The Scathing Atheist - 484: Childish Things Edition

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

In this week’s episode, it’s a day in a week, so we have to talk about another church sex abuse cover up report. Also, Dave Warnock joins us to talk about his new memoir, Childish Things. --- 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: You can pick up a copy of Dave Warnock’s memoir here: https://www.amazon.com/Childish-Things-Memoir-Dave-Warnock/dp/B09RMBWZX1 (For signed copies, you can email Dave at [e-mail]) Check out Dave’s YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/DaveWarnockDyingOutLoud Learn more about the Gulf Coast Secular Assembly here: https://www.humaniststlh.com/assembly --- Headlines: The article the diatribe was about: https://onlysky.media/wgervais/a-treasured-atheist-idea-that-reason-undercuts-faith-just-doesnt-hold-up/ SBC report details rampant sex abuse coverups: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/ Archbishop bars Pelosi from communion over abortion stance: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/archbishop-bars-pelosi-from-communion-over-abortion-stance-this-will-backfire/ At ReAwaken America Tour, Trump-promoted 'Alien DNA' doctor says Joe Biden is dead and his body was replaced by demonic clone: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/the-reawaken-america-tour-is-the-start-of-qanon-2-0.html Taliban enforces order for Afghan women TV anchors to cover faces: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/22/afghan-women-tv-anchors-forced-to-cover-faces-under-taliban-order MI GOP candidate vows to ban contraception because “the Bible.” https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/michigan-gop-candidate-id-vote-to-ban-birth-control-it-should-not-be-legal/ and https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/02/michigan-republicans-give-terrifying-answers-on-a-landmark-contraception-case/ Preacher claims he “dissolved” his church’s tax-exemption for political gain: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/preacher-claims-he-dissolved-his-churchs-tax-exemption-for-political-gain/ --- This Week in Misogyny: More on SBC report: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/23/southern-baptist-sexual-abuse-culture-of-misogyny/ Pastor admits to “adultery” with a girl who was not an adult: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/church-embraces-pastor-who-admits-to-affair-despite-victim-saying-she-was-16/

Warning, even the profanity warning is going to have some fucking profanity this week. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by honey and by money. Just worth pointing out quick while it's still Matreon. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Howdy, I'm Rosrae Powers. I'm a voice actor and I really love reading audiobooks. You should let me read yours. I'm here to tell you that trans rights are human rights, and we absolutely evolved from filthy monkey folks. It's Thursday.

It's May 26th. And it's Asparagus Day. It's my favorite of the Holland Days. Holland Days. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Buzzi. It's a sauce that often goes on asparagus. I'm Heath Enright.

And from Donald Trump's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Waycross, Georgia this is the Scathing Atheist this week's episode, we promised the jokes get better after hollandaise no we don't, that joke was amazing, that's on record and it's a day again, so we have another church sex abuse report to talk about the first, the diatribe.

Ever since we started the show, I've dealt with a steady stream of you-ain't-so-smart articles about atheism in my inbox. There are a number of liberal media organizations that are falling all over themselves to present the argument that atheists are just as bad as religious people at whatever. Doesn't fucking matter. The liberal idea of embracing diversity often wins out against the progressive ideal of honestly assessing what problems we face. So a number of outlets have tossed out some pretty flimsy arguments that try to knock us arrogant atheists down a peg. So when I see a headline like,

the treasured atheist idea that reason undercuts faith just doesn't hold up, my inclination is to roll my eyes. But when I see that the byline on said article is Will Gervais, it gives me pause. Okay, so for those unaware, Will Gervais is one of the top researchers in the world on the psychology of atheism. We've referenced his research a number of times on this show, and I've never seen any indication that he's an ideologue or that he's after anything but a better understanding of religious and irreligious

psychology. So when he writes an article with such a provocative headline that, by the way, pretty much directly contradicts the research he's most famous for, it behooves me to pay attention. Now, to be fair, after reading the article, I feel like the title does overstate the case, so much so that it's borderline clickbait. Okay, so the headline, again, is the treasured atheist idea that reason undercuts faith just doesn't hold up. That's not true. Reason very much undercuts believing in an invisible, undetectable, loving, omnipotent ghost daddy that's watching out for you, right?

That's true by definition, and nothing in the article even tries to undercut that fact. Instead, Gervais tackles the pervasive idea that rationality is sufficient to undercut faith. In other words, the idea that simply arming religious people with reason will be enough to undermine their religious preconceptions. What's more, he argues pretty convincingly that the science is on his side there. So let's start where his research started. 2010, Gervais and his advisor, Aaron Norenzayan, and I apologize if I'm pronouncing that wrong, published a paper in Science arguing that reason was, in fact, sufficient to undercut religiosity. They said that just arming people with rationality will lead them away from faith. But since then, enough researchers have failed to replicate those findings that both he and Norenzayan have disavowed that paper.

But despite that, it continues to be used by a lot of people in the atheist world as proof that atheism is the inevitable outcome of a rational worldview. The article I'm talking about, which you can find on OnlySky.com, by the way, is in many ways Gervais chastising we science-minded atheist commentators for not keeping up with the science. And as noble and important a goal as that is, in so doing, I'd say he overstates the case by enough that I have to point it out. Right. So in the 2010 paper, they tested two possibilities.

Right. And I'm just going to directly quote from the article, quote, first, that individual differences in rational thinking would predict atheism. And second, that experimental nudges to think more rationally would promote atheism. End quote. Now, in their paper, originally, they found support for both positions. Gervais and Norenzayan eventually disavowed those findings, but to be clear, only the latter proposition was actually disproven. Current research still shows that rationality can serve as a predictor of atheism, but even that correlation is significantly less robust than the original paper suggested. What's more, apparently it gets even smaller when you expand your sample outside of the U.S., and even more important to atheists who want to use it to undercut faith traditions,

it disappears entirely when you're talking about people who are heavily indoctrinated into religion as children. Now, I do need to add an important caveat that Gervais kind of tucks into a footnote. The studies he's basing those conclusions on mostly use the same measure for rational thinking. Other measures tend to show a much stronger correlation. Of course, the other measure he gives us an example is just asking people to subjectively rate their own rationality, which isn't great. But that's not the only other measure that shows a more robust correlation. And regardless, one's religiosity as near as i can tell is self-reported in all cases right so it's not like that wouldn't be

valid even if all it shows is that people who value rationality more are more likely to be atheists which self-reporting absolutely shows it undercuts the hell out of the blanket statement that quote rational atheism is more or less a myth, end quote, which he says in the article. Hell, that's kind of the thesis statement of the whole article. So, yeah, I think he overstates his case in the article, but that's not to say that he misstates his case. There's still a really important point at the heart of this whole thing. The idea that simple rationality will be sufficient to lead people away from faith is exactly why so many atheists get pissed when you start bringing social justice issues into atheist activism. It's why so many atheists think that we don't have to build welcoming communities, construct appealing narratives, or find affirmative

things to fight for. Gervais' early research has been used by a lot of prominent atheists to argue that all of that is window dressing to the larger goal of just getting people to snap the fuck out of their irrational beliefs. Reason isn't enough and it never was. I mean, many of us have stories and all of us have heard stories about how, you know, somebody used rationality to find their way to atheism. But if you ask religious people, I'm sure that they'll also share stories about rationality leading them to Jesus too. Lee Strobel's made a whole fucking career out of saying that. But if you examine those atheist stories about coming to atheism more closely, you're going to find that most of them have parallel stories about finding accepting communities online or otherwise that embrace that atheism.

You'll find, as often as not, that those stories are preceded by social pressure to move away from religion or to disavow their former beliefs. You'll find, in other words, that it wasn't just reason that lured them away. Look, there are a few groups that pride themselves more than movement atheists on following the science, and what the science is telling us is that it's going to take more than simply being right. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Lions and Tigers to my Bears, Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to get wild? J.K. Rowling is a homophobe.

Ben Shapiro is bad at sex. What game are we playing? Normally, the response is related to the setup, but that's okay. It doesn't have to be. Oh, did you do the cat noise? Oh, I did the cat noise. Okay.

Anyway, quick reminder, it's still May, which means it's still Patreon. There's still time to pledge your support over at patreon.com slash scathingatheist or to increase your pledge over there. Every new dollar gets us closer to another fun and or exciting goal for our patron only

pajama party live stream in July. But there is not much time left. So, you know, do that in our lead story tonight. The Southern Baptist Convention released a damning report on their decades long effort to cover up sex abuse on Sunday. The 300 page report was the result of a third party investigation that concluded abuse survivors were routinely ignored, minimized, and vilified by SBC leadership, which was clearly more concerned with protecting itself from lawsuits and public embarrassment than it was with protecting its members from sexual predators. And of course, the only shocking

aspect of the report is the fact that they released it. Well, that and the fact that anybody is shocked by it. At this point, when you apply for religious leadership in any denomination, Chris Hansen should step out from behind a curtain and ask you to have a seat. Right, yeah. Now, SBC leaders continue to argue that

their abuse scandal is unlike the Catholic Church's because the numbers are comparatively small. What? But that's a bunch of bullshit. First of all we raped fewer people than the catholic church is way shy of brag worthy yikes yeah they won't even make you the t-shirt right yes so weird flex not okay yeah secondly given how secretive you've been we have no way of knowing if that's true right but third the problem with this scandal here is the cover-up and

you would have covered up any amount right it's not like you would have got to a point where it's so much that you're like okay now we have to talk about it it's not about how much abuse there was it's whether you did anything about it when you found it other than covering your own ass and according to the report what they did was worse than nothing yep the words that the report used are quote resistance stonewalling and even outright hostility end quote it even quotes an email from longtime sbc leader august augie boto that describes the focus on sexual abuse as quote a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism end quote yeah the uh rape and torture of the victims is merely a smoke screen for the real enemy gay right yeah right sorry you covered

up all the sexual abuse because you were distracted by a goat demon is that what you said do you hear yourself yeah yeah so one of the big revelations in the report is that sbc leaders spent years telling abuse survivors and concerned members that they couldn't maintain a database of accused offenders because of the organization's polity well it turns out that not only did their legal team show them a way they could do that as far back as 2007 they actually were doing it. Seems simple. They were just keeping the database secret and not using it to prevent future abuse.

Okay, guys, the legal team told me to write it down like with a pen. I guess we'll try. Does our polity have pens? Yeah, spreadsheets. If they do,

I guess we could do it. Push this back to tomorrow. Yeah, but over and over again, you see them using the excuse that the sbc doesn't have authority over local churches but look like i don't have authority over local churches either but i'm still obligated to call the fucking cops if i find out one of their pastors is a rapist oh shit we are because statistically i feel like i should start calling the cops on catholic churches that's the case. Probably work. I mean, I'm very much anti stop and frisk to be clear.

But when it comes to clergy, it's just a numbers game, right? Like you got to draw a line somewhere. And of course, in a refrain that should be familiar to regular listeners, I want to emphasize that this report was commissioned and released by the SBC itself. When you see news stories say that this detailed two decades of abuse and cover-up it's worth remembering that two decades is how far back the sbc allowed the investigation to go right it's not like they just started doing this shit at the turn of the century yeah everyone reacted differently to 9-11 oh jesus christ what's more we have no idea what information was off

limits to investigators and what findings remain unreleased. In other words, as bad as this report is, the reality is worse. Yeah. And in Pelosi, what you did news. I'll admit it's pretty hard to surprise me with theocratic bullshit these days. Grizzled veteran of Pat Robertson, Kat Care, and Greg Locke that I am, it's rare that anything a religious leader says or does stirs my eyebrows. But I'll admit, even I find myself a little dumbfounded when leaders in the Catholic Church

pretend they still have a claim to any moral authority. Right? Yep. And the brows got a wiggling once again this week when San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordlione just announced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ineligible for communion because she supports abortion rights. Oh, you won't support us on forcing people to give birth, Nancy Pelosi? Well, then you can't have a priest feed you a triscuit like a baby bird during this pandemic. Oh, she's gone. She left. Okay. Yes.

In a very serious tweet that should be taken very seriously, Cardinal Fettuccine explained that, quote, after numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that she is not to be admitted to her own soul she is risking i have determined that she is not to be admitted to holy communion and well that tweet by the way was accompanied by a picture of him in a beautiful slim purple gown and popat so again very serious very important announcement yeah i'm like okay adults making i'm gonna take my ball and go home threats are always hard to take seriously.

As are any words spoken by a Catholic priest. As are any words spoken by a man upset because a woman won't call him back. This is like a convergent trifecta of asininity or something. All right, fine. Now I won't explain the blockchain from right next year. You're in loss. I won't then. Would have got you a Bud Light.

right next to your ear. You're in loss. I won't then. Would have got you a Bud Light. Now, I should clarify for any who aren't aware, this means nothing, right? Even if Pelosi lived and received communion

in Cardinal Macaroni's parish, he doesn't have the power to deny people communion. He's just a fucking administrator. So just to be clear, you giggled at the Italian name earlier because in your head, you're like,

I'm going to call him like macaroni. Oh, yeah. Made me so happy. Regular listeners to this show will remember that he and other archbishops tried to do something similar to Joe Biden earlier in the year. And then they had to be corrected by the fucking pope who was like, no, you guys don't get to do that shit. who was like, no, you guys don't get to do that shit. So this is a bullshit bigotry stance for no reason and of no consequence, which, you know, now that I actually say it, is actually pretty on brand for the Catholic Church.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, to be clear, even if their magic cracker meant something, this would mean nothing. One other thing about this story, Archbishop Mario Luigi, in case one were tempted to trust him as a moral authority. It's worth remembering that this guy is a staunch homophobe, despite the church's official stated positions. He opposed a California law that extended the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse to file lawsuits. And my personal favorite, he has a fucking DUi wow so like i don't know my man say what you will about nancy pelosi archbishop rigatoni but at least she can drive to work

without giving her car a blow job so and next up in headlines we have a story about the reawaken america tour and that means i'm gonna make noah and eli look at a photo of the organizer clay clark oh doing a literal finger steeple in the profile pic for his website that he chose okay i'm flipping the counter back to zero dude you're never getting anything out of the prize box look right at him look into his his eyes. Look into his soul. Scrolled past him already. So we've talked about the Reawaken America tour before, but for anyone who's not familiar, it started as a series of insane events

about Joe Biden stealing the 2020 election. But now it's evolved into something even worse than that. It's now being called the QAnon 2.0 tour because it's basically become like a like a swiss army conspiracy event with all the stupid shit americans believe just smushed into a traveling flea market with shitty speakers like roger stone and michael flynn it's got anti-vax lying it's got election lying of course christianity lying and there's a booth to sell you the fake thing from just about every single how bullshit is it segment we've ever done. That's true.

And last week it had doctor of alien sperm, Stella Emanuel, telling the crowd that Joe Biden is actually dead and his body is a clone made by Satan, the Prince of Darkness. Cool. Cool. his body is a clone made by satan the prince of darkness cool cool i know someone's always like how free should free speech be but like we can all agree it's not here right can we start with the president is a dead body lady and then move i could not disagree more like that lady is an honest to god doctor she is though i like that we all have an opportunity to hear exactly how stupid she is in advance of her like showing up at our colonoscopy or something you know what i'll wait i will wait on she should have required free speech yeah absolutely knocking on doors hi i just moved into your neighborhood and when you google me, but not other stuff comes up.

So the latest stop on the Reawaken America tour was Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And thanks to some excellent work by journalist Laura Jadid, we got a glimpse into the insanity. She dressed up in her best pleated jeans and went undercover as a Christian right boomer to check it out and wrote a great piece in New York magazine. Check out the article if you want the full deep dive, but I'll give you some of the highlights just to give you an idea of this tour. It's ridiculous. I'll start with anti-vax activist Christopher Key, who goes by the name Vaccine Police. He spent the weekend carnival barking about his products including a shiny sticker that quote neutralizes the harmful and enervating frequencies of your cell phone okay and also a device you wear around your neck that looks like glade plug-in that creates an invisible four-foot bubble of purified air around your body he was selling both both of those. It looks like a vape

binky. But somehow it's too childish to be a binky. It's weird. Yeah, exactly. To be clear, that's the pee drinking guy too. Same guy who did the urine therapy video. So here's my favorite part of the event. According to Laura Jadid,

a major theme for all the speakers was telling the crowd like really sadly, yeah, so my entire family hates me and says everything i believe is stupid and dangerous probably the same for all of you out there anyway the bar's open enjoy like that was that was the theme of every speech here's the exact words from q anon influencer scott mckay also known as the Patriot Street Fighter. We've mentioned him a couple times before. Yes. Quote, I've been losing my friends, losing my family over all this.

I've heard all that. Let me explain something to you. The birth canal is only the entry point. It's not your family. Look around you. Here's your ascendant family family this is the one that counts end quote so like i'm glad these people can't see their grandkids they're estranged from their families that's good but big picture this event is combining all the worst things about america

into like a voltron of lies in the form of a cult let's be honest yeah i know everyone says it's bad to have, you know, thought crimes. You're not supposed to make thought crimes and things, but maybe we should have a few thought crimes. This event is a really good argument in favor of a few thought crimes. Thank you.

Heath and I on the same page. Yes. Right. Well, I got to be honest with you. I assumed that he was like, this was him finding out the birth canal is not an exit and everything. So while I breathe a sigh of relief of what it turned out to be, we're going to pause for a quick break and hand things over to my lovely wife, Lucin.

A man wrote the Bible. A whore is what's fun. If it's a legitimate race. It's a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in Massage. I'm proud of a man. This Week in Misogyny. So look, I know Noah already talked about the report on the Southern Baptist Convention sex abuse cover-up, but there's a lot more to be said on the issue. Because while a lot of it was certainly about image control and litigation avoidance,

I'd say old-fashioned misogyny played a larger role than either of those things. The heart of the issue, if you read the report, seems to be the assumption that women reporting the abuse were lying, willing, or somehow deserved it. That's the only way to reconcile the demonic response that they got from SBC's leadership. So to be clear, unlike the familiar reports we've seen out of the Catholic Church, this one isn't primarily about pedophilia. Again, that may well be because the SBC just didn't provide pedophilia information to the investigators. So let's not take that as some indication of innocence. All right. But what we have in this 300 page report is a compendium of raped, assaulted and abused women coming forward again and again and being not just ignored, but demonized.

again and again and being not just ignored but demonized when victims banded together to try to push through their official stonewalling they were literally accused of being instruments of satan and yeah they were trying to do damage control sure but do any of us honestly believe that men complaining about sexual abuse by priests would have been treated the same way take the example of krista brown a victim who addressed the SBC's bylaw work group. According to the report, some members of the executive committee opposed allowing her to speak at all. And when she did, one member, quote, turned his back to her during her speech and another chortled, end quote. It also talks about the same group referring to victims as Potiphar's wife, a character in the Bible who makes false rape accusations? Or how about this quote from the SBC's then president, Frank Page, who wrote back in 2007,

quote, please be aware that there are groups that are nothing more than opportunistic persons who are seeking to raise opportunities for personal gain, end quote. And here's the fucked up thing. If they were just saying that shit as an excuse to ignore or equivocate, it would actually be better. But I think they honestly believe it. I think Christian leaders are so inherently misogynistic that they can't help but assume that the woman is somehow guilty whenever she accuses a man of anything whatsoever. Hell, in many ways, their Bible demands it. And in every way, the dominant culture of Protestants demand it. In fact, let me follow that up with an example that doesn't come from the SBC's

report. Instead, this comes to us from last Sunday at the New Life Christian Church in Warsaw, Indiana. A pastor by the name of John B. Lowe, yes, that's his real name, confessed to his congregation that he'd engaged in the terrible sin of adultery 20 years earlier. But after his confession, the woman on the other end of that so-called adultery took the stage. And it turns out that adultery was a damn kind way of putting it because she was 16 years old at the time. Now, the whole thing is on video and it's some very powerful shit. The victim here was as brave as hell in her denunciation of love. I'll link to it online, but first let me spoil the tragic ending. After the congregation heard a pastor admit to adultery and a woman explained

that we call that form of adultery statutory rape, the congregation very clearly chose the pastor, even after he admitted that she was indeed 16 at the time. The problem isn't this leader or that policy. The problem is a culture of misogyny that traces its roots back 2,000 years and then some. As always, the problem is religion. Speaking of which, that's my cue to hand things back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda. And in It's a Dirty Hijab, but Someone's Gotta Do It news.

You know, it's been a little easy to lose track over the last couple of years. What with all the Christians snagging up all the terrorism for themselves here in the United States. But it's worth remembering that Islam also sucks. Sure does. Bad religion does bad stuff, literally, whenever it's in power. And we got another reminder of that this week when Afghanistan's Taliban rulers started to enforce a new order requiring all female TV news anchors in the country

to cover their faces while on air. Oh, okay. Was that COVID safety or um misogyny which yeah or or maybe it was one of those things where you have to subscribe to our only fans to see her face yeah maybe so this rule was put into place on thursday by afghanistan's new vice and virtue ministry let me pause for a second so the supreme court justices in the audience could take notes and while the rule was ignored for the first couple of days, while networks tried to see if there was room for disagreement. So what network executive was like, OK, can the fundies just tie

a mask around their fucking TV? No. Send them a sticker. Well, it became clear that that wasn't the case. And by Sunday, all female anchors were covered now oddly the taliban did say that female anchors could wear surgical masks instead of traditional face veils if they wanted to okay and to the network's credit this is what all the male anchors did this weekend in solidarity with their female counterparts yeah okay well okay so you can pretend it's about covid magic but it's really about being courteous to potential rapists for their sake cool cool google well it's about COVID magic, but it's really about being courteous to potential rapists for their sake. Cool. Cool. What's so fucked up

is that somewhere in some Taliban boardroom or whatever, the guy who came up with that idea got a pat on the back for being progressive, right? Great job, Steve. Great job. You're woke. We always say that about you here at the Taliban. Woke Steve, right?

Yeah. I just want to point out that this is actually just one of the many promises the Taliban has gone back on. When they first took over, they assured international and local human rights advocates that things like forced dress codes and girls not being allowed to go to school, all those were things of the past. And over the last month, they've done both of those things right there is now a head-to-toe dress code for women and girls are no longer allowed to attend school after sixth grade it's like you can't even trust the jihadists anymore it's so fucked up yeah so this is all obviously horrible but it's also a warning and i think less and less of us need this warning but it's worth repeating.

Religious extremists, whatever their stripe, will take exactly the amount of power we allow them to have and not a millimeter less. Yeah, and they'll do scary as fuck shit with it. And in contraception deception news tonight, Republican candidate for the Michigan State House, Jackie Eubanks, became the latest GOP candidate to admit that once they're done with abortion, they're coming after contraception next. When asked if she would vote to outlaw contraception in a recent interview, Eubanks offered an emphatic yes, explaining, quote, it should be illegal. And I think that people that birth control is better sick because, oh, they you won't get pregnant and you won't need to have an abortion what's happening but i think it gives people the false sense of security that they can have consequence-free sex and that's not true end quote okay to be fair at least one consequence of sex one time was jackie eubanks so she's got a point yeah jack Eubanks is plan c at best yeah but she's a great argument

in favor of contraception so yeah this came on a show fittingly titled the church militant she just finished explaining that gay marriage promotes a culture of death and saying that successful societies can't exist outside of a Christian moral order when host Michael Forrest asked her about contraception and to be clear he seemed pretty sure he was offering up a softball and that she would say no. Right. His question was, quote, how do you answer the local press person who might be your age and sees you as some loony who wants to take away our birth control in the state of Michigan? End quote. And her answer was like, yes, i am exactly such a loony that is a correct of you yes all right jackie let's just call that one a mulligan okay i'm gonna put my question on this t for you right here masturbation is genocide okay okay well and look we should point out that

she's not exactly alone in michigan's republican party in a february debate between the state's three republican candidates for attorney general the moderator closed by asking where they stood on griswold v connecticut and after a bit of embarrassed shuffling while they admitted that they don't actually know what that case is offhand right yeah right why would you want your attorney general to be more informed than three random fucking podcasters? But eventually when they got clued in, all three of them argued that it was wrongly decided because it trampled states' rights. What? That is, the right of the state to tell that they get the outcome they want and controlling other people's sex lives is exactly the outcome they want.

Who the fuck is? And finally, tonight in Lock Him Up News, we have a story about hate pastor and biological terrorist Greg Locke. and biological terrorist Greg Locke. And when I say biological terrorist, I'm talking about his very active campaign to spread COVID during a COVID pandemic, but also about the EPA hazmat site of his discarded Dunkin' Donuts containers. It's just diabetes waiting to happen. Yeah, absolutely.

There's a giant diabetes just right there. It's like a big bubble or something. It's a diabetes. Yeah. So last week, we talked about Greg Locke's announcement to his flock that you cannot be a Christian and a Democrat at the same time. And that is a direct violation of the Johnson Amendment that says tax exempt nonprofit groups can't tell people how to vote. tell people how to vote so in response to having that explained to him lock announced last week that he dissolved his church's tax exemption with the irs at which point all his critics including myself were like yeah okay we are one step closer guys to him threatening to hold his breath until we stop making fun of him and that's's been the point all along. Yeah, okay, but when can I hold his breath

until we stop making fun of him? It's about integrity, Greg. Stop struggling. Commit to the bit. So, here's the big announcement from Greg Locke. Quote, I want everybody to pay real close attention. I almost brought the document.

I was going to burn it right here on national television, but it ain't worth catching our tent on fire, which I mean, doesn't that seem avoidable? Like one piece of paper. Also, he's not on national television. Does he think he's on national television?

I think he does. I think he streams it. Also, also disagree. Continuing. So guess what I did this week? I got an attorney and I dissolved our stinking 501c3. Because the government ain't going to tell me what I can say and what I can't say.

We don't need your stupid tax exempt status. You can put it in a bag and burn it in your front yard for all we care. I renounce 501c3 communism. What? So we'll say what we want to, Skippy Lou. What? Okay, I do love that catchphrase. And the IRS and the FBI can eat my dirty socks on live TV.

End exact quote. Okay, that's probably the weirdest kink he's ever admitted to by accident not definitely but probably yeah top five yeah for certainly top five so in response to this i don't know it's the opposite of a bluff what is there in response to whatever that was the irs said nothing nothing because his big impactful protest is apparently obeying the law for what he believes to be spite but if they did respond they'd say something like hey greg uh first of all that's not how paper works it's not magical paper like what were you gonna print the email from us and then burn it that it doesn't matter either way thanks for giving us money

that's what you just did and uh please send over enough dirty socks for the entire fbi and irs to eat some that's like 110 000 people love skippy lou yeah also worth noting that it isn't at all clear that his church ever was a 501c3 to begin with. No. Probably because he seems to think tax statuses are obtained by declaring them into the ether or through some fire-based ceremony or something. Right. And worth noting that churches don't need to be 501c3s not to pay taxes.

Okay. So when Greg Locke gives up his status as a church in a snit and starts paying the same taxes as a bagel shop, then, Greg, then I'll be impressed, buddy.

I don't know if I'd be impressed. Exactly. I'm still not impressed. And confident that Eli Bostic will never be impressed with Greg Locke either.

I suppose we can close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Skippy-loo. And when we come back, Dave Warnock will be here to talk about his life for a change. Today's episode is sponsored by Honey. Okay, try Spring 10. All right, Spring 10.

Nope. Fall 10. Summer 10. Winter 10. No, it's none. Nope. Fall 10, summer 10, winter 10. No, it's none of them. I tried that. Dang it. Hey guys, what you doing? We're shopping online.

It's super frustrating. I'm sure I got an email from this website with a coupon code, but I can't find it and I can't remember what it is. Well, why don't you guys just try Honey? We are trying, bae. No, no, Honey. Honey is the free shopping tool that scours the internet for promo codes and applies the best one it finds to your cart.

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No, I don't think that one either. Boo. Boo. Boo. Yeah. Hey, podcast listener. With the end of Madrian just one week away, we'd like to take one last opportunity to thank those of you who support our show.

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That's M-A-Y-T-R-E-O-N dot com. His real name is Come On. It was so close to just being a nice thing. What? It is. I was like a reward. I'm excited to welcome tonight's guest back to the show. Dave Warnock spent decades as an evangelical pastor before finally finding his way to atheism. And after receiving a devastating ALS diagnosis in 2019, he set about sharing his experiences with the atheist community in his Dying Out Loud tour. Now, ever since we first spoke to him on episode 351 of this show, we've had a number of listeners reach out wanting to hear more of his story.

Well, good news. He has a new memoir out called Childish Things, a memoir, and he's here with me to talk about it tonight. So, Dave, welcome back to The Scathing Atheist. Hey, Noah. So good to be back with you Scathing Atheist. Hey, Noah. So good to be back with you, man. Yeah, great to have you back. So let's start with the cover here. Tell me about the title, Childish Things.

What is that in reference to? Well, it's taken from a scripture in 1 Corinthians, as the former guy says. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I understood like a child. But when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I understood like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. So I kind of played off of that. And the term for me means essentially me waking up and growing up at a very late age and putting away childish thinking, that ideology, that fairy tale ideology that evangelicalism embraces. So that's the long and short of it.

I thought it was a pretty catchy title. Yeah, for sure. It's always been a source of amusement for me that that quote exists within the Bible. I know, right? It's kind of like, do you not see the disconnect here? Anyway, let me tell you about my magic friend that grants wishes. Yeah, exactly. So this is a question I ask of pretty much every author that I bring on the show.

Who is this book for in your mind? It's really, I've gotten really a ton of very, very positive feedback. And people have said to me that they're sharing it with their deconverted friends, obviously, and family members, but they're also sharing it with people who are still in faith. And so I guess the short answer to that is I wrote it for myself, basically as a cathartic measure to process my whole story. But my audience, if I had to pick an audience for it, it would be people who want to fully understand

the nuances of not only faith, but more specifically, the evangelical fundamentalist type of faith from which I came. That was the water I swam in, and that was what I was familiar with. So that's what I talk a lot about, not only my journey out of that, but really, I spend a lot about not only my journey out of that, but really I spend a lot of time talking about my journey into it and my years within it as not only a pastor on staff at churches, but as a lay person doing other entrepreneurial things I did throughout my life. So that's, I hate to say it's for a broad audience, but it kind of really is in that sense. Well, you know, of course, I don't really come broad audience, but it kind of really is in that sense. Well, you know, of course, I don't really come out of Christianity. I was never really a Christian. Right. And while I was reading it, I felt that for the first time, I sort of understood how a person winds up a Jesus freak.

Exactly. And I had a good friend of mine who actually wrote the foreword, Cass Midgley. He was also a pastor in Oklahoma. And he said it really gave him, it helped him to forgive himself for being sucked into that fairytale world. as ex-evangelicals coming out of that with the idea that, my God, what was I thinking? How could I have ever done that? But like you said, and like I said, I've heard from other people who said it really helped them understand what that's all about and how someone could get drawn into that because I really was a genuine believer who thought that I was doing the work of God's kingdom and that Jesus was going to return any day and I had to save souls. All of that was very authentic for me. And I think I did a pretty good job of expressing that so much so that someone like you who never lived in it could kind of understand it, as you say. That's helpful to hear that, actually.

Well, yeah, I feel like if the right person had come along at the exact right time in my life, I could see following a path very much like yours. Yeah. So I think it would be tough for any of us to take a look back over our lives as honestly, as unflinchingly, and as unflatteringly sometimes as you do in this book. So I have to ask, what was the hardest aspect of writing it for you? Well, I did try to be very honest and I've been told by many people that I threw myself under the bus many times. And I did that on purpose because I didn't want to back off from the parts of my life that were unflattering, as you said. And I was told by the person who helped me write it, who's an English professor and creative writing professor. And the first rule of memoir writing

is tell the fucking truth. And I knew that it wouldn't be authentic if I didn't tell the truth. And that had to include the good, the bad, and the ugly. So really, if you ask what's the hardest part of writing it, it's the idea that I'm going to be exposing myself and walking out naked on the stage in front of however many people end up reading it. And that can be a bit disorienting, to be honest with you. Oh, I bet. Yeah. So, okay, I'm going to be honest with you. As a more or less lifelong atheist, I often forget that Christian people become Christian. Right. Right?

Like, I just always kind of assume they're born into it. They go to church as a kid, and then they just grow up, and they're already Christian. But even for those people, there's usually a moment where they go from being Christian to being, like, really Christian. So can you tell the audience a little bit about how you wound up a Jesus freak? Yeah, it was primarily someone who comes into it. I mean, a lot of people that we've known have been born into it, as you know. But then there are those like me who came into it. I was 18 years old and many people come into it. Not many, but some people come into it through

youth groups and college campus ministries and things like that. There's almost always an influencer, someone in your life, in your world that is an authority figure or a trusted figure, a family member, a good friend who influences you to become a Christian. That was the case for me. In my case, it was my older brother who had gotten caught up in the Jesus movement a year before me. And so he was having a very heavy influence on me. When you're in that world, evangelical means to evangelize. And so anybody who's serious about their faith is doing everything they can to persuade the people around them to become like them, to be born again, to be saved. And so my brother devoted a good deal of energy toward that for me. And so, you know, he was able to put a notch on his belt when I got saved.

And so there's always someone who is drawing you in, so to speak, usually at a very vulnerable time. You know, when kids go to college, they're vulnerable and exposed and a little bit afraid when kids are going into youth groups in high school, death of family members, addictions, things like that. When someone's vulnerable and exposed, that's when the claws of faith can get their toehold on you. All right. So several times in the book, you talk about various people that you knew who were counting on a miracle, whether that was to heal their paraplegia, bring a loved one back from the brink of death, or eradicate their cancer.

Now, in the book, you say that even as a Christian, you had some trepidation about that. You said you believed in the power of prayer, but you were also a realist. Yeah. Now, to these atheist ears, that sounds like a bit of a contradiction. So, can you tell me, what did that mean? What did it mean to believe? What did you think was possible through the power of prayer? Well, we're taught to believe that anything is possible. You're told, because the Bible says so, with God all things are possible.

So you're taught to believe that the Bible is true, every word of it's true, and that you can count on it to be accurate in all of its application. So there's this constant disconnect. And that's what I tried to expose in the book was the lifelong disconnect between what I was told and what I was taught to believe. Because I did believe that the Bible was inerrant and accurate and true in everything it said, that it was the infallible word of God. But when your experience continues to come up against that and conflict with that, then you're left with this cognitive dissonance experience, because the thing I'm experiencing is not measuring up to what the Bible says I should be experiencing and to what my understanding of God is. We're told that God answers prayer,

and that you can pray for mountains to be moved and cast into the sea and the seed of faith, like the seed of a mustard, as small as that is, can move mountains. So you have this feeling and understanding and learning that God wants to answer your prayer and then it doesn't happen over and over and over again. So you have to try to make peace with that. And so that's what I tried to illustrate throughout the stories in my book, the real life stories that happened, is that how is this measuring up? And so what it came out to look like by the end of it is that the series of events continued to expose God's lack of involvement. And I had to double down and push them aside and move on somehow and make sense of it. But in the back

of my mind, it never made sense. And there never was an answer for it. And so I just had to plunge ahead because then I had the sunk cost fallacy and I was so far in until finally it just toppled over. And I like to say I ran out of excuses to believe and I got tired of making excuses for God's poor behavior. And that's the final result of it. So one of the things that really stood out to me in the book was how sympathetic you were to the people who pushed you towards the life of an evangelical, the people who kept you in that life, the people who perpetuated some of the, let's say, potentially damaging beliefs there.

You say in the preface that there are no good guys or bad guys in your story. I feel like I could have pointed to a few bad guys. So I think it's high-minded not to burden your story with blame, but it also seems like fighting against the toxicity of modern Christianity might be a lot harder if we're hesitant to point fingers and say, okay, that person is a villain of Christianity. So how do you reconcile that in your mind? Well, I think the best way for me to do it was to let the reader like you draw their own conclusions about good guys and bad guys. I wanted to come at it from a standpoint of taking responsibility for my own life.

And that's what I tried to do is just say, you know what? No one coerced me. No one forced me. I was a willing participant in this life. And I did it. I did it of my own volition. And I did it for all the right reasons in my mind. I did it of my own volition and I did it for all the right reasons in my mind.

I like to say that I've adopted Maya Angelou quote, which says, do the best you can do until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. And this part of my life now in the writing of this memoir is my effort to do better. But I don't want to villainize the people in my story. I think the reader can, like you said, draw their own conclusions as to who behaved poorly and who didn't. I just wanted to tell my story as authentically and honestly as I could and let the reader make their own decisions about the people in the story. That sounds about right. Okay. So now I fear that given what we've said so far about the book,

you know, this is a book about you spending decades mired in church politics and then regretting the time that you spent there and, of course, ultimately getting diagnosed with a terminal disease. And that could leave a lot of people with the impression that this is going to be a very heavy read. I really didn't find it to be that at all. In fact, I thought there were some genuinely funny moments that really highlighted the absurdity of the evangelical worldview. Along those lines, can you share with the listeners your story of saving 27 souls in Russia? Yeah, to Russia with love. That was a disconcerting moment, even while I was living in it. And when I got on the plane and came back, and I talked about that in that chapter, I really did feel those things. Like I should be feeling more excited about leading these children in a prayer of salvation than I really am,

because I knew that they didn't know any better. In the back of my mind, I mean, to the evangelical theological framework, a mindset, I led those children into a prayer of salvation. They were destined for heaven now, whereas before they were destined for hell. That's the evangelical mindset with which we lived. And so I should have been ecstatic that God used me, his little servant from America coming across the world to formerly communist Russia and saving these souls and pointing them toward heaven. I should have been over the moon about that. But there was a mental disconnect back deep in my mind, even in that moment, knowing that

that was bullshit. And that was the disconnect that I tried to expose all throughout the book, that these moments kept happening throughout my life that should have been different than they were if all of this was true. And it just was a real mental mindfuck, if you will, to be thinking that on an airplane flying back to America when I should have been polishing my heaven badges on my belt, and I just wasn't. And it felt that way in the moment. And it was just a real disconcerting emotional experience, to be honest. Now, there's a part of your book where once you really start to question your commitment to Christianity, re-examine your faith, as you

were talking about earlier, you talk about Christians who ask questions with predetermined answers, as opposed to the questions that you were asking at that point. So, what are questions with predetermined answers? Can you give me some examples? Well, is there a God, for instance? Within Christianity, they like to make big noise about, hey, doubts are good. Doubts are good. They'll help you seal your faith. You'll come out of your questioning, doubting phase stronger in your belief. Well, that's a predetermined outcome when you approach it that way. So they like to pretend that they're encouraging you to ask the hard questions and to raise your doubts. But when you really look at them and say, you know what, I'm going to question whether any of this is really true or not,

they'll come back at you with, okay, be careful now. Don't go down that road. That's a little dangerous. That's a slippery slope. So they encourage questions up to a point, but not beyond that. It's like, okay, you can go take a look at this building, but don't go in it because it might be bad what you find in there. but go ahead and walk around the outside of this building and examine it and tell us what you find. But there are always these off limits questions. I remember I talked about it in the book where I started reading some contraband books. My brother, the pastor, and his wife were freaking out about the kind of books I was reading. And the librarian says, do you really want to check that out?

And that really happened. I mean, these people were freaking out that you're going to read books that might really cause you to question your faith. Well, if they're confident in the answers and in the conclusion that I'll come to, why the hell are you afraid of me reading anything? Yeah, you know, that was one of the first things I think that really got me raising my eyebrows about Christianity. I grew up in a very Christian small town in Georgia, and there were two bookstores, both had Christian bookstore on the sign, and there were certain books that they just wouldn't even order for you.

Yeah. Right? And this was, of course, before there was an internet, so you could just go to Amazon and get it or whatever. So, you know, that whole, like, yes, we're very confident that we have the right answer. Now, don't read what anyone else has to say. Exactly. And that should raise anyone's awareness. Okay, what are you hiding here? What's behind the curtain?

So now, as with anybody who comes out of evangelical Christianity as late as you did in life, especially from as far in as you were, you had to give up an awful lot on your way out. Is there one thing that stands out to you as the hardest part about giving up your faith? Yeah, the loss of relationship with my two daughters. One of them still maintains distance from me. The other one has repaired a bit in the last year, year and a half. That was a difficult part of my journey. That disconnect started while I was still a Christian when the church encouraged them to shun me. That's late in the book as well. But even when that started getting repaired, and by then I was on my way out of faith, and when I shared that with them,

it really caused a big rift in that. And I lost a lot of friends and a lot of connection with family. And it was just, I came to a point where I had to decide, was I going to be an authentic person or was I going to try to dampen that down a little bit in order to maintain relationships? So initially that was a very high cost to pay, So initially, that was a very high cost to pay. But the flip side of that and the return that I got was being able to I would have stayed hidden in a bubble and not allowed myself to open up and become honest and authentic. So it's a trade-off as most things in life are, but that was the most difficult part of the transition. Well, like I said, I thought it was a really valuable book. I'm glad that you wrote it. I'm

glad that I read it. I guess the only question I have left is, what's next for Dave Warnock? Yeah, that's a good question, Noah. You know, when I started this Dying Out Loud journey a little over three years ago, I did a prognosis for ALS can be pretty bleak. I didn't know if I'd be alive or able to talk at this point, but I learned that I have a pretty slow progressing form of this disease. So I'm going to keep doing the stuff I'm doing. I've got a YouTube show that I do every Monday night. I'm going to write another book

about the Dying Out Loud journey, more of an inspirational kind of book that I've gotten so many messages from people all around the world that have reacted in ways to my journey that I just didn't predict. And it's been very heartwarming and rewarding to see this final chapter of my life play out. So I'm going to keep writing that chapter as long as I can and doing the things I'm doing, you know, going to speak at conferences and secular groups. I love doing that. I love connecting with people. I just, I'm going to keep soaking up the moments as long as my body will allow me. That's pretty much

what I have on the agenda for the rest of Dave Warnock's life. Awesome, man. Awesome. And what's the name of the YouTube show? Oh, it's That GD Show. By the way, we're going to have you on soon if you'll come. I want to have you as a guest. We have guests on. It's a live call-in show. We have guests on. We had Hemant Mehta on last night, and we just have conversations with interesting guests and talk about important topics and take calls. It's a lot of fun.

Awesome. I'd be honored to be a part of it. We'll get that scheduled. I've been happy. I've had you on my list for a while, brother. Excellent. All right. Well, Dave, it was an absolute delight to finally get to meet you in person at AACON this year. I really appreciate you hanging out with us today. Again, the name of the book is Childish Things. You'll find a link to buy a copy on the show notes for this episode,

along with a link to Dave's YouTube channel. Dave, thanks again for your time. Thank you, Noah. Glad to be here. Before we return to our boroughs this week, I wanted to let you know that I'm going to be speaking at the Gulf Coast Secular Assembly on Saturday, June 25th in Diffuniac Springs, Florida. That's all the hell way over to the central time zone portion of Florida's panhandle. Tickets are just 20 bucks.

And if you're going to be in the area, I would love to see you there. Check the show notes for links to more information. Anyway, that's all the Blast Movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more of Game Night. 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, Citation Dita,

debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'm not allowed to stop talking until I thank Heath Enright for hanging it all out there, Eli Bosnick for leaving some of it in there. Lucinda Lusions for continuing to put up with us. Dave Warnock for all the inspiration. And Rosrae Powers for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Incidentally, if you need some voice work done, just Google her name.

It's R-O-Z-R-A-E Powers. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most matriony-ific mammals. Brian Atheist, Percy Panzer, Roger, Amy, Jimmy, Psycho Ninja, Breadbasket Blast, Bill, Jamie, Tango, Michael, Jonathan, Daniel, Mary Beth, Ellie, Alice, Sigmund, Margaret, Andy, Marty, Captain Hammer, Dan, Lobster, Johnson, Rebecca, Aaron, you keep using that word, Ian, Wolfstar76,

Jared, Wes, The Wooden Dude, I Pooped Today, Jeff, Asking for a Self-Roast for V4C, Got Me Late, Tracy, Calamity Callous, David, Jennifer, Ines, This Can't Be the Worst Timeline, There's Still Nachos, Kudgel, and Bettina, who are so sweet I should have preempted the list of names with a warning to diabetics. Together, these 43 descriptors, bowel movement announcements, claims, and princess bride quotes help make me and Heath have to eat vegan shit in the fucking pajama party this

week by giving us money. Not everybody has the spare cash it takes to give us money, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early Thank you. episode which was used for permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at ScathingAlias.com Do you think he's... Is he doing skip to my loo? Is that where that noise came into his head? I think, you know, when you take cuss words out of your vocabulary, they just get replaced by nonsense.

It's true. And I remember that from the toy store. So that was supposed to be like, you know, so we'll say, we want a new fuck face. Yeah, exactly.

It came out of Skippy Lou. Yep. Okay. Skippy Lou. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2022.

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