. Most of what we see today is a rejection of God's order. Most of what we see today are people seeing what God has made and choosing to reject it and deny it and destroy it and molest it.

End quote. Okay. So like, honestly, if he was talking about starlight flavored coke i think i'd be on board right all right there you go he continues that father i believe is criminally responsible for manipulating and grooming his daughter and then he remembers he's supposed to be dead naming the kid and he's like that father was criminally negligent to his son because that father has not built his worldview on truth. The son is suicidal. The son is messed up physically, chemically, emotionally, relationally.

What? Truthfully. Oh, he ran out of police. He ran out of police. So tell me more about the importance of emotional stability. Guy who declared his candidacy by putting the word Dominion on the side of his printer, pretending it was a voting machine and then shooting it with a rifle. Yeah, that's real. That's real about it.

I feel like he tried with a real voting machine at first and it was like kind of bulletproof and nothing really happened. He had to cut that and switch to a printer that would explode with the bullet a little bit more. Like the Proud Boy trying to rip that Antifa protest sign. I feel like that's on the cutting room floor somewhere. And what I love about that paragraph is that Jackson is aware

that the right has been using words like molesting and grooming, but he doesn't understand why. So he's just like, I've been told that dad is molesting his kids now. Is that what I think? Anyway, he concludes, quote,

it's not bottom surgery, it's mutilation. You've Islamicized your genitals. You've Islamicized yourself. Muslims do genital mutilation for women that have sex or commit adultery. Wait, what? That's what Muslimslims do you are

islamicizing your genitals end quote so yeah you heard it here first folks uh trans people you are muslim from the waist down now so act accordingly no oral until sunset yeah sure no crotch bacon i I don't know. People take your explosive diarrhea much more seriously. Oh, Jesus. And in adoption news tonight, a kid who would have a loving family doesn't because Alabama Family Adoption Services is run by bigots and the state is okay with that

because they were Christian about their bigotry. And no, this is not the story of a same-sex couple getting turned away, though I'm sure that probably happened in Alabama last week too. Instead, this is the story of the Browning family, who was told that they'd be ineligible to adopt from the agency because they were atheists. In response to a question about whether their lack of belief would be an issue, the agency responded, quote, We could not work with you.

We are not specific about one's faith but the biological families we work with do request that our adoptive families have a spiritual life end quote cool cool i get what you're saying but we are winning by two willing parents against the original we win that's the whole score it's two to zero us right also literally anytime this adoption agency ever says anything publicly about how they care about children ever again i'm just gonna stand there yelling like well almost as much as we care about them being the same religion as us like i'm gonna be the fuck you yo-go own a twitter account but in person right for this adoption agency so right yeah so your first thought may, how the fuck is this legal?

But since your second thought is almost certainly because lawmakers have spent more than a decade insulating Christian bigotry against the rule of law, I won't bother clarifying that for you. Of course, co-owner of the agency, Susan Wyatt, insists that it's not bigotry because there are many groups they don't discriminate against.

When contacted by a local cbs affiliate about the issue wyatt explained quote we've placed children with jewish families we did have an indian family at one point wait did she think indian is a religion she sure the fuck does but she does close off by admitting quote i don't think we've ever had a muslim family and because she tried to do the best friends they like lots of my best friends are actually well, white. They're almost entirely white. One Italian, though, does that?

It's a very swarthy Italian. Hey, let me just little pro tip here. I'm not racist. Let me name the minorities. I know never the look people think it is. Yeah, it's never worked especially when you fuck that up and you're doing it when you had to stop and abandon it yeah and look the argument she's hiding behind is that it's not her personal bigotry against the non-religious

but rather the transitive bigotry of birth mothers giving up kids for adoption right she's basically saying that the birth mothers wouldn't want to adopt their kids to filthy atheists so it would be a waste of her time to do all the paperwork and first of all bullshit right just bullshit alabama is pretty fucking christian but 12 percent of their population isn't religious and that number is higher among young people who tend to be the ones offering up kids for adoption no fucking way a hundred percent or anything remotely like that would refuse to adopt to a secular family.

But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Kelly gave up the game when the reporter followed up by asking if they'd facilitate an adoption for a birth mother that insisted her child be placed in a secular home

when she said a bunch of words that weren't yes. Probably not yes. Yeah. All right, Satanic Temple, I think this is your moment. You have a spiritual life, technically. They do, yeah.

You need to adopt some babies for spite, to spite some Christians. You're adopting babies. You're doing big spells at this ceremony where you take the baby. A lot of blue lightning. I don't know what you can come up with. Make it happen.

Also, look, even if she weren't lying about that first point, who gives a fuck where you want your baby to end up when you give it up for a day? You're not dropping it off at summer camp. It's not your fucking baby anymore. Go back to work at Aunt Annie's pretzels. Fuck yes.

So, yeah, Christians are keeping orphans away from loving families because you can't trust those filthy atheists. In other words, religious people are behaving immorally because they think that we're immoral. And given the conservative infatuation with protecting homophobia behind a shield of sincerely held religious beliefs, we can expect to see stories like this more and more often. We sure can. Lucky us.

And finally tonight, we have the triumphant return of professional stunt activist and wrangler of evangelicals, Chaz Stevens. Chaz-y-see! Indeed. We haven't talked about him for a while, but he's back. And he made headlines last week with another round of his signature weapons-grade trolling of Florida Republicans. And as you might guess, Chaz Stevens is reacting to the push by, you know, the pro-sleepiness governor Ron DeSantis to eliminate wokeness from the public school curriculum. Which includes banning critical race theory and banning the mention of LGBTQ existence and theoretically banning any books that contain these now illegal ideas.

illegal ideas so in response to all that chas stevens is demanding that any school district doing book banning needs to remove the bible too and his reasoning is the best it's because the bible is too woke and he explains it's great work by chas stevens well one way or the other i can confirm that it mentions lgbtq people way more often than any of those math books they rejected if johnny has three stones and there are four rape victims unwilling to marry the rapist. How many shekels will you need? Yeah. So we've already seen over 200 different books being banned at school districts across Florida in response to the new regulations like the so-called Don't Say Gay Bill and the Stop Woke Act.

In response, Chaz Stevens sent a letter to several school districts that explained his demands. It said, quote, I wish to file an objection requesting the public school system immediately remove the Bible from the classroom, library, and any instructional material. Additionally, I also seek the banishment of any book that references the Bible. And, as is often the case with banned books ask your agency lay flame to that giant stack of fiction in a pyre worthy of a viking send-off end quote oh classic mistake chas people willing to ban books don't know big words like pyre and worthy yo is pyre spelled with? Otherwise, I have no idea what he was going

for here. It's like phone. Is it like phone? So, in the letter, Stevens also added that the Bible promotes wokeness, which is, of course, illegal now in Florida. And he cited Ephesians 6, where it says, slaves, obey your earthly

masters with respect and fear. And he pointed out that, you know, young white students could be reminded about the existence of slavery by that and therefore feel bad about being white. And that's illegal. Yeah. Because the struggle's real for white kids in Florida. And he's, oh, he's using it against us.

Oh, they're so confused. They're like, damn, that's a great point. White? Yep. No. Damn you, Chaz Stevens. So obviously Chaz Stevens is going for some humor here and he knows that christian right republicans in florida aren't going to respond to basic logic basically by definition but he makes a great point and i think it goes even

further it's not just about all the woke propaganda in the bible about critical race theory and you know the proletariat seizing the means of production and burning honest, hardworking, capitalist people in the street. It's not about all that stuff. More importantly, if you're worried about little kids getting exposed to inappropriate sexual material, the Bible is the first book off the shelf right the fuck away. That book mentions heterosex all the time,

which is very clearly grooming kids to become the victims of hetero pedophiles. That's just science. We know that Disney's doing a flip of that. If we learned anything in 2022, it's that grooming means whatever the fuck I don't like. Yep, there you go. And with yet another reminder that the only ammunition

that we'll ever need against Christianity is their own goddamn words and actions, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Yachty. And when we come back, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Yahtzee. And when we come back, we're going to let Don Ford take out the ball gag. And so it is decided by the high council of the podcast of us.

There shall be three battles, one of fire, one of of water and one of will you may bring one champion and the winners shall receive the point for the blue apron ad at the beginning of the program brother torres bind it in blood it is so binded how andrew sorry i need blood oh i brought my own blood. Never. Well, why did you bring your own blood? Why did Eli not bring his own blood? The contract needs to be made with fresh blood, Heath.

We've been over this. Yeah, he's right, you know. Fine. Fine. Wasting blood. Guys, this one was supposed to be a policy genius ad. Yeah, well, now it's an elemental battle because Eli made our show weird. You know, this is somebody's first episode.

Oh. Hi, new listener. This makes sense. We promise. Not a ton. Super not at all, actually. Not at all. We're on council.

when you hear about the bible and you haven't read it it's easy to get the impression that it's filled with a bunch of moral parables divine genocides and weird bedtime stories which is a bizarre mix for a holy book sure but ideal fodder for a long-form sketch comedy segment but if you actually read the bible you know that it's mostly repetitive and confusing stories about obscure Jewish kings and prophets, which is less than ideal for that sketch-based stuff. But when you haven't read the Bible and pretend you have, you occasionally just might volunteer for an incredibly difficult, years-long writing project

that your friends warned you you were going to regret, but you insisted we wouldn't way too passionately to admit that they were right this far in. And what everybody else gets is another installment of Bible Peace Theater. So where were we? Jehu killed Ahab's sons and Jezebel. Right, right.

I remember that. So what happens next? Oh, he kills more people. Sounds like the Bible to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That checks out. I'm here now, by the way. I remember that. So what happens next? Oh, he kills more people. Sounds like the Bible to me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that checks out. I'm here now, by the way. I'm here.

Yes. Hi, Don. Don, we know you're here. Hi. Hi, Don. Hi. Your Highness Jehu. Yes, servant.

The people of Samaria have killed the 70 sons of Ahab, like you asked. They sent us two baskets of heads. Wow. Baskets? Those must be huge! They are, sir. What would you like me to do with them? Oh, yeah, well, that's a good question. When you ask for somebody

to send you the heads of 70 people, you don't really consider what you're going to do with them afterwards. Put them on spikes or something? That's what you do with heads, right? I mean, we could, but I'm going to be honest with you, sir. It's a real mess in there. They've been all smooshed in a basket for like, well, a while, you know, and honestly, it looks like someone tried to bread a bunch of bowling balls.

Hmm. Gross. Yeah, never mind. Just throw them out, I guess. Oh, got it. Anything else? Oh, tell all the followers of Baal that we're going to have a big ball party. Really?

I thought you ended that Jewish god. Oh, I am. It's a trap. See, we're going to trick them here, and then we're going to kill them all and burn all their statues and turn their temple into a toilet. Oh. Oh, you got it, sir. If I may say something,

sir. Yeah, yeah, what's up? You, uh, well, you seem kind of like a wrap-up character, sir. I seem like a what now? Well, you know, when there's a badly written show or movie that's got a lot of bad guys, so ten minutes before they end,

they just hire, like, Jason Statham to kill everyone so that the movie can end in a bow. You know, it feels like that. Well, it's not like that. Oh, really? Well, what are you going to do when you kill all the followers of Baal? You're going to kill a bunch

of people and then die? Oh, no. No, you're going to kill a bunch of people, then die. Yes. And sure enough, after Jehu is done killing a bunch more of Ahab's sons, the time comes for him to die. Oh, Lord. Now that I'm old and dying,

did I do a good job? Yes, I am very pleased. Your children to the fourth generation will be kings of Israel. Oh, nice. I gotta tell you, I was starting to think that this book was just gonna be the same cycle of you getting mad at the king, someone kills that king, then you get mad at the new guy, over and over again. And this shows that that cycle can be broken. You're not gonna get mad at me at the end and curse my whole family and the people of Israel. Right? Did I mention your family will be kings for four generations? God damn it.

Then that, yes. Grandma Atalaya, Grandma Atalaya, our father Ahaziah is dead. Oh, you poor things. Come give Granny a hug. We love you, Grandma. Getting needle in your brain. Boom, Grandma. Get a needle in your brain. Ah! Boom, baby! Grandma Athaliah is king now!

I think you mean queen. Whatever! Butterscotch is for everybody! All right, everybody, gather around. As you've heard by now, Grandma Athaliah went full Andrea Yates. Yikes! What yikes? Oh, it feels a little soon full Andrea Yates. Yikes. What yikes? Oh, it feels a little soon.

Way too soon. A third of our audience is Googling that right now. Anyway, we are having the kids she didn't murder over for dinner tonight. So if anybody tries to murder them, grab them. Understood? Got it. Yeah, you got it. Just saying, some of us were very affected by the Andrea Bates thing.

Oh, you were 13 years old. You didn't have a mentally ill mom! Grandma Athaliah, thanks so much for coming. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. I see you brought your blood-soaked knitting needles. I sure did. You never know when you're gonna need them. Right, right. Speaking of which when you're going to need them.

Right, right. Speaking of which, you remember your grandson, Joash, right? Oh, I sure do. Come here, little fella. Let me just... Hi, hi. Okay, yeah, you can do that. Come give Granny a hug. Yeah, okay, okay. Nope, nope, nope, nope, not, don't do that. Anyway, Grandma Athaliah, we were going to make Joash king tonight. Oh, no, you don't, you little bastard. Come here.

No. Get her. I got her. I got her. I got her. Okay. I got her. Now take her outside, you know.

Smurf, smurf. Sorry, sir. Smurf, smurf. You know, K-I-L-L her. I can spell. I'm seven. I can spell that word. Oh, you're fine. Just-L-her. I can spell. I'm seven. I can spell that word. Oh, you're fine.

Just take her out and kill her. Never! I'll put you out of this bed! You hear me? To the last man! Come on. Come get murdered. So, Joash.

Yeah. You excited to be king? No. Smart kid. Okay. So, meanwhile, King Jehoash is trying to get his... Sorry, Jehoash? Is that the little kid? I thought he had a different name.

He did. That's Jehoash. He's a different king. How many kings of Israel are there? At this point, two. How could there be multiple kings of Israel? Well, because all of Israel isn't the same country yet. They're still kind of spread out oh that's why it's called two kings not two king no all right well what happened to the kid uh he gets murdered by his servants what i had huge plans for that character hey he what what's going

on the kid dies get the fuck out of here. He died? Noah just told me. Okay. Are we still doing The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow? We can't. The kid's dead. Seriously?

We practiced for so long. I bought a wig and everything. I know you did. I saw. See, this is why you got to read ahead. I told you. It's all wasted, everything we did. Anyway, Jehoash is a good king, but he's having trouble with his high priests.

Uh, you wanted to see us, your highness? Yes. The people are still worshiping other gods in their high places. I need you to collect some money so we can rebuild God's temple. Uh, like, door to door? You want us to do that, door to door? I don't, I don't know. Just ask around.

Put up a sign. Somebody will find it. Um, doesn't that seem like it's going to destroy our credibility to, like, beg money for God? No, no. It won't. Don't be silly. I feel like it will. All right, fine. I'll just stop paying you guys and we'll put a collection box by the altar. Problem solved.

I don't know your highness are you sure this isn't going to be like the biblical basis of a trillion dollar grift that combines taking money from the most vulnerable with using members of a religion as slave labor for the next 4 000 years what are the chances of that sure yeah it yeah, it's all good. Yeah, it's probably fine. Don't worry about it. So then there are some more kings who are anointed. And they do evil in the sight of the Lord. They die as a result. And now it's time for Elisha to die.

King Joash, come to me. Wait, I thought you said Joash died. We cut the musical. No, he dies. They say he dies in the last chapter, but he's not dead yet in this one. So is he a little kid? No, he's a grown-up now. This book needs

a thing at the front that tells you who everybody is. This book is the thing at the front that tells you who everybody is. You know, that's a fair point. Anyway, Joash. Yes, Elisha. Shoot an arrow out the window for me. Okay. Did you hear that?

That is a sign from God that you will defeat the Syrians. Sorry, what would have been a sign from God that I wasn't going to defeat the Syrians? It's not the point. It's not the point. Just take your arrows and strike the ground. Do you want to tell me what this is a sign of? Will you please just do it? I'm doing a deathbed thing right now. Okay, okay, okay.

Oh, just... You're just going to do the three times? You didn't tell me how many times to do it. Okay, well, you should have done more than three. Now you're only going to smite the Syrians three times. You could have done, like, I don't know, five or six. Well, you could have told me that. I'm doing a death...

Okay, okay, okay. Anything else? Um, no. Okay, men, bury Elishisha in this grave right here you got a boss oh careful he's gonna touch that other body and then i'm alive holy shit did elisha tell you that was gonna happen no that dude has a weird array of powers. Yeah, tell me about it. And then like a lot more kings are anointed and Piscot often die. Like six chapters worth.

Damn. Does anything interesting happen to any of them? Literally nothing. Okay. Who's the next guy that has an interesting happen? Oh, that would be Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz. Okay, what's his deal? Okay, so unlike all the other kings before him,

he actually does destroy the idols in the high places, and he doesn't worship false gods. Nice, so? Well, he's authentically religious, and that means he's incredibly vulnerable to smack talk. I see. King Sennacherib of Asyria yes servant what do you want from me uh yeah we we got a letter from hezekiah the new king of israel he wants to know how much money for us to stop kicking his ass let's go 300 talents uh yes sir

that's a that's a good price sounds good right oh. But tell him not to trust his god because his god told me that we were supposed to invade him. And, like, spread that around with his people. Wait, but is that true? Nah, I'm just fucking with him. I don't know, sir. Do you think that's going to work? It totally worked! Why, God? Why have you forsaken us? Okay, okay, okay.

Everyone calm down. Calm. Yeah, I say calm down. Why? Stop ripping your clothes off. We're all going to go to Isaiah's house, and I'm sure he will work all of this out for us. Should we wear ashes and sackcloth just in case?

I mean, yeah, it couldn't hurt. Uh, your highness? Uh, hey, what's up? Yeah, so apparently the Jews spoke to their prophet Isaiah's house, and he told them that God told them that they were going to kick our asses. Right. God. Okay, well, tell them that I just spoke to God,

and he said he actually changed his mind, and now we're going to kick their asses. Right. God. Okay, well tell them that I just spoke to God and he said he actually changed his mind and now we're going to kick their asses. Did you though? Again, no. I mean, sir, honestly, how many times do you think that's going to work to keep doing that? Oh my God, it worked again! Oh, I'm totally going to talk to Isaiah right now! Hash is in sack lock?

Oh, Hash is in sack lock, yeah. So all this back and forth obviously pisses off God. So that night, the angels of God go to the Assyrian camp of 185,000 men. And when they woke up

in the morning, they were all dead. Wait, if they woke up in the morning, how were they dead? Yeah, right. But that's what the book says. It says, and when they arose early in the morning how were they dead yeah right but that's what the book says it says and when they arose early in the morning behold they were all dead corpses so like

zombies no we don't get zombies till later in the book oh but we do get zombies oh hell yeah ton of zombies at the end yeah that's true but to be fair at the rate we're going um you eli will definitely be dead so that's like five years from now, Heath. Is that what I said? Yeah. He's got a point. I mean, if you guys want a replacement for him, I'm good. Little soon, Don's still alive, still talking right here.

Yeah. Also, no. Okay. Well, I'm just saying the offer stands. Great. Great. Thank you. And with that rather melancholy timer set, we're going to to take a pause but we'll be back in a month

with even more bible peace before we put the bow on this week's episode i wanted to remind you that there's still time to pick up tickets for our live show in Toronto. VIP and platinum packages are sold out, but there are still general admission tickets available, which you'll find linked on the show notes. And yes, we're going to be doing the entire show in Canadian, so don't worry about the language barrier.

Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's Hot Friend Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half-sister show half sister show citation needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously I need to thank Heath Enright for being tall. Eli Bosney for being funny. Lucinda illusions for being awesome.

Andrew Torres for being informed and Don Ford for being here. I also want to thank a different Don for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. He sent that a while back, but something tells me those vaccination numbers haven't moved significantly in the interim. But most of all, of course I want to thank this week's best bipeds, Dustin, Tressa, John, Andy, Pants,

James, Ada, Stacey, J.A., John, Senior, Pachesis, Brandon, Brittany, Kiernan, Keith, Miko, and Johnny. Dustin, Tressa, Josh, Andy, Pants, and James, who are so bright you have to wear sunscreen to brainstorm with them. Ada, Stacey, J.A., John, Senior, Pachesis, and Brandon, whose opinions carry so much weight, NASA uses them for gravity assists. and Brittany, Kiernan, Keith, Miko, and Johnny, whose IQs are so high they're regulated by the FAA. Together, these 15 beautiful bastions of benevolence became our Bielsa Buds this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the strength, charisma, and dexterity

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or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScathingAdias.com. My job is weird. Yep. Yeah. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.