The Scathing Atheist - 531: Higher Power Edition

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

In this week’s episode, Tennessee silences teachers in the name of unity, Mifepristone might become illegal nationwide thanks to one simple trick from 1873, and David Icke will tell us how racist he isn’t. Racistly. --- Come see us live in Detroit on July 22nd: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/god-awful-movies-live-in-detroit-tickets-617420751087 --- 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/ --- Headlines: SCOTUS set to create even more bonus rights for Christians: https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/the-supreme-court-could-let-religious TN passes bill that allows students to report professors who teach 'divisive concepts': https://www.wbir.com/article/news/education/new-bill-would-strengthen-rules-over-what-can-be-taught-in-classrooms/51-ddd267e4-3d98-4de0-bb2e-3284740b4cb7 Arizona court upholds clergy privilege in child abuse case: https://journalrecord.com/2023/04/12/arizona-court-upholds-clergy-privilege-in-child-abuse-case/ 150-Year-Old Comstock Act Could Ban Abortion Nationwide: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/abortion-pill-ban-comstock-act-history-mifepristone-kacsmaryk.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/15/matthew-kacsmaryk-law-review/ CA Judge fines COVID-restriction defying church over a million bucks: https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/judge-orders-ca-church-that-ignored

Warning, the following podcast contains all the offensive words that aren't actually offensive. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by MySheetsRock, Adam and Eve, ZipRecruiter, and by the fact that we record a day early, because it's 420. I'm going to be fucking useless today. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Gathing Atheist. Hello, my name is Mary Grace, and I became an evolutionary biologist in the deep south solely so I could assure you that we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. It's Thursday. It's April 20th. And it's National Ask an Atheist Day.

Right, but this is the podcast where the answer can be go fuck yourself. Right. Do whatever you want. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli whatever you want. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Anthony Comstocks, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is the Scathing Atheist.

On this week's episode, Tennessee silences teachers in the name of unity? Mipha Pristone might become illegal nationwide thanks to one simple trick from 1873. And David Icke will tell us how racist he isn't. Racistly. But first, the diatribe. Well, folks, I found it. Been digging around in this bin for the last 10 years, so I was bound to come across it eventually, I guess. But on response and I decided that that was going to get me thrown in Facebook jail. And so I started to write a different response and that eventually just became a diatribe. So here's the argument and apologies that

I can't quote it directly because I couldn't find the fucking post again when I went to write this. But basically, an atheist I follow on Facebook said something about how gods are figments of our cultural imagination. And as part of his point, he mentions that gods only exist inside our heads. So fucking Uncle Frank chimes in to say, oh, yeah. Well, how do you reconcile that argument with your support of trans people? I know. I know.

But stay with me or stay with Uncle Frank anyway, because then he adds that the only evidence that one's gender identity might not match the one they were assigned at birth is inside their heads. Now, normally, I wouldn't devote any time on the show to an argument this stupid if it didn't at least come from some well-known apologist or somebody that wields actual power in society. This is just uncle frank but two things drew me to it one was the fact that the phrasing made it look like he was yanking it off as some questions to stump woke atheists with website and i feel like we might see it again but the other was just how much it gives away the game so first let's dismiss the argument itself not that you really need me to this argument could also be used to deny the existence of, say, other people being hungry.

Right? So to the extent that there's any problem here at all, it's the problem of hard solipsism. The fact that I can't logically prove that I'm not just a brain in a jar being convinced that the world exists by some outside force. But of course, you can't argue with somebody about hard solipsism because literally nothing can follow if we accept the premise. But that's not the argument he's making. Of course, the argument he's making is basically all the things I can't hold in my hand are equally non-existent. I mean, look, when you're stress testing an argument, the first thing that you have to do is look for substitutions that would invalidate it.

And thought itself invalidates this one. Just the act of thinking about that substitution would invalidate it. I mean, if we're discounting one's own assertions, which we necessarily are, right? There's no evidence that you're thinking outside of your own head. Hell, I can't even accept your premise if I want to because there's no evidence that I accept it outside of my own head other than my inadmissible assertion, right? But of course, he never tried to stress test his argument, or rather, I'm sorry, he was incapable of stress testing it. Not because he was stupid, though all evidence suggests that he was, but because religion and the justification of bigotry are so intertwined in his head now that, but what about I'm a bigot seems like a sound argument in favor of God's existence to him.

Now, this is the byproduct of two codependent trends. The first, of course, is the increasing effort to legally protect discrimination behind the veil of religion. First, of course, is the increasing effort to legally protect discrimination behind the veil of religion. The other one, or you might even say the means to the first one, is to so thoroughly abuse the concept of logic as it applies to religion that one's assertions can't really be invalidated. After all, how do you respond to Uncle Frank's idiotic challenge here? In a lot of ways, it's too dumb to refute. You could point out the shit that I just said about how his argument would invalidate the concept of personal preferences

or intentions or thoughts themselves, but if that kind of appeal to logic was going to sway him, it would have swayed him before you pointed it out. He already knew about thought. To even regurgitate this argument, you have to entirely divorce yourself from any trapping of logic except the linguistic ones. And once you do that, you can put any damn thing you want after the therefore.

They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Motown and Murder City to my date, Twa Heathen, right in Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you excited about our upcoming just announced live show in Detroit or what? Motown Silly back again. Here we go.

And don't forget our platinum and VIP tickets and they're gone. They're already gone. They are. But general admission tickets aren't sold out yet so go to GodawfulMoviesLive.com and maybe I will be lying about that yeah all right we'll be sure to check out the show notes for more details and while you're doing that we're going to pause for a quick word from our first sponsor this week my sheets rock and then the

helicopter lowers me and the mattress onto stage bing bang boom okay just stop saying bing bang boom that's not a thing that That's nothing. Hey, guys. What are you talking about? Yeah, so Eli doesn't want to come to our live show in Detroit on July 22nd. What? Why? I didn't say I didn't want to come.

I said I didn't want to leave bed. I have offered Heath several helicopter-based options, and he's been super negative about all of them. We don't know anybody with a helicopter. I keep telling you that.

I mean, Eli, why don't you want to get out of bed? Are you okay? Oh, never better. I just can't get out from under these regulator sheets from MySheetsRock. Wait, what are the regulator sheets from MySheetsRock? They're designed specifically to keep hot sleepers cool and cold sleepers comfortable. They regulate temperature, wick moisture, stay breathable, and they're so soft, you'll sleep comfortably every night.

Well, how do they do that? Because these sheets are made from best-in-class bamboo rayon, the holy grail of sheeting, no illusions. This miracle material transfers body heat two times more effectively than regular sheets and reduces humidity by 50%, so you can experience your best night's sleep yet. It's true. MySheetsRock sent us a set to try when they became a sponsor, and I ended up buying two extra sets. That's why I, Heath Henright, personally endorsed them as a

product. I don't know, Eli. What if I don't believe you? Don't believe me? Their five-star customer reviews speak for themselves. Plus, they offer a 90-day risk-free trial and free shipping and returns. Check out MySheetsRock at mysheetsrock.com slash scathing and enter our code scathing for 10% off and free shipping. That's mysheetsrock.com slash scathing, code scathing. I don't know.

I'm telling you, Noah, climb in and feel these. Okay, here's your... Oh, wow. no. I'm telling you, climb in and feel these. Okay, you're sure. Oh, wow. Heath, are you sure we don't know a guy with a helicopter? Pretty sure. Yeah. What about one of those gurneys at the zoo? Okay, that we do have. Hooray!

Wait, why do we... Probably better not to ask. Yep, fair. Fair. And now, back to the the headlines in our lead story tonight the point of religious restriction is supposed to be that those restrictions serve as signals of devotion right like when a catholic abstains from eating meat on fridays during lent or whatever that's a sign that they like jesus more than bacon occasionally so the minute that you start rearranging the laws such that

those restrictions no longer represent sacrifice, you not only violate the rights of the non-religious or differently religious, but you also castrate the very concept of piety. And I think that's worth keeping in mind as the Supreme Court deliberates on the case of Groff v. DeJoy, which will end, unless the theocratic majority has a series of Groff v. DeJoy, which will end unless the theocratic majority has a series of changes of heart or attacks thereof, with religious people gaining even more bonus rights in the workplace. Okay, if the Supreme Court really cares about Jesus, you guys should be setting up way more chances to be a martyr. I'm just saying, like, why do you hate Jesus? Yeah, if you're so Christian, you should be arranging gay pride parades and drag queen story hours.

Just they're like religious pop quizzes, guys. Yeah, exactly. So quick thanks to Ricky for sending us this one at scathingnews at gmail.com. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Noah, you're telling me that if folks send us news stories at scathingnews at gmail.com, we'll do an extensive genealogical research on them and then have sex with the family member farthest up their family tree

so that we're technically related? That's not even how related works. No. We are your dad now, Ricky. Nope. We're shutting down the email. We can't do it anymore. We can't have nice things.

This is why we can't have nice things. Now, you might remember this case from our discussion on episode 519 this is the one where the postal workers said that his religion gave him sundays off and then his employer said no because god doesn't write the fucking schedule and that's entirely legal because it basically has to be in order for working to work but groff sued lost, lost, appealed again. And now his stupid fucking case is being heard by the Supreme God damn court. And quick reminder, the current rule states that employers have to make reasonable accommodations to an employee's religion. As long as doing so, it doesn't cause an undue hardship for the employer. So to challenge this precedent, you either need to come out against reasonable or in favor of undue.

you either need to come out against reasonable or in favor of undue. At best, they want reasonable accommodations for magic. Yes, magic. Reasonable for magic. Yeah. By the way, apropos of nothing, just want to remind our audience that I can only eat homophobic chicken sandwiches that taste like a flip-flop on Sundays because of my very real religious beliefs. So,

you know, in case we're setting a precedent here. Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. Now the court heard oral arguments on this case on Tuesday, but I don't really think those matter,

especially in a case like this, right? The theocrat majority never would have taken this fucking case if they didn't plan on gutting the precedent. And it's worth emphasizing here that the reason Groff was fired in this instance was because his demands had become a burden on his coworkers. Right. So decide with or actually he quit because they kept scheduling him with Sonny. But to side with Groff here, the SCOTUS basically has to say that a burden on one's coworkers isn't sufficient ground for an employer to deny a religious request.

So whatever rule they came up with to side with Groff almost certainly would protect someone whose religion demanded that they like not acknowledge the gender of a trans coworker or proselytize in the break room or not sit next to someone of the opposite sex. Right. So the existing precedent is from TWA the Hardison, which says employers should not have to accept anything beyond a minimal burden to accommodate religion. And I was actually very disappointed when I read this. Even Americans United for Separation of Church and State thinks that ruling is flawed. But they're wrong. They're wrong, people. The amount anyone should have to accommodate magic is approximately zero, perhaps less, as a penalty for asking for me to accommodate your magic because that's insane. Like, I'm not a lawyer.

Those people are. But I don't care. They're wrong. Unless they're talking about different flaws in that ruling. They're wrong. They're just wrong. Yeah. Or to put it more succinctly, there's no such thing as a reasonable accommodation for a lack of reason.

Right. Yes. You checked out of reasonable already now of course to be clear here there is a middle ground between the existing rules and complete fucking insanity so right now the rule says that employers don't have to accommodate religious requests if they create any but a de minimis burden right that that's that means something that's hardly even noticeable and when it comes to accommodating minority religions you know that that like maybe have to pray five times a day at prescribed times or whatever, a reasonable person could argue that the de minimis standard doesn't go far enough. Not me, but like a different reasonable person.

Right. A wrong reasonable. A wrong one. Exactly. Right. But that doesn't matter. But that doesn't matter Because if there's one thing we know about this court's majority Is that they couldn't find the reasonable

Middle ground if a fucking billionaire Donor flew them there on a private Fucking jet Yeah And in Zero out of Tennessee Would not recommend news The normally amazing

Public education system of Tennessee Is about to get a little worse after the state house and the state Senate passed a new bill that's going to make sure public schools, including colleges and universities, don't have a political science curriculum that's too political or a history curriculum that's too, you know, historical. And when I say too political or too historical, it's really just saying no being mean to all the wonderful white people who created the delightful culture of Tennessee, the state law. Yeah. That's what they just did. Right. Well, yeah, no talking about institutionalized racism, which I figure would include not talking about this law, interestingly.

Right. You know, I've always said the college experience lacks crypt text and scavenger hunts. Maybe now there's a chance to work them in. Yeah. So the new bill is actually just an extra ignorance bump to supplement a law from last year that I'm going to call the don't say bigot law. And here's some of the rules that were already in place as of 2022. A school can lose their state funding if their curriculum were to involve any of the following ideas. These are all exact words from the existing law. There is no discussing that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex. So, yeah, good start. A law about something nobody is saying,

except maybe the neo-Nazis who wrote this law. Yes. Okay, back to the bill. Also, no discussing that a person, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously. Yeah, no, read. No pointing out how little I deserve to be making

laws. Right. Gonna make African American studies much faster this one. Streamline it. Cool. Also, no discussing that a meritocracy is inherently racist, sexist, or designed by a particular race or

sex to oppress members of another race or sex. Come on! You have to say you see the emperor's clothes and you have to admit that he made them himself. Yeah. No discussing that Tennessee or the U.S. is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist. All right, you guys are making that harder

with every bullet point. Right. Stop doing bullet points. No promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Interesting. I feel like that's another one they weren't doing in high school already as well. Right. That said, I'd love a quick look at where the authors of this law were on January 6th.

Thank you. Yes, exactly. on January 6th. Thank you. Yes, exactly. No discussing that the rule of law does not exist, but instead is a series

of power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups. Oh, okay. Then what the fuck do they think laws are? Right. Immortal, timeless fairies

that become visible when we write them down. But they do. With their tablets in their religious bullshit they kind of do they do oh god they do also no discussing that all americans are not created equal and are not endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights including life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Stop pointing at your wheelchair, Craig. I mean, it's in the law now.

So the new bill is adding to all that that we just mentioned, because that law that I was just reading from was a bit too woke and needed an update. According to GOP state rep John Reagan, who sponsored both the original bill and the new one. And looks like he brags to his friends about stealing his toupee from a make-a-wish child. So according to that guy, this is meant to strengthen the law from last year by making sure that schools are about, quote, advancing knowledge, not about advancing political or social agendas.

Yeah, we'd hate for a law about what races are protected from ever hearing bad things about themselves to have a political or social agenda, huh, John? No agenda here with this law. And he also said it's all about promoting freedom of expression. For example, the new bill. By restricting. Yeah, yep, yep, exactly, yeah.

The new bill to promote freedom of expression bans universities from using state funding for meetings or activities of a group that quote endorses or promotes a divisive concept that's there's a ban on concepts yep in order to free up expression that's what they're doing and just in case anyone took that ban to mean you know don't let the federalist society invite bigot judges to speak nope the new bill would require universities to allow any guest speaker regardless of non-violent political ideology or non-violent party affiliation so platforming bigotry if it's technically non-violent, which it's not clear that that even exists, that's required now.

Right, but it's divisive. They have to let it happen, but nobody's allowed to fund it, apparently. Right. Okay, listeners in Tennessee, if this thing passes, I am open to giving an extremely legal talk about

John Reagan's home address. You have to let me. There's no funding it. So this whole thing is terrifying, obviously, especially with other garbage red states doing the exact same thing all over the country. But the debate over the bill in Tennessee had one great moment of sanity, even though it ended up passing. Democrat Justin Jones, who happens to be a person of color, had a series of questions for John Reagan, the GOP sponsor guy. The first question, I think it was going to be, this is fucking stupid, right? But Jones decided to be a bit more tactful. He started by asking, aren't college students exactly the people who should be talking about divisive issues regarding systemic racism and reagan responded by accidentally giving away the game so fucking hard

reagan said i believe in god all else is settled by facts and data oh interesting wow i like the fact that he admitted god is in a different category than facts and data and in arizona truth news you know when you've been doing this job as long as we have it's hard to pick the most evil religious thing conversion therapy's pretty bad catholic hospital is probably the most surprising to like an average layman. Project Blitz is sort of Legion of Doom levels of honest about being the bad guys. But perhaps, perhaps there's nothing more blatantly evil than clergy privilege. I mean, that's the one they use to rape kids.

So, yeah. Right. Yeah. So what is clergy privilege, you ask, podcast listener? Well, in most states, when you tell your priest or your pastor that you're sexually abusing a child, they are legally required to report you, as they should, because you're sexually abusing a child. But in 33 states, there's an exception to that rule. Nope. If you tell them, hey, thank you. I'm going to stop you right there.

During a confession that's clergy privilege it's it's establishing a safe place to talk about your kid fucking and that horrible fucking thing saw insane amounts of expansion this week when the arizona supreme court ruled that the mormon church can refuse to answer questions or turn over documents related to child abuse under clergy privilege. Yeah. Yeah. How the fuck can you argue that your thing makes people more moral and ask for exemptions to basic fucking morality? I just I don't understand how that's even tenable. Yeah. How does the idea even get floated? What do you say? Like, OK, what if we have a

magical fuck room hear me out though hear me out magical fuck room for kids what if it did i make it i made it worse yeah and sadly i should point out this case isn't like hypothetical this ruling is about a church member who confessed to abusing his older daughter in 2010, and the church and its officials covered it up for seven fucking years. I mean, the guy's own kids slash victims are the ones who ended up bringing the lawsuit to the church. Cool. So just to recap,

the Arizona Supreme Court wants pedophiles to have the opportunity to feel less guilty by confessing so that's insane already i don't know why you would ever want that and then we're going to subsidize that pedophile absolution thing by spending kids getting fucked without consequences that's the transaction that just happened yep and look i don't want to get into the details of this specific case because they're super duper icky this This is a comedy podcast. But this dude was so open and brazen about his abuse of his children that he was excommunicated from the Mormon church in 2013. Several church leaders knew exactly what was happening enough to excommunicate him.

But again, nobody went to law enforcement. And the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that nobody who attended that excommunication hearing has to testify about what they knew or turn over any information to law enforcement, who, I should mention, independently arrested this piece of shit in 2017, in spite of the church doing absolutely nothing to prevent it. Yeah, so obviously Arizona can go fuck itself. But to learn what it can go fuck itself with, we're going to pause for a word from this week's second sponsor, Adam and Eve. Tony D's irresponsibly sourced dildo farm. This is Tony speaking. How could I help you? Hi. Yeah. I ordered some, uh, you know, sexy stuff. You're a dildo house. You know, the kind of stuff I ordered that, that type of stuff.

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All right, Tony. I guess I need to cancel my order with you then. Yeah, let me just transfer you over to Wool-Mizzle and refund. You know what? It's fine. Never mind. Just skip it. That's what i thought

next up in headlines federal judge and christian right lunatic and big fat liar pin in that matthew kosmarek issued a preliminary ruling earlier this month invalidating the fda's 23 year old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. Because there's too much bodily autonomy. The uterus people have had it way too easy for way too long, so he did this. If the ruling gets upheld, it could effectively put a national ban on medical abortion, even in solid blue states that have, you know, sanity. And the key to the legal argument is a ridiculous law from 1873 it's ridiculous for 1873 and that law was trying to ban pornography yeah i feel like as soon as you get as far as well according to this 1873 law the world should be able to start ignoring

you yeah yeah meanwhile i'm over here like but the scorpion promised he was gonna leave whether The world should be able to start ignoring you. Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm over here like, but the scorpion promised he was going to leave whether or not he stung me up to the States. He promised. Right. Listen, if it's not the 13th, 14th or 15th Amendment, anything from then is. No, we're not. Shut up. We're not using that.

So the ruling from Kusmarik is heavily based on the Comstock Act of 1873. That's a law championed by Anthony Comstock, one of the literal worst people in American history. Yeah. Jersey boy. Yeah. Comstock was a Christian morality crusader who spent most of his life trying to rid America of porn and masturbation and contraception and lady voting and the invention of amazing new medical stuff. He crusaded against that too. And the purpose of the law was to ban the mailing of any substance or instrument that could be considered abortifacient

and also to ban the mailing of any obscene material. That was the porn part. And at that time, the porn part that included pornographic literature like the Canterbury Tales. Yeah, that was part of the ban. So again, this ruling by Kismaric, it's based on this guy, Anthony Comstock. And I put a photo in the notes so you can see Comstock. That guy that you're looking at is currently exerting control over the American uterus of 2023 yeah no so this is literally true future citation needed subject anthony comstock has mutton chops on his mutton chops right he does

tiny does met and chops yeah to be fair though looking at this picture i can now 100 understand why this guy never met anyone who was sexually aroused, right? He is the naked grandma baseball of photos. All depends. It doesn't matter. So the final word on the legality of Mephistophrastone is still up in the air. Following the ruling from Kusmarik, a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit partially blocked his order, allowing continued access to the drug. But even with the partial block, the law would drastically change for the worse. The drug would

be available up to seven weeks after conception instead of the 10 weeks like it is now. And it would require three in-person visits to a doctor. Jeez. And it would be completely illegal to send by mail. So again, even with the insane Christian guy's ruling getting pared down, we'd be regressing 23 years in terms of the law. Yeah. No, here we are fucking pining for the clear-eyed days when we thought bottled water was going to carry

us through a worldwide computer outage. Oh, it was a simpler time. Yeah. So this all sounds terrible, but don't worry. We always have the Supreme Court to have the final say and make a reasonable decision. Yikes. Last week, the Biden administration requested the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on any changes to the law. And Samuel Alito of New Jersey, on behalf of the nation's highest court, actually granted that. Since then, Alito

and the other impartial experts on that panel, they've been deliberating, and they'll be announcing right after we finish recording what they've decided. Fingers crossed for a reasonable answer from Samuel Alito of New Jersey and five other fucking ghouls.

And then three good people. Yeah, and if it does go our way, we here at Puzzle Without Thunderstorm have no comment about who may or may not have been standing outside his window as he made this ruling. Okay. We just want to say. So circling back to that pin for a second from earlier, we learned last week that Matthew Kusmarek very clearly lied by omission on his application for the federal bench.

Those positions require approval by the Senate. And you have to submit a list of all your published legal work to the Judiciary Committee. mission on his application for the federal bench. Those positions require approval by the Senate, and you have to submit a list of all your published legal work to the Judiciary Committee. And Kusmarek very conveniently left out an article he wrote in 2017 that he submitted to a Texas law review. In that article, he criticized Obama-era protections for trans people and protections for anyone seeking an abortion. And when the Washington Post did some investigation, they found emails showing that right after submitting that article, Kusmarek realized he might become a federal judge. And he immediately told that law review publisher that he'd be removing his name from the byline and replacing it with two

other people who were not trying to become a federal judge. Yeah, Brett Kavanaugh was like, hold my beer because that's what Brett Kavanaugh is always like. I mean, yeah, no, that's fair. Now, granted, two sides to every issue. On the one hand, we have the continued removal of uterine autonomy, but also Hillary wasn't very exciting. She wasn't. Yeah. She just wasn't that exciting.

Private email servers. It was a whole thing. Very reasonable. And yes, she would have eaten several more babies in a pizza dungeon that's invisible by now if she was president. I get it. But in hindsight, maybe we should have let those kids die. Yeah.

I'm just trying to come up with the best way to kill babies because that's our thing. No, it is. Let's think about it a little bit more next time we're voting. because that's our thing. No, it is. Let's think about it a little bit more next time we're voting. And finally tonight in fine and dandy news, I've actually got a little bit of a good news story

to wrap things up on this week. You guys remember when Christian churches killed millions of people in this country with a pandemic because they're so overprivileged that they thought that not spreading a pandemic was persecution? Yeah, me too. Vaguely, yeah.

Wrote a whole book about it. Well, it turns out that at least one of those churches will have to face a consequence, probably. And that's because the Calvary Chapel in San Jose, California has just been ordered to pay $1.2 million in fines for their repeated and flagrant violations of the state and county's mask mandates and restrictions on large gatherings. Cool. So yeah, Christians die for lies and kill for lies that's fun yep and the murder penalty is a small fine maybe if it holds up just fun stuff it's fun stuff this is what passes for good news it's like if america's response to 9-11 had been look i don't agree with where those jihadis flew

those planes but we're not going to win anybody over by being jerks. Okay. Yeah. Right. Reach out a friendly hand. Catch genociders with honey more than I don't know. This is weird. So, yeah. So, so this is the story of pastor Mike McClure, one of the many Christian leaders who decided that disease prevention was less important than his income during the COVID-19 lockdowns. So he just kept his church open and throughout the very worst of the deadly pandemic, he held two services every Sunday, each drawing between three and 500 congregants.

And not only did he not enforce mask mandates or social distancing protocols, he actively discouraged them. He repeatedly urged his parishioners to ignore mask mandates, both in his church and outside of it. And so the city fined him $350,000 and he didn't pay it. So they fined him some more and he didn't pay that and they fined him some more. And eventually, after he'd racked up over $4 million in fines, the county sued. Okay, I think we need to start hiring European guys with goatees and communist accents to announce this stuff.

Like maybe just have those guys walk around near the church menacingly and saying stuff in that accent. Like they think the antichrist is coming after him already. We might as well lean into it, get some scare points, right? Right. Have some fun.

And I'd like to point out what no media outlet seems to think is relevant about this case, which is that those services without the masks and stuff killed a bunch of his congregants, right? And that doesn't even count the masks and stuff, killed a bunch of his congregants. Right? And that doesn't even count the people that they infected. We're walking around the bodies of Jonestown filing out fucking parking tickets for the cars outside.

Yes. Now, ultimately, Superior Court judge and apparent refugee from an Archie comic, Evett D. Pennypacker, whittled those fines down a bit, but in her final ruling, she did enforce a full $1,228,700 worth of them. She also eviscerated the church's defense by pointing out that they basically

just exempted themselves from all restrictions at all times for all purposes. So even if she was inclined to agree with their religious freedom claims, which she wasn't, they still wouldn't have had a viable defense. Yeah, the court reminds counsel that I can, in fact, see you. Yep, that's it.

Anyway, with that ever so slight glimpse of sanity, we're going to close the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji. And when we come back, we'll visit a place where you can't even catch a glimpse of sanity with a fucking telescope. Job also requires extensive knowledge of gravy management. Oh, say mastery. Gravy mastery. Hey, guys. What you doing? Oh, we're hiring a turkey wrangler for Thanksgiving this year.

Turkey wrangler, yeah. Thanksgiving? Guys, it's April. I know that, Noah. But did you know that it can take up to 11 weeks on average to hire for an open position? That's almost two and a half months. Exactly. We got to get on this thing.

Well, guys, why don't you just try ZipRecruiter? What's ZipRecruiter? Is that wrong? What's ZipRecruiter? What's ZipRecruiter? Oh, come on. No, no. Heath gets the point. That's the rules. What's ZipRecruiter? Is that wrong? What's ZipRecruiter? What's ZipRecruiter? Oh, come on! No, Heath gets the point. That's the rules. Whatever. ZipRecruiter uses powerful matching technology to

quickly find and send you the most qualified people for your roles. You can check out the people that ZipRecruiter sends you, and if you really like one or two, you can personally invite them to apply with one click, which may make them apply even sooner. Plus, here's how quickly ZipRecruiter can help you hire. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter

get a quality candidate within the first day. Wow, glondage? Glondage. So speed up your hiring process with ZipRecruiter. See why 3.8 million businesses have come to ZipRecruiter for their hiring needs. Just go to this exclusive web address to try ZipRecruiter for free,

ziprecruiter.com slash scathing. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G. ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire. Alright, Noah. Thanks. Oh, and also put Hot Pocket Care as a special skill.

50-50? We will consider it. Thanks. 50-50? We will consider it. Nice. Somehow, every chapter of David Icke's Everything You Need to Know has been a more blatant old guy yelling racist stuff screed than the last chapter. So I guess we were bound to reach the the immigrants are taking our gerbs section soon enough. So we're going to talk about that in this month's installment of everything you need to know.

So this week we're tackling chapter 14, saying the unsayable. And to be honest, like when I read that title i was pleasantly surprised that this didn't turn out to just be 40 pages of anti-semitic slurs yeah instead it was anti-muslim slurs so yeah well the first three quarters yeah it's refreshing so the opening premise here basically is that everything is a false flag operation really david Everything you say.

Everything except this. And this. Fuck. And this. Fuck. This is where we learn for the first time, I think, that he's an Aurora, Colorado shooting truther

because apparently that guy was, at least in his eyes, clearly mind-controlled. Okay. One of the things that I've loved about reading this book is that he's very clearly trying out new bits, like a road comment in moments like this.

He's like, all right, all right. Sandy Hook bit killed. Maybe I've got 10 on Colorado. Either way, my source on Sandy Hook is rock solid. Alex Jones, evergreen as a source, for sure. Yeah. So, and then he starts talking about how the military plans were all way more

insidious than we ever admitted. And if you don't believe him, let him quote from this thrice-convicted murderer. Right? So this guy Vince Aguero, not only is this insanity, but he's also quoting the dude's attempt at an alibi

for the car bombing he was fucking convicted of. Seriously, this guy's saying like, the camouflaged people of the secret new order made me do the car bombing. I'm also star witness

for David Icke in a book. Yes. That's who we hear from there. Who are my alibis? I'm glad you asked. Patsy and John Ramsey. That's who they saw i don't know why my italian guy was southern american but it you know so and then of course he explains that

the fbi is behind literally everything i mean if you listen to citation needed you know they're barely behind the fbi right yeah and he mentions princess diana here too and okay i agree that the royal family clearly murdered her for not liking their creepy air because that's why they murder people. Magic tunnel. But David Icke says they murdered everyone ever the royal family. So he just he got lucky on that one.

Right. Also, you guys share reasoning powers with David Icke on that one. I just want to be super clear. He didn't reason it. He just got lucky. I refuse to learn. But then he has this sort of list. Here's a list of false flag operations that really happened. Ergo, everything

is a false flag. He mentions the Reichstag fire of 1933, which was a false flag by the Nazis. Maybe don't bring that up in your book that's basically the protocols of the elders of Zion written on acid. I feel like you skipped that

in that book. At the end of his list, he goes, this list is enormous. I'm like, dude, it has five things on it and you had to go back to 1939. Yeah.

Right. Also, all the ones he lists get caught by not crazy people. Right? We didn't hear about the second attack on the Gulf of Tonkin from Alexi Jones

in between brain pill pitches. And then he starts talking about the terrorists at 9-11, how their passports, some of their passports were found. This is so stupid. This is so crazy. And he's like,

what are the odds of several scraps of paper surviving the 9-11 attacks. And I'm like, one. The odds are one. No, paper doesn't burn that hot. Let's be real. Well, and look, they were trying to identify victims.

So, like, passports are exactly the kind of thing that you would snatch up, right? Yes. Hey, Bill, do we need this identification in our attempt to identify? No, everyone's going to know it's a false flag if we do that one. Nobody will believe things survived a building collapse. Yeah. If you hijack a plane for a suicide mission, you obviously throw your passport out the window of the plane before you do the 9-11. Or you're like, you know, flush it down the toilet which of course just empties into the sky that's how it works it's hijacking 101 i'm with i'm with david on this

one yeah no i get it i get the objection i really hate though that he keeps pretending to be like woke because he's dismissing the muslims did it narrative on terrorism over and over again he does that there's also this weird bit where he's like, and these so-called suicide bombers, they weren't really devout Muslims. Otherwise, they wouldn't have left Korans all over the place. How do you think therefore works even? Man, I've been fucking up all my becauses so far.

I'm going to switch to therefore. See how it goes with therefore. That doesn't work. We'll have to try ergo. Oh, also, there's this amazing moment. He's got this ad copy from a crisis actor firm is what he says. Oh, this is so ridiculous. Okay.

So to be clear, there are people who like, you know, pretend to be hostages for police training exercises. When my dad was a cop, I had to do that a couple of times. That's what he's quoting. He's quoting an ad copy from them and i applied finally an excuse to shit my pants and be praised for it also if anyone out there has footage of no illusions pretending to be a hostage i will pay truly any amount of money in the world for it. Pretty sure my mom's got it. That's right. Noah did Sandy Hook. But just to be clear, the ad copy for the Crisis Actor firm that he shows us,

it doesn't have like a bullet point that says, remember 9-11? That was us. Nailed it. Yeah. Nine out of 11 governments recommend our firm, if you know what I mean. No.

He's just saying that we do, in fact, run drills, which of course we do. Oh, yes. And then, of course we do oh yes and then of course he cashes in all those woke chips he just won by opening the next sub chapter with an explanation of how they're using north african immigrants to destroy the white culture in europe wow okay little bit of a turn from only a racist would suspect muslims did 9-11 to they're coming for our women's yeah and that's going to be the rest of the goddamn chapter right the idea that they're staging the immigration crisis he claims because it's easier to get immigrants to assimilate than natives

but if that's true then your culture is under no fucking threat, you idiot. And the plan is to delete sovereign countries in Europe by ginning up xenophobia and therefore preventing any kind of, you know, exit from the European Union. Okay, fuck, that's an O for two on there. Yeah, nothing brings people together like ginned up xenophobia. Then he's got this whole bit about like how the countries that they're emigrating from they're not really that war torn yes really you know for a man

who has spent a full quarter of this book bitching about how his channel on youtube got taken down he's only judgy of war zones huh those countries in northern africa and the middle east are doing medium war tearing in collusion with the zionists whom they love that's the narrative right yeah he explains to us at length that the real problem started when britain and sweden decided to become multicultural that's england's real problem historically as it's commitment to multiculturalism. Finally, someone is calling out the rich cultural Mecca of the only country that can support Greg's. You have a weird feud with Greg's going. I have.

I mean, Greg's have a mixed love hate relationship. Okay. So this is an actual line about his hometown quote from the book you only ever saw white people in the 1950s but by the 1970s that had dramatically changed yeah he's talking about lester where he grew up and he calls it a target city for the multiculturalists also known as a city he just described a city and then he very literally ranks the races again he says quote the first inflow of immigrants from the west indies was fine overall but then those fucking ugandan asians started showing up he totally does what a weirdly

specific racist thing what are you doing just shut up yeah and then of course he points out that people who who mention how much better it was when everybody was white are just dismissed as racists and i'm like what does that tell you man yes and and i'm not allowed to see my grandkids i'm dennis prager i'm writing this chapter yeah yeah but so but he's he's like liberals will call me racist because that's the only way they know how to respond to racism david are you looking for a synonym would that make you feel better what about you're a bigot are we good there you go yeah and then he decides to get multinational here. He decides to be racist on behalf of Sweden for a bit. Yes.

Yes. Okay. So little backstory for those of you who didn't keep track of this when this book came out. This insane section of the book caused Paul Joseph Watson and an Infowars reporter to travel to the city of Malmo in Sweden on a hunt for Muslim no-go zones that didn't exist and he didn't find any and it's amazing. Found nothing. The guy from Infowars found nothing

to support his thing. You could just make up a lie. It's Infowars. He couldn't even find a lie to make up. He finds this guy in a jumpsuit and he's like, so are you a gangster? And the guy's like, what? And he's like, please. Please say you're a gangster. the plane ticket was so expensive my boss is worth like a future negative billions of dollars i don't know

he confidently predicted that sweden's economy couldn't handle all this immigration in 2017 cool we're just to quickly check on that. According to U.S. News and World Report, Sweden is eighth in the world for economic stability and fifth in the world for just best countries overall. Yeah, but see,

the Muslims are going to implement Sharia law everywhere, which we learned from the guy who was implying that we were racist for blaming Islamic terrorism on Muslims. Dude, you're disliking Islam wrong again.

It's so easy to do that correctly. Yes. Fuck it up every time. Yeah. Wow. He also apparently has discovered that religion is sexist. This is the part where he says, basically, my bigotry is based on feminism. Yep.

That technically cancels out. That's the point he's trying to make here. Also, you're lying. No, it's not. That too. Yeah. He also, he has this bit where he's like, it's gotten to where teachers can't even complain about their classes being too Muslim without being labeled racist. All right. What

language do I even teach in? Muslim-ese? Yeah. I like that David Icke is also from the American South. Yeah. It fits. David Icke is also from the American South. Yeah. In this segment. Yeah, it fits. He was Australian earlier.

Yeah, he was. So he's moved around a lot. So yeah, but this whole subchapter is, like, if we're not careful, we could end up like Sweden. Again, fifth best country,

like consistently among the happiest countries in the world and the wealthiest. Yeah. Yeah. Oh no, not the country that has

an espresso and cinnamon bun break built into their work day. Not them. Socialism. Hey, Dave, I got an idea. If you hate all the woke European spots, maybe check out Russia. Get some white friends together, check out Russia. They're like

the opposite of Sweden, man. They're libertarian, really good Aikido happening over there yeah they're hiring check out russia yeah so so and he's like now the swedish police all want to quit because conditions there have gotten so bad i don't know if that's true but like our cops started saying that when we asked him to stop shooting innocent black people for a while, right? And just in general, when cops feel like quitting, I feel like that's good. We should want, even in Sweden,

people who are like, I want to be a cop, I don't want you to be a cop. Right. Yeah, no, but this whole chapter has a very like, we want our Swedish women raped by white men as God intended vibe to it, right? Yeah, and also it should be pointed out the whole last section

about like rape skyrocketing in Sweden as the country got more Muslim. That's based on a law that was passed that counted each incident of rape as separate rather than the former system, which apparently was just this guy raped his wife a bunch. I don't know,

but they apparently just put one down for that beforehand. Right. No, yeah, the opening of the next subchapter, though, is basically someone's doing the raping, right?

Immigrants, sorry. Immigrants are doing it. When David made the noise, he was talking about immigrants there. He actually was. Yeah. He actually starts the section with,

are all migrants rapists and criminals? And then he might as well type, give me a minute. I'm thinking. And then he says, no, of course not. But are some of them? Yes, of course they are. And apparently there's never been a domestic rapist in his head. So the problem is immigration.

Well, right. And the Muslims are the real racists otherwise why would they all be praying in christian parks what okay i love this because david clearly doesn't understand how muslim prayer could not be about him and that's why he takes it as an offense yeah exactly and then there's a there's an all bold subchapter called time to grow up so like i honestly i can't tell if he bolded it because he was trying to emphasize the whole subchapter or because he's an idiot and doesn't know how to format his fucking book no see i'm gonna go with cookie crumbs got stuck under control b and he was

just rolling with it okay very possible but i feel like he was just rolling with it. Okay, very possible. But I feel like he was just talking to himself extra loud and angry as he was typing, being like, reverse racism is cheating because it's bad for white people. You know what? I'm switching to bold for this part. And it took him 400 words to like calm down and Yeah, right. And go out of bold. But yeah, but no, in this bolded chapter, he has a solution to racism.

Stop being racist. Right? Like he felt the need to write that down in a goddamn book and he bolded it. Yeah. Also, David, I mean, know your audience, buddy. If they stop being racist, they're going to put down your book. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true.

But it's even worse than that. It's race is fake and really just a construct. And I'm a white guy and I don't see color because I'm white. That's the point he's trying to make here. Yes. You called me racist. So you're the one that's acknowledging race and therefore I'm not the racist. Yes.

And then we get a mercifully unbolded subchapter called Manipulation of Emotion, all about how Europeans were tricked into caring about refugees just because one little three-year-old drowned. Right. So just to be clear, David Icke said to himself, how did all these white people start caring about refugees? Must be some kind of ruse that doesn't even make sense. Yes. I'm going to write a chapter exploring how that ruse must have happened right no and and his argument seems to be but did anybody check to see if that drowned three-year-old was an asshole yes exactly and i want to be clear right because we're making jokes

here noah is barely exaggerating the fact that david ike's reaction to a famous photo of a drowned toddler is but maybe he was gonna grow up to be a terrorist yeah there's there's literally no bad thing you could do to david ike that isn't morally justifiable at this point imperative one might argue yeah right you have to derail the trolley to get to david you have to have to. So yeah, so then he explains how terrible it is for refugees to make it to Europe, you know, given all the uncertainties they face without realizing that they're doing it because staying

home is worse than that, right? It's worse than the terrible thing that he's talking about. And David, maybe being a refugee wouldn't be as bad if a former soccer player dressed like a Ninja Turtle themed prostitute didn't write books about how they're all rapists right uh and this is of course the point where george soros shows back up yeah so 33 down in the book 57 more to go in the book and we're about 75

through the book he's gonna ramp up the soros talk for the rest yeah yeah it's gonna accelerate we're gonna knock out a bunch of them in this in this last couple of subjectors so yeah so but he's literally shitting on people who would go to rescue would-be immigrants when their boats capsized because those people are like assisting in illegal immigration yeah and again just to emphasize the bullshit real world consequences of this drivel, because of this section of the book, former human being Lauren Southern, after this book's publication, rented a boat to block NGO rescue ships. Yes. Yeah. That happened.

Imagine running a pick on a lifeguard. Seriously, that's what happened. Like being like, ask the drowning kid for ID first. I don't know. I'm holding. I'm blogging you. Really? And just so we know that he's turning all the way into that anti-Semitism skit,

the next chapter is actually titled Soros is everywhere. Right? Whose fault is immigration? That's right. George Soros. Pro tip here from someone who's been reading this book. These sections are a lot more whimsical if you just picture the 92-year-old frog man like flipping around

like a ninja and playing stuff for the Illuminati. Like the Yoda fight scene. Exactly. You picture him doing the wet work. It's a lot of fun. At one point he accuses Rupert Murdoch of being too pro-immigration. Yeah, and now he goes and donates $785 million to Hugo Chavez and his tech startup.

Yeah, David Icke nailed that one. I got to be honest. Yeah, broken clock. I was like, yeah, dude, if you demonize basic humanity, basic humans become demons. I get that. That's your whole shtick. Yeah, I feel like he's going to pitch me on like an empathy cleansing workshop at this point, right? Doesn't it really feel like that's what whole shtick yeah i feel like he's gonna pitch me on like a empathy cleansing workshop at this point right doesn't it really feel like that's what we're building to and he's

like you know he's like i keep asking these questions and they're so racist that the experts won't even answer them what are they hiding he almost yells debate me in his own book like really close right well in a chapter that might as well be titled won't someone think of the bigots right and again david i am thinking of you it's just it just always gets put on the whiteboard yeah i can't emphasize this enough buddy i can't stay ahead forever so and look when you feel the need to say don't get me wrong i agree that colonialism and slavery are wrong maybe you just delete all just delete the goddamn document at that point allow me to clarify about slavery nope nope you've it's something horrible has already happened no absolutely not well and then he suddenly remembers that that subchapter was

supposed to be about george soros so he gives it another go he has another subchapter called soros has values god my belly hurts that's the name of the sub chapter he literally wrote a sub chapter whose title equivocates to not mad laughing actually or it was fuck that zionist guy soros also shouldn't have eaten the crumbs that cleaned out of my keyboard my belly it hurts. It could be either. Yeah. But then as a quick little afterthought, as the chapter is drawing to a close, he's like, also, Bill Gates is bad.

See, he's not Jewish. I'm woke. Balanced it out. So with the bigotry all evened up, I suppose we can wrap up for the night. But rest assured, there's still more of this book to come. And it looks like the next chapter is all about how global warming is bullshit. So you've got that to look forward to on the next installment of Everything You Need to Know. Before we cash the bowl tonight, I wanted to make sure that you know that we're going to be recording an episode of Godawful Movies live in Detroit on July 22nd at the beautiful Garden Theater. Check out GodawfulMoviesLive.com or check

the show notes to get your tickets, but get them quick. Anyway, that's all the blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we're back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday and an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday or an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, this episode wouldn't snap into place, right, if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for forcing the issue,

Lucid Delusions for issuing the force, and Eli Bosnick for fissuring the orifice. I also want to thank Mary Grace for providing this week's very authoritative Farnsworth quote. Thanks for that. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most considerate critters, Siv Thomas, Beacon Monster, Jesse, Beth, thanks to Andy and Tony.

D, Carrie, Boo, Quill, Sieg, Dustin, Paul, and Dan and Holly. Siv, Thomas, Beacon Monster, and Jesse are so delicious, Bacon asks for extra them. Beth, D, Carrie, and Quill, who are so hot they have to wear backwards sunscreen for our protection. And Dustin, Paul, Dan, and Holly, who are so badass they can roll a nat 20 on a six-sided die. Together, this dozen delightful disbelievers deign to donate dollars to our devious disembowelments of deistic douchery this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some to us, but if you do, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com slash scathingatheist, whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode,

or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a money kind of way, you can also help a ton by leaving us a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also wrote a little music that we used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingadius.com well welcome to the podcast um

which one are you did you want to describe yourself as the wacky shenanigans guy or something like that Welcome to the podcast. Which one are you? Did you want to describe yourself as the wacky shenanigans guy or something like that? I paused because I couldn't remember which one I am. Sorry. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.