The Scathing Atheist - 486: Grand Unified Edition

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

In this week’s episode, Christian leaders will tell their members to take pride … from somebody else, Marjorie Taylor Greene Republicans into a camera again, and Tom and Cecil will be here to discuss the stupidity Voltron of modern American culture. --- 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: Pick up your copy of The Grand Unified Theory of Bullshit here: https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Unified-Theory-Bullshit/dp/B09TDW7RSR Or find info about the audio book here: https://www.dissonancepod.com/ Get tickets to see Noah at the Gulf Coast Secular Assembly here: https://www.humaniststlh.com/assembly Check out the Left at the Valley podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/left-at-the-valley/id953374347 --- Headlines: Pride month Christian freakout round up: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/christian-hate-preacher-calls-for-the-execution-of-every-single-homosexual/ and https://twitter.com/hemantmehta/status/1533958329134895107 and https://www.shawlocal.com/the-herald-news/news/2022/06/05/westboro-protesters-outnumbered-and-jeered-in-joliet/  GOP Lawmaker MTG says critics of Christian nationalism are "domestic terrorists": https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/gop-lawmaker-critics-of-christian-nationalism-are-domestic-terrorists/ Kirk Cameron rails against public education: https://www.salon.com/2022/05/31/kirk-cameron-public-school-grooming-far-left-agenda-crt/ Ex-pastor embroiled in legal battle with Florida megachurch after 'The Encounter' with Jesus: https://www.rawstory.com/celebration-church/ School Board candidate checks all the gay books out so kids can’t read them: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/a-school-board-candidate-checked-out-lgbtq-library-books-so-kids-cant-read-them/ Georgia superintendent tells graduating seniors to convert to Christianity: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/georgia-superintendent-tells-graduating-seniors-to-convert-to-christianity/ Graduation speaker tells students to honor the Bible by avoiding gay marriage: https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/graduation-speaker-tells-students-to-honor-the-bible-by-avoiding-gay-marriage/

One thing, the following podcast contains adult language, so either turn it off or stop being such a fucking baby. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com and by the new Christian gym where you can get Jesus' teachings and his abs, Crucifitness. Crucifitness, because CrossFit was taken. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hey there, it's the Left of the Valley crew. My name is Kevin. I'm Sabrina. I'm Brantley.

I'm Benjamin. And I'm Hertzie. Now, did you know we were voted actually best Canadian Atheist podcast for 2020? And despite that, Noah and Heath still won't come on the show. Came on my show. But Eli did. Several times. And that's why he's now our favorite.

I guess until then, we'll just have to have other guest primates. But Eli did, several times. And that's why he's now our favorite. I guess until then, we'll just have to have other guest primates. And that proves indeed that we did come from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday. It's June 9th. And it's Donald Duck Day. Oh, I can't do the voice, so I'll just have to get mad at something to celebrate. Find an exit. Man, I'd love to be able, so I'll just have to get mad at something to celebrate. Find an exit. Man, I'd love to be able to just do a whole diatribe as Donald. Anyway, I have no illusions.

I'm Heath Enright, and from Jimmy Hoffa's Michigan and John Bonet Ramsey's Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, Christian leaders will tell their members to take pride from someone else. Yep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republicans into a camera again.

And Tom and Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance will be here to discuss the stupidity Voltron of modern American culture. But first, the diatribe. So content warning right up front, this is going to be a kind of depressing diatribe. And I'd like it not to be, honestly, I'd like to talk about something a little more abstract. But this morning around 5 a.m., my father-in-law passed away. And there is no way I'm going to be able to keep my mind on anything else today. Now, luckily, we recorded most of this show early this week because I don't know that I could really do humor today. Now, for those of you who haven't been following along with my personal life, I should let you know that this doesn't exactly come as a surprise.

And my wife and I moved down to Georgia a few years back to help take care of him. And for like three years, he's been end-stage heart disease, end-stage liver failure, end-stage lung disease. And the fact that science and gumption kept him going this long is something of a miracle. But there's only so many times you can push that snooze button. And after he had a stroke last week, we all knew that he was on his way out himself included and i have to be honest with you i always used to write off his tough guy act as bravado and bullshit but it turns out he was it was the real deal right you don't get tougher than he was in the last year or so you watch a guy lose so much his aspirations his independence his mobility you watch a guy

reduced like that, staring death in the face the whole time and keeping his sense of humor and facing all these new challenges and all this bad news day after day, month after month and cracking a fucking joke at it. That's the toughest I've ever seen anybody be. And of course, as I'm watching all that, I'm watching Lucinda and her sister cope with the imminent thought of losing their dad. And look, I don't want to turn everything in my life into a critique of religion, but it's hard not to when I'm watching atheist Lucinda and her Christian sister cope with the situation. You know, the exact situation that religion says it's here to help people cope with. Religion's time to fucking shine.

And seeing how little it helps. I mean, they have different personalities, they have different relationships with their dad, and everybody grieves differently. So this isn't like a one-on-one comparison, but if religion was anywhere near the bomb that its apologists make it out to be in situations like this, it shouldn't even be in the same ballpark, should it?

I mean, what I've seen over the last few years is my wife demonstrating exactly how atheism helps you cope with grief. She was the one person in her family that knew there were no miracles going in. She never held out hope that God was going to hear some prayer or something and rethink his plan. She didn't waste her time or his

dragging him back and forth to a church or bowing her head in silent prayer. And she didn't waste his time trying to convince him to say some magic words or another or to get right with Jesus. She just took care of all the shit that she knew that there was no God there to handle. And she knew that when it came time, there would be no lingering soul beyond the memories that people took away from his life so she spent as much time as she could making more memories we were more fortunate than most in that regard and she took full advantage and and because she knew that she wasn't going to get a second chance in heaven at some point in the future she said everything she wanted to say.

She apologized and she forgave and she told him that she loved him and she showed him that she loved him and she knew that this was the most important thing that she could do. And now that we're on the other side of things, religion would have her fretting over where he went, right? And I'm not just talking about heaven or hell here if you consider the way that most americans do their christianity there's no theological consistency and very little in terms of certainty the wishy-washy a la carte form of spiritualism that pervades american culture makes room for ghost stories and mediums and all kind of bullshit that chips away at christianity's traditional afterlife dichotomy and and where religion leaves her sister primed for charlatans that might offer to send or receive posthumous messages on her behalf, Lucinda can be the voice of reason that tugs her back towards realism.

And I know this is something we've talked about before, but it feels especially relevant today. Nothing helps you cope with death except coping with death. As long as you're a realist about it, you can start coping with it well in advance, of course. You can tell yourself right now that everyone you love is going to die, and you can use that knowledge to collect those memories now,

to apologize and to forgive, to show them that you love them. You don't have to wait until somebody's old or sick. You can remind yourself of their impermanence right now and ask yourself what you'd most want to have done if they died in that moment. But it's a lot harder to do all that when you try to hide death behind some theological curtain or crowd it out of your mind with religious platitudes because it turns out that nothing is easier to cope with when you're in denial about it. It turns out that no problem is solved

by pretending it doesn't exist. And it turns out that telling yourself you're in denial about it. It turns out that no problem is solved by pretending it doesn't exist. And it turns out that telling yourself you're ready doesn't work as well as admitting to yourself that you're not. I mean, don't get me wrong. I get the temptation to make up a paradise to put your deceased loved ones in. I get the appeal of that fantasy.

But even if you could make yourself believe it, you owe your loved ones more than that. And for whatever it's worth, at least atheism lets you know that we all ultimately rest in peace. Joining me for headlines tonight is the Lucy to my Ethel Heath and right Heath. Are you ready to get this assembly line started? Okay. I would have ruined that whole bit by just eating chocolate very quickly and happily forever.

Yeah. It wouldn't have worked with me. Right. No, that was always my thing. I was like, because I saw that as a kid. I'm just going like, I mean, I would do that anyway. That's the whole point, isn't it? Can you sign up for that?

Yeah. In our lead story tonight, it's Pride Month, and you know what that means, Anna. That's right. To nobody's surprise, the group that was steadfastly against Pride even before it was associated with the LGBTQ community is going out of their way to underscore their diminishing social relevance with yet more virulent homophobia. We'll start with the kings of both Christian homophobia and diminished social relevance. That'd be the Westboro Baptist Church, who decided to ring in Pride Month by protesting at a gay affirming church in Joliet, Illinois. They were able to muster all of eight people to their cause, two of whom were brainwashed children, the other two of whom were brainwashed children the other six of whom

were brainwashed as children i'm sure and that made for about one homophobic protester for about every nine counter protesters according to the low end of the estimates that i saw online oh they're such inept bigots i love that westboro bapt Baptist has such a prominent name in the Christian community, despite their abject failure at every turn recently. They're like the kid whose dad is the coach of the Little League team and the dad lets him be the pitcher and he's fucking terrible. Yeah. And we're playing against that team and that terrible pitcher. right so also friend of the show and guy whose whole thing has been friendly really hemet meta drew our attention to a sermon that christian hate pastor tanner fur of the steadfast baptist church in oklahoma city gave to open up pride month it was titled homo pox yikes and in it he railed against the dangers of having a bunch of slurred elitists say, handle your food in restaurants or touch your debit card at cash registers.

What? Well, I guess because that opens you up to the risk of catching the gay. Oh, you don't want to catch it. Right. Right. Sure. Oh, I got an idea. Maybe if we do a bunch of gay sneezing, we can get them to wear a fucking mask sometimes.

Just walking around in public, gay sneeze, I'm gay and I sneeze. There you go. Alright, so, but the most terrifying screed came from a different Steadfast Baptist Church, different branch. This one is in Fort Worth, Texas and is classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center

as an anti-LGBTQ hate group. They kicked off Pride Month by endorsing the mass execution of gay people not for the first time and then claiming that lgbtq people are both perpetrating and celebrating school shootings this came to us from bigot pastor sorry redundant this came to us from pastor dylan oz and he informs us that quote if a person is with a child you're a slur word for a gay man there it is again he says here you're a reprobate you're a sodomite i don't care what kind of classification our government wants to give them all homosexuals

are pedophiles end quote he goes on to quote, I'm not saying that every single homosexual that's alive right now has committed that act with the child already. Good. Because it could be that they haven't had the opportunity yet and they will at some point later in their life. What the fuck is happening? Okay. End quote. So, yeah, the bigotry there is terrifying. But I love how angry these people are. Like, they're seeing coverage of pride parades and being like, all right, they're just like having a good time with fun colors.

I don't. I like those colors, actually. Fuck. I'm doing a sermon with slur words. I don't know. They're stealing our colors that I like or something. Yeah. And look, we could make an annual tradition of rounding up homophobic shit that preachers say on the first Sunday of June.

But it's worth noting that their rhetoric is getting increasingly genocidal. You know, not just these outlier hate group ones. In Oz's sermon, he calls for the mass execution of all gay people multiple times. And this equation of everybody that they don't like with pedophiles seems like a terrifying pretext to justify murder in advance so you know it behooves us to pay special attention to this one it does and next up in headlines marjorie taylor green is a liar she lies she's a liar her job seems to be saying the opposite of a truth and then doing whatever corresponding congress thing she's still allowed to do after getting mostly benched by the republican party

in congress but here's the thing she's too stupid to realize when she's lying a lot of the time she actually believes a bunch of the things that come out of her stupid fucking face so she's worse than a liar you can't use her stupid lying to figure out the truth like even if you put mtg and ted cruz in front of a fork in a labyrinth and you asked ted cruz what she would say is the right path it wouldn't work she's worse than a cretin liar inside a labyrinth doing riddles is what i'm saying and her latest lie that she might believe came last week when she declared that critics of christian nationalism are domestic terrorists jesus fucking christ so like and and just to add to the point that you're making here

you look at her weird tirade about bill gates growing meat and peach tree dishes and and it's like and and you have to admit like some of her statements like don't even qualify for the truth lie distinction she's one of the few people that I've ever seen try for a lie but fall short

she does it's kind of impressive in some weird way so this came from another episode of her selfie cam streaming show, MTG Live. She has a show. She does a show now. The wordsmith who confused gazpacho with gestapo and petri dish with peach tree dish decided to speak into a camera on a regular basis. And here's what we got last week. She said if Christian nationalism is something to be scared of,

they're lying to you. If we're going to label it Christian nationalism, this movement will actually be the movement that stops the school shootings. Okay, just it's not how if works. You don't know how if works? Whatever. This will be the movement that stops the crime in our streets whatever this will be the movement that stops the crime in our streets this will be the movement that stops the sexual immorality and teaches children

and brings them up in traditional families and loving homes this will be the movement that finally does something about our debt because it's something that all of us should be ashamed of end quote well so okay so that's a perfect example of the purple divided by zero equals cupcake shit that i'm talking about right like she's clearly trying to lie about something but she hasn't sufficiently mastered the if then concept to achieve it no you're not quite there also just the record she went with two other this will be statements like those ones I read to you to follow the old rule of fives from classical oratory. But I cut those to help her out. That's nice of you.

Here's the closing from MTG. The media is going to label it Christian nationalism, and they're probably going to call it domestic terrorism. I'm going to tell you right now, they're the liars. If anybody's a domestic terrorist it's the radical left they are the domestic terrorists the democrats are the domestic terrorists because they funded them and they burned down our city streets and rioted in 2020 rioted in 2020 is how she closed yeah yeah she's got she's on the verge of telling us that the dictionaries are wrong about petri dish too it's not actually the right thing is peach it comes up as invented by a peach tree peach tree there it is so this what you just heard it's a republican political discourse technique known as

um you are it's the you are technique it's an advanced maneuver and then a bunch of idiots hear that and they're like, okay, well those two people pretty much said the same thing in that argument. That's a tie. I'm going to vote for the Christian one. That is the political discourse in America right now. That's how it works. Yep. Fuck.

Hand in Kirk some news tonight. I was excited to see last week that Kirk Cameron was trending on Twitter because that can only mean that the internet was making fun of him. Yep. Right? It was.

Or that he died. Yep. And it was the former. It was for sure. Good job, the internet. And the source of the online ire this time was even more justified than it normally is. After Cameron railed against the evils of public school teachers pretty much immediately after two of them were killed in the uvalde shooting doing the job that

their cops were too scared to do in this rant he accused public school teachers of quote doing more grooming for leftist politics and sexual chaos and racial confusion than they are doing any real educating about truth beauty and goodness sorry end quote sexual chaos yep so so in kirk cameron's head he's like yeah so me and my wife we're just having some good old-fashioned penis vagina missionary with zero to one orgasms like you're supposed to. What are the rest of you doing? This is chaos. This is chaos. Also, I have a problem with black people. It's good.

Yeah. Good brainstorming day. I'm going to put this all into a little speech. Right. There was an extra and yeah. So to be clear, this wasn't in response to the recent school shooting. Just mind numbingly tone deaf timing on his part. Cameron, who rose to nominal fame with a sitcom that asked the question,

what if Family Ties came on on Tuesday, is in the midst of a promotional tour for his upcoming documentary on homeschooling, no doubt coming soon to a Christian movie review podcast near you. Kirk Cameron Presents The Homeschool Awakening is set to debut in theaters on June 13th and depart from them on June 14th. So that's a Monday and a Tuesday, by the way, if you don't have your calendar out.

And they tell the tale of Kirk's decision to homeschool his six children. Oh, that's fantastic. I am looking forward to watching knowing pains for sure that sounds like a great great project now in addition to the twitter video his promotional tour also included a appearance on fox news digital that's like a fox news was a twitter video in the interview he urged viewers to cast aside the proclamation of experts in favor of somebody whose sole qualification is operational genitals after all as kirk asked quote who has been entrusted with the sacred responsibility of raising our children is it the parents or is it

the government end quote and and i'm sure he thought the question was rhetorical, like, in his direction. But given that we have public schools, you know, and child protective services and family courts and shit, I'm pretty sure the answer isn't the one he wants. Nope. Not going to work out for you. And next up in headlines, we have a bad guy fight. Nice. Always exciting. headlines we have a bad guy fight nice always exciting in the red corner we have the former head pastor of a florida mega church who got fired recently for being a horrible person with a long

history of abuse and in the other red corner we have a florida mega church with a long history of abuse almost by definition i must assume yeah and in response to being fired that pastor filed a lawsuit saying that the very extensive investigation into his abuse is all made up especially the part that they put in there about how he claimed to have a literal encounter with jesus christ of nazareth and became extra crazy and abusive following that moment because yes he did he did see jesus that part's real so that's a bullshit part of the report he really did that and now a florida mega church has to be the voice of reason in a goddamn lawsuit yeah it says something about your institution when they have to

qualify the accusation that someone was being abusively delusional with far beyond our requirements you know yeah they're skating a weird line there so the pastor in question is stovall weems what his name is stovall weems that's real yeah i have to assume he's the mascot for a whites only lemonade brand. Also, just based on that name, he's got to be. And here's the very beginning of the complaint he filed. Quote, this case presents an egregious example of what happens when a group of people decides to weaponize false information to inflict harm and advance their personal and economic agendas. Demonize. You're starting to hear it already probably, yeah. Demonize someone they target as an adversary and deceive the public into believing salacious lies are true

and literal, he didn't hear it quote. Wow. It's super not clear if that was the pastor talking about the general purpose of the megachurch or the general purpose of religion in the universe or even just a direct quote from his job description at the church that he used that. But it's also his complaint for the lawsuit. And just in case you're wondering if Stovall Weems and his wife Carrie Weems.

Carrie with an I, by the way. That's correct. Carrie with an I. If you were curious, do they look like a commercial for that exact whites only lemonade brand being sold at Chick-fil-A? Yes, they do. I've posted a picture of them into the notes. Sure do. Yeah. Yeah. So

he's like, he's going, the church was so intent on weaponizing false information to advance their economic agenda by demonizing a perceived adversary with deception that I can't even use the Bible to get paid to disparage gay people by callingizing a perceived adversary with deception that i can't even use the bible to get paid to disparage gay people by calling them pedophiles anymore that's that's what's happening and then and then the fucking universe didn't fold in on itself around him like the end of a multiverse story maybe it did in florida i don't know we should check the

headlines see if florida folded into itself that that'd be cool that solves so many fucking problems that would fix a lot so the best part of the story is the so-called encounter with jesus the report compiled by the church of all the abuse by the pastor has a dedicated section entitled The Encounter. It explains how they had a service in 2018, during which a Messianic Jewish guest pastor, Paul Wilber, reenacted the Passover supper. And during that service, Pastor Weems came out on stage and became transfixed on a piece of bread. I watched, I'm an asshole, I watched this video of the event. It's so long, but this moment is absurd. Weems just stares at this bread in complete silence forever.

It's so long, just complete silence. And he's doing like magical shaking stuff to really sell it that he's transfixed somehow magically. And then he starts explaining how he got transported to the Last Supper, the real one, with Jesus. And Jesus Christ of Nazareth told him all about the very important role of a guy named Stoval Weems at a church in Florida in the 21st century. That's what Jesus had to say. The best part is watching the guest pastor guy realize the very obvious fake magic event that's being staged and try to like, yes. And this obvious lie that's happening. The guest pastor is like, oh, OK. All right.

You're doing one of these. Yeah. I ran that play to at my place. All right. Yup. Teleported bejesus. Totally. That's that's that's part of passover story too absolutely say anything about me while he was there okay yeah there's an amazing moment in

the report where it talks about that it says like it says quote this report takes no position on whether the encounter was real there is no way to confirm or deny legally or factually what was going in on inside weems mind during that time end quote and i'm like well i can't tell you what was going i can tell you what wasn't going on inside his mind factually though i at least enough to tell you he wasn't being ghost of christmas futured by the messiah so stupid yeah i love that little article it's such a weird disclaimer so i have no idea how this case in courts can work out i don't care everyone involved is terrible but regardless of what happens we have yet another way that religion is a giant waste of money space time and time, and everything else that we want. We have a lawsuit in our court system now with real judges and real lawyers that says,

yes, I did literally meet the Lord Jesus Christ and he said I could do whatever I want. Yes, I did. Lawsuit, Latin word, ibbid, whatever. That's going to be adjudicated somehow. Yeah, yeah. And in Fahrenheit 451 isn't a Bible verse lady news tonight. A school board candidate in Frederick County, Maryland, named Heather Fletcher, has decided to fight back against, checks notes, members of the LGBT community having pride by checking out all the books in the library that she deemed too gay quick before the kids could see them.

This is the dumbest plan? She adopted this lick all the brownies before anybody else gets their approach to censorship after failing to convince her local librarian to move a pride display to someplace that children couldn't see it. Perhaps in a little room behind a beaded curtain or something.

They should do that. That's awesome, actually. In addition to checking out all 20 or so books on the display, she apparently stole a tray full of pronoun pins. What? Click before the children could see, you know, words that can function by themselves as a noun phrase already introduced to the discourse. Yeah, I don't think you got the jump on us pronouns wise that's stupid too yeah good good work heather though you're you're almost there i don't think you quite finished the job now you just need to buy the one kindle copy of each book right and then no kids can learn how to be gay in the whole world

so yeah so after taking some flack for this in the local press and online, Fletcher defended herself in a Facebook rant so Karen-ful that it actually contains the words, quote, I asked the librarian at the information desk if I could speak to whomever was in charge. Seriously? End quote. Yes, yeah.

She also asked to speak to the manager of the local newspaper that broke the story asking that the title of said story be changed from school board candidate checks out many lgbtq plus books from libraries so others can't see them to okay school board candidate checks out many lgbtq plus books from libraries so young children can't see them did they do it she was told no by both managers okay she also by the way she justified taking all the pro down pins by pointing out that they were intended to be given to the public and ultimately she did give them to people from the public so it's not stealing it's not stealing i buy two or three loose gumballs at the gas station every day with those free pennies.

They're free. And then I buy the gumballs loose. And sometimes I give out the gum. People love it. You're welcome. There you go. I'm awesome. To be fair, she did return the books the next day, but her crusade didn't end there.

She also later attended a meeting of the library's board of trustees where she complained about taxpayer dollars being used to buy pronoun pins. And, you know, not that there would be anything wrong with that had that been the case. But the library system spokesperson was quick to point out that those were paid for by a friends of the library group, not out of the public coffers. Amazing. And in case I haven't already made her hypocrisy clear enough, I should also point out that Fletcher, the person running for a spot on the local school board homeschools her kids shocking yeah shocking she gets home from that meeting and her kids are reading those 20 books that they found this backfired a little mom if i was a lesbian i'd get more orgasms it says so in this book so but to be honest as petty and bigoted a form of protest it

is i kind of hope it catches on with christian homophobes right because like when libraries are trying to decide which books to buy and to get multiple copies of they tend to look at which ones are getting checked out most often right both both at their library and around the country so you know roundabout kudos to Fletcher's stupidity for raising the voice of America's LGBTQ authors, I guess. Good work, Heather. Great work. Love it. And finally tonight, in pimpin' circumstance news.

Nice. It's graduation season, so as usual, we got a bunch of Christian zealots hijacking the microphone at public school events to tell a captive audience that, whether they like it or not, they do in fact have a few moments to hear about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Yep. And we got two

examples that made the news last week, and most certainly a whole bunch that didn't make the news last week, too. Oh, yeah. Here's the two that did. In Ohio, a graduation speaker told graduating seniors that the key to their future is lining up one penis with one vagina and wearing pleated dockers to your job at a strip mall for the rest of your life

because that's the Christian formula for happiness. And in Georgia, a speaker told the kids to convert to Christianity very directly and then made the natural segue from that into the problem of trans people identifying as cats oh for fuck's sake he's an insane person now look i know the intent wasn't to start these young graduates off with a at least you're better than this asshole morale boost but i mean like there's value in that regardless so at least i got that there's something so let's start with the graduation ceremony for river valley high school in caledonia ohio the speaker was jim

mcguire an alum who got the honor of giving a speech about future success to all these kids uh he got that honor by owning a local business in caledonia if you can make it there as they say yeah yeah he told the graduates choose a spouse make sure to choose biblical principles you know a male with a female and uh yeah we got it female with a male he clarifies oh yeah that that's how that works he also added everyone in every country in this planet lives by a calendar that was based on 2022 years ago nope really nope uh and i well planet i think he means 2021 years ago continuing it was established by jesus christ the calendar the calendar 2021 years ago. Still no. Still wrong. Continuing.

It was established by Jesus Christ. The calendar? The calendar, yes. What the fuck is happening? Just as if to make it so we could extra make fun of him after his dumb speech. He added all this. And we need to remember that. It was established by Jesus. We need to remember that.

I promise, anytime you spend learning god's word will not be subtracted from your life and that's the end of that quote what so yeah okay so to be clear he said at the beginning to choose your spouse through biblical principles and then he said a bunch of other bullshit but like i agree like a spy on some lady in the bath then rape her and conspire to have her husband killed. Like the Bible tells you. Just like in the Bible. There you go.

Right. Or if you're into dudes, wait until he passes out in his barn and blow him until he agrees to buy you from your brother-in-law or whatever. Okay. Literal Bible stories. Yeah, it's like it says in the Bible. You guys should read your fucking book. Bible stories. Yeah, it's like it says in the Bible.

You guys should read your fucking book. And that brings us to the graduation at Dawson County High School in Dawsonville, Georgia. As stories about blowing drunken men and burns so often do, actually, yeah. Yeah, very natural segue. Okay, so retiring superintendent Damon Gibbs decided to leave his post like a bigot theocrat version of George Costanza and go out in a blaze of God's glory. He started by whining about this brand new cancel culture thing called the First Amendment from 1689, which tells him what he can and can't say in a public school setting. He whines about the First Amendment there. And then he says, the Bible is the unwavering inspired word of God. But just to reiterate, I cannot say that. And from there, because he's an

angry old Christian guy, he started listing his enemies and fears because that's what happens if they talk for too long. They spend a lot of time with that. Yeah. Two, three sentences in, it's going straight to listing enemies and fears and apparently a big terrifying enemy of his would be children who identify as cats he added quote i don't care what gender you want to be just don't expect me to guess your pronouns i'm a little out of the loop because i recently found out that a group of kids now identifies as cats. I'm not joking. What are we supposed to do with that? And quote, and the answer is you're supposed to die soon and improve the world. And I'm sure you will. So good. Also that whole cat thing,

it's from a satirical meme. I'm pretty sure that tricked a whole bunch of Christian idiots into believing that trans kids were identifying as cats and demanding litter boxes in school. To be clear, none of that. All made up. Right, yeah. It's all complete bullshit. As is so often the case when a Christian is talking about their fears,

the answer to what are we supposed to do with that is fact check it. Yeah, talking. Talking about anything. Fact check it, yes. So here's the game plan if you ever have to deal with this at a school event my first i was thinking about this my first instinct was pretty basic you know like i was like oh loud loud heckling right every time they start a sentence boo boo every time they start again more boo or or maybe i like this one maybe bring a

blender and you turn it on really loud each time they start talking. But I think we can get a little more sophisticated and you will need a partner for this. So have your team ready. As soon as the Christian guy starts doing his illegal sermon at a public school, one of you starts having a really loud fake heart attack, right? So they pretty much have to stop the sermon there. Right. And then the other person starts doing a muslim prayer over the heart attack victim and then the heart attack is magically healed

and you convert to islam on the spot they will be terrified there you go all right well now i guess everybody needs a minute to pair up so we're going to close the headlines there he thanks as always jumanji and when we come back, Tom and Cecil will be here to prove that they are too literate. Your mom is an out-of-shape podcaster. No, no. Okay, that's just me. That's not going to work.

Ah, all right. I'm allowed to drive and I own a 2005 Subaru. Okay, I'm writing that one down. There it is. Crushing it. Hey, Heath. Hey. Are you workshopping insults for a verbal fight with a child again?

I, yes. Did you lose at Mario Kart? I didn't lose. It's a different fight with a child that I'm doing right now. So I'm trying to steal this kid's paper route so I can send out our Patreon rewards without going to the post office. And I can make some extra folding money on the side. But the kid is way too fast.

And then she let me catch up and started making fun of me for being old. And I lost really hard. Wait, did you use the phrase folding money during the fight i did she act she used that a lot during yeah a lot of material there so so why don't you just use stamps.com oh what's stamps.com stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right from your computer you can print official postage for any letter any package, anywhere you want to send it,

and you get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off UPS. Whether you're an office sending invoices, an Etsy shop sending your products, or a warehouse shipping out orders, Stamps.com is your mailing and shipping solution. We actually use Stamps.com to send those Patreon rewards that you're talking about.

It makes it super easy. Weird that you didn't know that, honestly. that you're talking about. It makes it super easy. Weird that you didn't know that, honestly. Yeah, that is weird. Okay, well, that sounds like a better plan. How do I sign up? Stop wasting time and start saving money with stamps.com for mailing and shipping. Sign up with promo code scathing for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale.

No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page and enter scathing all right i'm in okay what if i seduce her mom with podcasting and the charm of podcasting and then her parents get divorced and that's like first of all that's absurd that's never gonna happen and regardless i thought you were just gonna use use stamps.com. I need folding money. Okay. When you spend a bit of time immersed in the bullshit of conspiracy culture, you start to notice commonalities that

thread their way through all of the various flavors of woo no matter how contradictory they may be. Hollow earthers and flat earthers reach their way through all of the various flavors of woo no matter how contradictory they may be hollow earthers and flat earthers reach their results through the same route people who say cancer doesn't exist and people who say it can be cured with proper breathing use the same arguments well few people have spent more time immersed in bullshit than my guests tonight and they've written a book on this very subject tom curry and cecil something italian are the hosts of the cognitive dissonance podcast and they joined me tonight to talk about their new book the grand unified theory of bullshit tom cecil welcome back guys hey thanks for having us

man yeah man thanks so much appreciate this hey you bet you bet i got a free book out of the deal, so I did pretty good too. Yeah, about that, you can Zell us, PayPal, Venmo. I could, yes. I could. There's so many things I can do. Now, I have to say, I'm always delighted, of course, to have both you guys on the show, but it is downright ambrosial to bring

C-Salon on a week where Eli isn't here, so great timing on this as well. That's lovely. He's just sitting there touching his iPod, just slowly pawing it. A single tear like an Indian that watched someone

litter. So, okay. So I say from experience, writing a book is fucking hard. Why did you guys do this to yourselves? What inspired you to write a book? Tom and I wanted to write a book a fucking hard. Why did you guys do this to yourselves? What inspired you to write a book? You know, Tom and I wanted to write a book a long time ago. We had planned.

This was, I want to say, maybe two years into podcasting, and we had this conversation. At TAM. It was at TAM. And the reason why we had the conversation is because we watched one of the lectures there. And one of the lecturers was and I think it was Jamie Ian Swiss

was who it was. He was talking about like the main gist and I don't know what the name of his talk was at this point but the main gist of his speech was look you know if people like Bigfoot what's the fucking big deal? What's the harm in liking Bigfoot? Just let the people

like Bigfoot stop being dicks was basically the you know the the broad his infamous don't be a dick speech yeah it was a broad brush but that's basically what he was saying and tom and i walked out of there thinking right you know we're talking you know having a conversation and we both kind of i think back then somewhat agreed where we're thinking know, there is a way to classify bullshit. And how you classify the bullshit isn't sort of, you know, it's sort of thinking about it in the way of how much harm is this bullshit doing to people? Is it, you know, because clearly Bigfoot back then

wasn't as, it's not a big deal. And Bigfoot now isn't a big deal. But when you think about it in a broad sense, but when you think about something like COVID denial, that's a big deal and causes a lot more harm than someone say, you know, walking around the forest, making yodeling calls at a big furry creature that doesn't exist. You know, I got to say though, I get annoyed with everybody yodeling at me. Yeah, I know. That is really frustrating. Stop it. But seriously, it was one of those moments where we talked for, you know, you sit there and you talk for a while. We thought, you know, we should maybe classify the bullshit. And so we sort of tried a little and then we just shelved it because, you know, you're busy, you're doing other stuff.

And then what happened was, is the pandemic hit. And when the pandemic hit and when the pandemic hit we suddenly realized maybe some of this bullshit that we've been saying isn't a big deal might be a big deal maybe just even just saying false things and thinking false things are true might be really damaging too right right now that's a great point you know i i would add to that just from a practical perspective i want to give you my take a little bit no because, because it veers a little bit. The book really started, we decided to write the book on my end, the same way we decided to start the podcast,

which is that Cecil came to me and said, hey man, you want to start a podcast? And I said, yeah, all right. Because I just agree to stuff. And he said, hey man, I started writing this book. You want to work on it with me? And I was like, yeah, man, sure. Because I just agree to stuff. And he said, hey, man, I started writing this book. You want to work on it with me? And I was like, yeah, man, sure, because I just agree to stuff.

And then he holds me to it. He has the nerve, Noah, the unmitigated temerity, the gall to hold me to those agreements. I see. So that's how I got roped in. I just want to be clear you

would have thought you'd learned your lesson baby 10 years into this podcasting shit all right so who is the intended audience who is this book for people with 1799 first of all okay all right interesting i think it's more on Amazon, actually. You might need to borrow a dollar from them. What is it on Amazon? It's about 20 bucks. I think it's nice. I think it's 20 bucks.

I think you just send them to Amazon with a dollar less than they need to sell. Well, then head over to our website and buy the audio book. The audio book. Yeah, you'll want to buy the audio book anyway. Just to get a bigger cut. So, yeah. Well, there you go. You know, it's funny because the audience noah is is much

like i think and cecil you correct me if you think i'm wrong here but i think it's much like we think of our cog disc cog disc has always been a preaching to the choir show right like and to some degree this is preaching to the choir in the sense that the audience that we already are sort of tapped into and having this ongoing conversation with through our show, that was always going to be our primary audience. But I think the difference here is we really thought we had something to add to the conversation. We're on our show, you know, we're preaching to the choir. We're telling people what they oftentimes already believe and agree with, oftentimes.

But I think the book, we knew we had an audience of people that were skeptical, that were political, that were interested, that were good critical thinkers or interested in critical thinking as a necessary tool to believe only true things. And we really felt, I think, like we've got something to add to this conversation. And we think it's important. All right. Well, I guess the logical question is, what is that? But I think I've got that wrapped up in my next question, which is, what is the grand unified

theory of bullshit? Well, it's the idea that all bullshit in some way is connected. And it's connected in the sense that the reason why you believe it is because you want to and because you trick yourself through various logical traps that we automatically do, like motivated reasoning or confirmation bias. We wind up using those things to trick ourselves into believing untrue things because it's fulfilling. You know, when you talk about a lot of the things and a lot

of the reasons why, you know, a lot of the things we're talking about in the book are, they're exciting to believe it in some way. You know, it's really exciting to believe in aliens. It's exciting to believe in the supernatural and the paranormal. It's exciting to believe in aliens. It's exciting to believe in the supernatural and the paranormal. It's exciting to believe in conspiracies because conspiracies make you the detective who's unraveling the mystery and explaining it to others. It's exciting to believe in medicine that can cure you just without even touching you. It's exciting to believe those things. And so people do. They motivate themselves to believe in those things. And we trick ourselves all the time.

And like Tom said, it's a preaching the choir thing, but I think it's for like people who might be soft skeptics in some way, the people like Jamie and Swiss who were like, eh, it's not that big a deal. We think it is a big deal. And we saw it become a big deal.

The book started, you know, Penn went to paper three weeks after the Biden-Trump election. So we were in the midst, right at the beginning of the steal the election, stop the steal stuff, where in the middle, like in front of everybody in the nation, they're lying. And we're watching happen we're watching the every all these different politicians come out questioning the election results which you know time and time and time again have come out to be perfect in every way and everybody on all the people on the on the right are questioning them and then it rolls into the january 6th right after that and so like that's when things are we're writing. And so,

you know, a lot of times books are products of their time. And that was really a product of those maybe five weeks, because that was a real disturbing time in our country where the truth didn't fucking matter. Yeah. I would add too, we operate in a world of implicit assumptions. And those implicit assumptions, to Cecil's point, they are riddled with all these different cognitive biases. And the problem that we have now, which I think is really unique and exacerbated by the technology and growing, is that these are implicit problems in our thinking that are being explicitly recognized and exploited by bad actors. Yeah. And if we don't call that shit out loud in ourselves, if we don't say out loud in ourselves, look, we are implicitly bad at doing so. We're bad at this. We're bad at this. The bad guys, the Russian state propagandists, the social media empire, you know, techno juggernauts,

they know in explicit terms, I mean, they say it out loud exactly how they are using our biases against us. So that's who we're at war with. And to them, it doesn't matter. To Cecil's exact point, it doesn't matter. Let's get you started watching some easy YouTube ghost stories, some easy algorithm bullshit, and we'll just crack that door open a little bit. And that's all anybody wants to do, because as soon as they can crack that door open a little bit, they understand the psychology behind why people believe in

and are seduced by bullshit. And if we don't guard against that, if we don't name it and call it out loud and say, hey, that's dangerous, it's not just Bigfoot. Because it almost never stops at just Bigfoot. The dominoes are always clicking into one another, always falling against. It's always mousetrap, man.

Everything's fucking mousetrap these days. Yeah. So our goal, our desire was to say, look, the bad actors, they know it. They're explicitly using it against us. They're lining up, salivating. And we have to have real attention paid to this or we are going to lose. We will lose. So that was why we had to name it. And one of the things too is that I think the book is, That was why we had to name it. And one of the things too is that I think the book is,

the way it's written isn't to say like, we figured this stuff out and so now we're fine. And the moment you read this book, you figured it out and now you're fine. In fact, the last chapter of the book is a way for you to collect information and it is set up specifically so that you keep practicing it over and over and over. It gives you a way to collect information that will try to be as bias-free and as true as possible.

And you have to be diligent all the time because it's so easy in today's society with the technology that's sort of fighting against you to to be bad at it yeah no and social media makes it all the easier yeah absolutely no so and i think one of the things that really sets this book apart from other skeptical books i i've read is that there was for a very long time and in some skeptical circles there is still to this day a desire to sort of separate out politics from skepticism right that's less and less possible in the post-trump world yeah right and i thought it was really interesting that instead of like avoiding those overtly political topics you dive right in like one of the first examples maybe the

first example you give in the book about irrational thinking is the capital riot so how did you sort of settle on that tone and what would and wouldn't be included in the book? Yeah, I think the book is really talking about the research we've done over the last 10 years of doing a show. You start to notice patterns. And our show has always been unapologetically political. And the thing is, we don't just stop at atheism. Like we're an atheist show, sure. Both Tom and I are secular guys, but you know, there's more to it than that.

And we talk a lot about politics and about liberal politics and about ethics and about, and so the thing is, is that we've never shied away from that on our show. And so we've, the things that we've sort of paid attention to over the last year, you know, week after week, reading into researching, all those things sort of culminated into what we wanted to talk about in the book. And, you know, the book isn't about the podcast, but it certainly stems from years of understanding and reading these stories.

And those stories happen to be a mix of politics and atheism and secularism. be a mix of politics and atheism and secularism. Yeah, I think, Noah, that trying to ignore politics and the disruption of reality right now and the intentional disruption of reality that is taking place in a world where we have a post-truth world, we have alternative facts, you know, that's splitting the baby. It doesn't work. I don't think it's meaningfully possible. I think you can do it, but I think when you do it, you lose something essential, honest, and important. And so neither one of us ever have any... I mean, we are who we are. We believe what we believe. We're open to new ideas and we're open to discussing them and i don't think in a world where people stood on an actual podium or at an actual podium and uttered the phrase alternative facts i don't think we can anymore have a discussion about skepticism that doesn't

have a political tinge to it not an honest one anyway yeah yeah right yeah right all right so in the book you guys dive into a number of different subjects, be they alternative medicine modalities, paranormal legends, conspiracy theories, et cetera. So I'll ask each of you, starting with Tom, is there one thing that stands out to you as the weirdest or most fun or most interesting thing that you learned while researching for the book?

Yeah, well, yes. The alternative medicine, so this book actually, as we were writing this book, this book coincided with a point in my life where my wife got very sick and we were having a really difficult time finding answers and getting help. And it's continued to be a struggle for 18 months. And so we're in the middle of writing this book and I'm reading this material on alternative medicine and I'm thinking about it. And I'll be honest, I became much more sympathetic to not the practitioners, but I became much more sympathetic to the people who reach out and into the alternative medicine world. When I first started thinking about alt-med many years ago, 10 years ago, I didn't have any medical fears or challenges that had touched my life in a real personal way. And so it just so happened that as we're writing this book together and as I'm reading about alternative medicine, I'm thinking for the first time in my life, I get it. I get it.

And it's actually more important to me now that people choose paths that actually have proven modalities because I know what it's like to be like, fuck it, man, let's buy some crystals. I don't care. It's fucking two o'clock in the morning and we're scared. And so that really, I felt that chapter. And I felt that as we were reading it, as we were writing it, because I was also in the middle of really living it. And it gave me a different perspective. Well, that's interesting to think about. Cecil, same question to you. You know, I will say,

I don't know that interesting, but I will say sinister. And it didn't occur to me, it was one of those sort of Jamie Ian Swiss things where you're like, oh, that's just bullshit, who cares? And it's the ghost shows on television.

And what I just passed off for so many years as three frat boys yelling at each other in the dark was really more sinister than I thought because especially on some of these shows, they use things like the myth busters, we tried this and we busted it. So they give themselves this air of like, we're actually testing these quote unquote theories about whether or not this thing is really haunted. And they're giving people this false idea

that they're actually doing some sort of science. They're using tools that look science-y. They're, you know, like the ghost box or this, you know, they have an electrical sensor or a temperature sensor, and they're using what might be construed as the tools of science. And they're doing it for the same reason we call Facebook sinister. They're doing it so that they could lie to you so they could sell you the next commercial break. And they want to keep you in there and they want to make it look like it's not just three guys shouting at a dark room. There really is

something compelling going on. And so they're going to keep lying to you bit by bit by bit. They bring on people that they say are quote unquote experts who talk as if there is no doubt whatsoever about what the motivations of that spirit is in that room and things like, and the more I watch those shows to try to write down what they were saying and, and read about how they did it, the more incensed I became because it just, it's so devious to try to make it look like a documentary and make it look like science. And it's just these guys just, and make it look like science. And it's just these guys,

it's just bullshit, man. It's just dudes in a fucking empty prison that hasn't had people in a long time scaring the shit out of each other going, boo, it's ridiculous. But it's one of those things that really, it's very dangerous. It makes people think that it's real. And there's no,

nobody's there to say, there's no counterpoint, never on any of these shows. Also, Cecil, that shit undermines the credibility of scientific instrumentation. Yeah.

And that makes me nuts because they show up with all the like, the fucking gee-gaws and gadgets and you know, and it's like, you know,

all of a sudden like, if you watch that and you're credulous about it, what's the difference between that and an MRI? Yeah, no. Or that and a fucking, you know, radar. Yeah radar yeah you know things that are real and things that are work they've got all these like trappings of the mechanistic elements of science and it that shit

makes me nuts yeah it's crazy yeah no certainly definitely like uh factors in when people are like ah but i don't really trust the scientists on COVID. I've seen scientists do all kinds of dumb shit. Yeah. Right. So I'll tell you what, let me borrow from our other show together, Citation Needed, to close things off. For each of you separately, and this time we'll give Cecil opening honors

here, if you had to summarize what you learned from writing this book in one sentence, what would it be? That you need more money than Tom said at the beginning to buy it from Amazon. You're going to need a little more money than that. Just a little. Actually, I will tell you this.

I learned in one sentence that we should diversify outside of Amazon. That's what I learned. Right. All right, Tom. What did you learn in one sentence or less? I learned that by working with an editor, I'm not as good a writer as I thought I was. I think that's what everybody learns when they first write a book right there.

All right. Well, I'll tell you what. It was a very fun read. I'll tell the audience, if you like the humor and the content over on Cognitive Dissonance, you will definitely enjoy this book as well. And of course, you'll find a link to pick up your copy in the show notes for this episode and also for the audio book where they get a bigger cut. Tom Cecil, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for having us, Noah. Appreciate it. Thank you, Noah. We appreciate you. Before we lock the doors behind us tonight, I want to remind you one more time that I'm going to be giving a talk at the Gulf Coast Secular Assembly on Saturday, June 25th in Diffuniac Springs, Florida.

Tickets are still available. You'll find a link to pick up yours on the show notes for this episode. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend Godawful Movies debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half-sister show Citation Day debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I want to thank Heath for rolling this rock back up the hill once again. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for not being the armed guy that they

caught outside of Brett Kavanaugh's house. I want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusion, who will be back soon. I want to thank Tom and Cecil one more time for hanging out with us today. I also want to thank Kevin, Sabrina, Brantley, Benjamin, and Hersey for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. Sorry that I'm not the shameless self-promoter that Eli is, but for what it's worth, he didn't even come on our show this week, so maybe he's too busy on the Left of the Valley podcast. If you want to check and see, look for a link to their podcast in the show notes as well. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this

week's best people, but I'm recording this outro a bit early, so I won't be able to do it by name until next week and if you'd like to hear your name alongside theirs you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com skating atheist whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad free version of every episode or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the home page at skatingaliense.com and if you'd like to help but your money's too inflated to fit through the internet tubes you can also help a ton by leaving us a five-star review telling a friend about the show and following at piat pod on twitter legal services for this podcast are provided by the law offices of p andrew torres Thank you. editing classic yeah it's pretty fucking sweet the preceding podcast was a production

of puzzle in a thunderstorm llc copyright 2022 all rights reserved